Maximum Security (A Dog Park Mystery) (31 page)

“This is fucked up . . . Gotta do
this right. First thing, the dog has to go. I’m taking it down to
the pound. They’ll get their damn dog back and nobody will have any
reason to come looking for us. You’re going to watch these two.
Keep the gun on them.” He handed the weapon to Carleen. “Where’s
the collar that mutt came with?”

“It’s in the junk drawer in the
kitchen, Billy.”

Lia could hear him rooting around
then banging the drawer shut. He walked back in. “Give me my keys.
I’ll be back in half an hour, tops. Think you can keep them under
control that long?”

“Yes, Billy.”

“You’d better, if you know what’s
good for you.”

Billy slammed the back door on the
way out. The three women waited. Lia heard the starter of a truck
crank, grind, crank again, then catch. The truck pulled out and the
tension in the room slipped several notches.

“Carleen,” Lia broke the silence.
“You’ve got to untie us!”

“I don’t have to do any such
thing. I let you go, he’ll kill me.”

“It was an accident when you
killed George. That’s manslaughter. You won’t serve five years. You
know he’s not going to release us. That makes you an accessory to
murder. You could get life for that. This is way out of control,
you’ve got to see that.”

Carleen turned flat, mud-brown eyes
on Lia. “All I have to see is what will happen if you’re not here
when he gets back. You hear what he said about George? He’ll do
that to me if you’re gone, only he won’t bother to kill me
first.”

“You can tell him something,” Lia
improvised. “Tell him someone came after us and forced their way in
. . . You can leave with us . . . You don’t have to stay here with
him.”

“And what am I going to do about
my kids, huh? You think it’s easy, raising two kids with no one to
help? George used to give me money sometimes, but now he’s dead.
Billy’s all I’ve got. ‘Sides, he ain’t gonna forget I asked him to
take care of George’s body for me. You think anything you say is
gonna make a difference?”

While Carleen ranted, Lia twisted
her left hand, stretching, attempting to reach two fingers into her
pocket.
So close!
She brushed against the tips of her keys.
She slid a key between her index and middle finger and carefully
began to work it upward.

“What are you doing? Why are you
twisting around like that?” Carleen walked over behind Lia, grabbed
the keys and yanked them out of Lia’s pocket. She shook them in
Lia’s face. “What did you think you were going to do with this, use
the keys to cut the cord?” She snorted and dropped the kubotan on
the milk crate, then sat down backwards on the third chair, holding
the gun steady on the chair back.

Lia glanced over at Kate. There was
an intent expression on Kate’s face, a subtle shift to her
shoulders.
Is Kate untying herself?
She scrambled for some
way to distract Carleen, give Kate time. How much longer would
Billy take? The SPCA was barely a mile away.

“What are you and Billy going to
do after we go missing? People know where we are. It’s not going to
work, Carleen.”

“Billy will think of something.
They haven’t found the car and they won’t find you, either. They
won’t be able to prove anything.”

Lia shifted in her seat. “You keep
telling yourself that.”
Just keep talking.

“Why are you squirming like that?”
Carleen stood up from her chair and walked back over to Lia,
checking her knots.

“You try being tied up in one of
these chairs.” She shifted again. And she prayed.

Hands freed, Kate launched herself
at Carleen’s back. Carleen shrieked and the two women fell over.
Kate’s ankles were still tied to the chair and it banged against
Kate’s legs then twisted and slipped over to the side, dragging her
legs with it. Carleen flipped over, flailing her free arm as she
kept the gun out of Kate’s reach. Kate grunted as Carleen shoved a
hand in her face, pushing her away. Kate dug her short fingernails
into Carleen’s arm. Kate had longer arms, but she was still
hampered by the chair and Carleen had wiry strength from her years
lifting boxes of stock at the store.

Frantic, Lia looked for a way to
help. She could work at her bonds, but she didn’t have time to undo
them. She had to act fast. If Carleen rolled close enough, maybe
she could lean back and drop a chair leg onto Carleen. That would
hurt.

Carleen held the gun back over her
head with one hand, and pulled Kate’s hair with the other, trying
to get Kate to let go of her wrist. Lia rocked her chair to the
side and dumped herself on top of Carleen’s exposed hip. Carleen
lost her grip and the gun skittered across the floor. Kate clawed
for it, dragging the chair.

Her hand fell on a black workman’s
boot.

Billy bent down, picked up the gun.
“Looking for this?” He pointed the gun down at Kate’s face, out of
reach of her hands. “The only reason I don’t shoot you right now is
I don’t want blood all over the house. Get up Carleen.”

Lia thumped down on the floor
sideways as Carleen worked her way out from under her. The small
woman stood up painfully. Her face was bleeding where Kate
scratched it. She rubbed the hip Lia fell on and looked fearfully
at Billy.

“I leave you for ten minutes and
you can’t even control a couple of tied-up women with a gun in your
hand. I oughta smack you good, Carleen.”

“Sorry Billy. I didn’t
realize—”

“Shut up, Carleen! I gotta think .
. . . Tie her back up,” he said, nodding at Kate. “Get her loose
from that chair and tie her hands behind her back. We’re going for
a walk . . . . You, Girlie,” he said to Lia. “We’re going to untie
you. You make one wrong move and your friend is dead, blood or no
blood.”

“Where are we going, Billy?
Somebody will see us.”

“We’re going out the back way,
through the woods. Nobody will see us this time of day. I left my
tire iron out back. We can use that on them. I don’t want to use
the gun if I don’t have to. Get the duct tape. Can’t have them
screaming. We’ll either dump them in the woods or break into the
back of that foreclosure on Chambers.”

Carleen finished tying Kate’s hands
and went for the tape. She came back with the tape and a pair of
scissors, cut a strip of tape off, then applied it to Kate’s
trembling mouth.

“Okay, now pull the electrical
cord down from her hands and tie it around one ankle,” Billy
instructed.

Carleen complied.

“Leave about a foot and tie it
around the other ankle . . . run the rest of the cord up through
her hands and give it to me . . . get the other one. Put the tape
over her mouth first. Billy turned toward Lia to supervise. Billy
had unconsciously dropped the nose of the gun while he was
directing Carleen. It was no longer pointing at Kate, but down,
toward the floor.

Carleen knelt down, wrestling with
a strip of duct tape. Lia felt Carleen’s hot breath on her face as
she laid one end of the sticky tape on Lia’s cheek and stretched it
across Lia’s mouth. While Carleen was blocking her from Billy’s
view, Lia slipped one loose hand behind her, grabbed the kubotan
off the milk crate.

Lia flipped the safety off the
kubotan and swung it over Carleen’s shoulder, pointing the bottom
end at Billy.

Sorry, Kate.

She depressed keyring swivel,
releasing a cloud of pepper spray across the room.

Billy and Kate screamed while Lia
rammed the end of the kubotan into Carleen’s temple. Billy dropped
the gun and fell, clutching his eyes. Carleen yanked Lia’s hair,
drawing tears. Lia struck Carleen again with the kubotan, hitting a
pressure-point in her shoulder.

Kitty rolled on the floor,
sightless, groping for the gun through a haze of pain. She felt the
barrel between her tied hands and snatched it toward her, fumbling,
scrabbling to get a firing grip on the weapon while Billy howled.
She pointed blindly in the direction of his screams and pulled the
trigger. The gun roared in her ear and the recoil send her arms
flying up over her head. She ignored the ringing in her ears as she
lowered the weapon and fired again.

Stunned, Lia and Carleen stopped
their grappling to see the red stain spreading on Billy’s shirt.
Carleen pulled away from Lia and ran to him. She pawed through the
pooling blood on his clothing, looking for the wound in his side as
more blood streamed over her fingers. Kate fired again, this time
hitting the sofa. Lia freed her other hand and began dragging
herself and the chair across the floor to help Kate.

The front door blew open as a trio
of officers poured in with guns drawn, Peter and Brent two steps
behind them. The officers quickly assessed the circumstances. Brent
relieved Kate of the gun while the others surrounded Carleen and
Billy. An ambulance siren sounded in the distance.

Peter stood over Lia, taking in the
strip of duct tape dangling from her face and the tangle of her
legs, the chair and electrical cord. He stooped down to untie her.
“You okay, Babe?”

“Babe,” she muttered, “is a
pig.”

Peter sat on the picnic table next
to Lia, holding her hand. They were surrounded by the usual morning
crowd, plus Kate, Max and Daisy.

“. . . I was sitting at my desk,
reviewing reports when I get this butt dial from Lia. I’m about to
hang up when I decide to listen in for a while and maybe make a
loud, rude noise at an inopportune moment. Only instead of hearing
her gossip with Bailey, I hear all hell breaking loose. Then I hear
Stryker’s voice. When I heard Carleen’s voice, I knew where you
must be. We had all available units meet down the block with their
sirens off. We were in the process of surrounding the house and
figuring the best plan of action to avoid a hostage situation when
we heard Stryker screaming. All bets were off then, but before we
could break in, the gun went off.”

“So I maced Kate for
nothing?”

“It’s quite all right, Dear,” Kate
said, patting Lia’s free hand. “You didn’t know.”

“Not nothing,” Peter said. “You
gave us the opening to rush in and grab Stryker and Thomas before
Carleen got her wits about her and grabbed the gun from Kate.
Things could have gotten a lot worse. There’s a reason hostage
situations usually last for hours.

“Carleen became hysterical and
began talking before we could get her properly Mirandized and into
the station. She seems to think she’s a victim in this. Never mind
it was her prints on the crossbow.

“Stryker clammed up and demanded a
lawyer. Thanks to your statements, we’ve got him on accessory after
the fact and interfering with a corpse. I heard him planning over
the phone, so we’ve got them both on conspiracy to commit
murder.

“What was up with Carleen’s hair?
Why did she dye it brown?” Kate asked. “I might have recognized her
if it wasn’t for that.”

“Apparently Stryker is a
Fundamentalist at heart. Carleen only became a blonde after her
divorce because Stryker would never let her bleach her hair.
Wouldn’t let her wear nail polish or make up, either. When he
agreed to come back, he insisted she dye it brown and get rid of
the cosmetics so she wouldn’t look like a whore
anymore.”

“Unbelievable,” Lia said. “I can’t
understand why she turned to him.”

“He was the one person she knew
who wouldn’t balk at helping her out. I’m sure there’s more to it
than that. Domestic violence is complicated.”

“I’d like to know,” Jim said, “how
Daisy wound up with you, Kate.”

Kate smiled. “Lia arranged
it.”

“Stacy called me,” Lia said. “She
got my number off one of our posters. When the SPCA called Monica
to tell her they had Daisy, she told them Daisy’s owner was
deceased, and could they please find the dog a good home. Stacy
overheard, and she didn’t want Daisy going to strangers. She asked
me to step in. Kate offered to take her.”

“Poor Stacy,” Kate said. “I think
she got the worst end of the deal.”

“She’s tougher than you think. She
holds her own with Monica, and she’ll be 18 before long,” Peter
said. “That will give her leverage, if she chooses to use
it.”

“How so?” Lia asked.

“As crazy as Monica is, I don’t
think she wants to be left alone. Once Stacy’s an adult, she can
leave home. She’s smart enough to get a scholarship for college, so
Monica can’t hold her education over her head. If Monica wants
Stacy to stick around, she’ll have to treat her better. I have a
feeling Stacy will be okay.”

“What about Jacob?” Jose
asked.

“He offered to pay restitution to
Avis for the tire and he’s doing community service. Rumor has it
he’s going to be picking up poop here at the park.

“He also heard a couple of his
classmates talking about the bottle bombs in his chem lab, so he
did his civic duty and turned them in. And, Heaven help us, he
asked me what it took to become a cop.”

“Maybe that will keep him out of
trouble,” Lia said.