Maximum Security (A Dog Park Mystery) (30 page)

The children appeared, not walking
so briskly now. He imagined they were tired. Perhaps they didn’t
want to go home. He checked the time. It was now four
forty-five.

Jim experienced a small
satisfaction when they stopped at the Pepto-pink house and opened
the gate. He considered his options. He wasn’t prepared to create a
fuss about the dog in front of the children. He now knew where
Daisy lived. She wasn’t going anywhere. He’d advise Lia, and the
group could decide what to do the next morning.

“We know Daisy has a home, and she
has kids to play with. Monica doesn’t seem that interested. Are we
even sure she wants the dog back?” Bailey asked.

“She has a home,” Jim said, “and
there are kids, but we don’t know if it’s a good home. In that
neighborhood, people are likely to let their dogs run the streets
and dump them when they get inconvenient. Daisy eats a lot of food
and the family living in that house isn’t doing too well. Best case
is they love her and feed her but don’t give her proper medical
care. If she gets sick, they put her down. If the Munces don’t want
her, we can find her a better home than this one.”

“We need a positive ID,” Terry
said. “I venture to guess that our scarlet woman knows Daisy better
than anyone outside the family, and Daisy knows her as
well.”

“She’s not a scarlet woman, just a
sad case. How would you like it if the love of your life was torn
apart by coyotes?” Bailey asked. “Lia, do you know if Kate’s coming
today?”

“I’m pretty sure she is. If she’s
not here soon, I’ll give her a call.”

“You should go during the day,
while the kids are in school. Better for them,” Jim
said.

“Less drama for us that way, too,”
Lia said. “If Kitty says she’ll do it, I’ll go with her since I
know her best.”

They drove Lia’s old Volvo for two
reasons. First, she was used to having dogs in the back seat.
Second, Lia was afraid Kate’s new Altima might give this family
visions of a reward they didn’t deserve, considering Daisy had been
wearing a collar with tags. If Daisy somehow lost her collar, they
still never posted a free ‘found ad’ for her.

It was shortly after 11:00 a.m.
when Lia pulled up in front of the neglected house.

“Oh, my,” Kate said, “this feels a
bit creepy, don’t you think?”

“It’s just poverty,” Lia said.
“Poverty isn’t evil. There could be many reasons why the house is
the way it is. Could be they just moved in and haven’t had a chance
to fix it up yet. Maybe someone is sick and can’t work. At least we
know they like animals. They can’t be all bad.”

They climbed the broken steps. The
bell was out of order, so Lia rapped sharply on the door. Inside, a
dog responded by barking. The sound was deep and
powerful.

“That does sound like Daisy,” Kate
said.

After a few minutes, the door
cracked. Daisy shoved her nose through the door and whimpered
excitedly. Kate knelt down to greet her. Daisy continued to fight
with the door until she wiggled through. She was all over Kate,
licking her face and wagging her tail. Kate gave up and sat on the
porch and hugged the dog.

“Xena! Down! Bad!”

Lia looked down to see a short,
bony woman with dark hair that had been fried in a way she normally
associated with over-bleaching. She looked middle age, but she also
looked haggard, like she had lived hard and was possibly younger.
Deep lines were carved around her mouth and her eyes had dark
circles under them. The woman pushed past Lia and grabbed Daisy’s
collar, dragging her back into the house. She bent over to hang
onto the straining dog. Daisy rasped as she panted, fighting to get
back to Kate. The woman looked up from this position. “I’m so
sorry.” There was a touch of hills in her voice. “She isn’t very
well behaved. What can I do for you?” Her smile was forced, as if
she knew she should be friendly but would just rather
not.

“My name is Lia, and this is Kate.
We’re here about your dog,” Lia said. “We believe this is the same
dog that went missing at Mount Airy Forest a little over two weeks
ago. She pulled a folded flyer out of her pocket and showed it to
the woman.

The woman barely looked at the
picture. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’ve had Xena
all her life.” Her eyes went flat. Her chin lifted in defiance,
belying Daisy’s frantic attempts to reunite with her friend. She
yanked Daisy back inside and attempted to shut the door. Lia stuck
her foot inside the jamb, wincing as the door banged into
it.

“I don’t want this to get ugly,”
she called through the cracked door, “but I’m certain this is
Daisy. I can prove it at the SPCA. She’s been microchipped,” Lia
bluffed, hoping it was true. “If we have to, we’ll file a complaint
with the police. I’d hate to have to do that, because you found
Daisy and took her in, and we’re grateful for that. But it’s time
—”

“Is there a problem?” Lia twisted
around to see a well muscled man behind her on the porch. “Honey,”
he called to the woman, “why don’t we all go inside and discuss
this like adults?”

The woman relinquished her hold on
the door. Lia pulled her foot out and shook it.

“That’s better,” he said. “You
ladies come in and we’ll figure this out.”

Relieved, Lia followed him into the
painfully neat but shabby living room. Kate followed.

“Have a seat,” the man said,
closing the door and flipping his hand at a nubby brown
sofa.

Lia and Kate sat. The woman
released Daisy, who scampered back to Kate. Kate began scratching
her ears and cooing. Daisy lolled her tongue and closed her eyes,
wallowing in canine bliss.

“I’m going to tie Xena out back
while we discuss this.” He grabbed Daisy’s collar. Daisy stiffened
her legs, digging in. Her nails scraped across the wood floor as he
dragged her out of the room. Lia could hear the back door open and
his muttered commands to the dog. The door shut, and Daisy began
immediately hurling herself against it. The rhythmic thuds were
punctuated with howls.

The women waited silently for the
man to come back, observing each other. Lia surveyed the living
room. A large, boxy TV sat on top of a composite board media
center. Apart from the sofa, there were three dinette chairs with
torn vinyl upholstery mended with duct tape. An upside down milk
crate served as a side table between two of the chairs.

There was something red hanging on
the back of the woman’s chair that drew Lia’s attention. She’d seen
that particular shade of stop-sign red before. She felt a vague
sense of unease. Something about the red thing. It was a smock,
like clerks wear in some stores. It slammed into her brain: this
woman worked for Dollar Hut.

“Look,” she said, standing up,
“Why don’t we talk about this some other day. Kate and I are
running late.”

“Sit back down.” Pivoting at this
command, Lia discovered a gun pointed at her chest. Speechless, she
watched as the man turned to the woman. “Carleen, I told you this
would never work, but you had to keep the damn dog, didn’t you?
‘The kids love her,’ you said.” His face twisted as he said
this.

“Billy, I’m sorry
—”

“First you whine until I get
another phone because I can’t talk to you from my number, somebody
might see it on your records. Look what good that did! Nearly got
me going down for murder. Now it’s the damn dog. They know you got
the dog, Carleen. They’re going to think it’s awfully funny that
you had George’s dog all this time. When are you going to listen,
you stupid bitch?”

Carleen cowed.

“Carleen?” Kate said. “George’s
assistant manager Carleen?”

“You know her and you didn’t say
anything?” Lia asked, incredulous.

“George told me about her. I never
saw her up close. And she had blond hair.”

“How’s your grand plan now?” Billy
sneered at Carleen. “All this trouble over your pansy-assed boss.”
He turned to the women on the sofa. “Do you know what this bitch
did? She gets jealous because the boss she thinks is someday going
to wake up and run away with her is now fooling around with some
fat broad from out of town. She thinks if she gets rid of the
competition, meaning you—” He pointed the gun at Kate and snorted.
“–she’ll get to have him all to herself.”

“This is all your fault, Billy!”
Carleen wailed. “If you hadn’t told me how you’d seen them fooling
around in the woods from that stupid tree house of yours, this
never would have happened. But you had to call me up, laughing
about it. You couldn’t keep it to yourself, could you? You had to
tell me all about it.”

Billy snorted. “So what does she
do? She breaks into my house and steals my crossbow and decides
she’s going to fire a few bolts at you—” He waved the gun at Kate
again. “–to scare you off, like you were in the line of fire of
some deer hunter. Only the day she goes out there, you’re not
there.

“So when her pansy-assed boss sees
something up in the trees and decides to find out what it is, she
goes spastic and pulls the trigger by mistake. Wouldn’t you know,
the bolt rips right through his neck and he bleeds out before she
gets down from the tree.

“What I wouldn’t give to see that.
A couple times shooting at targets in the back yard, and she thinks
she’s the big hunter! “I shoot years. I never had such a perfect
kill shot and she aces it by accident. There go all her fancy
plans.”

“Then she drags that dog back with
her and calls me. ‘Oh, Billy,’” he mimicked “‘I really screwed up,
Billy. I want you back, but I need your help. Please, Billy, you
gotta help me.’”

“So
I
take care of the
body,
I
get rid of the car,
I
dump my own six hundred
dollar crossbow, and what do
I
get? ‘We can’t be seen
together Billy, not yet Billy, you have to call me on a different
phone Billy.’” Billy continued his vicious falsetto. “All that and
she has to keep the stupid dog.

“Carleen, did I ever tell you what
a kick it was, watching those ‘yotes rip into your boss? I had the
best seat in the house, up in that old blind. I sat up there and
thought about all the trouble he caused while they pulled him
apart. I wanted to take pictures for you, but that wouldn’t be
smart.

“We’re doing this my way, now,
Carleen. Get the electrical cords out of my truck, the long ones.”
He tossed her his keys.

Fearful, Carleen scampered out the
door. Lia kept her eyes downcast, submissive.

Keys
.
I have my keys. I’m
not helpless.
Thank you, Peter, for being such a good
boyfriend
. She stretched her shoulders, moved her hands
casually down beside her hips.

“Hands back where I can see them.”
Billy walked up to her, swinging the gun in her face.

Lia tracked the gun as it swung
inches from her, carefully returning her hands to her lap. She
looked at Kate sideways. Kate pleaded with eyes shining white all
around, terror coming off her in waves.

Lia remembered that feeling. She’d
had a gun to her head and she’d been shot once. It no longer
petrified her. She was able to think, and that was the important
thing. She had to pay attention, look for an opportunity. Right now
there was nothing she could do.
Best to continue acting
compliant
.

Carleen returned with a pair of
orange, heavy-duty electrical cords. Each coil looked to be twenty
or more feet long. Lia had one of these in her studio for running
her power tools.

“Hands in front of you, and get in
the chairs,” Billy said. The two women obeyed. He walked over and
put the muzzle of the gun against Kate’s head. Lia’s stomach
clenched as she imagined how Kate must feel at that
moment.

“This is how it’s going to go,”
Billy announced. “I keep this gun right here while Carleen ties you
up.” He poked the side of Kate’s head with the barrel for emphasis.
“The minute either of you tries anything, it goes off. Understand?
Carleen, tie the skinny one’s hands to the back of that chair. Then
tie her ankles to the legs. Make it tight.”

Unable to do anything else, Lia
allowed Carleen to pull her hands behind her. She thought about the
kubotan in her hip pocket.
So close!
Yet what good was it
against a gun?

Carleen fussed over the slippery
cord and the knots, irritating Billy, who yelled at her. Finally
she was finished with Lia and went over to Kate. Lia hid her relief
when Billy moved away from Kate to let Carleen tie her up. She had
a feeling that he’d stick that gun right back into Kate’s head if
he knew how much anxiety it caused her.

Billy walked over and pressed the
muzzle into Lia’s temple. She froze up, her mind blanking out.
Slowly, one breath at a time, she regained control of her thoughts,
using an exercise she learned in therapy.
Thank you, Asia. I can
handle this.

When Carleen was finished, she
turned to Billy with an apprehensive look.

Billy pulled the third chair in
front of his prisoners, reversed and straddled it. He draped one
arm across the back of the chair and scratched his head with the
muzzle of the gun.