The Twelve Dogs of Christmas Read online

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  You looking for work?”

  The guy in the pickup asked the question, but he had to have already known the answer. He was at the convenience store on the edge of town where the young men hung out when they needed money and were willing to spend the day working for it.

  Day laborers didn’t earn much, but they didn’t need much: a roof over their head, something to eat, and, more often, something to drink—that’s it. And at this time of year, the roof wasn’t even that necessary. So they would arrive early in the day and wait, and locals who needed to hire them would drive up and pick them out, as if from a lineup.

  Chip didn’t get picked much, because he was thin and pale and didn’t possess the obvious physical strength of some of the others. That’s why on this particular morning, on a hot July day almost two years ago, he was one of the last few left.

  People called him Chip—when they bothered to call him anything—because he had noticeable chips in his two front teeth. He never used his real name, because there was no need to. He wasn’t voting or getting a credit card, a passport, or anything. He was as anonymous and untracked as one can be in the modern, data-driven world.

  But no one can be completely anonymous, and no one exists that can’t be tracked.

  There were two of them in the front cabin of the truck, which meant that Chip had to climb onto the back. That was OK; it was over ninety degrees out, and the wind felt good in his face. He didn’t know what they were hiring him to do, but he hoped it wasn’t too arduous. It would be, of course; otherwise, they would do it themselves.

  Chip wasn’t feeling that great: his stomach had been bothering him for a couple of weeks—some shooting pains, maybe one every couple of hours—but he had no money to see a doctor. He’d heard politicians talking about universal health care, but it would have to be really universal before it found its way down to him.

  The truck turned east, which told Chip that the work would be construction-related rather than agricultural. The farmland was to the west, and he was pleased that they were not going there. Chip hated farm labor, so he was happy it was obviously not in the cards for him this day.

  They arrived at a construction site that looked abandoned. It was not exactly a shock that it was abandoned; there was nothing around it for miles. The site looked like it might have been the shell of a small strip mall. Maybe the people financing it walked away when they realized that building retail stores in a place where there was nobody to buy anything didn’t make that much sense.

  The two men got out of the truck, so Chip jumped down as well. “This is it?” Chip said.

  The driver nodded. “This is it.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “First things first. What’s your name?”

  “People call me Chip.”

  “I didn’t ask what people call you. I asked you your name.”

  The question puzzled Chip, and maybe worried him a little. He hoped that this guy wasn’t going to pay him by check. There was nothing Chip could do with a check. “You mean my real name?” he asked.

  “Now you got it. What’s your real name?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Chip said.

  “It matters to me.”

  Chip had no idea why it would be of any importance, but he told the man his real name. He hadn’t used it in years; he had no reason to, and it sounded somewhat strange as he said it.

  What would have seemed even stranger, had Chip been able to reflect on it, was that his name coming out of his mouth would be the last words he’d ever hear.

  The man from the passenger seat, who hadn’t said a word, had a gun in his hand that Chip had not seen. He calmly used it to shoot Chip three times, a perfect triangle centered at the heart.

  The two men calmly took the wallet off Chip’s lifeless body and then lowered him into the grave that had already been dug.

  They covered it over and then went back to his boarding house room, to see what else they could find and use.

  I’m not dreaming of a white Christmas.

  First of all, I almost never dream about weather, and when it comes to holidays, I’m mostly indifferent to color. Second of all, if you live in an urban environment—and Paterson, New Jersey, is as urban as it gets—snow on the streets doesn’t stay white for long. It turns to brown and gray and black in no time.

  But the main reason I would never dream of a white Christmas is Bing Crosby. Growing up, my mother started playing Christmas music in the house pretty much in the beginning of July, and by far the song she played most frequently was the one with Bing Crosby dreaming of that damn white Christmas, “just like the ones he used to know.”

  He annoyed me to the point that I researched it and found out that the Bingster grew up in Tacoma, Washington. The average snowfall in Tacoma is eight inches a year, which pretty much guarantees that the Crosby family didn’t spend too many Christmases frolicking in the cold, wet stuff. White Christmases to the Crosbys were, in fact, a dream, not a reality.

  I pointed this out to my mother, but she was unmoved. She said that Bing didn’t have to grow up in the Arctic to be dreaming of the white stuff. Anybody could dream, she said, no matter where they lived.

  When I reminded her of the crucial “just like the ones I used to know” phrase, she swatted my argument away. She said that, for all we knew, Bing could have spent his holidays visiting family in Montana or Buffalo or Iceland. According to Mom, if Crosby said it, and especially if he sang it, you could take it to the snowbank.

  My mother passed away about twelve years ago, and she never did admit that Bing was lying about all those white Christmases. Of course, if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt, there’s always the chance that he wasn’t lying. Maybe he was reminiscing about spending his youthful Christmas holidays surrounded by Caucasians.

  Christmas is still three weeks away, and when I have time I’ll research it further. Right now, I’m on a case; between that and football season, there just aren’t enough hours in a day.

  I don’t usually like to spend the preholiday period on a case. In fact, I try to work as little as possible. But the world seems always to be crying out for me, Andy Carpenter, to provide legal genius to those targeted by our justice system, and I do so more often than I’d like.

  But this case is a bit different. This one I was eager to take.

  My client’s name is Martha Boyer.

  I first heard about her at least twenty years ago, and we’ve been sort of friends for almost fifteen. But I actually only learned her real name a few weeks ago. She never uses that name, and very few people know it.

  Like everyone else, I’ve always thought of her as “the Puppy Lady,” and when I talk to her, I call her by her chosen nickname, Pups, which is how everybody addresses her.

  Pups is sixty-eight years old, another fact I learned only when I took on her case. Her husband
died in a drive-by shooting in Paterson about a year and a half ago. He was leaving a restaurant with a friend and had the misfortune of being near a gang member when the shooting started. The husband, Jake Boyer, and the gang member were killed, while Boyer’s friend emerged unscathed. Pups has continued to live in their house on Forty-First Street in Paterson, New Jersey, about ten blocks from me.

  I’d say that about half the people who know Pups consider her cantankerous and difficult; the other half think she’s a complete pain in the ass. I’m somewhere in the middle, but I can’t help liking her. I think the fact that I like her pisses her off.

  She doesn’t much care for social niceties; it’s unlikely that she spends time at fancy cocktail parties. She has a cough that is ever present, but, rather than daintily covering her mouth with a handkerchief, she turns and coughs into her shoulder and upper arm.

  If she has any income, I don’t know what the source is. But she seems to get by, and it never came up in our discussions about my taking on the case. I have no interest in being paid for it. I have plenty of money anyway, more than I’ll ever need. And this is a worthwhile cause.

  The animal shelters in Passaic County leave quite a bit to be desired. They’re not as bad as shelters in some areas of the country, but that’s pretty faint praise. They’re overcrowded, and animals that aren’t adopted can get put down. It’s as simple as that, and one of the reasons why rescue groups, like the one I run with Willie Miller, help out.

  Puppies, especially newborns, create a particular problem for public shelters. They need to stay there for a long while, until they are old enough to adopt out, so that uses up scant space and resources. They are also prone to disease, and shelters are a place where diseases can proliferate.

  That’s where Pups steps in. She takes the puppies from the shelter, along with their mothers, and she nurses and cares for them until they’re ready to be placed in homes. At least that’s how it started, decades ago.

  For a long time now, she has been so well known that people often bring the puppies directly to her. And if instead they bring the puppies to the shelter, the manager, Fred Brandenberger, gently advises them to take the puppies to Pups. He knows that puppies have a much better chance that way.

  She never turns puppies away, so Pups’s house rarely has fewer than twenty-five dogs in it. I’ve been there, and she keeps it amazingly clean. It’s an excellent way for these dogs to come into what might otherwise have been a cold and uncaring world. As you might have guessed by now, I am a big fan of Pups.

  The other thing I like about Pups is that she does not bullshit. Ever. She says exactly what’s on her mind, and what’s on her mind isn’t always flattering. She once told me that true freedom is not caring what anyone thinks of you. She also said that she will never lie to me, and I have never doubted that even that statement was an example of her truth-telling.

  Unfortunately, not everyone shares my devotion. Someone recently filed an anonymous complaint against Pups, claiming that the zoning law for the area in which she lives specifically limits the number of pets per household to three. At the time the complaint was filed, Pups was twenty-six dogs above the legal limit.

  The zoning board contacted Pups about the issue, and with characteristic delicacy she suggested they “shove the complaint where the sun don’t shine.” The board didn’t take that well and proceeded to act on the complaint. They sent Pups a notice declaring that she would have to reduce her population to three dogs or fewer or, failing that, move out. And she had thirty days to make the choice.

  That’s when Pups called me, asking me to represent her.

  My first call was to Stanley Wade, the head of the zoning board. It’s revealing of Stanley’s personality that I’ve known him for a very long time and yet don’t really have an opinion of him. He’s just sort of there.

  Stanley has a furniture store in real life, and his position on the zoning board is an additional thing he does on the side. He’s had the job for as long as I can remember, through various mayoral changes. I doubt that he’s had to fight off other contenders; it’s fair to say that the position is not really coveted.

  Stanley was no help at all. He basically said that the law is the law and that he simply was not empowered to change it. He made noises like he regretted the situation, without coming out and saying so. Stanley is a careful, noncontroversial man; he always speaks as if he thinks someone might be recording him.

  My next move was to file suit at the county courthouse, demanding that the law be overturned or, at the very least, ignored in this case. This particular law dates back to 1881, so it has already demonstrated an excellent capacity to survive. Of course, it’s never had to go up against a team as formidable as Andy Carpenter and Pups Boyer.

  The suit was shuttled to Judge Irene Hough, who obviously drew the judicial short straw. In response, her initial gambit was to tell me to try and reach an amicable settlement with the zoning board. I told her that I had already made the effort but was rebuffed. She told me to risk another rebuff and try again. This was not a lawsuit she wanted tried in her courtroom.

  So I dutifully went back to Stanley, who was not pleased that I had filed suit. He again refused to intervene, but this time with some annoyance mixed in with his intransigence.

  I tried to reason with him. “Stanley,” I said, “you really want to go into court and testify against puppies? At Christmas time? You’ll get slaughtered.”

  Now a bit of fear entered the mix. “You can’t make me testify,” he said.

  I smiled. “I can and I will. See you in court, Stanley.”

  And, sure enough, today is the day that I’m going to see Stanley in court.

  Judge Hough is not pleased.

  I can tell by the way she sneers at me when she takes her seat on the bench. She seems to believe this case is somehow beneath the dignity of her courtroom. I can’t imagine she’s surprised, though, since I’ve been lowering the dignity of New Jersey courtrooms, including hers, for more than fifteen years.

  Two things have conspired to annoy her even more. For one, she had to hold this hearing on an expedited basis, since there was a thirty-day time limit imposed by the zoning board. It forced her to rejuggle her calendar and postpone matters she thinks are more worthy of her attention.

  Secondly, the courtroom is packed with media types and visitors, as the case has semicaptured the attention of the community. This, as she knows all too well, is my fault. I’ve done a few interviews about it, both on camera and off, and the media has lapped it up with a spoon.

  This morning, for example, my friend Vince Sanders, who is the editor of our local newspaper, ran a picture of an adorable twelve-puppy litter that Pups is caring for in her home. The headline simply said, They learn their fate today, and the subhead said, Will they make it until Christmas?

  Stories like that have helped fill the courtroom. There’s even a modest overflow crowd outside, many carrying “save the puppies” signs.

  It turns out that people like puppies.

  Who could have figured that?

  Pups is waiting for me when I get to court. She’s dressed quite properly in a nice blouse and skirt, as I instructed. She doesn’t look particularly comfortable in the outfit; my guess is that she bought it yesterday. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Pups wearing anything other than a Mets sweatshirt or jersey; she and her late husband have always been huge Mets fans.

  Also at the table with us is Hike Lynch, the other lawyer at my firm, who works with me on the rare occasions that I take on a client. Hike is a terrific lawyer, but the most pessimistic person I have ever met. I’m sure he thinks this case will end with the puppies being euthanized, tortured, or dropped off a building.

  At the table across the way are two city lawyers. I only recognize the lead counsel, Jonathon Witkins, who I’m sure would rather spend the morning being water-boarded. He’s a good guy and a talented lawyer but, at barely thirty years old, is still ambitious. I can’t imagine he wan
ts to be labeled antipuppy.

  Judge Hough has alerted Jonathon and me to the fact that she will not be recessing the trial for lunch, since we had damn well better be done with our cases by then. I don’t see why that should be a problem, and I’m sure Jonathon is thinking the shorter, the better.

  Because we are the plaintiffs, we present our case first. It’s the part I’m most worried about, because our only witness is Pups. She can be a loose cannon; she speaks her mind loudly and frankly, even when she shouldn’t. I’ve tried to coach her for this testimony, but taking coaching does not seem to be Pups’s specialty.

  Judge Hough tells me to call my first witness, although in this case my first witness is my only one. I call Martha Boyer to the stand, which is likely the first time most people have heard Pups’s real name.

  Pups stands and half strides, half struts to the witness stand, which is not a good sign. I want her low-key and understated, but her walk doesn’t make me confident that she can pull it off.

  “Ms. Boyer, do people call you by your given name, or a nickname?”

  “They call me Pups.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I rescue and take care of puppies.”

  “How long have you been doing that?”

  “Going on twenty-four years.”

  I take her through a recitation of how she came to do it, where she gets the puppies from, and how she takes care of them. It’s a very impressive presentation; Pups does remarkable work.

  “How many dogs have you saved, if you know?” I ask.

  “Of course I know. You told me to look it up.”

  The gallery laughs at the fact that she’s sassing me, which is OK. It makes her human and more sympathetic. I just hope she doesn’t overdo it.

  “So I did,” I say. “What number did you come up with?”

  “Nine thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight.”

  “How much of your own money have you spent doing this?”