The Wrong Dog Read online

  Despite past experience, I had the feeling that there’d be no great finds at Sophie’s. The cops had already gone through the place with a fine-tooth comb, removing anything and everything that might have some meaning. They, too, needed to find relatives, though they were more interested in notifying next of kin than in finding a home for two bull terriers. And since the same information I needed would be valuable to them, there might not be a calendar or an address book for me to look at.

  But there’d be something, I told myself. There was always something.

  Standing on the desk chair, I pulled down shoe boxes marked with the dates of the last three years from the top of her closet. If the cops had taken her current bank statements and checkbook, last year’s tax receipts should give me some of the information I needed. I particularly wanted the name of Sophie’s physician, thinking that he or she would be likely to have on record the names and whereabouts of any family members. At least I might be able to get that out of the way.

  As I set the boxes on the desk, I thought about my earlier conversation with Ruth, and what she’d said about Sophie promising to get her on the list for a Blanche clone. Had Sophie lied to Ruth? Or had she been less than forthcoming with me about her reason for wanting to locate Side by Side? I wondered if she’d thought that helping her friend get a seizure-alert dog would seem less compelling than the story she’d told me, a tale of altruism, of concern for the greater good. Or if either reason was the truth.

  There was a small photo album on the shelf in the closet. I took that down, too, placing it on the desk, next to Sophie’s laptop. Working fast now, anxious to see what I’d discover, I opened the computer, turned it on, and listened to it whir. I opened the album and saw pictures of Blanche, Blanche at home, Blanche at school, Blanche at the dog run.

  Then curious to see how the iguana would react to Blanche, I opened the bedroom door. I had the impression that iguanas were pretty solitary animals, but when Blanche went over to the cage, stuffed her nose partway between the bars and sneezed, there was no tail swishing, no big fat dewlap showing, and no hissing. The iguana turned to see who was there, then went right back to his salad.

  Dashiell seemed happy for now to observe from a distance. He, too, had other things to do. In fact, I thought I ought to encourage that.

  “Find it,” I told him. “That’s my boy.”

  I waited a moment, listening to the sound of his nose, then sat at the desk and began to open drawers, looking for Sophie’s calendar. Next I checked her purse, which was still sitting on the coffee table. Had there been a calendar in it, it was no longer there. No way the police would have left it behind.

  I had gone back to the desk to look for medical receipts in Sophie’s most recent tax back up when Dashiell barked, signaling a find. I got up and went to see what he had, thinking it would be a pair of socks at the side of the bed or something else he deemed out of place and I’d deem meaningless. Still, we had to try.

  It had probably been loose, perhaps a spare that had fallen off the desk and gotten kicked under the bed when the cops were checking out the apartment. It was certainly small enough to miss.

  If not for the fact that Chip had one of these things, I probably would not have known what it was, this little dark-gray stick, not more than four inches long, a rounded point on one end, on the other end something that looked like a pen clip but wasn’t. But I’d used it, and played with it, practicing the special graffiti you needed to keep your records in this very modern way. The little stick was the stylus of a PalmPilot, an electronic organizer. That meant, if Sophie was as efficient as her desk and her tax records made me think she was, there’d be a backup of everything on her computer.

  I gave Dashiell a scratch behind his right ear, told him to continue looking, and turned my attention to Sophie’s laptop.

  CHAPTER 11

  They Met at the Run

  At four-thirty the dogs barked. A few moments later I heard a key in the lock.

  “I thought you said the cops took your keys.”

  “They did. But I had another set at home.” Ever the little Boy Scout.

  “Is that a fact?”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t know for sure you’d still be here.”

  “And why didn’t you bother to mention the iguana?”

  I’m sure my hands were on my hips. Unless I was pointing at him.

  “Leslie’s here?”

  I nodded. He took his jacket off and dropped it over the back of the couch, glancing at the place where Sophie had been the last time we had seen her.

  “She belongs to a neighbor.”

  “He’s a she?”

  He nodded. “Sophie baby-sits her when Lydia goes down to Florida to visit her mother.” He pointed at the ceiling. “One flight up.”

  One of the people who hadn’t answered when I’d knocked.

  The back door was open and the dogs were out in the garden, Blanche sitting on one haunch with her legs straight out in front of her watching Dashiell chase Bianca in as big a circle as the yard would allow.

  “Was she out? Sophie kept her out a lot. The first time I saw her, she was on the back of the couch. She scared the hell out of me.”

  “She was on the desk. Dashiell discovered her. He wasn’t one bit scared, but I sure was.”

  “I understand. Believe me.”

  “No. You don’t. It was her phone calls.”

  Mel’s forehead wrinkled like an attentive Boxer’s.

  “She called me about a dozen times, all after Sophie had died.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This number kept showing up on my caller ID. It drove me nuts. Then when I came here, I found her on the phone.”

  “Talking?”

  “Nah. And she never once left me a message either. She was resting on the phone. With her foot on the redial button.”

  He screwed up his face. “Like, wow.”

  “You can say that again,” I told him. I didn’t mention the last message.

  He looked around and saw my backpack, on the floor and propped against the arm of the sofa.

  “Is that yours? You staying over?”

  “I am.”

  “Because of Leslie?”

  I nodded.

  “But she doesn’t have to eat every day.”

  “Try telling her that. She ate like there was no tomorrow with two dogs in the room.”

  “Sophie said it was better for her to eat every other day. So if you were going to stay for her, you don’t have to.”

  “Still.”

  “I can come in and make sure she has water and mist her. If you want me to. I don’t care about the money or anything, Rachel. I’ll take care of the pets as long as I have to.”

  “Thanks, but I need to look through Sophie’s papers. It’s easier to do if I stay over.”

  “There was this guy, used to wear his iguana, here,” he said, tapping his shoulder, “take it to Washington Square Park. He’d sit on a bench and read, with this huge iguana draped around his neck, as if it were reading over his shoulder. Once in a while, if there weren’t any dogs around, he’d put the thing down on the grass. He had this harness on it, so it couldn’t run away. But it never tried to. It never moved an inch.”

  “Terrific. So what else did you forget to mention?”

  His arms flew up, as if he were about to take off. “What do you mean?”

  “Think, Mel. I’m hard up for facts here. In the past twelve months—”

  “How did you—”

  “I’m a detective.”

  He looked puzzled. News to him.

  “In the past twelve months,” I prodded, “you must have heard things, seen things, been told things. You must know things you haven’t told me.”

  “I can’t think of what. I mean, I’m sorry about the iguana, but how was I supposed to know Lydia was away? Anyway, even if Sophie had mentioned it, I was pretty shook up. I’ve never seen a dead person before. Except in the movies. An
d they’re not really dead, are they?”

  “Not usually.”

  “Oh, I just thought of something. I once took Bianca to the vet.”

  “And?”

  “Well, Sophie had to go to work. She tried never to miss it. The kids, she taught young ones, eight-year-olds, I think, she said they really missed her a lot if she didn’t go in. Other teachers, she said, took mental health days. They’d go to the movies. Or Bloomingdale’s. But she never did that. And Bianca was coughing. Sophie was afraid it was something serious and she asked me if I’d take Bianca in for a checkup. She offered to pay me extra,” he said, “but I wouldn’t take it.”

  “So where’d you take her?”

  I’d already gone through the old check registers. There were checks to three different veterinary practices. On all the checks to one of the practices, she’d written “acupuncture.” That was probably for Blanche’s arthritis. But I didn’t know which of the other two vets she’d taken the dogs to for the DNA test.

  “Dr. Cohen. Sandra Cohen, on Bleecker Street.”

  “Was she Sophie’s regular vet?”

  “She didn’t say. I mean, Sophie. Sophie didn’t say. She just asked if I could take Bianca there instead of taking her to the run. But I did both. Dr. Cohen said it was no big deal, probably an allergy. So it wouldn’t be contagious for the other dogs. So I took her from there to the dog run.”

  “That’s it?”

  He nodded. “Except that that was the first time Leslie was here and I wondered if maybe Bianca got sick from her. I heard you can, you know, get pretty sick from iguanas.”

  Something had been needling away at me ever since I’d seen Leslie sitting on the answering machine.

  “Salmonella,” I said. “From contact with their feces.”

  “But Sophie always washed her hands after touching Leslie.”

  I wiped mine down the sides of my jeans.

  “Still,” I said, “it wouldn’t take much to pick up salmonella from an iguana, especially one that seems to have had the run of the house. She might even have picked it up from the phone. It would be so easy to forget, to grab the phone when it rang, then touch your mouth with that hand before you got to wash it.”

  “She used an antibacterial soap,” Mel said. “I only know that because I cleaned the cage out for Sophie that time she was so sick. That’s when she told me to use the soap. She kept it under the sink in the bathroom. But I didn’t really need it. I’d used rubber gloves. Then I used the soap anyway. You can never be too careful.”

  “So what about Sophie’s boyfriend? Was he ever here when you came? Or when you brought Bianca back home? Or did she ever mention him, you know, when she was home?”

  “I’m the dog walker,” he whined. “No one was ever here but Bianca.”

  “So nothing on the boyfriend? Zip? She never mentioned him? You never met him at the dog run?”

  “The dog run?”

  “His name is Herbie. They met at the run.”

  “Herbie?”

  I nodded.

  “Never met him. Never heard of him. Maybe some dog walkers, it’s like they’re Dear Abby or something. Me, I’m on a schedule. I always had a special soft spot for Sophie, because of her, you know, problem, and for Bianca, because she didn’t have a father. But there were only a couple of times I talked to Sophie, and when someone’s sick and scared, they’re not going to tell you about their boyfriend.”

  “Got it.”

  “Who told you about him?”

  “Someone at the school.”

  He nodded.

  “And did they know about Bianca, too?”

  “She did.”

  Mel’s eyes fluttered. “I thought Sophie wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about the cloning, that it was supposed to be some sort of big secret.”

  “That’s the impression I got. She said this Lorna West person had said it was so top secret that she had to lie when she called The School for the Deaf instead of telling them what she really wanted.”

  Then I thought about what Ruth had told me, that the whole thing was a fabrication, that there had never been such a phone call. I looked at Mel, who was watching the dogs playing in the yard. He didn’t ask anything about Lorna’s story, so I didn’t volunteer any details. Maybe he didn’t need to ask. Sophie might have told him everything she told me. She didn’t seem to be very good in the keeping-her-mouth-shut department. On the other hand, if she really spread it around, she’d only have people thinking she was nuts, laughing at her the way one of her veterinarians had.

  “You okay here?” Mel asked. “I’d be too spooked to stay.”

  “I’m okay. There’s nothing here to hurt me.”

  He nodded. But I could tell he didn’t agree.

  “If you’re finished grilling me, I better get home and walk Margaret.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “But I have to—”

  He flapped his hand at me.

  “I know you’re only doing your job, Rachel. And that it’s not fun. But you are a little intense. After all, it’s not like you have a client anymore.”

  He slipped on his jacket and picked up Bianca’s leash.

  “You don’t have to take her.”

  “I don’t mind. Really I don’t.”

  I shook my head. “And you don’t have to walk her tomorrow. I have to take her somewhere with me.”

  “Where?”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow night, about Thursday’s walk.”

  He stood there staring for a moment. “You’re sure?”

  I nodded.

  “But, Mel…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Keep thinking. You might know more than you realize. Any detail, no matter how small, let me know.”

  He walked out into the yard and called Bianca over to him. Then he bent down and scratched behind her big ears. Bianca sat there, where she’d been with Mel, watching him leave.

  I wondered if he’d take her permanently, if there was no one else. Then I looked over at Blanche, and suddenly, the core of sadness about Sophie’s death became the fate of her animals, where they’d end up, whether or not they could stay together and if there would be someone to love them as much as Sophie had.

  CHAPTER 12

  I Went Quickly into the Garden

  After calling Chip’s pager and punching in Sophie’s number, I decided to feed the dogs before settling down to do more work. I took out the list with Blanche’s diet on it and stuck it onto the side of Sophie’s fridge with a little magnet of a bull terrier she had there. Before getting started, I looked at the other stuff stuck onto the refrigerator, dog cartoons, photos of the dogs, a snapshot of a guy, late thirties, curly hair, nice eyes.

  Was that the ex, Herbie?

  I studied the photo but didn’t take it down to take a closer look because there were three hungry dogs waiting to be fed. Instead, checking the list, I began to pull things out of the refrigerator, adding extra for Dashiell, then on second thought, for me. Of course, I wouldn’t eat everything I was feeding the dogs. But the chopped raw vegetables would be a better dinner than my usual catch-as-catch-can way of eating. Going back to the gym, to strengthen the arm that had gotten broken on my last case, had made me reassess the poor way I took care of myself, almost always too busy to do it properly. But it wasn’t only my trainer who got after me about the way I ate. Dr. Chen had some ideas on that, too, that I eat ginger to warm my insides, that I eat more yang and less yin. Or was it the other way around?

  I began to scrub the carrots, twisting off the tops and washing them, too, to chop and add to the dogs’ portion. I tried to remember if carrots were yin or yang. I’d have to ask Dr. Chen when I saw him the next week.

  Bianca had come in and was sitting and watching me prepare her dinner, her head cocked to one side, her legs straight out in front of her, a comical way for a dog to sit. I looked beyond her and saw Blanche and Dashiell, sleeping side by side on the Persian rug, that little black smudge at the corner of Blanche�
�s closed right eye. And then I looked back at Bianca again, at how sad she seemed, even watching me make her dinner, the black spot looking like a tear now, thinking that one day soon, both dogs would forget Sophie, but those little black tears would be there forever.

  She was such a swell pup, healthy looking, full of beans, friendly. Why were people so freaked out by cloning? Why was I?

  I shut off the Cuisinart and pulled out my cell phone, dialing a number I hadn’t called in months.

  “It’s me, Rachel,” I said, startled that he’d answered because he hardly ever did, thinking I’d have to leave a message and wait for him to call me back, a call that might not ever come. I told him about the case. He listened without interrupting.

  “About the cloning,” I started to say. But then I stopped. What exactly did I want to ask him? “Do you think any good will come of it?”

  “Yes. And no.”

  “You mean it’ll be good and bad? Oh, I see what you mean, that the cloning of animals, that’s okay, or at least sometimes it’s okay, depending upon the reason, the motive, for the cloning, right? That if the cloning is meant to provide medication, or more food, or organs for transplantation, that would be okay, a positive use of knowledge, but if someone was spending millions of dollars to get a duplicate of their pet, then that’s just some ridiculous paean to narcissism.”

  “You think too much,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “No use spinning your wheels, Rachel. Good or bad, it’s inevitable.”

  I waited for more, but there was no more.

  I meant to tell him I’d try to get over and see him soon, an empty promise that made me hesitate, and as I did, I heard the click, and then the dial tone.