Deck the Hounds--An Andy Carpenter Mystery

by David Rosenfelt

  “Lieutenant, you were the lead detective on the McMaster murder case?”

  He nods. “I was.”

  “Once you got the DNA results on the hat and found the ring in Mr. Carrigan’s locker, were you confident that you had identified the killer?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you stopped investigating?” I ask.

  “I wouldn’t say stopped, but we just covered a few final bases. Once we have enough to confidently charge someone, we tend to move on. We don’t recommend charges lightly.”

  “I’ve often heard that the first person police always consider in murder cases is the spouse. Is that true?”

  “Every case is different, but certainly we attempt to rule the spouse out,” he says.

  “Did you rule the spouse, meaning Karen McMaster, out in this case?”

  “We had no evidence to tie her to the crime. But I would say it was more a case of ruling this defendant in, than ruling her out.”

  I nod as if now I understand. “I see. So you had this compelling evidence that Mr. Carrigan committed the crime. Did you ever discover how he got out to Short Hills?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ever discover what he did with the money and jewels that were stolen?”

  “No, it was a long time until Mr. Carrigan was found and arrested. It seemed as if he had disappeared … successfully gone into hiding.”

  “And in fact he had, correct? He was homeless, with no address, no driver’s license, no car, correct?”

  “Yes. As it turned out, apparently so.”

  I feign surprise. “Apparently so? You didn’t restart, or really continue, your investigation after he was found?”

  “No.”

  “So you never sought to learn how he got out to Short Hills?”

  “No.”

  “You never checked rental car records for that time?”

  “No.”

  “Did you think he hired a limo?”

  Tasker objects and Hatchet sustains and admonishes me.

  I move on. “Did you ever finally seek to learn what he did with the money and jewels?”

  “No. It wasn’t necessary.”

  “Did you ever learn that he has been a semi-regular patron of a soup kitchen before and since that night?”

  “No.”

  “Now that you know it, does it give you pause, and cause you to question your investigation?”

  “No.”

  “Because you got your man, no matter what.”

  “We got our man because of evidence.”

  “Mr. Tasker has implied that perhaps Mr. Carrigan had someone to drive him out to Short Hills, and maybe even took off with all the loot. Is that a possibility?”

  “I would say it’s possible.”

  “Now that you see how difficult it would be for Mr. Carrigan to have gotten out there on his own, have you investigated who that accomplice might be?”

  “No.”

  “Lieutenant, do you still work on the police force? Have you retired, and I should be talking to someone else?”

  Tasker objects, and Hatchet tells me that he’s warning me, and will not warn me again.

  “Lieutenant, are you aware that Karen McMaster inherited a fortune worth two hundred and fifty million dollars from her husband?”

  “I knew he was quite wealthy.”

  “In your experience, is that kind of money ever a possible motive for murder?”

  “It certainly can be.”

  I nod. “Certainly can. Might even be worth investigating.”

  Thomas Ogden and his son Chris never missed a chance to go snowmobiling.

  They were among that rare group of people who watched the calendar and dreaded the arrival of spring, because that would mean the end of these outings together.

  They often went into the woods north of Parsippany and snowmobiled along the well-defined trails. It was always incredibly peaceful out there, especially early in the mornings. And right after a snow, when the trails were pristine, it was nothing short of perfect.

  So on this day the Ogdens left their house in Wayne at 6:00 A.M., so as to be there when the sun came up. They’d then spend the next three hours lost in this unblemished white world and be back at home in time for lunch.

  This particular idyllic morning lasted three minutes from the time they boarded the snowmobiles. Chris was the first to see it, and therefore the first to scream. Thomas did the same moments later.

  What they saw was a human body, hung by a rope from a tree.

  They didn’t know it at the time, but the dead man was Chuck Simmons. The sniper had been found.

  They raced back and as soon as they reached an area where they could get cell service, they called 9-1-1. Then they waited for the police to arrive, so they could lead them to the body.

  They led the police on foot to the place where they found it. It took twelve minutes, and once they got there, the police asked them to stay back. So they never got to see the note nailed to the tree.

  It simply said, “My work is done.”

  I have to say that my hunch about the sniper shootings was way off.

  The media is reporting that the hanging death has been ruled a suicide, and that there was a note essentially admitting guilt. I hadn’t thought that a person with such a drinking problem could do that kind of shooting, but maybe he had the incentive to sober up at the prospect of killing those that he wanted to take revenge on.

  Now that Judge Eric Yount, the son of the judge that Simmons believed wronged him, was dead, Simmons apparently decided it was time to check out of this world himself.

  Today’s court session is starting after lunch because a juror has a doctor’s appointment. I’ve decided to hold off on calling Karen McMaster to the stand, and instead will call witnesses that are less important, but that help me paint an overall picture.

  The first one is a forensic cyber investigator named Paul Ness who uses subpoenas to legally do what Sam Willis does illegally. Of course, he’s a lot slower and much more expensive, but he gets the job done and comes off as a very credible witness.

  I take Ness through the work he has done on this case. First, he confirms that no car rental company within five hundred miles has any record of Don Carrigan renting a car the week of the murder, and that in fact Carrigan has no current license that he could have used.

  Then he describes how he has searched for any financial accounts, checking or otherwise, that Carrigan could have used to store any of the money or jewelry taken in the robbery. There is also no record of any pawn shop activity that could be tied to Carrigan or to the jewelry taken.

  Ness also found no large purchases Carrigan might have made, no hotel rooms booked, no apartments rented. Ness concedes it’s impossible to completely research all of that, but expresses doubts, based on his professional opinion, that any such purchases existed.

  Tasker on cross again alludes to the possibility of an accomplice, who drove Carrigan to the murder/robbery scene and then took all the proceeds for himself.

  Ness admits that he cannot speak to that and makes my day when he tells Tasker that if he has the name of such a person, he’d be happy to research it. It exposes the flaw in Tasker’s case; he needs such a person to exist, but has no idea who it might be, and has apparently made little effort to find out.

  As I’m leaving court, I see that there is a message from Sam Willis to call him, so I do so. “Andy,” he says, “I’ve been checking the GPS records on Ganady’s phone for the past couple of months, like you asked.”

  “And?”

  “And I found something.”

  Sam has a habit of drawing out his revelations, but they usually are significant. “I need to show you; it will help me make sure I’m right.”

  “So bring the records to the house.”

  “No, I really need to show you. I need to take you to the places.”

  “Is this important, Sam? I have to get ready for court tomorrow.”

  “It couldn
’t be more important, Andy.”

  “Okay. I’ll meet you at the house and we’ll go from there.”

  When I get home, both Laurie and Sam are waiting for me.

  Ricky is having a sleepover tonight at his friend Will Rubenstein’s house, and Laurie says she is going to go with us.

  “Did he tell you what’s going on?” I ask, referring to Sam.

  She nods. “He did.”

  “Does someone want to fill me in?”

  She shakes her head. “Better you should see it fresh. Just bear with us.”

  So we get in Sam’s car and drive to downtown Passaic. Twenty minutes later, Sam pulls into a five-story parking lot. It’s one owned by the city and is free, to encourage people to patronize nearby stores and restaurants. Passaic is a bit different from Manhattan.

  “We’re parking here?” I ask.

  “No,” Sam says.

  “Yet here we are in a parking lot.”

  Sam wends his way up to the fifth and top floor, which represents the rooftop of the building. The floor is empty except for three cars, which have so much soot on them they could be abandoned. He drives to the far left of the lot and parks.

  “Time to get out,” Laurie says.

  “This is fun,” I say.

  We walk to the edge of the roof, which has a four-foot wall preventing us from falling down to the street. “Take a look,” Laurie says, pointing.

  “I’m looking,” I say, but I still don’t know what they’re talking about.

  “Follow my finger,” she says, and puts it in front of my face, pointing slightly to the left.

  “Holy shit,” I say, as the truth hits me. About three short blocks from the end of her finger is the restaurant that Ronald Lester, the lawyer who represented Chuck Simmons’s wife, walked out of when he was shot.

  “You can say that again,” Laurie says.

  But I don’t. Instead I say, “Ganady was here? At the time of the shooting?”

  “No, two days before,” Sam says. “But we’re not finished with our field trip yet.”

  “Let’s cut it short, Sam. Tell me what we’re going to find.”

  He nods. “Okay. Ganady, or at least his cell phone, was present where every sniper shooting took place. But never at the time of the shooting; it was anywhere from two to four days beforehand.”

  “He had to be scouting out the locations,” Laurie says. “Most likely for someone else to execute the kills.”

  I turn to Sam. “You’re sure of this? You’ve been to the other locations?”

  He nods. “I can show you if you want. But I’ve checked them out, just like here.”

  I believe Sam, as does Laurie, and neither of us thinks it’s necessary to visit each scene. Instead we have him drive us home, so we can talk it over and figure out what the hell this means.

  On the way I call Hike and tell him to get a subpoena for the cell phone GPS records of Ganady’s phone, so we can get legally what Sam has already gotten illegally. I don’t know if I’ll have any use for it, never mind need it, but it just instinctively feels like something we should have.

  Sam drops us off and Laurie and I go into the den. “Glass of wine?” she asks.

  I nod. “Better make it a double.”

  We sit down and Laurie says, “Let’s start with what we know. We know that Ganady and Vinson called Karen McMaster, we know that Ganady killed the guy in the warehouse, and we know that Ganady was at the locations where the sniper shootings took place. And we know that Carrigan is innocent.”

  “Agreed,” I say. “Too bad the list of things we don’t know is longer. Is it possible that the McMaster murder and the sniper shootings are connected?”

  “Only if Simmons killed McMaster. Maybe Ganady hired him to do it, and he used the money he got from it to finance his revenge killing spree,” she says.

  “But why would Ganady have scouted shooting locations for him?” I ask. “What would he gain from Simmons killing those people?”

  Laurie doesn’t have an answer for that, so instead she asks another question. “And what would Karen McMaster gain from it? I get that she wants to get rid of her husband; I can certainly identify with that feeling.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  She ignores the question. “But how could she fit in with Simmons?”

  “And while we can’t figure out these new events, we shouldn’t forget the old standbys that we haven’t cracked,” I say. “Namely, what the hell does Carrigan have to do with this, and why was Ernie Vinson trying to kidnap him?”

  “I say we have more wine,” Laurie says.

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  “We call Sergeant Luther Hendricks.”

  Luther Hendricks is a Passaic County cop who arrested Jaime Tomasino on suspicion of perjury when Hatchet ordered that he be taken into custody.

  “Sergeant Hendricks, you’re familiar with Jaime Tomasino?”

  He nods. “I am.”

  “And you are also aware that he gave obviously untrue testimony in this courtroom when he said the defendant had confessed to him?”

  “Yes, I arrested him for that perjured testimony.”

  “Have you interrogated him about that testimony?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is his explanation?”

  “He denies having perjured himself. He claims that he was simply mistaken.”

  “Just to refresh the jury’s recollection, his mistake was in thinking that his good buddy Donald Carrigan was a short black guy?”

  Hendricks smiles at the ridiculousness of it. “That’s correct.”

  “In your experience, Sergeant, what is the reason that witnesses generally lie in this fashion? By this fashion, I mean when they claim that a defendant confessed a crime to them?”

  “Usually it is to get law enforcement to go easy on them. If they are in prison, they’re hoping for parole or a shortened sentence. If they have recently been convicted themselves, then they are hoping for the prosecution to recommend favorable treatment to the judge.”

  “Can any of that be the case here?”

  “No. Tomasino was not on law enforcement’s radar at all. He was not in prison, nor was he charged with a crime.”

  “So in your experience, why might he have lied?”

  Tasker objects, saying that conjecture is not evidence, and is not called for here. I counter by saying I am asking his expert opinion based on his experience, and the jury can assign whatever weight to it that they wish. Hatchet lets him answer.

  “I certainly believe that Tomasino was being paid to lie. His lifestyle improved immeasurably in recent weeks. He went from being homeless and eating in a soup kitchen to dining in nice restaurants and buying fairly expensive clothes. He also was able to rent a house at fourteen hundred per month.”

  “If he was being paid to lie, would you then say he was being paid to incriminate Mr. Carrigan?”

  “Yes. Absolutely.”

  Tasker’s first question is, “Sergeant Hendricks, you have no personal knowledge of why Mr. Tomasino was being untruthful, is that correct?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And other explanations, besides being paid by a third party, are possible?”

  “Anything’s possible.”

  “Thank you. For example, is it possible that Tomasino just craves being in the spotlight and that he thought this would draw attention to himself?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Is it possible he is just a compulsive liar, and does so for the sake of lying, without a sinister motive?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Is it possible that he had another reason we could not right now even guess at?”

  “It’s possible, but whatever that reason is, it allowed him to live an expensive lifestyle.” I couldn’t have scripted a better answer for Hendricks to give. It is so perfect that it removes any need for me to question him on re-direct; I’d rather just leave it there.

  My other witness thi
s morning is Pete Stanton. I only want him to do one thing: to talk about Yuri Ganady. I start by placing into evidence the photograph of Ganady and ask Pete if he knows who he is.

  “Yes, his name is Yuri Ganady. He is Serbian paramilitary. Basically travels the world performing missions for hire.”

  “What is your source of this information?”

  “The FBI.”

  “Do you have any idea what he was doing here?”

  “I believe he committed a murder. I don’t have any proof of that, but it was under investigation. I also do not know his motive. He was a suspect, that’s all.”

  “Who was murdered?”

  “A man named Charlie Keller. Also paramilitary, but American. He was killed in a warehouse here in Paterson.”

  I nod, as if I’m learning something as we go along. “Okay, back to Yuri Ganady. Do you know where he is now?”

  “Physically? No. But that’s not really terribly important, since he’s dead.”

  “How did he die?”

  “He was killed the other night attempting to break into your home.”

  “Thank you. No further questions.”

  Tasker asks Pete the question he’s been asking everyone. “Captain Stanton, are you aware of any connection between Mr. Ganady and this case?”

  “You mean other than he tried to break into the house of one of the lawyers?”

  “Did he do so because of this case?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Thank you. No further questions.”

  I’m going to call Karen McMaster after lunch. She’ll be the most important witness of the trial, at least from our point of view. It’s the last chance we have to create enough reasonable doubt for the jurors to consider a vote for acquittal.

  I still don’t have the slightest idea how Ganady’s apparent involvement with Simmons in the sniper shooting relates to Karen or this case. The good news is that doesn’t matter, at least for this trial. I won’t bring it up and therefore won’t have to advance a theory.

  But I sure as hell would like to know.

  Karen McMaster looks nervous as she takes the stand.

  I’ve made it clear throughout the trial that I am going to be pointing at her as a possible alternative to Carrigan as the killer, and the word has obviously gotten back to her. She’s right to be nervous.