“We can use it at trial,” Hike said.
When they were back at the airport, Willie called Andy in New Jersey, while Hike went into the bathroom to wipe off the lotion and repellent.
Willie told him about the deposition, and the idea that M might well have come in by boat if he was there at all. “The cop is going to show the sketch around. Will it help if someone IDs him?”
“Absolutely,” Andy said. “As long as I can figure out a way to get the judge to admit it.”
“Cool.”
“You’re not half bad at this detective work,” Andy said.
“Nah… I still don’t know a lot of legal stuff.”
“Like what?”
“Well, like… what if I throw Hike out of the plane between here and Miami? Which country would I be charged in?”
“I CAN’T BE SURE WHERE THE OIL MINISTER WAS,” says Billy. We’re meeting in a courthouse anteroom before the start of today’s trial session. “My job was to watch out for what I thought might be threats, so I didn’t see him at all.”
I take out the sketched map of the immediate area, and point to specific spots on it. “She was here, and the minister was here.” There’s a fairly substantial distance between the two locations.
Billy stares at it for a few moments, then closes his eyes. It’s a sign of my sensitivity level that I hadn’t anticipated he might react emotionally to this; he is revisiting the time and place that cost him his leg. It also led him to his current incarceration and plight.
Finally, he opens his eyes and nods. “Right. And I was standing here, until I walked away. When the bomb went off I was here.” He points to the places on the sketch.
“Could she have gotten closer to the minister if she wanted to?” I ask.
“Absolutely. Once she got inside, there was really nothing to stop her.”
“Any idea why she didn’t?”
He shakes his head. “No. Not really.”
“Could she have been nervous, and in a hurry?” I ask.
“She certainly should have been nervous; she was taking her own life. Even if she thought she was doing it for her God, it was still a big deal. But she was not in a hurry; I can tell you that. She walked and looked around for at least twenty minutes before she detonated the bomb. The length of time was why I stopped really paying much attention to her.”
“The idea that the minister was the target… was that based on anything other than an assumption?”
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“I mean, did you have any advance warning that there was going to be an effort made to kill him? Did anyone claim credit after the fact?”
“No, none of that. You think there’s a chance they weren’t after him?”
“I certainly don’t see any proof that they were.”
“So who were they after?” he asks.
“I don’t know. Maybe no one. Maybe they were just out to kill people and capture the attention of the world.”
He nods. “Good old-fashioned terrorists. But let me ask you a question… so what? What’s the difference who they were after or why they did it?”
“Because I’m operating under the assumption that the explosion is somehow linked to Erskine’s murder,” I say. “If it isn’t, it isn’t. But I have to follow it as if it is, or we’re nowhere.”
“But even if it’s linked, what does it matter? Even if someone paid Erskine and the other guys off to let it happen, and I’m sure someone did, how does that help defend me against Erskine’s murder?”
“Because I believe the people who paid him off are the people who killed him. So if we solve that murder, we solve this one.”
Unfortunately, we’re not going to solve it before trial this morning, so we head into the courtroom. Eli’s first witness is Marguerite Mooney, a young woman who lives across the street from the Skybar. She and her husband were sitting on their porch, enjoying the evening summer breeze.
She testifies that they saw Milo sitting slightly down the block, apparently tied to a tree. This upset them, because they thought he was abandoned.
“So what did you do?” asked Eli.
“I walked over to the dog, just to make sure he was okay,” Ms. Mooney says.
“What happened next?”
“Well, when I got over there, he growled a little, so I backed off. Then a man who was standing about thirty feet away told me that it was his dog, and that I should leave him alone.”
She identifies the man as Billy, and also mentions that she saw Erskine standing in front of the bar. She has set the scene perfectly for Eli, and the clear implication of her testimony is that Billy and Milo were stalking and lying in wait for Erskine.
There’s not a hell of a lot I can do with her on cross-examination; everything she is testifying to is true, and she hadn’t had nine vodka and tonics to cloud her memory.
“Ms. Mooney, you testified that Mr. Zimmerman is the person you saw that night, the man who told you to keep away from Milo.”
“Yes.”
“You had no trouble identifying him?” I ask.
“None. Where he was standing, there was a streetlight right nearby.”
“So he wasn’t hiding?” I ask. “He wasn’t lurking in the shadows?”
She shakes her head. “No, he was down the street from the bar, so he was right in front of our house.”
“So when he was standing in the light, talking to you, he didn’t seem concerned that you could see his face?”
“No.”
The implication is clear: If Billy was planning to murder someone, why would he be willing to be recognized? Of course, the truth is that Billy’s conduct was overly risky—Milo was going to commit a crime, and Billy’s actions could have tied him to it.
“And you said that Milo had growled at you?”
“Yes.”
“Is it possible that Mr. Zimmerman was trying to protect you from Milo? That he was afraid Milo might bite you?
“I suppose it’s possible.”
There’s nothing left for me to do but reaffirm the testimony she gave to Eli that she and her husband were inside and asleep by the time the murder took place.
Her testimony has been damaging, but not fatal. She placed Billy and Milo at the scene of the crime, but we had already admitted they were there to commit a theft. Nothing she has said has disproven that.
The rest of the day is a succession of witnesses who also place Erskine in front of the bar, with Billy and Milo nearby. Some of them also saw Billy with the gun in his hand, or leaning over Erskine’s body.
No one will admit to seeing the man Billy claims is the actual shooter, or to seeing him drive off. It’s understandable, since the shooting happened down the block, in relative darkness, and they weren’t drawn to walk down and look until after hearing the shots.
I get each witness to admit that it’s possible that there was someone else there, but that will not be close to compelling for the jury.
The case being constructed against Billy will be very hard to tear down.
HE HASN’T FOUND THE ENVELOPE, BUT MILO IS STILL HELPING OUR CASE. He’s not helping actively or intentionally; Milo clearly believes in stepping back and letting the justice system run its course. But his mere presence is having a positive effect.
The media always seems to bombard and depress the public with statistics chronicling all the bad things that happen to Americans. They dutifully report that there is a violent crime committed every twenty-two seconds, a cancer diagnosis every twenty-six seconds, an auto accident every five seconds, and an auto accident injury every ten seconds. It’s the reason I no longer buy watches or clocks with second hands.
The point of this is that, with all the terrible things constantly happening, it’s very difficult to break through the clutter. Certain crimes, for instance those involving JonBenét Ramsey, Natalee Holloway, Chandra Levy, and Laci Peterson, attract tremendous media attention; other, similar ones do not.
Milo is our c
lutter breaker. His notoriety as a canine thief has given this case a public forum. The fact that it all has roots in Iraq, and that the victim is a high-ranking military officer, would have attracted interest anyway, but nothing like that which Milo’s involvement brings.
Dogs seem to have that effect on people. Rescue a person from a raging river, and you’re on page four. Rescue a helpless dog from the same river, and you’re on the Today show.
I’m taking advantage of this national canine fascination by appearing on Larry King tonight. It’s not my favorite thing to do; the conversations always feel strained and stilted to me, and I feel like I need to rein in my normal obnoxious sarcasm.
I also dislike when Larry opens it up to phone-in questions; they have a tendency to be direct and on point, and thus more difficult to evade. All in all, the thirty minutes I have been allotted will feel like a month.
But we need to shake things up, and we simply don’t have the resources to do so on our own. We need the public to know about our situation, and we need their help in dealing with it. And if the jurors are watching, despite the judge’s admonition to avoid media coverage of the trial, so much the better.
I’ve handled a number of very high-profile cases in recent years, and I’ve made the media rounds on most of them. This is my third time doing the Larry King show, so Larry mercifully doesn’t spend too much time introducing me to his audience.
We get right to the case at hand, and within five minutes I’m holding up the sketch of M. “There’s no sense mincing words on this, Larry. This is the man that we think is the real killer, and this is not the only murder he is guilty of. I don’t know his name, but he goes by the initial ‘M.’”
“That’s a pretty strong statement to make,” Larry says, probably surprised, since strong, controversial statements are not exactly a staple of the show.
“Yes, it is. And if I held your picture up on national television and called you a murderer, you’d be suing me within the hour. If this man wants to come forward and take me to court, I would welcome it, but he won’t.”
“So what do you expect him to do?”
“To stay in the shadows and continue killing. That’s why I am asking your viewers, if they have seen this man or know anything about him, to contact me or law enforcement. But please be careful: He is armed and very, very dangerous.”
Larry then proceeds to ask me some semi-specific questions about Billy’s trial, most of which I deflect, citing some vague confidentiality concerns. Finally I feign exasperation, and say what I’ve planned to say all along. “Larry, this case is about far more than a murder on an Edgewater street. It began when a young girl was sent in to blow up herself and a lot of innocent people, one of whom was my client.”
“So what is your theory of the case?” he asks.
“That will all come out where it should, in front of the jury. But this is much bigger than one murder; it has huge national security implications. And my client has been an unfortunate, innocent bystander through all of it.”
Before I leave, I show pictures of Jeremy Iverson, Jason Greer, and Raymond Santiago, the three soldiers we have been unable to locate at all. I realize that they may already be murder victims, though I don’t mention this. Instead I call on the public to contact me if they have any knowledge about their whereabouts.
“I am not accusing them of anything. In fact, it’s possible that they may already be victims. But if they are alive and well, I have reason to believe that they have information crucial to our case.” My expectation is that the media, including CNN’s own reporters, will pick this up and run with it. All of America will learn that the people I’ve mentioned are soldiers who were there that day in Iraq, and that were subsequently discharged.
Larry thanks me for coming, and obligingly gives me a chance to show the sketch of M again. I’ve accomplished my goals, which were to get these pictures out to the public, and also to reveal that we have an intriguing theory of the case. It’s been worth half an hour of my time, even if it felt like a month.
When I get home, I have to delay getting into bed with Laurie in order to have a trust session with Milo. Suffice it to say that I’m not pleased.
After he and Tara chomp down a few treats, I ask Milo, “You starting to trust me yet?”
He just looks at me, noncommittal.
“You know, I could be upstairs in bed with Laurie, but instead I’m down here with you. Isn’t that worth anything?”
Again no answer, and when I look over at Tara, she looks away. She doesn’t seem inclined to get into the middle of this.
“Tara, talk to him, will you? Put in a good word for me.”
I guess my walk the other night with Tara didn’t get me as many points as I’d hoped, because she’s sticking with her new friend.
“Milo, if Laurie’s asleep when I get up there, I’m not going to be pleased, and I’m going to blame you.”
I swear, I think he shrugs his lack of concern.
“Just remember, pal, you may be neutered, but I’m not.”
IT WAS A SURREAL MOMENT FOR RAYMOND SANTIAGO. For weeks he had been holed up in a motel room just outside Detroit, spending all his time watching television, venturing out only long enough to get food and newspapers. Ever since he heard about the Erskine killing, he had behaved like a man on the run, because running was what he believed necessary to survive.
It wasn’t just Erskine’s death that sent him into a panic. Erskine was an asshole; the kind of guy at whom many people would want to take a shot. And Greer had mentioned that Erskine might try a new scheme of his own as a way to get rich. What was more disconcerting to Santiago was his inability to reach the others, Lawson, Chambers, Iverson, and Greer.
They had agreed to keep in contact, so they could better monitor the situation. The army could not prove anything other than negligence in Iraq, and their subsequent discharge actually did them a favor. With the kind of money each of them received for their efforts, the last place they wanted to be was the army.
But Santiago was a man who trusted his gut instincts, and the combination of Erskine’s murder and his inability to reach the others filled that gut with certainty and dread. So he went to Detroit, where he had no connections whatsoever, paid cash to stay in a dive of a motel, and almost never went out. There was no way anyone could find him.
That all changed the night that a stunned Raymond Santiago watched that lawyer show his picture and say his name on national television. Raymond was keenly aware that in that moment, his future was drastically altered. Now there were a million people, maybe more, looking for him. Now the supermarket cashier, the motel chambermaid, the guy selling newspaper on the corner… they were all enemies.
Raymond was going to be found, maybe by someone sent to kill him, but more likely by the public. They would locate him for the lawyer, and then his cover would be blown. He had no fear of the law at this point; he wasn’t even charged with anything. He was afraid of exposure, because that could lead to the same fate for him that it had likely brought to his friends.
Staying underground was no longer an option for Raymond. He was going to come out of hiding, and was willing to reveal all that he knew, in return for ironclad immunity and protections. The only question was whether to go to the authorities or that Carpenter guy.
He couldn’t be sure what would happen to him if he went to the authorities. He knew how high up the corruption went; in a way he would be walking into the enemy camp, and might never be heard from again.
Carpenter was another story. He only cared about getting his client off the hook on the Erskine murder. Raymond was a key to that, and Carpenter would want to protect him. And he obviously had the public visibility to expose anyone who got in his way.
Raymond was again going to trust his instincts. Carpenter was the way to go.
* * *
M watched the Larry King interview as well, hoping Carpenter would inadvertently say something he could use. His hope came to fruition, tho
ugh it was a decidedly mixed bag.
He was not particularly concerned that the sketch of him was shown. It was far from an exact likeness when it was done, and he looked considerably different now. Then he had a mustache and small beard; now he was clean-shaven. He had also changed his hair color, and the overall effect was to make him unlikely to be recognized by the average citizen. Since law enforcement had been in possession of the sketch for a while, there was little about the televised release that was particularly threatening.
More concerning was that Carpenter had only shown photos of Greer, Iverson, and Santiago, and not Lawson or Chambers. Since he clearly was looking for them because of their potential involvement in the Iraqi explosion, the fact that he was not looking for the other two was a sign that he already knew their fate. That was unfortunate, but increased his level of respect for Carpenter as an adversary.
But outweighing all of this was M’s pleasure that Carpenter had revealed Santiago’s photograph to the world. He knew that Santiago was not particularly good under pressure, and this would likely panic him and draw him out. And when he came out, he would be committing suicide.
M’s frustrating search for Santiago was soon to come to an end, courtesy of Andy Carpenter.
It took Raymond Santiago until ten o’clock the next morning to completely settle on his strategy for survival. Once he did, he drove forty miles outside of Detroit before stopping at a pay phone. If it didn’t work out, he didn’t want the call to be traced back to the motel.
He dialed the number that Carpenter had broadcast on the TV show, and it was answered on the third ring.
“Hello?”
He was surprised that it was a woman’s voice, but didn’t hang up. “I want to talk to the lawyer… Carpenter.”
“He’s in court. Who’s calling?”
Santiago hesitated, not sure what to do.
“Is this Raymond Santiago?” Laurie asked.
Another hesitation, then, “Yeah.”
“I can help you, Raymond.”
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