Whom Dog Hath Joined (20 page)

It only took me a moment to realize it was Vera Lee Isay, Brannigan’s
secretary. How long had she worked for him? She told us that she’d been out of
high school for two years or so before she became his secretary. She’d have
been at least eighteen, old enough to drive boys around, get them supplies for
their travels, or whatever else Brannigan asked. And if she’d been part of his
group, no wonder she had been reluctant to help Rick and me once she learned
what we were looking for.

I kept going. The rest of the names were unfamiliar to me,
though since they were all female it was possible that I knew one or more of
them but under a married name, as I’d known Edith. There were a couple of
letters I couldn’t figure out, but I thought I’d show the list to Edith and see
if she could help.

I picked up the photo of Mary and me. It was time to put it
away, I thought, along with all the memories it represented. Maybe that was why
Rochester had knocked it over in the first place.

“You are one smart puppy,” I said to him. He rolled on his
back, and I clambered down to the floor to scratch his belly as a reward.

24 – Confession

Sunday morning, I made veggie omelets for myself and Lili,
and we lounged around eating and reading the paper. Around noon, Lili decided
to go back to her apartment in Leighville because she was eager to scan some of
the photos she had printed and begin working with them. I kissed her goodbye
and promised to see her during the week.

Neither of us said anything more about her moving in, but I
knew that her deadline was approaching. I just couldn’t open the subject up,
one way or another.

I spent some more time online, looking for information on
Peter Breaux, but I kept drawing a blank. The only clues I had were his
hometown and his parents’ obituaries. I wondered if he had been at their
funerals, or if he was only remembered in those notices.

Several of my high school friends had showed up at my
mother’s funeral, even though I was living in California and we’d been out of
touch for years. Small towns were like that. People read the obituaries and
paid their respects.

Had any of his old friends done that for Peter Breaux? Would
they have seen him, spoken to him? How could I track them?

I looked for records of his high school, and found that
there was a group for its graduates at one of the school reunion sites. But
when I tried to get in to view its members, I got a pop-up message that it was
restricted, and I’d need an invitation to view it.

That was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. My
fingers danced across the keyboard, initializing my hacking software, going
online and finding an unsecured port I could use to launch my attack. The site security
was pretty good, but they allowed members to use very simple passwords, and
within an hour I had a list of all the people who had graduated from Peter’s
high school.

It was only then that I realized what I’d done. Despite all
my protests, and my attempts to stay on the straight and narrow, I’d hacked
into a protected website without even thinking about it.

I stared at the screen, at the list of names that meant
nothing to me. Why had I done it? Risked everything I cared about for something
so ultimately meaningless?

Rochester came padding across the carpet to me. He put his
paws up on the desk and looked at the screen, then he woofed.

“I know, puppy, I shouldn’t have done it,” I said. But I
didn’t close the window either.

He licked my face, and I laughed. “Does that mean you
approve?”

He woofed once more and then settled to the floor beside me.

“And you’re supposed to be looking out for me,” I said. “Oh,
well, in for a penny, in for a pound.” I copied all the names and their contact
information into a file, then logged off the website and shut down my hacking software.

Most of the alumni of Peter’s high school had included their
addresses and phone numbers. I picked up my cell phone before I could think too
much about it, dialed *67 to hide my number, and began calling.

I introduced myself as an old college friend of Peter
Breaux’s, trying to get back in touch with him. A few people had no idea who I
was talking about; a few others had known him long before but lost touch.
Finally, I hit pay dirt – a woman who had graduated with him and who’d seen him
at his mother’s funeral.

“He was there?” I asked.

“He come in a few days before she passed,” the woman said.
“She was at the hospital in Morgantown, and he stayed with her there. Then he
come back to town for the burial, and to close up the house.”

“Did you talk to him at all? Find out where he was living?”

“He said Canada somewhere,” she said. “I’ve forgotten
exactly where.” She paused. “Now who exactly did you say you were? You’re not a
bill collector, are you?”

“No, ma’am,” I said. “Thank you for speaking to me.” I
disconnected quickly.

So Peter Breaux was alive at the time of his mother’s
funeral. I made a note of the woman’s name and phone number, in case Rick had
to call her to confirm.

There was something else in what she’d said, though. I sat
back in my chair and went through the whole conversation. He’d closed up the
house. Of course! Why hadn’t Rick and I thought to check property sales records,
or for the probate of a will?

I was ready to get right back on line, but I stopped myself.
It was up to Rick to continue that search, legally. I dialed his cell.

“I have a confession to make,” I said.

“Call Father Donelan at St. Ignatius,” he said. “I’m no
priest.”

“But you are my confessor,” I said. “I hacked into a
database online.”

“Christ, Steve.”

“I know, I know. It was stupid. I didn’t even think about
it.”

“And you want me to say that makes it all right?”

“No. I just wanted to tell you. And I’m going to tell Lili,
too.”

“There’s a but coming,” he said. “I can hear it in your
voice.”

“I found out that Peter Breaux was alive at the time of his
mother’s funeral. Did you ever check to see if she had a will probated, or if
her house was sold after her death?”

He didn’t say anything. I couldn’t tell if he was writing,
or just trying not to lose his temper. “I’m an idiot,” he said. “No wonder I
always need your help.”

“I’m guessing the answer to my question is no.”

“I kept searching for Breaux himself. I didn’t think to look
for anything under his parents’ names. But I’m almost certain that the search I
ran would have included probate records, so if he’d been listed in the will he
should have come up. And I know for a fact there was no property under his name
in that town.”

“Maybe he never sold it, never changed the name on the
deed,” I said.

“I’ll look into it. This doesn’t make what you did right,
you know.”

“I know. Do you want the name and phone number of the woman
who saw him at his mother’s funeral?”

He groaned. “And that would be a name and  number you got by
hacking?”

That didn’t seem to require an answer, so I didn’t say
anything.

“Email it to me. Just the name and number, nothing else.”

“I have her address, too.”

“Just the name and number,” he said very slowly. “Thank you
for finding the information, but don’t ever feel like you have to do anything
illegal to help me. Understood?”

“Understood.”

I hung up and called Lili. I got her voice mail but my
message wasn’t one I wanted to leave without explanation, so I just said I was
thinking of her. I went online to my hacker support group and typed out a
message, and I felt a little better after that. But I was still unsettled by
the experience and I looked around for something else I could do.

I remembered that I had wanted to go over the list of names
with Edith and see if she recognized any of them, so I called and asked if I
could come over.

“Only if you bring that adorable dog of yours,” she said.

Great. My dog was the handsome one, and it seemed that
wherever I went people were happier to see him than they were to see me.

It was a crisp, sunny afternoon, and the roadsides were
cluttered with fallen leaves and osage oranges, bumpy yellow-green balls filled
with a sticky white sap. I remembered collecting them as a kid for my mom, who
piled them by our front door along with Indian corn and colored squash.

I pulled up in front of Edith’s Cape Cod. “You behave in
there,” I said to Rochester as I hooked up his leash. He shook his big shaggy
head.

“This is such a treat,” Edith said, when she opened her door
to us. “My family always had dogs when I was a girl, but Lou was allergic, and
after he passed I didn’t have the energy for a dog anymore.” She reached down
to pet Rochester’s head and he licked her fingers. She giggled. “Come on in.”

Rochester was eager to sniff everything in Edith’s living
room. “I have this list,” I said. “I think it’s the volunteers who worked with
John Brannigan back in the sixties, but I can’t decipher all the names. I was
hoping you could help me.”

I showed her the paper I’d written the names on, with the
first letters capitalized so that they would look more like names.

Edith Fox

Vera Lee Isay

_ e _ _ y    H o d _ _ i _ s

S a _d y    _ h i _ _  a d i a

E l l e_   _  o o d

De_ o r a h /  A l l e_

“Do you recognize any of these?” I asked.

“Why, it’s like a puzzle,” she said. “Let me get my reading
glasses on.”

As she pulled them out of her case, I explained the
principle of the cipher. “I was able to figure out your name and Vera Lee’s,” I
said. “So I filled in those letters. The blanks represent the letters I haven’t
matched yet.”

“This one is easy,” she said, pointing to the third name.
“Ellen Wood. My cousin. She passed away two years ago.”

By filling in those letters, I had:

Edith Fox

Vera Lee Isay

_ e n n y    H o d _ _ i n s

S a n d y    _ h i _ _  a d i a

E l l e n  W  o o d

De_ o r a h /  A l l e n

Edith looked over my shoulder. “Of course, the first name
there is Jenny Hodgkins. She married one of the Scudders from Scudder’s Falls. They
retired and moved to Florida. I haven’t heard from Jenny in, oh, ten years or
so.”

I filled in the J, G and K which didn’t give us any new clues.
“Can you recognize any of these others?” I asked.

Edith stared at them. “I’m sorry, Steve.”

“How about thinking back to those days? Do you remember
anything more about them? Anyone named Sandy or Sandra, or Deborah or Debbie?”

She closed her eyes and thought, then opened them quickly.
“Of course! How could I forget Sandy Chizmadia? She married John Shea and I was
a bridesmaid at her wedding.”

“Wait, Sandra Shea? My social studies teacher?”

“Yes, she did teach for a while, didn’t she? But then her
husband was transferred somewhere. We kept in touch for a while, but then, you
know how things go.”

That left us with:

Jenny Ross

Sandy Chizmadia

Ellen Wood

De_  orah  Allen

 “So this last woman must be Deborah Allen?” I asked.

“Of course!” Edith said. “Debbie Allen. She married… who was
it? She’s still here in Stewart’s Crossing – I saw her at the Harvest
Festival.” She took off her reading glasses and put them down. “She makes these
horrible crocheted toilet paper covers, with dolls on top. I didn’t talk to her
because I was afraid I’d have to buy one.”

I remembered those dolls. Where had I seen them? I tried to
recreate the Harvest Festival in my mind – walking around with Lili, helping
Gail….

“Mrs. Holt!” I said.

“Yes, that’s it,” Edith said. “How in the world did you know
that?”

“Lili and I helped Gail out that day,” I said. “Mrs. Holt’s
table was next to hers. Those crocheted monstrosities are imprinted on my
brain.”

Edith laughed. “Debbie was a silly girl even back then,” she
said. “She was always contriving ways to meet the boys, volunteering to bring
them food. She’d go on and on about how cute this boy was, how brave this one
was to stand up for his beliefs. How tragic it was that they had to move to a
foreign country.”

“We were all young once, Edith,” I said. “Do you have Mrs. Holt’s
number?”

“I think she’s in the book,” Edith said. “But should you be
going to talk to her yourself? Or asking Rick to do it?”

“I was going to tell him,” I protested.

She smiled. “You were always so curious when you were a boy,
Steve. I remember when I was teaching you, you wanted to know everything – what
wood the piano was made of, how the hammers made the sounds, was that real
ivory on the keys.”

“You remember all that?” I asked.

“Things come back to me now and then,” she said. “Getting
old is a terrible thing. But then you consider the alternative.”

I knew all about that.

25 – His Girls

I thanked Edith for the help, and took Rochester outside,
where I called Rick and told him what she had said.

“You say you know this woman?” he asked.

“Not really. Lili and I worked at the table next to hers at
the Harvest Festival and we talked a bit.”

“Close enough. I’ll call her and see if we can come over
this afternoon. Between you and your dog, you’ve got a knack for talking to
civilians.”

I walked Rochester up Edith’s street so he could sniff some
new smells and relieve himself, and by the time we got back to the car Rick was
on the phone again. “I spoke to her and she said she has some errands to run in
town. I suggested meeting her at The Chocolate Ear, and she agreed. Two o’clock.”