Vega quietly studied the broken handrail. After what seemed a long while, he turned to an officer who’d been in the hallway with Liz when we arrived.
“It would’ve taken a lot to send her clear through that rail,” Vega said. “A whole lot.”
I could guess what he was thinking. Gail was five six or so and weighed maybe 110 pounds. A woman that petite wouldn’t have taken down what appeared to be a solid mahogany banister unless she was pushed hard—and with very deliberate intent.
Vega kept looking at the cop, a young rookie with a dimpled baby face—I swear he could have been mistaken for a high school kid—named Jerred. And in case you’re wondering, I knew he was a rookie from a story my kinda sorta ex Mike Ennis had written in the Anchor introducing him to the town’s residents.
“You answered the nine-eleven?”
“Right,” Jerred said. “With Connors.”
“I don’t remember you being on tonight’s duty roster.”
“I wasn’t, Chief. But Elroy called in sick and I offered to cover for him.”
Vega rubbed the back of his neck. This was something he did when he was thinking hard. “Who found the body?”
“The woman outside giving a statement,” Jerred said. “She’s got that little shaggy dog . . .”
“Her name is Corinne Blodgett,” I said. “I think her dog is Zsa Zsa.”
Vega faced me abruptly. I could tell he was surprised to hear my voice, and realized he’d been too preoccupied taking in the scene to notice my exchange with the medical techs.
“Sky,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
I shrugged. Hadn’t I wondered that myself?
“Being helpful,” I said. “I think.”
“Didn’t I ask Connors to bring you to the other side of the house?”
“She got away from me, Chief.”
That, naturally, was from Officer Connors, who’d shoved past Hibbard and Hornby after following me through the door. All of a sudden the hallway felt really crowded.
It had also gotten increasingly tense in there, due in large part to Vega’s obvious unhappiness with Connors and me. He stood frowning at us without comment and then returned his attention to Jerred.
“Okay . . . so Ms. Blodgett finds the body,” he said. “Do we know how she got in the door?”
“It was open,” Jerred said.
“Open as in slightly ajar? Or wide open? Or just unlocked?”
“Unlocked, sorry,” Jerred said. “Ms. Blodgett was bringing in her dog for a dental cleaning. She works at City Hall . . . I think in the county clerk’s office or something. Told me she has an early meeting tomorrow morning.”
“Actually, she’s with the human resources department,” I said. “The meeting’s at eight a.m. sharp . . . I had to clean the main conference room today to get it ready. Corinne must have arranged to drop off Zsa Zsa tonight, figuring she’d be too rushed tomorrow.”
Chief Vega gave me a look. I wasn’t sure at first if it was because he appreciated the information or was annoyed at being interrupted. Or because the monkey had clambered up onto my shoulder and started making nervous squeaking sounds. After a second I decided it was a little of all three.
Meanwhile, he’d turned back to Jerred. “Corinne arrives with the dog, lets herself in the door. How come she doesn’t go around to the office entrance?”
Jerred shrugged. “Beats me.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“No, sir.” Jerred had gone from shrugging to squirming in a blink. “I, ah, left that to Clarke. Since he’s outside taking her statement—”
“Corinne probably used this door because it’s already after seven o’clock,” I said. Not that anyone had asked me. But I thought I knew the answer to Vega’s question, and felt bad watching Jerred cringe.
Vega shot another glance in my direction. “And the reason that’s important is . . . ?”
“Dr. Pilsner’s office hours are only till five. If she made special arrangements with Corinne, she probably asked her to use the home entrance. That’s where she would have expected to be.”
“At home as opposed to in the office.”
“Right.”
Vega tugged his chin. It was another gesture I’d gotten used to seeing when he was deep in thought.
The squeaking monkey aside, everyone in the hallway was quiet as Vega slowly moved around Dr. Pilsner’s crumpled body and studied it from various angles. Though I tried not to look, my eyes staged a mutiny. All at once, the full, harsh reality of Gail’s death—and the certain violence with which it had come about—almost bowled me over. Possibly as a defense mechanism, I pictured her alive and rubbing noses with Skiball while giving her a checkup. That’s one way cats make friends and express affection.
Ski has a shy temperament and doesn’t do her nose-rubbing bit with many people besides me.
“Anybody here notice this entrance is open?” Vega had stepped over to a paneled door to the right of the stairwell.
“Slightly ajar, sir,” Jerred clarified with a nod.
He hadn’t meant to sound wise. On the contrary, I think he was trying to impress the chief. But I jumped to his rescue anyway.
“The door leads straight into Gail’s offices,” I said. “I don’t think she keeps . . . kept it locked.”
“What makes you say that?” Vega asked.
“Hardly anyone in town locks the doors in their homes. Also, her reception desk’s on the other side. And her file cabinets. I’ve seen her rush in and out plenty of times without stopping to lock or unlock it.”
Vega was looking at me again, not a hint of annoyance in his eyes now.
“Thanks, Sky,” he said simply.
I stood there without quite knowing what to say. Have I mentioned that Mike was a crime reporter? Because he was. And it struck me that he’d never once thanked me for helping him with an investigation.
Vega had reached for the handle of the partially open hallway door.
“You wait here,” he said to Jerred, flicking a glance past him at the EMTs. “Nothing gets moved till I’m back . . . understood?”
“Yessir.”
Vega tapped my arm. It startled the monkey, who leaned over and conked the top of Alex’s head. “Did you see that?” he said. “The monkey hit me.”
“Sorry,” I said timidly. “I think he’s a little upset.”
Vega looked up at the monkey’s face, then down at mine.
“Does that thing really belong here?”
I shrugged. Carefully, so as not to tip the monkey off his shoulder perch. “He isn’t a thing. He’s a monkey. And at the moment we don’t know where he belongs.”
Vega finally gave out a sigh and waved Connors over.
“You and Sky come with me,” he said, pushing the door the rest of the way open. “I want to talk to the kid who’s supposed to have done this.”
Chapter 3
We’ve all heard nightmarish stories about how it is to discover your home’s been burglarized. A person opens his or her front door, finds everything in the place upended, and realizes someone’s violated what’s supposed to be a safe harbor. A lot of people will tell you that’s the worst part of it—even more upsetting than the destruction and loss of valuables. The deep and unnervingly intimate sense of violation.
I got a hint of that entering Dr. Pilsner’s office. The best I can describe the feeling is to say it was like inhaling secondhand smoke . . . except its impact on my mind and emotions was immediate instead of gradual. There was shock, horror, outrage, and a feeling of absolute helplessness that I’d be unable to shake for a long, long time afterward.
The office had been tossed. I saw that instantly as I came through the doorway from the foyer, following Vega into the area behind the reception desk.
Two tall metal file cabinets stood to the left of the entrance, their drawers pulled way out, almost everything that had been inside them scattered around the room. It was the same with the desk drawers. Whatever they’d
held had been dumped. Open and half-open manila file folders lay amid their spilled contents. Papers littered the desktop and chairs, covering almost every inch of the floor so you could hardly avoid stepping on them. There were patient records, order forms for veterinary supplies, drug pamphlets . . . all kinds of stuff.
I paused just inside the door, looking at the shambles around me, the monkey agitatedly scooting down from my shoulder and snuggling into my arms again. I felt him tremble as he burrowed his head into my chest.
Vega produced a low whistle. “Somebody really went to work here.”
Connors seemed about to comment when I heard an electronic bleep. He unclipped a two-way radio from his belt, identified himself.
“For you, Chief,” he said, and then held the radio out to Vega.
Vega stood looking momentarily puzzled, as if he didn’t know why the call hadn’t come on his own two-way. Then it must’ve dawned on him that he wasn’t in uniform. He sighed, took the radio from Connors, and raised it to his ear.
“Right . . . right,” he said. “Okay, got you. Call on my cell if you need to get hold of me again.”
He signed off, noticed my curious expression.
“That was Larson,” he explained. “Most of the animals have been rounded up. There’s a farm out near Wingaersheek Beach that’ll take them in till their owners are located. A petting zoo down in Peabody’s also offered help if we need it.”
The news came as a relief. I hadn’t counted the animals I’d seen running loose, but guessed there must have been more than a dozen.
Vega handed the radio back to Connors. After a moment he went around the desk to the waiting area and peered down a corridor to his left. I knew it led to the examining rooms, surgical room, and kennels. A door from the kennel gave directly to an attached barn out back, where Gail had boarded larger animals.
“The kid’s in one of those examining rooms back there,” Connors said. He motioned down the hall. “Poole and Woodburn are keeping him company.”
“You said you caught him running away from here?”
“Right. He was three or four streets down. Headed toward Broadway.”
“Any weapons on him?”
“No.”
“Drugs?”
“No.”
“Nothing at all in his pockets?”
“Just a wallet with a few bucks in it. And a cell phone.”
“And you’re positive he didn’t toss anything?”
Connors shrugged. “What with those animals running loose, we couldn’t take more than a quick look . . .”
“Well, now’s your chance. I want a thorough neighborhood search. Front yards, hedges, sewer gratings, you name it. Also, has anyone checked out the clinic’s medical supply cabinets?”
“Not sure, sir. I know I didn’t.”
“Then get on it. See whether it looks like anything’s missing from them. Especially ketamine and xylazine. But also lidocaine, antibiotics . . . whatever other veterinary pharmaceuticals might be kept on the premises.”
Connors took a step away.
“One last thing, Ronnie—”
He paused and looked at Vega.
“Talk to the neighbors and see if they heard anything. Between the office being trashed, those animals bolting, and whatever happened to Dr. Pilsner, there must have been quite a racket around here.”
Connors gave a brisk, alacritous nod, and this time headed off. A moment later I joined Vega in the reception area.
“You think this was about stealing drugs?” I asked.
“Could be. A bunch of clinics around Boston have been hit lately. You’ve heard of ketamine?”
“That’s a cat tranquilizer, right?”
“A tranquilizer and a hot club drug. What makes it all the rage is that it has psychedelic effects. The others aren’t as popular, but there’s still a market for them on the street.”
I considered that a second. I’d never felt the urge to mess around with drugs, not even as a teenager. In all honesty I can’t claim it was a consciously responsible decision. I certainly got into my share of trouble messing around with guys, and was no smarter, more grown-up, or problem free than my friends and classmates who were users. For whatever reason, the temptation just wasn’t there for me. In fact, I hadn’t ever seriously thought of giving Skiball tranks. Well, maybe once, when she escaped from her kitty carrier and jumped onto the gas pedal while I was driving on Route 128. Though I didn’t think that counted.
Killing for drugs . . . it was hard to take in. By no means was I naive; I knew it happened far too often, and intellectually understood what could drive people to it. But grasping it on a visceral level was something else.
If I was going to mull that any further, though, it would have to wait. His hand on my elbow, Vega was gently guiding me toward the hallway.
“Hope you’re ready to do some translating,” he said.
“Lista, dispuesta, y capaz,” I replied in Spanish.
Since he didn’t ask what that meant, I didn’t tell, and instead carried the monkey along in silence.
Orlando and the officers who’d chased him down were in the second of the clinic’s three examining rooms. But I suspected “chased” wasn’t the right word, or at least had a considerable element of hyperbole to it. Poole and Woodburn had been with the Pigeon Cove police for three decades, making them the longest-tenured cops in the department. They always rode on patrol together, and I’d been told they had married each other’s sisters together in the same ceremony. If their spare tires were any indication, they also ate all their meals together . . . and ate and ate and ate.
I doubted they could have done much running à la Starsky and Hutch without succumbing to cardiac arrest. And I wondered how they could have possibly caught Orlando unless they’d nabbed him by surprise. He had the long-limbed, whipcordthin physique of a sprinter, and it was easy to see he could have outpaced them without breaking a sweat.
We entered the room to find him slouched on a chair near a stainless steel examining table, his head hung down, his hands tightly clasped on his lap.
I won’t describe him to you as a Johnny Depp look-alike, even though he was. My editor at the Anchor would call that cheating if I did it in my column, and I try to take constructive advice.
Orlando was a handsome kid. About eighteen or nineteen, with sharply angular features and a mop of tousled black hair, he sported a mustache and a short goatee with a soul patch under his lower lip. He had on black jeans, a brown Ecko hoodie with one of those big embroidered rhinos in front, and black-and-white leather Nikes that I figured must have cost what he earned in a full week as Gail’s veterinary assistant.
As Vega approached him, I decided to hang back inside the door till I was needed. With Poole and Woodburn already there guarding Orlando, it was an even tighter squeeze than the foyer.
Then a bunch of things happened in a hurry. First the monkey began making a racket—an excited chittering that brought Orlando up straight with a sudden, electrified jolt. As he snapped his head off his chest, he looked across the room at the monkey and broke into a grin. It quickly got bigger and brighter, spreading from ear to ear.
“¡El mono! Mickey! ¡Está aquí!”
It took the monkey about a half second to react. Squirming against me, he puckered his lips and let out a long, high whoop. I initially thought Orlando’s exclamation had frightened him, but then realized what ought to have been obvious. There was no way in the world I could conceive of the happiness on the kid’s face making anyone or anything afraid.
As if to confirm that thought, the monkey broke free of my arms and sprang to the floor. It streaked around Vega, between Poole’s legs, past Woodburn, and then went scrambling up into Orlando’s lap.
“Mickey!” Orlando wrapped his arms around it and continued beaming with unmistakable joy. “¡He buscado todo el mundo para ti! ¡Me había preocupado mucho!”
Vega glanced over at me, his face a question mark.
“The
monkey’s named Mickey,” I explained.
“I sort of caught that much,” he said.
I shrugged, frowning a little. It wasn’t as though I’d been asked to pick and choose which parts to translate. “He told the monkey he was looking everywhere for him.”
Orlando nodded fiercely. “Mickey es un mono que está entrenada por Helping Hand.”
“¿Qué es eso? No entiendo.”
“Helping Hand?”
“Sí.”
“Una organización que ayuda a las personas minusválidas , señora.”
“The monkey was trained by a group called Helping Hand,” I said to Vega. “They provide assistance to people with disabilities.”
“By giving them monkey companions?”
“Now that I think about it, I remember hearing about the program,” I said. “There was a story on the news a while back. I—”
“El hombre de la silla de ruedas . . . Señor Douglas . . . fue al hospital,” the kid broke in excitedly. I couldn’t blame him. It must have been a relief to have someone there who spoke his language.
“He says someone named Mr. Douglas had to go to the hospital,” I said. “I’m guessing that’s who the monkey lives with, since he uses a wheelchair.”
“Sí,” the kid said. “He bring Mickey . . . bring to . . . ¿cómo se dice—?” He broke off in frustration, wrestling with his command of English. Then he gave me a pleading glance. “Mickey está aquí esta semana. Vive a la clínica cuando el señor hace sus reconocimientos de médico.”
I nodded that I’d understood him. “Mickey was staying at the clinic this week. Mr. Douglas boards him whenever he goes in for tests.”
“He won’t be too hard to find if he lives on the Cape,” Vega said. “Sky . . . ask Orlando to tell me what happened here.”
The kid suddenly held the monkey closer to him. I got the feeling he didn’t need that interpreted. But I asked anyway.
“¿Qué pasó aquí?”
He took a deep breath. Then, speaking mostly Spanish, he told me he’d been feeding the animals out in the barn—and waiting in the clinic for Corinne Blodgett to bring her dog in at about six thirty—when he heard loud noises in the office, went to see what caused it, and found three men in there going through the file cabinets. The instant he saw them, he knew they were robbing the place.
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