Dog's Green Earth Page 16

  Then again, I had been convicted of a felony myself and imprisoned for a year. Like Earl Garner, I had fought back to create a new life for myself. I ought to feel more empathy for him, but I didn’t, and I wondered why.

  The evidence of my recovery was all around me. The golden retriever knickknacks on the bookcase testified to the new life I had begun when Rochester came into my life. The framed photos on the walls, some of them Lili’s, others she had collected, were evidence of my ability to keep growing and open up to love with her.

  Earl Garner had a wife, a son he played ball in the street with. He’d started over again, too. But what if he was hiding dark secrets? I was; the fact that I occasionally used my hacker laptop up in the attic was evidence of that.

  I opened a new browser window and looked for information on Garner’s law practice. Its address was in the same co-working space where my attorney, Hunter Thirkell, had his office. Did they know each other?

  Before I could second-guess myself I grabbed my cell phone and dialed Hunter’s number. I hadn’t spoken to him for a few months, since I had helped him prove the innocence of one of his clients. “Hey, Steve. Hope you’re not in trouble again.”

  “Nope. Just doing a little research on something that’s going on here in River Bend. The president of our association’s board of directors is an attorney, and he’s in the same building you are. You know Earl Garner?”

  “I know he’s a jerk,” Hunter said. That was one thing I liked about him—he pulled no punches when he didn’t like someone. “Never says hello when I see him in the hallway. And just last week that wheelchair of his was leaking oil and it left a nasty spill in the conference room. He didn’t even bother to tell the receptionist so she could get it cleaned up.”

  Something about that comment resonated with me but I pushed the thought aside to come back to it later. “Any idea how his business is doing?”

  “I know he has a lot of bar complaints against him right now,” Hunter said. “One client has documented six instances where Garner failed to communicate important information in a timely manner. He does a lot of contingency work and apparently he fails to follow through on things like evidence requests. And he’s also a licensed real estate broker, and he’s been accused a few times of mingling escrow funds with his business accounts, and failing to disburse them quickly.”

  “Wow.”

  “Don’t get excited, though. He’s a sole practitioner and his paralegal is as dumb as a box of rocks, so most of it is probably negligence rather than criminal activity. Why are you interested in him?”

  I gave Hunter a quick rundown of what was going on at River Bend. “I think he and the rest of the board are conspiring to keep the community in poor shape so that they can snap up properties at bargain prices.”

  “That sounds like a breach of fiduciary duty to me,” Hunter said. “That’s not a crime in most jurisdictions, but it can lead to civil liability, and in some cases the situation that causes the breach is related to criminal activity.”

  I thanked Hunter for his information, and walked upstairs, Rochester trailing behind me. Lili was in the office, typing away at the computer, and I leaned in the doorway and watched her. “What’s up?” she asked, when she finished what she was doing and looked my way. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I did some research into Earl Garner’s past and it freaked me out.” I told her what I had found. “I feel like I ought to be able to put all that aside and admire him for overcoming those obstacles, getting his life back on track.”

  “Like you did.”

  “Like I did. But I can’t.”

  “Why do you think you can’t?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, and I could hear something agonized in my voice. “He was never even convicted of a crime, and arguably he suffered a worse penalty than I did.”

  “What does Rochester think about him?”

  I cocked my head.

  “You’re always saying the dog is such a good judge of character. Has he seen Garner?”

  Rochester knew we were talking about him, and he sat on his hind legs beside me and nuzzled my hand.

  “Earlier this evening.” I described the way my conversation with Garner had devolved into an argument, and Rochester’s reaction. “It seemed like he wanted to protect me, the way he stepped in front of me.”

  “There you go. Rochester doesn’t like him, so you don’t either, despite any logical attempt you might make to feel sympathetic toward him.”

  “Part of the argument was my fault,” I said. “I egged him on.”

  “Which you did before you knew the full story behind his paralysis. Ergo, you already decided that he’s not a good guy, and even what you learned this evening hasn’t changed that opinion.”

  “I love it when you use logic on me,” I said, smiling.

  “Ergo, you need something to take your mind off all these problems.” She pushed her chair back from the computer and stood up. “I know what that is.”

  25: Data Points

  Thursday morning as I prepared to take Rochester for his walk, I was still thinking about my conversation with Earl Garner the day before. We’d have to avoid his street on our way around the lake. I didn’t want him to try and run us over.

  Then I remembered the marks on the sidewalk I saw the day after the murder. Maybe they hadn’t been made by the lawn service – could they have been made by the wheels on Earl Garner’s chair? I remembered what Hunter had said about Garner’s wheelchair leaking oil. Hadn’t I seen some spilled liquid near Todd’s body? What if that had been oil as well as blood?

  I grabbed a tape measure from the kitchen drawer and pulled on my jeans, T-shirt and sweater. It was cooler than it had been the day before, and goose bumps rose on my arms as a breeze swept past us, stirring the last dead leaves along Sarajevo Court.

  Rochester seemed to know we were on a mission, and instead of dallying to sniff every tree and pile of leaves, he pulled forward toward the twin lakes. We turned onto River Bend Drive and waved as we passed Norah, outside surveying her landscaping and shaking her head.

  As we approached the ramp that led to the sidewalk between the lakes, I saw the faded marks I had noticed the day after Todd’s murder when Rochester strained to sniff something, almost knocking me over in his eagerness.

  I turned to look and saw him sniffing at a dark green block that resembled a chunk of the dental chews I gave him – a rectangle about an inch long, with three square blocks sticking up from it.

  But those weren’t dental chews. We’d had a rat problem in one of the buildings at Friar Lake the previous winter, and Joey had brought in a tub of rat poison to put out. That green block, and another a few feet away, had come from a tub like the one Joey had bought.

  Was that just sloppiness by the exterminator? Or had someone deliberately put the poison there to kill someone’s dog—or perhaps keep nosy dog owners on the move?

  I tugged Rochester back, and took my phone out. I snapped a couple of pictures and inserted them into an email them to Lois, Todd’s secretary. “I’m going to throw these away, but you should have the maintenance guy look around the property in case there are more, before a dog or cat gets sick,” I added, and clicked send.

  I grabbed one of the plastic bags from the dog waste station and used it to pick up the block, careful not to get my fingerprints on it.

  I didn’t want to hang around near the oily marks because I wanted to get Rochester away from that rat poison, so I gave up on trying to measure the marks on the sidewalk. We hurried through the traffic circle on River Bend Drive, and as soon as we crossed, he sniffed a spot along the hedge and did his business. Our walk home was more leisurely, Rochester stopping to sniff and pee, as if his work for the day was done and he could relax.

  My work had only begun, though. Lili and I had breakfast and I fed Rochester, and then the dog and I drove up to Friar Lake. It was nine o’clock when I got there, and I called Lois to make sure she’d
gotten my email. “That’s not the kind of poison our exterminator uses,” she said. “I’ve never seen those. Are you sure they’re poisonous?”

  “I am. I’ll send you the link to the product on Amazon.”

  “I’ll get someone out to look around, just to be safe,” she said. “But if you could send me the link I’d appreciate it.”

  I opened a browser on my computer, found the product online, and then sent the link to Lois. Then I sat back to consider. What had Rick discovered about the angle of the fatal wounds to Todd Chatzky? If they couldn’t have come from a man in a wheelchair, I was barking up the wrong tree.

  “Any word back from the ME?” I asked, when Rick answered his phone.

  “And good morning to you,” Rick said. “Hey, Steve, how’s your week going? Because mine is crap.”

  I took a deep breath. “Sorry. I have a couple of ideas to run past you, and I was too eager. You having more vandalism problems?”

  “Nothing new. But the chief is chewing my ass looking for results and I don’t have any.”

  “Do you think you could come over to my place after work? Bring Rascal and the dogs can have a play date. I want to show you a piece of rat poison I found this morning.”

  “Rat poison?”

  “It was near where Todd’s body was found. I picked it up using a doggie waste bag so I wouldn’t get my prints on it.”

  “And let me guess. You want me to check it for fingerprints.”

  “Only if it’s relevant. To sweeten the deal, I’ve got some new Dogfish Head Liquid Truth Serum IPA we can break open. I’ll even throw in a pizza.”

  “You had me at beer, but pizza’s even better.”

  I met with Joey that morning to go over the schedule of upcoming programs and review any maintenance issues that might affect them. Then he ducked out to meet with the inspector reviewing Drew Greenbaum’s mother’s house. I spent the afternoon on paperwork and emails, the bane of any administrator’s existence.

  Joey texted me late in the afternoon, that the inspector hadn’t found any major problems, and he and Mark were going to be able to buy the house.

  “Welcome to the neighborhood,” I texted back. I was excited to have one of Rochester’s playmates close by, and to take advantage of the yard that came with the Greenbaum house.

  Before I left work, I ordered a pizza from Giovanni’s, in the shopping center in downtown Stewart’s Crossing. Rick and I both liked the same kind—a thick crust with spicy Italian sausage crumbled and scattered over a base of homemade tomato sauce, freshly sautéed mushrooms and shredded mozzarella from an artisan cheese maker in New Hope. We’d converted Lili, Tamsen and Justin into believers, too.

  Because there would be three humans and two dogs for dinner, I added a half-dozen garlic rolls and a small blue cheese salad to the order. I stopped on the way home to pick it up and stow it in the trunk. Rochester hopped from the front seat to the back, sniffing and grumbling as he realized he couldn’t get into the trunk.

  “You’ll get yours when we get home, dog,” I said. “Now chill out.”

  I caught his face in the rear view mirror, a mask of sadness, and he slumped down onto the seat. I couldn’t help laughing.

  Rick and Rascal arrived a few minutes after I got home, and we all sat down to eat. “Good news on the vandalism front,” Rick said. “Late last night we got lucky and caught three teenaged boys spray-painting four-letter words on the windows of the laundromat. Spray paint they were using matches the kind used on the other incidents, and we leaned on them and got them to cop to a couple of other incidents, and finger some other kids who’ve been causing trouble.”

  “Your chief must be happy about that.”

  “He’ll be happier if we nail down some convictions, and we see the activities stop.”

  “Did they give you any reason for their actions?” Lili asked. “Teenaged angst? Or something more?”

  “Typical stories. Too much time on their hands, too much anger on social media, parents not paying attention. One of the kids even lives here in River Bend, and he tried to put a spin on his actions like nobody cares about the environment, climate change and all that, so why not have some fun destroying things?”

  I shook my head. “It’s one part of your broken windows theory in action. Kids see no one cares about the area around them so they’re not motivated to stay out of trouble.”

  Between their own chow and pizza crusts, both dogs were fat and happy by the time we were finished.

  “I’ll clean up so you guys can talk,” Lili said, and Rick and I went into the living room. I told him about my confrontation with Earl Garner the day before, and how Rochester had tried to protect me.

  “I wish you wouldn’t keep pushing the boundaries,” Rick said. “You’ve gotten yourself in danger in the past. You don’t seem to learn from your mistakes.”

  “Ooh, I had an argument with a man in a wheelchair,” I said. “Big danger.”

  “A man you think killed someone. Don’t mess around, Steve.”

  He was serious, and I knew that and believed him. He took notes in his leather-bound notebook as I continued, through the details of Garner’s addiction and his accident.

  “It’s all interesting,” Rick said. “But as you know yourself, one criminal problem doesn’t make someone a lifetime villain. And it’s a big jump from stealing a baggie of crystal meth from a dealer to sticking a knife in someone’s belly.”

  “There’s one more thing.” I explained about the marks I had seen on the pavement the day after Todd’s death.

  “I saw those, too. Puddle of oil, probably from a lawnmower idling there, then the mower runs through them.”

  “That’s what I thought at first,” I said. “But what if those tracks match Earl Garner’s wheelchair? That puts him at the scene of the crime.”

  “It’s been over a week since the murder. Doubtful that any traces of that oil are still on Garner’s wheelchair wheels.”

  “But we could go out and measure the marks, and see if they match a lawnmower, or a chair. It’s another piece of evidence. I tried to do that this morning but got distracted by the rat poison. Which, by the way.”

  I got up and found the plastic doggie bag with the poison inside. “It’s here by the door when you’re ready to leave.”

  He sighed. “We can walk over there. You have a flashlight?”

  “I have a dog who needs walking in the dark,” I said. “I’ve got at least three.”

  The lights I had were tiny, high-intensity ones that slipped easily into a pocket or onto a leash. I handed one to Rick and took one for myself, and we left the dogs behind as we walked out.

  “Do you think Garner killed Chatzky?” Rick asked.

  “I do. My hypothesis, which is a nicer word than guess, is that Todd reported the way Garner has let the board run down the community, allowing him to buy up properties at bargain rates. And that conference call he was on the night of his murder was about some changes that Pennsylvania Properties wants to make, or maybe even the management company planning to challenge the board.”

  “But doesn’t letting the community run down lower the value of the properties that Garner and the other board members own?”

  “It’s a long game,” I said. “Max out his ability to buy property, then turn around the community and the values go back up. Steady income from the renters while he holds the properties, then big gains once he resells them.”

  “Why don’t the other board members complain?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Some of the ones I’ve read about on Hi Neighbor are there for only one issue. A woman who wants to prevent the board from converting one of the empty lots into a playground. A man who’s opposed to setting up reserves for new roofs for the townhouses, to avoid an assessment eventually. If Garner and his cronies go along with them, maybe they go along with Garner.”

  The streets of River Bend were quiet as we walked up to the twin lakes, only a couple of cars passing, the distant
sound of a kid practicing the first movement of Mozart’s “A Little Night Music” on the piano. It was one of the first songs I had learned when I began studying, the metronome ticking on the piano above me, and I’m sure my parents were fed up with my efforts by the time I mastered it.

  We stopped at the ramp where the puddle of oil had been, which was now just a fading stain. Then we followed the tracks, which petered out a few feet from the place where I had found Todd’s body.

  I took out a measuring tape and while Rick held a flashlight, I measured the width of the tires that had made the marks, and the distance between them. Rick wrote them down in his notebook.

  “What do you think?” I asked, when I stood up. I was excited, like Rochester when he found a rubber ball that had been hidden behind a piece of furniture.

  “I think we need to compare these measurements to standard wheelchairs.”

  “Party pooper,” I said.

  “It’s called logical thinking. You should try it sometime.”

  I snorted, and we walked back to the townhouse under a canopy of stars surrounded by the chirping of crickets. Rick and I sat at the dining room table and looked at wheelchairs. “That looks like the one Garner uses,” I said, pointing at a lightweight chair with large wheels.

  We compared the measurements we had taken, and concluded that the ruts looked the right size for a wheelchair. “The wheel marks are too close together for a riding mower,” I said. “Or for one of those stand-on mowers the landscapers use here.”

  Rick agreed with me. “But it’s still all circumstantial. The details are good, but I’ll need something more concrete than your dog feeling threatened before I can bring Garner in for questioning.”

  “We have so much data already,” I said. “Why isn’t that enough?” I started enumerating. “Garner had a motive: he needs to protect his real estate empire, and Todd was threatening that.”

  “Evidence for that point?” he asked me.