Rachel Alexander 02 - The Dog who knew too much

saving face not for oneself but for one’s dog.
    Talk about stories, how about the O. J. Simpson case? Here again an Akita was present during the commission of a crime, the double murder that captured the attention of the entire nation. In Simpson’s first trial, the dog was part of the case. Since she had been found afterward, wandering the streets wailing, the prosecution attempted to use her cries to establish the time of the killings.
    Akita lovers could not understand why Satchmo , formerly Kato, hadn’t protected Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman. But if they secretly doubted her courage, no one could doubt the dog’s loyalty. There had been blood on her legs and paws when she’d been found, and on her undercoat as well, as if she had in her grief lain down beside her beloved mistress’s body.
    Days after the crime, the dog’s behavior became an issue again. When Simpson returned to Rockingham after the much-televised slow-speed chase, the bitch had cowered as Simpson stepped out of the Bronco. Some thought that was an accusation, the dog’s way of telling what she knew. Some people even suggested the big dog take the stand.
    But why had the dog failed to protect the victims?
    She had the motive—she clearly loved her mistress. She had the means, didn’t she? She was a powerful animal with big teeth. And as far as anyone knew, she had the opportunity. She was out, not locked up in the house.
    But the man accused of the double murder had been powerful, too. And he had a knife. In next to no time he slaughtered not one young, healthy person but two, nearly decapitating one of them, the woman with whom he was obsessed, the woman who thought, for one heady moment, that she had finally broken free of him.
    Any dog worth its feed would know its owner’s feelings toward another person, would feel the fear. Moreover, if accusations and suppositions were correct, in line with the second trial rather than the first, the killer had not been a stranger to the dog, someone to back down, an enemy to be dispatched without hesitation. Just a short while before, he had been the dog’s master. So long before the night of the murder, she had seen him enraged, perhaps starting when she’d been a pup and no one had remembered to take her out on time. She’d been there when Nicole was beaten. Perhaps she’d been beaten, too. If Akitas were half as smart as their owners claim, perhaps she kept away to protect herself.
    Two cases in which an Akita failed to stop a crime. Yet in both instances, the Akita people could only sing praises for the breed that bores so deeply into the human heart that all the dogs have to do to win the boundless love of their people is be themselves. And this the Akita can do with remarkable self-assurance.
    Now there was a third case involving an Akita . Hadn’t Lisa’s dog been present when her owner had been murdered? Had the dog been complacent because she knew the killer? Someone who had the keys.
    Be not afraid.
    Had Lisa been writing when the killer arrived?
    I’m sorry. Lisa. Not a suicide note.
    Was it an apology to someone whose feelings she was about to hurt? Someone who was coming to hear the news of her departure? She’d told Avi she wanted to tell the others herself. One at a time. Had one of them been here?
    If so, which one?
    As of now, only the killer was privy to that information. And once again, the Akita knew. But sadly, she had no way of telling the rest of us the answer we so desperately sought.

27

His Eyes Were Pinched and Small

    WHEN I GOT back to school, he was sitting on one of the couches, his eyebrows pitched with worry. Ch’an didn’t greet him. Instead, she quickly disappeared into the office. I heard her at her water bowl, heard her lie down with a sigh.
    “I’m s-sorry about yesterday,” he said. “Really s-sorry. I j-just forg -g-got about your—”
    “Bullshit,” I said, taking a seat across from him. “I’ve had enough lies, and I’m ready for the truth now. The appointment was in your book, your book was open, you didn’t forget. And you didn’t go shopping for Mother Teresa either. So where were you?”
    He had his mother’s eyes, washed out and saggy, and her fleshy cheeks, already losing their battle with gravity. They were trembling now, as if he were frightened. Good, I thought, exactly the effect I’d been looking for.
    “I f-forgot,” he said, petulant as a child. “Is th - that a c-crime?” His eyes were pinched and