During her last session, she painted the body of the plant. Today she would paint the spines. She took a liner, a slim brush with exceptionally long bristles, and dipped into her linseed oil, then some Naples Yellow. As she drew the spines on the plant, she felt them, like pricks to her heart. She began to name them in her head. 'Here's Luthor calling me a cunt. Here's finding out he wasn't broke. Here's being told he had other women. Here's discovering Catherine slept with him. Here's working for that bitch while I didn't know about her and Luthor. Here's realizing that Peter knew about it for weeks and kept it from me. Here's feeling like a fool.'
The spines weren't sharp enough, dangerous enough, hard enough. She started shading one side with a hairline of purple as she continued her litany. 'Here's thinking Peter was different. Here's believing I was falling in love with him. Here's finding out I can't trust him, that I can't trust any man.' The pain in her gut was sharp, like knives. She sat down on the floor with the brush still in her hand, hugged her knees, and howled.
~ ~ ~
Wednesday, July 7
It was July when he decided to go back to the park. "My man," Terry called to him. "We thought you and the lovely Viola were lost to us forever." Terry was cheerful, despite casts on both legs. His wheelchair was parked by a picnic table as he held court with Jose and Charlie in attendance.
"I thought maybe I was persona non-grata," Peter admitted.
"An unacceptable person? Stick with us lads, we'll provide sanctuary from hostile entities."
"Thanks. And are there hostile entities?"
"Indeed. Indeed there are. The female contingency is dangerous right now."
"Yeah, I figured."
"Don't worry," Jose winked and flexed his muscles. "We'll protect ya."
"Gee," Peter commented dryly, "thanks."
"We haven't seen you since the party," Charlie commented. "Is it true what they're saying? Did Catherine really shoot Luthor? I find that hard to believe."
"So do I. But someone stole Lia's phone and used it to lure Luthor here that night, and Catherine had it. What other explanation is there?"
Jose shook his head. "You think you know someone. She could be a pain, but I never woulda thought she'd kill somebody."
"Spooky," Charlie said.
"Seems strange," Terry added. "She was always the decorative female. Hard to conceive of her as competent and soulless enough to plan and execute murder. Did you find out where the gun came from?"
"Nope. I don't think we ever will."
"I thought I had it solved. I saw a gun years ago and I thought it might be the same one, but she said hers had been a Schimel air pistol, not a Luger. I understand the two are virtually identical to casual inspection. Easy mistake to make. I thought maybe Luthor had lifted it, but she tells me she packed it away and it's been in the attic since before she knew him. If it was Catherine, that would be even less likely. Moot point, since it's not the right gun, anyway.
"Sounds like a dead end." Peter, half-listening, responded. He watched Viola chase Napa in circles around them. Charlie's lab, Oggie was playing tug-of-war with Jose's Sophie. At least the dogs were having fun.
Chapter 21
Saturday, July 9
Lia watched the shifting pattern of leaves cast on the ground by the tree overhead and was grateful for the shade. It was before 8:00 a.m. and the sun was already cranking up. Now if only people would mind their own business. She felt guilty at that thought and glanced at Anna seated next to her on the picnic table. Anna was watching Cargo thrash in a child's wading pool. Someone had brought it to the park and left it by the water pump. Anna sensed the attention and turned to her.
"Lia, are you sure you're being reasonable?" Anna queried. "Why don't you talk to him?"
"How am I not being reasonable? How can I talk to him? He made a fool out of me. I slept with him, and he knew the woman I was working for slept with Luther, maybe even killed him. He knew and he didn't tell me. I've never felt so humiliated."
"But how could he tell you? He's like a priest, some things he has to keep secret."
"All that time we were building the garden and feeling sorry for her because she was such a twit, and here she . . . she . . . cuckolded me! And then she stole my phone and shot Luthor. And my boyfriend was a cheat and a gigolo. I can't stand it! I'm giving up on men. Entirely."
"Oh, Lia, I'm so sorry. I can't imagine how you feel. But I can't believe Peter had any choice."
"Well, he shouldn't have slept with me."
"As I recall, you told me you moved on him, and you were crying at the time."
"Yeah. So what?"
"What man was ever rational around a crying woman, especially one who's trying to take his clothes off?"
"It's still humiliating."
"Think about it. If he had told you, would you have finished the garden with Bailey?"
"Well, no, or course not. How could I?"
"That would have been a real shame, because it's beautiful. I know how much doing this project meant to you. And that's yours. No one can take that achievement away from you. But you would have denied it to yourself if you'd quit. So maybe he did you a favor by not telling you."
"Some favor," Lia grumbled.
"I know you're hurting, but maybe he's hurting, too."
"Must you always be so sensible?"
"He's a good man, Lia. Much better than Luthor."
"Don't you think I know that?"
"And circumstances have been difficult."
"I know, I know."
"Maybe you should give him a chance now that all this ugliness is over."
"I dunno. I don't know if I can. And what about Catherine?"
"What about her, dear?"
"I don't know how to feel. I know she was silly and we didn't always like her and I should hate her, but in her own way she was our friend. Or at least she meant to be. I can't understand why she'd shoot Luthor. It boggles my mind."
"Lia, darling, Catherine was a vain, air-headed, narcissistic woman who cared only for herself. She was nice to us when it suited her purposes. She's not worth agonizing over. And you're better off without Luthor. Really. She did you a favor when she shot him. He would have kept bleeding you emotionally forever."
"You don't know that, and that's cold."
"I'm just trying to get you to see that life is better now without them, if you'll let it be. Here you've had this delightful detective panting after you and if Luthor had been around not only would you have not met him; if you had met him, you'd have been unavailable. Can't you see Luthor's death for the gift it is? You're free of him. You have a chance to have a new relationship with a lovely man. Can't you be happy with that and let Catherine and Luthor go?"
Lia stared at Anna, appalled. "You think it's a gift?"
"Freedom from rude, selfish people is always a gift, don't you think?"
Lia's pulse jacked up and her mind raced. Was this Anna? This is just too strange, too coolly rational. Crazy. Calm, she told herself. I need to get away, get away and think. She took a deep breath. Exhaled. "Anna, perhaps you're right. Maybe I've been looking at this all wrong. Look, I'm going to take the kids for a walk in the woods. I'll talk to you later." She called Honey and Chewy, and headed for the trees and the trail that led down the hill. She walked, deliberately casual, though part of her wanted to run.
Chapter 22
Saturday, July 9, Continued
Peter couldn't get it off his mind. No matter how happy his captain was to have Morrisey's murder solved and Laroux ruled accidental, he kept coming back to what Bailey said: "First Luthor, then Terry, now this." Before Catherine surfaced, literally, with the phone, he'd been looking for someone smart enough to make a murder look like a suicide. Someone who maybe had done it before. What if Terry's accident and Catherine's death were all part of the same pattern, meant to look like something they weren't? Terry's accident could have been fatal. Catherine having the phone on her was too convenient. Terry'd been asking questions abo
ut the gun; could he have made someone nervous? But who? Terry talked to everyone about the gun so it could have been anyone.
And why target Catherine? Did she know something? Or was she just convenient? Did someone know about her affair with Morrisey? Plenty of people knew Catherine was going to be out in the garden that night. Was it a crime of opportunity? Was it even a crime? Was he hallucinating? He should just file it away and move on, but no matter how he worked it, he couldn't buy Catherine as being soulless enough to stage Luthor's death, or smart enough to pull it off without leaving a truck load of physical evidence. Catherine was an obvious kind of woman, and he doubted she had her bridge club fooled for one minute about what she did after their meetings.
Was he looking at one murder, or two murders and an attempt? And if so, how could he prove it? The only anomaly was the gun, and so far it had proved untraceable. Terry said something about a gun. He'd been preoccupied and it hadn't registered. Someone had a gun that looked like a Luger but it wasn't? He needed to check this with Terry. Did Terry require another look? Was his accident an attempt to divert suspicion that went wrong? Or just a coincidence?
Technically, the case was closed, but it felt about as closed as the busted driver's side door on his uncle's old Chevy. Maybe he could fit a quick trip to the park in before he went to work.
~ ~ ~
Lia sat on a fallen log at the bottom of the ravine. Chewy and Honey chased each other across the creek and through the trees. She listened as they traded insults with a pair of chittering squirrels safely taunting from a high perch. They gave up and ran off to sniff for deer. She looked up at the network of intertwining branches overhead, the layers of leaves, following the linear pattern limb by limb. The filtering sunlight had never failed to bring her peace. Today it wasn't working.
She tried some deep breathing. She'd never been much for yoga and meditation, but Bailey swore by it. How was it done? In for a count of four, hold for a count of four, out for a count of four, hold for a count of four. She kept it up for a few minutes. It made her dizzy. Her head was spinning, so she gave it up.
She just couldn't grasp Anna's attitude. Anna had always been one to take life as it came, but to be happy about Luthor being shot? That was inconceivable. And no matter what Anna said, she couldn't wrap her mind around Catherine shooting Luthor. She could see them having an affair. She didn't like it, loathed thinking about all the times Catherine flirted with Luthor and she brushed it off as meaningless. What did that say about her, that it was so easy to deny it then, and so easy to see it now?
She had to be the world's biggest chump. And, dammit, what was wrong with grieving, with taking time to feel? But what was she grieving, really? Was it Luthor, or was it the fact of their relationship? She had thought he was giving her the space she needed. Instead, he was using the extra time to run around on her. And if she took that a bit further, was that what made Luthor attractive to her? That he wasn't as demanding of her time and energy as other men had been? She felt like she was touching on an ugly truth about herself. Something about intimacy, and maybe about control. Maybe dating someone who was busy with other women allowed her to maintain control over her life. Luthor had always been someone she could never marry. Had that also been part of the attraction? Knowing the relationship could go no further? Did she really want intimacy? Maybe not, the way she kept shoving Peter away. Was that the problem with Peter, that he was actually available to her?
Geezlepete. All the whirling thoughts were making her more crazy. She remembered something Bailey mentioned, the Buddhist practice of mindfulness. How you open your senses and take in everything around you without having thoughts about it. Pure experience with no judgments. Just soak it all up like soaking in sunshine on the beach. She closed her eyes and listened to the wind in the trees, felt sun on her eyelids, and tried to let her thoughts run past her like a gurgling creek.
A twig snapped behind her, jolting her out of the meditation.
~ ~ ~
Peter opened the rear door of his Blazer. Before he could grab Viola's lead, she bolted for the trees. "Great." He looked around and spotted Jim and Fleece on the side of the hill. He called up, "What do I do now? I've got an escapee loose in the woods."
Jim trotted down to the fence. "You've got two choices. You can wait until she comes back on her own, or you can go after her."
"How long will it take for her to come back?"
"An hour, maybe two."
"I can't wait that long, but I don't know how to get through this mess."
"There's a path, I'll show you. Not many people use it anymore. Wait a minute while I come out." Jim ran back up the hill, through the corral and down to the parking lot. He led Peter down an overgrown trail. "You know, I'm having a hard time getting a handle on everything that's happened."
"How so?"
"Lia told me your serial killer theory, how you thought it was one of us. I guess it's true Catherine shot Luthor, since she had Lia's phone, but do you really think Catherine was a serial killer?"
Peter stepped over a log. "Hard to say. What are your thoughts about it?"
"Catherine was very social. You always knew when she was around, she was never one to hide in the corners. She always wanted company, and she was always looking for attention and fishing for compliments. She put a lot of energy into staying in shape, and she loved for people to notice it. Seems like a serial killer would need to fade into the background. I don't think Catherine knew how to go unnoticed, and it isn't like her to do something all by herself. I can't see her skulking around like someone would if they were sneaking up on people and killing them." He held a branch aside so Peter could pass.
"Can't see her shooting Luthor. He was always flattering to her, I noticed. Not in her nature to get rid of a handsome young man who paid her compliments. They're saying she gave him money and maybe she wanted revenge. I don't think the money would have mattered to her, and for her to want revenge, she'd have to admit she lost him. I don't know that her pride would let her go down that path, if you know what I mean. I think her answer would be to find a younger man, who was more handsome, and parade him in front of Luthor. Someone like that fellow you brought to her party. You can't prove anything to someone who's dead."
"Interesting thought."
"Besides. If she was going to kill anyone, I think it would be a woman. Cut out the competition."
"So who do you think it was?"
"Hard to say. Makes me nervous, thinking that someone here killed Luthor and then framed Catherine and killed her, too. Makes me wonder if any of us are safe."
~ ~ ~
Lia looked up to see Bailey scrambling down the path. "Hey, Bailey, where's Kita?"
"She's around here somewhere, what's up with you? I haven't seen you in ages."
"I was having myself a good think. Only it's not getting anywhere."
"What's the problem?"
"I don't know what to think about Anna. The way she was talking today, she sounds like a different person. I'm confused. She sounded really heartless."
"Really? What did she say?"
"She thinks I should be happy Luthor's dead and just get on with my life. Like it's a gift."
"Sounds harsh," Bailey admitted, "but would that really be so bad?"
"It just doesn't seem right to be happy about people dying. And she said such awful things about Catherine."
"We've all been saying awful things about Catherine for months."
"This was different. Inhuman. Like she was talking about a bug and it didn't matter if it got squashed."
"There's another way to look at this."
"What do you mean?"
"Now Catherine can start over and try again in the next life."
"Try again?"
"She pretty much screwed this one up. She either deliberately taunted you by commissioning us to build her garden, or else she was so self-involved, so clueless, she didn't understand how hurtful that would be. Either way, I can't imagine her seein
g the light this time around. So maybe it was time she started over."
"I don't know, Bailey. How can drowning be okay?"
"Life and death are illusions. We all just pass to another plane of existence. She's in a better place now, where she can see her life here on Earth and understand how she affected the people around her. Maybe it was karma for Catherine to die like that after she killed Luthor."
Irked, Lia snapped back, "You think? And what about Luthor. Was it karma for him to die like that? With his brains all over his car? You didn't have to see that. I did."
"I'm sorry you saw that. I can't say what Luthor's karma was. But he wasn't doing anyone any good here."
"Anna said Catherine did me a favor when she shot Luthor."
"Maybe she did, if you can let it go."
"I don't understand how you can think that."
"As long as I've known you, you've found a reason to be miserable no matter what's going on. When you and Luthor were together, he made you crazy, when you broke up you felt guilty, when you took him back, you hated yourself. Now he's gone and you're feeling guilty again. Happiness is a choice. You can accept what life gives you, embrace your circumstances, or you can change things. But you just sit in your mess and obsess."
A Shot in the Bark (A Dog Park Mystery) Page 17