The Wrong Dog

by Carol Lea Benjamin

Dash was stuck behind me on the narrow stairway, but when I was halfway up, he couldn’t contain himself any longer. He squeezed by me and scrambled on ahead, dipping his nose to the saddle of the door as soon as we got there, then turning back to see what was taking me so long.

  The key in my hand was a Medico. So was the lock.

  The barking had stopped. Now the dog on the other side of the door was sniffing at the saddle, trying to figure out who was there, friend or foe.

  I slipped the key into the lock and gave it half a turn, then hesitated. If it wasn’t Mel’s apartment, I was trespassing. But that wasn’t my concern. What I did care about was that if it wasn’t Mel’s place, then that wasn’t Judy on the other side of the door. Whoever it was had a mighty big bark. Maybe it was something huge, something hugely unfriendly.

  No matter what was in there, I had to get inside. I had to get to the bottom of this, and I had to do it now.

  Dashiell was pressed against my side, his forehead wrinkled, his hackles up, his tail straight out behind him, stiff as a rudder. A low growl came from somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach. I turned the key until the tumbler turned over. The dog inside barked again. I rotated the knob and gave a push.

  CHAPTER 28

  I Said Her Name

  Head down, legs wide, tail straight out behind her, she seemed to fill the doorway, a good trick for a forty-pound dog. She was wide and white, a ski slope for a nose, tiny no-frill whale eyes set in that massive head.

  “Margaret?”

  The dog didn’t move a muscle.

  “Judy?”

  Nothing.

  That’s when I noticed the collar, one of those from R.C. Steele with the dog’s name and phone number sewn on in contrasting colors. My stomach did a quick handstand.

  I said her name. She took her eyes off Dashiell, looked up, and wagged her short thick tail.

  And that’s when I got a good look at her face, the pink strip abutting the leather of her nose, the little mustache underneath, the goofy smile and the little black teardrop at the outside corner of her right eye.

  Not Judy, I thought.

  Not Margaret.

  And not Mel Sugarman.

  C. Fucking Madison the Third. And Sugar. Clever, I thought. I couldn’t help smiling. Then I remembered. Whatever his name was, he was dead, having intentionally taken a bullet that was meant for me.

  I bent and scratched Sugar on the head. She turned back to Dashiell and bowed. Despite all the noise, she was still a puppy. I told Dash okay and he followed the clone down the length of the loft, one large room about twenty-five by eighty, sunlight pouring in from the huge back windows and down from the three skylights.

  The bed was at this end of the apartment, covered with a leopard spread and strewn with dog toys. The open kitchen was in the middle of the apartment, under one of the skylights, a round marble table ringed by leather chairs across from it. Down at the far end, where the dogs were wrestling prior to heading back my way, there was a huge leather couch, a couple of comfortable-looking modern chairs, an Oriental rug that looked as if it had been in the family for generations but, like my aunt Ceil, had kept its glow, and a grand piano.

  I let the door close and walked slowly down to the far end of the apartment thinking that no way on earth could someone live like this by walking other people’s dogs for a living, rain or shine, like the postal service. It’s not that dog walkers did so badly. But this was old money I was looking at, not cash earned by wearing out shoe leather.

  Of course, he could have been an eccentric. Hell, as far as I could tell, he had been an eccentric. Sometimes people with tons of money do whatever it is they want to anyway, as if they didn’t have all that dough, as if they had to work for a living. Dog walking? I didn’t think so. I’d see the walkers schlepping dogs around when it was over ninety, faces red, T-shirts soaked with sweat, still a dozen more walks to do. And in the rain, the dog’s tail tucked, ears back—even he didn’t want to be out in all that slop.

  I sat down on the leather couch and took the key ring out of my pocket, placing it on the cushion next to the one I sat on, looking hard at the keys, something I hadn’t thought to do before. But now that I did, I could see that most of them were identical. Actually, there were keys for three different brands of locks and all the keys for each lock were copies. Clones. Apparently Mel had walked only one dog, aside from his own.

  I wondered which dog I had seen that night on Horatio Street.

  And how and why Mel was really there. Because what he’d told me, I now knew, was just another lie in a pack of lies.

  I tried to picture Blanche that night, to remember how she’d acted. At first, she’d pulled toward Bianca, sniffing and checking her out. Bianca, or Sugar, had licked Blanche’s mouth, typical behavior of a younger dog toward an older one. But then on the way home, Blanche was upset and clingy. I remembered that I’d stopped to comfort her, never thinking I had to look for a reason beyond the obvious, that she’d been upset because her mistress had just died. But she might have been upset because she thought she saw Bianca, then it turned out the dog was a stranger, only a look-alike and not the real thing. I couldn’t know for sure, not with Mel, or C. Madison the Third, dead. But it was very possible Mel had had his own clone out, not Sophie’s.

  What I did know was that dogs were able to tell the difference between identical twins, by smell. And wasn’t that what clones were, identical to the original and, in this case, each other?

  If Mel had had Sugar with him the night I’d run into him on Horatio Street, that would explain why she had gotten friendly once the door was open. I wasn’t a stranger. We’d met before.

  I glanced around the apartment again. There were no photographs anywhere, not on the walls, none on the dresser or the nightstand.

  If Mel lived here, around the corner from where I ran into him, might I have just met him by accident?

  No way. There were far too many “accidents” in this case already. I had to assume that the meeting was intentional, which meant that one way or another someone knew where I was headed, someone who’d called Mel and told him to show up there, too, see what the hell I was up to, find out what I knew.

  I wondered if he’d thought it was funny, bringing Sugar along, knowing I’d think she was Bianca, one more clone joke to add to the ana, but not one for the next veterinary conference, a very private joke this time.

  I got up and walked back the way I’d come in, locking the door. Then I went straight for Mel’s bathroom, opening the mirrored cabinet and checking out the medications, looking for anticonvulsants in particular. After that, while the dogs continued to play, I began to look for papers, anything that would tell me who this man was and how and why he had gotten connected to Sophie. And to me.

  CHAPTER 29

  I Probably Shouldn’t Have Let Him Do That

  I knew I shouldn’t take Sugar with me when I left. I had no right to do that. Hell, I had no right to be in Mel’s apartment, and worse, to go pawing through his things, make a list of the numbers he posted by his kitchen phone, write down the addresses that went with those names and numbers from the address book I found in his nightstand.

  But I felt awful about leaving her alone, even after walking and feeding her. I stayed while she ate her food, wolfing it in great gulps as if she was starving, as if she didn’t know where her next meal would be coming from. Watching her eat, I wondered when she’d eaten last. Unless Mel had hired the services of a dog walker, it couldn’t have been today. I checked my watch. She’d be fine for eight hours, even nine. I’d just have to make sure I got back here before going to bed and give her another walk.

  I was wondering if I should give her some more food before I left when I heard it. Sugar and Dash heard it, too, someone coming up those creaky, worn-out stairs. I couldn’t leave. There was no place to go. I grabbed Dashiell as he headed for the door, pulling him by his collar. I headed for the bathroom, yanking him backward until he was inside and closing the d
oor. Then, because I had no idea who was coming or what they were after, I signaled him to jump into the tub, followed him in, and pulled the shower curtain closed around us. Then, trying to slow my breathing, I waited.

  I heard Sugar barking. Once, and once again. That meant it was someone she knew. Sure enough, I heard a key in the lock, then the doorknob turning. Then I heard his voice, talking to her. Or perhaps to himself, asking where the damn leash was, sounding annoyed that he couldn’t find it. Or perhaps it was something else. Perhaps he was still annoyed that his bullet had hit the wrong target, that he’d failed to kill me but had killed Mel instead, and that before getting the chance to try again, Dashiell had chased him out of Sophie’s apartment.

  There was a rumble coming from Dash’s throat. Still holding his collar, I hoped I was feeling it, not hearing it. Joe probably still had his gun with him and I didn’t have mine. No matter how he felt, Dashiell had to shut up, and fast. I pulled his chin up so that he had no choice, he’d be looking me right in the eye. Then, with my other hand, because if I could hear Joe, he could surely hear me, I put my hand up like a stop sign and moved it from side to side, our version of that’ll do, the command that calls the Border collie off the sheep. I used it mostly when we were playing and he was being obsessive, to let him know I was quitting and he had to, too. His brow wrinkled, but he obeyed. Keeping my hand in his collar, I could feel that the rumbling had stopped.

  I could hear Sugar’s nails as she padded around the loft, following Joe.

  “Here’s the damn thing,” he said: “I thought I was going to have to use a rope.”

  He must have put the leash on her and then dropped the handle because I heard her tick-ticking along the floor now, the leash dragging behind her.

  Then the bathroom door opened. Dash looked up at me and saw the panic in my eyes. I felt something move under my hand and pulled up on his collar, taking his toes off the ground, then immediately setting them—soundlessly—back onto the porcelain, telling him in the only way I could not to growl. Our lives depended on his silence.

  We stayed absolutely quiet while Joe peed, so quiet that I thought I could hear the drops of urine he shook off his penis hitting the water in the toilet. I tried hard to hold my breath, praying Dashiell wouldn’t choose now to sneeze, waiting for the sound of Joe’s zipper and the rush of water when he flushed. I heard the first sound, not the second, heard his shoes squeak as he turned and left, heard Sugar dancing around at the front door to go out, even though she’d just been walked. Fortunately, she seemed totally taken with the next project and had forgotten all about us.

  I waited after the door slammed to hear the tumbler turn over, then I waited some more, for Joe and Sugar to get down those rickety stairs and out onto the street. I took a deep breath—it felt like hours since I’d done that—and told Dashiell, “Good boy. Okay.”

  I followed him out of the bathtub and stopped to flush the toilet. He’d left the seat up, too. What a guy. I looked around for Dashiell’s leash. It wasn’t where I’d left it. Joe had taken it, thinking it was Sugar’s. It took me a couple of minutes to find hers, hanging on a hook in the closet. He was neat, Mel. You had to give him that. I took one last look around the loft, felt sadness wash over me like the waves did when I was little and visited my aunt Ceil in Sea Gate, then let Dashiell out, locking Mel’s door behind me, not bothering to wipe the knob clean. I had no intention of making believe I hadn’t been here. I’d just have to add the issue of why I hadn’t called the precinct immediately to the rest of the uncomfortable questions I’d be asked one day soon.

  I had a lot on my mind, but I no longer wondered what I’d do if the cops didn’t locate Mel’s apartment pretty soon. I was pretty sure Sugar wouldn’t be coming back here so I no longer had to be concerned about running back to take care of her, or about taking a chance by taking her home with me. I was as sure as I could be that she was back with the people who were responsible for creating her in the first place and that when I tracked her down, to one of several addresses that were already in my pocket, I’d find out what was behind the murder of my client and the clumsy attempt on my own life.

  Before Joe had shown up, I was thinking that maybe I should call Agoudian, tell him I’d run into Mel a block from where he lived, and so I’d come back this way and stumbled across his apartment, sort of by accident. I could have made sure he found Mel’s place sooner rather than later. But now that the dog was taken care of, I thought about the other side of that call, explaining to him how I’d stumbled across Mel’s apartment after finding his rental box key loose in his jacket pocket, palming it and stealing it at the crime scene, how I’d taken the keys he’d kept stashed there and tried them out on Gansevoort Street on a hunch rather than turning them in. That would go over big.

  One way or another, the detectives would get here eventually. At least now I didn’t have to worry about them dropping Sugar off at the ASPCA. Walking home with Dashiell I thought about the dogs I’d seen there, dogs who were there because their owners had died and there was no relative willing or able to take them, old dogs, young dogs, all of them sad dogs. And in no time at all, if the right person didn’t come along, they were dead dogs. No one had volunteered to do anything about Sophie’s pets, no one besides Mel and myself.

  What would have happened to Blanche and Bianca had we not been around? Would they have ended up in the shelter, dogs who could change the course of a disabled person’s life?

  I was so worried about the animals, I was forgetting to watch my own back. I had no way of knowing if the message I’d been trying to send by talking on the phone in the garden had been overheard, and if it had, if I had fooled anyone. I didn’t know how long I’d be safe. Well, perhaps I did. It would be worse than foolish to assume that whoever had failed to silence me early this morning would give up for any reason. Whatever they were trying to gain, or hide, they were in too deep to stop now.

  I hadn’t pretended to look into a store window, see if anyone was following me. I hadn’t stopped off anywhere, to be able to check the street when I came back out. I hadn’t pulled out a mirror, pretended to check my hair, gotten a view of the street behind me. Anyway, even if I’d wanted to do that, I didn’t have a mirror, so I couldn’t. And if I did, what would I have looked for, Joe, going on ahead and then waiting to see if someone would be coming up behind him? If he knew I was there, he would have killed me in the shower, right after killing Dashiell.

  So there were two clones. Maybe a third somewhere. Was Mel Sugarman, or whatever his name was, an epileptic, too? He’d had a seizure, but that could have been from loss of blood. And whatever was in his medicine cabinet and nightstand, or rather whatever wasn’t there, hadn’t made me think otherwise.

  But if he wasn’t an epileptic, why did he have one of the Blanche clones? And why did he lie and tell Sophie he was a dog walker? What on earth could have made him walk Sophie’s dog five days a week, rain or shine, for a solid year when he wasn’t a dog walker and didn’t seem to need the money?

  Sophie had been watched and listened to. Was Mel the spy? Fine. Mel was the spy. But for whom? Himself? And why? What was he after? What was he hiding? Who was Joe? And why did he have Mel’s keys?

  I’d detoured out of my way going home to check out an address on Barrow Street between Hudson and Greenwich. Unless this was another plant, a made-up list by the phone, a fake address book, an apartment set up just to fool me, I was in luck. It turned out to be a private house, a little redbrick Federal, about a century and a half old, and next door, a similar house with a similar stoop, a place for me to sit and listen, close enough to see and hear, if what I now hoped for was so. I climbed the stoop to the pilaster-framed doorway and checked the names on the bells. There was no name, but only one bell. Perfect.

  Heading home, I was lost in thought, figuring out what to do. I barely noticed where I was walking, going on automatic pilot toward Tenth Street. But as soon as I’d turned onto my block, Dashiell snapped me back to r
eality. As he approached where he lived, he had things on his mind, too, and until I was brought up short by his leash, I hadn’t noticed that he’d stopped to leave his own news item on a tied-up pile of newspapers. I probably shouldn’t have let him do that, but in a city setting, there just aren’t enough upright things for male dogs to mark without making someone unhappy. I thought of all the times I’d been yelled at for letting him lift his leg on the tire of a car, a tree, someone’s stoop, the garbage bags some super was moving out to the curb. Mail storage boxes, no-no. Think about the poor mailman who had to go in there for his next sack of mail. Lampposts? Half of them had those front plates missing, exposed wires on the bottom. Someone at the run had said some dog got electrocuted, peeing on an open lamppost. No wonder there were people who didn’t believe in keeping dogs in the city.

  Standing there while Dashiell sniffed, then hiked his leg again, I began to read the headlines on the tied-up papers, reminding myself that I hadn’t done anything normal for days now, hadn’t read a paper, eaten a decent meal, paid my bills, spent time with my sweetheart.

  Some cops were on trial for brutalizing a citizen. Who could you trust nowadays? Then I thought about Mel again, about the way he’d pulled me around behind him.

  He knew Joe. He knew what Joe had gone there to do. He’d been in it, whatever it was, up to his skinny neck. Then why save me?

  I unlocked the gate, let Dashiell off leash, and walked slowly to the cottage door, listening to the sound of only one dog barking. When I opened the door, Bianca jumped on me, then ran past me to be with Dashiell. I stepped inside.

  Except for the ticking of the kitchen clock, the cottage was silent. There was no bull terrier in the living room. I ran upstairs, thinking she’d gone up to lie on the bed, the way she’d gone to lie on Sophie’s bed, to wallow in the smells of her caretaker. But the unmade bed was empty. I checked the office. Then I ran back downstairs. And down the flight to the basement. Blanche wasn’t there either. When I headed back up, there she was, standing at the top of the staircase, her tail wagging slowly from side to side.