Three Dogs in a Row

by Neil S. Plakcy

  “Can’t say.”

  “Then why did you? Just to tease and torment me?”

  “You’re not going to go all Nancy Drew on me again, are you?” he asked. “Sticking your nose into my investigation?”

  I pushed back from the table. “I just gave you some good information. I don’t consider that sticking my nose in your investigation.”

  “You and your dog,” he said. “Neither of you can resist a good scent.”

  Felae looked interested in that comment as he swapped our empty soup bowls for the cheeseburger platters.

  “Norah Leedom came to my office yesterday. She thinks you’ve got it in for her.”

  “I don’t have it in for anyone,” Tony said, between bites. “I’m just investigating. But the case just seems to get worse against Mrs. Leedom. We’ve learned about a pending deal between her and the deceased. The details aren’t clear yet, but some land in New Hampshire was about to be sold. As the deal stood, she got 50% of the profit, but according to his will, if he died before the land was sold his interest went to her.”

  “I don’t think Norah would have killed Joe for a couple of house lots.” I bit into my cheeseburger, and despite the dingy surroundings and our morose waiter, it was terrific.

  “Not a couple of lots,” Tony said. “Enough for a whole subdivision. Several hundred thousand dollars.”

  My mind jumped back to the conversation I’d had with Norah about the freedom Joe’s death had given her. Not just emotional freedom, I thought, but financial freedom as well. I shook the thought out of my head.

  “What about Bob Moran?” I asked, and I couldn’t help remembering the way the Rising Sons had riffed off his name in song. “Did you check him out?”

  “Steve. You need to leave the investigating to me. I appreciate the help—but it’s time for you to pack your dog up and go home.”

  “Uh-huh. ” I noticed that he didn’t answer my question, and wondered why. Bob Moran was a wealthy, influential businessman in Leighville, and I could see that Tony wouldn’t want to ruffle his feathers.

  “Say, I was talking to your friend Rick Stemper the other day,” Tony said. I noticed the change in direction but didn’t remark on it.

  “I need to call him myself. I’ve been so swamped with this new job I haven’t been doing much besides go to work and take care of Rochester.”

  “See, here’s an opportunity. Go hang out with Rick, complain about your ex-wives, and forget about snooping in my case.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” We talked for a while about Rick, about how unseasonably cold the winter was, and a few other things too mundane to mention.

  I stopped at the deli down the block from the Hungry Horse and picked up some sausage for Rochester, then hunkered down into my coat and scarf. As I walked back up the hill, I wondered about Tony’s comment about Rick’s and my ex-wives. True, Rick and I had bonded again, years after we’d known each other in high school, over our shared angst after divorce. But did that reference mean Tony was stuck on Joe’s ex-wife as his murderer? And had Norah really done it?

  10 – Unexpected Visitors

  When I got back to my office, I focused on putting together a report detailing the party expenses. Bills from the caterers, from the supply house that rented us the chairs, overtime for the security guards and the maintenance people, and a host of other charges. Everything had to be cost-coded, calculated, cross-referenced, and tied up with a ribbon of red tape.

  By mid-afternoon I needed a caffeine boost. I was on my way back from the kitchen with a big mug of coffee when I ran into Norah Leedom. “Have you heard anything from that police sergeant?” she asked.

  “Let’s go into my office.” I ushered her inside, and Rochester gave her a brief woof. “I’m afraid it looks bad, Norah,” I said, closing the door behind me. “The police have found out about a land deal you and Joe had going in New Hampshire.”

  “Not that,” Norah said. “When Joe and I were married my parents gave us a hundred acres of land. We always thought we’d retire there someday. A year ago, some real estate speculators approached Joe and asked him to sell the land so that they could build houses on it. When he came to me I told him I wouldn’t sell my interest in it.”

  “It’s a lot of money.”

  “It’s not the money. The land has been in my family for generations, and I always thought I would pass it on to my children, if I had any. But I didn’t, and now I’m not sure what I’ll do with it, but I won’t sell it. Have you seen suburban subdivisions lately? Awful look-alike houses on cul-de-sacs with silly names. They’re soulless, and I won’t have any part of one.”

  She crossed her arms in front of her. “Joe told me last month he was going to force a sale of the property because he wanted to retire early. He’d get his pension, of course, but he needed the money as a cushion. He seemed to feel he would be leaving Eastern soon.”

  “I wonder why? I thought he loved this place.”

  “I think he was tired of fighting to have things his own way. Before John Babson became president, he and Joe were very close. John got caught up in this campaign of his, and Joe became more determined to keep things the way they were.”

  “Why did you stay here in Leighville after your divorce?” I asked. “Why not make a clean break back then?”

  “I was already an adjunct assistant professor at Eastern by the time the divorce was final, and there weren’t many opportunities like that around for forty-year-old novices. And Joe needed me around. I did his laundry and he fixed things around my apartment and we had dinner together once or twice a week. It was my life.”

  She leaned back in her chair, and Rochester put his head in her lap. And to think, he used to only do that for me. Traitor.

  “Only this past September, when I got the opportunity to go to Nevada did I feel I had any real choice. As a feminist I believe women have as many choices as men do, but I started my career too late. You can do anything, while you’re young, but as you get older your age and your own growing desire for security and routine defeat you.”

  She stood up. “I’ll let you get back to your work. If you hear anything, will you let me know?”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  After she left I wondered again if she had a motive to kill Joe. She said she didn’t want to sell that property, didn’t need the money, but a hundred grand could cushion her transition to Nevada as well as helping with her eventual retirement. I remembered how tough it had been for me, relocating to Stewart’s Crossing after I got out of prison, with nothing to my name beyond the deed to the townhouse my father had left me.

  I forced myself to go back to my report, and by four o’clock I had a real handle on all the bills and charges. As I was starting to enter them into a spreadsheet I heard a knock on my office door. “This a good time for a drop-in visit?” Santiago Santos asked.

  Santos was my parole officer, a Puerto Rican with a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Drexel. He looked like an amateur boxer, about 5-8, stocky, with muscular forearms. I wasn’t sure which of those characteristics helped him most in dealing with his clients.

  As usual when I saw him, my heart rate accelerated. If he wasn’t happy with the way things were going for me, he had the power to rescind my parole and send me back to California to serve out the rest of my sentence. So far, he hadn’t shown an inclination to do that; he had been strict with me, but fair.

  “Sure, come on in,” I said. Rochester looked up from his place on the floor but didn’t get up.

  “I see you’re using a computer,” Santos said, sitting down across from me. “Within your limits, right?”

  When I first returned to Pennsylvania and began working with him, he had installed a keystroke monitoring program on my personal laptop, to be sure I wasn’t doing any more of the hacking that had gotten me in trouble.

  This new job had presented me with a problem, though. A big component of the job description was working with databases, which had been one of my special
ties before I went to prison. Mike MacCormac knew what I could do and wanted me to work with our alumni records, improving the data, adding fields and making it more easily searchable.

  Santos didn’t know about that. I began the job right after the new year, and I’d dodged appointments with him since then, pleading the pressure of the campaign launch.

  “Tell me about this new job,” Santos said, leaning back in his chair. “What exactly are your responsibilities?”

  “Primarily press relations and publicity for the capital campaign. I helped Mike MacCormac—he’s my boss—put on the launch party on Tuesday night.”

  “This a full-time job?”

  I nodded. “Short-term right now. Both of us made a commitment that I’ll stay through this term, which ends in May. If the capital campaign works out, and I can show that I’m contributing, I’m hoping it can segue into a longer-term job.”

  “Good for you. What happens when this fund-raising push finishes?”

  “It’s a five-year campaign. I’m not looking any farther ahead than that right now.”

  He opened up his notebook and flipped through it. “You’re on a three-year parole,” he said. “Looks like you’re about halfway through that period. You’ve done a good job, Steve. You’ve reintegrated into society, found yourself a solid position. I see only bright things in your future.”

  I smiled. “Good.”

  “With one warning. You’ve gotten in trouble with computers in the past, with straying into places and doing things you shouldn’t. What’s your access like to the college computer systems?”

  My heart skipped a beat or two. “I have access to all the regular systems. Email, the employee intranet, shared drives. And we have our own databases in this department—alumni, donors, giving records.”

  “Does your boss know about your background?”

  “Yup. I told him everything. He doesn’t know much about databases, so he wants me to be able to pull data and reports for him.”

  Santos shook his head. “That doesn’t sound good, Steve. I’m nervous about you having that kind of access.”

  “I wouldn’t have this job if I didn’t have those skills,” I said. “It’s a tough economy, you know that. There are a lot of people with more experience in fund-raising and public relations than I have. But my ability to write, coupled with my database background, got me the job. I can’t go into my boss now and say I can’t do what he hired me to.”

  He closed his notebook. “I want to meet with you again in two weeks. I can see I’m going to have to keep a close eye on you for a while.”

  I wanted to ask if he didn’t have any other more dangerous clients—people he had to keep from sticking up liquor stores or raping old ladies. But I kept my mouth shut—a rarity for me—because I knew I would only put myself in worse trouble if I didn’t go along. There was no way I was going back to California—or to prison.

  Santos left, and I sat back in my chair, hoping to coast through the rest of a Friday afternoon. Unfortunately the press weren’t coasting and I was swamped with phone calls. Just before five, Rochester looked up at the doorway of my office and barked once.

  No one there. “What, boy? You ready to go home?”

  He barked again. “All right, let me just shut things down here. ” I was fiddling with the computer when he barked a third time. “Look, dog, I’m working as fast as I can here.”

  “I’m assuming you’re calling me Dawg as a form of brotherly affection.”

  I looked up. Rick Stemper was standing in the doorway, and Rochester had jumped up to rush him.

  “I just can’t seem to get away from law enforcement today,” I said. “First Tony Rinaldi, then Santiago Santos. And now Stewart’s Crossing’s finest.”

  Rick and I had grown up together in Stewart’s Crossing, though we hadn’t been more than acquaintances. When I returned home, we met up again, and as Tony Rinaldi had noted, Rick and I had bonded over our shared experience of divorce.

  It was at his request that I’d begun taking care of Rochester, and he had become my closest friend in town. “What brings you upriver?” I asked.

  He squatted on the floor to rub behind Rochester’s ears. “Had to interview a witness who lives up here. Thought maybe I could convince you to hit a happy hour with me.”

  “Only place around here that’ll let Rochester in is Edgar’s Emporium. You want to head over there?”

  “Sure. ” Rochester kept nosing against Rick’s pocket. “All right, you get a treat,” he said, pulling out a bone-shaped biscuit.

  “You carrying dog biscuits now?” I asked as I shrugged into my coat.

  “Knew the witness had a white lab. Figured I’d make a friend that way.”

  “Come on, you’re carrying those for Rascal. You know it. ” Rick had adopted a black and white Australian shepherd from the Bucks County Animal Shelter in Lahaska. “How’s he working out?”

  “He’s a wild dog. He tore up one of my sofa pillows yesterday and crapped duck feathers all over the living room.”

  “I told you, you’ve got to get him a crate.”

  “He was in a cage at the shelter. I’m not caging him up at home.”

  “Don’t think of it as a cage,” I said. “Think of it like his little house. Rochester still likes to stay in his, even when we’re both home.”

  “I’ll think about it. ” He stood up. “Come on, let’s go. I hear a beer calling my name.”

  Edgar’s was an olde tyme drinking saloon in a mall a few miles outside Leighville. It was a nationwide franchise, but it tried to appear individual by using old road signs, Victorian engravings, and mock tiffany lamps. My father would have called it “Early American Barn” decorating.

  The hostess led us to a booth in the back. Rochester climbed up on to the wooden bench and curled in the corner. Rick and I ordered a pitcher of Yuengling and a platter of nachos.

  “So you’re messing around with dead bodies again, I hear,” Rick said.

  “Not exactly. It’s all Rochester’s fault. ” I told him about Rochester discovering Joe’s body—and then the bloody knife the next day.

  “He’s up to his old tricks, that’s for sure.”

  The waitress brought the nachos and the beer, and I fed Rochester a chip with beef and salsa. He wolfed it down greedily.

  “Who do you think did it?” Rick asked.

  “I have no idea. He has an ex-wife…”

  “Bingo!” Rick interrupted me. “There you go. She did it.”

  “Come on, Rick. Aren’t you over Sheila yet?”

  “Sheila? She’s yesterday’s garbage. Already in the landfill. But that doesn’t mean she’s not an evil, conniving bitch.”

  “OK,” I said. “Moving on. How’s Rascal?”

  “He’s a wild man. Mrs. Kaufman down the street has a bunch of chickens in her back yard, and Rascal keeps trying to herd them into the henhouse.”

  “Why don’t we take the dogs out for a run this weekend?” Rochester looked up. “We could go up to Bowman’s Hill and hike up to the Tower. The dogs would love that.” I fed Rochester another nacho chip.

  “Sounds like a plan.” Rick shook his head. “You know, we’re both crazy. We treat these dogs like kings. It’s like we live in the kingdom of dog.”

  “And your point is?”

  He shrugged. “No point. Just making a statement.”

  “What’s new with you?” I asked.

  “Finally caught the guy who’s been robbing houses up in River Heights. Sixteen-year-old kid from Levittown. I got a chance to use that stuff I learned at the FBI seminar a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Which was?”

  “They call it RPM: rationalization, projection and minimization. You make moral and psychological excuses for the suspect’s actions, not legal ones, so they’re still accountable for what they did.”

  He drank some beer. “I started with the rationalization. I told him I understand how tough it is to be a kid today—everybody’s wearing de
signer clothes and expensive sneakers. Grills for your teeth cost real change, you know. And you’ve got to have some cash if you want to hang out with your buds.”

  “Yup.”

  “Then you work at projecting the blame to somebody else. If he had a partner I’d make it seem like it was all the other guy’s doing. He was in this alone, so I talked about how rich people need to be more careful, you know? A house full of electronics and jewelry without a fence or a burglar alarm or a guard dog is just asking to be robbed.”

  I scratched behind Rochester’s ears. “Are you a guard dog, boy? They say a golden retriever is so friendly to everybody he’ll hold a burglar’s flashlight in his mouth.”

  “Not that one,” Rick said, nodding toward Rochester. “I’ve seen him defend you.”

  I remembered Rochester doing just that, and snuggled his big golden body up against mine on the bench.

  “Then I minimize what the suspect did,” Rick continued. “You know, it’s not a big deal. Just some small break-ins. I told him, I mean, it’s not like you killed anybody, right?”

  “You don’t tape these interviews, do you? Because I can just imagine what it would sound like to have a cop say that at a trial.”

  “No tape. It’s all about establishing a rapport with the suspect. He goes to Pennsbury High, so I started talking to him about high school, what it was like when we were kids, what it’s like now, that kind of thing. Then I got him to admit to being near the scene, and eventually to having some of the stuff that was stolen.”

  He drank some beer. “You have to be careful not to be coercive. You can’t threaten him or anybody else. And a cop can’t promise to go easy on him, because it’s not the cops who file the charges and prosecute the case, it’s the DA.”

  “What’s going to happen to this kid?”

  “He’s up at the Youth Center in Doylestown right now. It’s up to the DA if he stays there or moves on to a state prison. I don’t think he’s a bad kid, just not cut out for school and he doesn’t know what else to do but get into trouble.”

  I thought about the kids I had been teaching at Eastern as I fed another nacho chip to Rochester. A lot of them were in college just because their parents sent them, hoping that in four years they’d get some direction. Most did, but some didn’t. And then I remembered Thomas Taylor, who had been denied admission to Eastern and whose life had gone off the rails afterward.