“I know where we are,” Mercer said. “You’ll have to help me with trencher-fed.”
Mike had both hands in his pants pockets as he stepped closer to the body. “Probably in the twenty-first-century dictionary, m’man.”
“Afraid not, Detective,” Straight said. “The word comes from a much earlier time. It refers to the keeping of hounds to hunt.”
“No wonder you lost me. Granddad wasn’t from the hunting-hound Chapmans. Must have lost ours in the potato famine. What’s your deal?”
Toby Straight looked like a fish out of water in this urban cul-de-sac. His long-sleeve shirt, rolled up at the cuffs, had initials monogrammed on the pocket. His jeans were perfectly clean and neatly pressed, and his tasseled loafers seemed impervious to scuffs. He wore a tweed cap and carried a walking stick or fancily carved cane, despite the fact that he appeared to be younger than I and wasn’t limping.
“We started meeting almost fifteen years ago, right after I got out of graduate school. When I lived in town.”
“You don’t live here now?” I asked.
“No, Bertie and I drive in from Darien,” Straight said, bending over to pick up his dog and stroke his belly. “The group meets once a week.”
“Here?” I looked around the dark alley, which had none of the familiar trappings of a city street-no traffic lights, trash bins, or pedestrian crossing lines. Wedged between the edge of the terminal building and bordering the west side of the US post office that fronted on Lexington Avenue, DePew was now a dead end, filled with loading docks and truck bays.
“Anywhere there’s garbage, Ms. Cooper. Ryders Alley downtown, Bayard Street, the walkways in Riverside Park.”
“What’s the attraction to garbage?” Mike asked.
“Where there’s garbage, Detective, there are rats. And the hunt for rats is what indulges the basic instincts of these terriers.”
“Sorry?”
“These dogs were bred to chase small game-to chase vermin, if you will,” Toby Straight said. “It’s sort of like a twofer. In a city with a rat population that’s out of control, we may not make a noticeable difference, but we do our bit. And the dogs have a good time at it.”
The other Jack Russell was yelping now, tugging against his leash and posing like a pointer. A homeless man came out of a doorway at the rear of the alley, below the Park Avenue Viaduct that circled the majestic terminal, now a century old. The dog barked again, practically howling, as the man dragged a huge plastic bag that clanged along the street as though it was filled with empty soda cans.
“Watch this, Mike,” Rocco Correlli said, lighting a cigarette. “Let your dog go, Mr. Straight.”
“Are you crazy, Loo?” I said. “There’s a dead body twenty feet away and some helpless vagrant stumbling around, not expecting any police activity.”
Straight bent down, holding Bertie over the ground while we argued.
“You’ll see. He doesn’t want either of them.”
When Straight let go of the terrier, he scrambled faster than a racehorse out of the gate, past the ME crouched over the deceased and around the startled homeless man. The other three dogs barked furiously.
Bertie disappeared out of sight for almost a minute before returning with a rat in his jaws, shaking the rodent vigorously from side to side to make sure he was dead.
Toby Straight seemed pleased with the kill. I was revolted.
“We’ve offended you, Ms. Cooper,” he said.
“Hard to do,” Mike said. “I’ve been trying for years.”
“Bertie’s exercising his brain. It’s a form of mental stimulation. It’s in the nature of a terrier.”
“And what does this have to do with the dead man?” I asked. “This-this urban fox hunt.”
“I never think of you as having such delicate sensibilities, Alex,” the lieutenant said. “Or else I wouldn’t have invited you here tonight.”
“Let it be, Rocco,” Mercer said. “I’m the one who invited her.”
“I’m not sure what it means,” Toby Straight said, cocking his head in my direction, “that the sight of a dead man doesn’t bother you, but a dead rat does.”
“I could give you a solid answer to that one,” Mike said, “but I’m hoping to hang on to my private parts.”
Straight turned away from me, gloved up like a Crime Scene investigator, bagged the creature that Bertie deposited at his feet, and then rewarded the dog with a treat. “The Department of Health actually pays us for ridding the streets of these creatures.”
“So you guys,” Rocco said, referring to Straight and his friends, “you call yourselves-?”
“Ratters, Mr. Correlli. We’re ratters.”
“You came in here tonight-when was it?”
“About eight forty-five, sir. Right after dark.”
“You didn’t see the body at first.”
“Not at all,” Straight said. “We know DePew well. As you’re probably aware, it’s owned by the railroad company-Metro-North-and it’s mainly used for mail trucks and as a freight loading area, so there’s no automobile traffic to endanger the dogs.”
“That makes it the perfect free zone for rats,” the lieutenant said. “Workmen create garbage during the day, throwing away remains of sandwiches and food and tossing soda cans. There’s a couple of Dumpsters towards the rear. The rats come out of the sewers and subway gratings at night and go hog-wild.”
The three other men were talking among themselves, watched over by a uniformed cop.
“I walked to the end of the alley,” Straight said, lifting his walking stick and jabbing it into the air, waist-high. “This cane isn’t an affectation. I lead off by pounding on the Dumpsters and stray piles of debris.”
“And that stirs up the vermin,” I said.
“Exactly. Tonight a stream of them came shooting out the big hole in the bottom of the Dumpster. And the stick protects me if any of them decide I’m fair game. Then we let the dogs off the leashes and they hunt,” Straight said, smiling at me as though to test my reaction, “like they were born to do.”
“The dead man,” I said.
“When the rats came running out of the Dumpster, there weren’t many places for them to go. Bertie and I were closest to them, and he was pretty agitated. Farther up the alley were my friends, and three other excited terriers. So they scattered, looking for a safe way back underground or out onto the streets of Manhattan.”
I shuddered. Popular lore was that in New York City, where the rodent population matched the size of the human population, one was never farther than thirty feet away from a rat.
“Bertie kept pointing to that last truck bay on the left,” Straight said, lifting his stick. “I let him take me there. That’s where the body was.”
“And rats?” Mercer asked.
“Some of them must have smelled blood-or death-and found it irresistible to stop and explore. But when Bertie turned the corner he was within six, seven feet of them, and they were gone in a flash.”
“Any damage to the body?” Mercer said to Rocco.
The lieutenant shook his head. “I don’t think he was there very long. Might be a scratch on his eyeball, but that’s about it.”
“But he was moved?”
“My fault entirely,” Straight said. “I knew if I left the man in that dark cul-de-sac, they’d be chewing on him in minutes. I dragged him out here, where you see him now, and yelled to one of my buddies to call 911.”
“You flipped him?” Mercer asked.
“I did. If he were still breathing, I’d have tried to resuscitate him.”
Rocco crooked his finger at me and walked away from Toby Straight, telling him to stick around. Straight tipped his cap, kept a tight rein on Bertie, and rejoined the other hunters.
Mercer and Mike followed us toward the deputy medical examiner.