“Adorable.”
“You’ll love them even more when you see this.” He opened another window, beside
the Berkowitz image. It was an advertisement for Bedbug Doug posed beside Smokey,
his bedbug-sniffing beagle. “Apparently beagles are great at finding bedbugs, and
exterminators are using them like crazy. Doug even made Smokey his company mascot.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen the ads,” said Heat. “So you’re telling me your connection is
that both victims liked beagles? Kind of thin, Randall.”
“Stand by, please.” With the eraser end of a pencil he pointed to the litter
surrounding Maxine Berkowitz. “Mixed litter, lots of colors. You’ve got one here
that’s mottled, these two are lemon and white, and then there’s this boy here.”
He zoomed on the image of one puppy. “This, they call open marked. White coat with
tan and black spots. Notice the pattern of these three black spots on his shoulder?
” He zoomed on the image of Smokey.
“Identical,” she said, more interested now. “Is it the same dog?”
The detective smiled. “You tell me.” He moused open a YouTube video. While it
loaded, he said, “This was shot a year and a half ago in Danbury, at a canine
scent-training academy. Basically, it’s Smokey’s graduation from bedbug school.”
Nikki watched the amateur video of Douglas Sandmann climbing a riser to applause as
he accepted a diploma, with his beagle matching stride, on heel. After Sandmann took
the certificate, there was a jump edit to a video that chilled Nikki. Clearly taken
in the parking lot after the ceremony, the camera captured Douglas Sandmann and
Maxine Berkowitz kneeling and praising her little guy, Smokey, who licked her face.
Heat gave Feller a nod of appreciation. “Who’s a good boy?” he said.
Rook came into the bull pen from his lunch meeting and joined Heat and Feller. Nikki
recapped Randall’s beagle connection for him then turned to the Murder Boards. “So
we already had one connection from Roy Conklin to Maxine Berkowitz. Now we have one
from Maxine to Bedbug Doug. We don’t know what they mean yet but it’s something.”
She turned to Detective Feller. “What you just did for Maxine? Do it for Douglas
Sandmann. And the locksmith, Glen Windsor, too.”
“Got it. Anything that connects to the other victims.”
“Or helps us learn who his next one might be,” she said. As Feller left for his
desk, Nikki drew a line in marker from Berkowitz and Sandmann and labeled it
“Smokey.”
“Nice name for a beagle,” said Rook as she capped her dry erase. “Barry Manilow
had two beagles. Named them Bagel and Biscuit.”
“Fascinating.” Heat made her way back to her desk, and he followed along, still
talking.
“Speaking of Barry Manilow, I just saw an ad for that sitcom The Middle. So funny,
Patricia Heaton walks in on her mom dancing to Barry Manilow. Oh. The mom?” he said
loudly to the room. “Played by… Marsha Mason. Even fewer than six degrees, thank
you, thank you very much.”
“Rook, maybe you could save the parlor games until we’re a little less busy,”
said Heat. “Like after we finish, I dunno, catching a murderer or two?”
“Well, Detective Heat, as it turns out, I do have something to contribute to the
search for one of your suspects, a certain Tyler Wynn.” He sat on her desk, as was
his habit, and she again had to yank a file out from under one of his cheeks.