Sneak Thief (A Dog Park Mystery) (2 page)

“Considering what some preachers get into, not very then.”

“This preacher was my Uncle Clarence on my mother's side.”

“Okay, that's different. Why does Roller care about 30 year old crimes?”

“This came from higher up. One of our esteemed state supreme court justices is an ancient gentleman named Wilber Hatch. He was once the very proud owner of a lovely little Renaissance bronze of the goddess Diana, rumored to have belonged to King Louis the something of France. The statue and numerous other family heirlooms disappeared while Hatch's 17 year old grandson was visiting. The grandson was doing drugs at the time and Grandpa let him stay while he sorted his head out.

“Hatch has always been convinced his grandson did it. James Hatch, the grandson, continues to maintain his innocence. There's been a rift ever since. James Hatch is now an assistant district attorney.

Last week the statue showed up at Christie's and Wilber nearly had a stroke. He and James are both anxious to discover the truth.”

“Why can't they just ask the person who put it up at Christies?” Lia asked.

“He was in kindergarten when it was taken. He's the executor of his uncle's estate, and uncle can't enlighten us unless Bailey can get some help from one of her pals.”

Peter sat up, the vertebrae in his back audibly popping as he stretched.

“We pulled Cynth in to do some computer analysis. She ran some statistics just for fun and discovered a pattern. High-end burglaries. Antiques, fossils, jewelry, small stuff, very selective. It's been going on for years, right under our noses. One every 12 to 18 months, going back to the ‘80s. They were spaced so far apart, no one realized they were connected until Diana made her debut in New York.

“Roller assigned me to this mess.”

“You couldn't turn him down?”

“I could, but Heckle and Jeckle were chomping at the bit to work it and Cynth begged me to save her.”

“I owe the pleasure of your company to Cynth?”

Peter tilted Lia's chin up, leaned in for a brief kiss.

“You owe the pleasure of my company to being gone every night this week. Can't I miss my best girl?”

“Your best girl is in the back yard, peeing on the azaleas.”

“How about my best green-eyed girl?” he asked, toying with an escaped tendril of hair while he looked into her eyes. Lia felt a pleasant thrum inside. Peter loved to play with her hair and he was always so serious about it. He pulled the paint brush out of her Boho bun, letting the knot unwind over his hands, running his fingers through to the ends to fluff it out. He leaned closer, inhaling the scent of her freesia shampoo. “How's the job going?”

“Could be worse.” Lia tilted her head to one side, exposing her neck for a nibble. “The working conditions are good. It makes up for the way they nit-pick over the answers on these standardized tests. Sometimes I think a room full of drunk howler monkeys came up with the grading criteria, but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it. They give us chocolate.”

“Well, then, that's okay. So you like it?” Peter traced an index finger around the outside of her ear, giving her chills.

“Scoring the same question a thousand times in a night gets to be a grind, but for a side job, it's better than I expected. The people are really nice. My team leader is cool, and the girl who sits next to me is fun. It's like having another sister. Her name's Desiree.”

“That's a name you don't hear often.”

“Oh, it fits,” Lia said. “Every time I turn my head, I catch some guy staring at her. If it's not the room supervisor or one of the team leaders, it's one of the other scorers.”

“I wouldn't stare at her.”

“How do you know?”

“I've got you to stare at. You're all I can handle.” He tapped the slight dent in her chin with his index finger, then traced down her neck, over the collar of her tee shirt, halting when he hit a bump. “You never wear it out where anyone can see it. Don't you like it?”

Lia fished an opal pendant out of her shirt. The gem retained a layer of stone matrix and nested in a fluid gold setting, the polished face flashing color as it swayed on the gold chain. It reminded Lia of an egg, life glowing through a hole in its shell, something mysterious about to be born.

“I love it. I'm afraid of losing it or damaging it somehow. If it's inside my shirt, I can always feel it and I know where it is.”

They were interrupted by the sound of scratching at the back door. Lia let the dogs in and grabbed a Bass Pale Ale and a glass of herbal ice-tea before she returned to the living room. Viola sat on the couch next to Peter, sneering at her as Peter scratched behind her ears. Honey and Chewy watched from their beds across the room, waiting to see what Lia would do.

“See, she's your best girl. I'm not allowed to sit next to you when she's around.”

“Now that's just silly.” Peter patted the couch. “I can pet you both at the same time.”

“Oh, yeah?” Lia sat down, handing Peter his beer. A low rumbling noise emerged from Viola's throat. Lia stood up. It stopped. She sat back down. The rumble grew louder. She stood up. It stopped. “See?”

“I don't get it. When did this start?”

“She would get like this when Luthor had her. It comes and goes.” Lia sat down on the other end of the couch, next to Viola, and stroked her fur. “She's perfectly happy for me to give her attention. I'm just not supposed to give you attention when she's in this mood.”

“How, exactly, are we supposed to deal with this?”

“She'll prove her point, then go off to lie down. We just have to wait.”

The Chow mix looked up and grinned, showing canines on either side of her lolling tongue. Chewy huffed and put his head down on his paws. Honey began chewing a tennis ball, deliberately ignoring the drama on the couch.

“This is ridiculous,” Peter said, shooing Viola with his hands. “Off!”

Viola gave him a wounded look and slunk away to sulk under a chair in the corner. Lia swore Honey was laughing.

Peter took a swig of his beer. “Does it bother you, having Luthor's dog around? I never asked.”

“I love Viola, even if she has her perverse moments. I'm glad you kept her.”

“That's good to know. Seriously,” Peter said, changing the subject, “you don't have to donate all your time to Alma's murals. She wasn't expecting the Sistine Chapel. She just thought you could paint a few flowers in the hall and it'd cheer up the residents.”

“I don't put out inferior work. If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it right. My name goes on this, regardless whether I get paid or not. I . . . ” She struck a pose. “. . . am an artist. I have a reputation to think of.”

She shrieked when he goosed her in the side, causing all three dogs to pop their heads up.

“I hate to think of you painting all day and working all evening. I wish you'd let me help you out.”

“We talked about this, Peter. I like things just the way they are, and I'll get by, just like I always do. It's only for two months, and it could open up larger projects for me.”

“And I'll never get to see you.”

“You're seeing me now.”

“That's true. I am. We could do kubotan practice.”

“You're in a masochistic mood tonight.”

“Okay, weapons practice is out. You up for a little illegal search and seizure instead?”

“Depends. What do you plan on seizing, Kentucky Boy?”

“What do you think?” He stood, pulling Lia with him, and tossed her over one shoulder in a fireman's carry. When he kicked the door to her bedroom shut, she was laughing.

A
bell tinkled
as Lia pushed her way into the dimly-lit storefront on Telford Avenue. She studied the barrister cases lining the walls. Lights inside the cases illuminated semi-precious gems, giving them an unearthly glow. An older man with a hooked nose and dour expression ignored her from his desk behind the counter. Desiree emerged from the back, her green highlights visible before the rest of her features took form.

“Lia, you came! Let me show you around. Are you looking for anything special, or is this visit strictly for drooling?”

“Just checking everything out. I don't know why I've never been here before.” The stacked cases in the dim light reminded Lia of the snake exhibit at the zoo. She almost expected to see eyes staring from behind a heavy serpentine necklace. It was a trick of the light, she decided, and of the decision to display the jewelry draped across carefully positioned tree branches. The shop's resemblance to a serpentarium was heightened by the informational cards on the cases explaining the metaphysical properties of the different gemstones. “I'd love to see the jewelry you make.”

“That's over here. We sell a ton online." Desiree lowered her voice. "It's not exactly Tiffany's, but I suspect it keeps the doors open.”

She led Lia to a large display case on legs, like a table. The interior was lined with folds of gun-metal gray Ultra-Suede. Long strands of stones pooled and spiraled across the cloth. The effect was a dizzying kaleidoscope of color that shifted and flashed as Lia moved around the case.

“Do you like it?” Desiree asked. “Al let me do the display.” She glanced over her shoulder at the man at the desk, then lowered her voice. “Al designed the spacer beads and has them mass produced. I'm not supposed to tell people I assemble this stuff. Ruins the mystique.”

Lia grinned. “I won't rat you out. How did you wind up working here?”

Desiree shrugged. “I wandered in one day and asked Al—that's short for Alfonso—about buying some unmounted stones for my grandmother's necklace. I wanted to try to fix it. So he asked me some questions and said he could use a helper.”

Lia looked back at Al. His nose was still buried in his papers, a scowl on his face. She couldn't imagine him warming up enough to be congenial. “How do you like working here?”

“It's great. Hardly anyone comes in, so it's nice and quiet and I just sit in the back and play with the stones. Al looks like a sourpuss, but he's really sweet to me.” She leaned in, confiding. “His son is really hot and he's a big flirt. He's been hitting on me a lot when Al isn't here, but I don't want to mess with the boss's son. This is the only job like it that I've found and I'd hate to lose it over sex. I console myself by flirting with the guys rehabbing the house next to mine.

“Anyway, the jewelry is really easy to make. I feel like I'm one step up from Hobby Lobby.”

“A few more steps than that. The spacers are lovely and I'm sure the quality of the stones is better.”

Desiree looked back at her boss. “Not that much better,” she said. “I think it's a hoot that people are willing to pay hundreds for a strand of beads that can't be worth more than twenty.”

“I feel the same way about art. Twenty bucks worth of canvas and paint, and if you have a name, you can sell it for a hundred times that.”

“Oh, but painting takes skill. This is easy.”

Lia thought about pointing out that the value was in the design, but decided to keep her mouth shut. In this case, she didn't see much that was extraordinary about the pieces, so maybe Desiree wasn't far from the truth. It wouldn't be the first time the world of fashion repackaged the ordinary as classic and sold it at premium prices.

Lia strolled by the cases, examining the different stones. “I'm familiar with garnets and moonstone, but ametrine, celestite, peridot? I've never heard of them before.”

“Most people haven't, unless they're rock hounds or crystal freaks. We've got an encyclopedia of minerals and stones that's four inches thick. Al tells me they discover more gems every day, many of them rarer than diamonds. Diamonds aren't even in the top ten, unless you're talking about the Pink Star Diamond. It's 60 carats. Sotheby's sold it for 83 million.”

“Wow, that's almost as much as Christie's got for Van Gogh's
Sunflowers
. So when are you bringing Julia to the park?”

T
he Watcher thumped back
in his chair and scowled at the offending monitor. He should have expected this. He
had
expected this; he'd overheard Desiree talking about her date on her cell phone. He'd been in agony, forcing himself to wait until the optimal time to retrieve the SD card from the camera, all the while hoping the date was a bust. Obviously not, as their ghostly, grappling bodies demonstrated on his monitor.

The quality of the infrared was excellent. It tortured and titillated him as he watched the rude hand shove up under Desiree's bra. The sound quality was fine as well, capturing her breathy moans and his grunts.

“You make me crazy,” the unknown Lothario rasped, “making me work so hard to get you alone.”

“That's how I like my men,” Desiree gasped, “sweaty … and crazy.”

The Watcher clicked the mouse, freezing the wrestling match. He swiveled away from the monitor and tapped angrily on the armrest. The guy's hands looked like he hauled hay bales. And talk about no finesse!

Is that what she wants?

He should trash the file. Watching the video was making him nuts. But how could he
not
look? He scrubbed at his face with his hand and kicked at the floor, slewing the chair back to face the screen. A jab at the trackpad set the figures back in motion. Elbow on armrest, The Watcher propped his chin with his fist and glared, wishing death to his rival and aching for Desiree.

The loathsome Lothario wrestled Desiree's bra off, then levered himself off the bed and unbuckled his belt. Desiree moved towards the spy cam—had she realized she was being videoed? As she leaned over, her necklace swung out towards the clock, obscuring the lens. When it passed by, Desiree had blurred into a white mass filling the screen. He heard the sound of a drawer opening, then the white mass receded and morphed into his Venus again. She held a small packet out to her date. “You'll need this,” she said, honey in her voice. “I'd love to put it on you.”

He took it, snorted, and tossed it aside. Then he unzipped his pants.

Desiree reached out and zipped them back up, and pointed to the floor. “Pick it up, jerk-face.” No longer cajoling, her tone warned that honey would no longer be part of the equation if he didn't comply. Not Venus. Sekhmet, the Egyptian goddess of war in her lioness form. Her arms crossed, barring her chest from further exploration.

“Ah, man, you can't be serious?”

“As a heart attack.”

“I don't take showers with a raincoat on, and I don't do rubbers.”

“Well, then. Looks like I don't do you.”

The Watcher snorted. Things hadn't gone so well after all.

“You don't mean it,” Loathsome said, disbelieving.

“Okay, you don't have to use a condom.”

“That's better.” Loathsome leered and leaned forward.

“You can leave.”

He stood there. “Hey, I deserve a little something.”

“Now!” She grabbed up a pillow and flung it in his face, then shoved his chest. Loathsome stumbled back. She scooped a shoe up off the floor and hurled it at his head.

The Watcher pumped his fist. “Yes! Atta girl! Woo hoo!” He spun around in his chair, laughing, then leaned forward, to watch Loathsome's degrading departure.

“Bitch!” Loathsome spat over his shoulder.

“You'd better believe it, asshole!” Desiree yelled.

Julia, disturbed by the commotion, started howling.

The Watcher cheerfully bayed with her as Desiree flung her necklace at the slamming door.