This Dog for Hire Read Online Free PDF

of work, but I finally convinced him that Dashiell needed one more walk anyway, that I’d be perfectly safe walking anywhere with a pit bull, and that, if worse came to worst, I no longer had enough in my wallet to worry about. At that he laughed and finally agreed to let me off at the loft.
    I hadn’t done any of the work I had planned to do at Clifford’s loft, and I was too tired and much too hungry to start now. But as I hiked up the stairs with Dashiell and Magritte, I felt I had done well for my first day on the job. I hoped Dennis wouldn’t be spoiled and think the rest of the work would go this well or this quickly. And I hoped he wouldn’t catch on immediately that I hadn’t done anything at all to recover Magritte except listen to the messages on Clifford Cole’s answering machine, just as he would have done had he gone to the loft before me or even with me.
    What is detective work if not, at least in part, doing all the obvious things, looking at mail and listening to messages, talking to people who knew the victim, talking to people in the neighborhood and in the area of the crime scene in the hope that someone saw something, even if, at the time, they didn’t know if what they saw was significant, and just stabbing around in the dark, hoping to find something somewhere that will point you toward the light? Finding Magritte was wonderful and satisfying, but what, if anything, did he have to do with the murder? As for finding the answer to that and every other question, I hadn’t even begun.

5
    You Don’t Know Me
    It was a cold walk home. I unlocked the wrought-iron gate and followed Dash down the narrow covered brick passageway between two town houses into the large, square garden, in the far left corner of which is the brick cottage Dash and I gratefully call home. Though it sounds grand, it isn’t. What is grand is the deal I got.
    Sheldon and Norma Siegal, who own the town house on the left and the cottage, are rarely around, so more than a tenant, they wanted a caretaker, someone to watch over the house whenever they’re away. In exchange for services rendered, the rent I pay is nominal. Which is exactly what I can afford.
    The cottage has two floors of living space and a basement for storage. There are two small bedrooms and a bathroom on the top floor, a living room with a fireplace and a small, open kitchen on the main floor, and one big room, with another bathroom, downstairs.
    Downstairs is where I keep all the things I still haven’t unpacked since I moved here four years ago. I simply haven’t found the need for good crystal in my current lifestyle.
    The house works well for us, storing all the books, files, and rawhide bones we need to keep us reasonably happy. But best of all is the garden, wonderful when it snows, because Dash gets to make the first paw prints, terrific in spring when the perennial herbs and flowers return as if by magic, amazingly cool in summer, especially in the evening and at night, and mysterious and sad in the fall when the cycle draws to an end in a blaze of beauty, all hidden from Tenth Street and the rest of the world.
    I unlocked the door, flicked on the light, fed Dashiell, and went straight up to bed. I had the tape from Clifford Cole’s answering machine in my coat pocket, where I had put it before leaving the loft, replacing it with a new tape I found in the drawer of the table the machine sat on. I had wanted to hear it again, but suddenly the day caught up to me and I could no longer think of anything but sleep.
    There were only three messages on the tape, anyway. The National Dog Registry, someone selling home delivery of the New York Times , and a squeaky-voiced lady who wanted to mate her bitch to Magritte, that adorable little stud.
    Dashiell was already asleep. I closed my eyes and thought about Dennis’s reunion with Magritte. I had knocked on the door and when he asked who was there I had said,