David Rosenfelt - Dog Tags

Finally, a statement that I’m sure is true.

I promise Billy that I’ll do my best, then I head home rather than to the office. I find I do my best thinking when I’m walking Tara, and some productive thinking is certainly going to be required here. A law enforcement system that considers it necessary to put an armed guard around a dog is not going to passively let that dog walk out the door.

Whatever the approach I decide on, it’s going to take an ample dose of legal maneuvering. To that end I call Kevin. He and Kelly had decided not to take a honeymoon, since they were to be leaving for Bangladesh in less than two weeks.

“Kev, we’ve got a case.”

“You’ve got a case” is his response. “I’m going to Bangladesh.”

“What’s your rush?”

“Poverty, hunger, illiteracy…”

“And you think if you don’t hurry and get there all that stuff will be gone?” I’m admittedly sounding pathetic, but I really could use Kevin’s help.

“Andy, I wish I could help you, but I can’t.”

“Okay,” I say. “I understand. I guess my not losing the ring doesn’t mean you owe me.”

“Is the client at least a human this time?”

“Damn close. He’s a German shepherd, but a really smart one.” I tell Kevin the basics of the case, and I can tell he’s intrigued by it, but he’s firm that he and Kelly are off to save the world.

“Get Eddie Lynch,” he says. “He writes legal briefs that make mine look like they were done with crayon.”

“Kevin, he’s Mr. Doom and Gloom.”

“He thinks of himself as a realist. In any event, there are two reasons you should have him write the briefs.”

“And they are?”

“He’ll do a great job, and when he does, you won’t have to.”

The man has a point.

CHAPTER 11

TARA IS NOT AS YOUNG AS SHE USED TO BE, but you could never tell that by her attitude when we go for a walk.

Her tail is always wagging, her nose is always sniffing, and she’s always alert to her surroundings. When she hears an unusual sound, her ears perk up and she looks around to see if a new adventure awaits her.

I admire her in terms of her attitude toward life, and I would like to emulate it. Unfortunately, I can’t get my ears to perk.

In any event, while I don’t think I have ever encountered a golden retriever who is less than extraordinary, Tara has somehow ascended to an even higher level.

Many people, when talking about their dogs, laughingly praise them by saying that the dog thinks it’s human, as if being human is something a dog might aspire to. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent a lot of time dealing with the criminal justice system, but the average dog I know is paws and shoulders above my species.

Dogs almost unanimously possess dignity, compassion, and innate intelligence. In these areas, humans tend to be a little more hit or miss. But Tara rises above them all.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit of a dog lunatic.

The task at hand is to represent Milo against the system that has imprisoned him. In addition to having no idea what kind of tactic to use, I don’t even know what I want the final result to be. If I get him out, where will he go, with his owner in prison? And if an armed guard is necessary to protect him in the shelter, who will protect him on the outside?

On the other hand, I am keenly aware that a dog’s life is all too short. The average life expectancy for a German shepherd is twelve years, and every day spent in a cage is a day he’ll never get back.

By the time I get back from my walk with Tara, I have reaffirmed my decision to get Milo out. I just have to figure out how.

Laurie is waiting for us at home when we arrive. She has taken something of a career turn since she moved back to New Jersey and in with me. Her previous résumé includes stints as a cop in Paterson, a private investigator working mostly for me, and a year as the police chief of Findlay, Wisconsin.

Last year, while visiting me in New Jersey, she was shot and badly wounded. Still suffering mild aftereffects of her injury, she decided to teach criminology at nearby William Paterson University. It’s no surprise to me that she fully embraced this new line of work, or that she loves it.

I relate the situation to her over dinner, spending most of my time describing Billy’s rather cavalier attitude about his predicament, and the fact that he knows more than he’s willing to reveal.

She stops me midstory. “I’m sorry, Andy, but none of that is important, at least not now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your goal is to help the dog, right? So all you need to focus on is how to get him out of the shelter. The rest of the stuff doesn’t matter.”

“Except that whatever is behind this is the reason they’re paying so much attention to him. Most dogs in the shelter don’t have their own bodyguards.”

She shakes her head. “It still doesn’t matter. You’re going to fight it out on legal grounds; they either have the right to keep Milo or they don’t. And it doesn’t sound like they would be willing to make everything public anyway.”

She’s right, of course, but it still leaves me without a concrete plan of action. “The legal grounds are the problem,” I say. “At the moment I don’t have any. I don’t even know what their official reason is for keeping him.”

“What could it be?”

“As far as I know, the only valid reason for keeping the dog would be if he was dangerous. If he had bitten someone.”

“He didn’t, right?”

“Not as far as I know. All he did was steal an envelope.”

She smiles. “So he’s a thief. You’ve represented a few of those before, haven’t you?”

“Never. All my clients are innocent.” I say this with a straight face, but Laurie clearly knows better.

“So then defend Milo like you defended them.”

I think about it for a few moments, and the idea that is forming in my mind causes me to smile.

“You know something? I can do that.”

CHAPTER 12

“YOU’RE HERE TO TALK ABOUT HIS DOG?” Eli Morrison is obviously surprised by my announcement, and probably more than a little annoyed. As the county attorney handling the Billy Zimmerman murder case, he cleared his schedule to make time for me when I told him Billy had hired me, and that an immediate meeting was necessary.

Eli is considered an old-timer in the prosecutor’s office: His tenure there began when my father was in charge of the department. He’s one of the few who never attempted to use it as a stepping-stone to a more lucrative career on the defense side, or for political gain.

We’ve had a pretty good relationship over the years, and I can’t say that about too many prosecutors.

In this case, chances are Eli figured I was going to broach the possibility of a plea bargain for Billy, though I don’t know if he would have been amenable to it or not.

“Yes,” I say. “His name is Milo, and he’s being unfairly detained.”

“He’s a dog, Andy,” he explains, though I assume he knows that I’m already aware of that.

“He’s a dog with rights.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Why are you holding him?” I ask.

“Well, for one thing, he’s a thief. Witnesses saw him run off with an envelope that we believe belonged to the victim. We’ve also tied him to two other thefts that he and Zimmerman pulled off over the last few months.”

“So why don’t you charge him?”

“Charge who? The dog?”

“Yes. And his name is Milo; it’s demeaning to keep calling him ‘the dog.’”

Eli laughs, demonstrating an ability to move from incredulity to amusement. “You want me to charge the dog… Milo… with theft?”