The Wrong Dog

by Carol Lea Benjamin

  She was warm, the way dogs are when they first wake up. She must have been curled up on the other side of the couch, so deep in sleep she hadn’t heard me come in. Unless there was another problem, unless Blanche was losing her hearing. Or found it too difficult to get up unless she absolutely had to. I bent to hug her. When she started to squirm, I knew I’d held on too tight and too long.

  I went into the kitchen and got food ready for the dogs. Then I went back upstairs to change, putting on Chip’s denim shirt, a pair of jeans, an old, black jacket with a tear in the sleeve, and black sneakers, pinning up my hair and covering it with a black baseball cap, grabbing an oversize pair of dark glasses, too, so that I would blend in with the night. I did one more thing before leaving, something that would pretty much guarantee that no one would look in my direction. I took out the shopping cart and piled it full of newspapers, magazines, and the empty water and soda bottles I hadn’t yet put in the recycling bin outside. I added a broom, stuffing it in upside down. I checked myself out in the mirror, holding on to the shopping cart. Unless someone tried to smell me, I’d pass.

  I left the dogs at home, Dashiell giving me that puzzled look he gets when I go out without him, and headed for the nearest florist, giving them the address of the house I’d just seen on Barrow Street and the name I’d found in Mel’s address book as well as some explicit instructions and a generous tip for the deliveryman who would carry them out. The owner kept his distance, kept shaking his head, having every reason not to want to do business with me, at least until I took out a wad of cash to pay for the flowers I’d ordered, adding an extra twenty for him. Then I headed back to Barrow Street myself to take my place on the stoop next door and wait.

  I sat on the hard step for nearly an hour, hoping I wasn’t waiting because the florist had called before sending his deliveryman and found out that no one was home. There were lights on in the house, but that didn’t mean anything. People left lights on when they weren’t home, too, to fool the burglar, a trick that probably wouldn’t fool an observant ten-year-old.

  I saw him coming up the block, a little guy with bandy legs, holding the bouquet by the stems until he saw me. I shook my head and he passed without a word, climbing the stairs next door and ringing the bell.

  I heard the voice over the intercom, a woman’s voice.

  “Who is it?”

  “Delivery,” he said. He turned to look at me and once again, I shook my head.

  “Who’s it for?” she asked.

  Good one. That’s why people don’t put their names on the bells of private houses in New York. Anyone can ring and say it’s UPS or Fed Ex. God knows who’d be standing there when you opened your door.

  The list at the phone had said only “Lizzie.” There was only one Elizabeth in Mel’s address book.

  “Elizabeth Madison.” He was holding the flowers upright now. No, he was holding them up to the intercom. Who did I expect would be delivering flowers, Einstein?

  “Who did you say you were?”

  I could see the little white envelope stapled to the flowered wrapping paper at the top end of the cone.

  “Florist, miss.” He waited for a response, but none came. “I was by twice earlier, but no one was home.”

  “Florist?”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “Who would be sending me flowers?”

  He shrugged.

  “Who are they from?” She spoke louder this time, and spaced out her words.

  He still didn’t answer her.

  “Who are the flowers from?” Shouting now. Losing her temper.

  Better than I’d hoped for.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t know that, miss. I only delivers them.”

  “Hold on. I’ll be down.” As annoyed as if he’d gotten her out of the bathtub.

  Sitting on the far end of the stoop next door, the cart parked in front of me, my head down as if I was napping, I wondered what the hell this would accomplish, a quick glance at someone whose number was next to Mel’s phone? Someone with the same last name. But for now, it was all I could do, just take a look, let the deliveryman do what I’d tipped him to do, figure out the rest later. I sat there for longer than it would take to walk down from the top of the building, waiting for the door to open. And then it did.

  She looked cold, the way she was hunched into her navy cardigan, a scowl on the oval face, a half-smoked cigarette sticking out of the side of her mouth, the eye on that side closed to keep smoke out of it. Her hair was blond now, hunched hack with a barrette, pieces sticking up like rabbit ears. But all that took was a trip to the drugstore and a pair of rubber gloves. I couldn’t see if her nails were bitten. Still, I had no doubt about it, I had found Lorna West.

  My man handed her the posies. She began to close the door.

  “I need you to sign the receipt,” he said.

  “Yeah, sure.” The cigarette bobbing with each word.

  He fished in his jacket pockets. Then his pants pockets.

  “I’m going to be in a heap of trouble.”

  She sighed. “Left it at the shop?”

  “Looks that way, miss.”

  He looked at her, his face so screwed up I believed him myself. This time I had a mirror because it would have been dangerous to appear to be paying attention to what shouldn’t seem to be any of my business. I tilted it, so that I could see her face.

  “How about if I write something on the envelope?”

  “That would be fine, miss. I thank you from the bottom of my—”

  “Yeah, yeah. Don’t get all emotional about it. It’s just a receipt.” She took the cigarette out of her mouth and flipped it past him, into the street. I saw the coal break up, bits and pieces flying in all directions, then going out. She stood there waiting.

  “A pen? No, don’t bother. You forgot that, too, right?”

  She handed him the flowers and went back inside, letting the door close in his face. But he put his foot out, clever man, and when the door hit his toes, it remained ajar. I listened to the sounds of her house, a television on somewhere in the back, nothing else, no dog barking from the yard or tick-ticking along the wooden floor after her mistress as she went to fetch the pen.

  A moment later she appeared with a ballpoint pen, clicking it open and snapping the envelope with the card inside it off the bouquet.

  “More trouble than it’s worth.”

  “Write the date, miss, and the time, then received from deliveryman, one nice bouquet.”

  She looked at him, the scowl deepening. I palmed the mirror, afraid a reflection from the lighted doorway would catch her eye and make her look my way.

  “You sure you don’t want War and Peace?”

  “Miss?”

  I heard her strike a match and smelled the sulfur.

  I heard nothing for a moment but kept my head down on my folded arms.

  “Here.”

  “Don’t forget the note.”

  I turned over the hand holding the mirror.

  He pulled the note I’d had the florist write out of the little envelope and handed it to her.

  I saw her take it in her fingers and turn it over. She inhaled hard, then slammed the door. I heard the lock turn over. I heard the chain go on. I listened, wondering if she’d move a bureau in front of the door next.

  The little man stood there, the flowers in the crook of his arm, not exactly Miss America, but grinning as if he were.

  He walked down the steps and, before he got to where I was, I got up and started down the block. I heard his feet shuffling along behind me. He caught up near the corner.

  “Did I do it right?”

  “You were perfect.”

  I handed him another ten. Hell, she’d screwed him out of a tip, it was the least I could do.

  He handed me the flowers.

  I shook my head. “You done for the day?”

  He nodded.

  “Take them home,” I said. “I bet you never buy flowers for yourself.”

 
When he smiled, I saw that he never went to the dentist either.

  He left, carrying the posies. Halfway past the St. Luke’s gardens, he started to whistle.

  I leaned against a lamppost, fussing with the junk I’d piled into my shopping cart. After a few minutes, I saw a rectangle of light down the block as Elizabeth Madison opened her front door and stepped out. I waited for her to lock it and pass where I was standing, never looking in my direction though she was close enough at one point for me to smell the stale smell of smoke on her sweater. I waited for her to cross Hudson Street before ditching the shopping cart next to the nearest trash can, keeping only one of the empty soda cans, and heading east, walking quickly in the direction Lizzie had gone. But no matter if I lost her. I knew exactly where she was headed.

  CHAPTER 30

  He Hadn’t Shaved

  When Elizabeth Madison turned right onto West Fourth Street, I kept going, following her from behind a row of parked cars on the other side of the street. I stopped when she did, watched her ring the bell at the house behind Sophie’s, and waited as the door opened and she disappeared inside. Then I waited another five minutes before crossing the street again, going up the same stoop she had and checking the name on the bell. This time there was one. Charles Madison. Why wasn’t I surprised?

  I leaned hard on the bell, heard a dog bark, and quickly went back to where I’d been, crouching behind a green Toyota that had a little handwritten sign in the window saying No Radio, the window next to it broken, the ground covered with tiny shards of green glass, as pale and shiny as jellyfish.

  The door opened and there was Joe again, a white bull terrier at his side, her nose tilted high, her nostrils moving. He hadn’t shaved, poor thing. He looked a mess. It must be very stressful, killing the wrong person.

  He looked left and right, then pulled the dog back inside and closed the door. I walked to the corner, checked out the drug dealers lined across all the paths in Washington Square Park, then headed around the block.

  There were no cops standing around outside the building where Sophie had lived. The little brass plaque with the name and address of the building manager was tucked under the bells. I had to crouch to read it: WAM Realty. Three initials again. Or perhaps it was a name this time. I remembered seeing it on Sophie’s rent check, wondering if it was Chinese, elevating my arm for five minutes so that I could tell my Chinese doctor I’d followed his instructions.

  I unlocked the outside door. There were no cops inside either. The yellow tape made a big X over Sophie’s door, but that didn’t present a moral issue for me since that’s not where I was headed.

  I took the stairs, climbing slowly. I didn’t expect to meet anyone, or find anyone when I got to where I was going. I didn’t think anyone had followed me from Charles Madison’s house. There was no reason to rush.

  I could hear television sets playing and snippets of conversation as I approached each floor. When I got to the top, I pushed on the bar that opened the door, carefully letting it close on the Schweppes ginger ale can, and stepped out onto the tar-covered roof. For a moment, I stood still, my eyes adjusting to the light, listening to the sounds, smelling the honeysuckle that climbed a trellis on one of the back balconies of the building next door. Then I walked toward the edge, crouching when I neared the parapet and looking over at what was below. Looking straight down, which I did first, made my knees feel as if they’d turned to liquid. There was no light on in Sophie’s garden, nor in the little cottage that backed up to it. The town house behind it, the one where Joe was, and Elizabeth Madison, was all lit up. No one had bothered to close the curtains either, and lucky me, I had my binoculars hanging around my neck under my jacket. I unzipped and held them up to my eyes.

  I could see into the living room, an open loftlike space that ran undivided through to Fourth Street. The grand piano was near one of the garden windows, on the side opposite the tall, glass French doors. Beyond that, huddled together at a round table, were Joe, Elizabeth Madison, and Charles Madison, sitting with his back to me. Still, he looked familiar.

  I backed up and looked around the roof for a rock, but found only tiny pebbles. I scooped up as many as I could hold and, keeping my foot in the doorway, filled the soda can with them. Then I slipped off my shoe, left it in the doorway, and went back to the edge of the roof. Standing, but not looking down, I hurled the can as far as I could. I heard barking, then I saw them, two white bull terriers, as game as they were meant to be, barking at the back door.

  Madison got up and let them out. For a moment, he stood in the doorway. I peered through the binoculars trying to figure out where I knew him from. Then he turned and went back to the table, hunching over and leaning forward, Joe and Elizabeth leaning closer, whatever they were saying, neither of them wanting to miss a word.

  I watched the bullies in the garden. They’d found the can. At first, they tried to play tug of war with it, pulling it in pieces, the pebbles spilling onto the flagstone walk. Then one, followed by the other, carried the treasure to the back door, put paws up, and pushed the doors in and open, vying to see who could get to the table first and drop the half can at Madison’s feet.

  He looked down, then slowly got to his feet and came toward the back door, standing in the doorway again, this time looking all around the dark garden, then up at the buildings surrounding it. For a moment, I ducked even lower.

  Elizabeth was smoking, her face crunched into a scowl. Joe got up and went to stand next to Madison. He whispered something to him. Madison nodded. Then they locked the doors and went back to where Elizabeth was sitting. I could no longer see the dogs.

  I backed up, retrieved my shoe, and went quickly this time, and quietly, down the stairs, thankful that no one in the building had a pet that would bark and let people know I was there. At the bottom of the stairs I turned left, down the short hall that led back to Sophie’s apartment. I took out my keys, unlocked the door, and pushed it in carefully, tearing the yellow tape where it had gone across the door and onto the frame. Then I slipped inside and locked the door behind me, leaving the lights off.

  I went straight back to the dark garden, opening the sliding glass door, then quickly closing it behind me. Grateful I’d kept practicing the t’ai chi I’d learned while working on another case, I crouched as low as I could, then, hearing the voice of my old teacher, I sank even lower and skittered across the garden to the loose slats in the fence, pushing them open and squeezing into the garden next door.

  There was a single lamp lit in the apartment next to Sophie’s. I stayed where I was until my legs were burning, waiting to see if there was any movement, if anyone was at home. Then, staying low, I crossed the garden, slid up the bedroom screen, and when no alarm went off, no slathering Great Dane threatened to eat me, no gun was shoved in my face, did the same with the unlocked window and climbed in. I was nervous about the light, but when I looked back the way I’d come, I could see only the very top windows of the house on Fourth Street. If people stayed where they were, on the parlor floor, no one would be able to see into this apartment.

  Of course, I had no idea whose apartment it was, or when whoever lived here would return. I suspected that whoever it was had something to do with my case, but I wasn’t sure of that and didn’t know what that connection was. I wasn’t sure what I expected to find either, a signed confession, a checkbook or tax return pregnant with pertinent information, even some ID that would tell me the name of the tenant who occupied this apartment so that I could get the hell out before he or she occupied it again.

  But what I found surprised me completely. Except for the lamp, the apartment was empty, as in unoccupied, and from the looks of things, had been this way for ages.

  Leaving nothing, taking nothing, though the Crime Scene Unit would laugh themselves silly over that notion, I went out the way I’d come in, closing the window, then the screen, duck-walking back to the loose slat in the fence and quickly slipping into Sophie’s apartment where, halfway in, I chan
ged my mind. I turned and there was the little back cottage, just begging to be explored.

  Staying low, I crossed the garden to the brick wall, pulling apart the thick ivy, hoping Mr. Rat wasn’t close by and checking out the wall. Mortar had been chipped away and pulled loose by the ivy. There were bricks missing as well. I could see enough footholds to encourage me to try to scale the eight-foot wall. In fact, I thought if I took enough of it, like Rapunzel’s hair, the ivy would serve as a rope to help me to the top.

  Only once did the ivy start to pull away quickly and that time, I was close enough to the top to grab on and pull myself up and over. There was a stone bench near the wall, under where I was flattened on top, like a bug. I shinnied over a few feet to avoid it, and, taking one deep breath, dropped to the garden floor, falling forward onto my hands but not hurting myself. From where I was I checked out the cottage—a wooden door, painted a bright blue, two locks on it, probably both locked, and a window, open eight or nine inches at the bottom.

  The sudden sound startled me and I went belly down in the pachysandra bed in which I’d landed. Madison and Elizabeth were still in the town house, at the table, talking loudly. She moved her hands a lot. He sat very still, unnaturally so, making my neck itch, making me sure I’d seen him before, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember where. Joe was nowhere to be seen, maybe in the bathroom or out to purchase a new supply of Vacor.

  I stayed low, watching the house as I closed in on the cottage, deciding not to even try the door because, open, it would be visible from their living room. Instead, I slid the window up just enough so that I could climb in headfirst, wiggling the rest of me through the narrow opening and closing the window partway once I was inside. Waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dark didn’t take long because whatever light was coming in through the windows was shining on the stainless steel cabinets, playing on the microscopes and the tall shiny doors of the oversize refrigerator. I heard a floorboard creaking upstairs and ducked behind a lab table in the middle of the room, not much protection if someone came downstairs and turned on the lights, but the best I could find on short notice.