Kim was beyond tears. Beyond I told you so.
Watching Gus do exactly what Jazz told her he would do if he detected the odor of decomposition, she stood in the driveway, her arms close to her sides, her expression a stone mask. Paralyzed. Silent. Beyond any reaction or response.
And certainly not surprised.
Gus, on the other hand, knew he’d done his job and done it well, and he expected a reward.
“Good boy! Nice work!” Jazz scrubbed a hand over Gus’s head before she took his favorite chew toy out of her back pocket. Tail thumping and with the kind of goofy grin that is second nature to Labs when they’re proud of themselves, he gladly accepted the toy and chomped for all he was worth.
“Good boy. Gus is a good boy!” Even while she continued to give Gus appreciative pats, Jazz glanced at Kim.
“I have to praise him,” Jazz said, even though she couldn’t be sure Kim was listening. “It’s part of his training. He did what I asked him to do, and I have to acknowledge it.” While she was at it, she dug a treat out of her pocket and gave it to Gus along with another pat. “I’m going to put him back in the car. I’ll be right back, Kim!”
At the sound of her name, Kim’s body heaved as if she’d been punched. Her head snapped around and she looked at Jazz, her eyes blank, her jaw slack.
“I’m going to put Gus in the car,” Jazz repeated. “I’ll get him settled and I’ll be right back. I promise.” She held out a flat hand like she would to a dog when she wanted it to stay. “You stay right there.”
When she was done with Gus and got back to the yard, Jazz put an arm around Kim’s shoulders and felt the vibration that rumbled through the woman’s slim body. Jazz recognized shock when she saw it. Inside the house, she deposited Kim on a chair at the kitchen table and began fiddling with the coffeemaker.
“Coffee with plenty of sugar,” she mumbled to herself while she struggled to peel a paper filter from its nesting place in the box. She scooped in ground coffee, poured water into the machine. “I’ll get you something to eat,” she told Kim. “And a glass of juice.” She’d already started for the fridge to do just that when she noticed Kim shuffling those photographs that were still on the kitchen table, her hands trembling, the pictures moving through her fingers so fast, faces and colors blurred.
“The hell with it,” Jazz grumbled, and she got a glass, added a splash of bourbon out of the nearest bottle of Old Crow, and set it down in front of Kim.
Kim tossed back the liquor, and the relief in her eyes spoke volumes.
“What are you going to do?” She darted a look at Jazz. “Call the police to arrest me?”
Stalling for time, searching for the right words, Jazz poured a cup of coffee for Kim and added a whole lot of sugar to it, then took a cup for herself.
She sat down at the table, too, automatically straightening the pictures Kim had knocked loose from the tilting piles. “Since there’s no body, we can’t know for sure, but Gus seems pretty convinced that at some point, there was a body in your yard. Procedure says I need to call the authorities,” Jazz said, and Kim fell back in her chair, a sound like the cry of a banshee rising from deep in her throat.
Jazz sat up and put a hand on Kim’s. “I’m not going to tell them to arrest you,” she was quick to tell Kim. “But I should tell them…” As if it would somehow help her work her way through the problem, she looked toward the back door, the backyard. “HRD dogs are trained to alert to one thing and one thing only, the scent of human decomposition. If there was a body in your yard—”
“If?” The word came at Jazz like a gunshot.
“All right. Yes.” Jazz grabbed a few more pictures to straighten them. Little Nick and the big bike. The heavy metal guy with the flowing bleached hair. The shirtless man with the steely expression. “It looks like you were right. There was a body in your yard. Gus might have just proved it.”
“And now?” Kim asked.
“And now we need to decide what we’re going to do about it. The best thing might be if you called the police and told them what you told me. About Sunday night.”
“That I killed that man they found in the park.”
“We don’t know it’s the same man. And I still don’t think you killed anyone. Think about it, Kim. Even if you had somehow managed to hit just the right spot when you swung your knife at that man, there’s no blood in the yard. And how did you move him? You didn’t drive the body to the park. And you wouldn’t have been able to drag a body to a car in the first place. You didn’t get on a bus with him, that’s for sure. You didn’t carry him. At this point, all we do know—”
She was going to explain about Gus, about his training, about how he was never wrong.
She didn’t have a chance to rehash it.
Someone rapped on the front door.
At the sound, Kim’s spine stiffened. Her glass was empty, but she lifted it to her lips anyway, making the most of the last drops of bourbon in it.
What had Nick said about always being the only grown-up in the house?
Since Kim obviously had no intention of opening the door, Jazz pushed back from the table and went to answer it.
There were two men on the front porch. Nicely dressed. Middle-aged. They could have been true believers on a mission to save souls. Or pollsters trolling for information. She knew they weren’t. They had that same no-nonsense look on their faces she’d seen on Nick’s when he was working, and Jazz knew exactly what that meant.
Cops.
Had Nick listed his mother on some official form as his next of kin, his person to contact in case something happened to him?
A sudden pounding rhythm started up inside Jazz’s head.
She swallowed the sand in her throat. “Can I help you?” she asked.
They introduced themselves as Sergeants Goddard and Horvath.
Goddard was a tall, broad man with short-cropped grizzled hair, a steady look, and a deep voice. “You live here?” he asked.
“I don’t,” Jazz admitted. “Just visiting.”
Goddard peered over Jazz’s shoulder, farther into the house. “And the homeowner?”
“She’s in the kitchen.”
Horvath was a few years younger than his partner. Trim, bald. There was a spot of what looked like salsa on the lapel of his blue sport coat. He carried a small notebook and flipped it open. “Kimberly Kolesov.”
“Yes.” Jazz glanced from detective to detective and forced the question out of her mouth. “You’re not here about Nick, are you?”
“Nick…?” Goddard cocked his head and she knew when he connected the dots because his eyes lit. “Nick Kolesov? Thought the name sounded familiar. He lives here?”
She shook her head. “His mother does. Is there a problem?” Jazz scraped her hands over the legs of her jeans. “With Nick?”
There must have been something about the tremor in Jazz’s voice that struck a chord with Goddard. He grinned. “As good as good can be, last I heard. Though these young guys with all their energy and all their technology hocus-pocus, they have a tendency to be real pains in the ass.”
Jazz let go a breath of relief. “Then why are you looking for Nick’s mom?”
“Well, if we could just talk to her.” Horvath stepped forward. “Just a routine inquiry. Just some questions we need to ask.”
At the same time she told herself this couldn’t possibly have anything to do with Kim’s story—or Gus’s discovery—Jazz moved back to allow them into the living room and went to get Kim.
She found her folded into the space between the stove and the fridge, her back pressed to the wall, her face ashen. “I heard. They came to get me.”
“They came to talk to you.”
“But they’re going to take me away.”
“Kim.” Jazz looked her in the eyes. “There’s nothing that connects you to the body in the park or any other body.”
“But the dog—”
“No one knows about that, right? Just you and me and Gus.”
Her bottom lip trembling, Kim looked toward the living room. “And you didn’t call them?”
“I didn’t.”
Kim’s tongue flicked over her lips. “So why…?”
Jazz slipped an arm through hers. “There’s only one way to find out.”
To her credit, Kim somehow managed to stay in control when she greeted the officers where they stood in the living room.
“We just need to ask you a question, Ms. Kolesov,” Horvath said. He pulled a photograph from his pocket and handed it to Kim.
From where Jazz was standing all she could see was the back of the picture, and she cursed her luck. She stepped forward and craned her neck, hoping for a better look, but at the same time, Kim gave back the photo, and when she did, Horvath held it close to his chest.
“Do you know the man in that picture?” he asked Kim.
“I don’t,” Kim told the officers.
“You sure?” It was a casual enough question, but Goddard’s look was anything but.
Surrendering to it, Kim held out her hand, and Horvath gave her the photo again. She studied it, her brows low over her eyes, her expression intent, before she handed it back to him. “I’ve never seen him before.”
“Maybe we could…” Goddard looked around the room. All the laundry Jazz had scooped up on Sunday night was still piled on the room’s only chair, but the couch was empty except for the blanket Jazz had tossed over Kim as she slept. “Maybe we could sit down and talk.”
“Sure. Sure.” Kim grabbed the blanket, wadded it in a ball, and added it to the pile on the chair before she motioned toward the couch. “Go ahead.”
Goddard’s smile didn’t fool anyone. “Ladies first,” he told Kim.
She sat down with Goddard to her left and Horvath to her right. Horvath sniffed, then scratched a finger under his nose to try to make it look like he was taking care of an itch, but he knew Kim had been drinking.
All the more reason Jazz wasn’t going anywhere. She got a chair from the kitchen, brought it in, and sat down.
“There was a body found over at Edgewater Park,” Horvath said.
“Yes.” Jazz scooted her chair closer to the couch. “We saw the report on the news.”
“Then you do live here?” Goddard asked, then in answer to Jazz’s questioning look added, “You said ‘we.’”
As much as she was used to cops—Nick’s friends and the guys Nick played softball with and the buddies they sometimes met for drinks—Jazz was not used to being interrogated. She reminded herself she had nothing to feel guilty about and hoped the look she sent Kim’s way told her that, too. “Kim was at my house visiting when we heard the news.”
“And now you’re visiting here.”
Where Goddard was going with the observation Jazz wasn’t sure, so she played along, taking it to its most logical conclusion. “Nick’s away working on a gang task force. I promised I’d look in on Kim once in a while.”
“Well.” Goddard slapped his knees and stood and Horvath did, too. “We knew it was a long shot, but we figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.”
“That man in the picture…” Kim slid a look Horvath’s way. “Was he from around here?”
“Well, that’s what we’re trying to find out. That’s the man who was found dead at Edgewater Park this morning.”
“Oh.” Kim slapped a hand to her heart.
“Didn’t mean to upset you, ma’am,” Horvath assured her. “We’re just asking around. Talking to people in the neighborhood.”
“And then there’s this, of course.” Cool cucumbers had nothing on Goddard. As smooth as smooth can be, he reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and brought out another picture. This one was smaller than the other one and from what Jazz could tell older, too. All she could see as Goddard clutched it in his short, big-boned fingers was the back, which was stained and creased from being folded again and again.
“Ms. Kolesov…” Goddard tilted the picture so Kim could see it. “That’s you, isn’t it?”
There was no way Jazz was going to sit there and not know what was going on. She got up from her chair and sat down next to Kim in the seat Horvath had vacated.
Together, they studied a photo that reminded Jazz of the pictures on Kim’s kitchen table. Vintage, the colors faded by time, objects distorted by the fold lines that added cracks to a tree, the side of the house, the right arm of a woman standing on a front porch cradling a baby.
Kim’s hair was pulled into a ponytail and she was wearing jeans and a green sweater. Her eyes were softer and sadder than those of the Kim Jazz had seen in one of the pictures from the kitchen pile, the one that showed a wild and crazy Kim in a black miniskirt and wearing bangle bracelets.
“Is that your son?” Goddard asked.
As if it might burst into flames, Kim carefully took the picture from him. “Yes.” Her voice was a whisper. She touched a finger to the baby’s face. “That’s Nick. And that’s … that’s me holding him.”
“And you’re here? At this house?” Goddard asked.
Kim nodded. “It’s the only place we ever lived, me and Nick. You can even see the address. Right there on the front of the house. Right behind where I’m standing.”
The string of numbers was interrupted by another fold line, but Jazz saw Kim was right. The same tree still grew in the corner of the driveway. The same shrubs, smaller than now, not as thick as when Kim poked through them with a stick just the day before, were planted in front of the porch.
“And look, a little bit of the street sign shows there in the corner, too.” Horvath pointed.
Jazz looked closer. He was right.
“What does that old picture have to do with the picture of the man you showed Kim?” Jazz wanted to know.
Goddard had put away the photograph and he patted his breast pocket. “We’re not sure. Not yet. We’re trying to find out who the dead man in the park is.” He looked down at Kim. “You’re sure you don’t know him?”
Kim clutched her hands to her knees. “I’m sure.”
“That’s good enough for me!” Goddard stepped toward the front door, and Kim let out a small breath of relief. Then Goddard paused. He took out the picture of Kim and Nick again and waved it casually in front of them. “Except if that’s true, Ms. Kolesov, if you don’t know our dead man from the park, you want to tell me why this picture of you and your son was in his pocket?”
Jazz’s heart slammed her ribs, right before she swore it stopped cold.
She glanced at Kim just in time to see her raise her chin. “I told you I don’t know him.”
“Right. You did tell us that.” Goddard and Horvath went to the front door and it wasn’t until Goddard had already stepped outside that Horvath looked Jazz’s way.
“You never saw the picture,” he said.
Jazz stood. It seemed to show more courage, somehow. More control. “Sure I did,” she told the cop. “Kim and Nick on the front porch.”
“Not that picture.” He reached into his pocket for the larger photo, the one he’d shown Kim earlier. “This one,” he said, and handed it to Jazz.
She found herself looking into the face of a man who was laid out on a metallic surface.
Morgue photograph.
His eyes were closed. His cheeks were mottled with a fine network of dark lines. Marbling, it was called. Jazz knew that from the classes she’d taken in conjunction with her HRD work. Once a person is dead, the hemoglobin in the blood can’t bind to oxygen, so it latches on to sulphur in the body and fills veins and arteries with a murky green substance that mimics the veins in marble.
She knew the marbling meant the man found in the park had been dead somewhere around forty-eight hours.
Long enough to make it possible for him to be the man Kim swore was in her backyard.
Jazz gave him a closer look, and in a flash she hoped wasn’t as obvious to the cops as it was to her, she realized she knew him.
She wasn’t sure how she managed it, but her hand was steady when she handed the photograph back to Horvath.
“Sorry, I can’t help you.”
“Thanks for trying.” He, too, moved to the door, and once he was out of it and Kim had gone out to the porch to say her good-byes Jazz ducked into the kitchen.
Kim’s collection of photos was still in disarray on the table, and Jazz riffled through the pictures quickly, checking over her shoulder once or twice to be sure Kim was still busy.
It was just when she heard the front door close that she found what she was looking for.
The picture of the shirtless man with the intimidating stare.
The man in the photo Horvath had shown her was older, leaner, harder looking.
But there was no doubt about it.
The man in Kim’s picture—the picture Jazz slipped into her pocket—was the same one lying dead on a slab at the county morgue.