One Dog Night (13 page)

But more than lucky, Loney was smart. He was smart enough to have researched Carpenter and his team thoroughly, and he knew all about Marcus Clark. And one thing he knew for sure; Ray Camby was not going to stand up to him.

Recruiting Camby was a mistake; Loney had felt that from the moment he met him. But Camby had been recommended, and he did have some virtues. He would do what he was told, he had no hesitancy whatsoever to break the law, and most important, he was expendable.

Loney could see through the window, and it was easy to tell that Camby was scared. Clark was going to force him to talk, and the problem was that Camby had plenty to say. At the top of that list were the dealings that he and Loney had had with Danny Butler.

Loney had the ability to remain calm and think clearly in a crisis, and it served him well here. His first idea was to shoot Clark; he had a clear view into the room, and a weapon that could easily bridge the distance.

But Clark seemed to be smart enough to stay out of the line of sight, and Loney could only get brief glimpses of him. Also, killing Clark would attract a lot of unwanted attention to Carpenter and the Galloway case.

The other option was to kill Camby before he could talk. Camby was visible through the window and Loney could pick him off with ease. Certainly, Camby’s death would not be a significant loss to the operation, especially since his identity was now compromised.

The other key factor that Loney considered was that he was soon going to have to kill Camby anyway. He knew far too much, and when the ultimate task was accomplished, it would be far too risky to let him live. A lot of people would be dying, and Camby was to be one of many.

Now he would lead the way.

Once he had made the decision, Loney didn’t hesitate. He took out his gun and in one smooth motion aimed and fired. The bullet made surprisingly little noise as it went through the motel room window, and it hit Camby square in the chest. The unnecessary second bullet went through his skull, and he went straight back and down.

Loney didn’t see Clark after the shooting; he was obviously taking cover in anticipation of more shots. Loney retreated to a position farther from the motel, from where he would be able to see Clark’s car leave, without being seen himself.

It was only three or four minutes before the car went by. Loney had not detected any other commotion; it seemed likely that the shooting had gone unnoticed.

Loney headed back to Camby’s room for what would be a cleanup operation. He was not unhappy with how things turned out, and recognized the element of luck that had helped in the process.

But he also knew that intelligence and resourcefulness were the qualities that had prevailed. They would continue to do so, right up to the time that the goal was reached, and everyone in the way was dead.

We wait almost five hours for Marcus to call us.

I’m so bored that I actually go on Facebook, something I probably haven’t done in six months.

I understand that it’s a social network, and that people feel it brings them together, but I just don’t get it. People fill it with boring, uneventful moments in their day, I assume believing that other people care about it.

Why should I care if Sylvia Swathouse is “having a cup of tea”? But as dreary as that stuff is, the responses are even worse, and completely cloying. “Oh, Sylvia, that sounds so warm and wonderful.” Or, “Is it chamomile, Syl? That’s my favorite.”

But everybody is doing it, even Hike. Though last time I looked, I was his only friend.

Laurie answers when Marcus finally calls, and for the next three or four minutes, just listens, not saying a word. Since I know from past experience that Marcus is not exactly verbose, it’s possible that the line has gone dead and neither of them knows it.

Finally, Laurie says, “Marcus, are you all right?”

Another minute goes by, and she says, “Okay. Right away,” before she hangs up.

“The situation has taken a somewhat surprising turn,” she says.

“Surprising good, or surprising bad?”

“You can make up your own mind about that. The guy tailing us waited down the block from here for about an hour, probably making sure we weren’t going to leave. Finally he left, and made some stops around town, with Marcus following him all the way.”

“Not too surprising thus far,” I say.

“I’m getting there. Eventually he stopped at a motel on Route 4, where he apparently was staying. Marcus decided to intercept him at that point, and he entered the guy’s room to question him.”

“The guy let him in, or he broke the door down?” I ask

“I don’t know, but one way or the other he got in. He was conducting an interrogation when two bullets came through the window and hit the man. Marcus took evasive action and was unharmed, and the sniper apparently fled the scene.”

“Dead?” I ask.

She nods. “Very much so. Marcus was quite impressed with the killer’s marksmanship.”

“So what did Marcus do?”

“He grabbed some of the deceased’s stuff, and then left. The room was in the back, and there was significant noise from the highway. The bullets went smoothly through the window, and no one seemed to notice. Marcus said there was no sign of the police being called.”

“Where is Marcus now?”

“On the way here.”

I suppose if I had normal human emotions, I would be reflecting on the tragic loss of life I just heard about. Fortunately, I’m not burdened with them, and I’m going to assume for the time being that the loss will be something that society can successfully recover from.

Instead I’m worried about Marcus, and whether he left traces of himself in the dead man’s room. Those traces could be fingerprints, DNA, or a witness who saw him enter the room. I don’t want to have to defend Marcus in a murder trial; juries would take one look at him and decide this is a person who should be taken off the streets. The trick would be to try and get twelve wardens on the jury, all of whom would greatly prefer Marcus stay on those streets and out of their jails.

Marcus arrives at the house, and indicates that he wants to talk to us in the kitchen. This allows him to be close to the refrigerator, which he clearly intends to empty. Marcus has the most amazing capacity to eat of anyone I’ve ever seen, and he’s going to demonstrate it now.

If Marcus is shaken by today’s events, he’s hiding it well. The stress of the ordeal has him babbling at the rate of one word every few minutes, and his relating of the story takes what seems like a couple of days, with extra time for chewing.

Marcus is positive that he left no trace of himself at the scene, and seems slightly put off that I would suggest such a thing. Since Marcus is the person in the world I least want mad at me, I resist asking, “Are you sure?” If he’s wrong, we’ll find out soon enough anyway.

Marcus had looked around the room before he left for papers that might identify the dead man, but could find none. The guy was also not carrying a wallet; obviously his identity was to be kept a secret.

Marcus took the man’s cell phone, which he places on our kitchen table, since that gives us the opportunity to know who he has been in touch with. He also took an empty beer bottle that was in the room for possible fingerprints. Marcus’s mother did not raise a stupid child.

The man was carrying two handguns, which Marcus left at the scene. It scares the hell out of me that a heavily armed person was following Laurie and me, but it doesn’t seem to bother her. To Laurie and Marcus, this is just another day at the office. I was clearly born with a defective courage gene.

With nothing left to tell, and absolutely nothing left to eat, Marcus leaves to go wherever it is that Marcus goes. I call Sam Willis and ask him to come over right away.

“What’s going on?” he asks, probably wondering if he should pack his gun.

“I need your help tracing some phone records.” Sam has amazing ways, none of which could possibly be legal, of finding out information like this on the computer.

“Oh.”

Sam is at the house in fifteen minutes, and I give him the cell phone. “I want to know everyone he’s called, and everyone who has called him.”

“Going back how far?”

“The Revolutionary War.” I also give Sam the motel name and room number and ask if he can check what calls were made from that room.

He nods. “Going out, but not coming in. They would come in to the main switchboard, and there’s no way to know where they’re directed from there. It’s not like the motel was going to bill him for incoming calls.”

“Sam, it’s very important that you don’t leave any trace of yourself in this.”

“Of course not. Why?”

“Because the person who owned this phone and stayed in that room was murdered today.”

Sam lights up like a little boy who’s just been given a lollipop. “He was? Was he a bad guy or a good guy?”

“A bad guy.”

“That is so cool … did you kill him?”

“Of course not.”

“Did Marcus?”

“No.”

He nods. “Cool. I’m on the case.”

Once Sam leaves, my next call is to Pete. “I talked to Double J,” I say.

“Good for you.”

“He doesn’t think Noah did it.”

“Maybe you should try and get him on the jury,” he says. “Are we nearing the point of this call?”

“I need your help.”

“That is the sole reason for my existence.”

“I have a beer bottle. I need it dusted for fingerprints, and then run through the computer for a match.”

Pete is going to give me a very hard time about this, and I considered getting the information from a few other sources available to Laurie and me. But Pete is the only one I trust to do it quickly and discreetly, so I’m willing to endure the abuse.

“Does this relate to the Galloway case?” he asks.

“It does.”

“Give me the beer bottle at Charlie’s tonight,” he says. I wasn’t planning to go, but now I will. “You can give it to me in the parking lot, but keep it separate from the cases.”

“What cases?”

“The two cases of beer you’re going to give me for doing this for you. American beer, none of that stick-your-pinkie-out-when-you-drink stuff.”

“You’re demanding a payoff?” I ask.

“I am.”

“I thought all you cared about was getting to the truth.”

He pauses for a moment. “I see nothing about receiving beer that is inconsistent with the search for the truth.”

“I’ll see you at Charlie’s,” I say.

“I’m looking forward to it.”

For the first time in the entire operation, Loney was worried.

He had made a couple of mistakes, and made some tough decisions, and they seemed likely to come back to haunt him.

His first mistake was hiring Camby, and then having him follow Carpenter. He had no respect for Camby’s smarts or ability, and should have realized that Carpenter would realize he was being followed. Beyond that, there was little value in watching Carpenter at all, and certainly not enough to justify the risk.

Mistake number two, and a much bigger one, was in giving Camby a cell phone, and letting him use it to call Loney. Once Marcus Clark had left, Loney had gone into the motel room and done a quick search. Camby’s phone was missing, and Loney assumed that Clark had taken it with him. That was a real problem.

Loney didn’t feel in any personal jeopardy, at least not from the police and certainly not from Carpenter. Nor was he worried about the people who ran the operation; they were businessmen and weren’t personally dangerous. They hired people to be dangerous for them, which was why Loney wound up in their employ.

No, the man Loney was worried about was his real boss, Carmine Ricci. Carmine provided the muscle for the operation; Loney was the prime example of that. Loney didn’t know if Carmine got a piece of the action, or just a healthy fee, and it really wasn’t Loney’s business.

But whatever the arrangement, it was all predicated on Carmine being kept well out of it. Anything that came back to him personally, or caused him a moment of worry, was something that Loney was not to have happen.

This situation with Camby and the cell phone, while a couple of layers removed from Carmine, was still a cause for concern. And the first decision Loney had to make was whether to tell Carmine about it.

If he didn’t tell him, there was always the chance that the phone records could lead to Loney’s phone, and then eventually to Carmine, or people close to him.

But Loney knew something about the law, and he knew that Carpenter did not have subpoena power. Therefore the phone records would be difficult, if not impossible, to obtain, and in any event the process would be very time-consuming.

Loney decided that it was a risk worth taking not to tell anyone, at least for the moment. He would be alert to problems as they came up, and he’d handle them the way he always handled problems.

By killing the people who created them.

But at the moment he had something else to do. He had a trial to stop.

Judge Anthony De Luca is the judicial version of me.

Just as I’m a lawyer who doesn’t like lawyering, Judge De Luca is a judge who avoids judging whenever he can. I can respect that.

The way De Luca does it is to call the parties to the dispute before him, and ominously warn that a settlement is in their best interest. Since most cases result in a winner and a loser, it’s a testament to De Luca’s persuasiveness that he can make each side panic and feel their interests are in great peril. He served as an officer in army intelligence in his younger days, which may be where he acquired some of his talent for making people cave.

Of course, De Luca’s tactics are more effective in civil cases than criminal ones, but while he used to operate mostly in that area, in recent years he has moved to almost exclusively handle criminal matters.

The reason for that is simple. De Luca comes from a very prominent local family, and they have long been fixtures in the legal and business communities. There have been Judge De Lucas as far back as the eighteen hundreds, and those De Lucas who haven’t been judges have been practicing lawyers and leading businessmen. There are few major law or business schools in the country that haven’t graduated a De Luca.