Corpus Corpus (25 page)

"Go right ahead. The door's open."

As they walked down the long corridor toward the office, Leibholz's eyes explored the pictures of Janus drawn by courtroom artists and said, "There's no doubt whose house this is."

Stepping into the large room that was both an office and a museum to Janus's namesake, Reiter let out a low whistle as he looked at youthful Teddy Roosevelt as Dakota Territory cowboy. In a suit, vest, and lank bow tie, he struck a formal pose beside the desk he had used, and which had been passed on for the use of every police commissioner who followed him as Teddy moved onward and upward.

Gazing at these artifacts, Reiter said to Dane, "I see what you mean about Janus's fondness for Teddy being genuine."

Standing before the portrait of Janus, Leibholz said, "He was pretty fond of himself, too."

"We're not here as sightseers, folks," Bogdanovic grumbled. "So let's get down to work."

Leibholz looked at the rows of file cabinets. "The man must have saved every piece of paper he ever touched. Talk about your search for a needle in a haystack!"

"It won't be that bad," Dane said. "The files are arranged chronologically. Each file cabinet contains one year's papers. They are subdivided into months and weeks and those folders are then arranged alphabetically by subject."

"Be that as it may," Leibholz replied, "there are lots of years to plow through."

"Not really, Al," said Bogdanovic. "Theo had the windows of his car bulletproofed after he returned from the trial in Los Angeles. The trial ended in July, so I think we can safely assume that he was reacting to a threat or threats received since then. That's months of files divided between us. It shouldn't take that long to go through them."

Leibholz went to the file for the current year and pulled open the top drawer. Joined by Reiter, he began withdrawing thick folders. As the two detectives emptied the six-drawer cabinet and stacked the files on a long table, Bogdanovic quickly sorted them according to month.

Finished with the transfer of material, Reiter asked, "What are we hoping to find?"

"Look for threatening letters and notes."

Dane added, "Also look for any memorandums Theo might have written concerning threats. When I worked with him he was always dictating memorandums for the files. He also might have gotten threats on tape. Or there could be recordings of threatening phone calls. Theo had an automatic phone taping system."

Reiter opened a slender file labeled August 1-7. "Shades of Tricky Dicky Nixon's White House."

Leibholz held a thick file as if weighing it. "Didn't this guy ever hear of a paper shredder?"

"He was an attorney," Dane answered, taking a file for the first week of September. "He was strict in obeying the first rule of practicing law: The papers you discard today may be the ones you'll need tomorrow. Law is based on precedent. The first thing you do when you get a new case is dash to the law library to find out how a similar case was decided. Theo was also keenly aware that the only memory you can trust is the one that was written down, especially when you get around to writing your memoirs. That's why I'm certain that every threat or angry letter he ever got will be in his files."

Settling into silence, they each picked up and studied a file and moved on to the next.

"Here's one that gets right to the point," Leibholz said, holding up a sheet of paper with a ragged edge. "Torn from a notebook, obviously. 'For what you did in that big trial I hope you die like a dog.' It's unsigned, of course."

Bogdanovic studied the note. "The writing is feminine. We're looking for a man."

As they worked, the only sounds in the room were taming papers, an occasional clearing of a throat, or a weary sigh as one of the searchers lifted a head, yawned, or rubbed eyes.

Presently, Reiter startled the others with, "Hey! This looks promising. Listen. 'Because of you, the people who killed my father got off with little more than a slap on the wrist. I've waited too long for you to admit you were wrong. Now you will be made to pay."

Bogdanovic took the letter. "It appears to have been done on a computer with a laser printer."

With Dane looking over his shoulder, he read:

The armored car guard that radical gang shotgunned to death was my father. Because you made those creeps into victims of society instead of cold-blooded killers, that woman got off scot-free. She should have been executed. One of these days I am going to make you pay the price she didn't have to. And I will make sure the whole world knows about it!

Dane said, "This obviously refers to the aborted stickup by the gang of radicals who botched that robbery of the armored van and killed a guard."

Bogdanovic nodded. "What did you say his name was?"

"Lawrence Newport."

"You said he had a son?"

"Two years old at the time."

Bogdanovic read the letter again. "Maggie, what would you estimate was the age of that young man with the camera at the press conference?"

"I'd guess he was twenty something!"

Bogdanovic stared at the letter. "Do you happen to remember the son's name?"

"No, but I'm sure it's in the case file."

"There may be a quicker way to check," Dane said. "The son's name is probably mentioned in the chapter devoted to the case in Janus fir the Defense. There should be a leather-bound copy of it and his other books on the shelf below his portrait. Try looking up the name Newport in the index."

Leibholz located the book, thumbed through the pages at the back, and said, "Here it is. Newport, Lawrence. Just above it is another Newport. Alice."

"That was his wife. She created a hell of a ruckus when she barged into a press conference Theo called to announce that there would be no retrial of Victoria Davis. She had the kid with her. It's the only time I ever saw Theo upstaged."

"Here's the son in the index," Leibholz interjected. "His name was William."

Dane smiled. "Good old index, to quote Sherlock Holmes, who was another fellow who never threw away a piece of paper."

"To hell with files on paper," Bogdanovic said as he all but leapt to his feet. "I expect we will find what we need to know about William Newport in somebody's computer. As soon as we get back to the city, we are going to commence a search in every mainframe we can access. Someplace, sometime, somebody key-boarded all there was to know about William Newport, entered it, and saved it. All we have to do is find it."

LOOKING STARTLED AS Bogdanovic and Dane shattered the quiet of his office by bursting in, Goldstein peered over the tops of half-moon reading glasses, regarded their smiling faces, and said, "Evidently your outing in the country was fruitful."

"Very productive," Bogdanovic said, beaming. "I think we've got ourselves a prime suspect. I believe he's the son of a security company guard who was killed in an armored car robbery that went wrong up in Stone County. Janus got the convictions of the perps overturned on appeal. The motive was revenge."

"Rather long in coming," Goldstein said.

"The dead guard's son is named William Newport. He was only two years old at the time of the holdup."

"I see. When he was a little kid and someone asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up, Willie said, 'I intend to avenge the death of my old man, not by killing the people who gunned him down on the job, but the lawyer who took their case on appeal.' "

"That's exactly it," Bogdanovic retorted. "We've got letters to prove it. One of them specifically references the holdup and says the guard who was killed was the writer's father."

"If this guy sent threatening letters and signed them, he's already laid a pretty strong foundation for a defense based on a claim of diminished mental capacity."

"I think I can show that he was at Janus's press conference prior to the Wolfe Pack dinner."

Goldstein whipped off the glasses and tossed them onto a sea of paperwork. "You think? You believe? This is not evidence, and neither are those letters, until you can place William Newport at the scene of the crime. I'd feel a lot better if you told me you were certain."

"I am hopeful that I will soon have a picture of Newport and that it will be a match with the young man in Fields' video."

"Hopeful! There you go again, Johnny. I hope you can bring me evidence in the form of the gun that killed Janus, with William Newport's fingerprints on the trigger. Regarding that tape, while you were rooting around in Janus's archives I persuaded Vanderhoff to draw up a subpoena to get a copy. You can pick it up at your convenience."

"We might not need it. When we locate William Newport we can put him in a lineup and have Bobby Fields take a look at him. I'm confident Bobby will make a positive ID. We may find others who were at the dinner who can put Newport there. How soon that will happen depends on how soon we locate Newport in somebody's computer files."

Goldstein retrieved his glasses and slipped them on. "Well, don't let me detain you."

LEAVING GOLDSTEIN'S OFFICE and striding down the corridor toward his own, Bogdanovic said, "This may sound disingenuous to you, Maggie, but at moments like this I actually feel sorry for today's criminals. When I got into police work, it was a human enterprise. Cops versus crooks. One or two homicide detectives wearing out shoe leather to track down a killer. It was brains combined with legwork. A morality drama. A good guy going after a bad guy. Very personal. A test of wits and wills in which the bad guy had a fifty-fifty chance of getting away. Computers have changed all that. The misbegotten felon is trapped in a world in which there are just too many detectives."

Opening the door of his office, he found Leibholz and Reiter seated at tables with eyes already focused on two of the office's four computer screens.

"Good old data banks," he said, gleefully. Pulling off his jacket, he sat at his desk, rubbed his hands eagerly, and winked at Dane. "Pull up a chair, Maggie. The game is afoot!"

"I don't know what rules the police department has set out as to who is authorized to use its computers," she replied. "But I can't help noticing one of yours sitting idle. There is no way for you to have known this fact about me, but I also know how to navigate cyberspace. I was on the team of prosecutors that was consulted in setting up the computer system in Vanderhoff’s office. I also had input in upgrading the operation in the district attorney's offices in Los Angeles."

"Well, don't just sit there, woman! Boot up and log on. We have a lot of territory to explore. The Motor Vehicles Department for a driver's license. Parking Violations Bureau. Social Security for a number. Bank accounts. Internal Revenue Service. Voter registration lists. He may have a rap sheet in our own files."

Reiter looked away from his screen and announced, "No luck there, John. I've checked. William has never been arrested in the city of New York and there are no wants or warrants on file from anywhere else."

Bogdanovic asked, "What about the FBI?"

"I was just about to tap into them. I'll be more than happy to turn the G-men over to Miss Dane."

"Please call me Maggie," she said. "As the housefly said to the spider, 'Since we're in the same web, we might as well be on a first-name basis.' "

Leibholz grunted a laugh. "That's a good one, Maggie."

"If you don't mind, Red, I'll pass on the feds," she said as she sat at the idle computer. "Having spent a year working frauds in Vanderhof’s vineyards, I thought I'd try to get in touch with a friend from those days who now works for an all-knowing, all-powerful gatherer of every American's most intimate information."

"Good idea," said Bogdanovic. "The dreaded IRS."

"I refer to an even more efficient organization," she said, switching on the computer. "My old friend is the chief of security for a credit reporting agency."

"Maggie, that is brilliant idea."

Turning away, she muttered, "Let us all pray that my friend of old is reachable at his old e-mail address, and that he'll do a data search for me."

"My prayer is that Mr. Newport is a resident of the Empire State," said Bogdanovic. "I hate it when I have to go to a court to request extradition."

As he scrolled through a roster of persons with delinquent parking fines, the office fell into a silence broken only by fingers on four computer keyboards and the occasional blare of an automobile horn from the direction of the ramps to the Brooklyn Bridge.

Finding the parking fines file unavailing, Bogdanovic was about to try voter registration lists when Dane shouted, "My friend is indeed at his e-mail address. He's searching the firm's records. It shouldn't take long."

Reiter paused in his combing of driver's license files to say, "Let us all hope that William Newport is not one of those incredible consumers who manage to make their way through life on a policy of cash and carry."

Staring expectantly at the blank computer screen, Dane said, "Come on, baby. Don't disappoint. Speak to me."

In the next instant as the screen filled with data, Dane exclaimed, "Fellas, I believe we've found the murdering twerp!"

Bogdanovic lurched away from his desk to roll in his chair to Dane's position and read aloud, "Newport, William. Two hundred forty East Twenty-fifth Street."