Maximum Security (A Dog Park Mystery) (10 page)

“Ms. Onstad, you came to the park
yesterday, and you came back today. Why?”

The sad smile flitted across her
face. “George loved the woods. We met up here several times to hike
with Daisy. He said when we were here, he could believe there was
no one else in the world but us. We had a little spot where we
could be alone and . . . just talk.” Her rising blush suggested to
Peter that “talk” was euphemistic.

“Were you aware of the deer cull?
Hikers aren’t permitted in the woods except on
Tuesdays.”

“Oh, well, that. George said there
was no need to concern ourselves since any deer hunter who knew
anything wouldn’t hang around in the middle of the day. We weren’t
the only ones in the woods. That woman who told me you were coming,
I’ve seen her back there with those dogs, down in the
gorge.”

Peter winced.

“Yesterday and today,” Peter
reminded her.

“I was supposed to meet George
here Monday morning. I’m staying over on Central Parkway, by the
Big Boy. I went there for breakfast. When I came back, my tire was
flat. I tried calling George, but his phone was off. Then I got a
message from him saying that it was over. I sat in my motel room
for three days and cried.

“Yesterday I woke up and decided I
wasn’t going to be brushed off like that. I figured if I waited
here, I would catch him next time he brought Daisy to the park. I
thought I deserved to know why.”

“You were only here a few minutes
before you decided to leave. What happened today?” Brent
asked.

“I sat out here for three hours
yesterday. Today I started feeling self-conscious and pathetic. I
realized that if George showed up, I might humiliate myself. So I
decided to forget about it and just go.”

“We’d like to believe your story,
but another officer went through Mr. Munce’s phone records, and she
didn’t find any unknown numbers.”

“Oh, well. George was very
concerned about how he might come out in a divorce if it were known
he was having an affair. He had another phone, one of those prepaid
ones. He called it his ‘burner.’”

“What kind of message did you get
from him? Was it voice or text?”

“Neither. We liked to trade long
messages sometimes. We had this system. It’s something the kids do.
We used our Kindles.”

“How did you do that?” Brent
asked, feigning ignorance.

“We used the public notes function
on our Kindles as a sort of chat room. It’s a lot less cumbersome
than texting.” She explained the process, much as Stacy
had.

“Huh,” Peter said. “Are the notes
still there?”

“They should be. I was thinking
about deleting mine, but I wasn’t ready to do that yet.”

“Ms. Onstad,” Brent said, “that
flat tire bothers me. Are you absolutely certain no one knew about
your relationship with George?”

“I don’t see how they
could.”

“Where did you and George go, here
in town?” Peter asked.

“We had dinner at that lovely
Italian place up on the hill, the one with the view. George said he
didn’t know anyone who ate there, and he would have said something
if he saw anyone.”

“Where else?” Peter
asked.

“Just here, at the park, and my
motel room. We, uh, ate a lot of carryout.”

Peter and Brent exchanged
glances.

“Surely people saw you with
George, here at the park?” Brent asked.

“I guess, but we never talked to
anyone, we just went into the woods. We usually used that path off
the parking lot so we didn’t run into many people.”

“You saw Lia in the
woods.”

“Well, yes, but George just knew
those people to nod at. They didn’t know anything about him. For
all they knew, I was his wife.”

“You saw George Munce nowhere
except your motel, this park, and one dinner at Prima Vista?” Peter
asked.

Kate pressed her lips together and
furrowed her brow. Her eyes widened. Peter raised his eyebrows and
waited.

“I did stop by his store a few
times when he was working. I can’t believe anyone there knew there
was anything between us.”

Peter mentally rolled his eyes.
Only the entire staff,
he thought.
Whether they admit it
or not.

“Did he ever call you from
work?”

“Yes, most evenings.”

“Ms. Onstad, we’re done for now,
but I do have a favor to ask of you before you go.”

“Yes?”

“Will you let us search your
car?”

“Will that help your
investigation?”

“It will help us rule you out as a
person of interest.”

“You go right ahead,
then.”

Peter didn’t know what he was
looking for. Mostly, he wanted to gauge Kate Onstad’s reaction to
having her car searched. He stood with her at the rear of the
Altima while Brent examined the interior. He watched as her eyes
followed Brent while he riffled through her glovebox and felt under
her seats. Her eyes wandered to the park. He saw the flush creep up
her face when she realized the patrons had gathered at the top of
the hill and were taking in the show.

“This is so embarrassing,” she
said.

“It will only be a few more
minutes.”

Brent backed out of the car and
shook his head. “The inside is clean.”

“Open the trunk,” Peter
said.

Brent reached in and popped the
latch. Peter pulled the lid up.

Lia, Terry and Bailey stood among
the watchers as Brent closed the trunk and Peter pulled the woman’s
hands behind her back and handcuffed her wrists.

“What do you suppose was in the
trunk?” Bailey asked.

“Perhaps she kept a bone as a
souvenir,” Terry offered. “A tooth she could have made into a key
ring. A finger she could enshrine in a reliquary. A tibia to use as
a–”

“Stop being so gruesome,” Lia
admonished.

“She seemed so harmless,” Bailey
said. “Did you see the look on her face? I don’t think she knew
there was anything in her trunk.”

“It does beg the question,” Terry
said. “I don’t imagine they had a search warrant, so why would she
allow them to open her trunk? A guilty conscience,
perhaps?”

“I’m with Bailey,” Lia said.
“Whatever was in that trunk, I don’t think she had a clue it was
there. This feels wrong.”

“You should have seen her,” Lia
told Renee as she adjusted the settings on the camcorder. “She
looked like she should be selling cookies at her church bazaar.
Then they searched her car, and Peter and Brent just handcuffed her
and hauled her off like her trunk was full of dead
babies.”

She looked up, checked the
direction of the sun against the placement of the agility jump in
the park Renee called a yard. Renee and her perfectly groomed
Collie, Dakini, waited on the far side of the jump. “Okay, I’m
ready. We’re rolling. Go!”

Renee took Dakini over the hurdle
several times. Lia zoomed in on the jump and recorded the Collie
from the front, hoping to catch exhilaration on Dakini’s face. Lia
then moved off to the left and recorded several more jumps from an
angle. Finally she shot the jumps from the side, tracking the
graceful dog as she soared effortlessly through the air. “Okay,
that’s enough. Let me check the file to make sure I got enough
source material.”

“Source material,” Renee
commented. “That’s a fancy phrase for taking movies of my dog. How
do you plan to use the footage?” Renee Solomon was a fit brunette
with a glossy, spiraling bob. She and her husband, Harry, had
worked their way up from blue-collar roots. She was an enthusiastic
woman who both appreciated and enjoyed her wealth, and managed to
do so without arousing enmity. Lia adored her.

“I’ll run the digital file through
the film editor on my Mac. I’ll be able to click through, frame by
frame to catch the perfect shot of Dakini in motion. I’ll export it
as a still and use that to paint from. The quality of the photo
won’t be great, but it’s much more certain than attempting to catch
her at the perfect moment while shooting stills.”

“When I commissioned a portrait, I
thought you’d just have her sitting pretty. I didn’t think we’d be
doing all this.”

“Wait until you see the stills I
pull. They’ll be very dynamic. This will really energize your den.
That is where you’re going to put this, isn’t it? I can see it over
the mantel. Dakini’s coloring will fit so well with your fieldstone
fireplace.”

“That’s what I love about you,
Lia. You don’t just give me what I ask for. You give me what I
never knew I wanted. Let’s go inside and you can see the den. I’ll
call Esmerelda. I think we could use something to drink after all
that exercise.”

Something turned out to include
iced pomegranate tea for Lia and Renee and a bowl of water for
Dakini. The dog sprawled on the sofa with her head on Renee’s knee.
Renee stroked Dakini as she and Lia huddled over the camera’s tiny
screen.

“Is this okay?” Lia asked. “We
could upload it into your computer. You’d be able to see it better
that way.”

“This is fine for now. Aw, look at
my baby,” Renee cooed. “Isn’t she gorgeous? I love how her fur is
flying. How did you ever come up with this?”

“I saw how excited Max was when
she jumped the fence the other day. Then I remembered that Dakini
had her mach in agility. I thought it might be more fun than the
usual pet portrait.”

“I’m thinking you thought right.
Are you going to paint all of her, or just her face?”

“I don’t know yet. I want to take
a couple pictures of this space, think about what size and scale
would work best here. If we go large and just do the face, you
might feel like you’ve got ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’ staring down
at you. You ever been in the same room with a Chuck Close?” Lia
asked, referring to an artist famous for oversized
faces.

“I see what you mean. Still, this
room is big enough that it might work just fine. I’m going to leave
the details up to you. You did such a wonderful job with our last
project that I think I’ll just step out of your way.

“Enough about business,” Renee
continued. “I want gossip. Must have been something awful
interesting in that trunk. What do you suppose it was? Surely not
dead babies.”

“I have no idea. Unless it was a
big sign that had ‘I killed George Munce’ written on it in
blood.”

“You sound like you’re not happy
with Peter right now.”

“I’m not. I’m the reason he
arrested her. I just thought he wanted to talk to her. I let Peter
know she was there. I even had Jim block her in so she couldn’t
leave.”

“Didn’t you say Peter already knew
where she was staying? It would have happened anyway, don’t you
think?”

“True, but I wouldn’t have been
involved. She was so shocked when they popped that trunk. I can’t
believe she did anything wrong. Viola liked her. Viola’s very
picky. She wouldn’t like a criminal.”

“Maybe not. If it’s a mistake,
they’ll release her soon enough. Poor woman. I wonder . . .” Renee
looked over at her garage. “If they let her go, I imagine they
won’t want her to leave town right away. I doubt she’ll want to be
stuck in that motel where anyone could come knocking on the door.
I’ve got that little apartment over the garage. Think she’d like to
stay here?”

“You just want to get all the dirt
first, but she’d be foolish to pass up the offer. Aren’t you
concerned about taking a possible killer into your home? You’ve
only got my say so that she’s harmless.”

“Yours and Viola’s. I trust
animals more than I trust people, in most situations. Besides, if
she is guilty of something, I suspect she’d be on her best behavior
while everyone’s got their eyes on her.

“Tell you what.” She said,
reaching down to stroke her beloved darling’s head. “I’ll have a
lawyer look into the situation, and she can make the offer if she
thinks it’s okay. Then, if Dakini doesn’t like her, I’ll make some
excuse and put her up in some hotel. My girl wouldn’t let anyone
near me who was dangerous.”

“What’s Harry going to think?
Peter won’t like it, either.”

“Esmerelda’s going to like it even
less. They’ll just have to put on their big girl panties and deal
with it. It doesn’t hurt that Harry’s out of town this week, even
if he is used to my little adventures. I’m thinking, the less
everyone else knows, the better. I’m going to make a quick call to
Martha Culler. She’s a criminal attorney, a good one. I’m sure that
poor woman could use some counsel.” Dakini got up and followed her
mistress out of the room.

Lia hoped Esmerelda wouldn’t blame
her for the incursion of a stranger. The cook might wind up putting
ground glass in her next omelet.

Peter strode through the door to
Lia’s apartment and plopped down on the couch. He leaned his head
back and stared at the ceiling, saying nothing.

“Um, hello to you, too?” Lia said,
sill holding the door.