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The invader picked the wrong house, and it was up to Peter Charkin to make sure that he knew it.
It was an obvious robbery attempt … a home invasion. The guy had shown a gun, so Charkin had no choice but to submit to being tied to the chair. He also couldn’t prevent the same thing happening to his girlfriend, Tina Welker.
It was Tina’s house, which made it a strange choice. Tina was not wealthy, and she lived in a working-class neighborhood. But this was the house the guy had chosen, and Charkin had the misfortune to be there when the robber entered.
The robber was a big guy; the truth is that he was a lot more than Charkin could handle under any circumstances, gun or no gun. But the guy didn’t seem as if he intended to hurt anyone, and he had said so up front. He seemed calm, as if he had done this before. No sense antagonizing him.
“Everybody cooperates, and life goes on,” the guy had said.
But just to be sure, Charkin had told him he was making a mistake, picking on the wrong people. “You know Jerry Donnelly?” Charkin asked him. “Ever heard of Big Jerry Donnelly?”
The guy had just about done a double take; the Donnelly name was an important one. “What about him?”
“So you know who he is?”
“I know who he is. I said, what about him?”
“He and I are friends. Partners.”
“Yeah, right.”
“He’ll know you did this,” Charkin said, before realizing that he had just given the thief a reason to kill him, so as to prevent him from squealing to Donnelly. “I won’t tell him, but he’ll know.”
“You’d better not tell him.”
“I won’t if you walk away now. There’s nothing worth anything here anyway.” Charkin winked at the frightened Tina, tied to a chair about six feet away from him. It was his way of telling her that everything would be okay. She did not seem convinced.
“He does know Jerry,” Tina said, though she had no idea if that was true and doubted it was. She had never even heard of Donnelly, but that didn’t stop her from throwing in her own lie. “And so do I.”
The guy looked at her, didn’t say anything, and did something that made Charkin think that maybe this wasn’t going to end well. The guy punched him in the mouth. Not that hard; the guy could have crushed his face if he wanted to.
Charkin’s head went back in the chair. He was stunned by the punch, and by the taste of blood in his mouth. “What did you do that for?” he managed. “We’re cooperating.”
The assailant didn’t answer; instead he quickly took the gun back out of his pocket, put it to Charkin’s head, and pulled the trigger. It happened so fast that Charkin did not realize it was coming.
Tina Welker was not so lucky. She experienced the full measure of panic and dread before her life was ended in the same manner as Charkin’s.
Then the killer got to work preparing the scene.
The last thing he was worried about was Jerry Donnelly.
We have started taking family dog walks.
Occasionally, usually on the weekends, Laurie, Ricky, and I take Tara and Sebastian for a walk all together. We go from our house on Forty-second Street in Paterson, New Jersey, down to Park Avenue and Thirty-third Street, and then to Eastside Park.
We go to Park Avenue to stop and get bagels and muffins, then we sit and eat them at picnic tables in the park. Tara and Sebastian each get their own plain bagel. Tara, a golden retriever, eats slowly and delicately, while Sebastian, a basset hound, chows his down in about ten seconds. He then looks at Tara, hoping she won’t finish.
Good luck with that.
Laurie usually holds Tara’s leash. Tara displays a typical golden retriever’s interest in her surroundings, eagerly sniffing new discoveries even though she has made this exact walk hundreds of times. Ricky walks Sebastian, and even though Sebastian outweighs him, he has no difficulty handling him. That is because Sebastian walks with the speed and dexterity of your average refrigerator/freezer.
My job, which Laurie and Ricky unanimously assigned to me, is to be the bearer, and user, of the plastic bag. As you can imagine, it is not a job I relish. In Tara’s case, it’s no big deal; she does her business neatly and delicately.
Sebastian is a different story. Even though he eats the same amount of food as Tara, for some reason there is a clear difference between the input and the output. There are occasions when I could use a forklift to remove Sebastian’s “deposits.” If he’s embarrassed by it, he hides it well.
Today we make a slight detour, stopping on Thirty-ninth Street to drop Ricky off at the house of his best friend, Will Rubenstein. Will’s father, Brian, is outside mowing his lawn. My preferred method of lawn mowing is to hire someone. If such people were suddenly to become unavailable, I would choose to cover the whole thing with cement.
With Ricky no longer with us, I take Sebastian’s leash and we’re back heading to Park Avenue. Sebastian keeps us going at a snail’s pace, which is fine with me. He and I share the same point of view: we are going to get there eventually, and neither of us are angling to make the Olympic walking team.
We’re one block from the bagel store when I hear a dog yelping, apparently in pain. It’s an awful sound, and I quickly look down to make sure it is not coming from Tara or Sebastian. It isn’t.
The yelping stops momentarily, but then starts again. Laurie and I look up at the same time, and we see that across and down the street, a man is kicking his dog. The dog is lying on the ground, and the creep is pulling on its leash and kicking it at the same time. He also starts yelling at the dog to get up. The moment is so horrifying that it takes a moment to digest it, to confirm that it’s really happening.
Spoiler alert: you are about to learn one of the many differences between Laurie and me.
While we are both horrified, my first reaction is to figure out what to do. Laurie’s first reaction is to do it.
She drops Tara’s leash and runs across the street toward the creep, yelling at him to stop. He looks at her with what seems to be disdain. He is not aware that she spent years as a cop and could likely handle three of him with ease. Therefore, he is also not aware that if he doesn’t stop what he’s doing, he’s going to get his ass kicked.
I grab Tara’s leash, and the two dogs and I belatedly start to move toward the action as well. But then I hear more yelling; a different man’s voice this time, and I see another guy running toward the creep and his dog. He is also yelling at him to stop, but it is falling on deaf ears.
The other man, clearly a hero, is closer and arrives before Laurie. The creep drops the leash, whirls, and throws a punch at the arriving hero, which proves to be a major mistake.
The hero proceeds to dismantle the creep with a series of punches. By my count there are at least six of them, evenly distributed between the gut and the head. If you really want to know how fast and crisp the punches look, go on YouTube and check out some Muhammad Ali fights.
&nb
sp; The creep goes down as if shot. Laurie yells at the hero to stop hitting the creep, but it’s unnecessary, since he’s already stopped. He’s not leaning over to hit the guy again, though the creep deserves it. All the hero is doing is picking up the dog’s leash.
I can’t hear what he and Laurie are saying to each other until I get close. The first thing I hear is the guy saying, “I can’t stand when people hurt a dog.”
The dog at the center of this, an adorable pug, has gotten to his feet and seems none the worse for wear. Though his owner is still on the ground, the pug makes no effort to go over to him. I don’t blame the dog.
I see other people watching from across the street. I assume one or more of them called 911, because sirens are blaring as police cars approach. I am surprised to see a look of concern, if not panic, in the man’s eyes; as a defense attorney, I have seen the look before.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “It was self-defense. We both saw it.”
“You don’t understand,” he says, in a voice that I can only describe as resigned. The police have pulled up and are approaching, so that is the extent of our conversation.
The creep on the ground has come to and is slowly getting to his feet. The cops put handcuffs on both men, no doubt until they can sort things out. The hero who won the fight hands me the pug’s leash just before they cuff him. The pug seems fine with that; as long as it’s not getting kicked anymore, the dog is good with the situation.
Fortunately, Laurie knows the cop who seems to be in charge. This is not unusual, as she was a lieutenant in the Paterson PD for a number of years before leaving and becoming an investigator for me. She also taught for a while at the Academy, so a lot of these officers remember her.
She goes over and talks to the cop.… I can hear her refer to him as John. They speak for a while, then she comes back to me. “They’re going to take them both into custody for now.”
“It was self-defense.”
“I told him that. I also said we’d sign statements. Meanwhile, we should take the dog.”
I walk over to the hero. “I’m a lawyer. My name is Andy Carpenter. I’ll make sure this goes well for you.”
“It won’t.”
It’s a strange comment; I’m not sure why he is so negative about the situation. “Trust me. You did the right thing. You prevented dog abuse, and the asshole threw the first punch.”
He just shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter.”
“What’s your name?”
“Matt. Matt Jantzen. Will you take care of the dog?”
“Absolutely.” I take out my card and hand it to him. “Call me if you need help.”
“You think I should go down there?” I ask Laurie when we get home. We aborted the walk and didn’t stop for the bagels.
“The police station?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you do that?”
“To make sure he’s okay. I’m an eyewitness to the event.”
“You’re also a lawyer. Now you’re hunting for clients?”
The irony of this is not escaping Laurie. With more than enough money to retire as the result of a huge inheritance several years ago and some lucrative cases, and more than enough dislike for lawyering, I’ve been trying to avoid taking on clients for a number of years. That I’m rarely successful in that avoidance has not deterred me from continuing to try.
“You know better than that,” I say. “But since I’m already involved…”
She smiles. “And since he did what he did to protect a dog…”
She’s got me. “Guilty as charged. Besides, there was something about his attitude that was weird.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure. He said that things were not going to go well, but it wasn’t like he was worried. It was more like he was resigned to it.”
“Maybe he’s gotten into street fights before. And maybe the other times he started them.”
“He certainly knew how to handle himself. So you think I should go?”
“You gave him your card. I would imagine he’ll call you if he needs you. Or he can just dial 1–800-I’M RETIRED.”
I nod. “Okay, you’re right. The last thing I need to do is inject myself into this situation.” I point to the pug that we brought home with us. He is sleeping on a dog bed with Tara, looking like he’s lived here all his life. “What should we do with him?”
Laurie shrugs. “Let him sleep. But we’ll have to make a decision on what to do if his owner tries to get him back.”
“Come on, you know I’ve already made that decision, and so have you. We are not sending him back to get kicked again. That is a nonstarter; this dog is one client I would happily defend.”
I go over and look at his tag; I hadn’t thought to do that before. “His name is Hunter. He doesn’t look much like a hunter.”
Laurie smiles, leans over, and pets the sleeping, very comfortable dog. “Welcome, Hunter. Make yourself at home.”
Since we never got our bagels, I head back out to get some. I drive this time, which is my preference anyway. I get there faster, with little effort, and I don’t have to keep bending over to pick up dog shit.
Just as I’m just leaving the store, my cell phone rings. “Pete Stanton called. Matt Jantzen told him that you were his attorney,” Laurie says.
“Why?”
“I guess because you gave him your card, told him you were an attorney, and offered to help. Nice gestures have consequences, Andy.”
“No, I mean, why Pete?” Pete Stanton is a close friend, and the only officer on the entire Paterson police force that doesn’t hate me 100 percent of the time. Pete is a 50 percenter in that regard. But he’s also the captain of the Homicide Division; I have no idea why he would be involved in a street-fight case like this one.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe he was walking by and heard that they were trying to reach you. But then again, there might be more going on.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Pete said they are transferring Jantzen to the jail, and that you should head down there.”
“Could the creep who was kicking the dog have died? Maybe the punches jarred his tiny brain loose, or something.”
“You’ll find out soon enough, should you decide to go.”
“You know I’m going to go.”
I head straight down to the jail, which is about twenty minutes away. I take the bagels with me; I think Laurie and I might wind up having them for dinner. Special parking spaces are assigned to lawyers, and even though it pains me to think of myself as a lawyer, I’m not above taking one.
I’ve been here far too many times, but at least I know my way around, and I certainly know the cops who work here. They don’t like me, of course, because I am a defense attorney and a particularly obnoxious one at that. But they know that if they give me a hard time, I’ll file enough complaints to make their lives miserable. So they treat me professionally, with just a little snarling thrown in.
I ask the guy at the desk if Pete Stanton is around and he says, “No.”
That seems to resolve that issue, so I ask to see Matt Jantzen. I’m already listed as his attorney, and they seem to be expecting me, so it only takes a half hour to arrange the meeting. That is warp speed in jail time.
Jantzen is brought into the meeting room, already in prison garb and handcuffed. This seems like overkill for his street fight; clearly, something else is going on.
“Thanks for coming. I’m sorry to drag you into this, but I didn’t know who else to turn to. I’m not from around here.”
“Have you been arrested and booked?” I ask, though the answer is obvious.
He nods. “Yes.”
“For assault?”
“No. Murder.”
“The guy with the dog? Did he die?”
“No. Someone else. Two people, actually. Back in Maine. They ran my identification and it popped up that I was wanted. I knew it would. I guess it’s not important to
say it at this stage, but I am innocent of the charge.”
“Is Maine home?”
“That’s a bit of a story. It used to be home, and it was going to be home again, before this all started. But that doesn’t seem very important now. They’re talking about extraditing me. I didn’t know how to deal with that, which is why I asked them to call you. I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry about it. I volunteered because of how you protected that dog.”
“It was an instinct.”
“A good one. I’ll deal with the extradition request, but there’s no upside to your contesting it. It’s basically a formality; New Jersey will go along with it whether you fight it or not. Maine is making the request, not Yemen.”
He nods. “That’s what I figured. Thanks.”
“Do you have a criminal attorney in Maine?”
“No.” He shrugs. “I’ve gone my whole life without needing one.”
“I’ll see if I can get a recommendation. You have money to pay legal fees?”
“Yours?”
“No, I mean in Maine.”
He shakes his head. “No chance.”
“That may lessen the number of lawyers who want to take your case to somewhere in the zero range. Who are you alleged to have murdered?”
“Two people, a man and a woman. The guy is named Peter Charkin and the woman is Tina Welker. They were killed two years ago.”
“What was your relationship to them?”
“I didn’t have any. I never met either of them. I vaguely remember the murders, but I don’t think I ever knew their names until my sister told me about them.”
“How did your sister know about it?”
He shrugs. “It was all over the news back then. But I don’t have any idea if she knows any more than was public knowledge. I doubt it, but I never asked her. I’ve only known my sister for a few weeks.”
“I was thinking maybe I should go up to Maine,” I say.
Laurie smiles an irritating, knowing smile. “Is that what you were thinking?”
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