This year, Willie and Sondra are especially busy, because the puppies are grown enough to be placed in homes. Puppies are a hot ticket, especially in rescue land. People can get a cute little puppy and feel good that they made a rescue; for them, it’s the best of both worlds.
We have a waiting lounge at the foundation, and two sets of potential adopters are in there, since Willie and Sondra are seeing other people. I will pitch in and help, but first I want to tell Willie and Sondra that I’m there.
Sandra is in one of the open play areas with a family of four. They are interacting with one of the puppies, and everybody seems to be smiling. Sandra is a very good judge of dog homes; any adoption that she makes, I’m totally happy with.
I tell her that I’m there and will handle one of the waiting families. She talks softly to me, “Why don’t you check in on Willie first? I’ve got a bad feeling about that one.”
I’ve got a good guess what she’s talking about. Willie is very protective of these dogs; they are his children. And he can be a tad direct in telling someone they can’t adopt one of our dogs; Willie does not have a very good kennel-side manner.
Willie is in one of the offices with a man in his thirties, well dressed with a very expensive overcoat on his arm. There is a puppy near him on the floor, and the way the man is still holding his coat gives me the idea that he has not physically interacted with the dog.
Not a good sign.
I walk in and shake hands with the man, introducing myself.
“Kyle Holt,” he says, seemingly pleasant enough.
“Andy’s my partner,” Willie says. “Why don’t you tell him what you just told me?”
Holt seems surprised to have to repeat himself, but says, “I want to get this puppy for my son for Christmas. It’s a surprise.”
“His wife doesn’t even know about it,” Willie says. “Big surprise.”
I’m afraid I can see where this is going, as Willie continues. “But he wants to know if he can bring it back.” He turns to Holt. “What’s the word you used? ‘Exchange’?”
Holt nods. “Right, in case they don’t like it or they think one of the other ones is cuter. And, of course, they might not want one at all. I assume your policy is to take it back?”
Kaboom.
“Here’s our policy,” Willie says. “You can’t have this dog,” Willie says. “In fact, our policy is you can’t have any one of our dogs.”
Holt is clearly taken aback. “Why not? Is there a problem?”
Willie nods. “The problem is that I’m exchanging you for a different adopter, because I don’t like you. I’m going to find someone cuter.”
Holt doesn’t seem to know what to say, which is just as well, because anything he might say is only going to annoy Willie more. And Willie past a certain annoyance point can lead to some volatility.
“Mr. Holt, I don’t think this is going to work out,” I say. “But thanks for your time, and we at the Tara Foundation hope you have a great holiday.”
Holt is smart enough to know that there is nothing that is going to turn this around, so he just shakes his head. “I think I’ll take my business elsewhere.”
“Good plan,” I say, as he leaves.
“Asshole,” Willie says, loud enough that the departing Holt can hear it. Holt does not turn around, indicating that, while he may be an asshole, he is no dummy.
“I didn’t know you were coming down today,” Willie says, once he leaves.
“It’s tree-decorating day at home.”
“Oh, man, that’s the worst,” he says. “Sondra uses so many lights there are planes landing on our roof.”
“How is it going down here?”
He perks up. “Great. Three puppies left, and the mother is spoken for once the puppies are gone. Great homes.”
“You got pictures for Pups?”
“Course,” he says. He hands me a bunch of photographs of each dog as he or she went home with its forever family, plus a picture of Puddles, once again being held by Micaela, the young girl who comes by pretty much every day to play with her.
“Thanks. You have time to take a trip with me?”
“On a case? Where to?” he asks.
“South Dakota.”
“Where the hell is that?”
“Just south of North Dakota,” I say.
“Why are we going there?”
“Because we’ve got nothing else to do.”
Dan Tressel calls me; it’s the first time we’ve talked since the arraignment.
He reaches me on my cell as I’m on the way to the prison to meet with Pups.
“You want to come in and talk?” he says. “I thought I would have heard from you by now.”
“Talk about what?”
“Avoiding a trial. It doesn’t do anybody any good.”
His offering a plea, regardless of terms, surprises me. It must be coming from above him, because when he says nobody gains from a trial, he’s lying. As a prosecutor, a triple-murder conviction is a major plus on a resume, and he wouldn’t be giving it up willingly.
“Let’s talk on the phone; I doubt we’ll have that much to say. What are you offering?”
“She cops to killing her husband and Little Tiny, and we drop the Hennessey hit. She gets twenty to life, although we both know life is going to come first.”
“You’re using up my cell phone rollover minutes on this?” I ask. “Forget it.”
“What are you looking for?”
“An apology from the state and a cash settlement for wrongful arrest. But the apology needs to come from the governor, and it has to be heartfelt. It would be a nice touch if he got choked up.”
He laughs. “Music to my ears; I’m going to love this trial. But don’t you need to discuss this with your client?”
“I’ll be doing that in twenty minutes. You’ll hear from me if she’s interested, which means you won’t hear from me.”
We hang up, and, before I get to the prison, I reflect on why he made the offer. The unlikely reason is that there is a weakness in his case—unlikely because I’m pretty confident I would have found it by now.
More probable is that the people above Tressel decided that it would be an expensive waste of money, and somewhat unseemly to boot, to try a dying woman. If she pleads guilty, they accomplish the same thing without the negatives.
There is no chance that Pups will accept the terms, but when I get to the prison, I present them to her, being careful not to show any of my own bias in the process. “Why are you bringing me this crap?” is her delicate response when she hears it.
“Because I’m your lawyer. Crap bringing is part of my job description.”
“My answer is no,” she says.
I nod. “That’s what I told them.”
“Good. For a minute there, I was worried about you.” She points to a manila envelope I’m holding. “Those are pictures?”
“They are.”
Pups coughs a few times; she’s been doing that more and more lately. She frowns as if annoyed with herself for doing so, but she never comes close to complaining, and she has every right to. This woman is dying, and instead of living out her days with dignity, she’s stuck in a prison cell, awaiting trial for murders I believe she did not commit.
I hand her the envelope, and she opens it and thumbs through the pictures. Most of them are photos that Willie and Sondra took of the puppies with their adoptive families. Pups scrutinizes them carefully, as if she can somehow tell from the photographs whether or not the families are good enough for her puppies.
There are also a few more pictures of Micaela holding and petting Puddles. Pups seems to get emotional when she sees them, but she covers it up quickly. “What’s the little girl’s name?”
“Micaela Reasoner.”
“Tell her that Puddles loves the reverse pet.”
“What’s the reverse pet?” I ask.
She frowns, as if she’s talking to a moron. “When you pet a dog’s head, it
’s not front to back; it’s back to front. Neck up to forehead, not forehead down to neck.”
“Got it. I’ll tell her. You doing OK in here?”
“Yeah, I’m having a blast. What else you got?”
“A question. And I know I’ve asked you this before, but what do you know about Jake’s son, Hank?”
She thinks for a few moments. “Not much more than I said; Jake didn’t talk about him at all. I just know that he was a troubled kid, good athlete, dropped out of school, got into trouble, used drugs. His mother turned him against Jake—at least that’s what he told me. Then when she died, Jake tried to reach out to him, but the kid wasn’t interested. I think he went out west somewhere. Why?”
“Just ticking off the boxes,” I say.
“Well, go tick some more boxes; you’re not accomplishing anything here. Get me some more pictures, and don’t forget to tell Micaela about the reverse pet.”
I’ve debated with myself about taking this trip.
For one thing, Deadwood, South Dakota, is not that easy to get to from New York. There are no direct flights, so we’ll have to switch planes. Then we’ll fly to Rapid City, rent a car, and drive the forty-five minutes to Deadwood. In South Dakota’s late-December weather, I would think that a forty-five-minute drive could take close to a month.
More important, the possible benefit to our case is not readily apparent. We’re trying to find the potential heir to Jake’s will, but since Pups has already received the proceeds from that will, the newly found heir would only become eligible if she is convicted of murdering Jake. My job, of course, is to prevent that.
But the state of our case is such that we need to go after any remote chance of finding a breakthrough. My theory is that someone is after Pups’s money, and the only candidate that I can come up with is the person that would be in line to get it: Jake’s estranged son, Hank Boyer.
It’s a long shot. Hank has not been heard from and certainly has made no apparent effort to get any of his father’s money. I can’t even be sure he knows that his father is dead. It’s hard to believe that he is orchestrating this complex plot from Deadwood, South Dakota, but one never knows. Even if I just eliminate him as a possibility, I’ve made some progress.
It was Laurie’s idea for me to bring Willie along. She wants him there to protect me in case of trouble, but she isn’t worried enough to suggest that I bring Marcus. She knows that Marcus scares the hell out of me, so this represents a compromise in her mind. Plus, she knows that Willie could handle most things likely to come up.
There is no getting around one simple fact: Laurie doesn’t think I can take care of myself in dangerous situations; she would send along a bodyguard if I was attending a meeting of the Camp Fire Girls.
“There is no reason to think that this trip is in any way dangerous,” I said, trying to reason with her.
“We know of three murders already,” Laurie pointed out. “Willie goes, or I send Marcus. In fact, maybe Marcus is the better idea. You can have all your meals together, play cards … maybe you can share a room.”
I nodded. “Willie it is.”
We’re flying from LaGuardia rather than JFK, because it eliminates the need to drive on the always awful Van Wyck Expressway. I know what the history books say, but I still believe that the Donner party got lost on the Van Wyck.
So we take an early morning flight to Chicago O’Hare, then have a fifty-minute layover for the flight to Rapid City. We’re flying first class, because the seats are wider and they warm the peanuts. The other major plus is that, this way, we don’t have to fight for overhead-bin room. Since the airlines started charging to check bags, overhead-bin space has become more precious real estate than Rodeo Drive.
There is clearly a rule at O’Hare that, no matter what flight you come in on, your connecting flight must be at a gate as far away as possible. And, since there are member countries of the United Nations smaller than O’Hare, it can be a bit of a hassle.
Willie and I have to run what feels like a marathon to make our connection. When we finally get there, I’m in need of an oxygen tent, and Willie isn’t even breathing heavily. It takes me almost until the pilot announces the final descent into Rapid City to stop panting.
We drive to Deadwood, a small community whose downtown consists mostly of hotels, casinos, and stores for tourists to buy souvenirs. Deadwood has pretensions of still being a remnant of the Wild West, and as such has a certain charm. It’s set against the Black Hills and Mount Rushmore, so if you like slot machines, incredibly beautiful scenery, and historic, epic mountain carvings of presidents, you could do worse.
It gets dark early this time of year, so Deadwood is lit up when we arrive. Christmas lights are everywhere, and the stores all advertise holiday sales. Deadwood T-shirts: buy one, get one free. You can’t beat that.
“You gotta be kidding,” Willie says, when we first get out of the car, though I’m not sure if he means that as a positive or a negative. But he follows that with, “You think there were gunfights in this town?”
I nod. “I reckon.”
We check into Cadillac Jack’s Gaming Resort, not to be confused with the Bellagio or Venetian. But it’s got character of a sort, and a restaurant, and clean rooms, so we should be fine.
Laurie had done some research and learned that Hank Boyer works here as a blackjack dealer, so the first thing I do, even before we have dinner, is head for the blackjack pit. I ask the pit boss if Hank Boyer is on tonight, but he tells me that his shift finished a couple of hours ago, and he won’t be back on until ten in the morning.
Willie and I have dinner; it turns out that Cadillac Jack makes a pretty good steak. As we’re finishing, I say, “You want to hang out down here for a while or go to sleep?” I don’t suggest having a drink, since I rarely drink alcohol, and Willie never does.
I’m asking the question to be nice; it’s been a long day, and I’m ready for bed.
He shakes his head. “No, I’m pretty tired, and I want to get up early.”
“What for? You bringing in a herd?”
“Nah, I just want to walk around the town.”
We start to head upstairs to our rooms, but Willie stops along the way and looks at some Western paraphernalia for sale in the gift shop. He picks up a Western hat and tries it on. “What do you think?” he asks.
“I think you look ridiculous,” I say.
So he buys it.
Willie’s really into this Western stuff, even though, except for a brief California trip we took together, I think the farthest west he has been before today is Parsippany. If he starts calling me “pardner,” I’m going to put him on a plane.
Caffey had gotten behind Carpenter and his friend in the airport check-in line.
It wasn’t completely necessary, because he was sure that he knew where they were going. But Caffey was a perfectionist and left nothing to chance. If he was 99 percent certain of something, then it was 1 percent short of satisfactory.
So Caffey got close enough to overhear them talking to the ticketing agent, and, once he heard the destination confirmed, he melted into the background.
As soon as he left the airport, he called his employer. “They’re heading for Deadwood,” he said.
“What do you mean, ‘they’?”
“He took the guy from the dog place with him.”
“OK,” said the employer.
“You want me to get on a plane? I can pick him up when I get there. We know where he’ll be.”
“No need. Pick him up again when he gets back.”
“You got it.”
Click.
I have pancakes for breakfast, and Willie has another steak.
He tells me, with obvious disappointment, that he spent the early morning without seeing a single gunfight.
It’s Sunday morning, and there is a sleepy feel to the hotel restaurant and, especially, the casino. Most of the players look like they’re still there from last night; the smell of victory is not i
n the air.
At ten o’clock, we head for the blackjack area, and I’m about to walk over to the pit boss when I see a dealer standing behind a blackjack table. There’s little doubt in my mind that it’s Hank Boyer. He looks a bit older, but he matches the picture that Walter Tillman gave me.
“Let me do this alone,” I say to Willie. “If he runs away, you rustle up a posse.”
There’s no one playing at Hank’s table; he’s probably just opened up. I walk over and sit down in a player’s seat. I put five twenty-dollar bills on the table, and he counts it out and gives me twenty red chips in return.
He’s dealing single-deck blackjack, unlike most of the tables, which deal eight decks out of a “shoe.” Single-deck gives players the illusion that they have better odds, because it’s easier to count cards, a technique more than frowned on by casinos. But single-deck dealers shuffle so often that they mostly remove this advantage.
Hank holds the deck in his left hand and flings the cards toward me with his right. In single-deck, the player actually picks up and looks at the cards; when they’re dealt from a shoe, the player never touches the cards. So in single-deck, the occasional gambler feels more involved.
After a few hands, I ask, “You’re Hank Boyer, aren’t you?” I already know what the answer is; he matches Tillman’s photo, and he has the name Hank on his shirt pocket.
He looks at me suspiciously and says, “Do I know you?”
“We’ve never met, but I knew your father.”
“I don’t have a father” is his very cold response.
“My name is Andy Carpenter, and I’d like to talk to you about him.”
He doesn’t respond, so I add, “I won’t take a lot of your time. We flew here from New York to see you, so…”
He’s been continuing to deal as we talk, but this stops him. “Why the hell did you do that?”
“To talk to you about your father.”
He stiffens slightly, but noticeably. “Tell him I don’t want to talk to him, I don’t want to see him, and I don’t want anything to do with him. Nothing’s changed.”
The Twelve Dogs of Christmas Page 9