Rachel Alexander 02 - The Dog who knew too much

swallowed a cantaloupe.”
    “Too early in the season for melons. More likely it was a box of doughnuts. Maybe you ought to take him to Overeaters Anonymous, on Christopher Street .”
    Dashiell’s nose was welded to Watson’s ass.
    “I’m taking him to Sniff Enders,” I said, hooking a thumb toward Dash. He and Watson danced in circles, play-bowed, and began taking turns trying to hump each other.
    “No kidding?” Marty said , the tennis ball poised over his head, then flying down the alley, a very overweight Elwood slowly running after it. “Why don’t you just change his name to Bruce?”
    “Very amusing, Shapiro.”
    Elwood, the fat yellow Lab, dropped the ball at my feet. I kicked it toward Charles Street .
    “Marty, you know anything about the Lisa Jacobs suicide? Her parents have asked me to look into it.”
    “Look into what?” he asked, surprised.
    “Oh, they want to find out what made her depressed enough to go out the window.”
    “Yeah, right. Good luck on that, kid.”
    “Why do you say that? I know it’ll be difficult, but—”
    “Look, Rachel, they’re parents. They wanna know it wasn’t their fault, you know what I’m saying. Do them a big favor. Spend a few days in the park, catch a few rays, give ’ em a call and tell ’ em what they need to hear. It’s a horrible thing to lose your kid. They don’t need guilt on top of it.”
    “One thing was odd, Marty. They talked to me for ages, but they didn’t say much about the incident.”
    “Not unusual. They don’t want to think about it.”
    “So what was the deal? I heard she did it from the school .“
    “Maybe her place was too low for a guaranteed success. Maybe she hated her boss, you know, a passive-aggressive last act. Who knows?”
    “Are they sure it was suicide?”
    “Okay, you want the scene, right?”
    I nodded.
    He began ticking off the facts on his fingers as he spoke.
    “She went out sometime after midnight. No sign of a struggle. The door was locked—”
    “Chain on?”
    “No chain. Anyone with a key could have locked up on the way out.”
    “Bingo,” I said.
    “You New Yorkers, always in such a rush, jumping to conclusions before you got all the facts.” He tossed the ball for El, then looked around the alley to make sure we were still alone. “Okay,” he continued, “you got a negative scene. No overturned furniture. No burning cigar. No smashed minors. No handprint on her back. You following this?”
    I nodded.
    “No one bent over and let his wallet drop out of his pocket onto the floor for us to find. In fact, there was no nothing.”
    I nodded again to show I was paying attention.
    “You got your locked door, true, without the chain on. You got no one across the street seeing nothing. We checked it out. Maybe that was because the lights were off in the studio. Maybe it was because of the courtyard and all the trees blocking the view. Who knows? Then you got this poor woman coming home from St. Vincent ’s Hospital, a private duty nurse. She finds the body on the sidewalk. You got the dog upstairs in the studio—”
    “Dog? What dog?”
    “The victim’s. A big Akita. No one’s going to bother her with that thing around.”
    “Any big dog would offer a certain amount of visual protection, but—”
    “And you got the note.”
    “Oh,” I said, “no one mentioned a note. What did it say?”
    “ ‘I’m sorry. Lisa.’ ”
    All at once the dog was beside the point. True, the Japanese claimed the Akita Inu would protect its master with its very life. But as it turned out, it was only herself Lisa had needed protection from, and hometown hype aside, no dog could do that, not even the national treasure of Japan .
    “ ‘I’m sorry. Lisa’? That’s it?”
    “What do you want, a memoir? She was depressed, right? She wanted out, so she’s out. Young,” he said. “And pretty, too. The parents must be real broken up.”
    “Her father’s not eating. Her mother’s not sleeping. Their worst nightmare came true.”
    “So, you’re going to put them out of their misery, so to speak. You’re going to tell them what good parents they were, right ?“
    “Right,” I said, only half listening. “Where’s the dog now ?“
    “ Now you sound like the girl I know and love.”
    “The dog, Marty. Who’s got the dog?”
    “The guy who owns the school, Ashkenasi , he took her that night. He came to let the detectives in, and when everything was done, he took her home. I don’t know