one Laurie Collins. So no matter how this round stranger tries to tempt me, I'm not about to engage in an early evening bout of tawdry Laundromat sex.
I notice that the woman's eyes start alternating between me and the door, though no one else is entering. And as I move in her general direction, she starts to inch toward that door. This woman is afraid of me.
'Hi,' I say, figuring a clever opening like that will put her at ease. Instead, she just nods slightly and seems to draw inward, as if she wants to become invisible. 'Kevin around?' I ask.
The woman mutters, 'No … I don't know … ,' then gathers her clothes, which she hadn't yet put into the machine, and quickly leaves. In the process she bangs into Kevin's cousin Billy, who is just coming in. Billy runs the place when Kevin is not around.
'Hey, Andy. What's with her?' Billy asks.
'I'm not sure. I think she was afraid she might succumb to my charms.'
He nods. 'We've been getting a lot of that lately.'
'What do you mean?'
Billy just points toward a shelf high up in the corner of the room, and for the first time I realize that there is a television up there. It's turned to local news, though the sound is off. There was a day when that would have been a problem, but now all the stations have that annoying crawl along the bottom of the screen.
The subject of the newscast is the murder of a woman last night in Passaic, the third such murder in the last three weeks. The killer has chosen to communicate and taunt the police through Daniel Cummings, a reporter for a local newspaper, and in the process has created a media furor. The woman who just left is not alone in her fear; the entire community seems gripped by it.
'They making any progress?' I ask, referring to the police.
Billy shrugs. 'They're appealing to the guy to give himself up.'
I nod. 'That should do the trick. Where's Kevin?'
'Doctor.'
'Is he sick?' I ask, though I know better. Kevin has as many admirable qualities as anyone I know, but he happens to be a total hypochondriac.
Billy laughs. 'Yeah. He thinks his tongue is swollen and turning black. Kept sticking it out at me to look at.'
'Was it swollen?'
He shakes his head. 'Nope.'
'Black?'
'Nope.'
'Did you tell him that?' I ask.
'Nope. I told him he should get it checked out, that he might be getting 'fat black tongue' disease.' He shrugs and explains, 'I'm a little short this month; I needed the hours.'
I nod; the more time Kevin spends at the doctor the more time Billy gets to work here. I hand an envelope to Billy; it had come to the office for Kevin. 'Give this to him, okay?'
'You making deliveries now?' he asks.
'I'm on my way to the foundation.'
Billy nods. 'Listen, do me a favor? When you see Kevin, tell him his tongue looks like a bowling ball.'
'No problem.'
NORTHERN NEW JERSEY EXISTS IN A SORT of twilight zone. That is, if it exists at all. It is a densely populated, diverse collection of cities and towns, yet it has no identity. Half of it is a suburb of New York City, and the other half a suburb of Philadelphia. The Giants and Jets play in Jersey, yet deny its existence, referring to themselves as 'New York'.
The most embarrassing part is that all the major TV stations that cover North Jersey are based in New York. Ottumwa, Iowa, has its own network affiliates, but North Jersey doesn't. It should thus come as no surprise that those same stations treat Jerseyites as second-class citizens.
Stories about New Jersey are barely covered, unless they are simply too juicy to overlook. The recent murders have successfully crossed that high-juice threshold, and the networks are all over them. Even more pumped up are the national cable networks, and I've been invited to serve as an uninformed panelist on$$$[MS PAGE NO 147]$$$ eleven of the shows that specialize in uninformed panels. I've accepted three of those invitations, and in the process I fit right in by bringing absolutely nothing of value to the public discourse.
My appeal to these shows is based on the fact that I've successfully handled a couple of high-profile murder cases in the last couple of years. I must've gotten on some list that is shared among TV news producers. 'Let's see …', I can hear them say as they check that list when a New Jersey crime story comes up 'Here it is … Andy Carpenter. Let's get him. That'll fill twenty minutes.'
The one question always posed to me on these shows is whether I would be willing to defend the murderer when he is caught. I point out that he wouldn't legally be a murderer until he's been tried and convicted, but this distinction is basically lost on the questioner and, I suspect, the viewing public. I ultimately and lamely say that I would consider it based on the circumstances, and I can almost feel that public recoiling in shock. 'How,' they collectively wonder, 'could you defend that animal?'
I don't really have to worry about any of that, though, because the police don't seem terribly close to catching this particular animal. Instead, I can focus on other animals, specifically dogs. Right now I am on my way to the building that houses the Tara Foundation, a converted kennel that Willie Miller and I have turned into a dog rescue operation. We've self-financed it, which does not represent a major sacrifice. I inherited twenty-two million dollars last year, and about five months ago I secured ten million dollars for Willie in a civil suit against the people who conspired to wrongfully put him on death row for seven years. To put it another way, we are both filthy rich.
The foundation is named after my own golden retriever, Tara, whose official name is Tara, Greatest Living Creature on This or Any Other Planet. Willie is foolish enough to believe that his dog, Cash, is up there in Tara's class. I only occasionally mock this notion, since Willie is my partner, the foundation was his idea, and he does most of the work.
What we do is rescue dogs from animal shelters, where they are about to be put to sleep, and then find them good homes. People come to us at the foundation, meet the dogs, and then have to endure a fairly rigorous application process to determine if we consider them to have a satisfactory home for our dogs.
As I enter the building, Willie is interviewing a fortyish couple who are interested in adopting Tyler, a three- year-old black Lab mix. Willie introduces me to the couple, Stan and Julie Harrington, and Stan makes it clear that he knows me from my TV appearances.
I take a seat across the room as Willie continues the interview. The Harringtons alternate answering, slightly anxious and clearly trying to ascertain what it is that Willie wants to hear.
'Where would the dog sleep?' Willie asks innocently, as if he's just curious. Tyler, the dog whose sleep location is the subject being discussed, sits alongside Willie, his curiosity piqued as well.
This time Julie, fashionably and therefore incongruously dressed for these surroundings, brightens. 'Oh, we've got a wonderful doghouse in the backyard.'
Stan nods in vigorous agreement, unaware that his wife has just blown what little chance they had of adopting Tyler. 'I built it myself. It's huge. There are
Maybe it's my imagination, but from my vantage point across the room, Tyler seems to edge closer to Willie, apparently aware that this couple are not going to become his new parents. And that great big outside doghouse that some
Willie and I have rather rigid ideas of what represents a good home for a dog. Stan and Julie have just demonstrated that, in our eyes, their home doesn't make the cut. It is an unbending rule of the Tara Foundation that dogs must be allowed to sleep in the house.
I expect Willie to immediately terminate the session and send the Harringtons on their way, but for some reason he decides to delay the inevitable. He asks a question that sounds like a challenge. 'Why do you guys want a dog?'
I see a quick flash of annoyance on Stan's face. He doesn't think he should have to answer all these
