Mitch’s phone rang. He took the call on the wall phone in his kitchen. Des glanced at her watch. It was 9:45. Late for someone in Dorset to be calling.
“Oh, hi, Bella,” she heard him say into the phone. “Yeah, she’s right here… No, no, it’s okay… Uh-huh… Okay, I’ll tell her… I don’t know, ten minutes tops.” He hung up and returned to the table with a troubled look on his face. “Bad news, girlfriend. He just struck again-at your place.”
Her place was a snug two-bedroom Cape on a hilltop with a great view of Uncas Lake, which was two miles up the Boston Post Road from the Historic District. The front-porch light was on and the garage door was open, throwing all kinds of light out onto the short driveway. Also meowing. The eight feral strays she and Bella had rescued over the past two months were presently residing in cages in there while not-so-patiently awaiting good homes. Bella’s jeep and Des’s four-year-old Saab were parked out on the street. Des pulled her cruiser into the driveway with a screech and jumped out. Mitch was right on her tail in his pickup. He’d insisted upon joining her.
Bella, a short, feisty widow from Brooklyn in her late 70s, stood there in the garage doorway, hands on round hips, looking like an angry Jewish avocado in her dark green tank top and shorts. Also lopsided. She was wearing only one sneaker. The other foot was bare. Bella had been Des’s neighbor back in Woodbridge when Des and Brandon were still married. It was Bella who’d saved her when Brandon took off. Bella who’d become her unlikely best friend and housemate-although she was always searching for a little place of her own.
“Believe me, the last thing in the world I wanted to do was ruin your romantic evening,” she apologized as Des rushed toward her. “You’ve had no time for each other since this yutz started waving his pizzle all over town. I hope you weren’t making wild love on the kitchen floor, all slathered in lavender oil.”
“Bella, have you been watching The Young and the Restless again?”
“I happen to find daytime drama very stimulating.”
“Yeah, I can tell that.”
“It’s cool, Aunt Bella,” Mitch assured her. “We were just getting ready to wash the dishes.”
“Wash the dishes?” Bella was incredulous. Also way disappointed. “Do I need to draw you two a map?”
“Talk to me, girl. What happened?”
Bella gestured to the front porch, where her missing sneaker lay discarded on the pavement. “The welcome mat is what happened,” she answered, hobbling over there. “I was sitting at the dining table, e-mailing my grandson Errol. He’s Ezra and Babette’s boy. Very nice boy. A first-year dental student at UCLA. He’s dating a girl from Thailand. I don’t know how serious it is but-”
“You were at the dining table,” Des prompted her. “And…?”
“The doorbell rang.”
“What time was this?”
“Nine thirty-seven, according to that little clock on my computer screen. I went to the door and I asked who it was. Believe me, there was no way I was opening it. Not with that nut on the loose. No one answered me. So I turned on the porch light and looked out through the peephole. I didn’t see anyone. I waited a minute, then finally I opened the door, walked outside and…” She made a face. “That’s when I stepped in it.”
It was a turd. A very large, very fresh turd that had been deposited on Des’s sisal welcome mat. She bent over for a closer look, her nostrils crinkling.
“I’m sorry if I compromised the evidence by squishing it.”
“Bella, don’t even go there. I’m just sorry your sneaker’s ruined.”
“Oh, no. It’s not ruined. I’ll bleach it. I’ll boil it. Whatever it takes. That little pisher’s not going to cost me a perfectly good pair of New Balances. And when you catch him I’ll have a little present of my own for him. Let me tell you-if a rotten punk ever tried pulling this on Gates Avenue in the old days, we’d have made him eat that whole thing for lunch between two slices of marbled rye.”
Des popped the trunk of her cruiser and donned a pair of disposable latex gloves, then grabbed a plastic evidence bag and a tongue depressor. A cruiser pulled up behind her Saab. It was Trooper Olsen, who’d been part of her four-person team that tried to nail the Dorset Flasher last weekend. And would be out there again tomorrow night. Oly was big, blond and competent. She filled him in and asked him to start canvassing the neighbors. Maybe one of them had seen something, or someone, between the hours of 9:30 and 9:45. He got right on it.
“Well, this was a first,” Mitch said when she returned to the porch. “The Flasher has never struck on a Friday before.”
“He’s also never gone after sworn personnel.”
“Maybe Bella was his intended target, not you.”
“Trust me, she wasn’t. Bella, I need for you to think hard. This isn’t just us talking now. You’re a witness in an ongoing criminal investigation. Exactly what did you see?”
“I told you-not a thing. When I opened the door nobody was there.”
“Did you hear a car door slam? Someone driving away?”
Bella shook her head. “Nothing like that.”
“How about footsteps? Maybe someone running?”
“I didn’t see or hear anything,” Bella stated flatly.
“Maybe he parked his car down the road,” Mitch said.
“Maybe.”
“Do you need my sneaker as evidence?” Bella asked. “Because I’d like to start soaking it if you don’t mind.”
“Go right ahead and soak.”
Bella picked her shoe up by the laces and headed into the garage with it. Des crouched next to the mat and used the tongue depressor to scoop a sample of the turd into the plastic bag.
“This is a positive development, right?” Mitch said. “You’ve got actual physical evidence now. Your lab can figure out how big the dog was and that’ll point you to its owner. All dogs in Dorset have to be licensed, right?”
“They do, Mitch. Except there are a couple of holes in your theory. For one, he could have plucked this off of anybody’s front lawn. And for another, this isn’t just any old dog poop.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because when I was with Major Crimes we shared the same facility up in Meriden with the state’s K-9 Training Center. I’ve seen what your average mature German shepherd leaves behind. This here was produced by a bigger animal.”
“There are plenty of breeds bigger than German shepherds. You’ve got your Great Danes, Irish wolfhounds. And then there are the really big boys like Saint Bernards and English mastiffs. There can’t be too many of those in-”
“Mitch, I’m fairly certain that this didn’t come from any dog.”
“Oh, okay, then that’s a whole different plot.” He bent over, squinting at it. “It’s not a cow pie. And I know horse droppings when I see them.” His face dropped. “God, please don’t tell me it’s a bear.”
“No, nothing as tabloid fantastic as that. I’m sorry to say that unless I’m totally wrong-and I’m not-the origin of this fecal specimen is human.”
For a second, Des thought her he-guy was going to lose his striped bass. But he gathered himself, gulping, and said, “Well… that’s good, too.”
“Really? How so?”
“We’ve got a fresh human fecal specimen here.”
“Still waiting for the good part, Mitch.”
“The state forensic lab can extract the guy’s DNA from it, can’t they?”
“Actually, that’s a big no. The DNA in human fecal matter is too degraded for them to get a profile. Has something to do with the microbes in the gastrointestinal tract. If I want a sample of this bastard’s DNA, I need his blood or saliva, nasal secretions, hair
…” She carried the bagged specimen back to her car anyway. Because that’s what you did. You collected evidence. Never knew when it might prove to be valuable. She slammed the trunk shut, mustering a tight smile. “You may as well head on home. I have to help Oly knock on doors.”