A Shot in the Bark (A Dog Park Mystery) (21 page)

"Hard to say. I'll have to account for the cold water. Several hours, though. We've got rigor mortis setting in. Brent said she threw a party last night."

"Yeah, we were both here."

Amanda raised an eyebrow. "Undercover work?"

"Nah. Mostly Mrs. Laroux was showing us what a generous and forgiving person she was after Peter and I grilled her like tuna a few weeks ago. Looks like she never made it to bed. These are the same clothes she had on last night. Why do we think this might not be an accident?"

"Pond's less than three feet deep. Hard to drown when all you need to do is sit up. There's a contusion on the side of her head. Difficult to say right now if someone hit her or if she hit it on one of those rocks." Dr. Jeffers pointed to the stepping stones. "There are no defensive wounds. No obvious sign of a struggle. We'll run tox screens. If she was drunk, that would explain it."

"She seem drunk to you, Brent?"

"Not when I left. Doesn't mean she didn't have a few after everyone was gone. Shall we find Bailey and see what she says?"

Bailey was hunched up in a saffron-colored Adirondack chair, staring at nothing. Peter and Brent pulled up chairs and sat across from her.

"Bailey, I'm so sorry."

"Peter, I don't understand. First Luthor, then Terry, now this."

"I know it's hard, but we need to ask you some questions. Do you remember Officer Davis?"

"We met last night."

"Bailey, can I get you something?" Brent offered. "Water? Coffee?"

"Nothing. I don't think I can stomach anything right now."

Peter pulled out his recorder. I'd like to tape this for accuracy's sake, if that's all right with you."

Bailey nodded her assent. "Am I a suspect or something?"

"Right now we don't know if there's been a crime. That's what we're trying to figure out. Can you state your name for the record?

"Hughes, Bailey Hughes." She chewed on a thumbnail and looked past him.

"What time did you arrive this morning?"

"I got here just before six."

"What brought you out here today?"

"Catherine figured there might be some damage to the plants with everyone wandering around last night. I agreed to check it out first thing today."

"And was there?"

"Not then. Not until you guys got here." Her tone was flat. Her expression as she surveyed the officers combing the garden, was wooden.

Peter winced. "Sorry about that. How did you find Mrs. Laroux?"

Bailey took a deep breath, and brushed her hair out of her eyes. "I was walking the path, checking everything out. Halfway in, the path runs along the pond for a bit. I saw this lump in the water by the stepping stones. I was getting pissed and wondering what it was and then I saw her hand, floating there. I ran over and pulled her out. I was going to do CPR, but she was cold and stiff. I called 911."

"Do you remember how her body was laying?"

"She was to the right of the stepping stones."

"Face up or face down?"

"Face down."

"And were her feet towards the island, or away?"

"Away. Does this matter?"

"We don't know yet. It's a good idea to get as much information as possible while it's still fresh in your mind. Was anything disturbed, that you noticed?"

"I didn't notice much of anything after I saw Catherine."

"When was the last time you talked to her?"

"Around 10:30? That's when I left."

"Did you notice anything unusual then? Anyone acting strange at the party?"

"Like what?"

"Anyone acting unhappy, any tension, anything out of the ordinary?"

"Catherine was just Catherine. It was a nice party. Nothing odd."

"Can we call anyone for you? Lia, maybe?"

"Lia's going to freak. Catherine dead, the garden trashed."

Lia was brave when Peter called her. He had a uniform stay with Bailey until she arrived.

Leo sat at his kitchen table, clenching a mug of coffee like a lifeline. Last night the large man seemed imperious and imposing. Morning light etched grief into his face. Peter walked him through the usual questions.

"What was her mood last night?"

"She was happy. Catherine loves parties. I hate them."

"When was the last time you saw her?"

"I went to bed around 11:30 She still had some late guests."

"You didn't notice when she didn't come upstairs?"

"No, I didn't notice. I have sleep apnea. We have separate bedrooms so I don't disturb her." Leo began to sound testy.

"Can you recall who was still here at that time?"

"That Asian woman with the pink hair. Some of her literary friends. I don't know their names." Peter wrote "Marie Woo" in his notebook and underlined it.

"Can you think of anyone who might want to hurt her?"

"Are you saying someone did this to her? I thought she slipped."

"We don't know. She might have. Right now there's no indication anyone else was involved. We're just trying to cover all possibilities."

Leo grimaced. "Catherine was a vain woman, and often silly. But I can't think of anyone who hated her, not like that."

Peter hated to do it, but he didn't have a choice. "Were you aware, Mr. Laroux, that your wife had an affair several months ago?"

Leo exhaled heavily. He looked sideways and worked his mouth angrily. "My wife had her hobbies. Yes, I knew. I also knew it was over."

"How did you know that?"

"He wasn't her first. Every time one ends, she gets on some kick. Has to remodel the house or something. This time it was those silly dogs and that garden."

"Did that upset you?"

"What do my wife's affairs have to do with anything?"

Peter and Brent looked at him steadily. Peter said quietly, "That man is dead. Now your wife is dead. Strange, don't you think? You ever meet Luthor Morrisey?"

"Was that his name? We've been married a long time. Our lives were often separate. I don't know half the people Catherine associated with."

"So you didn't care?"

"Of course I cared!" Leo exploded. "I loved her. But we both had our faults."

Peter and Brent finished with Laroux and walked back out to the deck. Lia had arrived and was sitting next to Bailey, holding her hand. She looked up at Peter, tears in her eyes.

"Poor Catherine. We barely finished the garden. She had less than a week with it, now she's dead. I can't believe it. She'll never get to see it in full bloom. And now people are stomping all over it. It's like they're stomping all over her."

"I'm so sorry," Peter said helplessly.

Peter studied the two officers combing the garden for evidence. One of them, Officer Hinkle, spotted Peter and stopped what he was doing to pick up an evidence bag. He headed over to the group on the porch. Lia looked up as the young man arrived. She had a bemused expression on her face. "Where did you get my phone?"

Stunned, Peter asked, "How do you know that's yours?"

"See the thumbprint? It's paint. Alizarin Crimson. I did that."

Peter looked at Hinkle expectantly. "Officer?"

"It was in her pocket. The M.E. found it."

"What was Catherine doing with my phone?" Panicky, Lia tried to connect the dots. "Catherine? Why would Catherine have it? How could she have found it? Why wouldn't she have returned it to me?"

"Maybe she didn't find it," Peter said gently.

"But . . . you think she had it all along?. . .
She
had it?. . . Why? . . . Why would she have it? . . . Unless . . .
She
called Luthor? . . .
Catherine
? . . . How could Catherine do that? Why would Catherine do that?" Lia pleaded. "Why would she shoot Luthor?"

"We don't know that she did. They just found it. We don't know what it means yet."

Leo came outside in response to Lia's rising voice. "What are you saying, my wife shot someone? How can you say such a thing!"

"Please, sir," Brent interjected, "Something has turned up that may be connected to a suspected homicide. We don't know yet why Catherine had it in her possession."

"Does this have to do with that sleeze, Morrisey, my wife was sneaking around with?"

"What?" Lia and Bailey cried out simultaneously.

Lia stared first at Leo, then at Peter. Her eyes widened. "You
knew
! I can see it in your face! You knew and you didn't tell me! How could you lie to me like that?"

"Lia, please, I couldn't tell you."

Bailey struggled to catch up. "Luthor was murdered?"

In the end, Brent drove a stony-faced Lia and a flabbergasted Bailey home. He caught up with Peter back at District Five. "I don't know, Bro. This is way past Chang and Potter. I don't think J.K. Rowling ever dealt with anything like this."

"Brilliant. Think she'll ever forgive me?"

"Hard to say. Not like you could tell her. Maybe she'll figure that out. You're a cop, the job has to come first when it's something like this."

She didn't figure it out. A week later, she still hadn't returned any of his calls. Meanwhile, the medical examiner's report on Catherine was inconclusive. Minimal alcohol in her system, no defensive wounds, and nothing about the wound on her head to determine whether someone hit her or she fell on a rock. Nothing to suggest why she had a smoking gun in her pocket.

Late party goers had left en mass at midnight. Some remembered Catherine saying she might walk the labyrinth after everyone was gone, since the moon was so bright. Peter was flummoxed by Lia's phone. What was Catherine doing with it? Was she going to hide it in the garden? That would be dangerous, with Bailey still digging around. And why hide it then? Maybe she just wanted to take it out and gloat, in her special place. Had Catherine fooled them all with her society floozy act? It was unsettling to think his instincts had been so far off.

Leo Laroux quietly took possession of his wife's body, had it cremated, and scattered the ashes in the garden. He just as quietly put the house up for sale, not wanting to live with the gossip about his now notorious wife.

And Lia still didn't call.

"I don't know," he told Alma. "I know she's been through a lot, but this is too much like work." They were in Alma's small back-yard greenhouse, repotting her overabundance of root-bound Aloe Vera plants.

Alma was a bird-like woman with an efficient cap of hair that remained stubbornly black on her aging head. She gave him a sympathetic pat and two of the plants for his apartment. "Won't do anything for a broken heart, but they're great to have around for burns. You and that girl have had nothing but bad timing. It'll sort itself out, it always does. Wouldn't hurt you to keep practicing that 'sorry' look, though."

Viola looked at him with liquid brown eyes, as if she knew what was troubling him. She'd taken to laying her head on his thigh while he sat on his couch and watched television. She appeared to agree with him as he pointed out technical errors on cop shows, twitching her expressive brow in concentration. He found himself talking to her about Lia. She never answered, but she seemed to understand. "We'll give it some time," he told her. "Not a good idea to go to the park now." She gave him a morose lick and submitted to leashed walks around the neighborhood.

Lia listened to the message for the fourth time. "Lia, please call me. Give me a chance to explain. Viola and I miss you." Low blow, bringing Viola into it. Her finger hovered over the delete button, but she couldn't bring herself to lower it the inch necessary to erase his voice.

"I do
not
need another man keeping secrets from me," she told Honey. She turned to Chewy. "Don't look at me like that. I know you're on his side. Men always stick together. Jerks. You need to remember where your kibble comes from, young man."

Geezlepete, she needed to get a grip. She turned to her latest canvas, dug into her paint box. The ritual of setting up her palette soothed her. This was her second painting of the cactus. The bloom had faded weeks ago, so she was painting the succulent green body of the plant. She wanted this one to pack a punch. It struck her as ironic that she felt the need to create something confrontational when she was avoiding Peter. Perhaps this was why she was ducking him. She was too stirred up, too angry, and not sure exactly what she was angry about. Not that there wasn't plenty to piss her off. But her feelings hadn't taken form yet.

During her last session, she painted the body of the plant. Today she would paint the spines. She took a liner, a slim brush with exceptionally long bristles, and dipped into her linseed oil, then some Naples Yellow. As she drew the spines on the plant, she felt them, like pricks to her heart. She began to name them in her head. 'Here's Luthor calling me a cunt. Here's finding out he wasn't broke. Here's being told he had other women. Here's discovering Catherine slept with him. Here's working for that bitch while I didn't know about her and Luthor. Here's realizing that Peter knew about it for weeks and kept it from me. Here's feeling like a fool.'

The spines weren't sharp enough, dangerous enough, hard enough. She started shading one side with a hairline of purple as she continued her litany. 'Here's thinking Peter was different. Here's believing I was falling in love with him. Here's finding out I can't trust him, that I can't trust any man.' The pain in her gut was sharp, like knives. She sat down on the floor with the brush still in her hand, hugged her knees, and howled.

It was July when he decided to go back to the park. "My man," Terry called to him. "We thought you and the lovely Viola were lost to us forever." Terry was cheerful, despite casts on both legs. His wheelchair was parked by a picnic table as he held court with Jose and Charlie in attendance.

"I thought maybe I was persona non-grata," Peter admitted.

"An unacceptable person? Stick with us lads, we'll provide sanctuary from hostile entities."