David Rosenfelt - Dog Tags

“Can you identify that person?”

Parker nods. “Yeah… yes. It was him.” He points to Billy to complete the identification. “And then he leaned over to the guy on the ground, and put his hand on his neck. It was like he was feeling for a pulse or something.”

“Did you see anyone else there?”

“You mean by the body? No, there were a lot of people running around and yelling, but he was the only one by the body at that point.”

Eli turns the witness over to me, and I ask Parker why he went to the bar that night.

“Just to have a little fun with some friends; there aren’t that many places to go at night around here.”

“So you were having fun,” I say. “Playing Wiffle ball? Video games? Pin the tail on the donkey? That kind of fun?”

He laughs a little uncomfortably. “No, we had some drinks and talked. Danced a little.”

“How many drinks did you have?”

“I think two,” he says. “But I was there for almost three hours.”

“What were you drinking?”

“I’m pretty sure it was vodka and tonic.”

“How long does it take to drink one of those?’

He shrugs. “Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes. Depends on how long I want it to last.”

“So you had two drinks, lasting maybe twenty minutes each, and you were there for three hours. Sounds like you had a lot of downtime, huh?”

Eli objects that I’m being argumentative, which I will continue to be throughout the trial. Judge Catchings sustains the objection.

“How much do they charge for a vodka and tonic?” I ask.

“I’m not sure. Maybe eight bucks.”

I introduce as evidence a copy of his bar check that night, which totaled eighty-two dollars and seventy-five cents. He tells me that he bought a bunch of drinks for his friends.

“That’s nice; you’re obviously a generous guy. Ten of the eleven drinks listed on that check were vodka and tonics; sounds like you and your friends have similar taste.”

“Sometimes the bartender just keeps writing down whatever the first drink was.”

This makes no sense to me, and the jury will feel the same way, so I don’t have to pursue it further.

“You testified that when you left the bar, you were standing there in front. Were you waiting for something?”

He looks worried as he says, “For my friend, Danny.”

“Did Danny drive you there that night?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

At that moment, Parker has to decide whether to continue lying or tell the truth. He chooses the truth, probably because he assumes I already know it and will nail him with it. “He was the designated driver.”

I could press and embarrass him on this for the rest of the day, but I don’t. The jury is smart enough to know when designated drivers are required, and I don’t want to be seen as badgering him.

I keep Parker on the stand for another twenty minutes, getting him to admit that it was dark down the street, and hard for him to see. I can’t get him to retract anything that he testified to about the murder itself, mainly because it was all true.

He may have been drunk, but his recollections are accurate. And damaging.

When court ends I head home, have dinner with Laurie, put in a trust session with Milo, and then decide to take Tara for a walk. I haven’t been doing enough of this lately, because of Milo’s presence.

My walks with Tara are special times for both of us, and I think she’s been missing them as much as I. I’m only a little embarrassed to say that I talk to her out loud, secure in the belief that she understands me, if not the actual words. I know I understand her, if not the actual barks.

Our timing is perfect, because we meet a neighbor walking Bernie, a five-year-old golden who lives two blocks away. Tara and Bernie love each other; their joy every time they meet is obvious and terrific to watch. I’m especially pleased because Willie and I rescued Bernie three years ago and placed him in his current home. He’s a great dog.

When we get home, I swear Tara looks at me with gratitude, and with the silent message that we should do this more often.

We should. And we will.

CHAPTER 52

I’M TRYING TO SOLVE AT LEAST TWENTY-ONE MURDERS AT ONCE. In addition to Erskine’s murder, for which Billy is on trial, there are the eighteen deaths in the Iraq suicide bombing, and the likely murders of Tyler Lawson and Donovan Chambers. This doesn’t include Jeremy Iverson, Raymond Santiago, and Jason Greer, the other discharged soldiers whom we haven’t been able to trace at all yet. Even though we haven’t gotten any information on them, it’s safe to say that I’m glad I didn’t write their life insurance policies.

I have no doubt that all these murders are connected, and solving one will put me on a path to solving them all. Unfortunately, all that I know right now is that it all started with the Iraqi oil minister, and that on some level it’s all about money. Oil and money definitely do mix.

Solving a mass murder in Baghdad is difficult when you’re sitting in a bed at one o’clock in the morning in Paterson, New Jersey. All I have is the file, so I’m going over it once more, having already prepared for tomorrow’s witnesses.

Laurie is lying next to me, sleeping soundly, which is what I would like to be doing. Tara is lying across my feet, which for some reason I find incredibly comforting, and Milo is across the room, curled up asleep on a chair. If the big guy would just wake up and tell me where the damn envelope is, a lot of this aggravation might be avoided.

As a rule I hate relying on assumptions, but I have a tendency to violate that rule when I have no facts to take their place. So my basic assumption is that Erskine recruited five of the soldiers in his command to allow the suicide bomber proximity to the oil minister.

The money that Lawson and Chambers seem to have left behind indicates that they were well paid for their negligence, so much so that they felt they could disappear and live comfortably after their discharge.

The fact that they and Erskine were murdered obviously means that the people behind the explosion would not tolerate any witnesses to their efforts. Erskine, Lawson, and Chambers seem to have been murdered to ensure their silence.

In Erskine’s case, there is a possibility that he was blackmailing his employer. Billy believes that Erskine was preparing to make a trade just before he was killed. If that is so, then his actions may have also precipitated the deaths of Lawson and Chambers. There is no way to know, but it’s possible that the killer believed they were part of the blackmail as well, or might commit their own in the future.

One of my concerns is that our investigation into Erskine has so far failed to turn up any substantial sums of money. If the soldiers enriched themselves by their actions, then the same should be true of Erskine, who as the leader should have made even more. The jury is going to want evidence, but so far we don’t have it to show them.

I have in the files many of the contemporaneous newspaper stories about the explosion. It was a major news event, despite the fact that suicide bombings have not exactly been unheard of in Iraq this decade. The critical injury to the oil minister, who was not expected to survive at the time, plus the collateral deaths of two American businessmen, elevated this to a higher news status than most.

Different angles were taken on the story, probably due to the political leanings of the individual reporters. Some of them were straightforward, reporting on the event and concluding that the oil minister was the target, so as to prevent him from reforming the corrupt system.

Others focused on the lax security, and the inability of the American and Iraqi military and police to prevent the bombing, despite the fact that they knew this would be a tempting target for the enemy. Speculation was that heads would roll, particularly among the American security authorities. That is of course what ultimately happened, though they were low-level heads.