As Dog Is My Witness (4 page)

“Is there anything else you need to tell me—like they
found him hovering over the body with blood on his hands? Some
other little detail you might have overlooked?”

“Well,” Lori said, “did I mention he’s
confessed?”

“No,” I told her. “I think that might have slipped
your mind.”

“
T
here’s something I
haven’t told you,” Abby said.

I was in the bedroom, unpacking my bag, and she was
almost through putting the bed back together. We almost never make
the bed in the morning, and since I hadn’t been there today, only
Abby’s side was mussed. I took a pile of clothes out of my travel
bag and dumped them into the hamper.

“You’re not going to tell me you’re really a man, are
you?” I asked. “Because I was present at the births of our
children, and would be completely surprised.”

“I talked to my brother a couple of days ago,” she
said, ignoring my attempt at wit.

“How is Howard?” I asked, trying to keep my voice
neutral.

Abby’s older brother Howard is everything I’m
not—tall, successful, serious—did I mention successful?—so
naturally he wonders what the heck his baby sister ever saw in me.
He began expressing these doubts sometime during the second Reagan
Administration, and he hasn’t stopped since. I, of course, have
responded with the level of maturity and logic you’d expect—in
private, I moan piteously to my wife. Maturity means different
things to different people.

“He’s fine. He and Andrea are bringing Dylan for a
visit in a couple of days.” Abby looked at me, daring me to react,
and I did my best not to move a facial muscle. It took effort, and
made me greater appreciate the Keanu Reeves School of Acting.

A visit from Abby’s brother and his family—especially
his fifteen-year-old son Dylan, the sports star, honor student,
class president, and all-around pain in the rear—meant constant
reminders of what a screw-up I am, and pressure to keep Ethan, the
anti-Dylan, from having a melt-down when the families actually have
to be together. I was not, let’s say, enthusiastic about the
forthcoming visit.

“Where are they going to be staying?” I asked,
knowing that the three of them probably wouldn’t be commuting back
and forth to St. Paul, Minnesota every night—although a man can
dream.

“Well, I thought maybe they could stay here,” she
mumbled.

Keanu Reeves be damned—my jaw dropped. “Tell me
you’re kidding.”

“They couldn’t get a hotel, Aaron.”

I almost dropped the shaving kit in my hand. “Oh,
come on, Abby,” I said. “They couldn’t get a hotel in Central New
Jersey during the third week in December? Yeah, this is the big
tourist season here in the greater New Brunswick area. Let’s face
it—your brother, despite having more money than everyone on this
block put together, is tighter than J. Lo’s jeans.”

“All right, so he’s a little thrifty.”

“Scrooge McDuck is a little thrifty. Your brother is
cheap.”

“Aaron, he’s my brother.”

She gave me a look that indicated the night might not
turn out the way I’d hoped, and I softened my tone as I slammed the
closet door, hoping the recently inserted travel bag wouldn’t fall
out. “Okay, so they’re staying here. Where? Where will the three of
them sleep?”

Abby sat down on the bed, dressed in pajama pants and
a New Jersey Bar Association t-shirt. Luckily, I’ve had years of
practice suppressing the impulse to launch myself at her whenever I
want. “I thought Howard and Andrea could have the sofa bed in the
basement, and Dylan could use a sleeping bag on the floor in
Ethan’s room.”

“Ethan’s room? You want to put the two of them in one
bedroom? Are you serious?”

“Well, I can’t put him in Leah’s room, and I don’t
think we want him in here. It’s just seven days, Aaron. And Dylan’s
not a bad kid.”

“You have a blind spot, Abby,” I said, sinking into
the bed. “Dylan and Ethan are oil and water. It’s going to be very
tough.”

She looked at me with wide-open, clear, intelligent
eyes. I would have to spend an hour in the freezer to return to a
completely solid state. “Honey, I want to have some kind of a
relationship with my brother. I want our families to get along.
That’s not too much to ask, is it?”

I touched her hand, and uncharacteristically, she
melted into my arms. Women have any number of ways to assert their
superiority over men, and Abby is in the top two percent of women
in virtually every category.

“No,” I said, “it’s not.”

She kissed me. Men have any number of ways to get
women to sleep with them. I’m in the bottom ten percent in that
category, but I’m great at agreeing with my wife when she’s
right.

T
he next morning, I resumed
my regular mélange of activities— food prepared and packaged, hair
brushed, teeth cleaned, clothes located, dog cleaned up-after,
exercise postponed, and loved ones sent out the front door.

To gain access to the people I’d need to interview
for the Justin Fowler story, I decided it would help to have an
assignment from a publication of some kind. It wouldn’t be an awful
thing, I decided, if I could make some money from the
investigation. So as soon as nine a.m. rolled around, I called
Lydia Soriano, the features editor at
Snapdragon
Magazine,
with whom I had worked once before on a murder-related story.

Lydia was, of course, at her desk at nine exactly.
She is a warm and humorous person (you reading this, Lydia? Give me
work!) despite being a remarkably efficient and talented editor. In
the freelance biz, you once in a while get lucky.

With an editor you don’t know, you generally send a
pitch letter or “query letter,” which these days is usually done by
email or fax. You detail the story you have in mind, tell the
editor why s/he would be a complete and total idiot for ignoring
it, and mention a couple of things near the bottom of the page
about what a talented and award-winning journalist you are, even
though you’ve won only one award, and it was for second place
. . .  and the publication you were working for kept
the certificate. Hey, an award’s an award.

When the editor is one with whom you’ve worked
before, you call up and say, “How about this?” which is quicker and
more efficient than doing it the other way, and keeps you, the
freelance writer, in the editor’s thoughts. Even if the story
you’re pitching isn’t one the editor decides to use, an assignment
lying there on his/her desk might suddenly seem perfect for your
magic touch.

All of which is to say that I knew Lydia, and even
though I considered it a long shot that Snapdragon would care about
a murder in North Brunswick, New Jersey, pitching her was a better
bet than sending a letter out to some editor I didn’t know and wait
until the letter, by some miracle, was read.

“I called you a few days ago, Aaron,” she said. “I
told your wife, ‘I don’t have anything for you right now.’”

“Isn’t it possible I’m just calling to see how you
are?” I asked. “Don’t you think maybe I’m concerned about your
welfare?”

“No.”

“Okay, you got me. But I have something you might be
able to use.” I told her the basic facts as I understood them: a
well-to-do North Brunswickian named Michael Huston had been shot
with what appeared to be an antique pistol while walking his dog
three nights ago. A young man who worked in a gun shop, Justin
Fowler, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, had been arrested and
charged.

“Doesn’t sound like much,” Lydia said. “They caught
the guy who did it.”

“Well, there are those who think he
didn’t
do
it,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but he confessed.” I had debated telling her
that part, and was kicking myself for not doing so.

“People with Asperger’s often fall prey to the good
cop/bad cop thing,” I told her. “They’ll do anything for someone
they perceive as a friend, even confess to a crime they didn’t
commit.”

“What is this Ass . . .  what? It
sounds like a fast food item made from donkeys.”

“My son has Asperger’s, Lydia,” I said.

“Oops. I’m sorry, Aaron.” I actually didn’t mind all
that much. Putting an editor in a weak position is never a bad
idea.

“It’s okay. But I’m saying I understand the
condition. That’s what the story’s about. They say more than two
million people in this country have AS, and most of them don’t know
it. Here’s a great way to dramatize what it’s all about.”

She hummed a little to herself as she thought about
it. “Still, it’s a local murder in New Jersey. Last time we worked
together, it was a national story”—and one I’ve told elsewhere. It
involved a toupee, a former high school sex symbol, and a six-inch
kitchen knife.

“This is a national story,” I pushed. “It’s about a
disorder that strikes someone resembling people all your readers
will know. In fact, I’ll bet you know somebody with Asperger’s,
even if there’s one degree of separation.”

“Well, I know your son,” she said.

“See?”

“Five hundred words, Aaron,” Lydia finally said. My
freelancer’s mind immediately calculated the fee at $1,000. Not
great, but you don’t turn down work. Besides, I was going to be
covering this story with or without an assignment.

“That’s not much,” I said. Nobody ever got anywhere
in this business being timid.

“It’s five hundred more words than I intended to give
you,” she said.

“Good point,” I said.

A
rmed with a fresh and
legitimate magazine assignment, I forwarded the calls from my home
phone to my cell phone and drove south out of Midland Heights
through Highland Park, then across the Albany Street Bridge to Rt.
18, which eventually led to Rt. 1 South, and North Brunswick. The
whole trip took less than fifteen minutes.

Lori had given me Justin Fowler’s address, and
informed his mother that I’d be coming by. The house was blue,
vinyl sided, with a small screened-in porch, and a tiny, nicely
tended lawn.

Mary Fowler answered the door practically before I
rang. She must have been watching through the front window and seen
me drive up, because I was still smoothing out my coat when the
door opened.

She looked tired. Having a son with Asperger’s will
wear anyone out, and she’d begun the task ten years before Ethan
was born. Having a son accused of murder greatly compounded the
burden. Still, she offered a warm hand, and I took it.

“Mr. Tucker, I presume,” she said. “Lori told me
you’d be here soon.”

“Lori never lies,” I answered, establishing our
common bond. “And she never lets a parent down. May I come in?”

Mary looked embarrassed and opened the screen door a
little wider. “Sorry,” she said. “Where are my manners?”