Wilson did not come any closer; she knew that he wasn’t going to because he couldn’t stomach this sort of thing. Clenching her teeth against her own disgust, she stared at the bodies, noting the most unusual thing about them —the long scrape marks on the exposed bones and the general evidence of gnawing. She stood up and looked around the desolate spot. About a quarter of a mile away the dump could be seen with huge flocks of sea gulls hovering over the mounds of garbage. Even over the hubbub of voices you could hear the gulls screaming. From here to the dump was an ocean of old cars and trucks of every imaginable description, most of them worthless, stripped hulks. A few nearby had white X’s on the windshields or hoods, evidence of the work DiFalco and Houlihan had been doing when the attack occurred.
“They were gnawed by rats,” Becky said in as level a tone as she could manage, “but those larger marks indicate something else—dogs?”
“The wild dogs around here are just scrawny little mutts,” the Precinct Captain said.
“How long were these men missing before you instituted a search, Captain?” Wilson asked.
The Captain glanced sharply at him. Neff was amazed; nobody below the rank of Inspector had the right to ask a captain a question like that, and even then not outside of a Board of Inquiry. It was a question that belonged in a dereliction of duty hearing, not at the scene of a crime.
“We need to know,” Wilson added a little too loudly.
“Then ask the M. E. how long they’ve been dead. We found them two hours ago.
Figure the rest out for yourself.” The Captain turned away, and Becky Neff followed his gaze out over the distant Atlantic, where a helicopter could be seen growing rapidly larger. It was a police chopper and it was soon above them, its rotor clattering as it swung around looking for a likely spot to land.
“That’s the Commissioner and the Chief,” Wilson said. “They must have smelled newsmen.” In January a new mayor would take office, and senior city officials were all scrambling to keep their jobs. So these normally anonymous men now jumped at the possibility of getting their faces on the eleven o’clock news. But this time they would be disappointed—because of the unusually hideous nature of the crime, the press was being kept as far away as possible. No pictures allowed until the scene was cleared of the bodies.
At the same time that the Chief of Detectives and the Commissioner were getting out of their helicopter, the Medical Examiner was hurrying across the muddy ground with a newspaper folded up and held over his head against the rain. “It’s Evans himself,” Wilson said. “I haven’t seen that man outdoors in twenty years.”
“I’m glad he’s here.”
Evans was the city’s Chief Medical Examiner, a man renowned for his ingenious feats of forensic detection. He rolled along, shabby, tiny, looking very old behind his thick glasses.
He had worked with Wilson and Neff often and greeted them both with a nod. “What’s your idea?” he said even before examining the bodies. Most policemen he treated politely enough; these two he respected.
“We’re going to have a problem finding the cause of death,” Wilson said, “because of the shape they’re in.”
Evans nodded. “Is Forensics finished with the bodies?” The Forensics team was finished, which meant that the corpses could be touched. Dr. Evans rolled on his black rubber gloves and bent down. So absorbed did he become that he didn’t even acknowledge the approach of the brass.
The group watched Evans as he probed gingerly at the bodies. Later he would do a much more thorough autopsy in his lab, but these first impressions were important and would be his only on-site inspection of the victims.
When he backed away from the bodies, his face was registering confusion. “I don’t understand this at all,” he said slowly. “These men have been killed by… something with claws, teeth. Animals of some kind. But what doesn’t make sense is—why didn’t they defend themselves?”
“Their guns aren’t even drawn,” Becky said through dry lips. It was the first thing she had noticed.
“Maybe that wasn’t the mode of death, Doctor,” Wilson said. “I mean, maybe they were killed first and then eaten by the animals around here. There’s rats, gulls, also some wild dogs, the precinct boys say.”
The doctor pursed his lips. He nodded. “We’ll find out when we do the autopsy. Maybe you’re right, but on the surface I’d say we’re looking at the fatal wounds.”
The Forensics team was photographing and marking the site, picking up scattered remains and vacuuming the area as well as possible considering the mud. They also took impressions of the multitude of pawprints that surrounded the bodies.
The Precinct Captain finally broke the silence. “You’re saying that these guys were killed by wild dogs, and they didn’t even draw their guns? That can’t be right. Those dogs are just little things— they’re not even a nuisance.” He looked around. “Anybody ever hear of a death from wild dogs in the city? Anybody?”
The Chief and the Commissioner were now standing nearby swathed in heavy coats, shrouded by their umbrellas. Nobody spoke or shook hands. “We’ll give you whatever you need to solve this case,” the Commissioner said to nobody in particular. Up close his face was almost lifeless, the skin hanging loosely on the bones. He had a reputation for long hours and honest work; unlike many of his predecessors he had attained the respect of the department by his interest in police affairs and his disinterest in politics. For that reason his job was now on the line. He was under criticism for allegedly allowing corruption, for taking cops off the street, for ignoring black and Hispanic neighborhoods, for all the things that usually get police commissioners in trouble. By contrast Chief of Detectives Underwood was pink, fat and rather merry. He was a born politician and was ready to redecorate the Commissioner’s office to his own taste. His eyes were watery and he had a nervous cough. He stamped his feet and glanced quickly around, barely even seeing the bodies; it was obvious that he wanted to get back to the comfort of headquarters as soon as he could. “Any leads?” he said, looking at Wilson.
“Nothing.”
“Right now it looks like their throats were torn out,” the Medical Examiner said, “but we’ll reserve judgment until the autopsy.”
“A dog theory won’t make it,” Wilson muttered.
“I never said that,” the M. E. flared. “All I said was the probable cause of death is massive insult to the throat caused by teeth and claws. I don’t know about dogs and I don’t care to speculate about dogs.”
“Thank you, Doctor Evans,” Wilson said in a staccato voice. Evans was not numbered among Wilson’s few friends despite the professional respect.
The Commissioner stared a long time at the corpses. “Cover ‘em up,” he said at last,
“get ‘em out of here. Come on, Herb, let’s let these men do their jobs.”
The two officials trudged back to their helicopter.
“Morale,” the Precinct Captain said as the chopper began to start “A visit from those two sure charges you up.”
The Medical Examiner was still fuming over his run-in with Wilson. “If it was dogs,” he said carefully, “they’d have to be seventy, eighty pounds or more. And fast, they’d have to be fast.”
“Why so fast?” Becky asked.
“Look at DiFalco’s right wrist. Torn. He was going for his pistol when something with teeth hit his arm hard. That means whatever it was, it was damn fast.”
Becky Neff thought immediately of the dogs her husband Dick often worked with on the Narcotics Squad. “Attack dogs,” she said, “you’re describing the work of attack dogs.”
The Medical Examiner shrugged. “I’m describing the condition of the bodies. How they got that way is your business, Becky—yours and His Excellency’s.”
“Screw you too, Evans.”
Becky tried to ignore Wilson—she was used to his sour disposition. As long as people like Evans kept working with him it didn’t really matter. Sometimes, though, it was nice to see that others dislik
ed him as much as she did.
“If we can establish that attack dogs did this,” she said, “then we can narrow our search considerably. Most attack dogs don’t kill.”
“If the good doctor says they were able to do… that, then you might have a point. Let’s talk to Tom Rilker, get ourselves a little education on the subject.” Rilker trained dogs for the department.
Becky nodded. As usual when they got going, she and Wilson started thinking together.
They headed back toward their car. The first step was now clear— they had to find out if attack dogs were involved. If they were, then this was a first—policemen had never been murdered with dogs before. In fact, dogs were an uncommon weapon because it took the work of a skilled professional to train them to kill human beings. And skilled professionals didn’t train up dogs for just anybody. If you had gotten a dog trained into a killer, the man who did it would remember you for sure. Most so-called “attack dogs” are nothing more than a loud bark and maybe a bite. The ones that actually go for the throat are not very common. A dog like that is never completely controllable, always a liability unless it is absolutely and essentially needed.
Back in the car, Wilson began to recite what he remembered about cases involving killer dogs. “October, 1966, a pedestrian killed by a dog in Queens. Dog was untrained, believed to have been an accident. I worked that case, I always thought it was fishy but I never got a decent lead. July, 1970, an attack dog escaped from the Willerton Drug Company warehouse in Long Island City and killed a seventeen-year-old boy. Another accident. April, 1973—our only proved murder by dog. A hood named Big Roy Gurner was torn apart by three dogs, later traced to the Thomas Shoe Company, which was a front for the Carlo Midi family. I got close to netting Midi in that one, but the brass removed me from the case. Corrupt bastards. That’s my inventory on dogs. You got anything?”
“Well, I don’t remember any dog cases since I’ve been a detective. I’ve heard about the Gurner thing of course. But the scuttlebutt was you got paid off the case.” She watched him pull his chin into his neck at that—it was his characteristic gesture of anger.
And she realized that she shouldn’t have goaded him; Wilson was one honest cop, that much was certain. He hated corruption in others and certainly would never bend himself.
It was a nasty crack, and she was sorry for it. She tried to apologize, but he wouldn’t acknowledge. She had made her mistake; there was no point in continuing to talk about it.
“My husband works with dogs all the time,” she said to change the subject. “Some attack dogs, but mostly just sniffers. They’re his best weapon, so he says.”
“I hear about his dogs. All of them are supposedly trained to kill despite that ‘sniffer’
bullshit. I’ve heard the stories about those dogs.”
She frowned. “What stories?”
“Oh, nothing much really. Just that those dogs sometimes get so excited when they sniff out a little dope that they just happen to kill the jerk they find it on… sometimes. But I guess you husband’s told you all about that.”
“Let’s drop it, Wilson. We don’t need to go at each other like this. My husband hasn’t told me anything about dogs that kill suspects. It sounds pretty outlandish if you ask me.”
Wilson snorted, said nothing more. But Becky had heard the rumors he was referring to, that Dick’s team sometimes used dogs on difficult suspects. “At least he’s not on the take,” Becky thought. “I hope to God he’s not.” Then she thought of a certain problem they used to have paying for his father’s nursing home, a problem that seemed to have disappeared—but she refused to think about it
Corruption was the one thing about police work she hated. Many officers considered the money part of the job, rationalizing it with the idea that their victims were criminals anyway and the payoffs were nothing more than a richly deserved fine. But as far as Becky Neff was concerned, that was crap. You did your job and got your pay, that ought to be enough. She forced herself not to rise to Wilson’s bait about her husband, it would probably start a shouting argument.
“Stories aside, I’ve heard a lot about Tom Rilker. Dick thinks damn highly of him. Says he could train a dog to walk a tightrope if he wanted to.” Thomas D. Rilker was a civilian who worked closely with the NYPD, the FBI, and U. S. Customs training the dogs they used in their work. He also did private contract work. He was good, probably the best in the city, maybe the best in the world. His specialty was training dogs to sniff. He had dope dogs, fire dogs, tobacco dogs, booze dogs, you name it. They worked mostly for the Narcotics Squad and the customs agents. They had revolutionized the technique of investigation in these areas and greatly reduced the amount of drugs moving through the port of New York. Becky knew that Dick thought the world of Tom Rilker.
“Keep this damn car moving, sweetheart. You ain’t in a parade!”
“You drive, Wilson.”
“Me? I’m the damn boss. Oughta sit in back.”
She pulled over to the curb. “You don’t like my driving, you do it yourself.”
“I can’t, dearest—my license lapsed last year.”
“When you teamed up with me, dip.”
“Thank you, I’ll make a note of that.”
Becky swung the car out into traffic and jammed the accelerator to the floor. She wasn’t going to let him get to her. Part of the reason he was like this was because she had forced herself on him. Between her husband Dick and her uncle Bob she had exerted plenty of pull to get herself into Homicide and to land a partner once she got there. It took the pull of her husband’s captaincy and her uncle’s inspectorship to move her out of the secretary syndrome and onto the street. She had done well as a patrolman and gotten herself promoted to Detective Sergeant when she deserved it. Most of the women she knew on the force got their promotions at least two or three years late, and then had to fight to avoid ending up on some rotten squad like Missing Persons, where the only action you ever saw was an occasional flat tire on an unmaintained squad car.
So here came Becky Neff just when George Wilson’s most recent partner had punched him in the face and transferred to Safes and Locks. Wilson had to take what he could get, and in this situation it was a rookie detective and, worse, a woman.
He had looked at her as if she had contagious leprosy. For the first six weeks together he had said no more than a word a week to her—six words in six weeks, all of them four-letter. He had schemed to get her out of the division, even started dark rumors about a Board of Inquiry when she missed an important lead in what should have been an easy case.
But gradually she had become better at the work, until even he had been forced to acknowledge it. Soon they were making collars pretty often. In fact they were getting a reputation.
“Women are mostly awful cops,” were his final words on the subject, “but you’re unique. Instead of being awful, you’re just bad.”
Coming from Wilson that was a compliment, perhaps the highest he had ever paid a fellow officer. After that his grumbling became inarticulate and he let the partnership roll along under its own considerable steam.
They worked like two parts of the same person, constantly completing each other’s thoughts. People like the Chief Medical Examiner started requesting their help on troublesome cases. But when their work started to reach the papers, it was invariably the attractive, unusual lady cop Becky Neff who ended up in the Daily News centerfold.
Wilson was only another skilled policeman; Becky was interesting news. Wilson, of course, claimed to hate publicity. But she knew he hated even more the fact that he didn’t get any.
“You’re making a wrong turn, Becky. We’re supposed to be stopping at the Seventy-fifth to get pictures. of the bodies and pawprints for Rilker. Give him something to work with.”
She wheeled the car around and turned up Flatlands Avenue toward the station house.
“Also we ought to call ahead,” she said, “let him know we’re coming.”
“You’re sur
e we trust him? I mean, what if he’s doing a little work on the side, like for somebody bad. Calling ahead’ll give him time to think.”
“Rilker’s not working for the Mafia. I don’t think that’s even worthy of consideration.”
“Then I won’t consider it.” He slumped down in the seat, pushing his knees up against the glove compartment and letting his head lean forward against his chest. It looked like agony, but he closed his eyes. Becky lit a cigarette and drove on in silence, mentally reviewing the case. Despite the fact that it looked like they were on a good lead she could not dismiss the feeling that something was wrong with it. Some element didn’t fit. Again and again she reviewed the facts but she couldn’t come up with the answer. The one thing that worried her was the lack of resistance. It had happened so fast that they hadn’t appeared dangerous until the very last moment.
Did attack dogs lay ambushes? Could they move fast enough to kill two healthy policemen before they even had time to unholster their pistols?
She double-parked the car in front of the 75th Precinct.
Leaving Wilson snoring lightly she hurried up the worn concrete steps of the dingy red-brick building and introduced herself to the desk sergeant. He called Lieutenant Ruiz, who was responsible for the material she needed. He was a six-footer with a trim black mustache and a subdued smile. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Detective Neff,” he said with great f formality.
“We need pictures and copies of the prints you took.”
“No problem, we’ve got everything you could want. It’s a rotten mess.”
A leading statement, but Becky didn’t pick up on it That part of the investigation would come later. Before they identified a motive for the murders they had to have a mode of death.
Sergeant Ruiz produced eleven glossies of the scene, plus a box of plasticasts of the pawprints that had been found surrounding the bodies. “There isn’t a single clear print in that box,” he said, “just a jumble. If you ask me those prints haven’t got a thing to do with it. Just the wild dogs doing a little scavenging. They sure as hell couldn’t be responsible for killing those guys, they just came and got their share after the real work was done.”