Three Dogs in a Row

by Neil S. Plakcy

  I got down on the floor next to him and obliged, rubbing my face against the soft, downy hairs of his stomach. “Who’s a good boy?” I asked. “Rochester? Is Rochester a good boy?”

  We rolled around for while, him trying to scramble on top of me, me scrambling out from under him. They say that a few minutes each day of petting your dog can raise your serotonin levels; I think rolling around on the floor with him works just as well.

  The next morning I went over to The Chocolate Ear so that I could focus on grading my mystery fiction papers without a big golden dog nuzzling me. Rick was at the counter as I walked in, holding an extra-large coffee and talking on his cell phone. “Hold this for me, will you?” he asked, thrusting the coffee at me.

  As soon as his hand was free, he pulled a notebook from his pocket, and cradling the phone against his ear, started to write. “Uh-huh. Yeah. Nobody noticed? I thought you had a flag on the account.” He listened. “Even new employees should know the rules,” he said. “You have surveillance tapes I could look at?”

  I raised my eyebrows at him, and he shook his head. “What? How can the recorder be broken, Alvin?” His body tensed even further, and his mouth set in a grim line. “Well, thanks for nothing. You’d better get the recorder fixed pronto, before anybody else finds out.”

  He snapped the phone closed. “Somebody closed out the fake Edith’s bank account at the QSB in Easton this morning,” he said. “But the bank was busy when the customer came in, and the employee who closed the account was new and didn’t realize what the flag meant. And on top of it all, the digital recorder that collects the information from the cameras is broken, so they don’t even have a visual on who closed the account.”

  He shook his head. “And people wonder why crimes don’t get solved.”

  He took his coffee back from me and stalked out of the café. I forced myself to sit down and start grading papers, though my attention kept straying back to Edith, and then from her to Caroline. Those were just two of the unsolved crimes that were dogging Rick, and I knew there were many more. The chances of finding Caroline’s killer seemed to get smaller every day.

  By Friday afternoon I’d finished grading all the mystery fiction papers, and I had no choice but to face my business problems. By searching jobs posted online, I’d gotten two new clients, but the loss of the client who I figured had discovered my background left me with a net gain of one. One job was quick, but the other client was paying me just $200 to revise a 200-page manual, which left me with a net hourly wage equivalent to working in a sneaker factory in Southeast Asia.

  But it was a client. I hadn’t spent much time on the project yet, because of all the time I’d spent researching Caroline’s friends and Edith’s money problems. I spent some more time online that evening, bidding on jobs and sending out resumes.

  When I took Rochester out for his walk around eleven, he made a point of peeing on the “For Sale” sign on Caroline’s lawn. As usual, he tried to get me to take him up the driveway and into the house, and as usual I manhandled him on down the street.

  It was a cool, clear evening, a scattering of stars strewn across the dark sky. As I’ve done since I was a kid, I wished on the first one I saw. It was a habit I’d lost, living in New York and then the suburban maze of Silicon Valley where Mary and I had bought the house we thought we’d live in with our children. Since coming home, though, I’d started again.

  Sometimes I wished for simple things: I wanted to get through all the papers I had to grade quickly, or for a cold to clear up fast. Sometimes I wished for things for other people—I’d been wishing for a quick resolution to Edith’s troubles, and when the roof of The Chocolate Ear had been damaged in a storm, I wished that the insurance money Gail received would be enough to fix it. When money was tight, I wished for a lucrative new client, or an unexpected check, and sometimes those wishes came true. When I was feeling melancholy I wished for something to happen, something good, something that would shake up my life.

  I guess the old adage is true—be careful what you wish for, or you just might get it. I tugged on Rochester’s leash as we passed Caroline’s house again, and took my adopted child inside.

  21 – The Visit

  I didn’t know what time Karina was going to show up, which was annoying, but I worked on that big manual, and I’d made a lot of progress when the guardhouse called to say I had a visitor.

  It was Rick Stemper—but a few minutes later, the guard called again. “There’s a Chris here to see you.”

  Chris. Who was Chris? “For me? Levitan?”

  “That’s what he says.” He was off the phone for a minute. “Chris McCutcheon, he says.”

  “Oh,” I said. He must have driven Karina Warr down from the city. “Sure, send them in.”

  Rick was at my door a minute later, and Rochester went into his big happy dance. Rick had parked down at the guest parking, to leave the other side of the driveway free for Karina, and was pleased when I told him that Chris had driven her.

  We hung around the front door, waiting, and I had the chance to look at Rick in his off-duty mode. From his posture and his military-short brown hair, you’d peg him as a cop, and the touches of grey at his sideburns gave away his age, though he was in better shape than he had been in high school. He was wearing khakis, deck shoes and a dark green polo shirt. If I’d made a couple of different wardrobe choices that morning, we’d have looked a lot alike, but instead I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt from a Meat Loaf concert years before. I wondered if Rick had a gun hidden somewhere on his person, or maybe a knife stuck into the side of his shoe.

  Oh, wait, I’m in TV mode again, I thought.

  A few minutes later, a black SUV pulled into my driveway. At the sound of the car doors opening, Rochester started barking, and when I opened the front door he went ballistic, barking and snarling and struggling to get out of my grasp.

  Karina and Chris hung back as I manhandled Rochester into a sitting position. Chris wore jeans, a fitted T-shirt, aviator sunglasses, and finely tooled leather boots. Karina, on the other hand, was dressed for cocktails at a chic SoHo bar—low-cut white blouse, red leather miniskirt, matching red high-heeled shoes. She had a brown leather jacket over her shoulders. Despite myself I thought she looked hot.

  I introduced Rick as a friend who’d dropped by. By then, Rochester had stopped barking, but he was growling and showing teeth. “Why don’t I take the dog for a walk,” Rick suggested. “Has he got a leash?”

  “On the kitchen counter,” I said.

  “He always used to like me,” Chris said.

  “I’m so sorry. I’ve never seen him like this.”

  “I knew there was a reason why I didn’t like dogs,” Karina said.

  Rick returned with Rochester’s leash, and it took both of us to get him hooked up. Then, pulling the leash tight so that Rochester’s collar was almost up to his ears, Rick walked him out.

  Once the way was clear, Karina and I touched cheeks, and Chris and I shook hands. I offered them both lemonade, and brought it out in big plastic tumblers—red for me, blue for Chris, green for Karina. We sat on the sofa and chatted about their trip. “No trouble finding the place?” I asked. “Oh, that’s right, you’ve been to Caroline’s before.”

  I turned to Karina. “But this is your first time in Stewart’s Crossing, isn’t it?”

  “I’m allergic to the suburbs,” she said, sounding only half kidding.

  “Let me get the stuff that Caroline left behind,” I said. I’d tidied up as much as I could, vacuuming Rochester’s golden hair, dusting the bookshelves and even mopping the white tile floor on the lower level. Karina made suitable noises about how sweet the house was—how much space! Chris sat on the leather sofa as if the day was about Karina and he was just along for the ride.

  I brought the box out, and we spread the contents on my coffee table.

  “I remember this play!” Karina exclaimed, pulling a program for a high school production of West Side Story
off the top of the pile. “You were Tony.”

  To me, Chris said, “There weren’t a lot of boys in our school that year.”

  “You were fabulous!” Karina said, pushing him lightly in the side. “You know you were.” She began to sing, “Tonight, tonight…”

  Chris said, “Musical theater is not your strength, Karina,” and she shut up.

  They went through the yearbooks, the programs, and the other paperwork. Karina took a couple of things, but Chris didn’t want anything. “I just came down to drive Karina,” he said. “Unlike her, I like getting out in the country.”

  “The country is different,” Karina said. “You know I love to go biking with you in Westchester.”

  I found it hard to imagine Karina on a bicycle—but if she liked Chris McCutcheon enough, I could see her pretending until she had a ring on her finger.

  “It’s nice that Chris brought you down here,” I said to her. “You guys will probably get to spend a lot of time together, now that Caroline’s out of the picture.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You wanted Chris for yourself, didn’t you? Ever since Korea, you’ve wanted to be the center of attention—but Caroline was always around. Convenient for you that she’s gone, now, isn’t it?”

  “What a terrible thing to say!” Karina said. She stood up. “And I thought you were so nice, taking care of her dog after she was shot.”

  “It’s touching that you care about Rochester. But then, you’re not the one who hates dogs, are you? Isn’t that you, Chris?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Come on, Karina and I both know what you did to Caroline’s dog when you were a teenager.”

  “What the fuck?” He stood up, too.

  “That’s ancient history,” Karina said. “I can’t believe you brought that up.”

  “You still have those violent tendencies, Chris?” I asked, still reclining on the sofa. “Like maybe you got mad at Caroline about something and shot her?”

  “We should go,” Chris said. Dragging Karina along, he stalked to the front door, then outside, not even saying goodbye.

  When I followed them out, I saw Rick down the block, lying on someone’s lawn with his hand looped through Rochester’s collar. As soon as Chris and Karina drove away, he let the dog go, and Rochester came galloping down the street to me.

  “Hey, boy, what was up with that behavior?” I asked, as he jumped on me, placing his front paws on my waist.

  “Do you remember what kind of car you saw leaving after Caroline was shot?” Rick asked.

  We walked into the house. “I just remember it was a black SUV.”

  “And what was Chris driving?”

  “You think Rochester recognized the car?”

  “At least the type of car,” he said. “I don’t think he got the license plate number that night. At least he didn’t tell me.”

  “Which is why he barked at Chris, even though he’s been here before and Rochester liked him.”

  “That’s what I think.” He emptied the lemonade from the blue and green tumblers, then put each one in a separate evidence bag. “The crime lab’s backed up at the moment,” he said. “But I should get prints back within a week.”

  Rick started for my front door, but stopped when I said, “I might have stirred the pot a little this afternoon.”

  He turned around. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I might have pointed out that both Karina and Chris had motives for killing Caroline.”

  “You didn’t.” He shook his head. “Who died and appointed you detective?”

  “Caroline Kelly.”

  “That’s low, Steve. I’m working this case, you know I am. There just isn’t a lot to go on.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m trying to stir things up.”

  “You are not the cop here, Steve. You’ve got to let me handle things.”

  “You needed my help to get their fingerprints.”

  He blew a big breath out. “Yeah, and I can see it was a mistake. Listen to me. You are NOT to do anything else without checking with me first.”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  “You know, that attitude was cool when we were seventeen. It’s lame and childish at forty-two.”

  And with that he stalked out the front door. Rochester came tumbling down the stairs, sliding across the tile floor to me. “I don’t know, boy, people just keep leaving without saying goodbye. Nobody seems to have any manners these days.”

  I knew Rick was right; I spent my life among teenagers and their snarky attitude was rubbing off on me. And I shouldn’t have provoked Chris and Karina the way I did, but I was frustrated with the lack of progress. The detectives on NYPD Blue would have goaded one of them into a confession before the commercial break. But as Rick had pointed out, I was no cop.

  Rick’s reprimand reminded me that if I didn’t get a business plan together by my appointment with Santiago Santos the next afternoon, I’d be getting bad feedback from him, too. So I sat down with the sample business plans I’d downloaded a few weeks before and tried to come up with one of my own.

  I’d already put some of the material together—demand for my services, my qualifications and so on. I’d also created a list of all my personal contacts, including friends, relatives and former co-workers, who might be able to point me toward some work.

  I went back through my email and generated a log of all the jobs I’d applied for, along with the responses I’d received. There wasn’t much good news there.

  Maybe my plan was flawed. Suppose there wasn’t the demand I expected, or potential clients were scared off by my felony conviction? Would you trust your sensitive computer materials to a convicted hacker, after all?

  What else could I do? I’d spent the last twenty years working around words and computers, and I didn’t know anything else. I didn’t even know how to work the computerized cash register at The Chocolate Ear, though I supposed I could learn. Would Gail hire me? Would any responsible business owner trust a felon with access to money?

  I started to feel worse and worse. Rochester must have known what was going on, because he came over and laid his big golden head in my lap. I gave up worrying and sat on the floor to play with him.

  After reading the paper Sunday morning, I spent a couple of hours finishing up that big manual. I decided that the only thing I could do was talk over my problems with Santos; at least he’d feel that I was trying, even if I didn’t have much of a plan ready to show him.

  He couldn’t send me back to prison before the semester was over, right?

  22 – Jobs for Felons

  Caroline’s laptop was stored on the top shelf of my closet by the time Santiago Santos arrived on Sunday afternoon. But possession of an illicit computer was going to be nothing if he couldn’t help me put together a business plan.

  He checked the audit trail on my laptop, then pushed it aside. “Sorry we have to do this today,” he said. “Let’s see if we can make it quick and painless. How’s your business going?”

  “I wish I had better news,” I said. “I just can’t seem to get things going.” I went on to confess the fears that I had, that perhaps the whole freelance business was a bad idea, that I worried no one would hire me. “I’ve been trying,” I said. “But I’m just not getting enough work.”

  I showed him the business plan in its rough state, worrying that he’d get angry, threaten to send me back to California. But instead he said, “This isn’t bad, Steve. You’ve just got to have faith in yourself.”

  “It’s just that I don’t know what else I can do. I don’t have a backup plan.”

  “Well, let’s work on that,” he said. “What else can you do besides writing and teaching?”

  I shrugged. “I haven’t done anything else for twenty years.”

  “Have you looked into the Work Opportunity Tax Credit?” he asked. “Private employers get a tax credit if they hire individuals from eight different groups—and one of those is ex-felon
s.” He opened up his briefcase. “I think I have a list somewhere in here of jobs you could look into.”

  I was excited. I figured his list would show some things I hadn’t considered, some companies that would be willing to hire me. But when I looked it over, my heart dropped. “Laundry worker? Receiving clerk? Meat cutter?” I asked, looking up at him. “Is this all I can do?”

  “It’s a drop in status from college professor,” Santos said. “But these jobs pay money. Not much, I grant you.” He looked around. “There aren’t any meat cutters living in River Bend, I’ll bet. What about a union apprenticeship? You ever work construction? There’s a lot of money there.”

  “My father always said I didn’t know which end of the screwdriver you hammer the nails with,” I said. “I can’t even paint a wall without making a mess.”

  He tapped the list with his finger. “Take a good look, Steve. You may find something there you can do.” He reached into his briefcase and pulled out another list. “These are some social service agencies in the area who work with ex-cons. Job training, that kind of thing. Don’t be embarrassed about going there; you won’t be the only guy with a college degree.”

  I took the paper from him and glanced at it. I remembered shopping at Goodwill stores for vintage clothing when I was in college. I’d never thought I’d end up one of their clients.

  “I think I lost a job because they found out about my record,” I said. “I was thinking maybe I could sue them to get the job back. I read somewhere on line that you can sue an employer if they discriminate against you based on your record.”

  Santos sighed. “Discrimination based on criminal history is illegal in Pennsylvania, as long as the job isn’t related to your offense. But you’re in a strange situation. It would be hard for you to find a white-collar job that doesn’t require some use of computers, internet, that sort of thing. And you have a record for hacking into private data. Any employer could be concerned that if they gave you a log on to their network, you might wander into some files you weren’t supposed to see. You’d have a hard time convincing a judge that discrimination wasn’t relevant.”