The Twelve Dogs of Christmas

by David Rosenfelt

  “I can invite Willie,” I say.

  “Just give me the number.”

  It’s a strange request. “Why?”

  “You writing a book?” she asks. “Or is his number a state secret?”

  I give her Willie’s number, and we set the party for tomorrow at seven PM, provided that she’s released from the hospital on schedule.

  Preparing to try the civil case will not be nearly as difficult or intensive as doing so for the criminal case. I’m going to be covering the same ground, and I already have a total command of the facts. I’ll also have Hike with me, as well as Walter Tillman to help with the nuances of civil versus criminal.

  We should be fine. It doesn’t mean we’ll win, but we’ll do a good job. I have to admit I’m feeling confident.

  As to the big picture, I still don’t know what Barnett and his accomplices hoped to gain. Maybe they were taken by surprise by Hank’s entry into the picture; it could have foiled some hidden plan they had.

  The shooter is still out there; I’m sure of that. It could mean that Hank is in some physical jeopardy. If they get rid of him, maybe they can go back to their original plan. I think I’ll mention this to Nolan Weisler. I want his client to lose the case; I don’t want him to die.

  I head back to work, and when I get to my second-floor office, I find that the door is ajar. I should take that as an ominous sign, but I’m not thinking quickly enough, and I find myself staring at Big Tiny Parker and two of his large friends.

  “How did you get in here?” I ask.

  “We broke the lock,” he says, as if that’s the most normal thing in the world.

  “Why?”

  “Because we didn’t want to stand in the hall,” Big Tiny says.

  This is the first time I’ve been around him without Marcus present, and I can’t say I like this new arrangement. “What do you want?”

  “Who killed my brother?” he asks.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “That ain’t good enough. The case is over.”

  I shake my head. “The trial is over. The case is not over.”

  “You think you can screw around with me?” he asks.

  I’m getting more than a little nervous. “Look, a guy named Barnett ordered the hit; I’m sure of that. I exposed him, and he’s gone. And I think it’s a good bet that he’s dead. But I don’t know yet who the shooter is. I’m doing my best.”

  “Maybe you should be watching out for your own ass,” he says, and they walk out of the office. It is an abrupt way to end our little meeting, and his last line was a bit cryptic. Was he threatening me, or warning me to watch out for the shooter?

  I’m unsure, and I’m also unnerved.

  As we always do for our victory parties, we take over the second floor of Charlie’s.

  Laurie and I got a sitter for Ricky, but she’s a little late arriving, so we don’t get to the party until ten minutes after it started. Willie and Sondra are there, as is Hike, Sam, Edna, Marcus, Walter Tillman, and Vince. Vince really had nothing to do with the trial, but the concept of free food and beer makes him feel like one of the team.

  Pups is there, as are quite a few of her friends, so there are maybe thirty people in all. Pups is holding court in one corner of the room, sitting in a chair and greeting everyone. She looks weak but happy.

  I have no doubt that one of the main reasons for her happiness is the presence of the only nonhuman in the room. Her dog, Puddles, sits on her lap. Willie obviously brought Puddles, which is why Pups wanted his number. I’ve never seen a dog in Charlie’s before, and I’m sure it must violate some ordinance. I’m also sure that Pups was not about to be denied.

  When Pups sees me, she clanks her glass to gain everyone’s attention. “Here he is,” she proclaims, “the greatest lawyer in the history of the world.”

  While I’m not about to quarrel with her assessment, the comment was very un-Pups-like. I don’t see a drink in her hand, so it can’t be that she’s drunk. But it is rather strange.

  The party settles in, and everyone seems to be having fun. While the specter of the civil trial hangs over me, nobody else except Walter and Hike seems to be aware of it. In their minds, the criminal trial was the be-all and end-all, and it has ended in a huge triumph.

  Walter, Hike, and I hold a brief conversation about what lies ahead, and Hike asks if Pups might reconsider settling. Walter laughs at his lack of understanding of our client. “She will fight until the very end, and even longer,” Walter says. “That is one tough lady.”

  “I think we’re going to win,” I say. “We’ll nail them with the same things we used at trial, and now we can point to the land situation in South Dakota. We’ve got a lot of weapons. Plus, we have a terminally ill woman trying to give her money to save animals versus a gold-digging kid who never gave his father the time of day.”

  “I like your style,” Walter says. “And you throw a great party.”

  Laurie is talking to Pups, so I start walking over there. As I’m doing so, I see the door open and three people come in. It is Micaela Reasoner, the young girl who took such a liking to Puddles, and two adults that I assume are her parents. Either Willie or Pups must have invited them.

  Micaela brightens up when she sees Puddles sitting in Pups’s lap. She runs over and starts petting and hugging her. Her parents stand there, smiling.

  “Are you Micaela?” asks Pups.

  She nods but keeps petting. “Yup.”

  “Did you learn the reverse pet?”

  “I sure did,” she says, demonstrating it. “Puddles loves it.”

  “I know,” says Pups. “You do it very well.”

  “Is Puddles your dog?” Micaela asks.

  “She was.”

  “Not anymore?”

  Pups shakes her head. “No, now she’s your dog. Take very good care of her.” Pups gives Puddles a kiss on the head and then hands her to Micaela.

  “What are you doing?” Micaela asks. “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t you want her?”

  “Are you kidding?” she says, almost shrieking, and holding Puddles to her chest. “I want her more than anything in the world!” Then she turns to her mother and says, “Mom?”

  Micaela’s mother nods, laughs, and cries all at the same time. Pups obviously must have cleared it with her in advance. Laurie’s crying as well, and I’m coming damn close.

  The only one not crying is Pups, and I don’t know how she isn’t. I can’t imagine the pain she is feeling at giving up her dog. But she knows she is dying, and what she is doing is an amazingly selfless act.

  “Merry Christmas,” Pups says.

  Micaela looks a little confused. “But Christmas is over.”

  Pups smiles. “It doesn’t have to be.”

  Micaela gives Pups a hug, and her parents introduce themselves and thank her. Then Puddles goes off with her new family, and, once they’re gone, Pups says, “Who do you have to know to get a drink around here?”

  That was an incredible thing she did,” Laurie says in the car on the way home from the party. “She made sure that dog will be loved long after she is gone.”

  I nod. “She’s a terrific lady.”

  Laurie looks over at me. “What’s wrong?”

  “I just wish she didn’t have to go through all this legal garbage.”

  “You’re doing all you can, which has been quite a bit.”

  I can feel that she’s staring at me, and I ask her why.

  “Don’t walk the dogs for too long tonight,” she says.

  If she’s implying what I think she’s implying, I’ll take the dogs on a run instead of a walk, to get it finished faster.

  We get home, and while Laurie is paying the babysitter, I grab the leashes and am out the door with Tara and Sebastian. We head for Eastside Park, but we’ll take a shorter route than usual. I don’t tell them why; I’m too ashamed.

  They love these walks, and I love to watch them loving them. And while I completely
admire what Pups did, I don’t think I could give them up until they were lowering me into the ground.

  It’s a cold, quiet night, and the only sound I hear is my shoes and their paws, crunching into the snow. In a typical winter, the snow never leaves once it falls on this grass; the park is never crowded so it just lies there, blanketing the ground and remaining mostly white. Just like Bing Crosby didn’t remember it.

  We’re near the old and now empty zoo, which was never much to speak of and only has a few small buildings. I’m about to turn around and head back home when Tara freezes and then turns to the left. She must see something, probably a squirrel. During the daytime, I let her chase squirrels because I know she could never catch them and wouldn’t know what to do with one if she did.

  But there’s no time for that tonight. “Come on, girl; let’s go home.”

  But she doesn’t move; she’s still intent on whatever she senses. And then she does something that sends a chill through me, which has nothing to do with the temperature outside.

  She growls.

  Tara simply does not growl. I’ve never heard her do it, not once. I look in the direction she’s pointing, and it’s dark, but I think I see movement.

  It’s no squirrel.

  I’m not sure what to do. My two choices are to run or hide. I’m not going to leave the dogs behind, so running is out. It’s dark enough that I may be able to stay out of sight. I wish I hadn’t left my damn phone at home.

  There’s a small building that is open. It’s hard to see in the dark, but I think it’s a deserted refreshment stand. I quietly take Tara and Sebastian in there, tie their leashes together, and tie the other end around a pole. They should be safe in here.

  “Come on out, Carpenter. Nice and slow.”

  It’s not a voice I’m familiar with and is maybe the scariest I’ve ever heard. It’s a confident voice; it’s the voice of somebody who knows that they’ve won.

  I’ve done the worst thing possible; I’ve led us into a dead end. Literally and figuratively.

  I don’t know what to do, so I do nothing. And then I hear a sound scarier than the voice. It’s a gunshot, and the bullet seems to ricochet off the wall to the left. He can’t see us, which is a positive. But we’re in a small area, and eventually he will be unable to miss.

  I can’t stay here; it would be just waiting to die. I move Tara and Sebastian behind a table and tie them up there; it’s as safe as I can make it. I edge toward the door. In the darkness maybe I can get out without him seeing me. I don’t for a second believe it’s possible, but I can’t come up with anything better.

  I hear another gunshot, but even though I flinch and recoil, it doesn’t seem to have been aimed at the building. Then I hear some other noises outside. I can’t tell what they are. There’s some movement, and I think I hear a voice. I don’t know what is going on, and I don’t want to wait around to find out. As I reach the door, I’m about to run into the darkness, when suddenly it’s not dark anymore.

  There’s a beam of light, and it’s shined on me, focused in on my chest. I am about to die.

  I look ahead; it’s very hard to get my eyes to adjust. But I can tell there’s more than one person there, maybe three or four. And they are large.

  “Come on out. You’re OK,” says a voice, but this is a different voice than before. It’s one I recognize.

  Slowly my eyes adjust, and I’m looking at Big Tiny Parker and two of his guys. There’s a fourth person there, but he’s lying on the ground at their feet.

  “This is the guy that killed my brother,” Big Tiny says. It’s not a question; it’s a statement of fact.

  I look at the person on the ground; he’s holding his shoulder and is definitely alive. “I think it is,” I say. Conspiracies like this one generally try to limit the participants, so as to limit the risk of exposure. It’s therefore unlikely that they would have doled out the violence to a number of practitioners.

  I ask Big Tiny, “You were following me?”

  “Yeah. I told you to watch your ass,” he says. “So we watched it for you. And now we got what we want.”

  “You need to let the police handle this,” I say. “There’s a lot we can find out.”

  “No,” Big Tiny says, in a tone that doesn’t sound like he’s inclined to open negotiations. “That’s not the way this works.”

  “I can’t let you take him,” I say.

  “Then you’re going to die with him. You got one chance to get out of here, and you’d better take it now.”

  I go back inside and untie Tara and Sebastian. My choice is pretty simple. I can take them home and live or stay and die defending a murderer.

  Heading home.

  I make the decision on the way home.

  I am not going to tell anyone what has happened. Nothing good can come of it, and I don’t want to be a part of the bad that will follow.

  Of course, Laurie is not anyone. I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t share with her, so when she asks me what took so long on the walk, I unload the whole story.

  I do this despite knowing that she will be upset by it, and not just because I was almost killed. Laurie was a cop, a dedicated, outstanding cop, and she believes in the justice system. What Big Tiny did tonight was vigilante revenge, pure and simple.

  “Oh, Andy…,” she says when I am almost finished with the story. She comes over and hugs me. It feels great, particularly since forty minutes ago I thought I’d never hug her again.

  “I know you don’t approve of what I did,” I say. “But I had no choice. They would have killed me as well.”

  “I understand that,” she says.

  “And there’s nothing we can do now. I have no evidence other than what I saw, and I don’t even know the name of the shooter. I didn’t even see his face.”

  “I know that,” she says. “It’s OK, Andy. I understand. I would have done the same thing. The shooter was going to die tonight no matter what you did.”

  I nod. “Yes, but there’s something you should know about me.”

  She pulls back in surprise at my words and tone. “What is it?”

  “The only thing I’m sorry about, and I mean the only thing, is that I never got to find out what that guy knew. It could have answered a lot of questions, and maybe even helped me in the civil case. Do you understand? Other than that, I don’t have the slightest regret that he’s dead.”

  “Andy…”

  “Let me finish. He would have killed me, and I have no doubt he killed Jake Boyer and Randall Hennessey and Big Tiny’s brother and probably David Barnett. I understand Big Tiny needing revenge, and I’m fine with it. I think, if I had to, I could have pulled the trigger myself.”

  “I understand,” she says. “And here’s what you should know about me. I think you did the absolute right thing, and I would trade a thousand killers like that for one of you. I also respect your right to let it end right here and now. But I’m sorry that guy is dead, no matter who or what he was, because I do not approve of murder, in any form or circumstance.”

  I nod. “You say tomayto, and I say tomahto. You say potayto, and I say potahto.”

  She doesn’t want to laugh, but she can’t help herself. “You’re a childish idiot.”

  I nod again. “I am aware of that.”

  We’re as ready for the civil case as we ever will be.

  I’ve got a lot of witnesses lined up, who I think will make a compelling case. Included in that group are the police officers who testified at the first trial. The difference is that they believe the jury verdict was correct, and now they will be testifying for us rather than against us.

  There is still no sign of David Barnett. I don’t think there is a chance in hell that he is still alive or that his body is going to be found. I think the guy in the park took care of that, not realizing that he was soon going to follow Barnett into oblivion.

  We start the deposition process tomorrow, and Hank Boyer is the first witness. Even though he is the plainti
ff, his testimony is not particularly important. This trial is to determine whether Martha Boyer is civilly responsible for the death of her husband, and Hank knows nothing about that. He didn’t even know his father was dead until I told him when I was in Deadwood.

  All I’m going to try to get on the record with Hank’s testimony is his total estrangement from his father. I don’t want the jury to feel sorry for him at trial; he is not the mourning son, and I don’t want him to pretend to be.

  The only thing still nagging at me is the question of how the bad guys hoped to get Jake and Martha’s estate. If Hank is part of the conspiracy, he went about it in a strange way, waiting for eighteen months and my intervention before doing anything. The conspirators could have set Martha up for Jake’s murder back then; I don’t know what they, or Jake, had to gain by waiting.

  But today is Sunday, and I’m taking the day off from any thoughts of work. Ricky and I are going into New York City, to an event at the Michelangelo Hotel, on Fifty-First.

  It turns out that Pups has two already-paid-for season tickets to the Mets games for the upcoming season. She and Jake had them for years, long before Citi Field was built and the Mets were playing at Shea Stadium. She has given them to me as a thank-you gift for representing her.

  I looked at the seating chart and was shocked to see that they are in the first row behind the dugout, quite literally the best seats in the stadium. They’re so good and so expensive that along with the seats comes a membership in the Mets Booster Club.

  There’s no end to the things about Pups that I didn’t know.

  So today we’re attending a booster luncheon for the Mets, sort of a send-off before they go to spring training. She said that some of the Mets players are always there, and they will sign autographs and talk to the kids. Ricky is wildly excited about it, while his cool father is pretending not to be.

  The luncheon is for maybe 150 people, and we get seats near the front. The manager and three players are there, and each talk about how excited they are for the upcoming season, blah, blah, blah.