Fall Guy

sad. I went back inside to give him privacy. I didn't want him to see that I heard him crying. He wouldn't have liked that.“
    I got up, dropping the leash and leaving Dashiell at the table and offered my hand. „Rachel Alexander,“ I said. „I'll be spending some time working here, settling Tim's estate.“
    „Jin Mei Lin,“ she said.
    She carefully put the brush down on the tray that held her paints and put her hand in mine. It was small and dry, and standing there, I towered over her.
    „You're a good person to do this job,“ she said. „It's too much grief for most people.“
    Then her small dark eyes left me and settled on Dashiell.
    „He doesn't bite,“ I said, feeling silly as I did, but it was the question nearly everyone asked. Despite the clownlike black patch over his right eye and the Charlie Chaplin mustache, both standouts against his white coat, he was, after all, a pit bull. Carrying a lot of baggage was an unfortunate part of his birthright.
    „I see that,“ Jin Mei said.
    It was then that I stepped closer and looked at what she was painting. On the vertical board of the easel, she had taped a photo of a German shepherd, her forehead pleated with concern, her eyes dark and intelligent, her ears, instead of pointing toward the clouds, leaning toward each other, as if in conversation. Below, on the canvas, was the beginning of Jin Mei's portrait of the dog.
    „Your dog's eyes are wise,“ she said, „not mean. She turned to look behind her, at the ruddy Abyssinian on the windowsill, her yellow eyes on Dashiell. „Yin Yin's a good judge of character. If she's staying there, this dog is not a problem.“
    „Have you lived here long?“ I asked.
    She nodded. „Detective O'Fallon, too. But not Parker.“ She wrinkled her nose. „Parker's one of the worst of all the men he took in. When he was out here“—she turned again and pointed to her window—“I went inside, made a cup of tea and waited for him to leave.“
    „Parker?“ I asked.
    I remembered a Parker in Tim's address book. Parker Bowling.
    Jin Mei nodded. „He's not here now. The police took him out.“
    „He was arrested?“
    She shook her head. „They took him out here, to the garden. They told him he had to go somewhere else.“ She moved her hands as if shooing me away from her. „The detective told him he couldn't stay here because his name isn't on the lease.“
    „He was living here, this Parker? With Tim?“
    „Tim always had someone living here, the men he helped. I already told you, he was a good man.“
    „Yes,“ I said, „you did,“ wondering why Detective Brody hadn't mentioned this Parker, wondering what it meant that O'Fallon had men live here that he was helping, trying really hard not to jump to conclusions. But this was Greenwich Village. And there were hardly any women's names in O'Fallon's address book.
    „How long had Parker lived here?“ I asked.
    „Several months,“ she said. „No one liked him. He didn't talk to any of us.“ She swirled her hand around, indicating the whole garden. „Too important to talk to us.“ She pushed the tip of her nose up with one finger.
    „He didn't talk to the neighbors?“ I asked.
    „Right. He'd come into the garden, sit in a chair, smoke a stinky cigarette, stare straight ahead. He never said, 'Good morning, Jin Mei. How are you today? How is Yin Yin?' Very unfriendly.“
    „Were you a little afraid of him, Jin Mei? Was that why you went inside when he came out here, because he was something worse than unfriendly?“
    Jin Mei shrugged and picked up her brush. „I just didn't like him from day one.“
    „Was there something else, something he did, something other than his unfriendliness?“ I asked.
    But that part of our conversation no longer interested her. She dipped just the tip of the brush in white and made a tiny dot in each of the dog's eyes, bringing them to life. Then she put down her brush and took off her hat, smoothing her hair back from her face with both hands. Her hair was a dark, graphite gray, pulled back and coiled into a knot at the nape of her neck. Without the hat, I got a better look at her paper-thin skin the color of masking tape, the pleating near her small eyes, as dark as currants, the crisscrossing lines above her mouth. She looked to be in her seventies, but she might have been older.
    Jin Mei pointed at Dashiell. „Would you like me to paint him, maybe for a special occasion? I'm very expensive,“ she said, „but