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Frank Silvio checked into the hotel under an assumed name, using fake identification.
It had been so long since he used his real name that he was in danger of forgetting it. The truth was that it had no real meaning for him anyway, since he was never going to be Frank Silvio again.
Frank Silvio, for all intents and purposes, and in the eyes of everyone, was dead.
So Silvio chose to be known to everyone in the operation simply as Mister. That’s how he wanted it, and he had the money, so that’s how it would be. No one he dealt with was about to complain.
The hotel was a Hilton at the Tampa airport. Clean, modern, with a number of amenities that he would never use, other than room service and, of course, wireless internet. He was there for entertainment—a specific entertainment, which he had already arranged for.
He checked in at two o’clock in the afternoon. He had a small bag with him, but did not bother to unpack, since he would not be staying overnight. He also would not be going back out until it was time to leave. Even though he had substantially changed his appearance, Silvio was fairly well-known in this area, and he could not afford to be seen and recognized.
So all he did was order a shrimp cocktail and a steak sandwich; there would be time to eat before the show started at around three thirty.
At precisely that time, he opened the webcam app on his iPad, and the video appeared immediately. It was from a camera on a boat offshore near a town called Wilton Key, Florida, about forty-five miles north of Tampa.
There were four people on the boat, all of whom he recognized. That was no surprise; he had met with three of them in secret earlier that day. He had left them with very specific instructions, which they were now about to follow.
One of the four men was not currently recognizable, mainly because he was in a full diving suit. It was made of neoprene, which meant the helmet was not the old metal kind. But it was airtight and impregnable, which was all that was important. His air supply would come from the hose attached to the processor on the ship. That man’s name was Vincent Grobin.
Silvio watched Grobin as he was helped into the water by the others, who then waited until he reached the desired depth. When enough time had passed, they seemed to hesitate, as if frozen in place, unsure what to do.
It was as if they were waiting for a signal from Silvio, but, of course, while he could see them, they could not see him. It didn’t matter anyway, since he had already told them exactly what to do.
There wasn’t really a hierarchy among the men on the boat, though the unofficial captain was probably Bryce Dorsey. The others looked to him for most things, and this would certainly be no exception.
Dorsey went to the edge of the boat and looked down into the water. Even though the water was fairly clear, there was no way he could see all the way down to where Grobin was, but he certainly knew Grobin was on the end of the air hose.
Dorsey looked toward the webcam, in a silent signal that was both an acknowledgment and a concession. Then he walked over to a table, picked up a knife, and, with a slashing, explosive movement, cut Grobin’s air hose.
No one could see it, but every man on that boat, as well as Silvio, watching from the hotel, knew what had just happened.
The air supply, which was pressuring the suit against the tremendous pressure of the water, was cut off. Grobin’s body was actually crushed and forced upward toward his helmet. Had there been more room, his entire body would have been squashed into his helmet.
But Grobin knew none of that; he died instantly from the depressurization when the tube was cut.
Dorsey once again gave a slight, silent nod to the webcam and Silvio. It had been a difficult act for him to undertake; Grobin was a friend, but he had inadvertently betrayed them and put their operation at risk. Dorsey might have found another way to handle it, but Silvio had the money.
Silvio, for his part, took no great pleasure in what had happened; nor did he feel any regret. It was a business transaction; he and everyone on that boat knew it.
All Silvio did was shut down his iPad, leave the room, and head for the airport.
“Andy, can I talk to you in my office?”
Taken out of context, that question may not sound like a big deal. In context, spoken by Dr. Dan Dowling, it is the most frightening question I have ever heard.
Dowling is my veterinarian, and I am here today because Tara, my wonderful, extraordinary, remarkable golden retriever and closest of friends, has a lump on her side. He had said that it was very likely nothing to worry about, though of course I was and am plenty worried. So I’ve brought Tara here, and she has been in the back getting an aspirate done on the offending lump.
But now he wants to talk to me, and the request was spoken in a very serious tone. And why in his office? I’ve never been in his office; I didn’t even know he had a goddamn office.
I make a decision as I follow him back there. If he says anything negative about Tara’s health, I am going to strangle him right there in the office I didn’t know he had, and then feed pieces of his body to the fish in the aquarium he has in the waiting area.
And that still wouldn’t make us even.
I follow him into the office and see that there is another dog in there, on a leash attached to a drawer handle on his desk. What the hell is going on? Is this a therapy dog designed to ease my pain at what I am going to hear?
The dog is a French bulldog and seems a bit agitated. He can’t be more than twenty-five pounds; if Dr. Dowling thinks this dog will protect him from me, he is sorely mistaken.
“I have a bit of a situation here,” Dowling says. “And I thought you might be able to help.”
He wants my help? What the hell is he talking about?
“What the hell are you talking about? Is Tara okay?”
“What? Oh, she’s fine. But—”
“But what? She’s fine but she’s not fine?” There is a definite possibility that my head is going to explode.
“Andy, she’s really fine. It was a lipoma, just fatty tissue. No need to remove it; no need to do anything. I promise you, she’s fine.”
I feel the tension come out of me in a rush, like when you let the air out of a balloon you’ve just blown up, before tying it shut. I’m expecting my body to be like the balloon and fly wildly around the room. “You scared me half to death,” I say.
“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to. I wanted to talk to you about this dog. His name is Truman.”
I’m guessing that he wants me to find Truman a home, for whatever reason. When I’m not working as a defense attorney, my friend Willie Miller and I run the Tara Foundation, a rescue group named after the dog who only has a lipoma and is fine … really fine.
“What about him?” I ask.
“It’s sort of a long story. Yesterday morning a guy brought him in and spoke to Debra, our new receptionist. She said he was maybe mid-forties, a big guy, somewhat intimidating. He said
the dog’s name was Buster and that he wanted Buster euthanized, but wouldn’t say why.”
“I thought his name was Truman?”
“I’m getting there,” Dowling says. “The guy signed a form authorizing the euthanasia and paid in cash. In those situations, Debra is supposed to find out why the owner wants it done, but as I said, he was somewhat intimidating, and she’s new, so…”
“Is Buster or Truman healthy?” I ask.
“Yes. I ran bloodwork and did a full examination. He’s perfectly healthy, actually well cared for.”
“So give him to us; we’ll easily find him a good home, better than he had with that asshole.”
“It’s more complicated than that. Once the client signs the form and pays, and we accept the money, we have a legal obligation to euthanize the dog.”
“So you’re asking me as a lawyer what to do? Okay, here’s my considered legal advice: don’t kill the dog; give him to us. You can’t kill an innocent, healthy dog. I won’t tell anyone, and I promise I’ll defend you all the way until they strap you into the electric chair.”
He doesn’t smile. “I haven’t gotten to the complicated part yet,” he says. “I tried to get in touch with the man, to get permission to re-home the dog. I knew you could do that easily. The thing is, as best I can tell, he gave a fake name and address.”
“Good. That makes it even easier. Where is the document he signed?”
“In my safe.”
“Would the guy have a copy?” I ask.
“No, we just have the client sign for our own protection, so they can’t say later on that they never authorized it. As long as we have the original, we’re protected. But I still haven’t gotten to the complicated part.”
I’ve now decided that I’m just going to sit, relax, and wait to hear the complications, rather than interrupt. There’s no urgency and no stress; no matter how this conversation ends, Tara is still going to be fine, really fine.
“Truman has a chip in him,” he says. “I scanned it, which is how I know his name is really Truman. It also listed a name, address, and phone number for the owner, which is not the name and address the man who dropped him off wrote down.”
“So the dog is stolen?” I ask.
“I can’t answer that. I tried calling the phone number the chip gave me, which is an Ohio number, but there was no answer.”
“Did you leave a message?”
“I did, but that doesn’t matter. He’s not going to call back.”
“How do you know that?”
“He was murdered Wednesday night. Right here in New Jersey.”
I know it sounds crazy, but a murder was committed less than half a mile from my house two nights ago, and I am only vaguely aware of it. And to make it even stranger, my profession is sort of a criminal defense attorney.
I say “sort of” because I’ve been trying to retire from that profession for quite a while now. I am ready to pull the career plug—actually, more than ready—but I can’t seem to manage it. I have been getting drawn into cases for a variety of reasons, none of which involve a work ethic or a desire to be a productive member of society.
I am independently wealthy, the result of a large inheritance and many of the aforementioned cases, most of which have been lucrative. And since I have never been a huge fan of lawyering, I’d much prefer to stay home with my wife, Laurie Collins; our son, Ricky; our two dogs, the aforementioned Tara and our basset hound, Sebastian; and my TV remote controls.
I have been taking the approach that if I don’t watch the local news or read the local paper, then I won’t know about crimes that are committed. And if I don’t know about those crimes, how can I represent the people accused of committing them?
Yes, I am aware that this reasoning makes almost no sense at all. But it’s been working out for the last three months, so I have not been rocking the boat, or watching the local news, or reading the paper. The main reason I even vaguely know about this particular murder is that Laurie was in bed watching the news when I happened to come out of the bathroom after brushing my teeth. I heard the basics but got out of there without hearing all the details, so I figured I was safe.
The other way I sort of heard about the murder was last night at Charlie’s Sports Bar. I attend on a semiregular basis and sit with my friends Vince Sanders, editor of the local newspaper that I no longer read, and Pete Stanton, captain in charge of the Homicide Division of the Paterson Police Force. Pete investigates the homicides that I don’t let myself read or hear about.
Suffice it to say, all we talk about at Charlie’s is sports.
When I arrived, Pete was not there, a somewhat shocking development. I always pick up the tab for dinner and beer, and Pete would never miss a free meal, no matter what. If I had to guess, he probably doesn’t even have a refrigerator or stove in his house.
When I asked Vince where Pete was, he said, “Something about that murder.” I quickly changed the conversational subject to the Mets, which is only slightly less depressing than murder.
But now that Dr. Dowling has sought my help, I have no choice but to find out what happened. I learned from Vince that Truman’s real owner, who will now and forever be known as a murder victim, is James Haley. He was living in a small house on Thirty-ninth Street in Paterson, New Jersey. I live on Forty-second Street, but also a number of blocks to the south.
The shooting took place inside the house; it is believed that the killer came in through the back door. Neighbors said that Haley had moved in only recently; they believed he was renting the place. They also said he had a dog, and since the dog was missing, it was speculated that he might have run off through the open back door after the murderer left.
Of course, the media has no way of knowing that the dog, a French bulldog named Truman, is sitting in Dr. Dowling’s office.
Haley was from Columbus, Ohio, and is said to have been a documentary filmmaker. His current project was a film about urban blight, which sounds like it would have been a laugh riot.
I love Paterson; I grew up here and will never move. But I have to admit that it would not be out of place in a film about urban blight. In fact, if I were to look deeply into Paterson’s history, I imagine it was actually discovered by a settler named Urban Blight. The idiot son of Nehemiah and Rebecca Blight, Urban set out with his horse and wagon to journey south to Asbury Park, in the hope of meeting Bruce Springsteen’s ancestors.
Urban’s horse, who was clearly the brains of the family, decided that Urban’s was a wagon he did not want to be hitched to and ran off. So Urban was stuck in place, and that place was the region eventually to be known as Paterson.
But my imagination and I digress.
I’ve promised that I’ll help Dr. Dowling navigate this situation; it’s sort of a way to thank him for telling me that Tara is going to be fine … really fine. It’s also not exactly a heavy lift and won’t put much stress on my lawyering muscles, atrophied though they may be.
* * *
In the morning, I call Pete Stanton and leave word that it’s important, so he calls me back in ten minutes. “This better be good,” he says. “I’m a little busy.”
“I have some information about the murder on Thirty-ninth Street the other night.”
“That was fast. We just made the arrest and you’ve already got the kid as a client? You might as well drop him; he can probably pay what you’re worth, but not what you charge.”
“The kid? How old is the guy you arrested?”
“Twenty.”
“What’s his name?” I ask.
“Let it go. I’m telling you, he can barely afford the public defender.”
“What’s his name, Pete? Is it top secret?”
“Joey Gamble.”
“Pete, this could be important. You need to hear what we have to say.”
“‘We’? Who’s ‘we’?”
“My client and I. When can we come in?” I ask.
He sighs an exaggerated sigh. “Come in now.
Let’s get this over with.”
“No good. He’s neutering a dog.”
“I’m not even going to respond to that,” he says. “How about four o’clock?”
“We’ll be there.”
The call came in to Clifton PD at 6:45 A.M.
A neighborhood resident, walking his two dogs in Nash Park, had come upon a body loosely covered with shrubbery. More accurately, his dogs discovered the body, but he was the one who appropriately freaked out and called 911.
The victim, identified as Christopher Tolbert, was a homeless man who had a few minor arrests for vagrancy. A cousin would later come forward and tell the story of how Tolbert’s life had deteriorated after he lost his job and home, and how he cut himself off from his family and friends and took to the streets.
Efforts to intervene had been for naught, and those family and friends had gradually and completely lost touch with him.
No one, including the police, had any idea why Tolbert would have been the victim of what appeared to be a professional killing. A toxicological report came back showing no trace of drugs in the victim’s blood.
A tip line had been set up for information, but nothing credible had come in during the first forty-eight hours, obviously the critical time in any murder investigation.
The police would work the case, but with no clues to go on and no tips to check out, the chance that they would solve it was very small.
Dr. Dowling is nervous.
I know that because when he gets in my car, he says, “I’m nervous.”
He’s not used to dealing with the police, and certainly and fortunately has had no previous experience with any murder investigation.
“Nothing to worry about,” I say. “Just tell Pete what you know and then you’re done with it. You’re not a central player here.”
“I reconfirmed with Debra that there is no chance the guy who dropped Truman off was twenty years old. Which reminds me, what are we going to do about Truman?”
Bark of Night Page 1