Rachel Alexander 05 - The Wrong Dog

would find him. But Blanche just walked slowly around to the far side of the sofa and began to sniff the place where her mistress had fallen and died. As if she was following a chalk outline of her mistress’s body, she began to slowly trace the area with her nose.
    Dashiell ignored her, heading immediately to the closed door off to the right. He looked back at me and when I nodded, he hit the door with his front paws, shaking the wall.
    But the catch held. So he took the knob in his mouth and slowly turned his head to the left. I heard the latch retract and let go. This time when he hit the door with his front paws, it flew open and Dashiell disappeared into Sophie’s bedroom.
    Blanche was still inhaling the fading odor of her beloved mistress when I went after Dashiell to see what had so captured his attention in the next room, but standing in the doorway, all I could see was Dashiell’s back. His front paws were up on Sophie’s desk, his hind feet were leaving the ground as if he was dancing, his short tail wagging in complete circles. For a moment, I thought he’d found a defrosting steak.
    The desk was against the wall, tucked under the sunny
    windowsill. I looked out the screened, open window into the garden, to see if anyone was there, if it was the anticipation of a chase that had gotten Dashiell so excited. But the garden was empty. And if someone had left suddenly by the window, they had taken the trouble to close the screen before hightailing it out of the yard. Unlikely.
    That’s when I spotted the cage, large enough to hold a baby gorilla.
    I called Dashiell to my side so that I could see what was so interesting, and there, sprawled sideways on top of the combination telephone and answering machine, standing as tall as he could, his tail swishing back and forth, was a miniature prehistoric monster, horny and green, his head and back covered with a crest, making him look like a small but formidable dinosaur. His mouth was open, his dewlap enlarged, and he was hissing. Good move, I thought. If I were at the very bottom of the food chain and facing a large, strange carnivore, I’d do exactly the same thing.
    Dashiell whined for the release word that would let him go back to where he’d been. Instead, I rudely shoved him into the living room and closed the door behind him.
    The moment Dashiell was out of sight, the iguana calmed down, turned toward the window, and resumed its sunbath. With the sun pouring in and the desk lamp on, the answering machine might just be the lizard’s favorite spot.
    In fact, standing there, I was willing to bet he’d been there and back several times in the past few days, his face inches from the screen, eyes closed, basking in the sunshine. His front feet, long-toed but with his nails nicely groomed, hung partway over the top of the machine. His back legs kept moving as he adjusted himself on the bumpy surface, trying to get comfortable on all those buttons, his left leg over the one that said reset, the right on the button that said redial.
    Sophie had called me once, on Sunday morning. Was it the iguana who’d called repeatedly throughout the night, and again this morning, never bothering to leave a message?
    The iguana didn’t seem to mind me at all. So I took a step closer and pressed the reset button. Then I pressed redial. Last I hit speakerphone. I heard the machine dialing. I heard the recording of Dashiell barking, then the beep.
    So, fine. It was the iguana who had been trying to reach me.
    Except for that last call.Because even when I held my breath and tried my damnedest to listen, I couldn’t hear any heavy breathing coming from Mr. Lizard.
    I took another step forward and rubbed the top of the iguana’s head, which felt like small cobblestones, the stuff they paved the Village streets with a hundred or so years ago. He didn’t hiss so I guessed he liked it. I rubbed his head some more, until he closed his eyes and wiggled his feet around, dialing my house yet again. Then I picked him up and carried him back to his cage.
    There was hardly any water in his bowl and no food. I didn’t know what the detectives thought when they found out they hadn’t gotten all the pets out of the apartment. But it didn’t seem they’d taken care of the pet who’d been left behind. If they had, they would surely have put him back in his cage and found a piece of lettuce for him. Or had they merely closed the bedroom door, thinking that that would be enough to keep