The Twelve Dogs of Christmas

by David Rosenfelt

  “I’m sorry,” I say, “but something has definitely changed. He passed away eighteen months ago.”

  Another stiffening, this time more noticeably. “Well, then that’s that.”

  “Not quite,” I say. “I really need to talk to you about something important.”

  He seems about to resist but then sighs. “OK. After I get off. Come to the house. My wife is going to want to hear this, so she might as well get it from the horse’s mouth.”

  Since I’m obviously the horse, he gives me his address, and we agree to meet at his house at seven o’clock this evening. It’s a mixed blessing; I was hoping to get on an afternoon flight out of here today, which is obviously not going to happen. But it frees me to watch NFL football all day, which starts at eleven AM out here.

  Football in the morning and no gunfights. The Wild West really has become civilized.

  I call my bookmaker in New Jersey, Jimmy Rollins, and make some small bets on the games. I have to do it with Jimmy, because one can’t bet on a sporting event in South Dakota. You see, they consider gambling immoral or something, and I say that while sitting in one of their gambling casinos.

  So Willie and I spend the day in the sports bar, eating, drinking, and watching. It turns out that I have no better betting luck west of the Mississippi, but it’s still a very enjoyable, relaxing day.

  We get to Hank Boyer’s house at exactly seven o’clock. Willie thinks it will go better if he waits in the car, and I’m OK with that.

  Hank’s wife, Sharon, greets me at the door. It’s a modest house, but very well kept. I introduce myself, and Sharon apologizes for the place being a mess, but if there’s the slightest actual evidence of that, I don’t see it.

  “Hank! Mr. Carpenter is here!”

  Hank comes in from the back, wiping what looks like grease off his hands onto a towel. He was probably in his toolshed. I’ve got to get myself a toolshed, but first I should get some tools. In any event, he doesn’t offer to shake hands, which in this case I view as a positive.

  Sharon asks me if I want coffee or soda or anything to eat, but I decline it all. The house doesn’t seem to have a den, so we sit at the kitchen table. I don’t see any evidence of children in the house, and children generally leave plenty of evidence.

  “So before I get into who I represent and why I’m here, I want to offer my condolences about your father. Hearing it from a stranger in a casino is not optimal.”

  “Doesn’t matter to me,” Hank says.

  “Hank…,” Sharon says, in what seems to be a gentle admonishment.

  “I’m sorry, but my father was dead to me a long time ago. So nothing has changed.”

  “I understand. For your information, he was killed in a drive-by shooting in Paterson, New Jersey. That’s where he lived.”

  “Oh, my,” Sharon says, but Hank remains silent, so I continue.

  “Did you know his third wife? Her name is Martha.”

  “He only had three of them?” Hank asks, not really expecting an answer.

  “Yes, and Martha is my client. She is currently awaiting trial for three murders, including Jake’s.”

  Sharon looks horrified, and Hank says, “Your client sounds like a really nice lady. Or should I call her Mom?” This is a bitter guy.

  “I believe she will be acquitted of all charges, because she is innocent. What I’m trying to do is learn who might have had reason to kill these people, and why.”

  “I don’t see how I can help you,” Hank says. “I don’t even know them.”

  “Your father died a very wealthy man.”

  Hank laughs a short, derisive laugh. “Good for him.”

  I continue. “He had a very significant amount of money and extensive land holdings. All of it was left to his wife, Martha, when he died. I believe that wealth is the ultimate reason behind these killings.”

  Hank shakes his head. “I’m sorry. You come into my home, tell me that my father is dead, and then upset my wife talking about all these murders. What the hell does any of this have to do with me? I haven’t seen the man in years, I don’t know this Martha, and I don’t give a shit that he’s dead.”

  “Hank, don’t talk like that,” Sharon says, and then turns to me. “I’m sorry, Mr. Carpenter.”

  “No problem.”

  I’m torn here; I’ve been debating whether to tell Hank that there is a chance he could inherit all of the proceeds of Jake’s will. I don’t have an obligation to, since I’m not his attorney.

  Ultimately, I come down on the side of telling him. I want Pups’s wishes to be honored and the rescue groups to become the beneficiaries. But the only way that can be honored is if she gets acquitted. And if she does, then she’s in control and nothing Hank does can interfere.

  Hank’s only chance would be if the state took control, and I’d prefer that Hank and Sharon get the money ahead of the state treasury.

  I continue. “So I came here to apprise you of the situation, so that if Martha should be convicted, you could attempt to assert your claim. The estate is very substantial.” That’s a small lie, and I’m withholding the real reason I came here, which was to see if Hank had any involvement or knowledge of a plot to get Pups’s money. That does not seem to be the case.

  “I don’t want anything from him, alive or dead,” Hank says.

  “Hank, we need to talk about this,” Sharon says. “Mr. Carpenter, if we were to look into this, how would we go about it?”

  “You’d hire a lawyer who practices estate law.”

  “How much would that cost?”

  “I imagine someone would take the case on a contingency, meaning that he’d only get a fee if you in fact received the inheritance.”

  I’m not going to get anything more from this conversation, and I know they’ll have a lot to discuss with each other, so I say good-bye. I head out to the car, where Tex Miller is waiting for me.

  We fly back in the morning, and it’s while we’re on the first leg that I look out the window at the endless stretches of basically unpopulated land.

  It causes me to take out the map of Jake Boyer’s land holdings that Walter Tillman sent me. I haven’t yet looked at it, but I’m wondering if any of it is near Deadwood.

  It’s not. The closest is a huge piece of land that, while in South Dakota, is far to the east, north of Chamberlain. It’s at least 250 miles from Deadwood. I spend some time trying to find any significance in this, until I fall asleep.

  We land at O’Hare to make our connection, and I lose another eight pounds running to the new gate. Overall, I’ve made no progress on the case, but at least Willie and I got to spend a couple of romantic days together in Deadwood.

  It wasn’t the call that unnerved the state senator, Jason Ridgeway, so much.

  Since that horrible day in Vegas, he knew the call was coming, even as he dreaded it.

  It was the way it happened. They reached him at home rather than the office. That in itself was enough of an invasion, but even more intrusive was that his wife, Debra, answered the phone. She came into his office, handed it to him, and simply said, “It’s a Mr. Caffey.”

  The moment was surreal. He instantly realized that they had complete control of him. He had known that before, but somehow this drove the point home in a way that was beyond chilling.

  “Hello, Senator, nice to talk to you again. I enjoyed our meeting in Las Vegas.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Your wife sounds very nice.”

  “Leave her out of this.”

  “As long as you do what you’re told, Senator. As long as you do what you’re told.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You’ll receive a package with instructions tomorrow. It will arrive by UPS at your home. Follow the instructions exactly, and you can finally put this whole sordid episode behind you.”

  Ridgeway started to say that he needed some kind of assurance that whatever it was would be one time only, as they had promised.

&nbs
p; But Caffey had already hung up the phone.

  I finally get home at ten PM, and for a moment I think I’m in the wrong house.

  There are Christmas lights everywhere … on the tree, along railings, wrapped around table legs, even on the refrigerator. It’s blinding and makes Deadwood seem understated.

  “We may have overdone it,” Laurie tells me, smiling as she comes downstairs to greet me.

  “You think?” I ask.

  “We had all these extra lights, and Ricky was having such a good time. And then, of course, we bought some more lights. I think Tara and Sebastian might have been a little freaked out at first, but they seem to have adjusted.”

  “I’m afraid to look in the bathroom,” I say.

  “No, I drew the line there.”

  “Good.”

  She asks me how the trip went, and I tell her there was no significant progress in terms of the case. “Can I tell you about it in the morning?” I ask. “I’m really tired.”

  “Of course. And call Sam in the morning; he says he has something for you.”

  “Something good?”

  “Sounds like it.” She smiles. “I didn’t press him, because I know he likes to curry favor directly with the boss.”

  “How come you never try to curry favor with the boss?”

  She smiles again. “I’m too intimidated.”

  I take Tara and Sebastian for their nightly walk. It’s something I like to do at the end of every day, no matter how tired I am, no matter what time it is. But tonight I cut it down to fifteen minutes. By the time we get back, I want nothing more than to collapse into bed and go to sleep. I don’t say this lightly, but even if Laurie was in the mood to make love, I’m actually sure that I’d turn her down.

  When I get into bed, Laurie is already there, and very much in the mood to make love.

  It turns out that I was wrong, and I don’t turn her down.

  Live and learn.

  Tara, Sebastian, and I walk Ricky to school in the morning, and when I get home I call Sam. “I hear you got something, Sam. You know you could tell anything to Laurie; she’s part of the team.”

  “I just figured this was on a need-to-know basis.”

  Sam thinks he’s a CIA operative. “Laurie has top-secret clearance. What have you got for me?”

  “I’ve been checking into Hennessey’s phone calls. “There are three that are interesting, all to the same number.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “It’s a guy named Frankie Calderone; you probably never heard of him.”

  “I haven’t. Who is he?”

  “He’s a small-time hood. He’s done some time for breaking and entering and had a couple of assault charges dismissed.”

  I’m not fully understanding why Sam thought this was so significant. It’s interesting, but the fact is that Hennessey was not a Boy Scout, and some of his friends could easily have quit the troop as well.

  “What’s the connection to the case?”

  “They spoke the day before the first money was wired. The next time they spoke was twenty minutes after the first wire. Twenty minutes. Third time was twenty minutes after the second wire. And those were the only times they talked. I went back two months.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “No idea. I tried tapping into the phone company to get the GPS on his phone, but it’s been turned off. Maybe he got rid of it, but I can’t find a record of him getting a new number.”

  “Thanks, Sam, this is very helpful.”

  As leads go, this is just decent, but compared to what else we have going, it’s red hot. I certainly want to find Calderone and talk to him, though I realize he could have a perfectly good explanation for those three phone calls. Maybe they were double dating to the prom that weekend and were working out who would drive and who would buy the corsages.

  I could put Marcus on the case, but using just one person could take a while. So I come up with what I think is a better idea.

  I take out the private phone number that Big Tiny Parker gave me at the diner, when he offered his help in finding his brother’s killer. He said that he had an army of people on the street, privy to all kinds of information.

  “Who’s talking?” is how he answers the phone.

  “Andy Carpenter. You offered to help, and I need some.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “There’s a guy named Frankie Calderone. All I know about him is that he’s a small-time crook and has done some time. I need to talk to him.”

  “I don’t know him,” Big Tiny says.

  “The question is, Can you find him?”

  “If he’s still living, and he’s around here, I can find him.” Then he adds, pointedly, “If I want to. He hit my brother?”

  “No,” I say quickly. The truth is, I have no idea if Calderone had anything to do with any of the killings, but I don’t want Big Tiny to think he did. I want to talk to Calderone, not bury him.

  But I also want Big Tiny motivated, so I add, “But he might have some information that could point me in the right direction. The key thing is, if you find him, call me. I’ll know what to ask him.”

  “Stay by the phone,” he says.

  “It doesn’t help us if he gets killed, you understand?”

  “Stay by the phone,” he says.

  My holiday cynicism does not extend to Christmas morning.

  I’m a big fan of the whole finding-presents-under-the-tree / drinking-hot-chocolate thing. I don’t even mind Christmas music; “Silver Bells” is my particular favorite. And Laurie knows and respects my feelings about Big Crosby, so his fake white Christmas memories are banned from the house.

  I’m feeling guilty, of course, since that is my natural state. This time, it’s brought on by my being basically a nonparticipant in the present shopping, at least for Ricky. But Laurie has taken up the slack admirably, and Ricky is thrilled with what he’s gotten … a new baseball glove and a train set. We’ve also made a donation in his name to the World Wildlife Fund, and every month they’ll send him information about an exotic animal he’s helped to save.

  I bought Laurie a handbag that she took great pains to admire in front of me when we were in the mall one day. Ricky and I also gave her a family cruise to the Caribbean.

  Laurie got me two tickets to the Mets home opener and promised Ricky that if it’s a daytime game during the week, he’ll be allowed to miss that afternoon of school and go. I think that’s the gift he likes the best.

  The other gift I got, from the state of New Jersey, is the fact that the holiday keeps the courthouse closed for two weeks, preventing our trial from starting.

  We’re not nearly ready and not exactly getting closer. It’s been four days since I called Big Tiny and gave him the task of finding Calderone, and I haven’t heard a word. One more day, and I’m going to let Marcus take a shot at it.

  Christmas dinner is terrific; Laurie really nails it. She loves to cook, and her philosophy is that, as a holiday treat, everyone should get exactly what they want. So I have her meatloaf, Rick has fried chicken, and Laurie has grilled salmon and kale.

  I’ve got to tell you, I don’t trust kale. Where’s it been all these years? How come all of a sudden it appears and is everywhere? Anybody know a kale farmer? Why am I the only one who is worried about a weird plant that all of a sudden shows up? Has no one seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Or Little Shop of Horrors?

  Ricky and I both choose banana cream pie for dessert, and we’re just finishing up when Big Tiny Parker calls. “I got your boy,” he says.

  I don’t like the sound of that. “You haven’t hurt him, have you?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Don’t,” I say. “He’s not the one you want. Where are you?”

  “You know Totowa Oval?”

  “Yes.” Totowa Oval is a park with a baseball field in the Totowa section of Paterson. I had some of my worst baseball performances there as a kid, but it had nothing to do with the field i
tself. I had terrible baseball performances everywhere I played.

  “We’ll be by the backstop.”

  “Give me an hour,” I say.

  “We’ll be here. Don’t bring Mr. Marcus.”

  “OK.”

  I get off the phone and tell Laurie what’s going on.

  “Apparently Big Tiny works on holidays, even Christmas Day,” she says.

  I nod. “Very admirable.” Then, “You know I need to go, right? Among other things, I have to make sure they don’t kill Calderone.”

  “Of course,” she says.

  “Big Tiny told me not to bring Marcus.”

  She nods. “I’ll call Marcus.”

  Marcus is here in twenty minutes, and it takes another twenty-five to get to Totowa Oval. Once inside the park, it’s very dark. When the baseball field comes into sight, I see no sign of anyone.

  That changes when a car’s lights go on, shining onto the baseball backstop from a distance of maybe ten feet. I can see the shape of four people, three standing and one sitting on the ground, backed up against the backstop. It’s not hard to tell from the shape that one of those standing is Big Tiny.

  We pull up fairly close to the group and get out. Big Tiny sees Marcus and says, “I told you not to bring him.”

  “I didn’t want to hurt his feelings,” I say, walking toward Calderone. He’s sitting on the ground, hands tied in front of him, looking scared but unharmed. I don’t recognize Big Tiny’s two colleagues, and I resist the temptation to ask about the health of the three that Marcus dealt with at the bar.

  I lean down to talk to Calderone. “Mr. Calderone, my name is Andy Carpenter. I’m an attorney. I’m sorry to say that I’m the reason you’re in this predicament, but it’s important that you realize I am also your only chance to get out of it. Do you understand?”

  He nods. “Yeah.”

  “I just have a couple of questions, and if you answer them correctly, which means honestly, then you can go. First one is, tell me about your contact with Randy Hennessey.”

  “I don’t know him.”