Fall Guy

could. I can open a door for myself, or be gracious when someone else does. My view of myself isn't locked into trivial expressions of courtesy or generosity. And I was too hungry to have a prolonged argument.
    There were a table and chairs in the garden, but I sat on the top step. Brody followed me, putting the pie behind us, in front of the door.
    Dashiell came over, his tail swinging happily from side to side.
    „Ignore him,“ I said. „No matter what he claims, he's eaten already.“
    Speaking of gracious, I got up, stepped over the pizza box and went inside to get some beer, napkins and paper plates. While I was there, I picked up Parker's phone and the matchbook and slipped them into my pants pocket. I took O'Fallon's notebook and slipped it under one of the couch cushions.
    „The reason I asked you to come here tonight...“
    „I thought it was the other thing, about O'Fallon, about why he named you as executor. I didn't even know you could do that.“
    „Do what?“
    „Name an executor without permission. It seems ...“
    „Do you have a will, Detective?“
    „Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.“
    „Did your attorney ask you whether or not you had informed your executor of your decision and had received said person's approval to be so named?“
    „I see your point. So, if not that, why did you call?“
    „Dashiell found something at O'Fallon's apartment, something I thought you'd want.“
    „What do you mean?“
    „Parker's cell phone. I called it, to cancel the appointment I had with him. I'd told him he could come to Tim's tomorrow, to get his things. Then I changed my mind. I wanted more time to look at things myself, before he started claiming them. The number he gave me, for his aunt's place, it was a wrong number.“
    Brody nodded.
    „I remembered seeing a cell phone number in Tim's address book, so I called that. I was at Tim's apartment at the time and the phone rang there. The only trouble was, I couldn't see the phone and I wasn't sure where the sound was coming from, so...“
    „You asked Dashiell to find it.“
    Dash looked at Brody when he heard the words, then looked at me for clarification. I waved a hand at him, to tell him he wasn't working, he was just waiting for pizza, nothing more.
    „Right. And he did. And that's why...“
    He was looking at Dashiell again. „You said you'd been a dog trainer?“
    „That's right.“
    „So you taught Dashiell how to do pet therapy?“
    „No. He didn't need me for that.“
    Brody raised his eyebrows.
    „It's innate. All predators know how to tell the weak from the strong. For the wild ones, once they do ...“ I drew my pointer across my throat. „That's how they survive.“
    „Sounds like the predators I deal with.“
    „Except that domesticated predators, like dogs, don't think of humans as prey.“
    „How do they think of us?“
    „As family. So when we're hurting or in trouble, they don't have us for lunch. They nurture us.“
    Brody looked at Dashiell.
    „All I had to do was teach Dash manners so that when he goes to a nursing home or the church where I met Tim, he behaves appropriately.“
    Brody took a pull on his beer. „What about protection work? Does he...?“
    I nodded.
    „Is that why you didn't need me at O'Fallon's when I offered to be there?“
    I nodded again.
    „That's good,“ Brody said, „very good. What else?“
    „It depends on the circumstances, on what's called for.“
    „Any rescue work?“
    „He wasn't down at Ground Zero, if that's what you're asking. And anyway, most of those dogs specialized in cadaver recovery.“
    „And Dashiell, does he do that, too?“
    „I've started him on that. It's not that it's really something new to him. If I give him a scent and send him, he'll do his best to find it, no matter what it is. Except...“ I stopped, looking first at Dashiell and then at Brody, both of them concentrating hard on me. „Except that if a dog's only done rescue work, if he's only come up with living people, he can get really depressed after a day of finding bodies. Or body parts. So I'm getting him used to it, just in case.“
    Brody turned away. Maybe he was skipping the news, too.
    „Some people think it's the handler's reaction that causes the depression with cadaver work, that to a dog, it's all the same.“
    Brody was shaking his head.
    „I don't believe that either,“ I said. „Anyway, there's another side to it. Even when the work is brutal, it's what he wants to do. He really