Dog Tags (32 page)

H
IKE COMES OVER AFTER COURT SO THAT WE CAN GO OVER THE TAPE.
He brings with him his list of which stories could possibly have upset Alex Bryant and prompted his phone call to his boss.
Sam is supposed to come over in a little while with the phone records; hopefully we can match them up.

It’s almost six o’clock when Hike gets there, and Laurie asks him if he’d like to have dinner with us before we start on the
tape. He eagerly accepts the invitation, a decision I think he regrets when he discovers that Marcus will be sitting across
the table from him.

Laurie makes chicken parmigiana, one of her few hundred specialties. Hike spends the entire meal trying not to look at Marcus,
who only says one word: “Yuh.” But he says it three times, it serving as an affirmative response each time Laurie asks him
if he wants more chicken.

Suffice it to say that this session will never be confused with the Algonquin Round Table.

I can see Milo and Tara lying on beds in the den and not looking too pleased. Milo’s triumph in finding the envelope has resulted
in the termination of the now unnecessary trust sessions. I don’t think
he or Tara would be too broken up about that, except for the fact that those sessions were treat and biscuit buffets.

This turn of events is really not fair to them, and I get up from the table and slip them each a couple of biscuits. I can
do this secure in the knowledge that I won’t be missing out on any conversational gems at the dinner table.

Once we’re finished eating and Marcus has polished off three-quarters of an apple pie, he goes off to wherever it is Marcus
goes off to. Hike, Laurie, and I settle down to watch the tape.

Local news is always boring, and local news that is months old is incredibly boring. It was raining heavily that day, and
they kept cutting to field reporters standing in various parts of the metropolitan area, earnestly revealing that things were
really wet.

National news barely made an appearance, mostly in snippets between rain reports. I agree with Hike on the four possibilities,
though none seems particularly promising. There was a home invasion murder of a business executive and his wife, a rhodium
mine explosion in South Africa that resulted in the deaths of two miners, a serious disease outbreak on a cruise ship off
the coast of Mexico, and a congressional vote failing to renew a trade agreement with three Latin American governments as
punishment for their alleged failure to rein in illegal drug production.

Sam comes over about ten minutes after we’ve finished with copies of Alex Bryant’s phone records from that night. He called
his boss, Stanley Freeman, at ten forty-seven, a call that lasted for twelve minutes.

The only two stories from the tape that were on our list and matched up with that time were the cruise ship, which ran at
ten forty-one, and the rhodium mine explosion, which ran at ten forty-four.

“Can we get a list of the passengers on the ship?” I ask.

Hike frowns. “We could subpoena it, but we’d have to demonstrate relevance to our case. I’m not sure we can do that.”

I turn to Sam, who is the person I was talking to in the first place. “Piece of cake,” he says.

“Good. Now, what the hell is rhodium?”

“I think it’s used in catalytic converters,” Hike says.

“That doesn’t quite clear it up for me,” I say. “What are catalytic converters?”

“You know those harmful emissions that come out of your car? Catalytic converters make them less harmful.”

“Doesn’t sound like something people in high finance would be interested in,” I say. “But you should check it out.”

“I’ll do that,” Sam says.

“Still nothing on Jason Greer or Jeremy Iverson?” I ask. I’m especially interested in Greer, the soldier Santiago referred
to as knowing the truth. In fact, he said that the killers would have gone after him first, and revealed that Greer told him
the details.

Sam shakes his head. “No. They’ve both disappeared off the face of the earth.”

I suspect that is literally true, that Greer and Iverson have been a few feet under the earth for quite a while now. I have
no real hope of ever hearing from them, but evidence of their demise would be compelling to the jury.

Sam sniffs the air, as if first noticing something. “What’s that smell? Veal parmigiana?”

“Chicken,” I say.

“You got any left?”

“Marcus joined us for dinner.”

“Oh. I’ll stop for something on the way home.”

“You’ve never seen anything like it,” Hike says.

“Yes, I have,” Sam says. “June twenty-eighth, 2003. I ate with
Andy and Marcus at Charlie’s; he ate everything on the menu and then started eating the menu. Cooks were collapsing in the
kitchen. They have a plaque on the wall to commemorate the occasion.”

“We’ve got some dog biscuits,” I say.

“You want a tuna sandwich?” Laurie is asking the question from the doorway, having listened to some of the conversation. “I
keep it hidden for emergencies like this. Marcus has no idea.”

“No thanks,” Sam says. “I’d be too nervous. What if he came back?”

Laurie tries to get Sam to have the sandwich, telling him that she replaces it every few days to keep it fresh, and this one
is on its third day. But he begs off, choosing instead to go home to his computer. Hike leaves as well, and it will be up
to Laurie and me to figure out what to do with the precious sandwich.

I stay up until almost eleven, going over the information for tomorrow’s court day. Then I take Tara for a late-night walk.
The grass is wet from dew, or from whatever makes grass wet, and Tara loves it. She rolls around on her back, feet up in the
air, completely joyful.

For the five millionth time, I love and envy her.

Laurie is already asleep when I get to bed, so I pet Milo and Tara for a while and then go to sleep myself.

The phone wakes me at a little after twelve, and the voice is Sam’s. He doesn’t say hello, just starts with, “Guess what is
a form of platinum but worth even more.”

Even in my groggy state, I know the answer. “Rhodium.”

“You got it. There’s only twenty-five tons of it produced each year. The mine that was blown up was responsible for almost
thirty percent of that.”

“How much is it worth?” I ask, since I know Sam would have researched this fully before calling.

“The price generally fluctuates between one and four thousand dollars an ounce.”

Now comes the key question: “What was it worth in the week after the explosion?”

“Over ten grand.”

Kaboom.

“T
HE DEFENSE CALLS
C
APTAIN
R
OGER
D
ESSENS.”

Dessens stands and heads for the witness stand, staring at me as he walks. He’s expecting me to attack him and make him look
incompetent, and the truth is it would give me great pleasure to do just that.

But I won’t, damnit.

Frustrating as it is, Dessens is my witness, and he has things to say that will benefit my client. I don’t want him reluctant
to say them because he’s pissed off at me. So I have to treat him with kid gloves, even though I’ve never really found a pair
that fit.

I ask him to describe the circumstances by which he came to be responsible for the protection of Raymond Santiago the other
night.

“Judge Catchings issued an order for the state police to take him into protective custody, at your request.”

“Were you given background information on Sergeant Santiago?”

He nods. “We were.” Dessens keeps using “we” rather than “I”; he doesn’t want to take the fall for this on his own. He then
goes on,
at my prodding, to reveal that Santiago was one of the soldiers who was discharged from the army as a result of negligence
that fateful day in Iraq.

After he describes getting the phone call from me and sending two officers to my house to pick up Santiago, I ask, “Were you
waiting for him at the hotel?”

“Yes.”

“With more of your officers?”

“Yes. We had six more officers assigned to the hotel detail.”

“Was anyone else with you?”

He nods. “Yes. FBI Special Agent Wilbur Briggs and US Army Captain Derek Meade. They were planning to question Santiago when
he arrived.”

This is an important fact for the jury to hear. I want them to know that Santiago was not just some defense concoction; serious
branches of the US government were anxious to hear what he had to say.

At the same time, the inconsistency of it puzzles me. First the feds were interested enough to have Milo guarded, then they
backed off entirely, and then they were anxious to question Santiago. I’m not sure what Santiago could have told them that
they’d be interested in, especially since they had obviously been content to conduct a whitewash investigation of the Iraq
explosion.

“Had you notified them about Santiago being taken into custody?” I ask.

“No. I have no idea how they became aware of the situation.”

I have no idea, either, and it’s bugged me since that night. But I move on and get Dessens to explain that the shot came from
a window in a building a good distance away. He describes the weapon as an advanced, high-powered rifle, and the shooter as
an outstanding marksman.

“Is it your assessment that he was already in position when your men arrived with Santiago?”

“Definitely,” he says.

“Do you have any idea how he knew where Santiago was being taken?”

“I do not,” he says, firmly.

“Had you revealed the location to myself, any member of the defense team, or the court?”

“No.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

Dessens almost does a double take when I dismiss him; he still can’t believe I didn’t try to embarrass him. I’m having trouble
believing it myself.

Eli starts his cross by asking if Dessens knew where Santiago lived.

“No.”

“Do you know his occupation before he went in the army?”

Dessens shakes his head. “No.”

“Was he married?”

“I don’t know.”

“So you know very little about him? Is that fair?” Eli asks.

“That is fair.”

“Do you know if he had any enemies?”

“He had at least one.” The gallery and some of the jury laugh at the answer, which is certainly not the reaction Eli wanted.

“But you have no personal knowledge of why that one enemy shot and killed him?”

“No.”

“For all you know it could have nothing to do with the explosion in Iraq?”

“Correct.”

“For all you know it could have nothing to do with this case?”

“Correct.”

“Thank you. No further questions.”

A
S SOON AS COURT ENDS,
I
CALL
J
ONATHAN
C
HAPLIN.
I have to hold for almost five minutes, but he finally gets on the line. I tell him I need to see him, and ask him if I can
come right over.

“What is this about?” he asks.

“Something has come up about the case I’m working on, but I also need some investment advice, on an urgent basis.”

“Nephew Philip isn’t providing satisfactory service?” he asks.

“It’s Edna’s nephew Freddie. Let’s just say he has his limitations.”

He tries to arrange a meeting for next week, but I press him, telling him that the court schedule is such that I really have
no time. Finally, he agrees to see me at six o’clock this evening, but warns that he will only have forty-five minutes before
leaving for a dinner engagement.

“Perfect,” I say.

Sam Willis is working on trying to find out if Chaplin’s hedge fund, C&F Investments, was particularly active in the oil market
at the time of the Iraq explosion, and the rhodium market when the mine blew up. I want to know if they made unusually large
profits as
a result of those events. But even Sam admits that it will be difficult. He must first penetrate the company’s cyber security
and then—if he’s successful at that—read and understand the enormous number of transactions a company that size will conduct.

We could also try to subpoena the information, but we would need to offer the court proof that it is relevant to the case,
and at this point we don’t have enough to do that. Hunches are not usually a key component of offers of proof, and a wife’s
relating that she thinks her husband was upset by a news story won’t carry much weight, either.