David Rosenfelt - New Tricks (Thorndike Core)

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

Copyright 2009 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.

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First eBook Edition: August 2009

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ISBN: 978-0-446-55089-5

Open and Shut

First Degree

Bury the Lead

Sudden Death

Dead Center

Play Dead

I am raising a literary glass in a toast to a long and wonderful life for Oliver Baron Rosenfelt.

ANDY CARPENTER, Lawyer to the Dogs.

That was the USA Today headline on a piece that ran about me a couple of months ago. It was a favorable story overall, but the headline was obviously designed to make a humorous comparison between me and those celebrity attorneys who are often referred to as lawyers to the stars.

While you would naturally think it would have exposed me to ridicule from my colleagues in the legal profession and my friends, it really hasnt. This is because I dont hang out with colleagues in the legal profession, and my friends already have plenty of other reasons to ridicule me.

Actually, referring to me this way makes perfect sense. Last year I went to court to defend a golden retriever who had been scheduled to die at the hands of the animal control system here in Paterson, New Jersey. I saved his life, and the media ate it up with a spoon. Then I learned that the dog was a witness to a murder five years prior, and I successfully defended his owner, the man who had been wrongly convicted and imprisoned for that murder.

Three months ago I cemented my reputation as a dog lunatic by representing all the dogs in the Passaic County Animal Shelter in a class action suit. I correctly claimed that my clients were being treated inhumanely, a legally difficult posture since the opposition took the position that a key part of humane is human, and my clients fell a little short in that area.

With the media covering it as if it were the trial of the century, we won, and living conditions in the shelters have been improved dramatically. Im in a good position to confirm this, because my former client Willie Miller and I run a dog-rescue operation called the Tara Foundation, named after my own golden retriever. We are in the shelters frequently to rescue dogs to place in homes, and if we see any slippage back to the old policies, were not exactly shy about pointing it out.

Since that stirring court victory, Ive been on a three-month vacation from work. I find that my vacations are getting longer and longer, almost to the point that vacationing is my status quo, from which I take infrequent work breaks. Two things enable me to do this: my mostly inherited wealth, and my laziness.

Unfortunately, my extended siesta is about to come to an unwelcome conclusion. Ive been summoned to the courthouse by Judge Henry Henderson, nicknamed Hatchet by lawyers who have practiced in his court. Its not exactly a term of endearment.

Hatchets not inviting me to make a social call, and its unlikely well be sipping tea. He doesnt like me and finds me rather annoying, which doesnt make him particularly unique. The problem is that hes in a position to do something about it.

Hatchet has been assigned to a murder case that has dominated the local media. Walter Timmerman, a man who could accurately be referred to as a semi-titan in the pharmaceutical industry, was murdered three weeks ago. It was not your everyday case of semi-titan-murdering; he wasnt killed on the golf course at the country club, or by an intruder breaking into his mansion. Timmerman was killed at night in the most run-down area of downtown Paterson, a neighborhood filled with hookers and drug dealers, not caddies or butlers.

Within twenty-four hours, police arrested a twenty-two-year-old Hispanic man for the crime. He was in possession of Timmermans wallet the day after the murder. The police are operating on the safe assumption that Timmerman did not give the wallet to this young man for safekeeping, knowing he was soon to be murdered.

This is where I am unfortunately going to enter the picture. The accused cannot afford an attorney, so the court will appoint one for him. I have not handled pro bono work in years, but Im on the list, and Hatchet is obviously going to stick me with this case.

I arrive at the courthouse at eight thirty, which is when Hatchet has instructed me to be in his chambers. The arraignment is at nine, and since I havent even met my client-to-be, Ill have to ask for a postponement. Ill try to get it postponed for fifty years, but Ill probably have to settle for a few days.

Im surprised when I arrive to see Billy Bulldog Cameron, the attorney who runs the Public Defenders Office in Passaic County. Ive never had a conversation of more than three sentences with Billy in which he hasnt mentioned that hes overworked and underfunded. Since both those things are true, and since Im personally underworked and overfunded, I usually nod sympathetically.

This time I dont have time to nod, because Im in danger of being late for my meeting with Hatchet. Lawyers who arrive late to Hatchets chambers are often never heard of or seen again, except for occasional body parts that wash up on shore. I also dont get to ask Billy what hes doing here. If Im going to get stuck with this client, then hes off the hook, because Im on it.

I hate being on hooks.

YOURE LATE, says Hatchet, which is technically true by thirty-five seconds.

Im sorry, Your Honor. There was an accident on Market Street, and

He interrupts. You are under the impression that I want to hear a story about your morning drive?

Probably not.

For the purpose of this meeting, I will do the talking, and you will do the listening, with very few exceptions.

I start to say Yes, sir, but dont, because I dont know if that is one of the allowable exceptions. Instead I just listen.

I have an assignment for you, one that you are uniquely qualified to handle.

I nod, because if I cringe it will piss him off.

Are you at all familiar with the case before me, the Timmerman murder?

Only what Ive read in the paper and seen on television. I wish I had more of a connection to the case, like if I were a cousin of the victim, or if I were one of the suspects in the case. It would disqualify me from being involved. Unfortunately, I checked my family tree, and theres not a Timmerman to be found.

It would seem to be a straightforward murder case, if such a thing existed, he says and then chuckles, so I assume that what he said passes in Hatchet-land for a joke. But the victim was a prominent man of great wealth.

I nod again. Its sort of nice being in a conversation in which I have no responsibilities.

Im told that you havent taken on any pro bono work in over two years.