A Shot in the Bark: A Dog Park Mystery

Saturday, May 14, continued

Lia and Bailey eyed the stack of paver molds. It had taken the better part of a day to cut 12" circles out of 3" thick, 18" squares of foam insulation to form the sides of the molds. Each foam square would be paired with an 18" square of 1/2" plywood, which would be the bottom.

The mosaic designs would be arranged right side up on a template. A sheet of contact paper would be adhered to the tops of the tiles to hold the design in place. This would be flipped and laid on top of the plywood, and the template removed. The styrofoam form would be placed around the design, then concrete would be poured in the hole, on top of the tile. When it was unmolded, the finished paver would be turned over to show the face of the tiles.

Lia nodded at the stack of styrofoam molds. "We've got forty forms. Depending on how inspired I am, I should be able to set up the mosaics for those in one to two days. Then a day for us to pour the concrete. Those can set for two days while I lay out the next batch on the extra set of plywood squares. The trick is going to be keeping the finished concrete thoroughly wet while it cures."

"We could get some kiddie wading pools and keep them submerged."

"That would work, but they wouldn't hold enough pavers. After we pop them from the molds, we're going to wind up stacking them at least five high. We could cover them with wet burlap and plastic, spray them down every day."

"Put styrofoam shims between to protect them? Then we'd be able to spray in between the pavers."

"We'd have to be careful. Don't want the stacks falling over because the shims made them unstable."

"Good point."

Lia rolled her shoulders to get the stiffness out. "I'm so glad she went for the random confetti background, it will make it so much easier to produce a few hundred of these. And even though there are six repeating symbols, every paver will be unique."

Bailey nodded in agreement. "That's what I thought. So while you're getting this going, I'll go out to Catherine's with Jose and stake out the area for him to roto-till. After he does that, we can mark the path, the beds and the pond. He can dig out the path and lay down a bed of sand."

"Will he pound it down with that funny vibrating thing?" Lia asked.

"Funny vibrating thing? Is that a technical term or are we talking artificial appendages?" This came from Anna as she stuck her head through the doorway. "I tried to call your cell. You know your mailbox is full?"

Lia sighed. I still haven't found my phone. But I'm not looking very hard. I'm not looking forward to clearing out those messages."

"We could try calling it," Bailey offered, "but I suspect the battery would be dead by now."

Anna strolled over and perused the stacked forms. "Oooh, I see lots of pizza in someone's future. Pizza and caffeine. So is Madame Butterfly paying a fast food surcharge for wrecking your diet?"

"I'm going to move my spare juicer in here and pick up a 15 pound bag of carrots at Whole Foods. My diet won't go totally down the toilet."

"Hear that, Bailey? Our girl not only has a juicer, she has a spare juicer. How many people do you know have spare juicers? But enough about art and food. Let's talk about sex. I ran into Catherine and Marie at the park. They tell me you were having quite the tete-a-tete with Detective Peter."

"It was nothing. More questions about Luthor."

"What more could he possibly want to know?"

"A lot, apparently. Mr. I'm-Too-Broke-To-Take-You-On-A-Real-Date had twenty-five grand stuffed in his Lazy Boy."