Play Dead

Kevin nods. “It is.”

“I’m going to be very up front with all of you,” Richard says. “I decided the other night, the night before we got the new trial, that I couldn’t spend my life in prison. If we lose this, I’m going to take my own life.”

Karen starts to cry softly, and Richard kisses her on the head.

“I’m sorry, honey, but it’s just not a way to live, and the unfairness and waste just becomes too much to bear. Having all this happen-finally having a reason to hope-somehow, it’s made that very clear to me.” He turns back to Kevin and me. “So what we’re talking about here is not five years versus life in prison. It’s five years versus my life.”

He says all this clearly and almost dispassionately, not looking to make an impact and not looking for sympathy. I think, in his situation, I’d feel the same way.

Richard continues: “The reason to accept the deal, even though it would include the horror of five more years in this place, is therefore pretty obvious. The reasons to turn it down are a little more complicated.”

He goes on: “There’s Stacy. Somebody killed her, and if I take the plea bargain, we’ll never find out who, and that person will never be punished.”

“We might never find out who anyway.”

He nods. “I know. That’s why it’s complicated. And then there’s the other reason.”

I can’t help but smile. “Reggie,” I say.

He nods. “Reggie. He’s not likely to live five more years. Not by a typical golden retriever’s life expectancy.”

“That’s true,” I say.

“He’s the one who has given me this chance. I know it sounds stupid…”

“It’s very stupid,” I say.

“But you understand it.”

I smile again. “I do.”

Richard pauses a moment and then looks at Karen, Kevin, and me in turn before speaking.

“Let’s kick their ass.”

Ass-kicking in the justice system is done a little differently from ass-kicking in, say, the National Football League. They use bone-crushing blocks and devastating tackles while we use meticulously prepared briefs and probing questions. They need shoulder pads and helmets to protect themselves from harm; when we see danger coming we just stand up and object.

Kevin and I head back to the office to discuss exactly how we plan to kick the prosecution’s ass. They are going to come in far more prepared than they were at the hearing. They’ll have better answers for our forensics expert, and probably a bunch of canine lifeguards who’ll swear that Reggie could have made that swim in his sleep.

We’ve been looking at three main areas: the customs operation in Newark, the Army connection from seven years ago, and the government’s obvious, though surreptitious, interest in what we’re doing. All three are still viable things for us to investigate, but I’ve been making the mistake of thinking they must be interrelated.

It would all tie together nicely if these Army guys had a scam to smuggle things, maybe arms or drugs, through customs and had to get Richard out of the way to accomplish it. The government could be onto them and be watching me out of worry that I might do something in the course of the trial to imperil their investigation.

Unfortunately, it falls apart because of the passage of time. If they were smuggling arms all these years, there would by now be a bazooka in every household in America. And if the government has been watching all of it without acting, then they aren’t asleep at the switch-they’re comatose.

Edna buzzes in to tell me that Sam Willis is waiting to see me and says it’s important. I tell her to send him right in, and he comes through the door about an eighth of a second later.

“Donna Banks is getting the money from Switzerland,” he says. “The first business day of every month, a wire transfer from the Bank of Switzerland. The account is owned by Carlyle Trading.”

“How much?” I ask.

“Twenty-two thousand five, every month.”

With that kind of income, she can spend a lot of time seeing friends and doing volunteer work. “Can we find out who Carlyle Trading is?”

“I’m trying, but it’s nobody. It’s a dummy corporation; the bank wouldn’t even know who’s behind it.”

“How long has she been getting the money?”

He smiles. “That’s the best part. It started three months after her husband kicked off. If he kicked off.”

This is exhilarating news, even though we don’t yet know what it means. I believe it somehow ties into our case, but of course, I could be totally wrong. Donna Banks could be getting the money from some Swiss sugar daddy that she started sleeping with right after her husband died.

But that’s not what my gut is telling me.

“What about the phone calls?” I ask. “Did she make any after I left her apartment?”

He nods. “She made four in the forty-five minutes after you left. All to the same number. The first three were only a few seconds long; my guess is, she got a machine and hung up. The fourth one lasted seven minutes.”

“Who were they made to?”