This Dog for Hire (12 page)

“Dennis—”

“Right. He had left Magritte with me and gone out late in the afternoon, said he'd be gone a few hours, then come back for Magritte. I don't know where he was. He never said. He just said that he had found out something about someone and it had to be exposed, at any cost. I asked him what he had found out and who he was talking about, and he just said, ‘Wait and see, old buddy. Wait and see.'

“Well, I was worried about him when it happened, but he never brought it up again. I was having this huge problem with my publisher, so I forgot about it. I wonder if he was talking about Gil, if he had discovered what Gil was doing. He was really upset, and God, he loved that little dog to pieces. He would have been wild, absolutely wild, if he had known what Gil had done. And Rachel, he was wild that night.”

“But he never mentioned it again? He never said another word about finding out about something that had to be exposed?”

“Not a word.”

“Does that strike you as unusual, I mean, to be so upset and then nothing?”

“Actually, no. I do it all the time, don't you?”

“Sure. But this is different. It's not like getting dunned for a bill you paid. It's bigger. And ongoing. Why didn't it come up again, I mean, if it
was
about Gil?”

“Because of the way Cliff was. He'd get really angry, then he'd plot.”

“Plot?”

“He'd let it simmer, and he'd figure out what to do to get even, to hurt the person who hurt him. He used to quote that saying, you know, revenge is a dish best served cold. I don't know if he ever actually
did
anything, but sometimes he liked to talk about what he
wanted
to do to someone he thought was an enemy, something sneaky, so they wouldn't know it was coming or, if they did, they still wouldn't be able to do anything to stop it.”

“He wouldn't have been direct?”

“I don't think so. Even if he said something, he wouldn't necessarily have let it go, the hurt. You know what I mean?”

I nodded.

“You couldn't just apologize. You'd have to wait for him to get over it in his own time and his own way. Even if it was something trivial, like you forgot a date with him. Or you were late. He'd be friendly, then when you figured it was okay, he'd get real sarcastic. I feel so disloyal saying this to you, I mean, I … he was my
friend
.”

Dennis was looking even paler than usual.

“The thing is, he was your friend despite his faults. That's nothing to feel bad about.”

He nodded. “I guess.”

“Here's something to feel bad about. You look like shit. Let's get some food, okay?”

“Sure, sure. You order for us,” he said, and I did—osso buco, which I had been dying for since hearing Louis's voice on Clifford's old answering machine tape.

As soon as the waiter had taken the order, I put Magritte back on the floor. I was pretty sure that once the food arrived, he'd turn into a cat burglar, and I thought I might have a better shot at defending my dinner if the burglar weren't on my lap.

“Dennis,” I said, tearing into a roll while we waited for the meal, “those paintings of that older guy in drag, the one with the flowered housedress?”

“What about them?”

“Have you ever seen them before?”

He shook his head.

“I was wondering about that one, because Cliff always put a title on the last panel, and that one doesn't have a title. It's the only one in the show that doesn't have one.”

The waiter showed up with the food, which immediately captured the attention of all four animals at the table. But even though I was as hungry as the next omnivore, it's difficult for me to let go once I have a question on my mind. “And?”

“Probably just didn't finish it,” he said, his mouth full of food. For a while, the only sound was the pitiful whining of a hopeful basenji. When I looked down to give Magritte the eye, the most powerful tool a dog trainer has, particularly when her mouth is otherwise occupied, I noticed that Dashiell, God bless him, was back asleep. He has this unshakable faith that if I have food with his name on it, I'll be sure to let him know.

When Dennis's plate was almost empty, he looked critically at mine.

“What?” I growled.

Getting raised by Beatrice Kaminsky is sort of like passing a car accident every day. You don't want to know, but your curiosity always gets the better of you. So even before he answered, I knew that asking had been a mistake.

“Eat your veal. Some little baby cow suffered so you wouldn't have to sate yourself on boring chicken.”

“Yes, Beatrice.”

“Beatrice?”

“My mother. You keep reminding me of her.” I offered him my most insincere smile.

“Oh,” he said, his hand to his bosom, “I like
that
. One little touch of guilt and criticism, and already it's getting testy with me. Eat, don't eat,” he said, “it's all the same to me.”

When the check came, Dennis and I had a brief battle over it, but not wanting to bruise the delicate male ego, I let him win.

“I'll walk you home,” he said when we got outside.

“You don't have to do that. I'm a detective.”

“Okay, then I'll walk you as far as Houston Street.”

“Deal.”

“Rachel, I have to go to Boston right after Westminster, to see my editor and meet with the art director. I'll be gone until midday Saturday. I could never get another good handler this close to the show. And Gil really brings Magritte out. But no matter what you find out this week, I don't want Magritte with Gil for one more minute after Westminster. You know, it wouldn't have been the money that would have bothered Cliff. It would have been the lying, for sure, but more than that, the loss of control of what happened with Magritte. He would have hated that. So I need a gigantic favor. Could you take Magritte for me until I get back from Boston? Gil said he'd keep him for me, but I definitely don't want to do that, and I can't bear to board him. He won't be any trouble at all. He's got wonderful manners. Unless you don't consider licking his balls wonderful manners. Lucky mutt. I always have to find someone else to lick mine.”

“That can be very time-consuming,” I said. “That aside, we'll take him. Dashiell loves to have friends sleep over.” As a show dog, Magritte would be crate trained, so if I had to leave him home alone, I could still come home and find my possessions intact. And if he carried on, no one would hear him. Shelly and Norma Siegal wouldn't be back from Florida for at least another month. “I'll be at Westminster anyway. I'll just take Magritte home with me after Best in Show.”

Dennis sighed. “Clifford sold more paintings tonight than in the entire time he was alive,” he said. “Maybe he'll even get a posthumous cult following, like Frida Kahlo. Weird how things work, isn't it?”

The light was green as we approached Houston Street, so Dash and I ran to make it across Houston Street. When we reached the other side, I turned and waved to Dennis.

In a world where appearances are everything, this proud oaf had loved a beautiful man. But now Beauty was dead, and the Beast was as lonely and miserable as ever. Sounds like one of the bedtime stories Lili used to make up for me when our parents were out and had left her in charge.

14

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

When I got home, I fed Dash, checked the answering machine, and got ready for bed, but I was as wide awake as if I had just run out of a sauna and jumped into a snowdrift.

There's a period in every case when I feel really confused. It's usually from right after I'm hired until I find out who did it.

Dog training is a lot easier. At least you know who the criminal is. Okay,
sometimes
it's the dog, but usually it only
seems
as if it's the dog. More often than not it's the owner, the so-called intelligent partner who thought it was cutesy-poo when little Killer growled for six months before he actually started putting his teeth into it.

The thing is, when you're called in to solve a dog problem, you get to meet all the players up front. You'd be surprised how clear things look when the dog is seen in the context of his pack. When a dog is an accident waiting to happen, you can see it, and when the problem is fixable, most of the time you can fix it.

With human beings, things are never so clear. Motives are more complex, behavior is more devious, and the histories are infinitely longer and more twisted.

Dogs live in the present. They're not capable of planned revenge. Alas, people are.

Had Morgan Gilmore been an accident waiting to happen? Was it only a matter of time before one of his clients found out what he was doing and confronted him? For surely, if he was doing this with Magritte, he could be doing it with any dog he was handling.

Did Gil murder Cliff because Cliff finally confronted him about the thefts? Had Clifford threatened to expose him? In that case, Gil would have lost more than a good client. He would have lost his occupation.

Still, the question remained, how did he know Cliff would be out on the pier so that he could try to pass off the killing as a gay bashing?

I was pacing now, the way Clifford did that night he told Dennis he had found out something and that someone had to be exposed. It went underground then, stewed and simmered in him. He couldn't rid himself of all the bad feeling, couldn't confront and forgive, or even if that's what he had decided to do, maybe Gil couldn't take the chance that people would find out what he had done.

The American Kennel Club library wouldn't be open until Monday. But I didn't have to wait to see if I could get more dirt on Gil. I had every Westminster catalog since I began studying dog training. I went into the study, pulled two recent catalogs off the shelf, opened the first, and found the list of basenjis. The catalog not only listed the name of each dog entered and the name of the handler showing him but listed the name of the sire, too. This wouldn't tell me how many litters Magritte had sired or how many stud fees Morgan Gilmore had pocketed. It would only tell me if any of Magritte's get had been entered in Westminster. It was only the tip of the iceberg, but it was the only thing I could do until I could get into those studbooks on Monday morning.

Two Magritte daughters had competed two years ago. By the dates of birth, as well as the names of the dams, they were not littermates. Last year, three of Magritte's get were entered, one of the same bitches from the year before and two dogs, not of the same litter as either the bitch or each other. Apparently the frozen semen business was brisk.

I thought about the message from Gil on Cliff's answering machine tape. He said nothing about needing Cliff to sign the entry form. I pulled out an events calendar from my pile of
Gazettes
, the magazine published by the American Kennel Club, and checked the form. It called for the name of the owner of the dog, printed, and his all-important AKC registration number, so of course Gil had to know that, but it could be signed by
either
the owner or his duly authorized agent. And Magritte's duly authorized agent was Gil.

But what about litter registrations? Those certainly needed the owner's signature. Then again, with thousands and thousands of litters registered every year, who was sitting around double-checking every signature to make sure it was the actual owner of the bitch or dog who had signed each form? Don't sweat it if you don't know the answer. It was a rhetorical question.

I had the feeling that even a false signature on a bank check would go undetected unless the amount was unusually large, in which case the bank might check the signature, or unless the owner of the account realized that a certain check had been written and signed by someone else when he or she got back a month's worth of canceled checks with the statement. As Joan Rivers would say, grow up. Stealing stud fees was no doubt even easier than collecting the sperm with which to steal them.

Dashiell was on top of the blankets with his head on my pillow, and being a devout believer in the adage Let sleeping dogs lie, I had no choice but to squeeze down under the covers from the top.

Clifford had told Dennis that he had discovered something that had to be exposed at all cost. Was the cost losing a top basenji handler? Was it losing someone he thought was a friend worthy of his trust?

It's a funny thing, trust. Like Humpty Dumpty, once it's been broken, you can never put it back together again.

15

I Have My Standards

Dashiell's whimpering woke me. His feet were running in his sleep, his eyelids twitching. As I gently scratched the back of his neck to quiet him, I realized that I had been dreaming, too.

I was at a large table, a street map of the Village spread out before me, the twisty streets with their unexpected turns, the private mews, the alleys, all there, but without names.

I was trying to find my way somewhere, but each time I thought I had it, I looked again and found the map oriented a different way. Once again I'd find my starting place, and with my finger I'd trace the streets, trying to make my way to wherever it was I just had to go. And each time I thought I was there, I'd find myself more lost than the time before.

I got up, padded barefooted down to the kitchen, put up the kettle, and opened the front door for Dashiell. There had been a fresh dusting of snow during the night. The yard was as still as a graveyard, everything silent and white.

I went back to the kitchen and made tea, still trying to shake the disturbing aftereffects of the dream. Dashiell came in, the
Times
in its cold plastic bag hanging out of his mouth, dropped it on my bare feet, and tossed himself onto the living-room rug with a sigh. I was feeling grumpy, too. I was coming down with a cold. The weather wasn't going to help, frigid winds coming down from Canada, chance of snow late in the day, high of twenty-two.