New Tricks - By David Rosenfelt Page 0,32
with Charles Robinson?” I ask.
“Sure, he was a close friend of my father’s. We called him Uncle Charlie.”
“He’s trying to get Waggy,” I say. “How would you feel about that?”
“Charles shows dogs as a hobby, like my father did. I think they even co-owned a few dogs. He wouldn’t mistreat Waggy or anything, but he’d put him into training.”
“Anything wrong with that?”
“Depends on your point of view,” he says, leaving no doubt what his point of view is.
When I leave the prison my gut feeling is that I’m somewhat relieved. He answered my questions head-on and did not give the appearance of having something to hide.
Which is to say, my gut tells me that either Steven is telling the truth, or he isn’t.
In case you haven’t noticed, my gut isn’t that gutsy.
DR. ROBERT JACOBY readily agrees to talk to me, but he warns he can’t talk to me.
I called ahead and told him that I wanted to discuss Walter Timmerman, though I did not mention the strange e-mail that Sam found. Jacoby agreed, but alerted me that he regarded his interactions with Timmerman as confidential.
Crescent Hills Forensics Laboratory is located in Teaneck, not far from the campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University. The outside looks like a white spaceship, with a flat, oval, sweeping roof sitting atop a mostly glass building like a white sombrero. It seems to have been the work of a blindfolded architect who was given the mandate to make the building as modern as possible, so that clients would assume the work done inside was state of the art. He was obviously instructed not to be concerned if the building turned out to be embarrassingly ugly.
Jacoby’s office is a study in chrome and glass, with not a test tube or Bunsen burner to be found. He is dressed in a perfectly tailored suit that certainly never knew the indignity of spending a moment on a clothing store rack. This guy has his clothes custom-made as surely as I don’t. And if he’s going to roll up his sleeves and get to work, he’s going to have to take off his gold cuff links first.
I accept his offer of a glass of Swedish mineral water, and then ask him about his business relationship with Walter Timmerman. He smiles condescendingly and then shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Carpenter, but our communications are confidential.”
“I wasn’t asking about specifics,” I say, though I’m certainly planning to.
“The line is hard to draw,” he says, “so I prefer not to say anything. Even though Mr. Timmerman is deceased, our reputation is such that—”
This is getting me nowhere, so I interrupt. “Were you Mr. Timmerman’s personal physician?”
“No.”
“His lawyer?”
“Certainly not. But—”
“Are you a priest? A rabbi?”
“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