“Is it murder if you kill a dog?” DeLuca complained as Jake knocked on the front door of 3140 Alcott Road.
Pronounced “Al-kitt,” Jake knew. Their possible crime scene was an august brownstone town house in a quietly manicured cul-de-sac of The Reserve. Quiet except for the dog.
“Some lungs on that thing,” Jake said. The dog’s yappy barking came from the backyard. That’s where the body was, dispatch had informed them. Seemed like no way to get there except via the front door, and now they were waiting for the beat cop to let them inside. “Not very ‘Reserve.’”
No street signs proclaimed The Reserve, but ever since Jake was a kid, he’d been aware of the societal boundaries of this off-the-official-map enclave of blue-blooded affluence. His parents, most often his mother with her Dellacort heritage, had dragged him to “important” post-symphony-matinee or pre-library-lecture gatherings at the homes here of their “important” friends. Preteen Jake had played Ninja Turtles with the other children of industry and finance while the parents did whatever they did.
Jake had never been at this particular home, though. A cast-iron plaque named it The Morgan House, and a cornerstone carved 1893 gave it a birthday.
He knocked again. Nothing. Keyed his radio. “This is Brogan and DeLuca,” he said. “On-site at the address.” Static.
He let go of the radio button. “How about getting someone to let us the hell in?” he said out loud, though no one else but D could hear him. Budget cuts had ripped the understaffed dispatch, like everyplace else at the department.
“Try asking for Kearney himself,” DeLuca said. “The new supe’s always saying how we’re in this together. Except, in real life, he’s in his office, and we’re out in murderland. Getting nowhere.”
Jake looked up, saw three brownstone stories, polished windows, a flutter of curtains, slate roof, sky still bright with the last of the summer sunlight. No faces, though, no sounds from inside. Outside, no traffic, no horns honking, no tinkling ice cream truck music, no kids on bikes or laughter from backyards. A few silhouettes down the block, inquisitive neighbors, probably. And that dog. Jake held down the radio button again. “Requesting entry, please.”
“The dog’s gotta go.” D leaned forward, balanced one hand on the brownstone wall, and pushed the branches of a spiky shrub away from the multipaned front window with the other, trying to get a look inside. He stood, defeated, brushed off his hands. “Can’t see a thing.”
The front door creaked open, Jake dismissing a brief imaginary vision of a black-coated butler bearing a silver tray. A uniformed cop stood in the entryway. Finally, some good news.
“Hey, Shom,” Jake said. T’shombe Pereira was stand-up, and as close to making detective as anyone on the force.
“Right this way, Detectives,” Pereira said, gesturing them into a shadowy entryway, black-and-white tiles, gilt-edged mirror hanging over a marble table. “She’s in the back.”
Jake stepped over the threshold, his eyes adjusting. He cased a twinkling chandelier, lights glowing. To the left, the living room, fresh flowers, fireplace, books open on a coffee table. A stairway to the right. Jane would call the carpet jewel-toned. A two-story wall galleried with photos. A long hall led to daylight at the end.
“You solved this yet, Shom?” he asked, mostly giving him grief. “Got a confession, cause of death? Signs of a break-in?”
“Not that we can tell. Front door was locked.” Pereira pointed, then gestured down the hall. “No other way into the back.”
“Who called nine-one-one?” Jake asked. Carpet continued down the hallway. No footprints in the center of the deep pile. Shom had kept to the edges, doing it by the book. The three filed toward the back of the house. The barking got louder.
“Can’t you shut that dog up?” DeLuca was scanning, assessing, same as Jake was.
“Looking into it,” Pereira said. “Nine-one-one, I mean. The dog’s above my pay grade, Detectives.”
As the wallpapered hallway ended, Jake took it all in—décor, atmosphere, light levels, air conditioner humming somewhere, clean smell. Didn’t smell like dog. Hmm. You never knew what might be evidence. As for the house itself, Jake realized he was “assessing” in an additional way. He and Jane had looked at a few brownstones together, pretending their venture into Realtors’ open houses was simply a lark. An outing. Just for fun. It wasn’t. Though Jane wouldn’t wear Gramma’s diamond ring in public—they’d talked about it again only the night before—their house-shopping was for real. Life was short, Jake thought, entering a pristinely white-cupboarded kitchen.
“Back there.” Shom Pereira pointed toward sliding glass doors now opened to a flagstone patio and swimming pool, turquoise water glittering.
And next to the pool, the unmistakable juxtaposition he’d seen again and again over the past ten years on street corners, in blood-soaked living rooms, in a rain-sodden suburban woodland, even once, years ago, on a klieg-lighted high school football field. A dark shape on the ground, motionless, still, as if waiting for answers the victim would never hear. The attending shape of the medical examiner crouched over the body, ministerial, intent.
This scene—one like it unfolding every ten days or so in Boston, Jake and the other homicide detectives could recite the stats—was the beginning of a possible murder story. Soon that story would simultaneously move backward to the past and forward to the future, and eventually some diligent law enforcement official would close the book on it. If they were lucky.
Often the scene was silent, whether reverent, or sorrowful, or tense, or all of the above. In this backyard, though, it was all about the dog. A white button-eyed cotton ball—still yapping, one paw clamped on a yellow rubber toy—was tied to the leg of a black wrought-iron poolside chair with a strip of something pink and green.
“Sorry about the dog.” The medical examiner looked up from the victim beside her, Kat McMahan raising a lavender-gloved hand in greeting as they approached, her back to the rectangular swimming pool. Under her white lab coat, Jake saw the ME’s T-shirt of the day—this one more loose-fitting than usual. Above the logo of a nail-impaled tongue, a slogan read, “I Missed the Stones—Fenway 2011.” Jake knew that T-shirt belonged to DeLuca. Decided not to mention it.
“She was going crazy,” Kat continued, cocking her head at the dog. “Yelping and racing in circles. Her collar says ‘Popcorn.’ I sacrificed my scarf so she wouldn’t bolt for the street.”
“Be good riddance,” DeLuca muttered, looking at the sun-dotted water. “Wonder if it can swim.”
“What you got, Kat?” Jake pitched his voice louder than the dog’s as he stepped closer to the body by the pool. The dead woman looked for all the world like a sunbather, sleeping prone, one hand just touching the edge of one of the blue tiles surrounding the pool. Not young, not old, dark hair splayed behind her. A hot pink, Jake guessed you’d call it, bathing suit, modest. Bare feet, painted toenails matching the suit. One flip-flop on, the other in the water. No blood, no gun, no signs of a struggle.
“Kat? Who pulled her out of the pool?” Would there be any reason not to?
The dog—Popcorn—kept up her side of the conversation as Jake took in the scene. He shrugged, bent down, untied Kat’s scarf, and picked up the dog. Its yellow toy ball rolled away, and Popcorn quieted, blinked, looked into his eyes. Then she started yapping like a canine maniac. Her tiny pointed teeth snapped at him, her ears flattened. The dog squirmed, a writhing ball of white fur, flailing legs, and thrashing paws, trying to escape.
“You kidding me, dog?” Jake held Popcorn out in front of him, trying to keep her sharp claws away from his face. Maybe she smelled Diva. Diva’d eat this thing with one golden retriever chomp. Kat was trying not to laugh, not succeeding. Good thing the public didn’t see this side of law enforcement.
“Gimme that dog. She’s only protecting—” DeLuca grabbed it, looking like a scarecrow holding a tiny lamb. The dog was instantly silent.
“How’d you—” Jake began.
“Do not—” Kat glanced at the pool.
“Dog’s a witness, right?” DeLuca said. “Go on, Doc. Give us the scoop. Cause of death?”
Kat stood, eyeing DeLuca and the dog, then turned her attention to the woman on the pavement. The dog’s owner, presumably. And D was right, the dog probably was a witness. If this was murder, some defense attorney’d figure out a way to use that. But that was down the road. Plus, if someone had a defense attorney, it meant there was a defendant. And that would be a good thing.
“Well.” Kat took a deep breath, as she always did when making a prelim. “Too early to say. But she’s wet, and she was in the pool. Her cell phone was, too. Anyone who’s watched Dragnet knows the ME can tell if a person drowned.”
“Dragnet?” Jake asked.
“Whatever,” Kat said. “Drowning is an easy diagnosis. You can’t get away with a fake drowning. So we have to ask—why was she dead in the pool?”
Jake thought about it. Fell? Pushed?
Kat kept talking. “Hard to dress a wet person in a bathing suit. Hard to dress a dead person in a bathing suit. Hard to—well, we can safely assume this is what she was wearing when she died. White, female, forty-ish, maybe younger, maybe older—have to look for plastic surgery. No ligature marks, no blunt trauma, no stabs or bullet wounds. So. We shall see.”
“Drugs? Alcohol?” Jake looked around. No glasses, no bottle. “Suicide?”
“Too soon to say,” Kat replied. “Tell me if you find a note.”
“ID?” Jake said. If the dog had a name tag, maybe it had a license. Which meant the dog-witness could be valuable after all. It could tell them her owner’s name.
“That’s why you get the big bucks,” Kat was saying. “I’ve got the ambulance on the way. So. More to come.”
“We’ll check the house. Name’ll be the least of our problems,” Jake said.
“Someone coulda gotten through the shrubs, I guess.” DeLuca held the dog in his arms as he scanned, doing a three-sixty. “Or jumped the fence. Gotta love mulch. Sucks for footprints.”
“Who got her out of the pool?” Jake asked.
“Officer Reddington was the first here,” Kat said. “Kevin. Came over the fence. Jumped in, pulled her out. She might have been alive. But she wasn’t.”
“Where’s—” Jake began.
“He’s outside. Still wet.” Kat pointed toward the street. “He’s got the phone, though it’ll have to dry out. Told him to wait so you could talk to him. He’s keeping the lookies away, too. College kid, a few neighbors.”
“Detectives?” T’shombe Pereira stood in the frame of the open sliding glass door. A siren wailed in the far distance. So much for the neighborhood’s afternoon of peace and security. Death had come to The Reserve.
“Dispatch traced the nine-one-one to a cell that pinged a tower serving this neighborhood,” the officer said. “They’re working on it. So far, door-to-door’s got nothing. Except. Our victim is apparently named Avery Morgan. That’s the same person who receives the mail here. And there’s an open checkbook, her name, this address, with those textbooks on the coffee table.”
“Thanks, Shom,” Jake said. “Stay on it.”
He turned to D and Kat, then to the body on the smooth poolside stones. Now she had a name, Avery Morgan. Morgan House, the place was called, and that could not be a coincidence. That meant their victim had an easily discoverable history. Connections. And discoverable enemies. Maybe this wouldn’t be a tough one. It could happen.
“Too bad your townie informant has no pals in The Reserve.” DeLuca’s canine witness had fallen dead asleep in his arms, two back paws tucked under D’s belt, a furry chin on D’s forearm. “We could use some intel.”
“Every group has a code of silence,” Jake said. “It’s a question of finding the weak link.”
“Maybe the weak link was Avery Morgan,” DeLuca said. “Sure wish this dog could talk.”