I was surprised that Peggy had resisted my help, and wondered if she’d behaved the same way with Hunter Thirkell—or had they been closer than he was willing to admit? Maybe he was just a sucker for anyone in distress, as I often seemed to be. After all, that was how I’d come to adopt Rochester, when his human mom was murdered and I became determined to solve the crime and take him into my heart.
By the time I returned to Stewart’s Crossing with my tail between my legs, one of my college professors at Eastern had become the chair of the English department, and he’d offered me an adjunct teaching gig. That began my second affiliation with the college. When a job came up in the alumni relations office where I could use my computer skills, he’d intervened with the hiring manager on my behalf.
That job had led to two things. Lili was the chair of the department of fine arts at Eastern, as well as a professor of photography, and we’d met at a big college fund-raiser and begun dating.
It had also brought me into close contact with the college president, who’d then tapped me to start up the college conference center at Friar Lake.
I was still mulling over the meeting with Hunter as Rochester and I drove up the River Road, then turned inland at the oak-lined switchback road that led up the hill to Friar Lake. An order of Catholic monks had built the complex of buildings, then known as Our Lady of the Waters, over a hundred years before, of local gray stone. When I started at the property, I supervised the renovation of the monks’ dormitory into high-tech guest rooms, the conversion of the arched-roof chapel into a reception space, and the expansion of several of the outbuildings into classrooms.
My office was in the former gatehouse, and I pulled up in front of it and let Rochester out. In addition to developing and running executive education programs and enrichment seminars, I managed renting out the facility to companies and non-profit groups. That day we were hosting a continuing education seminar for psychologists who needed credits toward their state license renewal.
I had decorated my office with framed posters from the Eastern College bookstore—large-scale photos of the campus in all seasons. Gothic-style Blair Hall, home of the English department, surrounded by trees in autumn leaf; the Cafette, an on-campus sandwich shop in an old carriage house, in bright sunshine; and the pill-bottle-shaped Granger Hall, donated by a pharmaceutical magnate, which housed communications and the visual and performing arts. I had placed a tiny star decal on the photo where Lili’s office was located.
The photo across from my desk was one of Lili’s, a snowscape of a nearly deserted campus. The white of the snow was so vibrant, contrasting the honey-brown stone of the buildings and the dark shadows cast by the trees.
On my desk, I had framed photos of Lili and Rochester, as well as a couple of my golden retriever knickknacks, the most prominent of which was a statuette of a golden sitting at attention that looked just like Rochester when he pricked up his ears.
I left Rochester in my office with a rawhide bone, then walked along a cobblestone path to the largest classroom, where I turned on the lights, the computer and the projector. As I was fiddling with the air conditioning, Professor Andrea del Presto arrived.
She was in her late thirties, with long brown hair in a center part over a heart-shaped face. She had recently been granted tenure in the sociology department at Eastern, and her topic that day was “How and Why We Choose Our Partners,” based on a research study she had done. We chatted for a couple of minutes as she logged into the college network and pulled up her presentation. Then I walked outside to where the maintenance staff had set up a registration table, and I showed the conference organizer how to access the college Wi-Fi network.
Then I returned to the classroom and stood in the back to listen to Professor del Presto’s speech.
“My research began, as so many studies do, with a personal interest,” she said. “When I was single, I went to see a psychologist to understand why I was choosing the men I was – none of whom ended up being right for me. She told me that deep inside, we understand the ways in which we need to change to make ourselves better, and we subconsciously choose partners who will make us change in that way.”
I could see many of the therapists in the room nodding along with her. Had I done that? Looking back, I realized that I was pretty directionless when I met Mary, and I was happy enough to climb on her express train as she moved forward with her career, then to marriage and our move to the West Coast.
But Lili? How had I needed to change when I met her, and had that change happened?
I tabled that thought as Professor del Presto brought up a slide and began to discuss her methodology. The science didn’t interest me so my mind went back to the question of how Lili and I had become attracted to each other. There was the physical first; she was beautiful and sexy. She was smart and quick-witted, and our initial conversations fired on all cylinders.
But what did I need? I had been so scarred by Mary’s miscarriages, and the demise of our marriage, that I had closed myself off from any thoughts of love. Then Rochester came into my life, and opened my heart again so that when I met Lili I was ready for her.
With two divorces behind her, she was happy to move as slowly as I was. Then over time, she showed me that a woman could be interested in a relationship without taking over, the way Mary had. Lili had forced me to assert myself when I needed to, without worrying that she would get angry and turn her back on me, the way Mary had done when I argued with her.
Lili had spent decades on the go from one country in trouble to the next, and the desire to change that pattern had driven her to take the job at Eastern, where she’d be rooted to a campus and a community. When she had the urge to move on, I comforted her with the knowledge that she could still travel and see the rest of the world while remaining in her job, in my townhouse with me and Rochester.
I looked out the window and saw a couple of guys on riding mowers moving across the broad lawns that bordered on the old stone buildings. Old-fashioned street lamps dotted the property, the kind that made me think Mr. Tumnus the faun would appear beside one at any moment. The oaks and maples were in full leaf, casting intriguing shadows on the grass that moved as squirrels jumped from branch to branch.
My counterpart at Friar Lake was Joey Capodilupo, a tall, good-looking guy who managed the physical property, and I noticed he was talking to a man beside a roofer’s truck. Even though we had done a major restoration of the property before it opened, there was always something that needed fixing—a good analogy for relationships, I thought.
The psychologists ate brown bag lunches in the restored chapel, then went into a smaller computer-equipped classroom to take a quiz on what they’d learned. By three o’clock they were gone, and I focused on answering college emails while Rochester dozed beside me. Joey came in to say hello, and Rochester jumped up, put his big paws on Joey’s thighs, and nuzzled his groin.
I didn’t have to apologize for the dog’s behavior, though. Joey and his partner Mark had a golden retriever of their own, a big boy named Brody with a nearly pure-white coat. “Everything all right with the roof?” I asked.
“Yeah, just some minor work,” he said, as he settled his six-foot-four frame across from me. His long legs were encased in artfully distressed jeans, and he wore an Eastern College polo shirt, with the rising sun logo on the breast, and a Philadelphia Phillies ball cap. “Listen, you’re taking off for a week soon, aren’t you?”
I nodded. “Lili found us an Airbnb cottage in Wildwood Crest, a block from the beach,” I said. “Looking forward to going down the shore for a nice relaxing week.”
“Can I take off after you get back? Mark and I are thinking of heading up to the Poconos. He has an Internet friend who runs a hotel in a little town up there.”
“If you can manage without me for a week, I can do the same for you,” I said. “You taking Brody with you?”
“Mark wouldn’t part with him,” Joey said. “He’s become a total mother hen with tha
t dog.”
That was funny, since Joey had gotten Brody when he was single, and as far as I recalled Mark had been pretty reluctant to let a dog in his life, the way I had with Rochester. But then, Mark was an antiques dealer with shelves of fancy bric-a-brac in his home and store, and Brody was a force of nature with a big white plume of a tail that wagged dangerously.
Joey agreed to submit his vacation request into Eastern’s online system, and I took Rochester out for a quick walk before leaving for home. I had known Mark first, and I was the one who’d introduced them. Mark had been shunned by his family when he came out, while Joey’s experience had been the opposite. His father was the associate vice president of facilities for Eastern, and he’d mentored Joey with no problems about his son’s orientation.
Mark wanted a family, and he got one with the effusive Capodilupo clan and with Brody as surrogate child. He and Joey melded well together, sharing interests in restoring old furniture and sniffing out bargains at flea markets. Meeting a solid, relationship-oriented guy like Mark had helped Joey see that he could have a life like his parents had, when all he’d known of dating before was clubs and hookups in Philadelphia.
Professor del Presto knew her stuff, I thought, as I loaded Rochester into the car and we headed for home. What would she make of Peggy Doyle? How did the dancer at Club Hott need to change, and how had Carl Landsea pushed her? I would be interested to see her and figure that out.
On the surface, it looked like Carl Landsea provided her with a stable home life and a way out of dancing. But if that anonymous caller was right, Carl had been abusive. Had Peggy’s desire to have a man look after her backfired?
I was still fascinated to know how the girl who had been so kind to me, so determined to succeed on her own terms, had gotten so far off track.
4 – No Angels
Rochester and I were halfway down the River Road on the way to Stewart’s Crossing when Rick called. “Last minute opportunity for a sleepover at Tamsen’s tonight,” he said. “Can you take Rascal?”
Rascal was the Australian shepherd Rick had found at a shelter a few months after I took in Rochester, and the two dogs were bosom buddies. I knew Lili wouldn’t mind having Rascal for the evening; he was no trouble, because he and Rochester usually played like crazy for a while and then collapsed together on the floor.
Rick had been scarred by his divorce, too, but his fundamental personality trait was to be a caretaker. That’s why he had gone into police work, and that was what had attracted him to his fiancée, Tamsen Morgan. She was a widow with a young son, and looked on the surface like someone who needed to be taken care of.
Pretty quickly, she had demonstrated to Rick that she was self-sufficient. She had a successful business and was doing a great job of raising her boy. Rick had been forced to learn that he could have a relationship with a woman who didn’t need a man to tell her what to do, and she’d come to rely on him to help her when she requested it.
I made plans for him to drop off Rascal, then called Lili to let her know. She didn’t feel like cooking dinner so suggested I pick up hoagies for us at DeLorenzo’s in the center of Stewart’s Crossing. I took her order – a foot-long teriyaki chicken on white, with mushrooms and extra teriyaki sauce. I left Rochester in the car with the windows open while I went inside and ordered her sandwich and mine, a foot-long turkey breast on white, with extra turkey breast on the side for Rochester. I splurged on a six-pack of Frank’s black cherry wishniak soda, smiling as I remembered their slogan from my childhood: “Is it Frank’s? Thanks!”
I brought the food home, and as we ate, I told Lili about Professor del Presto’s study, and I wanted to see if she shared my opinions about what had attracted us, and kept us together. “Do you think I’ve made you change in a way you needed to?” I asked.
She looked up at me, her head tilted. “I was so tired of running when I met you,” she said. “From marriage to marriage, from assignment to assignment, country to country. I just wanted to settle down. Seeing you, your connections to Stewart’s Crossing, the way you felt so grounded here—that appealed to me.”
She picked up her hoagie again. “And I know you haven’t been happy when I’ve picked up the occasional freelance job that takes me away, but you haven’t complained, and you’ve made me feel like I always have you to come home to.” She smiled. “How about you?”
“I’ve been trying to figure that out,” I said. “I certainly knew somewhere deep down that I had to stop hacking, and I needed someone who’d hold me accountable.”
“So you saw me as what, a dominatrix?” Lili’s eyes danced and I knew she was joking—even if only in part.
“No. More like I admired how much you had accomplished, and I wanted to make myself worthy of you.”
“That’s sweet,” she said.
“And when I do get caught up in something, I always have you as an angel on my shoulder, appealing to my best side. Like if I do anything to help Peggy Landsea, I know that I won’t risk anything that would get me in trouble or cause me to lose what I have here with you and Rochester.”
As if he’d recognized his name, the big golden suddenly jumped up, raced to the front door and started barking. “What’s up with you, dog?”
I looked out the window and didn’t see anyone there. But a moment later, Rick’s truck came around the corner. How did the dog do that? Did he have extra-sharp hearing or just a sixth sense about the approach of his best friend?
I opened the gate as Rick got out of the truck, and Rascal didn’t wait to have the other door opened for him – the big black and white dog trampled on his dad and jumped out the driver’s side, racing up to Rochester. The two of them turned on their heels and ran inside, where I could hear their toenails scrabbling up the staircase to the second floor.
Rick was my age, but his short hair was grayer than mine, and he was slimmer and more fit. We had shared a chemistry class at Pennsbury High during our senior year, and then reconnected after I returned to town, bonding over our divorces. Then he’d adopted Rascal, and our friendship had been cemented through our dogs.
“Hannah and Eric offered to take Justin to the movies with Nathaniel tonight,” he said, as he walked in. “With sleepover to follow.”
Hannah was Tamsen’s sister, and I could see she was doing her best to move the relationship between Rick and Tamsen along. “And so you get a sleepover, too.”
Rick’s grin was broad. “I do.”
“You have a minute before you have to go? I wanted to ask you a question.”
“I never like it when you start conversations like that, but sure, Hannah’s not picking up Justin for a half hour, and I don’t want to be hovering at the end of the street like some perv, waiting for the pretty lady to be all alone in her house.”
“TMI,” I said. I led him in to the living room, where Lili greeted him and said she’d be upstairs making sure the dogs didn’t destroy anything. We could hear them racing around from room to room, jumping on and off the furniture up there.
I sat on the couch, and Rick slid into the chair across from me. I told him that I’d agreed to help Hunter Thirkell with Peggy’s case. “Did you know Peggy Doyle in high school?” I asked.
“Different circles,” he said. “I was already thinking about becoming a cop so I tried to stay away from anybody who might belong to FFA.”
“Future Farmers of America?” Our school district encompassed a lot of rural areas where kids were on their way to take over family farms—though most of those farms had ended up being sold to real estate developers instead of being handed down.
“No, doofus. Future Felons of America. A joke.”
“Yeah, I’m sure Peggy will think that’s a howler. Why would you think that? She was a super achiever in high school.”
“I knew one of her sisters from study hall and she was a wild child. I just assumed Peggy was like that, too.”
“Peggy was the exact opposite.” I told him about my friendship with Peggy, cem
ented by foreign travel and college courses. “See, here’s the thing,” I said. “I can’t make that old picture I have of her square with the way people are describing her today. I want to do what I can to help her.”
Though the case didn’t have anything to do with the Stewart’s Crossing department, Rick was familiar with it because of all the media coverage.
“He asked me to see if I can get into her last husband’s email account, because he thinks there may be information there that would lead to additional suspects.”
“Would that help involve your nimble fingers dancing over a keyboard and then taking a dive into the deep web?”
“No, nothing illegal.” I was impressed by Rick’s analogy. He was usually a much more straightforward thinker. I guessed hanging around with Tamsen, a marketing wizard, was improving his thought processes.
Or maybe it was me who was doing that for him.
“Hunter says that as Carl Landsea’s heir, Peggy has the authority to look at anything he left behind, and she can delegate that to Hunter, her attorney. In turn, he authorizes me, and it’s all legit.”
I leaned forward. “Have you ever hear of a motorcycle gang called Levitt’s Angels?”
“I’m a cop. Of course I have.” Rick frowned. “When you snoop into motorcycle gangs, you’re getting into some dangerous shit, Steve. I know from past experience you never listen to my advice, but tread carefully, okay?”
“I listen to you,” I protested.
“And then you end up doing what you want anyway.” He sighed deeply. “So here’s the quick take on the Angels, who of course are no angels at all.”
“Irony,” I said.
“College professor.”
“Hey, I yam who I yam,” I said, quoting the Popeye cartoons we had both loved as kids. “So how devilish are they?”
“They’re not as bad as some of the other biker dudes they hang around with, the Hell’s Angels, the Pagans and the Outlaws. Those dudes are into murder, extortion and arson—anything criminal they can make money on. The Levitts are not exactly law-abiding, but they the worst thing I’ve heard about them is that last year they had a big bust-up with a branch of the Warlords outside a dive bar off of US 1 in Northeast Philly.”
Another Three Dogs in a Row Page 42