In Dog We Trust (Golden Retriever Mysteries) (11 page)

Since he’d adopted me, I decided I’d have to do what I could to make a good home for him. I went back to Caroline’s laptop and started Googling resources about dogs, and goldens in particular. I passed several hours that way, and when Rochester got up and stretched, I was free to back away from the computer—but only to take him outside.

I was getting more and more puppy-whipped.

It was most evident when I was out walking him, and we came upon another neighborhood dog. With Caroline, he’d met and befriended almost every Shih-Tzu, every Newfoundland, and every dog of any size in between. I could barely walk him a few hundred feet without him spying another dog ahead and dragging me down the street behind him like the streamers on a just-married car.

“Are you walking him, or is he walking you?” one of my neighbors asked that evening.

“He’s the only one who knows the answer to that, and he’s not talking,” I said, as Rochester tugged me onward.

At home, he was establishing that he was in charge as well. I learned to secure my small objects, and we had entered a period of truce when I was no longer losing anything valuable to Rochester’s ravenous jaws.

Now that I was a dog owner, I saw dogs everywhere I looked. Despite the on-campus signs, Tasheba wasn’t the only student at Eastern with a puppy; I saw big black dogs running around the parking lot, a mutt rolling on his back in the grass while his owner read nearby, a girl parading two Dachshunds who were so tiny they looked more like rats than dogs.

At the mall, I saw the head of a teacup Yorkshire Terrier sticking out of a woman’s pocketbook, and a pair of white dogs so low and fluffy they looked like walking floor mops.

I was also much more aware of crime news on TV or in the paper. Every time I saw a woman stabbed by a jealous boyfriend, a man whose car had broken down run over on I-95, or a convenience store clerk stabbed in a botched robbery, I remembered Caroline. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should be doing more to find out who killed her, but I didn’t know what I could do.  I was resisting the temptation to go back on line and try to hack into different databases.

Late Saturday afternoon, Rick Stemper called me. “My date bailed on me tonight,” he said. “Like I believe she has contagious gingivitis. Want to meet me for dinner?  We were supposed to go to some Chez Shithole in New Hope, but I’d be just as happy with a burger at The Drunken Hessian.”

He was at the bar when I arrived, chatting up a busty blonde in a low-cut top. As I was walking in the door, she said something to him, shrugged, and walked away.

“Women,” Rick said. “Can’t live with them, and can’t kill them.”

“At least not if you’re a police officer. What was up with the blonde?”

“Had to get home and finish grouting her bathroom tiles,” he said.

We sat down at a table in the back, and ordered beers and burgers.  “I did a little computer searching on Caroline,” I said, after the beers had arrived.  “Did you know that her boss was fired, and she replaced him?”

“By ‘a little computer searching,’ what do you mean?” Rick asked.

I shrugged. “You know, Google, search engines, that kind of thing.”

Rick fiddled with the handle of his mug for a minute. It was cheap plastic, embossed with the logo of The Drunken Hessian, a redcoat unsteady on his feet. “I know about your trouble in California,” he said, after a while.

I felt an immediate adrenaline surge. “Oh,” I said.

“You even supposed to have a computer?”

“I am. My parole officer has some tracking software installed so he can make sure I’m not getting into trouble.”

I didn’t mention that I’d figured a way around it, using Caroline’s computer and a neighbor’s network. Professional secrets, you know.

“That’s good. Because I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble because of Caroline. I’ll admit, I haven’t made the kind of progress I’d like, but I’ve still got some things to look into, some leads to follow.”

The waitress brought our burgers over, and I spilled some beer trying to move the mug out of her way.  I couldn’t seem to get control of my nerves. After we’d messed with ketchup, napkins, and so on, I asked, “Does it matter to you—my trouble?”

He took a bite of his burger, and said, “Should it?”

I shrugged. “You’re a cop. Maybe you’re not supposed to hang out with criminals.”

He raised his eyebrow at me. “Hanging out with a parolee doesn’t bother me, if hanging out with a cop doesn’t bother you.”

“How’d you know?” I asked. “You look me up in your system or something? The state of California send out a be-on-the-lookout?”

“Santiago and I work out at the same gym,” he said.  “He tells me about all his clients in Stewart’s Crossing, and in return, I keep an eye on them.”

“That what this is—keeping an eye on me?”

“You can call it that if you want,” he said. “I prefer to think of it as hanging out with an old high school friend.”

There was an uncomfortable silence for a minute or so, while both Rick and I sipped our beers and I thought about what to say. He spoke first. “Listen, I am your friend, Steve. If you’re running into any problems, I hope you’ll talk to me about them.”

I took a deep breath. I had to redirect the conversation, because I didn’t want to lie to Rick and I didn’t want to tell him what I’d been doing, especially now that I knew he worked out with my parole officer. “Santos is on my back about a business plan, and I don’t know how to go about it,” I said. “He wants me to show him how I’m going to get new clients, but so far, I’ve only been working for people I already know, former coworkers who’ve gone on to other jobs.”

I played with a packet of sugar. “But will anybody who doesn’t know me want to hire me? Do I have to tell them about – you know?”

“What does Santos say?”

“He said I can’t lie, but I don’t have to volunteer the information, either. But what if they ask one of my references? What if they Google me? There were a couple of articles in local papers about my arrest.  The information’s out there.”

“You could look for guys who got a second chance of their own,” Rick said. “They might be sympathetic to your situation.”

“Or they could be super-careful, worried that I might bring them fresh trouble.”

“Why don’t you start out looking for small jobs,” Rick said.  “Somebody who’s going to pay you fifty or a hundred bucks isn’t going to waste time Googling you. Then you’ll be there if they have bigger jobs.”

“That’s a great idea.  There are a lot of websites out there that advertise little freelance jobs.  I could build up my portfolio that way. And Santos would see that I’m making progress.”

Though I was glad of the advice, the exchange with Rick left me feeling uncomfortable all weekend. Sunday morning, I took Rochester for a nice long walk, then retired to bed to work my way through the paper and the New York Times crossword. I’d always loved puzzles, and in jail I’d begun satisfying my curiosity by crosswords, word searches, acrostics, and anything else that kept my brain working and my fingers away from the keyboard. Kind of like a nicotine patch for hackers. By noon, though, I had no more excuses to avoid my business plan.

I went online, looking for sample business plans, and found a few. The first question they all asked was where the market was for my product or service.  That was easy; I knew a lot of companies had been downsizing, cutting back their staff of technical writers and outsourcing projects on a freelance basis. 

I started making a list of websites where freelance work was offered.  I found a few jobs I could bid on, and every so often I had to stop working on my plan to put together a proposal.  By the time I closed the laptop on Sunday evening to take Rochester for his walk, I felt I’d made some progress. I hoped that Santiago Santos would agree, and that he’d get off my back a bit.

Maybe it was Rochester’s influence, but I’d enjoyed Romeo’s presence in the classroom. I was a little disappointed when Tasheba was late on Monday morning, arriving without her little dog.

Teaching that morning was like walking through quicksand, or explaining retirement investment to my ex-wife. Slow going, without any promise of results. The high point was when Dionne or Dianne asked what “seersucker” meant.

Jeremy Eisenberg said, “A seersucker is a person who gives blow jobs to clairvoyants,” and everyone in the class who understood the words laughed—about half. His tongue stud glinted when he spoke, and a new dumbbell pierced his chin.

Toward the end of the period I wanted to give them a chance to brainstorm ideas for their next paper—“An event that changed my life.” All three Jeremys wanted to write about high school graduation; Dionne was going to write about selling Girl Scout cookies, while Dianne wanted to write about her mother’s MS diagnosis. Or vice versa.

Billy Rubin, who made no bones about thinking English class would have no meaning for his life as a physician, wanted to write about meeting one of his neighbors, who drove a Porsche, and discovering the man was a doctor. It was the inspiration for Billy’s career choice.

Neither of the Melissas had any idea what to write about. Tasheba announced she was going to write about adopting Romeo, whom she found at the Humane Society in Leighville. Menno grumbled, “More animals,” so I turned to him.

“What about you?” I asked. “Have you thought about what you’d like to write about?”

“My father stole some cows from one of our neighbors, and when he got caught the community shunned us,” he said. “We had to sell the farm and move away. I want to write about that.”

“More animals,” Tasheba mimicked. In a low voice she said, “He’s such a turkey you could stuff him and eat him for Thanksgiving.” Dionne and Dianne giggled.

Menno glared at her. Open war seemed to have broken out between them, though I wasn’t sure why. The class had started to take sides. Melissa Macaretti was in Menno’s camp, while two of the three Jeremys sided with Tasheba (the third was neutral, sort of like Switzerland, if Switzerland’s neutrality was based more on lack of interest than on any philosophical basis.)

Before either Tasheba or Menno pulled out any weapons, I dismissed the class. “Email me or call my cell if you have questions,” I said, as they were all packing up to leave. Candy Kane had already told me in no uncertain terms that she was not my secretary, and any students who wanted me had to call me directly. “I want three pages, typed, double-spaced, next Monday. And I know all about super-sized fonts and big margins, so don’t try and pull any crap.”

That wouldn’t stop them, but it was always good to get that information on the table. As Tasheba was walking out, I asked her how Romeo was doing.

“I can’t bring him to school any more,” she said. “That’s why I was late. Security was waiting on me outside. They told me someone had complained, and I couldn’t bring Romeo to class, even if you didn’t mind. So I had to take him back to my house.” She sneered. “I bet it was Farmer Boy, with his stupid beard. He doesn’t want to mess with me.”

I nodded. I didn’t want to mess with Tasheba, either.

I met up with Jackie at her office, on my way to the faculty lounge. “I got this idea from this sign I saw the other day,” she said, holding up her Polaroid camera. “You know, those ‘George Washington slept here’ signs. I’m going to take pictures of every student who falls asleep in my class, and post them around the room, with signs like ‘Araly Fernandez Slept Here’ or ‘George Chu Slept Here.’”

We walked into the lounge and set about making our drinks. “Hey, I baked some biscuits for Samson,” she said. “And I brought some in for your new dog.” She handed me a baggie with a half-dozen cookies shaped like dog bones.

“Thanks. I’m sure he’ll appreciate them.”

Jackie was on a roll that morning, making catty remarks about the rest of the full-time faculty and about administrators I only knew by name. I could see why other professors sometimes called her “The Blair Witch” behind her back. She may have been petite and under thirty, but her personality was as large as if she’d been teaching for decades.

On my way to the parking lot, in quick succession, I saw students wearing t-shirts which read, “Save the whales. Collect the whole set,” “Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now,” and “Half the people you know are below average.” Typical for the Eastern student body.

I took my time driving home, with the windows wide open for the first time since late fall. It was pretty cold, but if I went slowly enough the cool breeze was more like the opening of a refrigerator than an Arctic blast.

It had been a rough couple of weeks, between Caroline’s death and Rochester’s arrival in my life, topped off with the ungrammatical rantings of privileged undergraduates who’ve been brought up to believe their thoughts matter, even when they ignore all the rules of punctuation. It was nice to snatch a few minutes to myself, rolling down River Road with the Delaware on my left and a series of wooded hills and fallow fields on my right. For long stretches, the Beemer was the only car on the road, and I took joy in the burgeoning nature around me.

It’s another world out there along the river. Pine, blue spruce and fir gather in clusters, holding remnants of the frequent winter snows in their branches. You can drive for a mile or two without seeing a house or driveway, past the abandoned quarry and the flat piece of land, now overgrown with weeds and saplings, where there used to be a child-sized railway train my parents took me on.