David Rosenfelt - New Tricks

“You’ve got your cake and you’re eating it.” It comes off as a little petulant, probably because it is.

“I know you’re not satisfied, Andy. And I’m not, either. I just don’t know how to make it better.”

“For now you should just worry about getting better.”

“I am,” she says. Then, “I’d like to go with you tomorrow night.”

“To the dog show?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I need to get out of the house; it will help me feel alive again.”

“You think you’re up to it?”

“Why? What are you going to do there?”

I shrug. “Hang out… I guess look at dogs for a while.”

She smiles. “I should be able to handle that. That’s what I do here.”

I could argue with her, but I’d lose. Which would be fine, because I’d want to lose. “It’s a date,” I say.

THOMAS SYKES seems less happy to see me this time.

I find that’s not unusual in my interpersonal relationships; my sunny disposition is usually good for one relatively pleasant meeting. Two max.

“Let’s make this brief, Mr. Carpenter. Say what you came here to say. Ask what you came here to ask.”

“Here’s the way I work, Mr. Sykes. I ask a lot of questions, and people give me answers. Then I ask some more questions, and sometimes I find out that the previous answers that people gave me weren’t true. They were lies. That’s what happened in this case, with you.”

“Lies?”

“Yes. You told me you barely knew Diana Timmerman. Hardly well enough to say hello. Then I find out that she visited you repeatedly at a hotel in New York. Based on my definition, that qualifies as lying.”

Sykes smiles. “Believe it or not, there could be some private matters that I might not want to share with you.”

“The woman was murdered,” I say. “That makes this a rather public matter.”

“Our relationship had nothing whatsoever to do with her death.

That I can say without fear of contradiction.”

“Just what was your relationship?”

“We had an affair.”

I’m surprised that he comes right out and says this. “Which was still going on when she died?”

“I don’t really know how to answer that. The last time I saw her was about a week before Walter’s death. Whether I would have seen her in the future or not, I really don’t know.”

“So their marriage was in trouble?”

He smiles. “I’m not sure what that means. Obviously, she was not completely faithful, and my understanding was that he was not, either. But to say the marriage was in trouble, does that mean it was nearing an end?”

“Possibly, yes.”

“I can’t imagine Walter would have given her a divorce. It would have been a public humiliation for him, and a financial disaster.”

“No prenup?”

“Diana? No way. I wasn’t kidding when I told you she was a woman who knew what she wanted.”

“You’re going to have to testify to all of this at the trial,” I say. “Why?” he asks, but he doesn’t seem fearful or concerned, just amused.

“Because generally in a murder case it’s good to explore what the victims were doing, and who they were doing it with.”

He shrugs. “I’m not married; I can handle the embarrassment.” I nod. “Can I use your phone?”

He points to the phone on his desk. “Help yourself.”

I go to the phone and pick up the receiver. “Do I dial nine?” Sykes shakes his head. “No, it’s a private line.”

I dial Sam Willis’s number, and he answers on the first ring. “I got the number,” he says. “The dope didn’t block it.”

I pretend that I’m talking to a machine. “Kevin, it’s Andy, give me a call at the office later.”

Sam laughs and hangs up, and I hang up as well.

“Thanks,” I say to Sykes.

He smiles. “No problem.” He’s held up pretty well under my less-than-withering questioning.

“By the way, you said that it was your understanding that Walter Timmerman was fooling around as well. Any idea who he was doing it with?”

“Not a clue,” he says.

As soon as I get outside, I call Sam Willis again and tell him that I’ve left. He promises to call me back with any information as soon as he can.

When I return to the house, Laurie tells me that Cindy Spodek called: The agent in charge of the task force investigating Walter Timmerman has agreed to see me. She will be setting up the meeting at a convenient time for everyone, and will be coming down to New York to join us.

I’m not surprised that the agent has decided to meet with me; Cindy would have represented me as being credible, and the chance to find out who killed Timmerman must be very appealing to him.

I’m very interested in having that meeting, but my interest increases tenfold when Sam Willis calls me. I instructed Sam to find out who, if anyone, Thomas Sykes called when I left his office. My assumption was that Sykes was at least somewhat worried by what I had to say, and that if he had any kind of accomplice in whatever he was doing, he would call that person and alert him.

“He made one call immediately after you left his office,” Sam says. “The call lasted eight minutes.”

“Who did he call?”

“The FBI.”

LAURIE AND I can barely find a place to park at the dog show, and we’ve arrived almost an hour before it starts. It’s taking place at a large civic center in southern Connecticut, but given the packed nature of the parking lot, you would think we were at Giants Stadium for a play-off game.

“I’m surprised no one is tailgating,” I say as we get out of the car.

“You are hereby notified that you have just used up your quota of puns for the evening,” Laurie says.

“One? That’s all? What kind of quota is that?”

“Sorry, that’s my ruling.”

We go into the ticket-buying area, where a sign tells us that upper-level seats are the only ones available. That’s not a problem for the well-connected Andy Carpenter, because Barb Stanley has left tickets for us at the will-call window.

We get the tickets and hand them to the woman letting people in, and she informs us that we are allowed down in the prep area, which is what Barb had told me. So that’s where we go.

We walk into a room that is truly hard to believe. It is divided into walled cubicles, maybe fifty of them, each one containing one dog and anywhere from one to three humans. In each case the dogs are the absolute center of attention, as the humans fuss over them and talk to them, frequently in a baby-talk kind of voice.

It reminds me of a boxing match between rounds, where the fighter sits on the stool and he gets worked on by the cut man and given guidance by his trainer. One major difference is that fighters occasionally pay attention to their trainers, while these dogs couldn’t be less interested in what is being said to them.

Barb Stanley sees us, waves, and comes over. “Andy, glad you could make it.”

I introduce her to Laurie, and she offers to show us around. The tour really involves little more than what we have already seen, just more of it. We won’t be going out into the main area where the competition takes place until later.

All the dogs are very large, and I recognize a Saint Bernard, a bullmastiff, a Great Dane, and a Bernese mountain dog like Waggy. It’s a little disconcerting to see big, powerful dogs like this being fussed over; it would be like watching someone apply eye shadow and lipstick to a middle linebacker.

“These are called working dogs,” says Barb, but the truth is, I don’t think any of them have worked a day in their collective lives. I’m feeling a little envious.