Drool Baby (A Dog Park Mystery) (Lia Anderson Dog Park Mysteries) (10 page)

"I'd love to see what you're working on."

Lia used the pretense of watching Viola and Honey play to avoid looking at Anna. She mentally crossed her fingers. "Renee's sworn me to secrecy. I can't
show the drawings to anyone."

"Goodness, that sounds extreme."

"Renee's great, really. She's having so much fun with this, like it's Christmas or something. She's paying me well enough. If she wants to be eccentric,
that's fine by me."

Peter sat, bleary eyed, over his cereal bowl. He winced at the grinding of Lia's blender. "That sounds like an airplane taking off. Where did you buy that,
army surplus?"

"I need a powerful motor to grind up greens," she stated primly. She poured her concoction into a glass and sat down at the table across from Peter. He
eyed the smoothie with suspicion. It was a deep shade of swamp green.

"What's in that glop? No, don't tell me. It looks like pond scum."

"Smarty pants. I'll have you know it is pond scum."

"Please, I'm eating."

"And banana and avocado and cacao nibs. Oh, and some romaine and frozen cherries." She sipped delicately. "Yum."

"How can you stand to do that to yourself at the crack of dawn?"

"The crack of dawn was two hours ago at the dog park. It is now officially mid-morning."

"Are you going to expect me to kiss you after you drink that stuff?"

"You roust gang bangers for a living. You're afraid of a little algae?"

"Yup," he said, looking back into his cereal. "You start ribbiting and I'm sleeping on the couch."

"Good. Now I know what to do if I want a little privacy. How do you keep from vomiting at crime scenes, with all the brains and guts splattered all over
the place?"

"Nobody is eating the brains and guts."

"You're so cute when you're nauseous."

"Thanks. How did it go at the park this morning?"

"I said bad things about you. Anna asked about my project. Nobody dropped a smoking gun."

"I knew it couldn't be that easy," Peter mumbled into his corn flakes.

Peter opened the meeting. "We have five names. We've got to start with impressions about each of them." He opened the spiral notebook to a new page. "Who
do we want to start with?"

Lia shrugged. "Nadine?"

"Okay, Nadine. Jim, what are your thoughts about Nadine?"

"Nice lady. Never heard her say a bad word about anyone. Always well groomed. Disciplined, she always walks a mile at the park ever day. Not like us lazy
lugs sitting on the picnic tables."

"I don't see her as Bucky," Lia added. "She's got at least ten grandkids and she's always talking about things she does with them. She and her husband are
always playing bridge or cooking some exotic cuisine for that dinner club they belong to. When would she find the time?"

"I think Nadine is just like she seems," Jim said. "She's a simple woman who enjoys her family. This serial killer has to be walking around with a lot of
dark thoughts."

"What do we know about her background?" Peter asked.

"She's lived in Cincinnati all her life. Married young and started having kids. Her husband works for P & G," Jim said.

"If she grew up here, doesn't that mean there's a good chance she's still in touch with people we would want to talk to?" Lia asked.

"That's something we have to consider," Peter said. "It also means we need to be very careful with our cover story, because they're more likely to realize
it's bogus if we say we're with some non-existent organization."

"This is going to be harder than I thought," Lia said.

"Moving along," Peter continued, "what about Marie?"

"Marie's a first generation Chinese American. Gay, but no partner right now. She grew up in D.C., went to college at Oberlin. From the stories she's told,
she traveled around a bit in her twenties and wound up here. She works as a freelance technical writer," Lia said.

"Jim, anything you want to add to that?" Peter asked.

"Not about her background."

"How about impressions of her?"

"Marie's . . . unusual," Jim temporized. "Her sense of humor takes some getting used to."

"How so?" Peter asked.

"I can't explain it. Lia, can you?"

Lia considered for a moment. "If Marie yelled, 'Five points for a dead nun,' you wouldn't know if she meant it or not. She can be confrontational, too.
Jim, you remember the day Roger was talking about wanting to shoot himself, and Marie started giving him advice on the best way to commit suicide? That was
a little strange."

"Sounds like it," said Peter.

"You would have thought she was telling him how to bake chocolate chip cookies, she was so matter of fact about it. I think it was her way of not buying
into his attention seeking, but I don't know for sure. What if she really wanted him to do it? What if she was pushing him to do it?"

"Good point," Peter said. "How well do you know Marie?"

"She's a hard person to know. She doesn't talk about herself much. She prefers talking about her Schnauzer, Nita. She shows Nita, so she's very particular
about Nita's grooming and who Nita can play with at the park."

"She's meticulous?" Peter asked.

"Very," Lia said. "She's also very smart. She's the one person who will go head to head with Terry when he's on a political rant."

"So she disagrees with him?"

"Frequently," Lia said.

"What do you think, Jim?" Peter asked.

"We get all kinds of eccentric people at the park, so I've never thought about it. But if you take her seriously, she could be disturbing."

"So maybe we move her to the top of the list," Peter concluded. "Who's next?"

"Charlie," Jim volunteered. "He's another one who's meticulous. He restores old cars. Sometimes he sells them, sometimes he doesn't. He's got this place in
Price Hill like a compound with a six foot privacy fence around it. He calls himself a redneck and admits to disliking black people."

"I think his racism has to do with the way Price Hill has deteriorated over the past twenty years," Lia added. "I think he can deal with a black person in
a fair way, if he had to work with one, but he can't stand looking at the houses around him, and seeing trash and drugs all over the place."

"No doubt," Jim said, "But there's still something wrong with hating a whole group of people."

"Has he ever married?" Peter asked.

"Not that we're aware of," Jim added.

"Do you know how long he's lived there?" Peter asked.

"Don't know for sure," Jim said, "but it takes awhile to accumulate that many cars. Maybe he has a dead body or two buried underneath the cars. Nobody
would see you digging the hole behind that fence."

"Charlie works part time for Fed Ex, making Next Day Air deliveries, so he's off early in the afternoon," Lia commented. When he's working, he's driving a
route. That might give him an opportunity to watch people, depending on where his route is. Who thinks anything about seeing a Fed Ex truck parked
somewhere?"

"That's worth considering," Peter said. "Mobility would be an asset for our perp . . . "

"Bucky," Lia interrupted.

"Bucky," Peter repeated while rolling his eyes. "Mobility, little supervision, a lot of privacy. Space? How big's his place? Does he have a shed or any
outbuildings?"

"He has a huge, old garage in back," Lia said. "I saw it when I borrowed his generator. I think it used to be a barn."

"I don't know if Charlie is Bucky," Peter said. "But he's sure got a sweet setup for a serial killer. We move him up the list. That leaves Jose and Anna.
Let's do Jose next."

"Okay," Lia said. "Jose's married, so that gives him less freedom to skulk around and commit evil acts. He's got a really soft heart. He's got Sophie,
three cats and a pair of ducklings, that I know of. All of his animals are rescues. He's always fixing something for somebody. He grew up on the west side. He's
got a really big family."

"I don't think it's Jose," Jim said firmly.

"Why do you say that?" Peter asked.

"First, he's a really busy guy. He's maintenance supervisor for an apartment complex, and even when he's not working, he's almost always on call. He also
does side jobs. And I think it would be hard for him to slip out in the middle of the night to shoot Luthor, having Karen in the bed next to him."

"You could say the same about Nadine," Lia pointed out.

"Older couples often have separate bedrooms and that would make a difference," Jim said. "Is there anyone who's been to Nadine's house? They might know."

Peter put a note on Nadine's page to check this out.

"But," Jim continued, "that's not my main reason for thinking Jose isn't our guy. I'm thinking Bucky thinks he's smarter than everyone else, or else he
wouldn't believe he could get away with murder. Jose's just an average Joe. And he thinks he's an average Joe, and I think he likes being an average Joe.
There's nothing grand . . . grand . . . What's that word?" He turned to Lia.

"Grandiose."

"That's it. There's nothing grandiose about him. That, and he doesn't hold grudges. I think Bucky is the grudge king."

"So maybe we move him down the list."

"If we move him down, we have to move Nadine down too," Lia said.

"Nadine doesn't work," Peter pointed out. "She's got more opportunity to pull something like this off. And she's a very intelligent woman. If she and her
husband have separate bedrooms, she could do it easily. But quit stalling. We need to talk about Anna now."

"Do you need me for this?" Lia asked. "My head is spinning. I need a break. You already know my opinion about Anna from last summer."

"No, that's okay. Jim and I will finish this up," Peter said.

"Thanks. I'll take the dogs out back. You come get me when you're done." She left the table, opened the back door and called the dogs. She closed the door
more firmly than necessary.

"Hoo boy," Jim said resignedly, as he gusted a sigh. "I don't think she likes talking about her friends this way. But we gotta do what we gotta do."

"Yep," Peter said. "So what's your take on Anna?"

"She's a smart woman."

"And?"

"She worked in advertising when she lived in Pittsburgh. Now she works part time for a foundation. She really enjoys the charitable work."

"Huh," Peter considered.

"Anna's a good friend. She does crossword puzzles all the time, and she uses them to distract people when their differences of opinion get too hot."

"So she knows how to manage people."

"I'd say so. She's very supportive to Lia."

"What else?"

"She's very even-tempered. Like Buddha. Except I don't think Buddha made smart remarks."

"So she lives alone, and works part time. Plenty of opportunity there," Pete said.

"And one more thing. She couldn't stand Catherine."

"So we put her at the top of the list."

"To be fair, a lot of people couldn't stand Catherine. Marie didn't like her much, either. Charlie thought she was plain nuts, and Jose called her the
'Princess from Jupiter.' As many times as he went over to her big fancy house to fix something for nothing, he had just as much reason to want to conk her
on the head as anyone."

"But Jose had limited opportunity. He works days. If we factor in Terry's fall, our person had to be available during the day, before noon. That's Nadine;
Marie, because she works at home; possibly Anna, depending on her schedule; and possibly Charlie, depending on his route."

Peter went to get Lia. She sat on the back porch, tossing a chewed up tennis ball for Honey, Viola and Chewy to chase. Peter leaned over, put his hands on
her shoulders and dropped a kiss on top of her head.

"You going to be okay?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said, sullenly.

"You're a good friend. I know it's hard."

"How can you just put all your feeling aside like that? As if they aren't people you know? As if they're chess pieces?"

"Because you're so much more important to me."

"Oh."

"I don't know how I'd do it if it were people really close to me."

Lia stood up without comment. He put a hand on the small of her back and rubbed. "You ready to go back in?"

"Yeah." She opened the door and called the dogs. "Honey, Chewy, Viola, who wants a treat?" The dogs raced inside ahead of her and sat expectantly while she
doled out homemade liver treats. "Good pups." She gave them each a pat, then joined Peter and Jim at the table.

"Getting back to business, I have the beginnings of a plan. We are proceeding as if Bucky were responsible for Terry's fall. Luthor and Catherine died late
at night when nobody had an alibi. We have no idea when Bailey's Depakote was doctored. But Terry's fall happened during the day, when people can be
accounted for."

"How do we check this out?" Jim asked.

"First, one of you needs to get Charlie talking and find out where his route is. If we're lucky, we can rule him out right there."

"Charlie only comes on the weekends," Jim said. "It'll have to wait until Saturday. It might be best if you do it, Peter. Since you're newer to the park,
it would be more natural for you to ask him about his work. Lia and I have known him for years. It would be strange for one of us to ask him where his
route is all of a sudden. You could do it like you just want to get to know him better. We just gotta pry you away from Lia so you're hanging with the
menfolk."

"We also need to get our five to tell us where they were at the time of Terry's fall," Peter said. "This could be brought up if Terry comes up in
conversation, then you could share something about where you were when you heard and what you were doing when it happened. Kind of like people reminiscing
about where they were when JFK was shot."

"Terry would like that, except the part where JFK is a Democrat," Lia said.

Peter smiled. "Maybe wait until everybody is together and Terry's there and ask him how his leg is doing and and say something about that day. And if both
of you pick up the conversation, others will be likely to share what they were doing. But this has to be natural. We don't want anyone getting the idea
you're looking for alibis. Think you can pull it off?"