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emergency response goes.” He rose and stretched. “Besides, considering the shape your guests are in, I would have suggested you call them anyway. The police’ll do what they can to find out who they are—look at missing persons reports, check their prints, and start trying to figure who the hell did this to them.”
    Captain Edward Howe looked like he’d been hired from Central Casting, with his crew cut and big-man-slightly-gone-to-seed physique. The officer with him whose name badge said “Moniz” was a little less typecast, but looked like he was doing his best to catch up to his older colleague.
    Rob greeted them with a nod. “Hello, Ed. How’s the knee, Ben? You going to give it a break from the softball this spring?”
    “It’s better, thank you. I was kind of hoping you’d say I could play this season…” Officer Moniz glanced at his superior officer and trailed into silence.
    “Come see me next week and we’ll talk. Captain.” Rob turned his attention back to the other man. “I’m assuming you’re here because you got the message from the emergency dispatcher?”
    Captain Howe’s expression didn’t alter, but his ears began to turn pink at the edges. “Uh, yeah. They’re sorry ‘bout that. Things were a little hectic over there—”
    “It was inexcusable,” Rob snapped, all affability gone. “You’re just lucky I answered my phone this morning so I could help Mrs. Durrell out. We’ve got a father and son upstairs who look like a bunch of drugged-up trainee meatpackers had a field day with them then dumped them in the sound to drown. The son’s unconscious and the father can’t remember much more than his name.”
    The captain’s ears were now bright red, but his face had gone oddly pale. Garland thought she heard him mutter a faint “Crap!” under his breath.
    “Now, dammit, Ed, I want you to find out who the hell they are and who did this to them. And where they’re from, so we can get them back to their family,” Rob continued.
    But Alasdair said that they had no family. Garland remembered the bleak look on his face when he’d told her that.
    “And transport to Cape General Hospital might be appreciated, too,” Rob finished. “I don’t know what you folks were up to this morning, but now’s your chance to stop screwing around and do your jobs.”
    Garland took a deep breath. “You don’t have to do that.”
    “Huh?” All three men stared at her.
    “You don’t have to take them to the hospital. They can stay here until the police figure out who they are and where they belong.”
    Rob frowned. “Garland, I don’t think that’s a good idea—”
    “I do. They’re not just—just stray dogs that you send to the pound. How long could they stay at Cape General, Rob? You yourself said they’d probably only be there overnight. What then? A homeless shelter? They have nothing, and I have this big house.”
    “Garland, you can’t. Ed, back me up.” Rob turned to Captain Howe.
    But the captain wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I can’t say I think it’s a good idea, but I can’t stop you, ma’am.”
    “You’re not going along with this, are you?” Rob asked him incredulously.
    “It’s Mrs. Durrell’s decision, not mine. If she wants to let them stay with her while we...look into this, I have nothing to say about it,” Captain Howe replied. “Now, if that’s settled, we’ll be moving on—”
    Rob looked as though he were barely restraining his temper. “Wouldn’t a description and a victim’s statement come in handy if you’re going to try to find out who they are and what happened to them?”
    Captain Howe shuffled his feet. “Well, I—”
    “They’re probably both asleep,” Garland cut in. Something about Captain Howe bothered her. Was it the way he kept surreptitiously wiping his hands on his pants as if they were sweating? Whatever it was, she didn’t want him upstairs in her house, looking at her poor defenseless castaways. “Can’t we give