Free As Dog Is My Witness by JEFFREY COHEN Page A

anything about murder investigations,
despite having done two earlier ones. But writers, particularly
those who deal in fiction, train themselves to understand human
emotion. And we’re usually fairly good at being able to distinguish
between the genuine and the artificial. Karen Huston’s grieving,
which I could see from 20 feet away, fell unquestionably into the
“genuine” category. She had been kicked in the gut by her husband’s
murder, and was just barely catching her breath.
    She, however, held out a hand, and I took it gently.
“Thank you for coming on such short notice, Mr. Tucker,” she said
in a soft, melodic voice. Karen seemed much older than her years,
older than my years, even, and it was the weight of her recent
suffering that wore her down. Her mouth was clearly more given to
smiling.
    “Thank you for seeing me, Mrs. Huston. And
call me Aaron, please.”
    I sat in one of the wing chairs, clumsily removing
the reporter’s notebook from the back pocket of my jeans.
Rezenbach, who had actually taken my coat and gloves, hung them on
an elegant wooden coat rack. But, not wanting to stray too far from
his client, he sat next to her on the sofa. He was—or was it my
imagination?— proprietary about Karen Huston.
    “I’m so sorry to be meeting you under these
circumstances,” I told her. I had rehearsed that line the whole
drive down. Cops always say, “I’m sorry for your loss,” which has
become something of a cliché, and therefore has lost all its
emotional meaning. This wasn’t much better, but at least Jesse L.
Martin didn’t say it on TV every week.
    “I understand,” Karen said. “But I don’t know why
you’re writing about this. Isn’t it just a local matter?” She
stumbled on the word “matter,” as if she were first going to say
“murder,” but couldn’t bring herself to utter the word.
    “It is, and it’s not,” I told her. “The young man who
was charged with . . .  the crime has a disorder
called Asperger’s Syndrome. I’m examining the incident with that in
mind.”
    Rezenbach’s mouth tightened when I mentioned Justin,
but Karen didn’t seem to anger. She nodded slowly and looked at the
coffee table. “Yes,” she said. “The poor young man.”
    The growling got louder, and—sue me—I must have
looked. I’m not used to the walls making a hostile noise when I’m
in the room.
    Karen turned and shouted at the wall. “Dalma!
No!”
    The growling ceased, replaced by whimpering. Karen
looked at me, and must have seen the admiration in my eyes. “She’s
really a good dog,” she said.
    “I’ll say,” I told her. “I can’t get my dog to
breathe on command.”
    Karen smiled a little. “She misses Michael,” she said
quietly, then looked up. “Do you mind . . . ?”
    “Do I mind what?”
    “If we let her in.” Now that the growling had
stopped, it didn’t seem all that threatening a situation, so I
shook my head. Karen turned to Rezenbach. “Would you let her in
please?” she asked. Her lawyer wasn’t pleased about leaving his
client alone with the nasty old reporter, but he acquiesced.
    Karen leaned over to me quickly, knowing it wouldn’t
be long before he came back with the dog. “Please don’t say
anything while he’s here,” she said, indicating Rezenbach. “I
shouldn’t be saying this—he doesn’t want me to—but I don’t think
that young man shot Michael.”
    Sure enough, before I had a chance to react, the
lawyer trailed a large Dalmatian into the room. The dog was headed
for Karen, but then saw me, snarled, and changed direction, toward
the wing chair, which luckily was at the far end of the sofa.
    Karen grabbed the dog by the collar. “No, Dalma!” she
commanded. “Bad!” The dog growled a little, but sat as Karen held
her. “Go to your pillow. Pillow!” The dog walked to a dog bed,
still glaring at me, and lay down.
    I relaxed in the chair and looked at Karen. “Can you
teach me how to do that with my kids?” I