Maximum Security (A Dog Park Mystery) (3 page)

“I’ll stay.”

“Thanks, Bailey. You’re a true
friend.” She turned back toward the entry corral. “Not like some
people I could name,” she yelled. Jim shrugged his shoulders and
kept going.

“How long do you think she’ll be
gone?” Bailey asked.

“Hour, hour and a half, at most. I
hope. Guess I’d better call Renee.”

~

Lia Anderson was a pretty woman,
thirty-ish, with slanted green eyes and high cheekbones. Her firm
chin was accented by a slight dent that her boyfriend, Peter, liked
to tap with his forefinger.

She sat on a picnic table with
Bailey and repaired her I-haven’t-had-coffee-yet knot of streaky
chestnut hair, anchoring it more firmly with a butterfly clip. Her
slim figure was arrayed in oversized, paint-spattered, studio
clothes that doubled as dog park gear. Lia called this her bag-lady
look.

She and Bailey had already walked a
mile to pass the time, crossing the park ten times. The dogs
realized they weren’t going anywhere during the fourth lap and sat
down in the middle of the park to watch.

After their walk, they threw balls
for the dogs until the dogs stopped chasing them. They questioned
everyone who entered the park. No one had seen Max.

A silver pickup sporting a camper
shell and a kayak rack pulled into the parking lot, honking. Terry
Dunn parked next to the fence and jumped out, leaving his dogs in
the truck. He was a portly, ruddy-complected man bearing a strong
resemblance to Teddy Roosevelt.

"Hey, Lia,” he yelled. “Max is
headed this way. I saw her along the side of the road on
Westwood-Northern."

Lia hopped off her perch. “Thank
God." She ran for the corral, grabbed Max’s leash off the fence and
draped it around her neck as she headed down the service road. She
hit the parking lot, joining Terry in time to see Max enter the lot
from the street. Max maintained a jaunty trot despite a heavy
load.

"What is that?'' Lia asked
Terry.

Terry squinted behind his wire
rims. “Don’t know. I thought it was a branch, but it doesn't look
right. Maybe a bone? It's awfully big. I’d say it’s a moose bone,
but you don’t see moose this far south. Can’t keep them in zoos,
either–”

"You think she found a deer
skeleton?”

"Could be. I imagine there are a
few field-dressed carcasses lying around. Which does nothing to
reduce the resident coyote population. Coyotes are scavengers just
as much as they are predators. They aren't picky . . .
."

Terry continued his foray into the
habits of the local wildlife as she watched Max approach. Max
stopped at Lia’s prehistoric Volvo and looked toward her
expectantly while struggling to balance her newest find, an
eighteen inch-long bone with knobbed ends. Bits of gore clung to
the joints.

"Of all the nerve! She's had her
little field trip, and now I’m supposed to chauffeur her home.
Terry, will you circle behind her? I don't want her running off if
she gets another wild hair.”

Lia approached the car cautiously,
then opened the rear door. Max gave Lia a dubious look as she
dragged her treasure into the back seat. Lia shut the door,
trapping Max inside. "Thanks, Terry. Now all I have to do is get
that bone away from her. You want to volunteer?"

Terry peered into the car, through
windows smeared with nose prints. "You really ought to clean these
off."

"Yeah, Yeah. So how do I get that
bone from her? I have no problem with her having a deer bone, but I
don’t want her fighting with Honey and Chewy. I think she could be
food-aggressive.”

“You’ve got a bigger
problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s not a deer bone. It’s too
thick.”

“I really don’t care what kind of
bone it is. I just need to get it away from her without her
escaping again.”

“That’s a femur. A human
femur.”

Lia gaped at Terry. “Are you
sure?”

“It’s unmistakable. Can’t tell if
it’s from the left leg or the right. It’s a bit on the smallish
side . . . . Could be female.”

Lia shut her eyes and slumped
against the car with a pained expression. “Oh, God, I think I’m
going to vomit.” She kept her eyes shut and concentrated on calming
the heaving in her stomach. She tasted bile along with coffee and
hazelnut creamer.

Terry went back to his truck and
retrieved a bottle of water. He handed it to Lia. She carefully
sipped on the water and wiped her mouth.

“Thanks. I guess I’d better call
Peter. He’s going to say, ‘I told you so.’”

Max settled down on the seat and
began gnawing on her prize.

Terry raised his eyebrows. “Our
resident detective had Max pegged as a body snatcher?”

“He just thought she would be more
trouble than she’s worth.” Lia noticed Max chewing her gruesome
toy. “Dammit, we can’t let her eat that. You have anything tasty in
your truck?”

“Dog biscuits. I doubt she’ll see
that as a desirable trade.”

“We’ve got to give her something
good to get her away from that. This is creepy enough without
getting into a tug of war over human remains.” She reached into a
cargo pocket, pulled out her wallet and extracted a five. “Can you
run up to UDF and grab a pack of hot dogs?”

As Terry made his way to his truck,
Bailey walked down to the fence, accompanied by her furry charges.
“Is there a problem? How long do you need me to hang here with the
dogs?”

“Geezelpete, Bailey, you’re not
going to believe this. Terry says Max got hold of a human thigh
bone.”

”You’re kidding!” Bailey craned
her head, attempting to see. “And you haven’t taken it away from
her?”

“You want to do it?” Lia
challenged. “I haven’t had her long enough to feel comfortable
reaching into her mouth to take away food. Terry’s getting a
bribe.”

“She’s eating it?”

“Um,” Lia said, looking into the
car. “Right now, she’s licking it. I’ve got to call Peter. Can you
hang on until we get it away from her?”

“Yeah, as long as I don’t have to
watch.” Bailey headed back up the hill, then stopped when she
realized all three dogs were still at the fence, avidly aware that
a drama was unfolding. “Seriously?” She shook her head. “Sorry,
Lia, looks like you’ve got an audience. I’ll keep an eye on them,
but I’m doing it from the top of the hill.”

Lia sighed, rolled her eyes, and
pulled out her phone. Peter answered on the third ring. When she
was finished with her explanation, all she heard was dead silence.
“Um, Peter? You there?”

“Yep.”

“What should I do?”

She heard a gusting noise that
could only be Peter sighing. She imagined him rubbing his
temples.

“I’ll call it in and be right
down.”

Peter Dourson was a tall man, over
six feet, and lanky in a way that looked excellent in blue jeans.
His dark hair was usually worn in a modified Paul McCartney cut
that curled over his collar and gave his captain fits. The
resemblance to the former Beatle was reinforced by puppy-dog eyes
that drooped slightly at the outside corners. His good looks were
understated, being pleasant more than handsome. Lia appreciated
this. She’d learned to distrust overly attractive men.

When he arrived, he found Lia using
Terry’s pocket knife to open a pack of hot dogs while Max eyed her
from the back seat of the car, one paw firmly possessing a bone
that was clearly human in origin. He’d bagged too many deer to
mistake Max’s prize for the animal remains he’d been expecting. His
pulse accelerated as adrenaline trickled into his system,
sharpening his senses.

“Hail, my good man,” Terry said.
“Are you joining our siege?”

“Looks like. Hey, Babe,” he
said.

“Babe,” Lia gritted out, “is a
pig.”

“From the looks of it, the pig is
in the back seat. How many of those have you fed her
already?”

“None, so far. We’re working up a
battle plan. Can you pull your Blazer over here, just far enough
away so I can open the door?”

“Sure.” Peter went back to his SUV
and drove it over, parking four feet away from Lia’s Volvo. He
hopped out. “What next, Boss?”

“Stand on the other side of the
car, by the back door. When I lure her out, you can reach in
through the window and grab the bone.” Peter pulled a pair of
neoprene gloves out of his pocket, putting them on as he took his
position.

Lia turned to Terry. “Terry, you
stand by the front passenger door, so you’re behind the rear door
when I open it. Your job is to keep her from escaping that
way.”

Once Terry and Peter were in place,
Lia opened the back door to her sedan. Max lifted her head, making
a low, rumbling sound of displeasure. Lia held up the package of
hot dogs and removed one, laying it on the seat just out of Max’s
reach. She stepped back several feet, leaving the door open. Max
cautiously inched her nose forward on the seat, then gobbled the
hot dog down and returned to guarding her bone.

Next, Lia placed a hotdog on the
edge of the seat. She remained standing just outside the car. Max
eyed the wiener hungrily but didn’t move. Lia held out the pack of
hotdogs and removed them one at a time and laid them in a pile on
the pavement. Max watched every move she made with a level of
concentration sufficient for neurosurgery. Saliva began to drip
from her jaws. Lia shifted over by the car’s rear fender, out of
Max’s line of sight.

“Now what?” Terry
stage-whispered.

“We wait,” Lia whispered
back.

By this time, Bailey had spread the
news of Max’s find across the park. The inside of the fence was
lined with people and dogs, all waiting for a circus. The dogs were
drooling as they watched the pile of wieners. The hushed crowd
reminded Peter of a lurking mob of zombies.

Thirty seconds ticked by. Then a
minute. Max’s nose appeared, then her head. She inhaled the single
hot dog on the seat then looked around, calculating. Released by
some unknown mechanism, she jumped for the pile of processed meat
and began bolting it down. Peter reached in the open window and
grabbed the bone.

“Okay,” he called, “I’ve got it.”
He walked behind the car to the rear of his Blazer, moving quietly
so as not to alert Max. Lia pulled Max’s leash from around her neck
and took the clip in one hand. One cautious step at a time, she
moved toward Max, waiting until she finished her feast. Peter
reached into his car and pulled out a pair of brown paper grocery
bags. He placed one over each end of the bone, overlapping them in
the middle to fully contain the bone. He was putting the package in
the back of his SUV when he heard Lia whoop.

“Gotcha!” Lia yelled, triumphant.
Applause broke out at the fence line as Lia clipped a leash to
Max’s collar. Max looked up. Her bewildered expression morphed into
betrayal when she realized her bone was gone and she was
restrained.

The crowd at the fence broke up.
Terry returned to his truck, where Jackson and Nappa had been
patiently waiting with their heads hanging out of the
windows.

Lia turned to Peter. “What happens
now?”

“I’m going to need your help.
We’ve got to get Max to retrace her steps so we can find out where
that bone came from. Do you have time for a hike in the
woods?”

Lia crinkled her brow, considered.
“I’ll call Renee again. And I need to take everyone home and feed
them first.”

“You won’t need to feed Max, she
just ate a pound of hot dogs.”

Max chose that moment to start
heaving. She vomited hot dog chunks all over Peter’s shoe. Relieved
of her gastric distress, she looked up and grinned.

“Damn.” Peter pulled a
handkerchief out of his pocket and stood on one foot while he wiped
off his defiled footwear. “She did that on purpose. It was revenge
for taking her bone away.”

“Seriously? She’s just a dog. She
doesn't think that way.”

“Want to bet?” Peter watched Max
lap at the disgorged pieces of meat laying on the
pavement.

“Max, stop that!” Lia dragged her
away from the mess.

“Take Honey and Chewy home and
feed them. I’ll hang on to Max. I’d rather she was hungry, It’ll
motivate her to go back to her find. I’ll get someone from District
Five to pick up the bone while you’re gone. You still have that
machete with your camping gear?”

“You think we’ll need
it?”

“No telling where she’s
been.”

Max was in no hurry to get
anywhere. She moseyed, she meandered, she sniffed for clues and
displayed no indication that she was headed for a particular
destination. She dragged them through the underbrush, leaving Peter
and Lia with a variety of scratches on their exposed skin despite
Peter’s vigorous use of the machete. Max descended the ravine
behind the park, crossed the creek, headed upstream and eventually
cut up the far side. She made her way over a couple more
rises.