Fall Guy

were never given a copy of this?“
    I shook my head.
    „And you don't remember meeting him?“
    „Actually I do. I remembered on the way here.“
    I looked down, to where his finger pointed, page three, paragraph four.
    „I appoint my dear friend Rachel Kaminsky Alexander“—my address followed—“to be my Executor under this Last Will and Testament.“
    „I don't get it. I hardly knew him.“ Wondering how he knew my full name, while Brody watched me, waiting, his cop's face not giving anything away.
    „I did some pet therapy, after 9/11. That's how I met him.“
    „Crisis response, down at Ground Zero?“ His face screwed up, what I'd said not making any sense to him.
    „It was right here in the neighborhood, a post-traumatic stress men's group, on West Eleventh Street at the church. Maybe you saw the signs? The psychologist leading the group called me in because the men weren't talking.“
    I waited a moment to see if he'd react. He didn't. He wasn't talking either.
    „Once Dashiell was there, the men began to speak, about how they couldn't get by what had happened, not even enough to fake it, how they were having trouble sleeping, how they couldn't think of a reason to go to work, call a friend, get out of bed.“ Thinking of the simplicity of it, the change that happens when a dog is there, puts his head in your lap, lets you know whatever it is you have to say, it's okay with him.
    „That's where you met Tim? In this group?“
    Tim?
    Timothy, the shrink had called him, trying to get him to talk about why he was there, first names only in the group, including me. But even though I was a volunteer, I'd been given the professional courtesy of getting the list of names, last names on the list, the list somewhere with my pet-therapy files.
    I nodded. „We figured he'd lost someone in the attack, but he never said so. He never said a word. And he surely never asked me to do this “— now my finger pointing to the will.
    The phone rang and Brody picked it up, turning his back. I picked up the will and turned it back to the first page, to the beginning. „I, Timothy William O'Fallon...“
    How had this come to pass, a man I didn't know asking this of me? He'd show up early every week and take the same seat in the circle, facing the courtyard. Hands in his lap, back straight, he'd listen but not contribute. There'd been only one time O'Fallon had spoken. It was on the last day. When nothing else had worked, not direct questions, not encouragement from the other men, not the stories they told, stories that could tear your heart to pieces, the room so full of grief and tears, I'd tried the last thing I knew to do, asking an unresponsive person for help with the dog. Doing this work, I'd told him during the break, a dog picked up a heavy burden of stress. I asked if he'd take Dashiell out for a minute or two, let him just be a dog. He'd taken the leash and gone out into the courtyard, Dashiell following along behind him. He went to the other side of the planters that divided the yard and he must have crouched down because when I looked, all I could see was Dashiell's tail, slowly stirring the wind. When they came back in, I'd thanked him and taken Dashiell back to my seat. Then I reached down to touch Dashiell and he was wet, his head and neck soaked with O'Fallon's tears. It was at the end of that last meeting that he'd spoken to me, just a sentence, but not in the group. We were outside then, where no one else could hear him. „You seem like a very kind person,“ he'd said. It seemed too trivial to repeat to the detective now that O'Fallon was dead, just a lonely man's way of saying thank you, nothing more.
    What if, in fact, he had asked for this favor back then? How could I have said no? If he'd asked a perfect stranger to do something so intimate for him, didn't that mean he had no one else?
    Brody hung up the phone and turned back to me. „You were saying Tim never asked you to be the executor of his estate.“
    „That's right.“
    „And that you met him because he attended this group where you and the dog did pet-assisted therapy?“
    I nodded.
    „That's what you do, for a living?“ he asked.
    „No, it's volunteer work. It's just something I do.“
    He was waiting for more.
    „I'm a researcher,“ I told him, the way I always explained what I did for a living, unless I knew that the person asking was looking for what I really did. Saying I earned my living as a private investigator made