The Dead Man

glancing off the snow in the backyard, ripples of liquid light washing over the windows. A bag of fresh bagels stood next to her purse. The binder Milo Harper gave me was next to the bag, spread open, poppy seeds trailing across a page titled Executive Dysfunction Using Behavioral Assessment of the Dysexecutive Syndrome in Parkinson's Disease. Reading it made my hair hurt.

Ruby went outside through the doggie door from the kitchen to the backyard, excavating snow and chasing latent scents and stray birds. I watched her for a few minutes then walked to the foot of the stairs, listening for Lucy, running water rattling in the pipes telling me she was in the shower. I opened the front door. She had shoveled the walk and the driveway, leaving only the packed tracks the car had made the night before, the car now parked on the street, steam rising off the still-warm hood.

It was seven thirty-five and Lucy had already accomplished more than I probably would the rest of the day. I went back to the kitchen, bit into a bagel, and stared at her purse, last night's questions demanding answers, glad that I didn't need a warrant to get them. I emptied her purse onto the table.

She had a Maryland driver's license, the address in Gaithersburg. Her birthday was April 10, thirty-two years ago. She was five-seven, a hundred and twenty pounds, the photo on the license capturing her in one of those is- it-a-smile-or-is-it-gas grimaces.

I found a library card, a Costco card, a photograph of an older couple holding hands, the woman a future image of her, and four twenties, two fives, and a one. There was a receipt from a Starbuck's at Baltimore- Washington International Airport dated yesterday, a pack of Stride chewing gum, a pen, an assortment of other odds and ends, and a single key on a steel ring.

Looking around the kitchen, I found my keys hanging on a hook next to the light switch. The key in Lucy's purse matched my key to the house. The finish on mine was dull from years of use while her key was shiny. I ran my fingers across the teeth, examining my skin for any loose metal shavings from a newly cut key, perhaps made at the drugstore in Brookside that was next to the bagel shop, opened at six A.M. and had a self-service key machine but there were none.

'Find what you were looking for?' Lucy asked.

It was the day after Wendy's fifteenth birthday. She was on probation for a minor in possession charge and had been out all night, breaking her curfew and her probation. Her purse was stashed under a pile of dirty clothes on the floor in her bedroom. I waited until she was in the shower to go through it, finding three joints in a plastic bag.

'Find what you were looking for?' my daughter asked.

She was wrapped in a towel, hands on her hips, the bathroom door across the hall open, the shower running.

'Where'd you get the dope?'

'You're treating me like a criminal. How do you think that makes me feel?'

'Ashamed and right.'

I didn't know how to be both a cop and a father. We had that conversation too many times to count as she migrated between rehab, school, and halfway houses and back to her mother and me.

'I said, did you find what you were looking for?' Lucy repeated.

'Where'd you get this key?' I asked Lucy.

Dressed in jeans and a turtleneck, her hair damp and her eyes on fire, she snatched the key from my hand, scooped everything else back into her purse, and jammed it under her arm.

'From my father. He sent it to me when he knew he was dying. Now get out of my house.'

She wasn't Wendy. I was embarrassed but not ashamed at being caught, my gut telling me that I could still be right.

'Get a lawyer. What were you doing snooping around in my bedroom?'

'I don't know what you're talking about.'

She didn't look away and her cheeks didn't turn red but she swallowed hard and blinked like I'd slapped her.

'You're sloppy. You didn't straighten the books after you opened my gun case and you wiped the gun down. You should have left it the way you found it.'

She squared her shoulders, arms tight across her chest. 'It's my house. I'm entitled to know who's living in it.'

'Why were you taking pictures last night?'

She bit the inside of her mouth. 'I didn't think you noticed.'

'You're lucky I did and Ammara Iverson didn't. She would have ground you and your cell phone under her boot if she'd caught you.'

'But she didn't. And I knew you wouldn't bust me.' Her aggravation gave way to a satisfied smile that spread across her face.

'How did you know that?'

'An ex-FBI agent gets called out to a crime scene. There's got to be a reason. Odds are the feds won't tell you everything even if they want your help. That's the way you guys roll. I figured you'd want to know why and that the pictures might help. I downloaded them to my computer. Give me your e-mail address and I'll send them to you.'

I studied her, coming up with more questions than answers, then tore a corner off the bagel bag and scribbled my e-mail address on it. She grinned again and stuffed it in her pocket.

'Why take a chance like that to help someone you don't know and who you're kicking out of your house?'

'I don't have a job and I can use the rent money. Besides, I wasn't going to kick you out until I caught you going through my purse. How's that supposed to make me feel?'

Wendy's voice echoed in my head. Lucy's anger was genuine and justified and her read of last night's situation was on the money. The combination was disarming.

'You're not the only one who wants to know who they're sharing a roof with. You show up out of nowhere. I've got questions too.'

She pulled a chair away from the table, sat, and stretched her long legs out. 'Like what?'

'Like who are you? You act like you've been on the job. What's your story?'

'Montgomery County Maryland Sheriff's Department. I was a deputy for five years.'

'Why'd you quit?'

She stood, folded her arms across her chest, and aimed her chin at me. 'They're real picky. They make you quit when they send you to prison.'

When she bounced off the couch the night before, loose, ready, and confident, I thought that she'd been on the job. Her eagerness to go behind the yellow tape and her refusal to be intimidated by Ammara confirmed it. I saw those things because they were familiar and because it was all she showed me until now. Her eyes narrowed, hard and cold, into a prison yard stare, daring me to push.

'For what?'

'Stealing diamonds, loose stones I found lying on the floor next to a dead body. Victim was a jewelry salesman. Put up enough of a fight to get killed. I got there first. Stuff was scattered all over the room. I didn't think anyone would notice if a few rocks stayed lost.'

'But somebody noticed.'

'Somebody usually does. The employer had a detailed inventory. We caught the perp the same night before he had a chance to unload any of it. Took all of twelve hours before it got back to me.'

'How long were you gone?'

'Thirty-eight months at the Jessup Correctional Facility for Women. Another six months in a halfway house in Bethesda. Plus, I did another year of supervision, peeing in a cup and looking for someone who'd hire an ex-cop, ex-con thief. Not a lot of demand for that. Got my full release last week and decided to come home, start over.'

'Why'd you do it? You don't look the type.'

'What's the type supposed to look like? One thing I learned on the job and in the joint is that the only thing you need to screw up is a pulse. I was there. The diamonds were there. I knew it was wrong. I knew what I was risking. And then I picked up the stones and got a rush that shut down every rational cell in my brain. It was easy.