The Wrong Dog Read online

  I looked up Ruth’s home number and dialed it next.

  “It’s me, Rachel,” I said. Again. “Can I meet you tomorrow, after school? I’d like to see if any of Sophie’s students—”

  “I thought you were going to wait a few days.”

  “I thought so, too,” I told her. “I’m at the apartment now. At Sophie’s. And I see her rent was paid on the twentieth of the month, not the first. So I don’t have as much time as I thought I did. Unless I want to pay the rent, these animals, and all Sophie’s stuff, are going to have to be out of here in a week. I don’t know that I could do that legally even if I wanted to.”

  “Do what?”

  “Pay her rent.”

  “How come?”

  “I’m not a relative. And once this place becomes vacant, the rent will go up. So why would they want to delay that? Anyway, can you meet me? I’m hoping that she talked to the kids about her family. So far, I haven’t found anything here that would lead me in that direction.”

  “They get out at three. I can meet you out front.”

  “I’ll be there. And Ruth, I’m bringing Bianca.”

  “Why Bianca and not Blanche?”

  “Because I want to attract them over to us with a dog that looks like the one they saw every day, but I don’t want to shock them. I think bringing Blanche might do that.”

  “I don’t know. Whatever you think.”

  “And one more thing…”

  “Yes?”

  “There’s a photograph on the refrigerator door, a picture of a nice-looking young man, thirtyish, curly hair, nice eyes.” Holding the phone in place by hiking up one shoulder, I used both hands to slide the snapshot out from under the little magnetized bone that held it to the fridge.

  “It must be Herbie.”

  I turned it over, then turned it back, waiting for Ruth to continue.

  “We were talking on the phone one time while she was seeing him and she said she liked to look at him while she got the dogs’ food ready. That’s so sad, isn’t it?”

  “That she liked to look at his picture while she made the dogs’ dinner?”

  His name was printed neatly on the back of the snapshot Herbie. That’s all. No last name.

  “No. That she kept it there, even after they broke up. I guess you can’t stay mad forever.”

  “Was Sophie mad at him?”

  There was a long pause.

  “I assumed so. She never actually said.”

  “Maybe she just forgot that the picture was there.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “I don’t believe that either,” I said.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Rachel. Right out front.” Getting off the phone before she started to cry.

  I put the picture on the far end of the counter and started feeding vegetables into the Cuisinart, grinding them to a pulp, then doing the quiet work, mixing in the cod-liver oil and yogurt for the dogs, making salad dressing for myself, lost in thought about cloning until my cell phone rang, startling all of us. Dashiell woke up barking and the two bullies, unfamiliar with the sound, ran to the front door.

  “Where were you?” he said.

  “I’m at Sophie’s.”

  “I figured that part out, but this is the third time I’m calling.”

  “I didn’t hear the phone. The Cuisinart was on. Listen, Chip, can you tell me the names of the veterinarians who were making all those cloning jokes? I have Sophie’s checks and it seems she used three practices. I’d like to know if any of her vets were at the convention, particularly if the one who did the DNA test for the bullies was there, and if he or she was the one who started the talk about cloning.”

  “It would be easier if you told me the three names you have. We had twelve at our table. I don’t know that I could rattle off all the names, but if you hit one, I think I’d remember it.”

  “Sandra Cohen.”

  “Yes. Sandy Cohen. She was there. But she seemed much more interested in neutering than in cloning. Not much sense of humor either.”

  “Okay, hang on, I have my list on Sophie’s desk.” I could hear him talking to Betty as I went for the list. “How about Mark Murray?”

  “Yes. Big guy. Not too talkative. Rather grumpy looking, but smart. When he spoke, it was worth listening. He came to my talk. Of course, that made me like him, too.”

  “What about Cohen?”

  “Didn’t come. More points against her.”

  “And Chad Finkelstein, if you believe that for a name.”

  “Hey, I went to grade school with a Montgomery Rosenberg. I’ll believe anything. And yes, he was there, too. He’s short, fat, bald, chatty, thinks he’s funnier than he actually is, and he’s got sweaty hands. But, boy, did he go for Betty. Said he had a Shepherd when he was a kid and he’s loved them ever since.”

  “Did he ask if he could clone her?”

  “Actually, no one would have asked that once the jokes got going. It’s not a popular idea.”

  “So I hear.”

  “People are afraid of anything new. And with this, the consensus of opinion was that it was stepping on God’s toes, which makes a strange assumption right there, in my humble opinion.”

  “Well, don’t they always picture Him in sandals?”

  “You got me there.”

  “So, you were at the New York Jewish table, or what?”

  “Actually, Chad wasn’t at the table. He came to the talk and stayed afterward, to commune with Betty. He got down on the floor with her, and pressed his head against hers. He called it mind melding. He said there’s nothing like a German shepherd for it.”

  “Mind melding?”

  “ESP. He said his Shepherd used to tell him things that way.”

  “And Betty let him do it?”

  “To my total surprise, she did. In fact, she seemed to like it. Or maybe she just liked him. Their admiration was quite mutual. Before he left, he gave me his home number, in case, he said, I decided to breed Betty. He thinks she’s aces and he’d like a pup.”

  “He said ‘breed’? So he wasn’t the one who started the cloning jokes?”

  “I can’t say. They apparently started when I was teaching at the shelter, before I ever got to the hotel.”

  “And he wasn’t at your table when the jokes were being made?”

  “No.”

  “What about the others, Cohen and Murray? Where were they on all this?”

  “Let me think. After a lot of clone jokes, Cohen said she thought it was okay for farm animals, but that if pet owners ever tried it, they’d be disappointed.”

  “No news there.”

  “Murray just stuck with the jokes.”

  “The cops were telling them, too. Really b-a-a-ad ones.”

  “It makes people nervous, Rachel. Even veterinarians and the police.”

  “But Bianca is a perfectly lovely dog. She’s not a monster.”

  “So have you found out what the deal was yet?”

  “I’ve got a lot more to do. I’m staying here. I’ll work as late as I can so that I only have to stay a night or two.”

  “Be careful, will you?”

  “I’ve got an attack-trained pit bull with me.”

  “Seriously, Rachel.”

  “I am serious.”

  The line was open. He was waiting.

  I sighed.

  “I promise.”

  When I walked back to the kitchen, they were all waiting there with accusing looks on their faces. I finished the food, added all the supplements, and fed them. Then I took my salad out into the garden, passing my own reflection in the dark glass, thinking for just a moment that someone was out there.

  Sophie had described the place to me, her paradise. Sitting on a stone bench that was set close to the side wall, I looked around. The ivy-covered brick wall extended from the house to my left to about the middle of the garden, where it abutted a small, stucco back cottage that served as the other half of the fence, separating Sophie’s
yard from the one beyond it, the one belonging to the house on West Fourth Street. The wall behind me was concrete.

  The building next door had a two-story extension built behind it, so instead of a garden, there was an extra back room on the two lower floors. Because of that, this area of the yard would be shady much of the day. All around me, there was pachysandra, with a row of hosta along the path. The other side of the yard must have gotten sun in the afternoon because there Sophie had planted flowers—fairy roses, hydrangia, day lilies—though in a month or so, when the cold weather arrived, they’d be gone. At least the ivy and pachysandra would stay green.

  But that would be for someone else’s pleasure. Sophie wasn’t here any longer and her pets would be lucky to have homes, even ones without yards.

  The fence across from where I sat was wooden and old. I could see where slats had been broken and repaired in several places. In front of the fence, the flowers were planted in raised beds. It seems Sophie had pretty much taught the dogs to keep off that area, because very few of the flowers were trampled or broken. Perhaps they’d only gone up there occasionally to retrieve a ball that had bounced out of bounds.

  That’s when I heard the music, a piano concerto. Someone had just put on a CD or the radio, someone whose window was open. I looked around but couldn’t tell where it was coming from. In New York, where buildings are so close and so tall, sound can bounce around the flat surfaces, seeming to come from one when in fact it’s coming from the opposite direction. The music was so beautiful I felt swept away, closing my eyes and just listening.

  When the music stopped, I finished eating and went back to the computer, checking Sophie’s address book and calendar, looking for anyone with the same last name, looking to see when it was she’d been seeing Herbie and if I could find his last name and number in the backup of her addresses. The trouble with an electronic calendar, though, was that instead of crossing out a name, which often left it readable, on the PalmPilot you could delete anyone who was no longer in your life, an old boyfriend, even a relative you no longer got along with. And the next time you used the HotSync function, the name might be erased on your hard drive, too, unless you set up your system to archive the information you deleted on the PalmPilot itself. But since the police had that, this wasn’t something I’d be able to check.

  I decided to check Sophie’s E-mail first, but there were no saved messages. Even more curious, there was no E-mail address book. There was a list of favorite web sites she’d saved for quick, repeated access, and there I found the site of the Epilepsy Foundation. Spending the next hour or so there, I noticed some interesting things. First, I discovered that I probably would not find a wine cellar in the apartment. Epileptics could not safely consume alcohol. Next I checked the long list of anticonvulsants and discovered they all had one side effect in common. They were all teratogenic, whatever the hell that meant. I made a note to drop in to a pharmacy and find out. There was, to my surprise, only a paragraph about seizure-alert dogs. It was a warning, actually. It said that this ability had only been reported anecdotally and that patients should exercise extreme caution in dealing with any school that offered to supply or train a dog who could predict the onset of a seizure. Someone was getting hives at the thought of something so profound working when it couldn’t be scientifically tested.

  There wasn’t anyone in Sophie’s backup address book with the last name of Gordon. Nor was there an Aunt Beth or an Uncle Craig. There wasn’t anyone with the first name of Herbie, either, or anyone with the first initial h. She’d apparently expunged the bum. But kept his photo on the refrigerator.

  While I was checking things out and making notes in my old-fashioned, paper notepad, I could hear dogs’ nails clicking in the other room. I stopped and listened. For a moment, I thought Bianca and Dashiell might be wrestling again, or chasing each other. But it was only one dog walking around. When Dashiell barked, I thought someone might be at the door. But as soon as I walked out into the living room, I realized he’d gone back to his search.

  He was sitting next to the couch, totally pleased with himself. When he saw I’d come, he barked once more. I pulled the coffee table back and knelt, close to where Sophie had fallen. There, under the sofa, was a pair of red slipper socks.

  “Good boy,” I told him, reaching under and taking them out. “Excellent boy. Go find.”

  Back at the computer, I sat still for a moment, just listening. When Dashiell crossed one of the rugs, there’d be silence. Then I’d hear the comforting click of his nails again. The sound changed when he was in the kitchen, on the terra-cotta tile. I heard him drinking from the water bowl, his tags clanging against the pan, then the tick-tick of his nails resumed, and trusting him to do his job, I went back to mine.

  The bedroom blinds were open and, though I hadn’t switched on the garden lights, they were on. Perhaps there was one of those sensors that turned on the lights automatically when it got dark. I left the blinds open, looking out every once in a while at the shadows of the bushes against the wall of the little cottage. The one small window, on the upper floor, was dark. I thought that perhaps whoever lived in the town house beyond used the cottage as a studio, an office, or even a guest house. Or else whoever lived there wasn’t home.

  Before I had the chance to do much more, Dashiell barked again, one woof, summoning me to hurry up and see what he’d found.

  He had nosed open the hall closet and there on the floor, in between the snow boots and a pair of sneakers, was a set of keys.

  I bent to scratch Dashiell’s neck with one hand and scoop up the keys with my other. Turning the keys over in my hand, they looked familiar. I opened Sophie’s door and tried the keys. Why would a set of keys to her apartment be on the floor of the closet?

  When I turned, I had my answer. There was Bianca, her tail wagging furiously. I tossed the keys over to the rug, and she scrambled on the wooden hall floor to go and retrieve them, bringing them back, dropping them at my feet and waiting for another toss. Good for Sophie, I thought, playing with more than just a ball. But, still, using live keys seemed strange to me. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t pick them up if she dropped them, as if she’d been in a wheelchair. When she couldn’t function, it seemed to me, the only thing she needed was her pills. Perhaps this was Herbie’s set, returned to Sophie when they broke up. That made sense. That could explain why she’d given them to Bianca to use as a toy, why she’d turned something unhappy into something cheerful.

  I gave Bianca one more toss, then put the keys on top of the bookshelf outside the small kitchen, stopping for a moment to look at Sophie’s cookbooks, thinking how sad it was, all that organic food, all those healthy meals, and she had died so young anyway. It wasn’t as simple as eat this, don’t eat that, exercise, take your vitamins. There were genes involved, what you got along with the fiery red hair and the porcelain skin, what booby traps lay hidden, waiting for the right circumstances—inordinate stress, the deterioration of age, an inopportune infection, and God only knows what else. And there was luck involved as well, whether yours was good or not so good. Sophie’s, apparently, had been not so good.

  Reading some of the material posted on the epilepsy site, I’d learned that the disease was sometimes caused by trauma, not genetics—a deprivation of oxygen during birth, head injury, physical abuse, a car accident. But just as many cases were considered idiopathic, meaning no one knew what had caused them. Either way, lousy luck. I hadn’t asked Sophie her history and she hadn’t volunteered it. It wasn’t the point of our first conversation, and, unfortunately, there wouldn’t be future ones in which she could add to what she’d told me.

  Back at the desk, looking at the screen, my eyes felt really tired. So, leaving the laptop on, I began to poke through the desk drawers, finding a folder for the dogs, with printouts from their veterinary visits. Bingo. I had in my sweaty little hand the receipt for the DNA test. It had been done at Mark Murray’s office. Finkelstein, the vet with sweaty hands, was either a
n acupuncturist or had one at his office. That’s where Blanche had gone off and on for the last eight months. Dr. Cohen must have been the dogs’ regular vet, which made sense, since her office was the closest to where Sophie lived.

  I looked through the rest of the file, photos of both dogs, apart and together. If not for the fact that Sophie had printed the name of the dog on the back of each picture, I wouldn’t be sure who was who. Of course, in the full-body shots you could tell. Blanche was heftier. Bianca still had the narrow body of an adolescent. But in those Norma Desmond close-ups, Blanche and Bianca could not have looked more alike.

  I went back into the living room. Dashiell had gone out and was searching the garden now, my little workaholic. But it was the bullies I’d come to see. They were asleep on the rug, leaning against each other. When I crouched down, Blanche opened her sleepy eyes, thumped her tail once, then went immediately back to sleep. Bianca’s legs were twitching, her eyes moving rapidly under closed lids. I looked at the black smudge on each dog, the pink strip along the crest of their noses, the one dark freckle near the leather of their noses, slightly left of center, then their feet. Both dogs had clear toenails on their front paws, except for the left-outside toe. Those were black.

  I wondered what the chances were of finding two dogs so identical in appearance.

  Big deal, Chip would say, it wouldn’t be difficult to find a dozen dogs whose nails looked just like that.

  Still, I would have said.

  Because I couldn’t find anything on either dog that didn’t match the other exactly.

  And while I was looking, because I would have been as happy as anyone else to believe that Blanche had not been cloned, Dashiell barked again.

  I went quickly into the garden, hoping to get to him before he woke the neighbors. It was late, and most of the windows I could see from the garden were dark now. He was at the wooden fence, standing in the flowers, standing right in the place where the flowers were bent. I called him back and went to investigate, seeing nothing on the ground, even parting the flowers with my hands to try to find what he had. When I turned and shrugged, he barked again, his front paws coming off the ground, his ears rising and, this time, only one folding down again.