Rachel Alexander 02 - The Dog who knew too much

way of finding out who’s who and what’s what Is that what Janet thought Lisa had done, taking Paul and then throwing him away? And did Janet change her rationale with the second killing, leaving the person who stole from her alive to suffer the sting of loss, as she had?
    I heard the whine of the elevator. My spine straight, my eyes forward, I moved from my center, continuing the form as the door opened and a moment later closed again. I saw him out of the comer of my eye, just standing there watching me. I finished the form, slowly lowering my arms as I came back to my full height, then turned to face him.
    “What are you doing here so late?” I asked. “Couldn’t you sleep?”
    He shook his head.
    “Me neither,” I told him.
    He looked awful, pale and tired. His shirt looked as if he’d slept in it His hair hadn’t been combed.
    “Do you come here often, this late?” I asked, thinking about what the cleaning lady had told me.
    “No,” he said. “I saw you.”
    “You saw me?”
    “In the courtyard. I often s-sit there. It’s so peaceful,” he said, his voice flat, his arms hanging down at his sides. “I saw you sitting there. Then I saw you c-come up here. So I f-followed you.”
    A chill passed through me, as if maybe a window had blown open, letting in the cold night air. But I could see them in the mirror, and they were all closed and latched. Still, I was so cold I thought if I didn’t do something fast, I might start shaking. So I did something. Like a dog, I pushed.
    “It must be hard for you,” I said. “You must get so frustrated. And so lonely.”
    “It’s not so bad when I have someone to talk to,” he said, no emotion showing on his face. Or was it just too dark to see?
    “Too bad there’s ho one else to share the load?” I said , picturing the little girl with a round face, like Howie’s, the pretty little girl who was clearly her mother’s favorite. “No other siblings?”
    Howie blinked.
    “What about your sister?” I asked, hackles up, teeing up on him now.
    “What do you m-m-mean?” he said.
    “Your mother said—”
    “No. She told you about that? She’s a liar,” he shouted. “It was her fault, not m-mine.”
    “Tell me about it.”
    “Didn’t she tell you already?”
    “Do you think I’d believe her? Come on, Howie. Talk to me.”
    “I was only seven,” he said. “She can’t hold me responsible. It was her job to watch her, not mine.”
    “But she’d been drinking?”
    “A lot,” he said, taking a step closer.
    “Had she passed out?”
    “I don’t know. I was playing with my miniature cars, on the floor. I had my back to them. I didn’t s-see. I was only a kid, for chrissake .“
    “And your mother? What did she say happened?”
    “ She was the one should have been watching. But she blamed me. She said I could have prevented it, if I wasn’t such a d-dummy. That’s what she told the p-p-police. ‘My son was supposed to be watching her.’ She’d never told me that. She never.”
    “And exactly what was it that happened when no one was watching?” I asked, even though part of me didn’t want to hear the answer. Howie took another step toward me.
    “She must have climbed up cm the s-sill,” he whispered, his face alive now, “and somehow the cord of the Venetian blind must have gotten wrapped around her neck. And then she lost her b-balance and fell out. At least th - that’s what the p-police said happened. It was very tragic.”
    In the dark, I thought I saw him smiling.
    Was it after that tragic accident that his father had left the first time?
    “I guess that’s why we live on the ground floor now.”
    Had little Howie stopped playing with his miniature cars long enough to speed his baby sister on her short flight to nowhere?
    Had he done the same for Lisa? Surely it wouldn’t have been the first time a man killed a woman because if he couldn’t have her, he’d make damn sure no one else would either.
    With Lisa gone, he’d latched on to me.
    And sitting in the courtyard one afternoon, he’d seen Paul on his way to the studio. Surely Howie would have understood the significance of that, and the threat implied in it. Wouldn’t the thought of losing me make him beside himself with rage? Mightn’t it even make him furious enough to kill?
    Don’t ask me why, but even as I wondered if I’d be able to defuse the bomb that I myself had armed, I made things worse. Once set in motion, some things are impossible to