“She called twelve times today. I finally had to turn off my phone.”
Jazz had dropped Wally at home and was now at the grocery store loading bottled water for the cross-country team into her cart, so as much as she would have liked to commiserate with what Nick said, pretty much all she could do was grunt.
“Same here,” she finally told him after forty-eight bottles of water were loaded and ready for practice after school the next day. “I mean, the number of phone calls, not that I’ve turned off my phone. I talked to her the first time she called, and like I told you, I went over there, but when she called again and again after that … sorry to say it, but I’ve been avoiding her.”
“Me, too.” Nick’s sigh spoke volumes. “I feel guilty, but let’s face it, enough is enough. Her calls to you are totally out of line. And her calls to me are really messing with what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m using one of the other cops’ phones right now. I’m going to keep mine off.”
“I get it.”
“Yeah, but what you’ll probably also get is more calls from Kim.”
“She’s…” Jazz had rolled her cart away from the drinks and was in the aisle with the breakfast cereals, and though what she thought she was going to say was, She’s as annoying as can be, the words that came out of her mouth were, “She’s lonely, I guess. And unwell. When I was there this evening with Wally, she was outside in her bathrobe. Does she ever get dressed and go out anywhere except the Little Bit?” Her gaze strayed to the Cheerios. “Does she eat?”
“I try to get her to do what she should.” There was a note of surrender in Nick’s voice. It wasn’t like him and Jazz didn’t like it.
“Of course you do,” she told him. “But—”
“Kim’s an adult and she has to learn to take care of herself. It’s what you’ve always told me, and I get it. Except she never has. Learned to take care of herself, that is. Even when I was a kid, I was the only grown-up in the house.”
“I saw a picture of you.” In spite of talking about Kim’s problems, and Kim’s endless calls, and the disaster that was Kim, Jazz smiled. “She had a bunch of old photos out on the kitchen table and one of them was you and a big green bike. You were adorable.”
“I was never adorable. I was a backtalking, bratty pain in the ass.”
“You didn’t have anyone to teach you the right way to behave. Besides, it doesn’t matter. You grew up to be adorable.”
She was relieved to hear him laugh. “If you need to get in touch with me, call this number.”
“I will, and I’ll keep you updated on Kim.”
“You’re wonderful.”
“You’re adorable.”
They were strong, practical people and they never bothered with sweet talk, so they both laughed.
“Call when you can,” Jazz told him. “And take care of yourself.”
“That’s a promise.”
By the time the call ended, Jazz had drifted into the pasta aisle. The next day she had dress shopping—God help her—and dinner scheduled with Sarah and Eileen. Friday was Fall Formal, so she didn’t have to worry about dinner that night, either. Which left only Wednesday and Thursday.
She grabbed a jar of pasta sauce and a box of noodles, and somehow while she was at it her hand automatically reached for two more jars of sauce, more pasta, and a couple boxes of macaroni and cheese mix. Yogurt and milk in the dairy aisle, cheese and crackers, then back to the cereal aisle for Cheerios.
She had one stop to make on her way home.
It was dark by the time she got to Kim’s, but the living room light was on. There was no answer at the front door, though, so—three grocery bags in one hand, two in the other—Jazz trudged around to the back of the house. When her foot caught on something soft next to the driveway and she pitched forward, she was all set to blame her lack of coordination on the heavy bags. Until she peered through the dark and took a closer look.
There was a mound of dirt near the back walk.
Another one next to the garage.
And a shallow hole in the center of the grass.
Kim, her hair in her eyes, her sparkling earrings looking especially out of place paired with muddy jeans, stood next to it, a shovel in her hands. “Maybe we haven’t been able to find him,” she said, certainty ringing through her voice, “because I buried him.”
With all the rain they’d had on Monday, the park where the St. Catherine’s cross-country team practiced on Tuesday after school was a muddy mess. Jazz’s running tights were coated with muck, her jacket was splotched, and her running shoes …
She’d slipped them off when she got into the car, and now that she was home and her car door was opened, she plucked them off the floor of the front seat and dropped them on the driveway. She’d leave them there until she had a chance to get the hose and rinse them off.
She was the assistant coach of the team and didn’t always run the entire course with the girls during practice, but that day she needed to release the extra energy—not to mention the aggravation—that had been coursing through her bloodstream since the night before. After she’d coaxed Kim out of the hole she was digging, she put away the groceries she’d picked up for her and cooked up a batch of mac and cheese so the woman would have something other than booze in her stomach.
Jazz’s work with HRD dogs was demanding and she was in good shape. Still, when she picked up the garbage bag she’d laid over her front seat in a mostly wasted effort to keep the car clean, she groaned. Then again, that day’s practice had been anything but typical. Danica Lawson, a senior, got sick in the middle of the course. The poor girl wasn’t nearly as upset about throwing up in the bushes as she was that she’d end up missing Fall Formal. Tessa Cartwright, a tiny freshman with a can-do attitude and a not-happening sense of coordination, twisted her ankle. And Jazz herself had gone down in the mud rounding a corner. Her right knee ached.
She’d already called both Eileen and Sarah and begged off on shopping with the promise of doing it the next day. For now, a long soak in a hot tub sounded like the perfect end to a not-so-perfect day. While her muscles relaxed, maybe her mind would, too.
Wally would understand, she told herself. A quick walk, dinner, his favorite chew toy to keep him busy.
She dragged herself down the driveway and brightened at the thought of the evening ahead. Until she saw Kim pacing her back porch.
“You saw the news?” Kim wanted to know.
When she climbed the stairs, Jazz admitted she hadn’t. “I’ve been at cross-country, and I’m dirty and I’m tired and—”
“They found him.”
About to poke her key into the lock, Jazz froze. At least until her heart whacked her ribs and she looked over her shoulder at Nick’s mom. Kim couldn’t be talking about what Jazz thought she was talking about.
Could she?
But then Kim’s eyes burned; her cheeks were fiery. Waiting for Jazz to open the door, she danced from foot to foot.
Showing too much interest would only feed the flames of Kim’s delusions, and besides, Jazz didn’t have the energy. “Found who?”
“They didn’t say who. They only said they found him.”
Jazz pushed open the back door and Wally erupted with a chorus of welcoming yips from his crate.
She pointed Kim to a chair and raised her voice to be heard over the yowls, then let Wally out and slipped on his collar. “I’ll just…” She poked a finger at the back door, and before Kim could object she took Wally out to the yard.
By the time he came back in, he was happier. Kim, though, looked more agitated than ever. She paced Jazz’s kitchen, from the stove and fridge over on one wall to the table for two next to the back window, her knuckles tapping out a staccato message on the black granite countertop when she zipped by.
Jazz knew they were up against complete chaos if she didn’t get Wally his dinner, so while she did that, she told Kim, “You can sit down.”
“How can I? How can I just sit, with what’s going on?”
“Well, I’m going to sit.” While Wally inhaled his food, Jazz took out a tub of hummus and a bag of chips. She took two plates out of the cupboard, too, and set them down on the table along with the x-shaped tool she’d found in Kim’s backyard. “Yours?” she asked.
Kim barely gave the tool a glance. “Never seen it before. And besides, you’re not listening to me!” Kim grasped the back of a chair with shaking hands. “I just saw it on the news. They found a body.”
Unfortunately, dead bodies were not such an unusual occurrence in a city as large as Cleveland. Cynical, sure, but Jazz could hardly help herself.
She was dirty. She was exhausted. She was tired of the game. She scooped hummus onto her plate and scraped a chip through it, then popped the chip in her mouth. “The body they found, was it in your backyard?”
Kim growled a curse. “Go ahead, turn on the news. You’ll see the story. They found a body at Whiskey Island. That’s close to my house. It’s real close.”
Really, it wasn’t.
Rather than remind Kim, Jazz went over the facts in her head. Whiskey Island wasn’t actually an island at all. It was in fact the peninsula where Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga River met, and home to the Irish who settled there in the early 1800s. These days it was part of Edgewater Park on the lake’s shore.
And a couple miles from Kim’s home.
A real body there had nothing to do with the imaginary body in Kim’s backyard. She supposed the only way to prove it was to show Kim the facts in black and white. Jazz mustered the energy to limp into the living room for her tablet. She clicked on a local news app, and just like Kim said, the report was there. A man visiting the park on the shores of Lake Erie had found the body of an adult male.
She turned the tablet around so Kim could see the screen. “You’re right. They found a body. But he wasn’t in your backyard.”
“Not when they found him.”
“So how…” Hoping to tempt her, she pushed the container of hummus closer to Kim, but since Kim obviously wasn’t going to keep still long enough to eat, Jazz dragged the dip back to her own side of the table and reached for another chip. “You don’t have a car, and—” A new thought occurred. “How did you get here, anyway?”
“Julio, my neighbor. He takes me places sometimes. I told him it was important. Real important.”
“Well, my guess is Julio didn’t help move a body from your house to the park, and there’s no way you could have done it yourself. There’s a reason it’s called deadweight, you know. Don’t you think—”
“That this body they found has nothing to do with what happened at my house? That’s what you’re going to say, isn’t it? You’re going to tell me this can’t be the guy who was dead in my backyard. Don’t you see, it’s got to be him! And you and this dog, you’re going to prove it once and for all.” Moving faster than Jazz would have thought possible, Kim latched on to Wally’s collar and darted to the back door.
“Oh, no!” Jazz stood up so fast, her chair tipped. She stepped between Kim and the door. She propped her fists on her hips and raised her voice loud enough for it to ping off the white kitchen cabinets.
“You can bug the hell out of me,” she told Kim. “You can call Nick and call him again, and mess up the work he’s supposed to be doing and drive him crazy. You can dig holes in your backyard all the way to China. And you know what? I really don’t care. But you are not grabbing my dog! You are never grabbing my dog like that!”
Both Wally and Kim froze. When Kim finally let go of his collar, Wally retreated to the security of his crate.
Kim burst into tears and ran into the living room.
“Shit.” Watching her go, Jazz scrubbed her hands over her face. She would have counted to ten if she thought it would do any good. Instead, she tossed a treat to Wally to apologize for yelling and followed Kim.
Nick’s mom stood at the front windows, her back to Jazz, her slim shoulders heaving.
In an effort to look more in control than she felt, Jazz planted her feet and held her hands to her sides. “You want coffee?” she asked Kim.
The older woman harrumphed. “I need a drink.”
“I don’t have anything.” Jazz had the nerve to lie. “How about tea? My mom says tea is the cure for everything.”
“I don’t have anything that needs to be cured.”
Jazz somehow managed a feeble attempt at good cheer. “Then tea it is.”
She went into the kitchen to put on the kettle and dug through the cupboards for the strong, black British tea her mom liked to drink. Once she had the tea poured, she took milk and sugar into the living room and placed a mug on the low-slung table in front of the couch.
Kim spun around. Her eyes were filled with tears. “They’ll find me now, that’s for sure. They’ll come and take me away. Isn’t that what happens in those police shows on TV? Once they find a body, they got evidence, and once they got evidence, they’ll know I was the one who killed that man.”
“TV isn’t real life.”
“But that’s what my Nick does. He finds people who kill people. I couldn’t stand it.…” Kim’s knees gave way and she sank onto the couch. “If Nick is the one who comes to take me away, I couldn’t stand that. That would prove it, don’t you see? That would prove it to him once and for all, what a loser I am.”
Kim’s misery shivered in the air. It clutched at Jazz’s insides like a living thing.
Eileen’s words rumbled through her brain.
Kim was part of the package that came along with Nick.
Like it or not, the delusions were part of the package, too, and realizing it gave Jazz a deeper appreciation for all Nick did for his mother. He was a good man, and damn it, good men just don’t fall out of the sky. There had to be something in his upbringing that made him the honest and loyal person he was.
If for no other reason, Jazz owed Kim her thanks for that.
“I’ll tell you what.…” Jazz put the mug of tea in Kim’s hands. “You sit right there and drink that. I’m going to change into some clean clothes, then I’m going to make a phone call. I’m going to have to drive you home, anyway. We might as well stop on the way and pick up reinforcements.”
Gus the chocolate Lab was a retired HRD dog with a great nose, a calm temperament, and more energy than his owner, Margaret Carlson, so Jazz was sure Margaret wouldn’t mind when she asked to borrow the dog. The last time Jazz had Gus out, he found a skeleton hidden on the fourth floor of St. Catherine’s, but this time, she promised him when she stopped at Margaret’s and he jumped into the crate in the back of her SUV they were just going to stretch their legs.
“I’m telling you right now, buddy, you’re not going to find anything,” she whispered to Gus, and scratched him behind the ears. “We’re just doing a good deed.”
“So how does it work?” Kim wanted to know, when Jazz was done loading Gus and back behind the driver’s wheel. “What’s going to happen?”
“I’m going to do the same thing with Gus that I did with Wally. I’m going to let him have a look around your backyard. Wally’s young. He might have missed something. But Kim, just keep this in mind—Gus is really good at what he does. He’s got plenty of experience. If he doesn’t find anything—”
“I know, I know.” Kim twined her fingers together on her lap and they drove in silence. They were nearly at her house when she turned in her seat to look back at the crate. “How will we know?”
“If he finds something?” Jazz parked the car and turned to face Kim. “His owner trained him just like I train my dogs. If he detects the odor of decomposition, Gus will sit and bark three times.”
“Then we’ll know.”
“Yes.” Jazz pushed open her car door. “Then we’ll know. We’ll know for sure. And when he doesn’t find anything—”
“You mean, if he doesn’t find anything.”
It was a good thing Jazz was already at the back of the car, opening the rear door and hooking on Gus’s leash, or Kim would have seen her roll her eyes. “If he doesn’t find anything…” The dog jumped out of the car and Jazz piloted him toward the backyard, stopping only long enough to give Kim a hard look. “This is it. If he doesn’t find anything, Kim, this is over. No more phone calls about bodies and mysterious men. No more holes in the yard. And no more worries.”
Because Kim still looked worried, Jazz put a hand on her shoulder. “You’ll feel better,” Jazz told her, “once you know for sure. And Gus here is the perfect guy to tell you.”
At the back of the house, Jazz let Gus get to work. Just like Wally had, he swept the yard, nose to the ground, alert and focused. He trotted to the garage, turned and lifted his head, raced to the back of the house, the same place where Wally had decided he’d had enough and plunked down in the grass to relax.
Gus plunked down, too. Only not on his back, not like Wally had.
Gus sat.
And he barked three times.