“Okay.”
Andrea took a peek inside the oven, gave a satisfied nod, and said, “Call if you need me.” And disappeared again.
Theodosia had come prepared. She slipped on a cardigan sweater, opened the door to the cooler, and stepped inside. A light came on, and instinctively, she looked down to where she’d first discovered Nadine’s dead body. Scanned for remnants of blood that had been smeared across the floor. But of course that had all been cleaned up. Probably by one of those professional cleaning companies that dealt with hazardous waste.
Sad to think of Nadine as hazardous waste.
Just as Andrea had said, there were boxes marked mackenzie’s crab co. and a large wooden crate holding several mesh bags filled with bumpy gray oysters. Almost forty pounds’ worth. There were several boxes of lemons as well, a few cartons of eggs, and bundles of meat.
Ordinary. Not that much to see.
For some reason, Theodosia had thought she might arrive at some brilliant deduction if she came back here and poked around. Or, in her mind’s eye, she’d be able to envision the murder more clearly. Nadine, the killers, a confrontation, the gun being fired.
Wasn’t happening for her.
Disappointed, Theodosia made a slow three-hundred-sixty-degree turn. Looked up, looked down. Decided this had probably been a fool’s errand.
And that’s when she felt something—a tiny bump—under the toe of her left shoe. She took a step back, looked down, and saw a small metal spring, maybe an inch long, with a tiny hook at each end.
It reminded Theodosia of the end of a miniature bungee cord. Could Haley have used some kind of small cord to help keep the lid on one of their portable coolers? Or maybe on a container of Devonshire cream? That was probably it, she decided as she picked it up, then dropped the spring into her sweater pocket. But she’d check with Haley just to make sure.
* * *
* * *
A globular yellow moon dangled in a blue-black sky as Theodosia and Drayton rolled down the alley behind Simon Nardwell’s gun shop.
“This is such a bad idea,” Drayton said. For the last half hour, ever since Theodosia had stopped by to pick him up, he’d been trying to dredge up excuses to skip out of this. None of them had budged Theodosia in her determination.
So here they were, pulled up next to a hulking green dumpster that had buddy’s sanitation stenciled on the side in flaking yellow paint.
Theodosia hopped out of her Jeep; Drayton climbed out reluctantly. It was dark as pitch in the alley with a tangle of power lines overhead. A dog barked a block away, a long, baying yi-yi-yi, then went silent. A car with a bad muffler sputtered by over on King Street. Then the night grew quiet.
“Got some disposable plastic gloves here,” Theodosia said.
Drayton sighed, accepted a pair, pulled them on, then looked up and down the alley. “What do we do now?”
“Let’s try opening the lid,” Theodosia said. She walked over to the dumpster, gripped the lid, and muscled it upward. There was a loud creak, then the lid rose on pneumatic hinges and tilted back. The smell of days-old garbage drifted out.
“Nasty,” Drayton said. “What do you think is in there?”
Theodosia peered over the ledge of the dumpster and into the dark interior. She snapped on a small flashlight and aimed the beam. “I see a pizza carton from Luigi’s Pizza, so there’s probably a half-eaten olive and pepperoni in there. Plus, there’s a bunch of cardboard boxes and some empty wine bottles.”
“The wine no doubt consumed with the pizza,” Drayton said. For some reason he was dressed as a commando. Black slacks, a dark green military-looking sweater complete with epaulets.
“There are two apartments above Nardwell’s shop, so the residents probably make use of this dumpster as well.”
“Lucky us. Say there, what’s that you’re doing?”
Theodosia had stuck a toe into an indentation on the side of the dumpster and was hoisting herself up onto the edge.
“You’re not actually going in there, are you?” Drayton sounded horrified.
“I just want to excavate the top layer.” Theodosia ducked down, practically disappearing into the darkness. All Drayton could see was the top of her head. Then she let out a muffled cry of “Stand back!”
Sheets of cardboard, bottles, pizza cartons, and junk suddenly rained down into the alley.
“You’re emptying it out?” Drayton cried. He was waving his arms, looking a little frantic.
“The better to see what’s what in here. It’s so doggone dark.”
“It’s dark out here, too,” Drayton said. He shifted from one foot to the other, unwilling to root through the trash.
“Did you see any FedEx boxes come flying out?” Theodosia asked.
“No.”
“Are you looking?”
“Not really.”
Theodosia popped her head up like a gopher. “Turn on that mini flashlight I gave you and see what’s what.”
“What exactly should I be looking for? Give me a hint,” Drayton said as he dug in his pocket for the flashlight.
“Like I said, a shipping box. And any packing material that may have been stuffed inside.”
“Why?” He snapped his light on and began to poke through the debris.
“If we find it, we can send it to a lab and have it tested.”
“For drugs?” Drayton said.
“That would be the general idea,” Theodosia said.
“Okay, I see some brown wrapping paper.”
“Excellent. And I just spotted the corner of a FedEx box. It’s wet and a little crumpled, so I need to kind of ease it out . . .” There was a squishing sound and then a limp FedEx box sailed out of the dumpster and into the alley. It landed with a hard splat at Drayton’s feet, spraying droplets onto his shoes and slacks.
“Cleanup on aisle three,” Drayton said.
“Look at the return address. Does it say San Lorenzo?” Theodosia asked.
Drayton bent forward and jabbed at it gingerly. “It says San Loren. The rest of the word is missing.”
“Which means we found the right box,” Theodosia cried as she climbed back out of the dumpster.
“You’re really going to have this tested?”
“Sure.”
“You’re going to ask Riley to haul a pile of stinky garbage into the police forensics lab? Where they will drop everything and test for drugs?”