21

Paul Campanella was anxious about his meeting with Linda Ames, so he put in a call to Mike Patterson and asked if he would sit in.

“You need a bad cop?”

Campanella could hear traffic in the background. Patterson must be out in the field.

“Sorry?”

“I’m happy to sit in, Paul. Hold on a minute.” There was a sound of distant voices and a tractor-trailer accelerating. “Have to pay a toll.” A minute or two of grunting and rustling followed before Patterson’s voice resumed. “Okay. You be the good cop. I’ll be the bad cop. We can have some fun with la-la-lovely Linda.”

A few days later, Campanella was waiting in his office on the second floor of the courthouse. Both Ames and Patterson were late. After checking his watch, Campanella hurried down the hall into the bathroom, hoping that one of them might arrive while he was gone and find his office empty. It wouldn’t hurt to make them wait for once.

Linda Ames showed up accompanied by his secretary, Bonnie, just as he was returning. Ames apologized for being late, and Bonnie told him that Patterson had been held up.

“I can wait if you want,” Ames said. She was wearing black jeans, running shoes, and a gray silk blouse. In court, she’d worn makeup and earrings, which she hadn’t troubled with today. Female charm apparently wasn’t her forte, which was a relief to Campanella. On the other hand, Ames’s offer to wait for Mike Patterson might imply that she didn’t think he had the chops to handle this situation on his own.

“We can start.” Campanella pulled some papers from a file on his desk. “I can lay out what we’ve got here.”

“Got your power tie on, I see.” Ames nodded at him slyly. This was true. He was wearing the lucky red paisley number Denise had gotten him for Valentine’s Day.

“It’s just because you scare the hell out of me, Linda.” This happened to be true, sort of, but it worked as a fake joke and got a smile from Ames.

“I don’t bite.”

Campanella placed a pile of photocopies in the center of his desk. Boston had decided that this would be an “open file” case, meaning the U.S. attorney’s office was basically giving Ames every piece of paper the investigation had generated. Except in rare, particularly sensitive cases, this was a common practice. It had several advantages.

First, criminal defendants often held back information from their attorneys or just plain lied. The prosecution file very often provided a better picture of the crime than the half truths or flat-out malarkey the lawyer was getting from his or her client. Lots of times, the defense lawyer would end up using the documents received from the U.S. attorney’s office—photographs, witness statements, wire intercepts, and so forth—to persuade a reluctant defendant that his situation was hopeless if he went to trial. Since a guilty plea would usually get the client a lower sentence, nine times out of ten, the result would be no trial and a lot of effort saved for everybody. Campanella didn’t have any problem with this. Guilty people ought to plead guilty.

Another advantage to the “open file” policy was that it protected a prosecutor from accusations that he or she had withheld evidence improperly. The law gave defendants the right to examine any evidence the government had that might be exculpatory, meaning evidence that tended to show that the defendant was innocent or that the case against him had holes. The consequences for a prosecutor who negligently or deliberately concealed this sort of material could be horrendous. Revelations of improperly hidden evidence could lead to mistrials and even outright dismissals. Worst of all, a touchy judge could go ballistic at a prosecutor and report him to the Board of Bar Overseers, get him fired, and destroy his career. With a guilty client shoveling out money, an aggressive defense lawyer would be on the lookout for some way to attack the AUSA and get a dismissal for prosecutorial misconduct where he could never get an acquittal before a jury.

Campanella was determined to avoid this trap. He cleared his throat and launched into his summary for Ames.

“The case originally came out of a child-exploitation task force in the Chicago division of the FBI. They received a tip from the NCMEC that—”

“What’s that?”

“Sorry. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.” Campanella handed Ames a copy of the FBI form opening the case eight months earlier. “The tip related to the posting of child pornography images on something called ‘Yahoo Groups.’ It’s a free service for people—”

“I know what a Yahoo group is. For people with the same hobby, right? Like stamp collectors.”

“Maybe, but not in this case. A task force officer using an undercover ID got access to a Yahoo Group called ‘Candyman’ and discovered that forty-three individuals were using it to discuss their mutual interest in child sexual abuse and to swap images of underage pornography. One of the individuals, who used the ID ‘Luv2look,’ shared child pornographic images with his chat buddies, including this one.”

Campanella passed a black-and-white photocopy to Ames. It showed a naked girl, who looked about five years old, with her arms tied over her head and her vagina exposed. Something that looked like a clamp device was fixed on one of her nipples.

“Ugh,” Ames said. She turned the photograph over, closed her eyes, and shook her head.

“It wasn’t hard to trace ‘Luv2look’ back to your client.”

“Well,” Ames said. “We’ll see.”

“Sure.” Campanella pushed another document toward her. “On April 23, the U.S. Customs Cyber Crimes Center in Fairfax, Virginia, issued this administrative subpoena to Yahoo, Inc. requesting subscriber information for ‘Luv2look.’”

“I never heard of any Cyber Crimes Center.”

“They’re pretty new, a division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement—ICE. The return on the subpoena disclosed the IP address used by Luv2look.” Campanella pointed at a line at the top of a new document. “You can see it listed there: 67.31.142.44, okay? They could tell, for example, that this IP address was online on April 18 at 23:46:22 EST, a little before midnight. You’ll see it in the log when you go through it.”

Campanella pulled another sheet out of his file. “ICE served a subpoena on Comcast on May 4. The return identified the user of this particular IP address as belonging to your client Sidney Cranmer, with a particular Amherst street number.” He slid the sheet of paper over to Ames, who leaned back in her chair without looking at it.

“The images your client posted were forwarded to an FBI intelligence analyst named Brittany Gomez, who compared them to known victims contained in the CVIP—”

“Got to translate for me again, Paul.”

“Child Victim Identification Program. Gomez looked for matches to known child victims. Her analysis disclosed positive hits, including six from one particularly notorious group called the Bauchwalder series, where the father was the abuser. Here’s Gomez’s report.”

“I saw some of the Bauchwalder stuff in a case last year before you came to Springfield.” Ames sighed. “Not pretty.”

“Right, it’s been floating around for more than ten years now. Thanks to the Internet, it will never disappear. Somebody’s probably looking at it right now.” Campanella glanced up at Ames and hazarded a dart. “Very popular with people like your client.”

“Ease up, Paul. You don’t have him convicted yet.”

The Bauchwalder series was heartbreaking and especially infuriating to Campanella. Typical images of child pornography showed the child victim frozen and terrified, usually in severe physical pain, which was unforgettably appalling in itself. Occasionally, though, the child had been coached, or physically coerced, into pretending she was enjoying the things being done to him or her. This fake eagerness, the glimpses of the degraded child looking up anxiously at the videographer in hope of approval—Was she being a good girl? Would he get another beating?—were somehow even worse than the images of pure torture.

The notion of an adult doing this to a child was the moral bottom, in Campanella’s opinion, the lowest a member of the human species could go. The popularity of this kind of child pornography derived from the perceived absolution it gave the viewer. “See,” the video seemed to say, “she isn’t being injured—she’s having fun. She likes it!” But the frightened glances and frozen smiles of the Bauchwalder girl made the truth obvious. A child’s life was being destroyed. Elise Bauchwalder had died of a heroin overdose at age seventeen, and the fact that the girl’s father was serving a seventy-year sentence in a federal prison in Beaumont, Texas, was slim consolation.

At this point, the door opened, and Patterson stepped in.

“Sorry I’m late. I-91 was bad.” He hauled a chair from the corner of the room and positioned it across the desk from Campanella, next to Ames. His large body seemed to take up a lot of space.

“Show and tell?” He gestured down at the pile of papers, then turned to Ames, holding out a hand. The two shook, both with their game faces on, expressionless. Campanella sensed immediately that Ames might think of Patterson as her real adversary. He’d have to watch that.

“Just wrapping up,” Campanella said to Patterson, then turned to Ames. “Based on your client’s street address, the investigation was transferred to the postal inspector here in Massachusetts, which coordinated with our local FBI office. Postal Inspector Tom Levine sent a flyer to Professor Cranmer, inviting him to become a customer of Tiger Entertainment, a company purporting to specialize, as the flyer said, in ‘taboo, hard-to-find, forbidden material.’ The flyer had a list of DVDs with titles and short descriptions that left no room for doubt about their contents. Three days later, your client mailed back the flyer, with his credit card information, ordering the DVD called ‘Playing Doctor.’ The description says that it involves a prepubescent girl supposedly being examined by a doctor. According to the flyer, she is quote ‘spread-eagled on a table while the doctor’—”

“I read the flyer, Paul.”

“Hot stuff,” Patterson said, with a disgusted look.

“You’ve got no confirmed handwriting,” Ames said. “You can’t even …”

“Block capitals.” Patterson’s face turned impatient. “Probably using his nondominant hand. A typical dodge. Shows your professor knew he had to be—”

“If it was my professor,” Ames broke in.

A short, pregnant silence followed, until Campanella continued. “Fine, Linda. As you know, we got an anticipatory search warrant from Judge Norcross, authorizing Mike’s team to enter your client’s house as soon as the DVD was delivered. Professor Cranmer admitted to the agent posing as the UPS driver that he was expecting the DVD, and he told Agent Patterson that he recognized it as something he ordered.”

“More or less,” Patterson interjected.

“My client denies ever saying or implying any such thing.” Ames’s voice had an edge.

Campanella made a mental note of this. Was Ames actually thinking of putting Cranmer on the stand? He prayed she would. He would roast the guy alive on cross-examination.

After another pause, Campanella continued. “Well, that may be up to the jury to decide, Linda. It will be his word against two federal agents.”

“Three actually,” Patterson held up his fingers. “Maybe more, if I ask around. But who’s counting?”

“And then there’s all this junk.” Campanella shoved a fat subfile across the desk to Ames, who eyed it suspiciously. “A search of your client’s computer disclosed three separate files, all with code names to disguise their contents, containing nearly one hundred still images of child pornography and three videos he’d downloaded.”

Patterson looked over at Ames. “Our cyber guys also pulled up the contents of Luv2look’s chat-room conversations. One of Cranmer’s chat buddies used the ID ‘loves_infant_pussy.’ Real hard to figure that one out. LIP and Sid got up close and personal, talking about yanking diapers off and so forth.” Patterson leaned back and folded his arms. “My bet is, one or two of the jurors will actually throw up. I’ve seen that happen twice now.”

“So that’s it. These are all copies of originals.” Campanella gestured at the pile of papers. “You can take them with you, Linda. Just let me know if anything’s missing, and I’ll get it to you.”

“Have a ball,” Patterson added.

Linda Ames did not look a bit bothered, which Campanella certainly would be if he were her. With an indifferent expression, she gathered the papers together and dumped them into her briefcase, then looked at the two of them.

“I’ll get together with my client, then maybe we can talk again.”

“Not a whole lot to talk about,” Patterson said.

Campanella watched as Ames gave the FBI agent an appraising look.

“You may be right,” she said. “But you’ve been pretty open with me, so I’ll reciprocate.”

Patterson reached into the pocket of his gray linen jacket. It impressed Campanella how sharp Patterson always looked. Campanella could try for the rest of his life, and for two lives after that, and he’d never look half as cool as Special Agent Michael Patterson.

“Want a pistachio?” Patterson asked.

Ames smiled and nodded her head. “You bet. I’m starving.”

Patterson dumped a generous pile onto the desk in front of Ames. “Help yourself.”

“Okay, I’ve got two things for you to think about,” Ames said. Campanella noticed that Ames took the approach of methodically opening half a dozen shells first, then eating them in a group, fast and greedily. Patterson always went one by one. He tried to think if this was telling him something about Ames but came up empty.

“First,” Ames said, “something sort of unusual has happened I think you ought to know about.”

“Okay.” Campanella looked carefully at his adversary across the desk. She was still busily shelling pistachios with her eyes down. Patterson had a half smile creeping over the far side of his face where Ames couldn’t see. Did Patterson think Ames was funny? Attractive?

“I’ve never done this before,” Ames said. She popped another handful of pistachios into her mouth.

“First time for everything,” Patterson said.

“Right, here goes. Norcross’s girlfriend …”

“Oh, God.” Campanella put his hand on his stomach and looked slightly ill. “Now what?”

“Some English professor who also happens to know Cranmer—”

Campanella broke in. “The very close friend he mentioned at the—”

“Right, at the initial appearance. Claire Lindemann.” Ames chewed and swallowed. “Called me out of the blue. Except for the mention in court, I never heard of her. She didn’t sound like a nut job, and she gave me the name of a kid at Amherst College, someone who might have a grudge against Cranmer, who she thinks might know something about how all this garbage got onto my client’s computer.”

“You’re kidding me.” Patterson broke in gruffly. “Norcross’s girlfriend is doing investigative work for you?”

“Oh, Lord.” Campanella dropped his face into his hands. This case was supposed to be a layup.

“I know, it’s loony tunes. But here’s the kid’s name. I’ll be talking to Sid about this, naturally. Maybe give the kid a call.” Ames shoved a sheet of yellow paper, folded in half, across the desk toward Campanella, blank side up. “Up to you if you want to do anything with him. Just letting you know.”

“Do you plan to let Norcross know about Lindemann’s phone call?” Campanella knew this was a Hail Mary, trying to fob a nasty job off onto the defense attorney.

Ames snorted. “Oh yeah, like I’m going to touch that with a ten-foot pole.” She leaned back and folded her arms. “Anyway, why would I do it? Lindemann’s not a witness herself, just a middle man.”

“Middle woman.” Patterson reached across the desk and shoved the slip of paper back toward Ames. “We don’t work for you, Linda. Do your own interviewing.”

“Fine. It’s your decision. But if it comes up later, I can say I told you. I’ll probably give the kid a call, like I say, but my bet is he won’t want anything to do with me. You might have better luck, Mike, flashing that shiny badge of yours.” Patterson had poured out more pistachios. Ames gave him a grateful look and went back to shelling. “Anyway, now you know.”

Campanella’s brain was reeling. He stared down at the sheet of paper. Should he submit something ex parte—for the judge’s eyes only—to make sure Norcross knew that this Lindemann person was sticking her oar in? Ames was right, though. She wasn’t a witness. If she’d only passed a name along, Campanella might look like a tattletale going to the judge, as though he wanted to zing Norcross for not recusing himself. On the other hand, had the judge put Lindemann up to this? The possibilities were mind-boggling. Ames was going on.

“There’s another thing you ought to know. It turns out that Sid Cranmer got a Silver Star from when he was a medic in Vietnam.”

“I thought it was a Purple Heart,” Patterson said.

“Silver Star. Much bigger deal. He won’t talk about it, but I did some research. Sid was involved in some horrific battle called Lam Son 719 in 1971.”

Even inside his mental dust storm, Campanella sensed a sudden change in the feel of the room. Patterson’s body tensed. He sat up, then seemed to notice and make himself relax. Taking his time, he gathered a pile of shells into a heap on the desk and shoved them over the edge into the wastebasket before speaking.

Patterson’s tone was casual. “Your guy was in Lam Son 719?”

“Right. I never heard of it, but I checked Wikipedia, and my God …”

“I know about Lam Son 719.”

Patterson was a military history buff. He’d talked to Campanella about his library of books on the post-WWII military, especially Vietnam.

Patterson continued. “So that’s where Cranmer got his star?”

“Something like that,” Ames said. “And I thought, with you getting wounded in Afghanistan …”

“Who told you that?”

“Little birdie.”

Campanella watched Patterson, who had fallen silent and was drumming absently on the desk with his fingers. One of the deputy marshals must have mentioned Patterson’s combat record to Ames. Hadn’t he been rescued by a medic? Two or three of the deputies had been on deployments to the Middle East, and Ames had probably managed to wheedle this information out of one of them.

Ames lifted her chin at Patterson. “Any more pistachios?”

“You’ve eaten them all.” Patterson tossed the empty bag into the wastebasket.

“My bad. If there’s no more food, I’ll be heading out.” Ames picked up her briefcase and stood. “I’ll go over this stuff with Sid and get back to you.”

The folded piece of paper was still sitting on the desk when she left.