Another Three Dogs in a Row

by Neil S. Plakcy

He jumped up and came over to me, and I laughed again and petted him. But that image of him as a biker dog resonated with me, and I let my brain make the connections. Was there anything I could about Carl by exploring his biker connections?

  I’d been interested in riding a motorcycle since I was in my teens, when all the bad boys did, but my friends were all nerdy college-bound kids like I was and no one knew anyone who rode a bike.

  As a student at Eastern the only person who rode a motorcycle that I was aware of was an older professor in the religion department, with a mane of white hair. He certainly wasn’t the kind of guy I could go up to and ask for a ride—not unless I wanted a lecture on the history of world religions.

  Then I’d moved to Manhattan, where everyone I knew stuck to public transportation. When I moved to California, though, I worked for a small web startup for a couple of years, where I learned most of my hacking skills. Many of the guys were younger than I was, and our boss was into group bonding exercises.

  One year, he decided he wanted us all to learn to ride motorcycles, and take a trip together up the Pacific Coast Highway to Big Sur, where he rented a big house and where we’d have group sessions about our goals for the following year.

  He paid for those of us who didn’t have motorcycle licenses to take the 15-hour training course and gain our learners’ permits, and he was right—it was a good bonding exercise for the six of us who took it together. A couple of the guys were married, too, and their wives expressed some concern about them on bikes—but Mary had no complaints.

  It was about six months after her first miscarriage, so maybe her lack of interest was a sign that she didn’t care as much about me by then. Or maybe she simply had a lot more on her mind, monitoring her period and telling me exactly when we had to have sex and in what position in order to maximize the potential of getting pregnant.

  With my permit in hand, I rode with the group up to Big Sur. It was scary, navigating those curves and narrow lanes, but exhilarating, too.

  I probably would have gone on to get my regular license, except Mary had her second miscarriage and everything changed for us. But now? Maybe it was time to get that license, have some fun before I got too old. I’d be a good biker, observing the speed limits, maybe joining in those poker runs to raise money for handicapped children.

  Somehow I had difficulty imagining Carl Landsea or the Levitt’s Angels doing that, but my exposure to the prison population had changed my attitudes about a lot of things and broadened my outlook. Maybe it was time I got back on a bike. I’d see if I still enjoyed it, and if talking to bikers could help me find out what had happened to Carl.

  7 – Pennsy Choppers

  I looked up the address for Pennsy Choppers, the bike shop where Carl had worked. If I made a site visit there, perhaps a co-worker could shed some light on his personality.

  I piled Rochester into the car and head south on Main Street, which eventually passed through Yardley and then hooked up with Route 13 on the far side of Morrisville. Route 13 was an industrial highway that ran along the edge of Levittown in the direction of Philadelphia, and it hadn’t changed that much in the twenty-some years since my high school graduation.

  For much of its distance it paralleled the rail yards, a complex system of tracks and sidings. The other side faced the back of houses in Northpark, Thornridge and Vermilion Hills. The bike shop was at the corner of Route 13 and East Penn Valley Road, not far from Pennsbury High. It was adjacent to a strip center featuring a dollar store, a karate dojo and one of those budget insurance providers who stand a sign twirler out on the highway to bring in traffic.

  A couple of lines of bikes of different sizes and configurations were parked in an open yard on the side of the store, and an oval track had been paved around them, with soft-sided orange bollards separating it.

  I parked and put Rochester on his leash. We threaded our way through the lines of bikes, me looking and Rochester sniffing. A young hipster guy with a goatee and a line of tattoos up and down his arms came out of the shop, wiping his hands on a rag. “Morning. Help you?”

  “I’m looking for a bike with a sidecar for my dog,” I said, making it up as I went along. “A guy I met named Carl said he worked here, I should come in and he’d hook me up.”

  “Carl doesn’t work here anymore, but I can help you,” he said, holding out his hand “I’m Travis.”

  “Steve. And this is Rochester.”

  To his credit, Travis immediately bent down and made Rochester’s acquaintance. “How big are you boy? Seventy pounds?”

  “Closer to eighty,” I said. “And strong.”

  “He’s going to need a harness to keep him in place, too,” Travis said. He looked around the yard. “Almost any bike can carry a sidecar. The better ones have a large displacement – 650 cc and higher – plenty of torque and a proper twin downtube frame.”

  He looked me over. “The best thing to do is start with a bike you like.” I could see him registering me as a forty-something guy, drives a BMW, wears an expensive belt and shoes. “If money isn’t a particular problem, I’d start with something new, because as time goes on parts will get harder to come by and people that know how to work on the bike will be fewer and fewer.”

  “That makes sense. That’s what Carl told me.”

  “He knew his stuff,” Travis admitted.

  “He go to work somewhere else?”

  Travis shook his head. “High side crash on I-95 a couple of months ago. Means his rear wheel locked up but the rear brake engaged, and he went up and over the handlebars and onto the pavement.”

  “Wow. That’s tragic.”

  “It was pretty grim at the time,” Travis said.

  I leaned down and looked at the brake cable. I didn’t remember anything I’d learned in California about motorcycle mechanics, but it looked pretty easy to fiddle with the cable. Sand down a couple of the chains, for example, so that eventually the repetitive use and pressure would cause a link to bust open.

  Rochester flopped down on his butt, then stretched his paws out in front of him so he was watching both of us. “That’s very unusual with a bike these days, so nothing for you to worry about,” Travis reassured me. “The newer models have a lot of safety features to prevent that.”

  “But Carl’s was an older bike?”

  “He’d customized it so I can’t say what was going on back there. Carl knew his shit, but realigning the brake cable or interfering with the wheel could have done anything.”

  He smiled grimly. “But now, let’s look at a bike for you.”

  That was all I got out of him about Carl or his accident. Instead, he walked me over a few feet, Rochester following, and put me on a Star Bolt made by a Yamaha subsidiary. My dog sat on his haunches watching me as I gripped the handlebars. I had to admit it felt great.

  As I sat there, getting a feel for the bike under me, I wondered if Peggy could have screwed with the brake cable on Carl’s bike. She was a smart woman, so she could have researched vulnerabilities.

  He showed me the clutch and brakes and reminded me how to shift gears. “You’ll notice this is a cruiser seat,” Travis said, startling me from my suspicions. “Designed for long rides, not breakneck speeds. Perfect for cruising around the countryside or a pretty day. You live in Yardley?”

  “Stewart’s Crossing,” I said, and I was again impressed by his ability to read me as a higher-end suburbanite rather than your typical Levittown resident.

  But thoughts of Carl kept popping up. If it was so easy to sabotage the bike, then anyone could have done it – another one of the Angels? A disgruntled neighbor or someone Carl had cheated?

  “Great riding out that way,” Travis said, once again drawing me back to the present. “Up the river road, into the hills beyond Leighville.”

  “I work up that way,” I said. “It would be a great commuter vehicle, wouldn’t it?”

  “Sure would. It’s light and easy to handle, and you get plenty of power from the 942-cc ai
r-cooled engine. It’s small compared with some of today’s big, beefy cruisers, but overall it’s a good motorcycle and a really good deal.”

  I’d been thinking about replacing the BMW as it got older, but I hadn’t considered a motorcycle until that day. “I’d have to square it with my girlfriend,” I said. “I didn’t bring her today because I didn’t want her to ask how I knew Carl.”

  “Titty bar, right?” Travis said. “Carl was great at talking to people at those places.” He looked at me again. “So listen, you ready to go for a test drive before I write you up?” He nodded toward the oval track.

  “Love to. But let me tie Rochester up first. I don’t know how he’s going to react, and I want to get a feel for the bike before I take him out.”

  I got off the bike, and picked up Rochester’s leash. I walked him over to a light pole and tied him up there. When I got back to the bike, Travis swiped my driver’s license in a gadget he held, then handed it to me to sign. “Typical insurance waiver,” he said. “You agree that you’re familiar enough with the bike to operate it safely, and that you hold us harmless for any injuries you incur.”

  I was already half in love with the idea of getting a bike so I signed eagerly. Then Travis walked over to the track and moved aside one of the soft-sided bollards. I got back on the bike and idled it over to the entrance.

  Travis said, “Take it easy for the first couple or circuits, okay?”

  I strapped on the helmet and gave him a thumbs up. Across from me I saw Rochester sprawled on the ground, watching me intently.

  I went pretty slow the first time around, getting back my sense memory of what it had felt like back in California. Then I revved the engine and moved faster, intent on maintaining my balance, focusing on the turns. It was amazing, as if I was flying.

  I did four circuits and my legs started to ache from the unaccustomed pressure, so I pulled up where Travis stood. He moved the bollard for me again, and I slid the bike back into its space.

  “That was awesome,” I said, as I unhooked the helmet.

  “You ready to get the decision moving?”

  “Like I said, I need to check with the lady. But I’ll be back.”

  He held up a slick iPhone. “We can call her today.”

  I shook my head. “Need to do a little prep work before I spring it on her.”

  Travis lost interest in me then, and walked back into the shop. I retrieved Rochester, and he and I walked around for a few more minutes, looking at the bikes.

  Rochester sniffed at a pink scrunchie on the ground—something only a woman would have worn. That reminded me of Peggy. The newspapers had said she had motive, means and opportunity in Carl’s death. I understood the means and the opportunity, but what was her motive? Had she been abused, as that anonymous source suggested?

  To inherit? From the look of the house on Bark Drive, it didn’t appear that Carl was that wealthy, and the best job he’d had was as a supervisor at the steel mill, which he’d lost when the mill shut down.

  I looked at the scrunchie again. Jealousy? Maybe Carl was having an affair and that made Peggy angry. It went against what Hunter had asked me to do, but I wanted to examine Peggy’s motives in case she really was guilty.

  Hunter had asked me to come up with reasonable doubt, but I was determined to go beyond that and find out who killed Carl. That meant I needed to start sniffing out suspects.

  And I had to remember that the killer might be someone completely unknown, hired by someone in Carl’s life to take him out.

  I realized I was spinning off onto a tangent, but I added a note to check more carefully through Carl’s address book, looking for anyone who could have had access to Carl’s bike, male or female.

  When we got home, I took Rochester for a quick pee, then tackled the deleted messages from Carl’s account. There had to be a reason why he’d suddenly trashed them all, just before his death, and I was determined to figure that out.

  There were nearly a thousand of them, and for a moment I felt overwhelmed. Then my old habits kicked in and I began to organize them. I sorted them by sender first, deleting all the ones that promised to give him firmer erections or secured credit cards. That got rid of almost half the messages. Hallelujah. I only had 542 messages to work with after that.

  I began copying the emails I wanted to look at further into individual folders. That way I could look at only a few at a time. The routine copying and pasting put me into a Zen state, and I was startled when a photo popped into the preview screen, definitely one that was not suitable for work.

  A big-busted blonde sat naked on a Harley-Davidson chopper. Her left hand gripped the handlebar, while her right hand was down at her crotch—either hiding something or fondling herself, I couldn’t tell which. I couldn’t tell, however, if she was an Angel’s girlfriend, or if the picture was simply one that was passed around among bikers.

  I quickly skipped to the next photo, feeling a bit guilty. The rest of the images attached to that email were G-rated, photos of the male Angels with women behind them on their bikes. Could Carl have been cheating on Peggy? Would his mistress have had the same access to his bike? How could I bring that question up to Peggy?

  I moved those photos to another folder, and made a note to use Google’s image search to see if I could identify anyone in them. And I renamed the photo of the naked woman with an NSFW warning. God forbid I accidentally open that while meaning to show photos to Hunter Thirkell—or worse, Lili.

  I managed to get about twenty-five percent moved before Lili came home from her photography expedition.

  I stood up and kissed her on the cheek, glad that I hadn’t stumbled on any more pornographic photos. “Have fun?” I asked.

  “Hard to define,” she said. “It’s a lot of work learning how to operate a new camera, especially if you’re accustomed to doing things a certain way. It was interesting and challenging to get it to perform the way I wanted, and to see the other things it could do.” She shrugged. “I guess you could say it was fun. How about you? What did you do this morning?”

  I told her about the work I was doing on Carl’s emails, reinforcing that it was all legitimate. “And Rochester and I took a ride over to Levittown, to the bike shop where Carl worked.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Discover anything?”

  “I talked to a guy Carl worked with, and got insight into what might have caused his accident. But there was something more.”

  “Yes?”

  “How would you feel about me getting a motorcycle license? Maybe buying a bike with a sidecar for Rochester?”

  To her credit, she didn’t look at me like I was crazy as I told her about my experience in California. “I only had a learner’s permit there, so I’d have to get a new permit here in Pennsylvania.”

  “Is this some kind of midlife crisis?” she asked. “Or is this about that woman, Peggy?”

  “A little of both,” I admitted. “I’m intrigued by Peggy, and how she went from the girl I knew to the woman she is today. We both hit some bad roadblocks, but I bounced back while she didn’t. I’d like to think about my own resiliency.”

  I smiled. “I also want to understand these motorcycle guys, and I’m hoping that if I approach them as a fellow biker I’ll get more information from them. And I liked riding the few times I did it. It might be fun to commute up to Friar Lake with Rochester on days when the weather is good.”

  “Assuming you can get a helmet for him.” She cocker head had at me. “You wouldn’t expect me to become some kind of biker chick, though? I’m not interested in leather jackets or tattoos.”

  I laughed. “You already have a leather jacket, sweetheart. That brown suede one you bought in Italy.”

  “Hardly biker wear.” She smiled. “I trust you, Steve. If you want to get a learner’s permit for a bike, you don’t need my permission. And I know that if you have Rochester with you you’ll be extra careful.”

  For a moment I remembered a similar conversation with
Mary. She hadn’t said that she trusted me. She had merely shrugged and said, “If you want.”

  I liked Lili’s response better.

  8 – About Me

  Lili went upstairs to review all the images she had taken, and I turned back to Carl Landsea’s emails. More sorting, deleting and filing, until a message jumped out at me with a zip file attached to it. The only words in the message were “Here it is.”

  I knew that kind of careful obfuscation. If you were sending something illicit, you didn’t want the message to indicate that.

  The message was from another one of the Angels, a guy whose email address was LoveMySled28. I knew that sled was a hipster slang for motorcycle, so that probably put the sender a decade younger than Carl.

  When I tried to open it, though, the zip file had been password protected. “Oh, come on,” I said. “Another password to crack? Really?” I was frustrated—it seemed like every time I found a lead, some kind of obstacle popped up.

  Rochester got up and walked over to me. I stroked his head as I looked at the unzip screen where I was asked for the password. How in the world was I going to figure that out, when I knew nothing about the person who had sent it?

  I exited the zip program and went looking for other messages from LoveMySled28 Maybe he had sent the password in a separate message.

  No luck.

  Rochester licked my hand, and I felt reassured. It was as if he was saying, “You can do this, Daddy.”

  There are two ways you can encrypt and password-protect a zip file. The first, nicknamed Zip Crypto, was relatively easy to crack. All you needed was a password generator program, as I had. The second method, AES-256, was a lot harder – almost impossible to crack.

  I checked the header text for the file, and gods be praised, LoveMySled28 had simply used Zip Crypto. That meant I could crack the password, though it might take a lot of time. I was also able to look at the contents of the zip folder, which wasn’t helpful – it was an Excel spreadsheet called numbers.xls. Could have been any kind of numbers – like the phone numbers for group members.