“Nothing.”
“Right now it looks like their throats were torn out,” the Medical Examiner said, “but we’ll reserve judgment until the autopsy.”
“A dog theory won’t make it,” Wilson muttered.
“I never said that,” the M. E. flared. “All I said was the probable cause of death is massive insult to the throat caused by teeth and claws. I don’t know about dogs and I don’t care to speculate about dogs.”
“Thank you, Doctor Evans,” Wilson said in a staccato voice. Evans was not numbered among Wilson’s few friends despite the professional respect.
The Commissioner stared a long time at the corpses. “Cover ’em up,” he said at last, “get ’em out of here. Come on, Herb, let’s let these men do their jobs.”
The two officials trudged back to their helicopter.
“Morale,” the Precinct Captain said as the chopper began to start “A visit from those two sure charges you up.”
The Medical Examiner was still fuming over his run-in with Wilson. “If it was dogs,” he said carefully, “they’d have to be seventy, eighty pounds or more. And fast, they’d have to be fast.”
“Why so fast?” Becky asked.
“Look at DiFalco’s right wrist. Torn. He was going for his pistol when something with teeth hit his arm hard. That means whatever it was, it was damn fast.”
Becky Neff thought immediately of the dogs her husband Dick often worked with on the Narcotics Squad. “Attack dogs,” she said, “you’re describing the work of attack dogs.”
The Medical Examiner shrugged. “I’m describing the condition of the bodies. How they got that way is your business, Becky—yours and His Excellency’s.”
“Screw you too, Evans.”
Becky tried to ignore Wilson—she was used to his sour disposition. As long as people like Evans kept working with him it didn’t really matter. Sometimes, though, it was nice to see that others disliked him as much as she did.
“If we can establish that attack dogs did this,” she said, “then we can narrow our search considerably. Most attack dogs don’t kill.”
“If the good doctor says they were able to do… that, then you might have a point. Let’s talk to Tom Rilker, get ourselves a little education on the subject.” Rilker trained dogs for the department.
Becky nodded. As usual when they got going, she and Wilson started thinking together. They headed back toward their car. The first step was now clear— they had to find out if attack dogs were involved. If they were, then this was a first—policemen had never been murdered with dogs before. In fact, dogs were an uncommon weapon because it took the work of a skilled professional to train them to kill human beings. And skilled professionals didn’t train up dogs for just anybody. If you had gotten a dog trained into a killer, the man who did it would remember you for sure. Most so-called “attack dogs” are nothing more than a loud bark and maybe a bite. The ones that actually go for the throat are not very common. A dog like that is never completely controllable, always a liability unless it is absolutely and essentially needed.
Back in the car, Wilson began to recite what he remembered about cases involving killer dogs. “October, 1966, a pedestrian killed by a dog in Queens. Dog was untrained, believed to have been an accident. I worked that case, I always thought it was fishy but I never got a decent lead. July, 1970, an attack dog escaped from the Willerton Drug Company warehouse in Long Island City and killed a seventeen-year-old boy. Another accident. April, 1973—our only proved murder by dog. A hood named Big Roy Gurner was torn apart by three dogs, later traced to the Thomas Shoe Company, which was a front for the Carlo Midi family. I got close to netting Midi in that one, but the brass removed me from the case. Corrupt bastards. That’s my inventory on dogs. You got anything?”
“Well, I don’t remember any dog cases since I’ve been a detective. I’ve heard about the Gurner thing of course. But the scuttlebutt was you got paid off the case.” She watched him pull his chin into his neck at that—it was his characteristic gesture of anger.
And she realized that she shouldn’t have goaded him; Wilson was one honest cop, that much was certain. He hated corruption in others and certainly would never bend himself. It was a nasty crack, and she was sorry for it. She tried to apologize, but he wouldn’t acknowledge. She had made her mistake; there was no point in continuing to talk about it. “My husband works with dogs all the time,” she said to change the subject. “Some attack dogs, but mostly just sniffers. They’re his best weapon, so he says.”
“I hear about his dogs. All of them are supposedly trained to kill despite that ‘sniffer’ bullshit. I’ve heard the stories about those dogs.”
She frowned. “What stories?”
“Oh, nothing much really. Just that those dogs sometimes get so excited when they sniff out a little dope that they just happen to kill the jerk they find it on… sometimes. But I guess you husband’s told you all about that.”
“Let’s drop it, Wilson. We don’t need to go at each other like this. My husband hasn’t told me anything about dogs that kill suspects. It sounds pretty outlandish if you ask me.”
Wilson snorted, said nothing more. But Becky had heard the rumors he was referring to, that Dick’s team sometimes used dogs on difficult suspects. “At least he’s not on the take,” Becky thought. “I hope to God he’s not.” Then she thought of a certain problem they used to have paying for his father’s nursing home, a problem that seemed to have disappeared—but she refused to think about it
Corruption was the one thing about police work she hated. Many officers considered the money part of the job, rationalizing it with the idea that their victims were criminals anyway and the payoffs were nothing more than a richly deserved fine. But as far as Becky Neff was concerned, that was crap. You did your job and got your pay, that ought to be enough. She forced herself not to rise to Wilson’s bait about her husband, it would probably start a shouting argument.
“Stories aside, I’ve heard a lot about Tom Rilker. Dick thinks damn highly of him. Says he could train a dog to walk a tightrope if he wanted to.” Thomas D. Rilker was a civilian who worked closely with the NYPD, the FBI, and U. S. Customs training the dogs they used in their work. He also did private contract work. He was good, probably the best in the city, maybe the best in the world. His specialty was training dogs to sniff. He had dope dogs, fire dogs, tobacco dogs, booze dogs, you name it. They worked mostly for the Narcotics Squad and the customs agents. They had revolutionized the technique of investigation in these areas and greatly reduced the amount of drugs moving through the port of New York. Becky knew that Dick thought the world of Tom Rilker.
“Keep this damn car moving, sweetheart. You ain’t in a parade!”
“You drive, Wilson.”
“Me? I’m the damn boss. Oughta sit in back.”
She pulled over to the curb. “You don’t like my driving, you do it yourself.”
“I can’t, dearest—my license lapsed last year.”