IV

[ONE] Standing at the bar at Liberties, Harris looked from Mickey to Matt, took a sip of beer, then said, "You remember Danny Gartner, Matt?"

Payne, his glass to his lips, raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Really? 'The shittiest lawyer in all the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, ' as they call him in the DA's office? Never could forget a prick like that. Can't count the times in court during questioning that he tried to make me look stupid or crooked. So he's the one who got dumped at Francis Fuller's door?"

Harris nodded and said, "Gartner and one of his loser clients, a cocky little shit by the name of John Nguyen, aka 'Jay-Cee,' 'Johnny Cannabis,' age twenty-five. And mean as hell."

Then he mimed that his right hand was a pistol. He put the tip of the index finger in the base of his skull and, moving his thumb forward, dropped the "hammer" and mouthed Bang!

He said: "Apparently, a fairly big-bore weapon. Really made a mess of their skulls."

"I think I'm about to cry," Payne said, more than a little sarcastically, then sipped at his single-malt. He feigned wiping at a tear under his eye and went on: "Nope, guess I was wrong."

O'Hara chuckled.

Payne smiled. He said to Harris, "Should I know the punk client, too?"

"Only if you were in on any of his dozen drug busts for possession with intent to distribute. Just two of which ever went to trial-both for running roofies and other date-rape drugs-because Gartner kept playing the three-strikes game. There was also a sexual assault charge that got tossed because of a broken chain of evidence."

"Three strikes, eh?" O'Hara said. "That has to be one of the worst rules ever. Whatever happened to the notion of a speedy trial, as opposed to a speedy dismissal?" Clearing out cases so there could be speedy trials was precisely why, at least in theory, the Municipal Court had invoked Rule 555 in the criminal court procedures.

Despite the shared name, Philly's three-strikes law had nothing to do with laws across the land which declared that if someone racked up three felony convictions, he or she was clearly a habitual criminal who hadn't learned a damn thing the first two times in the court system-and, accordingly, deserved a long sentence that essentially locked them up and threw away the key.

Philly's three strikes, in fact, could be argued to have the polar opposite effect of those laws: Rule 555 actually put criminals back on the streets.

When someone was arrested, they came before the court for a preliminary hearing. But, due to any number of reasons-busy work or school schedules, miscommunications, even having second thoughts about testifying against a known thug-not all the victims or witnesses would show up for a hearing. And if they were not there in court at the scheduled time, then the prosecutors had to inform the judge that they were not prepared and that they had to request a rescheduling of the preliminary hearing.

An occasional request for rescheduling might be manageable for the court system. But with the understaffed DA's office overwhelmed with cases, the constant juggling of hearing dates made court scheduling chaotic, if not impossible.

In response, the judges came up with Rule 555. It allowed prosecutors only three attempts at a preliminary hearing. If on the third hearing date the victims or witnesses still had not made it before the court, the judge slammed his gavel and announced, "On grounds of no evidence, case dismissed!"

And the accused walked.

Criminal defense lawyers were not held to such a standard. And the manner in which Danny Gartner and others of his ilk abused the system was equal parts clever and slimy.

One type of abuse was for the defense attorney to ask his client on the day of a hearing if he or she saw anyone waiting in the courtroom who could be called as a witness against them. If they did, the defense attorney told the accused to scram. When the judge called the case, the defense attorney came up with an excuse-"Your Honor, my client could not get free from his job" and "didn't have bus fare" were popular-and promised the court that the client would absolutely make a later court appearance-"even if I have to fry those McBurgers myself, Your Honor, then chauffeur him here." The lawyer would request a delay.

That wasn't strike one, two, or three for the prosecutor.

But it damn sure was an inconvenience for the prosecution. And especially for the victims and witnesses, who, unlike the judges and lawyers and cops, were not paid for their time in the judicial system. Accordingly, they genuinely might not be able to get another day free from their job or school duties, and would end up a no-show. And then their absence did trigger a strike against the prosecution.

Another type of abuse was for the accused, or an associate of the accused, to intimidate the victims or witnesses back in the 'hood so that they simply gave up on pressing the case altogether. The message-Snitches are not tolerated-was not lost on anyone in the ghetto. It didn't matter that such an act was illegal. It still effectively caused a case to go nowhere-and the accused to go free.

And thus Rule 555 made the DA's job of bringing cases to trial more difficult-if not damn near impossible. "Now," Mickey said, "where were we on the pop-and-drops?"

"Tony was describing how they found Gartner and his punk pal."

Harris nodded, then said, "Well, both of the victims were bound. They had their wrists and ankles taped with packing tape. You know, it's clear and maybe three inches wide, designed for those handheld dispensers?"

"Yeah," O'Hara said, "I've got one. I just use the rolls by themselves, because every time I tried with the dispenser, that jagged row of teeth always wound up slicing my hand or arm."

Payne snorted. "I've had that happen."

"Anyway," Harris went on, "it appears that the doer also used the tape without the dispenser. Through the clear tape you actually could see dirty fingerprints that were picked up on the adhesive side."

"The doer didn't wear gloves?" Payne said.

Harris shrugged. "Unless the doer made either Gartner and Jay-Cee bind the other, or made someone else. Whatever the sequence, whoever did it left prints. We will just have to see if they match those of the deceased, or whatever prints they can lift at Gartner's office." He stopped and gestured upward with his left index finger. "Speaking of which…"

He paused and finished off his Hops Haus lager, then signaled the bartender for another round of drinks for all three of them.

"Speaking of which," Harris went on, "when we ID'd Gartner at the scene-his wallet, including driver's license and sixty-four bucks cash, was still in his hip pocket-we sent Crime Scene Units over to Gartner's apartment and to his office. The apartment manager didn't seem particularly upset with his demise, except for the fact he owed three months' back rent. Anyway, the manager let us in. There was no apparent sign of anything having happened in the apartment."

"And the office?" Payne asked. "Where is it?"

"Over on Callowhill, not far from the ICE office."

"Really?" Payne said, mentally picturing the building that housed the local office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency that was under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. "Was Gartner into immigration law, too?"

"I doubt it. I don't think he was that smart."

"You know, those guys can be real lowlifes," O'Hara put in. "Some poor immigrant, wanting to do the right thing and become a legal citizen of the United States, willingly goes through all the hoops, including hiring an immigration attorney to help him understand all the legalese. The immigrant gives the lawyer his five-grand cash retainer, then the lawyer doesn't do shit and the poor immigrant, who probably drove a cab to hell and back to earn that five large, and now is even poorer, winds up deported. And the lawyer keeps the retainer, never again to see the client for whom he's done nothing."