Free The Kingdom of Dog by Neil S. Plakcy

at the rooftops of Leighville. “He could be here in town, you know. Those letters make it seem like Taylor blamed everything that happened to him since 1985 on Joe. That gives him a big motive for murder.”
    â€œHe’s nuts, the poor guy. I’ll bet he never got to college after all.”
    It made me wonder. What would have happened if I hadn’t gotten in to Eastern? Would I have gone off the rails like Thomas Taylor? Ended up writing crackpot letters to Joe Dagorian?
    â€œWe should see if any of the names from Joe’s files show up on the guest list for last night,” I said. “But we’ll have to do that tomorrow. I need to get Rochester home for his dinner, and I need to call Tony Rinaldi and give him the list of rejects with grudges.”
    When I got back into my office, I discovered that Rochester had made a mess of my desk. The guest list for the party had been strewn across the floor, and he was lying beside my office chair with one piece of paper under his paw.
    â€œRochester! What did you do?”
    It wasn’t his fault, of course. I shouldn’t have left him alone in the office for such a long time. I leaned down and picked up the page, tugging it out from under him. Looking down, I saw it was the page that ran from K to N. There was a big hunk of doggie drool right in the middle-- next to Bob Moran’s name.
    I looked at Rochester. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
    In the past, Rochester had demonstrated an uncanny ability to point me toward clues. Was he telling me something about Bob Moran? But I realized that Norah Leedom’s name was on the list, too. And so was Sally Marston’s, and Mike MacCormac’s, as well as about fifty other people. Maybe he was just annoyed that I had left him behind?
    It was too much to think about. I knew I needed to call Tony Rinaldi, but I couldn’t face any more thoughts about death. I grabbed my briefcase and Rochester’s leash, and said, “Come on, boy, let’s go home.”
    At least I understood his response to that pretty clearly.

9 – Little Gray Cells
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    I stopped at Genuardi’s and picked up a couple of sandwiches, one for Rochester and one for me, and we went home. I hid a couple of vitamin pills in the bread and watched him scarf them down, then ate my own meal sitting in front of the TV, with Rochester sprawled next to me on the floor.
    I couldn’t concentrate on the TV; I kept thinking back to Joe Dagorian, wondering who could have killed him. Finally I got up and moved to the kitchen table, where I pulled a pad and a pen out of my briefcase. Hercule Poirot would have considered who had a motive to kill Joe, I thought. So I started listing suspects.
    Tony Rinaldi had his eye on Norah Leedom. Ex-wives were always good suspects; I knew that if I was ever murdered my ex would be on top of the list. And I knew from our conversation that afternoon that Joe had been trying to keep Norah from leaving Leighville. And who knew what other issues they had between them? Joe wasn’t an easy guy to work with, so I figured he’d been even worse to live with.
    Thinking of who Joe worked with brought me to Sally Marston. She was bright and enthusiastic, with lots of new ideas about college admissions, but Joe had kept her on a tight leash, not giving her the chance to experiment. And with him gone, she had stepped into his job. She seemed to have an alibi, though.
    The first thing she’d done, I knew, was offer a place in Eastern’s next class to Bob Moran’s son Marty. Could Moran have killed Joe? College admission seemed like such a minor thing-- yet I knew from experience that it meant a lot to many people. It could make or break a kid’s future. And for someone like Bob Moran, who had such a personal connection to Eastern, having his son rejected must have been hard to take. Was it enough to kill Joe over, though?
    Joe had argued with Mike MacCormac,