A Shot in the Bark: A Dog Park Mystery

Sunday, May 15, continued

Lia pulled out her template for "peace." Catherine's labyrinth called for fifty pavers featuring the symbol. Maybe if she dedicated today to "peace," some of it might rub off on her. She laid the circle on her work table and opened the box of midnight blue tile cut in random shapes. She got out her nippers and goggles and pulled up a stool. Arranging the tiles to fill the shape of the symbol absorbed her. When she was done, she filled in the background with random pieces of rose, saffron, and yellow. She gave the final design a once over, tweaking the tile shapes so that there was room for the concrete in between. Then she cut a one foot square of clear contact paper and laid this on top, carefully rubbing it on the tile so it would hold the pieces in place while the paver was cast.

After she did this, she took a mold base and lined it up on top of the contact paper, so that the template, tile, and base made a sort of sandwich. She carefully flipped the stack so the mold base was on the bottom and the tiles were upside-down. She replaced the template with a styrofoam ring and set the completed mold on a shelf.

"One down, thirty-nine to go."

When Peter arrived, she was working on her sixth mosaic layout. "You look like you're feeling better."

"Much. Making art is so centering. Can I get you something? Water? Sweet tea? I remember you like it."

"Tea would be great."

She pulled a jug of tea out of her studio fridge and poured two glasses. She dragged another stool over to the table. "I hope this is okay, I don't have regular chairs here."

"This is fine. What are you working on?"

Lia described the garden she and Bailey were creating for Catherine and showed him the mosaics she'd already set up. "We're using jewel tone colors, like aura colors"

"What do aura colors look like?"

"Clear and intense, like a rainbow or prism, but more variety. In addition to Roy G Biv . . . ."

"Roy G Biv?"

"It's an acronym. You know, red, orange, yellow, green, blue indigo and violet. It's the order of colors in the rainbow."

"Never heard that one before."

"Anyway, along with Roy, you can also have, say, turquoise or peach and blues from royal to cerulean, spring greens, forest greens. Browns, black, grays, and muddy colors, too, if you're unhealthy. Anyway, that's what Bailey's aura-reading friend says, I wouldn't know. So the background of each symbol is meant to evoke aura energy without being obvious about it. Catherine wanted to do a repeating rainbow theme, you know one red paver, one orange, one yellow, all through the labyrinth, but Bailey and I talked her out of it."

"How did you do that?" Peter asked. "She seems like a determined sort of woman."

"Bailey's so funny. She'll say, 'Oh, that's such a great idea! And then she mentions some tacky place where she's seen it before and Catherine can't change her mind fast enough. I caught on, so now I do it, too. Say, should we be wasting your time talking about this?"

"It's not a waste at all. Anything that helps me understand the park crowd better is helpful. If I record this, will you be self-conscious?"

"Dunno. You can try."

He set his digital recorder on the table and turned it on. "You were telling me about Catherine."

"You want more of this stuff?"

"Sure. So she sounds like she's very concerned with her image."

"Pretty much. She's the sort who won't leave the house without make-up on."