David Rosenfelt: New Tricks

“I’m afraid I don’t know who that might be,” she says.

“Not yet. Tell me about Steven’s relationship with his father.”

“It was complicated; I don’t even think Steven understood it. Steven idolized him, and loved him, and was intimidated by him, and probably hated him. And every one of those emotions made sense. Walter Timmerman was an amazing man, in ways both positive and negative. Not an easy man to have as a father.”

“But you don’t think Steven could have killed him?”

“No.”

“What about his stepmother?”

“That’s another story.”

LAURIE’S PLANE IS DUE at Newark airport at eight o’clock.

I’m there just before seven, which is about normal for me. For some reason I have a compulsion to arrive at airports well in advance, especially when I’m picking someone up. It makes no sense, because planes almost never arrive early. And on the rare occasions that they do, they compensate for it by arranging for the arrival gate not to be ready, so that the plane has to sit on the tarmac until it is.

And the ugly truth is that planes could be early, if the airlines so desired. Nothing is more annoying than sitting on a plane that is late in taking off, and having the pilot announce that he will “make up time in the air.” If they could fly faster when they’re late, why not fly faster all the time? Can you imagine a bus driver on a seventy-mile-per-hour highway arbitrarily deciding to go forty?

So once again I spend an hour looking at the arrivals screen, checking to see if other planes are arriving early, as if that might signify a pattern. They’re not.

By the time the plane lands and Laurie gets her bags, it’s past eight thirty. It’s been an almost nine-hour trip for her; she’s had to switch planes twice. Some people might look tired or disheveled from that kind of day, but not Laurie. She would look great if she traveled cross-country strapped to the top of a covered wagon.

I’m not much for public hugging, but I make an exception in this case. We hold it for at least fifteen fantastic seconds, at which point she pulls back and looks me right in the eye. “Andy, I have missed you so much.”

“Oh?” I ask. “Have you been away?”

We make it home in less than thirty minutes. It’s about fifty feet from the garage to the front door, then another forty feet to the twelve steps leading upstairs, then another twenty feet or so to the bedroom. My plan is to navigate this distance and have Laurie in bed in less than twenty-eight seconds, which would represent a new record.

Unfortunately, Tara and Waggy have other ideas. Tara goes nuts as soon as she sees Laurie, and Waggy goes nuts because he is nuts. Within a few seconds Laurie is on the floor rolling around, petting them and laughing. The look on her face is pure delight.

“You look tired,” I say. “Ready to turn in?”

“Tired? Let’s take them for a walk.”

“A walk?” This is not going according to plan, so I shake my head. “No can do. I tried walking them this morning. They hate walks; they refused to go. We argued about it.”

She smiles. “That’s a shame. A nice walk would have put me in the mood to make love with you. But if they don’t want to walk…”

“Hey, they’re dogs,” I say. “We’ll just show them who’s boss. Let’s go.”

I take Waggy and Laurie takes Tara, and we walk for about an hour through Eastside Park. By the time we get back we’re all a little tired and ready for bed, except for Waggy. Waggy wouldn’t get tired if we walked to New Zealand.

Laurie and I are undressed and in bed within a few minutes of entering the house. She stretches out her arms. “You changed the sheets,” she says.

“I change them every day,” I say. “Force of habit.”

“You’re lying,” she says.

I nod. “I also lie every day. It’s another habit.”

She pulls me close to her. “Let me show you something you don’t do every day.”

And she does. It would be nice if it could become a habit.

While Laurie makes breakfast the next morning I tell her all I know about the Timmerman case. The depth of my knowledge is such that I would have time to relate the entire story even if she were making instant oatmeal, but she’s making pancakes. Her pancakes occupy a prominent spot on the list of things I miss when she is in Wisconsin.

“So where will you start?” Laurie asks after hearing my spiel.

“The father. He was the one with the money and the power.”

She nods. “That’s what I would do.” Then: “You’re going to be a busy boy.”

She’s verbalized what I already knew, and was feeling terrible about. I’m going to be consumed by a case while Laurie is making one of her rare visits. “I’m sorry; the timing is not great,” I say.

She shrugs. “It is what it is. I can use the downtime, and there’s a lot of friends I can catch up with. Plus, I’ll be here to help if you need it.”

“I could hire you on a temporary basis, maybe try it for ten years or so, see if it works out. Fifty bucks a week, but you’ll always have a place to sleep.” It’s a pathetic attempt to suggest she move back, but it’s as close as I’ll come to broaching the subject.

She doesn’t take the bait. “That’s an incredibly appealing offer,” she says. “I’ll talk about it with my agent.”

I head down to Timco Pharmaceuticals, the company Walter Timmerman founded and ran for the last twelve years. Company-naming was obviously not his strong suit.

I usually find that calling ahead in these situations is not the best way to get people to speak to me, especially when I have no idea who those people are. I can be more insistent and obnoxious in person, or at least that’s what everybody tells me.

Timco is located on Route 17 in Mahwah, in a building much smaller and less expensive than I would have expected. It looks like one of those mini medical center complexes that have sprung up everywhere. The entire thing looks like it could have fit in one of the bedrooms of Timmerman’s now exploded home.

The small lobby is not exactly a beehive of activity, matching the feeling that the exterior gives off of a slow-moving environment. Not what one would expect from the cutting-edge company that Timmerman was said to run.

The directory still lists Walter Timmerman as the chairman and chief executive officer, with Thomas Sykes next in line as chief operating officer, so when I approach the receptionist I give her my name and ask to speak to Sykes.

“Is Mr. Sykes expecting you?”

“Anything’s possible,” I say, “but only he can really answer that.”

“What is it about?”

“I’m representing Steven Timmerman.”

She picks up the phone and relays my message to whoever answers. The response is obviously positive, because within moments a young woman comes out to lead me back to Sykes’s office.

The main part of the building is surprisingly alive. It is one large laboratory, with what appears to be the most modern equipment, and a large staff of earnest people using them. If anyone is over thirty-five, they’re aging well. The average basketball team is older than this group.

Sykes himself seems under forty, though he is clearly the elder statesman here. He smiles and shakes my hand, welcoming me to Timco, as if I am joining the team. I thank him and enter his modern, well-appointed office, which has a large painting of Walter Timmerman looking down from the wall, as if he were Chairman Mao.

“Thanks for seeing me,” I say.

“No problem. But I doubt I can help you much; I don’t know Steven very well. The truth is, I’m not sure I’d want to help you if I could.”