Outwitting Trolls

by William G. Tapply

  It was Roger Horowitz. “You’re playing hooky today,” he said.

  “Sometimes my business takes me out of the office,” I said. I sounded a little defensive, even to my own ears.

  “Julie seemed annoyed,” he said.

  “You called my office looking for me, huh?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Talked to your poor secretary. Don’t know how she puts up with you. She said she didn’t know where you were or what you were doing, implying that you failed to consult properly with her and that you were behaving as if you were the boss, which, of course, you’re not.”

  “She hates it when I’m not accruing billable hours,” I said. “I imagine she was looking for sympathy.”

  “Sympathy from me?”

  “I know,” I said. “Ridiculous.”

  “So where are you now?” he said.

  “On the road. Maybe a half hour from home. Why?”

  “I need you to come to my office,” he said, “look at something.”

  “When? Is it urgent?”

  “Important, yeah. Urgent? Just, the sooner the better. Today, okay?”

  “I can be there in an hour, maybe an hour and a half.”

  “Good.” He hung up. No “Good-bye,” no “Thank you,” no “Have a nice day.” That was Horowitz. Mr. Charm.

  I drove straight to my parking garage at the Cambridge Street end of Charles Street, where I left my car in the reserved slot that I rented by the month. Then I walked down Charles toward the Beacon Street end and turned up the hill on Mt. Vernon to my town house.

  Henry was pretty happy to see me. He whined and wagged his little stub of a tail and bumped his forehead against my leg. I scootched down for a minute to rub his ears and tell him how much I’d missed him, and then I let him out back.

  I checked the kitchen phone for messages, found none, and went upstairs to change out of my suit. I pulled on a pair of jeans and sneakers, went back downstairs, snagged a bottle of Samuel Adams Cherry Wheat Ale from the refrigerator and a Milk-Bone from the box on the table, and joined Henry out back.

  He was busy peeing on the shrubbery, marking his territory. I sat in one of my Adirondack chairs and took a swig of ale. I wanted to relax for a few minutes before I trudged over to Horowitz’s office.

  After a while, Henry came over and plopped his chin on my leg. I scratched the secret spot on his forehead and gave him his Milk-Bone. He lay down on the brick patio beside me to chomp on his treat.

  I fished out my cell phone and tried Billy’s number.

  He answered on the second ring. “Hey, Pop,” he said.

  I said, “You’re speaking to me, huh?”

  He laughed quickly. “You know I love you, man,” he said, “but sometimes you can be a pain in the ass.”

  “I apologize for that. That’s why I’m calling. To apologize. I was out of line the other night, trying to cram my advice down your throat.”

  “Ah, your heart was probably in the right place,” he said. “It’s just, sometimes you treat me like a little kid, you know?”

  “I do know,” I said, “and sometimes the lawyer in me kicks in when I should just be the father, or the friend, and then I’m likely to treat anybody like a kid. Anyway, I just wanted you both to know, you and Gwen, that I trust your judgment. It sounds like you’ve worked this thing out in a way that makes sense for both of you, and I wish you the best of luck and much happiness. That’s why I’m calling. To say what I should’ve said the other night. Good luck and happiness. And to apologize.”

  “I’m the one who should apologize,” Billy said. “I said things I shouldn’t’ve said. Things I didn’t mean. I’m sorry. You know I respect the hell out of you. I hope you know.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Gwen’s been on my ass to call you,” he said. “She says I acted like a baby. She said I was so immature that I obviously did need my father’s advice, and I think she’s right. So, sorry, man.”

  “So why didn’t you call me?” I asked.

  “I was gonna.” He hesitated. “Shit. Don’t start, okay?”

  “Right,” I said. “Sorry. Look, I think I told you that Alex is coming down this weekend. She’d love to see you again, and meet Gwen. Can you guys come over on Saturday? We can have pizzas delivered. I’ll provide the beer.”

  “Sounds good,” he said. “Hang on. Lemme check with Gwen.”

  I sipped my Sam, and a minute later Billy came back on the phone. “She says good. She says she’d love to spend some time with you when I’m not acting like an asshole. We’re heading out on Sunday, you know. Her to California, me to Idaho. Back to our lives. I’d like to see you again before we go. Alex, too. It’s been a few years since you guys were together, right?”

  “Seven years,” I said.

  “The Evie Banyon years,” Billy said.

  “Yeah, well,” I said. “Evie’s gone now.”

  “And Alex is back. Cool, the way it worked out for you.”

  “It’s not that simple,” I said.

  “I didn’t mean anything,” he said. “I liked Alex, and I liked Evie. Whatever makes you happy, man.”

  “Seeing you and Gwen again will make me happy.”

  After I hung up with Billy, Henry and I went inside. I gave him fresh water, then told him I had to go meet with Roger Horowitz and assured him I’d be back for his dinnertime.

  Then I left the house and walked over the hill, up Mt. Vernon Street and down Joy Street, to Horowitz’s office. Horowitz was with the Suffolk County State Police Detective Unit. Their headquarters were located in the district attorney’s office at One Bullfinch Place in Government Center on the other side of Beacon Hill, which used to be Scollay Square before the old bars and burlesque houses and by-the-hour hotels were razed in the early sixties. The old-timers still referred to the area as Scollay Square and told stories about the aging strippers and tired comics who used to work at the Old Howard. It was just a fifteen-minute walk from my town house.

  I emptied my pockets, endured the mistrustful scrutiny of the big female guard as I passed through the metal detector, and took the elevator to the third floor.

  I poked my head into Horowitz’s office. He was leaning back in his chair at his desk with his jacket hung over the chair back and his necktie pulled loose and his fingers laced behind his neck. He was talking with Marcia Benetti, his partner, who was sitting across from him.

  I waited for a minute, and when neither of them seemed to notice me standing there, I rapped my knuckle on the door frame.

  Horowitz turned his head and looked at me. “Oh,” he said. “You’re here. About time.”

  Benetti lifted her chin and smiled.

  “We were just talking about you,” Horowitz said.

  “I can only imagine,” I said.

  “The case,” he said. “Your client.”

  I said nothing.

  “We ain’t solved it yet,” he said. “In case you were wondering.”

  “Disappointing,” I said.

  He jerked his head at the empty chair next to the one Marcia Benetti was sitting in.

  I went into the office and sat down. “So what do you know?” I asked.

  “What do you know?” he asked.

  “Me?” I asked. “Not much. Nothing I can share with you.”

  “Too bad.” He looked at Benetti. “In the spirit of cooperation,” he said, “and because eventually we’ve gotta disclose what we got anyway, why don’t you go ahead and fill him in.”

  “You told him about that matchbook, right?” she asked Horowitz.

  He nodded.

  She opened the manila folder that was on her lap, glanced at the papers in it, and then turned to me. “The ME didn’t come up with anything new and exciting,” she said. “TOD is between seven and nine that night, just as we figured. Two stab wounds, one to the heart and one to the abdomen. The one to the heart killed him almost instantly. He’d eaten roast beef, green beans, baked potato with sour
cream, and green salad, drunk one, possibly two martinis, including olives, within an hour or two of his death, consistent with attending a banquet, which several witnesses confirmed that he did. Forensics found dozens of random fingerprints, including those of your client, human hairs, fabric traces, other minutiae, all the stuff you’d expect from a hotel room, some of which matched up with the victim and some with your client, and a lot of which they couldn’t match up with anybody. Hotel staff, previous guests, repairmen. Who knows? We get some suspects, we can maybe make some matches. They sent some stuff out for DNA testing, which’ll take a few days to get back.” She closed the folder and looked up at me. “Nothing to exonerate your client, in other words.”

  “Nothing to implicate her, either,” I said.

  Benetti smiled. “Right. Nothing new to implicate her. Not yet. We’re trying.”

  I smiled. “Of course you are. What about the murder weapon?”

  “It wasn’t recovered,” she said. “The ME said it was serrated, thin blade, five inches long, consistent with the hotel steak knives.”

  “Of which there was an abundant supply on the room-service trays up and down the corridors,” I said. “Killer could’ve grabbed one, used it on Ken Nichols, rinsed it off, and put it back on one of those trays.”

  “Forensics took all the knives that were still there on the trays in the hallway for evidence, tested all of them.” She shrugged. “None was the murder weapon. At this point, that’s a dead end.” She closed the folder on her lap. “That’s about it for the forensics.”

  “What about drugs?”

  Benetti shook her head. “They found nothing in his system except the alcohol.”

  “Did they test for ketamine?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Negative.”

  I looked at Horowitz. “You said you had something to show me?”

  “Yeah, I do.” He took a manila folder off the top of a pile of papers on his desk, opened it, and slid out some six-by-eight photographs. He spread them out on the desk, facing me. “Whaddaya think?” he asked.

  There were eleven photos in all. Some were overexposed, some underexposed, some sharply focused, some fuzzy. Each of them showed a bearded man. Some head-and-shoulder shots, some taken from a greater distance. The subjects ranged in age, I estimated, from midthirties to about seventy. Some had dark beards, some gray, some white. Some neatly trimmed, some bushy. Some of the men were bald; some had thick heads of hair.

  None of them was the guy who’d shot Ken Nichols with his index finger the night I’d been there.

  I looked up at Horowitz and shook my head. “The guy I saw was about fifty. Dark beard with gray in it, receding hairline. Ken called him Clem. None of these guys looks anything like him. This is all you’ve got?”

  “What we pulled off the hotel surveillance cameras, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. When the animal doctors were there. All the bearded guys we could find. I think I already told you there was nobody named Clem registered there.”

  “Clem could’ve been a nickname,” I said.

  “If so,” said Horowitz, “no help whatsoever.”

  “Well,” I said, “the guy I saw was there Friday night, but he’s not here in your photos.”

  “Well, damn,” he said.

  “He managed to avoid the cameras,” I said. “Maybe he did that on purpose.”

  “Not hard to avoid those cameras if you were aware of them,” said Horowitz. “Plus, half of ’em weren’t even operating.”

  “Take another look at the photos, Mr. Coyne,” said Benetti.

  I shrugged, took another look, and shook my head. “Nothing even close,” I said. “I asked my client if she knew of somebody named Clem, but she came up empty. Sorry.”

  “Me, too,” said Horowitz. “I’d’ve liked to talk to that guy.” He glanced at Benetti, then pulled open one of his desk drawers, reached in, and took out a DVD in a plain paper sleeve. “We got something else for you.” He pushed himself out of his chair. “Come on. Follow me.”

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  I followed Horowitz and Benetti down the hall to a small conference room. It was furnished with a rectangular wooden table, half a dozen wooden chairs, and four television sets lined up side by side on a long shelf against one wall.

  “Sit down,” Horowitz said.

  I sat.

  Benetti remained standing. She leaned against the wall behind my right shoulder, as if she wanted to keep an eye on me.

  Horowitz slipped the disc into one of the television sets, picked up a remote control, and came over and sat beside me. “We got some stuff from two different security cameras at the Beverly Suites Hotel,” he said. “For your viewing pleasure, but mainly in the hope that you can help us out, we copied the relevant parts onto this disc. Ready?”

  “Fire away,” I said.

  He pressed a button on the remote, and a fuzzy black-and-white picture appeared on the screen. I recognized the area in the lobby of the hotel by the front desk. In the lower right corner of the screen was the date—the Saturday night four days earlier when Ken Nichols was killed. The time ticked along by the second. It showed 10:32:17 P.M., and counting.

  People were moving jerkily in and out of the picture. After a minute or so, Horowitz said, “There.” He paused the picture. “See? There, in the hoodie.”

  I saw what he saw. It was a figure wearing a dark sweatshirt with the hood covering his head. He looked like he was headed for the front entrance. From the angle of the camera, his face was hidden.

  I recognized him by his hoodie and his baggy jeans and his white sneakers, and by the way he moved, and by his general body shape. He was young and slender and not very tall. His movements were quick and alert, like some wild prey species that thought he was being stalked by a big predator.

  He could have been Wayne Nichols.

  He could have been a million people.

  “Yes,” I said. “That looks like him. The guy I chased down the corridor. Same size, same clothes. Not sure what good that’s going to do you. Did you get a shot of his face?”

  “Hang on,” said Horowitz. He fast-forwarded the disc, and when he stopped it, the picture came from a different camera. It was fixed on the entrance area in front of the hotel where taxis and limos and shuttle buses and private vehicles were picking up and dropping off guests. The time at the bottom of the screen was 10:36:44 P.M.—immediately after the previous sequence.

  “There,” Horowitz said after a minute or two. “There he is.”

  The hooded figure stepped into the picture from the bottom left corner. He stood there on the sidewalk with his back to the camera, pulled a cell phone from his pants pocket, pecked out a number on it, and put it to his ear. His conversation lasted less than a minute. Then he snapped the phone shut and stuck it back into his pocket.

  A few minutes later—the digital time on the screen read 10:42:14 P.M.—a black SUV pulled up to the curb, and the guy in the hoodie went over, opened the door, and started to slide in.

  Horowitz paused it there, with the SUV’s passenger door open and our subject just bending to get in. His hood had slipped to the side, and half of his face was visible.

  “See that?” asked Horowitz.

  “I see part of his face,” I said. “It’s pretty fuzzy. Can’t you enhance it or blow it up or something?”

  “Who, Roger?” asked Benetti. “You kidding? He can barely work the remote.”

  “Ha,” said Horowitz. “I can fast-forward this sucker like a pro.”

  “Somebody should be able to sharpen that image,” I said. “On TV they do it all the time.”

  “This ain’t CSI,” Horowitz growled. “Just take a look at the guy’s face for me and tell me if you recognize him, if he’s somebody you can identify.”

  It wasn’t Wayne, I could see that. This face was rounder than Wayne’s, and unlike Wayne’s, this one had no black scruffy beard growing on it.

  I tried to conjure up th
e image of the face I’d seen in the black SUV in front of Wayne’s house, but that had been just a quick glimpse, and it hadn’t stuck in my memory.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think I ever saw this guy before. I don’t recognize him.”

  “Well, shit,” said Horowitz.

  “What about the driver?” I asked. “Did the camera get a glimpse of him?”

  “Don’t think so,” he said. “Keep looking.”

  He hit the play button, and on the screen the guy in the hoodie slipped into the car, which then began to pull away from the curb. At no time did the face of the driver show itself.

  “Wait,” I said. “Pause it.”

  He hit the pause button.

  “Isn’t that a Lincoln Navigator?”

  “Yep,” said Horowitz. “Black or dark blue, I’d say. This year’s or last year’s model.”

  “Can you read the plates on it?”

  “We tried,” he said. “Just too blurry. They got mud on them, and the light’s bad. We’ve got our techs working on it. We should maybe be able to get a partial read on it, at least.”

  I took out my wallet and found the business card where I’d jotted down the plate numbers from the Lincoln Navigator that stopped in front of Wayne’s house when I was there. I handed it to Horowitz. “See if these match those.”

  He took the card and frowned at it. “What’s this?”

  “The plate numbers from a Navigator I saw today, looks like that one on your tape.”

  “Where was this?” he asked. “Who does the vehicle belong to?”

  “Where I saw it,” I said, “I’m not prepared to say. “Who it’s registered to, you can look that up, I know that.”

  “Well, at least you could—?”

  “Look,” I said. “I don’t want to get ahead of myself here. If this plate doesn’t match that one there at the hotel, then it’s irrelevant.”

  “You withholding evidence, Coyne?” asked Horowitz.

  “I think this would actually be called sharing evidence,” I said. “Consistent with protecting my client’s privileged status, of course.”

  “Sure,” he grumbled. “Privileged. Of course.”