or can shoot at us from this position. My heart is pounding so loudly that I can’t hear myself think, although I’m too scared to think.
“We’re on the New Jersey Turnpike, heading north about a mile past the Newark Airport exit. Two men in a black Acura have just fired a handgun at us and hit our car. Their license plate number is VSE 621.” Sam is talking into his cell phone, apparently having called 911. “Yes, that’s right. In the left lane, going approximately seventy-five miles per hour. Yes, that’s right.”
“What did they say?” I ask, when he stops talking. He still has the cell phone to his ear.
“They want me to hold on.”
“But what did they say?”
“They said to hold on.”
I’m not getting anywhere with this line of questioning, so I concentrate on driving. I’m now doing almost eighty and they’re pulling away. Since I don’t want to get killed by either a bullet or a crash, I don’t speed up any more.
Moments later, we hear the sound of sirens, and police cars with flashing lights go flying by us as if we are standing still. “Holy shit, will you look at that!” Sam marvels.
It isn’t long before the car we’re chasing and the police cars are all out of sight, but I keep driving because I don’t know what else to do. Sam has lost his cell phone connection with 911, so we’re pretty much in the dark.
“Man, that was amazing!” Sam says. He seems invigorated; this is a side of him I haven’t seen before, and he certainly does not seem shaken by the fact that a window inches from his face was shot out. Am I the only coward in America?
We drive for a few more miles, turning on the radio to hear if anything is being said about the incident. I’m aware that I need to report this in person to the police, but my preference is to drive to the Paterson Police Department and tell my story to Pete Stanton.
“What’s that?” Sam asks, and when I look ahead I see what he is talking about. There’s a large glow, far ahead and off to the right, which turns out to be the flashing lights of at least a dozen police cars. As we approach, there is no doubt that a car has been demolished, and another car is also damaged at the side of the road. The police are surrounding the smashed vehicle, which I believe is the one that had contained the shooters, but not seeming to take any action.
Two ambulances pull up as well, and paramedics jump out. If there is anyone in the car, it will be up to the paramedics to help them. Good luck; they haven’t invented the paramedics who could help people in that car. It looks like a metallic quesadilla.
I pull over, resigned to speaking to the cops on the scene rather than to Pete. I park a couple of hundred yards away and turn off the car.
“We getting out?” Sam asks.
I nod. “We’re getting out. Leave your carry-on and take the cannolis.”
* * * * *
WE GET AS close as we can to the crash scene, which isn’t very close at all. The police have set up a perimeter at least a hundred yards away and are in the process of closing all but the left lane of the highway to traffic. This is going to be a long night for drivers heading north to the city.
Sam and I approach one of the officers in charge of keeping people away. “That’s as far as you can go,” he says. “Nothing to see here.”
“We’re the ones who made the call to 911,” I say. “They shot out a window in our car.”
“Who did?” the officer asks. He probably is not even aware that there was a prior incident on the road; to him this must just be a crash scene.
“The two guys in that car,” I say. “They shot at us, we called it in, and they must have crashed in the pursuit.”
The officer considers this a moment. “Stay right here,” he says, and then goes toward the crash scene to check with his superiors. A few moments later he comes back and says, “Follow me.”
We do so, and as we get close to the crash, it looks as if the car containing the shooters smashed into a car parked along the side of the highway. It then flipped over, perhaps more than once, and came to rest as a complete wreck.
There is no doubt in my mind that no one in that car could have survived. The police have already set up a trailer, where they will spend the night as they investigate what they will consider a crime scene.
The officer takes us toward the trailer, and just before we get there, I whisper to Sam, “Do not say anything about the Evans case.”
He nods. “Gotcha.” Then, “This is so cool.”
“Sam, you might want to get some professional mental help. On an urgent basis.”
“You mean see a shrink?”
“No, I mean as an inpatient. A locked-in patient.”
We are led inside the trailer, and I can’t stifle a groan when I see that the officer in charge is Captain Dessens of the New Jersey State Police. I have had a couple of run-ins with Dessens on previous cases, and it would be accurate to say that we can’t stand each other.
Dessens looks up, sees me, and returns the groan. “What the hell are you doing here?” He looks around. “Who let this clown in?”
The officer who brought us in says, “These guys are the ones I told you about.”
Dessens shakes his head. “Well, so much for motive.”
The officer standing next to him says, “What do you mean?”
“That’s Andy Carpenter, the lawyer. I don’t know anybody who wouldn’t want to take a shot at him.”
“Is the shooter dead?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“You’ll still find a way to screw up the arrest.”
Dessens starts an angry response and then seems to think better of it. He motions for us to sit down, then questions us on the details of what happened. Sam lets me do most of the talking; he just seems happy and content to be a part of it.
After we’ve given our statements, Dessens asks if I think the shooting was random or if I might have an idea who could be after me.
“Everybody loves me,” I say.
Sam nods. “Me, too.”
Dessens asks a few more questions and then tells us that they will want to check out my car and that an officer will drive us home.
“Did you ID the dead guys?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer and instead calls out to one of the other officers, asking him to take us outside. He’s apparently not into sharing.
It’s not until I get home and have a glass of wine that I really think about what just happened. Word got out today that I was taking Richard Evans’s case, and somebody tried to kill me tonight.
I don’t believe in coincidences, and it wouldn’t be productive to start now. I have to believe that the shooting is connected to Evans, even though I would much rather not. If somebody could react this quickly and this violently to my simply taking on Evans as a client, then he’s got some very determined and deadly enemies.
Which means I now have them as well.
Laurie calls just as I’m about to get into bed, and I tell her the entire story. She believes in coincidences even less than I do, and I can hear the worry in her voice. Laurie is one of the toughest people I know, but she’s well aware that toughness is a trait she and I don’t share.
She’s frustrated that she can’t get away from her job to come back east until the end of the month, and cautions me to be extra careful. She also has one other piece of advice, the one I expected.
“Get Marcus.”
* * * * *
