Maid of Murder aihm-1 Page 7

  “Whew. I don’t remember being this hot when I was expecting Nicky.”

  “He was born in January,” I remarked.

  Carmen fanned herself with a plastic plate. After a minute of creating Hurricane Andrew force winds, she asked, “What do you think happened to Olivia?” She glanced at Mark. “How do you think Mark is? Really?”

  I picked up my own plate and fanned myself. “How does he look? Why does everyone think that I know Mark so well? He’s your brother too.”

  “Yes, but you two are so much closer in age.”

  “Carmen, you’re only three years older than Mark.” Carmen always thought the three years separating her and Mark, not to mention the five years separating her and me, were the equivalent to four eons. Mark and I were born only eighteen months apart.

  Carmen shrugged.

  “Food,” Dad declared and wheeled over to the end of the table.

  Chip followed with a platter of fake meat. Mark got up from his lawn chair and went into the house. My mother moved to follow him.

  Dad grabbed her arm. “Leave him alone, Lana, he’ll come out when he’s ready.”

  Mom looked uncertain, but sat at the table with the rest of the family. After passing the pasta salad, Mom raised an eyebrow at me. “India was just about to tell us how she learned about Olivia’s wedding.”

  I pulled the piece of watermelon away from my mouth. “I was?”

  “Yes, you were,” she said, spearing a piece of tofu with her fork.

  When Carmen wasn’t looking, Nicholas grabbed the watermelon from my plate.

  It took all my power not to roll my eyes. “She called me a few months ago to let me know. Happy?”

  “Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Dad asked.

  I took a new piece of watermelon. “I was going to—”

  “I’ve decided to eat more protein during the third trimester of the pregnancy,” Carmen interrupted.

  I smiled my thanks at her.

  “That’s a good idea,” Dad said.

  Mom was suspicious. “What kind of protein?”

  Carmen forked a cucumber from her salad. “Oh, you know, beans, nuts, a little chicken, peanut but—”

  “What?” My father bellowed.

  I thought I heard the Stripling High School bell tower, three miles away, echo at his cry. But it could be my imagination. My mother followed with a more colorful exclamation that would turn the church elders’ heads.

  “I have to think about the girls.” Carmen defended herself.

  “I can’t believe this. Alden, do we even know our children anymore?”

  Did you ever know them? I thought to myself.

  “Mother, be reasonable.” Carmen said.

  Good luck.

  “Don’t you want the babies to be healthy? They need protein.”

  Dad’s face was turning an impressive shade of red. “Hello, soy. It has a higher—”

  “I never ate meat during any one of my pregnancies,” Mom said.

  “I know, Mom,” Carmen said sensibly. “And maybe that shortage of animal products contributed to Mark’s depression and India’s fear of commitment.”

  I did roll my eyes that time, and Carmen gave me an apologetic smile.

  “I understand your concern, Carmen, but you’ve never eaten chicken yourself. How do you know how it will affect you, let alone your fetuses?” Mom asked.

  “Well, I . . .” She paused and then confessed. “I have had chicken before, and fish, too.”

  Shock registered on my parents’ faces. Chip slouched down on the bench. I was willing to bet he was her chicken and fish supplier. My quiet brother-in-law hid a grin behind a napkin, and Nicholas—weaned to these types of shouting matches—chomped on a carrot. I, however, knew it was a matter of milliseconds before I was enlisted to support one side of the argument or the other.

  “Nicholas,” I raised my voice over the indignant declarations flying across the picnic table. “Let’s play tether ball!”

  “Yeah,” My nephew agreed, and we ran away to a far corner of the backyard where a tetherball pole stuck out of the ground. We whacked the ball around the pole. I took care not to hit it too hard and hurt little Nicholas. He, unfortunately, was in a competitive take-no-prisoners state of mind and whipped the ball and rope back at me, nailing me in the forehead.

  I was sitting on the grass and Nicholas was rubbing my forehead, saying, “Sorry, Dia,” when Mark and Theodore ambled out of the house. My parents, momentarily distracted from their lecture, watched Mark with apprehension.

  Nicholas abandoned me when he spotted the mammoth feline. “Teo,” he cried and raced across the yard. Before Nicholas reached him, Theodore lay down on the grass in slug position beside Mark.

  I stood, still rubbing my forehead. Carmen deflected my parents’ attention by asking Mark what he did on the Fourth.

  “India didn’t tell you where I was yesterday?” Mark asked.

  My mother whirled around.

  “Mark, geez,” I replied, unable to stifle a whine. I shot him a warning glare.

  “I was at the Blocken house, visiting Olivia. India was there, too,” Mark said.

  I wondered if Carmen could think of something worse than eating chicken to distract my parents.

  “What’s this?” Mom asked me.

  I ground my teeth. “I was invited to a picnic there.”

  “You were?” She sounded dubious.

  “Olivia invited me. She was here . . .”

  Mark piped in, “For the wedding. Right?”

  “Why didn’t you say that earlier?” Mom’s blood pressure was getting a workout.

  “It would’ve upset you.”

  She scowled. “I wouldn’t get upset.” She started piling dishes on a tray to take back into the house. She stopped cleaning up and squinted at Mark. “And why were you there?”

  “I wanted to see Olivia. I just wanted to talk to her,” Mark said, barely above a whisper.

  Carmen got up and wrapped an arm around Mark’s shoulder.

  Mom was wise enough to let Mark’s comment go. I wasn’t so lucky. “What’s your reason, India?”

  “I’m a bridesmaid,” I muttered.

  “What’s that?”

  I gritted my teeth. “I’m a bridesmaid. There. Happy?”

  “Why would you agree to that after how Olivia treated you brother?” she asked.

  “Because she asked me. Because she was my friend long before . . .” I trailed off, afraid to finish the sentence. Before Mark lost it over her.

  “He’s your brother.”

  “See? You’re upset. Can I call it, or what?” I took a breath. “Let’s drop it. I was there—so what? It doesn’t change Olivia’s condition now.” I didn’t add what Mains had told me about Olivia’s accident, or that attack would be a better word for it.

  Mark stared at me with barely contained tears in his eyes. I glanced down at the spongy grass. More than ever, I regretted my agreement to be part of Olivia’s wedding. The childhood memories that had led me to say yes were so far away in the presence of my brother.

  Dad rolled over to Mark. “Everything will be fine. Olivia will recover, and you will get your chance to talk to her.”

  “I just wanted to talk,” Mark said.

  Carmen directed Mark to the table.

  “Come get something to eat,” Dad said. “We have plenty of tofu dogs left, your favorite.”

  Mark slid onto the bench. Dad asked Mark about his latest mathematical discovery. My mother opened her mouth as if to ask me another question.

  “Nicky, do you want a rematch?” I asked.

  “Okay,” he shouted, and we raced to the safety of the tetherball.

  As Nicholas and I played, I remembered playing the same game many times with Olivia. I wondered how she was in the hospital. I hoped well on her way to recovery.

  Chapter Eleven

  I had trouble falling asleep Saturday night. I tossed and turned with worries for my brother and for Olivia. I f
inally drifted off at five in the morning, but my sleep was tortured with dreams.

  Mark and I raced through our parents’ house, the old one, the one of our childhood. We careened through the dining room, kitchen, family room, and living room in a continuous loop around the stairs until we were silly with dizziness.

  Carmen sulked in her upstairs bedroom, listening to the same annoying pop song on her boom box over and over again. Occasionally, she yelled at us to be quiet.

  Heedless of Carmen’s threats, I hounded Mark who held my beloved stuffed wolf, Humphrey, for ransom. I changed directions, hoping to trap him in a corner, and swung open cabinet doors in an attempt to hit him on the head. An old hand at our game, Mark fell for none of these tactics and whooped at my near misses.

  Frustrated, I felt hot tears prick my eyes. “Come on, Mark. Just give ’im to me. Please. I didn’t mean to trip you in front of Olivia.”

  We both knew this was a lie. I had purposely snaked my left foot out in front of my brother as he’d run out the front door to see Olivia that morning. While Mark brushed dead leaves and dirt off of his blue jeans and red sweatshirt, Olivia and I dissolved into giggles.

  Mark yelled something back, but it escaped his mouth in a cacophony of bells, loud and insistent. He yelled again, in the kitchen now, shaking Humphrey over his head and enticing me to pounce, but the harsh bells overpowered his cries . . .

  * * * * *

  I opened my eyes and arched out of a tight ball. The clock on my nightstand read ten ’til nine. I cursed its existence. The phone continued to ring with mounting urgency.

  Unable to ignore the clatter, I grabbed the receiver.

  “Good morning, India. I hope that you’re up.” A voice filled with reproach said. “I’m ready to leave for the service.”

  “Ina?” I rasped. My mouth tasted like something akin to a week-old litter box. Not that I had ever tasted one; I just imagined that it tasted that bad.

  “You are awake, aren’t you? I hate to be late for service.”

  “Yes, yes, I’m awake. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “I will be waiting by the car.” She hung up.

  I dropped the phone back on its cradle and fell back into the bed. After a few seconds of staring at my ceiling and tickling scant images of the dream from my mind while debating how to weasel out of church that day, the awful taste in my mouth forced me to my feet.

  Grappling for my glasses, I stumbled over castoff shoes as I struggled to the bathroom. When my teeth were brushed and other urgent matters attended to, I flew back to my bedroom and threw on a lame outfit that clashed horribly with my shoulder bag and five-dollar flip-flops.

  Ina fidgeted by my car, wearing a prim polyester suit complete with pill hat. Green, of course. Nearly tripping in the gravel driveway, I debated telling Ina that being one of my mother’s flock and a Protestant she should wear an orange suit, but thought better of it—she’d set an Emerald Isle hex on me for sure.

  “Ready to go?” I asked.

  The question didn’t deserve a response, and I didn’t get one. On the way to Stripling Presbyterian Church, where my mother officiates as pastor, Ina blathered on without my encouragement or involvement.

  “I’ve been thinking of becoming Catholic, you know. All good Irish people are Catholic.”

  I grunted a response, hoping it was a coffee hour Sunday, heavy on the donuts, low on the coffee.

  “But on the other hand, it’s a little late now. Catholics have so much more to think about. I really don’t think I could fit confession into my schedule. Plus, think of all the bingo you have to play to be accepted. You know, I’m always on the run. Busy, busy. And the kneelers. I don’t think I can kneel that long anymore. Nope, these old bones couldn’t take it. Of course, you can be Catholic. You’re young and have a lot of kneeling in you yet. You’re sharp enough for bingo, too. “And”—she added the coup de grace—“the Catholics on West Avenue have a twelve o’clock mass.”

  I ignored her and spun the car around the town square and into the church’s parking lot.

  A couple of dozen sedans and minivans sat in the lot. Attendance dropped in the summer months with lawns to mow and barbecues to stoke. Add in a holiday weekend and you had a ghost congregation. Ina scampered out of the car and into the building without waiting for me.

  The church, consisting of three stories and the standard bell tower, is located on Stripling’s central square. Constructed in regimented Western Reserve architecture, the building has sharp corners, red brick, and leaden windows. The congregation’s elderly janitor tended the lawn and gardens with fatherly devotion. Deciding I’d dawdled long enough, I stumbled through the heavy wood doors into the church. The morning ushers were already gone.

  I walked into the sanctuary in the middle of the prayer requests. A parishioner raised his hand.

  “Yes, Lester,” my mother called on him from the pulpit.

  “I think we should all keep the Blocken family in our prayers. Their daughter’s in the hospital,” Lester said.

  A murmur fluttered through the church as I grabbed an empty pew near the back.

  My mother held her composure even though she knew the congregation must know about Mark’s part in Olivia’s accident. Gossip was Stripling’s favorite pastime. “Yes, of course. We will pray that she makes a full recovery. Olivia is a close friend of India’s, and we are all concerned for her well-being.”

  Members of the congregation glanced at me. I gave a weak smile. Ina flashed me a beady look.

  During the sermon, I shredded my church bulletin into hundreds of tiny pieces.

  After the service, it was indeed a coffee hour Sunday. I wove my way to the church’s fellowship hall, trying not to shove unobservant church-goers into the walls—especially those who stood between me and a maple crème stick. Pastors’ kids must always demonstrate the highest levels of restraint.

  As I made my way, the congregation’s Mesozoic parishioner, Melba, a young ninety-seven, asked me if I had decided where I was planning to attend college in the fall. Rather than tell her, for the one hundred and second time, that I had already commenced from college and graduate school, I said that I was contemplating a school on the East Coast, knowing full well that my flippant comment would reach my mother.

  With donut in hand, I moved to the outskirts of the room. I was savoring my donut when a pair of small arms wrapped around my knees.

  “Hi-hi,” Nicholas said.

  An oversized bite of donut lodged halfway down my throat. Bending over, I began coughing. Nicholas patted my back.

  His high voice chimed. “Hold up your arms, hold up your arms.”

  I did as instructed and created a spectacle. Several parishioners eyed their own pastries with concern. With my arms in the air like a street punk caught shoplifting cigarettes, I hacked.

  Carmen, the ever-nurturing mother, handed me a glass of water. “Drink.”

  Nicholas watched as I guzzled the liquid. His voice trembled. “Will Dia die?”

  Carmen patted her son’s dark head. “She’ll be fine.”

  “I’m fine, Nicko,” I croaked.

  “See, she can talk. If she was really choking, she wouldn’t be able to speak,” she said.

  I massaged my throat.

  My mother entered the fellowship hall, free of her robe and stole. As she passed, she shot a pointed look at my neck. No doubt, she had already heard about my near-death experience by oversized pastry. My father wheeled in after her and winked. A church elder accosted him, lamenting the pinched building fund.

  Carmen grabbed my arm. “How’s Mark?”

  “How would I know?” I said warily. Somehow, I had irritated Carmen. Again. I decided to try an evasive maneuver. “You know the detective handling Olivia’s case turns out to be your old boyfriend Ricky Mains.”

  That got her attention. “Ricky? Really? Does he still have that awful laugh?” Carmen shuddered.

  “Yeah, he does. Anyway—”

  “I ha
ven’t seen him in a couple of years. How does he look? Did he get fat or anything?”

  Nicholas squinted at his mother.

  “No, he’s neither fat nor deformed,” I said.

  Carmen looked disappointed. “He was my last boyfriend before Chip.”

  “I remember.”

  Carmen looked down at her stomach and sighed. “He had nice hair, really dark and smooth. Is he balding?” She sounded hopeful.

  “Nope.” Church members turned their heads. I glanced around the room. “I think you’re right; we have good reason to worry about Mark. Your old boyfriend told me that there were bruises on Olivia’s back. Looks like she was pushed into the fountain.”

  Carmen gasped. “I thought it was an accident.”

  “It doesn’t look that way anymore.”

  The room thinned as churchgoers snatched the last of the donuts. I watched the donuts disappear with deep-seated remorse. One was never enough.

  Carmen held a protective hand to her belly. “Do you think—could Mark have anything to do with . . .”

  I looked directly into my sister’s eyes in surprise. “Do you think so?”

  She bit her lip.

  Nicholas tugged on his mother’s skirt. “Dad says it’s time to go. The baseball game is about to start.”

  Carmen’s brow smoothed. “Okay, tell Daddy I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Nicholas wove through the remaining parishioners.

  “Mark wouldn’t hurt anyone, Carmen. You know that. He can’t kill a honeybee.”

  “I know. You’re right.” She paused. “But he was behaving strangely yesterday.”

  “Give the guy a break. He just found out that Olivia was getting married and had been seriously hurt within the space of a few hours. Carmen, I know that Mark didn’t do it. And if you don’t know the same, you don’t know your brother.”

  The kitchen ladies, cleaning up the last of the donut crumbs, glanced at us in surprise, their ears on high alert.

  “Keep your voice down.” Carmen said. “What does Ricky think about all this? Did you ask him?”

  “Carmen, would you forget about Ricky Mains?”

  Carmen had the decency to flush. “Chip and Nicholas are waiting.” She fled the room.