David Rosenfelt - One Dog Night

“I’ll let him tell you. But after he does, please talk him out of it.”

Willie is somewhat volatile, and more than somewhat impetuous, so this could be anything from wanting to remodel the foundation offices to enrolling in astronaut school. I’m not going to know until I know.

When I get into the back, which is where the dogs are, I find Willie in his normal position, rolling around on the ground, playing with six of them. I love dogs in a way that most people consider well north of eccentric, but Willie makes me look normal.

When he sees me, he jumps up, gives each dog a chewie to occupy them, and heads over to me. “Big news,” he says.

“I’m ready.”

“They want me to write a book.”

“Who does?”

The question throws him. “I don’t know… some book guy.”

This is already not going well. “A book guy? That’s all you know about him? Was he a big book guy? An old book guy?”

“Hold on a second,” he says, and walks over to his desk, opening the drawer. “He gave me his card.”

Willie hands me the card, which was given to him by Mr. Alexander Downey, the managing editor at a publishing house in New York. It seems legit, but who knows.

“So what exactly did he say?”

“That I should write a book, like my life story, and they’d put it out there. You know, print it out and stuff.”

“Anything else?”

“That they’d give me a lot of money. And I’d get it as soon as I say I’ll do it, before I even write the thing. But if I don’t write it, I have to give the money back. He wants me to have my agent call him.”

“Who’s your agent?” I ask, dreading the answer.

“You.”

“Willie, are you up for writing a book?”

“Sure. What’s the big deal?”

“Well, just to make sure, maybe you should read one first, so you’ll know what you’re getting into.” The only reading I’ve ever seen Willie do are his own press clippings.

“Come on, Andy, I told you a million times, I can’t do that. I get bored real easily; I read a ketchup bottle and I fall asleep.”

“It’s a big deal, Willie, a lot of work.”

“They said they’ll give me somebody to help. He’s helped other, you know, writers… like me.”

“I’m sure they will.”

“Hey, I’m gonna need some pens, and a lot of paper. You think maybe the helper guy will get me all that?”

I hold up the card. “Why don’t I call this guy, and then we’ll go from there.”

He nods. “Good idea. Hey, how many words are there in a book?”

“I don’t know, maybe eighty, a hundred thousand, or so.”

“How many words have we said? You know, since you got here and we’ve been talking.”

“Maybe a few hundred,” I say.

He’s clearly not pleased by my answer. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

He ponders this for a few moments. “Make sure they give me a good helper.”

“Do you know a man named Daniel Butler? People seem to call him Danny.”

Noah’s face shows no hint of recognition, and certainly no concern about my reason for asking the question.

“No, I don’t think so,” he says. “Should I?”

“Danny Butler is the reason you were arrested.”

He shakes his head. “I’m the reason I was arrested. But who is he?”

“He went to the FBI and told them that you confessed setting the fire to him. The conversation supposedly took place a few weeks after the fire.”

“That’s not possible.”

“How can you be sure of that? Maybe it was during one of your blackout periods?”

He shakes his head, more firmly this time, as if adamant. “No, when I realized what I had done, I went cold turkey. I still lived in homeless shelters for a while, but I have not put a drug into my system since that day.”

“So you don’t know him at all? He claims that he had breakfast with you at a homeless shelter, and that you were bragging about it.”

“I had breakfast with plenty of people at homeless shelters, but I never talked about the fire with anyone, at any time, until I got arrested and told Becky. And then you.”

I believe Noah is telling the truth. For one thing, he sounds sincere, though that is not terribly important. Plenty of sincere-sounding people have lied to me through their teeth. More significantly, he has no reason to lie. He’s already planning to admit his guilt and plead accordingly, so he gains nothing by denying his connection to Danny Butler.

“In his deposition, Butler goes on to say that you told him exactly how you had done it, where you set the fires, and the kind of chemicals you used. He said-”

“He’s lying, Andy.” For the first time, I hear something other than resignation in Noah’s voice. I hear a little anger.

“Why would he be lying?”

“I don’t know, but he’s lying. I’ve never had the slightest recollection of anything from that day. There is no possible way I accurately described to him what happened.”

“His story matches up with the forensic investigation.”

He thinks for a moment, frustration evident on his face. “I don’t know what to say.”

I hesitate before I continue. I’m crossing a bridge, and when I get to the other side and turn around, the bridge is going to be gone, and there won’t be any going back. And the problem is, I don’t want to get to the other side at all, and I absolutely dread getting stuck there.

“Noah, it’s important that you think about the implications of this. Let’s assume that you’re right, that you never had this incriminating conversation with Danny Butler.”

“I’m definitely right about that,” he says.

“Okay. Then how did he know the details? You couldn’t have had an accomplice, could you?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“So somebody else told Butler everything that happened, or he set the fire himself.”

“I set the fire.”

“You think that you did, I know that,” I say. “And maybe it’s true. But how did Butler find out about it? And why did he wait six years to come forward?”

Noah thinks about it and comes up with an explanation that is not completely out of left field. “You said his statement matched the forensics report. Well, maybe someone gave him the report. He read it, and attributed the information to me.”

“So he read it, and then framed someone he never met, you, while you were coincidentally hiding a belief in your own guilt.”

By now I’m pacing around the room, trying to make sense out of this. I’m sure Noah would be pacing as well, if he were not handcuffed to the metal table.

“Where does this leave us, Andy?”

“Well, I’m sorry, but what I should have already told you is that the prosecutor will not settle for anything other than life without the possibility of parole.”

He nods; it’s exactly what he expected, and probably what he wants. “I understand.”

“So there’s no rush to pleading guilty,” I say. “It’s not going to change your sentence.”

“I told you, I don’t want a trial.”

“Noah, in any negotiation, even one in which you hold no cards of any value, there is always time to make a bad deal.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means at any point you can interrupt the process and plead guilty, and that will put a stop to everything, and you’ll go away for the rest of your life. But I’m suggesting you hold off for a while, at least until we can explain what’s behind this Danny Butler situation.”

“You’re going to do that?” He rattles his handcuffs. “Because I’m sort of tied up.”

I nod. “I’ve got some free time.”

“You might regret that choice of words. Because I have no money to pay you.”

“You gave me Tara. I owe you one.”