Rachel Alexander 02 - The Dog who knew too much

calendar and a small address book. I slipped them into my pocket.
    The kitchen was small, utilitarian, and neater than mine. No big trick. On the floor, opposite the sink, were two bowls, one obviously licked clean by a large dog with a healthy appetite, the other with a small amount of water still in it. I picked up the water bowl, rinsed it in the sink, then let the water run until it got cold. It was a ceramic dish, cream with a rust-colored dog bone, rimmed in blue, smack in the center. On the outside, in the blue, was written “My Dog.” I filled it and put it down for Dashiell. I could hear him drinking as I stood in the center of Lisa’s living room and looked around.
    On my left there was a wall of books, with photos of Lisa doing t’ai chi tucked between the volumes. All the photos were of Lisa, none of anyone else—not a boyfriend, not even her Akita .
    Under the huge windows there was a comfortable-looking black couch, a small glass coffee table, and two black leather chairs. The rest of the room was empty. I tried to imagine Lisa practicing t’ai chi there.
    Dashiell was on his way upstairs, his nails clacking on the wooden steps. I followed him up, then sat on Lisa’s double bed. The Tao-le- ching was on the nightstand, with a piece of lavender string as a bookmark. I opened it and began to read. This was enough to make me want to end it all.
    I had gone through a Zen phase years before, when I was nineteen or twenty. I wore black, studied t’ai chi, and for the hours between lunch and dinner one day became a vegetarian. But aside from an occasional line that made sense to me, most of what I’d read and heard was incomprehensible.
    “Mystery of mysteries,” it said on the page where Lisa had marked her place. She had not only underlined it but copied it in the margin in her small, neat handwriting.
    How could you come to understand something that couldn’t be explained and couldn’t be taught? Moreover, when you finally thought you had a handle on it, you didn’t. Give me a break, I thought, putting the book back on the nightstand. Life is difficult enough without Zen.
    But then I picked it up again. Lisa had been reading it. Probably for the hundredth time. Maybe I ought to give it one more shot. I left it on the foot of the bed to remind me to take it home. I would put it on my nightstand. Beyond that, I couldn’t say.
    I looked at Lisa’s clothes. Almost everything was black, soft cotton tops and pants you could wear when you practiced or taught t’ai chi. But there were a few cheerful touches in her neat closet, too—a pair of pink high-tops, a pair of red cowboy boots, a sort of patchwork quilted jacket, and silk scarves, lovely ones in nearly every color, long ones, the kind you could wrap around twice, knot, or play with seductively as you leaned close to chat. I pulled out a lavender one and draped it around my neck, smelling Lisa’s perfume, which still clung to the fabric.
    On the tall oak dresser, there was a wooden jewelry box. I opened it and pawed through Lisa’s treasures. I looked in the dresser drawers, too, at her underwear and sweaters. I rifled the nightstands. I checked under the bed. Snooping was my profession, wasn’t it?
    If Lisa had been depressed, I couldn’t see any signs of it. There were no clothes strewn around, no pile of neglected laundry or unpaid bills, no Prozac, Valium, or sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet of the upstairs bathroom. There weren’t even dust elephants under her bed. Maybe Daddy had paid for a maid, too.
    There was lots of makeup, bubble bath, body lotion, perfume, and some pretty necklaces hanging near the oak-framed mirror opposite the sink. She didn’t seem to lack anything. There were even condoms in the nightstand drawer.
    Perhaps there had been a sudden descent, something that made her feel she was falling down a bottomless black hole. Or maybe the change had been chemical. I thought about Elwood waddling down the alley.
    I walked around the bedroom once more, touching Lisa’s things, feeling that there was something missing. Of course. There was no dog bed. I undid the neatly made bed. On the side nearer the stairs, there was black fur on the sheet. The dog had not only slept on the bed, she’d slept under the covers.
    Years ago, when I training dogs for a living, I’d had a client named April Anton, a nurse, who had hired me to train a little dog she had rescued from the shelter. She’d called her Penny because the