I was happy to take on any assignment that got me out of the office, and I hooked Rochester up for the walk downhill to a cluster of faux-Colonial buildings that housed Eastern’s alphabet of fraternities. Rochester snagged a loose frisbee from a couple of Alpha Tau Epsilon brothers, and romped on the grass with the sisters of Zeta Beta Theta. Everything looked clean, and by the time we had patrolled the entire area it was time to head for home.
From my car, I dialed Lili’s cell, but the call went direct to voice mail. All the way down the River Road to Stewart’s Crossing, I kept looking at my phone, but it never rang.
“Nobody loves us today, Rochester,” I said, and he pulled his head back from the open window to look at me. “Rick doesn’t call. Lili doesn’t call. I guess it’s just you and me.”
He woofed once and nodded his golden head.
27 – Twelve Steps
When I got home, I took Rochester for a long walk, made dinner, ate, played with the dog—but still felt unsettled. I knew what was wrong. I wanted to know more about Matthew Durkheim and MDC, and the only way to find out was by hacking. It’s like an addiction to me—sometimes I can’t help myself. My adrenaline starts to flow and my brain buzzes with all the neurons jumping around, eager to be used.
I felt almost like a guy in some twelve-step program. My fingers itched and my pulse raced. Should I call Santiago Santos and have him talk me down? Or should I give in and go online? I was in the service of a greater good, after all. I was trying to find out who killed Rita Gaines, and what was going on at Eastern College, which threatened to bring down my alma mater—and the place that gave me a paycheck that supported me and my dog.
Rochester knew what was up. He brought me his foam boomerang, and I tossed it. He scrambled down the tile floor and retrieved it, but while he did, I went upstairs and crawled into the back of my closet, where I kept the laptop that had belonged to his former owner, Caroline Kelly.
While Rochester and I were investigating her murder, I had discovered her laptop, and installed some hacking software on it that I had used to find information that helped expose her killer. Since my own laptop had my parole officer’s tracking software installed, I couldn’t use it for illegal purposes, and I’d kept Caroline’s around and hidden.
Rochester saw what I was doing, and he gave up trying to distract me and settled back on the floor, with a reproachful look on his face. I’ll bet that if he could have, he’d have barked loud enough to summon Santiago Santos.
I didn’t know where Matthew Durkheim banked, or where he kept the accounts for MDC. Where the company was incorporated, who his attorney was or his accountants. It was frustrating, but I had nowhere to start.
Nowhere except with Rita Gaines. I closed my eyes and concentrated, running through everything I knew about her and her connections to Matthew Durkheim. I couldn’t concentrate, though, because Rochester had begun running around the living room like a wild dog.
I opened my eyes. “What in the world are you doing, you crazy mutt?” He was on all fours, scrambling between the legs of the dining room table as if they were weave poles. Then he darted across the room to the coffee table, and jumped on top of it, scattering a pile of Eastern college magazines, then holding his pose.
“This is not an agility course!” I said. “Get down from there!”
I stood up to chase him away, then sat down hard on my chair. Agility training. Rick had forwarded me the schedule of Rita’s sessions, and I remembered she had used a notoriously unsecure online email host. Had I saved the message with her address?
I scrambled over to my own computer and waited impatiently for it to boot up. I’m very anal about my own filing system; I had a folder called “Rochester,” and the message was right there. Her address was [email protected].
Back at Caroline’s laptop, I let my fingers do some walking. The folks at mymail weren’t quite as dumb as I remembered; they had put in new security that took getting around. I had to pull a few old tricks out of my bag, and make up a couple of new ones, before I had access to the user directory for rita.gaines.
By then it was eleven o’clock and Rochester was nosing me for his late-night walk. “Rochester,” I whined. “I just got where I wanted to go. Can’t you hold it?”
He pushed his nose to my knee and sniffed, his wet black nostrils huffing in and out.
I sighed. “I guess not.” I stood up, and he jumped up and down on all fours.
We hurried through our walk and even though I cheated him, he was sweet enough not to mind. I slid back into my chair and flexed my fingers. “This is going to be fun,” I said.
It wasn’t. Rita was as disorganized with her email as Oscar Lavista. “Doesn’t anybody manage their inbox these days?” I grumbled. I ended up creating a massive zip file of Rita’s inbox and downloading it to the laptop’s desktop. Then I did the same thing with her sent messages folder. As soon as I could, I logged out of the mymail server.
I unzipped the files, then ran a couple of basic searches, one for each of the companies the fund had invested in. I wanted to see if there were any clues to the online comments contained in her emails.
All I could find that related were a couple of questions about the health of the baby company’s CEO’s son, the one who had been diagnosed with autism. But there was no indication in those emails that Rita had any concern that his diagnosis could impact the company or its finances.
MDC, however, was another matter. Starting about a month before her death, Rita began emailing Matthew comments about Freezer Burn she had heard from people at Eastern. It appeared she was a lot more connected to the college than she had let on when she spoke to me. She talked to secretaries, faculty members and students at meetings, social events, and as she walked around the campus. Everywhere she went she heard complaints about the software.
Matthew reassured her that yes, there were a few bugs, but his programmers were working them out. In one message she wrote that she had made an unexpected visit to his office in New York when he wasn’t there, and discovered that there was only one programmer in the office, though that guy mentioned others in India who could be hired on a per-project basis. “That is not the way you presented this company,” her message read. “We need to discuss this, Matthew. Immediately.”
In his response, he tried to soothe her, without success. He appeared to be ducking her phone calls, because her emails got increasingly angry in tone. Finally he agreed to bring Calum to her training yard, and meet with her after the session was over.
I looked at the date of the message. That would have been the day Rick and I saw him, the Sunday she was killed.
It was well after midnight by the time I finished reading the messages, too late to call Rick. I couldn’t forward the emails to him; I didn’t want an electronic trail that would lead back to me and provide documented evidence that I had violated my parole. That clear evidence would send me right back into the California penal system.
I’d lose my job. My relationship with Lili. Rochester.
I couldn’t allow that to happen, even if it meant letting a murderer go free. I wasn’t returning to prison just to see Matthew Durkheim behind bars, too. It wasn’t worth it. I’d have to call Rick in the morning and figure out how to get him the information.
I shut down the laptop and returned it to its hiding place, then went to bed. I had two long days of work ahead of me, culminating in Eastern’s graduation on Friday. I’d think about how to prove Matthew’s guilt after everything was over.
* * *
Thursday morning I pulled onto Main Street in Leighville, only a couple of blocks from the entry to the college parking lot. Then I got stuck in a long line of cars, waiting for a huge wire-framed sun encrusted with thousands of lights to rise over Fields Hall.
Eastern’s logo is the rising sun, and President Babson’s wife is a devotee of modern art. The two combined in a commission for a pop-art sun that would be attached to the bell tower of Fields Hall, and be illuminated
at the start of the parade of classes on Friday afternoon.
Hanging the sun was huge process, involving a tractor trailer, a crane, and enough workers in red pinneys and hard hats to man the construction site of a new high-rise. Rochester got antsy at the delay, leaning out the window with his front paws on the windowsill, and I kept having to tug him back into the car. Finally I put the car in park, and Rochester remained with his head out the window to supervise what was going on.
While I was waiting, Rick called. I almost didn’t answer, because I was afraid somehow he knew I’d been hacking the night before and he was ready to challenge me. But that was silly, I thought. No one had me under surveillance.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey. Thanks for that tip on Matthew Durkheim and his company. It’s definitely one of the ones Rita Gaines invested in. He was at the farm on Sunday, and he was familiar with her barn and the way she handled dogs. So he’s got means and opportunity, and if there’s something hinky going on with their business dealings he’d have motive. I’ve been trying to find him, and I discovered that he boarded his dog and his neighbors haven’t seen him in a couple of days, so I think he might have done a runner.”
“Good work. You know, Rita and Matthew might have exchanged some emails about problems with MDC, or at least confirming their meeting on Sunday,” I said. “You should see if you can get a subpoena for Rita’s email account. You have the address—you forwarded a message from her account to me.”
Rick was quiet for a long couple of seconds. “Are you suggesting that there might be incriminating information in those emails?”
“As a matter of speculation, of course,” I said.
“Of course.” If his voice had been any drier he’d have been in the Sahara. “I’ll look into it. Thanks for the tip.”
“Any time. Let me know if I can help—after graduation.”
“Will do.”
He hung up, and the workers finally lifted the sun off the truck, and it pulled away. Traffic began to creep ahead, and I drummed my fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. “It’s just a sun, people,” I said. “You can see one of them every day.”
Rochester settled back into his seat and looked at me.
“I know, I know,” I said to him. “You think I should relax. But I’ve got a million things to do today.”
Once we reached the college, the day became a chaotic maelstrom of graduation planning. At least Freezer Burn had disappeared from my college computer; when I booted it up, it whirred smoothly through its startup routine, and every program I tried worked without a flaw.
In between phone calls and emails, though, I kept worrying whether I should tell Rick what I had discovered about the trouble between Rita Gaines and Matthew Durkheim. Was I impeding his investigation by not revealing what I knew? Or did it matter? Matthew was already Rick’s primary suspect. Anything I knew was only hearsay, and improperly gained. Accountants would have to sift through the real evidence anyway.
Mike had pizzas brought in for the staff, and Rochester was delighted to snarf down his share of crust along with a few choice bits of sausage and pepperoni. After lunch, I had to meet with representatives of the student honor societies, who would be manning tables on Friday, handing out tassels and cords to graduates, and lapel pins to alumni. Once I was confident they knew what they were doing, I grabbed Rochester and we joined one of the maintenance supervisors to walk the entire route of the parade of classes, making sure everything was prepared for the next day.
Ford was an older black guy with his name on an oval patch on his work shirt. “Ain’t supposed to have dogs on campus,” he said, when he saw Rochester.
“I have permission,” I said.
“Still, ain’t supposed to be here.”
“Let’s get this walk going,” I said. “Where does the old guard meet?”
“Over here towards the tents.” He turned his back and started walking toward a big open area where the college had set up party-style tents for each class or group of classes.
Security had installed portable bollards painted bright yellow to block cars and trucks from driving through the main roadway. As soon as we reached them, Rochester began darting around them as if they were weave poles, dragging me with him.
“Rochester!” I stumbled and clutched his leash as he rounded the last bollard. Then he sat down and opened his mouth wide, expecting a treat.
“Something wrong with that dog,” Ford said. It wasn’t a question.
“There’s nothing wrong with him. Let’s keep going.”
Eastern’s graduation was also the kickoff for our reunion weekend. We invited all alumni to join us for a big lawn party before the ceremonies, then hang around for individual class picnics afterwards. We sponsored campus tours and faculty lectures open to all alumni and their families on Saturday, as well as formal dinners for each reunion class.
Ford, Rochester and I circled around the tents, each one marked with a banner proclaiming a reunion slogan, like “We’re making do: Class of ‘72” and “On our way to heaven: Class of ‘57.” I had to keep Rochester from investigating each tent in search of food or playmates.
We turned right and headed toward Fields Hall. Most of the trash receptacles on campus had been freshly painted, but we spotted one the painters had missed, and Ford called it in on his radio. Rochester and I kept on going, until he startled me by dashing forward to a wood-and-wrought-iron bench. As I stumbled behind him, he jumped up on the bench and assumed his “sit” position.
“Jesus, Rochester, this is not an agility course,” I said, tugging the leash.
“People gonna sit on that bench,” Ford said, coming up behind me. “Gotta have it cleaned now.”
Rochester hopped down and tried to jump up on Ford. I jerked back on the dog’s leash. “He was up there for five seconds,” I said, pulling tightly.
“Need to have a bench cleaned,” Ford said into his radio. I groaned and kept on walking. We passed Fields Hall, and Rochester managed to intercept a passing frisbee, then submit to being petted by a couple of adoring female students. As we walked downhill toward the football stadium, we neared a beer delivery truck with a ramp up into the back. I held a strong grip on Rochester’s leash as he strained to dash up it.
As soon as Ford and I reached the stadium, I said, “Looks like everything’s okay.”
“Except for the dog,” Ford grumbled.
Rochester tried to jump up on him again, and this time I didn’t pull him back until he’d already placed his big furry paws on Ford’s groin, and the older man had reared away in horror. I smiled and said, “Have a great day!”
28 – The Things You Can Do
After finishing the walkthrough, Rochester and I slogged back up to Fields Hall. I hadn’t been to an Eastern graduation since my own, so many years before, and I was astounded at how much planning went into one. Rochester seemed to be as exhausted as I was, after all his jumping, playing and tugging.
I was too tired to think about talking to anyone else, or making dinner. I stopped at a drive-through on the outskirts of Stewart’s Crossing, and fed Rochester bits of a plain hamburger as we drove through River Bend. “You know, Uncle Rick says I’m spoiling you,” I said, as I pulled into the driveway. “I should have eaten my dinner first, and then given you yours.”
He looked at me.
“Yeah,” I said. “What does Uncle Rick know?”
I let him out of the car, and he peed. We went inside, and at least I sat down and ate my dinner before I poured out his kibble. He was chomping noisily as Rick called my cell. “Want to grab a burger?” he asked.
“Already did. I stopped at a drive-through on the way home. I’m beat, anyway. Graduation’s tomorrow and things are crazy up at Eastern.” I told Rick about Rochester’s antics at the walk-through with Ford.
Rick laughed. Then I told him about my conversation the day before with Van Dryver, and how I’d hung up on him. “That guy needs to get his nose out of this,”
he said. “He’s muddying the waters. Can’t Lili call him off?”
“You want me to get my girlfriend to call her ex and ask for a favor? What planet are you from?”
“Planet Cop. You want to play Hardy Boys? This is how we operate. We lean on people to talk—or to shut up.”
“He’s not some cub reporter for the Boat-Gazette,” I said, citing our local paper. “He’s an investigative journalist for the Wall Street Journal. I could ask Lili to give him a blow job in exchange for dropping the story and he’d still say no.”
“You’d ask her that?”
“Of course not, asshole. I was speaking metaphorically.”
“Never heard of a metaphorical blow job,” he said. “But then, I don’t have a master’s degree in English. They teach you that kind of stuff up at Columbia?”
I took a deep breath. We were both stressed and I could see that arguing wasn’t going to get either of us anywhere. “Sorry. I’m beat,” I said.
“I know how you feel. I’ve been going at this case hard and I’m not getting anywhere. I wish Matthew Durkheim would just turn himself in.”
“Good luck with that.” Rochester had finished his bowl, and was still looking like he hadn’t been fed. “Listen, I’m falling down on my feet. I’ll talk to you tomorrow after graduation is over.”
I went upstairs and lay down on my king-sized bed. Rochester clambered up next to me, and I leaned back against the headboard. I kept expecting Santiago Santos to show up for a surprise visit—he always seemed to pick the worst times. Instead, when my phone rang, it was Lili. “Steve? You busy?”
“Just chilling. What’s up?”
“I’ve been driving around. Feeling weird. Do you mind if I come over?”
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