This Dog for Hire by Carol Lea Benjamin

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, and, 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 set 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 used to say, about things that hit too close to home. Now, Rachel, she’d say after an outburst of denial, what’s really going on here?
    Of course, Dennis could dislike Louis for any number of other reasons. It’s not uncommon for people to be jealous of their best friend’s lover. I wondered if Dennis and Cliff had been lovers before Louis came onto the scene. Or even afterward. I checked the date of the codicil, but it turned out the one I had just read was the second. Perhaps when I checked to make sure I had everything ready to be copied I had gotten them out of order. The first of the two codicils was two years old, and left Clifford’s entire artistic estate to Leonard Polski, aka Louis Lane. The Magritte codicil was dated a year and a half ago, five and a half months later.
    If Cliff wasn’t accepted by his family, he still kept faith with them financially. He probably knew he had to anyway. His will would be contested if he didn’t, that is, unless he had been leading one of those normal lives your well-meaning relatives always tell you about, a life with a spouse of the opposite sex and children.
    Dennis thought Cliffs “problem” was a problem for his family. Had they told Cliff, the way families do, that he could change if he wanted to? Had they offered to pay for therapy?
    Would they have wanted either Magritte or Clifford’s paintings? I wondered if his mother or his brother would have come to his show,