“Three more weeks before you’re put out to pasture,” I said to my partner, Gerry O’Brien. “Gonna be nice. Sleeping late. Pina coladas. Thirty-six holes a day.”
“Maybe only twenty-seven holes. I’m no longer a young man.” O’Brien sighed. “Thirty years on the job. Seems like just yesterday I got my gold badge. Hard to believe I was once like you, Rook.”
“Like me? You mean handsome?”
“No. I mean a newbie.”
I’d been on the force for six years before I got the recent bump to detective. “I’m not so new.”
“Face it kid, you’re green.”
From the back seat of our unmarked car, the dog started yipping. “Tell me again why we’re driving around town with a mutt?” I said, raising my voice to be heard over the racket.
“He’s not a mutt. He’s a Shih Tzu, and his name is Bark Simpson. Belongs to my son. My grandson Sean named him. Technically, I suppose he’s my great-granddog.”
I refrained from rolling my eyes. “Okay. So why the pooch?”
“You’ll see, Rook.”
“This rookie has a name, too. It’s Willis,” I said, maybe a little too forcefully.
“Yeah, I know.” O’Brien paused for effect. “Rook.”
“Listen, I—”
“Red!” O’Brien ordered, and the dog stopped in mid-yap.
“How’d you do that?” I asked.
“Do what?”
“Make him stop barking.”
“He’s exceedingly well trained.”
Enough about the dog. Time to get down to business. “You really think Machete Morris and his crew killed Tommy Page? And his murder is connected to the Archer kid’s death three years ago?” I knew the Archer case was firmly stuck in O’Brien’s craw—an innocent fourteen-year-old kid in the wrong place at the wrong time. O’Brien had been talking about clearing that one—on a daily basis—since I’d started working with him. The one case he felt he needed to solve before he could retire in peace. The white whale. Right now, we were headed to question Morris at the body shop where he worked.
“I don’t think Morris did it. I know so. We’ve picked him up for half a dozen things over the years, never nailed his ass. Today, I feel a disturbance in the Force. In a good way. We’re going to get him.”
“How is that going to happen? Some new evidence get discovered?”
“Oh, ye of little faith. I’ve got something up my sleeve.” He started humming under his breath, effectively cutting off any further conversation.
I stared out the passenger side window, imagining all the wild things O’Brien could have up his sleeve. He had the reputation as an out-of-the-box thinker, a creative genius with a badge, and I’d seen flashes of it during my short time with him. Three weeks ago, he’d taken a Ouija board into the interrogation room and had come out with a confession after convincing the suspect that if he didn’t own up to the crime he’d committed, evil spirits would punish him worse than the criminal justice system ever could.
As we closed in on Morris, the neighborhoods got seedier. More empty storefronts, more disenfranchised people wandering about, searching for something—anything—to give meaning to their lives.
A few minutes later, O’Brien hung a left off the main drag, and we wove our way through a maze of warehouses and light industrial operations, many out of business. He pulled into a vacant parking lot in front of a boarded-up dry cleaners and killed the engine.
“Where’s his shop?” I asked.
O’Brien pointed across the street, one block up. “There. With the green roof.”
The dog, who I figured had gone to sleep, started barking again. High-pitched yipping, enough to give someone a headache.
“Red,” O’Brien said, and the dog shut up.
“What did—”
O’Brien said, “Green,” and the dog began barking.
“Red,” he said again, and the dog stopped again. “Grandkids thought it up. Pretty cool, huh?”
“Nice parlor trick. Nice dog, too. But what are we going to do with it?”
“He’s not an it, he’s a him. And he has a name.” He glared at me. “How would you like it if I called you Rook all the time?”
“You do.”
“’Sides the point. How about showing this K-9 a little respect?”
I stared at him a beat, and when he didn’t crack a smile, I said, “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me,” he said, tipping his head toward the back seat.
I swiveled in my seat and faced the dog. Bark Simpson was about a foot long, covered in whitish fur. He looked like a dirty mop with a black nose and even darker marble eyes. He bared his teeth, and I was reminded of an angry ex-girlfriend. “Sorry.”
The dog barked once.
“He accepts your apology,” O’Brien said.
I faced my partner again. “Fine, fine. So, Bark Simpson accepts my apology. Are we just going to leave him in the car? What if he, you know…does his business?” I hoped Shih Tzu was the name of his breed and not descriptive of his actions.
“I told you, he’s well trained. Better trained than you, in fact.”
I let it slide. Only three more weeks of putting up with O’Brien’s insults.
“And it’s not too hot, either. He’ll be fine here.” O’Brien picked up his cell, punched in a number. “You guys ready?” he said after a moment. “Okay. Yeah, two minutes.” O’Brien hung up and faced me. “Backup’s in place. An alley behind the shop, in case we get a runner. Ready?”
“Ready,” I said.
He unbuckled his seat belt. “Let’s go, Rook,” he said. “Be a good boy.”
I assumed that last part was meant for the dog.
Leaving the dog behind, we got out and strolled up to AAAA Auto Body. Only a blind man couldn’t tell we were cops. We entered the dingy office and asked the stringy-haired guy behind the counter playing Candy Crush on his phone if Morris was around. Without uttering a word, he nodded at a doorway leading out to the garage bays.
O’Brien flashed a smile, and we followed the guy’s nod into the garage proper. Six heads swiveled our way. The guy closest to us put down the buffer in his hand, grinned broadly, and swaggered over.
“What can I do for you, Detective?” he said. “Bang out a few dents?” Immediately, his five grease-stained buddies closed ranks behind him. Several brandished lug wrenches and crowbars. I unsnapped the retention strap on my holster.
“Afternoon, Morris.” O’Brien smiled for the second time since entering the garage, which was exactly two smiles more than I would have predicted. “Gentlemen.”
Morris’s goon squad postured and flexed, but kept quiet.
“We have some questions. About Tommy Page.”
“Tragedy.” The way Morris said it made me think he wasn’t that broken up about what happened to Page.
“You know him?”
“Small neighborhood. Everyone knows everyone,” Morris said. Behind him five heads nodded. I had a feeling Morris would be doing all the talking while the others would take care of the posing.
“Heard he ran with you. There was a dustup. Then he turns up face-down in a dumpster.”
“Coincidence.” Morris shrugged as he said it.
“And is it also a coincidence that you were spotted arguing with Lil’ Will Archer right before we found his body, too?”
“Just an unfortunate coincidence.” One side of Morris’s lip curled up. “But that was years ago.”
O’Brien stepped forward, got right up into Morris’s face. The goons behind him also moved closer. I tensed, ready.
“Archer was only fourteen years old. A good kid.” O’Brien clenched his jaw so tight I could see the ripples from where I stood, six feet away.
“Detective O’Brien,” I said, gently. “Easy, now.”
O’Brien froze for a long moment, face still just inches from Morris’s ugly mug. Then he eased back. “I can prove you killed Tommy Page.”
Morris laughed. “Bullshit.”
O’Brien turned to me. “Go get Officer Simpson.”
Officer Simpson? And was it a good idea to leave O’Brien by himself? “Now?”
“Sure. I’m fine here.” O’Brien gave me a little nod of reassurance. “We’ll just catch up a bit, talk about the weather, until you return.”
I hustled out of the garage and jogged to the car. Bark Simpson was waiting patiently in the back. “Okay, boy. Let’s go.” I grabbed the leash off the seat and reached for the dog’s collar, but he started yipping again, snapping at me whenever I tried to corner him.
“Red,” I said, but the dog kept barking. “Red. Red. Red.” The yips and yaps continued, and the mutt threw in a few snarls and growls and yelps, too, whenever I got close. “Red. Red. Red. Red. Red.”
More barking.
“Orange. Blue. Black. White.” I paused to catch my breath, then dove back in. “Chartreuse. Tangerine. Mauve.”
The barking continued.
I had visions of Morris and his crew subduing O’Brien and carving him up while I tried every color in the rainbow. “Please stop, Bark Simpson. Please.”
The dog sat and barked twice more. I could have sworn it sounded like Okay. Then he went quiet.
Seriously? I attached the leash and we trotted back to the garage. As soon as Morris and his gang saw us enter, they started laughing and pointing and falling all over themselves.
“That’s Officer Simpson?” Morris managed to spit out between howls. “No wonder crime is up around here.”
I handed the leash to O’Brien and he waited patiently for the commotion to die down. Then he spoke calmly. “This is Officer Simpson. He’s a cadaver dog.”
“He looks alive to me.” Morris started sniggering again. Behind him, his crew echoed his laughter.
O’Brien didn’t react, merely waited for things to settle. When they did, he cleared his throat. “Once given the command, cadaver dogs can locate dead bodies. They smell death. They can detect the scent of death on a killer’s hands. Even months after they’ve come into contact with a dead person.”
All of a sudden, Morris’s crew got quiet. Real quiet. Nervous eyes glanced around.
From time to time, our department worked with a cadaver dog, but it wasn’t Bark Simpson. In fact, if Bark Simpson could really locate dead people, I’d eat a bag of Alpo. Dry.
“Ready?” O’Brien asked. Without waiting for a response, he bent over and snapped out a command to Bark Simpson. “Go, boy. Green!”
The dog started barking like he’d been poked with a stick, and after about five seconds, the tallest guy in Morris’s posse threw a crescent wrench at me and bolted for the back of the garage. I dodged the wrench and sped in pursuit, and when he stumbled into a stack of tires, I tackled him. After cuffing his hands with a zip tie, I hoisted him up and brought him back to where the rest of the group stood. O’Brien had Bark Simpson’s leash in one hand and his weapon in the other, trained on Morris’s crew.
“Assaulting a police officer with a wrench is a crime,” O’Brien said, clearly proud that his ruse worked. “Call backup to come get this guy.”
I alerted our backup. A minute later, two uniforms arrived, and one of them hauled the guilty party away.
Morris smirked. “That has nothing to do with me. I told you I was clean, and I am.”
Now it was my turn to step forward. “I don’t think so. When Detective O’Brien said that cadaver dogs can smell a scent on a killer’s hands, I noticed you shoved your hands into your pockets. Like they were covered with the stench of death and you thought stuffing them into your pockets would keep the dog from smelling them.”
“You can’t prove it.”
“We’ve got your accomplice. I don’t think it will take much to get him to roll over on you,” I said. “Enjoy your last few breaths of fresh air while you can.”
“He’s not going to rat on me,” Morris said. “No way.”
“You don’t know Detective O’Brien too well, do you? He can be very persuasive.” I glanced at O’Brien, who gave me a small smile and a curt nod, then walked Bark Simpson outside, leaving me with Morris.
“You want to come with me now? Or later? It’s just a matter of time before we haul you in for murder.”
Morris didn’t answer, unless you counted a scowl as an answer.
I left him to stew and joined O’Brien just outside the garage. He was on one knee, ruffling Bark Simpson’s fur. “Well done, boy, well done. That’s my big fella.” He stood and chucked me on the shoulder. “You did a nice job, too, Rook. Or should I say Detective Willis?”
Bark Simpson barked twice, and it sounded exactly like Good boy.
I bent down and scratched behind his ear. “Right back atcha, Officer Simpson.”
Alan Orloff’s debut mystery, Diamonds for the Dead, was an Agatha Award finalist. His seventh novel, Running from the Past, was an Amazon Kindle Scout selection. His short fiction has appeared in numerous publications, including Jewish Noir, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Chesapeake Crimes: Storm Warning, Mystery Weekly, 50 Shades of Cabernet, Shotgun Honey, Noir at the Salad Bar, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Windward: Best New England Crime Stories 2016, and The Night of the Flood. Alan lives in Northern Virginia and teaches fiction-writing at The Writer’s Center (Bethesda, MD). He loves cake and arugula, but not together. www.alanorloff.com