Dog Bless You (13 page)

I left Lili at her office and walked Rochester back to
Fields Hall. I spent another hour working on my online application for the
Friar Lake job, and then finally was able to click the “submit” button. And
because I knew how easy it was for a computer system to screw up, I sent an
email to Elaine in HR confirming that I had completed my application, and that
I looked forward to talking with her soon about the remainder of the process.

I wasn’t sure that any of what Lili and I had found
about the abbey’s history had anything to do with DeAndre Dawson’s death, but I
typed a quick email to Tony Rinaldi about it. And since there was nothing
illicit about what we’d done, I was able to use my college email address to
send it to him.

My phone buzzed, and I thought perhaps it was Elaine –
but it was Babson’s secretary, and she told me he wanted to see me. “I’ll be
right down,” I said.

It was late Friday afternoon by then, and most of
Fields Hall had already shut down, But John Babson was still working the
phones. I had to wait for him to finish his conversation.

“What’s the latest about this body at Friar Lake?” he
asked as soon as he hung up. “Were you able to find out the information the
police needed?”

He motioned me to the chair across from him, and I told
him about my trip to New York and what I’d discovered about DeAndre Dawson.

“That’s just the kind of rumor we don’t need to get
started,” Babson said. “Buried treasure. Far more likely that he was just using
the property for some criminal activity. I want this wrapped up as soon as
possible, Steve.” He steepled his hands. “I may have misled you a bit about the
Friar Lake project.”

“Misled me?” Crap. What if he hadn’t meant to promise
me the job at all? Had I just been spinning my wheels all week?

“I have a lot of authority around here, as you know,”
Babson said. “But I do have a Board of Trustees to report to. I’m afraid that
in my enthusiasm for the project I might have neglected to mention that the
final approval has to come from the Board, at their next meeting. I have
everything lined up properly – but if there’s a scandal brewing about the
property then my plans might be derailed.”

And I might be out of a job, I thought. “I’ll do my
best to keep a lid on things,” I said. “I’ve already been in contact with Ruta
del Camion, and we’re both agreed that the College shouldn’t have any comment
until we know more about who the dead man was and what he was doing out at
Friar Lake.”

“I’m not sure that will be enough,” Babson said. “Let’s
talk again on Monday morning. If we can’t get this resolved quickly I might
have to postpone my presentation to the Board. And I don’t want to do that
unless I absolutely have to.”

“Understood,” I said. I walked back to my office
through the empty halls. My head was swirling with ideas – worry about my job
and that future I’d been imagining with Lili, topics for adult education
seminars – and reasons why DeAndre Dawson might have been at Friar Lake.

Working on auto-pilot, I closed up my office, rounded
up Rochester, and drove home. After I fed him dinner, while my own was in the
microwave, I wrote down a list of questions I had. Seeing them all in black and
white helped calm the turmoil in my head, even though I was no closer to
answering any of them.

That evening, I took Rochester for a long walk down
along the Delaware Canal. Our research into the 19
^th
century
reminded me of what an important role the canal had played in transporting coal
from the mines of the Lehigh Valley down to the port of Philadelphia. And
beyond that, it was a beautiful evening with a light breeze, and the canal was
a great place to let Rochester loose to enjoy himself.

We walked out of River Bend, past the guard house, to Quarry
Road, which led from an old long-unused stone quarry uphill, down to the river.
We crossed the bridge over the canal, and then detoured into the park that ran
along the old towpath. I let him off his leash  and he romped ahead, while I
took my time. The canal banks bloomed with daisies, black-eyed Susans, and the
tiny pansies we called Johnny Jump-Ups. Birds twittered in the weeping willows
and occasionally a fish splashed in the slow-moving water.

Rochester began barking. He was a few hundred feet
ahead of me, his paws once more up against a tree. Another squirrel? I loped
down the path toward him.

“If you found another body, Rochester, you’re going to
be in trouble,” I called.

By the time I reached him, he was back down on the
ground. A moment later, Mark Figueroa stepped out from behind the tree where
Rochester had been barking.

“Busted,” he said. “Your dog must be some kind of
apprentice cop.” There was a smudge of dirt on his right cheek, and his
forehead was sweaty. He held a small plant with drooping purple flowers that
looked like some kind of orchid. Bits of dirt dripped from his hands.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“
Aquilegia Canadensis
,” he said. “Wild
columbine. I’ve been collecting them for a flowering bed at my house.”

“Not exactly criminal activity,” I said.

He shrugged. “It’s state land. You could call this
theft.”

“Seeing as how I’m not a law enforcement officer, I’ll
let you go,” I said. “Assuming Rochester agrees.”

I scratched him under his neck, and he woofed. “See,
you’re in the clear.”

“I found another one!”

We both turned at the sound of a voice, and saw Owen
Keely emerging from the underbrush a few feet away. He had a similar plant in
his hands, and he was smiling—the first time I’d seen him look happy.

“Oh,” Owen said. “Good evening, sir.”

Mark blushed, and I wondered if there was something
more than an employee relationship between him and Owen. That wasn’t my
business, though, and I was glad that they both seemed happy.

“I’m afraid I recruited Owen to help with my nefarious
deeds,” Mark said. He turned to Owen. “That one looks great, Owen. Thanks.” He
handed a plastic grocery bag to Owen, and they both began wrapping the roots.

“We should get moving,” I said. “I’ll see you Tuesday
at Friar Lake, right, Mark?”

“You bet.”

I waved goodbye to both of them, hooked Rochester’s
leash, and led him back down the towpath. I liked Mark, and I knew from casual
conversations that he’d had a rocky couple of relationships with guys who it
seemed didn’t treat him well. I worried if Owen, with his war-related trauma
and his drug problems, was a drama waiting to happen.

Maybe it was because I’d found so much happiness with
Lili that I wanted the same for my friends. But I was afraid that both Mark and
Rick hadn’t found the right match yet. Paula Madden was too high-strung, in my
opinion. And I’d never gotten a gay vibe from Owen, though I knew of course
there were plenty of straight-acting gay men.

I reminded myself once again, as Rochester and I turned
back onto Sarajevo Court, that the love lives of others were not my concern. When
we got home, I went back to
The Hunger Games
, and read for a couple of
hours. I finished just before bedtime, but I was so intrigued with the story
that I pulled out my Kindle and immediately bought the next book in the series.

Then I took Rochester for his last walk of the evening.
“Don’t go finding anyone hiding in the bushes,” I said, as we walked outside.
“No dead bodies, and no live ones, either. All right?”

He didn’t pay me any attention, just scrambled forward
in pursuit of an interesting smell.

The next morning I puttered around the house, trying to
repair the damage caused when my over-exuberant golden retriever leapt up
against the curtains in front of the sliding glass door in pursuit of some
outdoor creature. My cell phone rang while I was up on the stepladder, and I
had to jump down to grab it before the call was lost.

“Hey, Tony,” I said. “You’re working on a Saturday?”

“Shenetta Levy changed her schedule,” he said. “I
picked her and her son up this morning in Trenton, and we’re up here at Friar
Lake. But she won’t talk to me. Everything I ask, I just get an ‘I don’t know’
or a shrug.”

“You think she’d talk to me?” I asked.

“Jamarcus keeps talking about your dog,” Tony said.

I looked at my half-finished project, and my dog lying
on the tile floor, watching me. “Tell you what. Bring them to the Cafette, and
I’ll meet you there with Rochester. I need a half-hour, though.”

“Thanks, Steve. I appreciate it.”

I scrambled into a pair of khaki shorts and a bright
green polo shirt, and loaded Rochester into the BMW. When we got to the
Cafette, we found Tony, Shenetta and Jamarcus just getting settled outside.
Shenetta’s blouse was the same bright blue as the beads in her hair, and she
wore a khaki skirt and sneakers. Jamarcus wore little blue jeans and a yellow
polo-type shirt.

Jamarcus and Rochester greeted each other like old
friends. I said hi to Shenetta and Tony, then went inside for a lemonade and a
dish of cold water for Rochester.

When I came back out Tony and Shenetta were sitting
silently at a picnic table, watching Jamarcus tickle Rochester and laugh. The
big goofy dog rolled on his back and waved his paws in the air.

“That means he wants you to rub his belly,” I said to
Jamarcus. He sat down on the slate next to the dog and did Rochester’s bidding.
As we all did.

“Is this your first time out here?” I asked Shenetta,
sitting across from her.

She nodded.

“Does it look the way DeAndre described it?”

“Look, I keep telling this policeman, I don’t know
anything about what DeAndre was doing. I only came out here so Jamarcus could
see what it’s like in the country.”

“I used to live in Manhattan,” I said. “I went to
graduate school at Columbia, and lived up there. Then a friend and I lived in
this little walk-up on Delancey Street for a while. We used to climb up to the
roof sometimes, just to feel like we were getting away from the city.”

Shenetta nodded. “It gets so hot there, and Jamarcus wants
to go out and play. But I don’t like him out there without me to watch him.”

Tony sat by quietly, sipping his iced coffee. I focused
on getting Shenetta to talk. “How much longer til you finish nursing school?”

“I’ll have my LPN at the end of the summer. I’m going
to have to work for a while, though, before I can keep on going.”

“You ever think about moving down here?” Tony asked. “My
wife works for the college student health department,” he said. “They use LPNs
to take student medical histories, give shots and things like that. I could see
if she knows of any jobs.”

She turned to him. “Why would you do that? You don’t
know me or anything about me.”

“I know Jamarcus lost his father,” Tony said. “And that
you cared about DeAndre, and that maybe both of you could use a new start.” He
pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “Want me to make a call?”

She looked over at Jamarcus, now lying on his back on
the grass with Rochester licking his face.

“Leighville’s a good place,” I said. “You could do a
lot worse.”

“Already have,” she said. “Go on, make that call.” She
turned to me again. “You have something I could write on?”

Tony handed her a small spiral-topped pad from his
pocket, and a pen, and she started writing. He stood up and walked in the
opposite direction from Jamarcus to call his wife.

My admiration for Tony kept growing. I had seen him in
cop mode and knew that he was smart and dedicated. But I hadn’t realized what a
genuinely nice guy he was until then.

While Tony spoke, and Jamarcus played, Shenetta wrote,
then put the end of the pen in her mouth while she thought, then wrote some
more.

Tony returned as she was writing. “Tanya will be over
in a few minutes,” he said. “You know, I have a boy about Jamarcus’s age. She’s
going to bring him, too.”

Shenetta smiled.

Tony and I sat there quietly while she did.

I’d never met Tony’s wife or son, though I’d heard
about them. As they approached across the lawn, I was surprised to see that she
had skin the color of cinnamon, because I’d always assumed his wife was
Italian, like he was. She had frizzy black hair tamed with a scrunchie, and
wore black tights and a brightly patterned blouse. She leaned down and said
something to the boy, who ran over to Jamarcus and joined in the Rochester
Adoration Society.

 “Tanya, meet Shenetta,” Tony said. “And that’s
Frankie, over there.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Tanya said. Her New York accent
shone through. “I’m a Puerto Rican from the Bronx, and if I can fit in down
here you sure can, too. Come on, let’s talk.”

Shenetta handed the notebook back to Tony. “These are
the friends of DeAndre’s I met. There’s another guy, a white guy, he hung out
with some, but I never heard his name.”

“Thanks, Shenetta.” He took the notebook from her.
“I’ll get onto these on Monday.”

Tanya and Shenetta moved to another picnic table to
talk about nursing. “I hope Tanya can help her out,” Tony said. He looked over
to where his son and Jamarcus had jumped up and started chasing each other
around. Frankie looked a lot like his dad, with skin a few shades lighter than
his mom.