Read Online Whom Dog Hath Joined by Neil S. Plakcy - Free Book Online

in logic problems like that, I always go back to
Occam’s Razor – the idea that the simplest answer is usually the right one. A
young man, late teens or early twenties, had worn those Chucks sometime during
the 1960s, and died while wearing them. What was less clear was how he had
ended up in that hidey-hole at the Meeting House.
    The dogs were awake by then, chasing each other around my
downstairs, so I took them out for another long walk. The late afternoon was
still showing the best of Indian summer, and I delighted in watching the dogs
romp together under trees full of yellow, gold and red leaves.
    Rick’s truck was in my driveway as we approached the house,
and I let go of Rascal’s leash so he could rush ahead of us to play with his
daddy.
    Rick got down to one knee and buried his face in the dog’s
black and white fur. “How’s my boy?” he asked. “How’s my wild and crazy
Rascal?”
    He stood up, taking firm hold of Rascal’s leash. “Thanks for
taking care of him. You have dinner plans? I could order us a pizza.”
    “Sounds great. I’ve got a six-pack of pumpkin ale I’ve been
wanting to crack open.”
    “Pumpkin? That’s gross.”
    “Wait til you try it.”
    I led him and the dogs inside, and while we waited for the
pizza to be delivered we sampled the ale. Hints of pumpkin pie and nutmeg
blended with the hops for an autumnal mouth feel, saying goodbye to summer in
every sip. Rick admitted that he liked it.
    As we drank, I showed him what I’d found about the sneaker. “Good
work,” he said, when we were finished. “That will help me with a missing
persons search, at least until the evaluation of the remains comes up with
something better.”
    The pizza arrived, a large with mushrooms and spicy Italian
sausage, to the accompaniment of a canine crescendo of barking that made it
seem like we were in an echoing kennel, barks and yips and the scrabble of
toenails on the tile floor. I body blocked the dogs, took the pizza from the
delivery guy and handed it off to Rick, then paid and tipped as the dogs
trampled over themselves to follow Rick to the kitchen.
    We dug in. There was no matching real, Jersey-style pizza
from your neighborhood joint, where the mushrooms came from the farmer’s market
and the sausage and cheese from local farms. “I need to ask your advice about
something,” I said, feeding a piece of crust to each dog, both of whom were sitting
attentively beside our chairs.
    He drained the last of his beer and held out the empty
bottle for another. “What’s on your mind?”
    I got up and retrieved two more beers from the fridge. “Lili
asked if she could move in with me and Rochester,” I said, as I sat back down.
    “I didn’t realize you’d been dating her that long.”
    “It’s been six months. But her lease in Leighville is
running out, and she figured she’d ask me before she renewed.”
    “What did you say?”
    “I told her I needed to think about it.”
    Rick looked up at me. “And?”
    “I’m thinking. When I got out of prison all I wanted was to
be left alone. The first couple of weeks I was back here I hardly left the
house—just for food and supplies. It wasn’t until after I got my first adjunct
teaching gig at Eastern that I started to feel like a human being again, that I
could be among other people.”
    I took a sip of my beer. “Rochester helped a lot,” I said.
“Dealing with him, having to talk to neighbors when I was walking him – all
that stuff got me back in the rhythm of life again. And Lili’s different from
Mary. I can talk to her and not feel completely at a loss. She’s enough like me
that we have a lot in common—including the need for time on our own. But
different enough to always be interesting.”
    “And you love her?”
    I nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot. I do.”
    “So what’s the problem? Living together doesn’t mean you
have to be in each other’s pocket twenty-four seven. She teaches, and she