Maximum Security (A Dog Park Mystery) (27 page)

“Food is getting cold, Bossman,”
Brent said.

Lia positioned the kubotan in her
hands the way he’d shown her and shoved it into the outside of his
elbow.

“Ow!” Peter dropped his arm. “I
said, ‘gently,’ not ‘dent me.’ When did you turn into a
sadist?”

“I’m hungry. Sorry about the dogs,
Brent. They’ve never had the opportunity to see if you’re a soft
touch. I’ll put them out back for now.” Lia turned to Peter. “I’ll
dish out the food if you’ll distract the hairy horde. Brent, you
can set up the laptops on the coffee table. Darling, I had no idea
you were talking about surveillance videos when you asked if we
could have Brent over for movie night.”

Peter was still shaking out his
arm. “I saw a few art films in college. This should be right up
your alley.”

“I got a grade for watching them.
What are you going to give me for watching these?”

He leaned over, nipped her earlobe.
“I’ll think of something,” he whispered.

~

“Have I mentioned,” Brent said as
he sat on the couch with his chopsticks and a bowl of moo shoo
pork, “how very amusing that little drama was that you staged with
Stacy?” He still eyed the dogs, even though they had given up. They
were now lying on their beds on the other side of the room,
pretending there wasn’t food around.

“What exactly was Monica screaming
about?” Lia asked. “I was too busy getting Kate out of there to
find out.”

“Good thing,” Peter said, “or she
would have been screaming about you. Mostly it was about shoddy
caskets that pop open and shatter and how dare they humiliate her
by tossing her husband’s bones around like that. She let everyone
know she was suing the funeral home for sneaking in the coffin
insert. She also demanded that we arrest Kate for
trespassing.”

“Trespassing?” Lia
asked.

“Trespassing,” Brent confirmed,
“and a number of other things. It was quite the debacle. The
pictures are priceless. I would post them on Facebook, but she’d
know where they came from and Roller would not be
amused.”

Brent swiped at his pants leg, then
lifted a pair of blond hairs with two fingers, holding them away as
if they were contagious. “I presume these are Honey’s. You know, I
was going to offer to steal you away from Peter, but the dog pack
is a nonstarter. I can’t accept dog hair on my clothes. You give up
the dogs, then we can talk.”

“Um, thanks for the offer?” Lia
said.

“Smooth, Romeo,” Peter said
between bites of his egg roll. “I don’t know why women aren’t
falling all over you.”

“
Where are these
movies you promised me?” Lia asked.

Peter pulled a trio of thumb drives
out of his pocket and plugged them into the computers. He opened
video files featuring a grid of smaller screens with a different
birds-eye view of the store on each one. He increased the speed so
the people on the screens were jerky dolls scampering about,
Keystone Kops style.

“What are we looking for?” Lia
asked.

“Anything that involves George and
another person. Anything that looks hinky. People we recognize. The
trick is not to fall asleep while we’re doing this.”

“Can you tell me what happened
with Jacob?” Lia asked.

“Are you sharing vital case
information with a civilian?” Brent asked.

“It’s all right, Brent. I took a
blood oath,” Lia said.

“I figure she’s less inclined to
get into trouble if she knows what’s going on, since this is so
close to home. Do you want to do the honors?”

“I see. You want me to participate
in this breech of ethics so I can’t rat you out.”

“Something like that,” Peter
agreed.

“Oh, ye of little faith. Oh well,
in for a penny.” They kept their eyes on the tiny screens while
Brent recapped the interrogation. “The kid told the truth about
selling the phone, but it’s obvious he was lying about where he got
it and who was with him at the time.”

“How could you tell?” Lia
asked.

“The kid was blinking more than
Hugh Grant. Excessive blinking frequently accompanies perjury and
prevarication. So I did this neat little trick that Peter taught
me. I got him a glass of water. When he was talking about finding
the phone, he had to look at his hand to pick up the glass. When he
talked about selling the phone, he didn’t.”

“Weird,” Lia said. She noticed two
clerks yakking on screen, ignoring a customer. She wondered if
George saw these infractions, and what he did about them. “How does
that indicate lying?”

“Nervous people lose the ability
to complete small tasks they normally do without thinking. They can
still do them, but they have to concentrate. It’s called
unconscious competence versus conscious competence.”

“Are there conscious and
unconscious incompetence?” Lia asked.

“Indeed there are.” Brent pointed
with his chop sticks. “You can be bad at something and not realize
it, like most people when they’re singing in the shower. Or you can
be bad at something and realize it, like knowing better than to
grab the controls on an airplane.”

“Then there was the
bonus.”

“Which was?” Lia asked.

“We got his fingerprints. They
unfortunately did not match the prints on the murder
weapon.

“Hold everything.” Brent leaned
over and hit the spacebar on one of the computers, pausing the
screen. “There’s Onstad, in the housewares department with
Munce.”

“Does she have a candlestick with
her? The rope?” Lia asked. “Maybe the lead pipe?”

Peter rolled his eyes and shook his
head while he paused the other computers. “Back it up a bit so we
can watch the whole thing.”

Brent obliged, making a note of the
time stamp at the beginning of the sequence then starting the video
again. Kate was back in linens, lingering over some towels when
George walked up. George took a quick look around before he
approached Kate.

“Aw, they’re holding hands,” Lia
cooed.

The pair talked while pretending to
confer over curtains. George took another quick look around, then
took Kate’s face in his hands and kissed her thoroughly.

“Reality TV at its finest,” Brent
said. “The man has moves,”

“Isn’t this better than ‘The
Bachelor’?” Peter asked.

“Only if she slaps him,” Lia said.
“Or maybe if the women clerks gang up on her in the parking
lot.”

“Vicious,” Brent said.

“That’s my girl,” Peter said,
giving Lia a squeeze.

Dinner was finished. The remains
were in the fridge and the dishes in the sink. Lia was drowsing
with her head on Peter’s lap. She found the videos did not lose
anything when viewed sideways.

“Huh,” Peter said. “That’s
interesting.” He pressed the space bar and paused the
video.

“What is it?” Brent
asked

“Stacy, in the store,” Peter said.
“Talking to Carleen. I didn’t realize they knew each other. Let’s
keep an eye on her, see what she’s up to in Dad’s
store.”

Lia sat up. They all leaned
forward, peering at the screen. Peter gave a running commentary.
“There she is, heading toward the back of the store. . . Now she’s
looking around . . . spots something or someone . . she’s out of
this camera . . . into the next . . . hurries toward the door to
the back . . . in that little hallway. Probably going to the
restroom . . . nope, into Dad’s office, and out of camera
range.”

“Fascinating,” Brent said. “Wonder
what she wants in there.”

“Door is opening again, here comes
our girl . . . Whoa!” Peter said.

“Bingo,” Brent said.

“Huh?” Lia said. “What just
happened?”

“I don’t know why you need Stacy
again,” Monica complained as she and her daughter entered the
interview room. “Or why we needed to come all the way out here. I
don’t appreciate having to take time off from work. I had to cancel
appointments. You’re not the only ones with an important
job.”

“Mottthhheeeerrr,” Stacy
whined.

“Hush,” Monica snapped.

“Please be seated,” Brent said.
“Can I get you some water?”

“Water? How long are you planning
to keep us here?” Monica demanded.

Stacy rolled her eyes to the
ceiling and huffed an aggrieved sigh.

“That depends on Stacy, Mrs.
Munce,” Peter said.

“What has Stacy done? I insist
that you tell me!”

“Mrs. Munce, we are conducting a
formal interview,” Peter explained. “We will be asking the
questions. You are here to advocate, should Stacy’s rights be in
question. You may, of course, terminate this interview at your
discretion. However, I think you’ll want to hear what we have to
say.

“You are not here to answer
questions at this time. It would be helpful if you would remain
silent. We need to find out what Stacy knows, not what you want her
to say.”

Monica glared at Peter. “Stacy, sit
up straight. You know better than to slouch like that.”

Stacy ignored her mother and stared
at her hands, her long hair curtaining her face. “What do you want
to know?” she mumbled.

“Stacy,” Brent began, “we were
reviewing security tapes taken at your stepfather's store the night
before he disappeared.”

“So?”

“How well do you know Carleen
Thomas?” Peter asked.

Stacy shook her head and continued
staring at the table. “Just a little. From the store.”

“Stacy! What did I tell you about
associating with the trash in that place?”

“They’re just people. There’s
nothing wrong with being
nice
, Mother. Aren’t you always
telling me to be
nice
to people?”

Brent set two glasses of water in
front of Stacy and Monica while giving Monica a warning
look.

“Stacy, what did you and Carleen
talk about that night?” he asked.

Stacy took a sip, while eyeing
Brent. “Nothing. I just said hello and said I was going to use the
restroom in back.”

“Did you?” Peter asked.

“Did I what?”

“Use the restroom.”

Stacy locked eyes with Peter for
three very long seconds. She dropped them back to the table.
“No.”

“Tell us about that. What did you
do instead, Stacy?” Brent asked.

“Why are you bothering to ask? You
already know, don’t you!” Stacy accused. “Why don’t you tell her!”
She jerked her head at her mother, whipping her hair around. She
shoved it back behind her shoulder, angry.

“All right,” Peter said, “why did
you take your stepfather’s second phone, Stacy?”

“What?” Monica screeched. “Stacy,
you didn’t!”

“I didn’t mean for anyone to get
hurt,” Stacy pleaded.

“What do you mean, Stacy? What are
you talking about?” her mother demanded.

“Mrs. Munce, please let us ask the
questions,” Brent said. “Why did you take the phone,
Stacy?”

“I just wanted to scare her off. I
didn’t want George to leave.”

“Are you talking about Kate
Onstad, Stacy?” Peter asked.

“Yeah, her.”

“What made you decide to scare her
off?” Peter asked.

“George kept saying on those
Kindle notes that he wanted to be with her forever. I knew he was
going to leave us. So I thought I could pretend to be him and break
them up.”

“How did you try to break them up,
Stacy?” Brent asked.

“I already hacked his Kindle
account. I knew he used either my name or DaisyBug for his
password, so it was easy. Anyway, he usually left his Kindle at
home. I think they were passing Kindle notes when he was hanging
around the house, like kids sneaking notes in class. He probably
figured it was safer than chatting online.

“I stole his phone. I knew they
were going to meet that Monday, so I . . .” Here she stumbled. “I
punctured Kate’s tire that morning.”

Monica shot up straight and drew
breath to speak. Brent gave her a quelling look. She settled back
in her chair.

“Didn’t you have a student council
meeting that morning?” Peter asked.

“I didn’t go,” she said
quickly.

“I suspect,” Brent said with an
extra coating of Tupelo honey, “that if we check the attendance
roster at that meeting, you were there. I also suspect you made
sure people knew you were there, because you knew somebody was
letting the air out of Monica’s tire. Who did you ask to help you,
Stacy?”

“I just wanted everything to go
back to normal,” Stacy mumbled.

Peter gentled his voice. “Who
helped you, Stacy?”

Her head bowed in misery, Stacy
said, “Jacob did.”

At this point Monica launched into
a screaming rant. “I told you NEVER to go near that boy! How could
you do this to me! Do you see what he did? He killed George!” The
rest of Monica’s rant was lost as her voice shrilled beyond
coherence. Peter and Brent stood back, waiting for her to wind
down.