Dog Helps Those (Golden Retriever Mysteries) (19 page)

“Hey, as you pointed out earlier, you’re the detective.”

“So you do listen to me sometimes.”

“Asshole,” I said. He laughed.

“Lili’s finishing up grading her students’ projects,” I said, as Rick drove up to the River Bend guard house. “You doing anything for dinner?”

“Got a date,” he said. “Loser.”

He waved to the young female guard on duty, who smiled and opened the gate for him. He dropped Rochester and me off at my house, and I thought about driving into town to look for Mark Figueroa, but he probably had a date, too.

I microwaved a frozen dinner and poured Rochester a bowl of kibble. When he finished I gave him one of the new rawhide chews and he settled down with it, his back against the sliding glass door.

While I ate I grumbled about having a girlfriend and still being home on a Saturday night, but then Rochester came over to me and slumped next to my feet. Then we watched a movie together. I thought it was pretty stupid but Rochester seemed to like it.

Sunday morning Rochester woke me when the sun was just peeking over the rooftops across the street and we went for a long walk. A bluebird darted between the fronds of the weeping willow at the end of Sarajevo Court, and all around us were signs of nature waking up. I was looking forward to spending the day with Lili. We’d been talking about going down river to the flea market in Lambertville, and I thought it was a perfect day for that kind of aimless browsing. But she called me around ten and asked if we could change plans.

“This guy I used to work with called me last night,” she said. “He’s hot on a story and he needs some background from me. He asked if I could meet him for brunch.”

“Background for a story? On what? Art?”

“All he would say is that it involves Eastern, and I’m the only person he knew with any connections to the College.”

“It’s not like you need an in. He can call the public relations office. Or hell, he could call me.”

“Good. So you’ll go up to Summit with me to meet him?”

“Summit? Where’s that?”

“Ritzy suburb of Newark. About an hour, I think.”

“Isn’t that an oxymoron? A ritzy suburb of Newark?”

“Since we’re heading north you can drive up here to get me, and then we’ll go in your car.” She hung up.

I shook my head. How had I let myself get roped into spending my Sunday with my girlfriend and some guy she used to work with? What if he was still interested in her, and using this as an excuse to get together?

And what kind of story was he writing about Eastern?

I rushed through a shower, got dressed, and pacified Rochester with a hard rubber squid he’d already torn one tentacle from. As I pulled into Lili’s driveway she stepped out the door, locking it behind her. She wore what I had come to see was her standard casual outfit; skinny jeans, a man’s button-down shirt, and bright red high-topped sneakers that matched the rectangular frames on her eyeglasses. She had a couple of cameras on straps over her shoulder. Her auburn hair cascaded in waves down to her shoulders and smelled great as she hopped into the car next to me.

She leaned over and kissed me, then carefully slid the cameras onto the back floor of the car. “Thanks for doing this. I don’t have any idea what Van wants but it sounded very hush-hush. If there’s something strange going on at Eastern I thought you’d want to know about it and figure out the PR implications.”

“How well do you know this guy?” I asked, as I backed down her driveway.

“We worked a couple of stories together when we were both freelancing. She leaned back in the seat, stretching her legs. “Our biggest was an expose for the
New York Times
about child soldiers in Nicaragua. That was a bad story.”

“He still works for the
Times
?”

She shook her head. “
The Wall Street Journal
.”

“What would the
Journal
want with Eastern?”

“Beats me. How was your day at the dog show yesterday?”

I noted the quick shift away from Van, whoever he was, but I went with it. I told her about watching Rick and Rascal compete as we drove downriver to Yardley. We picked up I-95 at the Scudder’s Falls Bridge.

“You know these roads pretty well,” Lili said, as I exited 95 at New Brunswick, where I picked up US 1.

“My dad grew up in Newark and had family in the area,” I said. “So we used to go up this way a lot when I was a kid. But most of the people from his generation are gone and I lost touch with the few who are left.”

“Really? That’s sad.”

“My dad was an only child, so most of those people were his cousins. I can’t say I was that close to any of their kids.”

“I wish I lived closer to my family,” Lili said. “When I was looking for a job I tried to get something near my brother and his kids in California, but nothing came through. I have a few cousins scattered around the country, but the closest to here is one in New Hampshire.”

We turned east on I-78 just beyond Newark Airport, and Lili called her friend’s cell to get directions to the diner where we were meeting him. “He says to stay on 78 to 24. Then take the Morris Avenue exit. The Peter Pan Diner is right there.”

“Got it.” We pulled up in front of the diner a few minutes later. A rangy blond guy in jeans and a fisherman’s shirt was leaning on a BMW convertible and talking on a cell phone, and Lili hopped out of the car and ran up to him. I followed her, watching as they embraced.

“This is Van Dryver,” she said, presenting him to me. “My boyfriend, Steve Levitan.”

At least she made our relationship clear. That was a plus.

“I didn’t realize you were bringing someone,” he said, and I wondered if “bringing” really meant “dating.”

“Steve handles PR at Eastern,” Lili said. “I thought he’d be more help to you than I could. What’s this all about, Van? Why all the cloak and dagger?”

“I’ll tell you inside.” He led us in, and we sat at a peeling vinyl booth in the front window. The place looked like it had been around since Jesus wore short pants, with a vinyl tile floor, Formica tabletops, and a small jukebox at each table. Around us, teenagers in polo shirts with popped collars ate burgers and fries and joked around.

“What’s good here?” Lili asked Van, picking up the menu.

“No idea. Never been here. But I had an interview this morning in Summit and the guy recommended the place.”

After the waitress took our order, Van said, “The story I’m looking into is about a woman with connections to your college. Started out as a regular obit, but I’ve been turning up some strange things.”

“Whose obit?” I asked. “Not Rita Gaines?”

He turned to me. “You knew her?”

“Steve’s an amateur detective,” Lili said dryly. “His friend is the policeman investigating the murder, and he’s been trying to help out.”

I winced. “Ouch. Trying?”

“He’s been helping,” Lili said. “Better?”

“Better. Are you looking into her murder?” I asked Van.

He pushed a blond curl off his forehead. His face was tanned and lined, even though he probably wasn’t much older than Lili or me. And yet he still had a boyish enthusiasm which came through when he talked.

“In a way. There’s something funky going on with her investment business.”

The waitress delivered our platters and I had to wait til she was finished to ask, “Funky how? Anything that might bounce back and hurt Eastern?”

“I’m not willing to say anything right now. Just investigating. But I understand she was a member of the board of directors at Eastern, and the College invested some of its capital with her. You know anything about that?”

“I knew she was on the board, but I didn’t know anything about investments,” I said.

“And I barely knew the woman,” Lili said. “Met her at a couple of parties. And then she made that fuss at the exhibition.”

“What kind of fuss?” Van asked.

As we ate, Lili told Van about Felae’s painting and Rita’s complaints. Van took a couple of notes, but it was clear from his demeanor that what we had to say didn’t matter to his article.

Lili finished her eggs and pushed the plate away from her. “Is that all, Van? We drove all the way across New Jersey for this?”

“Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“Uh-huh. Well, thanks for brunch.” She scooted next to me with a gentle push.

I took the hint and stood, then pulled a card out of my wallet. “If you need a formal statement from the College or you want to talk to anyone else, give me a call,” I said, handing him the card.

“Will do. Take care of Lili. She’s a treasure.”

When we were out in the car, I said, “You certainly cast your spell on him.”

“Oh, please. This Peter Pan diner was the perfect place to meet him. He’s an overgrown boy. He won’t settle down and act like an adult; he just wants to keep chasing stories around the world.”

“And you outgrew that?”

She looked over at me. “Yeah, I did. Don’t get me wrong. If somebody offered me the chance to go somewhere for a great story, I’d probably jump, as long as it didn’t interfere with school or anything else. But I like my life now.” She took my hand and squeezed. “You think we can still make the flea market?”

“We can try.” I backed out of the space and hopped back on the highway. But I wasn’t going to let Lili off the hook too easily. “How long did you and he date?”

She looked out the window. “I told you, we just worked together.”

I waited.

“We had a fling, all right? When I was married to Phillip, the magazine editor, I knew he was cheating on me, and when Van pursued me, I didn’t say no. Philip and I were already living separate lives by then anyway.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I had never cheated on Mary, and I was pretty sure she had been faithful to me. But I knew enough not to pry into the state of anyone else’s marriage. I could only hope that Lili wasn’t going to make a habit of cheating.

“What do you think he found out about Rita Gaines?” Lili asked as we got onto I-78 to cut back across the state.

“No idea. But she was definitely a nasty piece of work, so I wouldn’t be surprised if she screwed a few people along the way.”

I regretted that choice of words but knew if I called attention to the comparison to Lili’s relationship with Van I’d only dig myself in deeper. “She probably cheated some of her clients or something.”

“You think one of them might have killed her?”

I shrugged. “I’m only ‘helping’ with the investigation. I don’t know the ins and outs.”

Lili turned to look out the window again.

Oops. That was something else I shouldn’t have said.

The highway sped past us, miles of farmland interspersed with the occasional office building or suburban development. Even though almost nine million people were crammed into about 200 square miles of the Garden State, big swaths of farmland remained in the middle of the state with little access to the big cities.

Neither of us spoke much. Lili plugged her iPhone into the car’s speaker system and played Springsteen tunes, and we both rocked out to “Dancing in the Dark” as we sped along. When we finally hit the Delaware, we took the slow road along the river, enjoying the blossoming of nature. We made it to the flea market in Lambertville by mid-afternoon.

The sun was shining, and the tall sassafras and oak trees along the edges of the parking lot were budding. Senior citizens, families with kids fresh from Sunday School, and forty-something hipsters like Lili and me were browsing the aisles. Lili got her cameras from the back floor and once again slung them over her shoulder. She stopped periodically as we walked, taking pictures of little kids playing – always with their parents’ permission, of course.

She also took shots of things I thought were weird—a soda can with flies buzzing around it, a rock with a jagged edge, the leaf of a maple tree with a single drop of water on it. “Think of it like stock photography,” she said, when I asked her. “You know what that is?”

“Kind of.”

“I merge the images together sometimes. Layer them. Fuzz the edges. Just play around. I never know what will inspire me.” She found a guy selling used camera equipment and bought a couple of lenses for her lab at the college. “You never know what camera kids will come in with,” she said. “I like to have a variety of lenses for them to play around with.”

It was late afternoon by the time we finished at the flea market, but I knew that the stores at the Oxford Valley Mall would be open until six. “You mind making a brief diversion with me?” I asked, as I pulled out onto the River Road on the Jersey side.

I told her about Paula Madden and her shoe store. “I’m not really a shoe gal, as you can probably tell,” she said, pointing to her red sneakers. “But I can fake it if you want.”

She leaned back in her seat. “Running around after stories, you realize you need comfortable shoes. It used to kill me when I had to get dressed up and put on heels.” She turned to me. “Does it bother you, meeting a guy I used to date?”