“What are you talking about? There was no witness,” Terry said.
Bailey made a flourish with one graceful hand. “Julia.” She said this as if it were obvious.
“What kind of help is that?” Lia asked. “Are we going to walk her around until she decides to bite someone?”
“I know, we can put together a line up and let her sniff the participants,” Terry said. “When she decides to pee on someone’s shoes, we’ll know we have our man.”
“Mock me all you want. I’m calling Louella Zuckerman.”
“The animal psychic?” Lia asked. “What do you think she can do?”
“Animal communicator. She’s not psychic. She’ll tell us what Julia remembers.”
“Hog wash,” Terry pronounced.
“How would you know? Have you ever seen her work?”
“I don’t need to. It’s pure New Age nonsense.”
“Luella’s different,” Lia said. “She’s been documented. I don’t know how she does it. Hundreds of people have vouched for her abilities. I don’t know if it will help, but it can’t hurt. Doesn’t she book up way in advance, Bailey?”
“Months. But she might squeeze us in since Julia is traumatized.”
Lia looked down under the table, Julia’s safe place. Julia looked up at her, then returned to scanning the park for peril.
“She has been acting anxious. If nothing else, maybe she can help us with that,” Lia said.
“Mumbo jumbo,” Terry said. “I say we go to the funeral and see who shows up.”
“How cliche,” Bailey said. “Do you know anything about a services for Desiree, Lia? I think we should go, because it’s the right thing to do. Not to spy.”
“We can do both,” Terry said. “That’s what makes man a superior animal, having the ability to address two different aims at the same time. Unlike the unfortunate birds.”
“What unfortunate birds?” Bailey asked.
“Why the pair who were killed with the single stone, of course.”
“We won’t be able to kill anything if there is no funeral,” Lia said. “Avery asked me to let him know when it was. I checked online, but I couldn’t find a notice.”
“I wonder how you could find out?” Bailey asked.
“First we have to know who has possession of the body,” Lia said. “I’ve met the assistant coroner. I can make a call when I get home.”
“On a Saturday?” Bailey asked.
“Death is no respecter of weekends,” Terry intoned.
“Tell you what, Terry. You go hunt in the woods for the tree Foil Man climbed to shoot that video, and I’ll go call Amanda Jeffers. Find us some clues.”
Terry brightened and pointed his index finger up in the air. “A worthy task for my ratiocinative abilities. Where’s my camera?”
“This is Doctor Jeffers,” the voice on the phone said.
“Amanda, it’s Lia Anderson. Peter’s friend.”
“For real? You two are still friends?”
“Ouch. What have you heard?” Lia kept her casual tone despite the sudden hole in her stomach.
“Now don’t be expecting me to repeat gossip.” Amanda’s scolding made the corner of Lia’s mouth quirk up despite wondering what the assistant coroner knew.
“Umm, you’ll only have to say it once?”
“That line is so tired, I’m going to buy it a bottle of Geritol.”
Desperation crept into Lia’s voice. “Please Amanda? I swear I won’t say who told me.”
“I don’t want to be getting into the middle of anything. Both of you are liable to wind up shooting me instead of each other. Not this girl. Uh-uh. No way. But it’s so lovely to talk to you. What ever made you think to call me? We gonna do that lunch we always talk about?”
Lia sighed at the forced cheerfulness in Amanda’s voice.
“I’d love that,” Lia said, giving up. “Let’s set it up. But first, I was hoping you could give me some information.”
“Uh, huh,” Amanda’s voice was skeptical.
“Oh! Not about Peter, about Desiree Willis.”
“You mean that poor child who was shot a week ago? You knew her, didn’t you?”
“How did you know that?”
“Something Heckle and Jeckle said while they were here for the autopsy.”
“Do I even want to know?”
“No, probably not.”
“Tell me anyway. I promise, if I decide to shoot anyone, it won’t be you.”
“I just heard some snickering. I think it was ‘I wonder if Dourson ever did both of them at the same time.’ No names, but I just this minute put it together.”
Lia’s jaw dropped. She said nothing.
“That wasn’t all of it. I guess I’ll give you the rest, but don’t you come after me if you don’t like it. Heckle said that first bit, then Jeckle says, ‘too bad she’s dead. The way Cynth is hanging on him, he could’ve had himself a real party.’ Do you know anyone named Cynth?”
“Oh, God, Amanda,” Lia said.
“Look, now, don’t you regard anything those two creeps say. I’m sure if I hadn’t been watching, one of them would have felt that poor girl up. Nobody listens to them. Forget I said it. What can I help you with?”
Lia stammered, trying to remember why she called. “I’ve been looking online for information about a funeral for Desiree and I can’t find any. I was hoping you could tell me where the body went so I could call the funeral home.”
“You can’t find anything about a funeral because that body is still sitting here. Her father, and I do use that term very loosely, refuses to have anything to do with it. Fine by me. No girl deserves to be spit on by her father when she’s dead.”
“He spit on her?”
“Right in the face. Identification is supposed to be done by video, has been ever since that creep, Thomas Condon, photographed corpses without permission and tried to call it art. Well, Mr. Willis complains that he can’t see her properly on the screen because of his cataracts, and says he needs to see the body. So I let him in back and he walks up to her and leans over and spits. He was chewing tobacco, too. Looks me right in the eye and says he’d been waiting years for that very moment, and it’s the only reason he agreed to come in. I told him to get out before I had him arrested for desecrating a corpse. He sneers at me and says, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ Sprayed me good while he said it. I had to change my scrubs.”
“I’m speechless.”
“You obviously aren’t since you just said that, but I understand the feeling.”
“What happens to her now?”
“If I can’t find someone to take her off my hands, the county will dispose of her. We’re supposed to be hunting up her friends, but we’ve been swamped lately.”
“So anyone could just come in and take her?”
“It’s not as easy as that. They’d have to be vetted first. We have to document all attempts to locate the proper person, and then there’s a waiting period. It takes weeks. It would be better if she’d appointed someone her designated agent, then there wouldn’t be any question about their right to the body, but I can’t imagine that happening, her being so young. Still, she should have had one with the father she had.”
“Designated agent? How does that work?”
“If you’re concerned about who will wind up making your funeral arrangements, you assign someone, and you fill out a designated agent form.”
“Wouldn’t someone know if they’d been assigned?”
“That would be the polite thing to do, but not necessarily. Desiree’s signature needs to be notarized with two witnesses. She might have left it in her belongings, if she had one. Fat chance finding it. I understand the landlord dumped all her things.”
“I think I can help you with that,” Lia said.
“For real?”
Julia followed Lia back and forth as she gathered her tools. The Beagle was exhibiting signs of separation anxiety, not wanting to let Lia out o
f her sight. It was bothersome, nearly tripping over the dog everywhere she went, but she could understand Julia's fears. “Can’t send you to therapy. Maybe a session with Louella is the next best thing.”
Lia sat at her drawing table and Julia curled under her chair. The table was equipped with a thin bamboo skewer, a dental probe she’d used during a bronze casting class and a pair of tweezers. Next to these lay her camera. The Lia doll sat on a clean sheet of butcher paper under a faux-vintage magnifying glass on a stand. She’d bought the magnifier because it looked cool, never dreaming she’d have a use for it.
She started by taking photographs of the doll from all angles, using the macro setting on her camera. It seemed such a shame to destroy it, but it was better to know if there was something malevolent tucked inside. At least she could preserve it through pictures.
She gently pushed the torso and legs down, so that the little woman lay spread-eagled under the lens. It made her some how uneasy, as if she were about to skewer herself on a pin like a butterfly. The arms, legs and body were twisted, she suspected to help the foil hold it’s shape.
Delicately, she untwisted the appendages and the torso. These lengthened as the material uncoiled. Where she found an edge of folded in on itself, she slid her dental probe underneath to loosen it.
The head appeared to be rolled rather than coiled. She marveled at the light touch Foil Man must have used, to maintain an unblemished silver sheen on the face, without any undesired crimping. She used the tip of the bamboo skewer to tease the ball apart.
The head slowly unrolled, unfurled, unfolded until she was left with nothing except a single strip of foil which extended from the body. She went back to the arms and legs and continued there. Each revealed itself to be nothing more than foil, cleverly twisted. Lia-doll now lay like a mutant starfish under the magnifier. If she held any secrets, they lay in her heart. Lia continued to tease the foil apart, swapping the skewer for the probe when she encountered tightly crimped bits. The tip of her probe hit something solid between the layers. A few more tugs revealed a tiny red heart. She caught a whiff of cinnamon.
Lia sat back, stunned. She hadn’t expected to find anything. Still, a candy heart was pretty innocuous. She peered closer. Something marred the surface of the candy. It looked scratched. She angled the magnifier, bringing the red candy into focus. “831” was scratched into the face of the heart. She tipped it over. “ICU” was etched into the back. ICU. Well either that meant intensive care unit and was some kind of threat, or it meant she was being watched. Which was another kind of threat. What could 831 refer to?
She opened up her laptop and searched the Urban Dictionary. “Monterey Bay area code.” No, that couldn’t be it. “831 Eight letters, three words, one meaning. I love you.” Could Peter have left this? No, she decided. Peter didn’t have the skill and he wouldn’t have been so tasteless, considering her concerns.
She double checked ICU to see if there were any additional meanings. “IcU” meant “I’m cool. You?” She wondered if ICU meant the Foil Man wanted to give her intensive care. Whatever, with the engraving, the little doll and her canine escort had morphed from charming to creepy.
Lia leaned over. Julia lifted her head up off her paws, meeting Lia’s gaze with solemn bug-eyes. “You be sure to bark if anyone comes near, okay? I don’t need any creeps sneaking in here. Biting’s okay, too, especially if it’s someone you recognize. Deal?”
Julia tilted her head, blinked, and lay back down, sighing as if there were no light left in the world. Chewy bounced up, his paws on Lia’s thigh, giving her an intent look that typically meant, “What am I, chopped liver?” Lia set down her bamboo skewer and ruffled his ears with her hands. Holding his face, she bent over and gave him a kiss on the nose. Not much for kisses, he jerked his head away and sneezed, then play-snapped at her hands. “You’re still my little man. You know that, don’t you?” Satisfied that all was still well with his world despite the clingy interloper’s morose outlook, he returned to napping on his bed in the living room.
Cinnamon hearts . . . she’d seen some recently, maybe, but where? She didn’t even walk down the candy aisle when she went grocery shopping. Most of the candy she’d run into lately was at Scholastic. Could one of her co-workers be Foil Man? She tried to visualize the various candy caches around Maple room. While she liked chocolate, she didn’t go in for other sweets, so she hadn’t paid much attention. She’d have to keep her eyes out on Monday when she went back.
The Watcher grunted at the stationary dot on his GPS program. Lia hadn’t gone anywhere since she’d returned from the park. He could not think of a pretext for getting a spy cam into her apartment, or a cam that he could sneak in that she wouldn’t notice.
He wondered what she would think if she found out he’d pulled the tracking device off Desiree’s car and installed it on Lia’s Volvo. This time he was not satisfied with casually sticking it under a wheel well. He’d crawled under the car and attached it to the undercarriage behind the gas tank, where it wouldn’t be seen unless the car was up on a rack.
It might not occur to Lia that he had followed Desiree and was now following her. If it did, he did not want her to find The Watcher’s little helper.
He turned back to the sheet of foil laying on his desk, smooth, shiny, pristine, and stroked it delicately, lover-like, with one finger. I wonder what you will become.
16
Sunday, June 1
“I don’t know why we’ve never been in here before,” Bailey said to Lia as she pushed open the door to the dim bar.
“Maybe because you get up at 4 a.m. and I rarely drink? Good thing The Comet is open for brunch on Sunday.”
They stood in line at the end of the bar and considered the options on the chalkboard menu. “Eggs Benedict? Quiche?” Bailey said. “I was expecting a breakfast burrito.”
“I guess they class up on Sundays,” Lia said.
A man with black hipster glasses and well tended gray hair past his shoulders wrote down their order. He tore off the top copy and handed it to Lia. “Take this to the kitchen. They’ll hand you a marker for your table.” He got their coffees. “Cream and sugar in the next room, in front.”
Lia and Bailey were almost through with their meal and discussing the merits of sharing a flan When Lia looked up to see Dave approaching, bar towel in hand.
“Hey, welcome back,” he said. “How’s your quesadilla?”
“Terrific. I wish you were open for lunch all the time. Dave, this is Bailey. We’re hoping you might help us with something.”
“Shoot. Never know till you ask.”
“I talked to the coroner’s office yesterday. They said Desiree’s father refused to take her body, and it’s just sitting in the morgue.”
Dave shook his head. “Desiree said father frequently told her she was going to hell. He sounded like a total head case.”
“I’m looking for someone close to her to step up and take possession of the body.”
“Why don’t you do it?”
Lia stammered. “I really didn’t know her that well. I wouldn’t know what she wanted or who was important to her. I’m traveling blind here.”
“So how does this work? Can anyone just walk in and claim her body?”
“I guess you could if you made a good enough case to the coroner that you were her nearest and dearest. It’s a long process, though, and it would take weeks.
“The person I talked to at the morgue said there was a slim chance Desiree had a designated agent form.” Understanding by Dave’s expression that he was as clueless about this as she had been, she went on to explain. “. . . so tomorrow I’m going through her papers to see if I can find one. But I thought I’d stop in here and ask about her friends, in case I come up empty.”
“I’m glad you stopped in. I’ll put the word out and see if we can’t dig up the right person to take charge. I’d be glad to help you search. I’m off tomorrow.”
“That would be a godsend. No one
else is available, and this needs to be resolved.”
“Once we find this person, did you have any idea how her funeral would be paid for?”
“I hadn’t gotten that far yet. Truthfully, I hoped to find Desiree’s BFF and end my involvement there.”
“Desiree wasn’t exactly a BFF kinda gal. But don’t worry, we’ll think of something.”
Lia and Bailey left the bar an hour later.
“You know,” Bailey mused, “you wouldn't think ginger-ale would go with eggs, but it does.”
Lia stopped on the side walk. “Okay, what’s wrong with him.”
“What are you talking about?” Bailey asked.
“An attractive, single man sat at our table for half an hour and you haven’t said anything about him.”
“You mean the guy carrying a torch for Miss Double D, A.K.A. Dead Desiree?”
“Yeah, that one. Don’t you want to soothe his wounded heart?”
“Oh, I figured you could have him.”
“Me? Why would I want him?”
“I figure you need a distraction since Peter’s decided to take a vacation. Anyway, he didn’t know I was there.”
“That’s not true.”
“Which part? That you need a distraction, that Peter’s on vacation, or that Dave Cunningham only had eyes for you? You may not have been paying attention, but I was.”
17
Monday, June 2
Dave was leaning on his car by Terry’s storage unit when Lia pulled up. Lia opened the lock and lifted the door. The garage-sized unit was packed with furniture and stacks of boxes that towered over their heads.
“All this was Desiree’s?”
Lia laughed at his astonished look. “Only a small corner is hers. Most of it belongs to the guy who owns this unit. We need to go through that pile of boxes over on the right.”
The indicated boxes were penned in by an upended sofa and stacked dining room chairs. They worked in tandem to move the furniture out of the unit, opening up space to spread the boxes out.
Sneak Thief (A Dog Park Mystery) Page 12
