by Ellen Clary
Amy said on the line, “Cancel that possible suspect except for possible boyfriend beating.”
She could see Steve, who could hear quite well over the headset, cough to cover a laugh.
Steve said back to Tank Top, “Well, maybe he’s just tied up somewhere—”
Tank Top replied, “With who, and why wasn’t I invited?”
Amy, who had moved closer, could see a helpless look working its way onto Steve’s face.
Harris, at Central, said on the headset, “Arrest him, you know he wants it.”
The helpless look gained a better hold on Steve’s features.
Tank Top said, “I’m sorry I’ve been bitching at you and there you are just innocently walking your dog.” Leaning over, he asked, “And what’s your name sweetheart?”
Steve stammered, “P-p-per. Pearl.”
“Well, hello there, Pearl, you are a very lucky dog indeed to have a reliable, and I’m sure, punctual man in your life.”
Harris said on the line, “I beg to differ on the punctual bit.”
Steve, regaining some composure and speech, said back to Tank Top, “I’m sure he’s around here somewhere. Does he know how to find you?”
“We meet here all the time. He is not lost, I assure you.”
A voice in the headset said, “He’s left him for a woman.”
Turning her back to them, Amy said into her headset, “Harris! You are not helping.”
Harris replied, “Oh, this is all pretty helpless. So Stevo, how are you going to get out of this one? See any blond boys running around?”
Turning back, Amy could see that “I’m hearing things and am trying not to look crazy” sort of look on Steve’s face.
Amy noticed Pearl pulling on Steve. I wonder if he asked her to do that or she’s doing it all herself, she thought.
Steve took a step in the direction that Pearl was pulling. “Well, I hope he appears and this all works out for you all.”
“Not likely.”
“If I see him, I’ll tell him to hurry.”
“Thanks. Maybe. And bye, Pearl.”
“She says bye.”
Steve continued closer to Amy, but before he reached her, he turned and stood beside a tree. In one motion he ripped off his headset and pulled out his handheld, probably so he could speak clearly without anyone thinking he was just another schizophrenic.
“Harris, so help me, you are SO dead.”
Harris said, “Can’t hear you. Is your headset on?”
“Dead. I’m telling you. Dead. Dead. Dead.”
Amy said, “I’m sorry to break into this fine discussion but—”
“I’m not talking to him anymore. He’s dead even before I kill him.”
Amy cleared her throat. “Referring back to the reason we’re here.”
“Yes?” said Steve, who was looking pleased about declaring Harris’s imminent demise.
“Since it doesn’t appear that the suspect is here anymore, I’m going to give Lars and Pearl the scent that I collected at the lab.”
“But we don’t know if the person who stole the data units and the caller are the same person.”
“We don’t, but we seem to have hit a dry spot in terms of ideas.”
“Why not, we’re here anyway. Though let’s start on the side of the park away from Tank Top.” Steve put his headset back on. “Okay.”
Harris back in Central, who had been quiet during this exchange, said, “But you should ask Tank Top for a date first.”
“Dead man talking,” Steve muttered.
“Hearing voices again?” Amy asked.
“Apparently so.”
They walked to the other end of the park, saying hello to the passersby who wanted to greet the dogs.
As they neared the end of the park, they could see a basketball half-court. There were two five-person teams, one with all men, sweaty, partially shirtless and shouting. The other team was coed. There was also an equally enthusiastic audience.
Steve said, “This is hopeless. We’re never going to find anything useful here.”
“Let’s try the sides away from them. This isn’t the environment for a threatening call and Beth would have heard this in the background,” Amy answered.
Over to one side there were some fairly new, comfortable-looking wooden benches in the shade. The usual complement of pigeons and mourning doves were bustling around looking for lunchtime crumbs, with the occasional robin or crow swooping low at the dogs. Pearl ducked, but Lars started to bounce.
Amy took out her handheld and brought up the scent they got off the data unit. Steve looked dubious in that make-my-day sort of way.
Amy said, “I know it’s a complete shot in the dark.”
He said, “I’m not sure you have anything to shoot with.”
Amy had both dogs take a good sniff and they went right to work, expertly covering the ground in that haphazard-looking pattern that really wasn’t haphazard at all. Pearl went off close to the street and Lars stayed more to the inside as they worked their way parallel to the basketball game that, while loud and passionate, was not yet a brawl.
Scenting is slow work, even when you know what you’re looking for.
Steve said, “A tandoori chicken wrap is calling to me.”
“I can hear it. Lars and I are going to work on the other side while you both continue here,” Amy replied.
They had moved a short distance away when Amy glanced up at Steve and Pearl.
She saw Pearl pick up her head as if to move on to another track and then she snapped her head sideways into a magnolia tree trunk.
“Whoa, what’s that?” Steve said.
Lars wanted to charge over but Amy said, “Wait, let her work. Let’s not muck up the track.”
Lars seemed a little put out by this, but blew out a breath hard through his nostrils and hopped up and down in place.
Steve said, “Pearl, is it on the tree?”
Amy resisted yelling: “Duh, ya think?”
“Okay, so Junior Bad Guy put a hand on the trunk of the tree. I’m getting another sample. Now to figure out whose feet belong to it. Amy, could you record the track that Pearl is following?”
“On it,” she replied, putting the handheld into record mode.
Pearl’s nose was back on the ground. She walked about six feet back in the direction of the basketball court; she turned around and went back to the tree. Then she went in the other direction about ten feet and paused. Lars was starting to whine.
Amy told him, “Patience, enthusiastic one.”
He gave another, rather forceful, sigh.
Pearl backed up a step, appearing to vacuum up every molecule she could. Then she took a step forward. Then she stopped and looked up at Steve. “It’s okay, honey, just keep trying. I’ll make you something special for dinner.” This made Lars look pointedly at Amy. “We can talk about that later,” she said, scratching the back of his ear. He still kept looking. “You can stare at me all you like, but it’s not going to help right now.” He went back to sniffing the ground.
Pearl seemed to be considering something, and then she nearly dove forward tracking again. Steve, who had been deliberately lagging behind, had to rush to keep up. She walked quickly with her head moving from side to side, but still going in a straight line right up to a park trash can.
Amy could hear Steve mutter, “A garbage can. Oh, lucky me.”
Amy said, “See, Lars, sometimes it’s good just to watch and be supportive.”
“I heard that,” Steve said.
Amy said, “Wasn’t talking to you.”
But Pearl then continued on, with Steve saying, “Maybe you could do the trash can.”
“Maybe not,” Amy replied.
Pearl led Steve right to the street and stopped after sniffing in a few small circles.
Amy and Lars had crossed the grass to get closer.
“So he got into his car and flew away?” Amy asked.
Steve said into his headset
, “Maybe our dead man in Central can see if there’s any video surveillance footage on Steelton Avenue by Quincy Park, cross street Johnson.”
“Checking, but it will take a while,” Harris said. “What about that trash can?”
“Oh, nothing,” Steve said.
“You looked?”
“No, but going back now,” he said in that resigned voice.
Steve walked with Pearl back to the trash can, his face scrunched into a trying-not-to-breathe manner. He put on latex gloves, carefully took the top off, and peered into it. “Well, well, well.”
He bent from the waist and extended his arm well into the can. When he straightened up, his left hand held what looked like a small, disposable phone. “Ding ding ding. Do I win a prize?”
“Yes, you do,” Amy said. “You win the whole can.”
Steve dropped the phone into an evidence bag, saying, “I’d like to take the other option.”
“Which is?”
“How about the holiday island trip?”
“Nice try.”
“Okay, I’m taking the whole bag back and letting the real crime scene investigation people have a look at it while they look for DNA on the phone, which is what we really care about.”
Amy said, “Good girl, Pearl. Make him pay up with something yummy.”
Lars brightened: /Yummy?/
“Here, have this, and enough, already. Okay?” Amy pulled a treat out of her pocket and gave it to him.
“So why is Yolanda missing all this fun?” Steve asked.
“She’s doing another empath dog-and-pony demonstration, where she shows dog-human non-verbal communication without it looking like a circus.”
“With Gimli, the corgi, and his matching horse Hal, the Pal?”
“The very same. Hal, the horse, doesn’t ‘talk’ to her, but Corgi Gimli sure does. She claims not to have bought Gimli to match Hal’s Palomino coloring, but contends that a corgi-breeder friend convinced her that she had a really, really smart corgi that badly needed a challenging job and just so happened to be that blonde coloring they call red and white.”
“Too bad we had to miss it.”
“Yeah, I love watching their demos,” Amy replied as they got back into their vehicles.
CHAPTER 10:
Investigation Plan
LOOKING AT the large display in the LAI conference room, Harris said, “This is the list of cars that were parked at Quincy Park during the time the caller was there.”
They looked at the display, which showed video photos of the cars with a brief description.
Taylor Boxcar 30
Gray
Older 7 letter license—partial—9QHV3 …
Galtier Mountaineer
New, Black
License: 12QXH989
Owned by Tom Mayfield
Radiologist and DNA privacy advocate
Fife Robocar 166
Copper
License vanity plate: NOWER2GO
Owned by Rock Capella
Manager at Diamtech
Rincon 2964 Sedan
Dark Blue
License: 13GUJ912
Company Car for Applied Sciences
“Oh, that poor Boxcar,” Harris said.
Steve said, “I’ll take that slick Mountaineer.”
“You would,” Amy said. “I kind of like the vintage Robocar.”
“Give me my horse,” said Yolanda.
Steve started making horse loping sounds on the table.
Catherine Novako, the director of Locate and Investigate, who usually lead these meetings, had turned over the floor to Detective Beth Hanscom.
“Okay, boys and girls, we have DNA on the phone that our caller threw away, and unless we are severely deluded, we have the four possible rides our perp took in front of us. We have immediate owner information on two of them so I’d like us to check them out first. Let’s get DNA samples from them if they’re willing to offer them.”
“Dibs on the Gaultier,” Steve said.
Beth smiled. “I’m so sorry, but Dr. Tom Mayfield is a DNA privacy advocate and likely to be extremely sensitive to being asked for a DNA sample. I’m not sending our big, tough guy even if he is gentle.”
Steve glowered at Yolanda, who was making “Oh, too bad” faces at him.
Beth said, “I’m going to have Yolanda and Amy double-team Dr. Mayfield, and Steve is going to use his soft touch with Rock.”
“Rrrrrrrock,” Steve said, punching the air.
“And Harris is going to try to get a line on the owner of the Boxcar and more info on the generic company car.”
Steve looked over at Yolanda. “See if you can get a ride in the Mountaineer.”
Shaking her head, she growled, “Pfft, you are such a car slut.” Looking over at Beth, she added, “Sorry, that was probably inappropriate, but he did deserve it.”
Starting to talk with his hands, Steve said, “You know that thing can choose the best route over large boulders, even if said rocks are in a river and rolling around a little.”
Yolanda looked at him steadily with her deep brown eyes, as if she was trying to fix him into place. “If I see that, it’s the cosmos’s message to me to walk.”
Continuing to gesticulate, Steve said, “Com’on, you have a horse.”
“He has better sense than to go through something like that, unlike some people.”
It was actually Amy who said, “Moving right along, and not into the water.”
Yolanda said, “Okay, we’ve got the doctor, and sweetums here,” with an underhanded gesture to Steve, “will talk very nicely to Rock.”
Beth said, “Thank you. Back to you, Catherine.”
Yolanda said in exaggerated sotto voce to Steve, “Maybe you and Rock can have a car programming date using bones and sticks.”
“Maybe you should go roll over that Mountaineer.”
“I’ll leave that to you, honey.”
Amy, twenty-two years old and the youngest one in the room, said, “Children!”
CHAPTER 11:
Rock
ON HIS way over, Steve read the report.
Rock Capella drove a copper-colored Fife Robocar. He worked as an administrator at one of the companies near the park. He was five feet nine inches, with brown eyes and black hair that fell just below his ears. During the time of the threatening phone call to Beth, Rock said, he was on his lunch hour, watching his girlfriend play basketball. He was in a hurry coming back from a client appointment, so he parked right beside the park instead of at his work, though it was a timed slot, so he hadn’t stayed there long.
Rock had asked if they could meet at a sandwich shop nearby. Clearly, he’s not concerned about being seen talking to LAI, Steve thought. As Steve walked up with his Labrador, Pearl, a man seated at an outside table matching the photo he was carrying waved.
Steve introduced himself and Pearl, showed his ID, and Steve and Rock shook hands.
“Would you like to get some food?” Rock asked.
Steve sat down at the table. “I don’t want to take up your whole lunch hour, I just have a couple of questions.” He glanced at his handheld for reference.
“Sure, anything I can do. What happened?”
Steve said, “Someone made a threatening phone call from Quincy Park. We recovered the phone in a particular spot and we’re just ruling out people who were parked in the area.”
Rock took a bite of sandwich and looked concerned. “A threatening phone call? Yikes. And I was parked in the area?”
“Yes, and we’d like to rule out the obvious people who had nothing to do with it,” Steve said, trying to be reassuring.
“Because my saying so doesn’t mean enough?” Rock gave him a look that could be taken as an attempt at irony.
“Oh, it means a lot, but law enforcement likes to narrow the field of people they have to look at.”
“Rule out how?” Rock had put his sandwich down and was sipping at a soft drink.
Steve took out a sm
all envelope and set it on the table. “We do that by having you rub a piece of test paper inside this envelope between your fingers. It takes a sample of your DNA. There was also DNA left on the phone we found, and we can compare the two samples.”
His drink and sandwich apparently forgotten, Rock had a hand on his forehead. “A sample of my DNA? Is that confidential?”
Steve braced himself. This was always the hard part. “It is unless there’s a trial, then it might end up in public record.”
“For all to see.” Rock leaned back in his chair and sighed.
“I’m afraid yes,” Steve said.
Rock looked away in contemplation.
Steve looked at Rock more carefully. He had a goatee and beautiful soft lips. His eyes had an open expression, with no heavy brow and no prominent Adam’s apple.
Steve was bisexual, and even though he had been monogamously married to a man for ten years before his husband passed away two years ago, he kept his habit of visually admiring both genders. He’d looked at a lot of people, and right now he wasn’t sure which he was looking at.
“You’re hesitant about a DNA sample,” Steve said, not as a question.
“Yep,” Rock said, looking down and pushing at his sandwich.
“I’m sorry this is upsetting to you.” Steve let that statement hang for a bit, considering. This wasn’t a paternity case, nor an inheritance one, so there weren’t many reasons left for Rock’s reticence. He decided to take a chance. “And I take it there is someone important in your life who doesn’t know particular details about your chromosomes?”
Rock shook his head, but it was in agreement. “Yeah, well.”
Feeling braver, Steve went on. “Lacking a Y chromosome isn’t the end of the world. You haven’t killed anyone, and I don’t think you’re making threatening phone calls anywhere.”
Rock smiled ruefully, “She might kill me.”
“Or it might just make you more intriguing.”
Looking away, Rock said, “I’m really terrified of this.”
Steve leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Well, I’ll let you in on something. The person we’re looking for has a Y chromosome.”