Лиза Гарднер - Never Tell - A Novel (A D.D. Warren and Flora Dane Novel)

She eased into the dining room, where Kiko had wisely retreated beneath the table with her prize. So far, the best spotted dog in all the land was lying contentedly on the rug, chewing on the heel of D.D.’s shoe, as D.D. and Alex made their circular approach.

Five-year-old Jack had taken up position in the family room. His job: catch Kiko when she inevitably bolted from beneath the cherry wood table. They expected the dog would run toward Jack, her partner in crime. The two adults of the household, on the other hand …

A floorboard creaked beneath D.D.’s foot. She froze. Kiko looked up.

Time stood still. Detective and dog locked eyes, D.D. wearing one boot, Kiko holding the second between her paws.

Alex appeared in the left-hand doorway of the dining room. “Kiko! Release! Bad dog!”

Kiko grabbed the boot in her mouth and ran for it.

D.D. lunged to the right. An act of desperation, and she and the dog both knew it. Kiko, a Dalmatian–German shorthaired pointer mix who was all long legs and high energy, dodged the move effortlessly. Alex came charging from behind.

Kiko galloped straight for Jack, who cried out in boyish delight, “ Roo, roo, roo! ” right before he tossed Kiko’s favorite toy straight up into the air.

True to form, Kiko dropped the boot and leapt up for her stuffed hippo.

D.D. snatched her boot. Kiko caught her toy. Then Kiko and Jack were off, tearing around the family room in a whirlwind of puppy-boy energy.

“Damage?” Alex asked, coming to a halt beside her. He was still trying to catch his breath. For that matter, so was D.D.

She inspected her boot. The bottom of the heel showed signs of chewing. But the leather upper was still intact.

“You gotta remember to put them in the closet,” Alex said, eyeing the teeth marks.

“I know.”

“She’s going to grow out of it, but not overnight.”

“I know!”

“So who do you think is going to take longer to train, her or you?”

D.D. growled at her husband. He grinned back.

“ Roo, roo, roo! ” Jack added from across the room. He was now standing on the sofa, springing up and down on the cushions, while Kiko matched him jump for jump from the floor. It had been Alex and Jack’s idea to adopt a dog from the local humane society. D.D., as sergeant detective of Boston homicide, had argued they weren’t home enough. To which Alex had ruthlessly replied that she wasn’t home enough. His job teaching crime scene analysis at the academy had set hours, and Jack’s schedule as a kindergartener was hardly grueling. A boy needs a dog, he’d told her.

Which, from what D.D. could tell, seemed to be true. Because God knows Jack and Kiko were already inseparable. The black-and-white-spotted one-year-old pup slept in Jack’s bed. Sat next to his feet at the kitchen table. And did everything the boy did, from leaping across the furniture to racing around the yard.

D.D.’s son was happy. Her husband was happy. In the end, a chewed boot heel seemed a small price to pay. That said, Kiko and Jack were now racing laps around the room.

“I gotta get to work,” D.D. said.

“Take me with you,” Alex tried.

“And rob you of this magic moment?”

“Pretty please?”

“Sorry.” D.D. was already sliding on her damaged boot. “Wife shot and killed her husband last night. She’s been arrested, but I want to check out the crime scene. Clearly, you’d be biased.”

“Woman’s already been charged,” Alex asked, “and you still need to visit the scene?” Following an on-the-job injury two years ago, D.D. had been moved to a supervisory position in homicide. As her fellow detectives would attest—and Alex would agree—D.D. took a much more hands-on approach with her management style than was strictly necessary.

“I have a personal interest in this one.” D.D. made it to the front door, eyed the crystalline sheen to the half-frozen ground outside, and grabbed her black wool coat. A month ago, the air had been crisp but the sun warm. And now this. Welcome to New England.

D.D. spared the twin racing streaks of her son and dog a second glance from the entryway, and despite the chaos—no, because of the chaos—felt the corresponding warmth in her chest. “They really do love each other.”

“Heaven help us,” Alex agreed. He stood close. They’d just had four whole days off together, a rare treat. As always, they both now felt the pull and pang of D.D.’s demanding job. Alex had always respected D.D.’s workaholic ways. But there were times, even for her, when disappearing down the rabbit hole that was a homicide investigation became difficult. Especially lately.

“Why is this case personal?” Alex asked.

D.D. buttoned her coat. “The woman in question, Evelyn Carter, née Hopkins, I investigated her for murder once before.”

“She killed a husband before this one?”

“Nope. She ‘accidentally’ shot her father. But, seriously, how many shootings can one woman be involved with?”

Alex nodded sagely. “You’re going to get her this time.”

D.D. smiled, stepped into her husband’s embrace for a quick kiss, then waved goodbye to her crazy kid and dog. “Totally.”

Evelyn Carter and her husband, Conrad, lived in Winthrop, one of the smallest and oldest towns in Massachusetts. Dating back to 1630 and positioned on a peninsula just miles from Logan Airport, the area offered views of the Atlantic for the lucky, and up-close-and-personal contact with densely packed homes for everyone else. The Carters’ residence was located on a street of modest, distinctly 1950s Colonials that had probably once been strictly working-class. Now, given property values in Boston, especially this close to the waterfront, God only knew. As it was, D.D. was surprised to see so many of the original homes intact. These days, it felt like every neighborhood in Boston was being gentrified, developers coming in, razing the old, and replacing it with bigger and better. Personally, D.D. preferred a little character in a home, but then again, on a detective’s salary she wouldn’t be living in any of these neighborhoods anytime soon.

Her former squad mate and onetime mentor Phil had contacted her first thing this morning to fill her in on the shooting. Pretty straightforward case, in his opinion. Neighbors had called in reports of shots fired. Uniformed officers had responded to find the wife standing at the top of the stairs, gun still in hand. She had surrendered without incident and been taken to the South Bay House of Correction.

Pregnant, Phil had added. Far enough along to be noticeable, while not yet huge.

D.D. couldn’t yet picture that. The Evie Hopkins she had known had been a sixteen-year-old girl. Thin, dirty-blond hair, huge, doe-like brown eyes as she’d sat at the kitchen table, mere feet from her father’s blood-soaked body, shaking uncontrollably.

She hadn’t cried. D.D., a new detective back then, had thought that odd. But there’d been something to the girl’s flat expression, combined with her hard tremors, that had been compelling. Shock. A sort of delayed reaction to grief that made D.D. believe the girl was honestly in pain, only of such an extreme magnitude she couldn’t comprehend it.

They hadn’t been able to get her out of the kitchen and down to the station for proper processing. At the time, it hadn’t seemed such a big deal. Evie, covered in blood, hadn’t denied anything. The gun had gone off. Yes, she’d shot and killed her father.

And now her legs didn’t seem to work. She couldn’t stand, move. Short of physically picking her up, D.D. and her partner, an older detective, Gary Speirs, couldn’t get the girl out of the kitchen. Speirs had made the judgment call not to push it. He’d been afraid the girl would give over to hysterics, ending their interview once and for all.