SEVEN

Mark was facing trial—which would probably take place within a year—but the case against him was highly circumstantial. Morrison had the love letters, which would be dismissed by Mark’s lawyers as typical of the flowery, friendly language between Nazarene friends. And in terms of DNA, the prosecution had evidence of human blood in Mark’s vacuum cleaner (along with a neighbor’s testimony that Mark ran the vacuum cleaner the night of the murder), but because of the degraded nature of the sample, they could not tell whether it was David’s. David’s DNA was found on the carpet in Mark’s apartment just inside the front door, but again because of the age of the sample, they could tell with only a 98 percent certainty that it was David’s. Coupled with the still-missing murder weapon and a fingerprint on the back patio door that Mark could have left at any time, the evidence left ample room for a jury to have reasonable doubt.

Morrison knew you could never predict what would happen in front of a jury. The case just might fly, but he knew, too, that The State of Kansas v. Mark Mangelsdorf, awaited for years in these parts, might very well drift sideways into acquittal. That would leave Melinda spending the rest of her life in prison for a crime she conspired to commit with Mark without Mark paying the price himself. Morrison knew he needed Melinda’s testimony in order to convict Mark.

He began a rolling conversation with Melinda and her lawyers, trying to come to an agreement that would nullify her jury verdict—giving her the chance to plead guilty to a lesser charge and get a sentence reduction—in exchange for her testimony. The conversations made Morrison angry, though. Melinda seemed unwilling to admit total guilt. She kept pulling up close, then backing off, almost admitting to the crime, then disavowing her culpability—just as she did when Wall arrived at her doorstep that day in Ohio.

Morrison intimated that he might just take the risk of allowing Mark to skip scot-free, back to his life as a corporate leader and moral steward. Melinda and her defense team also got the idea, though no one is quite certain precisely how, that Wall and James had a good lead on the crowbar. Fred Jones, Mark’s brother’s friend who had acted as his lawyer back in 1982 (and was now an FBI agent), told Wall that he had once seen a receipt of Mark’s for a crowbar purchased a week before the murder at a local hardware store. The hardware store was long gone, though, and the receipt was nowhere to be found.

Prosecutors obtained a subpoena allowing them to listen to Melinda’s phone calls to her family from Johnson County jail in the hope that she would reveal something about the location of the crowbar. As soon as she plugged in her prisoner code for her collect call home, the bug would kick in. Then James, doing what he joked was “combat duty,” was faced with the task of sitting on his back porch in the evenings with a big glass of wine, listening to the tapes of the recorded calls between Melinda and Mark Raisch.

The investigators wanted to know if Melinda knew more about the case than she claimed, but that’s not quite what they got. The conversations between Melinda and her husband were awkward to listen in on—two Bible-thumpers making pillow talk and discussing the tedious workaday details of the lives of their children. Melinda was often self-pitying about her fate, and Raisch would answer back with reference to God’s grace or God’s plan to open doors, Bible passages, or offers to send religious magazines.

“Be faithful and the doors will open,” Raisch told Melinda in a typical conversation. “I truly believe it, I truly believe it.”

“How will the doors open?” Melinda asked.

“That’s where God comes in,” said Raisch.

During another conversation, the two spoke about their legal plans. Melinda bemoaned her fate, remarking that she was destined to rot in jail, while Raisch, who was in closer touch with her lawyers and seemed more aware that their conversations might be recorded, referred obliquely to potential future legal maneuvers.

“We didn’t get the results we wanted,” Melinda said, referring to her trial.

“There are ways around that,” Raisch said assuredly.

“I hope,” she answered.

“Appeals,” he said. “The lawyer says we have a fair to good chance.”

“But he said that about the trial,” Melinda said.

“Can I send you Guidepost and Angels?” Raisch answered, not addressing her complaint but falling back on that age-old support that had seen Raisch through many a tough situation but had failed to offer Melinda much comfort as of late—faith. When Melinda beseeched Raisch at one point whether they would “make it,” Raisch answered “When I am with you, my faith grows.”

There seemed to be nothing of value to the prosecution to be learned from the phone calls. But then, in one call, James heard Melinda refer to a letter that she had written in which she said she had made reference to a crowbar. She was fretting about what to do with the letter and was worried that if she mailed it, it would be intercepted. The prosecutors immediately secured another subpoena, this one to search Melinda’s cell at the Johnson County jail, where she was being held until sentencing.

Melinda was cleaning up some of the other women’s cafeteria trays in her pod (she now headed up Bible study in the jail) when Wall and James arrived, but she still took time to greet both detectives as warmly as she had back in Ohio. Yet she surrendered nothing voluntarily, going back to her kitchen duty while they turned over her cell.

Wall and James were bemused to see that she had the same calendar that was in her home, with all her children’s schedules written down, like a professional dispatcher. (On the phone, she would remind her husband of which errands to run, down to telling him where he could get the best price/value ratio for a birthday gift for one of the children’s friends.) At last they emerged with a letter that was as rambling and self-pitying as the woman herself.

From his surveillance of Melinda’s phone calls, James was familiar with her thought and speech patterns. Seeing more of the same—this time in print—made James yearn, even in the middle of a jail pod, for a big glass of the red wine that helped him get through the tapes on his back deck. He was buoyed, though, by the prospect of finding the reference to the crowbar he had heard about on the taped phone call.

Melinda’s jailhouse letter, addressed to her husband, began on a note of despair. A visit by her lawyer had brought news that Paul Morrison’s latest offer for her testimony was firm and final at twelve to twenty years, which would mean Melinda would have to serve about a decade before making parole. If she took the deal, she’d lose the right to appeal. If she refused the deal, she’d be looking at fifteen to life and, in what she felt was a cruel twist, “they will probably drop the charges on Mark M. They don’t want him bad enough, I guess.”

She was outraged that, merely because she “participated in this, and took part in the planning and then lied subsequently” about it, that she would be considered an “equal party” to her husband’s murder.

Feeling pushed toward a plea, and wary of risking an appeal, she acknowledged in the letter that she knew Mark purchased a weapon a week before he killed David, but she gave no idea of where it might have been stashed. Short of what James was really hoping for—a treasure map leading the investigators to what they guessed would be a rusty, dirt-encrusted crowbar hidden somewhere just beneath the surface of surrounding Olathe—this was all he needed. Morrison could use the admission to put pressure on Melinda to make a deal or to turn up the heat at Mark’s trial.

Melinda expressed a willingness to “do the right thing and help them get a conviction on Mark,” but she also yearned for some kind of divine intervention on her behalf. “What do you think God is trying to say?” she asked her husband in the letter. “Some of God’s promises are looking quite thin at the moment. I know the ones about the future are in place, though they’re the ones about the Gate opening for us, and the waters parting, and Him being the Mediator that I’m struggling with.” In a form of rough justice, Melinda was perhaps finally learning that redemption and salvation weren’t necessarily the same thing.

Morrison had Melinda right where he wanted her, in a state of fear with limited options and unlimited time to turn them over in her mind. Mark’s trial probably would not start until the spring of 2006, and he did not have to act until then. This time, Melinda was not going anywhere.

Mark unexpectedly waived his right to an evidentiary hearing in late 2005. An evidentiary hearing would have given Mark’s side the opportunity to grab a front-and-center look at all the evidence prosecutors would present against them, but they already had had a preview from Melinda’s trial.

The reason for his decision was probably another unanticipated turn of events: Melinda had been invited by prosecutors to testify at the hearing against Mark even after being found guilty at her trial. She would presumably testify to yet another version of events (Mark definitely killed David) and, whatever details this would set in stone for eventual comparison at trial, the hearing would give her practice at telling her latest story in a public setting. Though practice might not make perfect in Melinda’s case (word from Kansas was that she was giving Morrison fits, continuing to perform verbal contortions so as not to define herself as a murderess), it still might prove harder for Sherman to unsettle her at trial—as he was fairly certain he could—if she got in a practice round. Also, Mark’s defense team didn’t want potential jurors to hear any more from Melinda than was necessary.

The prospect of Melinda’s testimony, though flawed (Sherman was already labeling her various stories A, B, and C to keep them straight), was worrisome to Mark’s side. An even larger concern was Morrison offering Melinda an unconventional deal to get her to turn against Mark. Melinda had already been convicted by a jury, so giving her a deal at this point would be sidestepping—or nullifying—the jury’s verdict. Her sentencing had been delayed several times, amplifying speculation. Would the jury verdict be stamped out completely, setting Melinda free with nothing more than time served? That would be quite the stroke of luck for Melinda, though probably not feasible. Such a deal would be a dangerous move for Morrison. At the very least, however, he would have to offer her a serious reduction in time to get her to admit guilt and testify against Mark in open court.

At this point, Mark was no longer with Parmalat. By coincidence, Parmalat had imploded just as the case against him grew more serious and more public. Bad luck, too, was Mark’s presence at the company when it was revealed that Parmalat had falsified earnings and understated debt for well over a decade, earning the company the unwanted reputation as the Enron of Europe.

Parmalat’s plan of starting a grand new business expansion, considering its self-inflicted circumstances and sad legal state, was relegated to the ash heap, and Mark was let go. With Parmalat insolvent, its leaders sought refuge in bankruptcy court. Senior officials were investigated, but Mark was excused from the proceedings because he hadn’t been at the company long enough to be involved.

Mark had never in his business career been accused of improprieties. Morrison had been certain he would uncover figurative bodies lying in Mark’s wake, as well as the one real corpse, but he could never find any. Neither could anyone else.

Under a murder-one indictment, Mark was not quite board-room material for the moment. Now he worked out of his home as a consultant, but defending himself—defining the Mangelsdorf brand—had become Mark’s full-time job.

In yet another surprise twist, Mickey Sherman called this author, in my capacity as a reporter for the New York Times, to offer me an exclusive interview with Mark.

“Just you and him and Kristina, if she’s available,” Sherman said. “I won’t be there, nor will any of his other attorneys.”

It was quite an offer. I had covered the case for more than a year for the New York Times and, while Sherman trusted the fairness and accuracy of my previous articles, Mark had not sat for a single interview. The risks—especially without his staff of lawyers hanging over his every word—were obviously too great. Now, though, circumstances had shifted and Sherman was nothing if not a risk taker.

I called Mark and left a message. A calm and undemanding voice called me back in a matter of minutes.

“Nice to meet you, if only over the phone,” he said. “Would you like to come over?” He said he wanted time enough to put his daughter to bed, so if I could arrive at his house after 8 P.M., it would be ideal.

We made small talk and Mark seemed accommodating and businesslike, his voice inclined more toward gentleness than your average high-powered executive.

Though Westchester County is a bastion of wealth, Pelham is less ostentatious than neighboring Scarsdale or Chappaqua, where the Clintons settled after the White House and students drive far more expensive cars to school than do their teachers. Not that the children were left without decent cars in Pelham. Here, though, everyone was a touch less conspicuous about it—a two-year-old Volvo might suffice instead of a new sports car.

A turn through a pair of old limestone gates that marked his neighborhood’s boundaries led to Mark’s street and house, both of which could serve as backdrop to any magazine feature on established wealth. No house was a duplicate of another, though most were broad, three-story structures. There were only a handful of front porches, and lawns were large enough to dissuade neighborly drop-ins, but the homes were classic specimens of the early 1900s.

Approaching Mark’s house along the walkway, I saw that neither the grounds (the lawn was still unseasonably green) nor the front of the house were decorated for Halloween. Nothing trite or kitschy was on display or taped to the glass front door. A low curving wall of hedge protected the house itself. The yellow clapboard stretched up more than thirty feet to the roof, where two chimneys stood. A walk around back led to the covered slate veranda. Considering the mild nature of the night, I could have been heading to a garden party.

The front door was located behind a glass entryway, a pre-foyer designed to keep unseasonable weather out. I was about to knock lightly instead of pressing the doorbell so as not to wake their daughter when I spotted through the glass two figures at a service island in the kitchen. It was Mark and Kristina readying for my arrival. Mark was leaning in close to Kristina, apparently explaining something. His forefinger was thrust out aggressively toward her, and either the act of leaning down, or the force with which he was speaking, had drawn blood to his face. His lips looked drawn and tense. It was all pantomime and could have been completely innocuous in nature, but the silent tableau was an unnerving one to happen upon. There is always disquiet, a voyeuristic guilt, in stumbling upon the tensions of others, and while Kristina did not appear to be in any danger, witnessing that muted caliber of intensity was perhaps more frightening to me than if I had been able to hear the exchange.

I rapped lightly on the door and they both turned, their eyes widening, with welcoming smiles instantly on their faces.

They came and opened the door. Mark’s voice was soft, seemingly detached from his brutishly large body. It was not a matched set. His build allowed for attack mode, but his voice made every effort to mitigate. They invited me in through the foyer and back to the kitchen. I noticed a kids’ playroom next to the kitchen, filled with neatly placed, candy-colored toys.

We exchanged pleasantries about our neighborhoods and a restaurant in my village that Mark and Kristina frequented. They asked whether I wanted a drink—wine or soda? Though I could have used the wine, or something stronger, I did not want to risk missing anything and asked for a Coke.

The Mangelsdorfs erupted in laughter. They opened their refrigerator, loaded with Pepsi products. I apologized for the faux pas (they laughed again) and sheepishly asked for the Pepsi I should have requested in the first place.

Sitting at their kitchen table, we started talking about their early lives and how they had met. Mark and Kristina were careful to parse out exactly when they had started dating, drawing a clear distinction between the time of Mark’s separation and when they became involved. Their deft, poised statements already had the polish of a specific, pre-planned agenda, but that was to be expected. The two were well seasoned brand managers, and their brand—Mark’s life—was hitting a crucial moment in its history.

Mark dryly allowed that, to be certain, he always expected this case would come back into his life. Given his experience back in Kansas, he said there was no reason to think it could not happen again. “Kafka come to life. Now twice,” he said. Despite outward appearances all these years, apprehension had always been hovering.

Mark was not submitting to his fate, though. Being removed from the legal limbo of an unindicted co-conspirator gave him an unaccustomed sense of relief. The trial was a new challenge he actually seemed to welcome. “It’s a little bit,” Mark said, “like ‘Okay, now the game is on.’ I’m no longer wondering or anticipating if something is going to happen. Now the real show begins.”

We discussed the collapse of Parmalat.

“I never saw it coming,” Mark said about the turn in his professional life. “I really thought I had landed in a good place.”

I decided to ask him, without any warning, if he had killed David, if he had indeed bludgeoned his friend to death while he slept. As questions go, it was an impertinent one, ill-suited for such a discriminating setting.

Mark looked straight ahead and, without sputtering or offering anything but his rigidly even eye contact, answered in his soft but unwavering voice, “I did not.”

He did not take the occasion to elaborate. Kristina looked at him, and I looked at her, but Mark looked out ahead, first at me directly and then, for a good long while, at the wall of windows behind me, staring out into the night.

“Do you think about David a lot?” I asked, trying to come at the subject sideways and, at this point, to break the silence.

“Of course I do,” he said, with a small trace of annoyance. “Not every day, but David Harmon was my friend. I miss him.” It was curious to hear him use David’s first and last name, and to hear his admission of thinking of David only on occasion.

When asked where the long and deep string of suspicions came from, Mark said the entire idea of him being the murderer was preposterous, but once a thought gets into a small town’s mind, it is hard to dislodge. He was a suspect of convenience for the bumblers that passed for investigators, and now Melinda, who he had never known to be slanted toward lunacy or lies, was telling tales to save her own skin.

Making a plea agreement was not even an option open for discussion, Mark said, as Kristina nodded rapidly in agreement, though in criminal cases and in the minds of all practical, deal-making men, no overture is ever rejected for consideration before it is set forth. Considering the convoluted nature of the case, there was no telling what would happen. A good offer could chip away at a person’s resistance, no matter how strongly stated.

When asked who killed David if he didn’t, Mark raised his hands to the air and said he hadn’t the foggiest idea.

“I only answered a call when a friend needed help,” he said.

Mark was a matter-of-fact man, and this—all of this—was another run-of-the-mill situation for him. Kristina was less accustomed to such disorienting turns to life and was living in what she kept describing as a state of suspended animation. When Kristina visited Mark in jail during his week behind bars, it was with the seeping sense that they were living other people’s lives. She said that the guards asked her how she ended up involved with someone she’d have to visit in jail. Kristina had managed a laugh, replying it was too long a story for words.

For Mark, the rhythm and pitch of jail was challenging, but he had no overwhelming qualms about his brief experience. He knew some of those he was jailed with were innocent and became friendly with those he would not consider “bosom buddies over the long haul,” but who showed him the ropes during his short stay behind bars. “My husband the chameleon,” Kristina suddenly laughed. “He’d fit in anywhere.”

It was an un-artful and imprudent comment. A chameleon has some obviously pejorative connotations. Mark shot his wife a look, bristling ever so slightly as he leaned toward her. He managed to pull himself back, but his attention never wavered after that. The conversation resumed on an easier plane, and Kristina didn’t say anything else that caused him to become visibly uncomfortable.

At the end of our interview, there was one last issue to iron out. The Times required a photograph to accompany the piece and in such circumstances, with Kristina obviously pregnant, the picture could not help but be compelling. I did not, as I often did, arrive with the photographer. I wanted to establish a rapport first and didn’t want to scare off Mark and Kristina by the presence of an additional person with a lens and heavy flash. Talk to someone, and he can sometimes lose himself, forgetting that he is talking for posterity. Flash a light in his face while he talks, and he won’t forget it’s on the record.

Mark was all too eager to be photographed, especially alongside Kristina, who likewise very much wanted to be in the photograph but was concerned with how she would look. It was the end of a long day, and though she had not a hair out of place and looked beautiful, if a bit austere, she was feeling drained, lacking her usual level of physical confidence.

Kristina soon agreed, and I excused myself to call Susan Farley, the photographer, who was waiting by her phone at her home about twenty minutes away. She arrived in less than that, and Mark and Kristina were soon posing around their house, Kristina pushing out her belly slightly, perhaps for a more sympathetic-looking portrait. We kept the conversation going during the photo shoot, and Mark said, when asked, that he did not think Melinda had hurt David and that he, Mark, would never have been friends with someone who was off-kilter. She had either changed or was desperate to get out of jail, he said, referring to her apparent testimony against him, but that was a matter for Melinda, the courts, and her God.

The next day Mark emailed me a thank you note, along with a photo of him with his adorable daughter, Charlotte, who had slept soundly, in the same house as her father, through the night.