Maximum Security (A Dog Park Mystery) (17 page)

“It’s not like me to be so rude,
especially after you’ve gone to so much trouble to find Daisy. Are
you having any luck?” Monica gave her an open look that suggested
interest. Lia failed to sense any genuine concern beneath the
polite expression.

“Not so far, but I’m hopeful. Some
of the other people at the park who knew George are helping out.
We’re contacting every vet and rescue organization and spreading
her picture everywhere we can think of. Hopefully, we’ll get a call
soon. Daisy is such a sweet dog. I hate to think about her running
around, lost and frightened.” There was no dog dish on the newly
waxed floor. Lia wondered where it went.

Monica murmured noncommittally and
sipped her coffee.

“Do you have any idea when the
funeral is going to be?” Lia asked. “Some of us at the park would
like to pay our respects.”

“Not yet. The coroner’s office has
been giving me the run-around for almost a week now.” She gave Lia
a thin, tight smile. It didn’t reach her eyes. “Everyone has
questions, but nobody has any answers.”

“So the police haven’t found out
anything?”

“Not that they’ll tell
–”

A knock at the kitchen door
interrupted. Monica opened the door for a tall, good-looking young
man wearing a hoodie with the sleeves shoved up and his hands
stuffed into the pockets of his low-riders. Lia guessed he was
eighteen. Maybe nineteen. Dark hair. Dark eyes under heavy brows
held adult awareness. He bore the intense physicality of male
hormones in overdrive, sauntering in without being invited as if he
had the run of the place. Lia imagined she would have swooned over
him in high school. And regretted it. He gave a little jerk when he
saw her sitting at the counter.

“As you can see, Jacob, I’ve got
company right now,” Monica said, still holding the doorknob. “It’s
not the best time.”

“No sweat, Mrs. M. I’ll just get
started on the, uh, leaves then.” He ran a strong hand with
well-defined knuckles through errant bangs, shoving them out of his
face. Lia wanted to paint his hands, his forearms. She imagined
them gripping . . . clenching . . . something . . . a branch, a
hammer, free weights? Something that would have those lovely
muscles contracting, his tendons, popping, . . . saying so much
with just those strong young arms.

“Thank you, Jacob. I’d appreciate
that.” Monica closed the door behind him and sat down. Lia noticed
she was a little flushed. She followed Monica’s gaze out the back
window, where Jacob was stripping off his hoodie, revealing a long
lean torso. He dropped the jacket on the patio table.

“A friend of Stacy’s?” Lia
asked.

Monica flushed. “Jacob lives in the
neighborhood. He’s a student at the high school where I work. He
takes care of some things around the yard for us, that’s
all.”

“That’s considerate of him,” Lia
said.

“That was a bust, and not of the
recreational substance sort,” Brent said as he steered his Audi out
of the parking lot of the auto parts store, onto Cheviot Road. “How
many hunters have we interviewed today? Eight? Ten? What have we
got? Zip. Zilch. Zero—”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Peter said,
checking the next name on his list.

“What would you say,
Kemosabe?”

“We’re getting a picture. So far,
nobody has seen any strange cars and no one spotted the Zombie. No
strange hunters. No one saw Stryker after he reported his bow
missing. These guys see each other, year after year at the
marksmanship exam and in the parking lots and out in the woods.
They know each other’s blinds, and we’ve got them marked on the
map. It would have been hard for our man to be in the woods without
either him or his car being seen by someone, if he was there during
the usual hunting hours.

“From what they say, that
jury-rigged tree-house we found has been in the woods for years.
Park maintenance was supposed to pull it down, but they haven’t
gotten around to it. Nobody knows who built it, or when. It may
never have been intended as a blind, since the word we’re getting
is, that area is not very productive for hunting deer. Which is
also why nobody spotted the deceased before Max did.”

“Like I said. Nothing,” Brent
repeated.

“Nothing is something. So far
everyone alibis out for the time period we have for the shooting,
which is late morning to early afternoon. Everyone who was in the
woods that day was gone before nine a.m. That means our perp was
never there to shoot deer, and didn’t show up until the hunters
were gone.”

“How does that help us?” Brent
asked.

“We put that together with the
report Stryker filed on his stolen crossbow. What else was missing
from his house?”

“Some crossbow bolts. Nothing
else.”

“Exactly. Nothing other than what
our perp needed to kill Munce. Nothing else disturbed. Does that
sound like your typical housebreaker to you?”

“No . . . .”

“Everything suggests that our perp
specifically went after that bow to use as a murder weapon, that he
knew exactly where Munce would be in the woods and when he would be
there. It’s tedious, but what we’re doing is ruling out the
possibility that Munce’s death was a crime of opportunity. There’s
nothing random about this. It narrows the field.”

“Kate Onstad is the one person we
know for sure knew George was going to be in the woods that day,”
Brent said.

“How’d she know about the bow?”
Peter asked.

“I’m working on that.”

“What about her tire?”

“She had an
accomplice?”

“Ah, the ever-popular unknown
accomplice,” Peter said. “Whoa - pull in here.”

Brent turned the car into the next
parking lot. He saw the sign over the store’s glittery display
window and groaned. “Don’t do it, man. No good will come from
this.” He scrambled out of the car after Peter, followed him into
the jewelry store, caught up with him at the ring
counter.

The glossy woman behind the counter
smiled at Peter. “What can I help you find today?”

“I’m just looking. I’ll let you
know if I need help. But thank you,” Peter said. Her smile drooped
a little and she moved off to the side.

“What part of ‘I love you, Peter,
but I need my space’ did you not understand?” Brent
hissed.

“I understood it. I just don’t
think it has to be a deal breaker. Why does all this stuff look
like it came out of a gum-ball machine?” He turned away from the
display of engagement rings and wandered over to a case containing
estate jewelry. “I like this much better.”

He eyed a ruby surrounded by small,
rectangular emeralds. “I like this one, but it’s not quite right
for Lia. Too big.”

“The question isn’t whether you
think it’s a deal breaker. The question is whether she thinks it’s
a deal breaker.”

The pearl with diamonds was pretty,
but too . . . conservative? Bland? Snooty? . . . for
Lia.

“I guess it’s up to me to show her
that it’s not.”

“You think a big, fancy ring is
going to do that?”

“No, she doesn’t like big and
fancy. I think the right ring will help. It will show her that I
understand her. And none of these are the right ring.” He held up
his hand in an abbreviated wave to the woman behind the counter and
walked out.

It was after ten when Viola ran to
the door. Lia put aside her book and let Peter in. When she opened
the door, he was leaning against the jamb, his eyes
closed.

“Beer?” Lia offered.

“You have to ask?”

“I guess not. You look beat. You
should have gone home.”

“My two best girls are here.” He
leaned down and gave Lia a kiss, then got down on the floor to
rumple the fur around Viola’s neck. She jumped up and kissed his
face with light, happy flicks. He sat on the floor and let Viola,
Honey and Chewy climb on him, petting whichever head was nearest
each hand. Max snorted and lay her head on her paws.

“She misses you,” Lia called from
the kitchen.

“Can’t be helped. Until we get a
handle on this case, I’m not going to be available much. How’d it
go at Renee’s today?”

Lia handed a bottle of Beck’s down
to Peter. He stopped petting Chewy to take it. Chewy head-butted
his hand, causing a bit of beer foam to spill out the top. Peter
grimaced, then shrugged.

“It was fine. We squared away the
details. Taking the pictures was the easy part. Now I get to paint
it. She asked me to take a lasagna to Monica and Stacy Munce.” Lia
held her breath, waiting for Peter’s reaction.

He shook his head. “I know Renee is
the soul of compassion, but something tells me this is about
something else.”

“You know Renee, anything for a
bit of good gossip.” Lia reached out a hand. Peter grabbed it and
stood up, shedding the trio of furry four-paws.

“And did you find any good
gossip?”

In the light of Peter’s scrutiny,
her discoveries seemed silly. She decided to avoid ridicule and not
mention Stacy’s reading proclivities. “I don’t know. One of the
neighbor kids is hanging around. He seems to have a thing for
Monica.”

“Seriously? What does he look
like?”

“Tall, broody, dark
hair.”

“Brent and I saw him the day we
went by. You think the very proper Mrs. Munce goes for bad boys
less than half her age?”

“She was blushing. But she doesn’t
have to go for him. She just has to be willing to manipulate him,
don’t you think?”

“True. So the high school
counselor is willing to destroy a young life by making this kid a
party to murder? And another thing. I know this kid thinks he’s a
bad-ass, but I bet Stryker would eat his liver before he ever got
close enough to him to even know about his bow.”

“So you think whoever stole the
bow has to be a brute?”

“Just try driving a Honda Fit up
there and see what happens. It’s not a place for civilized
folks.”

“Now you’ve got me
curious.”

“Promise me you won’t go digging
around up there, no matter what Renee says.”

“Relax, Kentucky Boy.” She brushed
his hair out of his eyes. “I don’t even know where ‘there’
is.”

Renee was at the park with Dakini,
waiting on the far side of the corral as Lia and Bailey walked up
the drive. “Well, how did it go?” she called through the
fence.

“How did what go?” Bailey
asked.

“Hello to you, too, Renee.” Lia
let the dogs in the corral. Glancing over at Bailey, she said,
“Renee drafted me for undercover work. She has me spying on the
Widow Munce. What brings you here, Renee?”

“Why wouldn’t I be here? This is a
lovely park. Oh, look, is this Max? What a handsome girl. Your mom
tells me you’ve been very enterprising lately.” She put her hand up
to the fence and let Max sniff her palm. Dakini turned her head, a
canine version of rolling her eyes.

“Uh-huh.” Lia poked her tongue in
her cheek.

“Well, I thought it might be
better if I talked to you here instead of possibly disturbing
Kitty. I don’t know how she’d feel about our little investigation.
You have to tell me how it went. Don’t keep me in
suspense.”

Lia unclipped Honey, Chewy and
Viola, and opened the inner gate. The three dogs bolted for the
back of the park. She swung the coiled training lead off her
shoulder and hooked Max into it before releasing her walking
leash.

“You’re not taking any chances
with that one, are you?” Renee asked.

“Not at all. Let’s get back to our
table and then I’ll give you a full report.” The three women
crossed the park and settled themselves on top of the old picnic
table. Lia reflected on how different this setting was from the
antiseptic kitchen she’d visited the day before.

“How was she?” Renee
primed.

“Very polite. Much nicer than she
was when I stopped by to ask about Daisy. Well put together. She
irons her tee shirts.”

“Seriously?” Bailey
asked.

“And she waxed her floor recently.
I could practically see myself in it.”

“Well, people react to grief in
different ways,” Bailey said.

“I don’t know how much she’s
grieving. She looks like she’s grieving, but it feels kind of put
on, as if that’s how people expect her to act. There was something
creepy about it, like she was getting off on the
attention.”

“You mean, like Munchausen by
proxy? That would be really weird if she killed her husband just to
get sympathy,” Bailey said.

“So, besides being an able
housekeeper, what else did you notice?” Renee asked.

“One of the neighbor boys has a
crush on her, and she knows it.”

“Really?” Renee drew the word out,
adding an extra syllable. “How about that. How did you figure that
out?”

“He showed up at the back door and
walked in like he lived there. Then he fumbled when he saw me. She
hustled him out, and she over-explained why he was there. She was
blushing.”