“It was all Dennis’s fault,” Wendy said. “If he wasn’t such a psycho and hadn’t been chasing us, we never would have cut through the woods.”

Detective Mendez stopped her to turn on his tape recorder and announce who was in the room.

“Did you see anyone else in the woods, Wendy?” he asked.

“No.”

“No one around the area where the body was?”

“No people, but there was a dog. He came out of the bushes and it was like he was guarding her or something.”

“What kind of a dog?”

“The scary kind with big teeth and beady eyes. You know.”

“A pit bull?”

“Maybe. But he didn’t attack us,” she hastened to add. “He just growled like he was telling us to stay away from the lady. Dennis said maybe the dog killed her and buried her like a bone, but that’s stupid—right?”

Her mother spoke up then. “She tells me that they didn’t touch the dog—”

“We didn’t!” Wendy insisted, mortified that her mother would bring this up again. Who cared if they touched the stupid dog?

“So it was just the three of you that found the body.”

“Four. Me and Tommy, and Dennis and Cody.”

“Cody was there too?” Miss Navarre asked.

“Who’s Cody?” the detective asked.

“Cody Roache,” Miss Navarre said. “I thought of him last night. He’s usually wherever Dennis Farman is, but he wasn’t in the park when I got there.”

“Because he screamed like a baby and ran away,” Wendy said with a certain amount of disgust. “The deputies came because of him.”

The detective looked at Miss Navarre. “I’ll need to speak to him as well.”

“Have you found out who the woman was?” Wendy’s mother asked.

“Not yet.”

“This is so awful. Nothing like this ever happens here.”

“The dog knows who she is,” Wendy said.

“Wendy,” her mother said impatiently, “enough about the dog.”

Mendez held his hand up to stop her talking, but his eyes were on Wendy.

“Did the dog have a collar on?”

Wendy shrugged. “I don’t remember. He had big teeth. I remember that.”

“What color was the dog?”

“White with big black splotches.” She turned and gave her mother her best so-there look, then turned back to the detective. “He was black all around one eye and ear.”

Detective Mendez scribbled that all down in his notebook. Obviously, these were very important clues.

“Could this really be important?” Wendy’s mother asked.

“If we can find the dog, and the dog has tags, maybe the dog belonged to the victim and we can find out who she was through the registration with the city,” Detective Mendez explained. “It’s probably a long shot, but you never know.”

“You’ve been a big help, Wendy,” Miss Navarre said. “It’s a good thing you’re so observant.”