As Dog Is My Witness

by JEFFREY COHEN

  “Do I mind what?”

  “If we let her in.” Now that the growling had stopped, it didn’t seem all that threatening a situation, so I shook my head. Karen turned to Rezenbach. “Would you let her in please?” she asked. Her lawyer wasn’t pleased about leaving his client alone with the nasty old reporter, but he acquiesced.

  Karen leaned over to me quickly, knowing it wouldn’t be long before he came back with the dog. “Please don’t say anything while he’s here,” she said, indicating Rezenbach. “I shouldn’t be saying this—he doesn’t want me to—but I don’t think that young man shot Michael.”

  Sure enough, before I had a chance to react, the lawyer trailed a large Dalmatian into the room. The dog was headed for Karen, but then saw me, snarled, and changed direction, toward the wing chair, which luckily was at the far end of the sofa.

  Karen grabbed the dog by the collar. “No, Dalma!” she commanded. “Bad!” The dog growled a little, but sat as Karen held her. “Go to your pillow. Pillow!” The dog walked to a dog bed, still glaring at me, and lay down.

  I relaxed in the chair and looked at Karen. “Can you teach me how to do that with my kids?” I asked. She chuckled lightly.

  I couldn’t follow up on her comment about Justin’s innocence because Rezenbach sat down next to her again, looking into her eyes to see if confidences had been betrayed or emotional barriers broken during his 20-second absence. He looked at me with intensity. Luckily, I live with a lawyer, so intense looks don’t really have that much impact anymore. I’ve seen Abby rehearsing them.

  “My client,” he announced, “will not discuss anything related to the case against the man accused of killing her husband. She will discuss her marriage and her husband’s character, so long as the questions are not so personal as to upset her. She has been through an enormously difficult time and is still suffering great emotional pain. I will not allow you to increase that pain. Is that understood, Mr. Tucker?”

  I took a long moment and studied him. “Did you practice that?” I asked. “I mean, last night, when you were getting into your pajamas, did you look in the mirror and do that speech? Because it was very convincing, really.”

  Rezenbach, who wasn’t used to people not quivering at the sound of his voice, fumphered briefly, then regained his composure. “If you are intent on being irreverent, young man, this interview will be terminated.”

  “Wow. Now you sound like my fourth-grade teacher, Miss Rubinski. Did you know her?”

  Karen Huston seemed not to be listening to this exchange. She was watching the dog, who was lying on the dog bed with her tongue hanging out, staring with one eye at the ceiling.

  “We are not prepared to continue,” said Rezenbach, and he stood, expecting Karen to follow him. She kept staring at the dog.

  “Sit down, Mr. Rezenbach,” I told him. “I don’t intend to violate your client’s privacy or ask her questions that are going to make her more upset. She doesn’t know any more about the murder than the cops, and they don’t mind me asking sensitive questions, since they rarely answer any questions. So switch to decaf and take a seat.” Surprisingly, he sat. I love summoning my inner Bogart. Another minute, and I’d have been telling him to shut his “yap.”

  My diatribe at her lawyer seemed to snap Karen to attention— she looked at me, her eyes open, but still haunted. I knew I couldn’t press her on much of anything.

  “How did you meet your husband, Karen?” You always start with a softball question because it loosens the subject up and gets her into the flow of the conversation.

  She smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. “We were fixed up, believe it or not. My college roommate Pearl introduced us when I was working in the city at HBO and Michael was in the financial planning department at the charitable foundation where Pearl worked. She thought we’d hit it off, because she knew I’d been through a number of bad relationships in a row, and he seemed like the kind of guy who wouldn’t hurt me.”

  “She was right,” I suggested.

  Karen nodded. “Yes, she certainly was. Michael was devoted to me from the day we met. He actually proposed on our first date, and I had to hold him off for three months.”

  “But he wore you down, finally.” You don’t want to put words in the subject’s mouth so much as lead them in a direction and see if you’re right. If you’re not, they’ll tell you.

  This time, I wasn’t wrong. Karen nodded again. “Yes,” she said chuckling. “He wore me down. How could you not give in to a man that open and—” She sniffled and stopped herself mid-sentence. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Karen. You’re doing fine.”

  Rezenbach considered saying something lawyerly, but I cast a glance in his direction, and the memory of my Sam Spade impersonation came back to him. He decided to let it go, for now. Even we little folk can be intimidating when we’re sitting down.

  Karen Huston composed herself, but it was an effort, and it certainly wasn’t an act. I knew the more difficult questions were on their way, and this doesn’t happen often, but I was starting to wonder whether they were worth asking.

  “All I can tell you, Aaron, is that no woman ever felt more secure in a relationship than I did with Michael. He loved me no matter what, and that is a very comforting feeling.”

  I took a deep breath. “Can you think of anyone who would want to hurt Michael?”

  Rezenbach’s eyes became the size of Eggo waffles—the apple cinnamon kind, which is all Ethan will eat. “Mr. Tucker!” Rezenbach barked.

  The corner of Karen’s mouth curled in a strange way, almost like a snarl. The dog’s head rose off the pillow and she stared at Karen.

  “It’s all right,” she said quietly.

  Rezenbach turned his head to look at her, caught her glance, and sat down. They clearly had a bond that went beyond lawyer-client, but I had a hard time picturing them as lovers. I had a hard time picturing Rezenbach and anyone as lovers.

  Karen turned back to me, measuring each word carefully. “I’m sorry, Aaron, but no. I can’t think of anyone who would want to . . . I mean, it just doesn’t make sense. That poor young man must have just done it because . . . She gestured with her hands a couple of times, but didn’t say anything else.

  I snuck a peek at Rezenbach, who was poised like a cobra about to strike. But there was no way around it. “Was there any trouble in your marriage, Karen?” Even as I said it, I regretted it.

  Rezenbach wouldn’t be denied this time—he again leapt to his feet, but Karen was faster. She feverishly shook her head “no,” burst into tears, and stood, waving her hand and walking out of the room in the direction in which she had come, toward her bedroom—the bedroom where memories of her husband, whom I had just suggested she might have been cheating on, would haunt her until she left this home behind.

  “I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry,” she kept saying, but she was gone before I could say the same to her. Rezenbach, fire shooting from his pupils, glared at me, clamped his teeth shut, and pointed to the front door.

  “This interview is terminated,” he hissed, following his client. “Let yourself out.”

  I started toward the coat rack, but the dog growled again. She stood up and glared in my direction, making that low sound in her throat. It took me a few minutes to get out the door. Sam Spade had long since left the building.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Justin Fowler is a nice kid,” said Ted Mitchell, owner of Brunswick Sporting Goods. “He’s the best employee I ever had.”

  “Sporting goods,” in this case, meant mostly guns and gun accessories. Mitchell, a man in his sixties with a white goatee, was in the store alone until I arrived. He didn’t seem terribly concerned, but once I mentioned Justin’s name, Ted became downright effusive.

  “He’s been working here four years,” he said of Justin. “Before that, he’d hang around here for long stretches, but never bought a thing, I was going to chase him away, but when we got into a conversation about the guns in the sto
re, he knew more than I did. I offered him the job right then and there.”

  “Do you deal in the kind of gun they found in Justin’s room? Did he get it from here?”

  “No, sir,” Mitchell said forcefully, as if I’d accused him of a crime. “That kind of thing, with no serial number and no traceable elements, is something you buy at a gun show, not in a store like this. In New Jersey, it’d be against the law for me to sell that kind of gun.” Okay, so I had accused him of a crime.

  “Any idea where Justin got it?”

  Mitchell looked me straight in the eye and said, “If Justin says he found it in his room, then he found it in his room. That kid don’t lie, ever. If he says it dropped from heaven, then that’s where it came from. No question.”

  “I’m not questioning Justin’s honesty, believe me, Mr. Mitchell,” I said. “I’m just trying to figure out what happened.”

  “Well, I don’t know where the weapon came from,” he said. “He didn’t get it here.” He was calming down a little. The last thing I needed was to get a man angry at me in a huge room full of firearms.

  “Have any of your customers talked to Justin about a gun like that or asked him about it . . . that he told you?”

  Mitchell shook his head, but there was something he didn’t want to tell me. “No,” he said. “Nobody’s asked Justin about that kind of a gun, at least not that he mentioned to me, and not that I’ve heard them ask.”

  I bit a little harder on my upper lip, trying to phrase the next question properly. “Did any of your customers ask you about that kind of gun? Someone you had to turn away, maybe?”

  He seemed to be very careful about looking me in the eye as he answered. “No, none of my customers asked me about a replica weapon like that one,” he said. “Not one.”

  The jousting was getting a little tiresome. “Has anyone been in here asking about a gun like that? Come on, Mr. Mitchell. I think we both want to help Justin.”

  “I am helping Justin,” Mitchell said. “And if you want to talk any further about this, you can call my lawyer.”

  There wasn’t much room left for negotiation, so I checked my watch, made noises about how late I was (which was true), and headed out the door. I beat the kids home by about ten minutes, which is the last sentence you’ll ever read from me that starts with “I beat the kids”. . unless we’re talking about a game of “Trivial Pursuit,” in which I’m a merciless competitor. Ask a freelancer about trivial stuff, and you’re bound to strike gold.

  Ethan wasn’t any less surly than usual, and no more so, and when a boy is about to become a teenager, that’s really the most you can expect. He did his homework, grumbling, and showed it to me, with even more grumbling, but without the four-alarm meltdown we’d had the day before. Some days, that’s good enough.

  Leah, anticipating the arrival of her relatives, was less effervescent than usual, but seemed to know she stood a decent chance of getting a present out of the visit. Knowing her uncle Howard, I was willing to bet it’d be a swell bag of peanuts with “Continental Airlines” printed on one side, but perhaps I was projecting just a bit.

  Just before I was going to start making dinner, Lori Shery called. I filled her in on my monumental lack of progress with Justin Fowler, and she, being Lori, expressed her concern that she’d asked me too big a favor.

  “I’ve asked you to do something that’s impossible,” she said.

  “You expect it because you do impossible things three times a week,” I reminded her.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked. Lori should have that put on a business card, or have a tape loop made of her saying it, to cut down on needless repetition.

  “Talk to some doctors,” I said, knowing that “no, I can handle it” would have been unacceptable to Lori. “Psychologists, neurologists, people like that. Give them the details of the case as you understand it, and see if they can poke any holes in the theory that Justin shot Michael Huston just because he was the first guy he encountered. The more experts we have, the better off we are. And if you get any good ones, tell them I’ll be calling to do an interview.”

  Lori already sounded more upbeat now that she had an assignment. I’m the same way, but I generally get paid when I have an assignment. “Anything else, boss?” she asked.

  “You don’t know any gun experts, do you?” I asked her.

  “No, but you do,” she said. “Justin Fowler. You know you can ask him anything about guns, and you’ll have a hard time getting him to stop. He is one of our children, after all.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t say it quite like that,” I said. “Abby gets jealous so easily.”

  “Right.”

  Abigail hadn’t known exactly when Howard and his entourage (pardon me, family) would be showing up, so I made enough dinner for four of us, since a) I assumed they’d eat on the plane, b) I knew the correct proportions for four people, and was at best questionable as a chef and c) I didn’t really care whether Howard ate or not.

  It occurred to me at this point that it was possible I wasn’t entering the week-to-come with the proper attitude. I didn’t really care about that, either, I decided.

  But Abby did, and if there’s one thing on this earth I do care about, it’s her. So I’d have to at least make the best attempt I could to get along with her brother—right after dinner.

  On a day like today, any excuse to turn on the oven would do, so I made a meat loaf, which with my level of expertise, was basically a large, baked hamburger. Put some mashed potatoes on it, and it’s a Shepherd’s Pie. Just in case, I tossed some potatoes into a pot with water and put it on the stove. Never let it be said I didn’t make an effort.

  Ethan had long since ascended to PlayStation Heaven and Leah was in the living room listening to a Harry Potter book on her Walk-person. We’d borrowed the audiobook from the library, since Leah liked the way the man reading the book changed his voice for each character. She was laughing out loud when Warren stood up, walked to the front door, and started to whimper at the top of his admittedly low-to-the-ground lungs. The dog can tell when Abby’s car is two blocks away. I don’t know if it’s the particular sound of a company-issued Buick or the general Abby-ness of the sound, but he’s as much in love with her as I am, and someday, I may need to find a way to shove him aside. That’s all I need—furry, adorable competition.

  I was actually mashing potatoes when the door opened and Abby walked in, looking expectantly around the room, and finding only Leah in the thrall of Hogwarts, oblivious to the Muggle world.

  “They’re not here yet,” I told her as she took off her scarf, coat, gloves, and probably a couple of sweaters until she started to look more like my wife and less like a land formation.

  “Have they called?”

  “Don’t they still charge for making cellular phone calls from planes?” I countered.

  She gave me a look. “That’s not much of an effort, Aaron,” she warned.

  I sighed, something I don’t do very often. Usually, I groan. “You’re right,” I said. “I’ll try harder.”

  “I know it’s not easy,” she said, touching my cheek. “But for me, okay?”

  “Oh sure, don’t play fair.”

  She went upstairs to change into something more comfortable— no, really—and came downstairs in a sweatshirt, sweatpants, and a couple of pairs of socks. In our house, it’s sometimes hard to remember that we are, in fact, indoors.

  As I ladled potatoes atop the meat loaf for oven browning, she asked, “What’s for dinner?”

  I showed her. “Shepherd’s Pie.”

  Her brow furrowed a little. “That’s a large hamburger with mashed potatoes on it.”

  “Nigella Lawson doesn’t have to put up with this kind of abuse,” I reminded her.

  “No, but you don’t look as good as she does in a low-cut blouse,” said my wife.

  “I should hope not.”

  She took another look at the Corning dish I was about to put back in the ov
en. “Are you sure that’s enough?” Abby asked.

  “I have no idea,” I replied. “It depends on when Stein, party of three, shows up.”

  Abby walked to the refrigerator and began taking out things to supplement my cooking in case seven people, and not four, were sitting down to dinner. Luckily, most of the items removed were of the vegetable family, and therefore officially not my responsibility. In my house, we respect each other’s limitations. Abby, of course, doesn’t have any.

  In what seemed like mere moments, she had put together something she called a “frittata,” which any vegetarian would certainly appreciate. Warning me that “it doesn’t really go with meat loaf,” she added, “It’s there for backup.”

  I thought, “Cool. More meat loaf for us.” When life hands you lemons . .

  Abby put off dinner as long as she could, but when the children started to chew on sofa cushions, she had to give in. And so, we were only halfway through eating when the doorbell rang and the dog, bless him, began to growl.

  My wife leapt to her feet as if an electrical charge ripped through her shapely little butt. The only times I’ve ever seen Abby nervous have been when she was dealing with her family—and when she thought someone was going to kill me.

  She practically sprinted to the front door, much to Leah’s chagrin. Leah always wants to answer the door, and the phone, except when it’s for her. Abby flung the door open, and allowed the Angel of Death—pardon me, her brother Howard—into our home.

  I’m pretty sure it was a complete coincidence that a gust of wind blew into the house and the lights in the living room flickered.

  I stood slowly, since I was deep into comfort food at the time, and put on my most diplomatic face to confront my brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and nephew-in-law. Dylan, who had clearly signed a pact with Satan, was tall and thin, handsome like his father (who did, after all, share Abigail’s genes), and bore the confident smile of someone who always, always got what he wanted. I offered a hand to Howard, who is the least Jewish Jew I’ve ever met, and he took it. He smiled, exposing exactly the right number of teeth. I considered knocking some of them out, but was unsure whether I could reach the uppers without a step-stool.