Dog Tags

CHAPTER 76

“YOU WHAT?”

It’s nine o’clock, and I’ve had a long day, but it sounded to me like Willie just said, “This is Chaplin’s cell phone. I took it from him.” So I’ve asked him again to be sure.

“This is Chaplin’s cell phone. I took it from him.” I hear this coming out of Willie’s mouth again, which significantly increases the chance that I heard it correctly the first time.

I look over at Laurie, who seems amazed to have heard it as well. Tara and Milo obviously expected something like this from Willie, because they appear only mildly amused.

There is a seemingly endless list of questions for me to ask, so I might as well start with the one-word ones. They’re quicker.

“How?”

“I waited for him in his driveway, and when he got out of the car I knocked him out and took it from him. I got his wallet also, to make it look like a robbery.”

“It was a robbery,” Laurie points out.

“Did he see you before you knocked him out?” I ask.

“Nope. No chance. And he was still in dreamland when I left.”

“Are you sure you didn’t kill him?” The image of Childress’s crushed skull behind the Tara Foundation flashes through my mind.

“No way; worst case I busted his jaw. You didn’t want me to kill him, right?”

“Right,” I say. “Killing as a general rule is a problem.”

“Knocking out and stealing also are somewhat problematic. As is jaw busting,” Laurie says, the ex-cop in her coming out.

“So I shouldn’t have done it?” Willie asks. “I figured you guys might be pissed.”

“Why did you do it?” I ask.

“Well, I was going nuts, you know? I’d follow him to the office, sit there all day, and follow him home. This happened every day.”

“Today was the second day.”

Willie nods vigorously, as if I’m proving his point. “Right. Anyway, I wasn’t finding out anything. I didn’t know what he was doing, or who he was doing it with. And you wanted Sam to find out who he’s been calling, so I figured a good way to do that would be to get his phone.”

“But you committed a crime.”

He shrugs. “Last time I didn’t do nothing and I got seven years in jail. They owe me a few.”

“Did anyone at all see you?” I ask.

“Nah. I don’t think so. The only one there was Chaplin. And it was dark.”

“Willie, this was a mistake.”

“Now you tell me.”

“Come on, Willie. You know damn well you shouldn’t do this kind of thing.”

“Andy, these guys are doing bad shit, right? They almost killed Sondra. So we should play by the rules when they don’t?”

I’m not going to get anywhere by continuing to reprimand him, and I need to start thinking about where to go from here. “Okay, if you hear from the police on this, you don’t speak to them. You got that? Just call me, and I’ll do the talking.”

He nods. “I know the drill. But don’t worry, they can’t follow this back to me.”

“I hope not… let’s talk some more tomorrow.”

“You want me to keep following this guy?” he asks, apparently seriously.

“No thanks.”

Once Willie leaves, Laurie says, “I don’t suppose you’re going to report the commission of a crime, Mr. Officer of the Court?”

She knows full well I’m not; she’s just having a little fun at my expense. “I don’t suppose I am. I just hope nobody saw Willie or his car.”

“Willie’s DNA is on file because he was in prison,” she says. The implication is that if he left any DNA on the scene, or on Chaplin’s face, the trail could lead to him fairly quickly. Either way, there’s nothing we can do about it short of turning Willie in and plea-bargaining on his behalf.

“Let’s think only sunny thoughts, okay?”

Laurie points to Chaplin’s cell phone on the table. “The question is what to do with the stolen merchandise.”

“We could throw it out, or we could look at it and possibly get valuable information. Not exactly a tough call.”

“You won’t be able to use anything you find in court,” she points out.

“Such is life.”

Laurie and I between us have the technological knowledge and skills of a slow-developing four-year-old, so I call Sam Willis and ask him to come over. He seems eager to do so; maybe he thinks we’re going to go out and shoot some people. Sam lives on Morlot Avenue in Fair Lawn, about ten minutes away if he drives quickly. He makes it in eight.

Once he arrives, I show him the cell phone and say, “Is there any way to find out what calls have been made from that phone in the last four days?”

“Is that a joke?” he asks.

“No. Why?”

He just shakes his head, picks up the phone, and presses a few buttons. In less than twenty seconds he hands it to me. “There’s a list of the numbers he called, and when he called them.”

I turn to Laurie. “See? I told you Sam and I could do it.”

“Is this Chaplin’s phone?” Sam asks.

“Sam, that phone was obtained illegally. People could go to jail.”

He laughs, apparently not intimidated by my statement. “That Willie is a piece of work. You want me to trace down these numbers?”

I nod. “Yes, but can you write them down? I want to keep the phone here.”

“Sure,” he says, and starts to do so. “You want an update on Chaplin’s company now, or do you want to wait until tomorrow?”

“You’ve got it already?”

“Yeah, although the news isn’t great. There’s no doubt that the company profited heavily from both the oil and rhodium events. They made trades that slowly built up their stake in each over about six months, and then sold everything off within a month after the stock shot up.”

“How much did they make?”

“Hard to say exactly, but probably eight hundred million on the oil, and two billion more on the rhodium. Turned the company around; a couple of years ago they almost went under.”

“You’re sure of all this?”

He nods. “Yeah.”

“How come you said the news isn’t great?” Laurie asks, beating me to the punch.

“Because I don’t know who made the money. The investments were made on behalf of clients, most of which were foreign companies. There’s no way to crack that and find out whose behind them; they’re probably dummy companies.”

“Sam, you did outstanding work on this,” Laurie says.

Sam gives his best aw-shucks look and waves her off. “Come on, it’s not like I shot anybody.”

“Keep at it, Sam,” I say. “If you work hard enough, someday you’ll leave somebody bloody in the street. That will be a proud day for all of us.”