“That’s a great comfort.”
Laurie, Kevin, Pete, and I kick it around for another half an hour, accomplishing absolutely nothing. Pete’s cell phone rings, and he answers it. “Stanton.”
He listens for a while, says “thanks,” and disconnects the call.
“Two ounces of pure arsenic. If the dog had eaten that, he’d have been dead inside of a minute.”
“Hatchet better rule in our favor,” I say. “We cannot let this dog leave this house.” I look over at the dog in question, Waggy, who is chewing on a toy and doesn’t seem distressed by the goings-on.
But I sure as hell am.
IT DOESN’T TAKE LONG for my worry to prove justified. Even though it is Saturday, Hatchet issues a ruling on the court Web site directing me to turn Waggy over to Robinson immediately. Robinson is hereby named Waggy’s custodian, though the ruling is deemed temporary, and can be revisited at the conclusion of the Timmerman trial. Hatchet does not promise to reconsider his decision in the event Steven is acquitted; he merely retains the right to do so.
Hatchet also directs that Waggy be housed at Pam Potter’s training facility for the first month, to be evaluated as to his promise as a show dog. It seems to be a concession to me, but the ruling as a whole is a disaster.
Hatchet’s ruling also makes it clear that an appeal will be of no avail. He will not stay his ruling, which means that Waggy will be with Robinson while the appeal is considered. This won’t exactly be a high-priority case for an appeals court, and a decision could take months. With the danger Waggy is in, hours could be too long.
Kevin agrees to take Waggy to Potter’s facility, since I can’t bring myself to do so, and I tell him to ask for a tour when he gets there, and to remember everything he can about the place.
“Why?” he asks.
“So that I can make sure Waggy’s well taken care of and safe,” I lie.
I go upstairs, where Waggy is hanging out with Tara. “Waggy,” I say, “you’re going somewhere with Kevin, but you won’t be there long.”
Waggy seems happy enough about the turn of events, smiling all the while. Tara, however, is significantly wiser, and she stares at me. It is not a trusting look.
“I’m telling you, it won’t be long.” If Tara is mollified, you can’t tell it by her stare. “What, you don’t believe me?”
She walks over and licks Waggy’s head, which I take as her way of telling me that Waggy is her friend, and nobody screws around with Tara’s friend.
I have known Tara for eight years and have never lied to her, and right now, right this minute, she thinks I’m full of shit.
“Tara, he will be back here tomorrow night.”
“I’M NOT GOING TO KIDNAP WAGGY,”
I say to Laurie, Kevin, and Marcus.
“You called us here on Sunday morning to tell us that?” Kevin asks.
“Yes, but I would like to discuss, purely on a hypothetical basis, how it could be done if someone wanted to do it.”
“Hypothetically,” Laurie says.
I nod. “Yes. Perhaps we could then take the information and provide it to his new owner as a guide to how he can protect him better.”
“It’s good that it’s hypothetical,” Kevin says, “because if you were really to kidnap him, you would be committing a felony and could face prison time, to say nothing of the loss of your license to practice law.”
Everybody in the room knows I am serious about this, and everybody also knows that Kevin is right. Taking Waggy will not be fun and games; it is a serious crime that I am considering.
On the other hand, two attempts have been made on Waggy’s young life, and he is now very possibly also in the control of the man who has ordered those attempts. My desire not to break the law is strong, but not quite as strong as my desire to prevent this dog from being killed.
“You’re certainly right about that,” I say. “So let’s leave it as a hypothetical, and let’s start by you describing the training facility where Waggy is being kept. Take your time, and do it as completely as you can.”
Kevin describes the place in extraordinary detail. It is a large indoor facility about twenty yards from Potter’s house. It has twenty holding areas, larger than normal dog runs but too small to be called rooms, and each has an entrance accessible from outside. Unfortunately, he has no idea which one Waggy will be kept in.
Once Kevin is finished, I suggest that he leave. Kevin is far too dedicated to the law to participate in a crime, no matter how worthy he considers its purpose. He seems grateful for the opportunity to get out now, but cautions me to be very careful.
Once Kevin is gone, I ask, “If I were to announce a change in this from hypothetical to real, would either of you want to leave?” I’ve already talked to Laurie about this, and she has great reservations. She’s a police officer, but she’s a dog lover, and at this moment I don’t know what she’ll decide.
“I’m staying,” she says.
“Marcus?” I ask.
He nods. “We get the dog.”
“Good. I thank you, and Waggy thanks you.”
We spend the next few hours planning the operation, and though it seems like a solid approach, I’m feeling very uncomfortable about it. I’m going to be crossing a line I’ve never crossed before, and it is a very disconcerting feeling.
Laurie will have no active part in the kidnapping; it will just be Marcus and me. Getting in and out would ordinarily not present a major problem, but it will be complicated by the dogs barking like crazy when we arrive on the scene. This will no doubt be exacerbated by the fact that we will have to search room by room until we happen upon Waggy.
The plan is to bring Waggy back here, at least until we can figure out something else to do with him. I don’t want to involve more people in this, so asking Willie to take him is out. For the time being he can stay inside, with quick walks out to a small secluded yard on one side near the back of the house, and Marcus will stay around to ward off any intruders.
But first we have to get him, and we wait until cover of darkness to do so. It is Marcus’s idea to bring Tara with us; it’s possible that her sense of smell will lead us to Waggy’s room, so that the operation can be done much more quickly.
The three of us get to the house at almost midnight. It is in an isolated area of Mahwah, and there is little doubt that Potter chose this secluded setting so that there would not be neighbors for her barking dogs to annoy. Obviously, the lack of neighbors works very much in our favor.
We all had different ideas for how to pull this off, but Laurie came up with the best one. We park about two hundred yards away, and both put on gloves. Marcus gets out by himself and throws a few rocks close enough so that the dogs can hear them. They start to bark in unison, and within two minutes lights go on in Pam Potter’s house.
From my vantage point at the car, I can see her go out to the dog compound and look around, trying to see what set them off. When she can’t find any obvious disturbance, she goes back into her house. Within another minute, the lights go back off in the house.
Tara and I start walking toward the compound, with Tara on a leash. I assume Marcus is executing the next part of the plan, which is to place devices on the front and back doors of the house that will prevent those doors from being opened from the inside. If Potter gets up again to check on what is happening with the dogs, she’ll find she can’t get out of her house. By the time she realizes it and calls 911, we hope to be long gone with Waggy.
Marcus meets us about fifty yards from the house. “Did you lock her in?” I whisper.
“Yuh.”
“Let’s go.” We move toward the compound with the dogs in it. In the moonlight, it appears to be exactly as Kevin described it.
“Tara, we need you to find Waggy. Find Waggy.” As I say it, I cringe with some embarrassment; I feel like Timmy talking to Lassie. But Tara wags her tail, and we head for the dogs.
We’re about fifteen yards from the compound when the dogs sense our presence and start to bark. Tara leads us down a long row of rooms, and I’m afraid she’s just checking out the place, not Waggy-hunting. But suddenly she stops, and there’s Waggy, tail pounding and reveling in the excitement of it all.
Marcus takes out a device and breaks the lock, then steps in and slaps a leash on Waggy. As he does so, I can see the lights go on in the house again. Within moments Potter is going to find out that she’s a prisoner, and will call 911. It suddenly strikes me as a mistake that we didn’t cut the phone line; I assume that Marcus could have easily accomplished that.