Honest to Dog

by Neil Plakcy

  “Sort of,” she said, barely looking up from her phone.

  “Then act like one. This is your house and your cousins are your guests. What does your mother have in the kitchen that you can bring out?”

  She groaned theatrically and stood up, still texting. “Come on, dweebs,” she said.

  “She’s talking to you,” Justin said, elbowing Nathaniel.

  “Anybody’s a dweeb it’s you,” Nathaniel said, pushing on his cousin’s shoulder. “Karate kid.”

  “Computer nerd.”

  Rochester jumped up and romped between the boys as we trooped into the kitchen. Madison found some packs of crackers and peanut butter and poured each of her cousins a glass of lemonade.

  “Aren’t I a guest here too?” I asked.

  “You’re an adult,” Madison said with disdain. “You can take care of yourself.”

  She flounced back into the living room with her phone. The boys began arguing over which snack pack was bigger, even though they were clearly the same size. Rochester nosed them, hoping for crumbs, and I moved between the kitchen and the living room, where I picked up the lamp, which fortunately hadn’t broken.

  I asked Madison what she was reading in school and she looked at me like I was from Mars. “We don’t read,” she said. “We just study for stupid tests.” She went back to her phone.

  I turned to the boys, who had trailed back into the living room. “What’s your favorite class?” I asked Justin.

  “Recess.”

  This was not going well. “How’s Little League going?” I asked. Rick had originally met Tamsen when he coached Justin’s team.

  “Little League doesn’t start for another two weeks,” he said.

  It went on like that for way too long, while I waited for Rick to show up and rescue me. Every question I asked fell flat. The boys argued and Madison pouted and stuck to her phone. I wondered if I’d have been any better if one of these was my own kid, if I’d watched him or her grow, suffering the tantrums and savoring the sweetness. I felt a hollowness in my stomach, and I redoubled my efforts to communicate with the kids.

  Eventually I found out that Nathaniel was a Lego genius and could build any of the kits in his age group in an hour or less. Justin was hoping to pitch when Little League started, and Rick had been practicing with him. Even Madison shared that she was going to be in the school play, an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. She was going to be the Red Queen. “Off with her head!” she said, waving her hand in the air as if she held a scepter.

  By the time Rick rang the doorbell, I was feeling better about my child-minding skills but I was still glad to see him. Pixie and Rochester began barking and Rascal answered them from outside.

  As soon as Rascal got inside he herded Justin and Nathaniel and the other two dogs out to the back yard. Madison remained on the sofa, only raising her head to say hi.

  “What was the big emergency?” Rick asked as we walked into the kitchen.

  “Maybe it’s a good thing I never had kids,” I said.

  “Justin’s very lively,” Rick said. “Nathaniel is just the opposite. Madison is a tween and her emotions are all over the place. Hopefully she’ll grow out of it.” He sighed. “So what happened with Tiffany yesterday?” he asked.

  We sat down in the living room and I told him about helping her clean up, getting the new lock installed, and then about the huge zip file that had been on the llama drive.

  “So all that stuff was on the jump drive when Tiffany found it at the office,” he said.

  “And she made a post about that drive on Facebook the day before the break in. So Eduardo de la Fe could have known she had it. She told me that he arranged the job interview for her, too, so he’d have known she was going to be out then.”

  “Hold on, cowboy. Facebook is a public site. Anybody could have seen that post. It doesn’t mean that de la Fe is the one who broke into her place. Anyone who worked with her at the Clinic could have put together that data and then lost the drive.”

  “Oh my God,” I said. “Maria Jose.”

  “Who?”

  “Tiffany’s boss at the Clinic. She could have collected the data and then lost the drive.”

  “And?”

  “And Tiffany showed me something weird on Maria Jose’s Facebook page. She made a post about going back to Colombia, but she used the wrong words—something about sucking balls.”

  “Slow down. You are not making any sense at all.”

  I went back over everything I’d talked about with Tiffany.

  “So if Maria Jose didn’t make that post, then who did?” Rick asked.

  “Eduardo de la Fe,” I said. “It makes sense. He’s Cuban, right? His email address is cubamerica. So he’d use Cuban slang, where this Maria Jose wouldn’t.”

  “You’re going pretty far out on a limb here,” Rick said.

  “You have to warn Tiffany.”

  “You said she was going to stay with Vargas for a while, didn’t you?” Rick asked.

  “That’s what she told me.”

  “Then let him look after her for a while. If I call her now, it’s just going to reinforce the pattern that when anything goes wrong, she comes to me. And I can’t risk screwing up what I have with Tamsen.”

  I couldn’t blame him. “But don’t you think we should warn her to stay away from de la Fe?”

  “If she’s with Alex, she won’t want to go anywhere hear de la Fe because she won’t want to set Alex off. In the meantime, you and I can look through that stuff from the jump drive and see if there really is anything to worry about.”

  The boys came back in with the dogs. “We’re bored,” Justin said.

  “I can show you a trick Rascal does,” Rick said as he stood up. “Everybody back outside.”

  I was about to protest. I wanted Rick to call Tiffany right away. But the kids looked like they were ready to mutiny, so I went along with him.

  I hoped Tiffany really was with Alex. She needed someone to watch over her.

  28 – Balancing Act

  It was cool and sunny out in Catherine’s yard, and the couple of mature maples at the back were coming into leaf. The green grass was spangled with bits of light and shadow. The house had come with a teeter-totter and a ranger tower back there, as well as a fence separating Catherine’s house from the one behind. “Rochester can do this trick too, if he wants to,” Rick said. “He’s kind of spoiled.”

  I didn’t know what trick Rick was thinking of, but I was curious to see what he’d do. He had put up a small agility course in his back yard the year before so that Rascal could play, and had taken his Aussie to a couple of dog shows to participate.

  Rick started to lope around the perimeter of the yard, Rascal by his side, and when they approached the teeter-totter, Rick said, “Rascal, up!”

  Rascal ran to the teeter-totter and placed one paw on the side on the ground. Carefully he stepped up, pausing at the top as the balance shifted, then scrambled down.

  “Cool!” Justin said. “Can I try it with him?”

  Before Rick could answer, Rochester ran over to the teeter-totter, but the end Rascal had climbed up was now up in the air. Rochester leaped up and knocked the board down to the ground, then climbed up on it.

  “Show off,” Rick said to him.

  My dog stopped at the balancing point, though, swaying back and forth nervously. I had to walk over to the teeter-totter and coax him down, accompanied by lots of praise.

  After that, the boys took turns running around the yard with the dogs, coaxing them up and over the teeter-totter. “Should we get Madison out here?” I asked Rick.

  “Let her be. When she realizes all the fun is out here, she’ll come out.”

  He was right, and Madison joined us a few minutes later, insisting on taking her turn with Pixie, who was too scared to try. Madison picked the little dog up and placed her on one end of the teeter totter and Pixie just sat down.

  “You have to encourage her,” I said. “Let me
show you.” I walked over to the board and began coaxing Pixie to climb up. She began to inch forward, and Madison joined me. Her face was so alive as she worked with the dog, and I hoped she could keep that little spark going.

  Pixie jumped off the board as it started to lift, but we praised her anyway, and then the kids took turns running around the yard with Rochester and Rascal, cheering when they made the board sway. Rick and I sat on the ground with Pixie and watched.

  After a chilly wind swept in, we went back inside. The kids and the dogs slumped on the living room floor. “Who wants hot chocolate?” I asked, and I got lots of affirmative answers. “Hang on, then. I’ll make some.”

  Rick followed me into the kitchen. “I almost forgot, because we were so caught up with Tiffany. Did you hear about the suicide clause in Doug’s life insurance policy?” I asked him, as I opened the refrigerator.

  “Tamsen told me. It’s a bear.”

  “Any way of changing your decision?” I asked. “At least from suicide to accidental death?” I found the milk and heavy cream I was looking for and pulled them out.

  “Now that it’s gone to the insurance company that’s going to be tough,” he said. “I’d have to turn up new evidence that showed it wasn’t suicide. I told Catherine her best bet was to hire a lawyer and sue the insurance company, which means she has to demonstrate that I made an error in judgment.”

  “You?”

  “I’m the one who made the final decision. There was no suicide note, and I’m sure she could find people to testify to Doug’s state of mind.”

  I opened the cabinet and foraged until I found a bar of dark chocolate and some vanilla extract.

  “You’d testify for her, wouldn’t you?” Rick asked. “You never believed it was suicide, and you were sure he wouldn’t leave his kids like that.”

  I didn’t like the idea of having to stand up in court and imply that my best friend had made a mistake, but I didn’t want Catherine to lose the insurance settlement she was entitled to.

  “Isn’t there some other way?” I put the milk and the heavy cream in a pot and set it on a low flame, and began to shave the dark chocolate bar.

  “Not unless it turns out he was murdered after all,” Rick said. “But I can’t keep investigating now that I’ve closed the case. You could, though.”

  “Or Hank Quillian.” As I stirred the shaved chocolate into the milk I told Rick about my meeting with the FBI special agent.

  “You really think there’s a connection?” Rick asked.

  “I don’t believe in coincidence,” I said. “And there are too many of them floating around. Logic says that if there is illegal activity going on at Beauceron, and Doug found out, that put his life at risk.”

  “You suspect his boss? Shawn Brumberger?”

  “How can you not?” The hot chocolate began bubbling gently, and I poured it into mugs and called the kids in. I gave them a canister of whipped cream and let them serve themselves.

  “Wow,” Madison said, as soon as she tasted the hot chocolate. “This is awesome. Did this come out of a packet?”

  “Nope. I made it.”

  “You can cook?” Nathaniel asked. “My mom says my dad is so bad at cooking that he burns water.”

  I noticed Justin looking down at his mug. He didn’t have a dad to cook, or not. “Rick’s a pretty good chef,” I said. “He makes awesome hamburgers.”

  “We have a barbecue in the back yard but we’ve never used it,” Justin said. “My mom says she doesn’t know how.”

  “We’ll change that as soon as it warms up enough,” Rick said.

  We sat around the kitchen table with the kids, talking and drinking our hot chocolate, until the women returned.

  Catherine pulled me aside as Rick and I were getting ready to leave. “You’re going to hate me,” she said. “But I need to ask you another favor.”

  “I won’t hate you at all. What can I do for you?”

  “Doug rented a furnished apartment, at Crossing Commons.”

  I knew the complex, on the other side of Stewart’s Crossing.

  “Somebody needs to go over there and pick up any of his personal stuff, and I just can’t face it.”

  “I can do that,” I said. “You have the key?”

  “The police gave me his effects.” She opened up a drawer and pulled out a set of keys. “Hannah’s handling selling his car for me.” She pulled a car key from the chain and handed me the rest. “I’m not sure what all these go to.”

  She gave me the apartment number and I said I’d try to go over there the next day. “I really appreciate this, Steve,” she said. “I feel terrible imposing on you when we’ve been out of touch for so long. But there’s just nobody else I can ask.”

  “It’s not an imposition.” If I had to tell the truth, I was gleeful at the chance to snoop through more of Doug’s stuff. Maybe there would be a clue there that would point at a murder suspect, and cause the insurance company to change its decision.

  29 – Crossing Commons

  Rick was going to spend Sunday with Tamsen and Justin, so we agreed to table our review of the material Tiffany had found at the Center for Infusion Therapy until that evening. That morning I drove over to Crossing Commons with Rochester. It was one of the first apartment complexes in Stewart’s Crossing, and had been around since I was a teenager. Back then, it attracted what people called “the lower classes,” which meant somebody who couldn’t afford to buy a house.

  It had been completely renovated a few years before and now advertised “apartment homes.” If I hadn’t inherited my father’s townhouse, I might have ended up there – it was a haven for the recently divorced and those who’d lost houses during the great recession.

  Long rectangular buildings were punctuated with doors to first-floor units, and to staircases to the second floor. Faux-colonial touches decorated the otherwise bland exteriors – spread-winged eagles over each door, classical pediments and square light fixtures. Dark blue wood shutters surrounded each window against white siding.

  I parked in front of building fourteen, by the door that led to Doug’s second floor unit. As soon as I got out of the car, Rochester jumped across my seat and hurried over to a bush and peed, as if he’d been holding it all through the ten-minute drive.

  A woman watched us from the first floor window. She waved her finger in a “no” gesture, and I waved back and smiled.

  Rochester didn’t like the claustrophobic staircase up to the second floor, but I flicked on the light switch and pushed against his rump, and he scampered up to the small landing, then sat on his butt and barked once. “I’m coming,” I grumbled. “I only have two legs, remember?”

  The smell of trash and spoiled food assaulted us as I opened the door. Rochester rushed immediately to the garbage can in the kitchen and I had to hurry behind him to keep him from eating anything.

  The kitchen trash can was nearly overflowing with fast-food wrappers and soda cups. I sealed up the bag and put it on top of a plastic table on Doug’s small balcony, which looked out at a narrow hedgerow of oaks and maples that shielded the complex from the gas station next door. I left the sliding glass door open to air the place out and began cleaning up.

  The apartment was clearly a bachelor pad, and the only personal touches were a couple of photos of his kids and a wardrobe of dark suits and white shirts. I packed up his clothes into a pair of suitcases from the bottom of the closet, threw away the half-opened bottles of hotel shampoo and body wash. He had a good quality Eastern sweater, maybe a relic of his student years, and I thought it might fit Ethan.

  Rochester sprawled out on the balcony while I worked. At least he wasn’t getting underfoot, I thought, as I ferried trash out to the dumpster and stacked the luggage and a box of Doug’s personal stuff in my trunk.

  I left his laptop for last. Doug had kept a handwritten page with all his passwords beside it, so I didn’t have to hack in order to snoop around. The passwords were all combinations of his kids�
� names and what I assumed were their birthdates.

  The laptop was one of the few things I thought Catherine would want; perhaps one of her kids could use it. But I couldn’t hand over a computer without knowing what was on it, right? Suppose Doug had a collection of porn, for example? Imagine the horror a kid could experience. So I had an excuse to snoop around.

  And of course, there might be some clue to Doug’s death. Nothing as explicit as a suicide note, but maybe a motive someone had to kill him.

  I logged into his Gmail account and began to sort through the mail there, deleting the junk and putting aside anything I wanted to look more closely at.

  There were several messages with red flags, and I clicked through to the first, from ucwashwax@yahoo.com.

  Dude. You promised I could get my $$ back anytime. Why are you stalling?

  There was no signature, and no indication that Doug had answered the email. I right-clicked on the address to see if it had a person’s name attached, but there was none.

  The second message was grimmer.

  Dude. I know people who will hurt you if you don’t get me my $$ ASAP.

  Someone was threatening Doug about getting money back. Was it money this person had lent him? Or invested with him at Beauceron?

  I sat back to think about how I could trace that address and heard the sound of paper crumpling from the second bedroom, which I presumed Doug had kept so that his kids would have a place to stay over.

  Rochester was on the floor with a Jersey map beneath him, and he’d dripped a big glob of saliva right over Hudson County, just west of Manhattan. As I pulled the map out from beneath him I spotted Union City.

  “Hold on,” I said to Rochester. “Union City. UC.”

  He scratched his head with his back leg. “Once again, you’re a genius, boy.” I scratched the place he’d been trying to get at then went back to Doug’s laptop. There was no website for Union City Wash and Wax, but there was a Facebook page, with a bunch of likes and positive reviews. One of them was from Tiffany Lopez, who praised the staff for their attention to detail. “Ask for Alex and he’ll give you a good deal,” she wrote.