Rachel Alexander 04 - Lady Vanishes

human being for the rest of the call. “What did you do today?” I asked.
    Took the kids horseback riding. I’m a little rusty at it. I need to get into a hot tub. But first, tell me what I’m missing by being here and not in New York.”
    “Ah, the East Coast news. Well, it’s all good for a change.”
    “Truly?”
    “Absolutely. For starters, New York was chosen for chip research.”
    “No.”
    “It’s true. It was in the Times.”
    “Potato or com?”
    “Semiconductor. I don’t know what this is, so I didn’t read the rest of the article. But still.”
    He laughed.
    “Next, the Donald was foiled big-time. He tried to get some old lady’s house in Atlantic City condemned so that he could add more parking for his casino. Get this. He said her house was ugly, and the parking lot would beautify Atlantic City.”
    “His greed must be boundless.”
    “Yeah, and he’s no gentleman.”
    “I’ll call you tomorrow. Sleep tight,” he whispered.
    “You, too.”
    “And be careful.”
    “I will,” I promised, after he’d hung up.
    I put the phone down on the top step and walked out into the garden, looking up at the sky, streaks of gray and inky blue, a cloud cover, no stars visible.
    Earlier in the evening, while I was returning Harry’s new will to the back of Venus’s file drawer, Homer hadn’t been listening outside the office door. He’d been in the kitchen, brewing tea, setting out two place mats on the butcher block counter, filling a bowl with fresh, cool water for Dashiell, from the looks of things, polishing up the teaspoon he then set out on the carefully folded napkin, making sure it had no spots on it. When I’d joined him in the kitchen, Harbor View as quiet as a mausoleum, he’d jumped up and pulled out the stool on my side of the counter and taken the napkin off the plate of homemade cookies, then asked if Dashiell could have a dog biscuit—one of Lady’s, he’d said, but he’d checked the expiration date on the box, and they were still fresh. He’d taken his napkin, I thought to put it on his lap, but no, he’d wiped his eyes with it. Looking at him, this little man with his polished shoes, I wondered again if he had stolen Lady from Harbor View, if he had taken away the dog that made everyone, including himself, happier than they were before she’d come.
    Or if, one recent night, he had lurked outside on West Street, sitting on the seat of a bicycle, then riding it full tilt into the man who had employed him, the man he’d called a saint, unable to look me in the eye when he did.
    Despite his lie, I didn’t think so. But that was because some unrealistic and juvenile part of me didn’t want to believe—as if I didn’t know better—that murderers could seem so nice, that a man who had plotted and killed wouldn’t think to offer water to a thirsty dog or worry about a senile old lady’s aluminum foil tiara.
    Someone else could have been here the night Venus had whispered into her tapped phone, someone who, unlike Homer, had something to gain from Harry’s death.
    Or at least thought so.
    Standing in my garden, no sound to distract me, I thought about the service at the Society for Ethical Culture, where I would more than likely meet the person who had executed Harry Dietrich, a person who had great expectations about the benefits that would fall to them upon Harry’s death, a person who, when Friday rolled around, was going to be gravely disappointed.
    And really annoyed.
    Unless whoever it was already knew the awful truth.

Chapter 16
    Don't Get Me Started, She Said

    A heavyset man in a dark suit, not a gray hair out of place, a wine-colored handkerchief in his breast pocket to match his tie, walked somberly to the podium. He looked down, studying his hands, it seemed, which he’d carefully placed there, maybe checking to see if the girl had trimmed his nails evenly before she’d coated them with clear polish. After more time than it took a Chihuahua to make all gone with a bowl of kibble, he began to speak, still not looking at his audience, a large group of mourners mostly in shades of black and gray, filling the seats of the flower-lined conference room.
    “Putting the needs of others before his own, using his wealth for the benefit of the community, helping those who could not help themselves”—slowly, dramatically, he lifted his head, looking around at the attentive faces lined up before him —“this was Henry Knowlton Dietrich, tender caretaker,