Maximum Security (A Dog Park Mystery) (28 page)

Stacy shouted back at her mother,
her voice escalating. “He did not! He did not! He did
not!”

“Should I pull out my taser?”
Brent asked Peter, leaning close so Peter could hear him over the
cacophony.

“Give them a minute.”

Monica stopped to glug down some
water.

“Mrs. Munce?” Brent asked. “May we
step outside for a moment? You’ll be able to see Stacy the whole
time, I promise.”

They went out of the interview
room. Peter could see Monica watching Stacy through the tiny window
in the door. Brent would handle her.

“Detective Dourson?” Stacy asked
timidly.

He looked over at her, lifted his
eyebrows.

“What’s he saying to
her?”

“Just getting her to calm down so
we can continue our interview.”

“I wish she wasn’t here. You see
how she is. It’ll be worse when we get home.”

“Do you want us to call Children’s
Services?” Peter asked.

“No, she won’t hit me. She just
yells, and it’ll last for hours. Normally, she wouldn't lose it in
front of you. She’d be all polite and concerned. I think this has
really flipped her wig. Tonight it’s going to be all ‘this is going
to ruin me’ and ‘I didn’t give you all the things I never had to
see you throw yourself away on that white trash.’”

“I’m sorry about that. We really
have no choice. You’re only sixteen.”

“Yeah. Two more years of this
shit. You see why I didn’t want George to go? He was my only
defense.”

“You’re doing really well. You’re
telling us the truth, and that’s important. What made you decide to
be honest?”

“You’re thinking things about
Jacob that aren’t true. He called me yesterday and told me. He
didn’t tell you everything because he wanted to protect me. He was
going to let himself get charged for something he didn’t do. I
can’t let him do that.”

Monica returned to the room,
followed by Brent.

“What did you say while I was
gone, Stacy? You really should not have been talking while I wasn’t
here.” Peter noted that Monica’s voice was octaves lower and a
hundred decibels softer. He thought he detected slight hesitations
that suggested she was struggling with her control.

“I told him I was being honest
because if I’m not, everyone will think Jacob did something he
didn’t do.”

Monica stiffened.

“Remember our bargain,” Brent said
softly. He remained close to Monica.

“Please, Stacy,” Peter said, “tell
us what happened, in your own words. We won’t interrupt. Do I have
everyone’s permission to turn on a recorder? Mrs.
Munce?”

Monica jerked a nod. Peter set up
his recorder and Stacy began talking.

“Jacob and I started seeing each
other last spring. I met him when I was tutoring students for the
SATs. I took them early and did really well, so they asked me to
help.” She turned to her mother. “I knew you didn’t approve of him,
so I asked George what to do.”

Monica drew in a sharp breath and
her nostrils flared. Brent gave her a repressive look before she
could interrupt. Monica clenched her lips together until they were
barely visible. She crossed her arms and glared back.

“George suggested that Jacob start
doing some yard work at our house as a way for you to get to know
him better, and maybe you’d realize that he’s better than you
think. George said he was a punk when he was Jacob’s age and it was
love that made him realize he didn’t want to live that way. He
understood.

“I stumbled on the Kindle thing,
like I told you. I was telling the truth when I said I didn't
realize it was George leaving the messages. I just thought it was
really cool that two old people that hadn’t seen each other since
high school finally got together again and were so hot for each
other. When he asked her to come to Cincinnati, the things he said
made me realize it was George. Then he started talking about
finding a way to be with her.

“I knew that meant leaving us, so
I freaked. At first I thought, hey, most internet relationships
don’t survive the face to face. It’s not real, you know? But she
came, and the messages kept getting hotter.

“I thought I could mess things up
and make her think he was breaking up with her, and she’d leave. He
was asking her to stop by the store, so I started driving by,
hoping to catch her.

“I saw her and saw what car she
was driving, and I knew where she was staying because that was on
the Kindle. I knew about the other phone because he told her on the
Kindle when he was going to call her, and when she could call him,
and the number he gave her wasn’t his regular cell number. They
always arranged their calls when George was working, so I figured
out he was keeping the other phone at the store.

“I picked a day when I knew they
were going to meet, and the night before, I stopped by the store
and stole George’s phone so he couldn’t talk to Kate. I knew he’d
just figure one of the customers snuck into his office and took it.
I forgot about the surveillance video being back there. If he
hadn’t died, I would have been so busted.”

“What happened after that, Stacy?”
Peter urged.

“The next morning, Jacob went to
Kate’s motel and stuck a screwdriver in her sidewall. I wanted to
make sure she couldn’t meet George. She started calling and sending
texts, and I ignored them. Then I sent her a text that said not to
call anymore, ever. And I went on George’s Kindle and left her a
message, pretending to be him. I said I was really sorry, but I
couldn’t be with her anymore, and please don’t make things any
harder than they were already by contacting me, meaning
him.”

“That’s all we did. Then Dad
didn’t come home, so I freaked and gave the phone to Jacob and
asked him to get rid of it. I didn’t know he was going to sell it.
He ran into Mr. Stryker and since he sort of knew him, Jacob
figured he wouldn’t ever tell anyone where he got the phone. That’s
all that happened!”

“Stacy,” Peter asked, “how did
Jacob know Bill Stryker?”

“Um, not sure, exactly. Dad showed
me a picture of Mr. Stryker and a picture of his truck months ago,
because I was coming around the store and Carleen was having
problems with him. Jacob and I were driving past the store, and I
spotted him sitting in that old truck, staring at the store. I
pointed him out to Jacob, and Jacob said he knew him, and he was a
jerk.”

“Did you tell your dad about
seeing Stryker?” Peter asked.

“Yeah, but since he was sitting
outside the limits of the restraining order, there wasn’t anything
anyone could do.”

“Stacy,” Brent said, “why are you
so certain that’s all Jacob did? If he knew Bill Stryker, he
probably knew about the crossbow. We already know he knew about
Kate Onstad’s car.”

“He wouldn't do that! If he did,
why would he sell Dad’s phone to the guy who owned the
crossbow?”

“Because,” Brent said, “sometimes
people just don’t think.”

“But why would he kill George? He
liked George!”

“We don’t know, Stacy,” Peter
said. “That doesn’t mean he didn’t do it.”

A visit to each school office
determined that while Stacy had been in class all day on October 7,
Jacob had been missing and had an unexcused absence. The secretary
also informed Peter and Brent that Jacob was currently
absent.

“Damn kid said he wanted a lawyer
before we could ask how he knew Stryker,” Peter said. “Looks like
we get to call him back in.”

“When we find him, you mean,”
Brent said. “We lose him and Roller will be all over our
asses.”

The school secretary had been kind
enough to give them work numbers for Mr. and Mrs. Cox. Calls to
Jacob’s apathetic parents revealed that they had no idea where
their son went when he was truant, and that they had given up on
finding out. Mr. Cox, especially, treated the call from the police
as an inevitability he had been expecting for a long time. Peter
put out a BOLO for Jacob’s car.

“Looks like we’re headed back up
to Balmoral,” Peter said.

“Just when I thought this day
couldn’t get any more interesting,” Brent said.

Stryker was not home. Dempsey was,
and he identified Jacob as someone he’d seen around Stryker’s place
a number of times several months earlier. “Not recently though,” he
said. He had no idea what the kid had been doing with Stryker.
Peter left his card in Stryker’s door with a note to call him,
which he was sure Stryker was going to ignore.

“It’s curious,” Brent said as they
drove back down the hill. “Stryker knows Jacob and he gives us
Jacob’s face, but not his name. Why do you suppose that
is?”

“I figure Stryker was totally
pissed that he wound up with that phone. He’s pissed enough at
Jacob to give us his face, but he still has a thing about not being
a rat, so he doesn’t tell us who he is. Or he wants to be truthful
enough that witnesses will verify his story and get him off the
hook. Maybe he didn’t really want us to find Jacob. Maybe Jacob
knows things he doesn’t want Jacob sharing. Maybe all of the
above.”

“Whatever it is that young Jacob
might know, it must implicate him as well, because he sure didn’t
volunteer it during our interview,” Brent said.

“Criminals.”

“You said it. You think the Widow
Munce could clue us in on the Cox boy?”

“I’m sure she’d love to,” Peter
said, “but she won’t without Jacob’s signed release of information.
So let’s track down the parents again and find out from them what
Jacob Cox has been up to that has him visiting the school
counselor.”

“Hold on a minute, Asia.” Lia
pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, checked the screen. She
was sitting in the therapist’s office, a warm and stylish room
featuring tapestried armchairs and soft throw pillows. Restful
slate blue walls complemented richly hued artworks, including a
small yellow, gold and green painting of Saint John’s wort. Lia had
traded it to her in lieu of a portion of her fees.

“Did it ring? I didn’t hear
anything,” Asia said.

“No, I just wanted to make sure I
hadn’t butt-dialed Peter before I said anything. I’ve got to figure
out how to stop doing that.

“The other day he told me I
accidentally called him while he and Brent were waiting to talk to
his captain. I was singing to the dogs and they were chiming in.
Before he could switch his phone off, Brent reached over and put it
on speaker. Roller’s secretary found it very amusing. She thought I
sounded like the love child of Kate Bush and Tom Waits.”

Asia laughed. “That’s a compliment,
isn’t it?”

“I hope so. Depends on how she
feels about Tom Waits.”

“We haven’t talked in months,”
Asia said. “What brought you in to see me today? Are your symptoms
coming back?” Asia referred to Lia’s bout with acute stress
disorder the previous year.

“Not that. It’s Peter.”

“What about Peter?”

“We’ve talked about my
relationship with Peter before, my trust issues, and I’m making
progress. Now Peter is talking about moving in together again, and
I’m not sure I want to take that step. But I don’t want to endanger
our relationship. I’m comfortable the way things are. I’ve been
talking to my friends about this and it occurred to me I should
discuss it with a pro.”

“I see. As I recall, your biggest
issue is loss of autonomy.”

“That, and the financial issues.
And I know it’s selfish, but I like having my place exactly the way
I want it.”

“How much time are you and Peter
spending with each other?”

“I see him at least twice a week.
He usually stays over.”

“How do you feel when he’s gone?
Do you miss him?”

“Not when I’m working. Sometimes
at night I miss him. Cuddling with Honey and Chewy isn’t quite the
same.”

“Are there any other reasons for
you to set limits on your relationship with him?”

“I haven’t talked about this with
anyone before, but I like knowing when I’m going to see him and
when I’m not going to see him. It frees me up to go about my
life.

“When I was living with Tom,
everything had to include him. If he wasn’t there, I wound up
waiting for him and wondering when he was going to get home. And if
I wanted to do something and he didn’t want to, then I never got to
do it. I had less room in my head for making art.

“I know part of it was him being a
jerk, but part of it was me getting wrapped up in the relationship
and not setting limits. I’m not sure if I can set those boundaries
if I get that close to Peter. What we have right now is so good. I
don’t want to screw it up.”

“I see,” Asia responded. “I’ve
thought about this a lot, what it means to be single and to be
married, looked at it from the outside and the inside. It’s a huge
issue for many people.

“No person is ever really single,
not a healthy person, anyway. We all need others to survive:
physically, emotionally and spiritually. As a longtime, single
person, you’ve built up a community of support. Your dog park
friends provide you with human contact, even during those periods
when you are totally immersed in your work and think you’re
shutting the world out.