soft, his gaze intent.
“What time were you using it?”
He looked blank.
She took a step nearer. “I’m trying to get a picture of where you were in the garden. When did you use the blower?”
“Oh. I get you. I probably had my back to the house when I was blowing leaves. I started about nine-fifteen, finished up a little after ten.”
Annie looked into his brown eyes that held a glint of disdain. “Have you told the police about the leaf blower?”
His expression was cool. “Lady, they know I was using a blower.”
“Did you tell them the time?”
“I guess.”
Annie felt a flicker of irritation. Darwyn obviously didn’t care what the police knew, if anything.
“Did you work near the house?”
He gave her a hard stare. “You asking if I looked that way?” He thought about the question. Finally, his full lips parted in a slight smile, a very slight smile. “Maybe.”
Annie felt an intimation of danger. She spoke sharply. “If you saw anything that could help the police, it’s your duty to tell them.”
Now his amusement was clear. “I don’t like cops. Let them figure out stuff. If I saw something, it would be bad news for somebody, wouldn’t it?”
“Darwyn—”
He cut her off with a laugh. “No problem. Like I told the cops, I didn’t see anybody.” He turned away and walked to the mower, swung up into the seat, and the motor roared.
Billy Cameron ignored swirling insects, including a yellow jacket that hung between him and the small area of crushed grasses. “Don’t let the cloth get snagged on a bramble.”
Billy’s wife, Mavis, was a crime-scene tech as well as a police-station dispatcher. She knelt on a piece of cardboard. The bloodhound lay on the path a few feet behind her, big head resting on his paws, dark eyes watchful.
Max and Lou stood a few feet to the other side of Billy. Max held back a frond of a palmetto shrub for a better view.
In repose, Mavis often appeared remote and wary. Despite her happiness after she met Billy, she carried the baggage of an earlier marriage to an abusive husband. Her face always lighted when she looked at Billy and her gentle mouth eased into a soft smile. Now she was intent, focused on her job, well aware that evidence must be gathered properly. Each gloved hand held a handle as she nudged the flat-jawed pincers gently between bent stalks of underbrush and clamped the tool head to a piece of blue cloth. She tugged slowly, steadily. Suddenly she stopped. “I’m afraid the cloth is caught on something.”
Lou turned toward a cane thicket. Using strength honed by years of baseball and weight lifting, he snapped off a five-foot piece of cane. “Here, Chief.”
Billy grabbed the cane and poked behind the cloth. “There’s a patch of stickers.” He tossed the cane back to Lou, pulled some plastic gloves from a pocket, and knelt beside Mavis. He reached carefully below the wad of cloth and tugged. The cloth quivered. “Try now.”
Mavis pulled. As she stood, the wadded-up cloth fell free.
Billy joined her in the middle of the path. He studied her trophy and gave a satisfied smile. He used his camcorder. “Man’s blue polo shirt found hidden”—he glanced at his watch—“on Thursday, June twenty-fourth, at—” He glanced at Lou.
“Three twenty-seven P.M.”
“—three twenty-seven P.M. by search dog Durante and handler Officer Lou Pirelli a quarter mile into the Kittredge Forest Preserve, approximately three feet to the east of the path.” Billy turned back the collar. “Tommy Hilfiger. Men’s size large. Sky-blue color. The shirt had been rolled into a ball and secreted among a cane stand. On the front of the shirt is a reddish smear approximately six inches in length. The heavier concentration is on the upper end of the smear. The brownish stain may be blood. Laboratory tests will be run. The shirt was taken into evidence at”—he glanced at his watch—“four-seventeen P.M. by Crime Tech Mavis Cameron.” He clicked off the camcorder.
Annie poked her head into Max’s office, Confidential Commissions.
Barb beamed. “How about a slice of banana cream pie?” Max’s ebullient secretary’s hair, piled in its usual beehive, looked closer to strawberry than blond this afternoon. Barb said a woman’s hair was her own to fashion and always made a statement. Gold, she was a diva; red, she was a siren; strawberry, and she was betwixt and between.
Annie was tempted, but she’d left Ingrid on her own at Death on Demand for far too long. “Have you heard from Max?”
“He texted a while ago. He’s following a dog and probably won’t be back in the office this afternoon. He told me to close up shop when the pie came out. I just took it out of the oven. Hey, let me cut you a piece to take with you.”
Annie walked next door to Death on Demand. Dog? Whatever. Max was obviously caught up in something interesting. She’d give him a ring after she checked on the store. She smiled as she stepped inside. Actually she carried two pieces of pie, each in a Styrofoam container. Barb was always prepared. One container held a slice for Ingrid.
Ingrid was dealing with a long line at the front counter. Annie quickly slid in beside her. She tucked the small
