The Dog Who Knew Too Much (26 page)

Walking over to Charlie Mom's, Janet was quiet.

“When did you get Pola?” I asked her, wanting to get something going.

She turned and looked at me.

“Skip,” I said, watching her face harden. “He said you sometimes had to run home to walk her. I was surprised you never mentioned her.”

Janet shrugged. “I missed Ch'an. After Lisa”—she paused, as if looking for the right word—“well, Avi doesn't bring her in all that often. Not the way Lisa did. There's something about Akitas, I don't know, but I just missed being around one. I was able to find one, a female like Ch'an, only white, that a breeder in Jersey had held on to and then decided to sell. She's seven months old, a real peach of a dog. I've only had her since, well, just a few weeks. That's why I sometimes run out to give her an extra walk. She'd been a kennel dog, so I wasn't sure about her housebreaking, but she's doing real good, she's real clean in the house.”

I nodded.

“They're pretty popular,” I said, “Akitas.”

Janet nodded.

“Paul said he liked them, too.”

I felt her tense, the way I could always feel the tension surge in some male dogs when there was the perceived threat of another intact male approaching.

“So did you know him before Lisa?” I asked. “I mean, since you worked in the same gym with him. Or had Lisa met him before?”

“I introduced them.”

Bummer, I thought.

“Lisa came over to train with me, and Paul came into the gym to ask me something, so I introduced them.”

“And what? Rockets went off? Soft music started playing, you know, like in the movies, to indicate two people are falling in love?”

“Something like that,” she said.

“Did they start dating right away, or what?”

“Lisa started swimming again.”

“What do you mean?” As if I didn't know.

“She hadn't been swimming for a long time, except in the summer, when she'd visit her parents. And after she met Paul, she began swimming regularly again. He used to call her
xiao yue
.”

We stopped on the corner, neither of us speaking as we waited for the light to turn green.

“It means
little fish
,” she said as we crossed Seventh Avenue.

The waiter at Hunan Pan had looked away when he'd told me, not wanting to embarrass me by paying attention to how I might react. Such a nickname is given in great affection, he'd said, looking toward the other side of the restaurant, to family members.

“Did Lisa stop training with you after she met Paul?” I asked Janet when we'd reached the safety of the other side of the street. She didn't respond. “I don't guess she had the time to do both.”

We'd arrived at the restaurant. Janet stopped and turned to face me. “You know, I'm going to beg off, Rachel. I wasn't thinking. It's late, and Pola's been alone all day. I'd feel like such a bitch, staying out even later. I'll catch you another night,” she said and, not waiting for a response, turned and headed in the direction of home.

It was quiet for the Village. Even weekday nights, there are people everywhere, going to plays and clubs, going to or coming from restaurants, walking their dogs, or just hanging out at the coffee bars that have suddenly cropped up like weeds, one to a block. Some sit inside, reading the newspaper or a magazine. Others sit outside, on a bench, watching the passing parade, as if they were in Rome or Paris. But tonight was sort of peaceful, and Dashiell and I walked slowly, enjoying the quiet.

How should I feel, I wondered, about Paul using the same term of endearment for Lisa and me?

He'd loved her. That I knew. What harm would it cause to think the obvious, that in the short time I knew him, he had come to love me, too? What difference could it make anyway, I thought, now that he was dead?

Suddenly a hand grabbed my arm, and someone was in my face.

“You were seen,” he said, his seething rage barely under control. “What the fuck is going on, that's what I want to know.”

“You were seen, too, you little creep,” I told him, turning slightly so that I all but disappeared. Stewie stumbled forward.

“What are you talking about?” he said, catching himself, trying to act as if nothing had happened.

“You were seen standing across from Lisa's every night, skulking around in the dark, staring at her window, watching to see who came and went,” I said, stepping forward. “What the fuck was that all about?”

Stewie Fleck looked off to the side, took off his baseball cap, and smoothed his hair forward.

“I …”

“What? You what?”

I grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him back toward me.

“Quit that,” he said. “Get your hands off me
now
.”

And with that, he pushed back. Hard.

As I caught my footing, I felt Dashiell brush my leg as he stepped between us. We both looked down at him, his tail, rigid now, level with his back, moving ever so slightly from side to side, just stirring the air. He was facing Stewie, who this time stepped back without being pushed.

“What were those pictures all about, pictures of Lisa, now pictures of me?” I said, my voice much too loud.

“You were in my darkroom?” he said, seething, but trying not to shout, trying not to inspire Dashiell to anything more than what he was doing, watching to see what would happen next, as if he had all the time in the world and absolutely nothing better to do.

“I was,” I said. “So are you going to tell me what this is all about, Stewie? Or would you rather just cross the street”—I indicated the Sixth Precinct with a tilt of my head—“and tell them what the hell you had in mind when you decided to stalk Lisa? And Paul. Both of whom are dead.”

“You bitch,” he said, forgetting Dashiell and shoving me back.

Then several things happened nearly at once.

I heard Dashiell's growl as I caught myself, one foot behind me, and as Stewie Fleck slipped between two parked cars and ran for his life, crossing the street on an angle so that he'd get to the other side as far away from the police station as possible.

And Dashiell, never one for wasted action and clearly understanding that the shortest distance between him and Stewie Fleck was not around the car but over it, in one move landed on the roof of the Mercedes-Benz parked just to our left, setting off its alarm.

“Leave it,” I told him.

So instead of leaping into the middle of the street and chasing down his prey, my designer wolf stayed just where he was, the car's horn blaring on and off, the headlights flashing, while across the street, heading for the corner, was Stewie Fleck, moving as fast as the designated dinner in the middle of a caribou hunt.

34

I Listened to the Dial Tone

Inside the cottage, Dashiell asleep on the couch, I could hear the car alarm, still going off. No matter that it was a few steps away from the Sixth Precinct, no one would do anything about it until the owner showed up. And that might not be until tomorrow.

I began to pace around. It was too noisy to sleep. Unless you were a pit bull. And I was too unhappy with the way my case was going to sleep, even if it had been quiet. The more I learned, the less I knew.

Talking it out sometimes helped, I thought as I picked up the phone. I was just thinking about you, she'd say. I listened to the dial tone, but I never dialed. What had I been thinking? I had so successfully filled myself up with Lisa Jacobs that I had all but forgotten about Lili and Ted. For just a moment I thought about him, my brother-in-law, kissing the blond, and then I consciously withdrew myself from the problem. It was theirs to solve. I didn't call. Instead, I closed my eyes and pictured the bouquets of roses that Lisa had hung over her dining room table. I thought about the sound of her earrings, the smell of her perfume, the soft feel of her sheets, and the gentle touch of her lover, when he became my lover. And I put down the phone, because I was back where I belonged.

Avi had been telling me to rely on myself. That was exactly what I needed to do. Leaving Dashiell sleeping on the couch, I grabbed Lisa's jacket and headed for someplace where I could be alone and think, someplace far away from the noise of the car alarm.

Walking toward the waterfront, I began to think about how weird it was that nearly everyone in Lisa's life had a motive to kill her. It was more like a made-for-television movie or a novel than real life.

Real life, it's the husband, the boyfriend, the business partner, ba-da-boom, the cops go after one person, the schmuck usually ignores the Miranda warning, places himself at the scene, changes his story five times, then confesses.

Or no one seems to be guilty. The person was wonderful, his friends were wonderful, everything was wonderful. Until you start to turn over the rocks and watch the worms crawl out.

This case was driving me crazy. There was no one I
didn't
suspect. Maybe it was because she had so much. Everyone who knew her had reason to be envious.

It would be only human, wouldn't it?

Lisa did everything well. She was beautiful. She had money. Her father bought her this gorgeous apartment, full service, great light, all paid for.

But that wasn't half of it. She was smart, I thought, now heading north along the waterfront area, the Hudson dark and forbidding to my left, the wind going through Lisa's thin jacket. She was talented, focused, and lucky too, I thought, but then I began to shake my head. Lucky? Well, she was lucky until the end. Then she got very unlucky.

I thought about the people in her life, all of them in
my
life now. Any of them could have done it.

The only one I really
liked
in all this was Avi. So I began to wonder if I was being blind, no one to shout from the shore and head me in the right direction, blind because I liked him so much, admired him, as if that meant he weren't capable of murder.

I had been sort of skipping over him because I thought he was so special. But all kinds of people commit crimes, and he
could
have done it. I thought about how sweet he'd been to me. Not sweet, really—generous would be more to the point. I guess I'd prefer it if it were one of the others. And then I found myself talking out loud, a typical New Yorker. Is this pathetic, I said, or what? I'm supposed to be a fucking detective.

Jesus, I was cold. I crossed West Street again, but instead of getting out of the wind, I walked along the other side of the traffic, finding myself headed toward Bank Street. I crossed the street and walked into the Westbeth courtyard, across the street from the studio, the place where Paul was killed, and sat facing the school and looking up.

It was late now, very late, but the studio lights were on, the only ones on in the whole building. I wondered who was there. For a moment I had the eerie feeling that if I went upstairs, it would be Lisa, sitting at Avi's desk, the way she used to, doing the paperwork, Ch'an at her side. I shivered at the thought.

It was probably Avi, catching up on the work Lisa used to do for him.

From the very beginning, I didn't want it to be him, so I kept looking for ways it could be the others. But now that I was thinking about it, it occurred to me that the tradition in t'ai chi—no, not just t'ai chi, all the martial arts—is for serious students to remain with their master for years and years, and not go off on their own, not leave or anything, until the master dies. And Lisa had told him she was leaving, she was going to break with tradition and go off to study in China.

Of course, I thought, standing up, then sitting down again. Her note. It was on
his
desk. What was that they said in real estate? Location, location, location. How could I have missed this?

I could go upstairs, I thought. We need to talk, I could say. Of course, he'd say, looking at me the way he always did, as if there weren't anything that might happen that could be more important than whatever it was I had come to say, as if there were no tomorrow and nothing existed but now.

He'd wait. All I would hear would be the sound of my own breathing.

It's not going well, he might ask, your search for answers? You haven't learned anything? And I could shrug and say, oh, I've learned a lot, just not enough.

I've made a big decision, I could say, just to make sure I had his complete attention. What is that, Rachel? he'd say, and then I'd tell him that my intention had been to learn about Lisa, to understand her life so that I might understand her death. I could tell him how arrogant a notion that was, to think I might become privy to the complexity of another human being by meeting her colleagues, her mentor, her sweetheart, as if, by looking through her books, wearing her clothes, or sleeping in her bed, I would suddenly know who she was, how she felt. What happened, I could say, is that I only learned more about me, who I am, how I feel.

Rachel, he'd say. But I'd hold up my hand. Let me finish, I'd tell him. Something happened to me, something got started that I need to finish. So I've decided to leave here. I've decided to continue my studies in China.

What are you saying? he'd ask, shocked. Lisa's dead, I could say. What difference does it make why she killed herself, when you think about it? But walking in her shoes, reading her books, studying t'ai chi, that's what became important to me. And if Lisa felt the way to do that was to do it in China, then that's what I'm going to do.

But why not stay here and study? I can teach you, he'd tell me, not wanting to let me go. And I'd just say, I can't. I have to follow through with this.

Would he look away? Would there be tears?

I never meant …, he might say. And I'd tell him, it doesn't matter what you meant. Or what I meant. It's just something that has to be now. My aunt and uncle are letting me use Lisa's ticket, so I can take Dashiell with me. Everything is paid for. And there's nothing to keep me here, no husband, no job. This was meant to be, Avi. It was fate that brought me here, so that this could happen. Do you believe in fate? I'd ask him.