The Hand That Feeds You (11 page)

I went to Lovefraud and left a private message for number three.

Who are you? Why did you pretend to be Susan Rorke? Why do you think the man you knew as “Peter” had deceived other women? I went to meet you in good faith and discovered that the woman you claimed to be was killed six weeks ago. I have information about the man I knew as “Bennett” that will interest you. I am not making anything up to try to lure you. I am entirely serious. I don’t know why you didn’t meet me, but if you are afraid of him, you need not be. I hope to hear from you.

I was hungry, and for the first time in weeks, I wanted something healthy. I walked a few blocks to Champs. It opened at 8:00 a.m. As usual I was the only customer without tattooed arms and legs. The staff was reliably cheerful. I got a booth to myself and sat beneath a piece of fifties signage on the wall. I asked for a double order of the tofu scramble with its mysterious spices, and the sautéed plantains. I put real cane sugar in my coffee. When I looked for the transgender server to refill my cup, I saw the door open. It took me a moment to place him. He was unstrapping a bike helmet. When I saw his hair, I recognized him as McKenzie, my lawyer. He was wearing a sweat-dappled T-shirt and black Pursuit cycling shorts that did not look like a costume on him.

He looked at my plate. “Those better not be the last of the plantains.”

“Would you like one?” I indicated the empty seat across from me.

He slid into the booth and, without glancing at the menu, ordered exactly what I had. He speared a slice of plantain off my plate. “I lived on these when I worked in Puerto Rico.”

“When was that?”

“I represented a horse in Vieques. A farmer near one of the Navy’s test-bombing ranges noticed his prize horse had stopped breeding. We won a judgment for the farmer and the stud.”

I raised my coffee cup in a salute.

“Have you scheduled the temperament test yet?” he asked.

“Next Friday on Staten Island.”

“Excellent. I wish you good luck.”

When his food came, I wanted to change the subject so that he didn’t think I’d invited him to sit down with me in order to take advantage of his legal counsel. “The closest I’ve been to Vieques was looking at it across the water from St. Thomas.”

“I love the islands. What were you there for?”

“I always took diving vacations there so I could bring back a couple of patty-cakes.” When I saw the question in his face, I said, “They’re island strays that survive on cornmeal cakes they find in the garbage. I work with a nonprofit that places island dogs in mainland homes.”

“What was the diving like there?”

“The reefs are suffering. Every time a cruise ship dumps two thousand tourists wearing sunscreen into the ocean, the coral bleaches and dies. I feel lucky to have seen the reefs before they’re gone. Did you dive off Vieques?”

“A little.”

“Isn’t it amazing? Swimming through those canyons of coral. The colors. Have you ever dived at night when the soft corals come out? It’s like swimming through a rose garden with only a flashlight. And the fish. Have you ever been followed by those schools of blue Tang? The way they all turn at once and become iridescent.”

He put his fork down though he had not finished his plantains. I felt I had somehow stepped wrong. “Let me take you to breakfast,” he said, and reached inside his zippered pocket for some cash.

I thanked him and he told me he had to file some court papers downtown.

“On a bike?”

“That way the guards think I’m a messenger and I don’t have to go upstairs and schmooze.”

I watched him through the window as he unlocked his bike and rode off toward the Williamsburg Bridge.

I finished his plantains, thanked the server, and walked home. Even before I checked to see if I had received a reply to my last Lovefraud posting, I went on Google and looked up Laurence McKenzie. I scrolled past his professional achievements until I came to an article that made me feel awful. Five years ago, I learned, he and his wife were diving off Vieques when his wife went missing. She got separated from the rest of the diving group during an ascent through unusually strong currents. They found her a few minutes later, floating facedown and unconscious with a partially inflated BCD and an empty tank.

She could not be resuscitated.

T
he odds of being struck by lightning in the United States are one in six hundred thousand. You are six times more likely to be struck by lightning than you are to be killed by a dog of any breed. And four times more likely to be killed by a cow than any dog.

I stood outside what looked like a horse show ring on Staten Island. I was waiting for the handler to bring out Cloud for the first part of her temperament test when I saw Billie walking across the parking lot. I called her a couple of times to ask about my dogs.

She waved to me.

“Are you part of this?” I asked.

“I couldn’t let these pups be tested without being here to root for them.”

Something in me recoiled from her breezy greeting. Was she one of those people who fed on other people’s dramas?

Having only seen her in the sensory-overloading shelter, I hadn’t realized how attractive and athletic she was. She wore pegged jeans and toffee-colored ankle boots. Despite the first chill of fall, her linen jacket was open over a tight-fitting T-shirt that I recognized from a rescue organization; it said
SHOW ME YOUR PITS
. I had one just like it, but never had the nerve to wear it.

“I can’t believe you came,” I said.

“I’ve watched a lot of these. I wish they had temperament tests for men.”

She led me behind a small outcropping where we could watch without being seen. She said our presence would distract Cloud.

“I have a surprise for you,” she whispered, as a female handler entered the ring with Cloud on a short lead. “You’ll see.”

Cloud and her handler faced the four judges, three of whom were middle-aged women, and the fourth, a man who looked to be in his thirties. Cloud looked so happy to be outside, I feared the fresh air and sunlight would distract her!

Billie explained that the first part of the test would measure the dog’s reaction to strangers. First we watched the “neutral” stranger approach Cloud, stop, and tell the handler to have a nice day. Cloud did not react. The “friendly” stranger approached happily and briskly, sweet-talked Cloud, and patted her head. Cloud wagged her tail and licked the stranger’s hand. The third stranger careened, swinging his arms and speaking in a loud, agitated voice.

Billie leaned over. “They are going to judge her on provoked aggression, strong avoidance, or panic.”

“If I were Cloud, I’d exhibit all three.”

“After what you’ve been through, so would I.”

But Cloud aced it. She didn’t take the bait.

As the handler walked Cloud slowly around the ring, they passed small stations that looked like duck blinds. From behind each one came a variety of provocations: the jarring noise of coins being shaken in a metal box, the sudden opening of a large umbrella. Cloud startled and hid behind the handler.

“The umbrella test cashiers more dogs than any other. The response they’re looking for is curiosity, then continuing past,” Billie said.

“But she’s always been afraid of umbrellas. Will they take that into consideration?”

“It’s not a deal-breaker if she passes everything else. And hiding is better than showing aggression.”

After Cloud passed the gunshot test—a blank was fired near her—the judges gave her the thumbs-up. Vicki Hearne, the late philosopher and dog trainer, had written about “what the illusion of viciousness is obscuring.” Cloud was a huge dog with big jowls and, covered in blood, had appeared to be a vicious dog, but it was an illusion, and what it obscured was fear.

I had been told that I would not be allowed to visit Cloud after the test, so I gathered my purse and coat, and as I turned to say good-bye to Billie, I saw the same handler walk George into the ring.

I looked at Billie and she was smiling. “Surprise.”

“Who gave you permission to have George tested?”

“I just don’t think he’s a killer.”

“This wasn’t your call.”

In the ring, the handler put George into a sit-stay. He then aced every test that Cloud did—the normal, friendly, and crazy strangers, shaken coins, even the umbrella test. Nothing distracted him from obeying the handler. I remembered how eager he was to please. With that recollection, came another: that Bennett had pushed a woman out a window. What might he have done to this dog? George now looked ribby, the way he did when I first saw him—you are supposed to be able to feel a dog’s ribs, not see them. It was part of what prompted me to foster him. It is such a pleasure simply to feed a hungry dog.

But the gunshot test terrified him.

He rushed behind the handler and tried to keep going, but the handler pulled hard on the leash and brought him back to her side.

“He heard Chester get shot,” I said. “Should I tell the judges?”

“It’s not that uncommon a response,” Billie said. “More dogs run away during Fourth of July fireworks than any other time of year.”

It took the handler a minute or two to reassure George. She finally got him into a sit and told him he was a good boy. Even from this distance, I saw him lick the handler’s hand. But after walking comfortably across the sheet of crinkling plastic, he balked at walking across the metal grate. He planted himself, deadweight, and went on strike. The handler pulled on his lead, and we could hear George growl.

“Shit,” I said. “His paws are tender from years in a damp cage. Don’t these people understand there are contingencies?” Instantly I was in tears from the impossible situation—I was standing up for my dog, a dog that had killed. Did Bennett try to pull George over the heat grating in the floor of my apartment? I was looking for any way to account for what had happened.

Billie responded to my distress by putting an arm around my shoulder for just a moment. “It’s not over till it’s over.”

When it
was
over, the judges announced that they would be willing to retest George at a later date. The anxiety of watching the two tests left me exhausted and despairing. Billie asked if I’d eaten anything that morning, and when I told her I had not, she said a diner with lousy coffee and great pancakes was a couple of blocks from here. She offered to drive me.

The leather seats of her Volvo were surprisingly free of dog hair given the time she spent with the shelter dogs—unlike the leather couch that Steven had given me, which I had to cover with a throw before Bennett came over.

“Thank you for bringing George,” I said.

The diner was nothing like Champs. The tattoos we saw on the patrons of this diner were standard-issue armed services and
MOM
-in-a-heart tats. The pancakes here were not gluten-free. I ordered a stack of chocolate chip with whipped cream, and Billie had the lousy coffee.

I had not confided in a girlfriend since Kathy’s death. Though I barely knew this Billie, I found myself telling her about Bennett and his deception. The more I talked, the more I talked. In a headlong rush, I told her the crazy-making story, with its blind spots and question marks, how we met online while I was conducting research on sociopaths and victims, clear on up to the fake address in Montreal and the key to it he had given me. Billie said he reminded her of a guy she used to see, a guy who had lied to her continuously and said, when she confronted him about the lying, that he was just trying to entertain her.

“ ‘I lie to myself all the time,’ ” Billie quoted.

“ ‘But I never believe me,’ ” I finished.

“
The Outsiders
,” we said together. “S. E. Hinton.”

Turned out we had both seen the film of this novel many times, about greasers in Tulsa, Johnny and Ponyboy, one of whom kills a member of a rival gang. Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, and Tom Cruise were in it before they were stars.

“Bennett’s story also has a murder.” I told her about Susan Rorke.

“Do
you
think Bennett killed her?”

“The police do.”

“Why do the police think he did it?” Billie asked.

“They always suspect the husband or fiancé.”

“Bennett was engaged to her, too?”

“He gave her the same ring he gave me.”

“That would be the suffer-ring? I hope it was expensive.”

“I thought it was.” God, I had missed this. “Can I ask you something personal? You’re always at the shelter, you take a day off for this—how do you support yourself?”

“I’m a trustafarian. Under close supervision. My grandmother doesn’t trust me.”

The waitress finally set down the pancakes in front of me.

“So what do the police do when their prime suspect is dead? They can’t exactly try him,” Billie said.

“I don’t think Susan Rorke and I were the only women Bennett deceived. I think I’ve heard from a third.”

“Reportyourex.com?”

“Lovefraud.com. She said she wanted to meet me in person but she didn’t show up.”

“There are many reasons why she might not have shown up.”

“She pretended to be Susan Rorke. Maybe she didn’t know Susan Rorke was dead.”

“Maybe she did.”

When the check came, Billie reached for it even though she had only ordered coffee.

In the car heading back to the city, I said, “He used a different name with her. He called himself Peter. But it was him. I showed the detective a picture and he confirmed it.”

“So who is the third woman?”

“Maybe she’s the tenth.”

“Maybe the dogs did you a favor.”

“Nothing I didn’t already think.”

“I mean, he pushed her out a window.”

“He was never violent with me. But how could I not know?”

“The dogs knew.”

•  •  •

I asked Billie to drop me off on Delancey Street so I could walk across the Williamsburg Bridge. I needed to do something physical and mindless. The view was of downtown Manhattan, with the two stately bridges—the Manhattan and the Brooklyn—spanning the lower East River. The Brooklyn Bridge was the first to be built—the longest suspension bridge of its time, and one of the most beautiful. The Manhattan was third, a gridwork of metal struts. In between came the Williamsburg, said to be the ugliest design on the river. But it’s not what you see when you’re walking across it. The view trumps the noise of trucks, cars, and subways flanking the hardy pedestrians and cyclists. Even Edward Hopper painted a view titled
From Williamsburg Bridge.
The walkway ends in the Hasidic neighborhood where women still wear wigs and the men grow side-curls and beards. Even in the heat of summer, come the Sabbath, the men wear the large fur hats known as
shtreimel.
Within the space of ten blocks, you hear conversations in Yiddish, then Spanish, then Chinese, then Italian. It’s part of why I moved here.