This is a win for us; in a major case of this kind the judge will bend over backward not to handicap the defense. He will only keep the documents from us if they are absolutely no help at all, in which case we wouldn’t want them anyway.
“Thank you, Your Honor, that is quite satisfactory to our side. I would further request that if you do provide them to us, that you also see to it that we get all subsequent documents as the investigation proceeds.”
He nods. “I’ll make that determination when I see the materials, which you will provide forthwith, Mr. Chapman.”
Lester gives a combination nod and sigh. “Certainly, Your Honor.”
We’ve got what we wanted, but on some level it bothers me that Calvin’s death has now become part of our case strategy.
I’ve always considered myself a semi-hermit; I have my small group of friends and no desire to expand that circle. Yet events caused me to meet and get to know Calvin, and though it may sound corny, that relationship has enriched my life. How many other millions of people are out there that could do the same, if I’d only let them? It’s causing me to reevaluate how I should live my life, and I’m thinking I should make some changes. I’m sure I ultimately won’t, but right now I’m thinking that I should.
I would love to stay and torture Lester some more, but the clerk tells me that the Drummond documents have been delivered to our house, so I want to hurry back to compare them to those that Sam faxed us.
As soon as we get home, we lay them in front of us and start to compare. It’s a time-consuming process. I literally call out a name from Drummond’s documents, and Kevin tells me if it matches the documents Sam faxed us. On the voter registration list there are two instances where Sam’s copies have a name not on Drummond’s, and one case where a name on Drummond’s list does not appear on Sam’s. None of them are named Eddie, Liz’s mysterious boyfriend.
The property owner list yields two discrepancies, neither obviously significant. We’re halfway through the motor vehicle records when Kevin, reading from Sam’s list, says, “Edmond Carson, born 1985.”
I check twice to make sure, but there is no such person on Drummond’s list.
Edmond Carson, missing from Drummond’s list, and the right age to be Liz’s ex-boyfriend.
Eddie.
It’s a sad commentary on the state of our case that we’re so excited about the fact that we may have discovered the name of the victim’s ex-boyfriend, who probably knows nothing about her murder. But it’s all we’ve got right now, and we’ve got to pursue it as vigorously as we can.
I’ve had enough experience with Center City to know that it will not be terribly productive for me to go there and ask, “Can Eddie come out to play?” So Kevin and I head down to the police precinct to try to get Laurie’s help.
Laurie is not in her office when we arrive, and we wait almost an hour for her to get back. When I start to tell her why we’re there, she tells me to wait until she calls in Cliff Parsons. As the cop assigned to Center City, he certainly should be included, but that’s not why Laurie calls him in. She’s still very sensitive to how things between us will look to both local government officials and citizens alike, so if she’s going to help us, she wants to do it out in the open.
I’m not a big fan of Parsons, mostly because he’s good-looking, single, and around Laurie all day. I also don’t like the fact that he is not particularly deferential to her, despite her higher rank. She tolerates it, explaining that sensitivities being what they are, she doesn’t want to start her time as acting chief by being too heavy-handed.
To his credit, Parsons does not seem particularly annoyed that I embarrassed him on the witness stand during the preliminary hearing. He behaves professionally; if I got under his skin, he’s hiding it well. I can add this to the reasons I don’t like him.
I lay out what we’ve learned about the apparent deception by Drummond in the documents, and Parsons’s first question is, “Why not take this to Judge Morrison?”
“Because there’s nothing he can do that will help us. He could reprimand Drummond, he could even hold him in contempt, but it won’t get us any closer to Eddie. And Drummond will just say it was a clerical error, and that will be that. But we’ll have tipped him off on what we’ve learned.”
“So what are you asking us to do?” asks Laurie.
“To locate Eddie,” I say. “We can’t make him talk to us, but he’ll talk to you. The Centurions are very careful to pretend to cooperate with outside authorities.”
“We’re not your investigators,” Parsons says. “You can’t send us out to conduct interviews.”
I know Laurie’s being careful to remain independent and impartial in front of Parsons, but it’s starting to annoy me that she isn’t cutting him off. “We are talking about a young man who is very possibly a material witness in a murder investigation,” I say. “I’ve got reams of paper turned over in discovery on interviews you conducted in that town. You probably talked to fifty people. Why would you refuse to talk to one more, when that person is apparently being deliberately hidden from you and from us?”
Laurie asks Kevin and me to wait outside for a few minutes, and when we’re let back in, she tells us that she and Parsons have agreed to look for Eddie. Obviously, she’s asserted her will but didn’t want to do so in front of us. She and Parsons will drive to Center City right after lunch without calling ahead and alerting Drummond and the others as to what is going on.
“But you should know that I’ll be informing the district attorney about this,” Laurie says. “A report will be prepared for him when our interviews are concluded.”
I’m not happy about this, but it is unavoidable. Laurie has an obligation to keep the prosecuting attorney updated on all aspects of this ongoing investigation. Not to do so would be to abdicate her responsibility, and she is too good a cop for that.
A plus is her comment that he will receive the report when the interviews are concluded. To tell him in advance would be an invitation for him to intervene and possibly find a way to derail things.
• • • • •
KEVIN AND I PLAN to hang around the house for the rest of the afternoon, waiting for word from Laurie about her Center City visit in search of Eddie. Marcus is not in the house; I can tell simply by the temperature. When Marcus is home, the windows are open and it is cold enough to hang meat in here; when he is out, Kevin maintains his 72.5 degrees.
The investigative reports into Calvin’s death arrive around one o’clock; Judge Morrison has obviously decided they are relevant to our case.
I read the summary page, which contains the conclusion that Calvin’s broken neck was the cause of death, but that it’s unlikely it was caused by the impact of the car hitting the ground. If this is true, it’s significant news for our side.
I place a call to Janet Carlson, the best medical examiner in New Jersey and the best-looking medical examiner in the entire world. Janet has been incredibly helpful to me since I did her a favor a number of years ago, and now I’m calling on her one more time. I tell her that I’d like to fax her the information contained in this report and get her professional opinion on it.
“Wonderful,” she says. “We haven’t had nearly enough deaths to keep us busy here. I was just about to call other states to see if they had any they could lend us.”
“Serendipity,” I say.
“Whatever,” she says.
As always, Janet complains for a few minutes but then agrees to help me out. Kevin starts faxing the documents to her, even while we continue talking. I like Janet a lot, and if I decide that Rita Gordon represented the beginning of my sleeping with every woman in the justice system in New Jersey, Janet is going to be right at the top of my list.