Marie Ferrarella - Mission - Cavanaugh Baby

Taking a step to the side, Shane peered in and was stunned. The dog, so boisterous just seconds ago, had stopped barking. Instead of running around the way the patrolman seemed to indicate he’d been doing, the animal was now safely and silently in the arms of what appeared to be a policewoman.

Leaving the patrolman to herd the onlookers back behind the barricades that had been put up, Shane walked into the apartment to look around.

There was an absolute maze of red paw prints zigzagging all over the faded beige carpeting in the living room and the cracked vinyl kitchen floor.

Apparently the policewoman hadn’t been nearly fast enough scooping up the neurotic canine. It was obvious that the terrier had run through the victim’s pool of blood more than just a few times.

Someone from his father’s department was there already, taking copious photographs. The clicking shutter was just so much background noise as Shane made his way over to the body on the floor.

For the first time since he’d joined the force, Shane came dangerously close to revisiting his breakfast. The gaping wound in the woman’s abdomen was almost surreal.

No one could lose this amount of blood and live, he thought. He touched the side of her neck just to be sure. There was no pulse.

“This woman doesn’t need a bus any longer. She belongs to the medical examiner now.” Looking closer, he saw there was something about the way the blood was smeared on one side that didn’t look right to him. His field of expertise was mainly white-collar crime, but he knew a bit about blood patterns, thanks to his father. “Who moved the body?” He wanted to know.

“I did.”

The answer came from his right. Turning, Shane found himself looking at the officer who was holding the terrier. For the first time, as he focused on her, he realized that the perky-looking policewoman was covered with blood herself. Lots of blood. More, he thought, than he would have expected from someone checking out the crime scene.

“Why did you move her?” he asked.

“I thought she was only wounded,” Ashley explained. “I didn’t realize that someone had cut out her baby.”

His eyes narrowed. Aurora was supposed to be this peaceful little city. What the hell was going on? He studied the woman in front of him. “You saying she was pregnant?”

Ashley nodded. As the dog began to whimper, she rocked slightly to soothe the animal in the same fashion a mother would rock to soothe a cranky child.

“Yes.”

Was there more going on here than he’d thought? “Did you know her?”

Using small concentric circles to pet the animal she held against her, the policewoman shook her head. “No.”

Had she just gotten caught in a lie? “Then how did you know she was pregnant?”

“First thing that came to mind when I saw the nature of the wound,” she responded. “And then there were her final words—”

“She was alive when you first saw her?” he asked, surprised.

Ashley couldn’t figure out if the detective was mocking her or if he just didn’t have any people skills. For now, she gave him the benefit of the doubt.

“That’s why I called for an ambulance,” she told him. “I tried to stop the blood.”

She was supposed to be a professional, Ashley told herself. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d never seen blood before, or been around something that was dying or already dead. But what had gone down here this morning had her feeling as if she was walking in labored slow motion through a nightmare. A nightmare she should be able to wake up from.

“That would explain the jacket,” he commented, glancing down at the blood-soaked article of clothing. “As well as the bloodstains on your knees.” He looked at her for a long moment, then asked, “Where were you again this morning?”

There was no “again.” He hadn’t asked that question, Ashley thought. What was he trying to do here?

“I went to work this morning. My lieutenant gave me this address, said a complaint had been lodged about a dog in the apartment that wouldn’t stop barking. The caller said the dog had been barking off and on for several hours.”

Shane nodded at the almost docile dog in her arms. “That dog?”

Without fully realizing it, she closed her arms protectively around the animal. “Yes.”

“Seems pretty quiet to me,” he observed.

Ashley continued stroking the dog. “I have a way with animals. Besides, I think he’s emotionally tired out.”

He watched as she continued to stroke the dog. The animal seemed to be leaning into her, as if he thought he was safe.

“‘Emotionally tired out’?” Shane repeated rather skeptically.

His tone, she judged, was intended to get her to back away from her observation. She didn’t. “That’s what I said.”

“Dogs have emotions.” It wasn’t a question so much as a mocking statement.

Ashley forced herself to bite back a few choice words about the barely veiled sarcasm in his voice. She had a feeling that challenging the detective would only result in his becoming confrontational.

Nonetheless, she stood her ground. “All animals have emotions,” she informed him coolly.

“I’ll keep that in mind and try not to hurt his feelings,” he said, nodding at the terrier. Then his eyes shifted toward her. “Where were you before you came into work?”

Her eyes met his. She refused to look away. Only guilty people avoided eye contact. “Home.” She said the word almost defiantly.

“Can anyone verify that?” he asked.

There hadn’t been anyone to verify anything about her since she was four. For most of her life, until she’d turned eighteen, she had just blended into the woodwork or been invisible to the people around her.

“I’ve got two dogs, but they tend not to talk too much to strangers.” And then her flippant tone evaporated as she demanded, “Do you seriously think I had something to do with this?”

From where he stood, it wasn’t all that far-fetched, and until he had more details or knew otherwise, the woman made for a pretty decent suspect.

“A lot of times,” he told her, “the first one on the scene turns out to be the perp.”

Oh, come on, puh-lease! “What is that?” she asked. “A direct quote from Murder for Dummies?”

He did not care for her sarcastic tone. “You’ve got a smart mouth on you, you know that?” he challenged.

“Goes with the rest of me,” she replied with a careless shrug, as if to shrug off his entire statement and whatever off-the-wall theory he was spinning. Shifting the terrier to her other side, much like a mother would shift the toddler she was holding, Ashley asked him, “Are you really a Homicide detective?”

“I’m from the Major Crimes Division,” he revealed. “When you called Dispatch, you asked for backup and a bus,” he reminded her.

“That was because I wasn’t sure what was going on, and she was still breathing.” Seemed to her that they had already gone over this and established it.

“Which was why you moved the body,” he concluded.

This again, she thought, exasperated. What was this detective’s problem? “I just turned her so she was on her back. I found her facedown on the floor between the kitchen and the living room. I didn’t think to take a photo before I tried to find a way to save her life.”

A key phrase in her statement stuck out for him, and Shane commented on it. “Apparently you didn’t think at all.” Before she could retort, he asked another question. “When you got here, was the door opened?”

“No,” she told him, reciting the words stoically, “it was locked.”

He looked around for another person besides the precinct personnel, but there was no civilian in the apartment. “Then the landlord let you in.” It was an assumption on his part.