Rachel Alexander 02 - The Dog who knew too much

Or was it the rabbi who made me feel as if I were a child? There were heavy velvet drapes on the windows, wine colored, swagged back with white curtains beneath, but still the light came into the room, showing the sheen of the much-polished table and the age of the faded, flowered wallpaper and worn oriental rug.
    Rabbi Zuckerman placed his hands on the table and waited. After the long walk, Dashiell didn’t need to be told to lie down. Sighing heavily, he plotzed right next to the rabbi’s chair, showing his innate respect for such obvious authority. I reached into my pocket and drew out the copy of Lisa’s suicide note and the samples of her known handwriting the rabbi’s message had asked me to bring along, letters I had found in the briefcase her mother had given me what seemed like a hundred years ago, in Sea Gate.
    He pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and into that mess of curls and brought Lisa’s note up close to his face. I thought he was speaking to me, but realized he was humming—Bach’s Sonata no. 1, if memory serves. He studied the three words for a very long time. Then he carefully placed the copy down on the table, smoothed it flat with both hands, and looked at it some more.
    Next he picked up one of Lisa’s letters. These had been written to her mother and father, and so, like anyone else’s letters home, they were fairly egocentric, bland, and reassuringly cheerful. But it wasn’t the content that the rabbi was studying. For him, the writing itself was the message. What I’d remembered hearing was that a Rabbi Zuckerman on Eldridge Street had a passion for graphology, that he’d been studying handwriting and the things it revealed about character for thirty or so years.
    “Suicide, you said, yes?”
    I nodded.
    He began to hum again, this time keeping time with his foot tapping away on the threadbare carpet. By now five letters were spread out in front of him. He studied them and nodded. “Su- i - cide ,” he said. “ Hmmph .”
    “Rabbi Zuckerman, I was wondering if you—”
    “Shah,” he said. With one hand he reached up and brought his glasses back down to rest on his nose. He got up, causing Dash to momentarily lift his head, and disappeared into the kitchen. I could hear the water running. So could Dashiell, who got up and followed him. A moment later I could hear the sound of one dog drinking, considerably louder than the sound of one hand clapping.
    The rabbi returned with two jelly j'ar glasses, which he placed on the table. He bent and opened the server at the wall behind the head of the table, taking out a bottle of sherry. As he poured, he hummed. Then, handing me one of the glasses, he said, “So.”
    “Rabbi Zuckerman,” I started again, “I was wondering if you could tell if the same person, if Lisa Jacobs, who wrote the letters, also wrote the suicide note. I realize that the note only has three words, well, two and a signature, but—”
    “There’s a lot of energy in her writing. Strength of body, strength of mind. A remarkable woman. Remarkable.”
    He took a sip of sherry.
    So did I . When in Rome, so to speak.
    “Ambition. Optimism. Self-control.”
    “But—”
    Dashiell had remained in the kitchen. I could hear his tags as he flopped over onto his side on the no-doubt-cooler kitchen floor.
    “The hand holds the pen,” the rabbi said, “but the brain controls the hand. Thus the writing reveals character.”
    He picked up one of the letters and pushed his glasses back up onto the crown of his head.
    “You have never before used the clues from handwriting in your detective work?”
    “No, never.”
    “But you are hoping for a definitive answer. She did. She didn’t. If she didn’t, who did?”
    “No, not that much.”
    He took a sip of sherry.
    “Rabbi Zuckerman, Lisa’s parents—”
    “Yes, I know,” he said. “I can see from her letters. For the parents, there is no more sun to rise in the morning. The world is now dark for them. So, Rachel, what do you hope to give them?”
    “What they asked me for,” I said. “Some understanding of why.” He nodded.
    I waited.
    The rabbi hummed.
    “This young woman,” he finally said, “the woman who wrote with such a regular hand, everything in balance, the proportions pleasing, she was tenacious, self-willed, powerful, a determined person. The writing, you see, shows a person’s hand.”
    I nodded.
    “She was confident, more confident than vain. There are no flourishes, no