As Dog Is My Witness by JEFFREY COHEN

on their way, and this doesn’t happen often, but I was
starting to wonder whether they were worth asking.
    “All I can tell you, Aaron, is that no woman ever
felt more secure in a relationship than I did with Michael. He
loved me no matter what, and that is a very comforting
feeling.”
    I took a deep breath. “Can you think of anyone who
would want to hurt Michael?”
    Rezenbach’s eyes became the size of Eggo waffles—the
apple cinnamon kind, which is all Ethan will eat. “Mr. Tucker!”
Rezenbach barked.
    The corner of Karen’s mouth curled in a strange way,
almost like a snarl. The dog’s head rose off the pillow and she
stared at Karen.
    “It’s all right,” she said quietly.
    Rezenbach turned his head to look at her, caught her
glance, and sat down. They clearly had a bond that went beyond
lawyer-client, but I had a hard time picturing them as lovers. I
had a hard time picturing Rezenbach and anyone as
lovers.
    Karen turned back to me, measuring each word
carefully. “I’m sorry, Aaron, but no. I can’t think of anyone who
would want to . . .  I mean, it just doesn’t make
sense. That poor young man must have just done it because
. . .  She gestured with her hands a couple of
times, but didn’t say anything else.
    I snuck a peek at Rezenbach, who was poised like a
cobra about to strike. But there was no way around it. “Was there
any trouble in your marriage, Karen?” Even as I said it, I
regretted it.
    Rezenbach wouldn’t be denied this time—he again leapt
to his feet, but Karen was faster. She feverishly shook her head
“no,” burst into tears, and stood, waving her hand and walking out
of the room in the direction in which she had come, toward her
bedroom—the bedroom where memories of her husband, whom I had just
suggested she might have been cheating on, would haunt her until
she left this home behind.
    “I’m sorry . . .  I’m sorry,” she kept
saying, but she was gone before I could say the same to her.
Rezenbach, fire shooting from his pupils, glared at me, clamped his
teeth shut, and pointed to the front door.
    “This interview is terminated,” he hissed, following
his client. “Let yourself out.”
    I started toward the coat rack, but the dog growled
again. She stood up and glared in my direction, making that low
sound in her throat. It took me a few minutes to get out the door.
Sam Spade had long since left the building.
     
     

Chapter Thirteen

    “ J ustin Fowler is a nice
kid,” said Ted Mitchell, owner of Brunswick Sporting Goods. “He’s
the best employee I ever had.”
    “Sporting goods,” in this case, meant mostly guns and
gun accessories. Mitchell, a man in his sixties with a white
goatee, was in the store alone until I arrived. He didn’t seem
terribly concerned, but once I mentioned Justin’s name, Ted became
downright effusive.
    “He’s been working here four years,” he said of
Justin. “Before that, he’d hang around here for long stretches, but
never bought a thing, I was going to chase him away, but when we
got into a conversation about the guns in the store, he knew more
than I did. I offered him the job right then and there.”
    “Do you deal in the kind of gun they found in
Justin’s room? Did he get it from here?”
    “No, sir,” Mitchell said forcefully, as if I’d
accused him of a crime. “That kind of thing, with no serial number
and no traceable elements, is something you buy at a gun show, not
in a store like this. In New Jersey, it’d be against the law for me
to sell that kind of gun.” Okay, so I had accused him of a
crime.
    “Any idea where Justin got it?”
    Mitchell looked me straight in the eye and said, “If
Justin says he found it in his room, then he found it in his room.
That kid don’t lie, ever. If he says it dropped from heaven, then
that’s where it came from. No question.”
    “I’m not questioning Justin’s honesty, believe me,
Mr. Mitchell,” I said. “I’m just trying to figure out