State University of Murder by Lev Raphael

Author:Lev Raphael
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, college teachers, , mass shootings
ISBN: 978- 1-56474-823-2
Publisher: Perseverance Press
Published: 2019-04-07T00:00:00+00:00

Part III

13

Stefan had even less to say to Valley, so he and I were the first to leave after Ciska announced the obvious: the retreat was cancelled.

Our drive home felt longer because we were both silenced by the enormity of Napoléon’s death. And what had seemed bucolic and pleasant in the landscape now struck me as menacing. At one point Stefan just muttered, “Robustelli,” and I assumed he was thinking of the extravagant way Roberto had praised Napoléon. He chuckled a bit, but the image didn’t amuse me.

I had to smile, though, when we got home because Marco was so happy to see us, running around in ecstatic circles. Remembering a line Edith Wharton had written in her diary, that her dog was “a heartbeat at my feet,” I scooped Marco up into my arms. He licked my nose while I ruffled his fur. I loved the unique way he smelled—like fresh popcorn. And I envied him. I was constantly aware that life was so simple for Marco: food, walks, playing with toys, naps, barking at the TV when it dared to parade a dog across the screen.

“I’ll order pizza for lunch,” Stefan said, and he went to the counter iPad to go online.

“With extra pepperoni,” I said. “And extra cheese. And extra Valium.”

He grunted at my meager joke. We both felt the weight of the day’s events.

I set Marco down and he trotted over to his water dish, slurped some and then took himself off to the kitchen door and turned around, telling us he needed to go potty, so I let him out into the yard. The fence was high enough to keep deer out, which meant that we didn’t have to worry about him rolling in anything foul. Flowers were a lost cause: He’d already dug up all the bulbs that were there when we moved in—he was a terrier, after all.

I went to the half bath off the kitchen and when I came back in, I closed my eyes and breathed in the aromas of that room: three shelves of cookbooks; a pumpkin spice candle that we’d lit the night before and left open after blowing it out; Marco’s dog bed; and the roasted warmth coming from the oven Stefan had turned on to keep the pizza warm when it arrived.

Stefan brought out two Köstritzer Schwarzbiers from the fridge. He had recently become a beer aficionado and insisted on having the “official glasses” for each brand so that we drank it as it was meant to be savored. That required clearing out a whole cabinet as he bought more and more glassware for Duvel, Hoegaarden, Leffe, Blanche de Bruxelles, Stella Artois, and others I couldn’t recall.

We sat and toasted silently in heavy, thick-stemmed glasses embossed with the Köstritzer label. The earthy, toasty, chocolate flavors were just what I needed right then. I looked around the red-and-white kitchen and felt even more at home, perhaps because of the tragedy at the retreat.

Stefan got up to let Marco

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