Rachel Alexander 02 - The Dog who knew too much

were cousins, but I hardly knew her. And now I hear so much about her, being at the school and everything. But it’s inconsistent. Sometimes she sounds so special, so smart, so graceful, the way her parents saw her. Other times—” Something in Howie’s eyes made me pause. “You’d want to toss her out the window.”
    Howie blinked once.
    The doorbell rang.
    Dashiell stood, ready if needed.
    “Do you miss her, Howie?” I asked as he headed out of his office to answer the door. “Were you and Lisa close?”
    He turned to face me. “Of c-course I m-miss her,” he said, his voice as flat as Kansas . “She was my teacher—and a client.”
    “That’s all?” I asked him.
    “I-isn’t th - th -that enough?”
    He ought to do something about his tension, I thought. The man looked as if he were ready to implode.
    “How much do I owe you for fixing Mr. Leg?”
    The bell rang a second time.
    “I’ll catch you next time,” he said, a kind of pain showing on his face that couldn’t be fixed as easily as a bogus spasm could.

16

You Think Too Much

    WHEN I LEFT Howie’s, I headed for Lisa’s. I’d decided I’d sort through her mail and check her answering machine messages and then reward myself with a bacon burger and some fries. I was feeling really tired, probably a fat deficiency.
    The concierge handed me even more junk mail than was waiting for me upstairs, the stuff too big to fit in her mailbox, catalogs and magazines folded and held together by a fat rubber band. Just the volume of stuff started depressing me. If I liked paperwork, I would have become a CPA. By the time I’d gotten upstairs, I’d convinced myself, just as I did at home, that I could pitch out Victoria ’s Secret and L L Bean one day later.
    The answering machine was flashing, but instead of rolling it back and listening to the messages, I picked up the cordless phone that sat next to it, walked over to the black couch under the windows, and dialed my aunt Ceil.
    “Hello?” she said, her voice strong and gravelly.
    “Ceil? It’s Rachel. I was wondering if I could come and see you tomorrow afternoon. I have a favor to ask.”
    “Of course, tootsie. Come early. Stay late. I’ll make us a little lunch. When can I expect you?”
    “Is two okay?”
    “Two is perfect, darling. See you then.”
    Was Ceil the only one in my family I had an easy time with because she had been married to my father’s brother, so she wasn’t a blood relative? Maybe, like dogs, people just got along better with others that were not from their own gene pool.
    I meant to get up and listen to Lisa’s messages, I really did, because the tenth law of investigation work is, You never know. I thought again about dumping the junk mail and doing whatever was appropriate with the rest of it. But I felt almost drugged. Perhaps it was the massage. With some of my tension gone, there was nothing left to hold me up.
    I’d heard Dashiell going up the wooden steps. I’d heard the bed creak as he’d gotten onto it. I thought of joining him, but the black couch was so soft and inviting, and I was already there. So I leaned sideways, pulled up my legs, and fell immediately asleep, Lisa’s cordless phone still in my hand.
    When I woke up, it was dark in the apartment, and for a moment I had trouble remembering where I was. Dashiell was lying next to the couch now, and when I sat up, he looked up at me, reminding me that a dog has needs, too. I looked at my watch. It was after seven. I pulled myself together, and we headed for the waterfront so that Dashiell could stretch his legs and use his muscles before dinner.
    We crossed over at Christopher Street and headed north, Dashiell running far ahead, ecstatic to be free to move, running back to check on me every few minutes.
    There was a Great Dane wearing an American flag bandanna waiting up ahead, and in no time they were jumping in circles, eyes dancing, feeling each other’s strengths and weaknesses as they practiced a dog version of Push Hands.
    When I felt someone right behind me, I turned.
    “ Stewie . Hey.”
    It was my lucky day. I was now looking into the small, dark eyes of Stewie Fleck. He was wearing a heavy black turtleneck and black jeans, a beatnik in the age of grunge. When I turned, he smiled, and I could see the strain in it.
    “I was going to practice the form out on the pier,” he said, looking at his feet now, “but it’s too crowded tonight. Avi says to be careful practicing outdoors,