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.
“Come on, I'm sorry!”
I think he can tell that it was not the most sincere of apologies, because he keeps closing the door.
I yell to Laurie, “Don't just stand there!”
After a brief moment that seems like an hour, she shrugs and says, “I need your help, Pete.”
Pete immediately relaxes and opens the door. He speaks only to Laurie. “Why didn't you say so? What's up?”
I jump in. “We have to run down an old license plate.”
Pete ignores me and again speaks to Laurie. “What's up?”
“We have to run down an old license plate,” Laurie says.
This is starting to annoy me-I mean, all I did in court was my job. “Hey, what am I, invisible?”
“You're lucky you're not dead,” Pete snarls. “You turned me into a goddamned idiot on the stand.”
“You were already a goddamned idiot. I just brought it out into the open.”
This time I'm pretty sure that if he has a gun in that cute red bathrobe he will shoot me. Laurie tells me to go wait in the car, which I think is a wise idea.
From the time I get in the car, it only takes a minute or so. Laurie comes back and gets in the passenger seat.
“Let's go,” she says.
“What happened?”
“He's going to call it in. We should have it tomorrow.”
“See?” I say. “I told you I could handle him.”
I drop Laurie off at her apartment and then head home. Pete's going to get us the information, and then we'll either have something or we'll have nothing. I have rarely felt less in control.
The next morning I ask for a meeting in Hatchet's chambers with him and Wallace. They have heard about Nicole getting shot, and I lay out for them the threats we had received and the attack in my office. I make the case that someone is actively trying to prevent justice from being carried out, and I ask that I be allowed to depose Victor Markham and Brown-field about the photograph.
Wallace seems genuinely sympathetic to my situation, but is obligated to make the point that no significant legal link has been made between the photograph and the Miller trial. He is technically correct, and Hatchet is also technically correct in denying my request. Which he does.
Our first witness this morning is going to be Edward Markham, on whom I am planning to take out my frustrations. Laurie has joined Kevin and me at the defense table for the day's festivities.
As I glance around the courtroom, I see that Victor is there to provide sonny boy moral support. He's going to need it.
Just as Hatchet is taking his seat behind the bench, the door in the back of the courtroom opens and Pete appears. He walks toward me as Hatchet is instructing me to call my first witness.
Pete hands me a small piece of paper and says, “I figured I should deliver this one personally.”
I look at the paper and say, “Holy shit.”
Laurie nudges me. “What is it?”
I hand her the paper; her whispered reaction is more biblical than mine. She says, “Jesus Christ.” She passes the paper down to Kevin, but I can't hear what he mutters.
Hatchet sees all this. “Are we going to pass notes in class today or might we call a witness?”
I stand up. “Your Honor, we call Edward Markham, but a significant development has taken place, and we would request a brief recess prior to his testimony.”
“How brief?”
“The balance of the morning, Your Honor. We would be prepared to question the witness right after the lunch break.”
Hatchet asks Wallace and me to approach. We do, and I tell them that this can be a crucial breakthrough, and that I need the morning to follow through on it. It can change the entire case.
I am shocked when Wallace doesn't object. He knows that his position will not be harmed by waiting a few hours, and he trusts me that this is in fact an important development. What he is doing is putting justice ahead of victory; my father would have been damn proud of him.
Hatchet goes along with it, and I head back to the defense table. I tell Kevin that if I'm not back in time, he is to question Edward for as long as it takes, just making sure that he does not leave the stand before I get there. I don't even wait for an answer; I'm out of the building and on the way to my car.
My trip out to Betty Anthony's is a nerve-racking one. Pete's information has the promise of cracking this case wide open and letting the long hidden secrets pour out, but it will be of no value if I can't get Betty Anthony on my side. And so far I have had no success at doing that.
I try her apartment first, hoping that she is not at work. When I arrive and prepare to ring the bell, I hear the strains of Frank Sinatra singing Cole Porter, coming from inside the apartment. She's home.
Betty comes to the door, and her expression when she sees that it's me is a combination of exasperation and fear. She's fended me off until now, but she's afraid that I'll come at her from an angle that will shake up her world.
