A Shot in the Bark: A Dog Park Mystery

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 about 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?