The Dog Who Knew Too Much Page 2

“There are some letters she wrote to us in here, so that you will be able to see for yourself the kind of person she was, how bright, how thoughtful. Her keys are in the zippered pocket. You know the Printing House?”

  I nodded.

  “Anything else you need, you just ask us.”

  Despite my willingness to travel as I always did, by foot or subway, David insisted I’d need a car for the duration of the investigation and had already paid a month’s rent in advance on the Taurus.

  Once out of their house and inside the car, I opened the briefcase and looked inside. There in the pocket, as promised, were Lisa’s keys. Her apartment, Marsha had said, was undisturbed. As I was leaving, she’d urged me to go there, where there might be clues, something, anything, that might help me discover what I had to do in order to help her understand what had gone wrong in the perfect life of her perfect child.

  Yeah, yeah.

  I wondered what Lisa had really been like.

  I started the car. Then I slipped the check out of my pocket to take a look. It was for three thousand dollars. I had been redefining hand-to-mouth for a month or so. Now if I found myself headed for the poorhouse, I’d be able to go by limo. Driving home, I thought about hiring a cleaning lady. And a gardener.

  3

  Don’t Mention It, He Said

  In the morning, after leaving a message for Avram Ashkenasi asking to see him about Lisa, I headed across the street to the Sixth Precinct to see if my friend Marty Shapiro was around. The officer at the desk said Marty was exercising Elwood and Watson, two of the bomb dogs he worked with. That meant he’d be in the wide alley that ran along the side of the precinct, between Tenth Street and Charles, where the cops parked official vehicles. I found him there, tossing a tennis ball.

  “Look at El, Rach,” he said as soon as he saw me. “No waistline, and a belly like he swallowed a cantaloupe.”

  “Too early in the season for melons. More likely it was a box of doughnuts. Maybe you ought to take him to Overeaters Anonymous, on Christopher Street.”

  Dashiell’s nose was welded to Watson’s ass.

  “I’m taking him to Sniff Enders,” I said, hooking a thumb toward Dash. He and Watson danced in circles, play-bowed, and began taking turns trying to hump each other.

  “No kidding?” Marty said, the tennis ball poised over his head, then flying down the alley, a very overweight Elwood slowly running after it. “Why don’t you just change his name to Bruce?”

  “Very amusing, Shapiro.”

  Elwood, the fat yellow Lab, dropped the ball at my feet. I kicked it toward Charles Street.

  “Marty, you know anything about the Lisa Jacobs suicide? Her parents have asked me to look into it.”

  “Look into what?” he asked, surprised.

  “Oh, they want to find out what made her depressed enough to go out the window.”

  “Yeah, right. Good luck on that, kid.”

  “Why do you say that? I know it’ll be difficult, but—”

  “Look, Rachel, they’re parents. They wanna know it wasn’t their fault, you know what I’m saying. Do them a big favor. Spend a few days in the park, catch a few rays, give ’em a call and tell ’em what they need to hear. It’s a horrible thing to lose your kid. They don’t need guilt on top of it.”

  “One thing was odd, Marty. They talked to me for ages, but they didn’t say much about the incident.”

  “Not unusual. They don’t want to think about it.”

  “So what was the deal? I heard she did it from the school.”

  “Maybe her place was too low for a guaranteed success. Maybe she hated her boss, you know, a passive-aggressive last act. Who knows?”

  “Are they sure it was suicide?”

  “Okay, you want the scene, right?”

  I nodded.

  He began ticking off the facts on his fingers as he spoke.

  “She went out sometime after midnight. No sign of a struggle. The door was locked—”

  “Chain on?”

  “No chain. Anyone with a key could have locked up on the way out.”

  “Bingo,” I said.

  “You New Yorkers, always in such a rush, jumping to conclusions before you got all the facts.” He tossed the ball for El, then looked around the alley to make sure we were still alone. “Okay,” he continued, “you got a negative scene. No overturned furniture. No burning cigar. No smashed mirrors. No handprint on her back. You following this?”

  I nodded.

  “No one bent over and let his wallet drop out of his pocket onto the floor for us to find. In fact, there was no nothing.”

  I nodded again to show I was paying attention.

  “You got your locked door, true, without the chain on. You got no one across the street seeing nothing. We checked it out. Maybe that was because the lights were off in the studio. Maybe it was because of the courtyard and all the trees blocking the view. Who knows? Then you got this poor woman coming home from St. Vincent’s Hospital, a private duty nurse. She finds the body on the sidewalk. You got the dog upstairs in the studio—”

  “Dog? What dog?”

  “The victim’s. A big Akita. No one’s going to bother her with that thing around.”

  “Any big dog would offer a certain amount of visual protection, but—”

  “And you got the note.”

  “Oh,” I said, “no one mentioned a note. What did it say?”

  “‘I’m sorry. Lisa.’”

  All at once the dog was beside the point. True, the Japanese claimed the Akita Inu would protect its master with its very life. But as it turned out, it was only herself Lisa had needed protection from, and hometown hype aside, no dog could do that, not even the national treasure of Japan.

  “‘I’m sorry. Lisa’? That’s it?”

  “What do you want, a memoir? She was depressed, right? She wanted out, so she’s out. Young,” he said. “And pretty, too. The parents must be real broken up.”

  “Her father’s not eating. Her mother’s not sleeping. Their worst nightmare came true.”

  “So, you’re going to put them out of their misery, so to speak. You’re going to tell them what good parents they were, right?”

  “Right,” I said, only half listening. “Where’s the dog now?”

  “Now you sound like the girl I know and love.”

  “The dog, Marty. Who’s got the dog?”

  “The guy who owns the school, Ashkenasi, he took her that night. He came to let the detectives in, and when everything was done, he took her home. I don’t know where she is now. But if I know you, you’ll find out. So good, now you have your work cut out for you.”

  “Did you secure the scene?”

  “No need to put Ashkenasi out of business, Rachel. It was a suicide.”

  He tossed the ball toward Charles Street and it bounced under one of the police cars. Watson and Dash went to wrestle the ball out from under the car while Elwood stood by, so dopey looking he might have been drugged.

  “Right,” I said. “There was a note. Where is that now?”

  “In the file, Rach.”

  “Could I see it, Marty?” I whispered, even though there was no one else around.

  “Let me get this straight, you’re standing there asking me to break the rules?”

  Every cop lives by two rules, Marty had told me the first two hundred times I’d asked for information. Rule one, Keep your mouth shut. Rule two, Never break rule one.

  “Just this once,” I said. As usual.

  He rolled his eyes.

  “You’re a pain in my butt, did I ever tell you that?”

  “You did,” I said. “Several times.”

  “Okay, as long as it’s on the record. Wait a minute. Wait right here.”

  Information you don’t share, he’d say, drawing out the significant word, can’t come back to haunt you.

  He opened the side door, the one that led to the kennels. Elwood and Watson ran inside, and then Marty disappeared, too. I waited in th
e alley, Dashiell at my side. In a few minutes Marty was back, a doughnut box in his hand, Elwood waddling along behind him.

  “These are the doughnuts you accused me of feeding Elwood,” he said. “Here, take this home and read for yourself. These are fat free, Rachel. No way Elwood coulda got fat on these. I think it’s his metabolism.”

  I took the box and looked at Elwood, remembering that not so long ago he was thinner, faster, and smarter.

  “You might have a point there, Marty. Have you ever had his thyroid function tested? He might be hypothyroid.”

  “Yeah? Gluck has that, the guy at the desk. Blew up to two-fifty couple of years ago. Slept ten hours a night, sucked caffeine all day, and he was always looking to take a nap. Now he takes his pills, he’s just like normal. I’ll get El checked out. Thanks, Rach.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “For the doughnut box.” I gave it a shake. “And the doughnut.”

  “Don’t mention it,” he said. Then he whispered, “I mean really don’t mention it.”

  I nodded.

  “You take care, kid, okay?”

  I clipped Dash’s leash to his collar and headed back toward Tenth Street. As soon as I had turned the corner onto Hudson, heading south, I read the box, then opened it. There were two things inside. I pocketed the folded piece of paper, ditched the box in the trash basket on the corner, and ate the delectable-looking, full-fat, chocolate-covered doughnut on the way to Lisa’s.

  4

  She’d Called Her Penny

  Lisa Jacobs’s apartment was on the second floor of the Printing House, one of many formerly industrial buildings that had been converted into high-priced condos or co-ops, only in the case of the Printing House, the prices were so high that a lot of the units had failed to sell and were rentals. Not Lisa’s. Lisa had wanted the Village, the Village, so her daddy had bought her a condo, one with full-time concierge coverage, maid service, and a gym on the top floor. Lisa’s apartment faced east, overlooking Hudson Street and, beyond that, James J. Walker Park, where kids played baseball in the warm weather and dogs played Who’s Dominant? from December through March.

  Dashiell went crazy smelling the odors left by Lisa’s Akita as I walked around trying to get a feel for the place and for the woman who until recently had lived here. Straight across from the door was a wall of enormous windows, serving both the downstairs and the bedroom, up a flight, built as a balcony over the end of the apartment nearest the door and looking down over the living room. The place was painted white, underfurnished, clean, interesting—it looked as if it had been a cheerful place to live. There was a small, colorful rug in the area opposite the kitchen where the dining room table sat, and the Times, nearly two weeks old, was lying there as if Lisa had just gone to heat up her coffee. Or more likely, get another hit of herb tea. Over the table, hanging upside down from the ceiling, were dozens of dried bouquets of roses, still fragrant, and on the table was a teal blue vase, empty now. Near the vase were Lisa’s appointment calendar and a small address book. I slipped them into my pocket.

  The kitchen was small, utilitarian, and neater than mine. No big trick. On the floor, opposite the sink, were two bowls, one obviously licked clean by a large dog with a healthy appetite, the other with a small amount of water still in it. I picked up the water bowl, rinsed it in the sink, then let the water run until it got cold. It was a ceramic dish, cream with a rust-colored dog bone, rimmed in blue, smack in the center. On the outside, in the blue, was written “My Dog.” I filled it and put it down for Dashiell. I could hear him drinking as I stood in the center of Lisa’s living room and looked around.

  On my left there was a wall of books, with photos of Lisa doing t’ai chi tucked between the volumes. All the photos were of Lisa, none of anyone else—not a boyfriend, not even her Akita.

  Under the huge windows there was a comfortable-looking black couch, a small glass coffee table, and two black leather chairs. The rest of the room was empty. I tried to imagine Lisa practicing t’ai chi there.

  Dashiell was on his way upstairs, his nails clacking on the wooden steps. I followed him up, then sat on Lisa’s double bed. The Tao-teching was on the nightstand, with a piece of lavender string as a bookmark. I opened it and began to read. This was enough to make me want to end it all.

  I had gone through a Zen phase years before, when I was nineteen or twenty. I wore black, studied t’ai chi, and for the hours between lunch and dinner one day became a vegetarian. But aside from an occasional line that made sense to me, most of what I’d read and heard was incomprehensible.

  “Mystery of mysteries,” it said on the page where Lisa had marked her place. She had not only underlined it but copied it in the margin in her small, neat handwriting.

  How could you come to understand something that couldn’t be explained and couldn’t be taught? Moreover, when you finally thought you had a handle on it, you didn’t. Give me a break, I thought, putting the book back on the nightstand. Life is difficult enough without Zen.

  But then I picked it up again. Lisa had been reading it. Probably for the hundredth time. Maybe I ought to give it one more shot. I left it on the foot of the bed to remind me to take it home. I would put it on my nightstand. Beyond that, I couldn’t say.

  I looked at Lisa’s clothes. Almost everything was black, soft cotton tops and pants you could wear when you practiced or taught t’ai chi. But there were a few cheerful touches in her neat closet, too—a pair of pink high-tops, a pair of red cowboy boots, a sort of patchwork quilted jacket, and silk scarves, lovely ones in nearly every color, long ones, the kind you could wrap around twice, knot, or play with seductively as you leaned close to chat. I pulled out a lavender one and draped it around my neck, smelling Lisa’s perfume, which still clung to the fabric.

  On the tall oak dresser, there was a wooden jewelry box. I opened it and pawed through Lisa’s treasures. I looked in the dresser drawers, too, at her underwear and sweaters. I rifled the nightstands. I checked under the bed. Snooping was my profession, wasn’t it?

  If Lisa had been depressed, I couldn’t see any signs of it. There were no clothes strewn around, no pile of neglected laundry or unpaid bills, no Prozac, Valium, or sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet of the upstairs bathroom. There weren’t even dust elephants under her bed. Maybe Daddy had paid for a maid, too.

  There was lots of makeup, bubble bath, body lotion, perfume, and some pretty necklaces hanging near the oak-framed mirror opposite the sink. She didn’t seem to lack anything. There were even condoms in the nightstand drawer.

  Perhaps there had been a sudden descent, something that made her feel she was falling down a bottomless black hole. Or maybe the change had been chemical. I thought about Elwood waddling down the alley.

  I walked around the bedroom once more, touching Lisa’s things, feeling that there was something missing. Of course. There was no dog bed. I undid the neatly made bed. On the side nearer the stairs, there was black fur on the sheet. The dog had not only slept on the bed, she’d slept under the covers.

  Years ago, when I training dogs for a living, I’d had a client named April Anton, a nurse, who had hired me to train a little dog she had rescued from the shelter. She’d called her Penny because the adoption counselor had told her the pup looked like a scent hound, and April, who had always taken advantage of her access to drugs, heard it as “cent hound.”

  But I never got to finish the course. One evening her brother called to cancel the last lesson. When April hadn’t shown up for her shift and hadn’t answered the phone, he’d been called. He’d gone to her house to find that his sister had reached the end of her ability to tolerate her troubles. He found her in bed, the cigarette she had been smoking burned down to her fingers, Penny pressed close against her side. After calling 911, he’d called the animal shelter and arranged to have his sister’s dog euthanized.

  I’d always wondered how she’d been able to desert Penny. Now I found myself wondering how Lisa had been able to leave her dog so uns
afe. Lisa’s parents hadn’t even mentioned her. I wondered where she was and what would become of her. I sat on the bed, picked up the phone, and called Marsha Jacobs.

  “Marsha? It’s Rachel.”

  “Yes, dear,” she said. “Have you learned something?”

  “I’m calling about, um, well, you didn’t say and I was wondering, was Lisa seeing anyone recently?”

  “There was a young man she mentioned, a Paulie Wilcox. But we never met him, this Paulie person.”

  That made sense. Barring the use of torture or drugs, who would discuss their love life with their parents or sacrifice an innocent young man by bringing him home for the grand inquisition?

  “Do you know if she was still seeing him at the time, um, recently?”

  “I don’t know for sure.”

  “Oh, okay, and one other thing I wanted to ask was about the dog, Lisa’s Akita.”

  “Yes?”

  I hesitated, afraid of what I might hear. “Where is she now?”

  “With Avram, dear. Why? Do you want her?”

  For a moment I listened to the sound of Dashiell breathing and the hum of the refrigerator from downstairs.

  “I’m sure she’s lovely, but I already have a dog.”

  “Maybe Avram will keep her. She’s used to him.”

  “One other thing, Marsha, about the note, Lisa’s note—”

  “Her apology?” her mother asked.

  “Um. Yes.”

  Now the silence was on her end of the line. I could hear some muffled conversation, as if the mouthpiece had been covered.

  “We didn’t mention it—”

  “Yes?”

  “Because we thought it was personal.”

  “I see,” I said. But I didn’t. I thought it was very queer that they hadn’t mentioned the note. Then again, they hadn’t said much else about the circumstances of the suicide, and Marty hadn’t thought that weird at all. Still, I’d ask about the note again, but only when I could see them.

  “Well, I’ll be in touch, okay, Marsha, and thank you.”

  “No, thank you, dear. We feel so much better that you’re helping us.”