Animal Instinct by Rosenfelt, David (novels for students TXT) 📕

“Oh, yes. More than a month before she died. She didn’t even tell me she was going to. I didn’t even realize it until she didn’t show up for a couple of days. I asked our boss, and he said she quit. He wouldn’t go into why.”

In the month before her death, Lisa broke up with Gerald Kline without telling her sister and quit her job without telling her best friend, Una Loge. This was a person who was dealing with significant things in her life.

“Do you have any guess as to why she quit?” I ask.

Susan shrugs. “Money? We’re not exactly overpaid. But if you really want to get into the nitty-gritty of that place, talk to Don Crystal.”

“Who is he?”

“He used to be one of our bosses, at least on the computer side. They fired him about a year ago.”

“Why?”

She shrugs. “I’m assuming because he pissed off management. Don had a way of doing that; he can be a pretty unusual guy.”

“So when you say he can tell me about the nitty-gritty, you mean the politics of the place?”

She nods. “I’ll bet he knows where all the bodies are buried.” Then, “Oh, that’s a bad way to put it in this situation. I’m sorry.”

I ask Susan a few more questions, which gives me an excuse to have the third muffin. Then I go into the other room to get Simon. He’s lying on his back, and the two little dogs are trying to jump up to get on his stomach. Tamar, the Maltese, almost makes it, but just slides off each time. All three dogs seem to be enjoying themselves.

When we leave, I make a spur-of-the-moment decision to head down to the shore. Simon loved going in the ocean so much that I figure I’d give him another shot at it.

So we go back down to Asbury and spend almost an hour throwing and retrieving the tennis ball. Simon has a great time and so do I. I even take my shoes off; I take a cell phone photograph of my bare feet on the wet sand and email it to Dani. I’m a cop by training; I believe in presenting evidence.

We don’t get home until about six thirty, after stopping for burgers along the way. We enter the house through the front door, and I immediately know something is wrong.

Someone has been in my house.

IT’S a cop thing.

I’m sensitive to something not being where it should be, something not being just right. It’s an instinct that I have honed over time, but which I completely trust. The small rug in front of the front door has been moved slightly, and the corner is turned up. That’s enough to confirm my feeling.

It could easily have happened by normal use, but I wasn’t the one who normally used it like that. I’m certain of it. And even though I can’t explain it, the place has a feel that it has been entered by someone that didn’t belong.

My instincts do not include knowing whether the intruder is still present, so I draw my revolver and say, “Find the man, Simon. Find the man.”

Simon perks up; the last thing he expected was to be going to work. He leads me to my bedroom, but if someone has been in here, they’re gone. After that we search the house, methodically and carefully, but there is no one to be found.

I call my neighbors on either side of me, but they hadn’t seen anyone near my house. After that I do a rough inventory; I don’t have that much of value, but whatever I do have seems to be intact. I’m not surprised; this does not seem like a house burglary. People who do that don’t make an effort to keep the interior neat and appearing untouched.

Whoever was here did not want me to know it.

With nothing obvious missing, my best guess is that the intruders were leaving a surveillance device of some kind, either audio or video. My experience in this is limited, but I search as best as I can for hidden devices, without coming up with anything. I have friends on the force who do this for a living, and I will get one to give the house a complete once-over.

I have a burglar alarm, but I rarely set it during the day, even though I know I should. I didn’t expect to be gone that long; going down to Asbury Park with Simon was a spur-of-the-moment decision. That will teach me to be spontaneous.

For now there is nothing left to do. I’m not going to make any phone calls on my landline phone to anyone about it, for fear that the phone is tapped. I’m already sorry I called my neighbors, since anyone listening in on the calls would know I am aware that there was an intruder.

So I settle in to watch the Mets game. They’re down three nothing in the sixth when the phone rings. I answer but don’t say anything, and the caller says, “Douglas?”

I am good with voices and I can instantly identify this one as Kline’s. “What do you want?”

“I have something to show you. It’s about Lisa’s death.”

“What is it?”

“Come to my house; it’s here.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You need to see it. Tonight. I can’t sit on this. Tomorrow morning I’m going to the police.”

“I’ll be there in an hour. You’d better not be wasting my time, Kline.”

“I’m not.”

I hang up and consider the circumstances. I have absolutely no idea what he could have discovered that would be relevant to Lisa Yates’s murder, but there’s no sense trying to figure it out. If it exists, I’m going to see it soon.

I use my cell phone to call Laurie, who does not want me to go alone. “You could be walking into a setup, Corey. You have to realize that.”

“I can handle anything this guy throws at me. Especially with Simon at my side.”

“Really? Our operating premise is that this guy threw a