Never Con a Corgi (27 page)

She stopped. Anyone would be curious, wouldn't they? She leaned in to peer through the narrow window. The solid back of a uniformed security guard flew by her field of vision and went stomping off down the stairs. "Stop him!" the man bellowed.

Diana popped open the door. She stuck her head in the stairwell. She could hear feet pounding furiously, but she could see nothing. Wrenching the shoe off one foot, she stepped inside, wedged the door open with her heel, and crept out to peer over the railing.

It happened in a flash. Bruce was flying down the stairs like a madman with the security guard hot in pursuit. He had a good lead, but Diana could see that another guard was waiting below to block him at the street level exit.

Don't interfere, Diana!
Her rational brain ordered, treating her to the image of grainy black and white video being played to a testy jury in the county courthouse down the street.
And now, ladies and gentleman, you can clearly see the defendant render the guard unconscious by bashing him over the head with her cellular phone...

As it happened, there was no time for her to act. Nor any need.

With the momentum of a freight train, Bruce parlayed his arrival on the ground floor landing into a full body blow that smashed the seemingly unprepared guard back into—and from the sounds of it, entirely through—the fire exit. Whether the guard had ever managed to draw a weapon, Diana couldn't see. She knew only that for a moment sunlight had spilled freely onto the landing, that guard number one had somehow stumbled over guard number two, and that Bruce was out the door and gone before either of the incompetents could get back to their feet again.

The sound of other doors opening echoed down from above, and she pulled quickly away from the stair rail, collected her shoe, and slipped back into the hall. "What's going on?" a trio of dazed-looking office workers asked her from the elevator lobby. "Why are all the lights flashing?" "It's not a fire alarm, is it?"

Diana shook her head. "I don't think so," she said with confused empathy, as one innocent bystander to another. "I was just on my way to the salon and I heard a bunch of yelling in the stairwell. Some men ran down and outside, but I don't know why."

The workers looked at each other and shrugged. Diana shrugged also, and continued down the hall.

He got away
, she assured herself, her entire body flushing at the thought. She wished she could have seen the whole thing. The man was like an action film star...

"What are
you
doing here?!" A familiar voice raged.

Diana's teeth clenched. How many times had she heard that line today?

She offered Gil, who must have just emerged from the same stairwell himself, only the briefest of backwards glances—and continued walking. He was thoroughly disheveled, dripping with sweat, and seriously pumped with adrenaline, and at any time prior to this morning would have set her female hormones into a tizzy. But since then, she had met a
real
man.

"I'm making a hair appointment," she threw over her shoulder offhandedly. "Do you mind?"

Heavy footsteps pounded; Gil reappeared in front of her.

"You tipped him off," he said with a growl. His green eyes burned with anger; his chest heaved, still struggling to recoup lost breath. "He knew what Chad was doing the second he went for the button. Otherwise, we would have had him!"

Diana reached up a hand and swept a stray strand of bang from her forehead. "I really do need a trim," she replied.

***

Leigh, Maura, Allison, and Bess had not yet reached Bess's backyard when the sound of slamming car doors and shouting boys reached their ears. Allison gave a jump and ran on ahead.

"Oh, right!" Bess remarked. "In all the excitement, I completely forgot. Mathias left his ball glove somewhere—Cara asked if she could bring him over to look for it."

Leigh stifled a groan. It had been a long walk on a hot day, she was sweaty, and her legs were crisscrossed with scratches from thorn bushes that only she ever seemed to walk into. But all that was nothing compared to the fact that now she would have to worry about not just Allison, but all
four
kids getting an unhealthy dose of the macabre. Even if Bess's house weren't so close to a crime scene, tracking down the source of aged human remains hardly seemed an ideal pastime for a summer afternoon. She would have to try and divert the children's attention to something a little more wholesome. Like watching mindless television...

Fat chance of that.
She emerged from the edge of the woods to see the Pack already converged in a tight huddle, with Allison gesticulating excitedly. Leigh realized with a sinking feeling that the other kids, unlike herself, had probably been party to Allison's suspicions about the bone all along. In which case, Leigh had about as much chance of distracting their interest now as she did of Chewie refusing food.

"Was your grandpa certain it was a human bone, Allison?" Cara asked intently as Leigh and Maura caught up to the others.

"No, nobody's certain," Maura answered. "But until we know for sure one way or the other, I thought I'd do a quick check of the area. Make sure there's nothing more to be found."

"Can we help?" Ethan offered.

"We were going to take Chewie on the trail to the pond," Allison informed.

"We can search the whole woods!" came the take-charge voice of the twelve year old who was so clearly Gil's son. "We can split it up into sectors, just like the real search parties do. We can assign a formation, and walk in straight lines—"

Leigh fought a strong urge to bundle the four of them into Bess's cellar and turn the key. "I don't think—"

"Koslow," Maura interrupted. "Will you chill out? I got this."

The policewoman cleared her throat. Loudly. "All right, troops. Listen up! This isn't fun and games—this is serious police business. I can deputize you all for certain limited duties, but you've got to follow the rules. First one is: The only mammals wandering around in these woods today are going to be Chewie and me. You guys can walk
on the trail
as far as that big oak tree right before you get to the pond. No one's allowed off the trail—you can't be crashing around in the bushes getting the dog all riled up. Your job is to keep an eye on him—and if he stops anywhere and starts digging, you let
me
know. Don't go interfering with him yourself. Second rule is: Don't forget the first rule, or you will feel the Wrath of Polanski. Got it?"

Lenna and Allison stifled giggles. Leigh had no idea what the "Wrath of Polanski" was, but the not-so-ominous threat had kept the Pack in line ever since kindergarten.

"Got it!" Ethan and Mathias said cheerfully.

"Mom?" Lenna's soft voice quivered, "The bone
was
old, right?"

"Yes, honey. There's nothing to be afraid of," Cara answered. Then she sighed with resignation. "But you don't have to go if you don't want to. I can stay here at the house with you."

Lenna's cornflower blue eyes lit up with alarm. "Oh, no!" she said quickly. "I
want
to go!"

Cara threw her cousin a sideways look. Melanie's all-too-stereotypical feminine timidity was a constant source of aggravation to her strong-willed mother, but lately, there had been signs of hope. Just last week a boy in Lenna's gym class had told her that she threw like a girl, and instead of tearing up in embarrassment, she had turned around and yelled at him to stuff it. Cara couldn't have been more pleased if her daughter had gotten detention.

"All right, then," Maura ordered. "Fall in!"

Leigh watched as the Pack immediately hopped onto the trail in single file. They all adored their Aunt Mo, who had begun drilling them in pseudo-military formations as soon as they'd gotten too big for horsy rides on her back—which, incidentally, was some time after they had gotten too big for horsy rides on their father's back. As much as Maura enjoyed the Pack, however, she had never shown any interest in kids of her own. Between the four of them and Gerry's two, who were now in college, Maura's standard response to the question was, "I have enough kids."

"Leigh," she said, "You can go ahead and let Chewie off lead now. Maybe we'll get lucky."

Leigh did as she was instructed, but made no response, as she suspected her idea of luck was different from Maura's. She hoped quite fervently they would find nothing at all.

Bess had taken the lead on the trail, and Leigh and Cara brought up the rear. After they had progressed about a third of the way to the pond with the most exciting thing happening being Lenna's panic over a wasp, Leigh began to feel more optimistic. The corgi was having a fabulous time, which was no surprise, seeing as how there was nothing he loved better—besides dinner, of course—than being surrounded by attentive humans. But making himself useful was not on the agenda. He got under people's feet, ran circles around their shins, and came closer every time someone shooed him away. He hadn't strayed more than six feet from the trail since they left the house. But then suddenly, without warning, he stopped short. His giant ears perked high and twitched from side to side like antennas.

The travelers all stopped with him. Chewie stood frozen a moment more, then bounded off toward a thick section of plant life that surrounded a fallen tree. When he reached it he stopped and whined, then began to pace, all the while peering more deeply into the underbrush. "Aunt Mo!" Allison called in a loud whisper. "He's found something!"

Chewie whined again. He paced some more. Then, with a sudden explosion of nerve, he charged straight forward into the foliage.

He emerged again, with a yelp, three seconds later. It took another two seconds for everyone present to know exactly why.

"Ugh!" Leigh groaned.

"Oh, Lord," Bess exclaimed.

"SKUNK!!!" Ethan and Mathias shouted.

Lenna squealed like a banshee.

"Back to the house!" Cara ordered. "No one touch him!"

An embarrassed and chastened Chewie, his nose wrinkling and whole face grimacing with distaste, made a beeline for Leigh's legs. "You walked right into that one, my man," she commented, picking up her feet alternately to keep the dog from sitting on her shoes as she attempted to clip his lead back on without touching any wet fur. The stench was so bad her own eyes watered, and as soon as he was attached she held the lead out from her side and started moving him towards the house. "Aunt Bess," she said, feeling as if she could taste the vile spray in her own mouth, "Do you—"

"I'm on it, kiddo," Bess answered briskly, passing by her. "He's not the first dog to meet a skunk in these woods, and I dare say he won't be the last. I've got everything for the recipe up at the house—just give me a minute to throw it together."

She hustled forward to join the Pack, who were already well on their way to the house, shepherded by a determined Cara.

Leigh watched the children moving steadily away toward safety, then turned an affectionate eye toward her dog. "Taking one for the team yet again, eh boy?" she whispered. "Just between you and me...
you done good."

Chewie sneezed.

Leigh's aunt proved a tower of efficiency. Within minutes four eager children had donned hazmat suits of plastic rain ponchos and latex gloves and were standing ready with a giant batch of Bess's special recipe, a garden hose, one tube of eye ointment, and six towels. Chewie's "treatment" was begun.

After a few minutes Maura emerged from the woods and joined Leigh in leaning against Bess's woodpile.

"See anything?" Leigh asked.

The detective shook her head. "I saw tracks that could have been Chewie's here and there, but no freshly dug holes, and no more bones lying about. But that's to be expected. Locating the original source would have been a long shot, even with the dog."

Leigh was relieved—and disturbed—at the same time.

"So, what if the lab report does confirm it's human?" she asked.

"Then we bring out a real search team," Maura responded. "And I'll see if I can get a cadaver dog. Those K-9 units are amazing; if there are any more human remains out here, they'll find them."

Bess, who had noticed Maura's reappearance and made quick strides in their direction, caught her last words. "Ooh!" she exclaimed. "I'd love to see some police dogs in action!"

"Bess," Maura said, straightening. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about a camouflaged, motion-activated camera that's hidden on the edge of your property by the pond, would you?"

The older woman's eyes glinted mischievously. "I might. Provided it's not illegal, of course."

"And might you know what's been happening by the pond lately?"

Bess's face changed to a pout. "Not a blasted thing, Detective," she said bitterly. "Maybe the criminal returning to the scene of the crime was too much to hope for, but still! I know the news reports just said 'wooded area behind the church,' but you'd think
somebody
would come sniffing around the pond, wouldn't you? Yet all I've caught were a couple of does and a groundhog!"

Maura's phone buzzed, and she pulled it from her pocket and looked at it. Her brow furrowed. "I've got to take this," she said brusquely, moving off toward the drive.

"Did Maura find anything?" Cara asked, walking up. But before anyone could answer, her own phone beeped with a text. At the sight of it, her face paled. She immediately stepped aside and dialed a number. "Gil? What's going on?"

Leigh watched as her daughter, who had probably been loitering within earshot all along, now surreptitiously drifted after the women and their phones. "Allison!" Leigh chastised.
"No."

"Spoil sport," muttered Bess, returning to dog duty.

As soon as Leigh was left alone, Allison approached, her face set with determination. "Mom?" she began.

"Yes?" Leigh answered nervously.

"I've been thinking about what Aunt Mo said... about the two things not being related. You know, Brandon Lyle's murder and Chewie finding that bone. You don't really believe that, do you?"