Dog Eat Dog

by David Rosenfelt

  I thank Robert and end the call. Laurie has scheduled some interviews with friends and coworkers of Tina Welker’s, so I drop her off at the hotel and head for Charlie Tilton’s office. I’ve found him to be smart and a good sounding board, so I want to tell him what’s gone on, and maybe together we can come up with a plan.

  When I get to Charlie’s office, he pours some coffee and we sit down so I can fill him in. “Who did you piss off now? Al Capone?”

  “He’s dead,” I say. “Try and keep up.”

  “Speaking of dead, I have to ask this question, even though I don’t really want to know the answer. Did your friend Marcus put Stokan in the river?”

  “No. I suspect that was your friend Donnelly who did that.”

  I go on to tell him about Mitchell meeting with Carmody last night, and our conversation in front of his house this morning.

  “Wow,” Charlie says when I’m finished. “Around here when we lawyers want to interview a witness, we set up a deposition, hire a stenographer; it’s a big production. I didn’t realize you can just accost the person in their driveway.”

  “You have much to learn from me. So what do you think?”

  “I think our friend Mr. Mitchell is lying through his beer-brewing teeth.”

  “Right you are. Any idea as to why he might be doing that?”

  “Maybe Mitchell and Peter Charkin shared a habit, and in Mitchell’s case it’s ongoing? It’s not something he’d want public.”

  “That’s the easiest explanation, and it’s certainly possible. But it feels like there’s something more here. Don’t forget, Stokan told Marcus that Carmody and Donnelly were not Charkin’s suppliers.”

  “Maybe he lied.”

  “Could be. But if he was going to withhold something, which is not easy to do when Marcus is involved, he would have held back Donnelly’s name. That was the dangerous reveal, which is demonstrated by Stokan making that unscheduled appearance in the river.”

  “And then there’s the five grand,” Charlie says.

  “Right. Money was coming to Charkin … cash money. That doesn’t usually happen to a guy with no job, no apparent source of income, and a drug habit.”

  “Could have been that militia thing with McCaskill.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t think so, although the visit from FBI agent Nichols has been bugging me.”

  “Why?”

  “It was overkill. First of all, just him knowing that we spoke to McCaskill must mean that McCaskill is under surveillance. All I did was talk to him. If Nichols drives all the way up here to meet with everyone McCaskill talks to, he’d better hope McCaskill doesn’t have much of a social life, or he’ll be on the road twenty-four/seven.”

  Charlie nods. “And Nichols would have no reason to think you’re talking to him about anything the FBI should be interested in. And in fact you weren’t.”

  “Right. Something heavy must be going down … something the Bureau is really worried about. They’re covering all their bases.”

  “Let’s get back to Charkin. Donnelly obviously needed him for something, though I have no idea what. But then why kill him?”

  “I suspect Donnelly is the type who needs someone until he doesn’t need them anymore.”

  Charlie nods. “And not to make matters worse, but none of this gets our client off the hook.”

  “I’m hoping we can point to other bad guys and say, ‘Look, they might have done it.’” Then, “Of course, we’ll need to find bad guys that bleed Jantzen’s blood.”

  “That could be a problem, even for a hotshot New York lawyer.”

  “New Jersey.”

  “Whatever.”

  I have to approach situations like this with two different mindsets.

  So I bring both mindsets with me when I take the three dogs for a walk this evening.

  On the one hand I am trying to figure out what the hell is going on. I want to know all the facts, what every one of the players has done and why they have done it.

  On the other hand, I have to think about what I can present to the jury, and how I can persuade them. The two sets of facts are not identical. Some evidence may not be admissible, and some, even though I believe it to be true, may not neatly fit into my case strategy.

  So I head down both tracks at the same time and hope that they blend together. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t.

  Right now I believe that the murderer came from the lawless firm of Donnelly, Carmody, and Stokan. But I have no way to get the jury to believe it, even if I can get evidence of their involvement with Charkin admitted in court.

  Not only do I not have anything concrete to tie them to Tina Welker’s house that night, but I don’t have logic on my side. Not only won’t the jury buy it, but the lack of that logic makes it hard for me to accept it myself.

  I don’t know why they would have wanted to kill Charkin, but that’s not my only problem. The way they did it makes no sense.

  Why a home invasion? And why an elaborate frame of someone they didn’t even know, namely Matt Jantzen? If Donnelly wanted Charkin dead, why not just kill him and dump his body in the river, like he did with Stokan? Or why not bury the body where it could never be found?

  To set it up as a home invasion, killing an innocent bystander in the process, just doesn’t ring true. I’ve dealt with enough people like Donnelly to know that it’s not how they operate. He didn’t have to frame Matt; Donnelly wasn’t going to get nailed for Charkin’s murder.

  The trial is bearing down, and I have more questions than answers.

  That’s because I don’t have any answers.

  Right as I walk back into our suite with the dogs, Sam calls to report on his phone reconnaissance. He’s continued to monitor McCaskill’s calls, though nothing interesting has come up. McCaskill has stopped making calls of any consequence, not even to Gavin Helms’s burner phone. I don’t know if that is of great significance; Helms is part of the leadership of the Liberators, and McCaskill may be just a bit player.

  “Sam, can you use the GPS information on Helms’s phone to find out where he is?” I’m asking because it might be a bargaining chip I can use with the FBI; Nichols had asked me if I knew Helms’s whereabouts.

  “You got it.”

  “What about Mitchell? Anything to report on his calls?”

  “That’s a little tougher. I’m covering his cell phone; he doesn’t have a landline at home. But he’s got a brewery business with a lot of employees. It’s impossible to track all the calls made from there, and even if we could, there would be no way to know who within the building is actually making them.”

  “I understand. Anything interesting on his cell phone calls?”

  “Just one thing. He’s also made two calls to a burner phone. No way to know whose it is, but it seems suspicious.”

  “I agree. Can you also track that phone’s location using GPS?” Sam has shown an ability to track the location of cell phones through the phone company computers. Cell phones have GPS devices built into them; it has become a valuable tool for police, as well as the famed Andy Carpenter defense team.

  “Maybe. I’ll have to check it out. Not all burners have GPS systems in them. Same thing is true with Helms’s phone. Sorry, I should have checked all of this already.”

  “Not your fault. Thanks, Sam, please keep me posted.”

  Laurie has overheard all of this, and when I get off the phone, she hands me a glass of wine. “Let’s sit down; I want to talk to you about something.”

  “Uh-oh.” I sit next to her on the couch. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  “I think we should get Corey up here.” She’s talking about Corey Douglas, who partners with Laurie and Marcus in the K Team investigative firm.

  “Why?”

  “You’re going to be in trial, so we’ll be shorthanded in the field. We also need to make something happen; maybe Corey’s presence can help.”

  “Let me think about it,” I say, probably surprising her. I�
�m sure she thought I was going to reject it out of hand, hence the wine.

  “How long will it take you to think?”

  “Not sure.”

  The doorbell rings and I go to answer it. When I open it, Corey Douglas is standing there with Simon Garfunkel, his partner and former police dog.

  I turn back to Laurie. “I guess I’m finished thinking.”

  She smiles. “I didn’t think it was something that could wait, and I knew you would come around.”

  Corey comes into the room. “Thanks for getting the room. A suite really wasn’t necessary.”

  I turn to Laurie again. She shrugs. “We travel in style.”

  Simon runs into the room because he sees his buddy Tara. Hunter jumps up to greet the newcomer as well, since he is devoted to Tara and will emulate whatever she does. I think Tara’s mothering him as well; the other night they slept next to each other, with Tara’s paw draped over him.

  Sebastian doesn’t think Simon’s arrival is significant enough to disturb his rest; Sebastian chooses to emulate an anvil.

  Corey says that Simon needs a walk, so we all decide to go. Tara and Simon are typically eager for the adventure. Sebastian acts as if he’d rather be waterboarded, so we let him sit this one out.

  Three dogs and three humans; we make quite a caravan. Along the way Laurie and I update Corey on all that has gone on. He’s familiar with a lot of it; he’s been talking to Laurie from New Jersey.

  Once we’re back, he asks, “Okay, where do you want me tomorrow?”

  “I think it’s best you start by putting Mitchell under surveillance. Maybe he’ll make a mistake or do something revealing.”

  “You mean like writing out a confession to the murders and leaving it on the street?”

  “That would be nice.”

  The burner phone that Mike Mitchell has been calling belongs to Jerry Donnelly.

  Actually, it’s been more than one phone; Donnelly apparently switches his out fairly often. But the good news is that he uses high-class burners, which come with GPS trackers.

  Sam isolated the GPS signal to a house in a gated community in Freeport. Marcus set up camp there and, after a number of days, finally saw Donnelly leaving to go into town to a restaurant. Apparently, he doesn’t get out much.

  Sam tracked the movement of the phone to that restaurant, and Marcus surreptitiously snapped a photo, so we are positive it was Donnelly who was carrying it.

  That feels like a step forward, but really isn’t. Clearly Mitchell is dirty. Between his meeting with Carmody and his calling Donnelly, there’s no question about that. But Mitchell’s having business with the two of them does absolutely nothing to tie either of them to Charkin’s murder.

  Marcus wants to confront Donnelly but is the only one who thinks it’s a good idea. Marcus wants to confront everybody and has full confidence he can induce the person he confronts to provide whatever information we are looking for.

  It’s just too big a risk, with not enough potential for reward. Donnelly, like anyone in his position, would be well protected. Even if we were able to penetrate it, and I believe Marcus could do just that, Donnelly’s not about to confess to murder. And even if he did, it would be inadmissible because it would have been made under duress.

  Marcus specializes in duress.

  I can’t remember the last trial I have headed into with less ammunition. I can possibly tie Charkin to dangerous people like Carmody on the drug side and maybe McCaskill on the militia side, but I can’t come close to implicating them in the murders of Charkin and Tina Welker.

  Things might become clearer and open up avenues of investigation if I could figure out why the killer wanted Charkin dead. He seems like a bit player, sort of a pathetic figure, and it’s hard to fathom how he could have been such a major danger to Donnelly.

  I’m downstairs having a muffin and coffee and preparing to head to court when Corey comes in. He’s been watching Mitchell for five days, without having reported anything unusual going on. “You got a minute?”

  I nod. “But not much more. Apparently they start court on time around here.”

  “I was going to call you last night, but it was late. There’s a truck that has arrived at Mitchell’s brewery; it came two of the last three days. I don’t know if it’s making a delivery or a pickup, because it goes into the indoor loading dock. The outside of the truck says CASTLE FARM PRODUCTS, INC.”

  “Why are we interested in it?”

  “Two reasons. One, it shows up after closing time, about thirty minutes after what I assume is when the day shift leaves. I thought that was unusual, so I had Sam check out Castle Farm Products. That brings me to my second reason; there’s no company named Castle Farm Products. According to Sam, it doesn’t exist.”

  “Interesting,” I say, understating the case.

  “Here’s another tidbit for you. The license plate is a fake; Sam says it was never issued by the state. I didn’t ask Sam how he knows that because I didn’t want to hear the answer.”

  “I know the feeling. What do you think we should do with this information?”

  “I think I should wait for the next time the truck shows up and follow it. Maybe that will tell us something, and maybe it won’t. But it can’t hurt to know.”

  “Good idea. I wish I could go with you.”

  “I can handle it.”

  “I know; I would just like to come up with a way to get out of going to court.”

  Corey gets up and walks away, but then seems to remember something and comes back. “By the way, did Laurie mention that Sam is on the way up here?”

  “No.”

  “He’ll be here this afternoon; we need him for some electronic surveillance work.”

  “So I need to get him a room?”

  Corey shakes his head. “No, Laurie already reserved him a suite.”

  “Maybe we should just make an offer to buy the hotel.”

  Corey shrugs. “Your call. It’s a nice place.” He picks up a muffin. “And great muffins.”

  Jury selection is different on Planet Maine than it is back on Earth.

  The procedures are basically the same. The lawyers get to question the potential jurors in voir dire, we have challenges we can use to dismiss them preemptively and for cause, and we’re looking to seat twelve people and three alternates.

  The difference is that the prospective jury pool is made up of Mainers, rather than earthlings. It is immediately detectable in their attitude; they actually want to be here.

  I am overgeneralizing, but people back home view getting summoned to jury duty as a stroke of bad luck; they say of their neighbor, “How come he doesn’t get called?” The people here seem to think they are performing a community service, that they are stepping up to fulfill a worthy obligation.

  And they are nice. Actually, that’s not the right word; some of the people back home are nice as well. Here they are earnest; they want to help, and they strive to keep an open mind.

  Before we started asking them questions verbally, they filled out a questionnaire, mostly biographical details. They did it in a room of about seventy people.

  In a situation like this back home, everybody is talking and grumbling during the process. Here there was dead silence in the room, as people pored over the questionnaire and filled it out with great care. The atmosphere was such that you would think they were taking the SAT.

  Charlie surprised me by showing up today; his work was all supposed to be behind-the-scenes. “I wanted to watch a hotshot New York lawyer in action.”

  I corrected him by saying, “New Jersey.”

  “Whatever.”

  There are two types of Mainers: those who work with their hands and those who hire people who work with their hands. This is generally true in New Jersey as well, but there the lines are not drawn quite so vividly, or quite so geographically.

  When it comes to challenging and accepting jurors, I do what I do back home; I go with my gut. Obviously there are some trig
gers; if a person has been victimized by a home invasion or is one of ten siblings, the other nine of whom are police officers, I don’t want them on the jury.

  On the other side, if a person says that he practices a religion that doesn’t believe in DNA, that’s an automatic keeper. So far we haven’t run into anyone like that.

  Charlie is helpful during the process. He’s smart and understands the sensibilities of these people; he also either knows or has information on some of them.

  But basically, if the potential juror seems like a normal, reasonably intelligent person, I just take my best guess. Since all of these people seem normal and reasonably intelligent, we are finished selecting a jury of five men and seven women in just over a day and a half.

  Matt has been quiet through most of it. It can be fairly stunning to realize that everybody is gathered to decide whether you will spend the rest of your life in freedom or behind bars. If he has an opinion on any particular juror, he doesn’t voice it. That’s just as well, since I wouldn’t listen to it anyway.

  As always, it’s a simultaneously boring and frustrating process. It’s boring because it’s, well, boring. Earnest people who are trying to please don’t often say fascinating stuff.

  It’s frustrating because there is no way to keep score. We don’t know whether we are doing well, and we won’t know until they come in with their verdict.

  When we’re done, Matt asks, “How do you think we did?”

  “Beats the hell out of me,” I say.

  This causes Matt to turn and ask Charlie the same question. He responds, “I agree with Andy.”

  Matt shrugs. “I guess that’s it then.”

  I am just about to tell Matt to have a nice weekend, then I realize how ridiculous that is. I’d also like to tell him that next week could bring good news, but the truth is that it will consist of Steinkamp presenting his case for Matt being convicted of a double murder.

  “See you Monday” is all I can come up with.