Rachel Alexander 04 - Lady Vanishes

talking about?”
    “We’re going to Brooklyn, Samuel, let Dashiell get the smell he discovered on your pants firsthand.”
    He stepped back and looked around to see if anyone else was there. I reached for his arm and pulled him back to where he was.
    “Listen carefully,” I told him. “We’re leaving here now. We’re going to your apartment to get Lady, bring her back where she belongs.”
    “I don’t know what you’re—”
    He tried to pull off looking indignant, but I wasn’t impressed.
    “And on the way,” I said, “you’re going to tell me why you killed your uncle Harry and tried to kill my friend Venus.”

Chapter 33
    Did It Work? I Asked
    Are you crazy? I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t hurt Venus. David did. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
    “That’s fine. You don’t have to.”
    I pulled out my cell phone.
    “Who are you calling?”
    His shirt was soaked with sweat, a lot more than he’d worked up in class.
    “The Sixth Precinct,” I said. Dead calm. “Of course, I know you. We have a relationship. I know that whatever you did, you had your reasons. Or maybe something happened and things got out of hand, you couldn’t help yourself. I can understand that, Samuel. I care about what you feel. But the cops”—I shrugged my shoulders—“hey, they have different pressures than I do. They just want to find someone to hang this on. They just want to close the case, be done with it. Why? Why doesn’t factor into it. Why gets you no sympathy there. Why only counts right here, Samuel, so make up your mind who you want to talk to. And don’t take too long, because if the answer is no, you don’t want to talk to me, then I have this call to make. And afterward I’m going to walk across the lobby and knock on Daddy’s door, have a few words with him, see what he thinks about all this.”
    “No—don’t do that. Please don’t do that. He’ll believe you. He’ll think I did it, all of it, everything. And more. Whenever there’s a fuckup, he always thinks it’s me.” Harry’s death, a fuckup?
    “You’ve got to help me, Rachel. You like me, don’t you?” I waited, eyes hard, enough adrenaline pumping to pick him up like the sack of garbage I thought he was and toss him out into oncoming traffic, the asshole.
    “I have her,” he whispered. “Lady. But I didn’t touch Harry or Venus. I swear to you.”
    He waited.
    I let him.
    “Can’t you say you found her at the shelter? She could have gotten out, got picked up. It’s possible. He’d believe you. Couldn’t you say that?”
    “Only if you tell me the truth.”
    “I am. This is the truth.”
    “Excellent. In that case, let’s go get Lady.”
    Slipping the phone back into my pocket, I indicated the front door with a tilt of my head and followed Samuel out.
    “You’ll see, I took good care of her. I never hurt her. I only wanted—”
    “Let’s move,” I told him. “I don’t want to hit rush hour, and we have to drop Dashiell off first. We’ll never get a cab with a dog this big. Did you take Lady to Brooklyn in a cab, Samuel, the night you walked out with her?”
    He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at his shoes, maybe at the spot where Dashiell had pressed his nose, the moisture in his breath condensing, leaving a dull spot when it dried.
    “I didn’t have enough money with me. I took the subway. Nobody said anything. Anyway, she’s a therapy dog, so she’s allowed.”
    “Going to and from a gig, Samuel. Not being stolen.
    When you steal a dog, you’re supposed to use a car. Or at the very least, a taxi.”
    We headed over to Washington Street, toward the sound of construction, then kept going east, toward Hudson Street. He could have slipped out after his daytime class, taken the bike, killed Harry, come back for his evening singsong, Mr. Innocence, Mr. Helpful. I wondered if he’d cried when he heard the news.
    And wasn’t he the one who’d found Venus? Found Venus. Right.
    Blaming David. Or had that been Nathan’s idea? Was it his brother he’d been protecting all along?
    “Okay,” I said, “I’m ready for the sad story of your life.”
    He took out a handkerchief that looked as if it had been out too many times already and wiped his dripping face. It was hotter than Hades. Maybe he ought to get used to it, I thought, because as far as I could tell, that was where he was headed.
    “Lady,” I prompted. “Start with Lady.”
    “I told you, she’s fine.”
    Petulant. Not