Dog Tags

by David Rosenfelt

  I will be upset, and I’ll feel guilty, but my life will go on. Billy’s, for all intents and purposes, will not.

  I have a few minutes’ time for conversation with Billy before the start of court, and he broaches the subject straight-out. “How do you think we’re doing?” he asks.

  “At this point, we’re behind.”

  He seems surprised. “Really? I think you’re getting your points across.”

  “I probably am, but they’re the wrong points. I’m talking about conspiracy theories and people missing and murders happening halfway around the world. Eli’s talking about a guy on an Edgewater street with a gun and a dead body.”

  “So we’re going to lose?”

  “At this point it’s more likely than not. But we’re making good progress in our investigation outside of court, and that gives us a fighting chance.”

  I start to detail what we’ve learned, but I don’t get to finish because Judge Catchings enters the courtroom. Today is going to be a short day, because the judge has some personal business to attend to this afternoon. I’d be fine if he had a month’s worth of personal business.

  My first witness is Nina Rodriguez, a patron at the bar that night who is one of the few people who saw the events remotely close to the way I want them to be seen.

  She testifies that she was walking out of the bar and across the street when she happened to look over and see Erskine talking with a man. Less than thirty seconds later, gunshots were fired and chaos erupted.

  “Was the victim talking to the defendant?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “No. This man was taller; I mean, he could have been a basketball player. The other man, the man who died, looked up at him when he talked.”

  “You could see that from where you were?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened after you heard the shots?”

  “Well, I thought it was firecrackers, but my boyfriend, he knew what it was. So he pulled me behind a car, and we waited a couple of minutes. Some men ran by us at first, toward the shooting, but we waited. When we finally looked up, there were people everywhere, and Mr. Zimmerman was standing next to the body.”

  I turn her over to Eli, who has little difficulty in diluting the effect of her testimony. He demonstrates how difficult it is to tell height from that distance, in that light. Besides, as he points out, Billy is six foot two, and Erskine was five ten. Erskine would have been looking up at Billy as well.

  Next I call Pete Stanton, whom I will use as a character witness for Billy. They came up in the force together, and Pete was anxious to do it. I haven’t gotten a chance to do a final prep session with Pete this morning; he arrived as court was beginning. But I have no doubt that he’ll handle things fine. He’s an experienced witness.

  As he walks toward the stand, he passes me and whispers under his breath, “We need to talk.”

  I don’t know what to make of that; I’m certain he doesn’t mean the talk we’re about to have in front of the jury. I’m worried that he somehow has ominous news, but I’ll have to wait until court is over to hear it.

  Pete handles himself very well, powerfully defending Billy’s character, courage, and honesty, and Eli’s cross-examination is quick. He points out that Pete and Billy had spent very little time together since Billy got back from Iraq, the implication being that Billy’s injury and desire for revenge turned him into a different person.

  But basically Eli has little desire to tangle with Pete on the stand, and he knows that the testimony is just not that damaging. Fortunately for me, he’s taken enough time that Pete is the last witness of the day, and Catchings adjourns the session.

  I walk over to Pete, but before I can say anything, he says, “Let’s grab a sandwich.”

  We go over to the diner near the courthouse. If Pete is taking me to such an inexpensive place to eat, it means the goal is not to drain me of my money. It’s to tell me something important.

  Even before we order, he gets right down to it. “If anybody finds out where you got this, I will chop up your body and feed it piece by piece to sharks.”

  “I don’t think I’ll order the fish.”

  “I mean it. They won’t be able to identify you with dental records.”

  “Pete, you have my word. Now, will you land the plane already?”

  That’s good enough for him, so he continues. “A good friend of mine on the force, who shall remain nameless, told me something today. A body was fished out of the Passaic River, and he took the call.”

  I have no idea where this is going, but I don’t want to interrupt and ask questions. It will only delay hearing the rest.

  “The body had ID on it. A guy by the name of Jerry Harris. He’s a hired gun out of Philadelphia; doesn’t come cheap. I checked it out, Jerry Harris was six foot six.”

  This completely gets my attention, but Pete isn’t finished.

  “My friend is upset, because since he found the body he hasn’t heard a thing. Nobody’s been assigned to it, and as far as we know a case file hasn’t been opened.”

  “When was the body found?” I ask.

  “Three days after Erskine was killed. So my friend asked the captain why he hasn’t heard anything, and the captain said he couldn’t talk about it. That the feds put a lid on it.”

  I let this sink in for a few moments. It can have monumental implications for my case, though at this moment I don’t know what they are, or how I can manipulate them.

  “You know I have to use this,” I say.

  He nods. “Yeah, I know.”

  I thank Pete and leave, after doing two things that he insists on. One is to promise once again that I will not mention his name in this, and the other is to pay the check. They seem of equal importance to him.

  When I get home, I tell Laurie what I’ve learned. “The FBI has been all over this from day one,” she says.

  I nod. “It’s time to find out why.”

  I call Cindy Spodek, who can tell from the fact that I don’t engage in preliminary banter that this is serious. “Cindy, I need to meet with the agent at the FBI who is in charge of the Erskine case.”

  Cindy certainly has not been involved in it, so she’s not sure what to make of the request. “How do you know there is such a person? Just because you have an Erskine case doesn’t mean the bureau does.”

  “Take my word for it. Please ask your boss to get the word to the agent in charge that we need to meet.”

  “Why would that person agree to it?”

  “Just say I want to talk about three things. Oil, Jerry Harris, and rhodium.”

  THIS WAS NOTHING LIKE THE DETECTIVE SHOWS ON TV. Willie knew that was true, even though he didn’t watch anything on TV except sports. Because if detective shows were this boring, nobody would watch them, and they would be taken off the air.

  Willie had been outside Chaplin’s home when he left in the morning, and had once again followed him to his office. As he had the day before, Chaplin spent the entire day there, not leaving until it was time to go home.

  It was while following him home that Willie had an idea. He figured Andy would be pissed off, but that was something he was willing to risk. It’s not that he wasn’t okay with following Chaplin for weeks; it was a job and Willie was willing to do it. It’s just that it didn’t seem like it would accomplish anything.

  Willie followed until he was comfortable that Chaplin was heading home, and then he pulled ahead of him. It was easy, because Chaplin was a slow and careful driver, something Willie would never be accused of.

  He got to Chaplin’s house a full ten minutes ahead of him, and parked down the street. He ran on foot to the house, positioning himself at the end of the winding driveway. He made the assumption that Chaplin would park in the same place as he had the night before; if he didn’t, Willie would just abort the plan.

  Willie waited for Chaplin to arrive. He wasn’t nervous; in fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he was nervous. Certainly it was before he w
ent to prison. That experience had changed him in quite a few ways.

  Chaplin pulled in and parked in the exact same place as the night before. When he got out of his car, Willie hit him in the temple with his right hand. He came from the side, which he wished he didn’t have to do, since he had never sucker-punched anyone like that in his life. But he couldn’t afford to be seen.

  Chaplin literally did not know what hit him, and he was out cold before he reached the ground. Willie caught him before he landed, preventing his head from hitting the concrete.

  Willie quickly looked through his pockets until he found his cell phone. He was going to leave it at that, but then made the decision to take his wallet as well. This way it would be possible that Chaplin might think this was a real robbery, and that getting the cell phone was not the goal.

  Within two minutes, Willie was in his car and on the way to Andy’s. Knocking out Chaplin and getting his phone was the easy part; now he had to deal with Andy.

  M HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON WITH CHAPLIN OR WILLIE, and really wouldn’t have been terribly interested anyway. He was holed up in a hotel room in Everett, Massachusetts, with nothing to do other than watch television.

  M had a simple job before him, and once it was done none of the other bullshit would matter. There would still be some cleaning up to do, some people to kill, much money to collect. He would then leave the country, possibly never to come back, but he was fine with that either way.

  As M stared out the window toward the harbor, he smiled to himself at the exquisite irony of it. He was waiting for his ship to come in, both literally and figuratively.

  When it did, all hell would break loose.

  Which most definitely was not his problem.

  “YOU WHAT?”

  It’s nine o’clock, and I’ve had a long day, but it sounded to me like Willie just said, “This is Chaplin’s cell phone. I took it from him.” So I’ve asked him again to be sure.

  “This is Chaplin’s cell phone. I took it from him.” I hear this coming out of Willie’s mouth again, which significantly increases the chance that I heard it correctly the first time.

  I look over at Laurie, who seems amazed to have heard it as well. Tara and Milo obviously expected something like this from Willie, because they appear only mildly amused.

  There is a seemingly endless list of questions for me to ask, so I might as well start with the one-word ones. They’re quicker.

  “How?”

  “I waited for him in his driveway, and when he got out of the car I knocked him out and took it from him. I got his wallet also, to make it look like a robbery.”

  “It was a robbery,” Laurie points out.

  “Did he see you before you knocked him out?” I ask.

  “Nope. No chance. And he was still in dreamland when I left.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t kill him?” The image of Childress’s crushed skull behind the Tara Foundation flashes through my mind.

  “No way; worst case I busted his jaw. You didn’t want me to kill him, right?”

  “Right,” I say. “Killing as a general rule is a problem.”

  “Knocking out and stealing also are somewhat problematic. As is jaw busting,” Laurie says, the ex-cop in her coming out.

  “So I shouldn’t have done it?” Willie asks. “I figured you guys might be pissed.”

  “Why did you do it?” I ask.

  “Well, I was going nuts, you know? I’d follow him to the office, sit there all day, and follow him home. This happened every day.”

  “Today was the second day.”

  Willie nods vigorously, as if I’m proving his point. “Right. Anyway, I wasn’t finding out anything. I didn’t know what he was doing, or who he was doing it with. And you wanted Sam to find out who he’s been calling, so I figured a good way to do that would be to get his phone.”

  “But you committed a crime.”

  He shrugs. “Last time I didn’t do nothing and I got seven years in jail. They owe me a few.”

  “Did anyone at all see you?” I ask.

  “Nah. I don’t think so. The only one there was Chaplin. And it was dark.”

  “Willie, this was a mistake.”

  “Now you tell me.”

  “Come on, Willie. You know damn well you shouldn’t do this kind of thing.”

  “Andy, these guys are doing bad shit, right? They almost killed Sondra. So we should play by the rules when they don’t?”

  I’m not going to get anywhere by continuing to reprimand him, and I need to start thinking about where to go from here. “Okay, if you hear from the police on this, you don’t speak to them. You got that? Just call me, and I’ll do the talking.”

  He nods. “I know the drill. But don’t worry, they can’t follow this back to me.”

  “I hope not… let’s talk some more tomorrow.”

  “You want me to keep following this guy?” he asks, apparently seriously.

  “No thanks.”

  Once Willie leaves, Laurie says, “I don’t suppose you’re going to report the commission of a crime, Mr. Officer of the Court?”

  She knows full well I’m not; she’s just having a little fun at my expense. “I don’t suppose I am. I just hope nobody saw Willie or his car.”

  “Willie’s DNA is on file because he was in prison,” she says. The implication is that if he left any DNA on the scene, or on Chaplin’s face, the trail could lead to him fairly quickly. Either way, there’s nothing we can do about it short of turning Willie in and plea-bargaining on his behalf.

  “Let’s think only sunny thoughts, okay?”

  Laurie points to Chaplin’s cell phone on the table. “The question is what to do with the stolen merchandise.”

  “We could throw it out, or we could look at it and possibly get valuable information. Not exactly a tough call.”

  “You won’t be able to use anything you find in court,” she points out.

  “Such is life.”

  Laurie and I between us have the technological knowledge and skills of a slow-developing four-year-old, so I call Sam Willis and ask him to come over. He seems eager to do so; maybe he thinks we’re going to go out and shoot some people. Sam lives on Morlot Avenue in Fair Lawn, about ten minutes away if he drives quickly. He makes it in eight.

  Once he arrives, I show him the cell phone and say, “Is there any way to find out what calls have been made from that phone in the last four days?”

  “Is that a joke?” he asks.

  “No. Why?”

  He just shakes his head, picks up the phone, and presses a few buttons. In less than twenty seconds he hands it to me. “There’s a list of the numbers he called, and when he called them.”

  I turn to Laurie. “See? I told you Sam and I could do it.”

  “Is this Chaplin’s phone?” Sam asks.

  “Sam, that phone was obtained illegally. People could go to jail.”

  He laughs, apparently not intimidated by my statement. “That Willie is a piece of work. You want me to trace down these numbers?”

  I nod. “Yes, but can you write them down? I want to keep the phone here.”

  “Sure,” he says, and starts to do so. “You want an update on Chaplin’s company now, or do you want to wait until tomorrow?”

  “You’ve got it already?”

  “Yeah, although the news isn’t great. There’s no doubt that the company profited heavily from both the oil and rhodium events. They made trades that slowly built up their stake in each over about six months, and then sold everything off within a month after the stock shot up.”

  “How much did they make?”

  “Hard to say exactly, but probably eight hundred million on the oil, and two billion more on the rhodium. Turned the company around; a couple of years ago they almost went under.”

  “You’re sure of all this?”

  He nods. “Yeah.”

  “How come you said the news isn’t great?” Laurie asks, beating me to the punch.


  “Because I don’t know who made the money. The investments were made on behalf of clients, most of which were foreign companies. There’s no way to crack that and find out whose behind them; they’re probably dummy companies.”

  “Sam, you did outstanding work on this,” Laurie says.

  Sam gives his best aw-shucks look and waves her off. “Come on, it’s not like I shot anybody.”

  “Keep at it, Sam,” I say. “If you work hard enough, someday you’ll leave somebody bloody in the street. That will be a proud day for all of us.”

  MY PLAN IS TO SPEND THE WEEKEND MAKING THE KEY DECISION OF THE TRIAL. It’s actually the key decision of every trial, though technically it is not mine to make. I am going to have to either call Billy Zimmerman to the witness stand, or rest our case. The question to be answered is which option is worse; both are very bad.

  The decision is Billy’s to make, and we’ve had a few conversations about it. He wants to testify, but once again his experience as a cop works in our favor. He’s been around enough trials to know that the defendant rarely takes the stand, and when he does the defense is likely desperate. More significantly, the testimony usually hurts rather than helps.

  In Billy’s case there is even more downside than usual. I have already conveyed to the jury our claim that there was another man present, and that Billy wrestled with him. So Billy’s saying it, while having the advantage of being straight from the horse’s mouth, wouldn’t add very much to the record.

  Then he would have to suffer through a cross-examination by Eli that would not be pretty. Billy is an admitted thief; in fact, that’s why he was there that night. Eli would harp on this until Billy looked like Jesse James. Then he would turn to the grudge Billy had against Erskine, which others have already testified to.

  There is no question in my mind that the downside is greater than the upside. Laurie agrees with my assessment, and I call Hike to get his view. I have to take it with a grain of salt, since Hike is “Mr. Downside,” but he agrees as well.