Dog Bless You (22 page)

It was almost eleven o’clock on Friday morning by then.
I called Lili to check in with her, but got her voice mail. I figured she was
probably tied up with the College Connection kids, probably showing off the
collage of their photos she had been working on.

There was no reason for me to drive up all the way up
to Eastern. All I had on my plate was working on the text for the book with
Lili, and I could do that just as easily from home. I didn’t even have a boss I
had to clear it with.

I was able to retrieve the files I’d been working with,
and I sat down with another café mocha and my laptop to get to work. Rochester
got hold of one of his toys and spent some time shaking it and chewing it, then
settled down for a nap behind my chair.

As usual, I got lost in the work, without the
distractions of an office. It was close to two o’clock when my cell phone rang
and I saw from the display it was Rick.

“Tony Rinaldi’s here at the station,” he said. “Can you
join us?”

“I guess the only appropriate answer is yes,” I said.

“You’d be guessing right.”

“Give me ten minutes.”

I hung up, got dressed and set the gate up preventing
Rochester from getting to the second floor. “I’m trusting you, big guy,” I
said. I took him out front for a quick pee, then led him back into the
townhouse.

He was watching me through the sliding glass doors as I
left the house and got into the car. As I backed down the driveway, I wondered
what would happen to him if I was arrested, and sent back to prison. Would Lili
take him? Rick? How would he feel about being abandoned again?

For the first time, I realized that there was someone
who could be very hurt by my hacking – Rochester. Did I owe it to him to stop?

 I drove to the police station and parked in the back
lot. Around the front, I introduced myself to the desk sergeant, and he called
Rick.

Rick appeared behind him a minute or two later. “We’re
in the conference room,” he said.

I followed him down the hall, past the interview rooms
and into a small room with a circular table and four rolling armchairs. There
was an American flag on a pole in one corner, the Pennsylvania state flag on a
similar pole in another. A couple of old photos of Stewart’s Crossing had been
enlarged and framed and hung on the walls.

Two of the chairs were occupied. I knew Tony, of
course. “This is Agent Quillian,” Rick said, as we walked into the room.

My heart began hammering in my chest. Had Rick brought
me there to turn me over to the FBI?

The FBI agent was in his early thirties, with the kind
of weathered, wary look I’d come to associate with ex-military guys. I shook
his hand and said hello to Tony Rinaldi. Between his crisply pressed shirt and
pants, the G-man’s dark suit, blue tie and white shirt, and Rick’s button-down
shirt and khakis, I felt under-dressed.

“Interesting website you found,” Agent Quillian said.
“Want to tell me how you got there?”

I’ll say one thing for being an English teacher. You
learn the value of considering what it is you say and write, and how you can
cover your tracks with a careful use of language. “I followed an email trail,”
I said. “Mark and Owen had been communicating via email before Owen
disappeared. The link was in one of Owen’s emails.”

I avoided making eye contact with Rick. If Quillian wanted
to assume that the link had been in a message from Owen to Mark, which Mark had
passed on to me, I wasn’t going to contradict him. But I was sure I’d fail any
lie detector test at that point; my pulse was racing and my palms were sweaty.

Quillian nodded. “You recognized this item you believe
was stolen from the abbey?”

It looked like I’d passed that test, and I took a
couple of deep breaths. I explained about going through the photo archives at
St. Mary Martyr, and how the picture of the reliquary on the website seemed to
match the one Lili and I had found.

“Mark Figueroa identified the icon he said was stolen
from him as well,” Rick put in.

“I was able to match a couple of other stolen items to
that site,” Quillian said. “I’ve got a guy tracking down the site registration
right now.”

My heart began to return to its normal rhythm. I wiped
my sweaty palms on my pants and nodded along. “Have you been able to find out
Striker’s real name? He and Owen served together in Afghanistan,” I said.
“Maybe someone from the same platoon would recognize the nickname.”

“Already done that. James Striker. Served in the same
platoon. Anything else you know?”

“Nothing that I haven’t already told Rick or Tony.”

“Thanks for coming in.”

I looked from Rick to Tony. Neither of them said
anything, so I stood up. “Good luck,” I said.

I was driving back to River Bend when Lili called my
cell. “Have you seen Ka’Tar Winston today?” she asked.

“No. I haven’t been up to campus at all.”

“He was supposed to be at the final assembly but he
didn’t show up, and none of the kids have seen him. Dot Sneiss is freaking
out.”

“He told me yesterday that he wanted to see Friar
Lake,” I said. “That DeAndre had talked a lot about it. Maybe he went up
there.”

“How could he get there?” Lili asked. “He didn’t have a
car.”

“Could have called a taxi, I guess. Or hitch-hiked.”

“I’m going up there to look for him. Can you meet me
there?”

“Sure. But I’m in Stewart’s Crossing. It’ll take me a
half hour.”

“Call me when you get close,” she said, and hung up.

I had just turned onto Quarry Road from Main Street. I
could have bypassed the entrance to River Bend, and gone straight on down to
the Delaware to pick up River Road.

But if we were going to look for a missing kid, I
thought Rochester’s nose and instincts could be important assets. I drove
quickly to the townhouse, where I grabbed Rochester’s leash as he danced around
me.

I loaded him into the car and then headed up north,
rocketing down River Road as fast as the curving, narrow road would allow. When
I had to stop for a light in Washington’s Crossing I put a Springsteen CD in
for additional motivation. By the time I turned down the entrance road to Friar
Lake, I was singing along with the Boss and “Born in the USA” was blasting
through the open windows.

When I pulled to a stop next to Lili’s Mini Cooper,
Rochester tried to jump out the window, but I grabbed his collar and told him,
“No more exiting the vehicle on your own!”

Lili stepped out of the chapel, and Rochester and I met
her there. “I haven’t found him anywhere,” she said. “But I know he has to be
here.”

“Have you been down to the lake yet?”

She shook her head. “I assumed he’d follow the road up
here.”

“Well, let’s go down there and look.” We took a narrow
path through the woods behind the chapel, down to the lake and the small house
where the mendicant friars had lived. It was cool and dim in there, the trees
and underbrush crowding in against us. Long fiddlehead ferns stroked my legs as
I ducked under a low-hanging maple.

About halfway down, Rochester began pulling, and I
nearly lost my footing. I had to grab the trunk of a slim birch to steady
myself. He romped back up toward me, and I reached down and unhooked his leash.
“Don’t get lost, boy,” I said. “And don’t dig up any more bodies!”

He scampered downhill. Lili and I followed more slowly
as the dirt path snaked around between massive old oaks. The sunlight filtered
down to us with a greenish tint, and the air was moist and heavy.

 “You’re going to have to do something about this
path,” Lili said, as some dirt skittered from under her feet, and she grabbed
my arm. “Either close it off or pave it. Otherwise it’s just an accident
waiting to happen.”

“Fred Searcy from the biology department knows his
botany,” I said. “Maybe I can get him to come up with some signs identifying
the trees and flowers. Then we can make this a kind of nature walk.”

Branches of a skinny maple swayed as a squirrel
scampered somewhere inside the thicket of leaves. We reached the bottom of the
hill and stepped back out into the sunlight. We were at the edge of the meadow
next to the house, the one where Rochester had found DeAndre’s body.

Up ahead of us we saw an open trench that looked to be
where the body had been. Ka’Tar sat Indian-style beside it, and Rochester was
on his belly beside him. As we approached, Ka’Tar reached out and stroked
Rochester’s shimmering flank.

Lili hung back, and I heard the shutter of her camera
begin to click in rapid succession. I remembered that she’d once told me, “When
there’ s something I don’t want to see, I let the camera see it for me.”

 I thought that the photos of the dark-skinned boy, the
golden dog and the open grave would be very poignant, though I doubted they’d
make it into our coffee-table book on the history of the abbey.

“Hey, Ka’Tar,” I said, as I got close to him. “You had
us worried.”

“This is where he was buried, isn’t it?” His right hand
rested on Rochester, and the sun glinted on the fused fourth and fifth fingers,
the ones DeAndre had hoped to have repaired.

“Yup.” I sat down catty-cornered to him. Rochester
didn’t move.

“Do they know who kilt him?”

I shook my head. “Not yet. But I know the police are
working on it.”

Tar looked up at me and held out his hand. “When the
kids teased me about my hand, DeAndre say I was just perfect to him. That God
made me this way for a reason.”

“I believe that,” I said. “I think God cares about
every one of us, even when we do things that aren’t right.”

I thought about the hacking I’d done. Would God, in all
his mercy, have approved? I thought so—but maybe that was just my hubris.

“He was right. It’s real pretty out here.” Ka’Tar looked
out toward the lake. “You think they could bury him out here for real? They’s that
cemetery up on the hill.”

Lili joined us, holding her camera loosely in her right
hand. “Hi, Ka’Tar,” she said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But Shenetta and Jamarcus are
going to move down here, so maybe we can find DeAndre a spot in a real
cemetery, out here in the country.”

Ka’Tar nodded. “I like this place a lot. And Mrs. Dot
say if I keep my grades up this year I can apply to be a real student.”

I stood up. “Mrs. Dot’s worried about you,” I said.
“Why don’t you let us drive you back up to the college?”

Ka’Tar nodded, and stood up. “You want to ride with me
and Rochester?” I asked. “Or with Professor Weinstock?”

“I like Rochester,” he said, and the dog nuzzled his
hand. “He like me, too.”

“He’s a good boy,” I said.

Once we were on our way back to Eastern, I called Dot’s
office to let her know that we had found Ka’Tar. Lili walked him over to Harrow
Hall to rejoin the rest of the CC kids, and I tracked down Joe Capodilupo to
talk to him about how we could make the path that connected the abbey to the
lake safer.

I called Rick on my way back to Fields Hall, but went
right to voice mail. “Call me when you can,” I said.

It was nearly six o’clock on Friday evening. Dot had
arranged a big graduation dinner at Burgers Commons to celebrate the conclusion
of the College Connection program. I couldn’t take Rochester there, so I left
him in my nearly empty office with a rawhide and a bowl of chow.

I was pleased to see the kids I’d had in class; they
all looked so much more comfortable and confident than they had when they’d
gotten off the bus on Sunday. Babson was there, glad-handing and beaming.

“Looks like this program was pretty successful,” I said
to Lili, as we stood in line for turkey breast, stuffing, mashed sweet potatoes
and cranberry sauce.

“They’re great kids,” Lili said. “A couple of them have
some real artistic talent. After we eat I’ll show you the collage I put
together. I promised Aquamarisha and Zazeem that I’d help them keep taking
pictures, and point them to some websites where they can post them.”

“You’re really working from A to Z,” I said.

She laughed and shook her head. We got our food and
joined a group of kids at a long table. We ate and talked with them, and then
President Babson came over to us. “I’m glad you’re here, Steve,” he said. “I
had a phone conference call with the Board of Trustees this morning, and they
gave me the okay to go ahead with the Friar Lake project. I signed your offer
letter and sent it to Elaine. You should get your copy on Monday.”

He reached out, and we shook hands. “I have every
confidence you’ll do a great job,” he said.

“Thank you, sir. I won’t disappoint you.”

He left us then, walking over to Dot Sneiss, and Lili and
I hugged and kissed. “Congratulations!” she said. “I’m thrilled the project is
going to go through. Even though that means I’ll have to get back to work on
the book about the abbey. I need to get that done before the fall term starts.”

“I’ll make sure to keep you on schedule,” I said. I
took her and and we walked back to her office in Harrow Hall to look at the
collage. Then we kissed for a while, celebrating again, until I realized that
I’d left Rochester alone in my office for an awful long time.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow morning,” she said. “Maybe
we’ll go to the flea market.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I kissed her again, and then
picked up the plate of leftover turkey breast for Rochester.

I fed him pieces as we drove back to Stewart’s
Crossing. It was about nine in the evening by then, and the sky was darkening.
As we drove down Sarajevo Court, I noticed a shadowy figure in the Keelys’
front yard.

I slowed down and tried to see if it was Owen Keely,
but his back was to me, and I couldn’t just stop there. There was no car parked
in front of the house and the lights were dark.

I continued on down the street to my own driveway, and
as I did I fumbled for my cell phone and called Rick.

“There’s somebody outside the Keelys’ townhouse,” I
said. “I couldn’t get a good enough look to see if it was Owen or not.”

“I’ll get a uniform right over there,” he said. “And
I’ll come over, too. In the meantime see if you can keep an eye on him.”

I turned the car off and hooked up Rochester’s leash.
“Come on, boy, let’s go for a walk,” I said. I grabbed the emergency tennis
ball I kept in the glove compartment, in case I needed to create a distraction,
and stuffed it into my pants pocket.

We began walking back down the street toward the
Keelys’ house. Rochester seemed to know what we were doing; instead of sniffing
every bush and tree trunk, or going after squirrels, he was focused on heading
down the street.

“Slow down,” I said to him. I didn’t want to confront
Owen Keely, if that’s who it was. I just wanted to keep an eye on him for Rick.

I reined Rochester in as we got closer to the Keelys.
When I wanted him to dawdle, he refused. “Sniff something!” I whispered to him.

The shadowy figure was leaning up against the side of
the Keelys’ garage, smoking a cigarette. I couldn’t tell if it was Owen or not.

I began a steady chatter to Rochester. “Come on, boy,
time to go pee-pee,” I said. “Doesn’t this place smell good? Please? Go peepee
for Papa?”

As we got closer, I noticed that the guy standing by
the garage had an artificial leg. Well, that meant he wasn’t Owen.

Rochester strained to go over to him, but I pulled him
back. A light popped on in an upstairs room, and I wondered if that was Owen,
looking for something. If so, then was this guy in the yard Striker?

A couple of things came together all at once. When I
was at the Brotherhood Center, I’d been introduced to a guy with tattoo-filled
arms and an artificial leg who said he knew DeAndre, though only to say hello
to. His name was Jimmy, I remembered. Jimmy, short for James. And James was
Striker’s first name.

I stole another glance at the guy by the garage. He
wore a T-shirt, but I could see lots of tattoos on his arms. I knew it was an
assumption, but my brain was telling me that this had to be the elusive
Striker. I’d never gotten a look at him when he was helping Owen move
furniture, or I could have been sure.

So where was the uniform Rick had promised to send?
Where was he?

I checked the display on my cell phone. I’d only called
him seven minutes before, though it seemed a lot longer. I took a deep breath
and moved a few feet farther down the street with Rochester.

We were directly across from the townhouse by then, in
front of one on my side of the street that was currently unoccupied. I nudged
Rochester into the driveway and he took the hint, tugging me up toward the gate
that led into the house’s courtyard. My heart began hammering as I walked up
and opened the gate, trying to appear nonchalant.

I didn’t look back until I was already inside the
darkened courtyard. Striker was still standing by the house, though as I
watched he dropped his cigarette butt to the ground and crushed it under the
heel of his good leg.

Rochester sat on his butt next to me as I pulled my
cell phone out again and called Rick. “I’m in the courtyard of the townhouse
across from the Keelys,” I said, keeping my voice low. “It looks like Owen’s in
the house, upstairs. I think maybe the guy outside is Striker.”

“I couldn’t get a uniform to respond,” Rick said. “There’s
a problem at the Drunken Hessian and the two guys on patrol in this area are
both there. The other two are out in the country somewhere on a DUI.”

“Where are you?”

“On my way. Should be at Quarry Road in about five.”

“I’ll keep an eye on them.”

“Don’t do anything stupid, Steve,” Rick said.

“The name’s Joe Hardy, remember?”

He snorted and hung up. When I looked at the house
again, the light in the upstairs window winked out.

Rochester sprawled on the ground next to me. I stood just
behind the courtyard gate in the shadows. It seemed like every second took at
least a minute to pass. The front door across the street opened, and in the glow
of the motion-sensored outside light, I recognized Owen Keely. He had an
Army-style duffle bag over his shoulder.

He walked quickly across the lawn and out of range of
the light. It shut off as Striker  joined him at the curbside. The two of them
began walking up Sarajevo Court toward my house.

As quietly as I could, I opened the courtyard gate of
the empty house. Rochester scrambled up to his feet and joined me as we walked
back toward home.

“We ought to go out and party,” Owen said. “After all
the shit we’ve been through.”

“No party,” Striker said. “We’re just going to lie low
until we sell that shit from the church. Then we’ll celebrate.”

“You are such a pussy,” Owen said, and he punched
Striker in the arm. Striker just kept walking.

The mailboxes for our chunk of River Bend were located
at the far end of the street, and there were a half-dozen guest parking spaces
there. I assumed that’s where Striker had left his car. If I could stay behind
him and Owen until they reached there, at least I could give Rick the license
plate and a description of the car.

All the townhouses along Sarajevo Court have outside
lights, though many homeowners keep them off to save on electricity. Some, like
the Keelys, have motion detectors so the lights wink on when a person or a car
passes. Staying in the shadows myself, I was able to keep an eye on Owen and
Striker as they moved quickly down the street.

I couldn’t hear what Owen said, but he punched Striker
in the arm again. This time, Striker whirled on him and I heard him say, “Did
you do a bump while you were in the house?”

“Just to take the edge off,” Owen whined.

“Dude, I told you you can’t do that shit. Not if you’re
going to stay with me.”

Rochester knows our house, and usually as we approach
he pulls to turn in at the driveway, ready to get inside, drink some water, and
sprawl on the tile floor with one of his toys. But that night he continued
straight ahead, as if he knew we were following the two men, not just out for a
late-night walk.

“You better be good to me, dude,” Owen said, accenting
the last word. “I know what you did to DeAndre.”

Sarajevo Court makes a left turn just before the small
grassy island that holds the mailboxes. The dogleg allows for the placement of
one row of guest parking spots. But, as I’d noted many times when walking
Rochester, the configuration of the houses, and the fact that there was no
streetlight near the mailboxes, left a patch of darkness at the end of the
street.

I often pushed Rochester to walk quickly through that
area. On nights like this one, when there was no moonlight, I couldn’t see
whatever it was he stopped to sniff, and I didn’t want him to get hold of
something not allowed, like a candy bar wrapper or a discarded paper towel. I
worried myself about stepping in something.

My cell phone buzzed. “I’m coming in the gate now,”
Rick said. “Where are you?”

“Following them toward guest parking at the end of
Sarajevo Court.

“I’m almost there.”

Owen and Striker entered the dark space and I lost them.
There’s a small park just behind the mailboxes, and a row of guest spots behind
that. I worried that they might be able to get to a car, and get away, before I
could cross the park.

Rochester strained forward, and I let him have his head,
hurrying behind with but still holding tight to his leash. He turned for the
mailboxes but instead of stopping to sniff around the stanchions, as he usually
did, he went right for the park area behind them.

I heard them before I saw them. I reined Rochester in
as the two men came in sight. They were both on the ground, and watching them
was like seeing a mixed martial arts fight on a TV with bad reception. One got
hold of the other around the neck; there was punching, kicking, and wriggling.

I edged closer, trying to hear what the two men were
saying to each other. What had provoked this fight when they were so close to
escape? Was it the cocaine?

“You’re not cutting me out of this, asshole,” Owen
said, panting, as he squirmed around in Striker’s embrace. “This was my deal.”

“Fuck that,” Striker said, his voice equally labored.
“You just lucked into this from that dimwit DeAndre. And you didn’t give a damn
when I knocked him out of the picture.”

“He was my friend,” Owen said. “I couldn’t leave him
there on the ground.”

“So you buried him. Big fucking deal. You’re soft,
Keely. Always have been. You’re just a damn junkie.”

“And you’re not?” Owen said. “You turned me on to the
shit in the first place.”

“Yeah, but I kicked it.” Striker reared back and aimed
a roundhouse kick at Owen’s midsection. Owen flew backwards and I heard his
body hit the pavement with a sickening thud. Striker jumped onto him and
grabbed his head.

Headlights approached from behind us, illuminating Striker
straddling Owen, banging his head against the pavement. Even though I thought
Owen Keely was a colossal asshole, I couldn’t stand there and watch him get
killed. “Get off him!” I yelled.

Rochester and I began to run toward Owen and Striker.
Blood streamed from Owen’s head. Striker looked up at me and there was
something in his eyes that reminded me of a wild animal.

He leapt off Owen and took off toward the parked cars.
Rick roared his truck to a stop and jumped out. “Police!” he yelled. “Hold it
right there!”

Striker ignored him. Rochester strained at his leash,
trying to get away from me and take down the bad guy, but I held tight. I
wasn’t letting him get anywhere near Striker, not with that crazy look in his
eyes.