Muzzled

by David Rosenfelt

  “Oh, yeah. I saw them leave. Mr. Vogel even stopped in here to pay his rental fee before they left.”

  “Rental fee?” Laurie asks. “Is that paid in advance?”

  Dina nods. “Yup. It’s due the first of the month and is good for that month.”

  This is of some significance and makes me feel a bit better about our client. He had no reason to pay a fee for the next month if he was planning to blow up the ship that day. Of course, he might have done it to make people come to the same conclusion we are making. But on balance it’s helpful.

  “Was he acting strangely in any way?” I ask. “Did you notice anything unusual?”

  “No. He was in a good mood, smiling and stuff. He always seemed like a nice guy.”

  “Did you talk with his two friends?”

  She shakes her head. “No, but I saw them.”

  “Would other people have seen them as well?”

  “Sure; this place is always crowded. The police came and talked to a lot of people, including me.”

  We could go around asking people if they were here that day and saw anything, but it would not be a good use of our time. We’re in the dark as to who to actually talk to; the discovery documents will be a road map in that regard.

  I’m sure the cops have a number of people who can testify that Vogel boarded the Doral. Dina was able to, and if that day was anything like today, Vogel and his friends would have been exposed to many others, as Dina said.

  “I’m sure they can place him on that boat,” Laurie says.

  I nod. “No doubt. But the bottom line is that it doesn’t matter; he was, in fact, on the boat and we are not going to argue otherwise.”

  “What are we going to argue?”

  “Beats the hell out of me.”

  We head to Loveladies, a small town on the other end of the island. Vogel said he came ashore there in his dinghy. He told us he came to a small pier at a private home and left the dinghy there. It’s impossible for us to know which home and which pier, so we just look around to get the lay of the land.

  The cops no doubt know which house, and they certainly must have the dinghy. It will serve to help prove their case that Vogel was on the boat and bailed out.

  All that’s left for us to do is stop at Harvey Cedars Shellfish Company on the way back. I have the crab cakes and Laurie has a lobster roll.

  Definitely the highlight of the trip.

  For two people, the news that Alex Vogel was alive represented an absolute disaster.

  Charlie Phillips and Orlando Bledsoe had been positive he was dead; there simply was no way he could have survived the explosion. They hadn’t gone down to the bottom level of the boat because if Vogel was waiting there with a gun, they would have been sitting ducks.

  So they set the charge and detonated it remotely. They knew how powerful it was and had seen the media reports afterward. None of the bodies had been recovered, and none would be.

  Vogel could not be alive, unless he hadn’t been on the boat in the first place.

  But he was alive; that much was now certain. His mug shot was in the paper. There was no accompanying explanation for how he survived, and in truth, to Phillips and Bledsoe it didn’t matter. Their fate was sealed with the news of Vogel’s survival.

  The worst part was that they had lied. They told their employer that Vogel was dead and had embellished the story. They were not about to say that they had feared looking for him at the bottom of the boat, so they said he was shot and killed with the others. They couldn’t now claim he wasn’t on the boat when they had already sworn otherwise.

  When weeks had gone by with nothing to question their certainty and their story, Phillips and Bledsoe thought they were in the clear. They had made a great deal of money for the assignment, more than triple what they had ever made before. They started to spend it, living the good life.

  Once the news came out, continuing to live any life at all seemed a long shot.

  Their employer wouldn’t come asking for an explanation because none could be acceptable. Phillips and Bledsoe were sent on a job and paid well for it. It was crucially important, and they had repeatedly claimed it was accomplished.

  It wasn’t accomplished.

  They lied.

  End of story.

  They would be prepared, but it wouldn’t matter. There was no way to know who was coming or when. They also had no idea where or how it would happen. Anyone they knew could be their killer, so no one could be trusted.

  And because anyone and everyone represented possible danger, there was no way to go on the offense. Phillips and Bledsoe could only prepare as best they could for the inevitable, knowing it would not be enough. They could ward off one attempt, or maybe two, but their enemies would never stop coming and would ultimately succeed.

  Of course, they were right.

  The bodies of Charlie Phillips and Orlando Bledsoe were found in Pennington Park, each with a single bullet fired into the back of his head.

  The police immediately understood that these were professional killings. As such, there were not likely to be clues to point them to the killer, and none were found.

  Hike was right; I’ve had more fun at rectal exams than I’m having reading the discovery.

  My hope had been that the prosecution’s case was based on a belief that Vogel escaped from the boat and went into hiding, then didn’t reveal himself even after it was publicly obvious that he was presumed dead. Such actions would certainly be taken as consciousness of guilt, and that can be damning in itself.

  That will be a key theory that they will advance. Unfortunately, they have much more.

  In addition to witnesses placing Vogel and his two colleagues at the pier and boarding the boat, two of the witnesses also heard a heated argument between them.

  As expected, the abandoned dinghy has been found, identified as Vogel’s, and confiscated. That they found it is not in itself significant; once it was known that he was on the boat, he had to get to shore somehow.

  The key facts are where it was found and Vogel’s actions afterward. He knows his way around the area, and the dinghy had a motor. He could have navigated it toward the pier where he kept his boat, where people would have been able to help him. Instead, he went far out of his way to land where there would be much less chance of his being seen.

  Then, when one has escaped death in an explosion where two others died, the normal, innocent thing to do would be to get to a phone and call the police. Vogel, instead, seems to have gotten to a car-rental place on the mainland, where he rented a car. My guess is he hitchhiked over there, but I haven’t confirmed that with him yet.

  The police have all this information, plus the knowledge that car-rental offices on the island itself were open that Vogel chose not to use. That he passed them by and instead rented one from a place off the island speaks, in the minds of the police and prosecutors, to his wanting to be difficult to trace.

  Laurie comes into my office while I’m reading through this, and I update her. She says, with uncharacteristic understatement, “That’s pretty bad.”

  “You think? Because I haven’t told you the worst part yet.”

  “Uh-oh. Let’s hear it.”

  “Vogel was a marine; he fought in Iraq. Guess what his specialty was?”

  “Munitions.”

  “Bingo. And guess what they found in his basement?”

  “Bomb-making equipment?”

  “Not quite. There were traces of explosives; military grade. The kind that was used to blow up the boat.”

  “This was his house where they found it, or the place he’s been hiding since the explosion?” she asks.

  “His house. It was broken into after the story broke about the accident. Apparently one of those ghoulish situations, where people rob the homes of the recently deceased, sometimes during their funerals. He was presumed dead by the media at the time. While the police were investigating the break-in, forensics picked up the explosive traces.”

/>   “They might have suspected all along that he planted the bomb himself. They would have considered it a possible murder-suicide, but once they found the dinghy, they would have known better.”

  “As bad as this is, it could have been worse,” I say.

  “How?”

  “They could have found a signed confession, or a diary in which he promised to kill those two people and then convince Andy Carpenter to represent him.”

  “Maybe he has an explanation for everything.”

  “I’m looking forward to hearing it.”

  The phone rings and Laurie answers it. She listens for a moment, then says, “Yes, he’s been reading them. Just a second; he’s right here.” She holds out the phone. “It’s Hike.”

  Hike has been at his house reading his copies of the discovery documents. Even if an ironclad alibi for Vogel was in them, Hike would find a way to view it in a negative light.

  I don’t want to talk to him about it; I’m miserable enough on my own. “Tell him I’m not in.”

  She covers the phone. “I just told him you were right here.”

  “Tell him that you mistook someone else for me.”

  She smiles. “Who?”

  “A passing, handsome stranger.”

  “I wish,” she says wistfully. Then, “Take the phone.”

  I have no choice, so I do. “Hello, Hike. Feeling upbeat today?”

  “Our client is going to the electric chair.”

  “New Jersey doesn’t have an electric chair, Hike.”

  “If they’ve read through this discovery, then I’ll bet they are wiring one up right now. High voltage.”

  “Try not to mention that to the judge during the trial.”

  “We’re going to trial with this?” Hike makes no effort to hide his incredulousness. “The jury will be back before lunch.” Then, “You must see how bad this is. Wait a minute, I am talking to Andy Carpenter, the lawyer, right?”

  “Nope. This is a handsome, passing stranger.”

  I can handle a defense in one of four ways, and this case is no exception.

  One way is to not take on the client at all, but that boat has clearly, and sadly, already sailed. Or, to make it more relevant to the current situation, that boat has already exploded.

  Another way is to plead it out. That is of course up to the client. He can often get a lesser sentence in return for pleading guilty and avoiding a trial. I will discuss that possibility with Vogel, though I doubt he will go for it, and I doubt the prosecution’s offer will be generous. With their case, they have little reason to be.

  That leaves the two real-world possibilities. One is to demonstrate conclusively that Vogel did not, in fact could not, have committed the crime.

  That’s going to be a tough one. Three people were on that boat, and Vogel is the only one left alive. Afterward he acted exactly as a guilty person would act. Throw in the explosives traces in his house and his arguing with the deceased, and there is not going to be a magic bullet that exonerates him.

  That leaves option four, which is to find out who actually killed Mellman and Giarrusso and then set the explosive. I am not ruling out the possibility that Vogel is in fact guilty of the crime, but I accomplish nothing by going there. For the purpose of our investigation we have to operate under the assumption that he is a victim himself.

  To make matters worse, in this case option four is particularly difficult. Usually we can learn a lot by studying the murder victims and figuring out who else might have wanted them dead. That doesn’t work here because Vogel said the killers were looking for him.

  If he’s telling the truth, and again I have to take it on faith that he is, then the two victims were collateral damage. They were just on the wrong boat at the wrong time and died simply because of their connection to Vogel.

  So it appears that we’ll wind up needing to identify someone who had a motive for killing Vogel. I don’t yet know enough to get a sense of how difficult that might be; we’re just not nearly far enough into this. I doubt I’ll be able to just google real boat killer.

  For now, I’ve asked Sam to find out what he can about the two victims, just in case that turns out to be relevant. He’s here to report to Laurie and me on that now.

  My arrangement with the K Team is that Laurie will be the point person and will then be responsible for directing her teammates Corey Douglas and Marcus. If you’ve seen the three of them, then you’ll have no trouble figuring out why I picked her.

  Sam is here early because he knows that Laurie will make him pancakes; Sam has a pancake addiction. This morning he downs eight of them before wiping blueberry juice off the side of his mouth and getting started on his report:

  “Victim number one is Stephen Mellman, although there’s no particular order. You can call Mellman victim number one or two; doesn’t really matter.”

  Sam can take forever to get to a point; he seems to relish it, but it drives me crazy. Laurie is usually able to take it in stride.

  “You want to call him victim number one or two?”

  “Sam, I don’t care what order you put them in. But I can tell you this: if you don’t hurry up, you are going to be victim number three.”

  “Okay, we’ll call Mellman number one. Thirty-eight years old, married, no children, lived in Teaneck. Graduated from Tufts, MBA from Columbia, been at Pharmacon for three years. Of course, Pharmacon has only been in business for three years. Before that he was at a hedge fund.”

  “What did he do at Pharmacon?” Laurie asks.

  “Vice president, number two in the Finance Department, under CFO Gerald Bennings. Main responsibility seems to have been raising money, attracting investors. He apparently has good connections in that world. A business like Pharmacon, a start-up in that industry, requires a lot of cash for research. They need time to get up and fully running. They have to survive until they can create successful drugs and get them to the marketplace.”

  “Was he good at his job?”

  Sam shrugs. “Hard for me to say. They certainly raised money, but I can’t say what he’s responsible for. I have more background information on him; it’s all in these folders.”

  “What about the other victim? Giarrusso?” I ask.

  “Right. Victim number two,” Sam says, as if we needed to confirm his identity. “Unmarried but engaged. Thirty-five years old, lived in Fort Lee. He’s a special case, clearly a brilliant guy. MIT undergraduate, master’s degrees from Penn in chemistry and biology, Ph.D. in chem from Stanford. I imagine he could have written his own ticket when he was ready to enter the job market.”

  “What was his position there?”

  “Second-in-command in the product-development division. He was a key guy for new drug creation. Of the three guys on that boat, I would think he’ll be the toughest to replace by far.”

  “Either of them have criminal records?” Laurie asks. “Any red flags?”

  Sam shakes his head. “Based on the records and their bios, it could have been a Boy Scout meeting on that boat.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Sam.”

  “No problem. You know, giving this report has made me hungry.”

  Laurie nods. “I’ll make some more pancakes.”

  “Andy, I know you’re good,” Norman Trell says.

  “Uh-oh … here it comes” is my response. He’s asked me to his office to discuss the upcoming case, which means he is going to assess our interest in pleading it out.

  “No, really. You’re the best. But Clarence Darrow couldn’t win this one.”

  “Of course not. Darrow’s dead; haven’t you heard? This past Wednesday he just keeled over at the gym. A hundred and sixty-three years old and, poof, just like that. Really puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?”

  “Thanks for sharing that, Andy. I’ll send a card. I think you know that my point is that no one would have a shot in this case. Including you.”

  “Are you making an offer?”

  He nods. “I am. I’ve been authori
zed to offer forty to life. No possibility of earlier parole.”

  “Wow. You old softy, you.”

  “It’s the best I can do and it’s better than he’ll get from the judge and jury.”

  “He’s forty-two years old,” I say. “You think he should take a deal where the earliest he could get out would be when he’s eighty-two?”

  “He should have thought of that before he killed two people.”

  “Unless he didn’t.”

  “Come on, Andy; you know the facts in this case. Forget the evidence, considerable as it is. He couldn’t have acted guiltier if he wore a sandwich board with a signed confession on it.”

  I’m not going to argue with Trell and in the process tell him our strategy. In the first place, it would help him prepare for it at trial. In the second and even more important place, we don’t have a strategy. Hopefully we’ll develop one.

  “I haven’t talked to my client about this yet. I will, but I can’t imagine he’ll consider your offer. Not too many people grab at the chance to die in prison.”

  “He turned his friends into shark food.”

  “Someone did.” I stand up. “This has been a rare treat. I’ll get back to you.”

  “The offer comes off the table at close of business on Friday.”

  “That will give me something to look forward to.”

  I leave Trell’s office and head down to the jail to talk to my client. It’s my obligation to present Trell’s offer to him, even though I don’t think he should take it and can’t imagine that he will.

  It’s not difficult for a lawyer to see his client at the Passaic County jail, especially when the client is pretrial. Lawyer visits are frequent, and over the years, when the lawyers have been forced to wait too long, they’ve complained pretty loudly.

  As affable and pleasant as I always am, I have been one of the loudest complainers. We were finally heard, and the authorities decided it was not worth the aggravation to piss us off.

  Once I confirm that Vogel is feeling okay and getting everything he needs, I tell him Trell’s offer. Gleeful is not the way I would describe his response.