“Mr. Carpenter, Walter Timmerman was a close, personal friend of mine, and I will honor his memory. You need to understand that you cannot come in here and bully me.”
“Noted,” I say, as I prepare to bully him. “Now, here’s what you need to understand. I have a few questions that I need answers for. It will be relatively painless for you. The alternative is that I serve you with a subpoena and force you to sit through a full-blown deposition, which will feel like a verbal rectal exam, conducted with a rusty spatula.”
He doesn’t say anything for a few moments, no doubt considering his options and visualizing the spatula. I decide to continue.
“Dr. Jacoby, why did Walter Timmerman send you his own DNA to be tested?”
He reacts to this with apparent shock. “How did you know about that?”
“It came up as part of the investigation.”
He sags slightly, which I take as a sign that he is going to drop his resistance to answering my questions. “I’m not sure why he sent me that. I asked him, but he never responded. I found it to be something of an affront, both professional and personally.”
“An affront in what way?”
“Well, it seemed to be a test of sorts, yet he couldn’t think we would do anything but pass it. Frankly, it was slightly bizarre.”
“Could he have just been wanting to get his own DNA on file?”
Jacoby shakes his head. “No, he had done that long ago, and he wouldn’t have forgotten that. This was a simple match of DNA in pristine condition. There is not a laboratory in the country that would have missed it.”
I have no more idea what to make of this than Jacoby. I could certainly be wasting my time on it as well; it likely has nothing whatsoever to do with Timmerman’s murder. “And the DNA was absolutely identical?” I ask.
“A perfect match.”
“You’re positive?”
He looks at me with clear disdain. “Mr. Carpenter, do you know anything about DNA?”
“I wouldn’t know it if it came in here and bit me on the ass.”
He frowns. “Well, my associates and I know plenty about it. But we were novices compared with Walter Timmerman. Think of us as watchmakers, with DNA as the watch. We understand watches, we can fix them, we know what makes them tick. But Walter Timmerman knew
“But he must have had a reason.”
“On that we can agree,” he says. “Walter Timmerman had a reason for everything he did.”
On the way back to the hospital, I try to make sense of what Jacoby told me. He was certainly telling the truth; the e-mail confirms that. But he was not able to shed any light on the mystery, and therefore I did not accomplish much of anything.
One of the most frustrating things about working on a case like this is that we are obligated to follow every investigative road, not knowing where it will lead. Very often we don’t find out that it has no relevance to our case until we get to the end of that road. Worse yet, sometimes the road has no end, and we just keep moving forward blindly and unproductively, wasting valuable time and resources.
There is no evidence, not a shred, that the DNA dustup between Walter Timmerman and Robert Jacoby had anything to do with his murder, or that of his wife. All it provides me with is a hunch, and a road to go down.
Which is better than nothing, but not by much.
LAURIE IS COMING HOME.
With special equipment, and her team of therapists, and me, and two squad cars that Pete Stanton is sending along for protection. It will be a glorious procession down Park Avenue in Paterson.
Laurie said that Dr. Norville is delighted with her progress, though it is hard for me to picture him delighted. She swears that he even smiled once. A little.
He told her that she has at least two months of therapy ahead of her, but that over time she should regain full movement and normal speech. She starts to cry as she tells me this; it has obviously been an incredibly emotional and trying experience for her.
I turn away and pretend to help her pack so she won’t see me tearing up as well. Crying is for girls; besides, I’ve been there, done that while Laurie was in a coma.
Laurie understands that she will not be able to work for at least the two months, and she has so notified the city manager in Findlay. Her second in command will fill in, no doubt adequately, since Findlay is not exactly Dodge City. Except for the aberrational murders that I went up there to investigate a couple of years ago, the closest Findlay has come to violence in the streets was when word got out that Brett Favre was going to the Jets.
“Andy, are you okay with my staying at your house through all this?” she asks.
I think for a moment, trying to search my memory to see if I’ve ever heard a stupider question. None comes to mind.
“Let’s try it for an hour or two and see if it works out,” I say.
“I’m serious,” she says. “It will cause some turmoil.” There are some sounds that she is still having trouble saying, and the
“There is nothing that would give me more pleasure than you spending two months at our house.”
I’m sure she noticed that I said “our house,” but she doesn’t correct me. In my pathetic little world, that qualifies as a damn good sign.
Laurie is very shaky on her feet, so she doesn’t resist the hospital’s policy that patients must use a wheelchair on departure. They will let me do the pushing, and once we make final arrangements for the therapist’s equipment to arrive, we’re off.
I feel a hell of a lot better leaving than I did the night I arrived.
When we get home, Laurie wants to walk into the house under her own power, though she holds on to my arm as she does. I help her up the steps and into bed, and I can see that the effort has exhausted her.
“Andy, it’s so good to be here. I feel better already.”
“That’s good, because you’re going to have to pull your own weight. Light housework, cooking, some gardening, sexual favors, that kind of thing.”
Laurie doesn’t answer, mainly because she is already sound asleep. I’ll have to write that line down to use it later.
I call Willie and ask him to bring Tara and Waggy over. He’s busy at the foundation, and promises to do so when they close for the evening. I’m slightly nervous about this, since we have determined that possession of Waggy has proven somewhat unhealthy in the past. But for the time being I won’t take the dogs for public walks; I’ll just play with them in the backyard, which is surrounded by a fence and can’t be seen from off the property.
Laurie wakes up ravenously hungry and anxious to eat the farthest thing possible from hospital food. Since my understanding of cooking ranks with my understanding of DNA, I offer her a bunch of take-out options. She chooses Taco Bell, and I can’t say I’m disappointed with the choice.
I go to the Taco Bell on Route 4 in nearby Elmwood Park and pretty much order everything on the menu. When I get back, Tara and the maniacal Waggy greet me at the door. Willie is sitting on the edge of Laurie’s bed, and they are laughing and enjoying each other’s company.
Things are getting back to normal, and normal is damn good.
Willie takes one look at the bags of food, smacks his hands together, and announces that he is starved. That, coupled with Laurie’s previously announced hunger, is going to leave me sucking on the sauce packets for nourishment.
I bring out a large tray and some plates, and we eat right there in the bedroom. I wind up with a steak quesadilla and half of a chalupa, and consider myself lucky. Laurie and Willie eat enough for twelve normal people.
