Drool Baby (A Dog Park Mystery) (Lia Anderson Dog Park Mysteries) (15 page)

"Oh!" Lia said, "That would be work. Except Marie works at home and Nadine's retired. So how does that help us?"

I'm thinking we can get Trees to help us here. One person who knows if we're living or dead is Uncle Sam at the IRS. Uncle Sam also knows everywhere we've
ever worked. And Mr. Trees seems to know a thing or two about Uncle Sam. Or maybe he has other ways to find out who worked where and when, and if they're
living or dead."

"Oh, I see, he can go through the work histories and see what he can dig up on the people working around them. If he could go through the payroll records
for the school where Nadine taught, he could identify the people who stopped working there while she was there and figure out if their payroll stopped
because they quit or because they died," Lia said.

"He'd know the easiest way to go about it, but that's the idea. With Marie, I don't think work is our best bet."

"I guess not, since she's a freelancer. So where do we look?"

"That's easy," Jim said. "Her dog club."

Peter's Blazer was parked in front of Lia's place when she returned from Jim's. She bounced in the door. The apartment was dark. She called, "Peter? Where
are you?" She got no answer. She spotted two empty beer bottles on the counter on her way out the back door. He was on the back stoop, staring at his
bottle of Beck's. She sat down beside him and gave him a shoulder bump. "Hey, Roomie."

Peter grunted but didn't look up.

"Bad day?"

"Yep." He took a swig of his beer and remained silent.

"I'm sorry. Wanna tell me about it?"

"Might as well, you're going to hear about it anyway." His voice was full of disgust and futility, something she hadn't heard from him before.

"What happened?"

"I hate when it's kids." He continued staring at the bottle dangling from his fingertips.

"I'm sorry. How young?"

"She was four. Pretty little girl. Killed her, wounded her mother in a drive by. And everyone swears they saw nothing. The house they were shooting at is a
meth lab, we're sure of it, but we have no probable cause for a search warrant. And the bozos living there were like, 'No, Mister Policeman, we don't know
why anyone would empty a clip into our house and our cars. They must'a took us for somebody else. We were all watching Judge Judy when it happened and we
didn't see nuthin'.'" He rolled his eyes and shook his head as he sing-songed in imitation of the dopers.

"Where was this?"

"Less than half a mile from here. Sometimes I hate being in the city. Fucking bangers."

"How will you catch the shooter if there are no witnesses?"

"Oh, somebody will get arrested and make a trade, or his girlfriend will get mad at him and turn him in for the reward. Or he'll use the gun again, and get
caught. Eventually it will happen, but it always takes too damn long. And Brent and I get to keep banging our heads against the same doors until it does."

"Isn't there anything you can do about it?"

"Narcotics is going to push on the meth lab. If we have something on them, they'll give up the shooter fast enough."

"So what do you want to do?"

"I could just sit out here and drink."

"Doughnuts for breakfast, beer for dinner. Must you be such a cop?"

"I yam what I yam," he intoned.

"Why don't I tuck you in with a Three Stooges DVD while I make some dinner? I was thinking shrimp, but this calls for burgers. You want I should grill you
some cow?"

"You're going to make me eat whole wheat buns, aren't you?"

"White flour is just wallpaper paste waiting to coat your intestines."

"Great image, Anderson."

"I'll make coleslaw," she wheedled. She stood up and dropped a kiss on his head. "Would you like to keep me company while I cook, or would you rather go
watch Moe twist Curly's nose?"

"Those guys are really ugly. You're prettier."

"I should hope so. Can you get the charcoal going?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

Lia watched out the window as Peter fiddled with the grill. Sometimes she forgot that when Peter went to work, he was down in the trenches, dealing with
all the ways people hate each other. Being an artist meant she was in her own little world much of the time. She dealt with ugliness by shutting it out,
and there was Peter, down in the mud wrestling with it.

He was in a mood she'd never seen before tonight. He didn't often talk about work. She hoped encouraging him to talk helped, like talking helped her in
therapy. She'd do what she could to make things easy for him.

She'd resented being expected to baby Luthor out of his sulks, but this was different. Peter was hurting over something real. She'd thought she didn't like
playing the little woman. Maybe it was as simple as context.

Peter wound up grilling the burgers, and it seemed to pull him out of his funk. They plowed through two apiece, topped with home-grown tomatoes and slices
of cheddar cheese. Honey, Chewy, and Viola lined up for mini-burgers.

Peter was stacking dishes. He looked over at Lia and asked, "How did it go at Jim's earlier?"

"I wasn't going to mention it. You've had such a rough day."

"That's okay. I'm bringing it up."

"Jim's scandalized."

"Why is that?"

"We ran across a mail order charge of Marie's for a patent leather corset, thigh high boots and edible panties."

Peter barked a laugh that had Honey and Viola alerting in response. "What an image."

"You think it might be for Halloween?"

"What? And she's handing out edible panties for trick or treat? What flavor?"

"Strawberry."

"You mean strawberry, like the ice cream we just ate."

"Um . . . yes?" Lia said carefully.

He started laughing again.

"It's not that funny!"

"Oh, yes, it is. I now have this vision of the dog park as
Rocky Horror Picture Show
. All the dogs are howling while everyone sings 'The Time Warp.'"

Lia shook her head. "Out of all the cops in Cincinnati, I get the one with the weird imagination."

"No bullets, then?"

"Nope. Not even a BB. But Jim and I have a plan."

"Really? Let's hear it."

Lia explained how they could use Trees to identify possible murders.

Peter beetled his brows as he listened. "I'm not crazy about getting in too deep with a hacker, but it sounds efficient. Go ahead, if he's up for it. While
he's doing that, you and Jim keep reviewing the information he already sent us."

"I owe you a big apology."

"Oh, you do?"

"Jim and I were looking at all this personal information about people we know, and now there's no way to un-know it. And I can't talk to anyone about it
but you and Jim. I see what you must have been going through last summer. And I'm sorry I didn't understand."

"How sorry?"

"Sorry enough to borrow Marie's patent leather corset."

"That's pretty sorry. I'd ask you to put your money where your mouth is, but then the mysterious Mr. Trees would wind up in jail for acquiring that tidbit
of information. You'll have to come up with something else."

She took him by the hand and pulled. "Come with me. I'm sure I can think of something."

The internet is truly a marvel. You can find anything there. Physical restraints, Ball gags, Rohypnol (Popularly known as Roofies) for chemical restraint,
cases of Ensure, hospital gowns, a cattle prod. I made my list. Shopping on the internet does leave a trail. I can't have that, so I purchased a Visa gift
card at Walmart and paid cash for it. I did my research and made my purchases while using the Roselawn branch library computers. I am not known there. I
used guest passes instead of my library card to log in.

I set up a gmail account and used it to open new online accounts, using a neighbor's name and mailing address. I ordered everything 2nd day air, so that it
would arrive while my neighbor was in Elkhart. I'll stop by early Thursday morning and leave a note on the door, asking the Fed Ex man to leave the
packages on the stoop. These should arrive in the middle of the day. She is always getting packages, no one will think anything of it.

"Did you know Nadine had an early marriage?" Lia looked up from the records she was scanning.

"She never mentioned it." Jim was sitting at his other computer looking at the Marie file.

"Aw, geez. Looks like there was a child, and an accident. Her husband and daughter both died. Her husband was disabled in the accident, then died a few
years later. Poor Nadine. No wonder she doesn't talk about it."

"None of my business," Jim said.

"Aren't we the ironic pair, as we run amok through private files."

"Can't be helped."

"That's the NSA's excuse."

Jim stopped what he was doing. "Do you want to help Bailey?"

Lia sighed. "I just wish this wasn't the way."

"You think of a better way, let me know." He returned to his monitor. "Meanwhile, the sooner we get this done, the sooner we can forget everything we've
read."

They continued plowing through megabytes of trivia.

"Hoo, boy," Jim said.

"What? Did you find something?"

"Marie's got a juvenile record. It was sealed. I guess we can thank Mr. Trees for this."

"What did she do?"

"Says here, arson. There was a fire at her school." Jim continued scanning the page. "Looks like she wound up in a juvenile facility. Court records show
she went through years of therapy."

"Isn't arson one of those things Peter told us to look for?"

"That and bed-wetting. Don't think we'll find that in these files."

"We can always poll everyone at the park."

Jim snorted. "I'm sure everyone will want to answer that question."

"We'll have to follow up on the arson, won't we?" Lia asked.

"It'd be a good idea."

"Jim?"

"What?"

"What did you find out about Anna yesterday? I know you went through her file then."

"Nothing we don't already know. A couple fender benders, that's about it."

"Seriously?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

Friday Evening

The pizza had been sitting on the table, growing cold. That's where it was when Peter left the kitchen. Now the box was shredded on the floor and three guilty pairs of eyes were looking up at him. There wasn't a crumb in sight, though a few olives were scattered around. He guessed dogs didn't care much for olives.

It fired his seething temper. "Bad dogs!" he yelled. The trio slunk away. He grabbed another beer from the fridge and sat out on the back stoop. It wasn't
their fault. He'd been distracted and hadn't put the pizza out of reach.

He'd come home to find the apartment empty. Lia hadn't taken the dogs, hadn't left a note, and wasn't with any of her friends. She wasn't answering her
phone. The last person to see her was Jim. She'd spent the afternoon reviewing files with him, but had left around four o'clock. Hours ago.

He was torn between anger and fear. Anger that Lia hadn't let anyone know where she was, and fear that something very bad had happened, was happening at
this very moment, and he couldn't do anything about it. That, along with a fruitless afternoon with Brent interviewing reluctant neighbors in the drive-by,
had put him in a foul mood.

By the time the beer was half empty, he'd cooled down enough to decide it was cruel to sit out back and keep the dogs locked up in the house. Rationalizing
that they deserved it did him no good. He let them out and tossed a couple of tennis balls for Viola and Honey.

It was ten o'clock when he heard the key in the lock. He waited until she came in the door and he could see that she was unharmed.

"Where the hell have you been?"

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

"I wanted to be alone. I had to think."

"You had to think with your phone off?"

"My phone was off? It must be dead." She had the nerve to appear unconcerned.

"I've been going crazy. Nobody knew where you were. I thought Bucky had you and was at this very moment, cutting you into very small pieces." Peter ran his
hand through his hair as he paced.

"You called my friends? I can't believe you did that!" Lia's voice started to elevate.

"What was I supposed to do?"

"You could have just trusted me."

"Dammit, Lia, it's not about trust. Not when people are being murdered."

"Peter Dourson, I've been getting along just fine for my entire adult life without you. I think I can handle a few hours by myself."

"For Christ's sake, why do you think I moved in here? It's not for the pond-scum smoothies!"

"You mean, why did you blackmail me into letting you stay? I was never crazy about this set-up. I hate digging into my friends' lives, and right now, I'm
not happy with you, either."

"Well, that sure makes two of us."

"And if you're going to keep yelling, you can leave. You don't get to stand here in my apartment and yell at me."

He heaved a big sigh and lowered his voice. "You know I can't leave."

"Well, if you hadn't been here in the first place, you wouldn't have known I was gone, and you'd have no reason to be angry." Lia walked to the linen
closet and pulled out a stack of sheets and a blanket. She shoved them at Peter. "You can have the couch and the television. I'm getting something to eat,
then I'm going to bed." She stomped into the kitchen. "What is this mess?"

"I brought home a pizza," he explained. "You weren't here and the dogs got it."

"You let them have a whole pizza? Crap. If any of them gets diarrhea, you can clean it up."

"If you'd have been here, I wouldn't have been so stupid with worry that I left it where they could get it. Aw, forget it. The salad's in the fridge. They
didn't get that."

"Have you eaten?"