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Authors: Neil S. Plakcy

Tags: #humorous mysteries, #pennsylvania, #dog mysteries, #cozy mystery, #academic mysteries, #golden retriever

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“Of course. Very sad time.” He eyed me appraisingly.
“Nothing happened here on campus, I hope.”

“Not here. Out at Friar Lake. A dead body was
discovered out there on Monday.”

I deliberately used the passive voice so I didn’t have
to state that I was the one – accompanied by my dog – who had found the body.

“That’s terrible,” he said. “Why did he come to you,
and not directly to me?”

“Probably didn’t want to bother you.” I thought I might
need to embroider a bit, to distract Babson from his usual curiosity and need
to micro-manage everything, but I wanted to be careful not to say anything that
wasn’t true. I recapped the situation quickly, and then said, “Sergeant Rinaldi
spoke to the Benedictines, and he discovered that they had sold the property to
Eastern. Since he and I worked together quite a lot during the winter, he
thought I’d be a good place to start asking questions.”

“Has he discovered who it is? One of the monks or
friars? Not a student, I hope.”

“A drug addict from New York named DeAndre Dawson. Apparently
he was there after the monks had already left, so Sergeant Rinaldi wondered if
he had a connection to the College.”

“Check with Dot Sneiss. She can look at our student
records.”

“I will. He also asked if I can help him do some
research. I thought it would be a good chance for me to stay involved, and
maybe deflect any bad publicity that might come up. I know how important this
project is to you.”

“Good idea. I’ve always thought you had excellent
instincts,” Babson said. “But I want you to keep me in the loop, all right? If
there’s any way this could disturb our plans, I need to know as soon as
possible.”

“Will do.”

I walked back to my office, pleased at the way I had
been able to massage the situation. That was PR, after all. Putting the right
spin on any news.

I called Tony and let him know that I was going to New
York the next day. “The guy in charge of The Brotherhood Center is Brother Macarius,”
he said. “I’ll give him a call and let him know you’re coming up.”

“I thought you wanted me to talk to people instead of
sending a cop.”

“I want this Brother to know what’s going on. You don’t
have to tell anybody else you’re working for me. Be honest with people but
don’t be specific.”

I hung up and went online to see what I could find
about The Brotherhood Center. It had a single webpage, with lots of color and
pithy sayings. It served a diverse population of homeless men and women,
veterans, and recovering drug addicts. A soup kitchen offered a hot lunch seven
days a week and a counselor was available to talk and help navigate
bureaucracy.

That was about all I could find from a casual search. I
looked at the clock, and it was close enough to five that I thought I could
call it a day.

I called Lili to check about dinner. She was too caught
up in researching Friar Lake, she said. I told her I was going to New York the
next day, thinking she might want to come along—but she told me she was too
busy, though she wished she could.

That night, I kept thinking about DeAndre Dawson. There
had to be something online that could give me an idea of who he was. Was he a
New York native? Where had he gone to school?

Online restrictions are so pesky when it comes to kids,
though. I understood the need to keep information away from predators—but I
wasn’t looking for some kid to molest. I was interested in what kind of
childhood had led DeAndre Dawson to end up dead at Friar Lake.

I retrieved Caroline’s laptop once again. I ran the
anonymizer software that protected my identity online, and then started to
surf. The New York City Public Schools website was very well-secured, but I
managed to sneak in and check out DeAndre’s records. He had attended P.S. 110, Florence
Nightingale School, on Delancey Street, until fifth grade. I couldn’t find any
record of discipline problems.

He transferred to Middle School 131 on Hester Street,
and that’s when the problems started. He was often tardy or badly behaved, and
he was regularly suspended. He finished eighth grade there, and then went on to
Emma Lazarus High School on Hester Street.

I stopped for a minute to reminisce, because so many of
these names were evocative of my own childhood. I studied Emma Lazarus in both
public school—where we had to memorize her inscription on the Statue of
Liberty—and Sunday School, where she was hailed as one of the earliest American
Jewish heroines. I had fond memories of the area when I was a kid, and even a
couple from when Tor and I lived there.

But Memory Lane was a detour, and I refocused on
DeAndre. He had dropped out of high school after ninth grade. Was that because
he was already in juvenile hall? Or had he gotten tired of the discipline and
routine?

I went back to public records for his birth date and
found that the only parent listed on his birth certificate was his mother,
Rashida Dawson. I did a quick search on her and found that she had died of a
drug overdose in 2004.

Well, that explained DeAndre’s dropping out of school.
I almost hoped he had been in juvenile detention for a while; at least then he
would have had a relatively safe place to sleep and three meals a day.

I was sure that DeAndre had a juvenile court record so
that database was my next step. But it was a lot harder to hack into those
records. I thought I’d gotten in, after an hour of trying, when suddenly a big
red X popped up on my screen with the words
illegal
access
. I shuddered and my hands jumped off the keyboard. I quickly
closed the browser and all the windows I had open, and shut the laptop off.

It took a couple of minutes for my pulse rate to get
back to normal. It was interesting that it was easier to break into the school
system and learn about innocent (or mostly innocent) kids than it was to learn
about their criminal counterparts.

By then it was almost eleven o’clock, and time for
Rochester’s last walk of the day. I stood up from the computer and stretched;
my back ached from leaning over it without stop for so long. Rochester jumped
up and began his demented kangaroo routine, and I hooked up his leash and took
him out. The last thing I did before bed was wipe Caroline’s laptop clean,
except for the hacking software, and climb back up to the attic to hide it away.

Brother Macarius

I don’t usually drive into New York; it’s easy to head
over to Trenton and catch the train, and I can read or otherwise multi-task.
The train would have been a good time to keep reading
The Hunger Games
—I
really wanted to finish all three books before I started putting together a
seminar program.

 But Tony had specifically asked me to take Rochester,
so the next morning I bundled him into the car. He seemed to have recovered
completely from whatever had been bothering him, and he stuck his head out the
window as I drove up the River Road to the industrial town of Easton, where we
hopped onto the I-78 for a straight shot across Jersey.

Rochester didn’t like the Holland Tunnel. Too
claustrophobic for him, I guess. He pulled back from the window as we drove and
settled his head on my lap and I petted his fur with one hand. Once we were
back above ground, though, he scrambled back to the window, absorbing all the
smells and sights and sounds of Canal Street, the Bowery and Houston Street.

He had never been to the city before, and he was
excited. A couple of times I worried that he might try and jump out the window
to track down a hot dog cart or the smell of dim sum wafting through the open
door of a Chinese restaurant.

I lucked into a street parking space a few blocks from
The Brotherhood Center. I put Rochester’s leash on and let him out, and he went
right to the single spindly plane tree and lifted his leg. I could imagine he
was proclaiming, “Rochester is here!” Or else he just had to pee after the long
trip.

We walked together down the sidewalk, skirting bags of
trash and open metal doors that led to basements. Rochester nosed his way down,
sniffing everything, and I had to rein him in a few times.

The Brotherhood Center was an unassuming storefront
sandwiched between a launderette and a locksmith. The glass windows were
protected by roll-up grills, and had been painted with Christian symbols and
inspirational quotes. “If it’s meant to be, it’s up to me,” read one that I
particularly agreed with.

The door was open, so I walked in, tugging Rochester
along. A strapping black guy with a shaved head was sitting behind a desk, and
I asked, “Okay if I bring the dog in? He’ll behave.”

“Everyone’s welcome here,” he said, standing up. “I’m
Brother Macarius.”

He wasn’t what I’d expected of a religious brother; he looked
like he’d be more at home in a wrestling ring if he wasn’t wearing a plain
brown robe with a cowl neck, full sleeves and a hood on the back. When he stood
I saw he had a single white cord wrapped around his waist in lieu of a belt.

I introduced myself. “Tony Rinaldi suggested you might
be able to help me learn some more about DeAndre Dawson.”

He shook his head. “DeAndre was a difficult case. Come,
sit in the back with me. We’ll have some tea and we’ll talk. I may even have a
biscuit there for your friend.”

“This is Rochester.”

Macarius bent down and scratched behind Rochester’s
ears, and he smiled a doggy grin. As they got to know each other I looked
around.

On one side, an earnest-looking young guy behind a
scarred desk was counseling a middle-aged woman wearing layers of grimy
T-shirts and sweaters and skirts over a pair of worn sweatpants. Across from
them, three young black men clustered around a TV set and a game system. I could
hear the gunshots and panicked screams from the soundtrack.

The walls were decorated with the same mix of Christian
material and inspirational posters. A crucifix was centered on the back wall. I
recognized images of Saint Sebastian, pierced with arrows; the Virgin Mary; and
the Pieta.

“Interesting name, Macarius,” I said, as he led me to a
cozy room at the back, furnished with a couple of oversized sofas and a squat
black machine that dispensed hot or cold water. “Was he a saint?”

 “I took the name when I became a friar,” he said.
“Saint Macarius was a smuggler who turned monastic. Seemed to fit me. I did
five years in Attica for possession with intent to sell.”

“I did a year in California for computer fraud,” I
said. “Didn’t make me into a monk, but it did change me.” I sat on one of the
sofas and Rochester settled on the floor beside me.

“Time inside does that,” he said, as he pulled two mugs
out of a cupboard. “Sometimes for good, sometimes for bad.” He turned to me.
“Green tea or oolong?”

“Oolong. No sugar or milk.”

“Wise man. Take care of your body and it will take care
of you.”

He stuck each mug in turn under the spigot, and curls
of steam arose. While the tea steeped he rummaged in the cabinet again and came
up with a dog biscuit. Rochester jumped up, grabbed it from him, and then
returned to chew on it next to me.

Macarius pulled the tea bags out of the mugs and handed
me the one with the darker liquid. I lifted it to my nose and smelled the rich
tea.

“You’re not a policeman,” Macarius said, sitting across
from me. “So why are you doing the investigating?”

I shrugged. “I’m not quite sure myself. Rochester and I
have helped Tony out before, and he seems to think people are more willing to
talk when there’s a dog around.”

Macarius nodded. “I’m glad someone is looking into what
happened to DeAndre. All too often we accept the deaths of young black males as
part of our culture. As if their violent deaths are foretold at their birth,
simply because of their skin color.”

“Tell me about DeAndre,” I said.

“What do you want to know? What he was arrested for?
Where he served his time?”

I shook my head. “Tony can find all that out from
official channels.” I paused, thinking about what I wanted to say. “The college
where I work recently bought this property from the Benedictines. We call it
Friar Lake. I was assigned to manage it, and Rochester and my girlfriend and I
were out there walking around when he discovered DeAndre’s body.”

“Where on the property?” he asked. “One of the friars
who works here is elderly, and I’ve driven him out there to recuperate a few
times from illnesses.”

“A few hundred yards from the house down by the lake,”
I said. “Someone had buried him in a shallow grave down by the lake front. We
had a lot of rain recently, and DeAndre’s hand had come up out of the earth.”

The ends of Macarius’s mouth turned down, either in
sadness or in anger – I couldn’t tell which. I remembered that he had known
DeAndre, and I was sure that the news of the young man’s death had hit him
harder than it had those of us in Stewart’s Crossing who didn’t know him.

“But that area is nowhere near the cemetery on the
grounds,” he said. “Why was he down there?”

“I have no idea. We thought that the body belonged to
one of the monks. We had the same question about why his body wasn’t in the
cemetery. I called the police to report the body, and Tony is the one who
tracked down DeAndre’s identity.”

Macarius sipped his tea, and I did the same. I thought
about DeAndre Dawson, who had spent time in this place, probably happily – maybe
playing that video game out front, or talking to the monks. I felt closer to
him there, somehow, than I had in the presence of his remains.

In the quiet we could hear Rochester crunching his
treat. “DeAndre was an impatient young man,” Macarius said at last. “As so many
are today. He wanted to be rich and successful immediately. Sadly that led him
to make the wrong choices.”

He sat back against the sofa. “He was born not too far
away from here, and grew up in Alphabet City. Single mother, too many kids.
Very common story. But DeAndre was smart and ambitious, and he was on his own
after his mother died. He started working as a lookout for drug dealers when he
was eight or nine. Then he moved up to dealing himself. He was in and out of
juvenile hall a few times until he turned eighteen.”

I had a momentary vision of a young black boy, hanging
around a street corner when he should have been playing or studying. Sad. “How
old was he?” I asked.

“Twenty-four, I think. When he was twenty, he got
caught in a crackdown, and charged with intent to sell. Went to Attica for two
years. When he came back, he started hanging around here.”

“Why?”

“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” Macarius said. “DeAndre
was smart enough to know that he was on the wrong path, but no matter what I
did I couldn’t get him to see any other way. I tried to get him to finish his
GED, but he couldn’t focus on it.”

“Was he using drugs when he was here?”

Macarius shook his head. “We have a very strict policy
about that. You use, you lose. Did he smoke the occasional joint? Probably. We
don’t make our clients take drug tests. But if he’d been on anything stronger
one of us would have noticed.”

“How many of you are there?”

“Three brothers, and three lay workers,” he said.
“Brother Anselm doesn’t do much these days. He’s almost seventy, and he can
barely walk. But he refused to go with the Benedictines when they left Friar
Lake. He wants to continue serving as long as he can. Brother James and I carry
the load.” He nodded toward the front. “We have three counselors. Vivek, whom
you saw out front, helps with government benefits and paperwork. Barbara works
with recovering addicts. And Kefalexia comes in regularly to teach life skills
workshops.”

“Were any of them particularly close to DeAndre?”

“DeAndre was fondest of Brother Anselm. They used to
sit and talk for hours.”

“Do you know if he ever went out to Friar Lake when
Brother Anselm was there?”

“I couldn’t tell you. But perhaps Brother Anselm can. The
three of us share an apartment on the second floor. I can take you up there, if
you’d like to talk to him.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

He finished his tea and put the mug down on the table
next to him. “Let me see if Brother Anselm is up to visitors.” He stood and
walked to a door at the back of the room. He unlocked it, and when he opened it
I saw it led to a staircase. “Be back in a moment or two.”

I sat back on the sofa and sipped more of my oolong
tea. It was dark brown and the tannins were strong. I wondered what else I
could find out while I was there. The connection was clear: Brother Anselm had
been out at Friar Lake several times, and he had spoken to DeAndre, most likely
telling him about the place. But what had drawn this street-smart young man
from the city to the country?

It was almost impossible to get to Friar Lake without a
car. I supposed that DeAndre could have taken the train to Trenton, where he
could have caught a bus that, with transfers, might get him as far as
Leighville. From there he’d have to go on foot. Or conversely he could have taken
a bus to Easton from the Port Authority, and then what? Hitchhiked down the
river road?

The more I thought about it, the more I knew he had to
have gone there by car. But since we didn’t find a car on the property, that
meant he had driven there with someone else. His killer? Perhaps.

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