The Dog Who Knew Too Much Read Online Free PDF Page A

finding shoulder width with his feet.
    He raised his too-long arms as if they had been lifted by a string attached to his wrists. Next the fingers rose, and soon his body began to move, ever so slowly, as if propelled not by his own power but by another force. A weather vane, pushed by the wind.
    Legs folded in front of me, Dashiell at my side, I watched as he moved silently through space, strong, smooth, and graceful, his body shifting direction, his arms and hands slicing through the air, decisive, deliberate, and painfully slow, like foreplay. Before my eyes the troll became beautiful, transformed by movement into something almost holy.
    When he stopped, I stood, full of questions. I had come, after all, about Lisa.
    â€œMr. Ashkenasi—”
    He stopped me with one finger to his lips. “Now you,” he said.
    â€œLook,” I said, straightening my back, “I came about Lisa, not to learn t’ai chi. As I told you on the phone—”
    â€œYes, yes,” he said, “you’re a friend of the family. You want to know about Lisa. You have many questions to ask.”
    â€œA cousin.”
    â€œA cousin?”
    â€œYes. And I’ve promised my aunt and uncle—”
    â€œOf course you did,” he said. “I am going to help you, Rachel. If you’ll trust me.”
    It was a question. Though it wasn’t spoken as one.
    â€œI—”
    He smiled to himself.
    â€œI know. It’s asking a great deal of you, an enormous leap of faith on the word of a stranger. But you are asking a great deal, too, Rachel, to try to understand a person who—” He waved his hand in the air. “Has vanished from our midst. But, of course, you knew her, your cousin. So—”
    â€œWe weren’t close,” I said. “It’s sad, when you think about it, living in the same city but being so wrapped up in our own lives—”
    â€œThat happens, of course.”
    â€œThe truth is,” I said, “I hardly knew her at all. I hadn’t seen her since we were kids.”
    Had I been a wooden puppet, he would have been impaled on my nose by now.
    I looked into his pale eyes. He seemed moved to tears.
    Damn, I was good.
    â€œYou won’t learn anything worthwhile about Lisa by asking questions,” he said softly, so softly I had to lean closer to hear him. “The police have already done that, Rachel, and what have they learned? If you want to learn about Lisa’s life, you must walk in her shoes.”
    He picked them up, the single pair of shoes that I had placed mine next to, little black cotton shoes with rope soles, like the ones I’d seen in the hall, only these had “Lisa” written in black Magic Marker inside each shoe.
    He held them out to me.
    I didn’t move.
    â€œWhat can it hurt?” he asked. “You’re already wearing her perfume.”
    When I took the shoes from his hands and lifted one foot, I felt his large hand cup my elbow. I let him support me while I slipped each one on. His hand was as warm as the hearth of my fireplace after a fire had been burning all evening.
    â€œThey fit,” I said.
    He smiled.
    â€œDoes he need water?” he asked. “Come,” he said to Dashiell, “there’s a bowl in the office.” A moment later I heard the slapping sound of Dash drinking. Good, I thought, he still has the Akita.
    The huge windows on the north side of the studio opened out, which must have made it easy to see from the street below from where Lisa had taken her plunge. I wondered which one Lisa had gone out of and exactly what she was thinking at the time. I wondered how I’d possibly find out what made her so desperately unhappy that she had decided to take her own life. Was it in fact a decision? Or might it have been instead a thoughtless, spur-of-the-moment rush to make an end, once and for all, to her pain?
    I tried to picture Lisa in pain, but I couldn’t. All I