Three Dogs in a Row

by Neil S. Plakcy

  I was torn, wanting to tell Rita Gaines off, but at the same time recognizing she was right—Rochester did exactly what he wanted and I let him.

  “Come on, I want to watch some of the other dogs,” Rick said, turning back toward the main ring. “There’s a lot of strategy involved in handling.”

  “Something I seem to be lacking in.”

  “Rita says it’s all about the relationship between you and the dog. You have to show Rochester that you’re the pack leader. I’ll bet you feed him dinner before you eat yourself, don’t you?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “And as soon as you walk in the door, you’re all over him, right?”

  “I guess so,” I said.

  “See, what you’re telling Rochester is that he’s in charge. Rita says that in a pack of dogs, the alpha eats first. So I make Rascal wait for his dinner until I’m done eating.”

  “That’s mean. Doesn’t he sit there and stare at you?”

  “So? He does that even when I’m not eating.”

  We walked up to the split-rail fence again. Matthew and his border collie Calum were standing at the gate, waiting for a heavyset man with an unlit cigar in his mouth to finish his run with his German Shepherd.

  Matthew said, “Don’t mind what Rita said about your dog. She has no filter. You should have seen my dog Calum when we first started training here.”

  I nodded. “I noticed your Eastern tattoo. I went there too.”

  “I was on the crew team. Senior year we decided to get tattooed together. Stupid idea, but it’s kept us close. We meet up at every reunion.”

  The German shepherd finished his run, and Matthew and Calum stepped into the ring. I was impressed with the rapport between them; all Matthew had to do was click his tongue and point, and the collie knew exactly what to do. Calum, like Rascal, didn’t sit on the platform long enough, and Rita had some sharp words for him. Then Carissa took Tia Juana, her Chihuahua, out for a perfect run.

  When they finished, Carissa walked over to where we were standing with Matthew, and Rita followed. Rita got down to the dog’s level, scratching her behind her ears and purring. “Good breeding shows, doesn’t it, my pretty?”

  “Tia Juana was bred right here,” Carissa said. “Her dam and sire are both champions.”

  “How nice,” I said. Rochester was a rescue dog, twice over. Caroline had brought him home from a shelter without knowledge of his parentage, and then he had come to live with me.

  Carissa picked up Tia Juana and said, “We must go, Rita. Thank you so much. And I will talk to you this week about those mutual funds you suggested.”

  As she turned to go, a beat-up Japanese sedan pulled up in the driveway and a shaggy-haired young man got out. It took me a minute to recognize him as Felae, my former student, whose artwork Rita hadn’t appreciated the night before.

  “You are terrible woman!” he shouted, striding toward Rita. “You want to remove my scholarship? How dare you?”

  Rita’s mouth opened but she didn’t say anything.

  Rascal and Rochester both began barking, followed by at least a half-dozen other dogs from around the yard. I tugged on Rochester’s leash and said, “Hush, dog.” Then I looked up. “What’s the matter, Felae?”

  He turned from facing Rita to me. “Do I know you?”

  It was hard talking over all the barking and yapping. I waited until Rick had Rascal quiet, and Carissa had petted Tia Juana into submission.

  “Yes, Felae, you do,” I said, my exasperation showing. How could he not remember me when I’d been his teacher for a whole semester? “My name is Steve Levitan, and I taught you in the mystery fiction class last spring. And I saw you last night at the art exhibit.”

  “Oh, yes. Then you know how awful this woman is!”

  He turned and shook his fist at her. “I kill you! Right here! With many witnesses!”

  Rita pulled a tiny stun gun from the pocket of her skinny jeans. “Come near me and I’ll zap you into kingdom come, you little foreign bastard.”

  The dogs all started barking again. Rick handed me Rascal’s leash and stepped forward. “Now, now. Nobody’s killing or zapping anyone.” He showed his badge to Felae. “I think you should leave, buddy. And forget about making any more crazy threats.”

  I kept yanking on both dogs’ leashes and telling them to be quiet, without much success.

  “She try to ruin my life!” Felae yelled. “I hear this morning from college president. She want to have my painting destroyed, my scholarship cancelled. What is next, horrible old woman? Send me back to my country to be killed?”

  “Rick, you need to remove this individual from my property,” Rita said. She put her stun gun back in her pocket and picked up King Otto. “I won’t be harassed at my own home.”

  “You heard the lady.” Rick was wearing a short-sleeved cotton shirt with the tails out, which I knew meant he had his gun in a waist holster. I hoped he didn’t have to show it to Felae.

  “Sergeant Stempler is right, Felae,” I said. “You need to leave, right now.”

  “You are all toadies of the capitalist hierarchy!” Felae said. “In the new world order you will all suffer.”

  He turned and strode to his car, slamming the door behind him. Then he gunned the engine and dug a muddy rut through the manicured grass alongside Rita’s driveway as he pulled away.

  4 – A Happy Little Meeting

  Rita stalked off toward her barn, and Carissa, looking shaken, carried Tia Juana toward the parking lot. Rochester and Rascal sat down and shut up as soon as Felae’s car turned onto Scammell’s Mill Road.

  “Want to give the practice ring another go before we leave?” Rick asked.

  “Sure.” I handed him Rascal’s leash, and the dogs jumped up, eager to keep going. They trotted forward, tugging us past the main ring, where Matthew was schooling Calum on the platform, making him sit there for five beats before rewarding him with a treat.

  “It’s a good thing these dogs get a lot of exercise, considering all the treats they get,” I said.

  “You’ve got to get the miniature ones,” Rick said. “If you keep giving Rochester those big ones he’ll pork up no matter how often you run him.”

  “When did you get so smart about dog stuff? You’ve had Rascal what, four months, and now you’re the dog whisperer?”

  “I pay attention. Rascal and I watch Cesar Millan together, and all the dog shows on TV.” He opened the gate to the training course. “And I read a couple of books.”

  I shook my head as he put Rascal in position. All I’d done when I got Rochester was ask the vet and the salesman at the pet store a couple of questions about toys and foods. Maybe that’s why my dog was so headstrong.

  Rick led his Australian shepherd through the training course, and I recognized the genes that had made that breed such a good herder. Rick made the Aussie shepherd stop when he didn’t sit on the platform long enough, and do it again, three more times, until he was sure that the dog had the idea. Then they went back to the beginning and ran the course all the way through, and Rascal stayed on the platform the full five beats.

  A cool breeze swept across the neighboring fields and raised goose bumps on my arms. Fortunately it also pushed aside the smells of dogs and dung.

  I led Rochester into the ring, and this time he sat on command. Maybe Rita had scared him into obedience, or maybe he just knew what he was supposed to do. He still didn’t like the weave poles, but I made him stop as soon as he’d run one circle around. I grabbed his collar and dragged him between the poles, in and out. He tried to sit down halfway through but I manhandled him. “I’m the alpha dog in this pack, buddy,” I whispered to him. “Get that through your furry head.”

  He just looked at me with a goofy grin. But he did let me pull him through the poles. We went back to the start, as I’d seen Rick do when he schooled Rascal, and we started to run through again. When we came to the weave poles, Rochester tried to feint around them—but I gave my tongu
e a loud click, like I’d heard Matthew do.

  And what do you know, the dog went right through the weave poles like a champ. He leapt right through the multi-colored plastic ring, and though he faulted over one of the limbo poles, his performance was a big improvement. I rewarded him with an extra treat and a lot of doggie love.

  By then the rest of the owners had left, and Rita joined us at the practice ring. “Let me show you my barn. But you’ll have to put those boys in your truck because of all the puppies.”

  Rick and I were as obedient as Rochester had been when Rita barked at him. Rick opened the tailgate to the truck and Rascal jumped right in. “Go on,” I said to Rochester. “We won’t be long.”

  He cocked his head, but when I waved my arm toward the truck bed he leapt up beside Rascal, and the two of them settled down next to each other.

  Rita had renovated the old barn to serve as a state-of-the art kennel. She led us past the feeding troughs and the pens, which were half under cover and half open to the outside. She bragged about the bloodlines of her dogs, and every pen was lined with photographs of shows and awards. One dachshund bitch had recently given birth, and she was curled up in a big bed, her tiny blind puppies gathered around her.

  The barn smelled like dog, but at the same time it was a clean, well-organized building, with rows of shelves of all kinds of products, from dog shampoo to flea control to a wide selection of leashes and collars.

  Rita’s cell phone rang and she answered, then walked away from us without even a goodbye. Rick and I walked back to his truck, where the dogs were sprawled in the back, both of them sleeping. We climbed in the front and Rick made a perfect K-turn, without touching a blade of Rita’s manicured grass.

  “I never did get the hang of the K-turn during driver ed,” I said.

  “Get Rochester to help you,” Rick said, as we drove back down toward the river. “He learns fast. It took Rascal at least a week of trying to figure out the weave poles.”

  I sat back and watched the landscape go by for a while. “Rochester is spoiled, though,” I said, as we approached River Bend. “You’re right. I’ve let him think he’s the boss.”

  Rick gave me a sidelong glance. “And he isn’t?”

  “Is there any reason why he shouldn’t be?”

  “According to what I’ve read, dogs misbehave when they don’t know their place in the pack hierarchy. When they think they’re in charge, they worry about you when you’re gone, and that makes them act up. I want Rascal to relax and enjoy being a dog.”

  “You think Rochester doesn’t?”

  “If you let him think he’s in charge, then he won’t be able to.”

  “Sometimes I think he’s one step ahead of the rest of us,” I said. “Look at the way he’s been able to find clues.”

  Rick groaned. “Or he could just have a really good sense of smell.” He pulled the truck into my driveway and pushed my shoulder. “Go on, get out. And take your dog. I’ve got to get home and get ready for a date. I’ll email you Rita’s training schedule, in case you decide you want to start taking Rochester up there.”

  That night I fixed dinner and ate, before I fed Rochester. He slumped on the kitchen floor dejectedly next to my chair, only perking up when I got up and poured out his kibble. “Get used to it,” I said to him. “This is the new world order.”

  He didn’t say anything, just scarfed down his food.

  * * *

  I spoke to Lili that night before I went to sleep. “How was your day?” I asked.

  “After you left I slept in, then I worked on the computer for a while, manipulating some photographs I took a few years ago in India.”

  “India? Wow.”

  “I was there on assignment, photographing children who live in the slums of Mumbai. But Felae’s portrait of the dog reminded me of some photos I’d taken of dogs on that trip and I wanted to look at them again. At the time I was too busy to do anything with them, but now I might put something together – kind of as a response to his work.”

  “Interesting.”

  “I’m not sure anything will come of it. I often fiddle around for a while with images looking for something I can draw out of them. Anyway, after that I went over to the chapel for a while. Felae didn’t show up to move his painting so I had to do it for him.”

  “I know where he was.” I told her how he’d driven to Rita’s farm and threatened her.

  “Sometimes I wish I was a photojournalist again. Give me a good war, where the lines are drawn. I hate this kind of academic skirmishing.”

  “Wait til you come up for tenure. Then you’ll see some casualties.”

  “I’ll settle for making it through this semester. Thank God this is the last week of classes.”

  “You think you can break away for lunch one day?” I asked. “Maybe toward the end of the week?”

  “We’ll talk. Have a good night.”

  “You too, sweetie. Sleep well.”

  I looked over at Rochester. “You want to go for a walk before bed?”

  He jumped up and nodded his big golden head. I wondered again if I had spoiled him too much, if I was stressing him out by making him think he was in charge. But he always seemed like such a happy dog, even if he was bossy.

  We walked down Sarajevo Court, and he grabbed the flattened carcass of a frog in his mouth. I was right on him, prying open his jaws with one hand and grabbing the frog in the other. “That’s disgusting, Rochester!” I wiped my hands on my jeans and reminded myself they had to go right into the wash.

  * * *

  The next morning before I left for work I checked my personal email, and found that Rick had forwarded an email from Rita Gaines with a list of the days and times she provided personal agility training for dogs, as well as when she opened her farm for people who wanted to practice on her courses. She used an online email provider, one that was notorious among the hacker community for shoddy security. Bad idea for someone who thought she was so smart, I thought.

  I drove back up to Leighville on my way to work, with Rochester riding shotgun. So many people on the campus knew him that he was like a minor star. Students I didn’t even recognize stopped to pet him, and one of the groundskeepers had a treat in his pocket for Rochester as we walked from the parking lot to my office in Fields Hall.

  When Caroline was killed and Rochester came to stay with me, I was only working a few hours a week as an adjunct faculty member, and he got accustomed to having me around most of the time. I called him a Velcro dog.

  When I accepted the administrative job, six months before, I made sure it was all right to bring Rochester with me to work, even though technically only service dogs were allowed on the Eastern campus. He did provide me a service after all; I was recovering from a bad series of events, and he made me feel more like a person who had a future.

  Maybe that was why I had spoiled him so much. Was it time to change the nature of our relationship, making sure he knew that I was the boss? I’d have to convince myself first.

  I led Rochester into Fields Hall, and then my office, and he relaxed in his usual position next to the tall french doors that led out to a garden on the side of the building. Then I sat down at my desk to get to work.

  Eastern’s graduation is always on a Friday, beginning a weekend of events for grads and alumni, and I had a lot of publicity to handle. I was proofreading a couple of posters to hang in the lobby of Fields Hall when Rick called.

  “Bad news,” he said. “Got called out to Rita Gaines’s place this morning. She’s dead.”

  In the background I heard the sound of a tractor, and realized he must still be out there. “Wow. I didn’t like her—but I wouldn’t have wished her dead.” I shivered, as I remembered the last person I’d seen just before his death, my college mentor Joe Dagorian. And then Rochester’s former owner, my neighbor Caroline Kelly. I didn’t like the idea of knowing so many people who had died while still relatively young. I felt the goosebumps rising on my arms. I rubbed th
em as I recalled seeing Rita walk away from us the day before, talking on her cell phone.

  “How did she die?” I asked. “And when? We saw her yesterday afternoon.”

  “Not sure yet. Waiting for the coroner’s report to give us the means and the time of death, though I’m pretty sure it was at least a few hours after we left her. But I’m going to need the name of that student you talked to yesterday, the one who threatened Rita.”

  “Felae? You don’t think he killed Rita, do you?”

  “Right now I’m not thinking, just investigating. How do you spell that name?”

  I had to check my archived class roster to get Felae’s last name, which I reminded myself was Popescu. I spelled the first and last names for Rick.

  “Jesus, whatever happened to names like Robert Smith?” he asked. “At least there shouldn’t be too many matches in the system.”

  “You should call the registrar. They’ll have his home address, phone number, email, that kind of thing. And they’re the only ones who can give out personal data on students.”

  I hung up and turned to Rochester, who was lying sprawled on the wooden floor of my office. “You hear that, boy? That nasty woman we met yesterday is dead.”

  Rochester lifted his head, but didn’t say anything.

  “She was a bitch, but she loved dogs, so she couldn’t be all bad. Don’t you think so?”

  Once again he declined to comment. Rochester seemed to have a nose for murder. He had helped me, and Rick, find Caroline’s killer, and dug up some clues that helped solve a murder on campus, too.

  I had to admit that I was a curious guy myself. I pulled out a copy of our college magazine in which I knew the Board of Trustees had been profiled, and read the article on Rita Stanville Gaines.

  She was an Army brat, born in 1946 at a military hospital in Bad Kreuznach, Germany. She had moved around the world with her family, until she was sent to a girls’ boarding school in Washington, DC. After she graduated, she enrolled at Eastern College. From there she had gone on to get her MBA in finance at Columbia University.