Detective Dean Whitehouse was walking into the bullpen just as his partner, Deke Morgan, was walking out.
"Let's roll," Deke said.
"Whatdda we got?" Dean asked, turning around and jogging to keep pace with him.
"Dead body on Sunken Road," Deke said.
"Actually in the road?" Dean asked.
"No. In a house."
Dean nodded. "Right."
In the parking garage, Dean climbed behind the wheel of their station issued Malibu while Deke slid into the passenger seat.
"Where to?"
Deke gave him the address.
It was halfway across town.
The day was cold and wet, the streets slick and the trees along the sidewalks bare and pale. On the outskirts of Old Towne, a couple guys in a cherry picker were hanging a Christmas wreath. "Too damn early for that," Deke mused.
It was November 15. Thanksgiving was ten days away.
"They've had decorations up at the mall for two weeks," Dean said, picking up Lafayette Blvd, which straddled the border between quaint Old Towne and a crumbling ghetto.
"Humbug," Deke said.
The address turned out to be a house on Pine Way, a stone's throw from Sunken Road; standing at the curb and looking toward SR, you could just see the buildings of Mary Washington University on its hill, poking through the autumn foliage.
The street was crawling with cops; yellow crime scene tape blocked the eight or so onlookers from getting too close.
At the front door, Dean and Deke were met by Sgt. Avis, a plump little man with short black hair and soft hazel eyes.
"His daughter found him at nine this morning," Avis explained as he led them through the living room. It was nice. Wood floors. Soft, crème paintjob. It reminded Dean of his mother's house out in King George. Comfortable.
You could tell an older person lived here.
"Name's Bill Manson," Avis said, introducing them to the vic.
Manson, a big guy, was lying in the middle of the kitchen floor, a butcher knife jutting from his chest. Dean avoided his eyes; there was something about the empty eyes of the dead that scared him.
"Cause of death," Avis said, gesturing to the knife.
Deke, already kneeling, looked up at Avis. "You sure?"
Avis nodded. "Yes."
"Absolutely?"
Avis nodded again.
"Positively?"
"Yes."
Deke ended the game.
"Is this exactly how you found him?"
Avis nodded. "He was laying here when I came in. Yes."
Deke examined the knife. "It's a knife alright."
"Where's the daughter?"
"Outside," Avis said, "she's pretty shook up."
Dean nodded. He'd try and give her some space, but the investigation didn't start until he talked to her.
"Were the doors locked?" Deke asked.
"No signs of forced entry," Avis said. "He has a security system. It was engaged when the daughter got here."
"Brinks?" Dean asked.
"Yep," Avis said.
"They're good."
"He coulda forgot to turn it on," Deke said, "and the killer did it on his way out."
Dean sighed.
Maddie Brown, daughter of Bill Manson, sat in the back of a squad car, a brown wool blanket wrapped around her scrawny shoulders. When Dean first saw her, she was pale and shaky. Now, however, she'd recovered a little, and was able to speak steadily.
"I pick him up every morning at nine," Maddie said. "Nothing looked wrong. It's...I don't know."
"Why do you pick him up every morning?" Dean asked, wincing internally at his use of present tense.
Maddie didn't notice; they rarely do. "We own an antique store on Caroline Street," she said. "Trinkets and Treasures, a block from the library."
Dean jotted that down in his notepad. He knew the place. It was on Old Towne's main drag, up from Goolrick's Pharmacy and Soda Fountain.
The next logical question, seeing as how Bill Manson was a businessman, was: "Did your father keep large sums on money in the house?"
Maddie shook her head. "No."
"Did your father have any enemies?"
Maddie shook her head. "No. Everyone loved him. But..."
"But?"
"Well, it's probably nothing..."
"Well, nothing's cracked a lot of case open. Shoot."
Maddie sighed. "My dad said something strange was happening. He thought...he thought someone was breaking into the house and stealing."
Dean's heart jerked. "Stealing what?" he asked.
"Food."
"Food?"
Maddie nodded. "He said he'd go in the fridge sometimes and food would be missing. And a couple times, he found things...rearranged. Not how he left them."
"What things?"
"Things in the fridge."
Hm.
"He has a security system. It never...tripped?"
Maddie shook her head. "No. That's why I thought he was sleep eating."
Sleep eating, huh?
"Who has the code?"
"Just me and him."
"Was it engaged this morning?"
"Yes."
"Are you and your father the only ones who work at the shop?"
Maddie shook head. "No. There's Scott. Scott Grove."
"Where does he live?"
Maddie gave him the address. "I'm going to need to talk to you again probably," Dean said, snapping his notepad closed. "But for now...go home. Get some rest."
She nodded. "Yeah."
"Looks like our guy died between three and six. What do you got?" Dean and Deke were standing on the porch. It had begun to rain in earnest now; water hissed and gurgled in the street.
"Not much," Dean replied. "The security system was armed when she got here. No one has the code but her and the vic. She did say her father thought someone was breaking in and stealing food from the fridge."
Deke's brow furrowed. "What?"
Dean nodded. "Crazy, huh? She thinks he was a sleep eater."
Deke shrugged.
"They own a junk shop in Old Towne."
"He keep money in the house?"
Dean shook his head. "That doesn't mean someone didn't think so."
Deke nodded again.
"They have a guy working for them. I figure we'll swing by his place and see what he has to say."
"Alright," Deke said. "But I'm driving this time."
Scott Grove lived in an apartment complex over the Stafford County line. When they pulled up, the first thing Dean noticed was a group of black kids hanging out in a stairwell.
"No school today?" Deke asked sardonically as he swung into a parking spot.
"Guess not," Dean said. "We aren't truant officers."
"Nope," Deke said. He killed the engine and they got out. Grove's place was on the third floor. Deke knocked ten times before the door opened and a thin, bleary-eyed man with ginger hair appeared in the threshold. He was wearing a white T-shirt and a pair of light blue basketball shorts.
"Scott Grove?" Deke asked.
"Yes," Grove replied, his eyes suddenly clear. Dean figured he knew who they were.
"I'm Detective Morgan and this is Detective Whitehead. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?"
"About what?" Grove asked. His voice wasn't challenging; it was puny.
"Someone stabbed Bill Mason last night."
The color went out of Grove's face. "What?" he drew.
"Can we come in?" Dean asked.
"Sure," Grove said, shaking his head like a man waking from a thin, fitful sleep. "Come in."
The apartment was neat and tidy. The furniture was threadbare and cheap, but matched.
Dean hung back while Deke went through the details of the case. Dean had never had another partner so he didn't know if them taking turns being the "lead" guy was normal or not. Not that it mattered.
"Where were you last night?" Deke finally asked.
"Work then the clinic," Scott said.
"Clinic?" Deke asked.
"Yeah. The Methadone Clinic. In Falmouth."
Scott worked two jobs. From midnight to four, he delivered the Free-Lance Star in Stafford. As soon as he finished up, he went to the Methadone clinic, got his fix, and went home to sleep for a few hours. At ten or eleven, he got up, went to the shop, and worked until three or four.
"Can anyone vouch for you?"
"Yeah. My roommate, Ryan."
Delivering newspapers isn't as easy as Leave it to Beaver made it seem, especially when you delivered to three-hundred-and-fifty houses a night. Scott's roommate Ryan helped out, first rolling and bagging the papers, and then actually delivering them.
"Where is he now?"
"Work."
Ryan worked at Sammy T's restaurant, on Caroline Street, just a few doors down from Trinkets and Treasures.
Outside, at the curb, Deke said, "I doubt he did it."
"Yeah, so do I."
"Let's check..."
Dean's phone rang.
"Hello?"
It was Sgt. Avis. "We found something," he said, "it might be a game changer."
"We're on our way."
A video camera, mounted in the kitchen, cleverly hidden from sight.
"Maddie Brown did say he thought someone was raiding his fridge."
It was an older model camera, with a tape inserted directly into it. In the living room, Avis and his men had found a special player for it, along with a wealth of tapes.
"You bring the popcorn and I'll bring the candy," Deke said.
"You got it."
Back at the station, Dean and Deke set the player up in a disused conference room and popped the most recent tape in, the one that had been in the camera when they found it.
"You think it caught the murder?" Captain Mayfield asked. He was a tall, thin man in a three-piece suit. He sat between Dean and Deke.
"We hope."
"It's the best lead we have."
"What about this Scott guy?"
"He checks out," Dean said; he'd called both the offices of the Free-Lance Star and the Methadone clinic. It was always possible he found a few minutes to do it, but not likely.
Captain Mayfield shrugged. "Alright. Let's watch it."
Deke hit the play button.
The film was in black-and-white. It showed the entire kitchen and part of the hall leading to the foyer.
Both stood empty.
"Can we fast forward it?" Captain Mayfield asked.
"Yeah," Dean replied, leaning forward.
The tape sped up. Finally, something happened.
The cabinet below the sink opened.
"Stop!"
Dean hit the play button.
A woman climbed out from beneath the sink, her hair long and black. She was wearing what looked like a white dress or robe.
"Jesus Christ," Deke said, sitting up.
She got to her feet, looked around, and went to the fridge.
"She stealing his food," Dean said, "just like Maddie said."
Bill Manson appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
"Uh-oh," Deke said.
Bill came forward into the hall. The woman, hearing it, shut the door and looked lost, like a trapped animal. She reached toward the disk rack.
"Uh-oh," Deke said again.
Bill came into the kitchen.
The woman panicked. Stuck him.
Bill went down, landing so hard the camera rattled.
The woman looked left, right, went to his side, panicked some more...
...and then crawled back under the sink.
"Jesus Christ," Dean said, "she's still there."
Dean, Deke, Captain Mayfield, and a team of cops went back to the house.
When they crashed through the door, the woman was there, coming in from the kitchen like she owned the place.
"Police, freeze!" Dean yelled, pointing his gun at her.
Her eyes went wide, and she raised her hands.
Deke put away his own gun and snatched her up by the dress, spinning her around and slapping a pair of cuffs on her hands. "You have the right to remain silent..."
"I didn't mean it," the woman said, her voice tired and rusty, as if it hadn't been used in years. "I swear, I didn't mean it. He surprised me."
Her name was Mary, Mary Sanford, and she'd lived under Bill Manson's sink for almost two years.
"Homeless," Dean explained to Captain Mayfield, "Bill took her in, but she burned him, stole some money, and he kicked her out."
"He gave her the security code?"
Dean shook his head. "He kept it on a piece of paper in his wallet. She found it and copied it."
"So what you're telling me is that for two years, this woman lived under a sink, and the homeowner was none the wiser?"
"Not until he noticed his food going missing. My theory is she got sloppy."
"Our guys were all over the place. No one checked under the sink?"
Dean shrugged. "Someone got lazy. That's how it goes. It's always the small stuff that comes back to bite you."
That night, before Dean went to sleep, he checked under his sink.