In Citizen K-9, bestselling author David Rosenfelt masterfully blends mystery with dogs and humor to create an investigative team that readers will be rooting for book after book.
The Paterson Police Department has created a cold case division, and they want to hire the private investigators known as the K Team to look into the crimes. After all, Corey Douglas and his K-9 partner, German shepherd Simon Garfunkel, recently retired from the force. Plus, another K Team member, Laurie Collins, used to be a cop as well.
Their first cold case hits home for the K Team. A decade ago, at Laurie's tenth high school reunion, two of their friends simply… vanished. At the time Laurie had just left the force, and Corey was in a different department, so they had no choice but to watch from the sidelines. With no leads, the case went cold.
As the team starts to delve deeper into the events leading up to that night—reopening old wounds along the way—the pieces start to come together. But someone wants to stop them from uncovering the truth behind the disappearance, by any means necessary.
A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books.
Release date:
March 15, 2022
Publisher:
St. Martin's Publishing Group
Print pages:
304
Reader says this book is...: entertaining story (1) unexpected twists (1)
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Life had taken a decidedly positive turn for Chris Vogel.
He wasn’t free from problems, and he was all too conscious that his were for the most part self-inflicted. But he had two sources of money to help him out of trouble, and now he had a way to ensure that he was safe from legal jeopardy. Almost a literal “get out of jail free” card.
Vogel also had something else going for him, something he never expected and had never before experienced. That was an excitement, an invigoration, that came from turning his life over to fate. At first he thought the feeling was nonsense, a ridiculous but violent diversion from the mess that was his life, and he silently mocked it. But after time he indulged it and lived it, and the truth was he gradually became addicted to it.
After all, the sensation was intoxicating and offered a feeling of freedom unlike any other he had ever imagined. And he was clear minded enough to know that, as counterintuitive as it sounded, the freedom actually came from giving up his freedom.
Never had the feeling been stronger than it was at that moment. It was a more powerful high than he had ever experienced with drugs, and he had certainly done his share in that area. But on this night it was accompanied by almost paralyzing nervousness; he had never done anything like this and never thought that he would.
The high, and the nervousness, left no room for guilt. Maybe that would come later, maybe not. It hadn’t so far, at least not enough to cause him to stop. If it grew and became a significant factor, he would deal with it and move on.
The evening had been a strange one for Vogel, mainly because he had never pictured himself attending a high school reunion. The event itself was boring, as he knew it would be. With the exception of a select few, he had not seen these people in years and didn’t care if he ever saw them again. He’d had no use for them back in the day; nothing had changed in that regard, especially since the disdain had always been mutual.
The truth is that he would never have attended the event if this plan had not been in place. The last thing he wanted to do was revisit any part of high school. But Vogel wasn’t bored; he was anxious. He knew where the night was going to end up, and he could think of nothing else.
Getting Kim Baskin to leave with him, as planned, had proven to be easy. She bought his story fully and completely, and they had left together in his car. She believed him when he promised they would be back soon.
They had driven less than three miles when he pulled into a rest area off the Garden State Parkway. “What are we doing here?” she asked, slight worry creeping into her voice.
He smacked the steering wheel in feigned frustration. “Damn. The car is starting to overheat. I’ve got to get some water. This happened the other day also, but my mechanic said he fixed it. I’ll just be a minute.”
He pulled up to the small building, but didn’t turn off the car. Instead he opened the passenger door window from his driver’s side controls.
“Get out of the car.”
It wasn’t Vogel’s voice; another man had come to the window with a gun. Baskin let out a small scream of terror and looked toward Vogel, but all he said was “You heard him. Get out.”
The man at the passenger side pulled the door open, grabbed Baskin, and pulled her out. She tried to scream but it caught in her throat. “You too,” the man said, pointing the gun at Vogel. “Get out.”
“What are you talking about, Z? You know what we’re supposed to do.”
“I know exactly what I am supposed to do. I said get out of the car.”
Vogel was confused and scared, but he did as he was told. The man called Z handcuffed them to each other and then to a pole inside his van. He placed tight gags over their mouths so they could not communicate or yell for help; it was all they could do to breathe. Then he took the clear plastic bag out of his pocket and left it in the glove compartment of Vogel’s car. Once he had done that, he removed any trace of his fingerprints inside the car and closed the door. He went back to the van and drove off with his captives.
Vogel, handcuffed in the back, had long ago begun to share Baskin’s panic; this was not what was supposed to happen. All he could think of was that maybe Espinosa had learned what he had done and had somehow gotten to Z. But how could that be?
Vogel would never learn whether he was correct, and he and Baskin would never be seen again.
I’m a cop.
Not technically; I don’t get paid by the Paterson Police Department anymore, and I no longer have a badge and a uniform. I don’t drive a police car, and I can’t arrest people, which was a fun part of the job. I still carry a gun, but it’s one that I own personally.
The bottom line is that if you asked the Paterson chief of police if Corey Douglas was on the force, he would say, “Who’s Corey Douglas?” And then after he looked me up, he’d say, “Oh, he was a sergeant in the K-9 unit. But not anymore; he put in his time and retired.”
But I have learned since retiring a couple of years ago that the feeling of being a police officer never goes away. We become retired cops, not ex-cops. Especially in cases like mine, since as a private investigator I have sort of stayed in the action.
The “cop feeling” is most pronounced at times like this, when I visit the old precinct. Everything just falls into place the moment I walk in the door. I can remember the old rhythms, the rituals I used to have; it all feels so damn normal. I feel like I should be going to my locker to get ready to go out in the field.
I don’t come here often; I don’t want to seem like a hanger-on. And I certainly don’t regret putting in for retirement; the grind was getting to me and it was absolutely the right time to go.
But occasionally I’ll go out with a couple of buddies from the old days, and sometimes I’ll meet them here. And a few times I’ve brought Simon Garfunkel with me, because they all love and miss him. Simon is a German shepherd who was my partner on the force for seven years and who is now a valued member of our investigative group, which we call the K Team.
The other members of the team, except for Simon, are here with me today at the precinct. They are Laurie Collins, also an ex-cop from the Paterson PD, and Marcus Clark. I’m not just saying this, but we are kick-ass investigators, and we make a damn good team.
We’re not paying a social call today; we’ve been summoned to a meeting with Pete Stanton, captain in charge of the Homicide Division of the Paterson PD. None of us has any idea why he wants to see us. I doubt it’s to arrest us, since it’s been a while since we’ve killed anyone, other than in self-defense.
I know Pete, though not well. Our lives never really intersected when I was on the force. Laurie knows him a lot better, mainly because Pete is a sports bar buddy of Laurie’s husband, attorney Andy Carpenter.
Andy is not a part of the K Team, though when he takes a case, he usually employs us as his investigators. Andy and Laurie are wealthy due to Andy’s inheritance and some lucrative cases. The money has not done much for Andy’s work ethic. He’s a great lawyer who would just as soon stop lawyering and work instead in service of his passion, which is dog rescue.
Pete and Andy, along with their other friend Vince Sanders, basically limit their conversations to throwing insults at each other. They never get offended; I think it’s more of a competition. They’re like high school kids without the potential for future growth and maturity.
I’m the last one to arrive, and when I do, we’re brought in to meet with Pete. On the way, Laurie and I see a bunch of our old friends, who greet us, but we don’t stop to chat. I’m sure they’re wondering what the hell we’re doing here, and we’re unable to enlighten them.
Pete greets us with a smile, a handshake for Marcus and me, and a hug for Laurie. Pete offers us something to drink, and Laurie and I ask for water, which he takes from a small refrigerator in the corner of the office. Marcus declines with a shake of the head. Marcus doesn’t say much, and when he does, it is pretty much unintelligible to everyone but Laurie.
“Andy specifically asked me not to send you his best, and he wanted me to inform you of that fact,” Laurie says. “I regret to say that I am married to a four-year-old.”
Pete frowns. “Yeah, I saw him at Charlie’s last night. I actually don’t think he has a ‘best,’ but he has plenty of ‘worst.’ And you can tell him I said that. He defending any slimeballs this week?”
“No, he’s still into client avoidance.”
It’s because of Andy’s attitude toward work that we’re forced to take on other clients to fill the gap.
“So why did you call this meeting, Pete?” It’s my style; whenever there is a chase, I tend to cut to it.
“We’ve had some budget cuts.”
“We’re not part of your budget, Pete, so I’m afraid you can’t cut us,” Laurie says. “You looking for a loan?”
“I’ll take whatever you can spare. But if you think things were tight when you were on the force, that’s nothing like it is now. Our new mayor thinks he can solve the city’s problems by cutting back on our funding. And it’s not just us; he’s even doing it to the fire department. Good luck with that; the mayor better not smoke in bed.”
“And we come in where in this story, exactly?” Laurie asks.
“I’m sure you know this, since it was the same when you were here, but we have different budget pots. Most of them are empty, but the consultant pot is pretty full. That’s because we haven’t been hiring any. That’s about to change. It’s nuts that we can’t pay for more cops, we can’t even authorize overtime, but we can pay for consultants. Pisses me off, actually, but it is what it is.”
“So you want to hire us as consultants?” I ask. “Is that what we’re doing now? Consulting?”
“Not really; I want to hire you as investigators. Your fee would still come out of the consultant pot.”
“What is it we’d be investigating?”
“In a way that’s up to you. I’ve been trying for a long time to form a unit within the department to focus on cold homicide cases. That’s never going to happen internally, at least not in my lifetime. We barely have the manpower for current cases, and people keep getting themselves killed. So you are my chance to tackle the cold cases out of this other pot.”
“How would it work?” Laurie asks.
“I figured I’d show you three or four cases that interest me, and you pick one of them to focus on at a time. You’ll have pretty much free rein, and the support of the department. I would just want you to keep me updated on what you’re doing, so I don’t get any surprises if you ruffle any feathers. You guys do have a tendency to ruffle feathers.”
Laurie turns to Marcus. “Marcus?”
Marcus nods slightly, which for him represents a major endorsement and an enthusiastic yes.
“Corey?”
I nod as well. “Works for me. You know our rate? Feather ruffling does not come cheap.”
Pete shrugs. “I have no idea what your rate is, but I’m sure you’re overpaid. You should deal with accounting on that, but I can tell you that it won’t be a problem. It’s a pretty big pot. So we’re agreed on this?”
“We are,” Laurie says. “When do we start?”
“Here’s a rundown of four cases … just a paragraph or two on each. You might be familiar with some of them. Let me know what interests you. If none of these appeal to you, there are others to pick from. We have no shortage of unsolved crimes, as Andy has pointed out to me on many occasions.”
Pete hands two sheets of paper to each of us, and we glance at them quickly. I am familiar with two of the three on the first page. Laurie and I turn to the second page at the same time, and after a few seconds we both look up and make eye contact.
Nothing needs to be said between us.
“Pete,” I say, “this is a no-brainer.”
I don’t remember much about the night itself.
It was seven years ago, which unfortunately these days seems to be the outside edge of my memory statute of limitations. But it also wasn’t particularly eventful.
It was the fifteen-year reunion for my Paterson Eastside High School graduating class. Eastside is sort of famous, having been the setting for Lean on Me, starring Morgan Freeman. He played Joe Clark, a principal with some rather controversial methods for running a school. The movie was shot on location at Eastside, but that was well before my time.
Looking back, I think that fifteen years might be too soon to have a reunion. It’s nice to see everyone, or almost everyone, but it isn’t enough time to let people brag and lie about what they’ve accomplished in life. Maybe that’s the reason that the evening seemed curiously lacking in emotion; I think nostalgia takes more time to incubate and fully form.
Laurie was there too; I only found that out recently when she told me. I didn’t know her back then, so would have had no reason to remember her presence. It wasn’t her class; she was a year behind me. She knew so many people in my class that she and some of her friends decided to crash our reunion. I can’t imagine that anyone complained; Laurie’s the room-brightening type.
Even though I now think of the night as significant because of what ultimately transpired, it was a fairly bland but inoffensive evening. The event took place at the Woodcliff Lake Hilton, a nice enough venue, and as I recall, they had a pretty decent DJ playing the music of our high school years.
There were plenty of balloons in an obvious effort to make it seem festive, with limited success. I think that when places like that use balloons, then by definition they’re trying too hard.
I didn’t bring a date; I was going out with Laura Blanchard at the time, but she wasn’t from Paterson and wasn’t interested in coming. Or I wasn’t interested in bringing her … I can’t remember which. I’m sure I wouldn’t have wanted her to find out that I had been lying about my success playing for Eastside’s sports teams.
Chris Vogel was there that night, as was Kim Baskin. It’s said that they didn’t arrive together, and I didn’t notice if they spent much time with each other at the event. Kim was sort of a friend of mine; we had dated once in high school and remained friendly after that. Not close friends, but we liked each other. She was a nice if not terribly memorable person, although people certainly remember her now.
I didn’t know Chris at all. Laurie says she knew him but not well; he was not a member of the group she hung out with in high school. He wasn’t what one would call socially successful, but he was certainly a good student. He went on to school at Dartmouth, which was not exactly on my list of schools to apply to. In fact, there were no schools on that list; I went to the police academy and never looked back.
I left the event fairly early, or at least that’s how I remember it. I went with a bunch of other guys to the Bonfire, a Paterson restaurant that was sort of our hangout in high school. I don’t know if Chris and Kim were still at the hotel when I left; I just didn’t notice either way. I would have had no reason to.
Witnesses said that they left together, and as far as I know, those same witnesses were the last people to see either of them alive … or dead.
Chris Vogel and Kim Baskin simply disappeared. Vogel’s car was found abandoned at a rest stop on the Garden State Parkway, not more than five minutes from the hotel. Baskin’s remained in the parking lot at the hotel. No clues indicated what happened to them; they just vanished from the face of the earth.
It became a huge story at the time, and occasionally over the years people reported sighting one or the other. They’ve been spotted more times than Amelia Earhart. But each time it has turned out to be false.
They have not been seen since, and they are now legally presumed dead. No one knows how they died, where they died, or, most important, why they died. For that matter, no one can know with total certainty if they died.
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