Rachel Alexander 02 - The Dog who knew too much

If You Weren’t Careful

    DASHIELL STOOD MOTIONLESS on the dark, wet sand, his eyes cemented to the driftwood log I held up over my head. Just before I moved to send it spinning over him and into the ocean, as if he were able to read my mind, he turned to mark its fall; then, all speed and power, he ran flat out into the surf. Looking beyond him at the vast, gray-blue Atlantic Ocean , flattened under a bright spring sky, I remembered myself as a child playing fetch on this very beach with some other dog, now long gone.
    I used to come to my aunt Ceil’s house in Sea Gate, the gated community just beyond Coney Island , when I was a kid. I would race for the water the minute we hit the beach, shedding flip-flops and T-shirt as I ran, staying in until Beatrice, my mother, standing on the shore about where Dashiell stood a moment ago, hands on her hips, a line showing over the center bridge of her sunglasses, would shout to me that my lips were turning blue, and why didn’t I come out and play on the sand like a good girl, as my big sister Lillian had long since done.
    “I can’t hear you,” I’d call back, bobbing like the stick I’d just thrown for Dashiell.
    “You’ll be the death of me,” Beatrice shouted, her voice like the roar of the waves from far away on the shore.
    Playing on the hot, gritty sand under my mother’s scrutiny held no charm for me. The ocean was the lure—all that power, beauty, mystery, and life. Even death, if you weren’t careful. At least that’s what Beatrice used to say, as if being careful could do the trick and keep you safe.
    Beatrice found the scary side of everything, the don’t instead of the do. That’s why I grew up looking for trouble, just to defy her. At least that’s what my shrink used to say. That sad fact, according to Ida Berkowitz, Ph.D., would explain what I was doing here today, even though my mother, like that pup I had played fetch with when I was a kid, was long gone.
    Dashiell was riding a foamy, frigid wave back toward me, the driftwood crosswise in his mouth.
    I had hesitated for only the moment it took for the guard to call ahead and make sure I had actually been invited to come to this private and protected community that occupies the point of land where the Atlantic Ocean meets Gravesend Bay . By the time he had lifted the barrier and motioned me to drive in, I knew I had a stop to make before keeping my appointment, for my sake as much as for Dashiell’s. I’d headed here, to the deserted beach, so that my partner, the other unlicensed PI with whom I was in business, could dig in the sand, swim in the ocean, and roll in dead fish and used condoms, reminding me as he always did precisely how delicious it was merely to be alive. Soon enough I’d be immersed in less expansive feelings, because it was a case that had brought me to Brooklyn on this cool, clear April day.
    Dashiell stood squarely in front of me, holding the stick dead center, eyes locked on mine, water running off his underside and down his legs, his one-track mind on the task at hand.
    “Out,” I told him. I have a way with words.
    He dropped the driftwood heavily into my hand and, hoping for another toss, retreated to where the incoming waves could just reach him, washing over his feet from behind, then swirling in front of his ankles before returning, as eventually we all must, from whence it came. I gave him one last swim, sending the driftwood high and far over the waves, watching him watch it, electrified with pleasure. We saw the splash. Dashiell, the quintessential pit bull, charged forward with sufficient grit, strength, and tenacity to bring the damn ocean to its knees, if need be. Work or play, it was all the same to him. He’d use whatever force he deemed necessary to meet a challenge.
    We ran around on the sand to dry off, then headed back to the black Ford Taurus that David and Marsha Jacobs, Aunt Ceil’s neighbors and friends, had rented for me so that I could drive here to the quiet community where they had lived for forty-seven years and listen to them tell me about the sudden, unexpected, and violent death of their only child.

We Could Hear The Kettle Whistle

    MARSHA JACOBS WAS one of those women who wear stockings and heels even in their own homes. She’d answered the door in a dark gray silk dress, the uneven piece of black grosgrain ribbon that signified a death in the family pinned to her chest. It would leave holes in the silk, I found myself thinking,