Rachel Alexander 05 - The Wrong Dog

underneath, Betty burrowing way down to the foot of the bed and Dashiell laying his head on my pillow, stretching out along my side, sighing as he did so.
    “You’ll be careful,” Chip said right before we fell asleep, a statement rather than a question.
    “It’s just a missing-person case,” I told him. “Well, a missing organization, actually.” I snuggled closer. “Yeah, yeah,” I said, “I’ll be careful.”
    He left early to see a client with a destructive golden retriever. I showered and dressed, then turned the phones back on and went to check the blinking answering machine.
    There were no messages, only hang-ups. Eleven of them, all from the same number. It looked familiar. Then I realized why. It was Sophie’s, the one she’d written down on a napkin, along with her work number, at the end of dinner, the one that had appeared on the caller ID box the morning before, when she’d first called.
    What was so urgent that she had to keep trying to reach me all through the night?
    I picked up the phone and dialed her number, but all I got was her answering machine. Odd, I thought. It was too early for her to leave for work. But then I remembered she’d said, whenever possible, she took Bianca to the run before work in the hope that she’d use up enough energy so that she’d just sleep until the walker came at two.
    I left a message saying that I’d wait for her call, but it never came.

Chapter 4
    I Handed Dashiell's Leash to Mel

    After looking up Loma West, the Horatio Street Veterinary Practice, and Side by Side in the phone books and finding nothing, I spent the morning making notes from the tapes I’d made talking to Sophie. At one, the phone finally rang. I figured Sophie must have been late for work and would call me during her lunch break, but caller ID told me that this call, like all the others, was coming from her home phone.
    “Sophie?”
    I waited, then asked again. The line was open, but whoever was there never said a word.
    I pressed reset and called Sophie’s work number, which was at the top of the first page of the notes I’d just made. The woman who answered told me Sophie hadn’t come in.
    “Did she say why?” I asked.
    There was a pause.
    “I can’t—”
    “Ruth?”
    Another pause.
    “How do you know my name?”
    “Sophie told me about you last night, about her friendship with you.”
    “She did?”
    “Yes. And, Ruth, I wouldn’t ask this of you if it wasn’t urgent. I’m working for her now and it’s imperative that I reach her.”
    She was quiet again. Thinking it over.
    “You’re working for her? I don’t understand. Are you the new cleaning lady?”
    “No. Sophie hired me yesterday to check into some things for her.”
    “To check into some things for her?”
    “That’s right. So, can you help me out here?”
    I waited.
    “Ruth?”
    “You’re the detective? She actually did it?”
    “That’s correct.”
    “She never called in,” she whispered. “Look, when you talk to her, please ask her to let us know about tomorrow. This isn’t like her. She’s always so responsible. She’s never—”
    “I’ll be sure to tell her.”
    I grabbed my jacket and Dash’s leash and headed for West Third Street, that feeling of foreboding I’d had the night before tagging along.
    When we crossed Sixth Avenue, Dashiell pulled toward the park.
    “Not now,” I told him. “We have to go to Sophie’s.”
    An old woman with a shopping cart full of used-up-looking clothes and deposit bottles turned toward me and stared. Great, the homeless were gawking at me.
    Dashiell was gaping, too. He couldn’t believe I had something more important to do than take him to the run.
    The address I’d been given was a modest, six-story, redbrick building with a leather-goods store ground-floor front. I ran my finger down the list of names until I found Sophie’s and rang the bell. No one asked my name or buzzed me in. I tried again, also to no avail.
    First I heard him, the jingle of all those keys. Then I saw him, heading my way, the key ring looped over his belt, bouncing against his hip as he bounced along the sidewalk. His hair was standing up as if he’d stuck a fork into a live outlet. Perhaps he’d been out in the wind a long time—too long, if you asked me.
    But there was no wind. It was one of those perfect fall days we have too few of in New York, ideal for sitting at the dog run and letting your thoughts roam while your dog reenacted the ancient rituals