Rachel Alexander 02 - The Dog who knew too much

preparing to work. So many secrets, I thought, so little time. But then I looked back at the keys. I already had these. Lisa’s mother had given them to me.
    No one had taken Lisa’s keys to lock up after the murder.
    Whoever killed her already had a set.

Forever, She Said

    THE LAST TIME in her life a woman feels really comfortable about being seen in a bathing suit is when she’s six, and God knows, I hadn’t seen six in a dog’s age. Nonetheless, there I was in the doorway of the ladies’ locker room at the Club, wishing I had a dog to hide behind. Unfortunately, I’d left him at home.
    At least it wasn’t rush hour at the pool. There were only three people in the water. One of them was the coach.
    I stood watching him do laps for a long time. He seemed tireless, cutting through the water the way Avi cut through the air when he did the form, as smooth as a thread of silk being teased from a cocoon. When he reached the deep end, he curled around underwater and shot out in the opposite direction, not coming up for air until he was nearly halfway to the other side. A fish. But what kind of fish? I wondered.
    I dropped the towel onto a bench, then stood next to it, trying to keep my balance as I wiggled the elastic band that held the key to my locker onto my ankle. Suddenly I saw feet, so close I could have reached out and touched them.
    “Ah, the cousin.”
    I straightened up.
    “I didn’t expect to see you again.”
    “Out of my way. I’m trying to get a tan.”
    He smiled.
    “So what are you doing here?”
    He was staring.
    Perhaps it was Lisa’s black bikini bathing suit, which barely covered the stuff my mother said no one but my husband or a doctor should ever see.
    Or maybe it was Lisa’s jasper heart necklace dangling just below my modest but attractive cleavage. Or was it the cleavage itself? since that’s where he seemed to be looking.
    “If I want to compete in the next Olympics, it’s practice, practice. Anyway, I’m here. So, hey.”
    “Hey, yourself,” he said, finally bothering to look at my face. “So, let’s see that stroke you’re so famous for.”
    I turned and walked to the deep end and, one heart hanging around my neck, another in my throat, dove into the now-deserted pool. I began swimming laps, and just when I was really getting into it, I noticed that Paul was back in the water, hanging on to one side at the deep end. I swam over to hang out with him. After all, this was work. I wasn’t here for my health.
    “Hey.”
    He reached out and picked up the jasper heart, holding on to it for a moment before dropping it.
    “Lisa had one just like this.”
    “No kidding?”
    “If memory serves,” he said.
    “Well,” I said, “sometimes it plays tricks on one. Instead of serving .“
    “You have similar taste to Lisa. It’s interesting.”
    “It’s a family thing,” I said.
    “Take that suit, for example.”
    I did, I thought.
    “Lisa had a similar one. Not exactly the same. But very similar .“
    “Yeah? How are they different?”
    “Hers had more cleavage,” he answered.
    Rule number whatever of private investigation is, Never take the job personally.
    Yeah, right.
    I pushed off the wall to swim away, but something stopped me. It was the coach’s hand. He had hooked it into the back of the bottom of my bathing suit, what there was of it.
    “You don’t leave a person much dignity,” I said, flailing around until I could turn and get a grip on the side of the pool again.
    “How much do you need?” he asked.
    “I thought saving face was a big deal with Orientals.”
    “I’m nowhere near your face,” he said, finally letting go of my bathing suit bottom.
    Clinging to the edge of the pool, chlorine wafting up at me and stinging my eyes, I wondered what Lisa had seen in this guy. Sure, he could swim. I’d give him that. But so could a fucking sturgeon.
    Maybe it was the t’ai chi. Maybe they had that in common, too. “Did you meet Lisa through t’ai chi?” I asked him.
    He shook his head. “What are you up to, Dog Paddle?” he said. “Why are you here?”
    “I told you, Paul. I’m trying to help Lisa’s parents. My aunt and uncle.”
    “Okay,” he said, “let’s talk.”
    “Here?”
    I started to tremble. If my mother were here, she’d probably tell me my lips were turning blue.
    “I’d rather we had more clothes on,” he said, looking at me as if I were a pastrami sandwich and he were a starving Jew.
    “What about—” I said,