David Rosenfelt - Dog Tags

He finally answers, and I tell him the situation and ask him if he would be willing to go.

“To Nassau?” he asks.

“Yes. Have you ever been there?”

“Of course not. Twenty minutes in that sun and I’d be peeling my skin off with a squeegee.”

“You can put suntan lotion on your expense account,” I say.

“What about bug repellent? On those islands they have mosquitoes the size of Volkswagens.”

“No problem.”

“Are there direct flights?” he asks.

“I don’t think so. I think you fly to Miami and then switch planes.”

“To one of those little puddle jumpers? You know what the crash rate is on those? It’s like forty percent.”

“Hike…”

“Look at just the singers that have been killed on those things. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Patsy Cline, Ricky Nelson, John Denver, Jim Croce, Otis Redding, the Big Bopper… if I were a singer I wouldn’t even drive by a damn airport.”

“But you’re not a singer, Hike.”

“So? Half of them had their lawyers on the plane with them.”

“I need you to do this, Hike. At double your hourly rate.”

“On the other hand, plenty of singers have landed safely,” he says. “But what if it’s dangerous once I get there?”

“You mean sunburn?” I ask.

“No, I mean murder. Isn’t that what we think happened to this Chambers guy?”

“There’s no reason to think that whoever did it would still be on the island.”

“Unless he is,” Hike says.

We agree that I’ll ask Willie to go along as protection. That way Willie can play detective, and Hike can get the depositions done.

The exhausting negotiation is finally over, and it’s proven one thing: Milo trusts me more than Hike does.

CHAPTER 50

ALAN LANDON WAS GETTING WORRIED. Ever since he’d received the call from M while listening to the mayor’s speech, things had not gone nearly as smoothly as he wanted… as he demanded. Perhaps he was spoiled, since the previous operations had gone off without anything resembling a hitch.

Anxiety was a sensation so unusual for him that he was actually struck by it. Landon had spent his entire life being smart enough to think two steps ahead of anyone else, and rich and ruthless enough to deal with any impediments to those steps. The occasions where worry was called for were few and far between.

From the beginning, he wanted the envelope that Erskine had, and that the dog had run off with. But he had always been a patient man, and he was willing to let matters unfold, and wait to make a move when it presented itself.

Landon prided himself on that willingness to be patient. Back in his basketball-playing days as a point guard for Dartmouth, he had learned the wisdom of what coaches referred to as letting the game come to you. The trick was to see the entire court, to know the game well enough to anticipate, and to take advantage of openings when they presented themselves.

And until now, the game had always come to Alan Landon.

But this situation was different. So far his patience had not been rewarded, and outside pressures were getting greater. He couldn’t pull this operation off on his own; he literally did not have, and could not get, the necessary device to do the job. And the person who did have it was getting worried, and threatening to withhold it.

It was becoming clear that the only way to eliminate that pressure was to get the envelope, and the time left to get it was decreasing.

Landon knew that M was getting impatient as well. M was a man of action, they had that in common, and he was disenchanted with the lack of momentum to this operation. But M knew very little of what was really going on, and Landon had no desire to fill him in. M would have a very specific role to perform, and when Landon gave him the go-ahead, he would perform it in devastating fashion.

The truth was that Landon was right in assuming that M was frustrated, but if anything he was underestimating that frustration. M thought that Landon was getting indecisive, perhaps even soft, and it surprised him. With what they were doing, and with what they had already done, there was no room for that.

M knew that the dog was at Carpenter’s house. He hadn’t seen him, but he knew it as certainly as if he had. And he knew he could go in and get him whenever he wanted to. It wouldn’t be the easiest thing to do; M was aware that Marcus Clark was lurking around, guarding the place. He had checked out Clark, now knew him by reputation, and respected him as a force to be reckoned with.

But not as much of a force as M.

Clark could be handled, especially since M had the advantage of surprise and timing. He could take him out whenever he wanted. And then there would be nothing to stop him from walking in and taking the dog.

After that M knew that Landon was on his own. M knew nothing about dogs, other than the fact that he didn’t like them. If they were going to get the mutt to lead them to the envelope, Landon would have to figure out how.

So M was frustrated that he wasn’t taking action, and he was frustrated that he could do nothing to change the situation. Landon was calling the shots for the time being, because Landon had the money, and if there was one constant in life it was that money ruled.

When it came time to kill Clark, and Carpenter, and Carpenter’s girlfriend, none of it would be personal. It was simply about getting the dog, because getting the dog meant getting the money.

CHAPTER 51

SCIENCE HAS ITS PLACE IN A TRIAL, BUT PROSECUTORS DIFFER ON WHERE THAT PLACE IS. Their varying opinions on how juries receive scientific evidence especially impact on the order of the witnesses they call, and that decision can set the tone for the entire trial to follow.

Scientific testimony is drier than eyewitness or motive testimony, and some prosecutors believe it should therefore come first, when jurors are eager and alert. It also provides a more compelling proof, harder to refute, and introducing it first might render a juror more receptive to the “why” and “how” testimony to follow.

The majority of prosecutors take a differing view. They want their case to be an unfolding story, told in the same general chronological order as the crime was committed. Therefore, since forensic proof by definition must follow the crime, the witnesses who present it should bring up the rear.

If the eyewitness and motive evidence in this latter approach is compelling, the prosecutor can demonstrate the defendant’s guilt independent of the forensics. When the science is finally introduced, it serves as ironclad confirmation of what the jury already knows, and it is therefore even more unassailable by the pathetically weak defense, in this case me.

Eli is a proponent of the second approach, as I would be if I were in his shoes. As his first witness he calls Kenny Parker, a twenty-three-year-old law student who recently finished his second year at Seton Hall.

Once Eli sets the stage with some questions establishing Parker as a fine, upstanding young man, he brings out that he was present at the Skybar the night of the murder. He also has Parker admit that he had been drinking a bit, but that he was sober and clearheaded when he left.

“Please describe what happened and what you saw as you left the bar,” Eli says.

“Well, I was standing there, and I heard this loud noise, I thought it was a firecracker or something, coming from down the block. I started to turn that way, and all of a sudden this big dog comes running right toward me, with something in his mouth.”

“What did you do next?” Eli asks.

“I backed up a little, because I thought the dog was coming at me. But he ran right by, and then I heard another loud noise. Then there was all this yelling, and a lot of people running around. So I went down the street, and I saw a body on the ground, and someone standing over him.”