Sneak Thief (A Dog Park Mystery)

by C. A. Newsome

  Lia spotted honest concern on his pudgy, freckled face as he stood on her porch and immediately felt better. She attempted a half-smile as she opened the door. It came out as a grimace, then fell with a thud, like free weights on the last rep of a long workout.

  “Hi, Lia, sorry we’re meeting again this way,” he said. He removed his cap as he entered her apartment, which made his hair stick up. He ran a hand through it, increasing its untidiness. Lia thought of hay and forced herself to curb the urge to smooth it down. If it had been anyone but Hinkle, she would have said something. Hinkle was too easily embarrassed.

  “Can you tell me what happened?” he asked, drawing her attention back to her current situation.

  “I just got back from the dog park and found it like this.” She walked him through the shambles her apartment had become.

  “How long were you gone?”

  Lia added up the time in her head. “About ninety minutes. It’s like he knew exactly when to do it. Any other time, the dogs would be here.”

  “You think the dogs would go after a burglar?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been burgled before.”

  Hinkle rubbed his chin. “Maybe he tried before and couldn’t get in because the dogs wouldn’t let him. Then he’d know to wait until you were gone. I bet he’s been watching you. He made good use of a very narrow window of opportunity.”

  Lia stared, having not considered this. “I guess I’ve been stupid.”

  “What’s missing?” Hinkle asked tactfully, changing the subject.

  “I don’t know if anything is missing. I won’t know until I put everything back.”

  He examined the doors. “No sign of forced entry. Anyone else have a key?”

  “Only Peter.”

  “Right. Is he on his way?” Lia examined his face, but saw no sign that he was in on the gossip at District Five.

  “I haven’t called him yet.”

  Hinkle nodded but didn’t comment. The gesture was weighty, serious. “Have you checked your windows?”

  Lia frowned. “I didn’t think to check.” She led Hinkle on another tour of her apartment, this time examining the windows. The tour ended in her studio. She lifted the bamboo blind hanging over the window next to her easel. The window gaped wide, reminding Lia of Munch’s “The Scream.” Or maybe it was MacCauly Culkin in Home Alone. Whatever. She briefly imagined herself letting loose with histrionics that she would never allow herself, pounding on the floor and screaming obscenities until her throat was sore.

  “Oh,” She said.

  “You normally lock this window?”

  Lia said “no” in a tiny voice. “I leave this window open for the air circulation when I’m painting. I didn’t think it was a problem because it’s over eight feet off the ground.”

  Hinkle peered out the window, eyed the bent and broken branches in the ancient lilac bush just outside. “Looks like your visitor used your bush to boost himself up. You might want to trim that back.”

  “Oh,” she said again.

  “I’m going to look around your yard, knock on a few doors, see if anyone saw anything. When you figure out what’s missing, call me at this number and I’ll add it to the report.” He handed her his card. “You don’t want to be alone with this mess. Is anyone on their way to help you?”

  “I hadn’t thought that far ahead, but I have someone I can call.”

  She watched him checking the outside of her house. He really is a nice guy. Shame the other cops give him such a hard time.

  Bailey arrived twenty minutes later. She breezed in the door and made a quick circuit of the apartment. When she reached the bedroom, she stopped dead, staring at the mayhem. She shook her head. “I thought we were friends. I can’t believe you threw a party and didn’t invite me.”

  Lia flopped down on the exposed box-springs and groaned.

  20

  Thursday, June 5

  The tiny woman reclined on her side, her head propped on one hand as she leafed through a book. Long hair swept around her neck to pour forward over one lowered shoulder, forming a curtain that partially hid her face. The book had individual pages and was pierced and bound with thread. Her long hair was accompanied by a slender build, like that of the librarian looming over the silver doll behind the counter where it lay.

  Kathy Bach’s eyes glowed. “Delightful, isn’t it? It always gives me pleasure to look at her. Is this the kind of thing you were referring to?”

  The break-in spurred Lia to search for Foil Man. She didn’t know if he was responsible, but action distracted her and made her feel in control. She started at the library where he’d uploaded the video onto YouTube, hoping for a lead of some kind; a name, a memory, something. When she approached the head librarian at Westwood she hadn’t been expecting to encounter another of Foil Man’s creations.

  “It’s lovely. The posture is so expressive. Where did you get it?” She worked to suppress the frisson of uneasy excitement that materialized when Kathy produced the little figure. Keep it light. Keep it friendly.

  “A patron gave it to me, a bit over a year ago.”

  “Do you remember who it was?” Lia asked.

  “Of course. That was Ernest. He was one of our oddities.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I had the sense that he had been homeless at one time. He always wore several layers of clothes, even in the summer. He rode a bike that had been painted like a kind of folk art sculpture, and it had a big wire basket on it. He was always carrying around bundles of Heavens knows what.

  “You said you were from Northside. I imagine you see a lot of that sort of thing down there. Westwood is very conservative by comparison. He stood out, but he was always clean and very polite and never bothered anyone.”

  Lia’s anticipation grew. She could feel her heart beating.

  “Do you know where I could find him?”

  The woman shook her head. “He got sick about a year ago, then he stopped coming in. Sue,” she called to the sturdy woman at the other checkout terminal, “do you remember Ernie’s last name?”

  Sue, a large woman with a pale Dutch-boy haircut, tapped her teeth with a pencil. “It was something German, I think. Muller, that was it.”

  Margie began pressing keys on her computer. “We’re not supposed give out patron information, but since it’s about his little foil people, I’m sure he’d want you to know. . . . Here we go.” She handed Lia a piece of paper. “It’s on Lischer Ave. Go out the front to Epworth and turn right. It’s two blocks down.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  “Just don’t tell anyone. You either, Sue.”

  Sue pursed her lips and sternly said, “I know noh-zing,” in her best Sergeant Shultz. Lia thought Sue looked like Shultz as well, including the pale hint of a mustache.

  The cozy Craftsman-style house featured immaculately groomed iris beds and a neatly edged walkway leading to the deep front porch. The house exuded warmth and care, and she approved of the dark teal paint. The doorbell announced her with a Westminster chime, a pair of high-pitched Yorkies harmonizing on the other side of the beveled glass side-lights while they skidded around on wood floors polished to a high sheen. The woman who answered the door reminded Lia of a young Shirley McLaine, with a wispy red pixie cut and an open expression.

  “Shhhh, Rocky, Bullwinkle, we have company. Hush! What can I do for you?”

  “I’m looking for Ernie Muller. I’m told he lives here?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. We’ve been here since last September. I don’t know of an Ernie in this neighborhood. Are you sure you have the right address?” Her voice was friendly, tentative.

  “This is the address he had on record. Perhaps he lived here before you?”

  “I wouldn’t know. The woman we bought the house from was not living here, and it was vacant when we looked at it. You might try Mrs. Glassner next door, she’s been in the neighborhood forever.” She indicated the red brick on her right. “I’m sure
you’ll find her in, she hardly ever goes out.”

  Lia thanked the woman and made her way to the other house. The septuagenarian who answered the door looked frail, but her eyes were as bright as Alma’s. The involuntary comparison had her feeling guilty for all the time she was taking from the convalescent center. She mentally vowed to do better.

  “Mrs. Glassner? My name is Lia Anderson. I’m looking for information about Ernie Muller. Your neighbor thought you might be able to help me.”

  “Ernie? My goodness, come in.” She opened the door wide. “Ernie’s been gone since last summer. Come, sit down. Would you like something to drink?”

  Lia followed her into the kitchen. “A glass of water would be very nice.”

  Mrs. Glassner poured Lia’s water and the two women sat. The plate Mrs. Glassner pushed at her was piled with pale cookies dusted with confectioner’s sugar. “You have to have some of these so I don’t eat them all. I love to bake, but treats are so bad for me.”

  Lia took a bite of cookie, tart lemon dancing across her tongue. “These are wonderful. What did you mean about Ernie being gone? Did he move, or has he passed away?”

  “Oh, he passed. Emphysema,” she confided. “He was only sixty-four, but he’d lived outside too long before his sister talked him into staying next door. That war,” she shook her head. “It was no good for anyone, and some never recovered. Ernie was one of those. PTSD. Lived outside, homeless, for years, as if he didn’t have any family to care about him. Beth finally convinced him to come back home after his mother died. He grew up in that house, so it was familiar to him.”

  She nodded out the wide kitchen window into the back yard. A bike that could only be Ernie’s was parked on the grass, petunias spilling from the panniers and front basket. “My granddaughter, Liz, she loves the craziest things. When Ernie didn’t come home from that last trip to the VA hospital, she asked Beth if she could have the bike to make a planter. She always liked Ernie.”

  “I don’t understand. If he was so sick, how did he manage that house?”

  “Oh, that wasn’t him, that was Watcher.”

  “Watcher?”

  “Creepy name, isn’t it. And he looked it, too. Creepy, I mean. I never knew what his real name was and I don’t know why Ernie called him that. Maybe because he looked after Ernie when they were on the street. When Ernie came inside, he wanted Watcher to come with him. Beth wasn’t too keen on it, but her son checked with the Homeless Association. They said he was okay, so Beth gave in.

  “Looked a fright, all those dreadlocks and that beard, but he was always making the loveliest little dolls out of bits of foil and giving them away. Liz has a dozen of them—I never left her alone with him, you understand, though he never was anything but polite. Ernie said Watcher used to trade the dolls for food and such when they were on the street.“

  “Do you have any of them?”

  “The dolls? Liz might have one or two in her room, the one she uses when she stays here. That’s up on the second floor. I don’t do steps so well anymore. If you like, you can go look. Second door on your right.”

  The little room was sunny, with a white, wrought-iron daybed topped with a menagerie of pastel animals: unicorns, bears, a floppy-eared dog. She found The Watcher’s Lilliputian offerings on top of a French Provincial dresser. These were meant to appeal to a young girl. A deer grazing, a clown, a pair of ballet dancers in a pas de deux.

  Photographs loomed behind the small figures. Three generations of women: Liz, at various ages from three to sixteen or eighteen; Mrs. Glassner, and the woman Lia presumed linked them, Liz’s mother. Lia was thoughtful as she returned to the kitchen.

  “Lovely things, aren’t they?” Mrs. Glassner asked.

  “Very. Were you ever afraid of him? Was he ever inappropriate with your Granddaughter?”

  “Afraid? Of Watcher? Oh, no. Ernie was the one that could be strange if he didn't take his medication. Turned out to be a godsend, having someone to look after Ernie. He made sure Ernie took his pills and ate and had clean clothes. Beth didn’t like the idea of that young man living off Ernie’s disability, but Watcher took good care of him.”

  Lia frowned. She was having a hard time seeing the young man who took care of a dying, mentally-ill veteran as Desiree’s deranged stalker. Perhaps losing Ernie affected him in some way.

  “Do you remember what he looked like?”

  “Taller than me, but that’s everybody. As I said, those dreadlocks and a beard that hung down on his chest. Couldn’t see much of his face, all that hair.”

  “Mrs. Glassner, what happened to Watcher?”

  “I honestly couldn’t say. Beth put the house up for sale right after Ernie died. She might know.”

  Mrs. Glassner wouldn’t let her leave without a packet of lemon cookies and an invitation to drop by any time. Lia resolved to invite her to the reception for her murals when they were finished. Who knew? The woman might make some new friends at the center.

  Beth Harding answered the phone on the second ring. It took her exactly seventy seconds to tell Lia that Watcher vanished when Ernie died, she did not know where he was and had no desire to find out.

  21

  Friday, June 6th

  “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before,” Lia told Terry as they walked down 12th Street. “I led a public service project to paint their facade a few years ago. Seven high schools collaborated. You’ll see in a minute.”

  “If you’ve been here before, why do you need me along?”

  “The clientele is unpredictable. You never know what you’ll walk in on.”

  “Ah, I am your armed escort.”

  “Forget armed. Escort is plenty. I’m less likely to be hassled if I have someone with me. Whatever happens, do not pull your gun.”

  They could see the colorful facade a block away. The storefront windows had been replaced with painted plywood panels featuring helping hands, military dog-tags, food, home, a woman bursting through barb-wire, and other symbols of security and empowerment. “These were all created by high school students. I coordinated with each school and led brainstorming sessions.”

  “It’s quite . . . cacophonous, don’t you think?”

  “The directer liked the idea of being impossible to ignore.”

  “A noble effort ably achieved.”

  As they neared the door, Lia could hear yelling from inside.

  “Egad. Should we proceed?” Terry asked, hesitating in front of the door.

  “I don’t want to stand out here on the street. They’re used to this. Come on. Just remember what I said, and let them handle it.”

  “I hope you have one hand on your kubotan.”

  Lia pushed the door open.

  “. . . I am an American, a citizen of the U. S. of freaking A. You got no right to throw me out of here!” The man was tall, gangly and odiferous. He curled his long body over the high counter into the face of a round, bald man sporting a well-trimmed, white goatee. Lia remembered his name was Steve. She didn’t understand how the man could stay calm while spittle flew in his face.

  “Sure I do. You can’t be in here when you’re yelling like that. You know the rules.” The bald man had a voice that was high and gravelly. Lia marveled at the way he kept his composure.

  “My right to say what I want is constitutionally protected! You can’t do this to me. I got rights.” He stabbed the counter with a knobby finger graced with a ragged, grimy nail.

  Terry stepped up to the counter. “Sir, free speech as protected by the Constitution only applies to public places. This is a private non-profit, and therefore exempt. You, my friend, have no rights here.”

  “You got that right!” the gangly man yelled.

  “Who the hell are you?” Steve asked Terry, raising his voice for the first time. “You’re not helping, Buddy.” He turned back to his abuser. “Leave now, Leon, or I will call 911.” Steve had been joined by a co-worker who stood arms crossed, impassively eyeing Leon.

&
nbsp; “Go ahead and call them, you can’t make me go. You, neither, Gloria,” he hissed at the woman.

  Steve picked up the phone and tapped out three digits. He rolled his eyes and began talking quietly into the phone. Leon stuck a hand in his pocket. He tensed and began to vibrate. Lia held her breath, wondering if he was going to pull a knife. She put her hand in her own pocket and gripped her kubotan, her thumb rubbing against the safety on the mace like a worry stone.

  Leon continued screaming as Terry took a step back. Lia noticed his hand casually moving into a position that would make it easy for him to pull his gun. Lia caught his eye and shook her head vigorously. Terry ignored her and kept his hand in position, his eyes glued to Leon. He reminded Lia of a dog who has just spotted a cat and was tensed in anticipation of a chase.

  “I don’t have to stand for this! You’ll see! You think you’re gonna take care of me? I’m gonna take care of this situation right now!”

  Leon whipped his hand out of his pocket. He was gripping something. Lia could not see what it was. He jammed the offensive index finger into the palm of his hand, into the mysterious object. Lia was confused when he put the object up to his mouth.

  “911? My rights are being vi-o-la-ted. I am being illegally evicted from the Homeless Association. I need you to send someone to take care of this a-hole at the desk. You send them right now!” He ended his call and glared at Steve. “We’ll just see what’s what.” He turned to face the back of a little woman with apparent obsessive compulsive disorder who had been straightening the cheap stacking chairs lining the lobby and was now aligning the lid and tap on the coffee urn. “I got rights!” he screamed at her. “This is a public place! Just because I’m homeless, they gonna toss me out. It’s unconstitutionable!” The little woman blinked, ducking her head and fumbling as she attempted to line up the wrinkled paper napkins with hands that were now shaking.

  The young junkie nodding out in the corner whined, “Cut it out man, you’re killing my high.”