As Dog Is My Witness (37 page)

Justin was still working at the sporting goods store,
but moved to the fishing and kayaking section. No guns.

Kevin, meanwhile, was held without bail, and the
county prosecutor had already announced he would not seek the death
penalty, but would recommend life imprisonment without the
possibility of parole, which I considered the appropriate form of
punishment.

Howard and Andrea had called just before dinner (in
fact, while we were preparing dinner, but what else is new?).
Things were fine in Minnesota, where they’d already had seven
inches of snow. Our weather had warmed up, strangely, and this
afternoon, it had actually been in the fifties. So everyone was
getting the weather they wanted.

Mahoney, having spent the Christmas holiday with his
mother, had decided to forgive her when she promised not to send
anyone else to sabotage his work. He introduced her to cell phones,
and explained their use in allaying her concerns about his safety.
Isobel now knows that Mahoney is never truly stranded on the road,
and presumably sleeps better at night. Her son, his status as the
Babe Ruth of rental car mechanics restored, probably does, too. By
the time I spoke to him, he was up to
Escape from the Planet of
the Apes.

Though I hadn’t heard recently from his mother’s
long-ago boyfriend, I knew Mr. Shapiro was out there somewhere. On
the first morning of Chanukah, I had gone out for the newspapers in
the morning and found a dozen Sonny Amster bagels on the
doorstep.

Big, Bigger, and Biggest were no longer outside the
house. But if someone comes after me again with a Glock, I may
request their renewed interest.

Lydia Soriano at
Snapdragon
was pleased with
my Asperger’s angle on the Michael Huston story, and thought she
might assign me a more general AS story early in the new year. I
was happy with the potential for more work, and with the $1,500
check for the Huston piece (750 words at $2 a word).

Karen Huston, charged with hiring Kevin Fowler to
kill her husband, was out on bail. Her father had seen to that, and
hired a colleague, someone he’d gone to law school with, to defend
her. I doubted she’d ever make it to trial. Abby said an
incompetence defense was probably going to force a plea bargain at
some point. She’d initially thought Karen might try to get immunity
by selling out her uncle, but the possibility she knew enough about
Shapiro to merit prosecutorial attention was remote, and besides,
it was better to go to jail than to get Hyman Shapiro mad at
you.

Rezenbach himself faced no charges—he hadn’t known
about Karen’s plans or her hiring of Kevin Fowler. He’d merely
supplied money and connections when she’d asked, and because she
was his daughter, he’d asked no questions.

Karen was said never to leave her house, but she
hired a boy across the street to walk Dalma after three others
turned her down. The poor dog was thought to be unlucky. Dalma
loved the boy across the street, and there was speculation that if
Karen went to jail, Dalma would find a home not far away.

Leah couldn’t stop laughing when Harpo dashed through
the streets in a garbage cart pulled by two white horses. If you
haven’t seen the movie
Horsefeathers
, there’s absolutely no
way to explain it.

With only a short time before midnight, I recalled
that, though we had lit the Chanukah candles after dinner, we
hadn’t yet given the kids their gifts. We’d decided to make this
night the Big Present night because of the “double” holiday
(Chanukah and New Year’s).

I called the gathering to attention and raised my
plastic cup of Diet Coke. “Ladies and gentlemen!” I shouted. “Thank
you for coming tonight. It wouldn’t be New Year’s Eve without you.
But tonight, it’s also the sixth night of Chanukah, and my children
have been waiting a very long time for this.”

Abby arrived with two boxes, a small one and a larger
one. “For Leah,” Abby said, and our daughter ran forward and
accepted the smaller box. “Thank you, Mom and Dad,” she said, and
quickly opened her gift.

“A digital camera!” And the least expensive one there
was, too, since we knew she’d destroy it in about two weeks. But
Leah is an aspiring photographer, and the film and developing bills
were becoming serious enough to merit the change to digital media.
It was an equitable trade-off. Leah hugged each of us, especially
me, since she knew Abby didn’t have a clue how to go about
selecting a digital camera.

“This one,” Abby said, indicating the larger box, “is
for Dad to give.” We had disagreed a bit on this, and she had
finally given in to my point of view. I took the box and handed it
to Ethan.

“Now, it’s something that’s not on your list,” I told
him.

“It’s not?” He was suspicious. Another “Trouble”
game?

But when he opened the box, he was not disappointed.
“
PlayStation2
!” he shouted, and there was actually some
applause around the back of the room. “Dad!”

“Well,” I said, “I got paid for writing the Michael
Huston story, and you helped by solving the murder. You deserved
something special for that.”

Ethan, who avoids most physical contact, gave me a
bear hug and held it for a long time. Then he asked if he could
leave the party to set it up in his room, and I said he had to be
back in fifteen minutes for midnight. He said he would.

Just as Abby was bringing out plastic cups filled
with champagne, the phone rang. I figured it was my mother,
offering New Year’s wishes and a tale or two of supermarket
subterfuge at her local Shop Rite. As I took the plastic flute of
champagne, my wife said, “I haven’t forgotten.”

“I’m sure you haven’t.” The woman was demented. I
picked up the phone.

“Aaron!” said Glenn Waterman. “Happy New Year!”

“Not for another six minutes, Glenn. Or three hours
and six minutes, where you are.”

“Well, I’m getting to you early,” he said. “I read
the revisions, and you’re a genius.” I didn’t tell him I was a
ridiculously fast genius, having revised a 120-page screenplay in
five hours. Or that I’d gotten two hours of sleep Christmas night,
and then FedEx’ed him the screenplay on the 26th.

“Thanks. Does this mean . . . ?”

“After the first of the year, we’re going to call
your agent to work out an option,” Glenn said. “Happy New
Year.”

I grinned. “It certainly seems that way.”

After I hung up, Leah, who’d been sent to retrieve
her brother, did so, and just in time. We all raised our glasses as
Dick Clark and 500,000 of his closest friends counted down the
seconds. I had no time to tell Abby about the call.

She sidled over to me with three seconds left. “I
didn’t forget!” she shouted over the din, and then it was a new
year, and everyone was shouting and kissing.

My wife gave me a kiss that would kill a normal man,
and held me so tight I thought we would meld into one big
parent—not that I was complaining.

“Happy birthday,” she said. “I never forget.”

“Okay, you remembered. Thanks. So, where’s my
present?”

“Later,” she said.

E
very word of this book is
completely fictional, but there is one real person in it: Lori
Shery of ASPEN, Inc., who really was there at the beginning when
everyone was wondering what an Asperger was, and we were panicking
because a doctor had just said the “autism” word to us for the
first time. Every word about her kind, selfless dedication to we
Asperger parents is true, and I really would jump on the bandwagon
if Lori decided to become the first female Jewish president. She
kindly agreed to become a fictional character for my book, and I
appreciate it beyond what I can express. Thanks, Lori.

In addition, Sonny Amster’s Bakery in Millburn, The
Galloping Hill Inn in Union, and Thomas Sweets Ice Cream in New
Brunswick (and Princeton), NJ are real businesses. I sincerely
doubt the bakery’s bagels are the favorite of any organized crime
figures, but I really have no way of knowing. If you’re in the
area, you should definitely check out all these places (and no, I
have no business interest in any of them). As for the rest, it’s
all made up.

But for all the parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts,
cousins, siblings, friends, and those with AS or high-functioning
autism, I hope the depiction of Asperger Syndrome found herein is
one that pleases you. Keep fighting the good fight, and maybe the
world will understand the differences a little better one day. If
you believe, however, that I am making light of the situation, that
I don’t think AS is a serious thing, I apologize and beg your
forgiveness—nothing could be farther from the truth. But without a
sense of humor, we have no perspective, and we can’t be everything
we should.

My family approaches Asperger’s with as much humor as
we can, and our own Aspie is a source of pride and inspiration
beyond our wildest hopes. Sometimes, even his jokes are funny.
Should this book be your introduction to Asperger Syndrome,
welcome. Please take it in the spirit in which the story is
offered—as an entertainment.

If you want to know more, please go to:

http://www.aspennj.org

or any of the links at the web site

http://www.aarontucker.com for more
information.

And when the “weird kid” in your class does something
in a way that might not be the way you’d do it, maybe you should
think twice.

For this book, thanks to the usual suspects: my wife
and family, editor and publisher Bruce Bortz, PJ Nunn, Mindy Starns
Clark, Mark D. Terry, Julia Spencer-Fleming, Ross Hugo-Vidal, Jeff
Pollitzer, Ian Abrams, Michael Levine, Marcy Gross, and Ann
Weston.

Thanks to the wonderful booksellers I’ve met who work
so hard to get my books to readers who’d like them. Thanks, also,
to the wonderful librarians who work, if possible, even harder.

To everyone who has taken the time to email and let
me know the books have tickled or touched them, thank you. That is
an author’s greatest joy.

Thanks also to Rita at Penny’s Restaurant in Highland
Park, NJ, for making possible such great book launch parties (but
shame on you, Rita, for selling the business; now how will we have
a launch party?), and to all those who go out of their way to
attend. Seeing you there, or at bookstores or libraries, is well
worth the trouble of sitting down to write a book.

Aaron Tucker and his family and friends were born out
of a desire to amuse. If you’ve been entertained by this or the
other books in the series, please feel free to let me know at
[email protected]

If, however, you feel you’ve been ripped off by a
bogus mystery that doesn’t deliver on its promise, I encourage you
to keep your feelings to yourself.

J
effrey Cohen is a
freelance writer whose work has appeared in
The New York Times,
Entertainment Weekly, USA Weekend
, and many other publications.
His screenplays have been developed by Jim Henson Productions, CBS,
Gross-Weston Productions, and others. He teaches screenwriting at
Drexel University.

His writing on Asperger Syndrome includes one of the
first nationally syndicated articles on the subject, in 1999, and
two non-fiction books,
The Asperger Parent: How to Raise A Child
With Asperger Syndrome and Maintain Your Sense of Humor
and
Guns A’ Blazing: The Autism Spectrum and Schools
, both from
AAPC Publishing. He occasionally gives keynote speeches at
autism-related conferences.

As Dog Is My Witness
is his third Aaron Tucker
novel, following
For Whom the Minivan Rolls
and
A
Farewell to Legs.

Unlike Aaron Tucker, Cohen is tall, flaxen-haired,
and—no one mentioned this was going to run under a photograph.
Sorry.

A graduate of Rutgers, Cohen lives with his wife, two
children, and dog in New Jersey.