David Rosenfelt: New Tricks

“Is Waggy okay?” is the first thing Steven asks when he sees me.

That’s my kind of guy.

THE DRIVE TO WISCONSIN is as comfortable as it gets. It feels like Laurie, Tara, and I are a family, and we’re going on a family vacation. It makes me think that we should get an RV, leave everything behind, and just travel the country, and I mention that to Laurie.

“I don’t think you get good television reception on those things,” Laurie says. “And you’ve got the football season and the World Series coming up.”

So much for the RV idea.

I separated my shoulder in the fall down the steps, and the doctor said it would take about eight weeks to heal. Fortunately, it was my left shoulder, because I work the remote control with my right hand.

Waggy walked with a limp for a couple of days after the fall, or more accurately he ran with a limp. He’s fine now, and driving Steven crazy.

Before we left I shared with Steven what I know about the murders. Once Martha was taken into custody, Corvallis was more willing to fill in some of my blanks. He hadn’t been aware of her involvement, and even seemed somewhat grateful to me for exposing her.

I was right that Walter and Robinson were going to sell his discovery to energy interests for a fortune, though I was wrong that Jacoby had any involvement in the scheme. Corvallis wouldn’t tell me who was going to be the purchaser, but it may well have been a foreign government. Whoever it was placed a highly skilled agent, who turned out to be Martha, on the inside of Timmerman’s world so that they could monitor things to their satisfaction. Whether or not Timmerman was aware of who she was, I don’t know.

Their plan was jolted when Sykes and Diana killed Walter for his money, as they planned to marry after he was dead. Faced with this situation, Martha copied all of Walter’s work in the lab, and used Jimmy Childs to plant the explosives in the house. She blew it up, unaware that the FBI had gotten to that lab first and left her with incorrect, worthless information.

She poisoned Robinson so that he could not reveal anything to the FBI, and after that all that was left to erase any trace of Walter’s work was to have Childs kill Waggy, which of course almost resulted in Laurie’s death.

But that is now behind us, as are New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. We’ll be in Wisconsin soon, and Laurie will do what she needs to do, and then we’ll all go home together.

We’re leaning toward getting Tara a friend.

A calm, normal friend.

Just for a change of pace.