In Dog We Trust (Golden Retriever Mysteries) (35 page)

Back on Caroline’s computer, I started looking for information, beginning with “Strings” Livorno, Melissa’s favorite music professor. I was able to substantiate my memory of the incident involving his cousin, but the professor himself never came up in any criminal connection. Just lots of scholarly articles on the Baroque era in music. Strings had been pretty busy writing and publishing; did he also have a sideline in procuring guns and fake IDs for students?

I looked up his picture on the Eastern website. He looked as I remembered, though a lot older. A thin face, with a pointy chin, accentuated by a neatly-trimmed goatee. The earring in his left ear was a more recent addition, but he looked more like an elderly academic than a Mafia kingpin—or even accessory.

Strings was close to retirement. He probably knew all about IRAs and 401Ks and retirement accounts. He could have counseled Melissa and Menno on exactly what to do with all the money they pulled out of Edith’s various accounts.

I checked the Bucks County property records and found that he owned a small home in Leighville. A little more snooping discovered that he hadn’t exactly planned well for his retirement; he’d be getting a college pension that was barely enough to buy canned tuna fish, and he still owed nearly $50,000 on his mortgage. He had a checking account at Quaker State Bank with a few grand in it, and a pair of $10,000 CDs at the same bank.

A professor looking at retirement without the assets to support himself. An Italian guy (and I knew from growing up around Italians how much they valued family) with Mafia connections. If Melissa mentioned her boyfriend’s part-time job, and Edith’s sloppy record-keeping, could he have been directing the two of them?

I emailed Rick about Strings Livorno from my laptop. Then I moved on to Floyd Zook. After digging through a lot of irrelevant results, I found his name on a blog by Rebecca Stoltzfus, an Amish woman who had been shunned, as Floyd had been. She was developing a network of other Amish who had been shunned.

I did a quick search on Rebecca and discovered that she lived in Lumberville, just inland, and on a whim I called to ask if she knew Floyd Zook personally.

“Why are you asking?”

I explained that I taught his son at Eastern, and after reading Menno’s paper, I was interested in the practice of shunning. “Is there anything you can tell me about Floyd and his family?”

“I don’t know you,” she said. “You’re just a voice on the telephone.”

“I live in Stewart’s Crossing,” I said. “I’m not far from you. Could I come over, and we’d talk face to face?”

“I don’t want to get Floyd in trouble.”

“I’m not a cop or anything.”

“But you’re an English,” she said. “You wouldn’t understand.” She hung up.

Growing up in Pennsylvania, I knew a little about the Amish, including the fact that they called non-Amish people “the English.” But I didn’t know enough, and I wanted to know more. I sat there staring at the slide show of pictures on Rebecca’s website, and one popped up showing her and a beautiful golden retriever.

I looked over at Rochester. “What do you think, boy? You think maybe you can get this woman to talk to me?”

It was just after four. I could make it up to Lumberville in a half hour or so, and if Rebecca wouldn’t talk to me, at least Rochester would get a nice ride.

Rebecca Stoltzfus lived in a single-story farmhouse just outside Lumberville. She had a barn and a couple of acres of what looked like corn and wheat. When I pulled up in her driveway, a female golden retriever came running up to the car, which made Rochester very happy.

“You’re the English I spoke to on the phone, aren’t you?” She stood in the doorway, watching as Rochester bounded out of the car toward the female, who  rolled over on her back so that my dog could sniff her private parts.

Rebecca stepped down into the driveway. She was wearing a cotton print blouse, blue jeans and sneakers, with her graying hair pulled back into a bun. “He’s a pretty boy,” she said, grudgingly.

“His name is Rochester.”

“She’s Bethesda.” We watched the dogs romp together for a moment, and finally Rebecca said, “I don’t know what I can tell you. But you’d might as well sit down, as long as you came all this way.”

We sat at a picnic table next to the house as the dogs ran and played in the yard. “I’m not comfortable talking about Amish practices with English,” she said. “You people think we’re all religious fanatics, dressing funny and driving buggies.”

“I’d like to understand more,” I said. “But some of your practices, like shunning, seem pretty harsh, very old-fashioned.”

“We believe in adult baptism, as you might know,” she said, her hands clasped on the table before her. “You voluntarily commit yourself to a life of obedience to God and the church. Belonging is important and shunning is meant to be redemptive. It is not an attempt to harm or ruin the individual and in most cases it does bring that member back into the fellowship again.”

“Though not in Floyd’s case,” I said. “Menno wrote a paper about the effect of the shunning on him and his brothers and sisters, and I was very moved by it.”

“Though they agree on the big points, each Amish community has its own practices. The group Floyd and his family belonged to is notorious for very strict shunning. Normally, the worst that happens is that Floyd wouldn’t be able to eat with his family, for example. But a few generations ago, this sect had some problems, and they tightened up.”

She sighed, and looked over toward where the dogs were playing. “Floyd was forbidden from having contact with his family. He couldn’t see his kids, give his wife money, or help out with the chores around the farm.” She shrugged. “I’m lucky. Though I left my community, I can still see my daughters, and my grandchildren. It’s not the same as living among them, but that’s a sacrifice I had to make.”

I didn’t see how anything that tore apart a family could be a good practice, but I wasn’t about to start judging. I had my own issues, after all. “What can you tell me about what Floyd did to merit shunning? I understood he stole some cows from one of his neighbors?”

“I don’t know,” Rebecca said, pursing her lips. “I don’t believe in gossip, so I have never investigated exactly what happened to Floyd. I am more concerned with helping those who have been shunned make the transition to the English world.” Rochester and Bethesda came running toward us, and he tried to jump up into Rebecca’s lap. She pushed him down, but she smiled, and then Bethesda took off toward a field planted with new corn, with Rochester in hot pursuit.

“What I do know is that when Floyd was shunned, his oldest sons were thirteen and fourteen, and he took them with him when he moved to Easton,” she said. “The two daughters and the youngest son, who was only six, stayed with their mother. Elizabeth had to sell the farm and move in with her brother’s family. Today she and the children work at a farm store her brother owns.”

“Can Menno do anything to help?” I asked. “Can he send his mother money?”

Rebecca shook her head. “By choosing to side with his father, he and his brother were shunned, too. They can’t visit their mother or their brother and sisters; they can’t send money, they can’t associate with anyone in the Amish community. Again, I need to remind you that’s just his particular group; it’s not the case with all the Amish.”

What a choice, I thought. If my parents had had problems like Menno’s, which side would I have taken? Divorce alone is painful for a kid; to lose the rest of your family, your home, your community—your whole life—must have been incredibly difficult. I could see why Menno had an attitude.

“I’m worried that Menno might have gotten himself involved in violent acts,” I said. “What do you think about that possibility?”

Rebecca looked uncomfortable. Had I pushed her too far? Despite Floyd’s record, did she sympathize with him to some degree, based on her own shunning?

“The Amish are committed to a lifestyle of peace and non-violence,” she said. She stood up. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some chores to finish. Bethesda!”

The female golden came running, Rochester right on her heels. I had to grab him by the collar and drag him back to the car. “Thank you for your help,” I said, as I manhandled the dog into the front seat.

I didn’t know what else I could say. That I hoped she would find comfort in the English world? Instead, I just watched as she and the golden walked away from us, through the new fields.

By the time we got home, it was already past dinner time. I fed Rochester and gave him a short walk, then returned to bed with the two laptops. I should have been working on the risk manager’s manual and forms, but I wanted to finish what I’d started that afternoon, looking into Floyd Zook’s background.

I found property records online which indicated Floyd had deeded his ownership of the farm to an attorney in Lancaster for a dollar. The attorney transferred the ownership to Elizabeth the next day, for the same sum. I figured that transaction kept Elizabeth from dealing directly with Floyd.

A year later, Elizabeth had sold the farm, at what seemed like a low price, to Noah and Rachel Yoder. Since Yoder was Elizabeth’s maiden name, perhaps she had been bailed out of debt by a relative. Or someone in the community had taken advantage of her misfortune and secured some additional acreage.

All of that was interesting, but all it did was verify what Menno had written in his essay. I wasn’t about to try hacking into any government databases to find out about Floyd’s criminal history; I took it for granted that Rick had the information correct. But I did find a couple of “police blotter” entries in various newspapers, in which I noted that Floyd had a number of criminal accomplices. I wrote all their names down and emailed them to Rick.

It was clear to me that through his father, Menno had the connections to buy a gun or have a fake license made up for Melissa. But what if he hadn’t gone to his father? Where else could he have gone?

I had to face the idea that my friend Jackie might be the puppet master as easily as Floyd or Strings. I didn’t want to delve into Jackie’s personal life; she was my friend. But she was as much a suspect as Floyd or Strings, so I had to.

It was nearly eleven by then, and Rochester came out from under my bed and put his front paws on the bed. “OK, time for your last walk of the day,” I said. I folded up both laptops and tried to get out of bed.

Tried, because it was damned hard. My back ached, and pain shot through my ribs when I bent my torso at all. But I managed to drag my carcass out of the bed, corral Rochester so I could get his leash on, and then take him for a short walk around the neighborhood. The exercise seemed to do me some good, too. But when we got back, I took a couple of pain pills and got back into bed, and the next thing I knew it was Friday morning.

The night’s sleep did wonders for my pain, and I was feeling like a new man when I walked Rochester around River Bend. Well, maybe not new; marked down, perhaps, but not quite tossed into the trash yet.

After breakfast, I emailed my client the questions I had about the parts of the manual I’d already edited. I figured that would keep him busy for a while, and maybe the stalling tactic could buy me a few extra days.

With that out of the way, I drove up to Eastern, knowing that it was the final day of the spring term and that Candy would be swamped taking in last-minute grades while at the same time preparing for the summer session. The college closed down for a week between terms, so it was the last day to get anything accomplished before the vacation.

When I arrived at the English department at Blair Hall, Candy was on the phone, and there were two students waiting for her at the window. “Can I look something up in the files?” I asked, and she nodded.

The file cabinet which held folders on each faculty member was behind her desk, so that the tall cabinet itself blocked me from her view. I opened the drawer to Jackie Devere’s file, which was pretty thin, because she’d just finished her first year. While Candy talked to someone in the registration department about a problem with a course for the summer session, I photocopied everything in the folder.

My heart was racing. If Candy got off the phone and came around from behind her desk to chat with me, she’d see I wasn’t copying from my own file, but Jackie’s, and she’d want to know why. I didn’t know what I’d tell her—that Jackie was a suspect in three murders, including two of my students?

That wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have. It wasn’t fair to Jackie to put her under a cloud of suspicion without more evidence. And I didn’t even know what I could find in her folder, but I wanted to read it and I didn’t think I could give it the right level of attention while I was worrying that Candy might finish her conversation at any minute.

Candy was still on hold with registration by the time I finished the copying and returned the folder. I waved my goodbye to her and walked out, carrying a sheaf of papers I’d copied.

In the car on the way back to Leighville, I called Rick. “You want to meet up later and go over that stuff I’ve been emailing you? I’m working on Jackie Devere when I get home.”

“The Drunken Hessian,” he said. “Six-thirty.”

“You’re buying,” I said, and hung up.

I didn’t look at the photocopies from Jackie’s file until I was at home. And even then, I took Rochester out for a walk around the block, then made myself a quick lunch.