Rachel Alexander 05 - The Wrong Dog

run?”
    “His name is Herbie. They met at the run.”
    “Herbie?”
    I nodded.
    “Never met him.Never heard of him. Maybe some dog walkers, it’s like they’re Dear Abby or something. Me, I’m on a schedule. I always had a special soft spot for Sophie, because of her, you know, problem, and for Bianca, because she didn’t have a father. But there were only a couple of times I talked to Sophie, and when someone’s sick and scared, they’re not going to tell you about their boyfriend.”
    “Got it.”
    “Who told you about him?”
    “Someone at the school.”
    He nodded.
    “And did they know about Bianca, too?”
    “She did.”
    Mel’s eyes fluttered. “I thought Sophie wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about the cloning, that it was supposed to be some sort of big secret.”
    “That’s the impression I got. She said this Loma West person had said it was so top secret that she had to lie when she called The School for the Deaf instead of telling them what she really wanted.”
    Then I thought about what Ruth had told me, that the whole thing was a fabrication, that there had never been such a phone call. I looked at Mel, who was watching the dogs playing in the yard. He didn’t ask anything about Loma’s story, so I didn’t volunteer any details. Maybe he didn’t need to ask. Sophie might have told him everything she told me. She didn’t seem to be very good in the keeping-her-mouth-shut department. On the other hand, if she really spread it around, she’d only have people thinking she was nuts, laughing at her the way one of her veterinarians had.
    “You okay here?” Mel asked. “I’d be too spooked to stay.”
    “I’m okay. There’s nothing here to hurt me.”
    He nodded. But I could tell he didn’t agree.
    “If you’re finished grilling me, I better get home and walk Margaret.”
    “Sorry,” I said. “But I have to—”
    He flapped his hand at me.
    “I know you’re only doing your job, Rachel. And that it’s not fun. But you are a little intense. After all, it’s not like you have a client anymore.”
    He slipped on his jacket and picked up Bianca’s leash. “You don’t have to take her.”
    “I don’t mind. Really I don’t.”
    I shook my head. “And you don’t have to walk her tomorrow. I have to take her somewhere with me.“
    “Where?”
    “I’ll call you tomorrow night, about Thursday’s walk.” He stood there staring for a moment. “You’re sure?”
    I nodded.
    “But, Mel...”
    “Yeah?”
    “Keep thinking. You might know more than you realize. Any detail, no matter how small, let me know.”
    He walked out into the yard and called Bianca over to him. Then he bent down and scratched behind her big ears. Bianca sat there, where she’d been with Mel, watching him leave.
    I wondered if he’d take her permanently, if there was no one else. Then I looked over at Blanche, and suddenly, the core of sadness about Sophie’s death became the fate of her animals, where they’d end up, whether or not they could stay together and if there would be someone to love them as much as Sophie had.

Chapter 12
    I Went Quickly into the Garden

    After calling Chip’s pager and punching in Sophie’s number, I decided to feed the dogs before settling down to do more work. I took out the list with Blanche’s diet on it and stuck it onto the side of Sophie’s fridge with a little magnet of a bull terrier she had there. Before getting started, I looked at the other stuff stuck onto the refrigerator, dog cartoons, photos of the dogs, a snapshot of a guy, late thirties, curly hair, nice eyes.
    Was that the ex, Herbie?
    I studied the photo but didn’t take it down to take a closer look because there were three hungry dogs waiting to be fed. Instead, checking the list, I began to pull things out of the refrigerator, adding extra for Dashiell, then on second thought, for me. Of course, I wouldn’t eat everything I was feeding the dogs. But the chopped raw vegetables would be a better dinner than my usual catch-as-catch-can way of eating. Going back to the gym, to
    strengthen the arm that had gotten broken on my last case, had made me reassess the poor way I took care of myself, almost always too busy to do it properly. But it wasn’t only my trainer who got after me about the way I ate. Dr. Chen had some ideas on that, too, that I eat ginger to warm my insides, that I eat more yang and less yin. Or was it the other way around?
    I began to scrub the carrots, twisting off