“I really like this one, Jeremy,” I said, pointing at a shot of Fields Hall, the main administration building, shrouded in fog.
We were looking at it together when I heard a woman’s shrill voice rise above the crowd. “They cawl this crap art?” she said, in a heavy accent, half Jersey Shore and half Real Housewives.
Jeremy and I turned in the direction of the voice. A short, slim woman in her mid-sixties, with close-cropped iron gray hair, was pointing at one of the paintings. I recognized the artist, who stood next to it. He was an Eastern European boy named Felae who had been in my mystery fiction class the year before.
The work in question was a gouache of a large, mixed-breed dog with black and brown fur, sprawled on his side on top of a large cross. His front paws were stretched out and bound to the left side of the cross, his back legs bound to the upright. In bright red lettering that reminded me of blood, Felae had scrawled “He died for our sins” at the bottom of the painting.
It was disturbing, to say the least. And the woman, who looked like she spent a whole lot of money on her clothes and purse, didn’t like it one bit. She wore a form-fitting tan cashmere sweater and black pedal-pushers, with pointy-toed black high-heeled shoes that looked like they came from the Wicked Witch collection. “It’s animal cruelty,” she said, her voice carrying.
I saw Lili walk up to her. “It is a creepy painting,” Jeremy said. “But Felae is a creepy guy.”
“You know him?” I asked.
“From class. He’s always mumbling to himself in Romanian or Bulgarian or whatever it is language he speaks.”
I watched as Lili tried to placate the woman, leading her away from the disturbing painting to a series of cheerful watercolors of the Delaware River, painted by a chunky girl named Dezhanne, who I had taught in the same class as Felae. Calling the roll had always made me hungry—my students included Candy, Cinnamon, and Honey, as well as Dezhanne and Felae.
Dezhanne considered her body a work of art; she was constantly experimenting with piercings, henna tattoos, and strange haircuts. That evening she had huge black disks in her lobes, called ear gauges; matching black lipstick; and kohl ringed around her eyes.
She didn’t look like the kind of girl who would paint light, airy impressionistic landscapes, but then, appearances are deceiving, after all.
I left Jeremy and picked up two glasses of white wine from the makeshift bar in the corner of the room and carried them to where Lili was still speaking with the loud woman. “Wine?” I offered them both.
“I don’t drink alcohol,” the woman said. “Only iced tea, with lots of sugar.”
Lili took one of the glasses from me and said, “Ms. Gaines, this is Steve Levitan. He works in the alumni office here at Eastern.”
“Margarita Stanville Gaines,” the woman said. I thought I recognized the name, and then she said, “I’m on the Board of Trustees. I like to keep an eye on what’s going on around the college.”
That was it. I’d seen her name on fund-raising materials at the office.
“And I have to tell you I don’t like that boy’s work,” she continued. “It’s sacrilegious and distasteful and it needs to come down.”
Her elegant appearance was a real contrast to her uncultured voice. She pulled a cell phone from her pants pocket and flipped it open. “I’m calling President Babson right now.”
“I’m sure you remember your own college days,” I said, trying to stop the situation before it got worse. “It’s a time for experimenting, figuring out who you are and what matters to you. I’m sure that’s what Felae is doing.”
“I knew exactly what I wanted to do when I came to Eastern,” the woman said. “Make money. Lots of it. And I did.” She turned away from us, but I heard her say, “John? Rita Gaines here.”
I mouthed a word to Lili that rhymed with witch, and she smiled. As we stood there, I hoped we could get rid of the woman soon so Lili and I could do on to dinner.
Then Rita turned to Lili. “President Babson has authorized me to have that boy’s painting taken down. Make it happen.”
I was afraid Lili was going to explode, but she smiled tightly, then said, “May I speak to President Babson, please?”
Rita thrust the phone at her, and Lili introduced herself. “I’m concerned that the student could accuse the college of censorship,” she said. “I’m Felae’s professor and while I agree the painting is controversial, it’s not gratuitously violent. It raises important questions about animal cruelty that I believe deserve to be discussed in an academic environment.”
I watched as Rita’s eyes widened. She was clearly a woman who expected to be obeyed without question.
Lili listened for a moment. “I understand,” she said finally. “Yes, sir, I will.”
She handed the phone back to Rita. “President Babson suggested that we isolate Felae’s painting from the rest of the exhibit and post a content warning. I hope that satisfies your concerns.”
I had seen Lili face down a lunatic with a gun, so I was already impressed with her—but my pride in her swelled as she smiled at Rita Gaines and without waiting for a response, said, “I’ll talk to Felae and see that it happens.”
Rita was fuming, so I tried to shift her attention. “What was Eastern like when you were here? Did we have a good business program?”
“It was terrible. I had to major in economics and half my teachers had no business experience at all. I couldn’t wait to get out of here and get my MBA.”
I smiled. Since I had started working at the college I’d come in contact with a lot of alums. Many of them had almost nothing positive to say about the current crop of students or the state of the college, and yet they were consistent donors and loved to talk about how great Eastern had been when they were younger. Rita was certainly different.
“Serving on the Board of Trustees is a big responsibility,” I said. “I admire you for your commitment to the college.”
“My accountants tell me I can either give money away or pay it to Uncle Sam.” Her accent grated on me, reminding me of a couple of cousins on my father’s side who grew up in the suburbs of Newark. My dad, who was from the same area but spoke without a hint of an accent, had always looked down on those cousins and I’d inherited his prejudice.
“With the state of the country today I’ll be damned if I pay a penny in taxes,” she continued. “And I don’t have time to waste vetting a lot of different charities. I have a farm just down the river, so Eastern is convenient to me. Most of my donations come here, and I stay on the board so I can make sure the money doesn’t get wasted.”
Across the room from us we could see Lili talking to Felae. From his defiant body language, the boy seemed to be arguing, but she stepped over to the wall and removed the painting. She carried it into an anteroom of the chapel, with Felae following.
The lights in the chapel dimmed a bit. “I understand that the Fine Arts department only has the room reserved until eight,” I said.
“I’ve seen all I need to.” Rita turned and strode toward the door.
“Pleasure meeting you,” I said under my breath. I remembered what Rick had said to me earlier—see you, wouldn’t want to be you.
Lili returned to me after Rita had left. “I had to make nice with Felae, and it wasn’t easy,” she said.
“You handled things well with Rita,” I said. “Impressive. Was that Babson’s idea, or was it yours?”
“Mine. He asked me to remove the picture as a personal favor. But I wasn’t going to back down from that hyena in high heels.”
She drained her white wine. “Now let’s get some dinner. Something sweet to wash away the sour taste in my mouth.”
3 – With Many Witnesses
I didn’t stay over at Lili’s that night, but I didn’t get home early, either. I took Rochester out for a quick pee, and then went to bed, planning to sleep in. Sadly, at seven o’clock the big bossy dog was nosing me and licking my face. “Come on, Rochester,” I said. “Let me s
leep.”
It was a losing battle, though, and soon I was up and walking him. It was shaping up to be another gorgeous spring day, and Rochester enjoyed snooping among all the new flowers, even trying to eat a yellow and white jonquil before I pulled him away.
The townhouses were all faced with fieldstone and had steeply-pitched roofs, with the occasional decoration reminiscent of Russian country dachas—gingerbread edging and modified onion-domes over the entranceways. The trees in the area reflected the relative newness of the development—they were pretty uniform, with maples and oaks alternating in the small front yards. The homeowner’s association handled the landscaping, so everyone’s grass was well-kept and only the occasional azalea or lilac marred the uniformity.
As we passed a bench overlooking a small lake in the center of River Bend, Rochester hopped up onto it and sat there, posed, as if he remembered the table in Rick’s back yard. “You liked that agility stuff?” I asked.
He nodded his big golden head and woofed.
“All right, we’ll go along with Rick today.”
Rochester jumped down and took off in search of a good smell, and I laughed. “I guess I’m just as puppy whipped as Rick is.”
Rick picked us up for the ride to the agility class, and we drove out Scammell’s Mill Road in his truck, the dogs in the back. The sky was a robin’s egg blue dotted with a few puffy white clouds like sheep in a field. Within a couple of miles the suburbs gave way to farmland, acres of peas, beans, corn, and asparagus in neat rows. A couple of dozen cows grazed in one field surrounded by split-rail fencing, and in another a guy rode a red tractor.
“I didn’t realize the town limits of Stewart’s Crossing extended this far inland,” I said to Rick.
“Yeah, it’s hell to patrol all the way out here. We only go about a mile past Rita’s farm, though. Fortunately there isn’t much crime—not like down in the suburbs.”
A bell rang in my head. I remembered that the woman I met the night before had mentioned owning a farm downriver from Leighville. “Hold on. Is this trainer Rita Gaines?”
He turned to me. “You know her?”
“I met her last night. She’s on the Board of Trustees for the college.”
“Good luck with that. She’s got a sharp tongue, that woman.”
“Yeah, I heard her use it.” I told him what she’d said about Felae’s painting.
“He crucified a dog? That’s nasty.”
“He didn’t actually crucify it. Just painted it that way. He was making a statement about animal cruelty.”
Rick slowed down as we approached a sign that read “Good Dog Farm,” and he turned in a long driveway. Ahead of us was an 18th-century stone farmhouse, the kind I’d daydreamed about living in when I was a kid and didn’t know about low ceilings and antiquated plumbing. Next to the house was a big red barn, and beyond that a field full of the same doggy gym equipment I’d seen in Rick’s back yard, but on a larger scale.
Rick pulled his truck in beside a row of BMWs, Jaguars, and other pricey cars. “This agility stuff attracts a wealthy crowd,” I said, as we got out.
“Rita manages an investment fund. A lot of these people are her clients.”
I wasn’t comfortable being around a lot of folks whose cars cost more than my house, but if a blue-collar cop like Rick could fit in, so could I. We put the dogs on leashes and they tugged us toward the ring, where it looked like a Ralph Lauren ad was being filmed—women in pastel pedal-pushers and men in plaid shirts romped with a mix of big and small dogs, from black and tan German shepherds to tiny brown Chihuahuas.
In contrast to the fancy cars and the elegant clothing Rita’s customers wore, the yard smelled like a farm, a mix of manure, mulch and fresh growing things. As we got close to the ring, Rita approached, wearing skinny jeans and a light-blue chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Her short, steel-gray hair seemed more appropriate with that outfit than with the fancy clothes from the night before.
Rick introduced us and said that Rochester was a novice at agility training. “But he learns fast.”
“You work at Eastern, don’t you?” she asked. “I saw you last night at that awful art exhibit.”
Her accent was as strong and grating as it had been the night before.
I nodded, unwilling to engage her in a debate about art or morality. “You can take your dog into the training ring,” she said, pointing to a circular area next to the main ring. “I’ve got to put King Otto through his paces.” She whistled, and a long-haired dachshund came running toward her on tiny little legs, his reddish hair flowing behind him.
I couldn’t help noticing that the way she pursed her lips together matched the look on the dachshund’s face.
“She names all her dogs after German kings and queens,” Rick whispered, as we followed her and the little dog over to the big ring. “Let’s watch how she does it.”
There were a half-dozen spectators at the split-rail fence around the ring. Rick introduced me to Matthew Durkheim, an older man with a shaved head, wearing a form-fitting white T-shirt with the Louis Vuitton logo and a pair of dark slacks. I noticed a tattoo of a rising sun on his right bicep, and it took me a minute to recognize it as the Eastern College logo. Calum, his black and white border collie, sat up at attention as Rochester sniffed him.
Then he turned to the other side and introduced me to Carissa Rodriguez, a Latin beauty, with a finely boned face and black hair, no older than thirty. She wore several gold necklaces, including one with a tear-drop diamond pendant that had to be at least a few carats; a woman’s Rolex watch encrusted with diamonds; and a gold and diamond tennis bracelet. In her arms she held a sleek Chihuahua wearing a braided leather collar.
Rascal and Rochester nosed around the grass and then plopped down at our feet, and we all watched the show. Rita looked like a madwoman as she raced around the track with King Otto, snapping her fingers and waving her hands as the dachshund darted up and down and through the various obstacles. “At Rita’s level it’s about getting through the fastest, without making any mistakes,” Rick said.
King Otto was graceful, though he caught his back foot as he jumped over the limbo pole, leaving it wobbling. “See, that’s a fault,” Rick said. “You lose points for that.”
“I still think the whole thing is silly,” I said.
“Don’t let Rita hear you say that,” Matthew said. “She’s obsessive about her dogs.”
“She is obsessive about everything,” Carissa said, in a gentle Spanish accent.
“That’s why she’s such a good fund manager,” Matthew said. “Wouldn’t trust my investments to anyone else.”
“Nor me,” Carissa said.
When Rita finished her run, Rick said, “Come on, let’s see how Rochester does in public.”
He led us over to the training ring, and pointed out the order of the stations. Rita had a lot more equipment than Rick did, including a big yellow hoop for the dog to leap through and several different limbo poles at different heights. The course was laid out with a couple of sharp turns and reverses as well.
“I’ll take Rascal through once so Rochester can watch,” Rick said.
Rick didn’t look quite as crazy as Rita did, but I had to stifle a laugh a couple of times at how silly he looked, chasing around the course. Rascal seemed to love it, and Rochester was once again straining at his lead to get out there.
Rick was only slightly out of breath when he returned, though his hair was mussed and his cheeks were a bit flushed. “I get almost as good a workout as Rascal does,” he said. “This’ll be good for you, too.” He poked me in the stomach.
I didn’t deign to answer. “Come on, Rochester, let’s show these rubes how it’s done.”
We walked out in the ring and I unhooked Rochester’s leash. As soon as I did he took off for the first obstacle, a low-hung limbo pole.
“He’s got to start from a sitting position,” Rick said.
“Rochester! No!” I called. “Come back he
re!” He stopped and looked back at me. I pointed to the ground next to me and he ambled back. “Sit.” I pointed down.
He stood there.
I pushed on his behind, and said, “Sit” again. This time he agreed.
Rick said, “I’ll time you. Ready, set, go.”
As soon as he said that, I ran toward the first pole, waving Rochester to accompany me. It took him a couple of seconds to follow, and I worried that he was going to stay there and make me look like a fool. But once he took off, we were running together and I was mimicking the hand motions I’d seen Rick make. I focused on trying to remember the right order of the obstacles, and on moving Rochester through his paces.
He zigzagged around the steps at first, finally climbing them when I patted the top level, and knocked over the second limbo pole. He still didn’t get the idea of the weave poles, and when he went over one tall pile of fake rocks he landed in a big puddle of mud and splashed my jeans.
By the time the course was over I was panting for breath, and so was Rochester.
Rita stood next to Rick, arms folded across her chest, shaking her head. “That was terrible. Your dog is totally out of control.”
“It’s his first time,” I said.
“It’s not about that. I’ll bet he doesn’t obey a single one of your commands.”
I was insulted. “He’s a very smart dog.”
She turned to Rochester. “Down,” she said, pointing to the ground. He just looked at me.
“Down, boy,” I said, mimicking her.
Instead of obeying, he jumped up and put his muddy paws on my thighs.
“See what I mean?” Rita barked. “You’ll never be a success at agility unless you learn to control your dog.”
She turned away, like we were wasting her time, and Rochester nuzzled against the back of her leg. Immediately she whirled on him and said, “NO!” in such a commanding voice that it startled the poor dog into plopping onto his butt, looking up.
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