Rachel Alexander 05 - The Wrong Dog

who’s the president of the United States, who’s the vice president, stuff like that, to see if she was compos mentis. That’s what the woman told me. Then she said Sophie was, but that she was temporarily disoriented. After they left, that was when she told me you could die from a seizure. I guess that’s what she was afraid of, maybe all the time.”
    I nodded.
    “She was right to worry about it.”
    “What do you mean?” I asked. “You can’t be sure that’s what it was.”
    “When Burns told me I could go, and asked me to take the dogs, Bianca wouldn’t get up. When I went to pick her up, the vial of Sophie’s seizure medication was under her. She’d been lying on it.”
    “Oh, god.”
    “No way of knowing if Sophie had the chance to take it.”
    ‘The ME will know. But even if Sophie did, it was too little or too late.”
    “He took it. Burns. He put it in a little plastic bag and shoved it in his pocket.”
    “An evidence bag.”
    He smiled. “Yeah. An evidence bag. I should know that from T.V., right?”
    I nodded. “I’m surprised he did that.”
    “Why? Wouldn’t they want to have it, you know, as evidence?”
    “Yes, but they usually leave everything in place until the Crime Scene Unit comes and photographs the scene. You’re not supposed to disturb anything.”
    “What about the dogs?”
    I looked to see if he’d made a joke, but he hadn’t. He was serious.
    “That’s different. It would be cruel to leave the dogs there. No one would follow the letter of the law to that extent. Anyway, he probably figured it was just what it appeared to be, an epileptic dying from a seizure.”
    “After he took it, he looked her over again, and then he said, ‘Unofficially, she’s been dead since sometime yesterday evening, pending confirmation by the ME.’ Unofficially. Like I was a reporter or something.”
    He stood up so that he could get his hand into his pants pocket, then handed me two keys.
    “I stopped on the way here,” he said. “Don’t lose them. The police took my other ones.”
    We sat for a while longer, watching the dogs play. Bianca, running with Dashiell, had apparently been able to put the past behind her. At least for now. Blanche was another story. She was moaning in her sleep, her eyes moving and looking as if they were going to open, her paws twitching, her tail beating up and down against my legs. I wondered if she’d need a new home after all, or if she’d just die of a broken heart.

Chapter 6
    I'm Chopping Swiss Chard

    I was scrubbing organic carrots, getting ready to feed them into the Cuisinart, when Chip called.
    “I got your message. What’s wrong?”
    The light was gone from the garden. Being surrounded by buildings, it gets dark early.
    “Sophie’s dead,” I told him.
    “A seizure?”
    “It looks that way. The meds were next to her. I don’t know if she took them and they didn’t work, or if the dog didn’t get them to her in time.”
    “The dog? Blanche got the medication for her?”
    “No. Blanche let her know what was coming. She usually had the medication on her, in a little pouch. But at home, she left it on her nightstand, and if she wasn’t in bed, she’d send Bianca for it. My guess is, she did it as a step toward her alerting one day, you know, to focus her on how Sophie was feeling and have her respond.”
    Holding the phone in the crook of my neck, I put the Swiss chard on the cutting board and began slicing along the bright red ribs.
    “I’m sorry, Rach.”
    “Me, too.”
    “So, you’re going to work tonight, wrap things up?“
    “It’s not that simple. First of all, even if I chose to do nothing else, there are the dogs to think about. There may not be any relatives. At least, her dog walker doesn’t know of any. Nor is he aware of any plans she made for the animals. So the very least I can do would be to find out if there are arrangements for the animals and if not, to try to place them. Blanche is here for a day or two. The dog walker has Bianca. He says his own dog is just like her, too much energy for Blanche or he would have taken both. But I don’t mind having Blanche here.”
    “And what’s that sound?”
    “She hasn’t eaten all day. Maybe she didn’t eat last night. I’m getting her dinner ready. I’m chopping Swiss chard.”
    “Swiss chard?For Blanche? Don’t tell me.”
    But I did. “Raw carrots and yellow squash, ground up small to imitate what would be in the stomach of a kill, cod-liver