Who Let the Dog Out?

by David Rosenfelt

  But it seems appropriate here, because everybody knows that I’m lying, that I’m not really puzzled. I continue, “As we pointed out in our brief, our intention is to educate the jury as to Mr. Downey’s associations and relationships. We are simply continuing the process that Mr. Campbell saw fit to begin. He seems to be saying it is proper for the prosecution, but not for the defense. I don’t understand that. Frankly, I don’t.”

  Dylan jumps in. “I did not begin the process of calling irrelevant witnesses. Ms. Streiter had evidence that was germane to this case.”

  “Your Honor,” I say, “I would invite the court to review the transcript in the unlikely event that I am remembering this incorrectly. Mr. Campbell had Ms. Streiter here to testify about a visitor, Mr. Infante, to Mr. Downey’s house. I then questioned her about other visitors.”

  “Which was itself improper,” Dylan says.

  “I don’t recall you objecting,” Judge Klingman points out.

  “It was insignificant testimony; I didn’t want to waste the court’s time.” He didn’t use the word “frankly” in that sentence, but it would have fit perfectly. And the other interesting thing about “frankly” is that it can go almost anywhere. He could have said, “Frankly, it was insignificant testimony.” Or, “It was frankly insignificant testimony.” Or, “I frankly didn’t want to waste the court’s time.”

  “And I for one appreciate that,” I say. “Though I was somewhat surprised when Mr. Campbell used a considerable amount of the court’s time later that afternoon, when he questioned Ms. Pyles about Mr. Downey’s charitable work. It seemed to have nothing to do with the case itself; Ms. Pyles admitted as much when I asked her.”

  “That was in response to the defense’s questioning of Ms. Streiter.”

  Time to move in for the kill. “So you’re saying I opened the door? That’s your position? Your Honor, it was Mr. Campbell who opened the door; he blew a hole in it. When we arrived the door had been entirely removed, and hot air was blowing in.”

  Dylan is getting angrier by the moment, but keeping himself under control. “Your Honor, the bottom line is that the defense is trying to litigate another matter entirely. We are here to determine the guilt or innocence of this defendant for this crime, and Mr. Carpenter is trying to deflect the attention of the court to something completely different and unrelated.”

  My turn. “Your Honor, since we’re now talking about ‘bottom lines,’ here’s how I see it. Mr. Campbell questioned Ms. Streiter about Mr. Downey’s visitors, so we did the same. Then he brought in a witness not related to this case. We could do the same, but we’re respecting the court, and our view is they are related to this case. But at its core we are mirroring Mr. Campbell’s actions. Yet instead of being flattered, he’s upset. As I may have mentioned before, I’m frankly puzzled.”

  Judge Klingman says, “Yes, I believe you may have mentioned that. Mr. Carpenter, I am going to allow the contested testimony, within reason. If it becomes redundant, or goes too far afield, I’m going to rein you in. Mr. Campbell, I don’t find any question at all that you in fact opened the door for this testimony. See you tomorrow, gentlemen.”

  Alek was not going to meet them at some cave or campsite. That was once his life, and it molded him into the man he had become. But that was well behind him; he had earned his money, he was earning it still, and he had come to require more creature comfort. He made no apologies for it; in fact, Alek never remembered apologizing for anything in his entire life.

  Not that this meeting was being held in lavish surroundings. The diner in Caribou, Maine, was not exactly a five-star restaurant, though their coffee tasted better. But this was the best that could be arranged under the circumstances, so it would have to do.

  There were three of them, all males, and Alek didn’t ask their names, nor did they offer them. Their names were unimportant, as were they. Alek knew that they might as well have been called Pawn I, Pawn II, and Pawn III, because that’s what they were.

  Three doomed pawns.

  They were on a mission that would end in their deaths. They were fine with that; it would further their cause in a way that nothing else had. The Boston Marathon bombers had tried to punish America for what they saw as its frequent illegal occupation of their Middle Eastern lands. This would make the point far more clearly and forcefully; the tables would be turned and Americans would finally know what it was like to be victims of ruthless occupiers.

  But Alek had even less interest in their cause than their names. He briefly flirted with the idea of not providing the arms at all, of reneging on their deal once he had his money, and leaving them to wait at their campsites until they gave up and went home. But he rejected that idea, because to fail to deliver would impact his future business. More importantly, he rejected it because those who were financing these people were serious and dangerous people. No need to make more enemies than necessary.

  Alek drank coffee while they drank tea. It seemed a delicate drink for soon-to-be murderers and suicide victims, but to each his last taste. “Describe your mission,” he instructed them.

  “Why do you need to know this?” Pawn I asked, warily.

  The truth was that Alek did not need to know it; he didn’t even much care what their mission was. Ordinarily he wouldn’t even have asked the question, but this was not an ordinary situation.

  The Americans did not get overly upset by arms trading in general, so long as those arms were to be used in places where there were no Americans, and little American interest. But this was very different; these were to be used against Americans, on American soil.

  The U.S. government would come after all involved, and though Alek was confident he could avoid scrutiny and any negative consequences, he still wanted to know what he was dealing with. He also considered the possibility of getting back some of his merchandise. After this was over, these saps would be dead, but at least some of the arms themselves would live on.

  “It is always a part of my contract,” Alek lied. “I have no interest in interfering, but I must know what is going to take place.”

  “We are going to capture an American town. It is a small island, but attached to the mainland by a small bridge,” Pawn I said. “It will be easy to defend, and easy to destroy.”

  Pawn II said, with considerably more passion, “They will learn what it is like to have a deadly aggressor on their soil. As we have learned it from them so many times.”

  Alek didn’t even know what country Pawn II was from, and it was of little concern to him. Politics, even geopolitics, interested him only in its ability to provide profit.

  But he already knew where the “invasion” was to take place, since that was where the arms were to be delivered. “Ashby,” he said.

  Pawn I nodded. “Correct.”

  “And what are your plans once you come ashore?”

  “To take complete control.”

  “And when they come after you?” Alek asked.

  “Then we will die defending our territory, as will the people of Ashby.”

  Pawn III smiled, and spoke in a voice distinctly American. “Or maybe no one will care, and we’ll live happily ever after in Ashby.”

  Alek had suspected that there were Americans involved in the operation; they were prized recruits for zealots like this. “Okay,” he said, “once I receive the money, I will get word to you to move in. You know where the boats are going to be?”

  Pawn I nodded. “We do. Our main concern is timing.”

  “It will be soon,” Alek said, and smiled. “Very soon.”

  Laurie and I share many attitudes, viewpoints, and preferences. I’m not talking about run-of-the-mill issues like human values, dignity, and the desire to make the world a better place. That’s really her thing.

  I’m talking about real-life stuff that people deal with every day, like what kind of movies to watch. Those are the kinds of things on which real relationships succeed or fail.

  She and I are on the same page when
it comes to movies; in fact, we’re on the same two pages. Not only do we like the same films, but we like to see them over and over.

  At any one time, our television guide offers close to 12 million movies, or at least it seems that way. We haven’t seen about 11,997,000 of them, yet as we scroll through, we always settle on one of a handful that we’ve seen repeatedly and love.

  I’m not necessarily talking about particular types of films; they could be dramas or comedies, high quality or low. But for some reason we find them comfortable; when we see they’re on, we can pick them up at any point and just relax and enjoy.

  I’ve just finished spending four hours going over the case files, and when I go up to bed, Laurie is watching one of those movies. It’s called The Freshman, and stars Marlon Brando and Matthew Broderick. It’s a comedy in which the teenage Broderick’s life gets comically turned upside down when he meets Brando, reprising his Mafia chieftain role from The Godfather.

  When I come in, Laurie is sitting up in bed, eating popcorn. “You okay with watching for a while?” she asks, knowing I have to be up early in the morning.

  “Absolutely,” I say, and take my place close to her, so I can grab some of the popcorn.

  It’s early in the film, and Broderick is just learning who the Brando character is, and the kind of power he possesses. He comes to Brando’s home, and is greeted at the door by his daughter, who lets him in.

  Sitting above the fireplace is a replica of the Mona Lisa, except the daughter casually informs Broderick that it’s not a replica at all, but rather the real thing. It had been stolen, she says, and the painting hanging in the Louvre is the copy.

  Overall, it’s a very funny scene, but I’m not laughing. Instead I’m dialing the phone, calling Sam Willis. It’s eleven-thirty at night, but as always he answers on the first ring.

  “Talk to me,” he says, alert and as if he were waiting for my call.

  “Sam, I know it’s late, but can you come over here?”

  “What’s up?”

  “I need you to help me google.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I need help googling something.”

  “Are you serious? Any moron can google. I can teach you over the phone. Laurie can teach you. Ricky can teach you. I bet Tara can teach you.”

  “Sam, I can google. But I need to do a really in-depth search, and you can get to more places than I can.”

  He agrees to come over, and arrives within fifteen minutes. I use the time to tell Laurie what I’m looking for, and I have to admit I’m relieved when she doesn’t laugh at me.

  I start Sam off by asking him to search for a particular article I read, maybe a year ago. I don’t know where or when I saw it, and I can only describe it in basic terms. Of course, Sam finds it in about twenty seconds. Once he does, it gives him some other terms to search for. The information starts to pour out; I have a laser printer, but it can’t keep up.

  I won’t say that Sam finishes what he’s doing; there is so much information available that he effectively could continue and never finish. But after about an hour, we decide that we have enough, and we take the next hour to read through what we have.

  It doesn’t confirm my theory; it’s not possible for it to have done that. But it does confirm that it is possible, and that is all I hoped it would do.

  I no longer believe that Eric Brantley was involved with smuggling diamonds into the country.

  I believe he was creating them.

  The article and others like it talk about copying valuable treasures. Huge strides have been made in artificially duplicating works of art, primarily through 3-D printing. I don’t begin to understand it, and I don’t have to; it’s enough to know that things like this exist.

  Less advanced, but getting there, is the ability of scientists to artificially produce diamonds. There are a number of processes to do so, the most promising of which is something called chemical vapor deposition. I have taken and sat through many depositions in my career, but none of the chemical vapor variety.

  To this point, the created diamonds are very close to the real thing, and certainly beyond the ability of consumers to tell the difference. But they’re not exact; among other things they’re not quite as hard, and experts using their examining equipment can usually detect the fakes.

  But everyone seems to acknowledge that perfect duplications are only a matter of time, and certainly in both art and precious stones, the implications are enormous.

  How many wealthy people will be willing to pay huge sums to have Picassos hanging on their walls if both they and their guests have no idea if they are real or not? Will anyone buy an enormously expensive diamond, if they have no way of knowing if it’s fake?

  Certainly, many people spend crazy money to buy these rocks because they consider them beautiful. But I would guess that just as many, and maybe more, buy them to impress others. Will they keep buying them if the people they’re trying to impress doubt that they are real? And what about their investment value? How much is a precious stone worth if it might not even be precious?

  I’m going to need some time to digest what this might mean for our case, and for the situation Eric Brantley must have been in. He was by all accounts a brilliant chemist, and I’m assuming that he and his partner, Caruso, perfected the process, and did so in secret. But he must have decided there was much more money in the real stones than the fake ones, so he tried to bring his creations to market as real.

  Doing so was fraud, a criminal act, so he tried to align himself with the criminals that were already trading in illegal stones. It was naïve of him, but clearly would have provided him with the best chance to make huge amounts of money from his discovery.

  But how would his new associates have viewed Brantley’s entry on the scene, with his newly created diamonds? They could have reacted in one of two ways. They might have seen it as a huge plus, providing an unending supply of perfect diamonds without the need to pay for them.

  But the more farsighted among them could have seen it as a poison pill. They would have reasoned that the truth would eventually come out, and their lifeblood, diamonds, would be devalued forever.

  “It fits,” Laurie says. “It might have created a war of sorts. Maybe one side wanted to work with Brantley, and the other didn’t. When they couldn’t work it out, a lot of people paid with their lives.”

  There’s no way to know if we’re right about this, but if we are, it explains a lot. “This is why Brantley created such a stir,” I say. “I couldn’t figure out why a newcomer with no money and no contacts would have been treated with such importance. This makes that understandable.”

  She nods. “It also would explain why the stones that Downey had were not registered. Brantley had created them, and used them to pay Downey to steal Zoe from us.”

  “Right. And I think the equipment stolen from the college was what was taken from that barn in Maine. It had to have been the equipment used to make the diamonds.”

  “I think you’ve got this one right, Andy.”

  I’m pleased that I’ve come up with this theory; like Laurie, I instinctively feel that it’s right. But unfortunately, my enthusiasm is somewhat tempered by the reality staring me in the face.

  “This would be good news if we could prove it, which we can’t,” I say. “And it would be great news if our goal was to solve a smuggling case. But I don’t see how it does anything for Tommy Infante.”

  Willie Miller is the first witness I call in the defense case. It’s the riskiest way to begin, akin to a seven-year-old Wallenda kid choosing the Grand Canyon for his first tightrope walk, rather than a two-foot-high wire in the backyard. Willie doesn’t have the same filters and verbal safeguards as the rest of us do; he is likely to say anything at any time.

  The only saving grace is that he wasn’t born with the “lying gene” that so many of us have been blessed with, so whatever does come flying out of his mouth is going to be the truth as he understands it. And the tru
th is all I want from him now.

  In any event, I have no choice but to take the risk. I can’t question myself, so I need Willie to testify to the theft of Zoe by Gerald Downey, since that is the first step in tying Downey to Brantley and the carnage that has been the diamond smuggling side of this case.

  I start by having Willie give some of his own background, including his seven-year wrongful imprisonment on a murder charge. Dylan will only bring it up anyway, and he’ll make it sound sinister, as if perhaps Willie really was guilty. But I didn’t get him off on a technicality; he was innocent, and we found the real killer.

  Once that has been accomplished, we move on to Willie’s partnership with me in the Tara Foundation. He talks about what we do and how we do it, and I can see the dog-loving members of the jury nod their heads in appreciation and approval.

  “How many dogs are in the building at any one time?” I ask.

  “We have room for twenty-five, so that’s how many we always have,” he says. “As soon as we find a home for one of them, we rescue another to take its place.”

  I ask Willie if he telephoned me on the evening of Downey’s murder, and he says that he did. He says, “Because the burglar alarm at the foundation went off, and when I got down there I saw that Cheyenne had been stolen.”

  “Cheyenne is a name that we had given her because we didn’t know her real name?” I ask.

  He nods. “Right.”

  I introduce the surveillance camera tape as evidence, which shows the thief entering the building. His sweatshirt is pulled up, covering his face, but anyone can clearly see that the word SYRACUSE is emblazoned on it. The jurors know from the murder scene pictures that Downey was wearing a sweatshirt just like it when he was killed.

  “And you knew which dog was stolen?” I ask.

  “Of course. It was Cheyenne.”

  He describes how we followed the GPS device in Cheyenne’s collar to Downey’s house, and he heard her bark, even though no one came to the door.