Dog Tags

by David Rosenfelt

  Once she had them in hand, she opened the door to let Milo out. He jumped out of the car, tail wagging, since he enjoyed his time there. She didn’t put him on a leash; it would have been unnecessary and maybe even a little demeaning. Milo was not a dog to run off or disobey commands.

  “I’ll take the dog.”

  Sondra heard the words and whirled around to see Ray Childress, all six foot two and 230 pounds of him, holding a gun on her and not looking too pleased to be there. Dog-napping was beneath his dignity as a hit man, Childress felt, though the money he was getting for it certainly was more than enough to soothe his ego.

  Unfortunately for Childress, Milo also whirled around and saw the gun, and he immediately sprang into action. Without hesitation, he raced the four strides toward Ray and launched himself into the air.

  Childress was blessed with very quick reactions, and physically he would have had the time to point the gun and shoot it at Milo. His hesitation was mental, as he had been specifically told to take the dog, not to kill him.

  But Childress would be damned if he’d let the dog bite him; he’d rather kill him first, no matter what the instructions.

  Sondra watched Milo as he moved, so she didn’t see the other activity that rendered moot any decision making by Childress. As he raised the gun, and before Milo arrived, the left side of his skull was crushed by the side of Willie Miller’s hand, much in the way Willie used to break bricks at the end of his karate instruction classes.

  Childress was dead before he hit the ground. Milo, recognizing that there was no longer a live assailant to disarm, immediately paused and waited for further instructions, though none were forthcoming.

  Sondra was sobbing softly, and Willie put his arm around her. “I’m gonna go in and call nine-one-one,” he said.

  “What if he gets up?”

  Willie took a look at the fallen Childress and shook his head. “He ain’t getting up.”

  I AM THE SECOND CALL WILLIE MAKES, RIGHT AFTER 911. I dress quickly and drive down to the foundation; Laurie is at the gym, and though I call her, I don’t want to wait for her. I’m worried about Willie; since he’s an ex-con, even an exonerated one, I’m concerned about the treatment he will get.

  When I get there I find that Pete Stanton is on the scene and has already taken over the investigation, which pleases me greatly. Pete knows Willie well, and will not have a knee-jerk reaction against him.

  Laurie pulls up as I get out of the car, and we go straight over to Willie and Sondra, who are in the office. Once we make sure that Sondra is okay, I ask Willie to describe what happened, which he does.

  “Was he going to shoot Milo?” I ask.

  Willie shakes his head. “I don’t think so. If he were gonna do that, he wouldn’t have had to hold the gun on Sondra, or even come out in the open. The worm could have hidden in the bushes and shot Milo.”

  “What were you doing here?” I ask.

  “Watching Sondra and Milo, just in case.” He goes on to say that he hadn’t even told Sondra about it, because he didn’t want to make her nervous.

  “Have you told the story to Pete?”

  Willie nods. “Yeah, but he said he wants to question us more, and that we should wait here. He’s acting like a cop.”

  “He is a cop.” Willie and Pete are friends, and Willie expects special treatment. I know that Pete is first and foremost a terrific cop who will do his job the way it is supposed to be done. Dead people with crushed heads and guns make cops very careful.

  I go over to Pete, walking by the body still lying on the ground. The medical people and the coroner have arrived, and they will no doubt be removing it in a few minutes. It is not a pretty sight; the deceased man’s head looks like a cantaloupe that came in second in an argument with a bazooka.

  I have to wait ten minutes while Pete talks to his forensics people, who are photographing the scene and looking for physical evidence. When he’s finished, he comes over to me.

  “What’s going on?” I ask, leaving the question open-ended.

  “What’s going on? Your partner killed a guy with a sledgehammer that’s attached to his shoulder.”

  “A guy who was attempting a kidnapping with a deadly weapon,” I point out.

  Pete nods. “Don’t worry; you don’t have another client on your hands. Willie’s clean on this.”

  I’m surprised that he’s making such a definitive statement so early in a situation like this. “Who’s the dead guy?” I ask.

  “Name is Ray Childress.”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell,” I say.

  “It rings plenty of bells,” Pete says. “You just can’t hear them.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “He is, or was, available for hire. Not usually for kidnappings, almost always for hits. And believe me, he didn’t come cheap.”

  That explains why Willie is finding a receptive audience for his recounting of the events. It’s completely credible that Childress had bad intentions, and Willie’s reactions were perfectly logical and legal. “Any idea who hired him this time?” I ask.

  “I could ask you the same thing. You know more about this situation with the dog than I do.”

  I shrug. “Anything I might know is protected by attorney–client privilege.”

  “I got you the damn client,” he points out.

  I nod. “I know; I’m so grateful my eyes are filled with tears. You can take comfort in the fact that I don’t have a clue what’s going on.”

  “What a surprise,” he says, and goes back to work.

  It’s another three hours until I can get Willie and Sondra out of there. We spend the time taking care of the dogs, which is especially important since the volunteers are turned away from the crime scene.

  As we’re getting ready to leave, I tell Willie that I’m going to keep Milo at my house for a while. “He can stay there without having to leave, and the backyard is fenced in and protected.”

  “Andy, I want to be a part of this,” Willie says.

  “Part of what?”

  “Finding out what the hell is going on. Somebody sent that piece of shit to hold a gun on Sondra; I want to find out who that is and deal with him.”

  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the look on Willie’s face that I see now. If I don’t get him involved, he’s going to go off on his own. “I hear you,” I say. “You can be a big part of it.”

  He nods. “Good. Damn good.”

  LAURIE AND I HEAD HOME WITH A NEW PROBLEM. It’s not just how to successfully defend Billy, or figure out what the hell is going on. This particular problem is sitting in the backseat, head out the half-opened window, smiling as if he’s the Grand Shepherd in the Rose Bowl Parade.

  “How are we going to take care of and protect Milo without all of us getting killed in the process?” I ask. “The floor is open to suggestions.”

  “I think you should work out of the house for now,” Laurie says. “That way we’ll be around more to watch him.”

  “Good idea.”

  “And we need to get Marcus. He should be Milo’s bodyguard.”

  “Been there, done that,” I say. Marcus had watched over a show dog that I was involved with in a previous case, and who was also in danger, though for very different reasons. The major drawback was that feeding Marcus proved to be a full-time job; his capacity to eat is stunning, and he does it at all hours of the day and night.

  “It’s either Marcus or you have to bring in a marine battalion,” Laurie says.

  “They would probably eat less.”

  “Andy, this is a serious threat we’re dealing with. Sondra could have been killed today, to say nothing about Milo.”

  I know that she’s right, but since it makes me somewhat uncomfortable that Marcus and I even occupy the same planet, the idea of once again having him as a housemate is daunting. “Don’t you need him as an investigator?”

  “Not right now; if I can’t handle things on my own I’ll bring somebody else in.”

 
“What about Willie? He wants to help catch the bad guys.”

  I know Laurie isn’t thrilled with that idea. She loves Willie and respects his physical ability and street smarts, but she believes that investigators should be professionals. “If I can use him I will,” she says.

  I spend the next few minutes pondering the recent changes in my life. I’ve got a new client that I don’t want, a murder trial that I dread, a new dog that’s a direct descendant of Jesse James, and a full-time houseguest that could kick the shit out of Godzilla.

  And then there’s another problem. “Who’s going to tell Tara about Milo?” I ask.

  “She’ll be fine,” Laurie says. “She loved having Waggy around.” She’s referring to a show dog who stayed with us, a wild puppy with whom Tara showed incredible patience.

  “I’m telling her that it’s your fault,” I say.

  When we get home, we bring Tara around to the backyard and do the introduction there, since we’ve had good luck with that in the past. It is rather uneventful; Tara and Milo spend a few minutes sniffing various parts of each other’s bodies before Tara lies down.

  Milo, for his part, seems more interested in exploring his new surroundings. Once he’s done so, we bring them both inside. They lie down near each other and go to sleep.

  “See?” Laurie asks. “I told you there would be no problem.”

  “So far, so good.” My admission is grudging, because I know what’s coming.

  “Do you want to call Marcus, or should I?” she asks.

  “You should.”

  Laurie nods, picks up the phone, and dials the number. What follows is a perfectly normal situation; in a million years I would never guess that she was talking to Marcus.

  When she hangs up, she says, “He’ll be here at four o’clock.”

  “Okay. I’ll go rent a moving van.”

  “What for?”

  “Food.”

  Before I start making the rounds of grocery stores, I turn my attention to the impact that today’s events will have on Billy’s case.

  My initial goal is becoming more clear each day. While Eli will attempt to portray Erskine’s death as a simple robbery-murder, I must find a way to introduce the outside elements into the case. Included in this will be the mysterious envelope and what it might say about Erskine’s past and shady dealings.

  It will not be easy to get evidence like this admitted, and I’ll have to learn much more before I have a chance. But events like today’s can only help. A hit man trying to steal or kill Milo shows that there are other bad people and motives involved in this case. If I can present this kind of evidence to a jury, with a credible theory behind it, it can’t help but introduce some element of reasonable doubt.

  I tell all this to Laurie, after which she says, “And he knows something important.” She’s pointing across the room at Milo, now sharing a dog bed with Tara. “It’s hard to imagine, but under those great ears lies the secret to the case.”

  I nod. “But he’s not talking. I called Juliet Corsinita, the dog trainer, and she has some ideas, but warned it will be tough.”

  “You’ll figure it out.”

  I shrug. “Maybe. As long as Marcus is able to keep him from getting killed first.”

  “They’re not trying to kill him,” Laurie says. “Willie was right about that. Hit men don’t behave the way this one did if the goal is to kill. They take their best shot the moment it presents itself, and that would have been as soon as Milo got out of the car.”

  Laurie and Willie are both clearly right. The area behind the foundation building was secluded and the perfect spot for Childress to have shot Milo, if that was his intent. There would have been no reason to take him somewhere else to do it.

  “Childress is a key,” I say.

  “Or he would have been if Willie hadn’t smashed in his skull.”

  “That’s unfortunate, but it still leaves us an area to pursue. At the risk of a bad pun, Childress had no dog in this fight. Somebody bought him, and the person who did that is the one we want.”

  “Those kind of people don’t leave tracks,” Laurie says. “They don’t make these kinds of purchases with credit cards.”

  “That’s why investigators like you exist,” I say. “That’s why I pay you the big bucks.”

  “You aren’t paying me a dime.”

  “You’re forgetting room and board, use of a car, sexual favors…”

  “I think we need to renegotiate the terms,” she says.

  I nod. “Okay, everything is on the table except the sexual favors. That’s a deal breaker.”

  PETE STANTON CALLS AND INVITES ME TO LUNCH, AS LONG AS HE PICKS THE PLACE AND I PAY. He chooses a steak house in Fort Lee, probably the most expensive one in New Jersey. I don’t think that Pete is jealous of my wealth; he doesn’t seem the type to want things that he can’t afford. It’s not that he wants more money; it’s simply that he wants me to have less.

  But he says that he has information for me on the case, and he knows that’s something I can’t ignore, regardless of the size of the lunch check.

  For some reason, the more expensive the restaurant, the more cloying the service. We spend the first ten minutes at the table answering questions about our preferences from the various waiters, when my first preference is for them to ask us what we want, serve the food, and leave us alone.

  Even the water provokes an inquisition. Do we want bottled water or tap? Flat or sparkling? What about ice? In exasperation I finally say that I want sparkling tap water with flat ice, which results in an “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t understand,” and more questions.

  We finally order our food, though Pete’s ordering his steak well done causes some apoplexy from the waiter. He tries to talk Pete out of it, but gives up when Pete says, “When the cook thinks it’s just right, cook it another ten minutes. And cook the french fries another twenty.”

  “The pommes frites?” the waiter asked, in some confusion.

  Pete nods. “Sure, throw some of those in, too.”

  Pete asks for the wine list, and orders an expensive bottle of “Château-something.” “But don’t open it,” he says to the waiter, staring at me as he talks. “I’m going to take it home.”

  When the waiter finally leaves, I say, “What the hell was that about?”

  He shrugs. “I can’t drink when I’m on duty.”

  I decide to let that non sequitur die an ignored death. “So what information do you have for me?”

  He waits to finish chewing his third piece of bread before saying, “I ran a check on the license plate.”

  “And?”

  “It was stolen off a car in South Jersey.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yup.”

  “I’ve learned more about water options from the waiter than I’ve learned about the case from you.”

  “Hey, you asked me to run the plate and I ran it.”

  “Right. Great job,” I say. “Where do you stand on Childress?”

  “He’s dead.”

  Pete is starting to annoy me, which is not a major departure from the status quo. “I’m aware of that. Who hired him?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  “You’re a detective, so I was hoping you could detect something.”

  He shrugs. “Not so far.”

  “Who’s hired him in the past? Petrone?” Vincent Petrone is the unchallenged head of organized crime in North Jersey. I’ve had a number of dealings with him in the past. It’s uncomfortable for me, because at any moment he could decide to have me killed. That doesn’t make for a particularly close and trusting relationship.

  “Maybe, but I have nothing to connect him to this. It doesn’t seem to fit.”

  “Why not?” I ask.

  “Well, besides the fact that Petrone has never done much dog-napping, he pretty much sticks to North Jersey. Erskine wasn’t local, and whatever was going on feels much bigger, probably international, especially if the Childress piec
e is a part of it.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because a hundred grand was wired into Childress’s bank account the day before Willie nailed him. From a Swiss account.”

  I’m surprised to hear this. “Traceable?

  “Of course not. If they were okay with it being traced, they could have sent it from a bank in New Jersey. What the hell would they need Switzerland for?”

  “How do you know about the wire transfer?” I ask.

  He looks insulted. “Hey, I’m a detective. I detected it.”

  “What else haven’t you told me?”

  He points to my mouth. “Well, I didn’t want to say anything, but you’ve got a bread seed or something stuck between your teeth.”

  “Anybody making any progress on Erskine or the envelope?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “Not my case.”

  “I know, but you would be aware if something developed. Your friend is in jail, remember?”

  “Which is why nothing is likely to happen. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but once we detectives think a murderer is in jail, we tend to focus on other cases.”

  I know this is true; it’s human police nature to consider a case closed when the arrest is made. If Billy is behind bars and guilty, why not work on something else? There is certainly never a shortage of unsolved crimes.

  “I need you to get me something,” I say. “I could go through the court, but I might not get it, and it would take too long if I did.”

  He stares at me, as if trying to intimidate me from even asking the favor. “What might that be?” he says.

  “I need a piece of Erskine’s unwashed clothing. Something with his scent on it.”

  “You are a sicko,” he says. “Maybe you want his underwear?”

  “The dog trainer says it may help in getting Milo to lead us to the envelope.”

  “And you think I have Erskine’s clothes lying around?”

  “I think you know people who can get a piece.”

  It takes a while, but he promises to see what he can do. The only thing I get out of the rest of the lunch is the check, which includes a two-hundred-dollar charge for the bottle of chardonnay.