Rachel Alexander 09 - Without a Word

longer the point. I put the notes from the meeting with Jim there as well, and the printouts of the other letters I’d gotten by posting Sally’s name on Classmates.com.
    I had notes from speaking to neighbors in Leon and Madison’s building, Nancy Goodman and Ted Fowler. I hadn’t made notes after talking to Nina. I didn’t think anything she had to say would help me help Madison. I put all those notes away, too.
    That’s when I noticed the contact sheets Leon had given me, pictures of Dashiell from the time I was away. I checked the time. I wouldn’t hear from Dr. Edelstein for at least another hour, probably much longer, so I took out my loupe and started to look at pictures of Dash, Dash at the waterfront, Dash at the dog run, Dash with Madison. I guess Madison was learning how to use his camera, too, because there were even shots of Dash with Leon. I thought by now the whole world had gone digital, but not Leon. Leon was out of step. He probably always was. Leon and Sally. What a pair.
    I went downstairs to make a cup of tea, thinking about the pictures, thinking that Dash had given Leon and Madison something to do together, thinking that that was a good thing; it was exactly what they needed.
    As I waited for the kettle to boil something occurred to me, that when Ms. Peach went out, I might be invited in, that if Dr. Edelstein found something telling, she might want me to see it, too. Or she might ask me to come in for just a moment to pick up a real copy of Madison’s records. After all, the letter from Leon was in the file, and he had given me the first set, the set where I thought things were missing. Why not just give me the corrected version? We hadn’t planned that part. But why not be on hand, just in case?
    I shut off the stove, grabbed my jacket and picked up Dashiell’s leash. If I was at the dog run when I got the doctor’s call, I could be at the office in a minute, gone just as quickly, long before Ms. Peach got back. But if I was home when she called, I wouldn’t be able to get in and out without the chance that Ms. Peach would see me. In fact, something else occurred to me. Binoculars might look funny at the dog run, but a camera wouldn’t. I’d gone digital, too, but I still had my old Nikon with its telephoto lens. I ran back up to the office for the camera, slipped the loupe and the contact sheets I’d been looking at into the camera bag, stopped back in the kitchen to take a roll of film out of the refrigerator, just in case there was something I actually wanted to shoot, and headed for Washington Square Park.
    There were eight dogs at the run when we arrived, seven playing, and a black pug lying on his master’s coat, which had been spread out on one of the benches for just that purpose. I unhooked Dashiell’s leash and watched him join another young male, telegraph his benign intentions with his rounded body language and then begin to wrestle. I chose a bench on the east side of the run, which seemed to have a partial view of the town house I would want to be watching later on, loaded the camera and checked out the view. And there to my surprise was Ms. Peach. She was on the path inside the park that was parallel to where Bechman’s office was, and she was limping. She finally found a bench to her liking, the very same one where I’d been sitting just the day before, as if she, too, wanted to watch the entrance to the office where she worked.
    Had she come early so that she’d have time to sit outdoors for a while before going in to work? Or was she just sitting for a minute because she was in pain? Perhaps she’d come in early to catch up on her paperwork. Or white out things on some other child’s records.
    Dr. Edelstein wouldn’t be in. She said she was at the hospital in the morning. She wasn’t due at this office for another forty-five minutes, assuming her appointments started when her hours did. This would be a good time for Ms. Peach to work, but to work at what, I wondered.
    I panned the camera around, as if I wanted a picture of the Washington Square Arch, the people leaning over the fence and trying to get some dog’s attention, the black pug still lying on his master’s jacket, his front paws crossed, then back toward the bench where Ms. Peach sat in her white uniform, a navy sweater over it, enjoying the sunny day.
    There was a homeless man coming up the path, heading toward Ms. Peach. His shoulders rounded forward, his head low, the upper part of his