Dog Eat Dog

by David Rosenfelt

  “Yes. I haven’t been away in a while and I’ve always wanted to see the White Mountains.”

  “The White Mountains are in New Hampshire.”

  I nod. “I know that, but you can see them from Maine. They’re mountains, so they’re really high. And if there’s an avalanche, I’d be at a safe distance.”

  “An avalanche in June?”

  I nod. “You can never be too careful.”

  “What’s going on here, Andy? You’re going to take on a murder case in Maine? You spend all your time trying to avoid them in New Jersey … and you live in New Jersey.”

  “I’m not taking on a case; I’m just going to help this guy get set up with adequate counsel and make sure he’s well taken care of. I feel like I owe him that. But if you don’t want me to…”

  “You know I’m in favor of you doing whatever you want; I’m just trying to understand what’s behind it. Usually you have to be dragged kicking and screaming into a case.”

  “Fair enough. I’ve been thinking about exactly that, doing some introspection.”

  Her face reflects her surprise. “You’ve been doing introspection? You’re better at ballet than introspection.”

  “I’ll admit it’s not my specialty, but hear me out. I asked Jantzen why he did what he did, knowing that it could draw the police and put himself in jeopardy. He basically said it was an instinct, that he saw the dog needed help and he just reacted.”

  Laurie nods. “I can understand that. I had the same instinct.”

  “Right. So I shudder to say this, but maybe I have a lawyer instinct. This guy needs help, and as a defense attorney I’m in a position to provide that help.”

  She smiles. “Andy Carpenter admitting to a lawyer’s instinct. There’s never a tape recorder around when you need one.”

  “This introspection is a dangerous thing. I don’t recommend it; I much prefer ballet.”

  “When are you going?”

  “I should go right away. Are you going to be okay without me here? Everything will fall on you.”

  “Well, with you gone, I’ll have to bring someone in to watch baseball.”

  “Come on, I do more than that.”

  “You mean basketball?” Then, “Andy, you know I’m kidding. I think helping Jantzen is a noble thing to do, and you’re by far the best person to do it. Unless he’s a double murderer.”

  I nod. “Which is a definite possibility.”

  “You know very little about his case.”

  “I really know nothing about it; I didn’t want to press him on it. It’s not like I’m his lawyer.”

  “All evidence to the contrary. You going to take Tara with you?”

  I shake my head. “No, I won’t be there long enough. I’ve already started making some calls to people to see if they can recommend local counsel. I’d wind up leaving her in a hotel, and that’s not fair. She’s better off here.”

  “Where in Maine is this?”

  “The arraignment is going to take place in a town called Wiscasset, which is in an area that they call the Midcoast. I think that’s because it’s midway up in the state and near the coast.”

  “Makes sense.”

  I nod. “That does, but north of Midcoast is Down East. For some reason they must think you’re going down when you go north. Anyway, it’s about seven hours from here, so I’ll just drive up. I’ll be back before you can say, ‘Damn, I really miss Andy.’”

  I knew Laurie would be supportive; she thinks I’m a lawyer at heart and that I need to be practicing my craft. But the truth is that I’m not looking forward to this. I’m going to miss her and Ricky and Tara and even Sebastian.

  Had this taken place two weeks from now, the timing would have been perfect. Ricky will be going back to the camp he attended last summer, which is in Maine. We could have dropped him off and Laurie could have stayed with me while I was there; it could have been a mini-vacation, except for the lawyer-work part.

  I’m hoping to be gone only for a few days, but the amount of time I am going to be away never influences how I pack. Basically I just throw all of my clothes into one or two suitcases; I can make decisions on what to wear when I get there.

  One conscious decision I make is to only bring one suit. It’s my way of vowing to myself that if I get into court at all, it will only be once or twice. This trip is going to be of limited duration.

  I call the jail and ask to speak to my client, though I hate using that word. He’s unavailable, but calls me back in thirty-five minutes. I tell him that I will meet him in Maine, and that he is not to talk about the case with anyone.

  “I deeply appreciate this,” he says. “I read about you online; they let me have an hour today on a computer.”

  “I’m online?”

  “Are you kidding? You have your own Wikipedia page; you’re a famous lawyer.”

  “Don’t believe everything you read.”

  “It also says you love dogs, and that you rescue them. That’s why you’re doing this, right? Because I helped a dog?”

  “Maybe you can believe everything you read.”

  Preparing to leave is not exactly time-consuming for me.

  Since I do little around here, I don’t have to get people to cover for me. If a lawyer has no clients to represent in the forest, does he make a sound?

  I call Willie Miller, my former client who is my partner in the Tara Foundation, which rescues dogs and finds them homes. He and his wife, Sondra, essentially run the foundation. I stop off occasionally to play with the dogs, but I basically get in the way. So when I tell Willie I’ll be gone for a few days, he doesn’t exactly panic.

  I don’t have to alert the other members of our legal team because we don’t currently have any clients. And Pete Stanton and Vince Sanders, the two friends who I share a regular table with at Charlie’s Sports bar/restaurant, won’t even notice I’m not there. If I stopped paying the tab that we collectively run up, they would notice and freak out. Someday I have to try that.

  Saying good-bye to Laurie and Ricky is tough, even though it’s for such a brief period. We are almost never separated, and I’m going to miss them.

  Tara is also a tough one, but a biscuit seems to ease the pain for her. Sebastian doesn’t consider my departure important enough to wake up for, so I tell Tara to convey my good-byes to him when he gets up. He normally awakens at mealtime and stays awake for the duration of the meal. Hunter doesn’t know me well enough to care one way or the other, but since he’s started emulating Tara, he seems fine with a biscuit as well.

  My GPS tells me that the trip is going to take six hours and eighteen minutes. I do whatever the GPS tells me, blindly and without questioning.

  I still find it amazing that a woman’s voice (I call her Shirley) is in my car with me, telling me where to turn. That said, our relationship is not perfect. She occasionally gets annoyed at me if I don’t perfectly follow her instructions, and I get pissed when I don’t think she is doing her job correctly.

  I have to confess that at times I’ve raised my voice at her (“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, ‘BEAR RIGHT,’ SHIRLEY? IT’S EITHER A RIGHT TURN OR IT ISN’T! I’M LOOKING AT IT FROM HERE ON THE GROUND, AND ‘BEARING’ IS NOT AN OPTION!”)

  But we work it out, and the positives in our relationship far outweigh the negatives. She has some great traits. For example, she doesn’t mind if I listen to sports on the radio, and she never has to stop to go to the bathroom. Best of all, she pretty much stays focused on getting me where I want to go, and I can respect that.

  With Shirley handling the navigating, I have plenty of time to think about the little I’ve learned about Jantzen’s case so far. Whatever I know comes from googling stories in the Portland Press Herald; most of them were from the time of the murders, but there have been a few updates announcing Jantzen’s arrest.

  Peter Charkin and Tina Welker were found dead in Welker’s home in Nobleboro, Maine, a little more than two years ago. Police at the time said that it appeared to be a
home invasion; both victims were bound and then shot, execution-style. The house was ransacked, but there was no mention of what might have been taken. Of course, the police would have no way of even knowing that, since they would not have definitive knowledge of what was there in the first place.

  Charkin apparently put up a struggle, but was subdued. There is no explanation of specifics, but DNA that belonged to neither Charkin nor Welker was found at the scene.

  Since a typical house contains DNA from many people, I can only assume that this particular DNA was somehow tied to the murder. Maybe it was derived from scratched skin under the victim’s fingernails or blood unconnected to the victims. There are certainly other possibilities as well.

  Current stories are about Jantzen’s arrest in New Jersey and his imminent extradition to Maine. He is said to have recently moved to Damariscotta, about ten minutes from the murder scene, but no information has come forward linking Jantzen to either of the victims prior to their deaths.

  Based on just the coverage in Portland, which is more than an hour from Damariscotta, this murder case seems to have been a big deal.

  While this week’s stories report that DNA evidence is what tied Jantzen to the murders, how the connection was suddenly made two years after the event is not explained. The state police in Maine are not giving out much information, but profess confidence that they have their man.

  “They’ve got DNA, Shirley. That’s never a good sign.”

  She doesn’t respond, probably considering the implications of what I’ve said. A minute goes by and then she says, “Heavy traffic up ahead.”

  I don’t know if she means that as a metaphor for the case, but I find out soon enough. The traffic I hit is pretty bad, and it’s a good eight hours before I arrive at my destination, the Cod Cove Inn, located in Edgecomb. On the way, I drive through Wiscasset and past the courthouse where the arraignment is to take place; it’s then another fifteen minutes to the inn.

  It shouldn’t even take that long, but a huge line of people gathered to buy lobster rolls at a little shack called Red’s Eats causes a traffic backup. A lobster roll place across the street from Red’s has hardly any customers; I’m not sure why there is such a disparity. A lobster, it would seem to me, is a lobster. And a roll is definitely a roll.

  Laurie found the Cod Cove Inn online and said it looked good. She was right; it’s perfect for what I need. It’s unlike what I picture in a small-town inn; it has running water, an elevator, stairs that don’t creak, comfortable large rooms, and working telephones. It’s more of a hotel than an inn.

  Most important, it has televisions in the rooms! With cable! And ESPN! Had the Pilgrims been smart, they would have left Plymouth Rock and come up here.

  While they do serve a continental breakfast, the smiling woman behind the desk regretfully informs me that they don’t have a restaurant. So I head back to Wiscasset to get a lobster roll. Rather than wait on the huge line at Red’s, I go to the place across the street to get what turns out to be a delicious one. I notice that the woman across from me wears a sweatshirt that says I ROOT FOR TWO TEAMS. THE RED SOX, AND WHOEVER IS PLAYING THE YANKEES.

  After eating, I head back to the inn to call Laurie and make sure everything is okay at home. I’m tired from the drive and will no doubt fall asleep to the blissful sounds of an ESPN baseball game.

  Tomorrow I have to get back to the real legal world.

  “You came all the way from New York to ask me that?”

  That is the less than encouraging response I get from Charlie Tilton. Tilton is a criminal attorney in Damariscotta, a town near Wiscasset. I’ve been up here before while working on a previous case, so I know my way around fairly well.

  I had gotten Tilton’s name from Tim Haskins, a lawyer friend of mine who has a summer house not far from here. Tim’s a civil attorney, so not suitable for this job, but he recommended Tilton, who agreed to see me first thing this morning.

  “Actually, I came from New Jersey.”

  “Same thing. You a Yankees fan?”

  I shake my head and answer truthfully. “Nope … can’t stand them. Mets all the way.”

  He looks at me strangely, as if trying to determine whether I am telling the truth, or what I think he wants to hear. “Okay,” he finally says. “You want some coffee?”

  “You don’t offer coffee to Yankee fans?”

  “I do, but you don’t want to know what I put in it.”

  I accept his offer for coffee, and once we’re settled, I reask the question. “So, how would you feel about representing Matt Jantzen?”

  “I know it’s only nine o’clock in the morning, but I’m betting this is the worst offer I get all day.”

  That response doesn’t fill me with optimism. “Because he has no money to pay you?”

  “He has no money? Now it is officially the worst offer I will get this decade. But it’s not about money.”

  “So what is it?”

  “The killer tied up two people, put a gun to their heads, and pulled the trigger. I know we’re just a small town with small-town sensibilities, but that bothered some of the locals. Another way to put it is that it scared the shit out of everybody. Besides that, his DNA ties him to the crime.”

  “Jantzen says he’s innocent.”

  “He does? Then just tell that to the judge, and he’ll be free to go. Judges around here are really trusting that way.”

  “So you don’t subscribe to the ‘everybody deserves a good defense’ principle?”

  “My subscription ran out and I forgot to renew.” Then, “Come on, you’re a big-time lawyer; I read about you online when you called to set up this meeting. You’re hot shit.”

  I nod. “I am, in fact, hot shit. But that is not exactly on point here.”

  “Why not? You’re going to do everything; you just need some local dope to sit next to you. You want me to be that dope.”

  He’s referring to how an out-of-state attorney needs local counsel to provide cover for him to operate in the courtroom. The out-of-state person needs to get what is called pro hac vice, which is essentially a formality that allows him to practice there that one time.

  The local counsel is basically just vouching for the out-of-state attorney. It’s not essential for the local person to actually participate in the trial, but judges usually prefer when they do. Lawyers usually like to do what judges prefer.

  “You’re the dope that was recommended by Tim Haskins, who also mentioned something about you owing him one. I told Tim that I wouldn’t bring that up, so I’m not going to. I’m a man of my word, in addition to being hot shit.”

  “You’re not going to bring up the thing you just brought up?”

  “Correct. It would be unseemly to mention that years ago he used connections to get a marijuana possession charge against you dropped that could have impacted your legal career.”

  “You sure you’re not a Yankees fan?”

  “Positive. But I think you’re missing the point here. I’m not looking for someone to sit next to me during the trial, since I’m going to be back in New Jersey rooting for the Mets.”

  “You’re not trying the case?” he asks, not attempting to mask his surprise.

  “No. I got involved due to an unusual circumstance, so I’m just trying to help him out. Then I’m going home to a nonthriving practice and a life of leisure.”

  “So you’re looking for me to be the lawyer of record? The guy that would actually try the case?”

  “That pretty much sums it up, yes.”

  “Just when I think the offer can’t get any worse, you raise the bar.”

  “I’m starting to think you’re not going to jump at this.”

  “Look. You seem like a nice guy, and you hate the Yankees, so I’m going to be straight with you. You are not going to find a lawyer willing to take on a very unpopular client, a case that is probably unwinnable, for no money. Law schools do not turn out such people; you should focus on insane asylum graduates.”r />
  I’m not surprised to hear any of this; I knew it was a long shot. My hope was that a lawyer would want to take on the case simply because it will generate local publicity. I needed to find someone who believed in the “any publicity is good publicity” maxim.

  “Tell me about the Public Defender’s office here,” I say.

  “Good, hardworking young lawyers working in an understaffed, underfunded office. They wouldn’t have a chance with this case. Hell, you wouldn’t have a chance.”

  “This is not going as well as I hoped.”

  Tilton surprises me by laughing out loud. “No, I guess it isn’t. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll set you up with the pro hac vice and then sit with you during the arraignment. Meanwhile, you find another lawyer or take it to the public defender, and then we both ride off into the sunset. That work?”

  I nod. “Works for now, thanks.” Then, “How ’bout them Red Sox?”

  Charlie Tilton and I head down to the courthouse.

  Applying for the pro hac vice is a quick, relatively painless procedure. We each fill out a form and submit it to the court clerk. There’s little doubt that it will be approved, though I’d probably be better off if it isn’t. Then I could get out of here with a clean conscience.

  While we’re there, we check on the status of Matt Jantzen’s extradition and learn that he is due in Maine late this afternoon. They are moving fast.

  Before Charlie and I go our separate ways, I ask him if there are any lawyers he could recommend.

  “Come on, Andy … these guys are my friends.”

  I’m sure this is going to wind up with the public defender, but I’m not in the mood to deal with that now. What I am in the mood to do is stop for another lobster roll, then go back to my room and take a nap. Getting nowhere is tiring.

  Once I get back to the inn, I call Laurie to make sure everything is okay at home and update her on progress here. Obviously the progress report doesn’t take a lot of time.

  “So how long do you think you’ll be there?”

  “Two days, three at the outside. Tomorrow is the arraignment; I’m going to see Jantzen in the morning and then deal with that. I’ll work on turning it over to the public defender in the afternoon; hopefully I can get that wrapped up quickly.”