Dog Tags Read online

  Also by David Rosenfelt

  Open and Shut

  First Degree

  Bury the Lead

  Sudden Death

  Dead Center

  Play Dead

  New Tricks

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2010 by David Rosenfelt

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Grand Central Publishing

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  www.twitter.com/grandcentralpub.

  Grand Central Publishing is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The Grand Central Publishing name and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  First eBook Edition: August 2010

  ISBN: 978-0-446-56901-9

  Contents

  Copyright

  Also by David Rosenfelt

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  To Lillian Churilla, wonderful friend to Debbie, mother to Tina, grandmother to Madeline, lover of books, and all-around great lady

  IT FELT SO MUCH LIKE BEING A COP. The fact that the two occupations were so similar was an irony that was never lost on Billy Zimmerman, who was certainly in a unique position to know. Until three years ago, he was a cop. Now he was a thief.

  And at times like this, he was damned if he could tell the difference.

  Much of the similarity was in the waiting. Back then he might be assigned to follow someone, to simply watch and see where they were going, and to move in if they did something illegal. If things got hairy, there was an unlimited supply of backup to call upon.

  In his new occupation, there was just as much downtime, but now it was spent waiting for a potential victim to make a mistake, to reveal a vulnerability. Of course, being a thief came with more built-in pressure. If you failed a mission as a cop, the captain got pissed off. Fail as a thief, and it’s a warden you’re dealing with.

  And calling in backup was not a viable option.

  Standing outside Skybar on River Road in Edgewater, New Jersey, Billy was hopeful that something good was about to happen. It was Friday evening, and his target had been standing outside the building for twenty minutes, frequently checking his watch, and obviously waiting for someone.

  Billy noticed the man held his right arm tight in against his ribs, as if pressing something against himself. He seemed to exert a constant pressure, which could be extremely tiring. This was no anonymous target; Billy knew him very well, and he had no doubt that there was something valuable inside his jacket, something he wanted to completely control.

  Which made it something that Billy wanted.

  Billy looked toward his partner, Milo, a classic, powerful German shepherd. Milo stood to the left of the club, near the curb, thirty feet away. A casual observer might have observed that Milo was wearing a leash around his neck, with the other end tied to a signpost. A more keen observer might have noticed that there was no knot on the leash; it was simply wound loosely around the post.

  Milo could free himself whenever he so chose, and he was planning to do so as soon as Billy gave him the sign.

  Milo, more than anything else, made Billy feel like he was back on the force. They were partners then, before Iraq, before the sixteen-year-old girl who calmly blew herself up and took Billy’s left leg with her.

  Getting Milo back was the best thing that had happened since, and not just because of his particular, immense talent. Billy loved Milo, and Milo loved him right back. They were a team, and they were friends.

  And for now they both waited for the moment they knew was coming.

  “YOU’RE ANDY CARPENTER, RIGHT?” The man speaking is four inches shorter than me and at least forty pounds heavier. That makes him short and fat. He is standing in front of large platters of shrimp and crab. I’ve been eyeing them for a while, until he came and blocked my view.

  I nod confirmation. “That’s me.”

  I reach out my left hand to shake his, which is the only hand I have available. My right hand is securely in my right pocket, which is where it has been for three hours, ever since I got dressed.

  That hand isn’t just hanging out in that pocket. It is holding on to the ring that Kevin Randall, the junior partner in our two-lawyer firm, will be slipping onto Kelly Topfer’s finger in about twenty minutes. I’m a little paranoid about stuff like this, and as the best man I want to make sure that when the minister says Kevin’s ready for me to provide the ring, I don’t come up with air or pocket lint.

  Kelly and Kevin met only five months ago, and for Kevin it’s a match made in heaven. He is the world’s biggest hypochondriac, and Kelly is an internist. If it were left to Kevin, the couple would have registered for gifts at an online medical supply store.

  The wedding is being held at the Claremont Hotel in Closter, New Jersey, th
irty-five minutes from my house in Paterson. The pre-ceremony cocktail party has been an hors-d’oeuvrian challenge for me. If you don’t believe me, try to take the tail shell off a shrimp with one hand while standing. And even if it were possible, how do you dip it in cocktail sauce? And what do you do with your drink?

  “Eddie Lynch. People call me Hike” is how he introduces himself.

  The name Eddie Lynch rings a bell somewhere in the recesses of my mind, but since there are already two bloody Marys sloshing around in there, I’m not thinking too clearly.

  “You a friend of Kevin’s?”

  He shrugs. “We were roommates in law school.”

  The name clicks into place. Kevin has told me about him a few times, describing him as the smartest lawyer he knows. Since I’m also a lawyer whom Kevin knows, I half pretended to take offense, but Kevin wouldn’t back off his assessment.

  “You’re the best man, right?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say in a solemn voice. “I am. By far.”

  He shakes his head. “I’m glad he didn’t pick me. I’d probably lose the damn ring.”

  The conversation, not exactly scintillating up to this point, takes a turn for the worse, as we both just stand there with nothing to say. It’s getting uncomfortable, so I pipe up with, “They make a great couple, don’t they?”

  He shrugs again. Shrugging seems to be his movement of choice. “If it works out. But when was the last time one of these worked out?”

  I’m a life-half-empty kind of guy, but “Hike” is making me look like Mr. Sunshine.

  “Let me guess,” I say. “You’re not married.”

  “No way,” he says. “Not me. I’d beat them off with a stick if I had to.”

  “Have you had to?”

  He takes a step back and holds out his hands, palms up, as if inviting me to look at him. “Not in this lifetime,” he says, then laughs a surprisingly pleasant laugh and walks away.

  A few moments later Laurie Collins, better known as the love of my life, walks over. She has a small plate of food in her hand, and watches Hike as he walks away.

  “Who was that?” she asks.

  “The Prince of Darkness.”

  She decides that isn’t worth a follow-up, so she asks, “Have you eaten anything? The shrimp are wonderful.”

  “I haven’t been able to figure out how to get the tails off with one hand. And then there’s the dipping-them-in-cocktail-sauce problem.”

  “Why can’t you use two hands?” she asks.

  “Because I’m holding on to the ring in my pocket.”

  “Isn’t the pocket supposed to hold it? Isn’t that why pockets exist?”

  “You’re talking philosophy and I’m talking reality,” I say. “I’m afraid if I take my hand out I’ll drop the ring.”

  “Why would you do that?” she asks.

  “It wouldn’t be on purpose. It might slip out and fall on the floor, and then what the hell would I do?”

  “You could pick it up.”

  “It might fall down a drain.”

  “A drain in the carpet? You’ve got serious mental problems, you know?”

  Just then the lights flash on and off, signaling that it’s time to head into the other room for the ceremony. “It’s showtime, Mr. Best Man. Get the ring ready.”

  I squeeze it a little tighter in my pocket. “It’s under control,” I say.

  We start to leave the room, and I cast a glance back at the shrimp. “You think they’ll still be here later?” I ask, but Laurie just frowns a look of disgust.

  I take that as a no.

  THE MAN WAS PROVING TOUGH TO WAIT OUT.

  He stood near the front of the bar for over an hour, all the while under the watchful eye of Billy and Milo, though Billy was across the street, and out of the man’s line of sight.

  Milo looked over at Billy as if to say, Let’s get this show on the road. Occasionally, passersby would approach Milo, often clucking about how terrible it was for someone to have left their dog tied up like that. Milo would give a low growl, not menacing enough for them to call animal control, but powerful enough to make them walk away.

  But Billy was not changing targets. He instinctively knew the man would do something that would put what he was protecting in a place where they could get to it. And with what he knew about this man, it could be very valuable.

  So Billy and Milo waited until past midnight, which qualified as the wee hours of the morning by New Jersey standards. There weren’t many cars going by, but Billy noticed that the man watched each one as it approached. He was meeting someone arriving by car.

  If Billy’s instincts were right, the upcoming meeting was to pass whatever was in the man’s inside jacket pocket to the person he was meeting. If that was the case, Milo would have first dibs on it. If not, then Milo would probably just take the man’s watch and be done with it. Either way, it would be a profitable night, and revenge would be sweet.

  At twelve twenty, a Mercedes came down the street from the north, driving more slowly than normal. Billy tensed as it pulled over to the curb about thirty yards past the bar. The man Billy had been watching looked toward the car, nodded almost imperceptibly, and started walking in that direction.

  The man walked past Milo, who did not look at him but was instead looking toward Billy, waiting for a signal. Billy just held one hand in the air, palm facing Milo, the signal to wait.

  The driver of the car pulled his car to the corner and got out, leaving the door open. He walked a short distance toward the bar and then stood on the sidewalk, waiting for the man to reach him. Billy could see that the driver was tall, maybe six foot five. Billy moved closer to them, almost to where Milo was, about thirty feet from the driver of the car.

  If the men greeted each other, it was inaudible to Billy, and they didn’t shake hands. They stood together for two or three minutes, though Billy could not hear them talking.

  The man from the bar started to reach into his jacket to take out whatever he had been protecting all this time. Billy moved closer, straining to see. Even in the darkness, he could clearly make out a thick envelope. The man started to hand it to the driver.

  Billy gave Milo the signal to spring into action, and the dog reacted instantly. He raced toward the men just as the driver was himself taking something out of his own pocket. The glint off it sent a jolt of panic through Billy; it was a gun.

  Billy never carried a gun himself; to do so would be to inflate any possible burglary charge to armed robbery. Instead he ran toward the men, though his prosthetic leg hampered the speed at which he could move.

  “Erskine!”

  Milo was by this time launching himself into the air, intent on grabbing the envelope now held by the driver. Just before he arrived, the man from the bar took a brief, frightened step back, and then a gunshot rang out. He was blown farther backward by the force of the bullet.

  Milo’s perfectly timed jump allowed him to grab the envelope from the driver’s hand and take off down the street. The driver was clearly stunned, and it took a few moments for him to gather himself and point the gun toward the fleeing Milo.

  As he started to pull the trigger, Billy reached him and grabbed for the gun. It fired as they were both holding it, and the bullet went off target. The driver wrestled with Billy for the gun, but Billy carried the day with a well-placed knee to the groin.

  The man grunted in pain and staggered toward his car. Billy considered chasing him, but opted instead to quickly glance at the license plate, memorizing the number, and then went over to try to help the man who had been shot.

  He put the gun on the ground and felt the man’s neck for a pulse, but there was none. Three men appeared from nowhere and fanned out into the area. Billy had been the first to arrive at a lot of crime scenes, and he knew with certainty that these were not city or state cops. But he had no idea who they were.

  By this point, a crowd of people was starting to gather, and Billy yelled, “Somebody call nine-one-one! Hurr
y! Get an ambulance here!” He said this even though his substantial experience with gunshot victims made it clear to him that they hadn’t invented the ambulance or doctors that could help this guy.

  Within a few minutes local police cars and ambulances arrived, and the men who had gotten there first seemed to melt away. This gave Billy time to look around for Milo, but he was nowhere to be found.

  When homicide detective Roger Naylor showed up, he took command of the crime scene. Naylor heard what the officers who were already there had to say, and then walked over to Billy. They had known each other for years.

  “Hey, Billy. They tell me you’re a witness?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  Naylor nodded. “You know the drill. Hang out until we can question you, and you’ll need to make a statement.”

  Naylor didn’t wait for a response; he just walked over to the area where the forensics people were doing their work. Billy noticed that detectives were questioning other witnesses, probably patrons from the bar.

  It was almost an hour before Naylor came back to Billy, along with another detective and two patrolmen. It wasn’t the waiting that bothered Billy; it was not knowing where Milo was. The sound of the gunshot at that close a range had undoubtedly spooked him, of that he was certain.

  “Can we get this over with?” asked Billy.

  “I’m afraid it’s a little more complicated than that,” Naylor said. “We’re going to have to do this down at the station.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because you’re under arrest,” Naylor said as he and the patrolmen took out their weapons. “Stand and place your hands against the wall.”

  “DO YOU HAVE THE RING?” The minister’s question takes me by surprise, because I was waiting for the part where he asks if anybody knows any reason why the marriage shouldn’t take place. Could it be that only movie ministers use that line?

  I rise smoothly to the occasion and take the ring out of my pocket, and then hand it to Kevin. In doing so I am graceful but deliberate, focused but with the apparent calm assurance of someone who has been taking things out of his pocket for years. It is a standout performance.

  After the ceremony we head into the main ballroom for dinner. There is a DJ who plays music way too loud and spends most of his time begging people to go out on the dance floor.