Rachel Alexander 02 - The Dog who knew too much

hall stop just outside Stewie Fleck’s door.
    But he couldn’t get in, could he?
    Unless the super had his keys.
    Or he had an extra set over the jamb or under his ratty welcome mat.
    Could he see light coming from under the door?
    Crouched next to Dashiell, whose breathing seemed as loud as a respirator, I looked down into my hand at the saliva-covered key Dashiell had dropped there. It must have fallen out of the tissue box as he was annihilating it.
    When the doorknob turned and rattled, my heart jumped, and while I was nowhere near as paranoid as Stewie , having only one lock on my cottage door, I was grateful I’d been paranoid enough to lock Stewie’s door behind me.
    He rattled the knob again, which was about as effective as kicking the flat tire you found on your car. I heard his footsteps as he walked away, then the click of the front door closing.
    I opened my hand again and looked at the key that Stewie had hidden in his own home. What did he think, that just because he lived in New York City someone would break in and paw through all his worldly possessions?
    I stuffed the tom tissue box and all the tissues into a dog pickup bag, waited an extra minute, heart still pounding, shut off the light, and let Dashiell into the hall, slipping out after him and locking all three locks, the key Dashiell had found in my other sweating hand. Then I looked for the stairs, because his darkroom would be in the basement, wouldn’t it?
    We didn’t meet anyone downstairs. The building probably only had a part-time super. I tried to keep my eyes up; this was water bug territory if ever I’d seen it, and while I’d face a snarling dog or walk into a lion’s den, so to speak, bugs were a horse of another color.
    There were eight doors in the basement, all but one locked. I dumped the remains of Stewie’s tissue box in the compactor room and went back to try the key Dashiell had found in each of the other locks, hoping one was a utility closet, with water, that Stewie used as a darkroom. At the fifth door the key moved and the tumbler turned over. I felt my heart start to pound again.
    I found a light switch on the left, and as soon as the light went on, I inhaled hard enough to pull the whole room down into my lungs. There on the wall, over the sink and shelf full of trays for chemicals, and hanging on a wire, pinned up to dry, looking eerie in the glow of the red safety light, were photos of me.
    Dashiell and I squeezed into the small room and, not knowing how Stewie would react to having lost his keys, or how soon after the locksmith let him in he’d notice his tissue box was missing, I locked this door behind me too.
    Dashiell sat, and I began to look at the photos, one hand leaning on the counter for support.
    I had been captured doing t’ai chi on the Morton Street pier, then holding the fence open for Dashiell as we were leaving.
    There was a shot of me walking on Hudson Street , Dashiell heeling at my side. And several shots of me entering and leaving Lisa’s building, even one of me looking out the window, at night. It seemed Stewie had more than just a Nikon with a telephoto lens.
    There were close-ups, too. And shots at the dog run, most of me practicing the form, but some of me sitting on the bench and watching the dogs play. And one of me holding someone’s cute Jack Russell puppy on my lap. There were even shots of Dashiell, but those were off on the little piece of wall to the right, opposite the side where Stewie kept his enlarger.
    Then I noticed something else. The pictures of me all over the wall seemed to be tacked over other photos. In several places, I could see the edges of other pictures sticking out.
    I leaned forward and pulled out some pushpins, carefully taking down a photo of me frozen in the middle of Cloud Hands, my arms moving from one side to the other in front of my chest, eyes on the horizon, knees bent, in Lisa’s black leggings and sweater, her heart necklace dangling from around my neck. Under it, there was a similar photo. At first glance, it looked identical. But it wasn’t.
    There was a pull chain hanging down in the center of the tiny room. I gave it a tug and turned off the safety light. Then I leaned over the counter and looked at the picture again. Not me. It was Lisa.
    I took out the rest of the tacks, exposing the prints underneath.
    There was Lisa dressed in black, doing Cloud Hands, wearing the same black shoes that I now practiced in, her hands moving like nimbi