Dog Tags (35 page)

“It was a robbery,” Laurie points out.

“Did he see you before you knocked him out?” I ask.

“Nope. No chance. And he was still in dreamland when I left.”

“Are you sure you didn’t kill him?” The image of Childress’s
crushed skull behind the Tara Foundation flashes through my mind.

“No way; worst case I busted his jaw. You didn’t want me to kill him, right?”

“Right,” I say. “Killing as a general rule is a problem.”

“Knocking out and stealing also are somewhat problematic. As is jaw busting,” Laurie says, the ex-cop in her coming out.

“So I shouldn’t have done it?” Willie asks. “I figured you guys might be pissed.”

“Why did you do it?” I ask.

“Well, I was going nuts, you know? I’d follow him to the office, sit there all day, and follow him home. This happened every
day.”

“Today was the second day.”

Willie nods vigorously, as if I’m proving his point. “Right. Anyway, I wasn’t finding out anything. I didn’t know what he
was doing, or who he was doing it with. And you wanted Sam to find out who he’s been calling, so I figured a good way to do
that would be to get his phone.”

“But you committed a crime.”

He shrugs. “Last time I didn’t do nothing and I got seven years in jail. They owe me a few.”

“Did anyone at all see you?” I ask.

“Nah. I don’t think so. The only one there was Chaplin. And it was dark.”

“Willie, this was a mistake.”

“Now you tell me.”

“Come on, Willie. You know damn well you shouldn’t do this kind of thing.”

“Andy, these guys are doing bad shit, right? They almost killed Sondra. So we should play by the rules when they don’t?”

I’m not going to get anywhere by continuing to reprimand him, and I need to start thinking about where to go from here. “Okay,
if
you hear from the police on this, you don’t speak to them. You got that? Just call me, and I’ll do the talking.”

He nods. “I know the drill. But don’t worry, they can’t follow this back to me.”

“I hope not… let’s talk some more tomorrow.”

“You want me to keep following this guy?” he asks, apparently seriously.

“No thanks.”

Once Willie leaves, Laurie says, “I don’t suppose you’re going to report the commission of a crime, Mr. Officer of the Court?”

She knows full well I’m not; she’s just having a little fun at my expense. “I don’t suppose I am. I just hope nobody saw Willie
or his car.”

“Willie’s DNA is on file because he was in prison,” she says. The implication is that if he left any DNA on the scene, or
on Chaplin’s face, the trail could lead to him fairly quickly. Either way, there’s nothing we can do about it short of turning
Willie in and plea-bargaining on his behalf.

“Let’s think only sunny thoughts, okay?”

Laurie points to Chaplin’s cell phone on the table. “The question is what to do with the stolen merchandise.”

“We could throw it out, or we could look at it and possibly get valuable information. Not exactly a tough call.”

“You won’t be able to use anything you find in court,” she points out.

“Such is life.”

Laurie and I between us have the technological knowledge and skills of a slow-developing four-year-old, so I call Sam Willis
and ask him to come over. He seems eager to do so; maybe he thinks we’re going to go out and shoot some people. Sam lives
on Morlot Avenue in Fair Lawn, about ten minutes away if he drives quickly. He makes it in eight.

Once he arrives, I show him the cell phone and say, “Is there any way to find out what calls have been made from that phone
in the last four days?”

“Is that a joke?” he asks.

“No. Why?”

He just shakes his head, picks up the phone, and presses a few buttons. In less than twenty seconds he hands it to me. “There’s
a list of the numbers he called, and when he called them.”

I turn to Laurie. “See? I told you Sam and I could do it.”

“Is this Chaplin’s phone?” Sam asks.

“Sam, that phone was obtained illegally. People could go to jail.”

He laughs, apparently not intimidated by my statement. “That Willie is a piece of work. You want me to trace down these numbers?”

I nod. “Yes, but can you write them down? I want to keep the phone here.”

“Sure,” he says, and starts to do so. “You want an update on Chaplin’s company now, or do you want to wait until tomorrow?”

“You’ve got it already?”

“Yeah, although the news isn’t great. There’s no doubt that the company profited heavily from both the oil and rhodium events.
They made trades that slowly built up their stake in each over about six months, and then sold everything off within a month
after the stock shot up.”

“How much did they make?”

“Hard to say exactly, but probably eight hundred million on the oil, and two billion more on the rhodium. Turned the company
around; a couple of years ago they almost went under.”

“You’re sure of all this?”

He nods. “Yeah.”

“How come you said the news isn’t great?” Laurie asks, beating me to the punch.

“Because I don’t know who made the money. The investments were made on behalf of clients, most of which were foreign companies.
There’s no way to crack that and find out whose behind them; they’re probably dummy companies.”

“Sam, you did outstanding work on this,” Laurie says.

Sam gives his best aw-shucks look and waves her off. “Come on, it’s not like I shot anybody.”

“Keep at it, Sam,” I say. “If you work hard enough, someday you’ll leave somebody bloody in the street. That will be a proud
day for all of us.”

M
Y PLAN IS TO SPEND THE WEEKEND MAKING THE KEY DECISION OF THE TRIAL.
It’s actually the key decision of every trial, though technically it is not mine to make. I am going to have to either call
Billy Zimmerman to the witness stand, or rest our case. The question to be answered is which option is worse; both are very
bad.

The decision is Billy’s to make, and we’ve had a few conversations about it. He wants to testify, but once again his experience
as a cop works in our favor. He’s been around enough trials to know that the defendant rarely takes the stand, and when he
does the defense is likely desperate. More significantly, the testimony usually hurts rather than helps.

In Billy’s case there is even more downside than usual. I have already conveyed to the jury our claim that there was another
man present, and that Billy wrestled with him. So Billy’s saying it, while having the advantage of being straight from the
horse’s mouth, wouldn’t add very much to the record.

Then he would have to suffer through a cross-examination by Eli that would not be pretty. Billy is an admitted thief; in fact,
that’s why he was there that night. Eli would harp on this until Billy looked
like Jesse James. Then he would turn to the grudge Billy had against Erskine, which others have already testified to.

There is no question in my mind that the downside is greater than the upside. Laurie agrees with my assessment, and I call
Hike to get his view. I have to take it with a grain of salt, since Hike is “Mr. Downside,” but he agrees as well.

I’m about to leave for the prison to have a final discussion about it with Billy when Cindy Spodek calls. “You’ve got your
meeting,” she says. “Special Agent Dan Benson is waiting for your call.”

I’m not surprised. “The rhodium did the trick, huh?”

“It was like telling Superman that you knew where a kryptonite mine was.”

“You want me to bring you up to date about what’s going on?” I ask.

“Not particularly, unless you need help. This seems like a need-to-know situation. Benson was already pumping me for information
that I was glad I didn’t have.”

“So he’s anxious?” I ask.

“Let’s put it this way. It’s Saturday, and he told me to give you his cell phone number. An FBI agent giving a defense attorney
his cell phone number… does that strike you as anxious?”

I hang up and head down to the prison to talk to Billy. I call Benson on the way, and we set a meeting for early afternoon
at his office in Newark.

I lay things out for Billy. I tell him our situation is grim, for reasons we have gone over repeatedly. I go on to say that
I think his testimony would make things worse, but that it’s his call, and I’ll support him either way.

“But you’re against?” he asks.

“I am.”

“Then we don’t do it.” Billy is pretty much the ideal client, logical, unemotional, and realistic. I wish I could be doing
better for him.

I tell him the latest developments in our investigation, which cheers him up, since it’s obvious we’re making more progress
outside the courtroom than in. “The FBI agent is meeting with you on a Saturday?”

I nod. “As soon as I leave here.”

“He needs something.”

“So do we.”

As I’m about to leave, he asks, “How’s Milo?”

“Doing fine.”

“It just hit me that I’ll probably never see him again.”

“I’m nowhere near prepared to say that,” I say. “But either way he’ll be well taken care of, safe, and loved.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that.”

FBI Special Agent Dan Benson is a tall, dignified-looking man, probably in his midforties, with a touch of gray starting at
the temples, preparing to advance. He has the demeanor of a man who has seen everything there is to see, at least twice, which
makes his anxiousness to see me all the more surprising.

I thought I’d have to force my way into a meeting, and here they are laying out the red carpet. I think they would have sent
a limo to my house.

Once I’m settled in, Benson gets right to it. “You wanted this meeting.”

I nod. “I did.”

“Why is that?”

“I want to see my client acquitted, and I think you know he didn’t murder Erskine.”

“How would I know that?” he asks.

“Seconds after the fatal shot was fired, three men were on the scene. One checked on Erskine, and the others ran after the
shooter, a guy by the name of Jerry Harris. Based on the way they were
dressed, they were either FBI agents or on their way home from a hardware convention.”

I wait for him to respond, but he stays silent, so I push on. “Right after the murder, you were so interested in Milo that
you intervened to have an armed guard stationed in front of his cage twenty-four hours a day. A few days later, I went to
court to get him released, and you did absolutely nothing to stop me.”

“And you read that how?”

“Between those two events, Harris’s body was discovered. You had been tracking him; my guess is you wanted him to lead you
to his bosses. But you lost him in the chaos after the murder, and when he was found dead, you covered it up. By then you
needed something else to draw those bosses out. You were hoping Milo could do that, but he couldn’t do it in a guarded cage.”

“It’s Saturday, and it’s been a long week,” he says. “Can you move this along?”

“Sure. Your men know my client is innocent, yet you’ve let him sit in jail and face this trial. Using a technical legal term,
that was a shitty thing to do. So you need to step forward and fix that.”

I’m far from sure that I’m right in all the things I’m saying, but I learned a long time ago that in these situations it’s
best to sound confident. That confidence is increasing because of the fact that he hasn’t thrown me out or laughed at me yet.

Instead he changes the subject, though the two subjects are going to be related in any negotiation we might have. “You mentioned
rhodium.”

“I did.”

“What about it?”

“The mine explosion in South Africa and the explosion in Iraq were caused by the same people for the same reason,” I say.
“To move the market and make money.”

“Do you know who those people are?”

I shake my head. “Not yet; not all of them. But I will.”

“If you share with us what you know, and if it’s accurate, then we can use our resources to find out the rest.”

“Did you forget the part where I said my goal is to get my client acquitted?”

“This is the United States of America,” he says. “We can’t intervene in a criminal trial.”

“First of all, that’s bullshit; you can get the charges dropped if you want to. Second of all, that’s bullshit; your men were
on the scene; they were eyewitnesses and can clear Billy with their testimony. Third of all, that’s bullshit; you know damn
well that Jerry Harris killed Erskine. And fourth of all, that’s bullshit.”

“Carpenter…”

“Why do you care so much, anyway? You and the army whitewashed the Iraq report. I can’t imagine the South Africa explosion
is a national security issue, and…”

Just then it hits me why he’s so interested, and I can’t believe I didn’t realize it earlier. “… you care about what’s going
to happen next. You think there’s a third shoe to drop.”

“You don’t want this kind of blood on your hands,” he says, an almost direct admission that I’m right.

“Here’s what I’ve got on my hands,” I say. “I’ve got a client who is depending on me. I am legally bound to represent him
to the best of my ability, and right now that requires me to tell you to kiss my ass.”