I put on my most puzzled look. “Is it something I said? Does it have to do with the fact that you’re rich and buying invisible desks with drug money?”
“I can call security.”
“All by yourself?” I ask. “You can dial it and everything? I obviously underestimated you. But next time I won’t—and I promise you, there will be a next time.”
“Be careful who you threaten,” he says.
“Somehow I’m not worried. Plumbers and librarians I might have a problem with; you I can handle.”
I leave, actually quite satisfied with the meeting. My childish performance didn’t hurt anything, since it’s not like Parsons was ever going to willingly reveal anything. But his reaction left me with little doubt that Robbie Divine was right; the money behind Parsons comes from Renny Kaiser.
I’ve got a hunch that at some point Renny and I are going to get together.
I call Sam on the way home, and he opens with, “I was just going to call you.”
“What have you got?’
“The name of James Ware’s ex-fiancée. He’s only been on Facebook for about a year, but she’s been on forever, and almost four years ago, she started posting about their engagement and wedding plans.”
“But they never got married?”
“No, the engagement ended about a year later. But it doesn’t seem to have been a bad breakup; she was sad but didn’t have bad things to say about him. And since then, they’ve become Facebook friends.”
“Touching,” I say. “What’s her name?”
Mary Sullivan. She lives in Nanuet. “I’ve also got Zachary Alford’s cell phone records; I’m going through them now.”
“Good. Keep me posted.”
“Roger,” he says.
“No, Andy,” I say.
He doesn’t laugh at that. It’s possible that I need to come up with new material.
elly’s next witness is Sergeant Xavier Jennings. He was in charge of the forensics unit that worked the Hickman case three years ago. He’s still doing the same kind of work now and has an excellent reputation within the department.
I’ve questioned him before and always found him to be honest and unflappable. That last part is unfortunate; I much prefer flappable witnesses, and the more flappable the better.
Kelly spends about fifteen minutes establishing Jennings’s credentials and then asks him if he was involved in investigating the Hickman abduction.
“Yes. I was in charge of the forensics.”
“Did you execute a search warrant on Mr. Wachtel’s house and car?”
“Yes.”
“What prompted you to do that?”
“An order from my captain, Pete Stanton,” he says and then grins. “He’s a really good prompter.”
Kelly smiles in return. “I meant, what caused a search warrant to be issued?”
“I have no firsthand knowledge of that. I wasn’t involved in getting it.”
“Did you find any forensic evidence that was relevant?”
“Yes. We found canine hairs. It was considered relevant because a dog was reported to have been taken in the abduction along with the child.”
“Did you run any tests on the canine hair?” Kelly asks.
“We did DNA testing.”
“And the results?”
“It was shown to be hair from a border collie. That is the same breed as the dog that was abducted.”
Kelly pretends to be surprised. “You can tell the breed from a dog’s DNA?”
“Absolutely,” Jennings says. “And not just pure breeds. If the dog is a mixed breed, you can learn exactly what it is mixed with, by percentage.”
“Fascinating. Did you make any effort to learn whether the dog hair from Mr. Wachtel’s house matched the Hickmans’ dog?”
“Yes, we collected hair from the grooming brush that Ms. Hickman used on Cody … that was her dog’s name. We ran the DNA on that as well.”
“And the result?” Kelly asks.
“A match. There is no question that the hair in Mr. Wachtel’s apartment was from the Hickmans’ dog, Cody.”
“Can you quantify that likelihood?”
Jennings nods. “Yes. The chance that it is not the same dog is one in slightly over eleven billion.”
Kelly pauses a moment to let that sink in and then asks about the blanket fibers in the car. In Mullins’s testimony, she had said that the blanket was around Evan when he was taken, so the abductor took that with him as well.
Jennings says that the blanket fiber was a cashmere that matched the type and color Jill had purchased.
Kelly turns the witness over to me.
“Do you have a dog, Sergeant?” I already know that he does; Laurie had checked it out for me.
“Yes. A yellow Lab.”
“Does he ever shed?”
A smile. “Oh, yes. Pretty much all year.”
“Did you ever go out and discover that you have dog hair on your clothes?” I ask.
“Never as much as was in that apartment.”
“That doesn’t answer my question; I’ll ask it again, and please try to give me a yes or a no. Did you ever go out and discover that you have dog hair on your clothes?”
“Yes.”
“Is it possible that some of that hair might be transferred to your car, or to wherever you’re going?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your dog’s name?”
“Bernie.”
“So Bernie’s hair might wind up being somewhere that he had never been himself?”
“It’s possible.”
“To your knowledge, were Jill Hickman and Keith Wachtel ever a couple?”
Jennings nods. “Yes, I believe so.”
“Did they live together?”
“Yes.”
“Along with her dog, Cody?” I ask.
“So I understand.”
“Are you also aware that Mr. Wachtel had occasionally been back to that house, after they split up, to pick up some of his things?”
“I have no firsthand knowledge of that.”
“I do, and there will be testimony to that effect later in the trial.”
Kelly objects to my statement, and Moran strikes it.
“Sergeant Jennings, did you take any photographs of Mr. Wachtel’s apartment when you were there?”
“Certainly. That is standard procedure.”
I introduce very large blown-up images, copies of three photographs that Jennings and his team took while they were in Keith’s apartment. I also have twelve eight by tens of the same images, and when I submit them as evidence, I ask that they be circulated among the jury.
“Now, Sergeant Jennings, you seemed to indicate before that there was so much dog hair in the house that it would be very unlikely that it was the result of transference. Am I stating your view accurately?”
He nods. “Yes, very accurately.”
“Looking at these photographs, would you say that Mr. Wachtel kept his house neat?”
“I’m not a good judge of that,” he says.
“That’s okay; the jury can make their own assessment. But can you point out a place in these pictures that was evidence of a lack of neatness?”
“No, but this only represents a small portion of the apartment.”
“To your knowledge, are there vacuum cleaners on the market that pick up everything except dog hair?”
“Of course not.”
“Did you check the vacuum cleaner bag in his machine to look for dog hair?”
“No.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
I then take him through a discussion of the blanket fiber evidence from the car and get him to admit that there are many such blankets made and that transference could conceivably be an issue there as well.
Neither he nor I believe I am right.
The difference is that I believe all this evidence was planted.
He doesn’t.
uring the morning recess, I see Jill Hickman in the courtroom. I�
��m surprised, because she told Laurie she had not attended any of the previous trial and was planning the same approach to this one.
I walk over to her, and she says, “Sorry, Andy. Mr. Kelly said I have to testify. He was going to send a subpoena if I refused.”
I had seen Jill’s name on Kelly’s witness list, but there are always many people on those lists that don’t get called. Lawyers, including myself, do that to make the other side work harder in preparation so as to stretch their resources.
“No problem at all,” I say. “Just tell the truth.”
“It’s funny … no, funny is definitely the wrong word … it’s disconcerting not to know how I want the trial to end. If Keith didn’t do it, then he shouldn’t be in prison. I just want to know what I don’t know.”
I nod my sympathy. “Hopefully, we’ll get there.”
“Are you making progress?”
“I think we are,” I say, because that’s really what I think, and she deserves the truth, even if it might lead to disappointment later.
As soon as the recess is over, Kelly calls her to the stand. Last time, he used other witnesses to cover the ground Jill will speak about, possibly in deference to her raw emotional state after the abduction.
Using her in this trial also probably reflects the fact that he has a weaker case now, with Teresa Mullins’s testimony in dispute. Jill can do a better job than those other witnesses, and she will also evoke sympathy from the jurors.
Kelly starts by going through her business history, and it is an impressive one. It culminates, of course, with Finding Home, a very successful business she basically built from scratch.
“Mr. Wachtel worked for you?” he asks.
She nods. “He did. He was our chief chemist.”
“Good at his job?”
“Yes. Very.”
“Did you have a relationship outside of work?” Kelly asks.
“Yes, a serious one. We even lived together for almost a year.”
“Were you planning to be married?”
“We never officially set a date, but I believe we both felt that was where it was going. But it never got there.”
“Why?”
“A lot of reasons, and I’d rather not speculate here, if you don’t mind,” she says. “It just went from a satisfying relationship to something much less. I also couldn’t trust that he was being faithful, and I’ve since found out that I was right. So we just gave up, and he moved out. Very adult, and quite painless.”
“And did he leave the company at the same time?”
“No, that was months later.”
“So you felt you could continue to work together, even after your personal relationship ended?”
“Oh, yes. I didn’t consider him an enemy. Besides, I did not involve myself much in the scientific end. I know very little about it. I was off raising money so the company could survive.”
“What was the cause of his eventually leaving?”
“Our security department had reason to believe he was removing highly sensitive documents, possibly to share them with competitors.”
“Did you believe that to be true?”
“I was traveling on business in Europe at the time. I was away for more than two months. I accepted what security told me; they were professionals, and that was their job. And Zachary Alford, who had just arrived at the company and is now our CEO, was firm in his belief that Keith had to go.”
“So Mr. Wachtel was fired?”
“We positioned it as a mutual decision, but we had determined he could not stay on.”
“So he accepted it?”
“I can’t answer that. At one point, I was told he was preparing a lawsuit, but that never came to pass.”
Kelly then takes her through the adoption of Dylan and the hiring of Teresa Mullins, allowing her to point out the outstanding reference that the agency provided for her.
The testimony of Jill about the Dylan stuff, leading up to her learning of the abduction while at the office, is a four-tissue affair, not counting those needed by the women on the jury. Kelly wraps it up by getting her to say that to this day she doesn’t know what happened to her baby.
It’s a defense attorney’s nightmare. Unfortunately, I am the defense attorney to whom I refer. So I’m going to be quick and gentle on cross; there is very little to be gained here.
“Ms. Hickman, after you and Mr. Wachtel broke off your personal relationship, things between you remained amicable?”
“I would say reasonably so, yes. Certainly from my point of view, and I thought from his as well.”
“In fact, you were able to continue your work relationship, going to the same office every day, for almost six months?”
“Yes.”
“So he had never done anything violent or criminal to cause you to end the personal side?”
“No.”
“You did not consider him dangerous?”
“I did not.”
“Do you, as you are sitting here today, have any personal knowledge as to who may have abducted Dylan?”
“I do not.”
“Thank you.”
Jill leaves the stand and makes eye contact with me and then offers a slight, exhausted smile to me as she passes. This was not an easy experience for her, but she held up well.
She most definitely does not look at Keith.
aurie and Sam are waiting for me when I get home. Laurie’s presence isn’t a surprise, because she lives here. Sam doesn’t, but he’s the one who greets me at the door. I refrain from saying, “Honey, I’m home,” to him.
“I’ve got something for you,” he says.
“I hope it’s not my pipe and slippers,” I say. “That would be weird.”
“No, it’s information.” Then he turns to Laurie. “You go first.”
She nods. “Okay, I checked out James Ware’s ex-fiancée, Mary Sullivan. I spoke to some of her friends and a few of her coworkers. She’s a waitress at a Buffalo Wild Wings.”
“What excuse did you give?”
“Said it was a financial thing; a loan application. Nobody questioned it. She’s been married for a year, no kids. Everybody likes her; they were falling over themselves to say positive things.”
“What’s your assessment?”
“Well, I certainly have no direct information as to whether or not she is Dylan Hickman’s natural mother or whether she put him up for adoption. But I strongly doubt it.”
“Why?”
“She’s one of seven siblings and has sixteen nieces and nephews. They’re a very close and very large family; they could hold their family circle gatherings in Madison Square Garden. It just doesn’t fit with giving up a child.”
“Okay,” I say. I completely trust Laurie’s instincts on things like this and also on things not like this.
She’s not finished. “But even if she’s the mother, I still don’t think it gets us anywhere.”
“Why is that?”
“It’s the same thing you said about James Ware. These are not big-money conspirators; they don’t fit the bill. If they gave up their child, they gave up their child. But there would be nothing about that child to have triggered everything that followed.”
I agree with her assessment. I’ve thought for a while that if it was not just a random abduction, then the answer has something to do with Finding Home and Renny Kaiser. Zachary Alford sent Kyle Gillis after me that night; he didn’t do that because I was mean to him in our meeting.
“You’re up, Sam,” I say.
“I went through Zachary Alford’s phone records. The guy makes a lot of calls. Some I identified, some I didn’t. There was one cell phone number he called fourteen times, and I couldn’t trace it to a person. I kept coming up with a company name.”
“How does that help us?” I ask.
“I told you before that he had called Gillis, and Gillis called him. So I decided to compare all their calls to each other, to see if there were any common numbers.”
He nods. “You’d better believe it. The cell phone number Alford called fourteen times was also on Gillis’s list. But here’s the kicker. Remember I told you how Renny Kaiser was layered? How he was hiding behind all kinds of corporations, most of them probably dummies?”
“I do.”
“Well, the phone these guys called is listed to one of those companies.”
This removes all doubt. Renny Kaiser has been talking to both Kyle Gillis and Zachary Alford. Whatever has been going on is as a result of Kaiser pulling the strings. He’s got the money, and he’s got the power.
“I need to talk to Renny Kaiser,” I say.
“Why?”
“Because he’s got the answers. Whether I’ll learn anything or not is beside the point; I’ve got to find out how to get to him.”
“Guess what? I’ve got his number,” Sam says, smiling.
From out of the mouths of accountants …
Once I tell Sam that I want him to monitor Renny’s phone calls from this day forward, I dial the number. My hope is that if Kaiser answers, I’ll be able to hear him over the pounding noise coming from my chest. I’m scared even to get him on the phone; I can’t imagine what it will be like if he agrees to a meeting.
One time, in a rare moment when we weren’t insulting each other, Pete admitted to me that there were a number of times he was frightened while doing his job. He said that the key is not to show it, to pretend you’re calm and confident and in control. Not only does it affect the other person, but faking confidence can actually inspire confidence in oneself.
Sometimes I’m able to pull it off, and sometimes not. This is one of those times I’m going to try.
Of course, down deep, I’m actually hoping that he won’t answer at all and that I’ll get a machine and be able to avoid the conversation. In that regard, it’s similar to every time I ever called a girl to ask for a date in high school.
But someone does answer with only the one-word question, “Yes?”
“My name is Andy Carpenter. I’m trying to reach Renny Kaiser.”
“And so you have. How did you get this number?”
“You’d be amazed at how much I know about you. I can tell you about it when we meet.”
“Why would I want to meet with you?” he asks.
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