by Carl Schmidt
“I’m ready to set up the Skype connection, Jesse,” Xavier said resolutely. “I want to be prepared when the guy calls.”
“I’ll go to my laptop now,” I replied. “It will take me a couple of minutes to get connected.”
We hung up, and within minutes, we could see each other face to face.
“Angele and I have been discussing how to deal with this, Xavier. Here’s what we suggest. First, we have reason to believe the name of your caller is Joe Dunham. We think he’s living with Sophia Stockbridge at 25 Lavender Avenue, Worcester, Massachusetts. Why don’t you write that down?” I suggested.
He had a pad and pen on the desk in front of him, and immediately he jotted it under a few other notes already on the page.
“Got it,” he said.
“OK,” I went on. “It’s not only likely that the two of them murdered Nicole Shepard, there’s a strong possibility that Joe murdered Tony Doyle on Sunday evening. Just before you called, I received confirmation that Tony is dead.”
“My God, this guy is a Neanderthal,” he cried out.
“Yes,” I replied. Xavier’s anthropological conclusions dovetailed with my own.
“Obviously, he means business,” Xavier added.
“And so do we,” I replied, hoping to calm him down.
I then gave Xavier the details of the second murder. That information might come in handy when Joe called to shake him down.
“All right,” I said, “run my voice signal through an earbud so that I can talk to you privately while you’re on the phone. We don’t want the caller to hear me. For now, we’ll just call him ‘Joe,’ unless we find out otherwise. Put Joe on speakerphone so I can listen to your conversation, and be sure to record the whole thing.
“I think it is a good idea for you to tell him—right at the beginning—that you know who he is and what he has done. You know he’s Joe Dunham, and his friend is Sophia Stockbridge. You know where they live, and you know they murdered both Nicole Shepard and Anthony Doyle. Hopefully, that rude awakening will give him second thoughts about having any further contact with you.
“There is, of course, one drawback in doing this. He might put you on his hit list. So it has to be your decision. Consider it carefully. But I think it is the best way to go.
“You can tell him that you have hired a private detective, and that a dozen other people are aware of who he is and what is going on. Hopefully, that will give him a reason to back off.
“Be specific. Tell him that if anything happens to you, your lawyer will open a sealed letter naming Joe Dunham and Sophia Stockbridge as blackmailers. It will also provide the details of where to find audio copies of your phone conversations.”
At that point, I waited to see how Xavier felt about this. He was a little slow to come around, but eventually he agreed.
“It’s taking a chance,” he said, “but my stove’s hot already. I guess it’s time to light the fire under him.”
“Play it by ear, Xavier. After you’ve told him what you know, it will be interesting to hear how he responds. Even though his voice is altered, we should be able to discover a lot by what he says and how quickly he reacts.”
“I’ve had acting classes, Jesse. But I never dreamed I’d be using those skills in a situation like this.”
“Right. By the way, have you seen the film, Get Shorty?” I asked.
“Sure, a couple of times,” Xavier replied.
“Imagine yourself as Chili Palmer,” I said. “John Travolta played him perfectly. He showed no fear in the face of danger. If you can be that cool, it will be difficult for Joe to intimidate you. He might even back away from the whole thing.”
“I’ll give it a shot,” he said, but then winced at his own choice of words.
It was almost nine o’clock. We decided to stop talking and wait for his phone to ring.
43
Sure Thing, Joe
“Hello, this is Xavier LaGrange.”
After a short pause, we heard, “Well, you finally came to your senses and picked up the phone.”
The male voice was altered just as before.
“First… Do you have the money?”
“Sure thing, Joe. I have the money,” Xavier replied in a remarkably firm and positive voice.
The pause that followed was significant. It all but convinced me that it was, in fact, Joe Dunham on the other end of the line. I guessed that Joe was now contemplating his denial.
I guessed right.
“Who the fuck is Joe?” came the voice, noticeably louder than before.
“Who is Joe?” Xavier asked rhetorically. “Joe is Joe Dunham, who lives with Sophia Stockbridge at 25 Lavender Avenue, Worcester, Massachusetts. That’s who Joe is.”
The second pause, which was even longer than the first, spawned a vicious reply reminiscent of Victor Maitland in Beverly Hills Cop.
“Listen to me, pal,” he shot back. “You have no idea who the fuck you’re dealing with.”
“That’s not quite true, Joe,” Xavier replied. “I know the two of you murdered Nicole Shepard at the Rutland Arms Hotel, and I know you murdered Anthony Doyle at 7:45, Sunday evening, in his home, just after you forced him to open his safe.”
“I don’t know any Tony Doyle, wise guy,” he answered even louder than before.
In the pause that followed, it occurred to me that Xavier had used the name “Anthony,” but Joe called him “Tony.” That sealed the deal. From that point, we knew exactly who he was.
“Now, here’s what’s going to happen,” Joe continued. “You are going to be in Miami, Florida on Saturday evening when I call you again, at precisely 9:00 PM. On Sunday, you are going to get into your rental car with a bag of money—$500,000 to be exact, in unmarked bills—and you will drive where I tell you to drive. Your life is going to depend on it.”
“I see. Miami, Florida,” Xavier replied in a slow calm voice.
“Yes. You can write it off as a business expense,” he replied. “All you Hollywood hot shots have sleazy accountants. The five hundred grand will cost you a lot less at tax time.”
“Will I be getting a receipt?” Xavier responded.
I liked that. Joe, on the other hand, did not.
“Shut the fuck up and listen,” he replied. “If you’re not in Miami on Saturday, two things are going to happen. First, the pictures go to The Enquirer with a detailed account of your handiwork in room 401.
“Then, sometime after that story hits the newsstands, you’ll get a visitor who will even the score. You killed Nicole. He kills you. Got it?”
Xavier swallowed hard and slumped a little in his chair. I spoke up quickly.
“Take a deep breath, Xavier. Don’t be in a hurry to respond. Let’s see how he handles the silence.”
Xavier looked at me on his screen and nodded. His features relaxed gradually, and he straightened his back.
“Did you hear what I told you, dickhead?” the electronic voice boomed.
“I heard you, Joe. I’m thinking it through.”
“Tell him you’ll meet with him in Miami,” I said. “We’ll come in force and stay between you and Joe Dunham. It may be our best chance to bring him down.”
“OK, Joe,” Xavier replied finally. “I’ll meet you in Miami.”
“Alone,” he replied. “And one other thing… Carry the money in a backpack. You may need your hands free. If you screw this up, you’ll never see Hollywood again.”
“Are we done?” Xavier asked.
“We’ll be done on Sunday when you’ve handed us the money,” Joe replied and then hung up.
His use of the term, “us,” seemed to confirm that Sophia would be there too.
• • •
“Don’t book your flight just yet, Xavier,” I said. “I’ll check with my police contact and see if the Massachusetts authorities can pick up Joe and Sophia. I liked the fact that you confronted him with the facts, but there is a downside to it. You might have frightened Joe into disposing of any
evidence of their crimes that is still lying around their house. But we certainly know who they are. Did you notice that he referred to Doyle as ‘Tony,’ even though you called him ‘Anthony’?”
“No,” Xavier replied. “I didn’t notice that. I was just reading from my notes. I was shaking the whole time.”
“Well, you sounded confident. Hopefully that will have an impact. It’s possible, but I wouldn’t say it’s likely, that he will cancel his trip to Florida. If we get lucky, the Worcester Police Department will cancel it for him.”
“What should I do now?” Xavier asked.
“Sit tight. I’ll get back with you no later than tomorrow evening. If Joe is not arrested by that time, we’ll have to go to Florida. Incidentally, I expect to have two or three other people with me if it does progress that far. We’ll be fully armed and prepared for what it takes to put these two away.”
I sounded more confident than I actually was.
“Thanks, Jesse,” he said, and we shut down our Skype connection.
Angele didn’t say a word as I picked up my phone and dialed Brock.
“Jesse. What’s up?”
“Brock. My client and I have an appointment to meet with Joe Dunham in Miami, Florida on Sunday. It would be a big help if he were behind bars in Massachusetts by tomorrow. Is there any way you can urge the Waltham Police Department to move on this immediately?”
“Is there any way you can provide me with some hard facts I can use to persuade them?”
I thought for a minute and decided that I could give him a little more information without compromising Xavier. I thought it best to leave Nicole Shepard’s name off the menu as well, but I did explain how I discovered—or, more exactly, how Angele discovered—that Joe Dunham had murdered Tony Doyle. I told him about our surveillance at the Woodbury home and the GPS tracker on Tony’s Jaguar.
Brock was impressed, but confirmed for me what I had already assumed. The information from our surveillance equipment would probably not be admissible as evidence in a court of law.
“Brock, if the police can find evidence in the Stockbridge home that links Joe to the Anthony Doyle murder, what led them to that information will become irrelevant.”
“I’ll see what I can do, Jesse.”
“Move on it right away. If you don’t have Joe behind bars by tomorrow afternoon, I’ll have to go to Miami.”
“How bad would that be? It must be 75 or 80 degrees down there this time of the year.”
“It will be a lot hotter than I like it, Brock.”
“I guess it will,” he replied. “I’ll call them right now.”
• • •
A mixture of anxiety and grim determination entrenched itself on Angele’s face. After a short stare down, she said, “If you have to go, I’m going with you.”
“I’d prefer you stay here, Angele.”
“Not on your life,” she replied without hesitation.
I decided not to argue our defense strategy at that moment. Instead, I made two phone calls, one to Archie Lapointe and the other to Holly Winters. I described the situation to each of them and asked if they’d be willing to drive with me to Miami. They both were enthusiastic. It must have stirred fond memories of their days on the force.
Archie noted that he had a BMW sedan that drives like a top, and he’d be happy to supply the wheels. I told him that I’d be delighted to make him happy. I had already decided that we’d drive rather than fly. We not only needed a car, but our weapons as well. It would be problematic taking them with us on the plane.
Driving time to Miami is nearly 24 hours. Including time for meals and some sleep in a hotel, we’d have to leave Portland Friday morning in order to be with Xavier when Joe called at 9:00 Saturday evening.
If I couldn’t persuade Angele to stay home, there’d be four of us to share the driving, but I was still hoping we could avoid the trip. I’d confirm our status with each of them by Thursday evening. If we had to go, we’d depart no later than 10:00 AM on Friday. That would put us in New York City around three o’clock in the afternoon. There was one more item I wanted to purchase from Abe’s spy store on 57th Street.
• • •
It was 10:00 PM when the dust settled. Angele and I were wired. It was hard to imagine falling asleep.
“I’m considering driving to Worcester tonight, Angele,” I said.
“Wait a minute, Jesse. That does not sound like a good idea. Why would you want to do that?”
“Maybe I can attach a GPS tracking device to their car. That would give us some advantage in Florida.”
“Before you do anything stupid, let’s have another look at that house on Google Maps,” she said.
I typed in the Lavender Avenue address and zoomed in on the aerial view. The Stockbridge place was a tract home, probably about five years old. There were no large trees in the neighborhood to provide any cover, and the houses were stacked close together.
I flipped to the street view and had a look at the front. It was a two-story house with twin garage doors. There were no windows on the garage, just a side door, and surely it would be locked. Motion detector lights hung both in the front and on the side of the house.
Two more things rendered a midnight run out of the question. The sky was clear, and the moon was full. Any attempt to approach the house on foot, undetected, would be foolhardy. Don Quixote himself would have counseled me against it.
“You’re right, Angele,” I said. “I’ll stay in Portland tonight.”
We were both so jacked up, there was only one way to throttle down. We turned off the lights, went to the bedroom and took off our clothes.
“We’ll have a fresh look at things in the morning, Jesse,” she said, as we slipped under the sheets.
“Whew… It’s cold in here,” I said, as we drew together in the middle of the bed. Things warmed up quickly after that.
44
Allstate Insurance
A second or two after I walked through the office door, Ranger jumped up from his blanket and followed me to the coat rack.
“Good morning, Jesse,” Holly said. “He smells something good.”
“He’s a wonder dog. The jerky is hermetically sealed inside a zip-lock bag,” I replied.
“Yes, but if you touched it, he can smell your fingers.”
I held out my palms like a magician in a night club act and said, “Nothin’ here, boy,” but he insisted on licking my left hand, which happened to be the one that had transferred the treat to the bag twenty minutes earlier.
“He’d probably be willing to eat your glove if you let him,” Holly said. “Better not leave it lying around.”
After Ranger had finished licking my hand, he began sniffing my back pocket.
“OK. You found it,” I said, as I extracted the bag from the pocket and the beef jerky from the bag.
He accepted his treat graciously and took it back to his blanket.
“When I was in Oregon a few years ago, I hiked along the Salmon River near Mount Hood,” I said. “There was a sign at an overlook that read, ‘Dogs can smell a thousand times better than humans. Bears can smell a thousand times better than dogs. And salmon can smell a thousand times better than bears.’ That’s one billion times better than us! Hard to imagine, isn’t it? If we were salmon, we’d be processing so much information it would make our heads swim.”
Holly eyed me suspiciously and finally chuckled.
“You’d think those salmon could smell the fishermen coming and know enough not to take the bait,” she offered philosophically.
“Maybe they’re so overwhelmed by how good the bait smells that they get a little crazy and ignore the guy in the hip waders with the fishing pole,” I suggested. “They spend all their time in schools and still haven’t learned enough to save their own skins.”
The phone rang just in time to save Holly from any more of my anecdotal drivel.
“Brock,” I said. “Any news?”
“Yes,” he replie
d. “But it probably is not what you want to hear.”
“Give it to me anyway,” I said.
“I just received a call from Laura Flanagan. She got a search warrant, and her team is inside the Stockbridge home as we speak. Sophia and Joe have vacated the place. There are no cars in the garage, the dresser drawers were left open in the bedroom, and there’s not a piece of underwear left in the house. That would indicate that the occupants won’t be back for a while—if ever.”
“I was afraid of that, Brock. When my client spoke with Joe Dunham on the phone last night, he called him by name and told him that he knew that he had murdered Anthony Doyle. He even told him the exact time and place that it happened. If he was calling from Sophia’s house, they probably bolted immediately. Anything else?” I added.
“Nothing.”
“Thanks. I think I’ll give Ms. Flanagan a call.”
“Good luck, Jesse,” he said, and we hung up.
I told Holly the news and dialed Detective Flanagan’s number.
“Laura Flanagan.”
“Detective, my name is Jesse Thorpe. I am a private investigator in Maine, and I’m the informant who gave Sergeant Brock Powell the tip regarding the Anthony Doyle murder.”
“Thank you for calling, Mr. Thorpe. Sergeant Powell did not tell me your name, but I have heard of you. I followed the Lavoilette murder case rather closely.”
“I understand that you are now in the Stockbridge home. Is that right?”
“Yes. We are just about to leave. Would you care to tell me how you knew about the killing?”
I repeated to her what I had told Brock.
“Sergeant Powell told us all of that. Why were you tracking Joe Dunham and Sophia Stockbridge in the first place?”
“At the moment, I’m not at liberty to say. If I can secure my client’s safety, I should be able to fill you in completely. I can tell you, however, that they are planning to meet with my client in Miami on Sunday. I will be going down there with a few of my associates to protect him. He’s being blackmailed for $500,000.”