Barely Legal

by Stuart Woods

  “Just say the word. You really want a gun?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’ll have to get a carry permit.”

  “I’ve got one. You got it for me when this place opened and I took your course.”

  “So you need a gun. I understand you don’t want to go to a cop store. But there must be a dozen places in the city you could have got it without driving all the way up here. What’s the deal?”

  “It been a long time, Josh. I need a lesson.”

  Joshua Hook nodded. “Okay. Show me what you got.”

  • • •

  HERBIE DIDN’T HAVE MUCH. Josh started him off on one of the indoor ranges, shooting a short distance at a paper target. He watched while Herbie emptied the magazine, then reeled the target in. There wasn’t a single hole in it.

  “You’re shooting high to the right,” Josh said.

  “What do I do?”

  “Aim low to the left.”

  Herbie gave him a look.

  “Here’s the thing,” Josh said. “For years you’ve been a civilian. You haven’t gotten in trouble, you haven’t fired a gun. But way back when, aren’t you the guy who put two shots in the head of Carmine Dattila?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How many shots did you fire?”

  “Two.”

  “You know why? Because you had to. There was something at stake. The fact that you hated the guy didn’t hurt, but here’s a bully, an aggressive madman who’s going to kill you on a whim. So you walk in the door and, bang, bang! It’s not aiming, it’s not target shooting. It’s just like pointing your finger.”

  Josh gestured to the door. “Okay, let’s go outside.”

  “Why?”

  “What you lawyers call a change of venue.”

  Josh took Herbie to one of the four outdoor shooting ranges.

  “Okay, here we go. I’ll walk you through the obstacle course. The targets jump out at you. No time to aim.”

  “Nothing to remember?”

  “Just squeeze the trigger. Don’t jerk it high right.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “That’s the spirit. You got the layout? You go alone. Those are real bullets, and I don’t want one.”

  Herbie walked through the course, firing as the targets popped up. Josh hadn’t told him to, but he found himself crouching as he went. He came out feeling good.

  “How’d I do?”

  “Much better. You actually hit some of the targets. You also hit a cop, a nun, and a kid on a bicycle, but nobody’s perfect.”

  “The nun looked suspicious.”

  “You want to go again?”

  Herbie shook his head. “As long as I’m hitting something, I’m fine.”

  “So now you want a gun?”

  “Can you sell me one?”

  “No, but I’ll give you one.”

  “Oh?”

  “I figure I owe you.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “When you took my course, you refused to run. You said there was no reason to make everyone do it just because I could. You said I’d do better treating the students as professionals rather than raw recruits.”

  “I was a wiseass in those days.”

  Josh shook his head. “Not at all. Best advice I ever got. So I figure I can give you a gun.”

  “Okay. Which one do you want to give me?”

  “The one in your hand. Stick it in your pants, and you’re good to go.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Yeah. I’ll give you a hip holster. But that’s your gun.”

  “Thanks, Josh.”

  Josh walked Herbie out to the car. Herbie got in and started the engine. Josh rapped on the window. Herbie rolled it down.

  “Yeah?”

  “Try not to shoot any nuns.”

  84

  JUDGE BUCKINGHAM LOOKED down at the defense table. “Mr. Fisher is not in court?”

  “No, Your Honor,” Stone said. “Mr. Fisher was unavoidably detained. I will carry on in his absence.”

  “Very well. Bring in the jury and return the witness to the stand.”

  When that had been done, Stone Barrington stood and approached the witness.

  “Have you consulted your notes, Detective Kelly?”

  Kelly looked smug. “Yes, I have.”

  “And can you tell us who advised you that David Ross would be at the party?”

  “No one.”

  Stone frowned. “No one? Then why were you at the party?”

  “I was told there would be drugs at the party. I was sent there to make an arrest.”

  Stone frowned. Herbie had told him to accept the answer and quit, but he couldn’t let that statement go unchallenged. “Detective, I have been over the transcript and I am certain that you testified that you were at the party because you were acting on intel that David Ross would be there selling drugs. Not just anyone, but David Ross specifically. Do you recall making that statement? We can have the transcript read back, if you need to refresh your memory.”

  Clearly, Detective Kelly was prepared for the question. He was quite unruffled. “I’ll take your word for it,” he said magnanimously. “If I made that statement, I was mistaken. The intel was merely that drugs were being sold at the party, and a major source of narcotics would be there. It turned out the major source of narcotics was David Ross, but we didn’t know it until we caught him selling drugs.”

  Stone blinked. The answer to the question had made things ten times worse. A major source of narcotics, indeed. He could object and get most of the answer thrown out on the grounds of being conclusions on the part of the witness and assuming facts not in evidence, but that would just underline the testimony for the jury. It didn’t matter if it was in the record. They’d heard it, and the damage was done.

  “You were mistaken when you said that you were acting on intel that David Ross would be selling drugs at the party?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You realize you were under oath?”

  “I wasn’t lying. I misspoke.”

  “Are you claiming you accidentally committed perjury?”

  Detective Kelly was unruffled. “It’s only perjury if you make a false statement knowing it to be false. When I made that statement I thought it was true. It was only after I was asked to research it that I realized I was mistaken.”

  Stone smiled. “So you studied up on the laws of perjury. I thought you might have.”

  “Objection, Your Honor,” ADA Grover said.

  “Sustained.”

  “And what other portions of your testimony are you hazy about?”

  “Objection.”

  “Overruled.”

  “I’m not hazy about any of it. I misremembered one thing I’d been told. I am absolutely certain about what I saw and did.”

  “Uh-huh,” Stone said. “Then I hate to ask you about what you were told, but who told you there would be drugs at the party?”

  “The duty officer.”

  “And who would that be?”

  “Sergeant O’Hara.”

  “Sergeant O’Hara told you there would be drugs at the party?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How did he know?”

  “Objection. Hearsay.”

  “Sustained.”

  “No further questions,” Stone said, and sat down.

  There was a stunned silence in the courtroom. A spectator giggled. A juror nearly applauded.

  The witness, clearly prepared with a litany of answers, looked like a student who had crammed all night only to have the teacher cut him off before he could dazzle the girls in class with his knowledge.

  Judge Buckingham recovered first. He turned to the prosecutor. “Mr. Grover. Any redirect for this witness?”

  The ADA clearly didn’t know. He hesitated a moment, suspecting a trap, then said, “No questions, Your Honor.”

  “The witness is excused,” Judge Buckingham said. “Call your next witness.”

 
“The prosecution calls Julie Parker.”

  Ms. Parker was an attractive young woman dressed in loose-fitting business attire that tended to deemphasize her figure. Dressed as a hip young college student, Stone figured, she would be enticing indeed.

  ADA Grover asked a few preliminary questions establishing that she was an undercover narcotics agent, Stone stipulated her qualifications, and they were off to the races.

  As the direct examination started, Mookie slipped out and made the call.

  Taperelli was not pleased. “That’s not good.”

  “Mr. Fisher is doing what you asked,” Mookie said.

  “Yeah, but he’s not there.”

  “No, but Stone Barrington is, and he’s taking a dive. He let the detective go.”

  “What’s his game?”

  “No game. He’s throwing in the towel.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “What’s not to like? It’s exactly what you wanted.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t expect to get it. Not that easily. And we don’t know where Mr. Fisher is.”

  “I wasn’t tailing him this morning. There was no need. He had to be in court.”

  “But he’s not there.”

  “No.”

  “So there was a need.”

  “Maybe. We don’t know why.”

  “That’s why you should have been tailing him like I’d asked. I need to know what he’s up to. I have people asking me who want to know why he’s not in court. What am I supposed to tell them? That we lost track of him because Mookie didn’t think there was a need to keep tabs?”

  “So what do you want me to do?”

  “Stay in court. If he shows up, let me know. This case needs to be wrapped up today.”

  85

  DINO DIDN’T KNOW there’d been a kidnapping. He was just a man with a murder case to solve.

  The David Ross case was another matter entirely. It still looked like a frame-up, engineered by a crooked detective and a mob boss, but it had nothing to do with the murder.

  There was also the intimidation and corruption of defense attorney James Glick. Dino had a finger on that pulse, even if it wasn’t top priority. James Glick, though a victim, was also an accomplice. If he’d conspired with Tommy Taperelli to thwart justice by fleeing the jurisdiction of the court, the fact that he’d been coerced into such action would be a matter for his attorneys to raise should the case ever come to trial. But Dino had him on the books as a fugitive, and Dino was keeping track. When last sighted, James Glick was headed southwest and would be reaching Texas soon.

  Where he went from there was anybody’s guess. The man was running scared.

  Would bringing him back help Herbie? That was the question. The answer was probably not. He could take over the court case, but right now the court case was the only thing Herbie had to focus on.

  The intercom buzzed.

  “Yes?” Dino said.

  “Stone Barrington on line two.”

  Dino clicked it on. “Hi, Stone, how’s it going?”

  “Not great. Herbie didn’t show up for court.”

  “Again? What’s he done now?”

  “This time he’s not arrested. At least I think he isn’t. He called, told me he wasn’t coming, asked me to carry on.”

  “Did he say why?”

  “He said he was busy.”

  “Well, that’s broad enough to cover everything in the penal code. When did you speak to him?”

  “He called on my way to court. He seemed casual enough. It sounded like he was in a car, only he said he wasn’t.”

  “He’s lying to us again?”

  “Hey, he tried to marry a hooker and got arrested. Can lying be far behind?”

  “Have you tried calling him?”

  “It went to voice mail. If I thought it was Taperelli who killed his girlfriend, I’d be scared.”

  “Could that be why he’s ducking the case? I find that hard to believe. He stood up in court and took on the world.”

  “Until this morning.”

  “What about this morning?”

  “He told me to let Detective Kelly go. We had him on the run. Herbie stumped him with a question, and Kelly asked for an adjournment to consult his notes. Herbie told me to let him report what he found and just quit.”

  “Did you do that?”

  “I did. He’s off the stand.”

  “So the prosecution is done?”

  “No, they called a corroborating witness, an undercover agent who was there at the party.”

  “Would that be a woman?”

  “Yes.”

  “Attractive?”

  “She would be in undercover attire.”

  “Are you going to ask her anything?”

  “I might have one or two questions.”

  “Have fun, Stone. Let me know if Herbie resurfaces.”

  Dino hung up the phone thinking hard. It didn’t add up. Dino could understand Herbie’s behavior if Taperelli was leaning on him, if he’d been the one to kill Yvette and was now threatening Herbie. But the evidence pointing to Yvette’s killer was clear. They had his fingerprints, his face on videotape, and the identification of the doorman. Plus the corroborating evidence of the prisoner he’d ratted out, who’d picked Yvette’s picture out of a lineup.

  The intercom buzzed.

  “Yes?”

  “Detective Brogan to see you.”

  “Send him in.”

  Brogan entered, his expression sheepish.

  “What’s up, Detective?”

  “There’s something else we overlooked, sir.”

  Dino smiled. “Are you sure that’s how you want to lead off, Detective?”

  “Yeah, it is. Because it’s true, and I should take responsibility.”

  “Just what are you taking responsibility for?”

  “The surveillance video in the building.”

  “We have the video of the perpetrator delivering the pizza.”

  “Yes, sir. That’s not the video I’m referring to. You see, no one paid too much attention to the surveillance video because initially the suspect was discovered at the scene of the crime with the murder weapon in his hand. And when the second suspect emerged, he could be seen quite clearly in the video from the lobby camera, as well as the camera in the elevator, in which he could be seen both going up to and down from the apartment. So there was little reason to look for anyone else.”

  “Such as?”

  “It turns out there’s no video from the back staircase on the night of the murder. That in itself is no big deal. The cameras were on a circuit, and that circuit was out. But there’s video from the day before. Those cameras all went out just before the suspect went up with the pizza.”

  “Why would he put the cameras out and then take the elevator?”

  “Clearly he wouldn’t. Which brings up the possibility of another perpetrator.”

  Dino grinned. “Are you trying to get back at me for pointing out the evidence of the robbery?”

  The detective flushed. “No, sir. Like I said, I’m pointing out another area in which I was deficient.”

  “I’m kidding, Detective. This is excellent work, and I appreciate you bringing it to me. Are you saying with the cameras out it would have been possible for someone to get in and out of the building without being seen?”

  “Yes, sir. There’s cameras in the elevators and main stairwells, but not in the penthouse hallway. If someone got into the back stairway, they could have gone right into the apartment without being seen.”

  “It’s a theory, but it’s just a theory.”

  “It’s more than that. The cameras didn’t just go out. Someone cut the feed. The feed was cut in the garage, from which there’s also access to the back stairwell. If someone got into the garage and took out the cameras, they could go right up and no one would know.”

  “Could they get into the garage without being seen?”

  “Yes, sir, I checked it out. The cameras are aimed at th
e cars. A person on foot could get in hugging the wall and avoid the cameras all the way back to where the wire was cut.”

  “What’s to stop someone from doing that?”

  “The attendant. It’s a manned garage. The attendant at the entrance would stop anyone on foot.”

  “How many attendants?”

  “Just one. It’s a private garage, for the tenants in the building. He’s not renting space, he’s just there to wave off cars that don’t belong.”

  Dino frowned. “Interesting.”

  “Anyway, I thought you should know.”

  “You thought right, Detective. Who knows about this?”

  “No one. I reported directly to you.”

  “Anything you get, report directly to me. Let’s keep this from the media if we can.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now that we know what we’re looking for, are there any video cameras on the street that would show the entrance to that garage?”

  “Apparently there are two. Neither is from a great angle. One is across the street and down the block. The other is on the same side as the garage and shooting diagonally across. It would show people approaching the garage, but not going in. I have detectives reviewing the footage from the day of the murder now.”

  “Good. As soon as you get something, let me know.”

  Dino sat at his desk, thinking. What the detective had told him put a whole new spin on everything. It was possible that someone other than the sneak thief had been at Herbie’s apartment that night. And just like that, Tommy Taperelli was back in the mix.

  Could Tommy Taperelli’s boys have killed Yvette? If that were true, things might suddenly make sense. It could explain why Herbie had been acting so strange lately, telling Stone not to cross-examine the witness.

  Could Tommy Taperelli be putting the pressure on Herbie? He’d put the pressure on James Glick so badly he’d run. At least, that was the supposition. If that were true, it would go a long way toward proving he was doing the same to Herbie. And that he’d possibly killed Yvette Walker.

  Dino snatched up the phone and called the officer he’d put in charge of tracing James Glick. “Carlson, it’s Dino. Where was our runaway lawyer last spotted?”

  • • •

  TOMMY TAPERELLI WAS also monitoring James Glick’s movements. People didn’t run out on Tommy Taperelli and live to tell of it. Tommy Taperelli had his own national network, perhaps not as extensive as Dino’s, but every bit as effective. And Tommy Taperelli’s boys actually had a big advantage over Dino’s. They didn’t have to bother about warrants, or extradition. They didn’t have to bother about Miranda, or habeas corpus, or probable cause. They only had to bother about not getting caught. Otherwise, as soon as they found James Glick, they were done.