Laurie and I go to Charlie's bar to discuss the latest developments. I don't have many options for the defense; my strategy has been to cast doubt on the prosecution's witnesses, to raise the possibility of a frame-up.
The simple fact is that, while I've had some success, it hasn't been enough. Absent a major development, Willie Miller is going to be convicted. And if there's a major development coming, it's news to me.
Laurie asks, “Are you going to put Willie on the stand?”
“How can I? All he'll say is he has no idea what happened. Wallace will have him for lunch.”
As has been my custom during my slide into frustration dementia, I take out the photograph from my father's house and put it on the table. I know every square millimeter of it by heart, but I keep looking at it, hoping that it will jog something in my mind. It never does; the sad truth is I'm no closer to figuring it out than the day I first saw it.
Of course, the list of things that I'm not close to figuring out is as long as my arm. Right near the top is why the person who shot at me and hit Nicole was driving a government vehicle, and a classified one at that.
And then one of those moments happen that are impossible to predict, but have the power to change everything. As we are talking about the license plate, my gaze wanders back to my father's picture, still on the table. Between my eyes and the picture is Laurie's beer bottle. The glass has the effect of magnifying the picture, and ringing a bell inside my head.
“You know something,” I say. “I'm a genius.”
“You've certainly been hiding it well,” Laurie answers.
“Let's go.” I put money down to cover the check and head for the door. Laurie has to hurry to keep up behind me. She calls out to me as I head for the parking lot.
“Where are we going?”
“I'll tell you on the way.”
Vince Sanders is in his office at the newspaper when we barge in. I tell him that we need his help urgently, but I'm not sure he hears me because he can't stop staring at Laurie. He probably thinks she is one of the twins I promised him.
Finally, he acknowledges my presence. “How did you know I'd be here this late?”
“Where would you be? On a date?”
Vince asks Laurie, “Is he always this big a pain in the ass?”
“I can only speak for the last three years,” Laurie says.
Vince shrugs. “Okay, what can I do for you?”
I take out the picture and put it on the table.
Vince sighs. “I already told you, the only guy I recognize is Mike Anthony.”
I shake my head. “I don't care about the people. I care about the license plate.”
All this time I have been focusing on the people in the picture, not on the cars. Now I point to the license plate on one of the cars, the one that is facing the camera. It is certainly too small to be read by the human eye, but I can tell that the letters and numbers are there.
“Can you have this blown up so we can read it?”
He looks at it, squinting as he does. “We can try.”
He stands up, grabs the picture, and takes it out of the room, coming back after only a few minutes.
“We'll know in five minutes,” he says.
He's right, although the five minutes feel like five weeks. Finally, his phone rings and all he says is “Yeah?” then hangs up.
He turns to Laurie and me. “Follow me.”
Vince takes us down the hall and into a room filled with computers. He introduces us to Chris Townshend, a twenty-four-year-old who Vince describes as “the best there is.” He doesn't say at what, and I'm not about to ask. There is only one answer I want, and if I'm really, really lucky, it's about to come on the computer screen.
Chris takes us over to the largest screen in the room. He works a console full of buttons and gadgets like a maestro. Suddenly he pauses, presses a button, and the photograph appears, still far too small to make out the license plate. He starts to zoom in on the plate, each time making it larger and larger. I can feel the excitement building; this is going to work.
After a few more clicks, Chris says, “That's as close as I can get without it becoming too diffuse.” We all peer in to try and read it; it's not easy.
“J … B …” I say.
Laurie points at the letter I have identified as a B. “That's an R,” she says. “Let me do this, I'm younger than you.”
“It's okay with me,” Vince says. “I'm blind as a bat.”
Laurie keeps reading, and I'm writing it down as she does. “J … R … C … 6 … 9 … 3.”
“The last number is a 2,” Chris says.
I say to Laurie, “He's younger than you.”
Laurie stares a quick dagger at me, but it doesn't concern me. “What state is it?” I ask.
Chris responds: “It looks like New Jersey.”
I put the piece of paper in my pocket, and Laurie and I start heading for the door.
“You got what you need?” Vince asks.
“I sure as hell hope so,” I answer.
A LICENSE PLATEFROM THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO represents the best clue we have had into the meaning of the photograph. This is in itself a commentary on how little we've accomplished. For instance, the license could well turn out to have been issued in my father's name, which is to say it would be of no use to us.
The next task, of course, is to find out who the plate belonged to. This is not going to be easy, and there is only one person I know who can accomplish it quickly and with the discretion required. Unfortunately, it is the person I attacked on the witness stand a few days ago, Pete Stanton.
I know where Pete lives, so Laurie and I drive out there. It's about forty-five minutes away, in a little town called Cranford.
“I thought cops were supposed to live in town,” I mutter, unhappy with the length of the drive, and dreading Pete's reaction to my arrival.
“You might not want to complain about it to him,” Laurie suggests to me. “He's not going to be that anxious to do you a favor in the first place.”
We are about five minutes away, off the highway, when we pass a sign on the road. It directs the driver to make a right turn to get to the Preakness Country Club.
“That's Markham's club,” I say. “We should sneak in and put shaving cream in his golf shoes.”
Laurie doesn't think that's a very mature idea, so we continue on to Pete's house, a modest colonial in a quiet, unassuming neighborhood. I would love to send Laurie in alone, but my male ego won't let me do it, so I walk with her up the steps and nervously ring the bell.
After a few moments, Pete comes to the door. He opens it and sees me standing there.
“Oh, Christ,” he says.
My plan is to immediately apologize for being so tough with him on the stand. I'm going to talk about the fact that I was just doing my job, unpleasant as it sometimes is. I'll beg for his forgiveness, tell him how important his friendship is to me, and hope that bygones can be bygones.
Unfortunately, my plan goes up in smoke when I see that he is wearing a ridiculous red bathrobe, so comical that I am physically and emotionally unable to avoid mocking it.
“Nice outfit, Pete. Does the whole team have them?” I ask.
For a brief moment he looks as if he is going to kill me, but I think he decides it's not worth doing all the paperwork that would be involved afterward. Instead, he starts to close the door.
I push back against it, holding it open. “Wait a minute! We need your help!”
“Forget it.” We're actually pushing against the door from opposite sides in a weird reverse tug-of-war, and I am not coming out on top.