In Dog's Image: Golden Retriever Mysteries, #17

By Neil S. Plakcy

Join Steve Levitan and Lili Weinstock as they navigate the treacherous waters of wedding planning in "In Dog's Image," a captivating traditional mystery novel.

 

Amidst disagreements over guest lists, menu selections, and even wedding attire, their impending nuptials face more than just typical hurdles.

 

The real challenge emerges with the mysterious demise of a prominent gallery owner. Lili finds herself entangled in a web of intrigue when she is asked to identify esteemed artists who graced an event she photographed two decades ago. As shadows of the past resurface, the couple's wedding concerns pale in comparison to the enigma unfolding before them.

 

Lili digs deep into her memories, Steve scans the dark web for details about a crime that went unpunished, and Rochester sniffs out clues to help them both bring justice.

 

As they peel back layers of deception, they uncover a complex tapestry of secrets, rivalries, and unspoken motives. "In Dog's Image" is a riveting tale where the boundaries between personal celebrations and perilous investigations blur. Will Lili, Steve, and Rochester unearth the buried truth and deliver justice, or will the past's long-shrouded mysteries remain forever concealed?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Samwise Books
• Release date: Oct 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223140030

Neil S. Plakcy

Neil Plakcy is the author of over thirty romance and mystery novels. He lives in South Florida with his partner and two rambunctious golden retrievers. His website is www.mahubooks.com.

Book preview

1: Iconic Photo

On a Wednesday evening , the last day of May, Lili and I were in the kitchen preparing dinner and our golden retriever Rochester was nosing around our legs hoping that something would end up on the floor. Springsteen was on in the background, singing from an iPad in the corner. Lili said, So Steve, I got an interesting phone call today.

Really? From?

A guy named Jonathan Wiesner. He’s opened a photography gallery on Ferry Street across from Mark’s antique store, and he has a photo I took years ago. He wants me to come over and authenticate it and see if I can identify any of the other people.

What’s the subject?

She twisted an ivory-colored tie and wrapped it around her auburn curls, then put on a flowered apron that had belonged to her mother. In that moment I could see a resemblance to Señora Weinstock, whom I’d only met once, but seen in many photos. Both women had a vibrant appearance. Lili’s lips were naturally rosy, and her skin was smooth and tanned.

Then she pulled out a big Santoku knife and checked the sharpness against her finger and my impression changed completely. Satisfied, she grabbed a cutting board and began slicing chicken breasts into narrow strips. A painter named Norman Bewley. Have you ever heard of him?

Can’t say I have.

He was a member of what was called the New York School, a branch of abstract expressionism. I never really cared for his work, but he had some big sales back in the day. He had a very big ego and he was known for getting into fights with other artists. The day I photographed him, he had a black eye and a bruised right hand, and he insisted that I show both.

A sliver of chicken skittered off the cutting board and flew to the floor, and Rochester was right on top of it. That isn’t even cooked, boy! she said.

I was too late to snatch it from him. He wolfed it down quickly, barely chewing it, and then stuck his tongue out in a satisfied grin.

I stepped up on a chair to retrieve our giant wok from its place above the kitchen cabinets. He sounds like a real character, I said, as I got down.

He was, believe me. She smiled and turned to me. That photograph made my reputation, though I didn’t realize it at the time. The shot I took was much broader, including a lot of other people, but the photo editor at the magazine cropped it to focus on his face.

I’d like to see it.

She went back to cooking. I’ll pull it up on the phone for you when we finish. The writer was a timid young woman named Tillie, only a couple of years older than I was, and she was so frightened of him that it was hard to get him to answer any questions.

When was this?

She frowned, a sign she was doing the math in her head. Let’s see. I was still married to Adriano, though our relationship was on the rocks, and I’d gone back to school at NYU to finish my bachelor’s in art history. I had been taking photographs of Adriano and his friends, and one of them was an editor at Condé Nast. She liked my work and hired me for occasional jobs, usually to accompany a personality profile in one of the magazines.

She poured some oil in the wok to heat up and then moved on to slicing vegetables. My Jersey Jam playlist on the iPad switched to Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes.

So this was early nineties, ninety-three or ninety-four. I wasn’t thrilled with the job, but I was glad to be assembling credits and putting aside a nest egg for the future.

I had never heard much about this time in Lili’s life, when she was balancing a dying marriage with carrying on her education. I was interested and had learned, along with many other things about our relationship, that the most intriguing things came up when I kept quiet and let other people talk.

As Adriano’s wife I got free tuition, so I was determined to stay married until graduation, even though he was already dating someone else.

Adriano sounds like a real prince. I poured a cup of water and a dollop of olive oil into a small saucepan and set it to boil.

She slid the vegetables into the wok and the oil sizzled. What can I say? I was young and naïve and he was handsome and brilliant. I was nineteen and he was thirty-eight, already established as an academic superstar. Which meant I didn’t have much say in anything. We ate where he wanted to, hung out with his friends and important people in the art world.

Was that interesting? Getting a look into that world?

It was, I can’t deny that. He was writing a biography of Suzanne Valadon, who modeled for Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec, but was also a painter in her own right. We had amazing conversations about the role of women in art, as models, inspiration, and as artists themselves. It was a very heady time. And as well, I thought getting married would give me the stability I didn’t have with my parents, because we moved around so much.

The earthy fragrance of the cooking vegetables rose from the wok and floated through the kitchen air. My senior year I took a course in philosophy and we studied Hegel, Lili said. Have you read him?

Only the basics. He’s the guy who came up with thesis and antithesis, right?

Indeed. She spoke as she tossed the vegetables and the chicken strips in the wok. The savory aroma made my mouth water, and I could tell it was doing the same thing to Rochester.

Gradually I realized that my transient childhood was my initial thesis, the way I believed my life was organized. Marrying Adriano and moving into the apartment he owned, where he had lived for ten years, was the total opposite of that—the antithesis. I was going to be settled in one place, which my parents had never managed. And I was going to have a career, the opposite of my mother’s life.

I measured out a cup of rice. But if I’m remembering my Hegel correctly, eventually the thesis and the antithesis merge together to form a new thesis. Right?

Yup. I realized that by marrying a foreign man who spoke with an accent, I was subconsciously replacing my father, which I did not like. And I came to see that I could be independent and have my own career, but I didn’t need a man to hold me down.

Ouch, I said. You don’t think I’m holding you down, do you?

Not at all. But it took time for me to work through a couple of versions of myself until I could put everything together.

She looked at me quizzically. How did we get onto this topic?

You were telling me about a photograph you took of an artist.

Right. Norman Bewley. Having learned how to manage artistic egos with Adriano, I was particularly good with photographing difficult personalities, and Bewley was known for being very finicky, so this editor assigned me to put together shots to accompany a retrospective of Bewley’s career.

She stirred the food in the wok. It involved Tillie and me following him to various locations around the city. Places that inspired him, the gallery where his work was being shown, and the Old Town Tavern in Manhattan, where he was holding court surrounded by adoring acolytes.

I nodded. The water boiled, and I poured the rice into it and set it aside.

We left the veggies and chicken to simmer while the rice finished cooking, and Lili pulled out her phone. All I have to do is Google his name, and my photo of him comes up, she said, as she did just that.

She handed me the phone.

I recognize that picture, I said. I couldn’t have told you who it is, but I’ve seen it before.

It’s the first time I captured the essence of a subject in a photograph, she said. I didn’t realize how good it was at first. The photo editor cropped out everyone in the background and focused on his face. Bewley was a painter, but he destroyed every idea of effete artists with that photo, and because of it I got a lot more commissions.

She crossed her arms over her chest. At the last minute I shifted from a BA in art history to a BFA in photography. By the time I finished my degree, I was successful enough to break away from Adriano.

So it’s an important photograph in a bunch of different ways. I divided the rice into two portions. Then Lili scooped chicken and vegetables on top, and I carried the plates to the table, Rochester nosing around between my legs.

Lili quickly rinsed the wok and left it to soak, then joined me at the table as Southside sang that he didn’t want to go home. At that moment I couldn’t have disagreed with him more. I had a home with this woman, and this dog, and I couldn’t ask for more.

Lili continued, Apparently this dealer, Jonathan, got hold of an archive of photographs from this magazine, many of them never published. He has the original shots with all those people in the background, and he wants me to look them over and see if I can identify any of them.

For what reason? I asked, as I began to eat.

I don’t remember who was there, but let’s say another painter who practiced in the same style was around Bewley. Then scholars can infer a relationship between them, and maybe compare their work based on that.

We ate, listening to Southside’s horn section, and I slipped Rochester a piece of chicken (well, maybe more than one). Then I took the dog out for a long walk around River Bend, the gated community where we lived.

It was high summer by then, the sun was still bright in the early evening, and all the oaks and maples were in full leaf. A bluebird swooped in front of us, and squirrels chittered in the branches. River Bend had been built about twenty years before, and the mature trees provided an excellent canopy against the sun. There were certain blocks we avoided, though, because the roots of some big trees had begun to break up the asphalt, and they’d been removed in the spring. The new trees were skinnier and shorter, usually propped up by wooden tripods, and they didn’t provide the same shade.

They would, eventually, and I was glad that the whole tree removal issue of the spring, which I had been involved in, had come to a placid resolution. The homeowners were happy that their driveways could be smoothed out, and the real estate agents were pleased with the way the new trees added color to the streets. The vibrant orange of the Chinese pistache contrasted nicely with the dark green of the oaks and maples, and the red tip photonia would bring a splash of red and green even in the winter.

I wondered if someone would want to paint the landscape in front of me. Lili was excellent at capturing light and movement in her photographs. If she were with me, and had her camera ready, she’d catch the way a squirrel spread his front paws to leap from one branch to another. She’d contrast the dun color of a wood dove on a coral tile roof against the brilliant green of a nearby branch.

But a painter would see things differently, I was sure. I had a basic understanding of abstract art, and had learned, partly from Lili’s guidance, how to see through a Picasso painting to visualize the original source material, how the angles and the relationship of the objects inspired him.

I wondered what it was about Bewley’s psyche that made him want to be photographed that way. And what about the other guy? Was he in the background at the party, or had Lili photographed the brawl earlier in the day?

2: Hot Sun in the Summertime

Starting the next day , Thursday June 1, administrative offices at Eastern College, including faculty office hours, were on a summer schedule. We worked four days a week, with no classes or events on Fridays.

That was fine with me because my workload was a lot smaller in the summer. That afternoon, I was already finished with my week and didn’t know what I could do to pass the time. It didn’t seem right to leave just because I didn’t have any work to do. I took Rochester out for a long walk.

The air was sweltering, so I tried to keep to the shade of the towering maples, taking us on a hopscotch path toward the forested edge of the property, where I hoped it would be cooler. Rochester wasn’t completely with the program, and I frequently had to tug him into line.

All around us, the sun cast its brilliant rays on the rolling landscape, painting everything in a golden hue. The air was thick with humidity, carrying a sense of languidness that seemed to slow down time itself. The sky was a vivid blue canvas, interrupted only by occasional wisps of cotton-like clouds that drifted lazily across the heavens.

The Pennsylvania countryside unfolded like a patchwork quilt, with fields of tall, sun-kissed grasses swaying in the warm breeze. The leaves of towering oak and maple trees appeared to shimmer as they caught the sunlight, creating pockets of shade beneath their branches where wildlife sought refuge from the unrelenting heat.

Rochester disturbed a squirrel who dashed across the open grasses, and the big dog strained to follow him. He was close to a hundred pounds of muscle, so I had to plant my feet sturdily on the ground and hold tight to his leash, until he gave up the chase and returned to me.

I spotted Joey Capodilupo standing by the back side of the chapel talking to a stranger in a ball cap and jeans, and Rochester and I walked over toward them.

I shared my duties at Friar Lake with Joey, who took care of the physical plant while I scheduled events, managed the budget, and handled publicity. I had offered to let him bring his English Cream golden Brody to Friar Lake, but he said he was often too busy with handyman projects to keep a close eye on the dog, who was a handful. Having Joey there also gave me someone to leave Rochester with if I had to go somewhere I couldn’t take him.

Friar Lake had once been a monastery, and Eastern College had bought the collection of old stone buildings a few years before, when I’d been given the task of updating the property to become a conference center. The stone gatehouse where I had my office was adjacent to the paved parking lot. The Gothic-style chapel, a two-story edifice of stone with stained glass windows, was behind there.

I’m glad you came over, Steve, Joey said. This is Dave Chang, from Solar Survivors. He’s here to give me a quote on putting solar panels on the chapel roof.

Right, I said. I shook hands with Dave, a stocky guy with a weather-beaten face. I think you said we have to have a southern-facing roof to make the panels work best?

Dave nodded. While that’s the orientation we prefer, east- and west-facing roofs will produce approximately 80% as much solar energy as a south-facing roof. Fortunately you have a lot of space up there, and there’s nothing to get in the way of the sunlight.

Will the panels be very visible? I asked. I’m worried about the aesthetics of putting something so modern in the middle of all this old architecture.

Fortunately, your chapel is oriented so people will be coming in from the parking lot on the north side, Dave said. You won’t be able to see the south roof as you approach. And as you can see, there’s not much reason for people to be back on this side.

It was true. The south side of the chapel faced the woods. I walked backwards for a few feet, looking up at the angle of the roof. You’re right, I said. Someone would have to be way back toward the trees to see the roof.

I looked back at him. How long will this take?

Considering the height of your roof and the panel coverage, I’d say about five days.

Well, I’m getting married here over Columbus Day weekend, so we’ll need to have all the construction done by then.

All depends on how quickly you get your purchase order approved, the weather, and then the rest of the work I have on the schedule.

I’ll approve whatever Joey gives me, as long as we’re in budget.

I thanked Dave, and Rochester and I continued our walk.

The aroma of wildflowers filled the air, mingling with the earthy scent of the rich soil and the faint whiff of distant hay fields. The symphony of nature played in the background: the distant chirping of crickets and the occasional buzzing of bees as they darted among the blossoms in search of nectar.

The heat radiated from the ground, making the world seem to shimmer slightly at the edges. The warmth touched my skin and beads of sweat formed on my brow, a testament to the energy-sapping heat. At least it would be a lot cooler by October.

Despite the heat, there was a real beauty to the hot afternoon. Life seemed to pause, allowing me to appreciate the simplicity and natural splendor all around us. But I was still eager to get back in the air-conditioning of the guardhouse.

The heat still hadn’t let up by evening, and I hurried Rochester through his after-dinner walk. After our return, he was sprawled on the floor in front of me when my phone rang. I had long ago set up ring tones for some of my friends and other frequent callers, and the disco beat of ABBA told me that it was my grad school roommate and close friend Tor.

Hallå, I answered, and Tor laughed.

Your Swedish accent is not getting any better with age, he said. How are you, my friend?

I’m very well. And you?

The same. I have a friend, though, who is not doing so well. I am hoping you can talk to him.

Is he in trouble?

At this time only of the emotional kind. Do you remember my friend from B-School Arie Fleischmann?

Doesn’t ring a bell. Tor and I had lived together while I was getting my MA in English at Columbia and he was in the business school, but our friend groups didn’t merge. He hung out with other future titans of industry who talked about things like internal rate of return, stakeholders, and critical path method, all of which meant nothing to me.

My friends were other grad students in English, and we discussed the difference between Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnets. Two different languages.

You came to see me perform in the Follies, Tor said. He sang and danced each term in a musical comedy review written and performed by MBA students, spoofing their experiences. His specialty was impersonating professors in an accent reminiscent of the Swedish Chef from the Muppets. Since he was a native Swede that was easy for him.

Arie wrote the lyrics for a version of Money, that’s what I want"