David Rosenfelt - New Tricks

But here I am, in an FBI van at a rest stop off the Palisades Interstate Parkway, having a wire taped to my chest. I’m sweating so much that I’m afraid it will electrocute me. Laurie is watching all of this with an impassive stare, which I am sure masks very significant worry, if not outright dread. The only confrontations I can handle are verbal. If you wanted to buy a foxhole, I could handle the closing for you, but you wouldn’t want me in there with you if things got dangerous.

My plan is not exactly well thought out. I want to get Robinson on record admitting that my theory about the synthetic DNA is correct. I don’t expect him to admit to any murders; I still don’t know if he committed or planned any. But I, and certainly Corvallis, would like to get him to implicate others.

Whether I accomplish this by threats or an inference that Robinson and I can turn this into a mutually profitable situation, I can’t yet say. I’m going to play it by ear and take the conversation in the direction I deem most fertile in the moment. That is an area in which I feel comfortable.

Corvallis will be in the van with four other agents, two of whom work the technical equipment, and Laurie. Other agents will be spread out on the grounds near the house, ready to move in if I am in danger. I also will have a small panic button attached to my belt, a signal for them to storm the house and save the lawyer.

Once we are all set, and the various electronics are attached to me, I exit the van and get into my car. I wait ten minutes for the FBI people to go ahead and get in position, and then I drive to the house myself.

As I pull up to a house and property just a notch below that of Walter Timmerman’s, I don’t see the van or any agents. I hope that they are just good at concealment, because if they’re not there I could be in major trouble. I feel like Michael Corleone before his meeting in the restaurant with Solozzo, depending on the gun to have been planted in the bathroom.

I park, take a deep breath, and go to the front door, which is wide open. This doesn’t feel like a good sign, and it’s not the only one. Coming through the open door is a stench that is unlike anything I have ever experienced.

In every movie I have ever seen where this situation occurs, there is a dead body waiting to be discovered by the hero. The only thing missing here is the hero, because if it’s me then I’m miscast.

I turn and look around, hoping to see Corvallis or someone who will provide guidance. Seeing no one, I softly say, “The door is open and it smells awful.” I’m sure they can hear me in the van, but the communication is only one way, so they can’t answer me, and it does me no good.

I decide to go in, because not to do so is to leave and therefore make no progress. Besides, while the stench may mean a dead body, it also would mean the body has been dead for a while. Therefore, if someone murdered that body, he has had plenty of chance to leave already.

I walk through the foyer and living room, covering my nose with my sleeve and ridiculously calling out “hello!”-as if Robinson were going to come walking out saying, Andy, welcome. I was cooking us fried horse manure for dinner. Smells delicious, doesn’t it?

When I get to the kitchen, I come upon what is easily the most disgusting sight I have ever seen… the most disgusting sight anyone has ever seen. What used to be Charles Robinson sits at the kitchen table, but he is no longer human. It is as if his enormous body has melted from the inside out, and he is covered with disgusting blotches of ooze and blood. Much of it has dripped to the floor.

I once saw the decapitated, burned body of a corrupt cop, and I later saw his head wrapped in plastic. Those were disgusting sights, but compared with this they were like a field of daffodils.

I start to run from the kitchen, simultaneously pressing the panic button and screaming, “Get in here! Get in here!” The words don’t come out quite as clearly as I would like, because my vomit gets in the way.

When I reach the outside, I literally fall to the ground and gasp for air. Agents rush to me, no doubt thinking that I’m hurt, but I motion for them to go in. Corvallis then comes running to me with two agents and Laurie, and I gasp what has happened.

Laurie stays with me as everyone else goes inside. I’m still on the ground, gasping, trying to keep the remainder of my last twelve meals down. It is not my finest moment, but right now I can’t worry about that. I just have to get control and figure out how not to be haunted the rest of my life by what I’ve just seen.

Within fifteen minutes, there are so many vehicles at the Robinson house you’d think the Yankees were playing the Red Sox in the backyard. I’m sure every FBI agent in the tristate area has been summoned, and I can see a bunch of people with forensics equipment.

Corvallis comes out and greets one of the arriving men as “Doctor,” and he brings him into the house. If this guy can do anything for Robinson, I am going to make him my personal physician for life.

Crime scenes take forever, and as the closest thing to a witness, I know that I am going to have to wait around to be questioned. Two hours go by, during which Laurie and I stroll around the grounds. I tell her in detail what I saw, and the act of walking in the fresh air and being with her makes me feel considerably better.

Finally, Corvallis comes over to talk to me. “We need a statement,” he says.

I just nod my understanding.

“You okay?” he asks, showing more concern than I expected. “It is pretty rough in there.”

“What happened to him?” I ask.

“Let’s do the statement first, okay?”

“Okay.” This is the correct procedure; if he were to tell me anything that they learned, it could be viewed as prejudicing my statement.

I basically have little to say about the actual scene; all I did was walk in and discover the body. Everyone who followed saw exactly the same thing as I did, and I’m sure by now it has been memorialized by hundreds of pictures. But I do insist on including in the statement the reason that I was there in the first place; it will serve me well if I can ever get evidence of all this into the trial.

The statement is verbal and taped, and I promise to sign a transcript of it when they have it ready. I request that I see it before court tomorrow, and Corvallis says that will not be a problem. Then I renew my question to Corvallis. “What happened to Robinson?”

“It looks like iridium.”

That’s a little cryptic for me, so I ask him to elaborate.

“It’s a poison, a favorite in international circles. The KGB had a particular preference for it, but others have used it as well. You don’t want to know the details of what it does; you’ve gotten a firsthand look.”

“How long was he dead?”

“We don’t have a firm time on that yet. He was eating a meal, I assume the poison was in the food. The amount that would fit on the head of a pin would kill someone in forty-five seconds.”

“Not a pleasant forty-five seconds,” I say.

“Yeah. You guys okay getting home?” he says.

“Yes. You know I’m going to try to use all this at trial.”

He smiles. “And the relevance?” He is pointing out that I’m going to have a tough time connecting Robinson’s death to Steven’s trial in a way to get Hatchet to admit it.

“I’m working on it, but it’ll come in.”

“We may be on different pages on that,” he says, and then walks off.

He’s probably right, but I’d know better if I knew what the hell page I was on.

ON THE WAY HOME I call Kevin and ask him to come over. That way, he, Laurie, and I can discuss at length the impact of tonight’s events on our case, and the strategy we should employ to make the most of it.