Odd Partners

by Mystery Writers of America

  Then why was Duke acting so weird?

  She turned, and the dog was lying down, his head on the ground, his legs in front of him. He whimpered. Then she noticed a big hole under the fence that separated the driveway from the backyard. It looked new. That’s how Duke got out, she figured.

  “Did something happen to your owner?” she asked.

  She didn’t want to call the police. She didn’t want to do anything but leave, but Duke wasn’t her dog.

  Jamie walked next door to where the doctors lived. The Prius was there, which meant the wife was home. She rang the bell. No answer. Maybe she went to work with her husband. Great. She rang again, then knocked.

  She heard movement, then the door opened. A tired woman stood there wearing pajama bottoms and a tank top. “It says no solicitors for a reason,” she snapped.

  “I’m sorry,” Jamie said. “I found this dog and, um, he has a collar that says he belongs next door, but no one’s answering.”

  The doctor looked over Jamie’s shoulder and clearly recognized Duke. “Oh. That’s Duke. Where’d you find him?”

  “At the barbecue restaurant off Folsom.”

  “That far down? I’ve never known Duke to stray. Just put him in the backyard. Emily is probably at the store.”

  “I was going to put him in the yard, but I saw a car in the garage.” Jamie lied smoothly. She had to be a good liar in her line of work. “I walk down this street all the time because my best friend lives over on H Street, and I know the woman who lives there is really old, and I just thought maybe…something might have happened. She loves her dog. I think she would have been looking for him. I found him last night.”

  “Oh dear. Just hold on a minute, I’ll go over with you.”

  “Maybe you can just take Duke?” Jamie didn’t want to get in the middle of this. She just wanted to return the dog.

  The doctor shook her head. “My husband is allergic. Just hold on, we’ll check on Emily.”

  She walked away for a couple minutes and Jamie almost left. She glanced down at Duke. He was watching her, as if to say, Don’t leave me.

  He didn’t, of course. She was projecting.

  The doctor returned wearing flip-flops and carrying a key ring. “Emily gave us a set of keys when we moved here, in case of an emergency. I hope nothing is wrong. What’s your name?”

  “Jamie.”

  “I’m Teresa Linn. It was very nice of you to bring Duke back.”

  “He kinda followed me.”

  “He doesn’t like most people, you should feel lucky.”

  Jamie glanced at Duke with a half-smile. She knew they were kindred spirits.

  Dr. Linn rang the bell and knocked. “Emily? It’s Teresa. Are you okay?”

  There was no answer.

  “Emily, I’m using the key to come in, okay?” She unlocked the door. “Jamie, wait here for a second, okay?”

  Jamie had no intention of going inside.

  Dr. Linn opened the door and a foul smell rushed out of the stuffy house. Jamie gagged, and Dr. Linn paled. “Oh no.” She ran into the house. Duke ran after her.

  “Duke!” Jamie yelled. “Stay, Duke!”

  Dr. Linn screamed, and Duke started barking. Jamie wanted to run far away, but she didn’t. She followed the dog and found him and Dr. Linn in the kitchen.

  Emily, the kind old woman, was lying on the floor. She was very dead, her face swollen, and she had bruises all over her neck.

  Jamie sucked in her breath, then felt nauseous because of the smell.

  Dr. Linn turned around and pushed Jamie out of the house. Duke started to howl, an intensely mournful sound.

  “Duke!” Dr. Linn shouted. “Duke, come here!”

  Duke whimpered and followed.

  Jamie sat down heavily on the porch. Duke sat next to her and put his head in her lap. She might have sort of fainted a bit because she didn’t mean to sit, she just did.

  Dr. Linn said, “I have to get my phone. Don’t move.”

  Did she think that Jamie had something to do with…with that? She couldn’t, could she?

  Jamie wrapped her arms around Duke. “I’m sorry, Duke. Now I know why you were out. I’m sorry about your owner.”

  Dr. Linn returned a minute later. She was still talking on the phone.

  “Yes, I’m her neighbor, at 1418 48th Street. I have a key to her house, and when she didn’t answer I went in. You need to send the police. I think she was killed….Yes, I’ll wait right here.”

  She hung up, typed on her phone, then turned to Jamie. “Are you okay, honey?”

  Jamie nodded because she couldn’t talk right then.

  Dr. Linn held out her hand. “We shouldn’t be here right now. This is a crime scene. The police will need to investigate.”

  Jamie hesitated, then took her hand. Dr. Linn, though petite, was strong and helped her up. “I didn’t—I guess—I just wanted to return her dog.” Her voice cracked.

  “I’m sorry you had to see this.”

  “You screamed—I didn’t know what happened.”

  She should have run away. Hidden out. No one knew who she was, not really. Jamie was a common name. Why hadn’t she lied about her name? Why hadn’t she just put Duke in the backyard and walked away?

  What were the police going to ask her?

  She had a very, very bad feeling that her whole world was going to crumble apart.

  Duke pushed his nose against her hand and she scratched him.

  III

  Detective Gayle Holman interviewed both the neighbor and the teenager who’d found the dead woman’s dog. She wasn’t buying the kid’s story. Something was…off.

  “What were you doing out after eleven?”

  “Walking home.”

  “You know there’s a curfew.”

  “That’s why I was going home.”

  “Where were you coming from?”

  “A friend’s house.”

  “What’s your friend’s name?”

  “Why? I don’t know why you’re asking me all these questions. I just found the dog last night, took him home because it was late, and brought him back this morning. I was being nice.”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “I can’t. I don’t want to get her in trouble. Her parents weren’t home.”

  “You’re going to be in trouble.”

  “I didn’t do anything!”

  “Emily Carr was murdered, and you have her dog.”

  The girl paled. “I didn’t hurt anyone. I didn’t know her, just saw her when I walked by sometimes.”

  “Then tell me where you were last night.”

  “Detective,” the deputy coroner said as he approached.

  “Stay put,” Gayle told the teenager. She moved away so the girl couldn’t overhear, and the coroner followed. “What?”

  “She’s been dead for more than twenty-four hours. I’m guessing closer to forty-eight—the A/C was on, so it’s hard to really get a good estimate. We’ll know more after the autopsy. Outward appearance of manual strangulation.”

  “So you’re saying what? Thursday afternoon?”

  “Morning even. I can’t give you an exact time, rigor has come and gone. I would say between early Thursday morning and midafternoon. 6 A.M. to 2 P.M.? That’s very rough.”

  “That girl’s lying to me,” she mumbled.

  “You think she killed the old woman? And returned her dog?”

  Gayle had been a cop for twenty-two years, since she was nineteen, and earned her gold shield nearly a decade ago. She’d spent a lot of time with kids in the community—volunteering, coaching a softball team, doing what she could with young teens to keep them out of gangs, off drugs, and in school. With
the territory came a lie detector. She knew when the kids were bullshitting her. Most of the time it wasn’t serious, and she let it pass. She didn’t think the girl was a killer, but she was being unnecessarily evasive.

  She left the girl to stew and went to talk to the responding officers. She’d worked with Officer Riley Knight many times in the past. He was one of the best cops in the field. “What have you learned?”

  “A lot. Come out back.”

  She motioned for Riley’s partner to keep his eye on the kid, then walked through the house. Though they’d opened up all the doors and windows to air out the place, it still reeked of the dead.

  Emily Carr was a bit of a pack rat, but though cluttered, everything was tidy and clean. Riley said, “Front door was locked—the neighbor confirmed that she unlocked both the dead bolt and main lock when she came in. The back door was unlocked. Half-finished coffee on the table, a plate in the sink with remnants of egg and toast, so I’m guessing she was finished with breakfast.”

  “I’m with you.”

  “The dog is a German shepherd mix. Neighbors—not the doctor next door, but the family on the south side—said the dog was barking Thursday morning around ten.”

  “That’s specific.”

  “The mother—she has two teenage boys who left for school at seven thirty—left the house about ten and heard Duke ‘barking his head off.’ She was going to talk to Mrs. Carr when she returned, but when she got back at noon, Duke was silent, and she didn’t think anything else of it.”

  “When was the last time anyone saw Mrs. Carr?”

  “Dr. Linn called her husband—he’s with a patient and can’t come right now, but will give a statement at the station later. He’s also a doctor. He told his wife he saw Mrs. Carr watering Thursday morning when he left for the hospital. We confirmed with his administrator that he arrived to prep for surgery at seven. But look at this.”

  Though the kitchen was well-lit, Riley shined his light on the door. There was a faint impression of a partial shoe print, as if someone had kicked the door with the bottom of a sneaker.

  “That’s good, Knight.”

  “I aim to please.”

  “Why haven’t you taken the detective exam?”

  “I like being a uniformed cop. I leave the detecting to the rest of my family.” Riley Knight came from a long line of cops.

  “That’s not all,” he continued. “The door was unlocked. It’s been dusted, and CSI has collected evidence from the print, so we’re clear.”

  Still, he didn’t remove his gloves and opened the door. “No sign of lockpick or forced entry. But see here?” He gestured to the outside of the door. It had been clawed up—likely by the dog.

  “So, the dog is outside, his owner is being attacked, he tries to get in.”

  “Yes, but something more—the killer didn’t exit the way he entered. I sure wouldn’t if I’d just killed someone and a dog wanted to bite my head off. There are two other exits—the front door, which was dead-bolted according to Dr. Linn—and a sliding glass door in the den down the hall.”

  “And that’s what he used.”

  “Yes. It goes to a side patio. On the Linn side of the property, there is clear evidence that he hopped the fence. But there’s more.”

  “You have the killer on video.”

  He laughed. “No, not yet—but he didn’t get into the yard from the side fence. He got in through the back fence.”

  Knight led the way through the deep, narrow backyard that had a small grass area and lots of bushes and trees. The CSI team was collecting evidence at the back fence—a very nice wood-and-brick design. The house behind the Carr home was larger and wider, abutting both Carr’s property line and the family to the south.

  “Almost done here,” the head CSI said. “You were right, Riley—this is how he came in. I can’t confirm without testing, but the soil here is similar—and possibly a match to the trace found in the kitchen. And there are recent scuff marks from shoes on both sides of the fence. This brick here? It’s loose and recently fell, then was put back. There’s a bench on the other side. If the killer used the bench to help leverage himself, he would likely have touched this brick. Maybe it loosened under his weight. He put it back—but I’m going to take it in for trace. Brick is a really shitty surface to get prints from, but we might be able to pull something.”

  “Would love to get his DNA, too—maybe he cut himself,” Gayle said.

  The tech laughed. “Only on TV, Detective.”

  “We need to talk to the owners of that house—they might have surveillance cameras,” Gayle said. “Want to join me, Riley?”

  “Absolutely. It was bold—jumping over the fence in broad daylight in a neighborhood like this.”

  “People work. And with all the trees here, he could have been shielded.” They walked back toward the house. Gayle saw the hole under the gate. “So the girl wasn’t lying. The dog really did dig himself out.”

  “Lying? The teenager?”

  “She was evasive. She pushed my buttons.”

  “She’s fifteen and being questioned by cops. That would make most kids nervous.”

  “Still—something’s up with her. I’m not letting her off the hook yet.”

  “I have an idea.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Gayle listened to Riley’s idea, and agreed. “Okay, we’ll do it your way.” They walked back to where Riley’s partner was standing with Dr. Linn and Jamie.

  “Jamie,” Gayle said, “we can’t locate a relative of Mrs. Carr’s right now, and Officer Knight is a big animal lover and doesn’t want to send Duke to the pound.”

  His partner snorted. “He can’t possibly take another stray in. He has three cats and two dogs as it is.”

  “It seems that Duke here has bonded with you, Jamie. So we discussed it and agreed that if you want, you can take care of him until relatives have the option of weighing in. If no one wants him, we can help you adopt him.”

  “Really?” She seemed stunned. “You’d help me?”

  “Sure. He likes you, and he just lost his owner. However, he may have seen or smelled whoever killed Mrs. Carr, and there is some precedent for using dogs as witnesses.” That was only partly true. Courts were nervous about canine identification.

  Gayle squatted in front of Duke. He stared at her. “Duke, I just want to check your paws, okay?” She gently reached down. On the right front paw the claws were worn completely down and two were clearly broken off. “Poor guy.”

  “What happened?” Jamie asked.

  “He was clawing at the back door. When you get home, clean him up, and if they start bleeding take him to the vet.”

  Jamie’s face fell. “Okay.”

  Riley said, “If you go to the MidTown Vet Clinic on 27th and L, they’ll take care of Duke for free.” He handed Jamie his card. “Just show them this, I’m friends with the head animal doc there.”

  “I need your address for the records, and because we’ll need to follow up when we find a suspect.”

  The girl gave her full name—Jamie Blair—and her mother’s name, Janice. Her cell number and an address off 65th Street. Definitely a whole world different from the Fabulous Forties.

  Gayle wanted to ask her what she was doing on this side of the highway, but didn’t. “Okay,” she said, “and where do you go to school? Hiram Johnson? St. Francis?”

  She snorted. “Johnson.”

  “Freshman?”

  “Sophomore.”

  “Homeroom teacher?”

  “Ms. Fields.”

  “Okay. We’re good here. You want a ride home? It’s getting hot, and Duke’s paws look sore.”

  Jamie bit her lip. “I guess.”

  Gayle sent Riley’s partner off to escor
t the girl, discreetly instructing him to confirm her address; then she and Riley drove around the block to the house in question.

  The address was 1407 49th Street. It was a wide, stately home with a large old tree in the front that Gayle would have loved to climb when she was a kid. Knight ran the address. “This is interesting. Officers were called to the house last night for a possible burglary.”

  “What time?”

  “Twelve forty-five. The residents, Cynthia and Brandon Block, returned home shortly after midnight. When Mrs. Block was putting her jewelry away, she noticed that her diamond earrings were missing, along with five hundred dollars she keeps in her jewelry box.”

  “That’s it?”

  “When police arrived, Mr. Block said he thought he had an extra credit card in his desk that wasn’t there. But all electronics, art, and most jewelry were there. Full inventory pending.”

  “What kind of thief comes in and just takes a couple things?”

  “The earrings were worth twenty thousand dollars.”

  “You’re shitting me. I’ll bet she flushed them down the toilet to get the insurance payout,” Gayle mumbled.

  Murder Thursday morning, then theft Friday night? Could the killer have been staking out the place and thought Mrs. Carr had seen him? If so, why would he kill her for twenty-thousand-dollar earrings? Most thieves would simply avoid the mark, find another. Unless the thief took something that the Blocks didn’t report. But then why report the theft at all?

  Gayle rang the bell. An attractive, slender woman in her late thirties answered. Even though it was Saturday morning, she was impeccably dressed, with jewelry and makeup. “Mrs. Block?”

  “You found my earrings?” she asked hopefully.

  “No. We’re here about your neighbor, Mrs. Carr.”

  “Who?”

  “She lives in the house behind you. Seventy-nine years old. She was murdered.”

  Mrs. Block blinked. “Murdered? Oh no. That’s awful. Who would do that? I didn’t know her well—only talked with her a few times. Emily, I think her name was. She was such a kind older woman.”

  “Do you have a few minutes?”

  “Well, yes, I suppose, though my husband will be home from golf in an hour and we’re going out to lunch with friends.”