Live to Tell - Lisa Gardner [44]
“What the fuck is that?” she snapped, one hand immediately covering her nose and mouth, the other swatting at a fly.
Alex Wilson was standing in the cramped family room. Rather heroically, he held out his handkerchief. Her eyes were watering, but she waved him off.
“Jesus Christ,” she muttered. She remained standing in the doorway, trying to get her bearings while controlling her gag reflex.
Place looked like a dump. The floor at her feet swam in garbage. She saw grease-stained cheeseburger wrappers, empty containers of McDonald’s fries, wads of tissues, and—heaven help her—a soiled diaper. Then the diaper moved and the world’s fattest cockroach streaked across the dirt-brown carpet before disappearing beneath an open pizza box dotted with green-colored pepperoni.
“Son of a bitch.” D.D. was back out the door, off the front steps, and over the edge of the property, where she willed herself not to puke in front of the crime-scene team or, heaven help her, the local news. Her eyes swam with tears. It took several gulping breaths of rain-swept August air to calm her stomach.
She had just straightened, turning toward the house to debate round two, when she spotted Bobby Dodge ducking beneath the yellow crime-scene tape at the end of the drive. Given a choice between tap-dancing with a cockroach or tangling with a Massachusetts State Police detective, she headed straight for the state cop. Who also happened to be her former lover. Who also now happened to be a happily married man.
“My crime scene,” D.D. stated by way of greeting.
“My apologies,” Bobby replied easily. They went too far back for him to ever be seriously insulted. D.D. found that annoying. The rain three hours ago had finally brought the August heat down into the eighties. It was still muggy, and Bobby had his sports jacket slung over his right arm, revealing a dark blue short-sleeved shirt embroidered with the gold insignia of the state police.
“Why are you here?” D.D. demanded.
“I was in the neighborhood?” He grinned at her. He was cute when he grinned and he knew it.
“Don’t you have a baby to tend to, or something like that?”
“Carina Lillian,” he said immediately, already fishing into his back pocket for the photo. “Nine pounds thirteen ounces. Isn’t she beautiful?”
He moved closer to one of the outdoor floodlights, holding the wallet-sized photo beneath the glow. D.D. registered fat red cheeks, narrow little eyes, and a distinctly pointed head.
“She looks just like you,” D.D. assured him.
“Vaginal birth,” he said proudly.
And thanks to those two words, D.D. thought, she would never have sex again. “Annabelle?” she asked, referring to Bobby’s wife.
“Doing great. Breast-feeding like a champ and getting Carina settled onto a nice schedule. Whole family’s great. And you?”
“I’m not breast-feeding like a champ.”
“Someone’s loss,” Bobby told her.
“Why are you at my crime scene?”
“We have an interest.”
“Ah, but I have jurisdiction.”
“Which is why I thought we could walk through it together.”
“Please—you were hoping I wasn’t here yet, and you could wander through at your leisure.”
“From plan A to plan B,” Bobby agreed.
“Tell me about your interest.”
“Marijuana,” he said.
“Dealing?”
“And importing, we believe.”
She frowned, studying him. “You think this is some kind of gangland hit?”
He shrugged. “I was hoping to walk through the scene to see if it feels like some kind of gangland hit.”
“Whole family, you know.”
“That’s what I was told.”
“Lot of bodies for marijuana wars,” D.D. said. “Meth, okay. Heroin, sure. But the dope dealers …”
“Don’t like to get so bonged up, I know.” Inside joke. Cops. They had to have something to laugh about.
“All right,” D.D. conceded. “You can join the party. But I still think this is my scene.”
“Then you still have my apologies.”
D.D. made it all the way into the family room this time. Alex was no longer there, but had left an array of yellow evidence placards in his wake. D.D. held her hand over her nose and breathed shallowly through her mouth. Her gag reflex started to