Free Who Let the Dog Out? by David Rosenfelt

amazing ability to go invisible when trailing someone.
    “You okay with this, Marcus?” Laurie asks.
    “Yuh,” says Marcus, understating the case.

 
    I know very little about Markham College. That isn’t typical of me; I actually know a great deal about many of our nation’s finest academic institutions. For example, even though it’s only April, I can tell you which school Notre Dame is playing in their opening game. And I can probably predict three of the Heisman finalists right now, though not a pass has yet been thrown.
    The thing about Markham that keeps it off my radar is that it pretty much doesn’t have a single team that I can bet on, or against. I’m not saying that reflects negatively on Markham as an institution; it is known for turning out leaders in fields as diverse as the sciences, math, engineering, and the arts.
    That’s all well and good, but it doesn’t get you into a bowl game.
    Of course, these days Markham is known for more than academic achievement and mediocre athletics. It has been plunged into the news in a way that this small northern New Jersey college has never been before. Markham may have turned out some very accomplished scholars, but right now none are as famous as Eric Brantley and the late Michael Caruso.
    I’m here to see Professor Charles Horowitz, who runs the chemistry department at Markham. He was the person that both Brantley and Caruso reported to, which means he has been besieged with interview requests from the media. I read somewhere that he has been turning them all down, so rather than call him direct and get shot down, I called Robby Divine.
    I originally met Robby while sitting next to him at a charity dinner. I have almost thirty million dollars, much of it inherited, but if that much money slipped through a hole in Robby’s pocket, he probably wouldn’t notice it.
    He’s a multibillionaire and a graduate of Markham, but wealthy alums don’t necessarily impress the Markham administrators. Wealthy alums who donate twenty million dollars to the school do make an impression, however, and that is the category that Robby falls into.
    It’s fair to say that they have an interest in keeping Robby happy, so when he called and said he would like Professor Horowitz to meet with me, the word made its way down to the good professor that he should do just that.
    So he is. Today. But that doesn’t mean he has to like it, and I’m expecting quite a bit of resistance. I’ll probably be called on to use a significant amount of the Andy Carpenter charm. Fortunately I have it in ample supply.
    If I called central casting and asked them to send down a chemistry professor, he would look nothing like Charles Horowitz. Horowitz is at least six foot six, maybe 190 pounds, and he can’t be more than forty years old. He looks like he’d be more at home on a basketball court getting a rebound than hunched over a Bunsen burner or microscope or whatever the hell chemists hunch over.
    “I hope this isn’t about Eric Brantley,” he says.
    “Your hope is about to be dashed,” I say.
    “I’ve told the police everything I know, which isn’t much.”
    “Then let’s start not with what you know, but what you think. Do you think Brantley killed his partner?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “Just a feeling I have. I simply don’t see him capable of that kind of violence. He and Michael were best friends, which makes it even harder to believe, but that’s not what I base it on. It’s just not Eric.”
    “Why did they leave their jobs? Were they fired?”
    He thinks for a moment, though that shouldn’t be that tough a question to answer. “Not really, though by the time Eric left, I would describe it as a mutual parting.”
    “What caused it?”
    “I’m not really sure. Eric just seemed to lose interest in what he was supposed to be doing. His research work slacked off, as did his teaching. It was uncharacteristic, to say the least.”
    “Do you have any suspicions about