This Dog for Hire by Carol Lea Benjamin Read Free Book Online Page B

again and again.
    I began to dig carefully, cracking through the crust, then brushing away the snow, a little at a time, with my gloved hands.
    I felt it before I saw it, and the moment I touched it, I knew. As I lifted a piece of it carefully free of the snow, I could hear it, too, a faint, metallic tinkle. I cleared the rest of the snow more quickly, and there, tied to the very bottom of the fence, was a red leather leash, now wet, stretched, and twisted. Still attached to the leash clip was a red leather collar, complete with a small bell, fairly intact, and in my estimation, just about the perfect size to fit around the neck of a twenty-pound dog.
    I knelt on the pier and opened my arms for Dashiell, folding him to my chest as he came for his hug. I slipped the Minox out of my pocket and photographed the leash and collar where it was before untying it and stuffing it into my pocket with the camera. Dashiell danced around for more praise, which he got as I cheeked the area as carefully as I could and then headed for home.
    If the collar and leash Dashiell had found were Magritte’s, then Clifford had definitely taken him along to the pier. But why? As a pickup aid? Lord knows, more people talk to me when I’m with Dashiell than when I'm alone. So was Magritte tied to the fence while Clifford had sex? If you took a rough count of the condoms that littered the pier, it was certain that, despite the weather, Clifford wouldn’t have been the only one having sex out here.
    I needed to talk to Louis Lane and see how they were getting along. Was it spite that brought him here, or hunger? And what about all that money? Why did he come out here with so much cash in his pocket? Did he simply have so much he was careless? The money in so many pockets back at the loft would lead me to think that might be the case.
    Suddenly, I was famished. Craving a ham and melted brie on sourdough bread, I headed for Anglers and Writers, across from the ball field.
    New York’s laws prohibit animals on public transportation and in places where food is served, but since Dash, who schmoozes the old people at the Village Nursing Home when I am between cases, is a registered service dog, and perpetually in training, the restriction doesn’t apply to him.
    Being a detective is a lonely life, but at least I never have to eat out without a date.

8
    You Don’t Really Belong in This Family

    GETTING INTO BED with the copy of Clifford Cole’s will, gallery contract, address book, and a yellow highlighter looked to be the most promising evening I’d had in a long time.
    The original will, which dated back to when Clifford was in his mid-twenties, was mostly the legal jargon that makes what should be three or four sentences go on for pages. Most people that young don’t write a will, especially if they don’t have kids. Unless their money is family money, and part of the deal when they get it is that it stays in the family.
    In the original document, Clifford left everything to his beloved mother, Adrienne Wynton Cole, anti, should she predecease him, to his beloved brother, Peter David Cole. This could mean that his father had already died when the will was written or that the money came from his mother or her family in the first place. Of course, once he had the money, in whatever form he got it, lump sum, generous allowance, untouchable trust where he could draw a g et amount of the interest, or whatever, no one could require him to leave it to a person of their choosing. So he was either young or very honorable, or both. Or perhaps no one he preferred to leave the money to had yet come along. Follow the money. It was the first law of investigation work.
    I turned to the next document, one of two codicils, both much more recent than the original will. It left the little African basenji, Ceci N’Est Pas un Chien, who apparently was not yet a champion, to Dennis Mark Rosenberg, aka Dennis Mark Keaton.
    People are usually most defensive, my shrink