Minniver’s house. There are two cop cars on site, one behind a silver sedan parked against the curb, and the other idling with its lights flashing in the traffic lane beside it. A police evidence tech, a guy named Jonas, is standing beside the silver sedan, waiting. Also standing nearby are two uniformed cops: Ron Colbert and Alan Nielsen.
Richmond slides his car in front of the lit-up cruiser and shifts it into park. He opens his door to get out but it takes several attempts and a lot of groaning before he makes it.
“Is it locked?” he asks the cops as we approach.
Colbert and Nielsen both nod and then Nielsen raises his hand, which is holding a Slim Jim. “We’re ready to open it whenever you say so. Looks like the keys are in it, along with her purse.”
Thank goodness we live in a small town where most of the people are honest. In a large city, I doubt a parked car containing visible keys and a purse would last very long.
“Did you dust the handles yet?” Richmond asks.
“Yep, looks like they were all wiped clean,” Jonas says.
“Okay, then, go ahead and open her up.”
Nielsen deftly slides the Slim Jim down inside the driver side door and after a few seconds of finagling, he pops the lock. Jonas hands around a box of gloves and I take a pair and put them on. Richmond pulls out a pair, too, but when he tries to pull one on over his huge hand, it tears. “Cheap crap,” he mutters, ripping the tattered glove off. He walks over to his own car, unlocks the trunk, and grabs some gloves from a box he has stashed inside.
I hear the rumble of a familiar car engine behind me and when I look I see Izzy’s Impala turn the corner. He pulls in along the curb behind the parked cruiser and gets out, carrying his scene kit.
“You’re just in time, Doc,” Richmond says.
Izzy walks up and sets his kit down on the street beside the just-unlocked door. He dons some gloves and then carefully opens the driver side door. We all peer inside, looking for signs of blood pools, drops, or splatter, anything that might indicate that this is where Callie Dunkirk was killed. But the car appears to be clean.
“I don’t see any evidence to indicate she was stabbed in here,” Izzy says. We all take a step back as Izzy removes his gloves, stuffs them in his pocket, and picks up his scene kit. “I’ll leave the rest to you fellows,” he says.
Jonas moves in with a small, battery-operated, hand-held vacuum and starts running it over the driver’s seat and floor.
Izzy looks over at Richmond and me. “How did it go with Minniver’s daughter?”
“Okay,” I say with a shrug. “She took it well, considering.”
“Did she have any ideas on who might have wanted to poison her father?”
Richmond snorts. “Yeah, she thinks it might have been Steve Hurley.” He says this with obvious derision, making it clear what he thinks of the idea.
“Hurley?” Izzy echoes. “Where did that come from?”
“Apparently Hurley is a neighbor,” I explain, “and there was some kind of property line dispute between him and this Minniver guy. Frankly, the whole idea of a cop or anyone, for that matter, killing someone over something so petty seems pretty absurd to me.”
“Yeah, I have to agree,” Richmond says. “Though Hurley is kind of an unknown quantity in these parts. He’s still pretty new here.”
“I’ve worked a few cases with him and he seems like a pretty straight-up guy to me,” I say.
Richmond snorts. “Yeah, like you’re an objective judge.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, come on, Mattie. Everyone knows there’s something going on between you two. Even I’ve heard the rumors, and I’m hardly in the regular loop.”
“There is nothing going on between me and Hurley.” I try to look offended by the suggestion but I can tell from Richmond’s amused expression that he isn’t buying it. Can’t say I blame him. But while my denial isn’t exactly the truth, it isn’t an all-out lie, either. Sure, Hurley and I have had a kiss or two, but that’s as far as things have gone.
“That’s not what I’ve heard,” Richmond says. “Rumor has it your attraction to Hurley couldn’t be more obvious if you were humping his leg every time you’re together.”
Great. The last thing I need is to be the topic of more rumors in this town. It’s not bad enough that I’m already the object of pity, thanks to David’s indiscretions. Now I’m being labeled as the town hound dog as well. And given my current situation with Hurley, it couldn’t have come at a worse time.
“I don’t give a hoot what you’ve heard,” I tell Richmond. “I swear there is nothing going on between me and Hurley.”
“Whatever,” he says with a dismissive shrug. “Like I said, I don’t see this property line dispute as much of a motive anyway. I need to dig a little deeper into Minniver’s life, see what other motives and suspects pop up.”
Jonas turns off his vacuum, sets it aside, and dons some shoe covers. Then he gets his fingerprint kit and settles into the front seat of Callie’s car. He sits there a moment, frowning, and then he calls Richmond over.
“Do me a favor,” he says, offering Richmond the fingerprint powder and brush. “Check the seat lever down there for prints. I need to move the seat back but I don’t want to smudge anything that might be there and I can’t quite reach it from here.”
Richmond takes the kit, and when he bends over to brush the powder on the lever, his shirt rides up along his back, exposing a wide expanse of derriere and a butt crack that rivals the Grand Canyon.
Izzy, who is watching along with me, quickly turns away and says, “That’s my cue to leave. Need a ride back to your car?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
As soon as Izzy drops me off, I take out my cell phone and call Hurley to give him a heads-up. He doesn’t answer, so I leave a message letting him know about the car and what Patricia told us. Knowing I have a long drive ahead of me tomorrow, I stop off on my way home and top off my gas tank at the Kwik-E-Mart, which just happens to be located right next to the strip mall that serves as home to Mancini’s Pizzeria.
Ten minutes later, I’m sitting at home eating my takeout pizza and wondering if Richmond is being equally bad. In an effort to mitigate my sin, I drop the end crusts onto the floor so Hoover can do the thing that earned him his name. After sucking up every last crumb, he goes to the door and whines to be let out. That’s when it hits me. Tomorrow’s trip to Chicago is likely to be an all-day event. And Hoover, though he has done remarkably well thus far, hasn’t had his bladder tested for more than an eight-hour span.
The responsibilities of dog ownership weren’t uppermost in my mind when I found him, especially since I wasn’t sure I’d be keeping him. I ran a lost-and-found ad in the local paper, but got no response. I’ve had him for nearly a month now and with each passing day he steals a little more of my heart. Even Rubbish adores him. It’s easy to see why, because as companions go, Hoover is damned near perfect. He senses when my mood needs lifting, listens patiently to everything I say, keeps me warm in bed at night, and shares my taste in ice cream. If only I could find all those traits in a man.
While I’m overjoyed to have Hoover, his presence does leave me with certain scheduling issues I didn’t have before. As I let him outside and watch him wander about sniffing until he finds the perfect place to piddle, I consider taking him along tomorrow. But we’ll be riding in Hurley’s car to who knows where and for how long, so I quickly dismiss that idea. I then think about asking Izzy and Dom to take care of him but I’m hesitant to impose on Izzy any more than I already have, and besides, the less I have to face Izzy while I’m withholding information from him, the better.
I would ask my sister, Desi, but she, Lucien, and the kids all left town early this morning to drive to Arizona to spend Thanksgiving with Lucien’s parents.
That leaves my mother. The obvious problem with this idea is that my mother is a serious germaphobe and I suspect a puppy will look like a giant agar plate to her. But she is also a hypochondriac, and that aspect of her personality gives me an idea.
“Come on, Hoover,” I say. “Let’s go for a ride.”
Thanks to today’s rising temperature, a good deal of the snow that fell Thursday night has melted. As a result, a lot of what was white and pristine yesterday is now gray and slushy, turning Hoover’s tootsies into mud magnets. I’m not too worried about him muddying up the back of the hearse. I was told when I bought it that the rear carpeting was some industrial-strength commercial stuff that would resist the most insistent of stains. Given the cargo that was typically carried back there before I bought it, I shudder to think what tests the carpet company
