Open and Shut ac-1

by David Rosenfelt

  I lean over to talk to Laurie. “Any news on the license plate?”

  She nods. “Yes, but you're not going to like it. It's a registered plate, top government security clearance. There is no way to find out who has it.”

  This is a stunning piece of news. The goddamn government is trying to kill me?

  Campanelli leaves the stand, and Hatchet announces that one of the jurors has a medical situation that needs attention, canceling court for the afternoon. Considering the state of my case, I hope it's a twenty-four-week virus.

  Nicole, amazingly, has been cleared to leave the hospital, mainly because Philip is setting up a special facility for her in his home, complete with round-the-clock nurses and a doctor who will check on her twice a day.

  Actually, I find out about Nicole's departure from the hospital inadvertently. I happen to call her while she is in the process of leaving. I have the feeling that right now I am not wanted or needed by either her or her father. In Philip's eyes I have committed the cardinal sin of exposing his daughter to serious danger, even after I was warned about the possibility of that danger. To compound the offense, I have also rejected her. His accusations are fair; I am guilty as charged.

  Laurie and I go to Charlie's bar to discuss the latest developments. I don't have many options for the defense; my strategy has been to cast doubt on the prosecution's witnesses, to raise the possibility of a frame-up.

  The simple fact is that, while I've had some success, it hasn't been enough. Absent a major development, Willie Miller is going to be convicted. And if there's a major development coming, it's news to me.

  Laurie asks, “Are you going to put Willie on the stand?”

  “How can I? All he'll say is he has no idea what happened. Wallace will have him for lunch.”

  As has been my custom during my slide into frustration dementia, I take out the photograph from my father's house and put it on the table. I know every square millimeter of it by heart, but I keep looking at it, hoping that it will jog something in my mind. It never does; the sad truth is I'm no closer to figuring it out than the day I first saw it.

  Of course, the list of things that I'm not close to figuring out is as long as my arm. Right near the top is why the person who shot at me and hit Nicole was driving a government vehicle, and a classified one at that.

  And then one of those moments happen that are impossible to predict, but have the power to change everything. As we are talking about the license plate, my gaze wanders back to my father's picture, still on the table. Between my eyes and the picture is Laurie's beer bottle. The glass has the effect of magnifying the picture, and ringing a bell inside my head.

  “You know something,” I say. “I'm a genius.”

  “You've certainly been hiding it well,” Laurie answers.

  “Let's go.” I put money down to cover the check and head for the door. Laurie has to hurry to keep up behind me. She calls out to me as I head for the parking lot.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I'll tell you on the way.”

  Vince Sanders is in his office at the newspaper when we barge in. I tell him that we need his help urgently, but I'm not sure he hears me because he can't stop staring at Laurie. He probably thinks she is one of the twins I promised him.

  Finally, he acknowledges my presence. “How did you know I'd be here this late?”

  “Where would you be? On a date?”

  Vince asks Laurie, “Is he always this big a pain in the ass?”

  “I can only speak for the last three years,” Laurie says.

  Vince shrugs. “Okay, what can I do for you?”

  I take out the picture and put it on the table.

  Vince sighs. “I already told you, the only guy I recognize is Mike Anthony.”

  I shake my head. “I don't care about the people. I care about the license plate.”

  All this time I have been focusing on the people in the picture, not on the cars. Now I point to the license plate on one of the cars, the one that is facing the camera. It is certainly too small to be read by the human eye, but I can tell that the letters and numbers are there.

  “Can you have this blown up so we can read it?”

  He looks at it, squinting as he does. “We can try.”

  He stands up, grabs the picture, and takes it out of the room, coming back after only a few minutes.

  “We'll know in five minutes,” he says.

  He's right, although the five minutes feel like five weeks. Finally, his phone rings and all he says is “Yeah?” then hangs up.

  He turns to Laurie and me. “Follow me.”

  Vince takes us down the hall and into a room filled with computers. He introduces us to Chris Townshend, a twenty-four-year-old who Vince describes as “the best there is.” He doesn't say at what, and I'm not about to ask. There is only one answer I want, and if I'm really, really lucky, it's about to come on the computer screen.

  Chris takes us over to the largest screen in the room. He works a console full of buttons and gadgets like a maestro. Suddenly he pauses, presses a button, and the photograph appears, still far too small to make out the license plate. He starts to zoom in on the plate, each time making it larger and larger. I can feel the excitement building; this is going to work.

  After a few more clicks, Chris says, “That's as close as I can get without it becoming too diffuse.” We all peer in to try and read it; it's not easy.

  “J … B …” I say.

  Laurie points at the letter I have identified as a B. “That's an R,” she says. “Let me do this, I'm younger than you.”

  “It's okay with me,” Vince says. “I'm blind as a bat.”

  Laurie keeps reading, and I'm writing it down as she does. “J … R … C … 6 … 9 … 3.”

  “The last number is a 2,” Chris says.

  I say to Laurie, “He's younger than you.”

  Laurie stares a quick dagger at me, but it doesn't concern me. “What state is it?” I ask.

  Chris responds: “It looks like New Jersey.”

  I put the piece of paper in my pocket, and Laurie and I start heading for the door.

  “You got what you need?” Vince asks.

  “I sure as hell hope so,” I answer.

  A LICENSE PLATEFROM THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO represents the best clue we have had into the meaning of the photograph. This is in itself a commentary on how little we've accomplished. For instance, the license could well turn out to have been issued in my father's name, which is to say it would be of no use to us.

  The next task, of course, is to find out who the plate belonged to. This is not going to be easy, and there is only one person I know who can accomplish it quickly and with the discretion required. Unfortunately, it is the person I attacked on the witness stand a few days ago, Pete Stanton.

  I know where Pete lives, so Laurie and I drive out there. It's about forty-five minutes away, in a little town called Cranford.

  “I thought cops were supposed to live in town,” I mutter, unhappy with the length of the drive, and dreading Pete's reaction to my arrival.

  “You might not want to complain about it to him,” Laurie suggests to me. “He's not going to be that anxious to do you a favor in the first place.”

  We are about five minutes away, off the highway, when we pass a sign on the road. It directs the driver to make a right turn to get to the Preakness Country Club.

  “That's Markham's club,” I say. “We should sneak in and put shaving cream in his golf shoes.”

  Laurie doesn't think that's a very mature idea, so we continue on to Pete's house, a modest colonial in a quiet, unassuming neighborhood. I would love to send Laurie in alone, but my male ego won't let me do it, so I walk with her up the steps and nervously ring the bell.

  After a few moments, Pete comes to the door. He opens it and sees me standing there.

  “Oh, Christ,” he says.

  My plan is to immediately apologize for being so tough with him on the stand. I'm goi
ng to talk about the fact that I was just doing my job, unpleasant as it sometimes is. I'll beg for his forgiveness, tell him how important his friendship is to me, and hope that bygones can be bygones.

  Unfortunately, my plan goes up in smoke when I see that he is wearing a ridiculous red bathrobe, so comical that I am physically and emotionally unable to avoid mocking it.

  “Nice outfit, Pete. Does the whole team have them?” I ask.

  For a brief moment he looks as if he is going to kill me, but I think he decides it's not worth doing all the paperwork that would be involved afterward. Instead, he starts to close the door.

  I push back against it, holding it open. “Wait a minute! We need your help!”

  “Forget it.” We're actually pushing against the door from opposite sides in a weird reverse tug-of-war, and I am not coming out on top.

  “Come on, I'm sorry!”

  I think he can tell that it was not the most sincere of apologies, because he keeps closing the door.

  I yell to Laurie, “Don't just stand there!”

  After a brief moment that seems like an hour, she shrugs and says, “I need your help, Pete.”

  Pete immediately relaxes and opens the door. He speaks only to Laurie. “Why didn't you say so? What's up?”

  I jump in. “We have to run down an old license plate.”

  Pete ignores me and again speaks to Laurie. “What's up?”

  “We have to run down an old license plate,” Laurie says.

  This is starting to annoy me-I mean, all I did in court was my job. “Hey, what am I, invisible?”

  “You're lucky you're not dead,” Pete snarls. “You turned me into a goddamned idiot on the stand.”

  “You were already a goddamned idiot. I just brought it out into the open.”

  This time I'm pretty sure that if he has a gun in that cute red bathrobe he will shoot me. Laurie tells me to go wait in the car, which I think is a wise idea.

  From the time I get in the car, it only takes a minute or so. Laurie comes back and gets in the passenger seat.

  “Let's go,” she says.

  “What happened?”

  “He's going to call it in. We should have it tomorrow.”

  “See?” I say. “I told you I could handle him.”

  I drop Laurie off at her apartment and then head home. Pete's going to get us the information, and then we'll either have something or we'll have nothing. I have rarely felt less in control.

  The next morning I ask for a meeting in Hatchet's chambers with him and Wallace. They have heard about Nicole getting shot, and I lay out for them the threats we had received and the attack in my office. I make the case that someone is actively trying to prevent justice from being carried out, and I ask that I be allowed to depose Victor Markham and Brown-field about the photograph.

  Wallace seems genuinely sympathetic to my situation, but is obligated to make the point that no significant legal link has been made between the photograph and the Miller trial. He is technically correct, and Hatchet is also technically correct in denying my request. Which he does.

  Our first witness this morning is going to be Edward Markham, on whom I am planning to take out my frustrations. Laurie has joined Kevin and me at the defense table for the day's festivities.

  As I glance around the courtroom, I see that Victor is there to provide sonny boy moral support. He's going to need it.

  Just as Hatchet is taking his seat behind the bench, the door in the back of the courtroom opens and Pete appears. He walks toward me as Hatchet is instructing me to call my first witness.

  Pete hands me a small piece of paper and says, “I figured I should deliver this one personally.”

  I look at the paper and say, “Holy shit.”

  Laurie nudges me. “What is it?”

  I hand her the paper; her whispered reaction is more biblical than mine. She says, “Jesus Christ.” She passes the paper down to Kevin, but I can't hear what he mutters.

  Hatchet sees all this. “Are we going to pass notes in class today or might we call a witness?”

  I stand up. “Your Honor, we call Edward Markham, but a significant development has taken place, and we would request a brief recess prior to his testimony.”

  “How brief?”

  “The balance of the morning, Your Honor. We would be prepared to question the witness right after the lunch break.”

  Hatchet asks Wallace and me to approach. We do, and I tell them that this can be a crucial breakthrough, and that I need the morning to follow through on it. It can change the entire case.

  I am shocked when Wallace doesn't object. He knows that his position will not be harmed by waiting a few hours, and he trusts me that this is in fact an important development. What he is doing is putting justice ahead of victory; my father would have been damn proud of him.

  Hatchet goes along with it, and I head back to the defense table. I tell Kevin that if I'm not back in time, he is to question Edward for as long as it takes, just making sure that he does not leave the stand before I get there. I don't even wait for an answer; I'm out of the building and on the way to my car.

  My trip out to Betty Anthony's is a nerve-racking one. Pete's information has the promise of cracking this case wide open and letting the long hidden secrets pour out, but it will be of no value if I can't get Betty Anthony on my side. And so far I have had no success at doing that.

  I try her apartment first, hoping that she is not at work. When I arrive and prepare to ring the bell, I hear the strains of Frank Sinatra singing Cole Porter, coming from inside the apartment. She's home.

  Betty comes to the door, and her expression when she sees that it's me is a combination of exasperation and fear. She's fended me off until now, but she's afraid that I'll come at her from an angle that will shake up her world. Which is exactly what I'm about to do.

  “Hello, Betty.”

  “Mr. Carpenter, I really must ask you to stop bothering me like this. It's not-”

  “I know about Julie McGregor.”

  The effect is immediate, and it is all in her eyes. First there is the flash of fear, as she starts to process the words she hoped never to hear. Then comes the realization that there is no defense to those words, that resistance is futile. Then her body catches up to her eyes, and she sags noticeably, the fight taken out of her.

  Watching her reaction is exhilarating and terribly, terribly sad.

  She doesn't say a word, just opens the door wider for me to enter. The apartment is exactly what I would have expected … small, inexpensively furnished, but meticulously kept. There are a number of religious artifacts around, as well as pictures of family members, including many of Mike.

  Betty starts to straighten the place up, dusting areas without dust and moving things which do not need to be moved. I suppose it is her way of trying to bring order into what is soon to be a chaotic situation.

  “Would you like some coffee?” she asks.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  She is trying to find something to do. We both know that she is going to speak to me, but I'm helping her put it off at least for a few more minutes.

  She makes the coffee and brings it to me. Finally, she says, “How much do you know?”

  “Enough to tell the world the story. Not enough to prove it.”

  She nods. “He was never the same after that night. He thought it would get better, but it got worse as the years went by.”

  “Did you know him then?”

  “Yes. We were engaged. But he didn't tell me the full story about what happened until years later.”

  A pause, as she struggles with her own guilt. “But I couldn't help him with it.”

  “Down deep he had to know it would come out,” I say. “He couldn't keep it inside any longer. And neither can you. Not anymore.”

  She sighs. “I know.”

  “Tell me about that night.”

  She takes a deep breath and lets it out. “They were in Manhattan for a dinner, some kin
d of awards event for the best students from around the country. A future leaders thing, or something. Most of them never met each other before that night.”

  I start to ask her if she knows their names, but I decide I'm not going to interrupt. The story is going to come pouring out of her, and I'm not going to do anything to influence or derail it.

  She goes on. “A group of them began drinking at the banquet, and then went to a bar on the Upper West Side. All they were interested in was alcohol and women, but it was late on a slow Tuesday night, so they were having much more luck with the alcohol.

  “The bar was about to close, and nothing much was happening, so they accepted the offer of one of their group to go to his house, where they could keep drinking and swim in his pool.

  “On the way out into Jersey, they called out to other drivers, yelling jokes and having fun. A few people yelled back, but most just ignored them.

  “Five minutes from the house, a young woman that seemed to match their fun-loving attitude pulled up next to them at a traffic light. The fact that she was young and great-looking made the situation almost too good to be true, and they asked her to follow them to the house for a swim, never really expecting that she would.

  “But she did follow them, and pulled her car in the driveway behind theirs.”

  I already knew that, because her car would later that night be in a photograph, and many years later her license plate would be computer-enhanced and read. Lieutenant Pete Stanton would check that plate number and learn her identity.

  The young woman's name was Julie McGregor. Wife of Wally. Mother of Denise.

  I finally interrupt Betty to ask her if she knows the identity of the other men with Mike that night.

  She shakes her head. “No, Mike would never tell me. I only knew one of them; he was the friend that Mike came to New York with.”

  Then she hesitates, as if unsure whether to continue. But she understands there is no turning back now. “There is something else you should know.”

  “What's that?”

  She's in terrible pain. “That poor young woman. The reporter that was killed.”