Three More Dogs in a Row by Neil Plakcy

Author:Neil Plakcy [Plakcy, Neil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Neil S. Plakcy
Published: 2018-01-13T22:00:00+00:00

19 – Difficult Times

By the time we reached our townhouse, Rick was pulling up in the driveway. I poured some chow in Rochester’s bowl, put up the gate to the second floor, and made sure there was water in his bowl. “Back soon, puppy,” I said, hurrying out the front door as he attacked his dinner with gusto.

Bristol is an old town, one of the oldest in Pennsylvania. It has three claims to fame: it was an early commercial center, and the Delaware Canal begins there, the one that runs through Stewart’s Crossing on its way to Easton. And then there’s “The Bristol Stomp,” a 1960s song by the Dovells, which you still hear played all over Bucks County.

“You have an address for the Carters, I presume,” I said, getting into Rick’s truck.

“No, I figured we’d triangulate the cell phone signal when we get close,” he said, slamming the truck into reverse and backing out my driveway. “Of course I have an address.”

“Why are you so angry at me?” I asked, holding onto the door as he rocketed down Minsk Lane. “I’m just trying to help you.”

“Investigation is my job,” he said. “And yet somehow you manage to wiggle your way into my cases.”

“I thought you wanted my help.” He stopped to wait for the gates to River Bend to open and allow us out. “I can get out here if you don’t want me along.”

“I don’t like needing your help,” he said. “It makes me feel like I can’t do what I’m supposed to.”

“That’s dumb,” I said. “You don’t do your own autopsies, do you? Collect the crime scene data? Prosecute defendants?”

“They’re all part of the team,” he said.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “And I’m not?”

“You’re an amateur.”

“And an ex-con,” I said. “I’m always going to be that in your mind, aren’t I? No matter how long we’re friends, and how much I do to show you that I’m trying to change?”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“That’s the way it came across. What would the chief of police say if he knew you were friends with a felon?”

“He can’t tell me who my friends are.”

“But if he knew that I was helping you with this case, he wouldn’t be happy, would he?”

Rick sighed deeply. “He wants me to get this case cleared. So he’ll have to live with how I do things. I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m frustrated because I can’t seem to get any traction on my own.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. We took US 1, the highway that stretches all the way from Fort Kent, Maine to Key West, Florida, which my father always called Useless One, to its connection to Route 13, and headed for Bristol.

When I was a kid, we went that way all the time – my dad had friends in Tullytown, near the Delaware, and we often visited them. During summer school, I took swimming lessons at a pool down there, and once we ate dinner at a restaurant made from an airplane.

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