When she was all dry and gleaming, I put her on the floor and pulled some hair from the grooming brush to put into a plastic bag. In the kitchen, I got out a twenty-pound bag of organic senior kibble and measured a half cup into her bowl—all a miniature dachshund needs for good health and a shiny coat. I added a Jubilee Wafer to keep her joints supple and gave her fresh water in a clean bowl. Mame wagged her tail and followed me to the front door to let me know we were friends again.
At the front door, I took her face in both hands and kissed the tip of her nose.
“I’ll be back tonight, okay?”
Mame swallowed the last of her Greenie and licked my hands with a chlorophyll-green tongue. People say dogs live only in the moment, that they don’t have memories of the past. I don’t believe that for one second. I was sure Mame remembered everything that had happened, but I didn’t mention it. Some things are best left unsaid.
I walked down the street to the crime scene, where more cars edged the lane and yellow crime-scene tape had been stretched around the trees. A deputy from Community Policing stood beside the crime-scene tape.
I said, “I’m Dixie Hemingway. I was with the dog that found the body this morning. I brought some of the dog’s hair for the techs.”
She took the plastic bag and looked at the silky russet hairs inside.
“Irish setter?”
“Long-haired dachshund.”
“I’ll give it to them.”
“Is Lieutenant Guidry here?”
She tilted her head toward a group of people standing behind an ambulance. “He’s over there.”
“I imagine he’ll want to get a statement from me.”
She nodded and strode to the clump of officers. They all turned and looked at me, and then they parted and Lieutenant Guidry stepped through the gap.
Gosh.
Nobody should look that good, especially not somebody in law enforcement. Most law-enforcement men look like they’ve gained twenty pounds since they bought their last suit, but since they don’t have the time or money to buy new clothes every time they gain weight, they just keep cramming their expanding guts into old pants and letting their jacket sleeves strain at the armpits. Half of them wear Thom McAn shoes and black socks that haven’t faded the same way, so one is darker than the other.
Not Guidry. Some Italian designer kept him supplied with the kind of easy free-hanging jackets and pants that only the very rich can afford. The kind of things that wrinkle because they’re made of natural breathable fibers from countries where people live in yurts or alpaca tents. Poor people get stuck with complicated clothes made of crap left over from oil refining, synthetic stuff you can wad up and run a truck over and it won’t wrinkle. He wore leather sandals and no socks, and anybody looking at the leather could tell it was the best damn leather money could buy. Guidry was either independently wealthy and just working as a homicide detective for kicks, or some rich woman dressed him.
Not that I cared. Neither he nor his clothes were any of my business, and I never wasted a second thinking about him.
Truly.
Guidry is olive-skinned, probably late thirties or early forties—old enough to have acquired permanent parentheses around his mouth and fine white laugh lines fanning at the corners of his eyes. His hair is dark with a sprinkling of silver at the sides, close-cropped to show a shapely skull and nice ears. He has gray eyes, a beaky nose, and even white teeth. I didn’t know anything about his personal life, or care, but he had mentioned once that he’d been married in the past and didn’t have any children. Okay, he didn’t mention it until I asked a leading question. I don’t know why I asked. I didn’t really care one way or the other.
Today he wore an oatmeal linen jacket with the sleeves pushed up his tanned forearms. His pants were linen too, brown and nicely wrinkled, and his knit shirt was a dark salmon pink. I absolutely hate it when a man looks better than I do. As he approached I was acutely conscious of my rumpled khaki shorts and of my bralessness. My sleeveless T was black knit. You couldn’t see through it, but men have a kind of X-ray vision that always alerts them when a woman isn’t wearing a bra.
We shook hands, formal as if we were meeting for the first time. Neither of us mentioned what had happened the last time we were together. I don’t know why he didn’t mention it, but I had almost got killed then, so it wasn’t something I wanted to talk about.
He said, “I understand your dog found the body.”
“She’s not my dog, but I’m taking care of her. She must have smelled it from the street, and she ran to it and tried to dig it up. She bit on a finger.”
He didn’t look surprised. Dogs can smell dead bodies from a long way away, and they’re always drawn to them. That’s why rescue teams use cadaver dogs to find dead bodies trapped under wreckage.
“Break the skin?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
Dead bodies don’t bleed and I hadn’t looked that closely.
I said, “I gave the crime techs some hair from the dog for comparison.”
“You didn’t see or hear anything in the area before you found the body?”
“Not a thing.”
“Any cars, people?”
“There was one car earlier, but it was somebody who lives here.”
“Name?”
“Conrad Ferrelli. At least it was his car. I didn’t actually see the driver.”
He seemed surprised. “You know Conrad Ferrelli?”
“I’ve taken care of their dog several times.”
His gray eyes were watching me. “Something bothering you?”
“The car was going awfully fast.”
“Wait here.”
He stooped under the crime-scene tape and went over to talk to the Medical Examiner. The crime-scene technicians joined them, and from time to time they all glanced at me. I shifted from foot to foot, thinking uneasily of Conrad Ferrelli’s speeding car.
Guidry came back to me. “They’re ready to uncover the body. Come see if you know who it is.”
I followed him to the tree where the techs were kneeling beside the body, gently brushing soil away from the head. The techs blocked my view of the face, and as I waited I looked toward a rustling in the surrounding greenery. Conrad Ferrelli’s Doberman pinscher stood beside a tree trunk, a thin shaft of light sharply defining the rust markings on his muzzle and throat. His dark eyes looked puzzled and wary.
I said. “Oh, no.”
The Medical Examiner looked up. “Ms. Hemingway?”
I pointed toward Reggie. “That dog belongs to the Ferrellis.”
I squatted on the ground and stretched my hand toward Reggie. Behind me, I heard Guidry say, “Everybody stay where you are and be quiet.”
I could see Reggie clearly now. He wore a pale dangling necktie—probably one of Conrad’s—but he didn’t have a collar or a leash.
I said, “Reggie hi, boy, that’s a good boy, good Reggie, come here, Reggie, come on, Reggie.”
He raised his ears but he didn’t move. I crooned to him some more, while the people behind me stayed silent and still as statues. I stretched my hand toward him, palm up, and sent him mental images of my hand holding kibble, of my hand stroking his head, of my hand patting him with love. I’ve always done that with animals, and I’m convinced they get the pictures exactly the way I send them. I can’t prove it, and lots of people think it’s a nutty idea, but as long as animals respond to it, I’ll keep doing it.
Reggie lowered to his front elbows, a look on his face that I could only describe as ashamed. Still hunkered low, I slid my feet in his direction, moving in tiny increments while I crooned sweet phrases to him and sent him mental messages of our happy connection. Somebody shouted in the street, and I sensed Guidry leaving the tree to go shush the people beyond the crime-scene tape.
It seemed to take hours, but it was probably no more than a couple of minutes until I got close enough to get a firm grip on the necktie.