Dog Bless You by Neil S. Plakcy Page B

knows who it is?”
    “I’ll do that, but I’m willing to bet they know nothing
about it. Give me a hand with the crime scene tape?” he asked. “As long as
you’re here and your feet are already mucky.”
    “Sure.”
    While he walked back to his car to get the tape, I
turned to Lili. “So much for our pleasant little excursion out into the
countryside.”
    “Better to find this body now, than later, when you’ve
got some kind of conference going on the property,” Lili said. “And better for
whoever that is in the ground, too.”
    A chill ran up my spine. “You’re right.” I took her
hand and squeezed. “I’m glad you were here with me.”
    “For a mild-mannered college administrator you lead a
very interesting life,” Lili said. “When I gave up photojournalism to come
teach at Eastern I worried I might get bored out here in the boondocks. Then I
met you.” She smiled. “You definitely keep things interesting.”
    Tony returned with a roll of yellow tape and a couple
of wooden stakes. I helped him secure a perimeter around the location of the
grave. “You guys can go now,” he said. “I’ll be here for a while longer.”
    “Let me know if I can help you with anything else,” I
said.
    Lili and I returned to the car, where I cleaned my feet
off once more. As we backed down the driveway I saw Tony leaning against his
sedan, talking on his cell phone.
    Rochester lay down on the back seat and pouted, annoyed
to have been left out of the fun, as I drove barefoot back to Stewart’s
Crossing. “There’s most likely a body there, don’t you think?” I asked. “I
mean, more than just the hand and the arm.”
    “Most likely,” Lili said.
    “I wonder if Tony will be able to match the remains to
any missing persons report. Those have got to be computerized, right?”
    “Steve. You’re not going to start hacking into police
databases checking for missing people, are you? You’re not a cop and if you do
anything like that you’re going to get into big trouble.”
    “I know. I’m just curious, is all. I mean, we don’t
even know if the person is male or female yet, how old, or any of that stuff.”
    I turned to look at her. “What if that’s not the only
body there? Suppose a serial killer has been burying his victims back there?”
    “Stop. You’re getting downright gruesome.”
    I concentrated on driving back to River Bend, though I
felt like I was pouting just as much as Rochester was.
    The first thing I did when we got there was wash my
feet and put on clean shoes and socks. Then Lili fixed us dinner while I took
Rochester for a long walk. He peed a lot but nothing else came out, and I was
grateful for that. When we got back I found that Lili had boiled up some
chicken for Rochester, and added white rice. “This’ll help settle his stomach,”
she said. “And I made enough so you’ll have it for a few days.”
    “How did you know that?” I asked. “You’ve never had a
dog.”
    “I’ve been around the world, Steve,” she said, as she
drained a big pot of pasta for us. “I picked up a few tricks along the way.”
    “I’ve noticed.” I stepped up behind her and kissed the
nape of her neck.
    She pushed back at me playfully, and we both laughed.

The Strange One in the Bunch
    That evening, Lili and I relaxed on my king-sized bed
together, both of us preparing for working with the College Connection by reading The Hunger Games . By the time Rochester was bumping his head against me
for his pre-bedtime walk, my mind was buzzing with ideas for a seminar with the
CC kids.
    “This book is cool,” I said. I closed it and pushed
Rochester away so I could find my shoes. “I love the whole dystopian theme. I
could get them talking about how this kind of thing could happen.”
    “Says the man who didn’t even want to read the book to
start with.”
    “Just because someone was making me read it,” I said. I
wondered about that. Was it that I was so far removed from being a student?