The Kingdom of Dog (21 page)

We got to room 135 and I knocked on the door. No answer.

Fortunately, Eastern hadn't upgraded the locks on dorm room doors since I was a student. I pulled an old credit card out of my wallet and slid it between the door and the jamb. It took some wiggling, but eventually I felt the bolt slip and the door swung open.

Rochester pushed forward into the room. I dropped his leash and hurried over to the closet. Lou Segusi was slumped on the floor inside it, a piece of duct tape over his mouth. His good wrist had been bound behind his back with a belt, but he'd managed to use the fingers of his broken arm to text me.

As I knelt to pull the tape off, I heard two voices coming from down the hall, and a moment later one of them said, “What the hell is going on here?”

I looked around to see Juan and Jose in the doorway to the room.

 

I pulled the tape off Lou's mouth and stood up. “What did you guys think you were playing at here?” I demanded, in my best teacher voice.

“We found a rat,” Jose said. Both wore their Eastern football jackets. And both of them were bigger than I was, with the added advantage of youth and training in physical combat

“And now we found another one,” Juan said.

Rochester had nosed open a drawer on one of the desks, and began digging furiously inside it.

“Hey, make that dog stop that!” Jose said.

“What's going on in here?”

All four of us turned around to see a security guard in the doorway, a midddle-aged guy in a modified police uniform with the Eastern logo on the breast. “I had reason to believe that a student was being held against his will inside this room,” I said, pointing to where Lou still sat on the floor in the closet.

Rochester grabbed a plastic bag full of pink tablets in his mouth and held it up. “Hey, that's mine,” Jose said. “Give it back.”

He reached over to take the bag from the dog, and Rochester growled at him through clenched teeth. Jose jumped back.

“This is crazy,” Juan said. “All you guys need to get out of our room.”

I flipped out my cell phone and hit the speed dial for Tony Rinaldi. “I think it's time for you to talk to the police,” I said.

Juan lunged at me, trying to take the phone from my hand. Rochester rushed at him, still clenching the baggie in his jaws, and Juan stepped back. “I need your help up on campus,” I said to Tony as soon as he answered. “ASAP. Birthday House dorm.”

“What's up?”

“Can't talk,” I said, as Rochester barked up a couple of times.

“Jesus, I hear the dog,” Tony said. “I'll be up as soon as I can.”

“We have a protocol for contacting the local police,” the security guard began. Suddenly everyone was arguing at once—Lou accusing Juan and Jose, the two of them alternately protesting and trying to get the baggie back from Rochester, the guard trying to get everyone to just shut and listen to him. Somewhere in there I helped Lou stand up, and untied his left arm from behind his back. Rochester dropped the baggie he was holding, but lay down on the carpet with the baggie protected between his paws.

It took Tony Rinaldi to restore order. “Everybody shut up,” he said, from the doorway. With the two hulking football players, Lou, me, Rochester and the security guard, the room was pretty crowded. It was a good thing they gave football players the most spacious dorm rooms.

“Steve. You first.”

I told him about the text message from Lou, and how I had discovered him on the floor in the closet.

“How'd you get in there?” he asked Lou, who stood with his back against the wall, next to the closet door.

“I was walking back to my room after talking to Mr. Levitan when I saw Juan and Jose,” he said. “I told them I wasn't going to write papers for them any more and they got really mad. They grabbed me and frog-marched me down here. Juan put that duct tape over my mouth while Jose tied my arm behind my back.”

He flexed his left hand and arm. “It's the way they work. Jose is the one who held me down while Juan broke my arm.”

“How did you get the cast on if they broke your arm?” Rinaldi asked.

“They did it the other day. After they caught me kissing Desiree.”

Tony shook his head. “This just gets more and more complicated. I think we all need to go down to the station and work this out.”

He called for a couple of uniformed cops to help with the transport. Then Rochester barked once. “What's up, boy?” I asked.

He stood up and picked up the baggie in his mouth, and walked it over to Tony, dropping it at Tony's feet. “These are steroids,” Tony said, picking them up. I saw the pink tablets were thick and five-sided. “Where did he get these?”

“That drawer over there,” I said. “Juan indicated in front of all of us that they belonged to him.”

“It wasn't enough that you caught a murderer yesterday? You had to get me a break in my steroid case, too? My cup runneth over thanks to you, Steve. And I'm not liking it.”

“Oh, sure,” I said. “Thank me. Be gracious about it.”

Juan and Jose started arguing again as the uniformed officers cuffed them and led them away. I walked Rochester back out to the lobby, where the girl on duty reminded me once again that dogs weren't allowed in the dorms.

“Got it,” I said, waving my hand. “Thanks.”

I took Rochester back up to my office, then drove down the hill to Leighville. As I was pulling into the police station parking lot, my cell rang. I saw from the display that it was Lili.

“Do you like eggplant parmigiana?” she asked.

“Love it. Used to make it all the time when I was young and broke. You want to go out to dinner somewhere?”

“I thought I'd cook for you. If that doesn't scare you away we'll see where we go from here.”

“Men with guns? Scary. Women who can cook? Not scary at all.”

“We'll see about that. You have Rochester with you today?”

“He's holding down the fort back at the office. I'm just about to go into the police station in Leighville.”

“You need to give another statement?”

“Different case. ” I gave her a quick rundown of Lou's problems and the steroid bust.

“You really are a junior G-man, aren't you?” she asked. “I can see my life getting a lot more interesting. Anyway, bring the dog. I think I can rustle up some hamburger for him, if that's OK.”

“He'll love you.” It felt funny, using the L word, even like that, when I hardly knew Lili. But I had a feeling we'd be getting to know each other better. I was glad she was willing to take Rochester in, too.

She gave me her address and we made plans to meet at six. Then I walked into the the station, where Tony was taking a statement from the security guard. I waited until he came out to the visitor area with the guard.

“Everything come together with Seville?” I asked, as the guard left and we walked down the hall to an interview room.

He nodded. “I just might get some sleep tonight. Seville's in custody. ” He ushered me into the room, and we sat down across from each other at a scarred metal table. “Now let's talk about steroids and your friend Mr. Segusi.”

I told him the whole story, beginning with hearing about Perpetua Kaufman's death from Lucas Roosevelt, and being asked to take over the class.

“How'd you know the kid was doing work for other students?” Tony asked.

“I didn't know for sure. But it was suspicious the way he always had papers to write, and on all different topics.”

“I'm going to interview him next,” Tony said.

I gave him Dezhanne's name. “She might be able to give you some more information on steroid use on campus,” I said. “She seemed to know something about it.”

I hesitated. I wanted to tell him about Mike MacCormac, but I was worried. If Mike was dealing drugs to college kids, then he'd get fired, and the capital campaign would get in trouble, and I might even lose my job, if Babson shut everything down. But I couldn't keep my mouth shut.

“You should talk to Mike MacCormac, too.” I told Tony how I had begun working for Mike in January, mentioning his occasional rages, the way Juan and Jose were always hanging around his office, and the prescription for Viagra I'd found.

He took copious notes. “I take back what I said about getting home tonight,” he said.

“Too bad for you. I have a double date tonight – with a dog and with a doll.”

“Enjoy. ” He handed me a bandana for Rochester with the Leighville police emblem on it, and a badge that named me as an honorary member of the Leighville police force.

“So I can show this when I get speeding tickets?”

“Get too many tickets and we'll take it away.”

I picked up Rochester and we found our way to Lili's house. She and I had a great dinner, and he was delighted with the hamburger she'd prepared for him. Late that night we took Rochester for a walk around her neighborhood. “You lead a busy life,” Lili said.

“Not really. Usually it's just me and the dog.”

She put her gloved hand in mine. “You like it that way?”

“Sometimes. He's good company, but he's not a great conversationalist.”

She laughed. “I can see you and I will have a lot to talk about.”

I leaned over and kissed her. Her lips were cold, but they warmed up quickly. Then Rochester sniffed something and tugged so hard on his leash that he jerked my head away from Lili's. “Come on, Rochester wants to go home,” she said. “And so do I.”

***

Things settled back to normal at Eastern, though with one big difference: the team of Steve and Rochester added a new member, and the three of us spent a lot of time together, going to photography exhibits, enjoying home-cooked dinners, and watching movies on my new big-screen TV.

Richard Seville was arraigned for the murders of Joe Dagorian and Perpetua Kaufman. I didn't mention the case, or my part in it, to Barbara when I saw her in the technical writing class. Lou Segusi began volunteering with the campus writing center, and he told me he was considering going on to get a master's degree so he could become an English teacher. He moved in with a friend who had an apartment off-campus for the rest of the term.

Tony Rinaldi got a search warrant for Juan and Jose's room, based on the steroids Rochester found and Mike MacCormac's confession that he had been buying from them. Babson had a long talk with Mike, and Babson said he could keep his job if he submitted to periodic drug tests.

Juan and Jose rolled on the dealer who had been supplying them with the steroids, back in their home town of Jersey City. They were both released on bail, but because they had been selling to fellow students as well as Mike, they were both expelled. I was glad to see them go, and I'm sure Lou was, too. A couple of weeks later, after his cast was off, a pretty, dark-haired girl met him outside the classroom as the tech writing class was finishing. He introduced her as Desiree.

Norah Leedom announced that she was retiring from Eastern at the end of the semester; she was taking the money from the sale of the land she and Joe had owned in Vermont and financing a long trip overseas. She had a book in mind, she said, about Joe and their life together. I asked if it would include the details of the murder and she said, “No, I'll leave that to some mystery writer.”