A Shot in the Bark: A Dog Park Mystery

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Prologue

I saw Catherine again last night. It was after midnight, with the moonlight spilling down onto her garden labyrinth. I followed her up the twisting path, stepping carefully on the mosaic pavers, avoiding the gravel packed around them. Catherine was absorbed in her thoughts and did not realize I was there.

Anticipation pounded through my blood, delicious anticipation fueled by my hatred of this vain and vapid woman. It was hard to remember to creep along as adrenaline rose up in me. Years of restraint and self discipline served in those moments of ecstatic tension as I followed, silent, silent, until she neared the pond at the center of the maze. I picked up a decorative rock and hefted it, much like a pitcher with a softball. I gently bounced it in my hand and felt its weight, its irregular shape. It was about the size of a grapefruit with a rough texture that bit into my skin.

Catherine paused at the edge of the pond before the stepping stones that would take her to a miniature island. I stood behind her, almost close enough to touch, and still she did not sense me. When was this woman ever anything but oblivious? I took a deep breath, then stepped deliberately onto the gravel, the crunching sound overloud in the silence of the night. She stiffened and turned, starting when she saw how close I was. Good. I wanted Catherine to know me, and to know what was happening.

"I thought you left," she said, taken aback. "I thought everyone was gone."

"It's so wonderfully peaceful here, don't you think?"

"Yes," she smiled thinly, "that is rather the point. But what are you still doing here? The party is over." Her eyes narrowed as she tried to figure out how to get rid of me.

I kept my face placid, fighting the glee bouncing inside of me like an eager child. She had yet to notice the rock, veiled in darkness as we were. Seconds stretched to eternities as I considered my moment.

I took two steps towards her, bringing myself within striking distance. "I thought we should talk."

Catherine glanced at her little island with its lovely bench inside a mosquito netting tent full of sleeping butterflies, a party extravagance. She wanted to be on her island, not talking to me. "It's awfully late."

"Do you think?" I smiled then, mocking.

She looked puzzled. Then, through some intuition, she realized that I did not mean her well. Her eyes widened in alarm as I brought the rock up in a two fisted roundhouse. I allowed my hatred to surge up. Ecstasy flashed through me as I swung the heavy weight and felt the impact as it smashed into her temple. She fell face-up into the pond. Her diaphanous silk caftan fluttered, softly settled on the surface, then sank. She lay still on the bottom, half in, half out of the water. The single blow seemed to have done its work. How many times had I practiced swinging a rock in anticipation of that one shattering moment?

I was not finished, though. I pulled a battered cellphone out of my pocket. I reached into the water for her caftan, then felt through the dripping folds for her pocket. Once I placed the phone in the pocket of Catherine's caftan, I picked up her hand. Treading carefully on the stepping stones, I pulled her arm to drag her further into the water. I dropped the stone into the pond, and waited while the life bubbled out of her. I smoothed the mulch at the edge of the pond and then I left as soundlessly as I had come. My heart was still pounding, pounding, pounding out my exultation as water dripped from my hand, forming a faint trail in the gravel as I retreated up the mosaic path. A trail that evaporated as if I had never been there.

My heart was still thudding when I woke up. I have had this dream a dozen times, and my heart always feels like it will burst when I wake. I lay back and felt it slowly subside.

I never knew it could be like this. I have never felt so alive as I did when I spun with that rock and felt it connect with Catherine's skull. I have killed before, but I always used means that distanced me from the person I killed. Poisons that took effect when I was not there, accidents staged to happen when I was safely alibied, a bullet delivered with no preamble and designed to look like suicide. Clean, neat deaths masquerading as something else.

This was the first time I faced someone, saw that glimpse of mortality in her eyes and truly felt myself the direct instrument of her death. The first time I felt the power ringing through my body. My sly satisfactions of the past were nothing compared to the primal joy of killing with my bare hands.

And I can't wait to do it again.