Free Without a Word by Carol Lea Benjamin

her friends?”
    â€œNo, I never did.”
    â€œNo one in history class she came in with, sat next to, left with?”
    â€œNot that I noticed.”
    â€œWhat about her other teachers?”
    I waited while Leon thought. “I can’t recall.”
    â€œOne more question for now, Leon. Do you recall the name of the receptionist who worked for Dr. Bechman before Ms. Peach, Celia something?”
    There was a silence on the line. I figured Leon was trying to dredge up the name. But then I heard a chair scrape, something fall, a muttered curse. I waited some more. Dashiell had found a willing playmate and they were racing from one end of the run to the other. An elderly man was sitting across from me, a small brown mixed-breed dog on his lap. The dog’s face came to a point, his ears seemed too large, erect and rounded at the top, like mouse ears, and he seemed alert but placid. For some reason, that’s what I pictured when I thought of Roy. I thought I’d ask Leon about Roy when he got back on the line, another piece of trivia I thought I needed to know, wondering if any of it would help me find Sally.
    â€œAbele,” he said. “Celia Abele.”
    I never mentioned the little dog across from me. Or Roy. What did he have to do with anything at this late date? Why even assume that Sally would have kept a dog she’d never wanted in the first place? She might have just given him away. I remembered a dog I’d been given once when I was a child. I’d said he was cute and asked to pet him. The lady holding the leash asked if I wanted him. I’d nodded, hardly able to believe my good luck, but when my mothersaw him, she was furious. She asked where the lady lived and I said I didn’t know. She asked me where I was when the lady had given me the dog, but we’d just been on the sidewalk, two blocks from where I lived, and after she handed me the leash, she’d gone around the corner and disappeared. I begged and pleaded and my mother said, “We’ll see,” but in the morning, the dog was gone. She never said what she did with him, no matter how many times I asked, no matter how hard I cried. “See,” my sister had said the next night when my parents were out of earshot, “I told you so.”
    I thought it was strange that Leon hadn’t asked me why on earth I’d gone to Bechman’s office. He hadn’t asked me why I wanted Celia’s last name either. What if he did ask questions? What if he asked me how far I’d gotten or what I thought? What could I say to him, that at this point I had no reason to think that Madison hadn’t killed her doctor, nor any reason to feel hopeful about finding Sally, alive or dead? Or would I mention I’d put some terrible doubt in the mind of Ms. Peach in the hope that next time I showed up, she’d break a few laws on behalf of a kid she clearly couldn’t stand?
    â€œWell, then,” I’d said after thanking him, “I’ll see you around eight.”
    â€œInstead of ringing the bell,” he said, “call my cell when you’re on the way and I’ll wait for you out front,” he’d said.
    I told him I would.
    The dog Dashiell had just been playing with was gone, and now he was chasing an Irish setter in great circles around the perimeter of the run. Suddenly they stopped, dropped and began to wrestle in the dirt. Some people think adult dogs don’t need to play, that play is only for puppies. If they visited the dog run, they’d change their minds fast. Not only was playing good for dogs, honing muscles, reaction time and social skills, but like exercise and gaming for humans, it was a stress buster, the best there was. It seemed to have the same effect on the onlookers, too. There was always someone leaning on the fence and looking in, watching the dogs living in the moment.
    I’d taken the long way around, walking Dash past the chess