As Dog Is My Witness (34 page)

“Then,
why
?”

“Because he loved me too much,” she said quietly.

I sat there and looked at her for a long moment. “He
loved you too much?” I said.

Karen’s glance, tearful though it was, held some
anger as well. “Don’t you think I know how that sounds? He loved me
too much. He used to write me love letters and leave them on my
pillow at night. He’d tell me how much he needed me six different
ways every day. He made me the center of his universe, and nothing
I ever did was anything less than perfect.”

“Sounds awful,” I said.

Her face cooled considerably, and her voice dropped
half an octave. “You can’t possibly imagine what kind of
responsibility that is, Mr. Tucker,” Karen said. “To know that you
mean so much to another person that they don’t think they could
live
without you? You hear that in lyrics to stupid pop
songs, but you don’t have to actually deal with it. Michael
sincerely believed that if I weren’t with him, he wouldn’t have the
strength to go on. Do you know what that does to a person, to bear
that load every minute of every day?”

“No,” I said. “But I know what it is to feel that for
another person.”

Karen composed herself, but her mouth was still
tight, her eyes narrow. “No, you don’t,” she said. “You think you
do, but this was not a normal range of emotion. When I met Michael,
I’d been through a series of emotionally abusive relationships, so
I figured that a man that devoted was what I needed. But through
the years, he wore me down. I couldn’t ever love him as much as he
loved me—I couldn’t ever give him what he needed. I kept coming up
short in his eyes, I could tell, but he wouldn’t admit it. He would
assume everything was his fault, since I was perfect. I became his
whole world. We never had children because Michael didn’t think he
could concentrate emotionally on anyone else, and I think he was
afraid I’d love the baby more than I loved him. It took forever
before he’d let me get a dog, and sometimes—I swear—I think he was
jealous of her, too.”

I looked at Dalma, who stared up at me, grinning,
begging for affection. Maybe I had a small idea of what Karen
meant.

“So you decided to murder him? You couldn’t just go
to couples counseling like everybody else?”

Karen shook her head. “That would have been admitting
there was a problem, and Michael didn’t want to consider our
marriage as anything but perfect. If I ever suggested he was a
little . . .  suffocating, he’d go into a deep
depression for days. He wouldn’t eat. He’d barely sleep. He kept
saying that I didn’t understand, that he
needed
me, like
oxygen, and that he’d never do anything to make me unhappy.”

“But you were unhappy.”

She looked down. “God help me, yes. I was terribly
unhappy. And I couldn’t see any other path than to end it for both
of us as swiftly as possible. When I got in touch with Uncle Hyman,
he said he wouldn’t help me. Said he was a ‘businessman,’ and he
didn’t kill people randomly—the hypocrite. But Kevin was in the
room, standing guard, when I met with my uncle. They’re not
supposed to listen, but he did. And he offered me a way out.”

“How much did you pay him?”

“Two hundred thousand dollars,” she said. “It was
Michael’s money. He had accounts everywhere, and he gave me access
to everything, to show what an open and trusting relationship we
had. He was making a lot of money, and he encouraged me to use it
if I had to. Michael never knew the money was missing. The
statement came a week after he died.”

My chest was getting itchy, and I realized I was
sweating, the first time I’d truly felt warm in weeks. “So the
story about the threatening phone calls . . . 

“A lie. I made that up entirely. Just like I made up
the story about Dalma biting the man who shot Michael.” Dalma, at
the sound of her name, walked to her mistress and sat down for a
scratch behind the ears. “You wouldn’t do that, would you, girl?”
Karen said, only half thinking about what she was saying.

“Why make up stories?” I asked. “Why not just let
Justin Fowler railroad himself into jail? He confessed, after
all.”

“I couldn’t,” Karen said, focusing her attention on
me again. “I didn’t know Kevin would go out of his way to implicate
his brother, and I certainly didn’t know Justin would confess to
the crime, knowing he didn’t do it. But once he did, I had to try
to find a way to keep him out of jail without giving myself and
Kevin away. As it turned out, I couldn’t do that.”

“Did you have second thoughts the night Michael was
shot?”

Karen thought about that, as if for the first time.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t want Michael to suffer, but he
had to be gone. Still, sending him out to walk Dalma that night,
knowing he wasn’t coming back . . .  She sniffed and
was silent for a moment. “I really did love him, but I couldn’t
ever love him enough.”

“There were ways short of murder. Why couldn’t you
just ask for a divorce?”

Without a hint of irony in her voice, she said, “I
sincerely believe that would have killed him.” And her face became
blank again, perhaps as she listened to her own words for the first
time.

I stood up. “I can’t say I understand it, Karen, but
I can see the pain you’re in. I’m sorry. But it’s time to go to the
police now.”

“There’s no need for that, Mr. Tucker.” Rezenbach,
standing in the doorway, his face wet with tears, was still very
much a lawyer. “You’ve got no admissible evidence.”

“I have a confession,” I told him.

“You have hearsay. Once we’re out of this room, it’s
your word against mine and Karen’s, and there’s no way we’ll ever
corroborate your story. If necessary, I’ll make sure Karen was with
me the night of the crime, and I’ll deny she ever went to see my
. . .  brother-in-law.”

Karen walked to her father. “Dad,” she said, but
that’s as far as she got.

I reached under my coat, my sweatshirt, my shirt, and
the t-shirt underneath, and showed Rezenbach what he didn’t want to
see: the wire running up to a small microphone taped to my
chest.

“I think that’s enough, Lieutenant,” I said, and
within seconds, Rodriguez was in the door as Karen and Rezenbach
stood expressionless.

“You got what we need, Tucker,” Rodriguez said.
“Thanks for that. But like I told you in the van when we were
wiring you up, it was hard enough hearing through the seventeen
shirts. You didn’t need to keep scratching.”

“I wasn’t scratching. I was petting the dog.”

Dalma growled at Rodriguez and the other cops who
followed him in, handcuffed Karen, and took her and her father
outside. But she didn’t make a move to attack any of them, and I
stroked her head.

“Who’s going to take care of the dog?” I asked
Rodriguez.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Take her to a shelter, I
guess.”

“Shame,” I told him. “Why don’t you take her? She’s a
nice dog.”

Dalma bared her teeth and kept up the low rumble in
her throat. “I don’t know,” said Rodriguez. “She doesn’t seem to
like me much.”

“Give her time,” I said.

The police being what they are, Rodriguez made me
stand outside for a while in the freezing night before letting me
off the hook.

“So she paid Kevin two hundred grand to kill the guy
because he was too good a husband,” he marveled, shaking his head.
“Makes you wonder.”

It was making me wonder about a good many things,
including why I was freezing my butt off outside Karen’s house when
we could be having this conversation in the nice, warm house. Cops
like you to be uncomfortable when you talk to them, because they
think it gives them the upper hand. But Rodriguez was just as cold
as I was, so I failed to see the logic.

“Fowler didn’t put up the money to bail out his
brother,” Rodriguez said. “He kept that money and got Karen to call
her Uncle Shapiro for the bail. Can you imagine?”

“And Shapiro paid it? Nice guy.”

“That’s what he’d like you to think,” Rodriguez
said.

We jousted for a few minutes over my statement, which
he wanted taken at the North Brunswick station that night. I told
him he already had the statement taken here and the recording of my
conversation with Karen, and I’d be happy to come in to answer any
further questions tomorrow.

“Tomorrow’s Christmas.”

I shrugged. “Your holiday, not mine,” I said.

“Come in Friday. And Tucker, we still haven’t found
Kevin Fowler. He might not feel too fondly about you right now. I’d
stay indoors tonight if I were you. Your family, too.”

“That’s my plan. Merry Christmas, Lieutenant.”

He smiled and turned away. “
Good yom tov
,”
Rodriguez said.

“
N
o, you don’t love me too
much,” Abby said wearily. “You love me just the right amount. So
can we drop it now?”

Dinner had been over for about a half hour, but
Abigail and I had stayed in the kitchen, sitting at the table for a
good while as the rest of the folks dispersed. Now, we were
cleaning up said kitchen, as usual without any assistance from the
aforementioned Steins under our roof. I was loading the dishwasher
while Abby sponged off our large, faux ceramic tile kitchen
table.

“It’s just that I saw a lot of parallels,” I told
her. “I send you flowers.
I
spend my day thinking of ways to
tell you
I
love you. I cook your dinner.”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that
. . .  she began.

“You know what I mean.”

Abby walked to where I was standing and put her arms
around my waist. Since I had no objection to this, we stood there
that way for a while. Then she said, “Karen Huston is trying to
justify what she did. She didn’t kill her husband because he loved
her too much—she killed him because she didn’t love him
enough.
She got involved with him because he was better than
the abusive jerks she was used to. I got involved with you because
I love
you.
”

I kissed her, because that’s my second favorite form
of recreation. “But you don’t seem to expend as much energy at it
as I do,” I said.

“In that sentence, the important word was ‘seem,’”
said Abby. “I love you just as much, but I don’t put on a show
about it. I think private things should be private.”

“You could tell me when we’re alone,” I
suggested.

“Later.”

Given that piece of encouragement, I went back to my
task, and Abby attacked our marble-pattern countertop, which was
installed by the previous owners of the house, whom we have dubbed
“The Sadists.” I personally believe the house was designed by
Stevie Wonder, with no professional assistance whatsoever. But
then, nobody can touch Stevie musically. We each have our
strengths.

Howard’s strength was being awkward, so it was no
surprise to see him in the doorway to the kitchen, clearing his
throat theatrically and looking to see if it had gotten our
attention. I worried that he might have heard some of our
conversation while standing there, but there was nothing to be done
about that.

Abby looked at him, probably thinking the same thing.
“What is it, Howard?” she asked.

“We—that is, Andrea and I—oh, and Dylan, of course—we
thought that since this is our last night here, and what with
Chanukah” (he pronounced it without the “Ch,” as if there were an
“H” at the front of the word) “so close, well, we have some gifts
for you . . .  if you’d like to come in.”

Abby looked at me, giving me the opportunity to
respond. What the hell, I’d take it. “That’s very nice of you,
Howard. Thanks. We’ll be inside in a minute,” I said. Howard turned
and walked out, probably grateful that he hadn’t had to say more,
and I gave Abby a panicky glance.

“We don’t have anything for them, do we?”

She smiled. “I was going to send them. They’re
upstairs in a Target bag next to our bed.”

I kissed her again. “You’re perfect, you know.”

“Don’t start,” Abby told me. “Man can get shot
talking like that.”

I went upstairs and found the bag—Abby hadn’t just
bought the presents, she’d wrapped them, the little minx. I met the
others in the living room. Abby had dusted off—literally—our
menorah, and was trying to find candles that would fit, since we
always leave such things for the last minute, which was still
forty-six hours away.

We managed to discover just enough candles (you only
need two the first night of Chanukah, and this wasn’t even that)
left over from the previous year, and approximated a Jewish
festival celebration. We sang the prayer, or as much of it as we
could remember, and Ethan got to light the candles. Ethan has a
rather unhealthy fascination with fire, so he wasn’t necessarily
paying attention during the whole “singing the prayer” part of the
festivities.