Honest to Dog

by Neil Plakcy

  Rick had told me that Alex Vargas was living in Hoboken, too, though I couldn’t find any record of his current address. Was it a weird coincidence that two men I knew from different parts of my life would know each other?

  I was curious to see if there were other connections between Alex Vargas and Doug Guilfoyle. I began by Googling the two names together, with quotation marks around first and last names.

  Nothing.

  Back to Facebook, then. Were they “friends” there? Nope. Alex didn’t have an account of his own, and Doug’s showed little activity other than a bunch of birthday wishes from a few months before.

  I fancied myself as some kind of super sleuth, determined to seek out truth, justice and the American way. Well, maybe not all of that. But I did like looking for clues and solving puzzles. Had I gone so over the top that I looked for trouble where there was none?

  Lili was in the living room when I found her. “You’re as excited as Rochester with a new rawhide,” she said. “What’s up?”

  I told her how Doug had lived in North Jersey for a while after he moved out of the house in Westchester. “Single guys often hang out in bars, and Doug was the kind of guy who talked to people, especially once he had the job at Beauceron and needed to find clients to invest with him.”

  “It’s that whole six degrees of separation thing,” Lili said. “I’m sure that if you picked any random group of people and quizzed them about everyone they knew, you’d find all kinds of connections.”

  Perhaps that was true, but pursuing these leads with only the occasional result felt like putting together a jigsaw puzzle without knowing what the image looks like, just hoping that the big picture would fill in eventually.

  Rochester was underfoot, and when I sat down on the carpet he hunkered down beside me. I stroked his soft, golden head, and told him what a good boy he was. At least in that, I was sure I knew what I was doing.

  22 – The Grace of God

  As Lili and I walked up the half-moon driveway in front of the Friends’ Meeting House, I felt an overwhelming sadness. The oaks and maples beside the single-story building were coming into leaf, and some early forsythias gleamed yellow along one side of the front door. It would be full spring soon, and Doug Guilfoyle would not be among us to enjoy it.

  I’d taken the day off from work to attend Doug’s funeral, and left Rochester home alone. The melancholy of the afternoon made me miss his happy smile, and accentuated my determination to find out what had happened to my old friend.

  The sign out front read “Meeting for Worship in Thanksgiving for the Grace of God in the Life of Douglas Oliver Guilfoyle.”

  “I never realized Doug’s initials spell out DOG,” I said. “No wonder Rochester liked him.”

  Lili put her arm in mine and we walked into the large, low-ceilinged room, then down the central aisle. The decor was plain and spare in a way that reminded me of colonial America. Rows of ancient wooden pews were parallel to each of the four walls, forming a square with an empty space in the center. Since Quaker worship involved silent waiting for God with no ritual, there was no need for an altar. Instead, a framed photograph of Doug sat on small wooden table with carved legs.

  Catherine walked up the aisle to meet us. She wore a white knee-length dress, with short sleeves and big red and black poppies spangled across it. She kissed our cheeks and thanked us for coming.

  “I feel like I have to explain what I’m wearing to everyone,” she said. “Quakers don’t wear black to services like this. We consider it a way to celebrate the person who’s passed, not mourn.” She smiled. “Doug loved this dress, and I haven’t worn it since the divorce.”

  We sat in one of the pews as Catherine moved on to greet someone else. I didn’t see Rick; I was surprised that he wasn’t there with Tamsen, but perhaps because he believed the case of Doug’s death was closed, he had decided to stay away. The presence of a police detective at the funeral might convey the wrong impression.

  Tamsen sat in the front row with her son, her nephew, and Catherine’s kids. Madison looked uncomfortable in a pink tulle dress that looked more appropriate for a birthday party and her brother, in jeans and a plaid shirt, toed the floor nervously. There were about two dozen other people in the room, and I assumed they were Doug’s friends and relatives.

  After a few minutes, Catherine’s cousin Hannah, the Clerk of the Meeting, stood up and walked to the table, introduced herself and explained the way Quaker services were run. “I’m going to speak for a few minutes and then we’ll move into Open Worship, a period of contemplation.”

  Her voice carried in the half-empty room. “During that time, anyone who has a memory of Doug, or wants to say something on his behalf, can speak up,” she continued. “We believe that the spirit of God speaks through all of us. After everyone has spoken who wishes, we’ll sing Doug’s favorite hymn together.”

  She picked up a piece of paper and began to read. “Rudyard Kipling wrote the poem “If” in memory of his friend Leander Jameson,” she said. “It’s in the form of paternal advice to Jameson’s son, and I think it’s fitting to hear it today, because of Doug’s love for Ethan and Madison.”

  I glanced at Ethan, who was hunched over, his head hung.

  Hannah read beautifully, pausing at the right points, her voice clear and strong. “

  If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken, twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, or watch the things you gave your life to broken, and stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools.”

  I was moved by that line, because Doug had tried to tell the truth about what was going on at Beauceron. He’d also seen his marriage and family broken, and been struggling to build up his relationship with his kids again.

  When she finished the poem, Hannah spoke of Doug’s life – his childhood, education, marriage to Catherine. “Doug often said that the greatest gifts Catherine gave him were their two children, Ethan and Madison.” She looked directly at the kids. “Ethan, your father was proud of everything about you, from your success at Little League to the way you passed your driver’s test the first time. Madison, you were Daddy’s girl, and from the moment he first held you as a tiny baby, nothing gave him more pleasure than to spend time with you and your brother.”

  I began to tear up, and I could tell from the hitch in Hannah’s voice that she was, too. I squeezed Lili’s hand.

  “All of us are here today because of our love for Doug Guilfoyle, and I hope each of us will pledge to keep his memory in our hearts and help Ethan and Madison in the ways that Doug would have wanted.”

  She sat down beside her son, and the room was quiet for a moment. Then Tamsen spoke, followed by Doug’s father. After he sat down, I felt the spirit move in me, and I stood up.

  “I met Doug during our freshman year at Eastern College. I didn’t know him well, but he was one of those guys I saw throughout my four years—in dorms, in classes, as a friend of friends. I had the opportunity to get to know him again when he moved to Stewart’s Crossing, and he told me how determined he was to stay in his children’s lives. Ethan and Madison, don’t ever forget that your father loved you both very much.”

  I sat down. My heart was racing and I felt overcome with emotion.

  “That was lovely,” Lili whispered into my ear.

  A few other people told stories about their experiences with Doug. One man, with olive skin and a slight accent I couldn’t place, said, “I didn’t know Doug as well as you all did. But he and I shared a rough period in our lives and I’ll be forever grateful for his support after my divorce, when I was struggling to put my life back together.”

  He sat down, and then Shawn Brumberger stood. “I first met Doug at a financial conference two years ago. I was impressed with his intelligence and his financial acumen. When he contacted me last year about moving to Bucks County to be closer to his kids, we began a series of conversations that culminated in him coming to work with me at Beauceron.”

  I watched Shawn ca
refully as he spoke. Would he say something that would betray a rift between him and Doug? A reason to kill him? If indeed he had murdered Doug, he was awfully cool.

  “Doug did not disappoint us,” Shawn continued. “He worked hard to learn everything he needed in order to make a career change, and all of us at Beauceron are sorry we will not have the benefit of his expertise in the future.”

  Shawn sat, and the room was silent for few more minutes. Then Hannah stood up and walked back to the center table. “Doug’s family has chosen to have his remains cremated, so there will be no interment ceremony. Those of you who wish to can accompany us back to Catherine’s home.”

  The crowd rustled, and Hannah said, “Before we go, please join us in singing one of Doug’s favorite hymns, ‘Amazing Grace.’”

  We all stood, and Hannah began to sing. The crowd joined in. I knew there was a meaning for Doug’s life – he had been blind to the importance of his family while he worked on Wall Street, and then had learned to see.

  But for me, the most meaningful lines were “Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come. ‘Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”

  I had been through my share of dangers and snares, and grace had brought me back to my home town, and had brought Rochester and Lili into my life.

  After the last lines of the hymn, Hannah turned to Catherine and shook her hand, which I thought was an odd gesture until I remembered that was the traditional way for Quaker services to end. Others began to follow suit, shaking hands with their neighbors. People began to filter out of the service.

  I was curious to speak to the olive-skinned man who said he’d shared a rough period in his life with Doug, and I went up to him. “I’m Steve Levitan,” I said. Up close, I recognized him as the other man in the photo of Doug and Alex at the bar.

  “Hari Kozoglu. Pleased to meet you.”

  “Doug shared some of the pain of his divorce with me,” I said. “I went through a lot of the same experiences he did. Sounds like you did, too.”

  He nodded. “My wife left me about a year ago and I began to drink too much. I spent a lot of time at a bar in Hoboken, where I live. Doug was living nearby while he worked on Wall Street and we got to be friends. You knew him in college?”

  “I did, though like I said, we weren’t really friends. When he moved here, I reconnected with him, and he helped me out with a financial planning seminar at the conference center I manage.”

  “Doug was such a smart man, with a great sense of humor,” Hari said. “A bunch of us guys, all divorced, used to hang out together. Doug called us the First Husbands Club. He even gave us investment advice.”

  “That’s tricky. Sometimes people get angry when the advice doesn’t work out.” I hoped Hari might agree with that idea, and mention someone with a specific gripe, but I was disappointed.

  “I guess we were lucky then,” he said. “Even though a couple of the guys could be hot-headed, we all got along.” He reached out to shake my hand. “It was good to talk to you. I’ve got to head back to North Jersey and I want to miss some of the rush hour traffic.”

  I wished him well. As I walked back to Lili, I marveled again at the weird coincidence that Alex and Doug, two guys from separate parts of my life, had known each other. Was it just the shared bonding of their divorces that had brought together a Wall Street whiz with and a muscle-bound guy arrested for drug dealing? I didn’t suspect Doug had been using drugs, and when Rick gave me the results of the tox screen that showed Doug had been drinking, he hadn’t mentioned the presence of any drugs in his system.

  But I felt that same weird sense I’d had in Hoboken the day before, a curiosity niggling at the back of my brain.

  The same kind of thing that had gotten me into trouble before.

  23 – Making a Splash

  Catherine’s house was crowded with friends and family, and though a few people I recognized from the funeral stood talking in small groups, the only people I knew were Tamsen and Hannah and their sons.

  Lili joined the women in the kitchen and I walked into the living room. Madison sat on the sofa with her grandmother, but I didn’t see Ethan until I glanced through the sliding glass doors to the back yard. He threw a worn tennis ball for Pixie. The little dog raced ahead and jumped up to grab it with her teeth, then trotted back to him and dropped it at his feet.

  I stepped up to the doors to watch him throw it again, stopping beside a sandy-haired guy in his late thirties who stood there. It was sad to see Ethan on his own out there, while everyone else was inside sharing their memories, eating and drinking.

  “Ethan’s been going through a tough time,” I said to the man beside me. “Poor kid. I wish there was more I could do for him.”

  I turned to him. “I’m Steve Levitan. Went to college with Catherine and Doug.”

  “Jimmy Burns. I’m, well, I’m a friend of Catherine’s.”

  The boyfriend, I thought. His eyeglasses had broken above the nose, and were kept together with duct tape. My father had always said there wasn’t anything damaged that couldn’t be fixed with duct tape except a broken heart.

  He wore khakis, a light blue shirt with a skinny black tie and light brown wool blazer with the George School logo on the breast. “I taught for a while at Eastern College, where I had a bunch of kids from George School.” I pointed to the logo on his jacket.

  “It’s a good school,” he said. “I want Catherine to send Ethan and Madison there next year. But finances have been a problem.” He looked around at the house, the crowd. “Without the money from Doug, she’ll probably have to sell this house. Don’t know where the kids will end up.”

  So Catherine hadn’t shared the five-million-dollar payout with him. Or maybe he was just making conversation.

  “Catherine told me she met you in a writers’ group,” I said.

  “I’m surprised she said anything. She’s been trying to keep our relationship quiet because she was afraid Doug would get angry. But I guess that’s all over now.”

  “Catherine and I were in some creative writing courses together,” I said. “She mentioned you’re writing kids’ books?”

  He nodded. “A middle-school series about two boys who get into trouble and use what they learn in class to solve their problems.”

  “Sounds clever.” Catherine joined us as Jimmy and I swapped business cards. His was quite colorful, showing five book covers.

  “I’m so glad you could come, Jimmy,” Catherine said, as she squeezed his hand. “The kids will be happy to see you.”

  The three of us looked out to the back yard, where Ethan was now sitting on the ground, Pixie on his lap. “I should go out and see him,” Jimmy said.

  “And I should rescue Maddie from her grandmother.” She turned to me. “Thank you for what you said at the service, Steve. Ethan and Maddie are going to need all the reassurance I can give them that their dad loved them.”

  Jimmy put his arm around Catherine’s shoulder. “Let’s go find the kids.”

  I said goodbye to them, and went in search of Lili. We left a short while later, and in the car on the way home, I told her about meeting Jimmy Burns, and that he at least pretended to be unaware of Doug’s life insurance.

  “You are so suspicious,” Lili said. “Do you go around analyzing everything I say?”

  “Only as it relates to murder,” I said. “And so far I don’t consider you a suspect for any unexplained deaths.”

  “That’s good to know,” she said drily.

  I took Rochester for a long walk around the lake to make up for being away from him all afternoon. He acted like he’d been a prisoner starved for fresh air the way he kept dragging me forward from smell to smell, wagging his tail and bouncing on the balls of his paws. Being with him made me feel better. I hoped Pixie would do the same thing for Ethan and Madison.

  Lili left for her evening class, the last one of the spring semester, and I put some water up to boil for pasta. Rochest
er jumped up on me, reminding me it was his dinner time, too, and Jimmy Burns’ business card tipped out of my pocket.

  I poured some chow for Rochester and looked at the card. Jimmy seemed like a nice guy, and I was curious to see what he wrote. I used my Kindle to download a sample chapter of Jimmy Burns’ first book, Making a Splash, and read while I ate.

  As Jimmy had said, the two main characters were middle-school boys, Noah and Boogie, best friends who seemed to get into one scrape after another. The book was lively and well-written, and my impression of Catherine’s boyfriend went up another notch.

  I was almost at the end of the free sample when Noah and Boogie began fooling around down by the banks of a river much like the Delaware, though it wasn’t named. Boogie confessed that he was really afraid of the water, and I wondered if Jimmy had spoken to Doug about his own fear. Then Boogie slipped and fell into the river.

  Whoa. Shades of Doug Guilfoyle. I flipped ahead eagerly to see what happened and realized I’d come to the end of the sample.

  One of the great things about e-books is instant gratification. After a couple of clicks, I had the whole book on my Kindle, and I went upstairs to read. Rochester followed me to the bedroom and jumped up on the bed as I plumped up the pillows for reading. He circled twice, and with a gentle thump landed beside me. His head rested on his paws and he stared at me.

  “Okay, okay, I won’t ignore you.” I held the Kindle with one and with the other I scratched behind his big floppy ears until he put his head down on the spread and went to sleep.

  Making a Splash was a quick read, and I enjoyed it. I was almost disappointed that there were no other parallel’s to Doug’s situation in the book. I was finished by the time I heard Lili’s car in the driveway and Rochester jumped off the bed and charged downstairs to bark a welcome.

  I put a kettle of water up to boil as Lili greeted Rochester at the door. “How was your class?” I asked, after kissing her hello.