David Rosenfelt - New Tricks

“Can you think of any reason why he would do that?”

“I haven’t thought about it.”

I nod agreeably. “Why don’t you spend some time thinking about it now? We’ll wait.”

Hatchet, it turns out, has no desire to wait, and he tells me to move on. So I do. “Detective, did you run a trace on the gun, in an attempt to find out its history?”

“Yes. It was not in any database.”

“So the gun’s only connection to Steven Timmerman is that it was hidden in his loft?”

“The only connection that we could find,” he says.

“Okay, for Steven to have done this, he would have had to shoot his father in downtown Paterson, drive an hour or so to his loft, and then hide the gun in the one place it could absolutely be traced back to him.”

“Your Honor, is there a question in there?” Richard asks.

“Would you like to try that as a question, Mr. Carpenter?” Hatchet asks. “That is the general procedure that we like to follow.”

I nod. “Thank you, Your Honor, I will. Detective, if Steven Timmerman was going to wipe the gun clean, and if it couldn’t otherwise be traced to him, why not just leave it at the scene, or throw it into any garbage can between Paterson and New York? Or throw it into the Passaic River? Or leave it anywhere except in his own loft?”

“I can’t know what was in his mind.”

“Then can you read the anonymous caller’s mind? Did he say how he knew where the gun was?”

“No.”

“Or why he called now?”

“No.”

“But he knew which piece of furniture it was hidden in?”

“He said the leg on the large table.”

“Does it bother you at all that you found the gun this way?”

To Manning’s credit, he doesn’t duck the question. “It would not be my first choice.”

I nod. “Thank you for that. Would you say that the anonymous caller, whoever he might be, wants Steven Timmerman to be found guilty in this trial?”

“It would seem so,” Manning says.

“That’s quite a coincidence, don’t you think?”

“What do you mean?”

“The person who wants Steven to spend the rest of his life in jail just happens to be the person whom Steven told exactly where he hid the gun.”

I check my cell phone messages when court adjourns, and there is one from Sam telling me that he has found the DNA expert to end all DNA experts. He’s a college professor, specializing in genetics. He teaches classes all day and does research at night, so he’s going to bring him to the house early Monday morning before court, and I should call him if that doesn’t work. It works fine, so I don’t bother calling.

When I get home, Laurie is on the phone talking and laughing with a friend from back in Findlay. That is happening with increasing frequency, and I can’t say I’m thrilled with it. Pretty soon she’s going to want to talk and laugh with those creeps face-to-face, which means she will leave here. That is a day I’m not looking forward to.

We decide to have pizza tonight, and because the smell of pizza always brings Marcus out into the light, I order five large pies. More accurately, I let Laurie do the ordering, since on her pie she always wants a long list of toppings, all of which are healthy. On the other side of the scale, Kevin can have no toppings at all, because every one ever invented sets off his allergies.

I overhear Laurie doing the ordering, and to my horror I actually hear her get artichoke on her pizza. I believe in live and let live, but there should absolutely be a law against artichoke pizza.

Kevin arrives at the same time as the pizza delivery man, and Marcus shows up thirty seconds later. We decide to postpone our trial-day rehash until after dinner, and we dig right in on the pizza.

Marcus eating pizza is a sight to behold. He takes three slices at a time and lays one on top of the other, face-to-face, with the third one in the middle. Then he eats it as a pizza sandwich, in maybe three bites.

Laurie, Kevin, and I don’t eat the crusts; instead we feed them to Tara and Waggy. But of course we wouldn’t dare suggest that to Marcus. At least I wouldn’t.

After Marcus has had four such sandwiches, he stands up, a strange look on his face, and walks toward the back of the house. He doesn’t say a word, which is not exactly a news event where Marcus is concerned.

“Where’s he going?” asks Kevin.

“Maybe he’s going hunting for more pizzas,” I say. “They’re in season.”

The three of us continue eating the cheese portion of the pizza and feeding the crusts to Tara and Waggy. Waggy tries to butt in and get every piece, which clearly annoys Tara, but she’s too lady-like to do anything about it. She leaves it to us to make sure she gets her fair share.

Marcus comes back holding what appears to be a hamburger in his hand. “Where’d you get that?” Laurie asks.

“I don’t think hamburger hunting season starts until September,” I say to Marcus. “I hope the game warden didn’t see you.”

Marcus puts the hamburger at the edge of the table. “Yard,” he says, which I assume means he found it in the yard. It takes a moment for the significance of this to hit me, and during that same moment Waggy moves toward the burger.

“NNNNNNOOOOO!” I scream, as loud as I can, and I make a dive toward Waggy and the table. Waggy, forced to decide whether to keep moving toward the hamburger, or to get out of the way of this screaming, middle-aged lunatic, makes the wise choice. He backs away, huddled down toward the floor, fearful.

I grab the hamburger and, without thinking, run into the kitchen and throw it into the sink. By this time, everyone has followed me into the kitchen, no doubt amazed at behavior that is bizarre, even by my standards.

“What is going on?” Laurie asks.

For the first time in my memory, I am more interested in talking to Marcus than Laurie. “That was in the yard?” I ask. “Just lying there?”

He nods. “Yuh.”

“Did you hear anything? Is that what made you go outside?”

“Yuh,” he repeats. This conversation is moving right along.

“You think somebody threw it there?” Laurie asks, as it starts to dawn on her. “You think it could be poison?”

“You’d be amazed at how few hamburgers are thrown into my yard at night,” I say, which is another way for me to say yes.

“We need to get it tested,” Kevin says.

I call Pete Stanton, tell him that I am reporting a possible crime, and ask him to come out with a forensics team.

“What happened?” he asks.

“Somebody threw a hamburger into my backyard.”

“Those bastards,” he says. “I’m sending out a SWAT team, and I’ll tell them to bring ketchup.”

“I think they were trying to poison Waggy,” I say.

“Who the hell is Waggy?”

“Walter Timmerman’s dog. Trust me on this one, Pete. There are some things I haven’t told you about the Timmerman murder and Jimmy Childs.”

“Are you going to tell me when I get there?”

“If I have to.”

“If you don’t, I’m not going to get there.”

I agree to tell him the story, and he’s there within twenty minutes with two officers and a forensics expert. Within fifteen minutes, only Pete remains, and the hamburger has been taken away for a rush test.

“Okay,” Pete says after they’ve left. “Let’s hear it.”

I’m not sure why I haven’t told Pete that Childs had killed the Timmermans and been targeting Waggy; I guess it’s just a habit for me to err on the side of not sharing information with anyone not on the defense team. But there’s nothing about any of it that causes any additional jeopardy for Steven, and I’m not breaking a confidence, so I bring Pete up to date.