Deck the Hounds: An Andy Carpenter Mystery

by David Rosenfelt

  “He’s accused of robbery and murder. I’m trying to find out if he did it.” I pause for effect, then, “Or if you did.” I am blunt like that because my goal in situations like this is not to find out information, but rather to make an assessment. Greer is not going to confess, and he’s very unlikely to make a slipup that would reveal his guilt. I just want to get a feel for whether or not he could have, and might have, pulled this off. That way we will know whether to investigate him more intensively.

  Greer’s reaction is to laugh. “You think you can come in here, to my place, on my turf, and accuse me of murder? Is that what you think? Let me tell you something, if I want to go after Carrigan, I don’t kill some rich guy and set him up. I kill him.”

  As unpleasant as Greer is, what he is saying makes logical sense; I’m afraid I don’t see him as having the subtlety necessary to have pulled this off.

  Suddenly, the door that we came through opens and three men come in. They are either tough guys, or doing a good job pretending to look tough. One of them is the guy Greer was talking to when we pulled up.

  Greer laughs again. “These assholes accusing me of murder. They come into my place and accuse me of damn murder.”

  He is talking to the three newcomers, and the assholes he is referring to are me and Marcus. Greer is clearly wounded by the insult of my accusation, as if he has spent his life doing all he can for the betterment of society. He continues, “Maybe we should show them what we think of them coming in here like this.”

  I think I see the three guys start to move toward us, but they stop frozen in place because Marcus is holding a gun on them. I didn’t see Marcus draw the gun; it just seemed to appear. Marcus is not someone you want to run into at high noon at the OK Corral.

  “Wall,” Marcus says; at least I think that’s what he says. I’m not sure if anyone else understands, because nobody moves or reacts.

  Marcus has the gun in his left hand, and he walks over to one of the guys and with his right hand turns him and throws him against the wall, face-first. The sound of the guy’s head hitting the wall is thunderous. If he’s an NFL player, I’m thinking he’s going to go into the concussion protocol and come out of it maybe three years from Wednesday.

  “Wall,” Marcus says again, and the other two guys now fully understand and join their buddy in turning and facing the wall, placing their hands against it. Marcus quickly frisks them and removes five guns from the three guys; apparently one of them felt that only one gun was enough. All the time he is doing this, Greer is frozen in place, smart enough not to attempt to intervene.

  Marcus next does the worst possible thing, next to walking out and leaving me alone with this group. He hands me the gun. I don’t do well with guns, but he says, “Watch,” and points to Greer, which I assume means I’m supposed to hold the gun on Greer.

  I do that, and if I were Greer I would be concerned, because my hand is shaking so much I could easily press the trigger by mistake.

  My vantage point and peripheral vision is such that I can see everyone in the room. Marcus turns the three guys around, and it’s fair to say that they look disapproving of what has happened so far. But now neither Marcus nor they have guns, and they are three and he is one.

  Because of that they are both emboldened and stupid.

  Not necessarily in that order.

  Marcus makes a motion that they should come and get him, which is what they proceed to do. At least two of them do; the guy whose head hit the wall at warp speed still has the dazed look of a guy whose head hit a wall at warp speed. It has either rendered him incapable of action or knocked some sense into that head. Either way, he is not engaging.

  The other two guys make two mistakes. The first one is not running out the door they came in. Their second mistake, at least the way I see it, is not arriving at Marcus at the same time. One of them gets there about two seconds before the other. Two seconds in Marcus-time is an hour and a half to anyone else.

  Marcus completely dismantles them. He hits the first to arrive with an elbow in the head, and the poor guy topples over like he’s the seven pin and Marcus has just converted a spare. The other guy arrives those two seconds later, which is not enough time for him to see what happened to his buddy and reassess his involvement, should he have been bright enough to make the effort.

  Marcus is ready and waiting for him. He kicks him in the groin, and when the guy screams and doubles over, Marcus uppercuts him and literally lifts him off his feet. Gravity asserts itself and the guy lands on top of his fallen colleague. If they ever come to, they will forever envy the guy whose head hit the wall.

  I hand the gun back to Marcus, and then I turn to Greer. “If I find out you were involved in this thing, I’ll be back. And next time I won’t go so easy on you.”

  We leave and go straight to the car. People on the street are staring at us, probably surprised that we are walking out intact, and not being carried out in bags. They obviously don’t know me and Marcus.

  The good news is that three shitheads got their asses kicked and Greer got humiliated. The bad news is that I don’t think there’s any chance he had McMaster killed or framed Carrigan.

  But it was a holiday night I won’t soon forget. As the song goes, “It’s Christmas time in the city.”

  Judge Eric Yount couldn’t seem to avoid the subject, much as he wanted to.

  An obscure case that his father handled quite a few years ago, the divorce of Chuck Simmons and his wife, is all anybody wanted to talk about. His father has passed away, which is probably the only reason he was not on Simmons’s target list. But that, Eric tried to tell people, should be the end of it.

  Maybe it should have been, but it wasn’t. Eric Yount had by this point come to characterize his friends and acquaintances into two groups. One consisted of those who talked to him about the sniper situation, and the other included those who would have liked to talk to him about it, but were hesitant to do so.

  Even among his colleagues, there was no escape. On this day, Eric was having lunch with a close colleague and friend, Judge Lawrence Alexander. They were the two business and financial experts on the court, and handled almost all of those cases that came along. Judge Alexander was about to start an important patent case and Judge Yount was a couple of months away from a major merger dispute. They kept apprised of each other’s cases, in case one of their caseloads got crowded to the point that the other would ever have to step in and take over.

  Those issues were what Eric Yount preferred to be discussing, but Judge Alexander kept mentioning things about the sniper case, and Eric’s peripheral involvement in it. They’d discussed it many times before, but clearly the case had a fascination that even seasoned judges found irresistible.

  But it was dying down a bit. There had not been a shooting for quite a while, mainly because there seemed to be no one left to shoot. With no new leads appearing as to Simmons’s whereabouts, Eric could feel a slight lessening of interest among those he interacted with.

  Eric and Judge Alexander had a tradition which they’d been following at their lunches for almost three years. Eric would bring a deck of cards, and they’d cut them to see who would pay for the lunch, high card eats for free.

  It had no real effect on their personal economics, both because the lunches weren’t particularly expensive, and over time the number of victories for each side evened out. On this day, Eric drew a ten, and Judge Alexander a jack, so Eric paid.

  Eric asked for the check, in a bit of a hurry. He had a couple of hearings on his docket for the early afternoon, nothing crucial but it would be unseemly for everyone to be there and the judge to show up late.

  They left the restaurant, Eric walking out first. Judge Alexander said something to him, and he turned to respond. Just as he started doing so, he saw a glint of metal in the window of a building across the street.

  It wasn’t that Eric was afraid, but something made him move to his left. An instant after he did so, the shot rang out, miss
ing Eric but hitting Judge Alexander in the chest.

  He was dead before he hit the cement.

  No one had expected Chuck Simmons to exact revenge on the son of the judge who handled his divorce case. The media went crazy when the news broke. Demands were made, by the public and politicians alike, for the capture and arrest of Chuck Simmons.

  In a particularly inappropriate and irresponsible response, media outlets started speculating on who could possibly be next. The bailiff who was there during the Simmons divorce trial? The court clerk? The court reporter?

  And what about other family members? If the judge’s son could be a target, what about the lawyer’s brother? Or the ex-wife’s mother? It all seemed ridiculous, but so had the idea that Judge Yount’s son might be in danger.

  As for that son, immediate and intensive security was ordered for Judge Eric Yount, and it would remain in place until Chuck Simmons was in police custody, or dead.

  “Andy, can I come over? I’ve got something you’ll want to hear,” Sam says.

  He’s calling at seven thirty in the morning, so it is obviously something he considers important.

  “Sam, you’re welcome here anytime, but I can actually hear words over the phone. Talk some, and I’ll show you how it works.”

  “It’s easier in person, but…”

  “No, whatever you say. Come on over.” I’m actually anxious to hear this, since Sam prefers giving bad news, or no news, over the phone. If he wants to come to the house, especially at this hour, he must think this is really good.

  Laurie immediately starts getting ready to make waffles. Sam loves waffles, though what he really loves is maple syrup. Sam would willingly eat horse shit if he could pour syrup on it. It will only take about ten minutes for Sam to get here, but it’s not a waffle problem, because Laurie won’t be baking or churning or whatever you do to make waffles. All she’ll do is take them out of the freezer.

  Sam arrives promptly and heads straight for the kitchen table. One of his talents is that he can talk with a mouthful of waffles. “I went through Ernie Vinson’s phone records,” he says to Laurie and me. “You guys are going to love this.”

  Sam has a tendency to dramatically draw these things out. “Let’s hear it,” I say.

  “You want the good news, or the great news?”

  “In any order you want, but it would be good if the news started flowing sooner rather than later.”

  “Okay, let’s start with the good. I think I know who was driving the SUV the night Vinson tried to mug Carrigan.”

  “Who?”

  “A creep by the name of Danny Costa.”

  “Why is he a creep?”

  “He’s been in and out of jail. Twice for drugs, once for passing a bad check. Nothing big time, but not an asset to society.”

  “How do you know it’s him?”

  “I don’t for sure, but I’ve narrowed it down, and he’s the most likely candidate. He had three calls with Vinson that day, and two the day after. And he drives a black SUV, four years old.”

  “You know where he lives?”

  He takes another forkful of waffle before nodding; a little syrup is dripping down his chin, but I don’t want to slow things down by pointing it out. “Yup.”

  This is a terrific piece of information, and if it’s only the good news, I am very much looking forward to finding out what Sam considers great.

  “Now for the great news,” Sam says, right on cue. “I went back a long way in Vinson’s records, looking for something that might ring a bell. Guess who he spoke to two days before Steven McMaster was killed.”

  “Tell me.”

  “You don’t want to guess?”

  “Sam, tell me now or you’ve sucked down your last waffle.”

  “Okay, you ready? Vinson spoke to none other than Karen McMaster. He called her and they spoke for almost three minutes.”

  Boom.

  This opens up an entirely new aspect to the case, and I’m embarrassed to say that I haven’t contemplated it before. The person who had the most to gain, at least financially, from Steven McMaster’s death was his wife, Karen.

  If I was going to follow the best advice anyone ever gave anyone, “follow the money,” I should have at least considered the possibility that she was involved. But I never did.

  Of course, it’s possible she had nothing to do with this, even after Sam’s revelation. But Ernie Vinson was not chairing some charity dinner that Karen McMaster was involved with. He was not a member of her book club, nor did they attend polo matches together.

  Ernie Vinson was a thief and a murderer; he was a former enforcer in Dominic Petrone’s and then Joseph Russo’s families. I cannot think of a single reason for him to have had contact with Karen McMaster. And when you add in the fact that it was just before her husband’s murder, the coincidence meter explodes.

  “Sam, when you’re finished with your waffles, find out everything you can about Karen McMaster.”

  Zoey is officially a mother of six puppies.

  Willie called to give us the news this morning, and I’m on the way over to see the new family. But the vet said that mother and puppies are in great shape.

  Sure enough, all looks good, and the puppies are already adorable. Zoey seems exhausted, which makes perfect sense, but she’s comfortable. Bringing her here was a good idea; Willie and Sondra are in a much better position to take care of her.

  I hang out for a while, petting her and the other dogs, and then unfortunately have to go back to real life. Real life means thinking about the case, and trying to come up with an approach that can be productive.

  My operating theory is that Ernie Vinson killed Steven McMaster.

  It seems to make sense considering the facts currently at our disposal. The fact that I am not close to getting it admitted at trial, or getting a jury to believe it, does not worry me, at least not yet. We’re going to investigate and get more facts to prove our hypothesis.

  I’m also assuming that Vinson is the guy who tried to attack Carrigan originally, when he stole his hat to place at the scene, thereby using Carrigan’s DNA to implicate him. Of course, it’s always possible that he was attacking him for other reasons, and just liked the hat enough to wear it to a murder, but that seems unlikely.

  It’s the reason for the second attack on Carrigan, on the night Zoey bit him, that I don’t understand. What would he have to gain from that? Was he trying to kill him? And the same question arises: What would he have to gain from that? How was Carrigan a threat to him?

  And why now? It’s been a long time since the McMaster murder. If Carrigan was a threat to Vinson, then why did he wait so long? And how did he even know where he was? Carrigan was on the street; Vinson couldn’t google his address or look him up in the phone book.

  And to make matters more confusing, Carrigan had the impression that Vinson was attempting to kidnap and not kill him. Vinson had already discovered that Carrigan could be dangerous and was very capable of handling himself in a violent situation, so why would Vinson take that chance? He could have just driven up and shot him from the SUV.

  These are questions I need to answer, and quickly, because the trial is approaching. Which is why Laurie and I are going to see Danny Costa.

  Laurie and I discussed whether she or Marcus should be the one accompanying me when I visited with Danny. We checked, and he has a rap sheet of small, non-violent crimes, so we’re not that concerned he is dangerous. We chose Laurie because she can serve as my protector and wouldn’t be as intimidating to Danny as Marcus would be. Godzilla isn’t as intimidating as Marcus.

  Danny Costa is a combination gas station attendant and used car salesman in Garfield. It’s a large service station that does mechanical work and body work, besides selling gas. It also has a group of about ten used cars to the side of the place, with prices written in large letters on the windshields.

  Marcus has checked out Costa’s role here, and it consists of pumping gas and doing the limited work
involved with selling the used cars. Costa has someone to help him man the pumps, so he is free to deal with anyone showing up interested in buying a car.

  For some reason, probably to preserve jobs, New Jersey is the only state in the country to prohibit self-serve gas pumps. Oregon had been the other one, but they have recently abandoned that law, and now New Jersey stands alone.

  Laurie and I pull up and park near the back of the station. We park there so that Costa will not easily know which car is ours. We don’t drive a fancy car, it’s a Subaru Forester, but it’s nicer than the junk that they have on sale. No sense making Costa suspicious as to why we’re here.

  Laurie waits outside while I go in to find Costa. When I do, I say, “My wife and I were interested in that 2011 Chevy. Can someone show it to us?”

  “I’m your man,” says Costa.

  We go outside and Laurie joins us. “This is my wife, Laurie. This is Mr.…”

  “Costa,” he says. “Danny Costa.”

  “Hi, Danny. My name is Andy.”

  We walk toward the car I had mentioned. “You’ve got a good eye,” Costa says. “This is a terrific car. Only fifty-one thousand miles, and gets twenty-six to the gallon.” As we reach the vehicle, he pats the hood, as if complimenting it for being such a terrific car.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “What do you think, honey?”

  “I think we should ask our questions, sweetie,” she says, ice in her voice. Laurie doesn’t have as much fun with this stuff as I do.

  I point to a black SUV parked nearby. I believe it’s Costa’s car. “How about that one? Is that for sale?”

  “No, that’s mine.” He indicates the row of cars that we’re standing by. “These are the ones that are for sale.”

  I point to the SUV again. “Look, honey. Isn’t that the car we saw Ernie Vinson riding in that night?”

  Until this moment we weren’t positive that Costa was the one driving Vinson that night, but Costa’s facial reaction to my question erases all doubt. And that expression conveys one thing: fear.