Deck the Hounds: An Andy Carpenter Mystery

by David Rosenfelt

  He could have told me that he knew Tomasino, but that he never confessed to him. But he was adamant that he didn’t know him, and I take that at face value.

  So that leaves the people I don’t believe. Obviously Tomasino falls into that category, and he can’t be just wrong, he has to be lying. A murder confession is something that would make an impression; one would accurately remember if he heard it or not.

  Tomasino said he heard it; Carrigan and I say not.

  Lasky falls into a slightly different category. He thought that Tomasino and Carrigan had talked on occasion, but wouldn’t swear to it. So he’s of no value to me, and more likely to be called by the prosecution than by us.

  Unfortunately, one thing the prosecution doesn’t need is another compelling witness.

  The prevailing wisdom was that Chuck Simmons had run out of people to shoot.

  He had gunned down his ex-wife, her boyfriend, and her divorce attorney in relatively rapid succession, and to that point had escaped unscathed. The police had no idea where he might be, and though they weren’t saying so publicly, they even recognized the possibility that he had taken his own life, having accomplished his mission.

  There would seem to be two other people who should have been in danger, based on Simmons’s actions to date. They would be his own attorney, in the event that Simmons felt he was poorly represented, and especially the judge who presided over the case, and who made the adverse rulings.

  But for various reasons, which the media had pointed out with great frequency, those two people had nothing to worry about.

  Simmons’s lawyer was in the clear because he didn’t exist. Simmons had represented himself, despite the advice of everyone, including the judge, that he hire competent counsel. He didn’t listen, evidence in the current public’s mind that he is as stupid as he is crazy and violent.

  The judge, Alan Yount, was also not a viable candidate to be Simmons’s next victim. Judge Yount was off the hook because he was already dead. He died a year earlier of a sudden and massive heart attack.

  No one suspected that Judge Yount’s death was suspicious in any way. Unless Simmons spent years somehow forcing the judge to smoke and pig out on fast food, he was in the clear.

  But since the media needed angles to keep the story going, they focused some attention on Judge Yount’s son, Eric Yount, who also happened to be a judge. The younger Judge Yount was a federal superior court judge in the Southern District of New York, and was an expert in business and financial cases.

  Judge Eric Yount agreed to do one interview on CNN, during which he claimed to have no knowledge of the Simmonses’ divorce case whatsoever. He correctly pointed out that his father, as a family court judge, handled thousands of similar cases over the course of his career.

  Additionally Eric was long out of the house, through law school, and a judge himself when the Simmons case was heard. His father had never even mentioned it to him in passing, probably because there was nothing extraordinary about it.

  The interviewer pointed out that Simmons himself obviously found it very extraordinary, so much so that he had killed three people as a result.

  Judge Eric Yount expressed his sympathy for the victims and their families, voiced his hope that the police would soon get their man, and then said he was done talking about the case.

  It had nothing whatsoever to do with him.

  According to Sam’s information, Jaime Tomasino lives just off of Grand Avenue in Englewood.

  I’m on my way there now with Laurie. I’m going because I want to question him, and Laurie’s coming along because she wants to make sure that Tomasino doesn’t punch me while I’m talking.

  I tried to talk her out of coming. “There’s no reason to think it will get violent,” I said. “I just want to talk with him, and I’ll be charming while I do it.”

  “Andy, you can be really annoying when you talk,” she said, but I didn’t ask for examples.

  Before we go I bring a small recording device that I often use; I want to preserve any comments Tomasino makes for, if not posterity, then trial. It’s legal to do so, though not considered very ethical for a lawyer; there’s sort of an unwritten rule against secretly recording witness interviews. I’m not even a big fan of written rules, so I pretty much ignore unwritten ones.

  As we approach Tomasino’s small house, the front door opens and a man comes out. Based on the photo we have, I’m pretty sure it’s him, but not positive.

  “Let’s find out,” Laurie says, but I hold her back.

  “Let’s see where he’s going first.” I’m not sure why I want to wait; I suppose it’s that when I see where he’s headed it will represent a piece of information. To a defense attorney, to any attorney, information is the currency of the realm.

  He starts walking down the block, and we follow at a decent distance behind. He doesn’t seem to be heading for a car, which is good, because by the time we got back to ours we’d have lost him.

  After about four blocks he turns into a restaurant called Manulo’s Steakhouse. Laurie and I walk to the window in time to see the maître d’ lead him to a table for two, though he removes the other set of silverware.

  They seem to think that no one will be joining Mr. Tomasino, which is factually incorrect. I’ll be sitting across from him in a matter of moments.

  I tell Laurie I want to do this alone; I think it will go better one-on-one. “You can watch through the window and shoot him if things get rough,” I say.

  There is a menu on the window, and I see that steaks go as high as forty dollars. Not quite New York prices, but a hell of a long way from the Welcome Home soup kitchen.

  I turn on the recorder, then go in and walk right past the maître d’. It’s a nice restaurant, well appointed, but at this early hour there are only four tables occupied, one by Tomasino. The music in the background is Sinatra singing “Someone to Watch over Me.”

  “Hey, aren’t you Jaime Tomasino?” I ask as I reach his table.

  “Yeah. Who are you?”

  “Andy. Andy Carpenter! Don’t you remember me? We went to different schools together.” As I’m talking, I sit down on the chair opposite him.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he asks.

  I pick up the menu and glance at it quickly. “Hey, not a bad menu. You going to have the filet? I thought you were more into soup? Anyway, I hear you know Don Carrigan.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “You don’t know Don Carrigan?”

  He pauses to remember, and seems to. “Oh, yeah. Carrigan. The guy who did that murder. Who are you?”

  “I’m his friend. I’m trying to help him, but not if he’s guilty.”

  “They told me not to talk to anybody.”

  “Who? The prosecutors?”

  “I don’t want to say. You should take off.”

  “I just have a couple of questions, then I’m out of here. Carrigan told you he killed that guy?”

  “Yeah. He bragged about it.”

  “You sure it was the same Carrigan? Short black guy?”

  He hesitates. “Yeah, that’s him.”

  There aren’t many more beautiful sentences I’ve heard in my life than Tomasino saying, “Yeah, that’s him,” thereby proclaiming that the tall white Carrigan is a short black guy.

  No matter how much someone paid Tomasino to lie, they are not getting their money’s worth.

  I could confront him more, but I have to be careful here. The last thing I want is to scare him and have him go back to the prosecutor, or whoever paid him to rat out Carrigan, and describe the conversation. I don’t want anyone to know that he couldn’t identify Carrigan; I want the pleasure of doing that in court.

  “So you don’t want to talk to me about this?” I ask.

  “Right. I want to have dinner.”

  “Okay, I understand. Enjoy the steak, although I see quite a bit of soup in your future.”

  When I get outside, Laurie says, “That was quick. Did you
find out anything?”

  I nod. “I did. He’s lying, and he’s being paid to lie.”

  Tonight is finally Christmas Eve, so Laurie, Ricky, and I wrap the gifts for under the tree.

  Laurie handled getting Ricky’s gifts, so my one job was getting something for her. I don’t usually do well in these kinds of situations; Laurie is tough to buy for.

  She’s big on experiential stuff, but if I’m going to share in the experience, it’s got to be something I’ll find bearable. I don’t want to get stuck apple picking or tree cutting again.

  I think I’ve solved the problem beautifully, if I do say so myself. I’ve gotten all of us a trip to Tuscany. Neither she nor Ricky has ever been out of the country, and I know she’s wanted to go to Italy for a long time. I think Ricky will get a lot out of it as well. I was in Italy once when I was a teenager, and I loved it.

  We go to sleep early because we know that Ricky will be deliberately making noise to wake us up at the crack of dawn. This is Ricky’s third Christmas with us, and by now his excitement about this day is clear. Laurie and I never used to give holidays like this that much thought, but we enjoy it much more now that we can see it through Ricky’s eyes.

  I do, of course, have a bone to pick regarding the holiday; the NFL doesn’t have a single game scheduled. How come Thanksgiving has three games and Christmas gets shut out? Sometimes, depending on the day Christmas falls, the NFL will have a game or two, but today being Friday, there’s not a single one. I am outraged.

  Fortunately, the NBA treats Christmas like their biggest day of the year, and they have five excellent games scheduled back-to-back. Ricky and I will watch most of them together, allowing me to see the games and get credit as an involved father. Two birds with one basketball.

  It’s a very enjoyable day with family. Everybody was very happy with their gifts, including me. I got a new iPad, and since I never had an old iPad, I’m looking forward to Ricky teaching me how to use it. Laurie and Ricky loved the Italy trip idea, and she has already gone online and ordered about two thousand guide books.

  I’m a lucky guy, and I’m smart enough to know it. I think on and off about the Carrigan case throughout the day; I can’t help myself. But basically I keep it in the back of my mind, ready to move to the front tomorrow.

  Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to wait until tomorrow, because soon after Ricky goes to sleep, Marcus calls and Laurie tells him to come over. He’s got information that he believes we’ll want, so she figures we might as well hear it now.

  Marcus and Laurie perform a quick hug-and-kiss “Merry Christmas” maneuver, and when I wish Marcus the same, he gives me a holiday grunt. It warms my heart, but not enough for me to add a hug and kiss.

  Marcus has been running down all the various people on our list of potential grudge holders against Carrigan. It includes the people that Carrigan has had violent encounters with since leaving the service, as well as a couple of people in the service that he considered potential enemies.

  I let Laurie do the talking to Marcus, because she is the only person in the room who can understand his responses. The truth is that when he talks, which is rare in itself, I find myself looking for subtitles.

  But I can get what he’s saying by listening to Laurie’s responses, and what I understand is that he has narrowed it down to four possibles. He doubts that any of them have framed Carrigan, but these are the four most likely.

  I tell Marcus about Tomasino, and the strong probability that he was paid to lie. I ask him to factor this in, and eliminate any of the suspects who would not be in a position to put up the money. I also ask him to remove those who would not likely have the smarts to conceive what is becoming a complicated criminal conspiracy.

  This prompts him to remove three people from the list, leaving just one. “You know where he is?” Laurie asks.

  “Yunh,” Marcus says. It’s accompanied by a slight nod, so I’m assuming the answer is yes.

  “Right now?”

  Another “Yunh.”

  “So let’s get him out of the way. You need me to come along?”

  Laurie can provide armed backup and has faced dangerous situations many times as a police officer. Since the guy is a drug dealer, I’m expecting Marcus might consider bringing her along.

  Of course, I’m wrong.

  “Nenh.” Accompanied by a negative shake.

  “You ready?” Laurie asks, this time directing the question to me.

  “For what?”

  “To check out the drug dealer.”

  “Nenh,” I say, but she and Marcus seem to take that as a yes. I’ve got to learn to enunciate better, but it’s tough since grunting is not my native tongue. I can’t claim that it’s unseemly to visit a drug dealer on Christmas, since for Laurie Christmas doesn’t end until February, and by that point Carrigan’s trial will be over.

  So it appears I am not going to be able to watch the Houston Rockets play the Minnesota Timberwolves tonight.

  Jimmy Greer is a young, successful entrepreneur.

  According to Laurie, translated from the mouth of Marcus, he’s not more than thirty, but has firmly established himself as a top executive in his fields. His fields are drug dealing and prostitution, and business is great.

  The fact that Greer even exists is a commentary on the reign of Joseph Russo. When Dominic Petrone was in charge, he ruled these areas with an iron hand. It isn’t that Russo is more tolerant; it’s more that he’s less organized and probably less greedy. So he doesn’t watch as closely or come down as hard on transgressors, and people like Greer fill the breach.

  Greer’s office is on the outskirts of downtown Paterson, near the Great Falls in Passaic. It’s not far from Hinchliffe Stadium, a decaying building that used to hold events ranging from old-time Negro League professional baseball to high school football games to car races to boxing matches. I played baseball there a number of times, but I wasn’t any better there than I was anywhere else.

  The stadium has recently been designated as a historic landmark, and there are always efforts to raise funding to renovate it. I hope they’re able to; it makes me feel old to look at it in its current state.

  But Greer probably isn’t interested in hearing the history of the stadium; he’s interested in making money. In his business the nighttime hours are the most important, which is why Marcus is sure he will be at the storefront that serves as his office, even on Christmas night.

  There are quite a few people hanging out on the street when we pull up. I can see everybody staring at us even before we get out of the car; we are an unfamiliar intrusion in an area where anything unfamiliar is considered potentially dangerous.

  It’s a relatively warm night, so though people are wearing coats and jackets, they have obviously decided to finish off Christmas hanging out and being sociable. But there is one garbage can with a fire in it, and people standing around it taking in its warmth. I expect that any moment I’ll run into Rocky Balboa.

  Marcus nods toward a storefront, and I assume the man standing in front of it smoking a cigarette is Jimmy Greer. He’s a pretty big guy, maybe six foot two and two hundred pounds. Based on his build, when he’s not peddling drugs and women, he might well work out a lot.

  Jimmy had a run-in with Don Carrigan a couple of years ago in a bar. Jimmy was smaller time then, with no organization to command. Carrigan saw him providing drugs to kids that seemed underage, and he intervened.

  Jimmy didn’t appreciate the intervention and they took their dispute outside. It didn’t go well for Jimmy; Carrigan broke his nose and knocked out two teeth. Both men were taken into custody and released without being charged. As the winner, Carrigan would have been the most likely to feel the brunt of the justice system, but by then the cops had a good idea what Jimmy was about, and they were fine with him getting beaten up.

  Jimmy had vowed revenge on Carrigan, which is basically why we’re here. He now has more money and resources, so that revenge could theoreticall
y be more easily exacted. And since robbery arrests are also in Jimmy’s glorious past, by robbing McMaster and framing Carrigan, he could have accomplished a double triumph.

  We get out of the car, Marcus casually and me reluctantly. I always seem to get into these situations, but I never get used to them. I’m nervous to the point where my throat is constricted, which is a problem, because if we count on Marcus to do the talking, we’ll be here until baseball season starts.

  Jimmy is talking with a man larger than he is, but I detect a dynamic in the body language between them that says Jimmy is the boss, and the other guy is the subordinate. We walk right up to them, and the other guy seems to back away, thereby confirming my body language assessment.

  “What do you assholes want?” Jimmy asks. As affable conversation starters go, this was not a promising one.

  “We want to talk to you about Don Carrigan,” I say.

  “Who’s tha—” he starts to ask, before the memory seems to kick in. “What about him? He’s in jail for murdering that rich guy, right?”

  In addition to the guy talking to Greer when we walked up, other people are in listening distance of our conversation, and everybody seems interested.

  “Maybe we can talk somewhere more private?” I ask.

  A hint of a smile comes across his face. “Yeah, we can go to a private place. Sure.”

  I think I see him make eye contact with others on the street as we all turn and walk into the building. I’m not liking this at all, but Marcus seems fairly sanguine about the whole thing. Marcus has the amazing ability to be simultaneously unconcerned and totally ready for anything. I retain the opposite ability to be obsessively concerned and helpless in anything remotely resembling an emergency.

  We go into the storefront and then through a door along the back wall into what is apparently Greer’s office. He goes behind his desk and sits down. There are no other chairs in the room; obviously Greer doesn’t care if his business associates are comfortable. “Why do you care about that asshole Carrigan?”