Open and Shut (9 page)

Wanda jerks her thumb in my direction. “Tell
him
that, not me.”

She is now officially getting on my nerves, and I think Walling's as well. He asks her, “Why should I tell Mr. Carpenter that?”

“'Cause he's my pimp.”

It takes a split second for the meaning of what she has said to penetrate. However, it doesn't take the press quite that long. There is an immediate uproar among them; and I realize in a horrifying flash that they have been primed for this.

Walling pounds his gavel to get quiet. “What did you say?” he asks.

“I said, he's my pimp.” Then she looks at me, a puzzled expression on her face. “I thought they knew that.”

Walling turns to me. “Mr. Carpenter, do you have any comment on your client's contention?”

I've been set up. I don't know why, or by whom, and I can't believe that Cal would do this to me.

“Your Honor, she clearly is using a different definition of pimp, from the Latin
pimpius
, meaning ‘to represent.’ ” I'm floundering and trying to use humor to defuse the disaster. But Wanda will have none of it.

“He keeps me and a bunch of other girls out on the street. We pay him part of what we take in.”

Walling turns to me. He's having so much fun I can see him reconsidering retirement. “Well, Mr. Carpenter, sounds like Webster's definition to me.”

Before I can respond, Wanda drops another bomb. “And he gets free blow jobs whenever he wants.”

The press is going berserk, laughing and cheering as if they are in a nightclub. I try and compose myself.

“Your Honor, this is bizarre. Ms. Morris's father is a friend of mine, and he called me, asked me to help his daughter. I have never met her before today.”

Wanda cuts in with the crusher. “My real name ain't Morris, and my father's been dead for ten years.”

Walling almost gleefully turns to me. “Mr. Carpenter?”

I look at Wanda, then at the hysterical reporters, then back to Walling.

“The defense rests,” I say.

It goes downhill from there. With an accusation like this taking place in open court, Walling is obligated to turn the matter over to the District Attorney for investigation. A hearing is set for two months from now to hear the results of that investigation, and Wanda is directed to appear. She says that she will, but she won't. This was her closing performance.

When I finally get out of the courtroom, I run into Lynn Carmody. She tries to stop giggling long enough to talk to me. It's going to take a while, so I walk past her. She turns and walks with me, finally controlling her laughter.

“I'm sorry, I just couldn't tell you.”

I stop and turn toward her. “So you knew about this?”

She nods. “My colleagues would have killed me if I tipped you off.”

“Who set me up?”

“I don't have any idea.” She holds up her hand as if taking an oath. “Honestly, I don't.”

I believe her. If she were protecting a source she'd say she's protecting a source.

“And you're going to print the story?” I ask.

“Andy, are you kidding? It'll be page one.”

I just shake my head and walk away, and she calls after me to tell me that if I find out how this happened, I should tell her and she'll print that also. Somehow I don't find this all that comforting.

I leave the courthouse and stop at the newsstand. It's still closed, and I have this unsettling feeling that it is never going to open again. What the hell happened to Cal Morris?

The next morning I get to the office and experience a first: Edna has the newspaper opened to other than the crossword page. Actually, the paper isn't really open at all, since Edna, Laurie, and Kevin are all looking at the front page. I don't want to look at it, but I can't help myself. There's a picture of Wanda and me, with the headline “A Different Kind of Client?”

I moan, and Edna tries to make me feel better by telling me that it's a good picture, that it makes me look like a slightly fatter version of her Uncle Sidney. Laurie chimes in with the revelation that she has been around a long time, and she's never seen a better looking pimp. I smile and try to seem good-natured about it all. I have as good a sense of humor as the next guy, but I generally prefer it when the joke is on the next guy.

This is disturbing on a level beyond the total public humiliation. Somebody has gone to an incredible amount of trouble to do this to me, and has demonstrated remarkable power in the process. If I'm right, they have even made a person, Cal, disappear. I don't think Cal even has a daughter, and if he did Wanda certainly isn't her. He was either frightened into doing this or paid off; this was no minor prank to embarrass me. This was designed to impress me with strength. It wasn't a severed horse's head in my bed, but it did the trick.

Once my staff finishes giggling, we kick around the possibilities. I come to believe Cal was paid off, and I further believe it would have taken serious money to do it. Since Laurie and I have been prying into the lives of Markham and Brown-field, people with very serious money, there seems a possibility that one or both of them are involved.

It's a long-shot hunch, but my instinct says I'm right. Representing the opposing view are Laurie and Kevin, who say I'm nuts. I hope they're right, because if they're not, then my father was somehow involved in something so bad that these people are desperate to conceal it.

After half an hour of unproductively debating all of this, Laurie offers to try and find Cal. I tell her that I will want her to do that, but not now. Now we have to focus all our attention on Willie Miller.

Kevin's brief on the change of venue is thoroughly professional and well reasoned. I make one or two nitpick changes, wipe off a couple of mustard stains, and then instruct him to file it with Hatchet. I also assign him to deal with the DA's office on all discovery matters. It's only been a couple of days, but I already have the confidence that I can turn something over to him knowing it will be done. It's a nice feeling.

Laurie reports on her progress, which is less favorable. I expected this; when a murder was committed this long ago there's little likelihood of turning up much new. More disturbing is her inability to find Willie's lawyer, Robert Hinton. His elusiveness is puzzling. Lawyers generally don't like to disappear; it causes them to have trouble attracting new clients.

Laurie is going to redouble her efforts to find Hinton, as well as arrange to interview the eyewitness whose testimony helped to bury Willie in the first trial. She's also recruited a DNA expert for us to possibly use to rebut the state's evidence, or to help us prevent it getting in. Like the change of venue and just about everything else involved with the case, it's pretty much a lost cause, but I agree to see him at three o'clock this afternoon.

We're wrapping things up when the phone rings. Edna, despite having been told not to interrupt us, does so anyway.

“I think you'll want to take this,” she says.

“Who is it?”

“It's your wife. It sounds like an emergency.”

I pick up the phone and conduct a ten-second conversation during which Nicole tells me what has happened. I hang up and start walking toward the door.

“Is everything okay?” Laurie asks.

I tell her. “Nicole found a threatening message on the downstairs answering machine.”

“What did it say?”

I shake my head. “I don't know yet. But whatever it says, that's not the worst part.”

“What's the worst part?”

“We don't have a downstairs answering machine.”

I make it home in record time. Nicole was borderline hysterical when I spoke to her, and she's not likely to have calmed down before I get there. She's also not likely to calm down after I get there.

I pull up to the house, and I see that she is peeking out from behind the drapes, watching for me. She opens the door and leads me to the answering machine, which is hooked up in the den. It is not a machine I have ever seen before.

So as not to smudge any fingerprints, and so I could appear to know what I'm doing, I use the point of a pen to press play. The voice is computer-generated, effectively concealing the speaker.

“Think of your embarrassment in court as just the beginning … a small sign of our power. We are bigger than you, Carpenter … much bigger. We can do what we want … when we want. So drop your crusade, before it is too late. The past is past.”

Nicole looks at me, as if I can say something that will take away her fear. Something like, “Oh, is that all? Don't worry. I had told a friend he could break into the house and drop off a threatening answering machine.”

She sees I have nothing comforting to offer, so she says, with great drama, “Andy, they were in here. While we were sleeping. They were in our house.”

My mind flashes to Michael Corleone, speaking to Pentan-geli after gunmen shot up his house. “In my bedroom, where my wife sleeps! Where my children come to play with their toys!”

I decide not to mention the
Godfather
reference to Nicole. Instead I ask, “Did you check the doors and windows?”

“No, I didn't,” she says before she explodes. “I'm not a policeman, Andy. I don't want this to happen in my house!”

“Of course you don't, Nicole, and neither do I. But …”

She's now more under control, but with an intensity in her voice that I don't think I have ever heard. It strikes me that I've never seen Nicole afraid. She did not grow up in a world where she ever had reason to be afraid.

“I do not want the awful people that you deal with in my life. Not the murderers, not the prostitutes, nor the other animals. I don't want it and I don't deserve it.”

“We don't know who did this. Or why.”

She shakes her head; as if I'm not getting it. “That doesn't matter. What matters is that it does not happen again.”

I start looking around, but I can't imagine that I'm going to find a clue. Tara sniffs around with me, though if she were going to be active in the case I would have preferred that she had barked during the break-in. My mind starts trying to put it all together: the debacle in the courthouse, the picture, the twenty-two million dollars, the attack on Willie Miller, the trial … somewhere in there is the answer, but I'll be damned if I know where.

I'm now talking out loud, but to myself. “It's all blending together.”

“What?”

I tell Nicole, “All the various elements, the photograph … the trial. It's like they're pieces of the same puzzle. But it doesn't make sense. How the hell could a picture my father took thirty-five years ago have anything to do with Willie Miller?”

“Whatever it is, it's not worth it. These people are dangerous. Andy, we don't need this.”

She's right, of course, but after all these years living with me, does she really think I can just drop it? Could she not know me at all?

“It might be a good idea for you to get away for a while.”

“Where to?”

“I don't know … one of your father's homes. Cannes, Gstaad, Aspen … pick a home, any home.”

“Why? Because you're afraid for me? Because you're not going to stop what you're doing? Because you're going to be a martyr? Because you're a bullheaded son of a bitch?”

“E. All of the above.”

She makes her decision. “No, Andy, I'm not leaving. I'm not the one who caused this problem, and I'm not the one who has to fix it.”

I
HATE
DNA
MORE THAN I HATE OPERA. I HATE IT
more than I hate lizards. I hate DNA more than I hate meaningless touchdowns by the underdog that cover the spread when I'm betting the favorite. I recognize that it is the greatest invention since fingerprints, and that it is an incredibly valuable tool to help justice to be served, but none of that carries any weight with me. I hate DNA because it's boring, because I will never understand it, and because it almost always works against me.

My meeting this afternoon is with Dr. Gerald Lampley, a part-time professor of chemistry at William Paterson College. Dr. Lampley used to be a full-time professor, a career which lasted until the justice system discovered DNA.

Once the people in criminal justice start using something, they need experts to explain that something to them. They pay those experts very well, hence Dr. Lampley's sudden loss of his burning desire to teach chemistry to college kids. And it's certainly not just DNA. There are people out there making a fortune because they understand and can explain to a jury how and why blood spatters. It's a crazy world we live in.

Experts generally testify for the same side each time, and Dr. Lampley is known as a defense witness. In other words, he tends to testify that DNA, his area of expertise, is unreliable. He doesn't take the position that the science is bogus, of course, since if he ever convinced the justice system of that he'd be back teaching chemistry full-time. So Dr. Lampley confines himself to testifying that the DNA is unreliable in the specific case at trial.

Dr. Lampley has had time to read the prosecution's brief on their intentions regarding DNA in the Willie Miller case. They are planning to use a new type of test, in addition to the PCR and RFLP tests they have been using. I ask Dr. Lampley in what way this new test is supposed to be better.

“The government claims that it is considerably more accurate.” He says “the government” as if he is talking about the Fýnchmen.

I ask him to explain, and he tells me that if this new test turns up Willie Miller as a match, it would be a one in six billion chance that it is wrong. The old tests are down around one in three billion.

It would be amusing if it weren't so depressing. “One in three billion isn't enough for them?”

“The goal of science and scientists is to strive for absolute certainty.”

The basic issue here is whether or not we want to ask Hatchet for a Kelly-Frye hearing. Such a hearing would determine whether this new test is reliable enough to present to a jury. The earlier type of tests do not require such a hearing, since they've had Kelly-Fryes in the past, so Hatchet has his ass covered when he admits those tests as evidence.

A Kelly-Frye hearing takes the form of seven to ten days of excruciatingly boring and detailed testimony by scientists. They might as well be speaking Swahili, since the people listening are lawyers and a judge, none of whom have the slightest idea what the scientists are talking about. But the lawyers lawyer, and the judge judges, and the prosecution wins.

Five minutes into our conversation I make my decision about the Kelly-Frye: I'm not going to request it. We would lose anyway and it would be a total waste of time, but that's not why I'm not seeking it. If we ultimately lose the trial, and Willie is sentenced to death, I want to give his future lawyer an appeal based on the fact that his idiot lawyer Andy Carpenter never even asked for a Kelly-Frye hearing.

I'm more interested in talking to Dr. Lampley about the evidence collection in this case. It is in this area that DNA can often be attacked, and a case like this provides more opportunity than most. The evidence was collected at a time when DNA was in its relative infancy, and less sophisticated collection techniques were used. If we can show that this collection was faulty, then the results are useless to the prosecution.

Dr. Lampley agrees to study the case and the police work involved. This is not a particularly generous offer, since he's charging us three hundred an hour, but I agree. I don't tell him yet that I'm not going for the Kelly-Frye, since I'm pretty sure that would dampen his enthusiasm. With preparation and presentation, the Kelly-Frye would be worth twenty grand to him. It beats the hell out of grading final exams.

With the boring torture of talking about DNA at least temporarily out of the way, it's time to focus on Willie Miller's story, assuming Willie Miller has a story. I take Kevin and Laurie out to the prison with me, so that they can hear it firsthand.

Willie is already back in the main section, with only a small bandage to show for his fun in the rec room. His eyes almost pop out of his head when he sees Laurie. After I introduce everyone, Willie makes a finger-wagging motion back and forth between Laurie and me and says to me with a lascivious grin, “Uuuhhh … you and her?” When he does this, I become an instant proponent of the death penalty.

“Don't start, Willie. We're here to talk about you.”

Still eyeing Laurie, he says, “Man, your life is a hell of a lot more interesting than mine.”

I finally get him back on track, and we discuss the night of the murder. He thinks he remembers showing up for work that night, but everything after that is an alcohol-induced blank.

“Do you remember when you started to drink?” Laurie asks.

“You mean that night?”

She nods, and he says, “Nope. I wouldn't have, that's what's so weird. But I guess I did, huh?”

“According to the blood tests,” I say. “Have you ever had problems with alcohol?”

“Nope.”

“How long had you been working at that bar?”

“About six months.”

“Any problems before that night? Any incidents? Were you ever reprimanded for anything?”

He shakes his head. “Nope. I did my job and didn't bother nobody.”

“What about the needle marks on your arms?”

Willie reacts to this, tensing and flaring up. “I never took no drugs. Never.”

This, of course, doesn't make any sense. I saw the marks on the police photographs. “Then where did the marks come from?”

“You know what ‘never’ means? I
never
took no drugs. I don't know nothin’ about no needle marks. Tell them to stop trying to peddle this bullshit, man.”

We question Willie for another hour, but it basically gets us nowhere. He never saw Denise McGregor before, has no idea what happened that night, but can't believe that he could have killed someone. It's not exactly a compelling case to present to a jury.

I arrive at home to something less than a standing ovation. Tara seems happy enough to see me, wagging her tail and graciously accepting her evening biscuit. Nicole is somewhat more reserved, having not yet gotten over the answering machine incident. I have to admit that I'm not quite over it either, and I double-check all the doors and windows to make sure they are locked.

We eat in, since Nicole doesn't seem anxious to go to a restaurant with the most famous pimp in New Jersey. That's fine with me, since I've got a briefcaseful of work to do. I'm still doing it at one o'clock when I fall asleep on the couch, Tara's head on my thigh. A boy and his dog.

I take stock of the situation the next morning, and I'm not pleased. I've learned almost nothing to help Willie Miller, and the trial is fast approaching. I also have no idea what secrets lie behind the picture and my father's money, nor do I know why I'm being harassed and threatened. So far, so bad.

The one germ of a clue so far is Vince Sanders's mini-revelation that Denise was working on something secretive and exciting to her when she was killed, and that for the first time in her career seemingly didn't take notes. It's not a stunner, but it is interesting and probably worth checking out further. At least until something better comes along.

I go back to Vince Sanders's office, not bothering to stop at the reception desk since I now know the way. I enter through the open door and find Vince throwing paper airplanes into a wastepaper basket. I should teach this guy sock basketball.

“A dedicated journalist,” I marvel, “working tirelessly to preserve the people's right to know.”

He keeps throwing the planes. “Next to the right to hire a hooker, it's one of our most sacred traditions.”

“You know that was a setup,” I lamely respond. “I thought I was helping out a friend.”

“Really? That's too bad. It made a good story. Sold a lot of newspapers.”

“You are a media leech.”

He nods. “Always have been. Always will be. By the way, could you get me a pair of twenty-one-year-old coed twin hookers for tonight? Figure about ten o'clock?”

“No problem. I'll take care of it.”

“Great. And tell them to call me Lord Sanders. No, change that. Dress them in Indian outfits and name them Little Feather and Babbling Brook.”

“Okay.”

“And tell them to call me Chief Broken Rubber.”

“Done. Now you owe me one.”

I take out my father's picture and put it on the desk. “Let's start with this.”

“What about it?” he asks.

I point to my father. “That's my father almost forty years ago. I want to know who the other three are.”

He looks at it for a moment. “No sweat. We'll just run it through our super-duper face computer.”

“This is important,” I tell him. “If my hunch is right, it might even have something to do with Denise's murder.”

He stares at me for a few moments. “I think you're just about the dumbest pimp I've ever met.”

“Thanks for your support.”

I prepare to cajole him to use his sources to check into this further, but I don't have to, since he looks at the picture again and points to the fourth person.

“You know, that guy looks real familiar.”

“Who is it?”

He doesn't answer, just goes to the intercom and presses the button. A female voice asks what he wants.

“Ask Carl to come in, will you?” Then, to me, “Carl will know for sure.”

There's no sense asking Vince who he thinks it is, since Carl's on the way in anyway, and Carl will “know for sure.”

Carl comes in. He's in his late fifties and wears a suit and tie. Isn't anybody in the newspaper business ink-stained anymore?

Vince doesn't bother to introduce me, and Carl doesn't seem to notice I'm even there. Vince hands him the picture.

“Does this guy look familiar to you?” He doesn't even have to tell him which guy he's talking about.

Carl takes out a pair of glasses thicker than the Hubble Telescope. He puts them on and peers at the picture for no more than three seconds.

“He should. I used to work for him. That's Mike Anthony.”

Vince smiles at me triumphantly. “I told you so.”

“Who's Mike Anthony?” I ask.

Vince says, “He used to be an editor at a small paper in Essex County. Let me tell you something, he was a little nuts, but one hell of a newspaperman.”

Carl nods his agreement. “One of the best.”

“Is he retired? Where can I find him now?” I ask hopefully.

Vince says, “At that great newsroom in the sky.”

“Dead?” Why can't we catch a break?

Carl jumps in. “He committed suicide. I think we ran the piece maybe six, seven years ago.”

I look to Vince to understand what piece Carl is talking about. He explains. “Carl runs the obit page. We write them and hold 'em until the person kicks off. Wanna read yours?”

“No, thanks,” I say.

Carl says, “Are you sure? I'm working on it today anyway. I'm adding the pimp thing as the lead.”

“Turns out he denies it,” Vince says.

“Lucky I don't have to include the denial. Dead guys don't sue much.”

Carl laughs at his joke and leaves. I can still hear him laughing as he walks down the hall. I'm glad that my pain can bring some joy into his life.

I ask Vince where I can find Denise McGregor's family, on the off chance that they can tell me something. That's if they agree to talk to the scumbag representing their daughter's killer.

“I think her father lived in South Jersey somewhere; I should be able to get you the address from personnel. I don't think she ever mentioned her mother.”

“Is her father still alive?”

“I don't know, but …” He seems to drift off, lost in thought.

“But what?”

He says, “Maybe it's a coincidence, but I remember Denise asking me a bunch of questions about Mike Anthony. At the time I figured he had offered her a better job, and she was checking him out, deciding whether to take it.”

“Was it around the time that she died?”

He nods. “I think so.”

I pump him for a while, trying to get more information, but he doesn't have any more memory to jog. I feel like he's given me a major piece of the puzzle, though I'm still not sure how it fits in. But one thing I'll bet on: Denise sure as hell
was
checking out Mike Anthony. It is the first factual link between the Willie Miller trial and the photograph. It confirms my instincts, which doesn't make me feel that great, since I still have no idea what the hell is going on. But the more I learn, the stronger my hunch gets that the people in the photograph are somehow related to Denise's death.

Before I leave, Vince gets me the address where Denise's father lived when she worked there, as well as copies of every story she wrote in the year before her death.

“Thanks,” I say. “I owe you.”

Vince tells me that if I can get the coed twins to sing the naked version of the Doublemint jingle, then we're even. He also says that he's got a feeling I'm on the right track, and he'll help in any way he can. I thank him without mentioning that I'm nowhere near the right track.

As I leave, I run into Laurie in the parking lot. My keen lawyerly mind has a feeling that this is not a coincidence.

She confirms it. “I'm glad I caught you.”

“What's up?”

“I've been tracking down Hinton … Willie's lawyer.”

“You find him?”

“In a manner of speaking,” she says.

“Are we in a cryptic mood today?”

“The bar association doesn't have any record of him, he's never tried a case anywhere except for Willie Miller's, and he never graduated from a law school, at least not in this country.”