Rachel Alexander 05 - The Wrong Dog

whir.
    I opened the album and saw pictures of Blanche, Blanche at home, Blanche at school, Blanche at the dog run.
    Then curious to see how the iguana would react to Blanche, I opened the bedroom door. I had the impression that iguanas were pretty solitary animals, but when Blanche went over to the cage, stuffed her nose partway between the bars and sneezed, there was no tail swishing, no big fat dewlap showing, and no hissing. The iguana turned to see who was there, then went right back to his salad.
    Dashiell seemed happy for now to observe from a distance. He, too, had other things to do. In fact, I thought I ought to encourage that.
    “Find it,” I told him. “That’s my boy.”
    I waited a moment, listening to the sound of his nose, then sat at the desk and began to open drawers, looking for Sophie’s calendar. Next I checked her purse, which was still sitting on the coffee table. Had there been a calendar in it, it was no longer there. No way the police would have left it behind.
    I had gone back to the desk to look for medical receipts in Sophie’s most recent tax back up when Dashiell barked, signaling a find. I got up and went to see what he had, thinking it would be a pair of socks at the side of the bed or something else he deemed out of place and I’d deem meaningless. Still, we had to try.
    It had probably been loose, perhaps a spare that had fallen off the desk and gotten kicked under the bed when the cops were checking out the apartment. It was certainly small enough to miss.
    If not for the fact that Chip had one of these things, I probably would not have known what it was, this little dark-gray stick, not more than four inches long, a rounded point on one end, on the other end something that looked like a pen clip but wasn’t. But I’d used it, and played with it, practicing the special graffiti you needed to keep your records in this very modem way. The little stick was the stylus of a PalmPilot, an electronic organizer. That meant, if Sophie was as efficient as her desk and her tax records made me think she was, there’d be a backup of everything on her computer.
    I gave Dashiell a scratch behind his right ear, told him to continue looking, and turned my attention to Sophie’s laptop.

Chapter 11
    They Met at the Run

    At four-thirty the dogs barked. A few moments later I heard a key in the lock.
    “I thought you said the cops took your keys.”
    “They did. But I had another set at home.” Ever the little Boy Scout.
    “Is that a fact?”
    He shrugged. “I didn’t know for sure you’d still be here.”
    “And why didn’t you bother to mention the iguana?”
    I’m sure my hands were on my hips. Unless I was pointing at him.
    “Leslie’s here?”
    I nodded. He took his jacket off and dropped it over the back of the couch, glancing at the place where Sophie had been the last time we had seen her.
    “She belongs to a neighbor.”
    “He’s a she?”
    He nodded. “Sophie baby-sits her when Lydia goes down to Florida to visit her mother.” He pointed at the ceiling. “One flight up.”
    One of the people who hadn’t answered when I’d knocked.
    The back door was open and the dogs were out in the garden, Blanche sitting on one haunch with her legs straight out in front of her watching Dashiell chase Bianca in as big a circle as the yard would allow.
    “Was she out? Sophie kept her out a lot. The first time I saw her, she was on the back of the couch. She scared the hell out of me.”
    “She was on the desk. Dashiell discovered her. He wasn’t one bit scared, but I sure was.”
    “I understand. Believe me.”
    “No. You don’t. It was her phone calls.”
    Mel’s forehead wrinkled like an attentive Boxer’s.
    “She called me about a dozen times, all after Sophie had died.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “This number kept showing up on my caller ID. It drove me nuts. Then when I came here, I found her on the phone.”
    “ Talking? "
    “Nah. And she never once left me a message either. She was resting on the phone. With her foot on the redial button.”
    He screwed up his face. “Like, wow.”
    “You can say that again,” I told him. I didn’t mention the last message.
    He looked around and saw my backpack, on the floor and propped against the arm of the sofa.
    “Is that yours? You staying over?”
    “I am.“
    “Because of Leslie?”
    I nodded.
    “But she doesn’t have to eat every day.”
    ‘Try telling her that. She ate like there was no tomorrow