Chapter 3 #2
I went up on the stoop and knocked again. There were three small windows in the top of the door, too high for me to see in.
There was no answer, but the dog started barking. A second later, it threw itself at the panes in the picture window, yipping hysterically.
I left the stoop and waded through the flower bed over to the window, pushing my way through prickly holly bushes and taking care not to step on flowering mums. The dog went crazy, hopping stiff-legged inside the window. Funny, when it hadn’t barked at me outside earlier.
Must be a protective thing. It was inside the house now, and it had to protect its territory.
The picture window was huge. Almost floor to ceiling. I could see the hardwoods a foot below the window inside, and when I peered up, the ceiling wasn’t very high above the window frame, either.
There was some very nice morning light in Mrs. Grimshaw’s formal living room.
Enough light to let me see, clearly, hundreds of tiny red paw prints meandering back and forth in front of the window.
I cupped my hands over my eyes again and peered inside.
Flowered chintz furniture, dark coffee table with a glass top. Small TV on a stand against the wall. Small, rabid dog jumping up and down, bat ears flapping.
And a pair of feet, toes pointing at the ceiling. One wore a fuzzy, pink slipper; the other nothing. Another fuzzy pink slipper lay a foot or two away. The rest of the body—Mrs. Grimshaw’s, I assumed—was out of sight behind an upholstered wingback chair.
I stepped out of the flowerbed and away from the window, fumbling for my phone.
I gave the 911 operator my name and Mrs. Grimshaw’s address, and explained that I could see her through the window, lying on the floor, and that there was a lot of bloody paw prints on the floor, but I couldn’t see anything else.
“Have you gone inside the house?” the operator inquired.
I said I hadn’t. “The back door was locked. I haven’t tried the front door. I can do it now.”
“No,” the operator said. “Wait for the police.”
“But what if she’s still alive? What if there’s something I can do, and I’m just standing here?”
“There’s an ambulance on the way,” the operator told me. “Stay on the line with me until it gets there.”
I could already hear the sirens in the distance. The nearest fire station must be nearby. “I can’t,” I told her. “I have to call someone. Sorry.”
I hung up. And then I called Mendoza.
The phone rang twice, and then he came on. “Mrs. Kelly.” It was impossible to say whether he was happy, exasperated, or something else, to hear from me.
“You have to come out here,” I told him, through chattering teeth. “Something’s happened to Mrs. Grimshaw.”
“Who?”
“The lady who called you yesterday. About the suspicious car. The one with the little dog. Something’s wrong.”
Immediately he was all business. “What?”
“There’s blood on the floor. The dog stepped in it. It was outside in the street. When I followed it back up to the house, I saw bloody paw prints. So I started looking through the windows. She’s in the living room. On the floor. On her back. And there are bloody paw prints all over the room.”
“Are you there now?” Mendoza asked.
I nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“Have you called 911?”
“Uh-huh. I can hear them.”
“Stay there,” Mendoza said. “Don’t touch anything. I’m on my way.”
He hung up before I had a chance to tell him that I had no plans of touching anything whatsoever.
While I waited, I got back into my car, still parked at the bottom of the driveway, and drove it up and around the corner to the carport.
No sense in blocking access for the ambulance—or for Mendoza, once he arrived.
And as he’d mentioned yesterday, cars parked on the street were conspicuous around here.
The neighbors would notice the ruckus once the ambulance and police cars arrived, assuming there was anyone home on the street to notice, but there was no sense in attracting their attention sooner.
And then I sat there and waited for someone to arrive.
It was tempting to call someone—like Rachel—to tell her what was going on, and to whimper against her shoulder long distance, but Mendoza was coming—with better shoulders—and besides, I didn’t know that Mrs. Grimshaw was actually dead.
Blubbering might be premature. So I just sat there and concentrated on breathing deeply while I listened to the sirens coming closer.
It wasn’t a long wait. Two minutes, maybe three, and then a vehicle came screaming up the driveway and stopped with a squeal of brakes.
I got out of my car and peeked around the corner.
It was the ambulance, having come to a quivering stop by the front walkway.
Two paramedics jumped out. I went to greet them.
Mendoza zoomed into the driveway about five minutes later, in the same gray sedan he’d been driving yesterday.
The same gray sedan he’d been driving every time I’d seen him.
I figured he must have a personal vehicle, and in my spare time I amused myself by trying to imagine what it might be—pickup truck?
Jeep Wrangler? Maserati?—but I had no real expectation that I’d ever find out.
We didn’t have a personal relationship. I only saw the detective when he was on duty.
By that point, the ambulance personnel had determined that the front door was open, or rather unlocked.
They had gone inside and had examined Mrs. Grimshaw, and determined that life was extinct—or in layman’s terms, that Mrs. G was dead.
I didn’t get a good look at her—nor did I want one—but her chest was a bloody mess.
I assumed she’d been shot, or maybe stabbed.
It wasn’t natural causes; I could tell that much.
And then Mendoza swept through the door and looked around. “This the way she was when you found her?”
The paramedics nodded. He glanced at me. I nodded too. “This is where she was lying when I looked through the window.”
Mendoza nodded. “You can go,” he told the paramedics. “Nothing you can do here. I’ll call the ME’s office and get them out here to remove the body. Thanks for your help.”
They gathered up their equipment and filed out. Mendoza turned to me. “You can go, too.”
“Do I have to?”
“This is a crime scene. I can’t let you wander around and compromise evidence.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I told him. “The crime scene is the area between the door and where the body is. The whole rest of the house is available.”
Including the patch of floor where I was standing, out of the direct line between the door and the body.
His brows arched. They’re nice brows, thick and dark and elegantly shaped. “Your PI classes tell you that?”
“No,” I said, annoyed. “Logic told me that. The door was unlocked. She didn’t strike me as the type to be careless, so I don’t think she would have left it that way.
” Not the woman who had called the cops because of a suspicious car on her street yesterday.
“She’s lying on the floor in front of the door.
It looks like she was shot. My guess is, someone knocked on the door.
Probably last night sometime. Late. After dark.
She opened it, so it might have been someone she knew.
Whoever was outside shot her, and then pulled the door shut so it wouldn’t look suspicious. Then he—or she—walked away.”
Mendoza’s lips had started quirking when I was about halfway through my reasoning.
“Not bad for your first time. But not necessarily accurate. We don’t know why someone wanted Mrs. Grimshaw dead.
Whoever shot her might have been looking for something.
If so, he—or she—might have come inside after the shooting, to look around.
The entire house could be a crime scene. ”
I hadn’t thought of that. Now I did, and shuddered at the idea that someone had shot this poor old lady, and then, while she was lying on the floor dead or dying, had callously stepped over the body to ransack the house.
“Murder isn’t pretty,” Mendoza told me. “Please, Mrs. Kelly. Go home and let me do my job. And take this—” He bent and scooped up the small dog with a hand under its belly, “with you.”
He dropped it into my arms. It almost ended up on the floor before I got a good grip on it. And I’m sure it was leaving nasty, red paw prints all over my nice silk blouse as it scrabbled for purchase. “I can’t take it!”
“She can’t stay here alone,” Mendoza pointed out. “And she can’t go with the body.”
I shifted the small, quivering body to a better hold. “Why don’t you take it?”
“It’s a she. Her name is Edwina. And my kid’s allergic.”
Mendoza had a son. Five years old. Elias.
All of which I knew because Mendoza had told me, not because I’d ever met Elias.
He lived with his mother and the PI, but sometimes he stayed with Mendoza.
If Elias was allergic to dogs, then no, Edwina couldn’t go home with Mendoza.
She’d probably prefer it—she was eying him with adoration, even from my arms—but she’d have to put up with me.
At least until I could figure something else out.
I wasn’t even sure the Apex allowed pets.
“Maybe Rachel wants a dog. Or Zachary.” Although if Zachary wanted a dog, it would probably be something bigger than this. Rachel might enjoy her, though.
“That’s the spirit,” Mendoza said. “Now take her away and let me work.”
I stayed where I was. “Will you call me later and tell me what you find out? I feel…” I hesitated, looking for the right word. Not responsible, because what had happened to Mrs. Grimshaw had nothing to do with me, but… something.
“I’ll do my best,” Mendoza said. “Please, Mrs. Kelly. The longer you stand there, the longer before I can concentrate on figuring out what happened here.”
I withdrew. With a final, “Call me.” Mendoza didn’t respond.
I put the dog in the passenger seat and walked around the car to the driver’s side.
By the time I had backed down the driveway and was headed up the street, the dog was standing on my thighs with her nose against the window.
I had one arm snaked over her back, and the other in front of her chest, with her head on top of my arm.
It made turning the steering wheel difficult.
“This isn’t going to work,” I told her.
She ignored me, in favor of watching the world go by. Her nose was making a damp spot on the window.
I dumped her back in the passenger seat. She gave me a wounded look before turning to the other window.
“Oh, dammit!”
Those bloody little paws were leaving marks on my cream leather seat. And worse, they had marked my linen slacks, too. Blood’s impossible to get out, unless you do it right away.
“That does it,” I told the dog. “We’re going home. You can walk around in the bathtub while I soak my shirt.”
She didn’t answer, of course. Just kept looking out the window. Although I swear she was grinning.