As Dog Is My Witness

by JEFFREY COHEN

  “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.

  Chapter Five

  The 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.

  Chapter Six

  Armed 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 compou
nded 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?”

  I walked into the living room, which was dominated by the kind of grandfather clock obviously handed down from generation to generation. Unfortunately, the room surrounding it wasn’t quite as grand or regal, so the clock looked like a king visiting the commoners for the annual tournaments. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Fowler,” I said. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”

  “It’s Mary, Mr. Tucker. And may I get you something to drink?”

  “No, I’m fine. And call me Aaron. Is Justin here?”

  Mary looked embarrassed, and stared past me for a moment, not wanting to make eye contact. “No,” she said. “They’re holding him on $200,000 bail, and I don’t have that kind of money.”

  Abby had thought the Middlesex County prosecutor might want bigtime bail. While Justin had been charged with aggravated manslaughter and not pre-meditated murder, the bail was still set high, with no option for putting up just ten percent in cash. Mary would have to mortgage her house to a bail bondsman if she wanted to get her son out of county jail.

  She thought I should see Justin’s room. Like many young Asperger adults, Justin was not ready to live on his own, even though he had graduated with an associate’s degree from Middlesex County College and had a full-time job. The pressure of living in a world populated with other people, and having to maintain a household of some kind on his own, would have been too much for him to handle.

  His room, which was smaller than Ethan’s, couldn’t have changed much since high school. But instead of the posters of bands or basketball players you might have expected, the walls were covered with pictures of guns. Rifles, automatics, pistols, revolvers. Guns, preferably by themselves, but sometimes in the hands of their owners, were clearly Justin’s heroes.

  “When did he develop his interest in guns?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t help his case, does it?” she said. “I think it started in high school. He had gotten hold of some gun magazine or another, and that was it. It’s all he talks about. But I never let him own one.”

  “He doesn’t own the gun they found?” In Justin’s room, the police had discovered an antique gun, described as a single-shot de-ringer replica of the handgun John Wilkes Booth used on Abraham Lincoln. Apparently, he hadn’t tried to hide it—it was sitting right there on his desk. Ballistic tests confirmed it as the weapon used to kill Michael Huston.

  “No, it wasn’t registered to him. I frankly was shocked when they told me they’d found it there, and I thought the police had planted the gun in Justin’s room. But Justin said it was his.”

  The murder had been four days earlier, so the room was no longer considered a crime scene, although a few tiny remnants of yellow police tape dotted the doorjamb. Crime scene investigators had been through and taken anything they considered of interest, so I didn’t expect to find any evidence that Justin was or wasn’t involved in the killing. I sat on the edge of his single bed and looked at his mother.

  “What led the police to Justin in the first place?” I asked.

  “I guess it was the gun,” Mary said. “Once they found out what kind of gun it was, they started looking for area enthusiasts. It didn’t seem to take long. They were here with a search warrant two days ago.”

  “Mary, I’m going to have to ask some questions that aren’t easy to answer. I want you to know, I have a son with Asperger’s, and I understand, okay? If I’m going to find out what happened, you have to tell me everything.”

  Mary Fowler looked me straight in the eye, and even if her gaze was a little teary, it was unwavering. “Whatever you need to know, Aaron.”

  “Has Justin ever been . . . aggressive with people? Kids in school when he was little, maybe with girls when he was in high school or college, just because he didn’t understand?”

  “You mean, is he violent?” Mary didn’t need the jargon, and was telling me so.

  “Yes.”

  “He . . . got into a few fights when he was a boy, but you know these kids, Aaron. He always lost. His impulse control isn’t great, but he did learn that getting beaten up didn’t get him much.”

  I didn’t like the way this was going. “Do you think that might have fueled his interest in guns?” I asked.

  Mary hadn’t considered that idea before. Her eyes widened a bit, and she leaned lightly against the dresser.

  But before she had a chance to answer, a loud sound from the driveway interrupted us. It was the unmistakable cacophony of a very large motorcycle. That noise ended, thankfully, and another, less piston-driven one, began in the kitchen, just to our left on the other side of the hallway. Someone was walking in through the side door.

  Actually, “walking” is understating it. “Barreling” would be more descriptive. Young, in his late teens or early 20s, the large person entered the house as if he were Superman and this was one of those paper maché walls they were always setting up for him to burst through, when there was a perfectly good door maybe four feet to the side. Long hair flopped over his forehead and a sense of absolute purpose burned in his eyes. “Ma!” he yelled. Then he saw us standing in Justin’s room, and advanced on us like Patton on . . . wherever Patton advanced on. I was an English major, not a history major.

  “Where have they got him, Ma? When’s he getting out?” The young man looked me up and down, which doesn’t take long, and didn’t like what he saw. “Who’s this guy?”

  “Kevin, this is Aaron Tucker. He’s investigating the case and trying to help Justin. Aaron, this is my younger son, Kevin.”

  I reached out a hand, but Kevin was still suspicious, and I ended up looking like I had just finished a round of curling, hand extended with nothing to show for it.

  “Investigating? Are you a private eye or something?”

  “No, I’m a freelance writer, and I’m working for Snapdragon Magazine, but . . .

  “A reporter? No press, Ma! We don’t have time for these . . .

  Mary put her hands on her son’s well-developed upper arms, the apparent result of considerable iron-pumping. “It’s not like that, Kev. Aaron has a son with Asperger’s, and he’s trying to prove that Justin didn’t do it.”

  Kevin wasn’t enthused about the word “Asperger’s,” which showed on his face. He also wasn’t crazy about the press.

  “Is that right?” He appeared to think he was the captain of the football team and I was a bespectacled, 50-pound waterboy. “How you gonna go about doing that, Aaron?”

  I looked around for the hall monitor, but none was in sight. “I don’t know yet,” I said. “I’m going to ask questions and see where the answers lead me.”

  Kevin moved closer. I was beginning to worry that, in my mid-40s, I was going to get my first wedgie. He towered over me, but I’m used to that, and aside from a little tension in the back of my neck, it didn’t bother me much.

  “Like what kind of questions?” Desperately, I fought the impulse to answer in an exaggerated voice, “like what kinda questions.” Luckily, I’m an adult, and have learned self-restraint. It didn’t hurt that Mary stepped between us.

  “Kevin! That’s no way to treat someone who’s trying to help!”

  “You don’t know these people, Ma. He’s just interested in getting himself a big by-line so he can use us to get rich and famous.”

  I smiled my wisest, most self-deprecating “experienced-old-freelancer” smile. “The famous part isn’t really all that important,” I said. “But I would like to know where you’ve been, Kevin. Obviously, this is the first time you’ve been home since Justin was arrested.”

  Kevin remembered his initial mission, which was to rescue his brother
and be a hero. He did everything but flex his muscles and eat spinach right out of a can with no fork. “I was away at school,” he said. “University of Indiana.”

  I considered asking if he was on the varsity intimidation team, but decided not to give in to my juvenile impulses. Of course, I didn’t make any moves or sounds to indicate how impressed I was by his admission into a college, either. Maturity only goes so far when you’re smaller than most fifteen-year-olds.

  “So you came home as soon as you were called?”

  “Sure,” Kevin said, defensively. He must have been on the defensive squad of the intimidation team. “It takes a while to bike from there.”

  “Then, you’ve been in transit . . .

  Kevin wasn’t looking at me anymore. He was concerned with his mother. “This isn’t getting us anywhere, Ma,” he said. “Where’s Justin?”

  “He’s in the county jail. They set bail at $200,000, and I don’t know. . .

  “What? Two hundred grand? That’s ridiculous! He can’t stay in that jail by himself!”

  I understood the concern. A relative naïf like Justin in a jail full of repeat offenders wasn’t a pleasant thought. But neither is going so far into debt that you might never get out, assuming it’s even possible to raise that much money.

  “Well,” Mary said in a tiny voice, “I already have a mortgage on the house, and I can’t borrow much more. I don’t know what to do.”

  This was the moment Kevin had been waiting for. He zipped up his black leather jacket and turned toward the door, in his best Cosmic Avenger style.

  “Don’t you worry, Ma. I’m getting him out. Now.” And he turned and strode (there is no other word for it) out of the house. The cacophony began in the driveway again.

  On a chair beside Justin’s desk, Mary sat down wearily, not even moving the pants that Justin or the cops had left there. She had promised herself she’d be strong in front of the guest, but it was too much to ask. Mary Fowler began to cry.