Dog Tags (11 page)

W
ILLIE,
F
RED, AND
I
COME UP WITH AN INGENIOUS PLAN TO SPRING MILO FROM THE SHELTER.

Actually, “ingenious” may be too strong a word. We’re not talking
Mission: Impossible
here, but for us it qualifies as high-level tactical maneuvering. And because the media have jumped on the case, we want
to make sure that it goes off without a hitch. Since a dog getting out of prison is a surefire ratings and circulation booster,
members of the press will certainly be there in full force. We want to get Milo out safely while keeping his future whereabouts
a secret, so in this case the media must be seen as the enemy.

The plan is for Willie to arrive at the shelter at least twenty minutes before me. The assembled reporters will pay little
attention to him, but will wait and mob me when I arrive.

Fred will keep them out of the shelter and give me a different German shepherd, one who was found stray two weeks ago, for
me to take out through the front door. This other dog and I will go out, I’ll talk to the press for a couple of minutes, and
then we’ll make our way to my car and drive off. I’m certain the reporters will then
either follow me home or disperse to cover another earth-shattering news event.

This will allow Willie to slip out the back with Milo, and once he’s safely gone, he’ll call me. I’ll then return my German
shepherd to the shelter, so that the media will know Milo is not at my house. We’ll then re-rescue the stand-in shepherd in
a couple of days, and find him a good home through our Tara Foundation.

It’s a win–win for everybody.

Unfortunately, the plan works better on paper than it does in real life. When I arrive at the shelter, Willie is nowhere to
be found, and I ask Fred what happened to him.

“He called and said he was going to be twenty minutes late,” Fred says. “I was supposed to call you and tell you, but I didn’t
have your cell number.”

“Is Milo okay?”

Fred nods. “He’s fine. They pulled the guard off this morning, but nothing seems to be happening.”

We wait for Willie to arrive, and finally I see his car pull up in the back. “What happened to you?” I ask.

“I stopped to get Milo some biscuits and a few really cool chew toys. Didn’t Fred tell you?”

I don’t want to keep talking about this; I just want to get Milo safely out of here. Fred gets me the other German shepherd,
named Snickers, and I gear myself up to take him through the crowd. “Is Snickers okay?” I ask. “I mean, he’s not going to
bite any reporters, is he?”

“How the hell do I know?” Fred asks. “He’s only been here two weeks, and he’s been stuck in a cage. As far as I know, this
is going to be his first press conference.”

I once again tell Willie that he is to wait ten minutes after I leave, make sure the press has followed me, and then sneak
out the back with Milo. “No problem, Andy. I’m cool with the whole plan.”

I leave with Snickers, who seems perfectly happy to get out of his cage and play a role in this production. Just before we
go outside, I tell him, “If anybody asks, your name is Milo, your lawyer is brilliant, and you have full confidence in the
justice system. Beyond that, you have no comment.”

When we get outside, I stop to briefly answer some questions. In my experience, down deep everyone likes to talk to the press,
for various reasons, but nobody will admit it.

People can watch their forty-five closest relatives killed by lightning, and the next morning they’re on the
Today
show gabbing about it. Of course, if you ask them why, they don’t admit that they think it’s really cool to be on television.
Instead they’ll say that they just want to make sure a tragedy like this doesn’t happen to anyone else, and please, everyone,
stay indoors if it rains.

My reason for talking to the press is that I want to accomplish something: I want to get a specific message out. But of course
I don’t want to reveal my purpose, so I act guarded and let them draw it out of me.

“Andy, where is Milo going to live?” is the first question I’m asked, and the only one I really want to answer.

“That’s something I can’t share with you,” I say. “If the police saw fit to station an armed guard outside his cage, then
we’ll assume there’s reason to worry about his safety. So I won’t be disclosing his location. But if you want to send him
biscuits or toys, send them to me and I’ll make sure he gets them.”

This gets some laughs, which is what the press is hoping for. They view this as a feel-good story, while I see it as part
of a very serious murder investigation.

“Will you have him guarded as well?”

I shake my head. “I really can’t go too deeply into this, but I can tell you that Milo will live in a secluded place very
far away from here,” I lie as I pet the fake Milo’s head.

“Out of state?” a reporter asks.

I grimace, as if the questions are torturing me, but finally I sigh, nod, and lie again. “Out of state. But that’s all I’m
saying about it.”

I answer a few more frivolous questions about Milo, but when the reporters turn their attention to the murder and Billy’s
defense, I deflect them and leave with Snickers, who has played his part to perfection.

Fifteen minutes later Willie calls me on my cell. “Okay, man. Milo and I are on the road.”

“The press were all out of there?”

“Yup. Five minutes after you took off, the place was empty.”

“And you’re sure you’re okay with keeping him?”

“Absolutely. Sondra and Cash are cool with it.” Sondra is Willie’s wife, and Cash is his dog, a Lab mix whom Willie and I
found on the street.

“Okay. Keep in touch if anything unusual happens.”

“Anything happens, I’ll deal with it.” Willie grew up in the toughest of Paterson neighborhoods, and he can take very good
care of himself. He’s a black belt in karate, though that won’t help against someone armed, unless the bullet happens to hit
him in the belt.

Getting Milo out was enjoyable and satisfying. Now comes the tough part. I have to tell Billy he’s not quite so lucky.

M
WATCHED AS
W
ILLIE
M
ILLER AND
M
ILO LEFT THE SHELTER THROUGH THE BACK DOOR.
He saw Willie put Milo in the back of his car, and then look around to make sure he wasn’t being watched. M was at a well-concealed
vantage point, so he wasn’t worried that Willie would see him.

M had been smart enough to realize that the lawyer might try to come up with a diversion. That was why he stationed himself
in the back. Not taking any chances, he had some people covering the front and following the lawyer as he left, but M was
right that the whole thing was a fake.

The fact that Landon had told him not to take any action other than following the dog seemed to M a mistake. It would be the
easiest thing in the world to kill the dog right now, or to kill Willie Miller and grab the dog.

M wasn’t pleased that Landon seemed to have taken over day-to-day control of the matter. Such operational issues were often
military in nature, and this was not Landon’s area of expertise. Yet for the moment, it was not M’s job to question it.

M followed Willie’s car at a distance. As always, he had done his
homework, and he knew about Willie’s partnership with Carpenter in the animal shelter that they ran. So he knew where Willie
lived, and he knew where the shelter was. There was little doubt that the dog would wind up in one of those places.

Once Willie got on Route 46, M knew that he was taking Milo to his home in Montclair. It didn’t surprise him; M knew that
the property was secluded and fenced in, an ideal place to keep Milo hidden from public view.

M also knew that he would have no trouble getting to Milo whenever he wanted. As soon as Landon gave him the word—and M hoped
that would be soon—M would do what had to be done.

M picked up his cell phone and called Landon at the number he always answered.

“Speak,” Landon said.

“The dog has been taken out of the shelter, and I’m following him.”

“Does the lawyer have him?”

“No.”

“Are there any reasons for me to be concerned?” asked Landon.

“None.”

“Good.”

Click. Landon hung up without saying good-bye. M didn’t take offense. Not with the money he was making.

“T
HERE’S NO DEAL TO BE MADE.”
I have a tendency to be direct with my clients, which they sometimes find jarring. But it’s the only way I know how to do
it, and as bad as it might feel for them in the moment, in the long run they’re better off. In my view there is nothing, absolutely
nothing, worse for someone in prison than false hope.

If Billy finds my announcement upsetting, he hides it well. “This is coming from the prosecutor?” he asks. His tone is mild
curiosity, as if I just told him the Mets split a doubleheader.

I nod. “It is, but he says he has spoken to everyone involved, including the feds. Nobody has put the slightest bit of pressure
on him to make a deal.”

“So where does that leave us?” he asks. Still no panic, no arguments, just a desire to focus on what needs to be done. You
can’t ask for much more from a client in this situation.

“We go to trial and get a jury to take our side. That’s as soon as we get a side.”

“You mean other than I didn’t do it?”

“That goes without saying,” I say. “But I like to tell the jury who
else at least might have done it. If A is their only choice, they have a tendency to pick A. We need to give them a B and
maybe a C.”

“I saw the guy who did it,” he says. “It was dark, but I might be able to ID him. And he was at least six foot five. When
I kneed him in the balls, I almost went too low and missed.”

“That might come in handy, but we have to find him first.”

“There was a lot of commotion after it happened, and there were a couple of guys, maybe three, who got to the scene really
quickly. I don’t think they were cops, because I never saw them again.”

“Can you ID them?” I ask.

“No chance. But I got a license plate number off the shooter’s car.”

This revelation, while certainly a positive, annoys me in that it wasn’t made before. “When were you going to let me know
that?” I ask.

“Now,” he says, and then softens it with, “No more holding back, I promise.”

“So is there anything else?” I ask.

“Maybe. I’ve been thinking about that night. When Erskine took out the envelope, the killer reached into his own inside jacket
pocket for the gun. Like this.” He demonstrates how it was done.

“So?”

“So that’s not where someone would ordinarily carry a gun, which I imagine was designed to fool Erskine.”

“Sounds like it did,” I say.

Billy shakes his head. “I think there was more to it. Erskine was tough and smart; he would have reacted if he thought there
was any danger at all. And that guy reaching into his pocket should have meant danger, unless Erskine thought he was reaching
for something else.”

“Like an envelope of his own?”

Billy nods. “Right. I think Erskine believed they were going to trade.”

“Blackmail,” I say. We’re far from knowing that for sure, but it’s certainly a possibility. It’s also quite possible that
Erskine just expected to be paid for whatever was in the envelope.

“You have investigators?” Billy asks.

I nod. “I do, but I need to figure out what direction to send them in. What are the chances Milo can lead me to that envelope?”

“No way; he was pretty freaked out from the gunshot. I could probably get him to lead me to it, but I doubt he’d do it for
you. You’d have to build up a lot of trust first, which takes time.”

“Could he have been so scared he just dropped it somewhere?”

He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t think so. Milo knew that the things I had him take were important; he wouldn’t be careless
with them.”

I hadn’t had much confidence that I could get Milo to retrieve the envelope for me, so I’m not surprised by what Billy is
saying. “We can get by without the envelope, as long as we can learn what was in it.”