Takai noticed Des looking at it. “Moose was their au pair one summer, back when she was still in college. She had a mad crush on the father-not that she ever acted on it, of course.”
Des backed slowly out of the room, touching nothing. “I’ll have to ask all of you to stay out of here for the time being.”
“Whatever you say.”
“Any idea why her Land Rover wouldn’t start?”
“Damned thing always gets moody when the weather turns cold. Key’s in the ignition if you want to check it out.”
“Someone from Major Crimes may wish to later on, so please avoid touching the vehicle as well.”
Takai shook her pretty head at Des. “I don’t understand why you’re laying down all of these rules.”
“Miss Frye, we don’t know what we’re dealing with yet,” Des explained. “It may turn out that your sister hit a deer in the road. Or could be there was a gas-line leak.” If so, the medical examiner would find accelerant in her lung tissue. “Could be she lit a cigarette and the car blew.”
“She didn’t smoke,” Takai said. “That’s not what happened.”
“Okay, but until we figure out what did happen we don’t want to compromise anything that might be evidence.”
“You think this is a murder investigation, is that it?”
“I don’t think anything of the sort,” Des responded as they started back downstairs, Takai’s mules clacking on the steps. “I’m just following procedure.”
“Trooper, I really think you are missing the point here.”
“Which is…?”
“It was my goddamned car,” Takai said, her voice rising shrilly. “Whoever killed Moose was after me. I’m the one who everyone hates. I’m the biggest bitch in Dorset. Don’t you get it? They were after me!”
“You don’t know that, Miss Frye,” Des said to her in a calm, steady voice. “You’re upset, which you have every reason to be. But what you need to do right now is stay cool.” Des made her way toward the front door. “A top team is on its way down from Meriden. I promise you they’ll get to the bottom of this. And if there’s any reason to believe your life is in danger, they will protect you, okay?”
“Is there any chance it’s not her?” Takai wondered, following Des outside in her dressing gown. In her grief, the woman was clinging to her.
“There’s always a chance. But we should be realistic.”
“How can you tell for sure?”
“By taking a DNA sample of the remains. We’ll match it against a blood sample from a member of your family.”
And if Moose’s internal body parts were not totally incinerated they might also be able to get a DNA sample out of the semen residue within her vaginal cavity-leading them to the man she’d been having sex with in the night.
“I was just thinking I may know who he is,” Takai said, as Des opened the door to her cruiser. “The man who Moose was seeing-it could be this guy who lives out on Big Sister named Mitch Berger.”
Des immediately drew back from her, stiffening.
“The two of them really hit it off at dinner,” Takai went on, a mean little glint in her eyes. “Maybe because they’d been seeing each other, and were just keeping it a secret from everyone. Maybe it was him she was with last night. What do you think?”
“I think not,” Des growled at her balefully. Neither of them were women now. They were taut, predatory cats sizing up each other’s underbellies, their ears pinned back, hackles up.
“Well, you would know,” Takai said tartly. She’d done exactly what she’d set out to do-drawn blood. “There is one other thing you could do, trooper…”
“Yes, what is it, Miss Frye?” Des was angry at herself for letting this woman rile her.
“My father hates the media. This is just about his worst nightmare. Can you post someone at the road to keep them away?”
Des promised her she’d get right on it. Then she started up her cruiser and headed back toward the crime scene, watching Takai Frye in the rearview mirror as she sashayed back inside in the house, hips swinging in her slinky dressing gown. Even in her grief she’d had her claws out. Inflicting pain was what she thrived on.
Inflicting pain was Takai Frye’s oxygen.
The Hartford and New Haven television news choppers were circling overhead now as the Emergency Services people combed the scene in their navy-blue windbreakers and baby-blue latex gloves. The Bomb Squad crime scene technicians were on hand, too. There were so many cube vans clustered together out there in the field beyond the feed trough that it looked as if the traveling circus were in town.
As Des pulled her cruiser alongside them, an unmarked slicktop with two plainclothesmen in it drew up next to her-and out popped the absolute last person in the world she wanted to see right now.
Back when she was a lieutenant on the Major Crime Squad, Des had been saddled with a petulant, muscle- bound little weasel of a sergeant named Rico “Soave” Tedone. He’d picked up his nickname from a Latino rap song by Gerardo that had briefly been a hit back when he was in the academy. Soave belonged to the so-called Waterbury Mafia, a tight-knit clan of Italian-American males from the Brass City who formed an elite inner circle within the state police. Most of them were related to one another-Soave was their deputy commander’s kid brother, in fact. And he was, she’d come quickly to realize, someone who was trying desperately to outgrow being that kid brother. He pumped so much iron he looked positively reptilian. Grew a scraggly, see-through mustache that he thought made him look more mature. Dressed in sober black suits to lend himself an air of gravity. But none of it worked. He was a twerp. And their partnership had not been a success. He wasn’t bad at his job, but he was immature and insensitive, not to mention extremely prickly about criticism. He had never reported to a woman before, and he couldn’t deal with it. But he belonged to the Waterbury crew, and Des did not, and when things had gotten tight, he had stabbed her in the front. Now she was here, wearing a uni, and he was the lieutenant in charge of this investigation. And Des was not looking forward to this. No, not at all.
“Morning, Des,” he said to her, sniffing at the air. “Smells like the parking lot at the Sizzler’s out on the Newington Turnpike, am I right, Tommy?”
His sergeant promptly let out a reflexive hunh-hunh-hunh of a laugh. “Dead on, Soave.”
“Nice to see you again, Rico,” Des said politely.
“Back at you,” Soave said, flexing his bulked-up shoulders, which was something he did when he was ill at ease. “Sergeant Tommy Salcineto, give it up for Master Sergeant Des Mitry. Tommy’s my little cousin.” Another Waterbury boy. “Known him since he was, like, three.”
“Glad to know you,” said Tommy, eyeballing her up and down. Clearly, Soave had bragged on her frame in the car on the way down. Tommy was younger, taller and decidedly dimmer than Soave. His eyes, which were just a bit too close together, seemed permanently set in a confused squint. He dressed just like Soave, wore his hair just like Soave and hung on Soave’s every word.
All of which sent the little man off on an ego trip that he clearly relished. Christ, if the kid had breasts, Soave would have married him.
“So what have we got here, Des?” Soave asked her as they made their way across the field toward the wreckage of the Porsche. The all-clear had been issued-there was no evidence of any undetonated devices.
She told him that the victim was very likely one Mary Susan Frye, age thirty-two. That the car belonged to her sister, Takai. That she had just been to the house and discovered Takai was home and her sister, who had borrowed the car, had been out all night.
“Out where?” Soave demanded gruffly. This was him acting take charge for Tommy’s benefit. He even had his chin stuck out.
“She was visiting a man. Identity unknown.”
“Maybe she ran into one of these cows in the dark,” Tommy said. “You think?”
Soave went around to the front of the car for a look. “I don’t think so, T-man. The front end isn’t crunched. Any skid marks, Des?”
“None,” Des responded. “Assuming the victim was on her way home, she would have come to a stop at the crossroads, then made a left and gone down that road toward the river. The assistant fire chief heard three explosions. He thought the first two might have been gunshots.”
