Three Dogs in a Row

by Neil S. Plakcy

  “What happened once those anonymous comments appeared online?” I asked.

  “Any piece of negative information can trigger an avalanche of trading on Wall Street—especially something like this, which smells like inside knowledge. Suddenly everyone wanted to sell StanVest shares—in every fund, not just the high-tech one. The exchange had no choice but to suspend trading.”

  The waitress delivered our entrees, and we began to eat, with many comments about how delicious the food was. “This was a wonderful choice, Lili,” Sherry said. “We’ll have to come back here again.”

  “I love this place,” Lili said. “It’s convenient to Penn Station and to Broadway, and Donatello does a great pre-theater dinner, too.”

  Sherry reached into her tiny scallop shell-shaped purse and pulled out her card. “If we depend on the boys nothing will ever happen,” she said, handing it to Lili. “Call me and we’ll set something up.”

  Lili retrieved her own card from her shoulder bag and handed it to Sherry.

  “Isn’t it sweet,” I said to Tor. “They’re like real businesspeople.”

  Tor laughed. “You are playing with fire, my friend,” he said.

  Lili smiled sweetly at me, and in a perfect imitation of Margaret Hamilton, said, “I’ll get you, my pretty. And your big dog, too.”

  Everyone laughed, and we went back to our food. Then Lili turned to Tor and asked, “What happens to the companies Rita invested in?”

  “I don’t know the specifics of their agreements with StanVest,” Tor said. “Usually in such cases, the company has a milestone schedule they must meet in order to receive the next disbursement. Of course, if the fund no longer has the money to meet its obligations, then the companies must look elsewhere for financing. If they are unable to find it, then…” He shrugged. “But then, such companies are always a high-risk proposition. For everyone involved.”

  I thought of Rita, whose risk – in whatever way—had ultimately led to her death.

  “When on Monday did this start?” I asked. “Do you know?”

  Tor pulled out his Blackberry, and Sherry groaned. “I made him promise to put that away during dinner. But you had to ask him.”

  “Only a few minutes, my love,” Tor said. While he punched a series of keys, I pulled my own phone out and dialed Rick Stempler.

  “Boys and their toys,” Lili said.

  When Rick answered, I asked, “Did you ever get Rita’s time of death? And do you know what time her body was discovered last Monday?”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll explain it to you later. Right now I just want to know.”

  He huffed out a breath that I’m sure was intended to demonstrate his irritation with my Hardy Boy antics. “Coroner puts time of death at approximately six p.m. Sunday. She had a kennel assistant who came in at seven on Monday morning to feed and clean up after the dogs in the barn. When she hadn’t come out of the house by eleven, he went inside to look for her. He called 911 then. What have you dug up?”

  “Nothing concrete. But I’ll let you know once I put the pieces together.” I hung up as Tor looked up from his Blackberry. “The first comments were actually posted Sunday night at a few minutes after eleven o’clock. Could they have been made by Rita herself?”

  “No. She was dead on Sunday evening. But if the killer had invested with her, and knew the fund was going to fall apart with her death, they might be connected.”

  “Enough death,” Sherry said. “This was supposed to be a nice dinner so we could meet Lili.”

  Lili looked over at me and I knew I should have given her more of an indication that she’d be under a microscope. “I wanted to talk to Tor about StanVest,” I said to her. “I can’t control if he told Sherry this was going to be about meeting you.”

  “Now, you are going to get me in trouble, Steve,” Tor said.

  Sherry finished her grilled snapper and pushed the plate away from her. “We’re multi-tasking here. But I can already tell Lili is a thousand times better for you than Mary ever was.”

  “Tell me about her,” Lili said. “Steve is very diplomatic.”

  “Because Steve and Tor are such good friends, we spent a lot of time with Mary while they lived in New York,” she said. “Mary always had – issues.”

  I looked at her. “Really? What kind of issues?”

  “Steve,” Sherry said. “Have you forgotten her already? How she was always sniping at you to get a better job, to work out at the gym, to have your hair cut or wear nicer clothes?”

  I did remember, but I hadn’t realized it was so obvious to everyone else.

  She turned to Lili. “Steve is a sweetheart, but you have to have a high tolerance for goofy. Mary didn’t.”

  “Goofy!” I said.

  “I can see that,” Lili said. “Have you seen him with Rochester?”

  “Ah, the famous Rochester,” Tor said. “We have heard a great deal about this mythical character but never met him.”

  “Excuse me, I’m sitting right here,” I said.

  They trampled over me. Before dinner was over, we had made plans for Tor and Sherry to come out to Stewart’s Crossing the following weekend so they could meet Rochester. “Do you like flea markets?” Lili asked.

  “Absolutely!” Sherry said. “I’d love a good antiquing afternoon.”

  The waitress reappeared and we ordered a round of cappuccinos. “And dessert?” Tor asked.

  “I couldn’t eat another bite,” Sherry said, dabbing her lips with her napkin.

  “It’s always like this,” Tor said mournfully. The edges of his mustache tipped down and he looked like a basset hound.

  Lili came to his rescue, turning to Sherry. “If you like chocolate, you must try Donatello’s baci d’alassio. They’re little hazelnut chocolate kisses. So tiny, they have almost no calories, but they’re full of flavor.”

  “Excellent!” Tor said, slapping his hand on the table. “Bring us a plate of them!” He shooed the waitress away before Sherry could complain.

  Lili’s cell phone rang. “It’s Van,” she said.

  She answered, and told him where we were. “He says he can come by, if that’s all right?”

  “I’d like to talk to him. You don’t mind, do you?” I asked Tor and Sherry.

  “Go right ahead,” Tor said.

  Sherry and Lili talked about antique hunting while we waited for Van to arrive.

  “Can you get me a list of the companies in that high-tech fund of Rita’s?” I asked Tor. “I’d like to know which ones had the bad comments posted about them. You said there were only three, right?”

  Tor nodded.

  “I wonder if there is anything special about those three—or the other three that didn’t have anything posted. I’d also like to see if there are any connections to the people my friend Rick has been investigating—the ones who had access to Rita’s barn and to the poison that was used to kill her. If Rita was already dead by the time those comments were posted, then someone else put them up. And if only Rita had access to the information that went into those posts—then maybe the killer took the material from Rita after killing her.”

  “That’s a big jump, Steve,” Sherry said.

  “I agree,” I said. “And I know I’m not a cop. But my friend is one, and if I can provide him with some information, then maybe he can use it to make an arrest.” I looked back at Tor.

  “It will take a little research, but I can put my assistant onto it tomorrow morning,” he said.

  “That would be great.” I took a sip of my cappuccino. I felt like I was finally on track to help Rick find out who had killed Rita. Even though I hadn’t liked her, she was a human being, and she deserved justice.

  I looked up and saw Van Dryver at the hostess stand, and waved to him. He pulled a chair up at the end of the table, next to Lili, and slid into it. She introduced him to Tor and Sherry.

  “We’ve spoken on the phone,” Van said to Tor. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Van
wrote the article for the Journal about StanVest,” I said to Tor, though I was pretty sure he already knew. Then I turned to Van. “Are you still investigating?”

  He caught the ballerina waitress’s eye and ordered himself a cappuccino, then returned his gaze to me. “Yup. I just finished a story for tomorrow’s paper.”

  “Any chance of getting a heads up?” I asked.

  Tor took over before Van could answer. “Let me guess,” he said. “You are focusing on the rumors about the companies that StanVest Hi-Tech Seven invested in.”

  Van eyed him carefully. “You’re very good,” he said.

  Tor picked up his cappuccino and took a sip. “Yes.”

  He waited. I waited. The entire table seemed to be holding its collective breath to see who would break first.

  Van shrugged. “It’ll be in the paper tomorrow morning. I spoke to each of the companies involved about the rumors, and for the most part, they’re true.”

  “I assumed so,” Tor said. “They had that ring of authenticity that only an insider could have provided.”

  “Take the Baby Connection,” Van said, and I winced. Why had he chosen that example? Did he know about Lili’s background? Or was I too sensitive because of my own?

  Van picked up a sugar packet and shook it as he spoke. “I spoke to the CEO and she admitted everything. But she swore the only people who knew that stuff were her executive team, her attorneys, her investment bankers, and Rita Gaines. Same thing with each of the companies I talked to. The only common thread was Rita.”

  The waitress delivered Van’s cappuccino as if she were Salome serving up John the Baptist’s head and then fluttered away.

  I asked Van, “So you believe Rita is the one who made those posts?”

  “Had to be her,” he said. “Every person I spoke to mentioned her bad disposition, and her irrational tirades. She made a lot of enemies on Wall Street, and there’s no shortage of people who are willing to say that her behavior might have verged on dementia. My article is going to chop her into little bits.”

  My eyes met Tor’s. The edges of his mustache moved up a fraction. Who knows? Maybe Rita did have a touch of dementia. “Well, she wasn’t a very nice person,” I said.

  “That’s what everyone told me,” Van said.

  His phone buzzed, and he answered. He turned away to take the call, and when he had finished he said, “Sorry, I’ve got to run. I have an opportunity to talk to a source.”

  Everyone said their goodbyes. When Van was out the door, Lili said, “Source my ass. Van’s going to hook up.”

  “You caught that?” Sherry asked. “I thought it was just me.”

  Tor and I looked at each other, both of us baffled. “He’s meeting a source,” I said.

  “Men,” Sherry said.

  Lili looked at me and Tor. “Why didn’t either of you tell Van that Rita was already dead by the time those online comments were posted?”

  “She probably set those comments up to post automatically,” I said. “I know bloggers who do that. She didn’t know she was going to get killed. Maybe she wanted it to happen while she was asleep.”

  Tor shook his head. “I think you can only do that when you control the site.”

  “Then who posted them?” Lili asked. “And why?”

  Tor and I looked at each other. We both shrugged. “When I get the information from Tor, I’ll try and find an answer to that.”

  “Van’s going to look awfully stupid when the truth comes out about the time of Rita’s death,” Lili said. She looked at her watch. “If we’re going to catch the 11:00 train, we’d better get moving.”

  So. Lili believed that Van was going to make a big mistake in print, and hadn’t said anything when she had the chance. I guess I didn’t have to worry about her leaving me for him.

  Tor and Sherry wanted to drop Lili and me back at Penn Station, but we had time to walk, and we both wanted to soak up a bit more city atmosphere. “I like them,” Lili said as we strolled past an endless row of electronics stores with perpetual going-out-of-business signs in their windows. “Sherry’s a hoot. And did you see that Judith Leiber purse?”

  “The scallop shell? You could tell who manufactured it?”

  “From a mile away.” She patted my arm. “Don’t worry. It’s a girl thing.”

  “If you say so. I didn’t realize how much she disliked Mary.”

  “I didn’t get the feeling she hated her. Just didn’t think she was right for you.”

  “And how about you?” I asked, putting my arm in hers. “Are you right for me?”

  “We’ll get a further report from Sherry next weekend,” she said.

  25 – Blind Spot

  It was nearly midnight by the time we got back to Stewart’s Crossing. Rochester was eager to see us both, hopping and jumping around so much that I had to order him to sit three times before he consented to let me put his leash on. We took him for a walk around the block, and I considered how nice it was to have Lili there with us. She and Rochester had bonded, and I knew it was his influence that had opened me up to love again.

  When we returned to my house, Lili and I got in bed and kissed good night, and even though it was late we slid into each other and explored the possibilities of our romance. When we had spent ourselves, she turned on her side to go to sleep. I sat up for an extra couple of minutes, thinking about Mary again. Lili was a very different woman. Then I fell asleep myself.

  I left Lili in bed Wednesday morning while I walked Rochester. The rainy weather had moved on, and the air was crisp, the sun sparkling on the lake at the center of River Bend. Rochester was frisky, and I let him off the leash to rampage around the lake for a few minutes, chasing ducks and squirrels. By the time he galloped back to me his tongue was hanging out and his eyes were shimmering with delight.

  When we got back to the house I toasted a couple of English muffins for breakfast. I had discovered Lili liked the cinnamon raisin kind, so I always kept a package in the freezer. I was pouring the orange juice when she walked downstairs, rubbing her eyes.

  “Sleep well?” I asked.

  “Yes. Nice evening last night.”

  “Yeah, Tor and Sherry are great.” As she sat down, I saw the framed photograph I’d bought for her leaning against the wall in the living room. While she helped herself to a muffin, I picked it up and brought it to her.

  “I saw this the other day and thought you might like it,” I said.

  She turned and saw it. “Oh!” She looked from the photo to me. “It’s wonderful.” She kissed me, then took the photo from me. “It’s a Francois Regaud!”

  “You know him?”

  “Not him, but I know his work. How did you know I’d like this?”

  I shrugged. “I saw it and it spoke to me.”

  “I know just where I’m going to put it. This is the nicest gift! Thank you so much.” She kissed me again, and it took us a couple of minutes before we got back to our English muffins.

  “Are you marching with the faculty at graduation?” she asked.

  “I’m planning to,” I said. “I was thinking I’d walk in the parade of classes first, then join the faculty at the stadium.”

  The parade of classes was an Eastern tradition. About an hour before graduation was to start, the alumni present would organize themselves into their classes on the broad lawn in front of Fields Hall. Each class was led by a student carrying a banner with that year emblazoned on it. The old guard – those alumni whose graduation occurred more than fifty years before – rode in golf carts at the head of the parade.

  “You’re not going to wear your cap and gown in the parade, are you? That would look weird. Everyone else will be in street clothes.”

  “I guess I could carry it with me. I hadn’t thought that far in advance,” I said.

  “Why don’t you give your stuff to me now,” Lili said, as we stood up to clear the table, Rochester underfoot as always, looking for scraps. “I’ll keep it at my office and then meet you a
t the stadium with it.”

  “Good idea. I’ve got it upstairs airing out.” I ran up the stairs, Rochester right behind me, and pulled my black master’s degree gown off the hanger. With it was the hood—light blue with a white chevron, and with a white lining signifying my master’s in English. The plain black mortarboard that went with it was on the shelf above the gown.

  I hurried back downstairs, Rochester once again underfoot. By then Lili had cleaned up and we were ready to go.

  Rochester didn’t seem to mind climbing in the back so Lili could ride shotgun, but as soon as I dropped Lili at her house he wormed his way up front. I drove the few blocks to the Eastern campus, already buzzing with preparations for graduation. Workmen were posting directional signs and erecting tents on the back lawn. I parked in the faculty-staff lot, already emptier as the faculty began filtering away, and walked Rochester to my office.

  While my computer was booting up, Rochester settled into his customary place by the french doors, his head resting on his paws. I emailed Rick to apologize for not calling him the night before, and to tell him what I’d learned about the rumors surrounding the companies Rita had invested in—and the timing of their posting.

  My office phone rang. “Eastern College, Steve Levitan.”

  “It’s Van Dryver. I need some help and I’m hoping you can give me a hand.”

  “Depends,” I said, sitting in my chair with my hand on the top of Rochester’s head.

  “I’m looking for an address and phone number for a guy named Matthew Durkheim, who graduated from Eastern.”

  “Sorry, can’t help you. I’m not authorized to release any information our students or alumni.”

  Rochester got his blue rubber ball between his paws and settled down to gnaw on it. “Come on, Steve. I know about you. You’ve broken the rules in the past.”

  “You know what, Van? You don’t know anything about me.”

  “Yeah, but I know about Lili,” he said. “Here’s a piece of advice, between you and me. I wouldn’t expect Lili to stay in Podunkville much longer. She’s got big dreams, that girl, and she loves to see the world.”