Leader of the Pack (Andy Carpenter)

by David Rosenfelt

  “You have jurisdiction?” I ask, since we’re not in Paterson right now.

  He nods. “I told them it’s part of a case we’re already working on, which is technically true, if you count Solarno. They were happy to hand it over. So let’s go.”

  “We’ve got a flight to catch.”

  Pete laughs. “No chance.”

  My cell phone rings; it’s an annoyed Vince calling. “They won’t let me through; Stanton has the road blocked off.”

  “He’s here now,” I say.

  “Tell the son of a bitch to let me through. I’ve got a story to cover.”

  “Hold on,” I say, and then turn to Pete. “Vince insists that you let him in so he can interview me.”

  “Tell that scumbag to kiss my ass.”

  I talk back into the phone. “Lieutenant Stanton says that he greatly respects journalism in general, and you in particular.”

  “I heard what he said; I’ll deal with him at Charlie’s,” Vince says. “You and I need to talk as soon as you’re done there.”

  “You forgot to ask if I was hurt in the crash.”

  “Were you hurt in the crash?”

  “No, Marcus and I are fine. But thanks for caring.”

  “Of course I care. If you’re hurt it makes for a better story.”

  Marcus and I are just finishing signing our statements when Pete comes back into the room.

  “Can we get out of here?” I ask.

  “Yeah. But I just came in to tell you that you lucked out,” he says.

  “Yeah, I’m feeling real lucky about now. What happened?”

  “They ID’d the guy you charcoal broiled.”

  “Who is he?” I ask.

  “Oh, now you want to stay here and talk?”

  “I just have this thing where for some reason I always want to know who’s trying to kill me. Call it a quirk.”

  Pete puts a piece of paper on the table in front of Marcus and me. It’s a mug shot, and identifies the person in the photo as Tony Mancini. “You recognize him?” he asks.

  Marcus shakes his head, and I say, “No. Tell me about him.”

  “He’s a mob guy out of Philadelphia, suspected of at least a dozen murders, probably guilty of twice that. He’s been arrested three times, which is why we have the mug shot, but it never stuck.”

  “So a mob hit man tried to kill me … us? Why exactly am I lucky?”

  “Because if the guy was a schoolteacher, or a priest, or something, nobody would believe your story. And you’d be looking for a good lawyer.”

  “I am a good lawyer,” I say.

  “I think if your life were on the line, you’d want to get someone better than you.”

  We get up to leave, but I stop and ask Pete, “These other murders that he was suspected of, how did he kill those people?”

  “Usually a bullet in the back of the head,” he says.

  “So this time it was supposed to look like an accident.”

  Pete nods. “Any idea why that would be?

  “So it wouldn’t appear I was being silenced and prevented from pursuing Joey Desimone’s appeal.”

  “Why would the mob want to stop you from getting Carmine Desimone’s son out of jail?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “If Nicky Fats were still around, and not drooling, I could ask him.”

  When we leave, I call Edna and ask her to reschedule our flights for tomorrow. She mutters something about how long the airline will keep her on hold, and that she’ll have to use the speaker phone because her arm hurts when she holds the handset too long, but she agrees to take care of it.

  Edna always rises to the occasion in a crisis, no matter how long she has to stay on hold.

  Marcus tells me to pick him up at the Coach House Diner on Route 4 in the morning. I don’t know what this thing is with him and diners, and I have no intention of asking.

  I decide to stop at the prison before going home, but my car was towed away. I’ll rent one later, but for now I have Hike pick me up and take me out to see Joey. If Hike’s going to be working on the case with me, he should meet our client, and vice versa.

  Once we get in the car, Hike puts the prison address into the GPS, even though I tell him I know the way. He is very much into technology, but in typical Hike fashion, doesn’t quite always appreciate what it has to offer.

  We are driving on the highway, when things slow down and we find ourselves stuck in traffic. Hike is infuriated by this turn of events, blaming the GPS lady for our misfortune. “Do you believe this?” he asks. “She’s supposed to warn us when there’s traffic, and give us a different route.”

  “Traffic ahead,” the GPS voice says.

  “Thanks a lot,” snarls Hike. “Now you tell me.”

  “Hike, let’s look at the situation,” I say. “You’re sitting in a car in New Jersey, and a fake woman is talking to you from a satellite. She knows where you are, and she’s giving you directions. She’ll also tell you where you can eat, get gas, go shopping, whatever you want. Can you not see the bright side of that?”

  “I can’t see anything with this truck in front of us.”

  Fortunately, the traffic breaks up; a cop had pulled someone over on the side of the road, apparently neglecting to inform the satellite GPS lady.

  Joey is brought into the visiting room fairly quickly, and I introduce him to Hike. “How ya doin’?” Joey asks, a phrase he uses instead of “hello.”

  Hike treats it as a sincere question. “Not so good,” he says. “I made the mistake of getting a flu shot; it’s been making me nauseous. I gag myself to sleep every night.”

  “Oh,” Joey says, and then turns to me. “What’s up?”

  Unfortunately, Hike still seems to think he has the floor. “Make sure they don’t give you any vaccines in here,” he says. “I read in an article that they use prisoners like guinea pigs, testing all this weird stuff on them. And watch what you eat. Make sure it’s wrapped.”

  “Thanks, Hike. Excellent advice,” I say.

  He nods. “Just check out miseryiseverywhere.com; that’s where you’ll find the real story about stuff like this.”

  “Moving right along,” I say, and then I update Joey on what is going on. I like to keep the clients as informed as possible, but it’s often a delicate balance. The trick is to make sure they are realistic about our prospects for success, and someone who spends twenty-three hours a day in a cell has positive or negative expectations that are often very hard to manage.

  He is surprised by how much has taken place, but a little skeptical that an attempt was made on my life because of his case. “Why would anyone care if I got out?” he asks.

  “I don’t think it has anything to do with you,” I say. “I think it’s about somebody not wanting the whole thing reopened and looked at.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I say, and then add, “You’re not going to like this, but it could well be someone in your family.”

  He shakes his head. “Not possible.”

  “Joey, Nicky Fats knew about this; that’s how it all started. And the guy that went after me; he was a mob guy for hire.”

  “I’m going to talk to my father,” he says.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. At least not right now.”

  “You think he could be involved in this? He’s been upset about my being in here since day one, Andy. He once told me it’s the only thing in his life he couldn’t fix, and that he’d give up everything to be able to.”

  When I don’t say anything, he continues, “Andy, he’s my damn father.”

  “My father took off when I was four,” Hike says, and in the moment it seems understandable.

  “And Nicky was your uncle, Joey. Just lay low on this for the time being. At least until we learn more.”

  He reluctantly agrees, and we leave. Hike drops me off at home, where Laurie and Tara are waiting.

  Seeing them is incredibly comforting, but also shakes me up some. Wh
at happened today was as scary as anything I’ve ever been through, and it’s having a delayed effect on me.

  Laurie cooks dinner, and we take Tara for a walk together. Laurie brings her gun with her, something she rarely does. She’s obviously concerned about my safety.

  Join the club.

  We don’t talk much about the case, and when we get home we head upstairs and make love. I’ve got to get up early and leave for the airport, but at this moment I never want to get out of this bed.

  Sam Willis finally got his boots on the ground. That’s how he viewed it, even though he was wearing sneakers, and he was sitting in his car the entire time.

  Sam had run into a brick wall chasing down the real name of the owner of the phone Alex Solarno had called after Andy left him. As with the five mysterious employees assigned to the boat with Larry Callahan, the identity and the address, as listed in the phone company records, were fake.

  But because it was a cell phone, Sam had another option. Many people don’t realize that embedded in every cell phone is a GPS device. Through their computer tracking, the phone company can identify where a phone is at all times, providing it is turned on.

  Sam, because of his ability to access the phone company’s computers, could do the same. So, with his laptop turned toward him on the passenger seat, he set out to find the phone, and thereby find the owner.

  The tracking system didn’t show a physical address, but Sam realized where he was heading long before he got there. It was the Elizabeth house where Andy took Tara to meet with Nicky Fats, and where Nicky Fats died shortly thereafter.

  Which is to say, it was Carmine Desimone’s house.

  Of course, that didn’t mean it was Carmine Desimone’s phone. The house was large enough that there must have been plenty of other people in it, “family” members, and Sam figured that as long as he was there, he might as well see if he could learn more.

  So he stopped at a Dunkin Donuts, because that would make it an official stakeout, and he waited two blocks from the house. That way he wouldn’t be seen or suspected, but he was close enough that if the cell phone moved, he could follow it.

  It was four hours and six doughnuts before it moved, and the computer showed it coming straight toward and past Sam. Sam figured out which car it was in, and pulled out behind it. He stayed at a safe, respectful distance, since there was literally no way he could lose track of it.

  The car was driven to a coffee shop by a man Sam did not recognize, but who could not have been Carmine Desimone. He was at least thirty years younger than Sam knew Carmine to be, and besides, there was no way a Mafia don would be driving himself to a coffee shop. Not even if Fredo was with him.

  Sam parked across the street and waited. The tricky part had been reached; just following the man gained him nothing. He needed a photograph.

  Sam put his own phone to his ear, with the camera lens within it facing the front of the coffee shop. The man came out in less than five minutes, not carrying anything, so Sam had no idea why he had gone in there.

  But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that Sam get the picture. Since he couldn’t properly aim it, he pressed the button repeatedly, at slightly different angles, hoping that at least one of them would capture the man’s face.

  The man got back in the car, heading in the general direction of the house he had come out of. But Sam had no need to follow him. He made a mental note of the license plate, and drove back to Paterson.

  As stakeouts go, Sam figured, that was a damn successful one. There would never be a good substitute for boots on the ground.

  On our second try, Marcus and I make it to the airport without anyone dying. There’s a line at the check-in desk, which looks like July 4 at Disneyland, but fortunately Edna decided I was rich enough to book us first class, so we are able to circumvent the peasants.

  The agent asks if we’ve been in possession of our bags since we left the house, which is when Marcus mentions that he’s carrying a handgun. He shows them a document that is called “full carry,” which I guess means that the government has decreed him to be one of the good guys.

  Suffice it to say this doesn’t speed up the process any. We are sent through a special security area, in which they take the gun, confirm that it is unloaded, and confiscate both the gun and the separate ammunition. They then inform us that all of it will be held in the pilot’s cabin until we land. It’s a process that I didn’t know existed, but one which Marcus seems quite familiar with.

  As I’ve previously learned is his tendency, Marcus falls asleep the moment the plane starts to taxi, and wakes up when it pulls into the gate. This happens at our first stop in Minneapolis, and again in Missoula.

  By the time we land, collect our bags and armaments, and rent a car, it’s almost three-thirty in the afternoon. We’re supposed to meet the state cop that Cindy put us on to at four-thirty, and I call to confirm that he’s still available to see us. He is.

  Lieutenant Chris McKenney of the Montana State Police makes me glad that I brought Marcus instead of Laurie. He’s probably six three, two hundred pounds, and looks like Robert Redford looked when he still looked like Robert Redford.

  He’s also pleasant and gracious in a small-town America kind of way, and combines a seriousness of purpose with an apparently genuine desire to help.

  He’s the anti-Vince.

  McKenney says, with no apparent attitude, that the local FBI Bureau chief called McKenney’s captain, asking that they be forthcoming with us. Good old Cindy Spodek comes through again.

  I tell him what we’re interested in, though I had communicated that by e-mail before we came. He had gone through the case history and updated himself on the particulars.

  “I had just been on the force for three years at the time,” he says, “when I got this case.”

  “I understand arrests were made?”

  He nods. “Three of them. Lester Harmon, his brother S. J., and Chuckie Simmons. Lester was, and probably still is, the leader of the group. S. J. is his right-hand guy, and Chuckie is one of the flunkies.”

  “Were they convicted?”

  He nods. “All three. Chuckie went away for six months, S. J. for three years, but he got out in two, and Lester is still in. He’s serving ten to twenty, because he tried to use one of the rifles on an ATF agent.”

  “And the militia unit they’re in? Lester ran that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it still active?”

  He nods. “Yes, not as big as it used to be, but still dangerous. They probably have about forty-five recruits, maybe half of whom are serious, the rest hangers-on. They train pretty much every week.”

  “What are they training for?” I ask.

  “Primarily resistance. They’re sure the United Nations is coming to take over.”

  “So where did Solarno fit in?”

  “He supplied them with arms, mostly rifles. We didn’t uncover the connection until he was dead. Lester was not a big fan of his, and wasn’t shy about mentioning it.”

  “Why?”

  “According to Lester, Solarno didn’t deliver what he promised. They got rifles when they were probably expecting something much bigger. Lester had apparently threatened him, but our people had no reason to think he had carried through on it.”

  “So that’s why you never told the authorities in New Jersey?”

  He looks surprised. “Oh, we told them. I called and sent a letter to”—he looks at a document in the folder—“Dylan Campbell. He was in the prosecutor’s office.”

  I nod. “He prosecuted the case.” This is major news; this would constitute exculpatory evidence for Joey, and Dylan had an obligation to turn it over in discovery. The fact that he didn’t is a major plus for us in going after a new trial.

  “Can I get a copy of that letter?” I ask, but McKenney doesn’t answer right away. He’s staring at Marcus, probably wondering if he can talk at all. When I get his attention, he agrees and calls in an assistant to make a copy f
or me.

  “Where is this guy S. J.?” I ask.

  “He lives about twenty-five miles out of town,” McKenney says. “A place called Millbank. Take the highway east. That is, if you really want to talk to him.”

  “Would he have information about Solarno?”

  McKenney shrugs. “Probably. But you might not get a friendly reception.”

  “It’s worth a try. Any idea where he might be?

  “Well, if you get there after eight, try the bar. There’s only one of them, so you can’t miss it. S. J. will be the fat guy with the beard, but that won’t narrow it down for you much.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Be careful. Is Marcus going with you?”

  For the first time, Marcus speaks, and it is worth waiting for. “Yuh,” he says.

  McKenney looks at Marcus, and then back at me. “Good.”

  Marcus is hungry.

  Since he had slept on the plane, he didn’t get to enjoy the first-class food, as I did. And since Marcus insists that his stomach always be full, we eat at a Missoula restaurant before heading out to find S. J.

  Missoula is a college town, home to the Montana Grizzlies, and it seems simultaneously quaint and sophisticated. It’s also cold, but at the moment doesn’t feel any colder than New Jersey.

  The restaurant is terrific, though I expect they’re going to have to close for a couple of days to restock after we leave. Marcus eats three entrees and four side dishes, and would probably eat the table if I didn’t rush us out. I want to find S. J. before he’s too drunk to give us decent information.

  We don’t hit any traffic on the drive out to Millbank. My guess is that no one ever hits traffic on the way to Millbank, because there’s no real reason for anyone to ever go to Millbank.

  The town is basically one street, with small, run-down rural roads emanating from it. Pickup trucks outnumber cars probably three to one, and our rented Saab is the only foreign car to be found.

  Easy to find is Red’s Bar, since as McKenney had mentioned it’s the only one in town. From outside it seems to be hopping, and the sounds of the music spread down the street.