This Dog for Hire (24 page)

I wondered what else Veronica Cahill and Louis Lane might have done for it.

“Louis, there's something else, it's about Cliff's art and the way he worked. Did he sketch on paper before he painted?”

“Sometimes. But not always. Oh, he'd scribble on napkins in restaurants and stuff them in his pocket, on matchbook covers, anything at all when he got an idea, just little quick reminders. Then he'd sketch right on the canvas. In fact, when he got into his noir period, those gray paintings, a lot of the way he worked changed.
He
changed.”

“How so?”

“He began working long, long hours. Sometimes he wouldn't even take Magritte out in the afternoon. He'd ask Dennis to do it Or he'd use a dog walker. He just kept at it, painting until late at night, not coming here for days at a time.”

“Did you worry? Did you think something was wrong?”

“Not
really
. He'd done it other times, I mean, get on a streak and paint almost around the clock. But never quite like this—”

“Louis, what about the piece at the show without a title?”

“He probably didn't get a chance to do the last panel.”

That's what I thought,” I said quietly. “But wouldn't there be a partial fourth panel? A sketch on canvas? Something? The first three are clearly completed paintings. Is that how he worked when he did a multiple-panel piece? One at a time?”

“Actually, no. He worked on all the panels at once.”

“Even so, you think the last panel never got done?”

“I don't know. Does it mean something?”

“It could. Louis, by any chance, do you know the name of the dog walker Cliff used?”

“Mike. I don't remember hearing his last name.”

“Great. Thanks.”

“I heard about Gil,” he said.

I waited.

“Rachel? Are you getting anywhere?”

“It's too soon to say,” I told him, wondering what his shoe size was and if he ever wore anything but Gucci loafers. “But I'll keep you posted,” I lied.

I opened the door. The dogs were digging and burrowing in the snow. I let Magritte in and sent Dash back to the passageway for the
Times
.

The piece about Gil was in the sports section, adjacent to Walter Fletcher's piece about the springer's win, not with the obituaries. It was small, but dramatic.

Death at the Dog Show

Morgan Gilmore, handling the basenji Ch. Ceci N'Est Pas un Chien, whose owner, Clifford Cole, had been found dead on the Christopher Street pier late last month, fell in the ring and died just minutes later in the ambulance on the way to St. Vincent's Hospital, a representative of the Westminster Kennel Club said. Pending autopsy, the presumed cause of death was heart failure.

Mr. Gilmore, 47, of Greensboro, North Carolina, had been a professional handler for twenty-three years. He is survived by his wife, Marjorie, and his parents, Lloyd and Ellen Gilmore of Charlotte.

I called Marty.

“Shapiro. How goes it?”

“Could be worse. How's your case coming? I was going to give you a buzz, Rach, about that question you asked me, whether or not the victim had semen in his anus.”

“And?”

“He didn't.”

I knew I'd be looking for clues there one day!

“I saw in the paper Magritte's handler died of a heart attack. Bummer. Was he heavy?”

“This is why I'm calling, Marty. I got a call from the client, late last night. It wasn't as the papers reported it.”

“So what else is new?”

“Marty, it was cyanide. He was murdered.”

“No shit. Is this connected to your case, you think, or coincidental?”

“I thought he was our man until I heard how he bought it.”

I told Marty what I had found out about Gil and the frozen semen business, and about all the loose threads that were driving me crazy.

“Be careful, Rachel.”

“Hey, listen to you, playing with bombs day in and day out, the man tells
me
to be careful.”

“You know something, kid, I feel much safer the seven years I've been doing this than I ever did the eleven I was on the street in uniform. At least no one's taking potshots at me now. Say, how's my boy Dashiell? He do okay on yesterday's menu?”

“Dog has a cast-iron stomach, Marty. Thanks for helping out.”

“Hey, anytime, Rach. You know, the article upset a few of the guys. The heart thing. We fucking
live
on doughnuts around here. They're pretty high in cholesterol, aren't they?”

“What am I, a fucking nutritionist? Read the box. It's all there, in black and white.”

When I hung up, I remembered one time when I was talking to Marty and he was gesturing with a powdered doughnut in his hand, the sugar falling everywhere, quietly, like snow. Dashiell's head followed the doughnut's every move, as if he were watching the ball at a tennis match.

Exactly the way the dogs in the ring watch the bait.

Now I knew what wouldn't stop tugging at a corner of my mind, like a terrier peeling a tennis ball. I ran upstairs to my desk and started leafing through the Cole file. They had even called the piece “Witness to Murder.” Magritte's picture accompanied it, his brow wrinkled, his dark eyes so alert.

I read through the article quickly—artist dead, witness found, artist's dog, undiscovered genius, Dr. Shelbert, Tracy Nevins, bingo!

“As to whether or not Magritte could finger his master's killer, Nevins was quoted as saying, ‘Definitely,'” giving the killer his motive.

“‘We are still planning on having Magritte compete at Westminster on Tuesday,' Kenton added. ‘Clifford would have wanted him to be there.'”

The poison was in the
bait
.

I was so blinded by what I knew that I hadn't seen the simple truth.

Morgan Gilmore had been murdered by accident.

The poison had been meant for Magritte!

The article even included the whereabouts of the potential victim, giving the murderer a perfect blueprint from which to work.

If Magritte was the intended victim, whoever had tried to kill him knew by now he had failed. Gil's death, though the cause was misreported, had been all over the news last night and was in all the papers this morning.

That was no pervert in the john. It was the killer.

He was out to try again, and now he knew Magritte was with me.

It was tunnel vision, thinking the cyanide was meant for Gil. Just because
we
knew the practices at dog shows, it was the only way we were able to see the crime.

But the most logical and obvious conclusion, which we never thought of, was that if you want to kill a dog, you poison something he's going to eat. A five-year-old could have seen this clearly.

I added Mike's name to the blackboard. He had the key. Here was someone else who knew how Cliff felt about his dog. Maybe he had a motive, too. I'd have to call him. His number would be in Clifford's address book, which I had copied.

There were too many people I hadn't spoken to. Now was the time to change all that. I ran back downstairs, double-locked the door, and came back up to the desk where I could take notes. It was time to see broadly, to check every little detail out again, to consider every possibility and to avoid jumping to conclusions.

As Ida, my therapist, used to say, pushing up her sleeves and making two lines between her eyes,
finally
we're getting started.

“Mrs. Cole? This is Elaine Boynton, Clifford's friend. I was so sad to hear about Clifford. Yes. Yes. And so I feel just terrible that I missed the memorial service. Really? He said that? She's, uh, gone. Yes. A small, private one. Yes, I do. I'm sure they would. I understand. I was wondering where I could send a donation in Clifford's name. Does the family have a preference? Okay. Thank you.”

30

What Would You Like to Say?

I had spent all day and evening yesterday on the phone. All I wanted to do today was get over to Cliff's loft and find the final few pieces of the puzzle. But there was one place I wanted to go to first, B & H Photo, to pick up Clifford's slides.

“This is olt,” the pale, bearded young man in the yarmulke told me, examining the slip I handed him. “Vot made you vait so lonk?”

“I was busy,” I told him.

Then he noticed Magritte, who had put his paws up against the counter to see what was on the other side.

“Oh, it's mine friend,” the young man said, stepping forward and leaning over. “I'll get for you a kendy, vait, vait,” and all in a stir, he reached into one of the candy dishes that sat at even intervals along the counter and pulled out a small Tootsie Roll for Magritte.

“He doesn't eat candy. It's not good for him,” I said in protest. But I was too late. The Tootsie Roll was already in Magritte's mouth.

“He alvays eats a kendy ven he comes. Vot vould he t'ink if ve didn't give to him today a piece?”

But as I watched Magritte chewing, opening his mouth twice as wide as usual for each bite, all I could think about was the poisoned bait and how quickly and unexpectedly the whole world could change.

I put the yellow box into my pocket and headed downtown with the dogs. After I tossed the loft again, I'd sit down and look at the slides and have myself a good cry.

Walking downtown, Dashiell plodded along at his usual workmanlike pace, stopping only when I told him to wait at street crossings where the light was red. Magritte kept pace, darting to the side occasionally to try to catch a bit of paper that was swirling about in the wind. But as soon as we crossed Houston Street, Magritte's demeanor changed. He began looking up at me and whining, as if he couldn't contain himself. When we got to Greene Street, he pulled straight for home, and once inside, where I unhooked both leads, he dashed on ahead, passing his new home and going straight for his old one.

I knocked. After all, there seemed to be more people with keys than without them, and I didn't want to cause anyone undue fright. Then I unlocked the door, Magritte impatiently jumping up and down at my side. He was the first one inside when I opened the door.

Dashiell headed straight for the kitchen, looking for water. Magritte walked to the center of the front room and sat. Head cocked, as if listening for a sign that his beloved master was home, a sound, a scent, anything to hang his hopes on, he stayed in place without moving, as I did, watching him. Suddenly, his muzzle tilted up, his mouth made a small circle, and he let out the most heart-wrenching sound, a keening howl, not long and smooth like a wolf howl, but a piercing
awoo, awoo, awoo
, a pause, then again,
awoo, awoo, awoo
, the second time joined from the back of the loft by Dashiell's guttural howl, honoring his friend's misery the way a second hunting dog honors a point.

For a while Magritte stayed close enough to trip me when I tried to walk, following me to the kitchen, where I filled the water bowl and put the kettle up for tea. He stayed close by while I poked around in the cabinets for snacks, even trying to join me on the step stool when I was checking out the shelves I couldn't reach. When he found he couldn't reach me, he whined and paced. I let him be. Dogs have as much right to the integrity of their feelings as people do.

After pulling down some unopened rice crackers and—God is merciful and all knowing—an unopened box of Mallomars, I felt an envelope on the top shelf, the one I could barely reach, even with the stool. I managed to pull it forward with one finger, sliding it along the oak shelf until I could pull it to the edge where I was able to grasp it.

The envelope was blank, but there was a letter inside it.

“Honey,” I read, still standing on the top of the step stool, one hand on the cabinet, bracing me. “For so many years I pushed aside my desire to sleep with a man, not just the desire for sex, but to lie in a man's embrace, to feel his strong arms around me, his warmth and sweetness mine hour after hour. I never had that until I met you. And much as I want that, want to be with you, sometimes I can't.

“I'm driven by demons now. There's something I have to do, now, to get out, and I want you to understand that your love is my saving grace, my life, and to be patient with me while I work this out.”

It was typed and not signed. Had Cliff written it to Louis? Or to someone else? “Honey” could be anyone. And why had it been hidden, not mailed, given, faxed?

After making tea, I decided I should do my best to really make myself feel at home, despite the empty spaces where art had once hung. If I got comfortable, I might get more into Cliff's head and be able to sort out some of the incredible things I had found out the day before. I decided that music would be the first priority. Having noticed a tape deck and drawers of tapes in Clifford's study, I put on the light and began to look at Clifford's taste in music. But before I had the chance to consider Diana Ross over Barbra Streisand, I saw just the tape I wanted to hear. It caught my eye because it was loose, sitting on top of the other tapes. Miles Davis.
Workin
'. I turned on the tuner and the tape deck, put the tape in, pressed the play button, and went to sit in the chair to drink my tea and listen while I thought about what to do next. Cliff had apparently made the tape himself, probably from a CD. There were other tapes he had made, carefully listing each cut in order on the paper in the box so that he would know what was coming and when. This tape, though, had no box. But Clifford was as obsessive-compulsive as you can get; even his copper-bottomed pots were polished. Why was this tape loose?

I went back to the drawer where the tapes were arranged not only alphabetically but by style of music, and looked for the jazz tapes, my finger running over the boxes—Chet Baker, Clifford Brown, Ray Charles, John Coltrane, Miles Davis,
Bag's Groove, Birth of the Cool
, and there it was,
Workin
'. I pulled out the box to read the titles of the cuts, but it wasn't empty. There was a tape in it.