it just feels surreal.
Based on his tail movements, Waggy has already moved on.
It’s hot out, and I’m getting very cranky by the time Detective D. Musgrave of the state police finally comes over to question me. I know his first initial because D. MUSGRAVE is written on his shirt; I assume there are other Musgraves in the state police from whom he’s trying to distinguish himself.
“This your dog?” D asks, backing up in a defensive posture as Waggy tries to jump on his leg.
“Actually, he’s a ward of the court,” I say.
“What does that mean?”
I proceed to explain to D how Waggy came to be my client, but he doesn’t seem that interested, jotting only a small note on his notepad.
“So you were in the house before the explosion?” he asks.
“Yes.”
This causes a prolonged note-writing flurry; there seems to be no discernible relationship between the length of what I say and the time it takes him to transcribe his version of it.
D questions me about my visit to the house. In real life, the event took about ten minutes; under his excruciatingly slow questioning, it takes about an hour and a half. My mind wanders during his note taking, but most of the time I’m hoping that Waggy will piss on his shoe.
He doesn’t.
It’s starting to hit me just how close I came to dying, and I’m feeling a need to get home. I make it clear to Musgrave that he’s gotten everything from me that he’s going to get, and he gives me permission to leave. I want to say something to Martha before taking off, but she’s still being questioned, so I take Waggy and head for home.
En route, I call Kevin Randall, my associate in my two-lawyer firm. Kevin supplements his income by running the Law-dromat, an establishment at which he dispenses free legal advice to customers who come in to wash their clothes. It is there that I reach him.
“Hello, and thank you for calling the Law-dromat,” he says when he answers the phone.
“Hey, Kev, it’s Andy. How ya doin’?”
“You mean other than the obvious?” he asks. Most people regard how are you? or how ya doin’? as just meaningless chitchat. Not Kevin; those are questions that he takes quite seriously.
“Which obvious might that be?” I ask.
“Can’t you hear how nasal I sound?”
He sounds the same as always. “I thought it was my phone,” I say. “I have a very nasal-sounding phone.”
“I have unresponsive congestion,” he says.
“Does that mean you talk to your congestion, but it doesn’t answer?” Kevin is a total hypochondriac, which gives me something to torture him about.
His annoyance is obvious. “No, it’s one that doesn’t respond to traditional medicinal regimens.”
“I hate when that happens,” I say. “You want to come meet our new client?”
“We have a client?’ he asks, his surprise evident and totally reasonable, since we haven’t taken one on in a while. “It’s not another golden retriever, is it?”
“Of course not,” I say. “It’s a Bernese mountain dog.”
“Andy…”
“This one’s not my fault. I swear… Hatchet assigned me to the case. We’re actually getting paid for it.”
“Paid for what?”
“It’s sort of a custody case, although the number of people claiming him has recently been reduced by one. And there may be some complicating circumstances.”
“Like what?”
“Did you hear about the explosion at the Timmerman house?” I ask.
“Of course. It’s all over the news.”
“Well, our client lived there, and he and I were in the house before it blew up. Had we stayed there another two minutes, we wouldn’t be responding to traditional medicinal regimens.”
KEVIN IS WAITING FOR ME on my front porch when I get home.
I asked him to come over so I could pick his brains about the situation regarding the now one-sided custody fight, and because I didn’t want to leave Waggy and Tara alone without first knowing that they get along. He’s beaten me home because I hit traffic on Route 4 in Paramus.
“Sorry I’m late,” I say, as I take Waggy out of the car. “I ran into some unresponsive automotive congestion.”
“You never let things go, do you?” he asks.
I smile. “It’s one of my most appealing traits.”
He points to Waggy. “This, I assume, is our client?”
“In the hairy flesh,” I say.
I ask Kevin to take Waggy around to the backyard, and I enter the house through the front door. Tara is there to meet me as always, and I take out one of the biscuits I keep hanging in a bag by the door. We play a