Last Call

Chapter 16

Jack and Theo watched as Vinnie Acosta connected a TDR – a time domain reflectometer – to the telephone line outside Theo's town house.

Vinnie was a retired technical agent for the FBI that Jack had worked with during his brief stint as a prosecutor with the U.S. attorney's office. Vinnie had all the necessary toys to operate his own technical counter-surveillance company. He was high up on a ladder, accessing a junction box that received the telephone wire from a utility pole on the other side of the parking lot. Jack and Theo waited below in a typical three-men-at-work scenario: one guy actually doing something while the other two stood around watching.

An internal sweep of the town house for a radio tap or an induction coil attached to one of the phones had turned up nothing. They then moved outside to check for a direct-line tap. Jack understood the concept – a slight change in line impedance caused by the introduction of a tap or splice would show up on the screen of the TDR – but gadgets were not his forte.

"How hard is it to get an accurate reading?" said Jack.

Vinnie's focus remained on the junction box. "ATDR is essentially an echo-ranging device. It generates a short, very rapid rise-time pulse that travels along the wire pair at a speed determined by the velocity factor of the wire. When a discontinuity is encountered, the pulse is reflected back along the wire pair to the TDR and oscilloscope. All it takes to measure the actual distance to the discontinuity is a simple calculation on a calculator."

Jack looked at Theo. "What did he just say?"

"He says it's a hell of a lot easier than sticking a metal ring through your Johnson."

"That's what I thought he said."

Before meeting Agent Acosta, Jack would never have pictured anyone named Vinnie as a highly intelligent techno-nerd. This was due in part to Vinnie Testaverde's highly skilled but less than cerebral play at quarterback for the University of Miami in the 1980s, but it stemmed mainly from the fact that Rene's old boyfriend was named Vinnie. Once, Jack had even joked that Rene should write a spoof book called Duh Vinnie Code: A Girl's Guide to Understanding Brainless Hotties Who Talk Like Dis.

"Got your bug," said Vinnie, checking his calculator. "About forty-three feet from the box."

Theo looked up at the wire and made a rough measurement. "That pole by the Dumpster," he said.

"Good place for it," said Vinnie.

He climbed down and moved the ladder to the other pole. Jack and Theo resumed their all-important positions of standing around and watching. Jack felt as though he should be wearing a hard hat and earning about thirty bucks an hour.

"Yup, it's here all right," said Vinnie.

Theo looked at Jack. "I guess Henning wasn't bluffing."

"Don't touch it!" Jack shouted upward.

Vinnie said, "I can't remove it if I don't touch it."

"It's enough just to know exactly where it is. I want Henning to come out and get it and check for fingerprints."

"I should at least disable it," said Vinnie. "Just one snip of the wire."

Jack gave him the okay. Vinnie took care of it and climbed down the ladder. Jack said, "How sophisticated does the equipment look?"

"Pretty basic. Smaller than a cigarette pack, but not exactly something out of a James Bond movie."

"I guess we're not dealing with the CIA here," said Jack.

Vinnie said, "We knew that when Henning told you about the impedance on the line. That only happens with low-tech stuff."

"Any way to tell how long it's been there?" said Jack.

"Can't pinpoint it. But it looks brand spanking new to me, not very weather-beaten. Two or three weeks, at most. Maybe even a few days. But as soon as you get the FBI out here to remove it and check for prints, that should be the end of that."

Not with Andie on the case, thought Jack.

Vinnie packed his equipment into the van. Theo paid him in cash, and Vinnie was off to another job. Then Jack and Theo went back inside. It was midafternoon on a Monday, an off-hour for Sparky's. Theo was in no hurry to get back to the bar. They stood on opposite sides of the kitchen counter.

"You gonna call Henning?" said Theo.

"Let's sort this out first," said Jack. "Why would someone tap your phone line?"

"If you ask me, somebody put it there after Isaac busted out of jail."

"Vinnie said the equipment looked new, but maybe not that new."

"Maybe they put it up there after finding out that he was planning an escape."

"You're making a lot of assumptions there. But if I take what you're saying at face value, why would someone do that?"

"Because they thought he was going to call me."

"But let's assume Andie was telling the truth: law enforcement didn't put it there. Why would anyone else even care if Isaac spoke to you after breaking out of prison?"

"I can't answer that. But whoever it was heard that first call when Isaac said he was going to be at H-boy's at one a.m. Home-boy's shut down while I was still on death row. So it's somebody who knew the old 'hood."

"That's my problem, Theo. That makes you a prime suspect."

"Let's get real, okay? Every cop in the county was looking for Isaac and they couldn't find him. So either his shooter stumbled on him – a random shooting or something – or he was shot by whoever bugged my phone. No one else knew exactly when he was going to be where he was."

"But the tap on your telephone could be completely unrelated to Isaac."

"I might agree with you if it had been there for a month or longer. But you heard your friend Vinnie say that somebody just put it there a few days ago – at most, a couple of weeks ago."

"That still doesn't mean your eavesdroppers were sitting around listening to your phone on a Saturday night. Or maybe they heard it and didn't do anything about it. The FBI could take the position that you're the only one who got the message, you went to see Isaac that night to find out who killed your mother, and you ended up killing Isaac."

"Except that I have an alibi."

"The jails are full of guys whose only defense was an alibi from a girlfriend."

"They don't have a girlfriend like Trina."

"That's the interesting wrinkle here. As of Saturday night, I thought you didn't either. You told me you were done with Trina because of the Prince Albert."

"We made up."

"Happy to hear that. But if I'm a cop, that's awfully convenient timing."

"What if you're Jack Swyteck?" said Theo.

Jack felt like he was being tested. "I don't doubt you, Theo. But you didn't answer your cell that night."

"Did you call Trina's?"

"Of course not. I wasn't about to dial her number at one o'clock in the morning after you were so adamant that it was over between you two."

"So what's your point?"

"I'd feel better about this alibi if I had talked to you or her the other night."

Theo slid his cell across the countertop. It hit Jack in the elbow. "Call her now," said Theo.

Jack's gaze was drawn to it. It would have been a betrayal to pick up the telephone and check out Theo's alibi. He slid the phone right back at him. "I don't need to talk to her."

Theo put the cell back in his pocket.

Jack looked away then back. He wanted to change the subject – but only slightly. "That was one hell of a shot that took out Isaac," he said. "Right between the eyes, dead of night, bad lighting, twenty or more feet away."

"Could be a pro. Could have been lucky."

Jack gave his friend an assessing look. "Sooner or later, Andie or somebody is going to latch onto the fact that your brother was a contract killer."

"Tatum's dead," said Theo.

"But I'm sure he had friends who could hit a shot like that."

"That don't make 'em my friends. I got friends on death row. Does that make 'em yours?"

Funny, but Andie might have said yes – at least that was the way Jack had taken her "bad joke" that led to their breakup. "I guess not," said Jack.

Silence fell between them, and then Theo smiled. He gave Jack a playful punch to the left bicep. It hurt.

"So, nothin' to worry about, right dude?"

Jack rubbed his aching arm. "No," he said. "We're cool."