Sneak Thief (A Dog Park Mystery) (19 page)

“Do you Take Jesus Christ as your Lord and personal savior?”

“YES!” She yelled.

Lia heard faint sirens that suddenly stopped. She prayed that somehow, they were on their way to The Comet and had turned off their sirens for the final blocks. Josiah Willis seemed unaware of the approaching rescue. When called, Lia went up to ask forgiveness for her sins, reciting the Lord's prayer in her most convincing “terrified hostage” voice to buy time. When she turned around, she noticed a faint aura of hope and relief over the crowd of hostages.

J
osiah was elated
. He had walked into the Devil's den alone and was saving souls. So far no one had refused his offer of Salvation. Some were offering prayers, even. Surely God saw his works in Heaven and he would be blessed. The light seemed to sparkle and flash colors around him.

“Josiah Willis!” the sound boomed around him. He gasped in wonder. God was calling
him!

“Yes Lord! What will you have of your most devoted soldier?”

Through the windows behind him, a dozen police cars with flashing red and blue lights could be seen arrayed across Hamilton Avenue.

“Put your guns down and come outside.”

This time he recognized the crackling of a bull horn. “Blasphemers!” he screamed in frustration. The mic squealed. “I will not be deterred from my holy path! You shall not interfere with the work of the Lord! The time of Judgement has come! Only the righteous shall be saved! You!” he roared at the next man in line. “Will you be saved, or shall I send you to Perdition
now
?” He aimed a gun at the man's head.

The man's voice quavered. “I'll repent. Give me a chance to repent.”

Mollified, Josiah resumed welcoming the soon to be dead into His flock. In an eerie counterpoint to the bizarre revival, the lights continued to flash and a SWAT team could be seen assembling.

The phone behind the bar rang. Lia was sure it was a hostage negotiator attempting to make contact.

“Josiah Willis! Pick up the phone!” The bull horn boomed.

“Ignore it!” Josiah yelled. The phone continued to ring.

“You!” He waved his gun at another mourner. The woman came up and dropped meekly to her knees. She began reciting the Lord's Prayer. Josiah Willis kept one eye on her and another on the dozens of hands tiring on top of the sea of heads in front of him. Soon he would have saved everyone in the room. He had to work out his next move.

How to control the crowd so as to deliver them all from the earthly plane before someone succeeded in stopping him? He hadn't been expecting such a large crowd, or to face a police presence. How many cops were there? If he turned around to look out the window, he'd lose control of the Devil worshippers.

J
ulia had gone
to sleep under Lia's table when Paul started his sermon. At the first gunshot, the terrified dog crawled behind Lia's legs to press herself against the back of her ankles. Now she crawled out from her sanctuary and padded towards the front of the room.

Lia was horrorstruck. The woman on her knees in the front of the room kept praying. Josiah glared over the top of the crowd as he continued in his mission of salvation, defiant against the barking of the the bull horn. Julia persevered in her solo trek forward, keeping under Willis' radar. Lia's heart thudded wildly as more people became aware of the dog's passage. Josiah droned on.

D
riven
by a dim memory of the loud man, the bad man, the man who hated and yelled, Julia continued toward her objective. She emerged from under the front table, padding across the open expanse of linoleum towards the trio at the front of the room. She sniffed at the kneeling woman, who flinched in surprise. She stopped in front of Josiah and looked up, searching the face of the man who hurt her mistress. Josiah ranted on, oblivious.

Julia did the unthinkable. She turned towards the crowd and slitted her eyes in contempt. Then she squatted and peed on Josiah's foot.

J
osiah jerked involuntarily
as the hot urine poured over his foot. Dave, aware that the gun was no longer drilling into his skull, ducked and rammed his shoulder into Josiah's solar plexus. The two men tumbled to the floor and the guns went off. One shot went into the ceiling. The other tore through the plate glass window.

The SWAT team responded, launching three flash-bangs through the shattered window before they blew the front door open.

L
ia watched
Julia wobble her way back to their booth as Josiah Willis was led out of the room, hands cuffed and an officer on each side. “Poor pup,” she said, or at least thought she said since she couldn't hear herself. She picked the traumatized dog up and cuddled her in her lap, stroking the soft head gently. Exhausted from all the excitement, Julia went to sleep.

The disoriented group sat at their tables, blinking and waiting for their hearing to return while medics treated minor injuries caused by the flash-bangs and detectives attempted—without success—to take names and statements from people who could not hear them and could not read lips.

“Well, dang,” Jose yelled, bracing his hands on the table and shaking his head in an attempt to restore his hearing, “I was all set to stun him into submission once Dave took him down.”

“We should get to watch him twitching and incontinent on the ground after that,” Terry yelled back. “Now they're going to put him in a nice comfortable cell where he gets three meals a a day and medical care.”

Lia shook her head and rolled her eyes. Heckle and Jeckle were approaching her booth, followed by Dave Cunningham.

“Dammit, I already had him when you came busting in,” Dave shouted, “Why'd you break down the front door? The back door was open!”

“Guess we didn't get the memo,” Heckle said, trying to shake him off. “Talk to my captain if you have a complaint. He stopped beside Lia, sneering as he looked down at her. “Should've known you'd be in the middle of this.”

“Dave's right. You could have saved the firepower. We had it handled without your help. Is Peter here? I'd like to give my statement to him, if that's all right.”

“Dourson and his pretty sidekick had better things to do. You'll have to make do with us,” Heckle smirked.

Lia felt like she'd been shot in the gut. Surely they meant Brent, not Cynth.

“So far, no one knows how the perp knew about this little soiree. You got any ideas how the whack-job found out about it?” Jeckle said.

“That was me,” Terry volunteered. “I invited him.”

“Why did you do an idiot thing like that?” Heckle demanded.

“We believed it was too soon to rule him out. I wanted to scrutinize the man. Inviting him to the service seemed the best pretext for talking to him.”

Heckle and Jeckle looked at each other. “Rule him out for what?” Jeckle asked.

“Desiree's murder, of course.”

“You were investigating the murder of Desiree Willis?” Jeckle asked softly.

“Of course,” Terry said.

Lia kicked Terry violently in the shin. He shot her a look.

“Why of course?” Heckle asked.

“Well,” Terry shrugged. “the incompetent boobs assigned to the case dropped the ball. We had to do something.”

“Terry,” Lia gritted out. “Meet Detectives Hodgkins and Jarvis. They have Desiree's case.”

“I see,” Terry said. “I hope you appreciate that I was right.”

“What makes you say that?” Jeckle said.

“‘
Thou shall not suffer a witch to live,
'” Terry quoted. “He said it. It's as good as a confession, don't you think?”

“Where's the evidence that Desiree Willis was a witch?” Jarvis sneered.

“There isn't any,” Terry said. “But he thought so. He was convinced her friends at The Comet turned her into one. If you watch the tape, you'll see.”

“There's a movie of this shindig?” Heckle asked, eyebrows raised.

Lia nodded to the video camera mounted near the ceiling for recording musical acts. “Dave was recording Paul's service. He intended to put up a memorial page for Desiree and wanted this to be a part of it. It's probably still running.”

Jeckle left to secure the video file. Heckle stuck a finger in Terry's face. “We oughta haul you in for interfering with a police investigation, Bub.”

“Now, see here, I—“

“Can't leave it to the professionals, can you? What else have you been doing, besides inciting riots?” Heckle sneered at Lia.

“Nothing, really,” Lia lied.

“Why do I doubt that? Keep it up, and we will haul you in and charge you, and your
boyfriend
won't be able to help you.”

Lia stuck her tongue out at him as soon as his back turned.