Stakeout (2013) (3 page)

Morgan intercepted her in the nick of time, steered her away. She slumped into his arms, weeping uncontrollably. She twisted from his grasp, backed off, and stood there like a beast at bay, panting, her chest rising and falling in a way that I had to remind myself was not the least bit erotic. This was difficult as she was wearing a tank top not designed to stifle such thoughts.

“You’re supposed to be a PI. You’re supposed to help people. How could you do it? Oh, my God! My God!”

Bad Cop said, “Just so there’s no mistake, ma’am, this is the man you hired?”

“Of course it’s him.” She looked ready to go across the room again. Morgan took a protective step between us. “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.”

“You hired him to follow your husband?”

“That’s right.”

“Because you thought he was having an affair?”

“Yes.”

“He didn’t call you, tell you your husband was at the motel?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“You didn’t try to find your husband at the motel?”

“Of course not.”

“This is the first time you’ve seen him since you hired him?”

“Yes, of course it is. Why are you asking me these questions?”’

“Sorry, ma’am. We just have to keep the record straight. The fact is, you haven’t seen him until just now?”

“That’s right.”

“There now, ma’am. We won’t inflict him on you any longer. If you’ll just come with me.”

Morgan ushered her out. I was glad to see her go. I would have liked to talk to her, but not in front of the cops. Not in her current mood. Good God, what a shock. Yesterday her biggest problem was her husband was stepping out on her. Today he’s a corpse.

Bad Cop turned to me. “So, what do you have to say for yourself?”

“I’ve already said it.”

“Do you confirm that’s your client?”

“I thought she confirmed it.”

“She did.”

“Do you dispute it?”

“No, she’s my client. At least she was. I have a feeling this may terminate the employment.”

Morgan came back in the door.

“How’s she doing?”

“Okay. She’s sort of mad at him.”

“Of course she is. He killed her husband.”

“So she says. Of course, she’s not a good witness. She couldn’t testify to it. Unless she saw him do it.”

“I doubt it. Her anger seems genuine. If she watched him do it, why would she be pissed off?”

Morgan shrugged. “Some broads are like that. They ask you to do something, they’re angry when you do.”

“What’s the matter, Morgan. Have a fight with your wife?”

“Leave my wife out of it.”

“You’re the one always bringing her up.”

“I can bring her up. She’s my wife.”

“You’re saying I can’t talk about her?”

“You can talk about her when I talk about her. That’s friendly. Bringing her up when I don’t talk about her is something else.”

My head was coming off. They’d forgotten about me. My client’s widow had just tried to kill me, and they could have cared less. There was only one reason for that. They’d made up their minds. My client’s accusation had cinched it for them, they were going to hold me come hell or high water, and now they were just waiting for some prosecutor or other to show up and haul me in front of a judge.

I wondered if I should call Richard. But it seemed strange to demand an attorney when no one was questioning me. I had to wait till they did. It couldn’t be long. They couldn’t keep up the small talk forever. It would drive them nuts. It was driving me nuts.

Bad Cop turned back to me. I braced myself, ready to stick up for my rights.

“Okay,” he said, “you can go.”

I stared at him. “What?”

“We’ll bring you back if we need to talk to you some more, but right now we’re done.”

Morgan was on his feet. Standing he looked portlier than ever. He unlocked the handcuff, ushered me over to a side door. I followed him down a dark corridor into an anteroom where four men in plain clothes were hanging out. I thought they were cops until Morgan said, “Okay, guys, let’s go,” and I realized they were suspects just like me. Well, not
just
like me. Some of them were probably guilty.

Morgan pushed the door open, and out we went.

It was another dark hallway, so dark the guy behind me kept bumping me into the guy in front of me.

I was just wondering why they didn’t turn on the lights when someone did. Suddenly it was so bright I could barely see my hand in front of my face.

A voice said, “Stop moving. Stand straight. Face front.”

I stopped, looked around.

Behind me was a white wall with black height markings on it.

I was in a police lineup.

5

I
GLARED AT
B
AD
C
OP
. “I can’t believe you did that.”

He shrugged. “What do you mean, me? I didn’t do anything. You’re the killer.”

“If you wanted me to take a lineup, all you had to do was ask me to take a lineup. You didn’t have to trick me into it under the guise of letting me go.”

“What do you mean, ‘trick’ you into it? No one tricked you into anything. Everything was by the book. We put you in a lineup, and the witness picked you out.”

“Picked me out as what?”

“As the killer, of course.”

“Yeah, right,” I scoffed. “You got an eyewitness saw me pull the trigger.”

“Are you worried we do?”

“I’m not worried at all, because I know you don’t.”

“We’ve got the next best thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Eyewitness evidence
and
circumstantial evidence. You put the two together it makes quite a convincing case.”

“Yeah, well I’m not convinced. You gonna let me go, or do I have to call my attorney?”

“You have the right to an attorney. You always
have
had the right to an attorney, and you always
will
have the right to an attorney. He’s not going to do you any good, since we got you dead to rights on a murder rap, but you certainly have the right to one.”

“I want to call my attorney.”

“Your request is duly noted. We’ll be sure to accommodate you at our earliest convenience.”

Bad Cop went out the door and returned moments later ushering in a twitchy-nosed gentleman who looked not at all happy to be there.

“Is that the guy?” Bad Cop demanded.

I stared at him. Since I didn’t know who “the guy” was, I had no idea if the twitchy-nosed gentleman was him.

It turned out he wasn’t talking to me.

Twitchy-nose was a little man with a whiny voice. “You said I wouldn’t have to meet him,” he complained.

“Oh, come on. He’s handcuffed to the wall.”

“Now he is,” Twitchy-nose whined. “What about later?”

“There’s not going to be any later, if we get him for murder.”

He shuddered. “Yeah, murder. You got me face-to-face with a killer.”

“So. This is the guy you saw?”

“I don’t like this.”

“The quicker you get through it, the quicker you’ll be out of here.”

“Yeah, that’s him.”

“What did he do?”

“Walked across the parking lot, knocked on the door of unit seven.”

“What happened then?”

“Someone opened the door and let him in.”

6

R
ICHARD
R
OSENBERG WAS AT HIS
scathing best, and, trust me, that’s good. Richard didn’t get to be New York City’s top negligence lawyer by being polite. His withering sarcasm in court could bring opposing counsel to their knees. Attorneys settled out of court with Richard just so they didn’t have to meet him in court. His settlements were proportionally higher than those of any other negligence lawyer, and deservedly so.

“You are the stupidest private investigator who ever walked the face of the earth.”

“Richard—”

“You are the stupidest
person
who ever walked the face of the earth. You get arrested for murder. So, do you call your lawyer? No. You tell the cops everything.”

“Because I had nothing to hide.”

“Why do you have nothing to hide?”

“Because I didn’t
do
anything.”

“And you
know
that an innocent person could never be convicted of anything. Couldn’t happen. It would offend your romantic ideas of right and wrong.”

“I didn’t think this would happen.”

“You didn’t think this would happen.” He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Well, that makes it all right then. It’s not your fault, because you didn’t expect it to happen.”

Richard swung into lecture mode. “If a guy gets arrested for murder, there are basically two things he can do. One, he can shut the hell up and call his lawyer. That is the preferred method. That is the one all lawyers instruct their clients to employ. That is the one the cops are required to suggest. It’s shocking, what an unappealing option they make it out to be. It’s even more shocking that some morons fall for that line.”

“Richard—”

“But that’s method one. Two, the non-preferred method, the less-desirable method, the method where suspects invariably trip themselves up, is to try to talk their way out of it. To tell a story, which, if true, would mean they couldn’t possibly have done it.

“Then there’s the third method—well, it’s not really the third method, no one’s ever used it, I think you’ve just invented it—the third method, which is so mind-numbingly stupid it defies comprehension, is to tell a story that, if true, not only means you could have done it, but proves you were
the only person in the world
who could have done it.” Richard shook his head. “I don’t know why more suspects haven’t come up with that strategy yet, but for some reason they haven’t. I’m really impressed with you for thinking of it.”

“Any time you’re through beating me up.”

“Beating
you
up? Hey, it’s not like I haven’t defended you from a murder charge before. I guess that was too easy. I guess I didn’t impress you. I guess it looked like I was hardly working. So, you decided to up the stakes. Give me a bit of a challenge. Make it worth my while.”

“‘Keep you on your toes’ was the cliché I was going for.”

“So, you not only talked, you took part in a lineup.”

“I was tricked into it.”

“Sure, sure. You thought you were going to the men’s room. By the time you realized there weren’t any urinals it was too late.”

“They told me I was going home.”

“You always go home in a line?”

“You had to be there.”

“Yes, I did. If my client had called me, I would have been.”

“We’ve covered that.”

“So, the guy picked you out of a lineup as the guy he saw go into the unit.”

“He’s wrong.”

“Oh, he didn’t see you go into the unit?”

“No, he saw me go in. He’s wrong about how I did it.”

“I understand. You went in strong and manly, he says like a chickenshit.”

“No, he says the guy opened the door for me.”

“What!?”

“I knocked on the door. It was ajar. I called out, couldn’t hear any answer. Pushed it open.”

“This guy claims it was opened from inside?”

“That’s right.”

“Did you touch the knob?”

“No.”

“Too bad.”

“Why is that too bad.”

“I could argue you opened the door.”

“I didn’t
have
to open the door. It was already open.”

“There’s no need to get testy.”

“You’re blaming me for something I didn’t do.”

“Like calling me?”

“Richard—”

“This motel manager’s a problem. Undoubtedly the guy’s a total asshole who’s going to stick to his story no matter what. It would be nice if I had
something
to argue.”

“How about the truth?”

Richard made a face. “Only incompetents argue the truth. The truth shall set you free? What bullshit. Rely on the truth, you can kiss your ass goodbye. I mean, look at the motel manager. He’s going to say the guy opened the door for you. Is that true? Not according to you. But does that matter? If I can’t shake his story, you’re going down.”

“Can you shake his story?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t heard it yet. Ten to one he’s an opinionated cuss who’s going to dig in his heels and stick to his guns. Not that it matters. The way you tell it, you’re the only one who could have done it.”

“That’s not true.”

“Oh? How is that?”

I gave him the connecting door theory. I can’t say he was terribly impressed.

“So, I not only gotta argue that the manager’s mistaken, I gotta argue that some guy from the adjoining unit, who you didn’t happened to see enter or leave, slipped next door and killed him after he conveniently rented the adjoining unit and left the connecting door unlocked. What an extraordinary stroke of luck for the killer.”

“It wasn’t luck. They were in cahoots.”

“Cahoots? Did you just use the word ‘cahoots’? I hope you don’t expect me to use it in court.” He shook his head. “What a pain in the ass. Drag me over to Jersey, put me in a no-win situation.”

“Sorry my murder charge inconvenienced you,” I said dryly.

“Well, there’s no help for it. You’ve been ID’d.” Richard cocked his head at me. “And you know what that stands for.”

“No. What?”

“Incredibly dorked.”

7

T
HEY DRAGGED ME BEFORE A
judge who arraigned me for murder, and set bail at a million dollars. I was flattered to be valued so highly, but I didn’t happen to have a million on me. Richard fought like a tiger, but it was a capital charge, and I was from out of state. The best he could get him down to was two hundred and fifty thousand. It might as well have been a billion. I couldn’t raise it.

They took me out and locked me in a cell.

Morgan was back a half hour later. “All right, let’s go.”

“I’m not talking without my attorney.”

“Little late for that.”

Morgan unlocked the cell, hauled me out.

“I’ve hired an attorney. I’ve been arraigned. Any attempt to talk to me now is interfering with my rights. I have nothing to say. I want to go back to jail.”

“Sorry.”

“What?”

“Can’t help you.”

“Then you better help yourself. When my attorney gets you on the stand and grills you about this conversation, how do you think that’s going to look?”