The Wrong Dog Page 11
“Come and show me,” I said.
And he did.
He bounded up into the raised bed and hit the repaired slats behind me with his nose. I heard the wood creak as the new boards scraped against the older part of the fence, and suddenly, I could see into the garden next door.
“Good boy.”
I pushed the slats myself, seeing that the opening would be big enough for a person to come and go, assuming the person was crouched and duck-walked through the opening. Obviously, someone had done just that, because this was the only place where the flowers had been stepped on.
But what did it mean? If Sophie had died of a fatal seizure, what difference could it possibly make if there was an opening in the fence between her garden and the one next door?
CHAPTER 13
Stop Right Where You Are, I Said
I went back inside and was about to put away the dogs’ file when I remembered something. So I took everything out of the folder, reading each item, then putting it back, one at a time. I found what I was looking for in the middle of a pile of notes, little slips of paper that looked like the ones I had in Dashiell’s file, things jotted down in a hurry, sometimes abbreviated, while on the phone with the veterinarian. I held the slip of paper in my hand and looked at it. It was the list of Bianca’s shots. I wondered if Lorna had copied them down from the puppies’ file at Side by Side. Or if the vet who’d given the shots to Bianca and the other two clones had written it. With ragged edges, even the beginning of one of the words missing, it had obviously been torn from a larger piece of paper. When I held it under the light and looked more closely, I saw part of a line at the upper right and again in the lower right-hand corner, lines designating where to write the patient’s name and where the doctor should sign his own. The list had been written on a prescription pad. Then the parts with pertinent information had been torn away.
I slipped the note into my wallet, which was in the pocket of my backpack, in the other room.
I hadn’t brought my things into the bedroom because I didn’t plan on sleeping in Sophie’s bed. It was a double and the sheets looked clean. Maybe she’d changed them that last day. There was a light quilt on the bed, a patchwork design with lots of blue in it. The sheets were blue, too, a color my mother used to call “sailor blue.” I was tired and the bed would have looked mighty inviting were the circumstances different. But they weren’t.
Leslie was draped over a branch in her cage. I thought about taking her out; instead, I went into Sophie’s bathroom to check out what was under the sink. Just as Mel had told me, there was antibacterial soap there. And a box of disposable rubber gloves right next to it. Still, I thought I’d call Marty Shapiro, my cop friend, and mention to him that there was a lizard in the house, and see if he wanted to mention that, and the issue of salmonella, to the detectives handling the case. I could have called Burns or Burke myself. But I wasn’t in the mood for any more cloning jokes.
Is that ewe? they might have said.
Or, We were hoping you’d stop baaaa.
I looked at the rest of the dog file before putting it away, thinking that if Sophie had made any sort of arrangements for the dogs, there might be a note to that effect in this file. But nothing was there other than their medical records, some photos, and the original of the letter from the New York City Department of Health, registering Blanche as a service dog. Sophie probably carried a copy with her.
I looked at the shoe boxes with three years’ worth of tax backup. I was tired, and it was late, but I told myself I could manage one more hour. I carried all three boxes out to the coffee table, sat on the couch, and began to look through the envelopes. It wasn’t as daunting as I’d thought it would be. I didn’t have to open all of the envelopes. And since Sophie was salaried, not a freelancer, she didn’t have nearly the number of receipts saved that I did.
I was able to find the name of her doctor, Tanya Maas. Her address and phone number would probably be in the PalmPilot backup on the computer. I found no canceled checks made out to Side by Side, or to Lorna West, or to the Horatio Street Veterinary Practice. So it seemed that most of what Sophie had told me had been true.
Had there been a check written to Herbie, I could have learned his last name. But there weren’t any. All I could do was take his picture to the dog run and ask around. Beyond that, I was out of ideas.
I worked on the tax backup for about an hour and then I was really too tired to do any more. I made a list of what I had to do in the morning, found Dr. Maas’s phone number, took the dogs out for a walk around the block, then got ready for bed. There was an extra blanket on the shelf in the bedroom closet and I took one of the pillows from Sophie’s bed. When everything was ready, I noticed that there were no curtains in the living room, but I still didn’t want to sleep in the bedroom. I can’t really explain it. At first, it just felt intrusive. Then I thought it might be too confusing for her dogs. Finally, it was fear that kept me out of Sophie’s bed, the fear that by sleeping there, I could somehow take on her fate.
Whatever it was, I couldn’t talk myself into changing my mind. So I shut off the living room light and changed in the dark. Then I lifted the blanket and slipped underneath it, but not faster than Blanche. She burrowed down to the part of the couch where my feet would have gone had she not been there. Bianca lay on the floor, her back up against the couch. Dashiell waited until I was lying down. Then he lifted the blanket with his nose, squeezed onto the couch, and turned around so that I could lie against his warm back, both of us facing the garden, which mysteriously had gotten dark, too. Did that sensor shut off the lights when Sophie’s lights went out?
But I didn’t have the chance to come up with an answer. My eyes were suddenly attracted up to the single small window in the side of the back cottage that faced Sophie’s apartment. Apparently, whoever lived there had just come home, because behind the curtain of the little window, which had been dark all evening, there was now light.
I felt Blanche slip out from under the blanket and a moment later heard the sound of her nails on the wooden floor. I could see her white form, moving slowly, like a ghost, as she walked toward Sophie’s bedroom. The door had swung shut, but the lock hadn’t clicked. She pushed the door with her great nose and disappeared behind it. I heard the bottom of the iguana cage creak, thinking Leslie must have turned around to see who was there. I heard the bed moan as Blanche went to sleep where she belonged, in her mistress’s bed. I hugged Dashiell tighter, and fell immediately asleep.
It was the sound of the tumbler turning over that woke me. Or was it the dogs? Dashiell was missing and had pulled the cover half off me when he’d left. Bianca was gone, too.
I sat up, my eyes adjusting to the dark.
Dashiell barked, Bianca backing him up.
I crawled over to the foot of the couch, which gave me a view of the dark hallway, then a slice of light as the door to Sophie’s apartment opened.
With only the dim light coming from the hall behind him, I couldn’t see his face. But I could see that he was short and wide, nearly as wide as the doorway it seemed.
“Stop right where you are,” I said.
“Who’s here?”
“Who are you?”
He stayed where he was, neither dog moving away to let him in.
“It’s Joe, the super.”
“What the hell are you doing here in the middle of the night?”
“The lights was out,” he said.
I squinted at my watch.
“It’s three in the fucking morning. Of course the lights are out. I’m trying to sleep.”
“Well, who the hell are you?”
“A friend. I’m a friend of Sophie’s. I’m staying here to take care of her dogs.”
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
But before I had the chance to answer, he’d slammed the door and locked it. I sat on the couch in the dark, a dog on either side of me, for a long time, the blanket wrapped around me like a
cocoon. The window on the second floor of the back cottage was dark again, but the moon was shining into the garden. I hadn’t noticed that earlier. There might have been cloud cover then.
Suddenly, Dash and Bianca were at the garden door, whining, hackles up, tails as stiff as if they’d been starched. I jumped up to see what it was this time.
He was standing up on his haunches, nearly as big as a cat, his dark, beady eyes looking straight at us, then he took off in the direction of that back brick wall and disappeared. The last thing I could see was his long, hairless tail.
I went back to the couch to wait for morning.
CHAPTER 14
Are You a Cop? She Asked
The doorbell woke me. Dashiell barked but the bullies merely wagged their tails, pushing him out of the way so that they could greet the visitor first.
“Is Sophie here?” she asked, a woman of about sixty with a long gray braid, a long Indian-style dress with a sweater over it, Birkenstocks with socks on her long narrow feet. “I’ve come for…” She stopped and stared. Perhaps it was the fact that I’d thrown Sophie’s raincoat over my T-shirt and underpants before answering the door.
“For Leslie?”
“Yes. I promised Sophie I’d come early, before she had to leave for school.”
She looked confused, and who could blame her. She didn’t know who the hell I was or why I was standing there. She didn’t know where Sophie was. Now I was going to have to tell her. I opened my mouth but she beat me to it.
“Something’s wrong. Is it Leslie?”
“No,” I said, “it’s Sophie. You better come in.”
I offered her tea, which she refused, but after I told her what had happened, she changed her mind.
“Green tea, please.” She was pointing. “The second canister, the blue one.”
I put on the kettle. She went to get Leslie. I could hear her talking to the iguana the moment the bedroom door was open.
“Thank you for taking care of her.” She stood in the doorway of the kitchen with Leslie on her shoulder, her nails poking through the stitches of the sweater. “Let it steep,” she said.
I looked up.
“The tea. And I take it with a spoon of honey in it.”
We sat on the couch. Leslie walked onto the back pillows and stretched out. Looking into her eyes for the first time, I understood there was an intelligent being in there and I remembered the time I’d gotten past my fear and peered into the eyes of a snake and felt the same way. Lydia sipped her green tea, then reached into her pocket and pulled out a strawberry, biting off a little piece and offering it to Leslie from her hand.
“Sad thing.”
I nodded.
“She was a nice girl. Very sweet. Hardworking. Independent.” She shook her head. “The nicest ones always go.”
“Lydia, did Sophie ever mention any family to you? I’m concerned about the dogs, about who might take them now that Sophie’s gone.”
“Family? Oh, I don’t think so. ‘Lydia,’ she used to say, ‘you make me happy I’m an orphan.’ But she didn’t mean that. She only said it because Mother is so difficult and she was thinking she was lucky she didn’t have to fly down to Florida every three weeks to get berated by some old bat from the moment she got off the plane until the moment she got back on. ‘Sure, run back to Leslie,’ she shouted as I was leaving. ‘You love that lizard more than you’ve ever loved me.’ Mother still drives, though I doubt you’d want to be on the road when she’s doing it, the stubborn old goat. She’s ninety-three. Still strong enough to push me around, too. I said, ‘Mother, there are wonderful facilities where you wouldn’t have to lift a finger.’ ‘What am I, a cripple?’ she said. ‘All of a sudden I can’t shop and cook?’”
Lydia bit off another piece of strawberry for Leslie.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Rachel, it’s just that—”
“Please don’t apologize. I understand. So there was no family that—”
“What should I do with the money?”
“The money?”
She reached into a pocket and took out some bills. “Sophie’s. Yours. For taking care of Leslie.”
I shook my head. “Just forget it, okay? But, Lydia, I could use your help. If you could take a minute or so to think back about conversations you had with Sophie over tea. Did she ever mention anyone who might take the animals if…”
She shook her head. “Not to me.”
When it was time to go, Leslie walked onto Lydia’s shoulder and got her footing, reminding me for just a second of the way my father used to ride me to bed when I was little. I asked Lydia if she needed any of the veggies from Sophie’s refrigerator, but she waved a hand at me.
“We’re fine. I have all her favorites,” she said.
Following her, Leslie watching, I carried the cage upstairs.
“Lydia, the super came in last night—in the middle of the night. I was wondering…”
“He was always worrying about her, about Sophie, because, you know, her condition, it made people feel protective of her.”
“But he had to know she was dead.”
“Well, maybe he saw the light and didn’t know who was there. Maybe he thought someone was messing with her stuff, or with the animals.”
“Did she ever talk to you about the young man she was seeing?”
“Shame about that.”
“What was?”
“The way it ended.”
“And how was that?” I asked.
“Suddenly.”
“Do you…?”
She shook her head. “I was with Mother. When I came back to pick up my Leslie, she was crying. She said Herbie had left. He left. That’s all she said.”
“And you didn’t ask?”
“I never pry.”
“I understand. Unfortunately, I have to, otherwise these animals will be without a home.”
“It’s nice you’re doing that. Are you from the school?”
“I’m a friend from the dog run,” I said.
“So you knew him, Herbie?”
“No. We were never there at the same time. Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Ever meet Herbie?”
“No, no, no. I don’t go to the dog run.”
“I meant here.”
“Why would they want an old lady around when they had each other?”
“One more thing, Lydia. Was Sophie afraid of anything that you know of, something she might have mentioned to you?”
“Yeah.”
“What was that?”
“Dying,” She put the iguana on the table and put the rest of the strawberry in front of her. “Same as all of us.”
I waited a moment, just standing there, then I gave her my card and asked her to call if she thought of anything else. “You will,” I told her. “I’m sure of it.”
I went back downstairs, got dressed, and headed for the dog run with all three dogs in tow; the moment we were settled, Bianca and Dash running in great circles and Blanche curled up next to me on the bench, I dialed the Bomb Squad’s direct line.
My friend Marty worked with the bomb dogs, work most people found terrifying, work he claimed was much safer than being on the street in a uniform waiting for some fourteen-year-old with a gun to send you to your maker just to see what it felt like.
“Marty, it’s Rachel. It’s about the Gordon case. There’s something I thought—”
“That was you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Burke and Burns have been, oh, never mind. I should have known. Rachel, don’t tell me you actually believe the younger bully was cloned from the older one?”
“What do you think I think?”
The cloned bull terrier was on the other end of the run, being chased by Dashiell and three other lustful males.
“That’s better. If I knew it was you they were talking about, I would have told them, ‘Hey, guys, forget about it. She’s just pulling your leg,’ So, what’s up?”
“Find anything?”
“Not yet. But there was another pet in the apartment.”
“The iguana?”
“You know about that?”
“You’d think, with what those guys see, well, what’s the big deal, Godzilla’s in the bedroom.”
“Marty, she’s only fifteen or sixteen inches long.”
“It figures.”
“Luckily, the neighbor who owns her came to pick her up this morning. I thought I was going to have to find a home for her, too, but Sophie was just baby-sitting the iguana to pick up a little extra money.”
“Which neighbor?”
“One flight up. Look, Marty, the reason I called, you can get a pretty nasty case of salmonella from an iguana, sometimes even fatal. It probably wasn’t that. I mean, I’d seen her earlier that day and she didn’t look sick. Still, I thought maybe someone should mention this to the ME, but I didn’t want to call Burns or Burke directly because—”
“Gotcha. I’ll walk this in to them, let them take it from there.”
“Thanks, Marty. Like I said, it’s probably nothing, but I figured it’s better to call than not.”
I called Dr. Maas’s number, got a machine, and left a message, though I doubted the doctor would call me back. I’d have to try again, and again.
There were eleven people in the run, not counting me. I had Herbie’s picture in my pocket, but before showing it around, I wanted to see for myself if any of these people were a match. To be sitting here now, you’d have to be unemployed or have unconventional work hours, not a nine-to-five. Coming with Dashiell during the day, I’d met artists, writers, and would-be actors who had jobs waiting tables at local restaurants later on in the day. There were seven women sitting around the periphery of the run, and four men. But no Herbie.