She looks me straight in the eye, though that is what she always does. She's an inveterate eye looker; I on the other hand look at people's mouths when they talk.
“My problem is that we're defending a brutal murderer, Andy. If we're successful, which we won't be, he goes back on the street.”
“And if he didn't do it, then the guy who did is already out on the street.”
She sighs with resignation, as well as the fact that down deep she knows I'm right. We've been over this ground before. We have a role to play, and if we don't play it to the hilt the system doesn't function.
“Okay. It's a job and we do it. Where are you going to start?”
“With Denise McGregor.”
VINCE SANDERSIS A GRUFF, UNKEMPT, VERY overweight man who has spent one hundred twelve of his fifty-one years working on newspapers up and down the East Coast. He's the type that you think must still be pounding stories out on his old Smith-Corona while all his colleagues are using high-tech computers. When I show up at his office, he is doing research at warp speed on the Internet. Oh, well.
Vince was Denise's boss on the Newark Star-Ledger. I ask him if Denise was working on something at the time she was killed, and he laughs. Not a hah-hah, friendly laugh, but any port in a storm.
“Working on something? Are you kidding me? Denise was always working on something.”
I ask him if he knows what she was working on. He doesn't.
“She wouldn't tell me, but she was really excited. And it must have been good, 'cause she asked me to meet her in here the next day, which was a Saturday. She knew damn well I don't get off my fat ass on Saturdays.”
I laugh, since it seems like I'm supposed to, but he calls me on it. “What the hell are you laughing at?” he asks.
“I was thinking that based on the size of your ass, the reason you don't get off it on Saturdays is because crane operators don't work weekends.”
He looks at me for a few moments, as if deciding whether to kill me. He doesn't have a gun, which means he would have to get that same fat ass out of the chair to get up and strangle me. He seems to decide that it's not worth it.
“You think insulting me is the way to get information?” he asks.
“I'm hoping you'll admire my honesty.”
He shakes his head. “I don't. Besides I'm on a diet. All fish.”
“Yeah,” I say. Try as I might to conceal it, I'm afraid my skepticism shines through, although he doesn't seem to notice.
“You ever notice how all fish tastes alike?” he asks. “I think there's really only one kind of fish in the world, but they use different names to scam the public.”
For the sake of our budding friendship, I think I'll go along with this. “Come to think of it,” I say, “I've never seen a sword-fish and a flounder in a room together.”
“Of course not,” he says. “Nobody has. That's because they're the same damn fish. I'm telling you, it's a fraud on the public.”
I nod. “That's probably where they got the saying, ‘There's something fishy going on.’ ”
“Damn right,” he agrees. Then, “You come here to talk about fish?”
He knows I haven't, so I get back to Denise. “Is it unusual that Denise wouldn't tell you what story she was researching?” I ask.
“Unusual, but it wasn't the first time. I gave her a lot of leeway, because I trusted her.”
“Did she leave any notes?”
He shakes his head, as the memories come flooding back. “That was the weird part; I couldn't find any. And Denise took notes about everything. I mean, you say ‘good morning’ to her, and she jotted it down. You know the type?”
I don't, but I nod anyway. “What about Edward Markham?”
This gets another laugh from Vince, this one a little happier. “Denise brought him to a party. I talked to him for a few minutes, and then I told her he was an arrogant asshole. Boy, did she get pissed.”
“Why?”
“He was standing there when I told her.” He starts laughing again, and I join in. I'm starting to think we're buddies, but the next thing I know, he's looking at me like I'm some slime he just got on his shoes.
“Let me ask you something: Why would you defend the scumbag that killed Denise?”
I look him right in the mouth. “I don't think I am. I believe that the real killer is running loose.”
He stares at me for a few moments, and a feeling of impending doom comes over me. Finally, he shakes his head and says, “It's your job to believe that.”
I shake my head. “No. It's my job to defend him. It's not my job to believe in him.”
“If you get any real evidence, let me know how I can help. Me and my fat ass can get a lot done if we want to.”
“Thanks,” I say. “When all this is over, I'll take you out and buy you a tuna.”
That night I'm at home, literally ankle deep in paperwork. My work style is to sit on the couch, cover the rest of the couch, the coffee table, and the floor in papers, and wade through them. There's a basketball game on the television that serves as background music. The Knicks are playing the Pacers, and I bet on the Knicks minus three. Allan Houston just hit a jump shot. Once in my life I want to hit a backhand down the line like Pete Sampras and shoot a jump shot as smoothly as Allan Houston. The Knicks are up by eleven with a minute to go, my bet is locked, and as my mother used to say, “Money goes to money.”
The doorbell rings and I yell up for Nicole to get it. She doesn't hear me, so I answer it myself, which is just as well, since Laurie comes in, all excited. The last time she was here, she was a different kind of excited, but that's ancient history.
She doesn't even say hello, just launches into what she has to tell me. This is a sign that she's into the case, and I'm pleased about that. As it turns out, her visit has nothing to do with the Miller case at all.
“You've gotta hear this,” she says. “I ran into my friend, the one who works for Frank Brownfield, the developer? He agreed that the guy in the picture looked like Brownfield, so I gave him a copy of the picture, and he said he would check it out.”
“And?” I ask.
“And I got a call back an hour ago … what's it, ten o'clock? … from my friend …”
At this point, Nicole comes downstairs and into the room. On the list of people I was hoping would join us at that moment, Nicole ranks just below Charles Manson.
“Oh, hello, Laurie. How are you?”
Laurie hesitates, then says, “Okay … I'm okay. I didn't realize I was interrupting anything.”
“Oh, you aren't. I was just going up to bed. See you in a while, Andy?” That's Nicole, another gracious winner.
“In a while. Laurie needs to talk to me about something.”
Nicole nods. “Nice seeing you, Laurie.”