Play Dead ac-6

by David Rosenfelt

  “It was a significant system, but survivable. We’ve experienced far worse.”

  Hawpe takes him through the process by which Ferrara determined that Richard’s was the only boat not to heed the warnings, and then did not answer Ferrara’s radio call. When Ferrara could not see any activity on the boat, he made the decision to board it.

  “Please describe what you found when you boarded.”

  He paints a picture of a placid scene, normal except for the lack of passengers. It was when one of his men went down below that Richard was discovered, lying on the floor, a small amount of blood oozing from his head.

  “Was there anything on the floor near Mr. Evans?” Hawpe asks.

  Ferrara nods. “There was. An empty bottle of pills.”

  Ferrara then goes on to describe the emergency medical attention that Richard received. A decision was made to evacuate him by helicopter-risky because of the approaching storm. But it was accomplished, and then the boat was brought back to port to be examined, though at that point no one knew about Stacy Harriman’s disappearance.

  “At what point did you consider this to be a crime scene?” Hawpe asks.

  “From the moment I saw Mr. Evans.”

  Hawpe turns the witness over to me. There will not be much I can do with him; both his actions that night and his testimony today were straightforward and basically correct. But I consider it important to make points with every witness; the jury has to know that there are two sides to this fight.

  “Captain Ferrara, when did you learn of the possibility that there had been someone else on the boat with Mr. Evans that night?”

  “I read about it in the papers; I think it was two days later.”

  “So you found Mr. Evans lying unconscious, with an empty pill bottle nearby and a wound on his head?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And you testified that you immediately considered this a crime scene?”

  “I did.”

  “Suicide being the crime?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would another possibility have been that Mr. Evans had a heart attack and had just taken pills, perhaps nitroglycerine, to counteract it?”

  “I never considered that.”

  “Was there a label on the pill bottle so that you could determine what was taken?”

  “No, there was not.”

  “Any way for you to have known how many pills had been in there?”

  “No.”

  I hand Ferrara a transcript of his radio conversation with Coast Guard command on shore. “Please read the passage where you say that you are treating the boat as a crime scene.”

  He looks at it but knows the answer. “I did not mention that.”

  “You didn’t think it was important?”

  “I considered Mr. Evans’s health to be my first priority.”

  “And mentioning that this might be a crime scene would in some way jeopardize his health?”

  He doesn’t have an effective answer for that, so I move on. “Please read the passage where you instruct the people on shore to have forensics ready to check out the boat.”

  “I did not so instruct them.”

  I feign surprise. “Do you have training in forensics?”

  “No.”

  “Do you at least watch CSI?”

  Hawpe objects, and Judge Gordon sustains. I then take Ferrara through the process by which Coast Guard personnel boarded the boat. A total of nine people did so, including Ferrara.

  “Nine people? How big is this boat?” I ask.

  “Forty feet.”

  “And you and your people had your eighteen feet tromping all over it?”

  “We were very careful not to contaminate the scene.” I frown with disdain at the very thought. “A storm was approaching, so you were in a hurry; your first priority was the man’s health; you had virtually no reason to suspect a crime, but you and your army of men were careful?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you stop what you were doing to put on booties?”

  The jury and most of the gallery laugh at this, which is the reaction I was hoping for.

  “No.”

  Finally, I take him through the bloodstains and ask him why they were not washed away by the rain.

  “One was under cover, and the other was on the bottom of the railing.”

  “That was convenient for you and your crack forensics team, wasn’t it?”

  Before Ferrara can answer, Hawpe objects and Judge Gordon sustains. I let Ferrara off the stand, having accomplished as much as I could with him. Kevin’s nod as I head back to the defense table indicates that he is pleased with the result.

  Judge Gordon adjourns court for the day, and I turn to Richard before they take him away. “You okay?” I ask. Sitting quietly and watching the State of New Jersey attempt to take your life away can’t be easy, even the second time around.

  He grins. “Are you kidding? Compared to what I’ve been doing every day for the last five years, I feel like I just saw a Broadway show.”

  * * * * *

  TOMORROW IS STACY Harriman’s day in court.

  Daniel Hawpe is going to parade a series of witnesses in front of the jury who know nothing about the night of the murder but who will talk about Stacy. It is Hawpe’s way of humanizing the victim and making the jury feel as if they knew her.

  It is a standard and perfectly logical strategy. Human nature is such that the more the jury likes Stacy, the more likely they are to exact revenge on her behalf. Unfortunately, the only one around to get revenge against is Richard.

  For me it should be a relatively easy day. All the witnesses on Hawpe’s list for tomorrow were called during the first trial, so I know what they are going to say.

  The truth is, they aren’t going to say that much. Stacy may have been a wonderful person, but she was not yet well known in the community and seemed to live a very private life. The witnesses will talk about her in positive generalities, but it is clear from the transcript of the first trial that none of them counted her among their close friends.

  As I do every night during a trial, I review every piece of information we have that in any way relates to the next day’s testimony. So tonight I gather everything we have about Stacy, including information from the first trial, notes from my interviews with Richard and Karen, and the material that Sam came up with when he checked her out.

  Sam had described her as relentlessly normal, and there’s nothing here to contradict that. Actually, she seems disconcertingly normal. I’m reading page after page about her, but I don’t have a real sense of who she was.

  Sam’s background check provides some of the facts of her life but not much more. It tells me where she lived before coming here, where she worked, what credit card accounts she had, and how much she owed on them.

  I’ve gone over these things at least five times, but this time something about the credit card records strikes me as strange. Her credit report shows that she owed a total of about $4,500 on three different cards, which is certainly not unusual. The strange part is that the accounts are not listed as closed.

  I call Sam, who, as always, answers on the first ring. I think he keeps his cell phone clipped to his ear so he can be ready. “Hey, Andy,” he says. “What’s up?”

  “I need to talk to you about some of the things you dug up on Stacy Harriman.”

  “Shoot.”

  “I’d rather do it in person; then we can have the reports in front of us.”

  “Charlie’s okay?” he asks.

  “Well, my office has more privacy, but Charlie’s has better beer. Meet you there in fifteen minutes?”

  “You got it,” he says.

  He’s waiting for me when I get there, and once we order I spread out some of the Stacy Harriman pages in front of him.

  “I’ve been going through these reports,” I say, “but they don’t seem to list her credit card accounts as closed.”

  He takes a quick look at them to refami
liarize himself, and then he shrugs. “So maybe nobody called and told them she was dead. That’s not unusual, especially since she wasn’t married. Nobody else was going to be responsible for her debts, so why bother? And Richard wasn’t home to receive the bills; he was in the hospital and then jail.”

  “But these records are current?” I ask.

  “Sure, I got them…,” he says, and then pauses. “Holy shit.” He has just come to the same realization that hit me a few minutes ago, and he looks at the pages more thoroughly to confirm that realization.

  “If nobody reported to these companies that she died, then the accounts would be listed as delinquent,” I say. “By now they would have been closed for nonpayment.”

  He nods his head vigorously as he continues to look at the pages. “And if they pursued it and found out that she had died, they would have closed the accounts anyway. There’s no way they would just be sitting there like this.”

  “Here’s a riddle for you,” I say. “When does a credit card company show no interest whatsoever in money that is owed to them?”

  He looks up. “Never.”

  “Right. Which means that she didn’t owe them a dime. The accounts can’t be real.”

  I ask Sam to look into Stacy’s background again but this time to go much deeper. “I don’t just want her college transcript; I want to know who her teachers were and how often she cut class. I don’t just want her previous address; I want to know where she got her café lattes in the morning.”

  “I’m on it, boss,” he says, getting up. “I’ll start right now.”

  I tell him we can finish our meal and have a beer or two, and he sits back down. I can tell he’s anxious to get going, and I want to get the information as soon as possible, so we eat quickly.

  When I get to the parking lot, I call Laurie in Wisconsin from the car. It takes her five rings to answer; apparently my calls aren’t as important to her as they are to Sam.

  “Andy, I just walked in the door,” she says.

  “You first walk in the door at eight o’clock at night? Where were you? Nightclubbing?”

  “Actually, I was doing paperwork in the office. I just came home to change before going back out. I hate dancing in my uniform.”

  “Before you go, I need your opinion.” I describe to her what I’ve learned-or, more correctly, what I haven’t learned-about Stacy Harriman’s background.

  She listens without interrupting until I finish. Then, “Can you check the other records besides the credit reports more thoroughly?”

  “Sam is starting on that right now. But can you think of an explanation for the credit reports never being updated or closed?”

  She thinks for a moment. “It could always be some kind of mistake. Maybe some computer glitch that froze her records in time. But she is not just anyone; she is a murder victim.”

  “That she is,” I say.

  “So coincidences and mistakes are not to be trusted.”

  “No, they’re not. So what’s your take on it?”

  “If Sam keeps hitting dead ends-and I’ve got a feeling he will-then her background has been created as a deception. And it’s not a deception that she could have pulled off herself.”

  “Right,” I say. “People don’t get to write their own credit reports.”

  “But there are people who can write them for you.”

  “Government people,” I say. “Witness protection program people.”

  “It all fits, Andy. The government has been looking over your shoulder on this from day one. If the victim was someone they were protecting, they would absolutely be interested.”

  “Not if they thought Richard did it,” I say. “If Richard killed her, they’d just cross her off their list and move on.”

  “The strange thing is the time that’s passed, Andy. It’s more than five years later. I don’t know what they could be trying to find out from you or why they took over that highway shooting investigation.”

  I can feel my anger starting to build. “And if we’re right about this, then those bastards let Richard Evans get sentenced to life imprisonment for a murder they damn well knew he didn’t commit.”

  “Let’s first find out if we’re right,” she says, ever logical. “Call me after Sam reports back to you, and I’ll talk to a detective I know in LAPD.”

  In an instant my anger turns to childlike jealousy. “You know a detective in Los Angeles? What’s her name?”

  “His name is Matt Wagner. We worked together on a case about five years ago. We’ve kept in touch.”

  “You’ve kept in touch?” I ask. What could that mean? Physical touch? Emotional touch? There is no level that I can’t sink to.

  “Andy, give it a rest. He’s worked on a couple of witness protection cases. He knows how they operate. I’ll give him the broad picture, no specifics and no names, and see what he says.”

  “Make sure he doesn’t repeat any of it to his wife and six children.”

  “I will,” she says.

  “Good night, Laurie.”

  “Good night, Andy. I love you.”

  “Then come home,” I say, but she has already hung up. I knew that she had, which is the only reason I had the guts to say it in the first place.

  I’m on the way home when my cell phone rings. “Andy, I’m at your house.” It’s Pete Stanton calling, and his tone of voice sends me into an instant panic. “It was broken into, and the alarm company called-”

  “Is Tara all right?”

  “She’s fine. I’m actually petting her while we’re talking. How far away are you?”

  “About ten minutes. What about Reggie?”

  “That’s the other dog?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about him?” he asks.

  “Is he okay?”

  “He was staying at your house?” Pete asks, and the feeling of panic returns.

  “Yes. Isn’t he there?”

  “Andy, there’s just one dog here, and that’s Tara. I’m reading her name off the tag.”

  Within thirty seconds of my getting home, it’s obvious that this was a straight kidnapping.

  Unfortunately, that’s the only thing that is obvious. Pete considers it a professional job, yet they took no money, no possessions, and left Tara alone and unharmed. They came here for Reggie, and they got what they came for. They either knew exactly what he looked like, or read his tag.

  I think this might be the angriest I have ever been, and it takes an extraordinary effort to put aside the anger temporarily and try to understand what could be behind this.

  Based on Pete’s feelings about the professionalism of the thieves, and the precision of the operation, I discount the possibility that it was done by teenagers or vandals. Knowing how important Reggie has been to our case, and the publicity he has received, it’s conceivable that we will get a ransom demand. That is my hope.

  More worrisome is the idea that somehow, Reggie could represent a threat to someone. I don’t want to think about the implications of that.

  I call Laurie and tell her what has happened, though there is no way she can comfort me. The fact that Reggie is out there and I can’t protect him is a constant agony that starts in my head and travels to my gut. And back to my head. And back to my gut.

  Next I call Karen to give her the bad news. She is just as stunned and upset as I knew she’d be, as I am. I promise to call her if I get any new information, but I’m not likely to for a while.

  I’m not going to sleep much tonight. I’m going to think about what to do next, and hug Tara until she gets sick of it.

  * * * * *

  I CALL KEVIN at six a.m. and tell him about Reggie.

  His reaction mirrors mine; he’s angry, confused and helpless. I ask him to join me for a meeting with Richard before court begins.

  I had planned this meeting even before Reggie was taken; I need to talk to Richard about what we’ve learned about Stacy. I don’t usually like to spring things on clients until I have all
the facts, but we’re in the middle of trial, which means we don’t have the luxury of time.

  If Stacy was in the witness protection program, then by definition there were very dangerous people after her. Exactly the kind of people I can point to in front of a jury and say, “They did it, not my client.” So what we will have to do is figure out a way to prove it, and get it admitted as evidence. That will be a difficult assignment, and Kevin is already trying to develop a strategy.

  Richard is stunned and disbelieving when we tell him our theory. What is important is not his skepticism but rather his inability to prove it wrong. He cannot come up with a single fact that would give credibility to Stacy’s supposed background. He never met any of her previous friends, never visited where she had lived, and never knew her colleagues from work. She had always been vague, and Richard hadn’t pressed her, because he suspected emotional trauma from which she was trying to escape.

  Her need to escape may well have been more urgent than that.

  As we are preparing to go into court, I make a decision. “Kevin, you need to go to Minneapolis.”

  He’s obviously surprised. “When?”

  “First flight you can get. You can check out Stacy’s background personally, go to her high school, talk to her neighbors…”

  He’s obviously not thrilled with the prospect. “Well, I could do that… but… I’ve got sinus issues,” he says.

  “Sinus issues?”

  He nods. “They’re inflamed. Taking off and landing could be a problem.”

  “A serious problem?” I ask.

  “Definitely. It could lead to an ear infection. Everything is connected.”

  I turn to Richard, who has been listening to Kevin’s hypochondria with an open mouth. He should be careful about that, because something could enter his mouth and head straight for his ears, since everything is connected.

  “Richard,” I say, “Kevin has a sinus condition that could lead to an ear infection if he takes off and lands. So are you okay spending the rest of your life in jail?”

  He smiles. “No problem.”

  I turn back to Kevin. “Richard is fine with it.”

  Kevin sighs; the battle is lost. “I’ll call you when I get there.”