“I can see if anything can be done, but it’s not up to me. And it will cost. I have no idea how much.”
“That’s all we’re asking,” Alice said. She gave Carol a hard look. “I’m sure the price, whatever it is, will be worth it.”
Lia pulled out her smart phone. “Let me record this. I promise I won’t share it with anyone. It will save time later.”
The group looked at each other, hesitated as if no one wanted to be responsible for saying yes or no to this.
Sarah stood up. “I need to get back to the cats.”
“I do too,” Cecilie said. A feline parade followed them out of the room.
“It’s either that,” Lia said to the remaining trio, “or writing everything down. I guarantee, that someone, like my boyfriend the detective, is more likely to run across notes on paper than an audio recording.” Her point made, she opened the app and turned it on. “First things first. I’m going to need the numbers of his credit cards and bank accounts.”
More grumbles.
“We start by following the money. It’s possible to dig out that information without your help, but that wastes time. You want help, I need the info. I also need to know Leroy’s friends, any girlfriends, anyone he would go to for help in an emergency, and how you think he would be getting around.”
Carol produced a sheet of paper from her purse. “All of his accounts are listed here.”
Lia looked at Alice. “I need the number he called you from, and copy of the message he left.”
The number is in my call log, but I don’t have the message anymore,” Alice said. “I must have erased it by accident.”
“Write down what you remember,” Lia said. She turned to Debby. “Names, addresses, and phone numbers of his friends.”
“Hold on, you’re not going to talk to them, are you? You can’t do that,” Debby said.
“Not at all. But if he has an accomplice, it’s likely to be one of them, don’t you think?”
“If it is, they plotted it out while they were drunk. Then this would all make sense,” Debby said.
“What about Citrine?” Lia asked.
“That tart claiming she’s Leroy’s own true love? The one who looks like the Little Match Girl caught her hair on fire and didn’t know enough to put it out? She ought to call herself Cinder instead.”
“Cinder for Cinderella?”
“Cinder for burnt to a crisp.”
“You don’t like her.”
“Never heard of her until she showed up at the last press conference. Leroy never brought her around, and I’ve got news for her, Leroy doesn’t have girlfriends. He has booty calls. As far as Leroy’s concerned, this grand passion has all the heat of a dead LED.”
“If you’ve never met her, how do you know this?” Lia asked.
“That’s how I know it. He’s a mama’s boy. If he cared for her, he’d introduce her and show her off to the family.”
Hands covered in flour, Peter Dourson shoved at the hair falling into his eyes with his elbow. When this failed, a jerk of his head shook the wayward strands back in place. He sunk his hands back into the bowl of gluten-free dough sitting on the kitchen counter in Lia’s apartment.
Lia had an odd fanaticism about her diet, saying she could not afford to get sick. He’d never known her to get a cold, but he wasn’t sure great health was worth the sacrifice of eating gluten-free pizza. What a man won’t for love. At least it’s only for 90 days.
Viola, his chow mix, perked her ears and launched herself across the floor in a thunder of scrabbling claws. Honey followed, both dogs barking excitedly. A key turned in the front door, followed by the expected tail thumps.
. Chewy announced himself with a yip.
“Honey, I’m home,” he called.
Lia’s laughter drifted down the hall. “Isn’t that supposed to be my line?”
She grinned wickedly when she saw the gooey state of his hands.
“Looks like you’re at my mercy,” she said.
“Oh…help…please…don’t—“ he deadpanned his protests until Lia silenced him with a kiss.
“—Somebody save me.”
“After dinner. I’m hungry. What are you making?”
“Spelt pizza. Gluten-free and totally on your bloody diet.”
“That’s Blood Type Diet, Kentucky Boy.” She wrapped her arms around him from behind, avoiding the dough. “You’re still my hero. What can I do to help?”
“It’s under control,” he said, nodding at the waiting array of chopped vegetables. “Feed the dogs?”
By now, all three dogs were swarming around them, bumping knees, wrangling for attention. Lia plowed through the roiling mass of fur to the kibble bin. She gave her dog pack a stern look.
“Down,” she said.
The dogs lay on the floor, though Viola was sulky about it. They knew the drill.
“I thought you were going to be home sooner,” Peter said as Lia shoveled kibble into the dog bowls. “Is everything okay with the float?”
Lia checked her conscience and decided it was clean. She kept her eyes on the bowls as she set them on the floor, then waved her hand to release the dogs.
“Sarah needed help feeding the cats at SCOOP. They have 88 cats now.”
“How did that happen?”
“They rescued a cat colony that someone was using for target practice.”
Peter took a moment to consider the logistics of wrangling 88 cats. “That must have been some trick. I imagine the local rednecks are pissed they’ve lost their entertainment.”
“I’d like to shoot a few rounds at them and see how they like it,” Lia said.
“Yes, but since you’re civilized, you won’t.”
“Since they’d shoot back, I won’t.”
“Good girl.”
Dogs now contentedly crunching their kibble, Lia headed for the refrigerator. “I’m getting some tea. Want some?”
“Is it real tea, or stuff that looks like death warmed over?”
“Stinging nettle lattes may not look like much but I feel so much better since I gave up coffee.”
“That’s not true. I can testify that you felt just as amazing when you were still mainlining caffeine.”
Lia smacked him on the hip pocket of his Levi’s. “Pervert.”
“I’ll be ready for a beer as soon as I get this dough rolled out.” He pulled a firm ball of dough out of the bowl, kneaded it a handful of times on a patch of flour on the counter and set it on an oiled cookie sheet. He patted and prodded the dough until it was vaguely flat and oblong.
“Aren’t you skipping a step?” Lia asked. She was sipping on her tea, which was an ugly greenish-gray that Peter had only ever seen in the morgue, and once in the sky before a tornado.
“If you loved me, you wouldn’t drink that in a glass I can see through.”
“If I loved you, I’d toss out your Pepsi and Pop Tarts. I can’t believe my big, bad cop is so squeamish about the color green.”
“Green is my favorite color,” Peter said, reaching for the rolling pin and giving it a quick dusting of flour. “It’s the color of your eyes. The slop you like to make is never green. It’s always one of green’s mutant cousins.”
Lia looked down at her glass. “I can’t argue that. By the way, Sarah says she saw you the other day.”
“Oh?”
“She’s buying the house next to Alma’s. She and Alma were on the porch, waiting for the home inspector when you left for work. She thinks you’re hot.”
“She sounds like a woman with good taste.”
“As long as she keeps her good taste to herself. I don’t know if I want her living by you.”
Peter grinned over his rolling pin. He kept his voice neutral as he rolled the dough out to the edges of the cookie sheet. “You don’t have much time to do anything about it if she’s already meeting with inspectors. She must be determined to have that house. There were a number of people who wanted it, even in the condition it’s in
.”
“What’s wrong with it? The house is beautiful.”
“Sure, on the outside. Ruth Peltier was a hoarder. Alma did a reverse mortgage deal with her years ago to help her out. She made sure the exterior and the yard were kept up, but she could never convince Ruth to liquidate her belongings. You can’t paint walls you can’t reach. No one has seen the floors in decades.
Alma doesn’t want to get into managing property, so she’s selling the house ‘as is,’ with all the contents. I had my eye on it, until she told me how much work needed to be done. That was too much, on top of the bidding war.”
“You want to buy a house?”
Peter shrugged and set the rolling pin aside. “The right house would be a solid investment. What I really want is a nice Craftsman, with a long porch and dormer windows. I was thinking about you, though.”
“I like living in an apartment. No maintenance.”
“If you bought it, I’d be two houses over and you’d have extra income renting out the other floor. But that one is too much work. Moot point, since it’s now your friend’s problem.”
“That’s so sweet.”
Peter cocked a stern eyebrow when she reached for a diet-forbidden kalamata olive. She pouted, then satisfied herself with a strip of roasted red pepper. “I’d love having you for a neighbor, but I’m not ready for home ownership.”
He shrugged again. “It was a thought.”
“A very nice one. Maybe one day when I’m more settled, I’ll have time for a house.”
“It wouldn’t be so tough if it were both of us. Together, we could do a house.”
“Peter, I don’t know ….”
“I practically live here now.”
“True. … but I like having my own place.”
“We’ve been seeing each other long enough. Shouldn’t we be thinking about the next level?”
“Is that what a house means to you? That I love you and want to stay with you?”
“Well, uh,” Where is she coming from? “It’s part of the package.”
“What if I love you and want a future with you and have my own space?”
“Renting two so-so apartments for more money than we would spend buying a great house doesn’t make any sense.”
“It doesn’t make sense financially. It makes sense relationally. Our relationship is more important to me than money.”
“I’m glad to hear it, but I don’t follow your logic.”
“A friend of mine made her husband sell his giant bust of Sylvester Stallone as Rocky—complete with sweat dripping down his face— at a yard sale for $10 because she couldn’t live with it. If they lived apart, he could have kept it, he could do his laundry when he damn well pleased and they would have eliminated half of the conflict in their relationship. As it is, if they ever get divorced, he’s going to regret getting rid of Rocky for the rest of his life.”
“I never liked Rocky anyway.”
“You have your own Rocky. You have that monstrous TV taking up half of your living room with that hideous sofa taking up the other half so you can crash out and watch sports.”
“We’d have a den for that.”
“You don’t need to stake out your personal territory if you have your own place. Your whole apartment is your personal territory. And when I’m there, I’m a guest, and if I don’t like the way you do things, it doesn’t matter because I have things my own way in my space.”
“I don’t want you to feel like a guest when we’re together.”
“Have you ever noticed that people who live together feel free to get angry at each other over stupid things? Guests are so much more civil. Living apart takes a lot of tension out of a relationship. Oprah and Stedman have been a couple for 30 years and never lived together.”
Peter kept his voice carefully neutral. “You’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“I have. I’ve thought about our future.” She set her tea down and brushed the hair off his forehead. “For the first time in my life, I want to have a future with someone. I know what I’m like. I’m like a plant that needs a certain amount of shade to thrive. I’d rather spend four nights a week with you for the next 30 years than seven nights a week for the next three, which is how long I would last before I freaked and went bananas. And there you would be, missing your ugly sofa.”
Peter shook his head. He didn’t know what to say.
Lia took his face in her hands. “Do you love me and want to be with me, the way things are? Because I never want to be without you.”
Peter held up a flour-covered hand with the little finger crooked. “Pinky swear?”
“With a kiss.” She hooked her finger with his and stood on tip-toes with lips pursed.
Peter paused a breath away from her lips, until her eyes narrowed with annoyance. He tugged her closer with his pinky and brushed her mouth with his until her lips softened, then dived into the kiss. Whatever this is, it’s never boring.
“Can we talk about dinner now?” Lia asked.
Peter, gratified by the flush rising in her face, used the back of his hand to brush a smudge of flour off her nose. “What about dinner?”
“Where’s the pizza sauce?
“No sauce. Olive oil. Alma contributed roasted garlic cloves, so I thought we’d do a slight variation on Dewey’s Edgar Allen Poe.”
“My hero. Can I help you decorate the pie?”
“You can do your half.”
Lia laid toppings on her side of the pizza in a dizzying pattern that was heavy on garlic and artichoke with accents of sun-dried tomatoes and roasted red pepper slices. Peter shook his head when she dotted the top with pesto in a serpentine pattern.
“You know we’re going to dump cheese all over everything, don’t you?”
“It tastes better when it’s pretty. Just ask the Japanese.”
“Uh huh. It tastes better when it goes in my mouth.”
“Philistine.”
“I love it when you talk dirty.”
Peter followed Lia’s gaze down to three upturned, drooling, canine muzzles.
“Can we spread cheese out to the edges?” Lia asked. “I always feel so guilty when we give them crusts that have nothing on them. It doesn’t seem fair.”
Huh. How about you put your cheese on your half wherever you want and I’ll do the same? The snarky thought vanished as soon as it appeared. Sometimes it was hard to remember Lia’s phobia about conflict when she acted so logical. Her feelings ran so deep she had to protect herself or walk around like an open wound. He suspected her therapist and Bailey were the only other people who knew how vulnerable she was.
She did have a point. Signing a loan on a house was not proof of devotion. Hadn’t his ex-fiancee Susan proven that? Lia was wrong about Rocky though. It wasn’t the things he gave up for Susan that he had regretted, it was the home they never made.
“How about you do the honors?” The offer was a small, personal penance, but he got a kick out of Lia’s judicious placement of cheese. While it covered to the edge, none of it extended beyond. When the pizza came out of the oven, there wasn’t a shred of burned cheese on the cookie sheet. Lia said it was because the dogs stood guard over the oven, and it wouldn’t dare fall off.
Pizza consumed, and cheesy crusts delivered to the dogs, Peter settled on the couch with a beer, leaning so that his head rested against the back. Lia curled next to him and ran her hand through his hair. “You got it cut. What’s the occasion?”
They’re going ahead with the restructuring. Our new captain came for a tour today. Captain Roller said he didn’t want her to mistake me for a perp.”
“Her?”
“Captain Ann Parker, from District Two. She’s got quite the cop face. I have no idea what she thinks of her new command, but I swear I saw her eye twitch when she saw how small our interview room is.”
“I imagine she’ll get used to it. What happens when they centralize Major Crimes? Will you leave District Five?”
“They ha
ven’t announced who will go downtown. Heckle and Jeckle are chomping at the bit to go. I won’t complain if they do.”
“What about you? Don’t you want to go?”
“There are as many reasons to stay as to go. I’m fine, either way.”
“You don’t want to be a top homicide cop?”
“I don’t mind that part. I mind the part about working 30 hours straight every time I get a case and having to go all over the city, investigating people I don’t know, working with cops I’ve never met before. I might never see you again.”
“Peter, promise me you won’t turn a promotion down because of me. I don’t want to stand in the way of your career.”
“Don’t worry about it. They probably won’t offer it to me.”
Lia gave him a searching look. “By the way, the gang keeps asking me about Leroy Eberschlag.”
“Them and everyone else. Austin isn’t sharing. Brent was appointed local liaison, but I suspect that’s going to be a one-way relationship.”
“Brent? Why didn’t they appoint someone with more seniority?”
“Roller doesn’t confide in me, but I think it’s a combination of two things. Brent’s the only one I know who can look like he’s kissing up without losing his manliness.”
“And what’s number two?”
“It’s a nuisance detail. We aren’t aware of any local connections to his disappearance, and Austin isn’t putting any energy here. They haven’t shared files with us. They want Brent to hold Dorothy Eberschlag’s hand and not bug them while they do real cop work.”
“What do you think happened?”
“Either Leroy took off on his own, or the kidnappers didn’t know him well enough to know he doesn’t write those books.”
Lia bolted upright. “He doesn’t?”
“I have no proof, just a hunch and circumstantial evidence.”
“How do you figure it?”
“I ran him in a couple times for Drunk and Disorderly when I was a patrolman. When I heard he was a best-selling author and putting out six books a year, I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t imagine him as a writer or having the work ethic to pull it off, so I did a little research. All the books are published and copyrighted by Bang Bang Books. I checked the filing of their LLC. Leroy isn’t one of the partners. He’s supposed to be one of the kings of self-publishing, but he has no control over the books.”
Muddy Mouth: A Dog Park Mystery Page 5