Maid of Murder aihm-1 Read online

I turned my back to the kitchen ladies and took three deep breaths. My parents chatted with a young couple. I rudely interrupted and asked Dad if I could talk to him for a minute. Happy for the chance to escape his pastor’s husband obligations, he followed me into the hallway.

  Without preamble, I asked, “Where’s Mark?”

  “Mark went back to his apartment last night. He needed space. He’ll be fine, India. And so will Olivia. Don’t fret.”

  My father was so certain.

  After church, I dropped Ina at a chain restaurant with a group of blue-haired church ladies for Sunday brunch before heading home. When I saw Mains’s dark sedan parked obstinately in front of the duplex, I knew it wasn’t good news.

  Chapter Twelve

  Mains stepped out of the automobile when I slammed my car door. Without salutation, I marched across the lawn. He leaned against the passenger side door and waited.

  I kicked the right rear tire of his car lightly. “Nice car.”

  Mains was subdued. “I’d like to speak with you for a few minutes, Miss Hayes.”

  “I really don’t think I have time today, Detective Mains, but thank you for asking.”

  “It’s important.”

  “No doubt,” I said. I stumbled over one of Ina’s leprechauns as I made my way toward the duplex.

  “Olivia Blocken is dead.”

  I whipped around. His statement had sucked out a piece of my lungs, leaving a gaping hole in its place.

  “She died earlier this morning. She never woke up from the surgery. She was brain-dead before the end of the operation. Her family decided to remove life support.”

  I forced my brain to process his words. Dead? Brain-dead? Life support? His lips continued to move, but the sound didn’t reach my ears. My breath shortened.

  “I think we should go inside to discuss this,” Mains said.

  “We will not go inside. I don’t want you in my house again.” I managed to lower my volume by a half decibel. “Now, tell me why I wasn’t told of Olivia’s condition yesterday. You were here, why didn’t you tell me then?”

  Mains removed his mirrored sunglasses and placed them in his shirt pocket. “I wasn’t aware of it until after I saw you.” He held up his palm. “And—”

  “They didn’t want me to know, did they?”

  He nodded.

  As I suspected, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. The hole in my chest grew larger and threatened to swallow me piece by piece. It would start with the heart and work outward. Suddenly, all the anger I projected onto Mains dissipated into the white-hot atmosphere, and I was exceptionally tired. I bumped into yet another leprechaun, and it fell face down in the grass. My lack of sleep was catching up to me. Mains held up his arm, as if to catch me. I wouldn’t allow it and waved him away.

  “Is there anything I can do for you, Miss Hayes?” His cop-look was gone, replaced with an expression of concern.

  “You can stop calling me Miss Hayes,” I muttered as I bent down, ostensibly to right the leprechaun, but really to hide my face.

  “I can do that, India.”

  I nodded, then turned and walked toward the house.

  Mains moved from the sedan and followed me. “I’m sorry. I have to ask one more thing.”

  I stopped but didn’t turn around. The grass needed mowing and impatiens watering.

  “Do you know where your brother is?”

  I forgot the lawn and garden. I turned to face him. “He doesn’t know?”

  He removed his sunglasses from his shirt pocket and restored them over his eyes. “He knows, I’m afraid. Mrs. Blocken called his apartment about nine-thirty this morning and told him the news.”

  That jolted me. “Oh, no.”

  Mains nodded.

  Looking up the quiet street, I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my palms, pushing my glasses far up into my hair. The frames scratched my forehead. “Have you spoken to him since then?”

  “That’s the problem. We can’t find him. He wasn’t at his apartment or his office at Martin. We tried your parents’ house as well. Is there anywhere else he might have gone?”

  The anger that abandoned me earlier reignited. “Do you want to know so you can help him or to arrest him?”

  Mains’s expression altered from concern to frustration. “No one is arresting anyone. Yet.”

  “I have no idea where he is.”

  Mains handed me one of his business cards, the third he had given me in the last twenty-four hours. Was the accident really only yesterday? I wondered.

  “If you see your brother, call me, or ask him to do so.”

  I dropped the card into my shoulder bag along with the other two that languished there.

  “As of right now, this is a homicide investigation.” With that, he was gone.

  My key wouldn’t fit; it repeatedly missed the lock in the brass doorknob. I kicked the wooden door with my flip-flopped foot. Pain shot through my toe and up my ankle. A black scuffmark marred the door’s paint. I held one shaking hand with my other and forced the key into the lock. I dumped my keys and shoulder bag on the hardwood floor just inside the doorway. I shut, locked, and bolted the door. Hobbling to the kitchen-cubby, I opened the freezer and grabbed an ice pack. On the living room couch, I elevated my foot with the blue-gelled ice pack.

  I wrapped the remainder of my body in the orange bed sheet. Silky black fur clung to the bright cotton. Head under the light sheet, I felt entombed, distanced, but not completely safe from the terrifying world on the other side of the cotton. The bright summer sun dripped through the kitchen window and penetrated the cloth. My pale skin gleamed in the hot ocher light. The determined sunrays fought through my clenched eyelids, and the shadows alternated red hot and bright black. Second by second my foot released hold of its pain.

  I felt Templeton’s body alight on the back of the couch. Walking the sofa’s length, he butted my shrouded head with his own. My acute memory replayed every slight, every remark, every hurtfully cruel word or deed I had ever committed against Olivia, a lifetime’s worth, until she was the princess and I was the mustachioed villain.

  And then I thought about Mark.

  I threw off the sheet and catapulted up. Templeton flew across the room, his expression astonished. I ran into my bedroom and changed into a T-shirt and long men’s shorts with a few flecks of indigo paint on the right hemline. In the bathroom, I washed my face, damp with tears I could not recall. After scooping my heavy hair into a tight knot, I scooped up my keys and shoulder bag and ran out the door.

  As I turned the car off quiet Calvin Road, Ina and her blue-haired friend Juliet careened onto the street in Juliet’s vintage compact automobile. Ina waved wildly. I didn’t wave back.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mark’s apartment was in a low-rent district just inside Akron’s city limits. A few miles from downtown and the state university, the apartment complex was a haven for financially strapped college students. Martin students, courtesy of their parents, lived in the nicer buildings found in Akron’s compacted suburbs such as Stow, Tallmadge, or Stripling. Mark moved into the apartments as a Martin undergrad, wanting to pay his own way and choosing all that he could afford. Even as his educational and financial levels rose, he never mentioned moving. The apartment complex was a tight cluster of wood-sided structures, maybe twenty in all. Each building held nine apartment units on three floors. My brother’s building sat in the middle of the complex, next to the swimming pool.

  When I parked my car in front of Mark’s building, pulsating rap music from poolside shook the windows. On this hot summer day, the pool crawled with late teens and early twenty-somethings. The high-pitched chatter from the female sunbathers competed with the rap in volume and pitch. A mid-summer sheen of suntan lotion and dirt glazed the improbably blue water’s surface.

  Mark’s apartment was on the first floor. I knocked, scraping my knuckles on the coarse wood. After several minutes, hearing nothing from inside, I used my key. The door opened into
a small great room that functioned as his living and dining space. The back wall consisted of his kitchen, not much bigger than my own. The apartment was a sty. Papers, books, clothes, aluminum cans, and plastic wrappers littered the floor and furniture.

  Even on such a beautiful day, the shades were tightly drawn. I turned on a light. I called his name, but I knew that he wasn’t there. Out of habit, I picked some of the junk off the floor and tossed the cans into the recycling bin. I leafed through a pile of mail that I found by the front door. It was postdated the previous year. I dropped it on the ground—if he wanted to live like a slob that was his choice to make. I snooped through his papers on the kitchen counter to see if I could discover where he had gone, but they bordered prehistoric.

  An enormous thud sounded in the bedroom. I yelped. The tip of Theodore’s tail flicked over the kitchen counter.

  “Hey, Theo.” I patted his head. He squeaked at me and pointedly glared at his empty food dish. I rummaged around the kitchen for cat food and placed a handful in his bowl. His expression plainly said, “More.” Feeling sorrier for Mark than Theodore, I placed two more handfuls in the dish. I hoped animal rights groups wouldn’t picket me for contributing to feline obesity. I asked Theodore where Mark was, but his face was too deeply ensconced in his turkey-flavored cat food to reply.

  Before leaving, I scanned my brother’s bedroom—surprisingly clean—and the small bathroom—which decidedly wasn’t. I found Theodore’s leash draped over the secondhand sofa. I wrestled him into his harness and clipped on the leash. I couldn’t bear to leave him in Mark’s drab apartment alone. I scribbled a note to Mark telling him where Theodore was should he come home. Using the lead, I tugged the cat away from the bowl. His thick pads flattened out to the kitchen floor, and his nails dug into the brown linoleum. I tugged again. He didn’t budge nor miss a beat in his chewing tempo. I hefted the great cat into my arms. He yowled and hissed. I picked up the half-empty dish, holding it to his mouth so he could eat, and carried the cat and meal out of Mark’s apartment.

  A couple tankini-clad girls watched me manhandle Theodore into my car. They looked about eighteen and were the walking poster children for the benefits of tanning beds. The sportier of the two wore a silky pageboy haircut; the other had long, blond locks.

  “Man, that’s a big cat,” Pageboy called out.

  I pushed flyaway hair out of my face and readjusted my glasses. “He’s a Maine Coon cat. They’re generally a big breed, but he might be a little too big.”

  I slammed the door before Theodore could escape, not that I thought he’d move as long as he was in the vicinity of a well-stocked food source.

  Blond Locks smoothed her swimsuit over her flat stomach. “You shouldn’t let your cat get that big, you know.”

  I mentally snorted, no one lets Theodore do anything.

  “The cat’s not hers,” Pageboy said.

  Before they could accuse me of cat-napping, I said, “He’s my brother’s cat.”

  “You’re Mark’s sister?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I said.

  She snapped her gum. “We live next door to him. I’m Brit. This is Karen.”

  “I’m India. Have you seen Mark today?”

  Brit and Karen consulted each other with a look.

  Apparently spokesperson for the duo, Brit said, “Saw him this morning, when we were heading to the pool at about ten.”

  Karen nodded in agreement.

  “He was acting really weird,” Brit added.

  I stepped closer to the aluminum fence. “Weird?”

  “Yeah, like he was crying really hard, and when we asked him if he was okay, he didn’t even look at us.”

  My shoulder began to throb as it always does when I’m upset. “So he didn’t say where he was going or anything?”

  “Naw,” Brit said and wrapped a bright towel around her waist. “But after he left, this older guy pulled up and banged on his door. Me and Karen were talking to Kev at the time, he’s, like—well, we’re kinda dating or will be. The only reason I noticed is because this old guy showed up with a couple of cops. Kev, he’s going to the police academy after he graduates; he said it was, like, a takedown.”

  Mains and reinforcements.

  Karen finally spoke up. “Is Mark in trouble?” Her eyes sparkled hopefully.

  “No,” I said. “Best of luck with Kev, Brit.”

  After rolling down the windows in my car for Theodore, I hurried back into Mark’s apartment.

  Certainly, my brother wouldn’t be so distraught that he’d—of course not. I yanked his portal phone from the kitchen wall where it hung next to a three-year-old calendar. I dialed my parents’ number. No one answered, and the machine picked up. I didn’t leave a message. My parents were having Sunday lunch at some parishioner’s home or trapped into some type of meeting with the church elders. I contemplated calling the church office but thought better of it.

  I tapped the portable phone into the palm of my right hand. Where could he have gone? Then, it hit me. No, he couldn’t be that stupid, I thought.

  But then again, I knew he could.

  Chapter Fourteen

  For the second time that weekend, I directed my car down my childhood street. Several homeowners along its length were mowing their lawns or gardening through the oppressive afternoon heat. The Blocken house remained rooted and stone silent. Several cars speckled its long driveway. The blinds and curtains at every window were sealed tight. I discreetly passed the house, searching for my brother’s car.

  Childishly, I directed my eyes forward as I rolled beyond the Blocken home, believing that if I couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see me. I drove the street’s length, and I didn’t see Mark’s car or any other sign of him. I exhaled with relief and guilt. How could I think that he would have come here? Oh, me of little faith. Maybe Mark was smarter than I gave him credit for, I thought. I looped around the block for a second pass—just to be sure—and headed home.

  I parked the car in my driveway and sprinted into the apartment, while awkwardly managing Theodore and his now-empty food dish, before Ina could burst out of her unit and harangue me with questions. Slamming the door, I bolted it behind me. I dropped the cat. He landed with a resounding thud.

  Templeton hissed and arched his back at the intruder. The two felines knew each other socially, but weren’t best pals. Theodore stomped across the room to examine Templeton, who jumped off of the couch and dashed out of the room faster than the speed of sound, no doubt to stew under my bed while contemplating the most inconvenient place to deposit a hairball in revenge. Theodore leapt onto the couch and settled into Templeton’s favorite spot. I showed Theodore where the litter box was in the tiny utility room.

  “Use it, or you’ll make a very nice fur collar,” I told him.

  For the first time in days, I entered my studio. My shoulders sagged. I hadn’t painted in weeks. It was so easy to simply accept mediocre failure in place of lifelong ambition. I mentally excused myself, considering the circumstances of late, but my guilty conscience would not forgive me.

  The studio was a small second bedroom that I had converted into an art den when I had rented the apartment. The flooring was slab-cement stained with acrylics, paint thinner, and every other possible substance a painter can spill, drop, or knock over while at work. Ina, upon hearing that I was a painter, allowed me to remove the carpet under a three-finger Girl Scout swear that I would replace it if and when I moved out. The room contained one window flanked on either side by metal shelves holding all the essential trappings of a painter’s arsenal: brushes, blank canvases, pigments, and remnants of rejected works. My easel faced away from the door and dominated the middle of the room. Across from the easel sat a decrepit sofa I’d salvaged from a Martin dorm and splattered with every shade of oil paint in the rainbow.

  On the colored cushions, someone lay prostrate.

  Startled, I cried out. The other person released an equally girlish squeak.

  Mark.
r />   “What are you doing here?” I gasped.

  He clutched a throw pillow to his chest. “I was looking for you. You weren’t here, so I let myself in.”

  “What are you doing in this room?” I demanded, to cover up my relief at finding him.

  “I was looking for you, and then, I saw . . .” He gestured to my easel, which held a nearly complete twelve by fourteen portrait of a young girl. The girl was about ten, had cropped brown hair, startling blue eyes, and small features. She wore a bright T-shirt and ratty jean shorts. She perched on the edge of the front steps that led into her home. Her knees touched, and she hinged forward at the waist. The gaze held intensity and concealed amusement.

  Olivia. A forgotten wedding gift.

  “I haven’t slept in two days, but I was able to sleep here.” He stared at the painting and avoided my eyes. He laughed mirthlessly, bitterly. “She’s dead. Her mother called me this morning. She accused me of killing her. Is that what you think?”

  I froze in the studio doorway. “Of course, I don’t think that.” Like Mark, I avoided using Olivia’s name. “Mrs. Blocken’s searching for a scapegoat. No one could seriously think you’d hurt anyone.” My conversation with Mains that morning came to mind, but I pushed it away. He might suspect Mark, but he didn’t know my brother.

  Mark nodded, staring at his feet. Then he started to cry, powerful sobs that shook his entire body. I remained frozen, again wishing my more compassionate and maternal sister was with me. Something soft grazed my leg. Theodore. He walked across the room and crawled into Mark’s lap. Mark clung to the cat and wept into his thick fur. The cat purred in reply. Mark didn’t question the cat’s presence.

  After several tense minutes in which Mark wept, Theodore comforted, and I idled, Mark wiped his face on the pillow that would never be quite the same. With his mission accomplished, Theodore deserted his master.

  “Is there anything I can get you?” I asked.

  He ignored the question. “I can’t even believe it, you know. Can you?”