Sneak Thief (A Dog Park Mystery) (30 page)

“Jake says, since he could lose clients over this, he figures he's entitled to stay and watch.” Jake, burly, bearded and burnt red in a sopping wet “Jake the Rake” tee shirt, nodded.

“Whatever. Do it from across the street, then. You can't be on the property.”

Peter donned neoprene gloves and proceeded to ‘search' the outside of the house, starting with the mulched beds and the cast iron turtles. The necklace lay inside, the chain coiled underneath the purple stone. He placed the necklace in a plastic bag and marked it, tucked it inside his jacket.

He called the jail with four minutes to spare.

“Sorry, we can't hold the Vasari cousins any longer. Their lawyer is here to pick them up,” the sergeant said.

Peter sputtered.

“You'll have to talk to Roller.”

Peter disconnected and called District Five.

“What's this bullshit about not holding the Vasaris after I got the necklace they took off Lia during the abduction, sir?”

“You retrieved the necklace from the residence of Alfonso Vasari, is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I'll contact Hodgkins and Jarvis and have them bring in Alfonso Vasari for receiving stolen property, but unless and until you find Fredo and Lonzo's fingerprints on that stone, or Alfonso chooses to tell us where he got it, you have nothing that connects the necklace with them. Has Vasari shown up yet?”

“Not yet, sir, but I believe he's on his way.”

“Arrest his wife for receiving stolen property. When he arrives, you can arrest him as well. Keep them separated. We can add other charges later.”

“I suggest you send the stone on into the lab and we'll print it immediately. That's the best I can do.”

“Respectfully, sir, those punks could be in the wind by the time that happens.”

“Punks have rights. Suck it up, Detective.”

Hinkle volunteered to run the spinel to the lab. Mrs. Vasari professed no knowledge of the necklace. Brent informed Mrs. Vasari she was under arrest and put her in the breakfast nook with a police officer on her. Peter tamped down his anger and joined Brent in the search for the gun.

L
ia was humming
on her way to the car, a silly ditty she'd made up about Julia. She carried a box full of supplies she no longer needed for this project. The hours of painting cleared her mind and she didn't have to worry about getting to Scholastic during rush hour. She shook her head, enjoying the way her hair swished around her shoulders after being confined by a hair pick all day. A free evening lay before her, a treat, like a hot fudge sundae. Maybe she'd toss the dogs in the car, run up to Putz's Creamy Whip. A hot fudge sundae for her and baby dishes of soft serve for the furred ones.

She balanced the box under one arm while she pulled her keychain out of her pocket. This dislodged the hair pick she'd stuffed there. It fell onto the pavement.

“Damn.” She set the box on top of her car and knelt down, fishing the pointed dowel out from under her car. Her body still ached from the tumble it had taken during her abduction and she groaned as she pushed herself up off the asphalt. She unlocked her ancient Volvo, leaving the keys in the lock as she slid the box of paint into the back seat. When she stood up, she felt a knife against her throat.

“Don't move. We have your keys and your pepper spray. We're all going to take a little drive.” Lia recognized the voice of the van driver. The smart one.

“What do you want?” Her throat, tight with fear, could barely push the words out.

“Shut up and get in the car, or I'll give you a dose of your own medicine.”

Lia's mind raced. It was suicide to get into a vehicle with an assailant, but how could she duck two assailants with the knife against her throat? What could she do? If she dropped away from the knife, could she get away before they maced her? If they maced her, they'd toss her into the car and she'd be even worse off than she was now. She froze while she considered possibilities.

He gave the knife a quick jab under her chin, just enough to nick her. “In. Now!”

She obeyed.

~

Eric watched in disbelief as two men forced Lia into the back seat of her car. What should he do? Call 911? They'd be gone before the police could arrive. For one insane second it occurred to him that his troubles might be over if he just let them go.

He gunned his engine and, tires squealing, rammed into the rear quarter-panel of the Volvo.

~

Lia heard tires squealing. The crash sent her Volvo rocking violently. Abruptly, the knife vanished from her neck. She twisted around and recognized Fredo from the police line-up, grinning at her with her mace aimed in her face.

“Feel lucky?” he asked, smirking.

She shied away, looked out the back window. Lonzo had his gun pointed at the driver of the other car. He pulled the trigger and hopped back in next to Lia. Fredo jumped the curb onto the grass and drove out onto Belmont Avenue, the car limping from the misaligned rear wheel.

“Yeah!” Fredo yelled, pumping his fist.

“Shut up,” Lonzo said.

T
he shot slammed
Eric against the car seat. He bounced and slumped forward, waiting for the shot that would blow his head apart. It didn't come. Lia's car struggled over the grounds in a drunken path. He stared stupidly at his bloody shirt, struggling to stay conscious, struggling to think past the burning in his chest.

Phone
.

He dragged it out of his pocket, stabbed 9-1-1 with a bloody finger.

“What's your emergency?” The operator said.

“Armed carjackers,” he wheezed, “took a woman . . . Lia Anderson . . . Black Volvo 240 . . . license plate VZP-795 . . . heading east on Belmont . . . towards Hamilton.”

“Sir, are you all right?”

“They shot me.”

He passed out.

H
inkle caught
the call and tore up Hamilton Avenue, lights flashing and siren wailing, hunting for Lia's Volvo.

T
he ambulance pulled
into the Belmont Convalescent Care Center parking lot, waved on by a crowd of people at the other end. The crowd parted to make room for the ambulance. Eric lay on the pavement where one off-duty nurse was compressing his wound with a pad made out of her sweater and the other gave him CPR. They had bloody grocery bags wrapped around their hands, an emergency version of universal precautions.

T
he EMTs took over
, popping him onto a stretcher and into the back of the ambulance.

A patrol car pulled up and two officers got out. One began moving people away from the crime scene, the other approached the EMTs.

The EMT in the back of the ambulance shook his head. “We're doing our best, but I think we're gonna lose him.”

“Shit, it's hell getting a statement out of a dead man,” said one of the officers as the ambulance launched its siren and drove off. “Let's look at the car, see if we can figure out what's what.”

“Excuse me, officer.” It was one of the nurses. She had removed the contaminated bags from her hands and turned them inside out to contain the blood.

“There's something you should see. When we found him, his phone was on. He was following someone on GPS. We thought it might be important.”

“Thanks, we'll check it out.”

The bloody iPhone lay on the passenger seat. Officer Thurston pulled on a pair of neoprene gloves, picked up the phone and hit the wake-up button. The GPS tracking app was still running. A red dot sat less than a mile away on the map, past the end of Belmont Avenue.

“What do you think it means?” he asked his partner.

“
T
urn right
, Fredo. Can't you go any faster?”

“Relax. We're almost there.”

Lia felt the prick of the knife under her chin as her car ran over a bump on the narrow, wooded lane.
Shit, shit, shit. LaBoiteaux Woods. Not good.

“You got the necklace. What do you need me for?” Lia demanded.

Lonzo pressed the knife a little harder. “We just spent the night in jail because of you, bitch. We figure you owe us. Now shut up.”

“You won't get away with this.”

Lonzo grabbed her hair and twisted with his free hand, making her cry out. He laughed.

“We will if you don't testify. And we're going to give you a taste of what will happen to you if you don't tell the police you made a mistake.”

Sirens screamed in the distance.

“What do you think, Lonzo?”

“Can't be for us. It's too soon.”

The sirens trailed off. The little bit of hope that had budded in Lia's heart died. If they were looking for her, they were headed the wrong way.

Fredo stopped in front of a saw-horse barricade at the end of the lane. A sign posted on the barrier read “Closed for repair.”

Damn
.

Fredo left the motor running and moved the barrier aside. He got back in and turned into the parking lot for the LaBoiteaux Nature Center, a rustic one story building that Lia knew was filled with ancient stuffed examples of local wildlife. She thought, absurdly, of a moth-eaten raccoon she'd seen there as a child. It had given her nightmares.