I nodded, but hope wasn’t exactly springing eternal.
While one of the crime scene detectives began the laborious process of typing the killer’s words from the victim into a document file, and Bandoni and the others continued with the crime scene, I took Clyde outside to see what we could learn.
Ron Gabel and Detective Smythe had determined—based on mud on the floor and a single smear of blood—that the killer had brought Donovan in through a back door at the rear of the church and likely exited the same way. According to the woman who’d discovered the body, only five people had a key to the door. She was one of them—the other four were the church pastors and the facilities director. It was also the only door without a camera, suggesting that the perpetrator had information on at least some aspects of the church. To the woman’s knowledge, the last time the door had been used was three days earlier, when one of the pastors led a marriage-counseling session.
Which meant that if we got lucky, Clyde would be able to pick up a scent from the altar and track it through the door and into the neighborhood. If we were even luckier, someone in the neighborhood had seen something.
After Gabel had cleared Clyde and me to walk through the crime scene, I led Clyde to the altar and gave him the seek command. Clyde seemed to have decided to ignore the dead body—who said dogs couldn’t compartmentalize?—and sniffed calmly around the corpse. Then his tail came up like a flag, and he trotted toward a door that led out the back of the sanctuary and into a hallway.
Game on.
“Good boy,” I said as Gabel and I followed him.
Clyde trotted down the hallway, jogged left when the hallway split, and led us to the back door. I removed Clyde’s booties while Gabel opened the door, then Clyde surged through the opening.
The back door opened on to a below-grade stairwell that led up to a narrow alley. I flicked on my flashlight as Clyde raced up the stairs and Gabel and I pounded behind him. At the top I told Clyde to wait while I shone the beam around.
The alley ran between the church and a seventies-era office building. The office windows had a clear view of the alleyway and the church.
The paved lane was pockmarked with dumpsters, which would have to be searched. Trash—flattened soda cans, empty cigarette packs, fast-food containers—had snagged against the base of the trash bins, and a waterlogged stack of old newspapers slid out of the nearest dumpster.
The air smelled heavy with ozone. Moisture filled the night with a fine mist that collected on Clyde’s coat and glimmered in our hair.
I gave Clyde his head. He went left, trotting down the alley.
My heart beating fast, I followed while Gabel lagged behind, observing our path and making note of places he’d return to later to look for evidence. Clyde went briskly and without hesitation, turning north into the office building’s side parking lot. In the middle of the lot, he circled. A few seconds later, he stopped and lay down.
“End of the trail,” I said to Gabel as he approached. I slipped Clyde a treat for a job well done.
“Looks like our perps parked here and either walked Donovan down to the church or carried him.” He looked back along the alley. “Good job, Clyde. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find something else.”
Gabel set a marker next to Clyde. I looked at the office building, hoping to spot a camera. But the structure gave off a deserted air.
“I’m going to check out the building,” I told Gabel. “Maybe someone’s working late.”
He nodded. “I’ll start setting up lights in the alley.”
While Gabel headed back toward the church, Clyde and I went around to the street side of the office building. As we drew closer, I spotted a FOR LEASE sign in the window.
“No help here,” I murmured to Clyde.
Clyde gave a soft growl. I glanced down. My partner’s hackles were up, and he’d pricked his ears, staring down the street. At the same time, the hair rose on the nape of my neck as a familiar feeling coiled in my gut.
We were being watched.
I pulled us against the building and followed Clyde’s gaze. Cars lined both sides of the street—no cargo vans that I could see. In the houses across the road, dark shadows pooled beneath trees and under eaves where the streetlights and porch lights didn’t reach.
I considered freeing Clyde to run down our watcher. But the night was too dark, the watcher possibly armed.
Then the moment passed. Clyde’s hackles smoothed, and he wagged his tail as he sniffed at the door to the office building.
Damn it.
I pushed off my unease for the moment and focused on my partner. He looked at me, catching my eyes. He wanted inside the building.
I tilted my head back. The office building rose three stories. Maybe the killer had used the high windows to run surveillance of the church.
Maybe they’d even held Donovan here.
I rattled the latch on the front door, surprised when the handle turned. I looked at Clyde to confirm that he was curious and not reacting to any kind of threat. Then I raised my flashlight and pushed open the door.
A small lobby, empty, opened to a hallway with an elevator. Clyde and I eased inside, and I phoned Gabel.
“Clyde’s hit on something in the office building. From his behavior, the building’s deserted. But there’s something here that’s caught his attention.”
“On my way,” he said.
I put on booties and slid the K9 booties over Clyde’s feet. I raised the flashlight.
“Find ’em, Clyde,” I said. “Seek!”
Clyde leapt forward, and I hurried after him. He trotted through the lobby and down the hall, then stopped
