Last Breath (11 page)

The napkin still covering the handle, he opened the door and tried to grab the dog's collar. The animal was faster than Connor, though, and shot past them to the yard.

“Boy, that dog really wanted out in the worst way.” Daria followed the dog toward the back of the property. “He didn't even pause to give us a sniff. And it looks like
he
is a
she.
”

“Oh, man.” Connor closed the door quickly.

“What?”

“Didn't you smell it?”

“Smell what?” Daria, a hundred feet into the yard, was distracted by the dog.

“Guess you weren't as close to the door as I was.” He started around the side of the house. “Stay here for a minute, and don't touch the door.”

“Where are you going?”

“To look for something.”

Connor had gone three quarters of the way around the house before he found what he was looking for: a window where the drape was covered with an inordinate number of flies.

But only one window. Which meant the body was most likely confined in one closed room. Otherwise, there would be flies on every window, and a surge of them would have tried to escape when he'd opened the door for the dog.

He walked the rest of the way around the house but found no other signs of anything amiss. When he returned to the patio, he found Daria filling a metal bowl with water from an outside spigot.

“Where'd the bowl come from?” He frowned. “You didn't go inside, did you?”

“No. It was on the grass.” She placed the bowl on the ground. “This poor dog is so thirsty. This is her second bowl. You don't think she'll get sick, do you?”

She turned and found Connor sitting on the stone wall that surrounded the patio.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked.

“I'm afraid so.”

“From the look on your face, it doesn't appear to be good news.”

“Not for Mr. Cross. Assuming he's inside.”

“You think he's dead?”

“Yes. Well, someone is.”

“Why would you think that? You didn't even go inside.” She walked to where Connor sat, the dog at her heels, and sat beside him. “You didn't go inside, did you?”

“No.”

“If you think he's in there, why not just go in and look?”

“Because I suspect it's a crime scene. One that I have no jurisdiction over.”

“A crime scene? Jesus, this is scary. You really think Cross could be dead?” She paled. “What do we do now?”

“We're going to start by calling 911.” He got up and started toward the car. The dog began to growl.

“It's all right,” Daria snapped her fingers and called to it. “Here, come sit. Can you sit for me? Good girl.”

Connor reached inside the car and grabbed his phone, then dialed 911.

“This is FBI Special Agent Connor Shields,” he said when the dispatcher answered. “I want to report a possible homicide…”

“She's really hungry, Connor,” Daria told him. “I think she's trying to behave, but she probably hasn't eaten since, well, probably since the day Cross died. Do you think I could go inside? Maybe get her some food?”

“Sorry, but no. At least, not now.”

They were sitting on the stone wall, waiting for the arrival of someone from the New Castle County, Delaware, police department.

“How long do you think Cross has been…” She had gone pale again. “Cross or whoever is in there.”

“My best guess, based on how thin the dog is, and the number of flies on that drape, I'd have to say he's been dead for a couple of days.” He stood, his hands on his hips, and walked to the end of the patio, where he remained for a moment before walking down the driveway. He watched the road for a while, then walked back toward his car.

“Maybe Cross isn't in there at all,” Daria called to him. “Or maybe he's dead but he died of natural causes. A heart attack, maybe. Maybe it's not what we think.”

“Maybe,” he said without conviction.

The dog approached him, wagging its tail tentatively. He reached down and let it smell his hand.

“She's a sweet thing, don't you think?” Daria joined them, as restless as both Connor and the dog appeared to be.

“Yeah, she is.” Connor agreed
. And maybe our only witness to what happened here,
he was thinking as he rubbed the dog's head between the ears.

A patrol car pulled into the driveway and parked behind Connor's car. A uniformed officer got out of each side in what appeared to be synchronized moves.

“You Agent Shields?” the driver asked Connor as the dog began to bark. The officer stopped and eyed it warily. “That your dog? Get it under control.”

Connor held the dog's collar and unsuccessfully told it to sit. “Yes, I'm Shields. And no, it isn't my dog. I believe it belongs to the owner of the house.”

Daria grabbed the dog from him and coaxed it back onto the patio. When she told it to sit, it sat immediately.

“Good girl,” Daria said softly, and tried to fade into the background. This was Connor's game.

“You called in a possible homicide?” the second officer, the younger of the two, said as he approached Connor.

Connor explained why he and Daria had been looking for Damien Cross, and what they found when they arrived at the house, from the whimpering dog to the hideous telltale smell when he opened the back door, to the flies that crawled on the drape covering the window on the far side of the house.

“Let's take a look at that.” The driver, whose name plate identified him as Patrol Officer Eugene Hill, watched as Daria took control of the dog. “Why don't you show us…”

         

Daria gave up the hard stone wall in favor of one of the cushioned chairs that matched the glass-topped table on Damien Cross's patio. Over the past ninety minutes, she'd watched the sun turn the sky coral and purple as it set behind the trees at the far end of the property. It was closing in on nine o'clock, and her patience had just about run out. She was hungry, she was hot and tired and thirsty, and she had work of her own to do. She'd given her statement to the officers and had watched Connor give his. At her request, one of the officers had brought out some of the dog's food and her bowl, and Daria had fed her in increments, a little at a time, so she wouldn't eat too much too fast and get sick. She passed the time tending to the dog and trying not to think about what was going on inside the house. She was also trying not to think too much about the murders and what they could mean. The Blumes. Elena Sevrenson. Now Damien Cross.

She watched the endless stream of law enforcement personnel arrive. Forty minutes or so after the medical examiner got there, the body was brought out of the house. Crime scene technicians came, carrying lights and cameras and black bags, and from time to time, Connor would be called into the house by one of the officers. Two more patrol cars and one unmarked vehicle had pulled into the driveway since the body of Damien Cross had been discovered lying in a pool of blood in the first-floor library.

The mosquitoes were the next to arrive, and to Daria's mind, they were the last straw.

She'd made several phone calls to Louise and they brought each other up to date. She'd called her sister, Iona, and her brother, Sam, and was greatly disappointed at having to leave messages for both.

The next time Connor came out of the house, she waved him over.

“I'm really sorry that we've been held up here for so long,” he apologized as he approached her, “but I think we should be able to leave very soon.”

“I never knew a crime scene was so complicated, so many people coming and going.”

“I suspect what they're doing here isn't so very different from what you do.” He pulled out the chair next to hers and sat. “What do you do when you find a tomb to excavate, for example?”

“We go layer by layer, photographing, drawing diagrams. We number whatever we find, note the layers of soil or rock. If we find remains, we note their condition and study them thoroughly before they're moved. We make sketches, we photograph everything in context.”

“Same here. The entire scene is photographed, evidence is numbered and photographed in situ, marked and tagged and placed in evidence bags. The body is carefully examined before it's moved. Not much difference, really.”

“The difference is that the remains I deal with are often thousands of years old, not newly dead.” She felt uncomfortable with the admission. “Actually, I've never seen a newly dead body. My experiences with death have all been secondhand, in that I study the context of the remains, I study what's been left behind. But I don't have to study a flesh and blood body. For me, the experiences have been more intellectual than emotional.”

“Ahhh,” he said softly. “I understand. I can see why this must be very upsetting for you. I'll check inside, see if anyone needs anything else from me.”

When Connor was halfway to the door, she called to him. “Do you think we could take Sweet Thing with us?”

“What?”

“Sweet Thing. That's her name.” Daria pointed to the dog's collar. “It's on her tag.”

“I'll ask.”

“What would they normally do?”

“Probably take her to a shelter.”

“I'd hate to think of her being in one of those places. She's probably confused enough. I'd like to take her back to Howe.”

“Let me see what Vince Coliani, the lead detective, thinks about that.”

He disappeared into the house. When he returned ten minutes later, he had a leash in one hand and the bag of dog food in the other.

“He said it was okay?” Daria's eyes lit up when she saw what he carried.

“He said just take her and go quietly. If any next of kin show up and want the dog, he'll give me a call. Frankly, I think he was glad I offered. His life just got very complicated, so it's one less detail for him to handle. So we'll just take Sweetie Pie—”

“Sweet Thing,” she said.

“Right. Let's just get in the car and go on back to Howe.”

He opened the passenger-side door for her, and she got in.

“You're going to have to make room for her somehow. She's probably going to have to sit on your lap,” Connor told her. “Are you going to be all right with that?”

“Sure.” Daria somehow managed to get the seat belt on and the dog situated on her lap.

She heard the trunk slam and a moment later Connor slid in behind the wheel.

“I put the rest of her things in the trunk,” he said, handing her the dog's leash. “I hope Louise is all right with you bringing her back.”

“I already asked. She doesn't mind.”

“You spoke with her?” Connor started the car and backed out between two police cruisers.

“Several times. My dance card wasn't exactly full tonight.”

“Sorry. Crime scenes take a while to process.”

“I know. I don't mean to complain. And I realize that poor Mr. Cross—they're still assuming it was him, right?”

“Yes. His wallet was in the pants pocket.”

“It was the same, wasn't it? The same as Elena Sevrenson?”

Connor nodded and turned onto the road.

“This is really frightening. Two people—”

“Actually, four. I got a call back from Will Fletcher, our computer geek. It appears the Blumes died the same way.”

“Dear God.” Daria leaned back against the headrest. “You told the detective back there about the others?”

“Of course. I had to.”

“I guess he'll contact the Philadelphia police and the police out where the Blumes lived.”

“He already has. Which is what I meant when I said his life just got complicated. And the press hasn't even gotten hold of the story yet. I expect we'll be hearing from them very soon.”

“Good Lord, I hadn't thought about that.” She frowned. “Do you think it will all come out, even about the thefts?”

“I'd bet my life on it.”

“Do you think it will hurt the school?”

“Are you kidding? This story is going to guarantee that once the museum is opened, Howe won't be able to handle the crowds. The public eats up this sort of thing. They're going to want to know more about Shandihar, about Alistair, about you.”

“Ugh.” Daria grimaced. “Next thing you know, someone's going to be talking about a curse.”

“If there isn't one, someone will invent it.”

The dog tried to get off her lap and onto the floor, so Daria moved the seat back as far as it would go.

“I can pretty much shoot that down. I certainly read no such thing in Alistair's journals, and I never heard about anything like that from my father.”

“Your father read the journals?”

“Years ago. He lectured at Howe as an adult and he had an opportunity to read them, but most of what he knows he learned from talking to his father.”