Dog Tags (23 page)

“Sam found a plane reservation made six weeks ago by Donovan Chambers,” she says. “It was Nassau in the Bahamas, to San Juan,
to Cancún. He made it in the evening for a flight that was to leave at seven o’clock the next morning.”

I recognize the name instantly; Donovan Chambers is one of the soldiers discharged from the army as a result of the explosion
in Iraq.

“Sounds like he was in a hurry. Has Sam found any traces of him in Cancún?”

She shakes her head. “He hasn’t even looked; Chambers never got on the plane in the first place.”

“Do we know why?” I ask.

“No, and neither do the authorities in Nassau. A friend of mine in the Miami PD put me in touch with someone down there. Chambers
hasn’t been seen since that day; all his clothes and possessions were there, including seventy-five grand in a hidden safe.”

The same thing happened with Tyler Lawson in Vegas; there
seems to be a run on ex-soldiers disappearing and leaving large sums of money behind.

“Have they got any leads?”

“None. And I doubt that they care a lot, him being a foreigner and all. If they had a body, that would be a different story.
But they don’t.”

“Can we depose them?” I ask. “I need something tangible to give me any shot at introducing this at trial.”

“We can definitely depose them,” she says. “I can go down there and do it myself.”

If there’s a worse idea than Laurie going off to Nassau, I’m not aware of it. “It should be a lawyer,” I say.

“What about Hike?”

“I really don’t want to be responsible for depressing an entire country. I think we have international treaties prohibiting
stuff like that.”

“Well, you can’t go, and it’s not like you have a whole staff of lawyers,” she points out.

“Too bad it’s not Bangladesh; I could have Kevin do it.”

I pick up the phone and call Hike, who never answers before the fifth ring. It’s like he’s hoping the caller will hang up
and he won’t have to be bothered.

He finally answers, and I tell him the situation and ask him if he would be willing to go.

“To Nassau?” he asks.

“Yes. Have you ever been there?”

“Of course not. Twenty minutes in that sun and I’d be peeling my skin off with a squeegee.”

“You can put suntan lotion on your expense account,” I say.

“What about bug repellent? On those islands they have mosquitoes the size of Volkswagens.”

“No problem.”

“Are there direct flights?” he asks.

“I don’t think so. I think you fly to Miami and then switch planes.”

“To one of those little puddle jumpers? You know what the crash rate is on those? It’s like forty percent.”

“Hike…”

“Look at just the singers that have been killed on those things. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Patsy Cline, Ricky Nelson, John
Denver, Jim Croce, Otis Redding, the Big Bopper… if I were a singer I wouldn’t even drive by a damn airport.”

“But you’re not a singer, Hike.”

“So? Half of them had their lawyers on the plane with them.”

“I need you to do this, Hike. At double your hourly rate.”

“On the other hand, plenty of singers have landed safely,” he says. “But what if it’s dangerous once I get there?”

“You mean sunburn?” I ask.

“No, I mean murder. Isn’t that what we think happened to this Chambers guy?”

“There’s no reason to think that whoever did it would still be on the island.”

“Unless he is,” Hike says.

We agree that I’ll ask Willie to go along as protection. That way Willie can play detective, and Hike can get the depositions
done.

The exhausting negotiation is finally over, and it’s proven one thing: Milo trusts me more than Hike does.

A
LAN
L
ANDON WAS GETTING WORRIED.
Ever since he’d received the call from M while listening to the mayor’s speech, things had not gone nearly as smoothly as
he wanted… as he demanded. Perhaps he was spoiled, since the previous operations had gone off without anything resembling
a hitch.

Anxiety was a sensation so unusual for him that he was actually struck by it. Landon had spent his entire life being smart
enough to think two steps ahead of anyone else, and rich and ruthless enough to deal with any impediments to those steps.
The occasions where worry was called for were few and far between.

From the beginning, he wanted the envelope that Erskine had, and that the dog had run off with. But he had always been a patient
man, and he was willing to let matters unfold, and wait to make a move when it presented itself.

Landon prided himself on that willingness to be patient. Back in his basketball-playing days as a point guard for Dartmouth,
he had learned the wisdom of what coaches referred to as letting the game come to you. The trick was to see the entire court,
to know the game well enough to anticipate, and to take advantage of openings when they presented themselves.

And until now, the game had always come to Alan Landon.

But this situation was different. So far his patience had not been rewarded, and outside pressures were getting greater. He
couldn’t pull this operation off on his own; he literally did not have, and could not get, the necessary device to do the
job. And the person who did have it was getting worried, and threatening to withhold it.

It was becoming clear that the only way to eliminate that pressure was to get the envelope, and the time left to get it was
decreasing.

Landon knew that M was getting impatient as well. M was a man of action, they had that in common, and he was disenchanted
with the lack of momentum to this operation. But M knew very little of what was really going on, and Landon had no desire
to fill him in. M would have a very specific role to perform, and when Landon gave him the go-ahead, he would perform it in
devastating fashion.

The truth was that Landon was right in assuming that M was frustrated, but if anything he was underestimating that frustration.
M thought that Landon was getting indecisive, perhaps even soft, and it surprised him. With what they were doing, and with
what they had already done, there was no room for that.

M knew that the dog was at Carpenter’s house. He hadn’t seen him, but he knew it as certainly as if he had. And he knew he
could go in and get him whenever he wanted to. It wouldn’t be the easiest thing to do; M was aware that Marcus Clark was lurking
around, guarding the place. He had checked out Clark, now knew him by reputation, and respected him as a force to be reckoned
with.

But not as much of a force as M.

Clark could be handled, especially since M had the advantage of surprise and timing. He could take him out whenever he wanted.
And then there would be nothing to stop him from walking in and taking the dog.

After that M knew that Landon was on his own. M knew nothing about dogs, other than the fact that he didn’t like them. If
they
were going to get the mutt to lead them to the envelope, Landon would have to figure out how.

So M was frustrated that he wasn’t taking action, and he was frustrated that he could do nothing to change the situation.
Landon was calling the shots for the time being, because Landon had the money, and if there was one constant in life it was
that money ruled.

When it came time to kill Clark, and Carpenter, and Carpenter’s girlfriend, none of it would be personal. It was simply about
getting the dog, because getting the dog meant getting the money.

S
CIENCE HAS ITS PLACE IN A TRIAL, BUT PROSECUTORS DIFFER ON WHERE THAT PLACE IS.
Their varying opinions on how juries receive scientific evidence especially impact on the order of the witnesses they call,
and that decision can set the tone for the entire trial to follow.

Scientific testimony is drier than eyewitness or motive testimony, and some prosecutors believe it should therefore come first,
when jurors are eager and alert. It also provides a more compelling proof, harder to refute, and introducing it first might
render a juror more receptive to the “why” and “how” testimony to follow.

The majority of prosecutors take a differing view. They want their case to be an unfolding story, told in the same general
chronological order as the crime was committed. Therefore, since forensic proof by definition must follow the crime, the witnesses
who present it should bring up the rear.

If the eyewitness and motive evidence in this latter approach is compelling, the prosecutor can demonstrate the defendant’s
guilt independent of the forensics. When the science is finally introduced, it serves as ironclad confirmation of what the
jury already knows,
and it is therefore even more unassailable by the pathetically weak defense, in this case me.

Eli is a proponent of the second approach, as I would be if I were in his shoes. As his first witness he calls Kenny Parker,
a twenty-three-year-old law student who recently finished his second year at Seton Hall.

Once Eli sets the stage with some questions establishing Parker as a fine, upstanding young man, he brings out that he was
present at the Skybar the night of the murder. He also has Parker admit that he had been drinking a bit, but that he was sober
and clearheaded when he left.

“Please describe what happened and what you saw as you left the bar,” Eli says.

“Well, I was standing there, and I heard this loud noise, I thought it was a firecracker or something, coming from down the
block. I started to turn that way, and all of a sudden this big dog comes running right toward me, with something in his mouth.”

“What did you do next?” Eli asks.

“I backed up a little, because I thought the dog was coming at me. But he ran right by, and then I heard another loud noise.
Then there was all this yelling, and a lot of people running around. So I went down the street, and I saw a body on the ground,
and someone standing over him.”

“Can you identify that person?”

Parker nods. “Yeah… yes. It was him.” He points to Billy to complete the identification. “And then he leaned over to the guy
on the ground, and put his hand on his neck. It was like he was feeling for a pulse or something.”

“Did you see anyone else there?”

“You mean by the body? No, there were a lot of people running around and yelling, but he was the only one by the body at that
point.”

Eli turns the witness over to me, and I ask Parker why he went to the bar that night.

“Just to have a little fun with some friends; there aren’t that many places to go at night around here.”

“So you were having fun,” I say. “Playing Wiffle ball? Video games? Pin the tail on the donkey? That kind of fun?”

He laughs a little uncomfortably. “No, we had some drinks and talked. Danced a little.”

“How many drinks did you have?”

“I think two,” he says. “But I was there for almost three hours.”

“What were you drinking?”

“I’m pretty sure it was vodka and tonic.”

“How long does it take to drink one of those?’

He shrugs. “Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes. Depends on how long I want it to last.”

“So you had two drinks, lasting maybe twenty minutes each, and you were there for three hours. Sounds like you had a lot of
downtime, huh?”

Eli objects that I’m being argumentative, which I will continue to be throughout the trial. Judge Catchings sustains the objection.

“How much do they charge for a vodka and tonic?” I ask.

“I’m not sure. Maybe eight bucks.”

I introduce as evidence a copy of his bar check that night, which totaled eighty-two dollars and seventy-five cents. He tells
me that he bought a bunch of drinks for his friends.

“That’s nice; you’re obviously a generous guy. Ten of the eleven drinks listed on that check were vodka and tonics; sounds
like you and your friends have similar taste.”

“Sometimes the bartender just keeps writing down whatever the first drink was.”

This makes no sense to me, and the jury will feel the same way, so I don’t have to pursue it further.

“You testified that when you left the bar, you were standing there in front. Were you waiting for something?”