He was sitting on the deck steps, enjoying the star-lit sky when he felt a hand on his shoulder. "There are severe penalties for deserters," Lia announced, mock-stern.
"How can I be a deserter when I sent you reinforcements and a mohito?"
"With that crowd, I needed tequila shots. Flaming tequila shots."
"I thought they were fans?"
She sat down beside him, placed a hand companionably on his knee. "They were nice enough. Socialites aren't my usual cup of tea, but I can stand it when they're talking about how wonderful a customized garden sculpture would look in their yard."
"So do you think you'll get some future business from this?"
"We'll see who's actually willing to buy. I especially liked Angie. She says she wants something designed to mark the solstice and equinox points, some kind of mosaic, Stone Henge-y thing. I think that's mostly to out-do Catherine."
Peter affected a huge sigh. "So young to be so suspicious."
"Hah. Says the man who wouldn't stick around to listen to it. But maybe one of them will come through. That or maybe someone will get a jones after they see it during the annual garden tour next month. It was nice of you to send Bailey over."
"I just figured you might like some back-up."
"It made it easy for me to make sure she got her share of the credit. And I think she's going to get some landscaping work out of it. So thank you."
Peter shrugged, took a pull on his beer. "No biggie."
"So how are you enjoying the party?"
"It's been nice. I met Leo."
"He's a force to be reckoned with, isn't he?"
"He's something. Brent and Jose seemed to have hit it off." He looked down and found Lia's hand in his.
"Really?" Lia's raised eyebrow mirrored Peter's own disbelief at this odd combination.
"Kid you not. Mr. Atlanta Metrosexual meets the West Side's Slider champ."
She shook her head. "How will they ever find a bar where they both can drink?"
"One of life's great mysteries. They may have to settle for Bar-B-Que and ice tea. Terry's been giving astronomy lectures." He gestured with his long-neck. "That big W up there is Cassie-something-or-other."
"Cassiopeia. The queen so vain the gods decided to punish her by giving her daughter to a sea monster."
"That doesn't seem fair."
"Greek gods are not big on fair. So what did you have planned for the rest of the evening?" She gave his hand a little squeeze.
Peter contemplated this question while he took a pull on his beer. "My dance card appears to have a few vacant spots on it."
"Not surprising, since you don't dance. What say I say my good-byes and you say your good-byes and you swing by my place? We can see about filling those spots on your dance card."
"Sounds fair to me."
Lia stood up, tugged on his hand and pulled him up. "Ain't nothin' fair about it, Kentucky Boy."
Chapter 19
Sunday, June 19
Peter rolled over and snagged his phone off the bed-side table. He froze for a moment, confused by a fringed, amber lampshade. Slivers of daylight revealed unfamiliar slashes of color. He shook his head, remembered where he was, and smiled. Then he looked at the screen. Groaned. Dispatch. The time was 6:43 a.m. Shit. Thank God he only had a few beers last night. A hangover after less than 5 hours sleep would be murder. He sat up and flipped the phone open. "Dourson."
"Detective, we have a suspicious death at 843 Hosta Terrace. You flagged that address on one of your cases. I know this is your day off, but I thought you would want the call."
"Thanks. Who's the deceased?"
"Her name is Catherine Laroux."
"I'll be right there." He rolled over and looked at Lia. Should he tell her? What a way to spoil the mood. Not yet. She'd find out soon enough. He stroked her hair.
"Mmmph"
"I gotta go."
"Do you have to?" she murmured, half asleep.
He nuzzled her neck. "Yeah. Work." Nipped her earlobe.
She turned her face so that their lips met. "See you later, Kentucky Boy," she breathed into his mouth.
By the time Peter was dressed, Lia had fallen back asleep. So much for romance, he thought, and kissed her on the back of her head as he left.
Peter winced when he saw crime scene investigators tromping all over the labyrinth. He ducked under the yellow tape, flashing his badge at the officer posted there, and was directed to the center of the maze. He sighed as he saw the path, established by other officers, cutting straight through the garden. He knew he couldn't walk Lia's mosaic path because it might contaminate evidence, but he regretted the damage to the plants. Then it occurred to him that he was more concerned about the garden than he was about Catherine. Maybe because he never met a flower who would sleep with its friend's boyfriend, if flowers had boyfriends, which they probably didn't, seeing as how pollen was delivered by bees. Kinda like getting sperm in the mail. A depressing thought which explained why all the flowers got along and gardens were such peaceful places. Nothing to fight over.
He spotted Catherine lying in the mulch at the edge of her koi moat, her silk caftan soaked and crumpled up around her legs, her halo of dandelion-fluff hair sodden and lank. Brent was already there, talking to Dr. Jefferson. "Amanda, Brent," he nodded, "What have we got?"
Amanda Jefferson was a sturdy black woman sporting a heavy mop of braids down her back. She stood up from where she had been kneeling by the body. "Can't say for sure until the autopsy, but it looks like a - no pun intended - garden variety drowning." Gardener showed up shortly after sunrise, found her floating in the pond here and hauled her out, then called us."
"Bailey? Bailey's here? Where is she?"
Brent pointed back towards the house. "She's on the deck. She's really upset."
"I imagine so. Do we have any idea about time of death?"
"Hard to say. I'll have to account for the cold water. Several hours, though. We've got rigor mortis setting in. Brent said she threw a party last night."
"Yeah, we were both here."
Amanda raised an eyebrow. "Undercover work?"
"Nah. Mostly Mrs. Laroux was showing us what a generous and forgiving person she was after Peter and I grilled her like tuna a few weeks ago. Looks like she never made it to bed. These are the same clothes she had on last night. Why do we think this might not be an accident?"
"Pond's less than three feet deep. Hard to drown when all you need to do is sit up. There's a contusion on the side of her head. Difficult to say right now if someone hit her or if she hit it on one of those rocks." Dr. Jeffers pointed to the stepping stones. "There are no defensive wounds. No obvious sign of a struggle. We'll run tox screens. If she was drunk, that would explain it."
"She seem drunk to you, Brent?"
"Not when I left. Doesn't mean she didn't have a few after everyone was gone. Shall we find Bailey and see what she says?"
Bailey was hunched up in a saffron-colored Adirondack chair, staring at nothing. Peter and Brent pulled up chairs and sat across from her.
"Bailey, I'm so sorry."
"Peter, I don't understand. First Luthor, then Terry, now this."
"I know it's hard, but we need to ask you some questions. Do you remember Officer Davis?"
"We met last night."
"Bailey, can I get you something?" Brent offered. "Water? Coffee?"
"Nothing. I don't think I can stomach anything right now."
Peter pulled out his recorder. I'd like to tape this for accuracy's sake, if that's all right with you."
Bailey nodded her assent. "Am I a suspect or something?"
"Right now we don't know if there's been a crime. That's what we're trying to figure out. Can you state your name for the record?
"Hughes, Bailey Hughes." She chewed on a thumbnail and looked past him.
"What time did you arrive this morning?"
"I got here just before six."
"What brought you out here today?"
/> "Catherine figured there might be some damage to the plants with everyone wandering around last night. I agreed to check it out first thing today."
"And was there?"
"Not then. Not until you guys got here." Her tone was flat. Her expression as she surveyed the officers combing the garden, was wooden.
Peter winced. "Sorry about that. How did you find Mrs. Laroux?"
Bailey took a deep breath, and brushed her hair out of her eyes. "I was walking the path, checking everything out. Halfway in, the path runs along the pond for a bit. I saw this lump in the water by the stepping stones. I was getting pissed and wondering what it was and then I saw her hand, floating there. I ran over and pulled her out. I was going to do CPR, but she was cold and stiff. I called 911."
"Do you remember how her body was laying?"
"She was to the right of the stepping stones."
"Face up or face down?"
"Face down."
"And were her feet towards the island, or away?"
"Away. Does this matter?"
"We don't know yet. It's a good idea to get as much information as possible while it's still fresh in your mind. Was anything disturbed, that you noticed?"
"I didn't notice much of anything after I saw Catherine."
"When was the last time you talked to her?"
"Around 10:30? That's when I left."
"Did you notice anything unusual then? Anyone acting strange at the party?"
"Like what?"
"Anyone acting unhappy, any tension, anything out of the ordinary?"
"Catherine was just Catherine. It was a nice party. Nothing odd."
"Can we call anyone for you? Lia, maybe?"
"Lia's going to freak. Catherine dead, the garden trashed."
Lia was brave when Peter called her. He had a uniform stay with Bailey until she arrived.
Leo sat at his kitchen table, clenching a mug of coffee like a lifeline. Last night the large man seemed imperious and imposing. Morning light etched grief into his face. Peter walked him through the usual questions.
"What was her mood last night?"
"She was happy. Catherine loves parties. I hate them."
"When was the last time you saw her?"
"I went to bed around 11:30 She still had some late guests."
"You didn't notice when she didn't come upstairs?"
"No, I didn't notice. I have sleep apnea. We have separate bedrooms so I don't disturb her." Leo began to sound testy.
"Can you recall who was still here at that time?"
"That Asian woman with the pink hair. Some of her literary friends. I don't know their names." Peter wrote "Marie Woo" in his notebook and underlined it.
"Can you think of anyone who might want to hurt her?"
"Are you saying someone did this to her? I thought she slipped."
"We don't know. She might have. Right now there's no indication anyone else was involved. We're just trying to cover all possibilities."
Leo grimaced. "Catherine was a vain woman, and often silly. But I can't think of anyone who hated her, not like that."
Peter hated to do it, but he didn't have a choice. "Were you aware, Mr. Laroux, that your wife had an affair several months ago?"
Leo exhaled heavily. He looked sideways and worked his mouth angrily. "My wife had her hobbies. Yes, I knew. I also knew it was over."
"How did you know that?"
"He wasn't her first. Every time one ends, she gets on some kick. Has to remodel the house or something. This time it was those silly dogs and that garden."
"Did that upset you?"
"What do my wife's affairs have to do with anything?"
Peter and Brent looked at him steadily. Peter said quietly, "That man is dead. Now your wife is dead. Strange, don't you think? You ever meet Luthor Morrisey?"
"Was that his name? We've been married a long time. Our lives were often separate. I don't know half the people Catherine associated with."
"So you didn't care?"
"Of course I cared!" Leo exploded. "I loved her. But we both had our faults."
Peter and Brent finished with Laroux and walked back out to the deck. Lia had arrived and was sitting next to Bailey, holding her hand. She looked up at Peter, tears in her eyes.
"Poor Catherine. We barely finished the garden. She had less than a week with it, now she's dead. I can't believe it. She'll never get to see it in full bloom. And now people are stomping all over it. It's like they're stomping all over her."
"I'm so sorry," Peter said helplessly.
Peter studied the two officers combing the garden for evidence. One of them, Officer Hinkle, spotted Peter and stopped what he was doing to pick up an evidence bag. He headed over to the group on the porch. Lia looked up as the young man arrived. She had a bemused expression on her face. "Where did you get my phone?"
Stunned, Peter asked, "How do you know that's yours?"
"See the thumbprint? It's paint. Alizarin Crimson. I did that."
Peter looked at Hinkle expectantly. "Officer?"
"It was in her pocket. The M.E. found it."
"What was Catherine doing with my phone?" Panicky, Lia tried to connect the dots. "Catherine? Why would Catherine have it? How could she have found it? Why wouldn't she have returned it to me?"
"Maybe she didn't find it," Peter said gently.
"But . . . you think she had it all along?. . . She had it?. . . Why? . . . Why would she have it? . . . Unless . . . She called Luthor? . . . Catherine? . . . How could Catherine do that? Why would Catherine do that?" Lia pleaded. "Why would she shoot Luthor?"
"We don't know that she did. They just found it. We don't know what it means yet."
Leo came outside in response to Lia's rising voice. "What are you saying, my wife shot someone? How can you say such a thing!"
"Please, sir," Brent interjected, "Something has turned up that may be connected to a suspected homicide. We don't know yet why Catherine had it in her possession."
"Does this have to do with that sleeze, Morrisey, my wife was sneaking around with?"
"What?" Lia and Bailey cried out simultaneously.
Lia stared first at Leo, then at Peter. Her eyes widened. "You knew! I can see it in your face! You knew and you didn't tell me! How could you lie to me like that?"
"Lia, please, I couldn't tell you."
Bailey struggled to catch up. "Luthor was murdered?"
In the end, Brent drove a stony-faced Lia and a flabbergasted Bailey home. He caught up with Peter back at District Five. "I don't know, Bro. This is way past Chang and Potter. I don't think J.K. Rowling ever dealt with anything like this."
"Brilliant. Think she'll ever forgive me?"
"Hard to say. Not like you could tell her. Maybe she'll figure that out. You're a cop, the job has to come first when it's something like this."
Chapter 20
Sunday, June 26
She didn't figure it out. A week later, she still hadn't returned any of his calls. Meanwhile, the medical examiner's report on Catherine was inconclusive. Minimal alcohol in her system, no defensive wounds, and nothing about the wound on her head to determine whether someone hit her or she fell on a rock. Nothing to suggest why she had a smoking gun in her pocket.
Late party goers had left en mass at midnight. Some remembered Catherine saying she might walk the labyrinth after everyone was gone, since the moon was so bright. Peter was flummoxed by Lia's phone. What was Catherine doing with it? Was she going to hide it in the garden? That would be dangerous, with Bailey still digging around. And why hide it then? Maybe she just wanted to take it out and gloat, in her special place. Had Catherine fooled them all with her society floozy act? It was unsettling to think his instincts had been so far off.
Leo Laroux quietly took possession of his wife's body, had it cremated, and scattered the ashes in the garden. He just as quietly put the house up for sale, not wanting to live with the gossip about his now notorious wife.
And Lia still didn'
t call.
"I don't know," he told Alma. "I know she's been through a lot, but this is too much like work." They were in Alma's small back-yard greenhouse, repotting her overabundance of root-bound Aloe Vera plants.
Alma was a bird-like woman with an efficient cap of hair that remained stubbornly black on her aging head. She gave him a sympathetic pat and two of the plants for his apartment. "Won't do anything for a broken heart, but they're great to have around for burns. You and that girl have had nothing but bad timing. It'll sort itself out, it always does. Wouldn't hurt you to keep practicing that 'sorry' look, though."
Viola looked at him with liquid brown eyes, as if she knew what was troubling him. She'd taken to laying her head on his thigh while he sat on his couch and watched television. She appeared to agree with him as he pointed out technical errors on cop shows, twitching her expressive brow in concentration. He found himself talking to her about Lia. She never answered, but she seemed to understand. "We'll give it some time," he told her. "Not a good idea to go to the park now." She gave him a morose lick and submitted to leashed walks around the neighborhood.
~ ~ ~
Lia listened to the message for the fourth time. "Lia, please call me. Give me a chance to explain. Viola and I miss you." Low blow, bringing Viola into it. Her finger hovered over the delete button, but she couldn't bring herself to lower it the inch necessary to erase his voice.
"I do not need another man keeping secrets from me," she told Honey. She turned to Chewy. "Don't look at me like that. I know you're on his side. Men always stick together. Jerks. You need to remember where your kibble comes from, young man."
Geezlepete, she needed to get a grip. She turned to her latest canvas, dug into her paint box. The ritual of setting up her palette soothed her. This was her second painting of the cactus. The bloom had faded weeks ago, so she was painting the succulent green body of the plant. She wanted this one to pack a punch. It struck her as ironic that she felt the need to create something confrontational when she was avoiding Peter. Perhaps this was why she was ducking him. She was too stirred up, too angry, and not sure exactly what she was angry about. Not that there wasn't plenty to piss her off. But her feelings hadn't taken form yet.
A Shot in the Bark (A Dog Park Mystery) Page 16