Cold Blood by Theresa Monsour Page B

inmates.
    â€œAll the naughty boys have been accounted for.”
    â€œGood.” Then a question for which she already knew the answer: “Have we got a search warrant for the ex’s place?” Duncan rarely worried about legalities, rules, jurisdiction.
    â€œFor what? We’re not searching jack. We’re poking around. That’s all. Poking around.”
    She paused and then asked, “Is this official or unofficial poking?” That was code for: Are you going to get both our butts in trouble with this one?
    He ignored her question. “You’re from that end of town. You can canvass it in your sleep. Shit. With that big fucking clan of yours, he’s probably one of your relatives and you don’t even know it. Get on it, Potato Head.”
    She didn’t want him calling her that, but she let it go. With Duncan, it was best to let it go. He was always ready for a fight. “What’s the address?” she asked.

EIGHT
    MURPHY DIDN’T NEED to write down the address. It wasn’t far from the Murphy family home, where as a kid she’d claimed the root cellar as her bedroom to escape the rest of the beehive. That’s how she’d earned the title “Potato Head.” A family nickname. She didn’t want anyone using it except relatives and a couple of close friends; Axel was neither one. She thought he was a pain in the ass. A hot dog and a show-off.
    She pulled out of the yacht club parking lot and went south on Wabasha Street. She took a right on Water Street and passed the Great River Boat Works, where yachts and speedboats and houseboats were on blocks and lined up behind a fence, waiting for repairs in the yard. She took a left on Plato Boulevard and a right on Ohio Street and snaked up the winding hill. She hung a right on George Street, crossed Smith Avenue and drove into Cherokee Park.
    Chad Pederson lived in a compact bungalow off the park. Murphy circled the block once and then drove down the alley. She parked her Jeep in front of a garage a coupleof houses away from Pederson’s. Before getting out of the car, she opened her shoulder bag and checked her service weapon, a .40-cal. Glock Model 23. When she didn’t wear a belt or shoulder rig, her purse doubled as her holster and had a special sleeve to carry her gun. She walked down the alley, surveying the trash cans huddled next to all the garages. The cans were empty; the neighborhood had recently had a garbage pickup. If Chad Pederson had disposed of any evidence in the trash, it was already at the dump. A cedar privacy fence enclosed Pederson’s backyard, but there was a gate from the alley. She peeked through a crack between the fence boards and then opened the gate and walked in.
    Against the back fence was a garden the size of a doormat; it was a tangle of dead tomato vines. On one side of the yard she saw an aluminum playground set with two swings and a slide. On the other side was a tree with slats of wood nailed onto the trunk; the rungs led up to a wooden platform set between the lowest branches. A fort. Her brothers built lots of them when they were kids. A deck ran alongside the back of the bungalow. Tucked into one corner of the deck was a doghouse—a miniature of Pederson’s bungalow—with a sign nailed across the top. Spike’s Place . A couple of shallow holes in the dirt against the fence had to be Spike’s handiwork. There were no suspicious mounds or patches of fresh sod, and she’d expected none. She’d never come across someone stupid enough to bury his ex in the backyard. She remembered one genius who’d dumped his wife in the lake behind their house. Another kept his girlfriend in a trunk in the garage. Better check the garage, she thought.
    The service door was open a crack. She put her ear to it and listened. Nothing. She pulled out her flashlight and pushed the door the rest of the way with her hip and walked inside. She sniffed. No