Dog Tags

CHAPTER 58

LAURIE IS AT THE COURTHOUSE WAITING FOR ME WHEN THE AFTERNOON SESSION ENDS. This no doubt means big news, good or bad. Since 95 percent of all news has been bad lately, I’m not too thrilled to see her.

Once again, I’m wrong.

“I spoke to Santiago,” she says. “He saw you on the show last night. He’s willing to talk, but he wants immunity.”

“Did you tell him I have no authority to do that?”

“Of course not.”

“Good. Where is he now?”

“He wouldn’t say, but caller ID showed he was at a pay phone outside Detroit. He’ll be here tomorrow evening, so I would imagine he’s driving.”

“We could have sent someone to get him.”

“I told him that, but he wanted to do it himself. He sounded really scared.”

“Is he coming to the house?”

“He’s meeting Marcus at seven o’clock at the corner of Broadway and Thirty-third, and Marcus will bring him to the house.”

“Perfect. Did you describe Marcus to him? If he’s going to be our witness, I’d just as soon he not have a heart attack.”

“I tried, but Marcus is pretty hard to describe.”

Laurie and I go back to the house, where Marcus has been standing guard on Milo. The dogs are in the kitchen, because that’s where Marcus is. Marcus is in the kitchen because that’s where the refrigerator is, though by the time we get home the refrigerator is empty.

Court is not in session tomorrow, so that Judge Catchings can attend to what he calls housekeeping issues. Mostly that means attending to matters on his docket that he has fallen behind on, and dealing with motions that Eli and I have filed along the way.

I am going to use this occasion to give Catchings and Eli a preview of our defense, and to obtain approval from Catchings for our approach. This will be one of the key moments in the trial; if Catchings rules against us, Billy might as well change his plea to guilty.

I continue to be impressed by both Hike’s legal skills and his preparation. I had told him what we’d be talking about tonight, and he’s researched the matter thoroughly. I have very little to do, basically just listen to him and try to remember the points he’s making.

The meeting in Catchings’s chambers is at two o’clock, which gives me time to keep an appointment with Colonel William Mickelson, Erskine’s immediate superior. As promised, he’s in New York for the day, and has offered me thirty minutes of his time.

To be more precise, the colonel’s aide, Sergeant Brosnan, told me the colonel would “grant” me the thirty minutes. She said it in such a way that I should consider myself blessed, but for some reason I didn’t.

New York’s bridges are consistently underrated. The George Washington gets some props, and the Brooklyn gets included in jokes about con men trying to sell it to unsuspecting dupes, but that’s pretty much it.

Yet New York has some spectacular bridges that surprisingly never get mentioned. Maybe it’s a naming issue. “Throgs Neck” and “Tappan Zee” don’t exactly roll off the tongue, and certainly don’t evoke the image that “Golden Gate” does. But they’re both actually spectacular, as is the one I’m currently under, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

I’m at Fort Hamilton, which rests below the bridge in Brooklyn, and which serves as one of only two US Army bases in New York State. The other is Camp Drum, all the way up in frigid Watertown. If you are going to be stationed in New York and you like pizza, or civilization, you’re considerably better off here.

Fort Hamilton basically exists as a home for the Army Corps of Engineers, but it is Hamilton that Colonel Mickelson is using as his base of operations while in New York. It doesn’t really feel like an army post; certainly you don’t see platoons jogging in lockstep and chanting, I want to be an Airborne Ranger; I want to live a life of danger.

Colonel Mickelson looks like he could defend Fort Hamilton by himself if Staten Island ever declared war and invaded. About forty-five, he appears to be in as good a shape as someone twenty years younger. His face is chiseled in a young Kirk Douglas kind of way, and everything about him says, Don’t you dare bullshit me.

If Jack Nicholson looked like this when he yelled that Tom Cruise couldn’t handle the truth, Cruise would have said, Yes, you’re right, I’m sorry. My bad.

“Carpenter, you’ve got fifteen minutes” is how he greets me, which I assume is army-talk for “Hello. Nice to meet you.”

“I was granted half an hour,” I say.

“Shit happens.”

“Did General Prentice tell you what I wanted to discuss?” I ask.

“You trying to pull rank on me?”

“I was hoping he already did that.”

He nods. “You want to talk about Erskine.”

“Yes. What are the chances he conspired with the five soldiers under him to deliberately let that suicide bomber get by the checkpoint?”

“Somewhere between ninety-nine and a hundred and one percent.”

That’s the last thing I expected him to say, and I immediately shelve my next five questions, since they’re now unnecessary. “Why did the investigative report not even mention the possibility of intent?”

“No proof. They put in those reports what they know, not what they suspect. Otherwise it’s all downside.”

“What do you mean?”

“If they say they think it was a crime, then they look incompetent for not arresting the bad guys, the overall publicity is a disaster, and they get sued by the families of the victims. You see much upside in that?”

“What about ‘truth is its own reward’?” I ask.

“You’re using your fifteen minutes to ask questions like that?”

“Are you familiar with the circumstances surrounding the explosion?”

“Of course. I was there,” he says.

That surprises me; the report did not mention that Mickelson was at the scene that day. “What are the chances that the oil minister was not the target?”

He reacts slightly; the question has surprised him. “Why do you ask that?”

“You’re using up my fifteen minutes to ask questions?” I ask.

“Don’t be a wise-ass.”

“I’m told that once the girl got inside the checkpoint, she could have gone anywhere. She took her time, but she didn’t get near the minister. He almost survived, while most of the others were killed instantly.”

He thinks about this for a solid one of my fifteen minutes. “So who was the target?”

I shrug. “I don’t know; I’m not there yet.” I don’t bother to add that the obvious way to figure out who the target was just hit me. I make it a rule never to reveal anything to anyone until I know how it will play out for my client. “But I know about other targets,” I say.

“That’s a little cryptic for me,” he says.

“I believe at least two of the discharged soldiers have been killed. Another is heading here even as we speak.”

“To turn himself in?”

“To talk to me first.”

“Make sure you provide adequate protection.”

“That will be in the hands of the state police.”

He ponders this for a few moments. “Looks like the army’s version may undergo a slight revision.” He doesn’t seem thrilled at the prospect; if Santiago talks, it will make the army’s whitewash version of a report seem inept. “We should talk to Santiago first,” he says. “This is an army matter.”

“Not anymore; he’s been discharged. And the army had plenty of time to talk to him when they did their report.”

He nods, recognizing the truth of that statement. “Maybe next time they’ll be more thorough.”

I use up the rest of my time asking him if he had any idea what might have been in the envelope that Erskine handed over to his killer before Milo swooped in and ran off with it.

He professes to have no idea, but adds, “If you find out, let me know.”

“If I find out, I’ll let the jury know.”

“You know, I met your client on one of my trips over there. He’s a first-class, stand-up guy. You think you can get him off?”

“If I can’t get him off, nothing else matters.”

“You mean the truth isn’t its own reward?” he asks.

“Not even close.”