Dog's Green Earth

by Neil S. Plakcy

  “But I thought you were making a cash offer?”

  “I am. I buy for cash, then take out a mortgage afterward so I can pull my cash back out for the next property.”

  “You sure you’re not in the business department?” I asked, with a laugh.

  “Just because I teach biology doesn’t mean I have my head in the clouds,” he said. “Anyway, my offer stands for the next week. Call me if you want to take advantage of it.”

  I walked him out and was surprised that Rochester remained on the floor in the living room. He must have trusted Oscar Panaccio, which was in his favor. Rochester was a good judge of character, and if he liked somebody, even someone who didn’t pay him much attention, then despite Oscar’s grumpiness I had to assume he wasn’t a strong suspect in Todd Chatzky’s death.

  When I returned to Lili in the living room and sat in the recliner across from her, she asked, “What did he have to say?”

  “Nit-picked every little problem,” I said. “Useful information, though. If we stay here, we’re going to have to redo the kitchen, you know. I noticed a lot of little chips in the cabinets, and he’s right, these appliances are going to fail eventually.”

  “But we’re not considering moving, are we? I just made up that bit about the traffic to support you.”

  “I caught that, and I appreciate it. We work well as a team.” I smiled at her. “But no, I don’t want to move anytime soon. With winter coming, Florida doesn’t look that bad. I wouldn’t love to leave my job at Eastern, but President Babson isn’t going to live forever, and even if he says around, who knows what will happen to Friar Lake. Unless your mother’s health gets worse and you want to move closer to her.”

  “Since you’ve never met my mother, you don’t understand how little I want to live close to her. Right now my brother’s taking care of anything she needs, so we can stay here. And the cold weather will just require us to snuggle up more, right?”

  In answer, Rochester jumped up on the couch beside her and rested his head on her lap. “Hey, that was my cue, dog,” I protested.

  23: Angle of Attack

  That night I slept restlessly, dreaming about sirens and danger in the neighborhood, though there was no form to my fears. The next morning, Rochester was bugging me for a walk at sunrise. I didn’t want to get up, but I knew he’d be relentless. I struggled out of bed and checked the temperature outside. For the first time since the spring, the thermometer had dipped below sixty in the morning. I added a light sweater to my T-shirt and jeans.

  I have learned to trust my premonitions and fears, so I dug out the knife my father had left me and hooked it onto the belt of my jeans. When we walked outside I shivered, though I wasn’t sure if it was from the chill or from the feelings that remained from my dreams.

  We encountered no one dangerous, though. By the time we were walking back home, the sun had risen, and I pulled off my sweater and tied it around my waist. As we approached her single-story house, my friend Norah was pacing back and forth outside.

  “Hey, Norah, what’s up?” I asked, as Rochester tugged me toward her.

  She pointed to the oak in front of her house, where one broken branch hung at a crazy angle over the sidewalk.

  “This branch broke in the big wind the other day, and I’ve been after the association to come and cut it down. I’m worried someone might hurt themselves on the sidewalk and then come after me for leaving it hanging.”

  I looked at the branch. It was a big break, but still too connected to be twisted off. Then I remembered the knife at my belt. “Let me see if I can cut it off,” I said. “Can you hold Rochester’s leash for a minute?”

  “Sure.”

  I handed her the leash and pulled the knife off my belt. As I slipped it out of the sheath Norah said, “That’s a big knife. You could do some real damage with that.”

  I considered my angle of attack, and began sawing at the branch, cutting through the wood fibers.

  “You know who else has a knife like that?” Norah asked. “Earl Garner. I should have asked him when I saw him yesterday, though I don’t think he could have reached the branch from his chair.”

  I stopped cutting. “Garner has a knife like this?”

  “Sure. He has it attached to the side of his chair. He said he uses it if something gets stuck in one of his wheels.”

  Garner had a knife, I thought, as I went back to the tree. He could have used it to kill Todd Chatzky. I had to tell Rick, and see if the angle of the blade’s entry could match someone in a wheelchair. And would there have been a lot of blood in that case?

  But first I had to finish cutting this damn branch. The last fibers were from the outside of the branch, and they resisted. I finally put the knife aside and grabbed one end of the branch and tugged.

  It broke, with a satisfying crack that made Rochester look up. “Here you go,” I said. I tossed it on the ground beside the tree, back from the sidewalk. “The landscape people should pick it up when they come by next.”

  “I’m not going to wait,” Norah said. “Thank you so much. I’m going to drag it over to the common area by the lake. Let it be someone else’s problem.”

  “That’s one way to handle it.” I took Rochester’s leash back from her and she grabbed the branch by the end I’d cut. She started tugging it down the street as Rochester and I headed for home.

  It was still early by the time we got back, so I texted Rick. “More ideas. Café in an hour?”

  I was feeding Rochester when my phone pinged with single letter K.

  “When did it get so hard to type two letters instead of one?” I grumbled.

  Lili came down as I was making breakfast, and I scrambled a couple of eggs for her while she made toast. I didn’t want her to worry about why I was carrying a knife on my walk with Rochester, so I didn’t say anything, other than I was meeting Rick for coffee at the Chocolate Ear on my way to work.

  “Twice in two days?” she asked. “Are you helping him with the murder?” She looked at me. “Of course. Why would I even ask?” She started clearing the dishes. “Does this have to do with why you invited Professor Panaccio over last night? Are you considering him a suspect?”

  I stood up to help her and explained what I had found. Then I hurried through a shower and loaded Rochester in the car. This time I got to the café before Rick, and I was settled with two cups of mocha and two chocolate croissants when he came in.

  “You look like you’re ready for business,” he said, as he sat across from me. He scratched Rochester, then picked up one of the coffee cups. “Shoot.”

  I explained about cutting the branch for Norah, and how she mentioned that Earl Garner had a knife like mine. “Can you get a search warrant for his house?” I asked. “See if you can match the knife to Todd Chatzky’s wounds?”

  “Hold on, cowboy. I can’t randomly get a warrant for someone’s house on the word of a neighbor that he has a knife that might match the weapon we’re looking for.”

  “But we talked about motive last night,” I protested. “This information adds to it.”

  “Still not enough.” Rick took a bite of his croissant. “Thanks for the food and the coffee, though.”

  I wasn’t going to stop so easily. “Did you find out anything from the ME about the angle of the knife thrust? Could it have come from someone in a wheelchair?”

  “He did say that there was an upward thrust to the angle of the knife cuts, which implied someone who was shorter than Mr. Chatzky.”

  “Can you ask if it’s reasonable that a man in a wheelchair could have delivered them? From what I’ve seen Earl Garner has a lot of upper body strength.”

  “I’m having a hard time thinking a guy in a wheelchair could do this,” Rick said. “Remember, Chatzky’s body was found between a bench and a hedge. How could Garner drag the body there? The physics don’t work.”

  I thought back to the crime scene. “What if Todd and Garner were arguing, and Todd tried to get away? Maybe he got behind
the bench to put some space between him and the wheelchair.”

  “Why didn’t he just run?”

  “I’ve seen Garner in his chair, playing catch with his son. He can really move. I’ll bet he could have outrun Todd.”

  Rick frowned. “But he could have run across the grass, and the chair couldn’t have followed.”

  I shook my head. “There’s no grass close to where the body was found. It’s all pavement. And there are no houses nearby, so even if Todd was screaming for help no one might have heard him.”

  I closed my eyes and visualized the scene. “Todd’s behind the bench, and he and Garner are arguing. Garner realizes that his scheme is going to fall apart, and he gets desperate. Pulls the knife from his wheelchair, corners Todd, and sticks the knife in his gut. As Todd falls behind the bench, Garner pulls the knife out of him and rolls away.”

  “It’s a possibility,” Rick said. “Not as big a leap as some of your deductions.”

  “So you’ll check it out?”

  “I’ll ask the ME.”

  I had to get up to Friar Lake, so Rochester and I left Rick finishing his coffee. I had a slew of requisition forms to fill out for upcoming programs, and I spent the morning doing that. After a quick lunch and run around the property with Rochester, I sat down to consider the real estate program I’d thought about the day before.

  How could I focus it in a way that would bring in alumni who weren’t local to Leighville or its environs, who weren’t interested in selling their homes at the present? Buying and renting residential property as an investment strategy, the way that Oscar Panaccio was doing? The stock market was jittery, and home mortgage rates were on the rise making it harder for new home buyers to get in. Was this a good time to leverage your capital into property?

  I went through the business cards I’d picked up at the lunch the previous week. I did a quick run through our alumni database and discovered two Realtors who had degrees from Eastern.

  From the photo on her business card, I recognized the woman who had raised the question about new communities without HOAs, and the buyers she had who were interested in those places. Maybe that meant she had some clients buying for investment purposes. Her Eastern connection, though, made her the best bet to start, and I called her.

  She answered her phone with her name. “Faith Magyar. How can I help you?”

  I explained who I was and how I had heard her speak at the lunch. “I live in River Bend, in Stewart’s Crossing, and several of my neighbors have been buying up homes and renting them out. That made me think about organizing a program on buying and renting residential property as an investment strategy, and I wondered if you’d be interested in facilitating a program like that. Since you’re an Eastern alum, you know the kind of people you’d be speaking to, and it might be an opportunity for you to meet potential investors or at least get your name out as an expert.”

  “I’d love to,” she said. “I have a couple of Canadian clients right now who are looking for investment properties, so I’ve been digging around in that area for a while. I’m interested that you mentioned River Bend—I haven’t seen any new listings there in a while, which is surprising. A community that size usually has at least ten active listings. But if neighbors are buying up properties before they go on the market, that explains it. It’s also bad for values because you don’t allow the market to set the price.”

  We brainstormed a couple of ideas and potential dates, and she said she’d get back to me with a confirmation in the next couple of days.

  That afternoon, I left Friar Lake right after Joey, Rigoberto and Juan did, and returned to River Bend. I took Rochester out for his walk early, and as we passed Earl Garner’s street I saw him outside, watering his landscaping from his wheelchair. Rochester tugged me forward down that street, and I followed his lead. I wanted to get a closer look at Garner’s wheelchair and see if I could spot the knife Norah had mentioned.

  “Good afternoon,” I said, as we approached him. “Steve Levitan. Thanks for helping me out at the design committee meeting last week.”

  “I don’t help people out, I just follow the rules,” he said.

  “Surely you can bend those now and then,” I said. “Look at poor Drew Greenbaum. He just wants to get his mother’s house sold. If the association can drop some of those liens, he can get a better price and a quicker sale.”

  I could only see the left side of his chair from my position, and from the way he held the hose it looked like he was right-handed.

  “I’ve already made him an offer and promised to take care of the liens if he accepts,” he said. “That’s the best that I can do.”

  Rochester sniffed the base of a tree on the other side of Garner’s property and lifted his leg against it. Then he tried to get closer to where Garner was watering, but I held him back. “That isn’t fair, is it? You’ll only help him with the liens if you can buy the property?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “I care about the way this community is being run. I want to see the roads repaired, better control of the landscape company, and property values going up. I hope the new property manager will be able to turn things around.”

  “If you really care, then run for the board,” Garner said.

  I kept waiting for him to turn his chair around so I could see the other side, but he didn’t move.

  “I might. But right now I want to know why things have been going wrong. There’s something wrong with the way the board is run, but I’ll bet you won’t be able to run over the new property manager so easily.”

  He glared at me, and Rochester moved in front of me to protect me.

  “Don’t you care what happened to Todd Chatzky?” I demanded. “He was killed right here, in River Bend. Doesn’t that make you want to find out how and why?”

  “I don’t mess with police business, and you shouldn’t either.”

  “If you ran the board better, I wouldn’t have to,” I said.

  He shut off his hose and rolled his chair back up to his garage. He kept the left side toward me, so I couldn’t see if he kept a knife on the right side. A moment later he was inside, and the door was coming down.

  “Well, I guess he told us,” I said to Rochester.

  24: Judge of Character

  I was shaken by my confrontation with Earl Garner. I had gotten a hostile vibe from him, and so had Rochester, from the way my sweet dog demonstrated he wanted to protect me from the man in the wheelchair. I was worrying about that as I drove up to River Bend. The morning chill had worn off, and I drove with the windows open. Rochester kept his head out, his snout forward to sniff everything that came his way.

  My day went downhill from there. One of the professors I counted on to do a bunch of presentations for me had gotten approved for a sabbatical in the winter term, and he was going to be too busy to do the program he had scheduled with me for November, and out of town for the one in February.

  A group that had planned to rent out Friar Lake for a big conference in January had changed its plans with the death of the featured speaker. And another smaller group cancelled a Saturday event, too.

  It was looking like my revenue projections were crumbling. What would happen if I couldn’t make a go of the center? I knew President Babson would cut me some slack, because Friar Lake was his pet project. But how long could he manage that?

  I struggled through the afternoon, but it was hard to concentrate when I was so worried. It was a relief to leave Friar Lake and its problems behind, but after dinner and Rochester’s evening walk, I remembered I had another problem on my hands. What was going on at River Bend?

  I opened my laptop and put in Earl Garner’s name, because I wanted to know more about his background and see if he was capable of cheating our whole community—and of killing Todd Chatzky. I discovered that there was a lot more to the story of his paralysis than I had originally heard.

  Yes, he was riding his bike during his second year in law school when he was ru
n over. What Eric Hoenigman hadn’t known, or hadn’t told me, was where and when the accident had happened. After reading a series of articles in the Philadelphia Inquirer I had a clearer picture.

  Garner originally stated that he was riding home from the Temple University law library on his bicycle late one evening and got lost, ending up about a dozen blocks north of the campus, near the intersection of North Broad Street and West Erie Avenue. Around two AM, a white van with its headlights off hit him, throwing him to the ground.

  Police detectives were suspicious. The accident scene was about two miles from Garner’s apartment near the law school, and Garner’s excuse, that he’d been focusing on a case he was studying, didn’t make sense to them.

  His detour had taken him to an area of North Philadelphia known as the Badlands, notorious for drug deals, and police subpoenaed Garner’s blood while he was in the hospital. It showed traces of crystal meth in his system. Eventually Garner confessed to having ridden up to the Badlands to score some methamphetamine to help him through his exams. He gave the police information on the dealer he had bought from, and said that he was on his way home to sleep when he was hit.

  The dealer, when eventually apprehended, had a different story. Earl Garner had grabbed a baggie of ice, the smokable form of crystal meth, and taken off on his bike without paying. The dealer had jumped into his van and chased after him, running him off the road. He had retrieved his drugs and left Garner where he had fallen.

  It was an awful story, and I had to sit back and take it all in. Rochester came over to me and slumped on the floor, and I got down there and petted him.

  On the one hand, I admired Earl Garner, because he had managed to overcome his addiction while in the hospital and in rehab. He had never been charged with a crime, so he was able to return to Temple, finish his degree, and set up his own practice in Stewart’s Crossing.

  But on the other hand, knowing more about his background made me trust him even less. He had been an addict and a thief, and the fact that he’d never been charged, and been able to pass the bar, didn’t change that.