“I should go with you.” She took a deep breath and got out of the car.
We backtracked to the street and looked around at all the purposeful chaos. It wasn’t hard to tell who was in charge. Chief John Turner was tall, maybe as tall as Dana, but then she’s a model. He was new, so I had never met him, but I certainly liked him better when he wasn’t yelling. The whimsically painted mini-van was in sharp contrast to his severe demeanor and uniform. Said uniform wasn’t particularly stern, being a light blue, short-sleeve shirt and navy pants. It was somewhere between late afternoon and early evening, which placed the sun behind him, outlining his broad build. I guess the way we’d been let through told him who we were because he left the group of uniformed officers he’d been talking to. We watched each other through matching Ray-Bans and met up at the back of the Honda.
He gave me his name then reached out and we shook hands.
“I’m Sue Patrick and this is Lady Anthea Fitzwalter.”
She stared at his outstretched hand for a beat. It seemed an eternity—like what her formality was going to make this week feel like—before she relaxed and shook his hand.
“Nice to meet you,” he said. I’d place his age in the mid-forties. He looked like he’d spent a lot of time outdoors. “You’re from the dog place?” He had to speak loud enough to be heard over the barking coming from inside the van.
“The Pet Palace,” I corrected him.
Suddenly, the barking stopped.
“The what?” Turner said with a raised eyebrow and a curled lip. He glanced back at the now quiet van.
Lady Anthea cleared her throat to regain his attention and pointed to the burgundy lettering on the van. “We’re the owners of the Buckingham Pet Palace.”
Turner turned back to us. Derision oozed out of the police chief’s pores, making me feel like the 1950s Elvis surrounded by a congregation of Southern Baptists. He opened his mouth to say something, and the barking started again. A small dog first, a larger dog joining in. And the third rounding out the harmony.
“Uh, I have the key,” I said. The van went silent again. “Can I open the door now?”
He held up a stop-sign hand. “Juuuust a second.” His voice was deep, almost a growl. He scanned the parking lot, stopping when he saw the handler of the German Shepherd. Then he spoke into the radio on his shoulder. “Chuck?” The handler looked our way and the dog lowered to a ready sit. From this position, he could jump up in less than a second. Chief Turner motioned for him, actually them, to join us and spoke into his radio again. “Can you give this another check?”
We watched and waited as the dog handler and the German Shepherd wove through the cars to get to us.
The pleasantries were out of the way, and we were about to see how long he would think it was nice to meet me. “There are three dogs in that vehicle and it’s August. I’m responsible for them and I need to open that door right away.” Water bowls were attached to the rungs on the sides of the crates and the dogs sounded okay, but since mentioning either fact would hurt my case, I didn’t.
“Animals in a closed-up car is something we take very seriously,” Lady Anthea said. She was standing beside me, and it felt good to have her support.
The police chief took in my face and then hers. “I need just another minute.”
Another minute? No. I pointed the key fob at the van.
“Please.” Turner’s voice was unexpectedly gentle. I lowered my arm and took a deep breath.
I turned to Lady Anthea. “I know the dog handler, Chuck. There used to be a children’s daycare center in the Villages of Five Points. He and I gave a talk to the kids there and they met one of his dogs. They’re all cross-trained in bomb sniffing and attack. The dogs, that is. Not the kids. But maybe they are too, I wouldn’t know.”
Before he could stop himself, Chief Turner laughed.
I went on. “We didn’t mention the attack part to them.” I got a kick out of seeing him loosen up, but I was also rambling to hide my rising anxiety about the dogs.
When Chuck got closer, his dog turned in a circle either from excitement or confusion. The Shepherd walked around the back of the van and halfway up the length of the vehicle, then reversed and walked back to the middle of the van on the other side. When they passed our little group, the handler said, “Hi, Sue.” Then he turned to Chief Turner. “There’s an unfamiliar scent coming from the back of the van.”
“He’s not just reacting to the dogs in there?” I asked.
Chuck shrugged his shoulders. “Could be, but I don’t think so.”
“So are we cleared to open the vehicle?” Chief Turner asked.
“Go ahead.” The two men said goodbye via that reverse-nod motion their gender uses. Chuck and his dog went back to inspecting cars lined up to drive onto the ferry.
I went around to the side of the van and Lady Anthea followed.
“Those dogs gonna leap out?” Chief Turner leaned over me as I clicked the key fob, and the side door rolled back.
“No, they’re in crates.” I had my foot on the running board about to step in. The dogs went silent and stiffened as the door opened. All three—the dachshund, the collie mix, and the poodle—were on high alert, getting information from wherever they could. Seeing, smelling, or hearing. “It’s okay, fellas.” Their backs and tails relaxed. Robber’s front legs bent a little. The crates squeaked as they shifted their weight, moving their paws up and down as they calmed. Paris sighed and gave a little “mmm” whimper.
“Everything’s fine.”
Only it wasn’t. There was something on the floor, between the two rows of crates. My employee, Henry. The front of his white undershirt was covered in black blood. His eyes were open and his chin was raised. He seemed to be looking to his side, or over his shoulder. His right arm was bent at the elbow, with his lower arm either protecting his throat, or the lower part of his face. I backed out of the van, thinking my shoe would never reach the asphalt. “Chief?”
I’m five-foot-seven, but he bent forward to hear me. I tilted my head to the van’s interior. The dogs, all three, were still watching me. Waiting for me.
As I was processing what I’d seen, I was raising a wall so this couldn’t hurt me.
Turner leaned in and saw what I had seen. He radioed for another officer to join him, then he took off his sunglasses and looked at me. “I’m sorry. That explains Chuck’s dog’s confusion. He’s not trained to detect a cadaver.” Then he turned to the uniformed woman. “Get a crime scene team out here.”
A corpse, outside of a funeral, should have scared me. Instead, I was enormously sad. Henry was my latest hire. He had worked at Buckingham’s for three months but was still outside the team we had become. The confident, dynamic man I interviewed turned out to be arrogant and cagey. I was planning to fire him, but that didn’t change the fact that I hadn’t been there to take care of my employee. I found myself mentally promising him that we’d find out who did this. We?
I looked over at Lady Anthea standing ramrod stiff. “Henry? Is he…?” she asked.
I nodded, looking down at my feet.
She cleared her throat. If anything, she pulled herself up even taller, straighter, and more in control. Then she asked me, “Can we get the dogs out? We need to take them to their respective homes.”
Chief Turner’s eyes darted to the van, but he didn’t answer.
I turned to him. “With some help, we can take the crates out