A Shot in the Bark (A Dog Park Mystery) (18 page)

"Watching you brilliant, creative geniuses work has given me an appetite. Are you ladies ready for Palak Paneer?"

Peter got such a kick, watching Lia and Bailey bounce ideas as they sat at a white linen covered table and sampled from the buffet. He almost forgot he was working. He didn't like being sneaky, but the opportunity to observe one of Lia's closest friends was potentially too illuminating to pass up.

Could Bailey be his killer? She was smart and organized enough. She had no love for Luthor. But what would her motive be? While Luthor's girlfriends seemed to keep popping out of the woodwork, he couldn't see Bailey involved with him. She wasn't his type. Could it have been blackmail? Just because Catherine gave Luthor money doesn't mean that was the cash in the Lazy Boy. Or, going with the psycho theory, perhaps he wore the same kind of shoes as the kid who bullied her in second grade. Perhaps he should put motive aside.

Catherine had motive, but he just couldn't see it. She was used to having other people deal with the nastier aspects of life for her. Lia and Bailey's description of her suggested someone self-involved and flighty, too lacking in the awareness of others and of practical realities to have crafted so precise a scenario as Luthor's death. No, Catherine would have hired her pool boy to do it, then been astonished when he cut a deal and ratted her out. Unless, following Brent's scenario, she just got pissed, hunted Luthor down and drilled him into swiss cheese.

But Bailey. Lia swore the 'Woo Woo Queen' would never commit murder due to the karma she would incur. Could it be an act? The person he was looking for would have an act of some kind.

"So what do you want to bet Catherine tries to hire Luella Zuckerman to talk to the butterflies during her party?" Lia's comment brought Peter back to the present and his Saag Vindaloo.

"Can you talk to butterflies?" Peter inquired.

Bailey snorted. "If anyone can, it would be Luella. But she'd tell you that butterflies wouldn't have much to say except 'Sweet! Pretty! Flower!'" Her high-pitched imitation had them all laughing.

"Huh," Peter said. "So what's your next step?"

"We take Catherine down to Enright Avenue to see the native gardens there and get her expectations in line with reality. We sell her on the butterflies by showing her pretty pictures," Lia explained in between bites of her frozen Mango Chat.

"Sounds like you think Catherine's pretty clueless."

"It's not that she's dumb," mused Bailey, "She just doesn't bother to think. She's a new moon baby with Venus in Gemini, always off on the newest fad and barely scraping the surface."

"Like those butterflies?" Peter asked.

"That's it! We tell her the butterflies remind us of her. She'll love it." Lia responded. She grinned at Peter and his heart stopped, just for a second. "You, Sir, are brilliant."

"Why all the strategizing and manipulation?"

"Alas, Detective," Bailey mourned, "not being public servants, we are subject to the whims of our patrons. We have to catch her at the right phase of her infatuation and somehow keep her focused until the project is complete. Otherwise, she'll want to scrap it for some new idea, and not want to pay for what we've done. With Catherine it means preempting any stray thought that's doomed to lead her off the path, so to speak. We have to constantly appeal to her ego. It's exhausting."

"You've really thought this out."

"Survival, Detective, pure survival."

Bailey was obviously a planner, aware of subtleties. And if it was Bailey, it would kill Lia.

"Damn." Peter set the receiver down gently, despite the urge to slam it.

"What's up?" Brent inquired from the next desk.

"I thought we were okay, but she's not taking my calls again."

"Okay, Potter."

"Huh?"

"You're in the middle of a Harry Potter scenario."

"What does some kid with a weird scar have to do with me?"

"Literature holds the meaning of life, Dourson. This is just like book five,
Order of the Phoenix
. Harry's got this big crush on Cho Chang, and she likes him back. But she keeps acting all wiggy because her last boyfriend was killed by Voldemort in book four, and Harry was there."

"You think Morrisey was killed by Voldemort?"

"Of course not, that would be too easy. But I think Lia's acting like Cho Chang. Harry blew it with Cho because he didn't understand her moods and, hey, he had Hermione and Ron to hang with."

"So you're saying I'm an unfeeling jerk?"

"No, I'm just saying she's got to work it out and if that seems like too much trouble to you, then maybe you really belong with Ginny Weasley instead."

"Who's Ginny Weasley?"

"Do you really want a run-down of all the chicks in Harry Potter? Maybe I could hook you up with that tramp, Lavender Brown."

"Go away, Brent. Get a real girlfriend."

"Careful, or I'll sick Hermione on you. She's got one wicked right hook."

"Don't you look all down in the dumps. What's the matter?" Jim joined Lia on top of her favorite picnic table, where she was throwing tennis balls for Honey. Fleece sat in front of her, in expectation of petting.

"I feel guilty." She leaned over and gave Fleece a scratch behind the ears.

"You couldn't possibly be guilty of anything worth feeling bad about."

"I feel so weird. Luthor just died and I'm already having feelings for someone else. That's just wrong."

"Did you really love Luthor?"

"I'm not sure. That's what I feel guilty about. But then I get all mad because now I'm finding out he had other girlfriends and was getting lots of money from somewhere I didn't know about."

"If you didn't love him, looks like there was good reason."

"He acted like he just couldn't live without me."

"Sounds manipulative to me. If he hadn't died, would you be feeling guilty about seeing someone new?"

"I guess not."

"I'm sorry he shot himself."

"But that's just it, Jim, he didn't shoot himself."

"What are you talking about?"

"Damn. I shouldn't have said anything. It just slipped out. It's not public knowledge, but Peter says they think he was murdered."

"Why do they think that?"

"Because he was left-handed and Luthor was shot on the right side. And he avoided guns. And
I
think he would have been too chicken to pull the trigger anyway."

"Oh."

"Don't tell anyone, please? Peter thinks someone here at the park did it. He says you have to know this place to think of it as a rendezvous point, and they had to know me to steal my cell phone. Someone sent Luthor a text from my phone right before he came here that night."

"We're all suspects?" Jim asked, troubled.

"I'm not, at least Peter says I'm not. I guess I should be. He's only got my word that I lost my phone. I don't know what they think about anyone else."

"That's a lot of people. What reason would anyone have had for killing Luthor?"

"Peter thinks it was a psycho. But we don't have any psychos. Kooks and eccentrics, but no psychos unless you want to count the weird guy who used to bring his Akita last spring."

"How long have you been carrying this around?" he inquired, now concerned.

"Peter told me almost three weeks ago. I'm afraid, Jim. If it's a crazy person with no motive except they're crazy, doesn't that mean they can do it again?"

"Are they certain it's murder?"

"Certain enough to have Peter investigating. I keep thinking they're mistaken, but then I remember about that text message they say came from the phone I can't find. If he shot himself, then where's my phone, and who sent that text? There's no other explanation. I don't want to look at my friends and wonder if they shot my boyfriend. Right now, you're one of the only people I trust. I hate feeling this way."

"Who have you told?"

"Just you, Jim. Didn't mean to, it sort of busted out. I despise secrets, and I'm sorry I dumped this on you. Look, you won't tell anyone, will you?"

"No, I won't, unless you say it's okay."

Just then Cargo and Rufus bounded up, tongues hanging out in Canine good cheer that refuted Lia's mood. Lia ruffled Cargo's neck as she watched Anna and Nadine approach. Jealous, Fleece crowded in.

"So serious over here!" Nadine announced. "What are you two cooking up on the back side of the park?"

"Lia's wrestling with some devils today," Jim responded.

"I'm so sorry, can I hit one of them over the head for you? Bean him with Cargo's tennis ball?" Anna offered.

"This must be about that nice detective," Nadine said.

"How'd you guess?" Lia asked.

"You young girls. It's always about a man, and with him around, who else could it be?" Nadine patted her on the knee.

"If you're so smart, what am I feeling bad about?"

"Well, I'm sure you haven't done anything truly heinous. I think it has something to do with your back-to-the-Mayflower Puritan roots."

"What are you talking about, Nadine?" Anna inquired.

"Lia's feeling bad about feeling good."

"Uh . . . well . . . it's just not that simple," Lia mumbled.

"Sweetie, feel bad about Luthor if you need to. But don't let that stop you from feeling good about Peter," Anna advised.

"It's awfully confusing."

"Of course it is," Nadine sympathized. "But do you really want to tell the charming detective to go away until you figure it out? Do you suppose he'll still be twiddling his thumbs when you've tidied your life up?"

"Nadine," Jim interjected, "That's not fair to either of them."

"Nadine's right," Anna asserted. "Life isn't fair. But Lia, don't let bad timing get in the way of your happiness. Don't make an obstacle out of Luthor dying."

"You think Luthor dying is an obstacle?"

"He made you unhappy when you were together. Don't let him continue to make you unhappy now that he's gone."

"He's not gone, dammit, he's
dead
! Sorry, I didn't mean to yell at you. I just need some space." Lia pushed off the table and called Honey and Chewy to her as she stalked back towards the woods.

"Oh, dear. I seem to have missed the mark."

"You're usually more tactful, Anna."

"Yes, Jim, I usually am."

Lia was halfway down the gorge behind the dog park when Kita ran up the path and play-bowed to Honey. Honey barked and bowed back, then chased Kita back down the hill. Lia heard Bailey calling to Kita from the bottom of the trail. It looked like company was inevitable. She made her way carefully down the steep incline. When she reached the bottom, she found Bailey sitting on a log by the creek with a book.

"Hey, what are you reading?" Lia asked as she joined Bailey on the log.

"It's a book about reincarnation and soul-groups."

"Soul-groups? What are those?" Lia asked, glad to have something to talk about besides Peter Dourson and her personal life.

"Soul-groups contract to support each other by performing certain roles in various incarnations," Bailey launched into her explanation.

"How does that work?"

"Families are often soul-groups. In another lifetime, your mother might have been your sister or your child, or even your husband. Sometimes it's kinda crazy."

"How so?"

"The harder the life, the more you can learn. So sometimes souls decide to come into life handicapped in some way, physically, economically, emotionally."

"I can see that."

"So you decide you want to experience living in squalor in a war-torn third-world country. Some of your soul-group is likely to come along with you."

"You mean instead of opting for a life of leisure on the Riviera."

"Exactly. So souls are choosing to go into situations that are toxic and even dangerous to support each other."

"That would be a true friend," Lia commented.

"Now suppose someone wanted to increase their compassion by having a traumatic experience, say, being a rape victim."

"Someone would volunteer for that? Sounds harsh."

"And brave. Well, they would then contract with a member of their soul-group to be the rapist."

"You're kidding me," Lia said, appalled.

"Truth. According to this book anyway," Bailey shrugged.

"But wouldn't the rapist be messing with their own karma?"

"I haven't gotten to that part of the book yet, but I think they might get special dispensation, since it's a soul agreement that serves the higher good."

"So you're saying that someone who gets raped literally asked for it? That's whacked!"

"Not all the time, only sometimes, and that's over-simplifying."

"I don't know about that book, Bailey."

"I haven't made up my mind yet. It's certainly thought-provoking," Bailey responded.

"So you're saying we might have asked Catherine to come into our lives to make us crazy?"

"Very possibly."

"Geezlepete."

Something's up. I don't know what it is, but things are not settling down the way they should now that Terry's out of the picture. Is it just Lia's confusion about Detective Dourson, or is there more to the story? There's too much gossip at the park, people hanging out without anything else to do but take small inferences and blow them into raging tsunamis of rumor. Perhaps this was a dangerous pool for me to dip in. Nothing can be done about that now, but keep still and watch. Then again, maybe there's another way to look at this.

This time the pot sitting outside her studio door held a cactus with a single coral bloom. She sat it on her table, pulled up a stool and sat down. She glowered at the spiny plant, jerked out her phone. Peter answered on the fourth ring.