As soon as Charlotte had calmed down, I called to Dash and went back inside, heading for Venus’s office. I unlocked the door, let him in, then closed the door behind us, merely turning around to see what I was after. But it was gone. Instead, there was a piece of the door exposed where it had been, smack in the middle of all the other art Venus had taped there, the way proud mothers put their kids’ pictures up on the refrigerator.
I looked down. It had fallen off before. Nothing.
But I wasn’t ready to give up. I looked on Venus’s desk. Homer had put fresh flowers there. There was another vase with greens on the top of the storage cabinet beneath the book shelves. But the drawing I was after wasn’t there.
Then I saw it. It was on top of one of the file cabinets in a wire basket, lying on top of whatever Venus had put there to deal with later. It had probably fallen off again, and Homer, too harried to tape it back on the door, or planning to do it later, had dropped it there so that it wouldn’t get stepped on.
I picked it up and looked at that funny ground line. Only that’s not what it was. It was a leash. And had I been able to see all the way to the other end, I would have seen Lady. But, of course, I didn’t, because there was another funny-looking line in the picture. This one came down on the right side of the drawing. It was part of the doorway, and Lady was already outside—not in the garden where she usually went, off leash, but out on West Street, headed for God knows where.
At least now I knew who to ask: the man in the portrait, Samuel Kagan, listening to his music as he stole the dog who had stolen the hearts of all the kids and most of the staff.
I checked my watch. He’d be here after lunch. In fact, I was due here then, too, for a second round of ring-around-the-rosy, with me and Dashiell in the lead. I had a couple of hours, and more than enough to do to fill them.
On the way home, we cut across on Greenwich Street to Tenth, stopped at Action Pharmacy for shampoo and toothpaste—if I remembered correctly, I was running low—and crossed Hudson, heading past the Blind Tiger Ale House toward home.
I fed Dashiell, took my purchase upstairs, and while the tub was filling, put Venus’s necklace in the top desk drawer for safekeeping and then checked my answering machine. There were four messages.
The first was from Nathan, telling me that the staff meeting had been canceled.
The second was from Marty Shapiro, telling me to drop in and see him when I had a free minute.
The third was from my sister. It didn’t say much of anything. Typical, I thought. She was acting like a smitten teen. I wondered how long that would last.
The last call was from Chip. I erased the first three and saved that one, playing it again as I got dressed just to hear his voice.
I made some phone calls, took some notes, then stopped at the Sixth on my way back to Harbor View. When I opened the door to the bomb squad, Marty got up and joined me in the hall rather than asking me in.
“I got something for you, kid,” he said.
“Really? Great. What is it?”
“It’s about the bike.”
“Yeah?”
“We found it.”
“No kidding? How?”
“Perspicacious detective work. You impressed?”
“You bet. Both with the fancy footwork and your astonishing use of the English language.”
“I thought you would be.”
I was ready to punch him.
“So?”
“Here’s the thing. The driver of said vehicle doesn’t have an astonishing use of the language. In fact, he probably only has enough use of it to make change.”
“No joke.”
“Which means—”
I bit my tongue.
“That someone borrowed said murder weapon whilst a hungry family was paying for their egg foo yung.”
“Brilliant. But does that mean you can’t tie the thief to the bike, because of all the time that elapsed and the number of people using it?”
“The lab is still trying, but the bike was out on the street all this time, including in the rain.”
“Still, it’s remarkable—”
“Footwork.”
“This is true.”
“You come up with anything on your end?”
“I might know who took the dog.”
“It figures,” he said. “So, hey, you’ll be sure to keep us posted on that, kid, right? The captain, he’s dying to know what happened to the dog. It’s way up there on his list of concerns.”
“I promise I’ll call,” I told him. “Or even better, I’ll drop in. As soon as it’s confirmed.”
I still had at least an hour. I didn’t want to waste a minute of it. I walked down to Hudson Street and hailed a cab, telling the driver to take us to St. Vincent’s and not spare the horses, falling against Dashiell when, a few blocks later, he made a right on Twelfth Street, taking me at my word.