Rachel Alexander 02 - The Dog who knew too much

left the box and the ribbon for me to put in the trash, but, you know,” he leaned over again and whispered, “I didn’t. I took it home. I’m saving it for my girlfriend’s birthday. I’ll get her something, put it in the Tiffany box, you know what I mean?” He winked.
    I forced a smile. “So what was in it? What’d he send her?”
    “A silver bracelet, with a heart on it, and some writing. I didn’t get to see what it said, but she, your cousin, she rolled her eyes when she read it, put it back in the little blue bag, and stuffed it in her pocket. There was some other stuff too, but that was the only one she opened here. That was the last one,” he said. “That one came right before she did it, a day or two before.”
    “And then afterward, Mr. Wilcox wasn’t around? You never saw him again?”
    “Not until tonight, forty, forty-five minutes ago, when he left.”
    “Thanks, Eddie.”
    Lisa’s daddy had done well by her. The Printing House was like living in the fucking Plaza. They had maid service, if you wanted it, and you could drop off your laundry and dry cleaning at the desk and have it back, clean and ready, by the time you got home from work. If you needed gossip, protection, opinions about your private life, that was available, too. I wondered if you could put your shoes out in the hall at night and find them back and polished in the morning.
    “Can you hold the flowers another minute for me, Eddie. I forgot something upstairs.”
    “Sure I can. Anything you say, Ms. Alexander. Anything to help.”
    Back at Lisa’s apartment, I took the steps two at a time, opened the second drawer of Lisa’s jewelry box, and took the silver bracelet out of the robin’s-egg-blue bag. I opened the clasp and put it on, feeling the silver warm up where it was touching my skin.
    I turned the heart over and read the inscription.
    There wasn’t a scratch on it, no patina from use. Lisa hadn’t worn the bracelet But I would. Like it or not, I had taken over where she’d left off.
    Down in the lobby, I picked up the roses. Outside, where Eddie could no longer see me, I lifted them to my face and inhaled their perfume.
    Never, I remember Frank saying, holding my shoulders and looking into my eyes as he spoke, never go to bed with a suspect until you find out who the murderer is.
    I had nodded dutifully.
    And it’s someone else, he’d added.
    Right, Frank, I’d said. And what number law is that?
    Sex is no laughing matter, he’d said, shaking his head. In this job, it can kill you.
    Who did I think I was, walking down Hudson Street with a dozen roses in the crook of my arm, fucking Miss America ?
    When I got to the comer, I pitched the bouquet into the trash basket. Then Dashiell and I headed home.

20

I Don’t Know Anything for Sure

    I OVERSLEPT ON Thursday morning. There was barely time to call Lisa's mother and check out my landlords’ house before getting to school for a noon instructor’s session with Avi .
    Once a week or so, Dashiell and I went through the Siegals ’ town house to make sure that no homeless person had noticed it was empty and decided that sleeping indoors under crisp percale sheets would be preferable to sleeping in a cardboard box on a grate on the sidewalk. I even checked the smoke alarm, which was admittedly ridiculous since, should it go off, no one would be there to hear it. But Norma had a thing about smoke alarms, and in New York City you don’t argue over an easy job that gets you a terrific place to live at an affordable rent.
    Everything was covered with dust and grime. When I got back to the cottage, I called the cleaning service and arranged for them to come the first of May, which is when the Siegals usually showed up to spend a month or two in the city before heading out to the beach. And in an extravagant gesture, I told them I’d like my house cleaned as well this time.
    Wearing my own clothes, and nothing of Lisa’s, I headed for Bank Street . Once inside, I ran up the stairs, following behind Dash. Rounds had started, and I walked in on a startling scene. There were Janet, Stew, and Howie, each with a string of bubble gum running from the tip of the nose to the t’an t’ien , a spot a couple of inches beneath their belly buttons.
    “Nose-navel alignment,” Avi said without turning. I watched him watching me in the mirror. “Gum’s on the coffee table. Chew it first.” Just like my mother, I thought, always assuming I had the mental prowess of an