This Dog for Hire

pulled up my scarf so that it covered my nose and mouth and walked back to the Punk’s Not Dead sign, the one closest to where Clifford had been struck. The sad face with spiked hair was still watching over the place w here he had lain until the police came to zip him into a body bag and take him away.
    The wind was cold and stinging. Loose snow swirled in circles, rose up momentarily, and fell back to the surface of the pier. On a summer weekend, dozens and dozens of gay men would come here to lie in the sun. In winter, it was a lonely place.
    Dashiell was working the southern side of the pier. He would work the perimeter first, then quarter the pier and work each quadrant separately, in each case looking for something that didn’t belong. That meant he would not alert if he found a condom. The pier was littered with them, both over and under the snow. Nor would he stand and bark for me, his front feet popping up off the ground with each woof, his ears flapping up and down in the wind he himself would create in his excitement, for beer cans, broken glass, cigarette butts, even underwear. These were all local weeds to him, things indigenous to the area.
    Two types of things would get him to “call me.“ He’d signal for anything out of place, like a button, a wallet, or, say, a gun. In this case, it was unlikely he’d find anything of value. It had been too long since the murder, and the pier was too open and too populated. But Dash would also be looking for anything that had a smell reminiscent of anything at the loft. He had nosed around Cliff’s clothing and his shoes. I had even dumped the hamper for him, letting him smell crotches and arm holes, places where the scent would be the most powerful. He had picked up other scents as well, those he would find personally interesting.
    I didn’t really expect there’d be anything on the pier after all this time, but Dashiell had made some wonderful finds on previous cases, things too well hidden, intentionally or by accident, or too small for me to have discovered. After glancing back at him, now rounding the corner to work the far end of the barricade, I stood at the south fence and looked out over the Hudson.
    I could see the Statue of Liberty, far to the south and Jersey farther west. The water surrounding the pier where you first walk onto it was frozen, hut out here the Hudson was flowing, the light giving it a lovely silver cast.
    I began wondering about the money, all that money, and where it came from, and why Clifford’s friend Dennis didn’t know about it.
    Well, as my sister would say, hands on her hips, if your friend was busting his butt to make it, unable to have the freedom to paint, as you did, would you rub it in his face that you didn’t have to be concerned about expenses?
    When I heard Dash signal, I began to run. He had made a find. It was probably nothing of significance to the case, a cigarette lighter or an old shoe someone had left on the pier. But I needed to get to him quickly and to praise him to the sky. He couldn’t discern what would be important and what wouldn’t. Sometimes I couldn’t at first. The only way to motivate him was to praise for every find, and hope like hell, if there was something there of significance, eventually he’d see that, too.
    He was at the most westerly point of the pier he could reach, the last few feet blocked off by the chain-link fence. The sign there, this one official, warned of danger—Area Unsafe, Keep Off—but I could see where the fence was cut. This was New York, where warnings went unheeded.
    Dashiell was sitting now, facing a snowdrift that had accumulated against the fence, just to the right of the warning sign on the other side. He always waited for me, never trying to bring me what he found. If he retrieved the item, were there prints, he’d blur them. In a different setting, a field or woods, if he brought me what he found, I’d never see the site to be able to look for other signs and clues. Most important, because I loved my dog, if I allowed him to pick up what he found on a search, he might get hurt. He could pick up—and drop—a gun, which might go off. He could find something toxic, something sharp, something that, when disturbed, would leave nothing in its wake but a huge hole and the smell of smoke.
    When he saw me running toward him, he stopped barking. As soon as I reached him, he was on his feet, dancing excitedly as he looked from me into the snow piled against