“Down the shore where?” Laurie asks.
“Would have been Bradley or Belmar. There are comfortable places there to sleep under the boardwalk, and the police don’t hassle you.”
Carrigan describes living under the boardwalk casually, as if it’s no big deal or hardship. I’m not sure that’s what the Drifters had in mind when they came up with their song.
“Keep going.”
“One night … I don’t wear a watch so I don’t know what time it was, but it was probably two or three in the morning … I woke up and a guy was grabbing at this plastic bag of my stuff. He pulled it out, but then he came at me,” he says.
“Came at you how?” I ask.
“With a knife. I saw a glint of light on it in his hand.”
“Did he come at you because you woke up and were moving towards him, or do you think his plan was to stab you all along?” Laurie asks.
“I can’t answer that. He would have had no reason to kill me if I was asleep, but it’s unknowable now.”
“What did you do?” I ask.
“I chopped him in the neck, and then chopped down on his hand. It knocked the knife out of his hand, and he started making gurgling noises, from me hitting his neck.”
“And you had been sleeping? You wake up fast.”
He nods. “I was well trained, and he clearly was not. In general, I’m not a good guy to mess with. Anyway, he took off, and then I realized he took the plastic bag with him. He got away in a big car, like a minivan or something.”
It’s not a particularly credible story, and that’s being kind. A guy pulls up in a minivan for the purpose of robbing and maybe killing a homeless man who is completely unlikely to have anything of value? A jury would laugh me out of court, and yet he tells it in a believable way.
“So the hat would have been in that bag?” Laurie asks.
He shrugs. “I can’t say for sure, but that’s my best guess. Not much for you to work with.”
I nod. “Not much at all. Any chance you could identify the guy? Did you get a license plate or anything? Would you know him if you saw him again?”
“No, no, and no. Sorry.”
“Any idea why he would have wanted to hurt you, once he had the bag of your stuff?”
A shake of the head. “No, but there are some messed up people out there. And they think some homeless man, laying in the street asleep, is about as easy a prey as they’re ever going to find. This particular guy found out differently.”
“How often does that happen to you?” Laurie asks. I can see the intensity in her face, and I would bet anything she’s thinking about how unfair it is that people have to live the way Carrigan is describing.
“I get hassled a lot, but you mean attacked in a serious way? Just twice; the time I told you about, and the time Zoey took a piece out of that guy. How is Zoey doing, by the way?”
“She’s doing well. Getting along great with Tara and Sebastian, no negative issues at all. Laurie took her to the vet, and everything checked out okay. She should be delivering her puppies in about three weeks.”
“I’d love to see a picture; I’d love to have a picture.”
“Of Zoey?”
He nods. “And of the puppies when they’re born. Weird how much I miss her,” he says.
I nod. “Believe me, I get it.”
“What will you do with the puppies?”
“Find them great homes. We’re good at that.”
He nods. “Good. Thank you. I can’t understand why you both have done so much for me, but please know that I appreciate it.”
Before we leave, I give Carrigan his homework assignment. “Here’s what we are up against: your DNA was on the scene, and the hat that was there must have been yours. So there are two possibilities. One is that the person who stole your hat happened to be the same person that committed the murder, and he happened to leave that hat on the scene.”
He frowns. “Seems like a bit of a long shot.”
“The longest,” I say. “The other possibility is that you were set up, that the hat was taken strictly for the purpose of leaving it at the murder scene and framing you.”
“Also unlikely.”
“Yes, but we still have to choose door number two; we have no other options. So what you need to do is think of who might have a grudge against you, strong enough to frame you for a murder. It has to be someone who would also be willing to break a man’s neck in the process.”
“I don’t know who would hold such a grudge.”
“These violent incidents that you had after you got back from Iraq, maybe some of the people you beat up?” Laurie asks.
“They were in-the-moment flare-ups, not the type to leave lingering bad will. But I’ll try to think about it.”
“Good. Try real hard,” I say.
The news is dominated by the police revelation of the suspect in the sniper shooting of Ronald Lester.
The name is Chuck Simmons, and though pretty much no one had heard of him as of yesterday, everyone knows him now.
His sketch is on every newscast, as well as a brief bio. He’s a forty-nine-year-old veteran of Desert Storm, and hints are dropped that his military function was that of a sniper. The local authorities won’t confirm that, but neither will they deny it. The Defense Department has gone way out on a limb and issued a “no comment.”
The main pertinent fact about Simmons is that he went through a bitter divorce four years ago, and his wife Greta’s attorney was none other than Ronald Lester. The media has gone from speculation to certainty that this was revenge for what they call Lester’s total victory in the courtroom.
Simmons’s life apparently spun out of control, and as far as his ex-wife and few friends knew, he’d dropped out of sight. But now he is back with a vengeance, and there is a full-court press out for his capture.
By now everyone having any connection to the law enforcement community knows that Simmons left an eyeglass case behind at the location from which he fired the shot. The police couldn’t be positive that the shooter left the case, it could have been another member of the public who had parked his car there, but the connection between Lester and Simmons’s divorce case was too direct for it to be considered a possible coincidence.
In a way, the news causes a collective sigh of relief among the local citizenry. The idea of a sniper randomly targeting people is far more terrorizing than that of that same sniper going after a person that he thought wronged him, in order to exact revenge. All of those who never had anything to do with Simmons, and that includes just about everyone, can relax.
I, for one, can breathe easier when I walk into and out of the courthouse. I still feel a bit nauseous when I’m there, but it’s because of my distaste for lawyering, rather than fear of being on the receiving end of a bullet.
The Carrigan case is totally off the media radar screen; until Simmons is caught even a breakout of World War III will not receive significant attention. I’m fine with that; while I often use the media to my advantage, right now I have no need or ability to do so.
I go to Charlie’s for the first time in a while and am surprised to see only Vince there. Since it’s Monday Night Football, Pete’s absence is unusual to say the least.
“Where’s Pete?” I ask.
“You didn’t have the radio on coming over here?” he asks.
“No.”
All he does is point to the TV screen. Rather than showing pregame shows, they are broadcasting the news. And the banner, breaking news headlines across the screens, says it all:
“Greta Simmons killed in sniper shooting.” “Ex-wife of murder suspect is second victim.”
“Holy shit,” I say, because I am most eloquent when I am surprised.
“She got shot walking out of the gym she goes to,” Vince says.
As I watch, it’s obvious that the circumstances are the same as with Ronald Lester. She was killed by one perfectly placed bullet, fired from a significant distance. The shooter, certainly
her ex-husband, melted away before anyone could even figure out where the shot came from.
Once again, people are going to react with horror mixed with relief. Simmons is out for revenge, perhaps he’s gotten all he is after, but in any event the average person is safe.
If you’re not in Simmons’s crosshairs, then life will go on.
While our operating assumption is that Carrigan was framed by someone out to get him, it doesn’t really stand up to logical scrutiny. And since juries are often into logical scrutiny, we’re in big trouble.
How would the murderer, the person with this intense grudge, even have found him? Carrigan was living on the street; one couldn’t exactly google his address. And he already was living a miserable life; would someone have felt it necessary to try and make it worse?
I don’t buy it, and I’m the one trying to sell it.
But there are other logical weaknesses that work in Carrigan’s favor. How did he get to Short Hills? And why pick that location? There are wealthy people that are vulnerable to robberies much closer; even Paterson has them. Hell, I’m one of them.
And what did he do with the money? He doesn’t seem to have blown it on fancy living, so where is it? And was this a one-time robbery? There’s no evidence that Carrigan committed any other thefts.
But there is a great deal I don’t know about our client; for all I know he’s been traveling cross-country on a bank-robbing spree. Which is why I am heading to the VA hospital in East Orange to meet with Dr. Lucia Alvarez.
Dr. Alvarez was Carrigan’s shrink when he got off active duty. She treated him for PTSD and his letter to her allows and encourages her to share details of his treatment and condition with me. I don’t think he was thrilled to do so, but I insisted, and I think in his mind it was far better than having to tell me about it himself.
I would imagine that Dr. Alvarez is swamped with patients suffering ailments similar to Carrigan’s, but she greets me with a smile and a very calm demeanor. Her office is small and nondescript, with a desk, chair, couch, and small table. I don’t know if she uses the couches for her patients, but I quickly sit in the available chair.
“Thanks for seeing me,” I say. “I assume you got Don Carrigan’s letter authorizing you to tell me about his case?”
She nods. “Yes, and I called him at the prison, just to confirm. It’s an unusual situation; I’m never comfortable talking about my patients.”
“I understand. I don’t really have an agenda here; I just want to learn whatever I can about Don to aid me in defending him. All I know is that he was in Iraq, suffers from a form of PTSD, and has claustrophobia. They’re giving him Xanax in the prison to control attacks.”
She nods. “Good. But it still must be difficult for him. I think the best way to do this is for you to ask me questions, and I’ll respond as best I can.”
“Fair enough. Let’s start with whatever you can tell me about his service in Iraq.”
“I’m afraid not much,” she says. “Much of it is classified, which says a lot about the type of missions he was on. Not for the fainthearted, I assure you.”
“He would have been well trained for them, right? For the most part whatever he faced he would have expected?”
She nods. “The training assured that he would be competent to handle the assignment; there is no such assurance that the ultimate effect on him would not be profound.”
“So he never discussed with you what he did over there?”
“He did not. I doubt he will ever speak about it.”
“It left him homeless and on the street,” I say.
She frowns. “I know that now; all I knew then was that he stopped coming to see me. I tried to locate him, but couldn’t.”
“This happens often?” I ask.
“Far too often. What happens is that soldiers who live through war trauma internalize the idea that they have changed, that they are ‘different,’ just from the act and intensity of making it through. What they don’t know, really can’t know, is that they have been permanently altered, that the changes will not be likely to wear off. And because they are military, because they are tough, they think the opposite is true, that they can get through anything. They believe they will survive these new difficulties just through force of will.”
“So it doesn’t wear off?” I ask.
“It does not. Typically it’s not until they try ‘normal’ life that they experience how much they have changed, and how they can’t find their place in the normal world anymore. Life can seem anything from meaningless to unbearable, and that is not even getting to the guilt of having survived when others, their friends and colleagues, have died.”
“Why claustrophobia?”
“It’s actually quite common as a manifestation of PTSD. This probably had something to do with the type of missions that he was on; he likely was in confined areas. Now he can feel trapped in situations that wouldn’t affect you and me at all, but his terror is very real.”
“Can that terror cause him to react violently?”
“Yes, within limits. I remember there was an incident at a small apartment he was renting. He had a panic attack and broke a table, as well as causing other damage. He was evicted, and moved into a motel. Sometime after that he obviously opted for the street, voluntarily or not, but I am not privy to the facts of that.”
“You said within limits. He is charged with lying in wait to commit a robbery, and then breaking the victim’s neck.”
“With the caveat that anything is possible, I don’t believe it for a second,” she says.
“Will you testify to that?”
“Of course. Don Carrigan is an honorable man, as well as a hero. He did what his country asked him to do, and he has suffered for it. The act that you are describing is not consistent with his character or mental state, and I will state that in any venue you’d like.”
That’s good enough for me, and I’m feeling relieved that she confirmed the instincts about Carrigan that both Laurie and I have.
“He’s very attached to a dog that he found,” I say. “Her name is Zoey.”
She nods. “Not surprising at all, and I’m glad to hear it. Dogs can be a big part of PTSD recovery. They are helpful with relaxation and provide comfort and companionship. Most important is the sense of responsibility he would feel to the dog; it would help prevent his shutting down and disconnecting from the world.”
“That seems to be what happened,” I say. “The dog is pretty tough also. She bit the guy that attacked Carrigan.”
She smiles. “Where is Zoey now?”
“We’re caring for her. She’s pregnant.”
“He’ll probably ask without prompting, but keep him informed of her progress. Show him photos if you can. We want him to stay engaged.”
“Will do.”
“Thank you for helping him.”
“Thank you for helping him and many others like him,” I say.
“Unfortunately, in Don’s case my outcome was not a desirable one. Maybe you can do better.”
“Hey, Andy. I just got the police report,” Ralph Brandenberger says, calling me on my cell.
“What police report?” I ask, but if he responds, I can’t hear him. There’s a barking explosion in the background; such is his life as the man who runs the local animal shelter.
“About that homeless guy and the dog … from the other night. Whenever there is a bite involved, I always get the report.”
“Right,” I say, suddenly interested. The report wasn’t in the discovery because it has nothing to do with the murder Carrigan is accused of. But I should have been asking about it because I just realized in the moment that it could be important. “I’d like to see it, Ralph.”
“No problem. You want to pick it up, or should I mail a copy to you?”
“I’ll be right over.”
I’ve been thinking about the attack on Carrigan that night in the wrong manner. For one thing, I haven’t viewed it as significant. I didn’t
question the fact that it wasn’t included in the discovery documents, because I basically agreed that it wasn’t related to the McMaster murder.
If I’ve thought about it at all, it has been in viewing it as potential evidence that he is not prone to unnecessary violence. All he did was defend himself from the attacker; he could have gone further and inflicted serious damage on the man. He was certainly provoked and just as certainly had the physical ability to have killed the guy.
But what I should have been focusing on was the existence of the attack itself. What was the guy hoping to get from Carrigan? He certainly had nothing of value. Could he have been hoping to do more? Could his plan have been to kill Carrigan?
Why would someone do that?
There’s always the chance that the attacker was a deranged murderer who liked to prey on the helpless, but it seems unlikely. A more realistic scenario is that the guy was targeting Carrigan, for reasons unknown.
And if Carrigan is to be believed, and it is becoming increasingly likely in my mind that he is, then this is the second time he was attacked. The first time was a knifebrandishing assailant who stole some possessions, including the hat.
I don’t know the frequency in which the homeless are targets of unprovoked attacks, but the fact that it’s happened twice to my client is a red flag that I am going to investigate. If our hypothesis is that Carrigan is the target of a frame-up, then we can’t reject the possibility that the same people could also be targeting him for robbery or murder, and maybe both.
Ralph has the copies of the documents waiting when I arrive. He asks, “How is the dog doing?”
“Doing well, Ralph, thanks.”
“What about the homeless guy? Is he still in the picture?”
Obviously Ralph is not a ravenous consumer of the news; he doesn’t know that Carrigan has been arrested. “He’s definitely in the picture,” I say.
I call Laurie and tell her I’ll be home in a little while with the new documents, and she says that by then she and Ricky will be finished with the tree. They decided that this tree is bigger than previous years’ trees, so the four million ornaments and lights they put on the other night left it looking a little barren.
Deck the Hounds--An Andy Carpenter Mystery Page 6
