Dog Tags

CHAPTER 11

TARA IS NOT AS YOUNG AS SHE USED TO BE, but you could never tell that by her attitude when we go for a walk.

Her tail is always wagging, her nose is always sniffing, and she’s always alert to her surroundings. When she hears an unusual sound, her ears perk up and she looks around to see if a new adventure awaits her.

I admire her in terms of her attitude toward life, and I would like to emulate it. Unfortunately, I can’t get my ears to perk.

In any event, while I don’t think I have ever encountered a golden retriever who is less than extraordinary, Tara has somehow ascended to an even higher level.

Many people, when talking about their dogs, laughingly praise them by saying that the dog thinks it’s human, as if being human is something a dog might aspire to. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent a lot of time dealing with the criminal justice system, but the average dog I know is paws and shoulders above my species.

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.”