Ellie and her dog Rudy stood next to a uniformed officer, staring in mute horror at the red sneakers pointing skyward from a pile of leaves scattered on the forest floor. Though she didn’t want to believe it, she’d know those toes...er...feet... er...shoes, anywhere.
She glanced around the clearing, noting it crawled with patrolmen, suited detectives, crime scene investigators, people carting video cams, news vans, and reporters, along with the usual flotilla of gawkers who sensed something newsworthy was going down in Central Park.
Apparently, the Big Apple was so proud of the way it had cleaned up one of the most isolated areas of the city, the fact that a lone homeless person had died in the Ramble under suspicious circumstances was cause for a media circus.
When a suited official caught her eye through the gloom, she cringed inside. The detective, part of the mob circling the cardboard box that made up Gary’s home, appeared to be in charge, which she hoped would be a blessing in disguise. There was a better chance she could maintain her dignity and self-control with this officer than she would if on the hot seat with her single-fling lover, the dastardly Detective Sam Ryder.
“Miss Engleman?” The short, stocky man stood in front of her and flashed his badge. “Detective Art Gruning. I understand you found the body and called it in.”
Ellie knew better than to offer her hand in greeting. “Actually, my dog did.”
Gruning raised a brow.
“I don’t mean ‘called it in’. I called it in, but Rudy is the one who found Gary’s body.” Great. She sounded like an idiot. “What I’m trying to say is my dog and I were taking a stroll, and he sort of dragged me in here. Since we’d visited Gary before, I figured Rudy wanted to stop and say hello. When I saw feet sticking out from the leaves in front of his shelter, I knew right away who it was.”
“You recognized the guy by his feet?”
She peered over his shoulder and got a view of Gary’s red, size sixteen or better high top Nikes. “Well, sure. How could anyone miss those shoes? They’re huge.”
“You saw a pair of oversized athletic shoes and figured out who was laying there, just like that?” Gruning retorted, his voice nasal, flat, and pure New York.
“Gary’s not a big man, so his shoe size always amazed me. I suspected it was him, but I stooped down and brushed the leaves off to be sure. When I saw he was dead--”
“How did you know he was dead?”
Was that a trick question? She opened and closed her mouth before stuttering, “Uh...by the bullet hole in his chest?”
“So you disturbed the scene?”
“I checked to see if there was anything I could do to help, as I assume any normal human being would. When I realized there wasn’t, I sort of lost it--”
“That would be your vomit next to the shelter, then?”
Sniffing back a tear, she wiped her nose with the used tissue. “Afraid so. Then I called 911.”
Gruning scribbled in his notebook. “You say you’ve been here before.” He gazed at a rocky hillside against which Gary had established his cardboard home. “This is a fairly isolated area for someone to visit on a regular basis.”
“We didn’t stop often. Just when Gary invited us.”
His eyes narrowed at the word ‘invited.’ “How well did you know the victim?”
Striving for composure, she took a deep breath. “Not very. But Gary is...was a really nice guy. Harmless. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to kill him.”
Gruning’s expression held a nasty edge, as if he didn’t believe a word she said. “So you were more than acquaintances?”
“Not really. He was just someone I talked to once in a while when I walked my dogs.”
“That dog?” he asked, pointing to Rudy, her gray and white yorkiepoo.
“This one and others. I’m a professional dog walker.”
He consulted his palm-sized spiral pad, a must-have, it seemed, for all detectives in the city, and again raised a brow. “Hold on a second. Engleman...Engleman...are you the woman who was involved in that dog-napping homicide a couple of months back? The one Sam Ryder worked on?”
“That would be me.” She blew her nose, then dabbed the crumbling tissues over her damp forehead. Though it was cooler here in the shade of the Park, mid-July in Manhattan was brutal, especially since temperatures had hovered in the mid-nineties for the past week. “I discovered the professor’s body.”
“Appears as if discovering dead bodies is becoming a habit of yours. Why do you think that is?”
It was obvious from his memory of Buddy’s disappearance that she would never live down her involvement with Sam. Now, here she was again, innocently finding a body, and this guy was rubbing it in. “I have no idea, but Detective Ryder took me off his list of suspects after his first round of questioning.”
“But you knew who did it?”
“I figured out who did it, I didn’t actually know the man.”
“The way I heard it, you did,” he insisted, loosening his garishly patterned tie. Rivulets of sweat trickled down his ruddy cheeks and disappeared under the collar of his shirt.
“I only knew him to see him,” she went on. “What does this have to do with Gary?”
Detective Gruning proceeded to take her elbow and lead her further from the scene. Situating her in front of a stand of tree, he folded his arms and glared. “You look nervous, Ms. Engleman. Any particular reason why?”
“I’m not nervous, just upset. It happens when you lose a friend.”
“You just said the victim was an acquaintance. Someone you barely knew.”
“I still considered Gary a friend. We spoke several times a week when I walked my dogs.”
“How often did you come here, to his hole?”
“Not often.”
The detective ran a hand over his face, then wiped the sweaty palm on his suit coat. “Let me put it this way--when was the last time you were here?”
“Before Rudy and I got here tonight?”
“Yes.”
“About two weeks ago.”
“And why was that?”
“Gary wanted to show me something he’d found...a treasure, he called it.”
“And what exactly was this treasure?”
“A dog dish. He was proud of the fact that it only had a single chip along the edge. He found it in an alley where he did a lot of Dumpster shopping and brought it to his shelter so Rudy could have a drink of water when we stopped to see him.”
“Rudy, as in your dog?”
“Yes.”
“So Gary liked your dog?”
Ellie remembered how the homeless man and Rudy had bonded on their second or third meeting. For some unexplainable reason, Gary had picked up on their unique manner of communication and was able to speak with Rudy exactly as she did. “He told me he’d always wanted a dog, but his mother wouldn’t allow it.”
An officer walked over and handed Ellie her tote bag. “It’s clean, sir.”
“Hey, Gruning, I think you should see this,” a man’s voice called from the scene.
The detective nodded at the purse-toting patrolman, who moved to Ellie’s side. She waited until Gruning plodded to the cardboard shelter, then accepted her bag and asked her guard, “What’s happening?”
“Don’t know, and I couldn’t tell you if I did.”
“I don’t like the look of that detective, Triple E.” Sounding unsure and a bit frightened, Rudy’s voice invaded her mind. Karma had brought her and the spirit of her first dog, named Rudy, together at the ASPCA shelter, where she’d gone to celebrate her divorce. Still, hearing his thoughts continued to surprise her when she was stressed--like now.
“I get the feeling he’s gonna make trouble for us.”
“He’s just doing his duty. Gary is dead, remember.”
The officer sneered. “Funny you should notice.”
Ellie squatted on the pretext of brushing off her buddy’s fur. She didn’t mind being thought of as eccentric, but being labeled ‘crazy’ by the cops was something else. “How about you take a walk over there, scope out the site, and report back?” she whispered. “Just don’t let anyone see you.”
“Like I would.”
The terrier-mix took off at a trot, his leash trailing in the underbrush. The interior of the park was dank, alive with the scent of decaying leaves, vegetable matter, and the scent of putrefying flesh. How long had Gary lay there, bleeding and alone? Standing, she turned her back on the officer and moved to block her dog’s disappearance.
“Hey, Ellie?”
“This is a crime scene,” the officer said at the same time.
She shifted her stance and spotted her favorite hot dog vendor standing a few feet away. “He’s a friend,” she said to the patrolman.
“Hurry up,” he responded. “This isn’t a tea party.”
Pops edged closer, his nut-brown face set in a frown. “Heard it was Gary, so I came running. Had to leave the cart chained to a lamp post or I’d’a been here sooner.”
She gave him a watery smile. “He was shot. Can you believe it? Why would anyone shoot a nice guy like Gary?”
“Beats me, but um...” He glanced over his shoulder, then reached in his pocket and passed her a grimy envelope. “This is for you. Gary told me to give it to you if anything ever happened to him.”
She stared at the gift. “To me? What’s in it?”
“Beats me, but there’s weight to it. Feels like it might be a key of some kind,” said the vendor, taking a step of retreat. “Just said he wanted you to have it. I gotta be going. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” He ambled off with a wave of his hand.
Trying for casual, she stuffed the envelope in her tote bag. She’d take a peek as soon as the coast was clear. “So, what happens next?” she asked, turning back to the guard, though she had a good idea. The last time she’d found a body, she was immediately labeled the prime suspect and hauled in for questioning. She’d been fingerprinted and her hair and clothes checked for fibers and whatever else the authorities considered necessary to implicate her in the crime.
“What did that old guy just give you?”
“Something personal. When will I be able to go home?”
“When Gruning gives the okay. Why?”
“Because it’s getting late.”
At the sound of a commotion, they focused on Gary’s home. An officer walked from behind the shelter with what appeared to be an empty plastic soda bottle draped over the end of a pencil. Gruning scanned the item, then glanced at her while more pictures were taken.
“What’s going on?”
“Looks like they found something,” said the officer, without volunteering a thought on what it might be.
“They got part of the murder weapon.” Rudy’s voice came from below.
“What?”
“No idea. Too soon to tell,” the officer added, unaware he was participating in a verbal ping pong match with a canine.
“A plastic bottle. They think it was used as a silencer for the gun shot that killed Gary.”
“A soda bottle as a silencer?”
The officer folded his arms across his protruding belly. “If you know what they found, why are you asking me?”
“Ah, I don’t know. I’m merely speculating.” Accustomed to brushing past the conversations she held with her dog, she said, “I think I saw it once on--on television.”
“Really? Mind telling me what show that might have been?”
Great. She never watched cop shows on TV or went to any type of movie with violence or mayhem, so she had no idea where she could have viewed the scenario. “Um...an episode of Law and Order, maybe. I don’t remember.”
“Try CSI,” Rudy encouraged. “Real cops hate that show.”
“Like I need to get on anyone’s bad side.”
“You’ll only be on Gruning’s bad side if you know something and don’t tell him,” the officer intoned.
When her overseer came to attention, Ellie assumed Gruning had returned, so she pasted a smile on her lips and faced him. “What was all the commotion about?”
“Police business.” He glared at Rudy. “We don’t need any mutts mucking up the crime scene, so keep hold of his leash, Ms. Engleman, or I’ll be forced to impound him. Got that?”
“My dog is probably cleaner than a lot of the people rifling through here, and this is a park with birds, rabbits, squirrels. I don’t see how a little dog hair--”
A technician approached holding a set of tweezers and a plastic bag. Before she could stop him, the man bent and plucked a clump of Rudy’s fur.
“Yeow!” Growling, Rudy lunged forward, and both the tech and Gruning jumped back. “Easy with the police brutality.”
Ellie knelt and ran a soothing hand along her boy’s coat, then threw both men a glare. “I would have done that myself, if you’d asked.”
“Just control your animal,” Gruning warned. Still eyeing the yorkiepoo, he said to her guard, “Escort Ms. Engleman home so she can drop off her attack dog, then bring her to the station.”
