Dachshund Through the Snow

by David Rosenfelt

  We simply have to give the jury an explanation for the DNA evidence, especially the skin and blood under Kristen’s fingernails. No matter what else we present, no matter who we potentially implicate, that evidence will ultimately carry the day if not explained.

  So I am not going to make a recommendation until I have to, and as always it will be the defendant’s choice, but right now I am leaning toward urging Noah to testify.

  Today is “Laurie day” in that our next two witnesses are people that Laurie has found through diligent investigating. They won’t make our case for us, but they might provide important building blocks.

  The first witness is Marlene Simms, who retired six years ago from her position as director of human resources at NetLink Systems. Simms is currently living in Florida; Laurie interviewed her over the phone and told me it would be worthwhile to fly her up to testify.

  I tend to do what Laurie tells me.

  I quickly establish the basics of Simms’s career, with special attention on the twelve years she spent at NetLink. “So you were at NetLink Systems when Kristen McNeil was employed there?”

  Simms nods. “Yes, sir.”

  “How did she come to get the job?”

  “Well, it was an open secret that her boyfriend was Kyle Wainwright. Kyle’s father, Arthur, is the founder and majority owner of NetLink. I’m assuming that’s how the connection was made, though I can’t say that for a fact.”

  “Did she have the kind of experience one would expect for the position?”

  Simms thinks for a few moments. “That’s hard to say. She had no experience whatsoever; she had just graduated high school. But the position had very little responsibility; she was an assistant who did relatively minor tasks.”

  “Who instructed you to hire her?”

  “Arthur Wainwright.”

  I nod. “You said she was an assistant. Who did she assist?”

  “Arthur Wainwright.”

  “Where was Kyle Wainwright during this time? Was he working at the company as well?”

  “Yes, at least part time. I think he was getting ready to go to college, and even then he worked at NetLink during vacations. You can do that when your father owns the company.”

  “So is it fair to say that Kristen and Arthur Wainwright spent a lot of time together?”

  Simms nods. “Oh, yes. She had a desk right outside his office. She took notes in his meetings, ran errands for him, those kind of things. He said it was a great way for her to learn the business. I’m sure that was true.”

  “Did she seem happy there? Ever express any complaints?”

  “She seemed very happy; it was a great opportunity for her, and a nice place to work. But then suddenly she quit.”

  “Yes, let’s talk about that. She came to you and said she was leaving?”

  “No, she just didn’t show up for work one day and called me from home. Said she was not coming back. She seemed very upset. I remember being stunned by it; it was so sudden, and I didn’t expect it. As I said, she had seemed so happy. This came out of left field.”

  “Did she say why she was upset?”

  Simms shakes her head. “No. I asked her if she wanted to come in and talk about it, but she was adamant that she did not want to do that. Usually when an employee leaves, we’d have an exit interview, but she wanted no part of that either.”

  “If you know, had she told Arthur Wainwright of her decision?”

  “I can’t say for sure, but I told her that he might want to speak to her directly, and she said, ‘No, I’m not talking to him.’”

  “You were surprised by that?”

  “Very. Especially the way she said it. She blurted it out, but was decisive about it.”

  “As a professional who dealt with employees for many years, what was your overall impression of Kristen during that conversation?”

  Simms pauses for a few moments, then a few moments more. I’m about ready to prompt her when she says, “She was upset, worried.… I would say she seemed scared. I have no explanation for why that would be the case.”

  Jenna objects that Simms couldn’t know Kristen’s state of mind. We argue the point and Judge Stiller comes down on my side, but it doesn’t matter. The jury heard that Kristen was upset and afraid, and that she was adamant she would not talk to the person she was closest to at NetLink, Arthur Wainwright.

  Next up is Mike Greer, who also worked at NetLink at the same time as Kristen. He started around the time that she did, but worked in finance.

  “Did you have occasion to spend much time with her?” I ask.

  He nods. “Some. We were both new there, so we were learning the ropes together. We’d go to lunch and talk about what it was like, and other stuff.”

  “Did you two date?”

  He smiles. “No, I wanted to, but she said she wasn’t really interested. She wanted to just be friends; that was pretty much the story of my life back then. She said her dating life was complicated enough. Then she said, ‘Believe me, you have no idea how complicated.’”

  “Did she seem happy at NetLink Systems?”

  “Very. She wanted to make a career there. She even said she might take courses at night in the technical side of things, to really learn the basics of the business.”

  “Do you know why she quit?”

  He shakes his head. “I will never understand that. One day she just wasn’t there. I called her because I was worried about her. She said she was never coming back, but wouldn’t say why. She didn’t say she was scared, but she sounded like it.”

  I turn him over to Jenna, who again feigns indifference, as if this is all just a diversion from the conclusive DNA evidence.

  Court is going to be closed for a couple of days, for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. “Happy New Year,” I say to Noah as the guard takes him away.

  “That remains to be seen,” he says.

  He’s right about that.

  It was going to be an agonizing day for Cynthia and Kevin McNeil.

  There was simply no getting around that. They had put it off for fourteen long years, but that didn’t matter at all. If they waited twenty more, the pain would be just as fresh.

  This was the day they had decided they would go through Kristen’s room. They would give most of her clothes, at least the ones that had survived the years intact, to charity. Other decisions, like what to do with her jewelry and other possessions, they would make in the moment. The deciding factors would be respect for Kristen, and what would hurt the least.

  Karen, Kristen’s sister and their lone remaining daughter, had come by to help get them through it. She thought they might back off at the last minute; they had come close on a few previous occasions but couldn’t follow through. But this time they were committed; the New Year was going to be the start of reclaiming their own lives.

  Or at least that was the plan.

  So Karen came over, and they had breakfast together. They talked about Kristen but not the trial. Karen had attended every day and was planning to do so right through the verdict. But while her parents let her give them occasional reports, that wasn’t the plan for today. Today they were not going to think about Kristen’s death; they were going to focus on her life.

  Then breakfast was over and the dishes were put away and there was no longer an excuse to delay. They took simultaneous deep breaths and entered Kristen’s room.

  It was completely clean and dust-free. Cynthia had cleaned it every day, even changing the bedding weekly. Kevin had occasionally joked that it had never been that clean when Kristen lived there, but Cynthia didn’t think that was funny. Nor did Kevin.

  So they went in with their plastic bags of various sizes, for the items that they would throw away, or give away, or keep. They made good progress; even though Kristen had accumulated a lot of stuff, it was still just one room, and they were three people.

  Cynthia assigned herself the task of going through Kristen’s desk drawers. She didn’t think Kristen kept any k
ind of diary, but wasn’t sure if she was right about that. It would be painful to read, but it would bring Kristen back in some small way, through her words.

  No diary was found, but in the bottom drawer, or more accurately at the bottom of the bottom drawer, was a sealed letter-size envelope. On the outside it simply said, “Mother and Father.”

  Cynthia experienced a quick intake of air and intense anxiety as she reached for it. She opened it quickly, wanting to get whatever was about to happen over as soon as possible.

  She read it and said three words aloud, to herself and to no one.

  “Oh, my God.”

  I have a love/hate relationship with this holiday.

  New Year’s Eve is probably my least favorite day of the entire year, mainly because it leads into my least favorite night of the year. People all over the world get dressed up to go out to parties where they pretend to be wildly happy. They drink too much, eat too much, and then play DUI roulette as they drive home. The funny thing is that no actual fun is involved.

  Even worse are the crowds that descend on Times Square to freeze their asses off, get their pockets picked, kiss diseased strangers, and cheer wildly at a falling six-ton piece of glass that doesn’t even have the decency to break when it lands. Many of the poor slobs there would describe their last ten years as uniformly miserable, but somehow they always pretend the next one is going to be terrific, and it will start as soon as that stupid ball hits the ground.

  Ricky has brought great joy to our lives in many ways, and New Year’s Eve is just one of them. Laurie wants to spend the evening as a family, so we get to stay home and do family stuff. We play a board game or do a puzzle until Ricky falls asleep. Then Laurie wakes him to watch the ball drop.

  The point is, we don’t go out, which works well for me. And I have Ricky to thank for it.

  New Year’s Day is an entirely different animal. It is filled with college bowl games, six of them to be exact. They have not invented a bowl game that I won’t watch. If the Salvation Army played the Little Sisters of the Poor in the Charity Bowl, I’d be glued to the television, and I’d probably bet on the game.

  But New Year’s Day has high-quality games; the teams that play have all had excellent seasons. Three of the games are on at roughly the same time, which makes it difficult, but I am one of the great remote-control artists of this era, so I cannot remember the last important play I missed.

  But this weekend is nothing short of a football dream come true. That is because in addition to the great bowl games, Sunday brings an extraordinary NFL schedule. Not only that, but the Giants are playing the Redskins, and if the Giants win, they are in the playoffs, albeit it as a wild card. Then on Monday night are the collegiate national semifinal games, with the four best teams in the country.

  Pinch me.

  Of course, there is the trial to worry about, especially since our key witnesses are coming up. That means more trial prep today, so that I can watch football tomorrow and Sunday. The prep is probably overkill; I know the issues and details inside and out. I’m ready.

  Football and the trial have an unusual and puzzling intersection. One of the calls on Arrant’s burner phone was to the LSU defensive coordinator, Ben Walther. I still have no idea why Arrant made that call. Maybe the Feds have found out, but if it has had any legal repercussions for that coach, news of it has not hit the media. Which means it hasn’t happened.

  By three o’clock I am so sick of this trial preparation that I’m starting to wish I needed to leave for the Times Square festivities. I’m bored out of my mind. Laurie and Ricky are out shopping, Tara and Sebastian are asleep, and I have no one to talk to.

  The phone rings and I grab it. I don’t care if it’s a telemarketer; I’m going to strike up a conversation. Anything to stop me from having to go over these documents for the hundredth time.

  I start it off with “Hello?,” which is an old standby I often use to get the chitchat going.

  “Mr. Carpenter?” It’s a young woman’s voice that I don’t recognize, but I do detect the anxiety.

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Karen McNeil. We met and…”

  “I know who you are, Karen. Is everything all right?”

  “No … I … I’m not sure. Can you come over here? It’s very important.”

  “Of course. Where are you?”

  “My parents’ house. There is something here.… You need to see it.”

  She gives me the address, which is in Teaneck, and I tell her I’ll be there in a half hour. I leave immediately and beat my half-hour prediction by three minutes.

  The McNeils live on a cul-de-sac in a neighborhood of comfortable homes with manicured lawns. It presents a picture that would be in the dictionary next to suburbia. As I pull up in front, the door opens and Karen McNeil stands there. Behind her are two people I’m fairly confident are her parents.

  I walk up to the porch, and Karen thanks me for coming and introduces me to Cynthia and Kevin as we walk in. We go into the kitchen, and Cynthia offers me coffee or something else to drink. I decline, and I sense that they are grateful for that. Whatever this is about, they want to get it over with in a hurry.

  “How can I help you?” I say, a general question addressed to whoever wants to answer it.

  Apparently Kevin is the designated answerer because he says, “Ever since Kristen left us, we haven’t touched her things. Cynthia cleaned her room almost every day, but we left her possessions intact.”

  I already knew this; Karen had mentioned it to Laurie and me. But I don’t reveal this, in case Karen might think I was throwing her under the bus. Instead I just nod and wait for Kevin to continue.

  “We’ve thought about doing it many times, but never seemed to be able to. We decided to do it for the new year, especially with the arrest, and the trial ending soon. So today was the day.”

  “That must have been hard,” I say.

  He nods. “Maybe not for some people, but very hard for us. Anyway, in the bottom drawer of Kristen’s desk, she had hidden this.” He takes an envelope off the kitchen counter and hands it to me. “Please open it and read it.”

  So I do.

  The next thing I do is email Hike instructions on what we need to get done in a hurry. I don’t want to call him because I don’t want the McNeils to hear the conversation. Hike spends a lot of time on the computer surfing the Web, looking for bad news in the world wherever he can find it. He keeps our work email open as he does, so I hope he’ll see this message quickly.

  My instructions are for Hike to start assembling the necessary experts we’ll need first thing Monday morning; the timing is going to be all-important.

  The trial is about to be turned on its head.

  I don’t know if the letter that the McNeils found in Kristen’s room is real, but I have no reason to doubt it. The court and the prosecution may have plenty of reason to doubt it, though, so we have spent the past twenty-four hours dealing with experts in the field.

  I don’t have the results yet, but Hike is not in court this morning so that he can receive them. Even Hike is confident that they will turn out in our favor, which I have to admit gives me pause.

  A snowstorm is going on. It started last night and we’ve already gotten more than six inches. Amazingly, it has not deterred the public from filling every seat in the gallery. This trial has caught and held the public’s attention.

  I call Sergeant Lucy Alvarez to the stand. She is one of the officers working the George Taillon murder. It’s fair to say that the police are not mounting a full-court press to find the person who killed Taillon and Siroka since everyone believes that the guilty party is Charles Arrant, who is himself already dead.

  To make matters simpler, I had asked her to familiarize herself with one specific aspect of the Charles Arrant murder case. The Paterson Police are not working it at all and barely paying lip service to it because with his Interpol warrants, the Feds came in and took over.

  As I stand, I n
otice that Herbert Hauser, the lawyer that threatened me on Arthur Wainwright’s behalf, is in the courtroom, notepad and pen in hand. No doubt his presence is to send me a message, since a transcript of the trial will be readily available to him after the fact. He didn’t have to come here to learn what I say.

  Color me intimidated.

  “Sergeant Alvarez, you are familiar with Charles Arrant and the fact that he was shot to death?”

  “Yes, though it is not my case.”

  “Did I ask you to acquire some information about it so that you could offer it in your testimony?”

  “You didn’t ask me. You asked Captain Stanton and he instructed me to do it.”

  I smile. “Thank you for the correction. What did Captain Stanton instruct you to get?”

  “There was a burner cell phone that was found in Mr. Arrant’s hotel room at the Saddle Brook Marriott. He was registered under an assumed name.”

  “Where is that cell phone now?”

  “I believe it remains in the custody of the FBI.”

  “Why the FBI?” I ask, pretending I don’t know.

  “There were three Interpol Red Notices out on him, which makes it a federal case.”

  “Did they tell you what phone calls had been made on that cell phone?”

  “Yes.”

  I introduce the document the FBI had sent the Paterson Police, detailing the calls. Then, “Can you tell the jury who was called from that phone?”

  “One call was to a video-game manufacturer in Oklahoma named Gameday. It was answered by the switchboard, so there is no way to know who the call was routed to. The second call was to a man named Ben Walther, who is a football coach at Louisiana State University.”

  The gallery mumbles on hearing that name, possibly because it was completely unexpected, or maybe because LSU is playing tonight.

  “And the third call?”

  “He called George Taillon, who I believe you are familiar with.”

  I nod. “I am, but for those scoring at home, this is the George Taillon who ordered me followed, and who was himself murdered?”