David Rosenfelt - New Tricks

I thank him and leave, and then call Kevin and tell him to hire an investigation agency that we sometimes use. I somehow forget to mention the part about making sure everyone is quiet and discreet; I want to learn who Diana Timmerman was there to see, and I don’t care if they have to set fire to the place to find out.

ANOTHER ONE OF MY STEREOTYPES IS about to unceremoniously bite the dust.

I hate when that happens; I like it much better when my ignorant, knee-jerk opinions about people and events are shown to be one hundred percent accurate.

This particular ill-fated stereotype concerns the people who enter their dogs in prestigious shows. I expect them all to be named Muffy or Buffy (I’m talking about the humans) and to eat watercress sandwiches and sniff about how hard it is to hire decent help these days.

When Martha Wyndham called to tell me she arranged a meeting for me with Barb Stanley in Greenwich, Connecticut, it made perfect sense. Connecticut’s snootiness quotient is way up there; as far as I know all people there do is play croquet, drink martinis, and eat bonbons.

Actually, even though I live in what is called the tristate area, which comprises New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, the latter is sort of a mystery state to me. I don’t even know what the people are called. Connecticutites? Connecticuttians?

In any event, my predispositions about the people being snobbish and superior don’t seem to be holding true at all. The woman I assume is Barb Stanley is in her early thirties, tall and thin and seemingly possessed of boundless energy. Her place of business, where we are meeting today, is an old warehouse, modernized and designed as a doggy day care facility. People drop their dogs off on the way to work, secure in the knowledge that the animals will have a blast running and playing with friends on some incredible equipment.

When I arrive she is running with the dogs, pausing every so often to roll around on the floor with them. I watch her for about ten minutes, and I don’t know how she does it. I wouldn’t last thirty seconds. The most amazing part of all is that the NY METS baseball cap she is wearing does not fall off. It must be cemented to her head.

She finally sees me, waves, and then jumps to her feet. She signals to another young woman, whom I hadn’t even noticed, and that woman comes over to play with the dogs. Their tongues are hanging, and I think one of them looks over to their imaginary coach to see if they have any time-outs left.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes,” I say. “Please tell me you’re tired.”

She laughs. “Not yet. But you should see me around four o’clock.”

“My name is Andy Carpenter…”

“Oh, right. Martha said you’d be by. I’m Barb Stanley.”

I nod. “She said you were an expert in showing dogs… the whole process.” I take another look at the dogs, back in play with their new leader. Very few of them look like purebreds. “Are any of these show dogs?”

She shakes her head. “No, although the springer in the back could be.”

She invites me back to her office, and when we get there she offers me a drink from a small refrigerator. I choose a bottle of water, and she takes one of the four or five million power drinks that are now on the market. Everybody seems to be drinking them, but I don’t think they work. These drinks are selling like crazy, yet the people I see on the street don’t seem any more powerful than they were ten years ago. Barb is the exception.

“So where do you want to start?” she asks.

“Do you show dogs yourself?”

She nods. “Sure.”

“Have you had any champions?” I ask.

“No, but I just missed a couple of times.”

“At Westminster?” I ask.

She laughs. “No, not even close.”

“Why do you do it?”

“I love it. I love the dogs, I love being around people who love dogs. It’s a lot of work, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I’m doing a show this weekend; you can come if you’d like.”

I say that I’d like that very much. “Is there a lot of money to be won?”

She laughs again. “Not by me.” Then, “Sure, the prizes for the big shows are very nice.”

“What’s the biggest prize you are personally aware of?” I ask.

“I think Westminster Best in Show is a hundred thousand dollars.”

So much for the money motive. In the world that Walter Timmerman inhabited, a hundred thousand dollars is tip money. And it is quite unlikely that it would have motivated a rival to go on a murder spree.

“Are you familiar with the Bernese who won Best in Show for Walter Timmerman?” I ask.

“Bertrand. Of course. The most perfect dog I’ve ever seen. I cried for two days when he died.”

“Did you know he had a son?”

“I hadn’t,” she said. “But I’ve since read about it. Is he in training?”

“Not yet,” I say. “Do you think he should be?”

She shrugs. “Only if he takes to it. Otherwise whoever has him should just let him be a dog.”

“Have you ever shown dogs at the same show as Walter Timmerman?”

She nods. “A few times… maybe five.”

“Do you know if he had any rivalries… was there any antagonism between him and another dog owner?”

“I really don’t know,” she says. “That’s a little above my world.”

“But have you known emotions to run high, because of the competition?”

She looks at me strangely. “Are you asking if someone could have murdered Walter Timmerman in order to win a dog show?”

I nod. “Yes.”

“Mr. Carpenter,” she says, “that’s crazy.”

I’m not prepared to tell her the really nutty part: that Waggy has been the target of a hit man. “Barb,” I say, “you don’t know the half of it.”

ACCORDING TO THE MORNING PAPER, a body was found in the Passaic River last night.

No identification has yet been made, but Pete Stanton, Willie Miller, Marcus, Laurie, and I all know that it will prove to be Jimmy Childs. Soon the world will know it as well. What the world will not know is that Childs killed Diana Timmerman, and almost certainly Walter as well. That particular secret will remain with Steven Timmerman’s idiot lawyer, Andy Carpenter.

Ordinarily, for a defense attorney to learn who the real killer is, and have that killer not be his client, is a major positive. It’s an out-and-out case winner. Yet I’ve managed to turn it into a negative by allowing that killer to himself be killed, so as never to be able to reveal all that he knows.

I’ve scheduled a meeting this morning to go over our current situation with Kevin and Laurie. The trial date is rapidly approaching, and while we have succeeded in accumulating some interesting information about Walter Timmerman, we are not yet able to connect it to a coherent defense for our client. Which is unfortunate, since that is our job.

Kevin brings with him the initial report from the investigators who questioned the employees of the Hamilton Hotel yesterday.

“We finally caught a break,” he says. “Five different people remembered Diana Timmerman being there.”

“Really?” I say. “I’m surprised.”

“Apparently, she was obnoxious. She even accused the bartender of using the wrong kind of vodka in her drink. People remember things like that.”

“Did they find out who she was there to see?”

Kevin nods. “Thomas Sykes. In each case he checked in for one night, and Diana Timmerman came to see him.”

“Now, that’s interesting,” I say.

“Who is Thomas Sykes?” Laurie asks.