Rachel Alexander 02 - The Dog who knew too much

too, you little creep,” I told him, turning slightly so that I all but disappeared. Stewie stumbled forward.
    “What are you talking about?” he said, catching himself, trying to act as if nothing had happened.
    “You were seen standing across from Lisa’s every night, skulking around in the dark, staring at her window, watching to see who came and went,” I said, stepping forward. “What the fuck was that all about?”
    Stewie Fleck looked off to the side, took off his baseball cap, and smoothed his hair forward.
    “What? You what?”
    I grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him back toward me.
    “Quit that,” he said. “Get your hands off me now .”
    And with that, he pushed back. Hard.
    As I caught my footing, I felt Dashiell brush my leg as he stepped between us. We both looked down at him, his tail, rigid now, level with his back, moving ever so slightly from side to side, just stirring the air. He was facing Stewie , who this time stepped back without being pushed.
    “What were those pictures all about, pictures of Lisa, now pictures of me?” I said, my voice much too loud.
    “You were in my darkroom?” he said, seething, but trying not to shout, trying not to inspire Dashiell to anything more than what he was doing, watching to see what would happen next, as if he had all the time in the world and absolutely nothing better to do.
    “I was,” I said. “So are you going to tell me what this is all about, Stewie ? Or would you rather just cross the street”—I indicated the Sixth Precinct with a tilt of my head—“and tell them what the hell you had in mind when you decided to stalk Lisa? And Paul. Both of whom are dead.”
    “You bitch,” he said, forgetting Dashiell and shoving me back.
    Then several things happened nearly at once.
    I heard Dashiell’s growl as I caught myself, one foot behind me, and as Stewie Fleck slipped between two parked cars and ran for his life, crossing the street on an angle so that he’d get to the other side as far away from the police station as possible.
    And Dashiell, never one for wasted action and clearly understanding that the shortest distance between him and Stewie Fleck was not around the car but over it, in one move landed on the roof of the Mercedes-Benz parked just to our left, setting off its alarm.
    “Leave it,” I told him.
    So instead of leaping into the middle of the street and chasing down his prey, my designer wolf stayed just where he was, the car’s horn blaring on and off, the headlights flashing, while across the street, heading for the corner, was Stewie Fleck, moving as fast as the designated dinner in the middle of a caribou hunt.

34

I Listened to the Dial Tone

    INSIDE THE COTTAGE, Dashiell asleep on the couch, I could hear the car alarm, still going off. No matter that it was a few steps away from the Sixth Precinct, no one would do anything about it until the owner showed up. And that might not be until tomorrow.
    I began to pace around. It was too noisy to sleep. Unless you were a pit bull. And I was too unhappy with the way my case was going to sleep, even if it had been quiet. The more I learned, the less I knew.
    Talking it out sometimes helped, I thought as I picked up the phone. I was just thinking about you, she’d say. I listened to the dial tone, but I never dialed. What had I been thinking? I had so successfully filled myself up with Lisa Jacobs that I had all but forgotten about Lili and Ted. For just a moment I thought about him, my brother-in-law, kissing the blond, and then I consciously withdrew myself from the problem. It was theirs to solve. I didn’t call. Instead, I closed my eyes and pictured the bouquets of roses that Lisa had hung over her dining room table. I thought about the sound of her earrings, the smell of her perfume, the soft feel of her sheets, and the gentle touch of her lover, when he became my lover. And I put down the phone, because I was back where I belonged.
    Avi had been telling me to rely on myself. That was exactly what I needed to do. Leaving Dashiell sleeping on the couch, I grabbed Lisa’s jacket and headed for someplace where I could be alone and think, someplace far away from the noise of the car alarm.
    Walking toward the waterfront, I began to think about how weird it was that nearly everyone in Lisa’s life had a motive to kill her. It was more like a made-for-television movie or a novel than real life.
    Real life, it’s the husband, the boyfriend, the business