This Dog for Hire

his.
    Suddenly there was light coming from the front room. I looked behind me and then stepped back into the far corner of the closet. When I turned, I saw Dashiell at the closet door, standing absolutely still, his head cocked to one side. I could see his nose twitching, trolling for a scent, it would come toward him in the shape of a cone, strong and narrow where it left the person, wider and fainter the farther it traveled. I needed to get Dashiell’s attention so that I could signal him to come closer to me and stay quiet, but a sick feeling in my gut told me it wasn’t Dennis, and I was reluctant to speak. Instead I reached behind me to scratch my nails on the wall so that Dash would turn and look at me.
    I heard a drawer open and close in the front room and some clicking noises, and then there was silence except for the small whoosh of Dashiell blowing air out of his nose, the way dogs do when they ride with their heads flying out of car windows, to clear the way for an interesting new scent. Then, just as my hand found the wall, I heard Dash sneeze, and I knew he had the scent he was after. Faster than you could say Gesundheit, he was, as they say in my neighborhood , out of the closet.
    For a few seconds I heard only the sound of Dashiell’s nails on the hardwood floor. He was walking slowly, as if he were going to meet an old friend.
    Was I being too paranoid, even for New York? If Dashiell wasn’t worried, it must be Dennis who came in to check the answering machine.
    Of course. That’s what the clicking must have been. The answering machine.
    Dashiell sneezed again. This time it was the kind that could blow your house down. Someone inhaled audibly—okay, gasped—and then I heard the crash. The front door opened and, a moment later, slammed shut. I bolted out of the closet and ran like hell toward the front room.
    The odor hit me first, a sickly sweet cloud of aftershave or perfume. Lately, they all seemed the same. A sort of nasal androgyny has taken over the scent business. Whatever it was, it made me sneeze, too.
    I rounded the corner and saw Dashiell. He was standing in the light of the lamp near the front door, just wagging his tail. Next to him, lying broken on the floor, was Clifford Cole’s answering machine. When I picked it up and popped open the cover, I saw that the spool on the left was empty. I looked around on the floor, but the message tape was nowhere in sight.

17
    If the Shoe Fits

    LILLIAN TRIED TO get her arms around me as I debused, but couldn’t make it. Both my arms were wrapped around her bulky birthday present, and Dash was pulling me in the opposite direction, doing a great imitation of an untrained dog.
    “How are you?” she asked.
    I sort of nodded and grunted. I had arrived more in body than in spirit.
    I had gone to the huge windows in the front of Clifford’s loft, struggled to open one, and then hung out, despite my fear of heights, as far as I could, just short of what would make me tip forward a trifle too far, lose my grip on the frame, and plummet screaming to the street, where my head would split open like a ripe melon dropped from the roof. I tried like hell to see who was leaving the building, but the gallery, Haber’s, had these colorful flag-out front with their current artist’s name on them, so all I saw was a glimpse of a tall man in a camel-colored coat, black beret, and white scarf quickly turning right and disappearing.
    How many people had keys to the loft anyway?
    "‘I said, ‘Are you working?’ “ I heard Lillian say. She had taken Dashiell’s leash, and we were heading for her Jeep Cherokee. Dashiell jumped up onto the backseat, and Lib helped me place Mr. Present next to him.
    “Feels expensive.”
    “I don’t want to think about that part.”
    “You must really love me,” she said, pulling out of the parking lot. She was beaming.
    “I got work,"" I told her. Then I gave her the bare bones of the case, skipping my visit to the loft late last evening. Hey, I was alone at a murdered man’s residence in the middle of the night, and a tall man in sneakers, cheap aftershave, and a camel coat came in, broke the answering machine, and stole the message tape. What’s the big deal? But my family has a low threshold of irrationality, forcing me to edit everything I tell them.
    “You think this handler with the ponytail killed him?”
    “Too soon to say.”
    Ted came out to meet us, wearing his white chef’s apron with a wooden spoon in