James Sheehan - The Law of Second Chances

“Did you review the telephone records?”

“Yes.”

“Was there anything in those telephone records that appeared to you to be unusual?”

Spencer Taylor was on his feet again. “Objection. The question is vague.”

“Sustained.”

Jack tried again. “Had Mr. Robertson been in contact with anybody in particular before his death?”

Charlie answered right away before Taylor could object again. “Yes. In the month before his death he called Leonard Woods thirty-eight times. He called him twenty times the month before that.” The murmuring started up again, but it stopped immediately when the judge raised his gavel.

“Proceed, Mr. Tobin.”

Now it was time for Jack to venture into the unknown and ask Charlie questions he didn’t know the answers to.

“Were you able to determine from the financial records if Mr. Robertson was working on anything in particular before his death?”

“Yes.” Charlie turned and looked at the jury like a seasoned expert would. “You have to understand something. Mr. Robertson was a very rich man, a multibillionaire, a conglomerate unto himself. About five years ago, Mr. Robertson started buying up gas stations across the country. He owned at least five in every major city in the United States and at least one in every city with a population of more than a hundred thousand people.”

Spencer Taylor interrupted as Charlie was about to continue. “Your honor, what Mr. Robertson did with his money before he died is totally irrelevant to why we are here today.”

Jack couldn’t believe Spencer had made such a statement in open court. Besides being contrary to the judge’s specific instructions, it was the type of statement that could come back and bite him later on.

“Mr. Taylor, I warned you and Mr. Tobin about speaking motions. Approach the bench.”

When they got to the sidebar, the judge addressed Jack, not Spencer Taylor. “Where is this going, Mr. Tobin? It’s starting to sound like a wild goose chase.”

“It’s not, your honor. Milton Jeffries is here, and he will tell the court what Carl Robertson and Leonard Woods were working on when they were killed. I have a witness after that who will relate it all to the murder before this court.”

While the judge was thinking, Jack was hoping like hell he wouldn’t be asked what Milton Jeffries was going to say, because he had no idea.

“All right, Mr. Tobin. I’m going to give you some leeway because your client is on trial for murder, but if you don’t connect the dots I’m going to strike all these witnesses’ testimony. And if Mr. Taylor wants it, I’ll give him a mistrial. Do you understand?”

“Yes, your honor.”

“Proceed.”

Jack walked back to the podium. “You were talking about the gas stations, Ms. Pope.”

“Yes. In addition to the gas stations, Mr. Robertson was buying trucks-tanker trucks for gasoline as well as eighteen-wheel hauling trucks. He had a very large fleet at the time of his death. He also had constructed and tooled four large manufacturing plants-in the Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, and Southwest-and he was in the process of hiring people to work in those plants.”

Jack was doing everything he could to dampen down his own raging curiosity. He knew from his cursory look at Henry’s folder that Milton Jeffries was the payoff to everything Charlie was setting up. At the moment, though, he didn’t even know if Charlie was done. He looked at her intently and caught an almost imperceptible signal in her expression.

“Thank you, Ms. Pope. No further questions.”

“Cross-examination, Mr. Taylor?”

“Yes, your honor.” Spencer walked to the podium and glared at Charlie.

“You put a lot of time in on this, Ms. Pope?”

“Yes I did.”

“And how much were you paid for your services?”

“I wasn’t. I did it for free.”

“Free? And why is it that you devoted your time for free?”

“Because Jack Tobin is a friend of mine.”

“Oh! And did Mr. Tobin tell you that he needed you to find something in those records that he could use to get the defendant off?”

“Yes. If something was there.”

“If something was there? Let me ask you, then-do you know what Mr. Robertson was doing with all these gas stations and trucks and factories?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You don’t. You don’t even know what this so-called evidence you found for your friend means, is that what you’re telling this jury?”

“Yes.”

“No further questions.”

“Redirect, Mr. Tobin?”

“No, your honor.”

“Call your next witness.”

“The defense calls Mr. Milton Jeffries.”

Milton Jeffries was a tall man with a thick moustache and glasses. He wore a brown tweed jacket, and he looked like the stereotypical professor. Jack took as little time as possible over the preliminaries; he could tell the judge was losing his patience.

“Mr. Jeffries, did you know Leonard Woods?”

“Yes, I knew Leonard for many years. He was a colleague. We both taught microbiology-I at the University of Wisconsin, he at Florida. It’s really a small community. We’d meet at seminars a few times a year, exchange information, that sort of thing.”

“There has been some testimony about a project he was working on before his death. Do you know anything about that?”

“Yes, I do. I helped him a little bit on it.”

“Do you know who Carl Robertson is?”

“Yes. He was Leonard’s partner in the project.”

“Can you tell the jury what that project was?”

“It’s a little complicated, but I’ll try. Leonard had created a bacteria-cloned it, actually. This bacteria could break down biomass in a unique way-a way that had never been done before. Let me explain what biomass is. It’s basically the garbage of the environment-farm waste such as corn stems, cobs and leaves, sugarcane residues, rice hulls, wood wastes, and other organic materials.”

Jack could see Milton starting to drift off into that scientific no-man’s land. He needed to bring him back.

“What was the purpose of this bacteria breaking down this biomass?”

“That’s the exciting part. The bacteria can break down these waste products into ethanol.”

Jack didn’t understand, and he knew the jury didn’t either. He had to ask the question even though he was fumbling in the dark.

“So?” he asked.

“So, before this breakthrough, ethanol could only be made from high-value materials such as cornstarch and cane syrup, using yeast fermentation. In other words, the ethanol was more expensive than regular oil and the supply-corn and sugar-was limited. Leonard’s process created a virtually unlimited source for ethanol, and he wasn’t depleting the food supply. He and Carl calculated they could sell it for about $1.40 a gallon. They figured they could replace half the automotive fuel in the United States with this new fuel.”

Jack’s brain was firing with connections. It all made sense now: Gainesville and breakthrough , the relationship with a microbiology professor-and the high stakes that had somehow led to more than one murder. Henry was right. They were dealing with something way over their heads.

Milton Jeffries wasn’t through. “Leonard perfected his process just before he was killed. He was about to apply for a patent. Carl was going to start production-get the trucks rolling, so to speak-the day of the application. Carl had the factories in place and had acquired the gas stations so they could be on the market literally before anybody knew they existed.”

“They could be in business overnight?”

“Exactly! And that’s the only way they figured they could be in business at all. There are some powerful interests in this country that they expected would try to stand in the way.”