Nick of Time (A Bug Man Novel) (6 page)

The farther north he drove, the more residential the neighborhood became, gradually evolving into a traditional suburban landscape of tree-lined streets and single-family dwellings. Nick had trouble remembering the directions and made two wrong turns before finally pulling up in front of the unassuming fifty-year-old split-level with white vinyl siding and a gray shingled roof. He parked across the street from the house and looked at it; the blinds and curtains were all drawn, despite the early-afternoon hour and the seasonable May weather. It looked as if Pete might be off traveling somewhere, but Nick seriously doubted it. By nature Pete was a homebody; it just wasn’t in his blood to wander far from home, especially now that Lila was gone.

Nick walked to the front door and knocked. The aluminum storm door made a tinny, rattling sound, too faint for Pete to hear from deep inside the house, so he opened the storm door and knocked on the solid wooden doorframe. He waited, but there was no response. After several more attempts, each louder and more insistent than the one before, he took out his cell phone and punched in Pete’s home number. He pressed his ear against the door and listened . . . There it was—the familiar trill of a landline coming from deep in the house. Nick could visualize the phone’s exact location; he knew right where it hung on the kitchen wall.

He walked around the right side of the house. A narrow concrete driveway separated Pete’s residence from the one beside it, sloping down toward the back of the house and the basement garage underneath. Nick cupped his hands and peered through the cloudy garage-door windows; there was Pete’s car, parked where it always was. An uneasy thought crossed Nick’s mind; he pressed his face tighter against the glass and stared harder, searching for the silhouette of a figure slumped behind the wheel—but there was no sign of Pete.

Thank God
.

Nick continued around the house, hoping to find an open window that might allow him a view of the home’s interior, but every window seemed to be draped and covered—and then, on the left side of the house, he spotted them.

Blowflies
.

Dozens of them, clinging to the glass and sash of a large double window that opened into the living room. Nick squeezed through the hedge and adjusted his glasses for a better look . . . Holarctic blue blowflies,
Calliphora vomitoria
, easy to recognize by their dark eyes and dull metallic-blue thoraxes. There were common bluebottles too, most likely
Calliphora vicina
, similar in appearance to the
vomitoria
but larger in size with stout bristly bodies.

Nick felt his stomach begin to sink. He knew there could be only one reason for blowflies to collect in those numbers .  . . They were gravid females, searching for a protein-rich environment where they could lay their eggs—and they had found one.

Something inside the house was dead.

***

Nick stood on the stoop of the house and stared impatiently at the street. He looked at his watch for the third time, then turned to the patrol officer standing placidly beside him. “How long does it take to get a detective over here?” Nick asked. “I mean, this is Philadelphia—people have died here before, right? What about Betsy Ross? I haven’t seen her around lately.”

“I told you,” the officer said. “Roxborough’s in the Fifth District, and the Fifth is a patrol district. We’re first responders; we assess the situation and then we call it in.”

“So you’re basically just a flunky.”

The patrol officer gave him a look. “I put in a call to Northwest Detective, but that’s over on Broad and Champlost. It takes a few minutes to get over here—okay?”

“Why don’t we wait for him inside?” Nick suggested.

“Why don’t we wait right here—and shut up?”

It was another three minutes before an unmarked Crown Victoria Police Interceptor rolled up to the curb and a plainclothes detective stepped out.

“Took you long enough,” Nick called to the street.

The detective smiled thinly and took a moment to straighten his tie before starting up the short sidewalk toward the house. He gave a cursory nod to the patrol officer, then turned to Nick. “You must be the bug guy.”

“And you must be the detective,” Nick said. “So now that the icebreaker’s over, can we all go inside?”

“Explain it to me.”

“Explain what?”

“How you can tell there’s a dead guy inside just because of some flies on a window.”

“I already told
him
,” Nick said, jabbing his thumb at the officer.

“Tell me.”

“Look, Detective—”

“The name is Misco,” he said. “Danny Misco—‘Detective’ to you.”

“Dr. Nick Polchak,” Nick replied. “ ‘Doctor’ to you. Sorry if I seem like I’m in a hurry, but the guy inside happens to be a friend of mine—a very old friend—and I’m pretty sure something’s happened to him.”

“How? Explain it to me.”

Nick let out an impatient sigh. “When a body decomposes it releases specific chemical compounds into the air, okay? Certain species of insects are attracted to that scent, and they’re very good at finding it.”

“Are we talking about human bodies?”

“Any body—any kind of decaying flesh.”

“Then how do you know it’s not a cat or a dog?”

“Because Pete had no pets—he had allergies. And because it takes a significant amount of decaying tissue to attract a blowfly through a closed window. Believe me, I know—I’ve done the research myself. My friend wrote to me a couple weeks ago; he asked me to meet him here today in Philly, only he didn’t show up—and that’s not like him. I drove out here to see if I could find him, but nobody answered the door. When I walked the perimeter of the house, I spotted a number of blowflies on the west-facing window.” He pointed. “Over there. Most of them were
Calliphora vicina
and
vomitoria
, but I also noticed a couple of
Phaenicia sericata
—in case you’re the kind of guy who’s impressed by big fancy words. The presence of those flies indicates that something is dead inside this house—something large—and it hasn’t been dead for long.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because blowflies are usually the first insects to find human remains. First responders, you might call them—then they call it in.”

“Clever,” Misco said.

“Of course, this is all just conjecture—but I know a way we can find out whether I’m right or not.” Nick nodded at the patrol officer. “You can tell your flunky here to kick the door open so we can all go inside and take a look.”

Misco didn’t reply—he just stepped up to the door and began to feel along the top of the frame. He bent down and lifted the doormat and looked at the damp concrete underneath; then he tipped forward the flower planters on either side of the door. He picked up a key and held it up to show Nick. “It’s a friendly neighborhood,” he said. “We don’t like to kick down doors unless we have to—it spooks the neighbors.”

He turned the key in the dead bolt and opened the door a few inches, then motioned for the patrol officer to enter first—but when Nick stepped forward, Misco blocked his way.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Inside,” Nick said. “I thought—”

“You thought wrong,” Misco said. “This is a police matter now, Polchak. Thanks for calling it in—now go home.”

“But this is a friend of mine.”

“That doesn’t make you a police officer.”

“At least let me identify the body.”

“Glad to—if we have any problem identifying him. Chances are we won’t.”

“Are you seriously going to make me wait out here?”

“I’m not making you do anything,” Misco said. “I’m just not letting you inside. You can wait here if you want to; I’ll take a look around and let you know what I find.”

Misco stepped into the house and flashed a quick smile at Nick before closing the door behind him.

The front of the house was in afternoon shadow and the window to the left of the door turned a faint orange when the lights in the house went on. Nick searched for a gap in the curtains that might allow him a peek inside, but there was none. There was nothing he could do but stand and wait while Misco poked and prodded Pete’s body—and that thought drove him absolutely crazy.

It was a full fifteen minutes before the door opened again and Misco and the patrol officer stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind them.

Nick waited. “Well?”

“Dr. Peter Boudreau,” Misco said, handing Nick his old friend’s driver’s license. “I’d say he’s been dead two, maybe three days by the looks of things. The body’s still in decent shape— the ME should be able to pin it down better.”

Nick looked down at the driver’s license and saw Pete’s familiar face smiling back at him. He felt shocked and stunned by the detective’s blunt announcement, but the feeling confused him. Why was he surprised? He knew it was Pete’s body inside that house—he knew it the instant he saw those blowflies. He knew it wasn’t a cat, or a dog, or a neighbor who had stopped by to check on the house while Pete was away. He knew the same way those blowflies knew—by instinct—and Nick’s instincts were rarely wrong.

Right now he wished they were.

He looked up at Misco. “Were you able to determine cause of death?”

The detective didn’t reply.

“Come on, Misco, you can tell me that much.”

“Gunshot,” he said. “Two to the chest, a third to the forehead. Medium-caliber bullet, judging by the wounds—I’m betting a .38 or a .357.”

“Check the exit wound in the back of the skull,” Nick said.

“It won’t be level with the entry wound.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because nobody shoots a man in the head and then bothers to fire twice more into the chest—it’s the other way around. The first two shots would have knocked Pete down; the shooter would have still been standing, and he wanted to make sure Pete was dead—so the third shot would have been taken at an extreme angle.”

“Good point,” Misco said.

“I have a lot of clever ideas like that,” Nick said. “If you’ll let me take a look at the body, I’ll be glad to give you more.”

“No thanks,” Misco said.

Nick stared in disbelief. “I’ve seen cops get territorial before, but this is nuts.”

“I never did like being called a ‘cop,’ ” Misco said, turning to the patrol officer. “How ’bout you?”

“Nope—never did.”

“ ‘Officer,’ maybe. ‘Detective’ sounds even better, since I earned it.”

“I’ll call you ‘Your Imperial Highness’ if it makes you happy,”

Nick said. “Just let me take a look at that body.”

“Not a chance. This is a crime scene now—
my
crime scene—and I don’t want the general public contaminating it.”

“The
general public
? Do you have any idea what I do for a living, Misco? I’m a forensic entomologist—I happen to be in town because I’m a member of the Vidocq Society. Ever heard of them?”

“Oh, yeah,” Misco said with a smirk. “The ‘Women’s Murder Club.’ Cute.”

Nick did an incredulous double take. “Are you out of your mind? We’ve got some of the best forensic minds in the world over there.”

“And I suppose you’re one of them.”

“In my field? Yes, I am—I’m the best there is.”

“Well, this is my field, Polchak, and we have a certain way of doing things here.”

“Believe me, I’ve seen the way guys like you do things—and after they screw things up, they always call somebody like me to straighten out the mess. Why don’t you save us both a lot of time and trouble and let me take a look while I’m here?”

“Excuse me?”

“Look, you’re a detective—what is that, one pay grade above corporal? And as for the ‘Women’s Murder Club,’ why do you think Vidocq even exists? Because people like you always miss something, that’s why. That’s where cold cases come from, and I don’t want to see my friend turn into one.”

Misco glared at Nick for a long time before he finally said, “Didja ever get a hunch about somebody the minute you met him? I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like you the first time you opened that big fat mouth of yours. And you know what? I was right.” His countenance gradually relaxed again. “Now here’s what’s gonna happen next: I’m gonna stand here and watch while you get in your car and drive off, and you’re not going to come back here again—understand? This is now a crime scene—
my
crime scene—and my people will take care of it.” He raised his right hand and made a little shooing gesture, as if Nick were a bit of rat scat he was flicking off the porch.