of his head and, just like that, her hit and run scenario flew right out the window. The man had suffered multiple skull fractures from a linear object of some kind, such as a baseball bat. His hands were crusted with dried blood. There appeared to be numerous broken bones in both of them. No doubt he’d been trying to shield his head from the blows-at least some of which he’d suffered right here. His scalp wounds had bled down into the moist ground beneath him. He was ice cold. Rigor had begun.
Des glanced around her for a possible weapon. Nothing was immediately apparent to her, and she was not about to search any further. She did go through his pockets. Found a broken half-pint of Captain Morgan in his coat, which explained the smell. Found no wallet. No identification of any kind. All Pete had on him were two rumpled dollar bills, a handful of change and a pen knife.
The uniformed troopers from Troop F barracks got there first and began rerouting traffic north and south of the crime scene onto alternate roads. Then the forensic nurse from the medical examiner’s office arrived. Des took her to the body. Soon, the white-and-blue cube vans had shown up and the crime scene technicians in their blue windbreakers were unloading their gear.
Lastly, a pair of slicktops pulled up onto the shoulder of the road, one behind the other, and out popped Soave and Yolie, who were two people Des knew very well. Back when she’d been a lieutenant on Major Crimes, Lt. Rico “Soave” Tedone had been her stumpy young bodybuilder of a sergeant. Smart enough, but seriously lacking in the maturity department. Also major insecure, due to his short stature and overbearing, higher-ranking big brother. Thanks to family juice, Soave was now a lieutenant. And somewhat more mature-although still a work in progress. He’d revamped his look since the last time Des saw him. He was experimenting with that goatee and shaved head thing. Plus the wardrobe was new. For as long as she’d known him, Soave had always dressed like a pallbearer for hire. Today he had on a very nice gray pinstripe with a powder blue shirt and a bold pink and yellow patterned tie.
“Let me guess, Rico,” she said after they’d done the hello thing. “Has Tawny started dressing you?” Tawny was the high school sweetheart he’d finally married after the longest courtship in recorded history.
“She took me shopping for my birthday,” he answered defensively. “Why, no good?”
“It’s all good, Rico. Especially the tie. Did Tawny talk you into that clean head, too?”
“This was all my own idea.” He ran a hand over his smooth, shiny dome. “How does it look?”
“Seriously pigment challenged.”
“I hear that,” agreed Yolie Snipes. “You need to get you a tube of bronzer, Rico. Right now, your head glows in the dark like one of those plug-in night lights.” Yolie flashed Des a huge smile. “Miss Thing, it is so good to see you again.” Yolanda Snipes, Soave’s brash young half-black, half-Cuban sergeant, had grown up in a hurry in Hartford’s Frog Hollow section, and owned a knife scar on her cheek to prove it. Yolie had a Latina’s gleaming, liquid brown eyes. Her lips, nose and braids said sister all the way, as did her hour (and a half) glass figure. The guys in Meriden called her Boom Boom because of what she had going on up inside of her sweater. She wore slacks with it, and a pair of boots with chunky heels that had her towering over Soave. “And how’s that cute teddy bear of yours?” she asked Des warmly.
“Mitch is fine. We’re fine. Everything’s fine.”
“You two set a date yet?”
“Feel free to move on to the next question any time.”
“Suits me,” said Soave, who couldn’t fathom Des and Mitch at all. “So what’s going on here this morning in your nice, quiet country hamlet?”
“We’ve got ourselves two noteworthy events, Rico. Possibly related. Happily, that’s your job to decide, not me.”
“Big thanks for the procedural pointer.”
“One is the theft of a slammin’ ’56 Mercedes Gullwing from the house right up that driveway over there- estimated Kelley Blue Book value north of three hundred thou. Belongs to Poochie Vickers, who is our most notable of notables. A true grande dame. Not to mention a television celebrity and best-selling author.”
“No need to tell me that,” Yolie said. “I’ve got all of her cookbooks.”
“The lady is highly beloved and way trusting. She left the garage unlocked and the keys in the ignition. They just drove it away. I say they because it was most likely a two-man job, given how far we are from town. Our other event is the murder in these woods of Dorset’s resident recycling bin scavenger, old Pete. Ready to have a look?”
“Tell us about him,” Soave said as they followed her into the brush toward Pete’s bicycle.
“Pete was an odd soul. Spoke to no one. Avoided people like poison. But he was harmless enough, and folks looked out for him.” Des recalled that First Selectman Paffin had urged her to keep an eye on Pete when she first came on the job. “Today is recycling day in this neighborhood. Chances are, he was making his rounds at about the same time the Gullwing was taken.”
“Sounds like he witnessed it and they shut him down,” Yolie put in.
“Sounds like,” Soave said. “You agree, Des?”
Des came to a stop before Pete’s ditched bike and grocery carts. “I’m on board, except that you’ll notice his cans and bottles are gone. If this was just about silencing him then why did they make off with his haul?”
“Maybe somebody else came along later and took them.” Soave, tugged at his goatee with his thumb and forefinger. “Maybe they didn’t see his body in there.”
“There appears to have been a struggle over here. Note the deep toe mark in the mud.”
A techie was snapping pictures. The death investigator was crouched over Pete’s body, dictating her notes into a tape recorder.
“He received several blows to the back of his head,” Des said. “The weapon was some sort of club or crowbar. There are defensive wounds to the hands. Also, he bled-out here.”
“What do you think in terms of time?” Soave asked the death investigator.
She flicked off her recorder and stood up. “He hasn’t been here all night, if that’s what you’re wondering. Three or four hours is more like it.”
“Which fits with our time frame,” Des said, glancing at her watch.
“Yolie, have these woods searched but good. I want that weapon.” Soave started back through the brush toward the road.
“Totally whack idea,” Yolie offered as they followed him. “Any way these two crimes are completely unrelated? Like, could this one just be a straight robbery gone bad?”
“I don’t buy it,” Soave replied. “Too coincidental. It’s not like this is a high crime area. It’s a no crime area. Am I right, Des?”
“This is Dorset,” Des agreed. “Not many people around here are so desperate for pocket cash that they’d beat a scavenger to death for his empties.” As they made it back to the road, she noticed that the troopers had waved in several television news vans from the local Connecticut stations. “The Vickers family is looking to low profile this if at all possible, Rico.”
“No problem. We can put a cruiser at the foot of the drive. Keep talking, Des. Give us the big picture here.”
“Big picture? You’ve walked into an old-school family feud.” Des filled them in on how the Kershaw brothers had just been released from Enfield for stealing from the Vickers. On how their father, Milo, had gone to jail for torching the Vickers’s barn. On Justine Kershaw, who was dating Poochie’s grandson, Be-ment Widdifield, the very person who’d called the law on her brothers. On his mother, Claudia, who was estranged from her cash-strapped architect husband, Mark. And how Claudia was also at odds with her brother, Eric, not only for hiring the Kershaw brothers but for failing to help her take control of the family purse strings. Des told them all about Poochie’s worrisome behavior of late-fishing her out of Duck River Pond, that hoard of candy bars in the attic, Claudia’s assertion that the congenitally frugal Poochie had started showering expensive gifts and sums of cash on Guy Tolliver, her companion.
Which was when Soave stopped her. “Time out, he’s her what?”
“Her companion, Rico.”
“I grew up in Waterbury, remember? I don’t know from ‘companion.’”
“The man lives with her but he’s gay,” Des explained patiently. “Get it now?”
“Yes,” he replied firmly. “But no.”
“Neighborhood canvass has turned up squat so far on the stolen car. But before this got bounced to you,
