Dog Tags (6 page)

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.”

“Y
OU’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?”

“No, I want you to let him go.”

“Where is he going to go?” he asks.

“That’s not your problem.”

“Andy, this thing you have with dogs may not be completely healthy. Maybe you should see a shrink.” He laughs again. “Or a
trainer.”

“Look, Eli, I’m handling this as a favor for a friend. If you can’t release the dog because he stole something, that’s your
call. But just so I can close the lid on this thing, can you write me a letter to that effect? I’d really appreciate it.”

“Sure. No problem.”

“Thanks. Let me know when it’s ready and I’ll have it picked up.”

“Anytime tomorrow morning,” he says. “Now, you’re not representing Zimmerman for the murder?”

“Nope. Just Milo.”

“This has been a pretty weird meeting.”

“Really?” I ask, standing up. “For me it’s just business as usual.”

I leave Eli’s office having accomplished everything I wanted.
Once I get the letter from him accusing Milo of being a four-legged crook, I need to get another letter from Billy. After
that I’ll be able to make my legal move, which will be at best a long shot.

Unfortunately, there’s actual work, detail-oriented work, that goes into the legal process. It’s unfortunate because the actual
work, especially the detail-oriented work, is the part I hate.

With Kevin unavailable, I definitely need someone to help me. My choices are to ask around and start interviewing prospective
candidates, or hire Eddie Lynch, the incurable pessimist that Kevin recommended. The first approach would involve a substantial
commitment of time and energy from me, while the second approach would consist of making one phone call.

Mmmm… many hours of work, or one phone call. What to do? What to do?

“Eddie?” I say when he picks up the phone. “Andy Carpenter. We met at Kevin’s wedding.”

“I remember,” he says. “I hope you didn’t eat the crab cakes. I had diarrhea every twenty minutes for two days.”

“Well, I—”

“It left me with hemorrhoids the size of basketballs. I can’t sit down without tipping over.”

“Thanks for sharing that,” I say. “I was calling to see if you were interested in doing some legal work with me on a case.
Kevin recommended you.”

I can almost see him shrug through the phone. “Might as well.”

“Great, Eddie. That’s the kind of enthusiasm we’re going to need.”

“Call me Hike,” he reminds me. “What’s the case?”

I tell him all about Milo, and my plan to get him out. “That’s not bad,” he says, grudgingly. “I like it. We’ll probably get
our clock cleaned, but I like it.”

We talk about the legal brief he will write supporting our position, and I’m impressed by how quickly he grasps it. I shouldn’t
be surprised; Kevin told me what a brilliant lawyer Hike is, and I would pretty much take Kevin’s word on something like that
over anybody’s.

We come to terms on an hourly rate that I will pay him; the fact that he agrees immediately means I could have gotten him
for less. We plan to meet at my office the next morning. I ask him if he’ll stop off at the jail and get the letter from Billy,
and he’s fine with that. He’ll also stop at Eli’s office and pick up the promised document about Milo.

My sense is that as long as Hike’s getting paid by the hour, he’ll shovel shit if that’s what I want. That’s okay with me;
I think I’m going to like having a work slave again.

“M
AN,
I
LOVE WHEN YOU DO THIS STUFF,”
Willie Miller says. Because he’s my partner in the Tara Foundation, our dog-rescue operation, I’ve come to the foundation
building to talk to him about the situation with Milo, and what we might do with him should we get him out.

“What kind of stuff?” I ask.

“Lawyer stuff. Stuff like this thing with Milo. You know, with judges and witnesses and shit. Damn, I should have been a lawyer.”

“Did you ever consider it?”

He shakes his head. “Nah. It would have meant finishing college, and high school, and eighth grade, and seventh grade…” He
stops talking, no doubt exhausted by the amount of education he is contemplating.

“It’s not all fun and games,” I say.

“You have fun at my trial?” he asks. Willie was on death row for seven years for a murder he did not commit; we got him off
on a retrial.

“I was scared out of my mind at your trial. I thought we were going to lose, right up until the time the verdict came in.”

“Not me,” he says. “I knew it was in the bag all along. I’m lucky like that.”

I refrain from asking him how come, if he’s so lucky, he was wrongly imprisoned for seven years of his life. Instead I ask,
“You want to sit at the defense table with me for this one? Kevin’s gone, so you can be my assistant.”

“No shit? Man, that’d be great.” Then, “What does an assistant do?”

“You get me coffee, or soda, or M&M’s, and every once in a while you tell me how great I’m doing.”

“That’s easy,” he says. “I can do that.”

“If we win, what are we gonna do with Milo?”

“You really think somebody’s trying to kill him?” he asks.

“Either that or steal him. The cops seem to think he needs protection.”

Willie thinks for a few moments. “Well, he can’t stay here. Not unless we hire a guard ourselves.”

We talk about it for a while but don’t reach a final decision. We can worry about that later, if we win.

Having recruited a trusty assistant, I head back to the office, where Eddie Lynch is waiting for me with the brief he has
written to file with the court. It’s only six pages, minute by legal standards, but it is outstanding in every respect.

“This is absolutely great, Hike,” I say.

He shrugs. “Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious. It’s exactly what I need.”

“You’re going to need a hell of a lot more than this,” he says.

Buoyed by his optimism, I drive down to the courthouse to fire the opening salvo in the legal war over Milo. I tell Rita Gordon
that I want to get a bail hearing on the court’s calendar for my client.

“For Billy Zimmerman?” she asks. “Bail was already denied when the PD was handling his case.”

I shake my head. “Different client. This is for Milo Zimmerman.”

“The dog? You want a bail hearing for the dog?”

“Correct. On an expedited basis. He was entitled to it already. Which judge is assigned to the Zimmerman case?”

“Judge Catchings. I was just going in there now.”

That’s actually a break for me. Of all the judges in Passaic County, he’s probably the one who hates me the least. He also
has a terrific, dry sense of humor, which he’s going to need. “Let me talk to him,” I say.

“Sorry, Andy. That’s not the way it works. You want to file a brief?”

“Okay, sure,” I say, taking the envelope out of my pocket. “Here it is.”

“That was convenient. Anything you want me to add to it when I talk to him?” she asks.

“You mean like I won’t be going to the media with this unless he turns me down?”

Rita has seen how my previous cases with dogs have become national news, often making the authorities look bad, so she knows
exactly what I’m saying.

“You don’t think he’ll take that as a threat?” she asks, smiling.

“Not if you smile like that when you say it. And maybe bat your eyes a little.”