Bury the Lead

by David Rosenfelt

  I bring up the subject of Vince, and she immediately says, “I’ll tell him.” I mention that Vince is usually still in his office at this time of day, but she cuts me off, telling me not to worry. “I’ll find him and I’ll tell him,” she says. “You just be careful. And call me as soon as the police get there.”

  At that moment sirens can be heard in the background, so I peek out the window. “They’re here. Thanks.”

  By the time I get outside, the street is filled with police cars, ambulances, and every flashing light in New Jersey. Patrolmen, with guns drawn, approach the house and order me to lie down with my hands outstretched. I let them search me, all the while identifying myself and telling them that I’m the one who called 911. In answer to their questions, I describe how this happened and where I think the shot came from.

  I’m brought back into the house and led into a den near the back. As I go, I see medics rushing to attend to Daniel. If they can do something for him, we’ve made greater strides in medicine than I was aware of.

  Two patrolmen sit in the den with me, but neither asks me any questions. My guess is that Millen has sent instructions that he wants to be the first to question me. It’s a good guess, because Millen arrives five minutes later, with two other detectives.

  I describe what happened in my own words, then answer a number of questions from Millen designed to bring out more detail. He’s good at it; he gets more out of me than I realized I knew. Nothing earth-shattering, but maybe it will be helpful to him.

  My assumption is that this was Lassiter, finishing up a deadly game with Daniel that I’ve never understood. I tell this to Millen, and rather than blowing me off, he seems to consider it. “Maybe,” he says. “Or maybe some looney-tune citizen thought justice wasn’t done in court and figured he’d take care of it himself.”

  I write out a detailed statement and sign it, promising to make myself available to Millen. He tells me I’m free to go, and when I stand up, I’m surprised and a little embarrassed to find that my legs are shaky. This has been a rough night.

  I go outside, and it’s still just as much of a madhouse as before. I start to walk to where I left my car when I see Laurie and Vince, standing next to a police car. I instinctively look to where Daniel had been lying on the porch and am glad his body has been removed. I hope it was done before Vince got here.

  I walk over to them and put my arm on Vince’s shoulder. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Vince.”

  He just nods, and Laurie hugs me as hard as I’ve ever been hugged. “Are you okay, Andy?” she asks.

  I confirm that I am, after which Vince starts asking me questions, probably as many as Millen did. Laurie makes eye contact with me, and this time I know we’re thinking the same thing: Vince is trying to attack this problem logically, trying to immerse himself in the effort to catch the killer, so that he will not have to deal with the emotion.

  I patiently answer every question Vince has, until the crowd is starting to thin out and there’s just no reason to stay there anymore. I ask him if he wants to come to my house and stay with Laurie and me, but he doesn’t.

  He wants to be someplace where he feels comfortable, but no such place exists.

  • • • • •

  THE CROWD AT DANIEL’S funeral could fill Madison Square Garden. Vince asks Laurie and me to sit up front with him, so it’s not until it’s over that I get a full appreciation for the size of the crowd. Daniel had a lot of friends, though the overwhelming majority of the attendees are there because of Vince. Vince knows everybody and everybody knows Vince, and it’s apparent today that they like him as well.

  Vince sits stoically throughout the service, much as he’s been the last three days. Laurie and I are worried about him, but all we can do is watch him try to deal with this nightmare as best he can.

  Vince invites about a dozen people back to his house afterward, and Laurie views this as a healthy sign. She and I are included in the group, and she has the foresight to call ahead and order some platters of food to be delivered there when we arrive. It’s not something Vince thought of, and he’s grateful for her thoughtfulness.

  There do not seem to have been any developments in the search for Lassiter, and as I sit at Vince’s, my mind wanders back to the circumstances leading up to Daniel’s murder. There’s got to be an answer to the question of why Lassiter would get Daniel off his legal hook only to gun him down. Hatred is not the likely motivation; it’s fair to say that Daniel would have suffered more if the state had put him to death after years of miserable confinement on death row.

  Vince’s boss, Philip Brisker, comes over and sits down with Laurie and me. Philip is in his early seventies and has been publisher of the paper since taking over from his father twenty years ago. The paper has been in the Brisker family for as long as I can remember, and that family has been well respected for a lot longer than that.

  Philip wants to discuss our mutual concern for Vince. He thinks it would be good for Vince to come back to the paper sooner rather than later, and Laurie and I agree. I say that I’ll talk to Vince and gently suggest it but that he needs to do what feels right for him.

  “It’s ironic,” Philip says, “all that time, with all everybody went through . . . for it to end like this. You win your case, and then . . .”

  He doesn’t finish his thought, but I wouldn’t know if he did because my mind is racing. I’m realizing why I won my case and why Daniel lost his life.

  Laurie and I stay for a short while longer and then say our goodbyes to Vince. I drop Laurie off at home, though she wants to stay with me.

  Where I’m going I have to go alone.

  I arrive at Dominic Petrone’s house at about five in the afternoon. I have no idea if he is at home, but I didn’t think calling ahead would be possible or productive. I could have had Vince arrange the meeting, since Vince knows Petrone along with everyone else, but I didn’t want him to know about it.

  I pull up to the gate that we went through the night Driver and Gorilla brought Marcus and me here. Once again three enormous men are on duty, though I don’t recognize them as having been there that night. It doesn’t matter; any one of them could handle me quite easily.

  “Yeah?” says one of them when I open my window.

  “I want to see Dominic Petrone,” I say.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Andy Carpenter.”

  He picks up the phone and calls in, reacting with some surprise a few moments later when he gets an apparently positive response. “Park behind the house and wait,” he says, and the gate opens.

  I park where I’m told, and in less than a minute Driver and Gorilla come out to meet me. “This brings back a lot of memories, doesn’t it?” I say as Gorilla frisks me. They don’t answer, but then again I don’t expect them to.

  I’m brought into the same room as on my previous visit, except this time Dominic is not there when I enter. Gorilla, Driver, and I sit and wait for almost twenty minutes, without a word being spoken. It’s not the most comfortable twenty minutes I’ve ever spent.

  Dominic enters and comes over to shake my hand, ever the gentleman. “Andy, sorry to keep you waiting. You should have told me you were coming.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, “but I didn’t figure things out until about an hour ago.”

  He seems amused. “Is that right?”

  I nod. “Dominic, I just want you to confirm what I believe. We both know there’s nothing I can do about it legally, so I give you my word it won’t leave this room. I just have to know for sure.”

  He sits down at his desk. “I’m listening.”

  I lay it out for him. “You came to believe that Daniel had Linda Padilla killed, and maybe he did . . . I don’t think so, but I don’t know for sure. You wanted him dead, but you had promised me your help if I kept your name out of the trial. When I did so, you sent me Eddie as a witness, but that blew up in my face. To make good on your promise, you made sure I won my case by having ano
ther murder committed.”

  “Andy . . . ,” he says, but I’m almost finished, so I continue.

  “Once I had my victory, you got your revenge on Daniel for Linda Padilla’s death.”

  He shakes his head in apparent sadness and looks at Driver, who mimics the shake. “Andy, you believe I would have an innocent woman murdered for no other reason than to let you win your case?”

  I nod. “I do.”

  “You are entirely wrong. About everything. I would not and did not have that woman murdered, I doubt very much that your client had anything to do with Linda’s death, and I did not have him killed. Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .”

  “I don’t believe you,” I say, and immediately regret it.

  “You flatter yourself,” he says. “You are not important enough to lie to.”

  “Then tell me the truth. All of it. Please.”

  He considers this for a few moments, then, “I’ll tell you what I know and what I believe. And if any of it is spoken outside this room, you will long for a death as quick and painless as your client’s.”

  There isn’t much to say to that, so I just wait.

  “Tommy Lassiter killed Linda and the other women. I believe he was out for revenge against your client, which is why he framed him. I also believe he shot and killed him.”

  “So Linda Padilla was randomly picked like the others? She was in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

  He shakes his head. “No, she was killed because Lassiter knew how much I valued her friendship. He killed her to hurt me . . . to show he could.”

  I understand this completely; he also shot me with the paint ball on the street simply to show he could. But there is much I don’t understand. “Why would Lassiter commit that other murder, the one that got Daniel set free?”

  Dominic shrugs. “I have no idea. He’s not the most stable of men.”

  “And why would he want revenge against Daniel?”

  “Daniel,” he says, pronouncing the name with distaste, “hired Lassiter to kill his wife and make it appear as if someone else committed the murder. The man Lassiter framed turned out to have an alibi that Lassiter failed to anticipate, and the case fell apart. Daniel was dissatisfied and withheld some of the payment.” He shakes his head. “Not a smart thing to do.”

  My mind is spinning, a fairly common occurrence these days. I believe Dominic; he would have no reason to lie to me. He is saying that my client, Daniel, was a murderer all along, though he was not guilty of the crime for which he was on trial. He arranged for the murder of his wife in a business transaction and then was stupid enough to renege when it came time to pay up.

  The more I think about it, the more incredulous I get. “Lassiter killed five women, strangled them and cut off their hands, to get revenge against someone who didn’t pay him enough money? That’s what this was all about? Money?”

  Dominic smiles a slight smile. “That’s all it’s ever about.”

  • • • • •

  LOGIC TAKES A BUM RAP. It is the way I live my life. I probably ask myself the question “Is it logical?” more often than I ask, “Is it right?” Because logic is almost always right, and as far as I’m concerned, it should be the primary basis for human behavior.

  Yet I am often told that I am “too logical” by people who don’t understand that there is no such thing. Those people worship emotion and passion, and that’s fine. Their mistake is in thinking that such feelings are inconsistent with logic, when in fact they should be using logic to drive that fire within them. If you’re desperately, passionately in love with a woman, you don’t win her over by picking your nose. It wouldn’t be logical.

  I guess that’s one of the reasons I’m so disconcerted by what I’ve been through these past few months. I’ve been trying to apply logic in order to figure it out, when all along it’s been a madman calling the shots. People have been literally dying all around me while I have been figuratively hunched over my desk, trying to apply logical theorems to the work of a vicious psycho.

  Lassiter was angry because Daniel reneged on a deal, and he wanted revenge. So far it makes sense. But then he went out and killed five women and got Daniel on and off a legal hook, before killing Daniel himself. Why go to all that trouble? Why not just go out and kill Daniel in the first place? There is just no logical answer.

  It’s been three days since my conversation with Dominic Petrone. I’ve shared what he said with Laurie, and while she couldn’t provide any real insight as to Lassiter’s behavior, she was less surprised by it. I suppose that comes from her years on the police force, during which she dealt with an unending list of villainous screwballs.

  I also told Pete Stanton about the Petrone conversation. I value his advice, and I can trust him to keep it to himself. He was so interested to hear what I had to say that he didn’t make me take him to an expensive restaurant to say it.

  I call Vince every day, but he’s still pretty much in a fog. He’s not ready to go back to the newspaper and says he doubts whether he ever will. I know it’s going to take him time to bounce back, and I’m frustrated that I’m powerless to speed up the process.

  I’ve decided against sharing Petrone’s revelations with Vince. I know he has a right to know, but right now I just can’t see myself telling him that his son murdered his daughter-in-law. Maybe I’m looking for an excuse, but I know he wouldn’t believe it anyway; he would assume that Petrone had some reason to lie. Since he knows Petrone, he also might confront him about it, thus demonstrating that I revealed what Petrone told me, despite his warning not to. It could result in my untimely and very painful death, which would complicate matters greatly.

  I haven’t been in the office since Daniel’s death; what little productive time I’ve spent has been at the foundation. There’s something comforting about taking care of those dogs. They absolutely need me to provide food and shelter and comfort and life, and I know exactly how to provide them. It’s all very logical.

  I’ve also gotten to spend a lot more time with Tara, which is always good. We go on extended walks in the park, just like the one we’re on now. Tara seems to appreciate the world more than I do; each bend in the path provides new sights and especially smells that captivate her. I both admire and envy this.

  We are passing the Little League fields, a place that holds countless pleasant memories for me, when my cell phone rings. It is an unwelcome intrusion, and I’m sorry I brought it with me. I see on the caller ID display that it is Vince calling.

  His voice is crisper, more alert, and his message is to the point. “They found Tommy Lassiter.”

  I’m very pleased to hear this, but my primary reaction is surprise. I had become convinced that Lassiter would never get caught, and I also assumed he was long out of this area.

  “Where was he?” I ask.

  “In a motel on Route 4.”

  “Is he talking?”

  “I doubt it,” Vince says. “He’s been dead for three days. Shot in the head. The maid saw the Do Not Disturb sign on the door, but the place started to stink, so she decided to disturb.”

  “Any idea who did it?”

  “Someone who knew him . . . he was having a beer and eating a sandwich. Somebody else’s beer was there also, but Lassiter’s was mixed with a drug to knock him out. The coroner thinks he was unconscious when he took the bullet.”

  “So it had to be someone he trusted,” I say.

  “Damn straight,” says Vince. “If Lassiter thought he was in danger, a marine division couldn’t have killed him.”

  What Vince is saying makes sense, but I still think Petrone was behind it. “It’s got to be Petrone,” I say, since Petrone had said to me that if he found Lassiter, we’d be “talking about him in the past tense.”

  Vince shrugs. “I don’t care who did it. I’m just glad it got done.”

  “Thanks for letting me know, Vince. You doing okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m getting there. You up for Charlie’s later? There’s
a college game on.”

  Laurie and I were planning to spend a quiet night at home, but I know she’d want to support getting Vince back into the world. This news about Lassiter seems to have given him a lift, and I don’t want to do anything to discourage it. “Sounds great. Okay if I bring a date?”

  “Only if it’s Laurie.”

  We meet at seven-thirty, and by seven-forty-five the table is covered with burgers, french fries, and beer. The game is on ESPN 2; it’s Boise State versus Fresno State. The NCAA claims to be against gambling, yet they don’t complain when ESPN buys a game like this for national broadcast. Do they think there’s a single person east of Idaho who would be interested in Boise State-Fresno State if they weren’t betting on it?

  I take Boise State minus seven points. For the entire first quarter, Vince is yelling at the bartender to adjust the color, refusing to believe me when I tell him that the football field in Boise is actually blue. My mind is filled with interesting tidbits of knowledge like that.

  Boise is up twenty-one at the half when Pete Stanton comes in. He tells the bartender he’s going to run a tab, but the tab he’s talking about is mine.

  “I knew I’d find you losers here,” he says, then turns to Laurie. “Female company excepted.”

  Laurie smiles. “Exception noted.”

  “What’s the score?” Pete asks.

  “Twenty-eight-seven, Boise,” I say.

  “Who’d you take?”

  “Boise.”

  “Damn,” he says, shaking his head. “Money goes to money.”

  Like most of his comments, I let this one slide off my wealthy back. “Anything new on Petrone?”

  He nods. “Yeah, the word on the street is he didn’t hit Lassiter. He wanted to, but somebody beat him to it.”

  “You believe that?” I ask.

  “Yup. The people who told me would know one way or the other. And the word is that it had to be somebody Lassiter trusted. Also, the gun was a Luger. Not the Petrone group’s weapon of choice.”