Dead Ringer (20 page)

“Bear?” she asked with hope, and as the crowd parted she saw that one of the runners, a huge, well-built man, was carrying her unhappy golden from the path of certain death. It was Bear! Alive! Well! And with a tennis ball in his mouth! The hunky runner set the squirming golden down on the grass.

“Bear!” Bennie shouted with joy, and the startled dog turned, spotted her, and rushed toward her, jumping up on her with soft, gritty paws. Not that she minded. “Bear!” she cried again, smooshing her wet face into his furry one and coming away with hairy cheeks.

“Yeah!” “Way to go, buddy!” “Great job!” shouted the crowd, and the runner waved them off modestly. Bennie reached him just as people began climbing back in their cars, breaking up the gaper block that had stopped traffic on the drive. The cyclists returned to their bikes, the runners to their jogging, and the lovers to their necking.

“Yes, thank you so much for saving my dog,” Bennie said to the runner with a rush of gratitude, but oddly, he wasn’t smiling.

“No problem,” he said tersely. His largish mouth made a businesslike line, and his eyes, large, round, and brown, had gone flinty in the sunlight. He looked to be about Bennie’s age, in dark blue gym shorts that read NAVY in yellow letters. A thick white T-shirt hung loose on his broad, muscled chest, and his well-defined biceps were slick with sweat.

An older woman in a blue sweat suit and Reeboks was wagging a red-polished finger at Bennie. “Honey, if that’s your dog, you owe this man a reward! He just risked his life for that animal! He ran right into the street, stopped traffic with his hands, and scooped up that dog like he was a newborn baby!”

“No, please,” the jogger said modestly, but the older woman cut him off.

“Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it! He
risked
his life!” She turned to the man. “You should get a medal!” She reached for the man’s hand and shook it firmly, then turned again to Bennie. “He deserves a reward for what he did, you hear me? He could have been killed! He carried your dog out of the street and ran with him!”

“You
ran with
my dog?” Bennie looked up at the man, incredulous. Bear weighed over a hundred pounds, all of it peanut butter. It took a crane to lift him onto her bed. “You picked him up and
ran
with him?”

“Yes, it was amazing!” the older woman repeated. “He’s a real hero!”

“Please, no!” The jogger dismissed it with a modest wave. “It wasn’t anything.”

“You’re a real hero! A real hero!” the woman said again as she power-walked off, and Bennie felt overwhelmed.

“Thank you again, so much,” she said. Bear pawed her soggy socks to get her to throw the ball into traffic again, and she scratched his head with happiness. “Did you really run into traffic to save him?”

“Nah, I was going after the ball.”

Bennie laughed. “No, how did you do it? You stopped the traffic and grabbed him? And how did you pick him up?”

“It wasn’t hard,” he answered offhandedly. He was huge, at least six three, and his physique explained how he had bench-pressed a golden retriever.

“I do owe you, that lady was right.” Bennie was about to offer the man a reward, but she didn’t think he took Visa. “I’m a little strapped right now, but there must be something I can do for you in return. You need some free legal advice? Somebody you want to sue? I can make life hell for your enemies.”

“There is something.” The jogger’s eyes narrowed, and Bennie realized he was angry with her. “Learn a lesson. Take better care of your dog. Don’t play fetch near the street.”

Oh, no
. “No, that wasn’t me throwing the ball,” Bennie said. She shook her head and grimy droplets flew off, but the man’s lips were glued skeptically together.

“Sure it was, I saw you. I told you to stop throwing the ball, and you told me to go fuck myself.”

Eek.
“No, it wasn’t me. I didn’t say that. I used to say stuff like that, but I’m on a curse diet.”
Sort of
. “You saw my twin sister. My crazy twin sister, who was trying to kill my dog.”

“What?”
The runner leaned over, frowning in disbelief. His hair was dark and thick, and he pushed lanky bangs from his eyes.

“My twin was the one throwing the ball. She cursed you out. I was out rowing, in that boat.” Bennie gestured at the river behind her, and the runner peered past her shoulder.

“What boat?”

“My boat.” Bennie turned, but there was no boat floating on the water where she had abandoned hers. She glanced downriver, but her boat wasn’t there, either.
Oops
. She turned back to the man and tried to explain. “Well, I had a boat, but it sank. I know I sound like I’m lying, but I’m not. People can always tell when I’m lying.”

“I have to go.” The runner leaned down and gave Bear a final pat. “You’ve got a great dog here. You should take better care of him.”

“No, wait, it wasn’t me, I swear.” Bennie would go crazy if this mistaken-identity thing kept up. At least this time she could prove it. “Think about it. You know it wasn’t me throwing the ball because I wasn’t wet before. How did I get so wet? And I wasn’t wearing these clothes before, was I, when you think you saw me? How did I change my clothes?”

The runner looked Bennie up and down. Listening, not leching.

“I’m not the person you saw with the ball. It really was my twin in the baseball cap. We look exactly alike. She ran away, toward the parking lot.” Bennie eyed the lot, but it was too far away. Her eyes welled up with stress and fatigue. “I have to get to a phone and call the police. Do you have a cell?”

“Not on me.”

“Shit! She’ll get away again!” Bennie glanced around, but the runners were sprinting and the cyclists were cycling. No necking students who might have cell phones were in the vicinity. “I have to get back to the boathouse. I want to call the police, at least to report her.”

“You’re telling the truth? Your own sister would kill your dog, on purpose?”

“Evidently.” Bennie ran a hand through her hair, wet and tangled with leaves and crap from the river. She doubted that it was a good look for anyone but Swamp Thing. But she had to get going. She had to call the cops. “It’s only one of the very nice things she’s done lately, but it’s not your problem. I owe you a reward for saving my dog. He’s the sanest member of my family.”

The runner smiled, showing teeth that were white and even, and he put his hands on slim hips. He looked like Superman in that pose, but it could have been the fact that he’d saved Bear’s life. “I’m David Holland,” he said, extending a large hand, and Bennie introduced herself and shook it. His handshake felt strong, sure, and slightly rough. “So where
is
your boat, Bennie?”

“Capsized, I guess.” Bennie turned back to the river. She spotted one of her oars rowing merrily down the stream. The old skiff from her boathouse was speeding upriver, toward the spot where her scull had been. “This is probably the recovery operation now. I should go over and see if I can help. Maybe they have a cell phone too.”

“I’ll join you,” David said matter-of-factly, and strode toward the riverbank. Bear trotted after him in adoration. Bennie’s socks squished with each step. Her black shorts stuck to her butt. Swamp Thing with back.

“I wonder how you pick up a boat. They probably have to dredge it up, like the
Titanic,
” she said to him. On the river, the skiff was nearing the spot where the scull had sunk, and the skiff’s Evinrude throttled down to a throaty rumble. Three men from the rowing club rode in the skiff, and they shot Bennie a collective
women drivers
look. David picked up his pace. Bennie straggled after him. “I mean, how do you get a boat off the bottom of a river?”

“Tell you in a sec,” he called back, and when he reached the edge of the water, he swung his muscular arms together, bent quickly at the knees, and dived in. Bear barked at the ripples he left behind, then came scampering back to Bennie, wagging his butt and feathery tail and looking up at her with plaintive brown eyes.

“Not unless you walk him,” she told the dog.

It was past eight-thirty and already dark by the time Bennie and Bear arrived home, given a ride by David in his khaki brown Jeep, which was neater than any man’s should be. Other than that, Bennie couldn’t see that he had any faults. He had saved Bear’s life. He was hunky, gorgeous, and polite. He’d helped tow her scull to the boathouse, bailed it out, and set it upside down on its rack, almost good as new. Bennie was willing to believe he could have built her a new one with Popsicle sticks. And he liked Steely Dan, which she liked almost as much as Bruce Springsteen, and “Night by Night” was playing softly on the Jeep’s CD system. She was trying not to idealize the man, but it was difficult. After all, he was her hero. Or at least Bear’s, which was basically the same thing.

David steered the Jeep into a parking space on the block just as a white police cruiser pulled up, double-parking a little ahead of them. It had to be Detective Maloney, whom Bennie had called about what had happened. Meantime, Bennie worried about her house. What had Alice taken? Or had she simply destroyed the place? Trashed it? Bennie boosted herself up in the passenger seat to see her house, but in the half moonlight all she could make out was its flat roofline. At least the place was still standing.

“Well, the cavalry’s here,” she said, turning to David. It felt strange being in such close quarters with him, and even though their clothes were almost dry, the Jeep’s interior smelled of brine and industrial pollution. “Thanks for everything, and most of all, thanks for saving Bear.”

“I thought I’d stay until the cops left, to make sure you were safe.” David cut the ignition, leaving them in awkward silence, now that “Night by Night” had gone.

“You don’t have to do that,” Bennie said, and Bear thrust his slobbery muzzle between them from the backseat.

“Bear wants me to. He feels safer with me here.” David got out of the Jeep, and Bennie didn’t have time to fight about it. She wanted to get into the house. She climbed out, holding on to Bear’s collar, and two uniformed officers were emerging from the cruiser.

“Over here, Officers!” she called out, struggling to hold on to the dog as he jumped excitedly at the police, wagging his tail. Nobody else had gotten out of the squad car. “Isn’t Detective Maloney with you?”

“The detective sent us out, Ms. Rosato,” the first cop said. His voice sounded middle-aged and slightly weary, and he looked heavyset in the dark, the light blue of his shirt puffy at the girth. “I’m Officer Leighton, and this is my partner, Officer Banneman.”

“Well, thanks for coming, gentlemen.” Bennie introduced herself and tried to prevent Bear from jumping up on his new friends. The dog tugged her this way and that. “But isn’t the detective coming? He said he’d be here. He knows about this case, with my sister.”

“The detective got held up. He filled us in. It’s a B & E, right, and you suspect it was your twin?”

“I know it was my twin. I saw her at the river with my dog. She set me up on theft charges yesterday.” Bennie felt David shift beside her and realized this would be news to him. She half expected him to run screaming, but instead she felt him taking the rambunctious dog from her hands. “My door is broken because the cops just searched my house. It’s still nailed shut, so you have to go around the back. She must have broken in through the backdoor, taken my dog, and tried to kill him. God knows what else she’s done, inside.”

“We’ll check it out, Ms. Rosato,” Officer Leighton said brusquely. “Please, step aside and let us do our job.” The cops switched on long-handled black Maglites, making instant pools of jittery light on the gritty city sidewalk, and aimed them at the house. The light circles chased each other up and down, but the splintered wood of the front door looked untouched, just as broken as before. Bennie found it hard to think of it as progress. Officer Leighton
tsk-tsk
ed. “It is nailed shut. How do we get around the back?”

“This way,” Bennie said, and led the cops, the flashlights, David, and the dog down the street to the alley, and to the wooden gate in the back of her tiny cement patio, not ten feet by ten. She opened the latch of the gate, wishing now she’d made the time to put a lock on it. They went through the patio to the French doors in the back of the house, when the cops stepped in front of Bennie and shone their Maglites at the French door.

“I don’t see any signs of a forced entry,” Officer Leighton said. “It’s locked.”

“It is? How could it be locked?” Bennie asked, surprised.

“Did you leave it that way?”

“Yes, but since then it was broken into, okay?” Bennie couldn’t keep the irritation from her tone. “We know this because my dog was taken, and he didn’t lock it after himself.”

David said, “Do you leave a key with a neighbor?”

“No, the only spare is in the office.”

“You have your key on you, Ms. Rosato?” Officer Leighton asked.

“Yes, hold on.” Bennie shoved her hand into her purse, fumbled for her keys, and handed them up with the house key drawn. “Maybe she picked the lock.”

“Ms. Rosato, please wait here until we secure the premises.” Officer Leighton took the key and said to the other cop, in low tones, “I’m primary.” He unlocked the door, and it swung open wide in the jittery cone of light. Then he reached inside the door, and the anteroom light went on inside the house, illuminating Leighton’s profile. The middle-aged cop had a brushy mustache and a worried expression. “Let’s go, Mike.”

“Right behind you,” the other cop said, and they hurried into the house.

Bennie held her breath. She almost expected gunfire, but all she got was silence. Then talking, then low laughter. Next to her, David was listening intently, even as Bear sat panting, his tail happily brushing the cement. Goldens love new games, even when tennis balls aren’t involved. The three of them waited outside while light after light went on in Bennie’s house; first the ground floor, then the second floor, and then she heard their heavy shoes pounding down her stairs and back again into the dining room.