This Dog for Hire

and a cinnamon doughnut. Sorry. You
    know how the guys are with dogs.
    Marty

    I stroked my hand over Dashiell’s big, round belly, then scratched the base of Magritte’s tail. They were heaped in a pile, sound asleep, Dashiell’s head on the Flying Man, as if it were a pillow. Suddenly sleep seemed the perfect idea.

29
    Tunnel Vision

    I NEVER MADE it upstairs. I woke up at seven-fifteen, covered with my coat, the grayish light of winter slipping through the shutters, making stripes on everything.
    I let the dogs out and watched them chase each other around, taking turns being hunter and prey.
    Now that I knew it had been Veronica Cahill at the loft, I didn’t need to check the Young Detective’s Handbook to figure out why. But law seven says, Confirm your hunches.
    I decided to catch Louis Lane before he left school. That I most certainly did. He worked the late session and didn’t have to be in until ten forty-five.
    “Louis,” I said, not bothering to apologize for taking him, “I was at Clifford’s loft one night, and 8 oraeone in a camel coat, black beret, and white scarf came in and took the tape from the answering machine.”
    Ba da boom. I never beat about the bush before I’ve had my first cup of tea.
    “Oh, that was Veronica. She’s so paranoid about people trying to cheat her out of her commission.”
    “But—”
    “I told her that it couldn’t happen because I own the art now, and of course I wouldn’t cheat her, but she still had to go and get the damn tape. I guess it means she doesn’t even trust me”
    “She told you about going?”
    “Of course. But only after she did it. She said there was some man-eating beast there and it nearly scared her to death, and I—oh! You!”
    “Right. We scared each other.”
    There are always people who try to get around the gallery commission by buying directly from the artist, and few people, if any, would know that Louis, not the Cole family, now owned the art. Perhaps Veronica was right to worry—some people will do anything for money.
    I wondered what else Veronica Cahill and Louis Lane might have done for it.
    “Louis, there’s something else, it’s about Cliff’s art and the way he worked. Did he sketch on paper before he painted?”
    “Sometimes. But not always. Oh, he’d scribble on napkins in restaurants and stuff them in his pocket, on matchbook covers, anything at all when he got an idea, just little quick reminders. Then he’d sketch right on the canvas. In fact, when he got into his noir period, those gray paintings, a of the way he worked changed. He changed.'
    “How so?”
    “He began working long, long hours. Sometimes he wouldn’t even take Magritte out in the afternoon. He’d ask Dennis to do it. Or he’d use a dog walker. He just kept at it, painting until late at night, not coming here for days at a time.”
    “Did you worry? Did you think something was wrong:
    “Not really. He’d done it other times, I mean, get on a streak and paint almost around the clock. But never quite like this—”
    “Louis, what about the piece at the show without a title?”
    “He probably didn’t get a chance to do the last panel.”
    “That’s what I thought,” I said quietly. “But wouldn’t there be a partial fourth panel? A sketch on canvas? Something? The first three are clearly completed paintings. Is that how he worked when he did a multiple-panel piece? One at a time?”
    “Actually, no. He worked on all the panels at once.”
    “Even so, you think the last panel never got done?”
    “I don’t know. Does it mean something?”
    “It could. Louis, by any chance, do you know the name of the dog walker Cliff used?”
    “Mike. I don’t remember hearing his last name.”
    “Great. Thanks.”
    “I heard about Gil,” he said.
    I Waited.
    “Rachel? Are you getting anywhere?”
    “It’s too soon to say,” I told him, wondering what his shoe size was and if he ever wore anything but Gucci loafers. “But I’ll keep you posted,” I lied.
    I opened the door. The dogs were digging and burrowing in the snow. I let Magritte in and sent Dash back to the passageway for the Times.
    The piece about Gil was in the sports section, adjacent to Walter Feltcher's piece about the springer’s win, not with the obituaries. It was small, but dramatic.

    Death at the Dog Show
Morgan Gilmore, handling the basenji Ch. Ceci N’Est Pas an Chien, whose owner, Clifford Cole, had been found dead on the Christopher Street pier late