Who Let the Dog Out? (7 page)

“Can I ask what your relationship with Eric is?”

She hesitates. “We’ve been dating for almost two years.” Then she smiles, as if embarrassed, and says, “We joke that we’re engaged to be engaged.”

I don’t ask Stephanie if she knows where Brantley is, because she no doubt wouldn’t tell me if she did. And I don’t ask her if she thinks he killed his partner, but she volunteers her opinion anyway.

“They couldn’t be more wrong about Eric,” she says. “He could never kill anyone. He could never even hurt anyone, especially Michael. They were best friends as well as partners.”

“What kind of business were they in?”

“They were incredibly smart,” she says, which doesn’t really answer the question. Then she corrects herself, not wanting to talk about Brantley in the past tense. “Eric
is
incredibly smart. Whatever they were doing, it would have been successful.”

“You don’t know what they were doing?”

“I don’t, no. It was a secret, even from me.”

We talk some more, but she seems to have nothing to add. “I’d like to take Zoe home to my house,” she says.

I knew that might come up, and had thought about it. “No, that wouldn’t be a good idea. If Downey stole her, then someone else might try to do the same. It could be dangerous for you.”

Legally I have every right to keep Zoe; we got her from the shelter by paying a fee. The only person we have any obligation to would be the actual owner, and that obligation would be more moral than legal. But it doesn’t matter, because Stephanie is not the owner.

I expect her to push back, but she nods her understanding. “Can I come visit her?”

“Sure,” I say. “We’ll make arrangements with Willie.”

Willie seems unconcerned about the possibility that another attempt might be made to steal Zoe. I know this because when I raise the possibility, he says, “I hope they do.” Willie is not really the fearful type, and this is an example of the difference between him and me, because I definitely hope they don’t.

But he is the protective type, and he understands the potential danger to Sondra. For that reason he says that Zoe will be with him 24-7; wherever he goes, she will go.

I’m trying to make sense out of the whole situation, and figure out how to use it to my client’s advantage. The most logical explanation would be that Brantley murdered his partner, Michael Caruso, and then went on the run.

For whatever reason, probably because he panicked, or feared imminent capture, he left quickly and wasn’t able to take his dog. But he loved Zoe, and wanted to reunite with her. Somehow she had gotten lost in the process, and gone to the shelter, and then to us.

But he didn’t want to reveal himself to us, perhaps even realizing who I was, and that I might be tied in enough to law enforcement community happenings to recognize him. Of course, anyone had the obvious potential to do so, since his photo was frequently broadcast on the local news. So he contracted with Downey to steal Zoe and bring her to him.

But this is where the logical explanation turns illogical. Once Downey got the dog, then Brantley would either have come to get her, or sent someone to do so. But why would Brantley or the other person have killed Downey? Maybe an argument over money? Maybe Downey was holding the dog for a sort of ransom, not wanting to turn her over unless Brantley upped the ante?

But why would Brantley, or his emissary, possibly have left Zoe behind? If my theory was correct, then Zoe was the sole reason Downey was involved in this in the first place. Could it be that the killer panicked when Pete, Willie, and I arrived on the scene? Might Brantley have escaped without his dog for a second time?

One thing I am simply not about to consider is the possibility of coincidence, that maybe Downey stole Zoe and was then murdered by someone for reasons that had nothing to do with her. The idea that one dog could be involved in two unrelated murders within two weeks is simply not remotely possible, at least in my eyes.

Perhaps even more important than the question of what the hell is going on is what the hell I’m going to do with it. Because it currently makes no sense, I don’t really know which way it cuts. Is it in my client’s interest to be even peripherally connected to Brantley, whom the cops consider a murderer?

I’ve also noticed, to my distress, that I have started thinking of Tommy as my client. I want a client as much as I want a four-hour enema, but it is neither professional nor fair to bounce Tommy around like a legal rubber ball. If I was going to bail out on him, and I was, it should have been at the arraignment. Sam’s information made me blink and shy away from backing out of the case. That was not Tommy’s fault, and he shouldn’t suffer for it.

As Michael Corleone said in
The Godfather, Part III,
“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” The fact that it was the worst movie in the history of movies does not take away from the truth of that statement, as it relates to my legal career.

I’m starting to think it’s in my client’s best interest for law enforcement to know what I know about the Brantley connection. In a perfect world, I would go to the prosecutor, since the police involvement in our case mostly ended with the arrest.

But with Dylan as the prosecutor, the world is far from perfect. I don’t trust him to be interested in looking for exculpatory evidence, and I think he would try to either ignore or minimize the significance of what I’d be telling him. He is not a viable option.

Which leaves Pete. “I need to see you,” I say, when I get him on the phone.

“Are we dating?” he asks.

“That is a truly chilling thought. But I do need to see you.”

“When?”

“Tonight,” I say. “It’s important.” It doesn’t really have to be tonight, but I feel guilty that I haven’t been aggressive on Tommy’s behalf until now, and I want to rectify that. I also want Pete to understand that I consider this very significant information.

“Okay. I’ll see you at Charlie’s.”

“I can’t. Laurie is teaching a class tonight, so I have to take care of Ricky.”

“Bring him to Charlie’s.”

“It’s a school night,” I say.

“Not for me.”

“Come on, I’ll bring in a pizza.”

“Who the hell are you?” he asks. “Mr. Mom? What’s next? You going to move to the suburbs and do ironing and shit?”

“Just come over.”

“What’s it about this time? A missing pussycat?”

I put up with a few more insults, and he agrees to come by the house. I head home, and when I arrive I have to fight off the urge I’ve been having lately to yell, “Honey! Ricky! I’m home!”

Coming home to a family is different from coming home to just Laurie used to be. I think I like this new situation better, but it sort of makes me feel more mature than I want to be. It’s like I should light up a pipe and head to the den to read the evening paper.

We all sit down to dinner, but I don’t mention the pizza that will soon be making an appearance in this very kitchen. When we’re done, I quickly explain to Laurie what is going on.

“So you are taking Infante on as a client?” she asks.

“I think I should.”

“Of course you should. But you’re actually going to?”

“Yes; it’s the right thing to do.”

She smiles a great smile, and turns to Ricky. “Our little Andy is growing up.”

When Pete arrives, I have him watch Ricky while I pick up the pizza. He seems a little uncomfortable with the idea; Pete probably hasn’t been alone in a room with a nine-year-old since he was that age himself. But Pete and Ricky know each other very well; Pete was close with Ricky’s real father.

“What should I do?” he asks.

“Maybe he’ll be doing some homework, so you can learn something. And you can call in backup in case he starts to beat you up, right?”

I go out to get the pizza, just cheese, no toppings, the way the Pizza God intended. The number of toppings that they put on pizza these days is getting out of hand; Laurie turns it into a goddamn salad. Somebody has to step up and say enough is enough, and I’m the man for the job.

When I get back home, I see that Pete is in the den with Ricky, playing Madden football on the large-screen TV. Homework seems not to be happening. “What’s the score?” I ask.

“He’s up two touchdowns and is on my four-yard line,” Pete says.

“He’s terrible,” Ricky chimes in.

“Maybe we can talk at halftime in the locker room,” I say.

Pete extricates himself from the game, though it’s not due to my sarcasm. It’s more the smell of the pizza. While he’s chomping down his fourth slice, he asks, “What have you got?”

“You know that dog Cheyenne that was stolen and was with Downey when he got killed?”

“Of course I know about her; that’s all you ever talk about. Where did she turn up this time? The White House?”

“Her real name is Zoe—”

He interrupts. “Wow. That changes everything.”

“And she was owned by Eric Brantley.”

He does a startled double take so sudden that for a second I’m afraid he might choke on the crust. “How do you know that?”

“Not important, but it’s one hundred percent.”

He seems to eye me warily. “You know where Brantley is?”

I shake my head. “No.” Then, “What do you think this means?”

He thinks for a moment. “It’s interesting.”

“Say hallelujah,” I say. “Sherlock Holmes lives.”

We talk some more about it, but Pete has no more insight into it than I do, which is not a hell of a lot of insight. “I’m not running the Brantley case,” he says. “You want me to share it with the detectives that are on it?”

“No harm in it,” I say.

“Probably no help either. They’re pretty sure the bad guy is Brantley, and I’m sure that Infante killed Downey. I don’t see how the dog changes things.”

“The dog changes everything,” I say. “We just don’t know how yet.” Then, “Did you find out where Downey got those diamonds?”

He shakes his head. “Not yet. Best guess is he stole them … they’re big stones.”

“How much are they worth?”

“I have no idea, but they look sparkly to me. Downey must have had good taste. He had a good head off his shoulders.”

“Now you’re doing decapitation jokes?” I ask.

He shrugs. “How often do I get the chance?”

“I’m afraid I’ve got very little for you,” Sam says. He’s come over to give his report on his investigation into Downey’s phone activity.

“I’ve got to tell you, Sam. That is not an upbeat way to open a conversation. For future reference, I prefer things like, ‘Wait ’til you hear this, Andy,’ or, ‘Andy, you’re gonna love what I found out.’”

“Sorry,” Sam says, and I can tell he feels badly, so I back off.

“That’s okay, just tell me what you learned.”

“There was very little banking activity; if he received or sent any large amounts of money, it wasn’t through normal channels.”

This is interesting in and of itself, since Downey had those diamonds in his possession. He either paid in cash, or stole them, or maybe received them for services rendered. Of course, there’s always the possibility they have been passed down through the Downey family since Nehemiah Downey mined them hundreds of years ago, but it doesn’t help to consider that.

“Did he have the kind of money that would indicate he could have bought two large diamonds?” I ask.

“No way; he had twelve hundred dollars in the bank, and no investments that I could find. He didn’t own the house he lived in, and his car is six years old. Maybe the stones are fakes.”

“What else?”

“I’ve got the phone numbers of the people he called, and those who called him. I’ve attached names to most of them, although he received some calls from a few of those noncontract phones, so there’s no way to know who owned them.”

“Anybody interesting on the list?”

He shrugs. “Hard to know, but it didn’t seem like it. I’ve got the team on it, but they’re just names, you know? Difficult to tell if they mean anything. We’re going to start digging into each person to see what more we can find out.”

“What about the GPS? Where was he?” I ask, knowing that Sam checked the GPS records on Downey’s phone. He can technically only tell me where the phone was, not where Downey was, but the two are generally the same.

“No place special that I can see,” Sam said. “He didn’t attend a criminals’ convention or anything. Hung out a lot in a bar on Market Street. He also spent a hell of a lot of time across the road from the foundation building, and he was definitely in there the evening he died.”

What Sam is saying doesn’t surprise me, but the fact that Downey so carefully staked out the building confirms the importance of his taking Zoe. It wasn’t any kind of impulse; it was a carefully planned and executed robbery.

Sam leaves to go down to the office; we’re going to have a meeting down there to officially get the team working on the case. I wait for Laurie to get home, and drive there with her, updating her on the way with what I know. It is a longer trip than necessary for that; I could tell her what I know in the time it takes to drive one block.

The group has already assembled when we arrive. In addition to Sam and Willie, there is Edna, my secretary turned administrative assistant. She made the title change herself, and if either of the titles implies that she does any actual work, they are as inaccurate as if she called herself Governor Edna, or Astronaut Edna.

Also here for the meeting is Hike Lynch, my associate, a brilliant lawyer with the uncanny ability to see the negative in everything. Next to him is Marcus, which means that Hike was the last to arrive. No one would willingly take a seat next to Marcus; except for Laurie, they would all be too afraid.

Laurie seems somehow exempt from the “fear of Marcus” syndrome, and she takes the chair on his other side. As always, he greets her, and only her, with a small smile.

Marcus is an outstanding investigator, which fortunately puts him on Laurie’s team. The only dealings I have with him are when he is called on to perform the vital task of preventing me from getting killed. He is extraordinarily good at that, since when it comes to toughness, he makes Luca Brasi look like Fredo.