Blessing of the Dogs: Golden Retriever Mysteries, #18

By Neil S. Plakcy

Steve Levitan and Lili Weinstock are on their way to the altar—but dognapping and murder get in the way.

 

The theft of the vice-mayor's dog unveils a widespread pattern of canine thefts. Could those poor pooches be on their way to a testing lab or a puppy mill? And how does that case play into the death of a Billy Joel tribute act? Could the caterer they've hired be responsible?

 

It will take all of Steve's hacking skills and Rochester's talent for nosing out clues to close these cases before Steve and Lili can walk down the aisle... or will a killer ruin their happy ending?

 

Blessing of the Dogs blends humor, heart, and an intriguing puzzle only Steve, Rochester and readers can solve. It's the perfect new installment for fans of this charming series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Samwise Books
• Release date: Feb 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223155126

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: Ring Bearer

Steven Levitan. You can’t avoid this any longer, my fiancée Lili said. We have to focus on the wedding. Columbus Day weekend is fast approaching and we still have a lot of details to work out.

We were on the couch in the living room of our townhouse, with paperwork spread around us on the coffee table. Our golden retriever, Rochester, was asleep in the lion’s pose on the floor across from us. His head was on top of his paws, similar to statues of lions you might see outside of large buildings. Dogs in that pose were resting lightly, eager to jump up and play at any moment.

Lili and I were finalizing seating charts, writing directions from the synagogue to the reception at Friar Lake, and choosing the custom cocktail we were going to serve for our wedding toast.

I was talking to Sherri this morning, and the first thing she wanted to know was where they should stay when they come down from the city. I didn’t realize it but we have to suggest a place where all the out-of-town guests will stay, she said. Particularly for my family, they’ll all want to be in the same hotel so that when they’re not at the wedding they can be together.

Sherri was my friend Tor’s wife, and she had been Lili’s go-to gal for all the planning that went into the ceremony and reception.

Something rose in my throat. We’re not paying for their rooms, are we?

Not unless you woke up this morning as a Rockefeller, she said. Her eyes widened and she stopped for a moment, then added, I can’t believe those words came out of my mouth. It’s like I’m channeling my mother.

You can’t help it, I said. She’s inside you.

That is a terrifying thought, despite the fact that it’s true. She took a deep breath. So. Where are we putting this crowd of crazy Latin Americans?

As if he was bored with our conversation, Rochester woke, opened his mouth wide and yawned, then jumped up on the sofa across from us. He flopped onto his back, his paws in the air and his belly exposed. He waved his paws in the air, because dogs sweat through their paws, and that was his way of cooling himself down. Then he buried his snout in the sofa cushions and wiggled his big body around.

Steve. Focus on me, not on the dog.

I looked back at Lili. She had a large family and she insisted we had to invite them all. I doubted people would fly all the way from San Salvador to Bucks County for a wedding of a distant cousin, but I underestimated the Weinstock clan. Based on the responses we’d gotten to the invitation, we were expecting nearly a hundred people from her side of the family alone.

My side was much smaller. While I had grown up with nearly a dozen cousins between my father and mother, many of them had moved away and lost touch, with me and with each other. I refused to send invitations to cousins in California, Oregon, and Israel whom I hadn’t seen in decades. My local family was much smaller, and I would barely be able to raise a minyan, or a group of ten adult Jews, if they all decided to come.

We’d also invited many of our friends from Stewart’s Crossing as well as colleagues at Eastern College, where Lili and I both worked.

We could put some of them up at Friar Lake, I said. The conference center I managed was a converted monastery, and we’d renovated the monks’ cells into guest rooms.

My Tia Rebecca is not going to stay in a cell, Lili said. Tia Rebecca and Tio Moises, who were flying in from San Salvador, were the last living relatives of Lili’s parents’ generation, thus the leaders of the family.

We did a nice job of renovating those cells, I said. Comfortable furniture and en-suite bathrooms.

You admit they are cells, she said triumphantly.

Stewart’s Crossing had a lot going for it, as far as small towns go. A charming downtown of shops and restaurants. A scenic location along the Delaware. What it didn’t have was a hotel.

The Drunken Hessian rented a few rooms above the bar, but there wouldn’t be enough room there for all our guests. And if Tia Rebecca wouldn’t be pleased with the accommodations at Friar Lake, she wouldn’t want to climb the stairs to a series of small rooms above a bar full of rowdy patrons.

Why didn’t we think of this earlier? I asked.

Rochester jumped down from the sofa and came over to us, nuzzling at our legs.

Because I didn’t think so many of them were going to come, she said, and she began petting the dog absently. This wedding is turning into one of those Appalachian family reunions where everyone shows up with a T-shirt showing off the family tree.

I doubt your family will look anything like people from Appalachia, I said. "And I cannot imagine your Tia Rebecca in a T-shirt that reads Kiss Me, I’m a Weinstock!"

Actually she’s a Goldschmidt, Lili said. She’s on my mother’s side. But that’s beside the point. Where are we going to put them all?

There are some charming hotels upriver in New Hope, but they’re all small and expensive, and I doubt at this late date that we’d be able to book a large enough block of rooms. I hesitated because I knew how Lili would react. There’s always Sesame Place, I said. There are hotels around there.

You want my Tia Rebecca and Tio Moises to run into Elmo and Oscar the Grouch at the breakfast buffet?

Rochester recoiled at the tone in her voice and walked across the room to flop on the floor again.

I doubt they let the characters out of the theme park to infest the hotels, I said. I grabbed my iPad and did a quick hotel search. There’s a Red Roof Inn, and the Holiday Inn Express gets four stars.

You are going to be seeing stars soon.

Okay, okay. There’s a Sheraton and a Springhill Suites right there. And it’s not far from Oxford Valley to the shul in Stewart’s Crossing.

Lili looked over my shoulder and frowned. They’re both right by the highway, she said.

You say that like it’s a bad thing, I said. They can hop on US 1 and go outlet shopping at Franklin Mills. They can head in the other direction, get off at Pine Grove Road, and drive upriver to the shul and then the reception. And there’s a hospital right there in case one of your elderly relatives falls.

Lili spit three times and said, Pu, pu, pu. Don’t even say something like that.

Do you want to call these hotels and ask if they have rooms available?

She sighed. I can do that. At least it will be one more thing off the list. Though if they don’t have the rooms, we’re back at square one. She picked up her iPad and started looking for the hotel contact numbers.

Meanwhile, I was on my own device, looking for information on how to negotiate those room blocks. Hold off for a minute, I said. There are two types of blocks. Courtesy blocks and contracted ones. There’s no charge for the courtesy blocks, but often that’s because you’re having the reception, and maybe the ceremony, in the hotel. We might have to cough up some money to guarantee a block, so be sure to ask when we can cancel and get our money back, in case not enough of your relatives want to stay there.

Lili made a note. When I went to Arielle’s wedding, they handed out gift bags at check in. Water bottles, snacks, a map of the city. Are we doing that?

I groaned. If you want. That’s something Tamsen can help with. Tamsen was my friend Rick’s wife, a distributor of promotional products. She was a whiz at putting together packages for corporate events.

I’ll ask if they can do that. And if they can give me updates on the number of rooms booked.

How many rooms will you need? I asked. This website says you divide the number of out-of-town guests by two.

Let me look at the guest list. She hunted around on the coffee table and pulled up a piece of paper with a lot of handwritten stuff on it. My oldest cousins are Saul, who’s a year older than I am, and Miriam who’s my age. We grew up together in Havana and then my father moved us to Mexico City. A few months after that, Tio Victor and Tia Bella came to Mexico City, too. That’s where my cousin Noah was born. That branch of the Goldschmidts stayed in Mexico. Saul has twin daughters who graduated from college a couple of years ago.

She took a sip of her chai tea. Miriam and her husband have one daughter, Esther, who went to college for a couple of years and then dropped out to apprentice with a jewelry maker.

How do you keep track of all these people?

She looked at me. They’re my cousins. Even though we’re spread around the world now we’re still in touch with each other.

I gave up trying to keep track of names after that. Lili dictated, and I typed the names and genders and marital status into my spreadsheet.

That’s my mother’s side, she said when I had fifty people on my list. Now for my father’s.

I repressed a groan, and Lili kept telling me names. Ashkenazi Jews name after the dead, and Lili’s father was one of the first of his generation to pass. So there were two Rafis, a Rafael, and a Raphael who went by Chucho.

We came up with a rough number of rooms, and Lili got on the phone. I grabbed my laptop and went hunting for a map we’d had drawn at Friar Lake, providing directions to the venue. I knew the artist, a freelancer who lived in Stewart’s Crossing, so I was sure I could get her to add a few landmarks to her map, like the hotel and the synagogue.

Rochester came over to me, and I petted him as I made notes about the map.

By the time I looked up, Lili had finished her call with the Sheraton. That was surprisingly easy, she said. A convention had asked them to hold two dozen rooms, and the organizer passed away suddenly, and the group cancelled last week. I took over their room block. Now I have to send the information to all my cousins and encourage them to make their reservations.

Good. Now that that’s done, let’s talk about the wedding itself. I want Rochester to be part of the ceremony. Maybe call him the ring-bearer and send him down the aisle with the rings in a box on his collar.

I don’t think so, Steve, Lili said. I know you love him, and I do too, but he’s too determined to do his own thing. You can’t count on him to behave.

He’ll come to me, I said. Joey can hold onto him until the right time, and then let him come trotting down the aisle. People will love it.

The object of our discussion was lying on his side on the floor, alternating between staring at us and licking the place where his testicles once were.

And what happens if he decides to stop along the way and jump on my Tia Rebecca? Lili asked. Or slobber on my Tio Moises’s pants?

What if we have Joey and Mark escort him down the aisle? I’ll lean down and hug him and take the rings off his collar, and Joey and Mark can walk him off to the side.

Rochester gave up what he was doing and walked over to his water bowl, where he slurped noisily.

And what if he barks? Or strains to get away from them? Lili said. I can imagine walking down the aisle to get married and Rochester breaking free and getting paw prints and slobber all over my dress.

I took her hand. You will look radiant no matter what happens.

Rochester decided to come over and dry his face on the paperwork on the coffee table. See what I mean? Lili said. She grabbed the seating chart from beneath his jowls and hurriedly dried it on her jeans.

Why don’t I take him out for a walk, and we’ll get back to these details later, I said.

You can run but you can’t hide, she said. Bridezilla will get you in the end.

I laughed as I put on Rochester’s leash. Lili was far from a bridezilla, though I could tell the details of the wedding were beginning to overwhelm her. Why don’t you talk some of these details over with Tamsen, I said. You know I’ll go along with everything you decide.

Tamsen and Rick had agreed to be our attendants at the ceremony. Tamsen, who had been raised in the Quaker tradition, was also a very calming person.

This is your wedding too, Mr. Levitan, Lili said. I expect you to get as stressed out over it as I am.

It's going to be a beautiful wedding, I said, pulling her in for a kiss. Try not to stress too much. We'll figure everything out together.

Lili nodded, then leaned down to give Rochester a pat on the head. No wedding mischief from you while you’re out, okay boy?

Rochester responded by flopping over on his back, eliciting a laugh from Lili. She gave me a wave as I headed out the door and I marveled at how lucky I was. Bridezilla or not, I couldn't wait to marry that woman.

2: The Eruv

That evening, I tugged on Rochester’s leash and hurried him out of the house. We hopped into my SUV and drove down to a favorite path along the Delaware River. It was late September so the trees still wore their summer finery, and the lacing of their branches overhead provided a cool, quiet place to walk and reflect.

Lili had always been a paragon of calm efficiency, the kind of woman who could pack for a photographic assignment to a warzone in a half hour, including the choice of which cameras and lenses to take. Reporters who had worked with her during her career as a photojournalist always praised her ability to focus on her subject, despite the rumble of tanks or the sound of faraway explosions.

But putting together a simple party seemed to have undone her.

My first wedding was planned largely by my ex-wife and her mother, with occasional input from my mother. Mary’s father paid the bills, and all I had to do was recruit my groomsmen, get fitted for my tuxedo, and show up at the synagogue on time. I’d managed all that.

Mary had similarly orchestrated all the details of our divorce, though that was largely because I was a guest of the California penal system at the time, due to some unfortunate hacking I’d carried out in the foolish hope it would save our marriage.

I hoped that level-headed Tamsen would calm Lili down. She’d gone through the whole fancy wedding thing with her first husband, a soldier who was killed in Afghanistan a few years later. She and Rick had chosen to elope to Vegas when they got married, with Tamsen’s son Justin as their only guest.

Rochester tugged me forward, eager to investigate the next smell. Lili was right, he was strong-willed, but he had very good instincts. I was accustomed to giving him his head, because often we were investigating something to help Rick, who was one of the police detectives in Stewart’s Crossing.

He had an admirable rate of clearing cases, in small part because I used my computer skills, and my understanding of the clues Rochester provided. So my golden’s wild side was as much my fault as his.

We were walking along the Delaware, enjoying the cool breeze coming off the river, when he spotted a man at the top of a long ladder which leaned against a tall oak tree, and barked once.

I might have assumed the man was a county worker, trimming trees, except for the way he was dressed, in a black suit and black Borsalino, a felt top hat favored by Orthodox Jews. Rochester sat on his butt and we watched as the man tied a rope around the very top of the tree trunk. Then two other men stepped out of the woods from the other direction. One was dressed the way the man in the tree was, in a black coat and Borsalino. The other wore faded jeans and a T-shirt from one of Billy Joel’s concert tours.

Finish this section, Shimmy, and we’re done, the second man in black said to the man in the tree.

All I have to do is toss this rope over there and tie it to the maple tree, Shimmy said.

With the precision of a rodeo rider, he tossed the ball of rope across to the maple. Rochester and I watched as the rope unfurled, the end landing in the crown of the maple.

The two men on the ground applauded, and