Deck the Hounds: An Andy Carpenter Mystery

by David Rosenfelt

  Laurie can be remarkably persuasive.

  I don’t mean in dealing with me. She has a myriad of tools at her disposal that makes any dispute between us far less than a fair fight. Any courtroom ability that I might have to argue, badger, and convince does not successfully translate to the home front.

  Laurie’s persuasive talents extend way past the domestic arena. She has a way of convincing people to do stuff that I just don’t have, but at least we are collectively smart enough to realize this and utilize it to our advantage.

  If we are going to attempt to get Carrigan acquitted of the murder of Steven McMaster, we are going to have to immerse ourselves in the details of it. The first step in that is to attempt to talk to McMaster’s widow.

  Since Carrigan is accused of making her a widow, and we are on his side in the dispute, one might think that Mrs. McMaster would be reluctant to talk to us. That’s why Laurie was the one assigned to convince her, and she pulled it off without a hitch.

  And that is why we’re going to see her now. It’s not at the Short Hills house where the murder occurred; for all I know she sold it so as to rid herself of the horrible memory. She told Laurie she was staying “in the city,” so that’s where we are headed.

  Northern New Jersey has a lot of cities. Paterson, Englewood, Hackensack … each one qualifies as a city. But when Jerseyites mention the city, we mean New York. In fact, we mean Manhattan.

  Mrs. McMaster’s apartment is on Park Avenue and Eighty-Second Street, which is not the most convenient place to get to. We take the George Washington Bridge and then the FDR parkway. If the real FDR had to contend with this much traffic on the way to his meetings, he wouldn’t have given the Pearl Harbor “Day of Infamy” speech until December 10.

  We finally pull into a parking lot two blocks away from our destination, just off Madison. I ask the attendant how much it will be and in answer to his question, I tell him we’ll be under two hours.

  “Sixty-two bucks,” he says.

  I shake my head. “You don’t understand. I don’t want to buy another car; I want to leave this one here.”

  “Yeah,” he says, and hands me a ticket. He is clearly not an aficionado of parking lot humor, which is a shame considering his chosen occupation.

  We enter the lobby of Mrs. McMaster’s building and the doorman calls up and announces our arrival. Then he listens for a moment, says, “Very well,” and tells us, “Twenty-fourth floor.”

  “Which apartment?”

  He frowns slightly and repeats, “Twenty-fourth floor.”

  It turns out that twenty-four is the highest number on the elevator, which means she has the penthouse apartment, and when we arrive we see that there is only one door, which means she has the entire penthouse floor. I’m sensing the presence of some money here.

  The door is opened by a woman who is clearly some kind of housekeeper/maid. She is wearing a sort of uniform, mostly white with some dark blue trim. Her skirt looks like one enormous doily; I shudder to think how many normal-sized doilies were killed in the making of that garment.

  She greets us with a smile and tells us that Mrs. McMaster will see us in the den. The foyer itself is enormous; I think the Knicks could practice in here. We could probably wander around for the entire afternoon trying to find the den, which would cause me to have to take out a mortgage to pay for our parking costs.

  Fortunately, the doily lady brings us to the den and opens the door. The lady of the house is indeed waiting for us in there.

  She walks over to us, a half smile on her face that implies she knows a secret that we don’t. “Karen McMaster,” she says, extending her hand.

  We introduce ourselves and decline her offer of something to drink. She asks for tea, and the doily lady is back with it so quickly that it must have been brewed and waiting just in case.

  “Thanks for seeing us,” Laurie says.

  “A friend told me that I shouldn’t, that I would in effect be helping the enemy. You are the enemy, aren’t you?”

  “That’s not how I would describe us,” Laurie says. “We want to find out the truth, and we want to see the real killer punished.”

  Karen McMaster raises her tea cup in a toast. “Here, here,” she says.

  “What kind of work did your husband do?” I ask.

  She smiles. “I never really found the right word for it. He was a supplier of food to grocery stores. If you ever bought something in a supermarket, chances are one of Steven’s trucks or ships was the reason it got there. He would always call himself a grocery store clerk, because he made sure the shelves were stocked.”

  “And the business has continued on?” I ask.

  She nods. “Oh, yes. Steven had very good people under him.”

  “And you have no involvement?” Laurie asks.

  “Well … I own it,” she says, as if the answer was an obvious one.

  Laurie says, “If it’s not too difficult, what can you tell us about the night your husband died?”

  “I’m afraid not too much; the police know more than I do. I tried to avoid hearing details.”

  “You were out of town?” I ask.

  She nods. “I was here, in this apartment. There was a charity dinner coming up, and I was attending to the details. Steven had a foundation that supported Meals on Wheels; he gave them so much. That night I kept calling him, but he didn’t answer, the home phone or cell. I knew something was wrong; he was never out that late.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I called my friend Susan Zimmer, our neighbor. She sent her husband Walter to the house, and … he found Steven. He called the police, and then they called me and broke the news. As you can imagine, I was beyond upset.”

  For some reason I’ve never trusted it when people tell me how upset they were or are about something. Being upset feels like something that should naturally reveal itself; to describe it feels like an attempt to convince, or even brag.

  I’m basically not liking Karen McMaster, though I can’t quite put my finger on why. I don’t think it’s because she’s richer than I am; I think it’s more because it feels like she is so studied and prepared that it doesn’t leave room for any “there” there.

  For example, if she really does charity work, it strikes me that she’s more interested in broadcasting that fact than in actually helping the charity. I’m sure my reaction is unfair, but I don’t care; I’m still not going to ask her to be Facebook friends.

  But I certainly don’t have any reason to think she wasn’t upset to find out that her husband was lying dead in their house with his neck broken. “The police said you identified your husband’s ring?” I ask.

  She nods. “Yes, it was definitely Steven’s. I had it made for him by our jeweler; I gave it to him for his thirty-fifth birthday. He hardly ever took it off.”

  “One last question,” Laurie says. “Before you knew that there was a suspect in the case, and well before the arrest was made, did you have anyone in mind that might have been the perpetrator?”

  “Oh, no. No.”

  “No enemy your husband might have had? No one who might profit from his death?”

  “No,” she says with certainty. “No one. Everyone loved Steven.” Then, “But no one more than me.” She says that with either sadness or fake sadness; your guess is as good as mine.

  On that note, we thank her for her time and start the long trek across the foyer, so we can go downstairs and bail out my car.

  It’s one of the saddest calls I will ever make.

  I have to call Edna, who used to be my secretary but has since self-elevated her title to office manager. Edna took on the office manager’s responsibility for two reasons: she informed me it called for an increase in pay, and also because since we almost never have any clients and therefore never go into the office, it’s a pretty easy place to manage.

  I haven’t spoken to Edna in a while; for the last few months our relationship has consisted of me mailing her checks, and her cashing the
m. Check cashing is an area in which she has always been totally reliable.

  This call, coming out of the blue like this, is going to be particularly painful for her. So I decide to get it out there right away, in effect, ripping off the Band-Aid. “Edna, we have a client.”

  I can’t tell if it’s a gasp I hear, or a sharp intake of air. But since Edna’s youthful years are well behind her, I’m briefly worried. Once she composes herself, she says, “I knew that’s why you were calling. As soon as I saw your number on caller ID, I was positive.”

  “I felt I should be the one to tell you.”

  “Any chance you’ll plead it out?” she asks.

  “None. Our client says he’s innocent.”

  “That’s what they all say.”

  I tell Edna that we are going to dispense with the team meeting this time, at least for now. Sam, Hike, and Laurie are all aware of what’s going on, and all that is left is to notify Marcus Clark. He’ll help Laurie in the investigation side of things. I always leave it to Laurie to contact Marcus, because he likes her, and also because I am scared to death of him.

  When I get off the phone with Edna, Laurie asks, “How did she take it?”

  “She’s upset, but she’ll step up,” I say. “It’s not like she does any actual work even when we have a client. I guess it’s just the idea that she might have to do something that’s scary.”

  Sam calls to give me an update on his research into McMaster and Carrigan. “I’ll email it,” he says, “but you want me to give you the basics now?”

  “Sure.”

  “Steven McMaster grew up in Vermont and went to Princeton. I don’t see any grad school; he went into his father’s food service business. Grew it big time; the guy was loaded. Married to Karen McMaster, who is a bit of a society type. His death hasn’t slowed her down much; she’s still in the press a lot. She’s supposed to be dating already, but that could be newspaper gossip. I could tail her if you want.”

  “That’s okay, Sam. No stakeouts necessary yet.”

  “Carrigan grew up in Dayton, Ohio. Graduated from Ohio State, where he played football. Seems to have been a backup, but got in the game occasionally, mostly on special teams. Became a teaching assistant and then an English professor there, but enlisted in the army when Iraq blew up. His father was a Green Beret, and he became one as well.”

  “Any family?”

  “Not anything close that I can tell. His parents died in a car crash when he was nineteen. No siblings, never married.”

  I thank Sam and ask him to send me over the reports. Knowing Sam they will be very detailed.

  I update Laurie on the information Sam provided, and she mentions correctly that we need to plan our investigative strategy. It’s time to take our growing canine family for a walk, so we put leashes on Tara, Sebastian, and Zoey, and head out to kill two birds with one stone.

  “We’ve got to go at this from both angles,” I say, and even though I have no doubt that she knows what I mean, I continue anyway. “We have to prove that Carrigan didn’t do this, and at the same time try to find out who did. Or at least who might have.”

  “It’s fresh ground,” she says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Based on the police reports in the discovery documents, they never conducted a truly full-scale investigation into McMaster’s death. The DNA evidence immediately established Carrigan as the killer, and they were quite willing to accept that. Not that I blame them. But all they really did after that was check off some boxes. They weren’t trying to find anything, because in their minds they already had found it.”

  “Good point,” I say. “We also have to look into Carrigan’s life, especially including where he was and what he was doing around the time of the murder. This is a guy living on the street with his belongings in a plastic bag; he didn’t take an Uber out to Short Hills and ask the driver to wait while he robbed and murdered McMaster.”

  “But his hat was there,” she points out.

  “That doesn’t mean his head was under it.”

  She smiles. “You’re getting into this.”

  “It’s Christmas.”

  Another smile. “And tonight we decorate the tree.” I can’t help but moan at hearing that; I know I should appreciate the whole “togetherness” aspect of it, but it takes so long and is so boring.

  And the worst part is if some of the lights don’t work; they call on me to fix them, because I’m the man of the house. “Man of the house” is not a role I’m well suited for.

  “I don’t know if you’re aware of it,” I say. “But there’s a bowl game on ESPN tonight. Toledo against Wyoming.”

  “Do you realize that except for people who live in Toledo and Wyoming, you will be the only person in America watching that game?”

  I nod. “I consider myself to be representing New Jersey; it’s a heavy burden.”

  “Don’t worry; you’re off the hook. Ricky and I have decided we are going to decorate it without you.”

  “Why?” I ask. As soon as I do, I regret it. I should just accept my victory and move on; more conversation can wind up getting me back to putting trinkets on the damn tree.

  “Because all you do is complain. And half the ornaments you put on fall off.”

  “I can live with this,” I say. I could go on and say I am hurt by being excluded, but I don’t for two reasons. First, it’s not true; I’m delighted. And second, if I feign being insulted, they might reconsider their decision.

  So for tonight it’s just me, Toledo, and Wyoming.

  As the saying goes, “Are you ready for some football?”

  Ernie Vinson was not aware that he was literally hiding in plain sight.

  For the time being he was staying at a Holiday Inn just off the 95 Freeway in New London, Connecticut. It had a couple of advantages, one of which was that it was well off his normal beaten path, which would mean that Carl would have no reason to look for him there.

  The other positive was that it was a short distance from Uncasville, which is where the Mohegan Sun Casino was located. Ernie had a very substantial amount of money, and he liked to play roulette. So it was worth the risk to go there. He had grown a beard, not a full one yet, but it was coming in, and he felt it made him even harder to be recognized.

  This was not the final stop, of course. Ernie was trying to figure out exactly where that should be. Carl had a long reach, and he would be coming after him. Ernie knew that his transgression was too significant to be forgiven.

  Ernie was thinking an island, maybe Aruba or Barbados. He really didn’t know anything about those places, having never been there, but he always wanted to try them. He’d research it, and he’d pick one, and once he established a fake identity, it would be his home.

  So for now he was holed up in the Holiday Inn using a fake name, with occasional trips to the casino. He figured he’d stay there for another week or so, and then make whatever move he was going to make.

  But for now, at least, he felt that he was safe.

  He was wrong.

  The fact was that Carl had him under surveillance, as he did with all the people who worked for him. He had planted a GPS device on Ernie’s car, and was capable of monitoring Ernie’s cell phone, which, like all cell phones, also contained a GPS.

  Carl knew all about the situation with Don Carrigan, and assumed that the publicity would cause Ernie to run. Carl had other things on his plate, and for a few days was content to just monitor Ernie’s comings and goings around the Holiday Inn in Connecticut.

  But there was no way that Ernie would stay there forever; he would instead go someplace that he felt would make it more difficult for Carl to get to him. So that created some urgency; Connecticut was a lot easier to reach than some of the other places Ernie might come up with.

  So while Ernie was at the Mohegan Sun, gambling in what he considered safe anonymity, Carl entered Ernie’s room at the Holiday Inn and waited for him to return.

  Ernie had no luck
that night; the roulette wheel was not being kind to him. For him gambling was a diversion, not in any way an addiction, so he was able to walk away without chasing after his losses. He was disciplined in his gambling, and in this case that discipline shortened his life by an hour or two.

  He saw Carl when he entered his room, but had no time to react. Carl didn’t talk to him, didn’t explain why he was about to be killed. Carl was not the type to take unnecessary chances, and every moment that Ernie was alive increased the possibility that he would find a way out of his predicament.

  And in any event, both men knew exactly what was happening and why. Ernie had committed the cardinal sin, and it was an unforgivable and soon to be fatal one at that.

  So Carl simply shot him twice in the heart, the second time clearly unnecessary. But he had an effective silencer on his gun, so he was not concerned about anyone hearing the attack and reacting.

  He simply left Ernie’s body on the floor, stepping over it on his way out.

  “I did have a hat like that. I think it was probably stolen.”

  Carrigan is reacting to the photo of the hat that I’ve just shown him, and which was in the discovery documents. It’s a plain knit hat, the stretchy kind that you can pull over your ears or part of your face in the winter.

  It’s not the kind of hat that people would go out of their way to steal; I would imagine you could get one for a couple of bucks at a Walmart. I have a flash forward of me trying to convince a jury that some thief “probably” stole it, and the picture is not a pretty one.

  Laurie has come with me to the jail for this meeting. She is showing more personal interest in this case than any I can remember. I don’t know if she believes in Carrigan, wants to believe in Carrigan, or just feels responsible for my taking on the case.

  “Tell us the circumstances,” I say.

  “It was a while ago, maybe last spring. It was a warm night, so I probably wasn’t wearing a hat at all, though I had a couple of them. I’m not sure where I was, probably down the shore.”