Deck the Hounds--An Andy Carpenter Mystery

by David Rosenfelt

  But now we have no choice but to reinstate it; not doing so now would risk not having the results in time for the defense case. Which would unfortunately also mean that we would not have a defense case, since right now we are relying on reasonable doubt, and only Ernie Vinson’s involvement has a chance of providing that for us.

  We don’t yet subpoena Karen McMaster’s phone records, which we know will reveal that she spoke to Vinson two days before the murder. We are going to make that request at the last minute, since getting the phone records can be done very quickly, unlike the DNA.

  A lot of what we are doing runs into the difficulty of trying to prove a negative. It seems improbable that a person with Carrigan’s limited resources and mobility made it out to Short Hills to commit the robbery/murder, and then got back without being seen.

  It’s also hard to believe that he stole all that money and jewelry, and then is in the situation he is in today. But who’s to say? Maybe he spent a week going to the track every day and blew the whole thing. How can we prove that he didn’t?

  Also, Tasker has revealed that he might posit the idea that Carrigan had an accomplice, in fact a boss. He’ll say that Carrigan merely committed the crime at his boss’s direction. So even without being able to say who the boss is, just the concept of it solves Tasker’s problems.

  He can say it was the boss who drove Carrigan out there, and the boss who took the money and jewels. He might even say that he stiffed Carrigan out of his share, which is why there is no evidence that Carrigan went on any kind of a spending spree, and why he is still on the street.

  After four days of monitoring the GPS in the cell phone, it appears that we may have caught a break. The owner of the phone has had lunch three of the four days at a nearby restaurant called City Diner. Twice he’s gone there at 12:30, once at 12:40, and once at 1:00.

  So Laurie and I come up with a plan that may or may not work. The good news is that if it doesn’t, we won’t have done any harm. The bad news is that merely not doing harm is going to keep Carrigan in jail for the rest of his life.

  It’s going to require the whole team to execute it, so I call everyone in for a meeting.

  Even Edna.

  This morning I’m taking the team out to breakfast for a test run.

  Not the whole team is here; Sam will be manning his computer when the real thing happens, and Marcus will be outside, waiting to follow the suspect if we can identify him.

  I’m also not going to be an active part of this because I’ve had a lot of media exposure, and we are afraid I might be recognized by the suspect. I don’t know that he would make the connection and thereby be scared off, but it’s not worth taking the chance.

  So the breakfast group consists of Laurie, Edna, Hike, Willie, and his wife, Sondra, who is pitching in as well. I’ve helped with the logistics, but Laurie did most of it. Sam wanted to be included for the breakfast rehearsal because the place is alleged to have terrific waffles and syrup, but since he won’t be here during the main event, I told him he couldn’t.

  The group is spread around the room. Willie and Sondra sit at one table, Laurie and Edna at another, and Hike sits by himself. This covers the entire room, including the row of booths, but that’s not why we did it in three tables. We just felt it wasn’t fair for anyone to have to sit with Hike.

  From these positions, at least one member of the group will be able to see every other table in the restaurant. When we get the suspect to unknowingly reveal himself, we have a prearranged signal, and the person in the best position will surreptitiously take a photograph of him.

  Not everyone will be able to be at the same tables during lunch, when it will be busier, but they’ll arrive early and come as close as they can. They should be able to improvise; I’ve molded them into a crack, highly trained outfit.

  Sam is going to text the entire group when it shows up that the cell phone is in the restaurant. He’ll know it on approximately a seven-minute delay, and since no one eats lunch in seven minutes, that should be fine.

  The first day goes by without the cell phone entering the restaurant. As does the second, and the third. Our team is putting on weight eating a big lunch every day, but making no progress whatsoever.

  I call a meeting at the house the night of the third day. We’re getting nowhere and the trial is getting close. It might be time to come up with a new strategy.

  Sam gives a report on what he’s seen regarding the phone movements. “He’s been out and about some,” Sam says, “but not at lunch time. It’s not like he’s gone anywhere else to eat; he must be eating in the apartment.”

  “Is there any pattern to where he’s going these other times?”

  Sam shakes his head. “Not so far. I haven’t run down what the places are that he’s gone to; I’ve got the addresses, but that’s all. I’m just looking for consistencies so you can set up shop and catch him. But he hasn’t gone to the same place twice.”

  “Maybe we can call him, pretend to be someone else, and get him to reveal who he is. Or lure him to a place we choose. Like a hoax,” Hike says.

  I shake my head. “No, we might spook him. We don’t call the number until we can take advantage of it for sure.”

  No one else has any decent suggestions. Willie and Sondra are pleased with the way things are going; they like the pasta. Edna sort of doesn’t know what to make of it, though on balance she’s not happy. She likes lunching with Laurie, but having to be there every day makes it feel like work.

  Hike got a look into the kitchen, pronounced it unsanitary, and thinks we’re all going to get food poisoning. Marcus doesn’t have anything at all to say, which is a real news event.

  Since we can’t come up with a new strategy, we agree to continue with the old one.

  We’re making real progress.

  Carl met the shooter at the designated place and time, 11:00 P.M. at a warehouse in Paterson.

  They had not communicated in weeks; the shooter was a pro and did not need the constant attention that Ernie Vinson had needed. Which Carl appreciated; even though he had only three people in his immediate employ, it was enough to make him realize he wasn’t the management type.

  Carl liked to handle things himself, and he was very capable of doing so. Steven McMaster had found that out the hard way. As had the aforementioned Ernie Vinson.

  Carl arrived on time, but the shooter was ten minutes late. There were few things that Carl disliked as much as being kept waiting; it was disrespectful and Carl didn’t see himself as someone to be disrespected.

  When the shooter arrived, he was greeted with, “You’re late.”

  He looked at his watch and shrugged. “Ten minutes.”

  “It’s disrespectful,” Carl said.

  “Sorry. No disrespect intended.”

  “You’ve been busy.”

  The shooter nodded. “You’ve been reading my press clippings?”

  “I have. I read where you missed the judge.”

  “It happens,” the shooter said. “Damages my reputation.”

  “Now the security around the judge’s kid is airtight. Nothing can happen to him.”

  The shooter nodded his agreement. “Then, you have my money?”

  Carl just pointed to a briefcase sitting on a carton, and the shooter asked, “That’s it?”

  Carl nodded. “That’s it.”

  The shooter walked over to the briefcase, pressed the buttons on the side, and the click indicated that it was open. He lifted the lid and there was the money, stacks of hundreds, neatly bound with rubber bands.

  It was the most beautiful and last sight of his life.

  Finally, on the seventh day of what is feeling like a ridiculous lunch stakeout, the text comes from Sam.

  “He’s in the restaurant.”

  I am in a Starbucks across the street, the same location I have been in for the last seven days. I’m not sure if Guinness tracks it, but I believe I have broken the world’s weekly indoor caffeine consumption reco
rd.

  Next it is my turn to text; the time is 1:11 and my text says I will call the suspect’s cell phone at 1:15. We’re relying on our cell phone clocks, so we should be synchronized, or at least very close to it. I don’t have to tell them that I will text again fifteen seconds before my call.

  Fifteen seconds before 1:15 I text the warning and then dial the suspect’s number on a burner phone that Sam provided. This way there will be no caller ID showing up. The hope and plan is that he will answer the phone, and one of our team will see him and take his picture. I will hang up, so he shouldn’t be too suspicious.

  I don’t hit send until the exact moment that my cell phone digital timer says 1:15.

  And then I wait.

  It takes twenty seconds, but it feels like an hour and a half. Laurie’s text says, “I got him.”

  Then, from Hike, “Me too.”

  I respond with, “Have a nice lunch.” As we had previously discussed, I want them to finish their lunch, not all get up abruptly and walk out. The suspect may find it curious that he got a hang-up call as it is, and I don’t want him to think anything in the restaurant is suspicious.

  We’ve changed our plan; Marcus is not there to follow the suspect. At this point it’s unnecessary; we know where he lives and hopefully pretty soon we’ll know who he is, so we can follow him at any time we want.

  Over the course of the next half hour, Laurie, Edna, and Hike leave the restaurant and head for my office, where they will meet up with Sam. I’m still in Starbucks sucking down lattes, waiting for Willie and Sondra to leave, but an hour goes by, and they are still not out.

  I hope nothing has gone wrong and that they just want to finish their pasta.

  Finally, after another interminable twenty minutes, I see them leave the restaurant. I leave the Starbucks and head for the office; I can hear sloshing noises in my stomach.

  We arrive at the office at the same time. When we open the door, Laurie says, “We were getting worried about you.”

  “Sorry,” Sondra says. “Willie had an idea.”

  I don’t like the sound of that, but based on their demeanor it doesn’t seem like whatever the idea was degenerated into a disaster. “What was the idea?” I ask, cringing.

  Sondra takes a cloth napkin out of her pocket and reaches into her pocketbook with it. She pulls out a water glass, carefully holding it by the top edge. I’m assuming it came from the restaurant. “This should have his fingerprints on it.”

  “That was his?” Laurie asks, and doesn’t wait for the obvious answer. “Is there any chance he saw you take it?”

  Willie shakes his head. “He was out of the restaurant already. Nobody saw me take it. I’m pretty good at this; I had a lot of practice back in the day.”

  “That’s great,” I say, and I mean it. If we don’t get prints off the glass, there might be DNA. Either way, there is no downside, and potentially substantial upside. “Who’s got photographs?”

  Laurie and Hike both say that they do, and I have them email them to me. Fortunately they are both of the same guy; it would have been just our luck to have two people coincidentally answering phone calls at the same time.

  I’ve never seen the guy before, and neither has anyone else in our group. He looks tall and heavyset, though it’s hard to gauge his dimensions in the photographs, especially because he is sitting down.

  Sam goes to his office to print out the photographs. With any luck we’ll have an ID on him before long, and with more luck he won’t turn out to be a pastor in from Kansas for a religious convention. As it is, we’ve put in a lot of effort to ID this guy, when the extent of his involvement, as far as we know, is a thirty-eight-second phone call to Karen McMaster.

  I’m hoping that whoever he is, he’s listed in the phone book under “murderers.”

  “It’s bad enough talking at Charlie’s, but at least there you buy the beer and burgers,” Pete says. “Now you’re bothering me at work?”

  I’ve come to see Pete at the precinct; I called and told him I need his help. Not surprisingly, he’s reacting with characteristic warmth and sensitivity.

  “If you help me on this, it’s possible you will wind up making a legitimate arrest of an actual criminal, which would bring your total to one.”

  He seems to notice for the first time that I have brought a shopping bag with me. “What is that? I hope it’s not your lunch, because you’ve only got five more minutes.”

  “Okay, I’ll try and make this simple enough for even you to understand, which will be a challenge. There’s a person that I believe to be a perpetrator of a crime.” I take out the photos and put them on the desk. “Here are photos of him.” Then I take out the glass, handling it carefully. “And I believe his fingerprints are on this glass.”

  “You’ve got a picture and a print? I’ll call the SWAT team; let’s go shoot him.”

  “I’m serious, Pete. If you can find out who it is, I believe it will be a very good thing for the society you are sworn to protect. If it turns out that I’m wrong, then no damage has been done.”

  “You going to tell me what it’s about?”

  “Once you tell me who it is.”

  “You’re a pain in the ass.”

  There is a knock on the door and an officer opens it. “We need to talk,” he says to Pete.

  Pete goes outside with him, leaving me alone in the office. He comes back less than a minute later. “Meeting’s over,” he says.

  “What’s the matter?”

  He thinks for a moment, then says. “The media knows already, so it can’t hurt to tell you. A body has been found in a warehouse off Market Street.”

  “Will you take care of this?” I ask, pointing to the photo and glass.

  He seems about to say something insulting, then decides he has no time. Instead he picks up the phone. “Get forensics in here … there’s a water glass on my desk. I want them to get prints off of it.”

  “And the photos?” I ask.

  He nods. “When I get back. Can I go now?”

  “Thanks, Pete.”

  “Yeah. Let’s do this again real soon.”

  On the way back home, I hear on the radio the news of the murder. There are very few details being made public other than the location of the warehouse and the fact that the victim was an adult male.

  When I get home I suggest that Laurie, Ricky, and I go out to dinner. Jury selection starts tomorrow, which means I am about to go into what I call the “trial zone,” from which there is no escape.

  We go to a Japanese restaurant in Fort Lee where they cook the food at your table. Ricky loves it, particularly when the chefs display showmanship with the use of their knives. It’s a nice break and one that I certainly needed.

  When we get back I take Tara and Sebastian for their walk and settle into the den to go over the trial documents again. Unfortunately, no matter how many times I read them, they don’t get any better.

  Jury selection is the part of a trial that I most dislike.

  Actually, that’s not completely true; waiting for the verdict is the aspect I hate the most. But the time on verdict watch is passive, so there is nothing I can do. Of the parts of a trial that I can impact, jury selection is the worst.

  It’s a crapshoot; it always has been and it always will be, no matter how vigorously so-called jury selection experts try to inject science into it. So I’m never confident, nor am I pessimistic.

  And the worst part is that there is no positive or negative reinforcement until the end of the trial. The truth is that I can speculate, but I really don’t know how I did in jury selection until the dreaded verdict watch is over.

  Most of the people in the courtroom share my dislike of the process. I’m sure the opposing counsel feels similarly to me, and the other members of the court, like the judge, bailiff, and court clerk, have to be bored to death.

  The citizens in the jury pool fall into two categories. Most of them don’t want to be there and are thinking of some way to pr
event being chosen. The ones who do want to be there must spend all their time trying to figure out how not to get excused, so that is probably stressful.

  The only person who absolutely always likes the process is the defendant. That is because he or she has been stuck in jail for a pretty long time, and that can get rather boring. The courtroom atmosphere is live theater and serves to demonstrate that somebody is finally paying attention to him.

  This time the selection mercifully takes only two days. We wind up with an evenly divided gender split, and a diverse racial group. I’m happy with it, or I’m not … I’ll let you know.

  I haven’t heard anything from Pete regarding the photograph or fingerprint of our cell phone suspect. I know he’s got a lot on his plate dealing with the recent murder, so as a good friend I’ll give him until tomorrow.

  Then, if he still hasn’t gotten me my information, I will never buy the lowlife another beer as long as he lives.

  Tomorrow Tasker and I will be delivering our opening arguments, so I will be preparing tonight. I would guess that I prepare less than most lawyers in that I absolutely never script anything out. I know all the points I want to cover, but I want to do so in a way that sounds spontaneous.

  Spontaneous, I’ve come to understand, sounds sincere. And as some wise man once said, if you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made.

  By eleven o’clock I’m ready to go to bed, and then the phone rings. It’s the assistant warden of the jail. “You should get down here,” he says. “There’s been a medical incident concerning your client.”

  I rush down to the jail and am directed to the medical ward. The doctor on call, Dr. Diane Ranes, comes out to see me. “I guess the best way to describe it is a psychological episode,” Dr. Ranes says. “In layman’s terms, he freaked out. It’s not uncommon with his condition; I’m not sure if he has been taking his medication regularly, but it’s more likely the stress of the impending trial contributed to it.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Started throwing things in his cell, screaming, clawing at the bars. Fortunately we were able to subdue him and administer a sedative. We’ll increase the Xanax dosage, at least in the short term, but we don’t want to overdo it and turn him into a zombie.”