Heart of a Killer

by David Rosenfelt

  “I’m not so sure,” Donovan said.

  “If Laufer knew him, other people knew him. Laufer said that the night he committed the murder, he was hanging out in a bar, drinking beer with his friends. Well, those friends have to be out there. If we can’t find Murray, let’s find them.”

  “The entire country is already out there looking for a computer geek,” Emerson said.

  “Well, now they’ll be looking for another one,” Novack said.

  “We don’t need the whole country looking,” Garrett said. “The guy is local. I think he’s strictly local.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Remember I told you that I was looking at insurance settlements over a million dollars, and I found a bunch of them in this area that were suspicious? Well, I’ve been doing the same thing in other areas of the country. I took the seven leading metropolitan areas after New York, and used the same criteria.”

  “And?”

  “And it’s not there. This area has an entirely different pattern. I could show you the data, but believe me, it’s clear. This guy is not operating anywhere else, or at least not in those areas. He’s local.”

  “He doesn’t have to be physically here,” Donovan said. “Just because the frauds were being done here.”

  “Somebody planted the explosives,” Novack said. “And it wasn’t Hennessey.”

  “He could have a new Hennessey,” Emerson said. “At the prices he was willing to pay, he could have ten Hennesseys.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think so. I think Garrett’s right; I think Murray’s local. So let’s find the son of a bitch.”

  Fame has its advantages. I went to the junior high school in an effort to talk to Laufer, but I hadn’t known his schedule, and it apparently was not at a time that he was scheduled to teach. I needed to ask, and coerce if necessary, him to testify at Sheryl’s parole hearing.

  I went to the principal’s office, and his administrative assistant immediately recognized me from my television appearances. She was so impressed that I was there that if somebody were already in with the principal, I think she would have dragged that person out by his or her ear.

  The principal, a beleaguered-looking man who introduced himself as Mr. Richardson, shook my hand unenthusiastically. “I understand you’re looking for Mr. Laufer.” Unlike the firm of Carlson, Miller, and Timmerman, first names at this school were apparently discouraged.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Well, join the club. He failed to appear for his last two classes.”

  “And didn’t call in?”

  “Correct. Which is inexcusable, because it left us unprepared, without a substitute teacher. I had to fill in, not the best fit for a computer class. I can barely open my e-mail.”

  “You’ve tried to contact him?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Without success. At this point the only reason to speak with him would be to terminate him.”

  I hoped that was just a poor choice of words, but Laufer had been outspoken about his fear of Murray coming after him, describing Murray as a cold-blooded killer. “Do you have an address for him?” I asked.

  “I’m certain that we must. Mrs. Simon will provide it for you, though she may ask for an autograph in return.”

  Mrs. Simon did in fact provide me the address, but resisted asking for my autograph. That disappointed me a little.

  As I was leaving the school, Novack called on my cell phone. “You were trying to reach me?” he asked, in lieu of “hello.”

  “I was calling to say that I’m sorry about Anders.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”

  He didn’t sound like he was in an accommodating mood, but then again he never did, so I decided to push ahead. “I also wanted to ask if you would testify at Sheryl’s parole hearing.”

  “With pleasure,” he said. The man provided one surprise after another.

  “Thanks. Have you been in touch with Laufer?”

  “No, I’m on the way over to the school now.”

  “That’s where I am,” I said. “Laufer hasn’t shown up for work in two days, and they haven’t been able to reach him.”

  “You know where he lives?”

  “I do.”

  “Stay there; I’ll pick you up.”

  It took Novack twenty minutes to show up, during which time teachers and students wandered out to gawk at me. Apparently Mrs. Simon had spread the word that there was a celebrity in their midst. Three girls, no more than thirteen years old, summoned up the courage to come talk to me and ask me what it was like to be on television.

  Novack saw this, and when I got in the car, he said, “Did you get their phone numbers?”

  I ignored that, and gave him Laufer’s address, which was in a building called Royal Towers in Hasbrouck Heights. With Novack driving like a maniac, we were there in ten minutes.

  The way to get into the building was to have the tenant buzz the visitor in, but instead of pressing the button for Laufer’s apartment, Novack buzzed for the super instead.

  The super, who told us his name was Benny, had to be at least seventy-five years old, and took what seemed like twenty minutes to walk us to the elevator, and then down a long corridor to Laufer’s apartment. I thought Novack was going to go insane at the pace, and finally he demanded the key and the apartment number, and we walked on ahead.

  We got to the door, and Novack rang the bell a couple of times, without getting an answer. Before he put the key in the door, he turned to me and said, “Based on Laufer’s fear of Murray and his not showing up for work, we have reason to believe that he is in danger or was the victim of violence.”

  I nodded. “Probable cause.” He was giving me our reasons for not needing a search warrant to enter.

  “Wow. Perry Mason lives.”

  Novack took out his gun, and my immediate reaction was to pull back in cowardly alarm. I hoped Novack didn’t notice it, but of course he did, and said, “Wow. Davy Crockett lives.”

  Then he said, “Wait here,” which I was happy to do. At that point the super finally joined me, and we waited in the hall as Novack opened the door and went in. About twenty seconds later, he closed the door, leaving us in the hall.

  Another three or four minutes went by, which felt much longer. Worried about what might be going on, I yelled into the door, “Novack, are you all right?”

  Maybe thirty seconds later the door opened again. He said to the super, “Go downstairs, open the door, and leave it open. Hurry up.” To me he said, “Come on in. Don’t touch anything.”

  I went in, and Novack closed the door behind us. Sitting on a chair in the middle of the room was the obviously dead body of Kevin Laufer. There was a bullet hole in his forehead, and a white towel tied around his neck like a bib, that said in red, “Talking is deadly.” “Oh, man…,” I said, and tried really hard not to be sick.

  I walked around the body, so as not to have to see the bloody bullet hole, only to discover a bigger one in the back of his head. It seemed to me that he had been shot there, and that it traveled through to the front, though fortunately that was not my area of expertise.

  “You okay, Wagner?” Novack asked.

  “I think so. You ever get used to things like this?”

  Novack shook his head. “Not so far.”

  Within ten minutes the place was swarming with police and forensics people. The only one of them that I recognized was Emerson, but he had as little to do as I did. I assumed that was because he was in computer crime and was just here because he was involved in the investigation.

  He came over to me at one point and said. “Are you okay?” Apparently my stability was something the local police had high up on their list of concerns.

  I nodded. “Yeah. Just weird that we’re talking to a guy one day and then he’s dead.”

  “I know. Let me tell you, there’s a switch you have to be able to turn off. Especially cops.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Well
, Laufer is a perfect example. I brought him into this; if I hadn’t talked to him in the first place, he’d be at the junior high writing on the blackboard. So if I focus on that, if I don’t turn off that switch, it could drive me crazy. You have to turn off that switch and move on.”

  “Makes sense, but probably not so easy to actually do.”

  “You’d better learn quick,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “That client of yours. If it doesn’t work out, or even if it does, you’ve got to deal with it and put it behind you.”

  “And then what?” I asked, but I didn’t ask it of Emerson, and I didn’t ask it out loud. I asked it silently, of myself, and I didn’t get an answer.

  “This you’re not going to believe.” The speaker was FBI Agent Carlos Vazquez, and he had just barged into Mike Janssen’s office unannounced. Since Janssen was his boss, the abrupt entry was not commonplace.

  “What are you talking about?” Janssen asked. Vazquez had worked for Janssen a very long time, joining him on each of his assignments, so Janssen gave him more latitude than he would ordinarily give more junior agents.

  “Get up for a second.”

  “Excuse me?” Janssen was sitting at his desk, but Vazquez was already walking toward him.

  “Come on, Mike. Just listen to me, okay? Let me sit at your desk. I promise, it will be worth it.”

  Janssen got up and watched as Vazquez sat in his chair and started typing into his computer.

  As he was typing, Vazquez said, “So I went online to check out the New York Post, you know, the sports section.” As Janssen was aware, Vazquez was an ex–New Yorker still devoted to New York teams.

  “You got nothing better to do?” Janssen asked.

  “Come on, that’s how I relax. Anyway, at the top of the home page they have these short topics, and one of them caught my eye, so I hit on it, like I’m doing now, and…” He stood up to let Janssen sit down. “Take a look at this.”

  Janssen sat down and looked at a story about New Jersey police looking for Nolan Murray, suspected of two murders in a case that began with computer fraud. One of the murders was that of David Anders, the police officer who died in a recent house explosion.

  There was not much identifying information about Murray, nor was there a picture, but the story did quote Lieutenant John Novack as saying that Murray should be considered armed and dangerous.

  Janssen was momentarily annoyed that they had to learn about this in the newspaper, but he soon realized that the local cops would have no idea he was also looking for Nolan Murray. Therefore, there would have been no reason for them to contact the Bureau.

  Janssen stood up and started heading for the door. “You packed?”

  “Always,” Vazquez said, following him out.

  It was three and a half hours later that Novack was called into Captain Donovan’s office, where Janssen and Vazquez were waiting. Donovan did the introductions, and then said, “It seems our friend Nolan Murray is a main suspect in the three terrorist incidents that have taken place.”

  “Whoa,” Emerson said.

  “What do you have on him?” asked Novack.

  “We know he had possible access to two of the systems that were compromised,” Janssen said. “Or at least the systems of the companies involved.”

  “Possible access to two of the systems of the companies involved?” Novack repeated. “That makes him a main suspect?”

  Janssen nodded. “There isn’t a lot of competition for the title of ‘main suspect.’”

  “He’s not easy to pin down. What else do you have on him?”

  “I’m waiting for you to tell us that,” Janssen said.

  The five men spent the next three hours going over everything that Novack and Emerson had learned about Murray, taking him through every step of the investigation, starting with Sheryl Harrison.

  Donovan had little to add, but was relieved that things were going smoothly. Novack famously had little tolerance for other investigators getting in his way, especially if they were of the federal variety. But he and Janssen seemed to develop an easy relationship and early respect, which would make Donovan’s life infinitely easier.

  At one point Janssen went to the restroom, and Donovan said to Novack, “Thanks. I was sure you were going to be a pain in the ass about this.”

  “Why?” Novack asked.

  “Because you’re a pain in the ass about everything. Especially when the Feds are involved.”

  “Their case is more important than ours,” Novack said. “It’s more important than every case we will ever have put together. Besides, if we didn’t cooperate, they’d put so much pressure on, you’d fold up like an accordion.”

  Donovan nodded. “You got that right.”

  As the meeting resumed, the more Janssen heard, the more enthusiastic he got about Murray as a suspect. It was clear from what Emerson had to say that Murray was brilliant with the computer, possessing an astonishing ability to hack into systems and make them bend to his will.

  And with all that Murray was doing locally, it seemed way too much of a coincidence that he would suddenly drop everything and take a temp job that would provide access to the two targeted systems.

  Janssen always got a feeling, a gut instinct, when he was ready to close in, when he knew exactly who he was after. And he had that feeling now.

  “If it’s all right with you, Captain, Agent Vazquez and I will work out of these offices.”

  Donovan was surprised. “Don’t you need to be at the Bureau offices in Newark?”

  “As far as the Bureau is concerned, I don’t even need to be on the planet.”

  “Ah, the scapegoat,” Novack said.

  Janssen nodded. “In the flesh. Can you give me an office?”

  “Of course,” Donovan said.

  Emerson left to get all the documents related to the case for Emerson and Vazquez to go over with Novack over dinner later that night. It was decided that a lid would be kept on the developments, that only the five men in the meeting would be aware of the possible connection of Murray to the national situation. The only exception to this would be Andrew Garrett, since he had the computer knowledge and access that they would need to rely on.

  Janssen was under an obligation to tell his FBI bosses what was going on, and he intended to do that. But he would not call special attention to it; he would put it through normal channels, and it would get lost in the chaos.

  When and if he was ready to declare that this was for real, he would make sure that the full resources of the government were brought to bear on it.

  And he had a feeling that time was coming.

  I would describe my emotions as somewhere between dread and terror. The parole hearing was thirty-six hours away, and to say I was floundering was giving me an enormous benefit of the doubt.

  I had planned on calling two witnesses that would be crucial to making our case. The first, Kevin Laufer, was lying in a drawer at the coroner’s office, which would likely hurt his effectiveness as a witness. The second, Novack, had just called to cancel our meeting that night, which was when I’d planned to go over his testimony with him.

  When I asked why he was canceling, he said that “something came up.” He wouldn’t say what that was, except to say “sort of” when I asked if it was related to our case. He didn’t answer any more of my questions, probably because he had already hung up.

  The difference between having Novack at the hearing and not having him there could not be overstated. The case was the same, but the messenger was all important. As Sheryl’s lawyer, her advocate, my version of events would be expected to be biased in her favor.

  But as the arresting officer, for Novack to be taking her side and agreeing with my point of view would be enormous. He was Sheryl’s natural adversary, and for him to reverse that role and testify on her behalf would increase her chances many times over.

  Additionally, our evidentiary case itself was something of a mess. Having lived it, Nov
ack and I had no doubt that Sheryl did not murder Charlie Harrison, that she was telling the truth in her new version of events.

  Her implicating Hennessey was the key that opened up everything. Hennessey’s murder, Laufer’s accusing Murray, Laufer’s murder … it could all be traced back to Sheryl’s naming Hennessey.

  But that was the basis of the problem; it was Sheryl that named Hennessey. Her word was all that made Hennessey relevant to this case, and if the parole board disbelieved her, then everything that flowed from her Hennessey accusation would become irrelevant.

  Besides her having an obvious self-interest in blaming someone else for the murder she was convicted of committing, there was also the little matter of Sheryl’s having confessed to the crime herself. Not only that, but she had spent six years in prison without having recanted that confession.

  Only now, when she wanted to save her daughter, was she changing her story. Why should the parole board believe her? I wouldn’t believe her.

  Boy, did I need Novack.

  The other question I had, besides what the hell to do if Novack didn’t show up, was the question of whether I should have Sheryl speak on her own behalf. Even though I was not a criminal defense attorney, I was well aware of the great risk in having the defendant testify. It is rarely done, mainly because defendants generally do themselves more harm than good. It’s much better if anything they would have to say could be brought in through other witnesses, so that the defendant would not be subject to a potentially devastating cross-examination.

  In truth, there were a number of differences here. For one thing, there would be no cross-examination; there was no prosecution to conduct it. The members of the board would be doing the questioning, and they were supposed to be unbiased, and didn’t have as their mission to show Sheryl to be guilty or a liar by trapping her.

  Technically speaking, Sheryl wasn’t even a defendant. She was a petitioner, which cut both ways. The positive was that it was not an adversarial proceeding, with no prosecutor on the other side of the table. The negative was that she had the burden of proof. In a trial, the prosecutor has that burden; he or she must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Here the burden was Sheryl’s, and mine, to prove that she was worthy of parole.