Maximum Security (A Dog Park Mystery) (6 page)

“No trouble at all, it’s already
made.” She led them into the kitchen. “Have a seat at the
bar.”

The kitchen was ruthlessly clean
and organized. A fresh pot of coffee warmed on the brewer. A
platter of scones studded with some kind of dried fruit sat on the
breakfast bar. Next to the platter was a jar of clotted
cream.

She pulled two pottery mugs out of
a kitchen cabinet and set them on the counter. As she reached for a
third, one of the mugs on the counter slipped and crashed to the
floor.

“Oh! I’m so stupid!” She stooped
and started picking up pieces, shaking her head. “I can’t believe I
did that. I loved that mug. . . I’ll have this cleaned up in a
jiffy.”

Brent crouched beside her. “It’s
all right, Mrs. Munce. Why don’t you let me take care of this while
you sit down with Detective Dourson.” His voice whispered of Tupelo
honey, soothing.

She shut her eyes for a moment,
inhaled deeply, collected herself. “Let me get you coffee, at
least.”

“I see the coffee right over
there. How about I pour some for you?” He took her by the elbow and
gently raised her up, guiding her to one of the stools.

“I see you’ve got Splenda sitting
out. Is that what you take in your coffee?” She nodded,
surrendering to Brent’s ministrations.

“There’s half-and-half in the
fridge. I’m sorry, I’m just so nervous. Please tell me you’ve found
something.”

Peter’s eyes met Brent’s. Brent
handed her a cup of coffee, then went back to picking up the broken
pottery. She clutched at the cup, rubbing her thumb over the clay
ridges formed on the pottery wheel.

“Mrs. Munce,” Peter began, “we may
have a lead.” Her hollow eyes bored into him. He plowed on. “We
found a body, and we think it might be a match.”

“A match? You mean it might be
George? George isn’t dead, he’s just missing,” she said inanely.
“You’re supposed to find him.”

“In that case, we need to rule
George out, make sure this isn’t him.”

“You want me to look at him? I
gave you pictures, can’t you tell?” Peter noticed a stridency in
her voice that suggested she was getting angry.

“It’s not that simple. The body
was exposed to the elements. It’s not recognizable. We’re going to
need dental records. Can you tell us who his dentist is?” Peter
lowered his voice and spoke slowly, in the hope that she would also
lower hers.

“He was just here, four days ago.
How is it possible that he’s not recognizable? Let me see him, I’m
sure I can tell if it’s him or not.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do
that.”

“Why ever not?” She demanded,
escalating several decibels.

Peter changed the subject. “Mrs.
Munce, this body was in Mount Airy Forest. Did your husband ever go
there?”

“Yes, he liked to hike with Daisy.
What does that have to do with identifying him?”

“Scavengers got to the body. There
is little left to identify. That’s why we need the dental
records.”

“You mean something
ate
him?” She set down the mug with a thump, slopping coffee over the
sides. She stared at Peter.

“We won’t know for sure until the
coroner completes her report
.
”

“How did he die?”

”That’s undetermined at this
time.”

“
Mrs. Munce,”
Brent placed a soothing hand over hers. “We’re still not sure that
it’s George. One step at a time.”

“I’ve been sitting here, waiting
for him to come home, and he’s dead?” her voice rose dangerously in
pitch.

“Mrs. Munce,” Peter interjected,
“it may be George. It may not. If it is George, we’ll have some
questions for you.”

“Oh, it’s George all
right.”

Peter caught Brent’s eye. Brent
raised his eyebrows behind Mrs. Munce’s back.

“Why do you say that, Mrs. Munce?”
Peter asked.

“Because George wouldn’t run out
on me. Ask your questions. Go ahead and ask them now. I’ve had
nothing to do all week but sit around and wonder where he was.” She
stood up and got down three small plates and placed scones on them.
She slapped a generous dollop of clotted cream on each with
trembling hands. The plates thudded as she set them in front of
Peter and Brent. “You will have something to eat, won’t you? It
would be a shame for these to go to waste.”

She busied herself in the kitchen,
gathering cloth napkins and silverware with the grim determination
usually reserved for military campaigns and root canals. The
domestic routine appeared to soothe her. Peter watched as she
willed competence back into her hands, rebuilding her facade bit by
bit. When Peter and Brent were settled with coffee and scones,
clotted cream and honey, she also settled.

A veneer of crisp efficiency firmly
in place, she reseated herself at the counter and faced the two
detectives. “What,” she asked, “would you like to know?”

“This is premature, you
understand?” Peter said.

“In my mind, it’s
overdue.”

“Was George upset about anything
in the weeks before he disappeared? Anything unusual going on?”
Peter asked.

“Not upset, no. He
was
concerned about some issues with an employee at work, but he was in
a good mood when I saw him.”

“What does that mean,” Brent
asked, “‘when you saw him’?”

“We work different shifts. I have
to get up early because I’m a counselor at Hughes High School. I
was often in bed when he came home.”

“Did that bother you, never seeing
him?” Peter asked.

“What does that have to do with
anything?” Monica Munce’s voice was no longer edging toward
hysteria. Peter found her new, steely resolve no more
reassuring.

“Please, Mrs. Munce, I need to
have a picture of his situation. Anything could be
important.”

“We’re settled married people,
Detective, and we’ve got many balls in the air. I don’t have to
connect with him every day to know he’s there.”

Peter noted the use of present
tense in her responses. “He have problems with anyone?”

“He was worried about that clerk,
but I don’t think it was anything serious. George was just George.
He didn’t like to make waves. He wasn’t the sort to antagonize
people. If he didn’t like something, he usually kept it to
himself.” She was breaking off little pieces of scone that never
made it to her mouth.

“Do you know the name of the
employee?”

“Oh, I’m sure I don’t remember. If
it wasn’t one, it was another. If you haven’t noticed, the sort of
people who work in those stores hardly have the best
lives.”

“What sort of trouble was he
having with this employee?”

“I don’t really remember. George
didn’t talk about work very much. It was just something he said in
passing.”

Peter observed a picture of a
teenage girl on the window sill. She had dark, waist-length hair,
conservative clothes and a serious expression.

“Is that your daughter?” He nodded
to the photograph.

“Yes, that’s Stacy.”

“What was her relationship with
her father?”

“George was Stacy’s stepfather.
They got along well enough. She’s very busy with her studies and
extra curricular activities. She’s an honor student at Walnut
Hills.”

“She ever get into
trouble?”

She shook her head. “Stacy is never
a problem.”

“What about drugs?”

“Not my child!”

“Begging your pardon, Ma’m,” Brent
said. “We have to ask.”

“What about financial trouble?
Could anything like that have been bothering George?”

“We’re not rich, Detective, but
we’re okay.”

“Gambling?”

“George?” she sputtered. “He
wouldn't do anything so tawdry. Let me explain something to you.
Having a loving family was the only thing that mattered to him. He
would never do anything to jeopardize us.”

“I tell you what,” Brent said as
they pulled out of the Munce driveway, “that was like pulling
teeth, getting the freaking dentist out of her. Couldn’t you have
just done that over the phone?”

“I wanted to see her reaction when
she heard her husband might be dead. How would you describe state
of mind? ”

“Brittle? Histrionic? Then, for a
minute there, I thought we were facing the reincarnation of General
Patton.” Brent said.

“Interesting shift of mood there.
Like she was angry at him for dying.”

“Shame about the mug.”

“She said she loved the mug.
Wonder why she never said anything about loving George?” Peter
asked.

“Maybe she didn’t, Brother. We get
to come back this afternoon. I wonder how she’ll act.”

“We have to interview Stacy. Kids
notice things.”

“I’m looking forward to more
drama. Fun city, Brother.”

Stacy had a quietly defiant look on
her face when Monica led her into the dining room that
afternoon.

“Detectives Dourson and Davis have
some questions they’d like to ask you, though I can’t imagine what
you could tell them,” Monica announced.

Peter noticed Stacy narrowing her
eyes behind Monica’s back.
Something going on
there
.

Stacy seated herself at the table,
smoothing her skirt as she sat down. Her voice was excessively
polite. “You don’t have to stay, Mother. I’m sure I’ll be
fine.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I wouldn’t
think of leaving you to face this alone.”

Stacy’s rolling eyes punctuated a
long-suffering look. Despite the facial gymnastics, her voice
remained calm and precise. “It’s the police, not the Spanish
Inquisition. If they pull out thumbscrews, I’ll be sure to yell
loud enough for you to hear me.”

Monica ignored this. She looked
pointedly at Peter and Brent. “What would you gentlemen like to
know?”

Brent leaned forward. “Stacy, I’m
Detective Davis, and this is my partner, Detective Dourson. He’s in
charge of the investigation into your stepfather's death. We’re
wondering what you noticed about your stepfather in the days before
he disappeared.”

“Noticed like what?”

“Anything unusual or different,”
Brent said.

“You mean like being
happy?”

“Stacy! What are you saying?”
Monica gasped.

“What? Like you think I never
noticed how much you yelled at George? You think he
liked
that?”

Peter intervened. “What can you
tell us about George’s change in mood, Stacy?”

“I can tell you what caused
it.”

“What was that?” Peter
asked.

“She caused it.” Stacy’s eyes
darted sideways, gaging her mother’s response.

“She?”

Stacy dropped her bomb. “His old
high school girlfriend. From
Oklahoma
. He was having an
affair
. He was
happy
.”

“Stacy! Go to your
room!”

“Mrs. Munce, we are conducting an
interview here. We will thank you not to interrupt,” Brent said in
his most polite Atlanta drawl.

“This story is
preposterous!”

“It’s the
truth
!” Stacy
faced her mother, chin up.

“Mrs. Munce, are we to understand
that you didn’t know about this affair?” Peter asked.

“Absolutely not! George wouldn’t
do such a thing.” She glared at Stacy, who looked back
impassively.

Got her mother’s goat
, Peter
thought.

“You want to know the best thing
about it?” Stacy asked confidentially, her eyes
gleaming.

“What was that?” Peter
asked.

“She was
old
. And
fat
.” She turned back to her mother. “You spend all that
time at the gym doing Zumba, and he’s running around with this
dumpy looking woman.”

Monica’s eyes widened dangerously.
Brent gave her a warning look.

“Stacy, how did you find out about
this relationship?” Peter asked.

“It was on Kindle.”

“I don’t understand,” Peter
said.

“I picked up George’s Kindle by
accident one day, and when I turned it on, there was this
paranormal thriller on the carousel. It didn’t look like anything
George would like, so I opened it up and read a few
pages.

“I still didn’t get it, so I
checked the ‘shared notes and comments’ to see what people were
saying about it, and there was all this stuff. They were writing to
each other through their Kindles. Man, it was
hot
.

“He must have got the idea when I
told him about kids using the
Oxford American Dictionary
to
chat with since they aren’t allowed to have their phones in school,
but they can have e-readers.”

“How does that work?” Peter
asked.