Maid of Murder (An India Hayes Mystery)

by Amanda Flower

  “I’ll wash Archie’s things down real good for the fella.” Glumly, she added, “They’ve been collecting dust for so long.”

  “I better check on Templeton.” I hurried into my apartment. I shut and locked the door behind me. For whatever that was worth. Ina had a key.

  Tufts of black and gray cat fur littered the living room and kitchen. I followed the line of fur puffs down the short hall into my bedroom, where the real battle had raged. Fur covered the bed and the fitted sheet had innumerable tears. My laziness had paid off. If I had made my bed that morning, the cats would have shredded my grandmother’s quilt.

  Templeton slept in a tight ball in the middle of the bed. The slumber of the triumphant. I sat on the bed next to him, and he opened one yellow eye. A tuft of gray fur hung from his mouth.

  After checking the cat over for injuries and finding none, I carried him to the kitchen where I presented him with a peace offering in the form of a can of tuna.

  Even with the unwelcome distraction of Feline D-Day, I couldn’t chase the image of Mrs. Blocken and the vase of flowers from my mind. I had to think of a better plan of attack to find the origin of that photograph. Only I, and now Mark, knew that I’d stolen the photo from his office. If I continued to ask about it, suspicions would rise. Even O.M. had asked me why I wanted to know if they’d misplaced any photos of Olivia. I could easily imagine what her mother would say. I would have to be subtle. I laughed in spite of myself. My parents had not set any example in subtlety.

  A tap on the door knocked me out of my reverie. Ina. Theodore was draped over her right shoulder, covering her entire torso.

  “Why is the door locked?” she asked.

  “I didn’t want Templeton to get out and wreak havoc in the neighborhood.”

  Ina ignored the transparent lie. “In all the excitement, I forgot to tell you that that filthy Englishman stopped by earlier.”

  “Filthy Englishman?”

  “That detective fellow.”

  “Detective Mains?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.” Ina adjusted Theodore higher on her shoulder.

  “What did he want?”

  Ina thought for a minute. “Let me see,” she paused. “He showed up when I was breaking Fella and Templeton apart. I’d left the door open, and he waltzed right in. Isn’t that like the English, always invading something?”

  “What did he want?” I repeated before she could travel too far off track.

  “I’m getting to that,” she said. “Of course, I’d remember better if Fella and I had a place to sit.”

  Mutely, I let her in. She sat on the edge of the velvet sofa and placed Fella, aka, Theodore, next to her. In my peripheral vision, I watched Templeton streak to my bedroom. I wanted to tell her to get on with it, but Ina does everything according to her own sense of timing, so I waited.

  “He asked if you were home, and I said no. Then, he asked if I knew where you were, and I said that you do not consult me concerning your schedule.” She bestowed me with a look.

  “Is that all? Did he say why he wanted to see me?”

  “No, he didn’t. Normally, I would have asked, but I was so worried about Fella here, I didn’t. I thought Fella was a goner, for sure. But you’re made of stronger stuff; aren’t you, boy?”

  The cat purred agreement.

  “Thank you for telling me, Ina, but I have to be off again . . .” Ina cocked her head at me, not picking up on the obvious hint.

  “I don’t think that Templeton and Theodore should be together for a while, so if you could take Theodore back to your apartment, I’d really appreciate it.”

  “I see your point.” She rose and hefted Theodore back onto her shoulder. “Where are you off to, in case you get any more surprise visitors?”

  I ushered the two to the door. “Tell them, I’m at the dentist.”

  If Mains was looking for me, I knew I needed to find out about the engagement picture fast before he figured it out. Dr. Blocken was the next obvious person to talk to, and I was betting that he was at his office. When Olivia and I were kids, that’s where he’d always gone after a fight with his wife. I just hoped that he’d talk to me.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Dr. Blocken’s dentist office angled onto the square, a circle of manicured grass and centennial sycamores surrounded by pavement and flat-faced store fronts. The Presbyterian and Lutheran churches indicated east and west, respectively. The square’s real estate is a coveted commodity in Stripling and parking on the square even more so. However, at one-thirty on a summer weekday afternoon, I easily found a space two buildings down from Dr. Blocken’s office, which butted hips with a beauty parlor on the right and a CPA on the left. A tanning salon leased the second floor of his building. Meticulously renovated with Western Reserve airs, the building shone as if it existed at the turn of the twentieth century. A large white wooden tooth declared Dr. Donald Blocken D.D.S. over the main entrance.

  A woman smoking a filter cigarette stood under the tooth. Blond, burly, and busty in office casual dress, her head appeared to sit directly on her bosom like a basketball on a lopsided shelf.

  The basketball rolled left to right as I approached the door. “Closed.” She took a long drag from her cigarette and added, “Family emergency.”

  I felt my shoulders droop.

  “If you have some type of dental emergency, all of Dr. B’s patients are being referred to Dr. Keller over on Darcy Avenue.” She spoke with rapid-fire precision like a woman too busy to relish her words. “We don’t take walk-ins anyway. You didn’t have an appointment, did you?”

  I shook my head.

  “I didn’t think so. I would’ve known.”

  “I’m a friend of the Blocken family and was wondering if I could speak to Dr. Blocken on a non-dental matter.”

  She picked stray bits of tobacco ash off her tongue. “You’re not a reporter, are you?”

  “No.”

  “There was one from the Dispatch here earlier today, salivating at the doorstep. If you are a friend of the Blocken family, you certainly know why.”

  “Olivia.”

  She nodded. She looked me up and down, starting at the crown of my head and stopping at the tip of my toes. “What happened to your toe?”

  “Cooler fell on it.”

  She grunted. “Dr. Blocken’s here. What did you say your name was?”

  “I didn’t. I’m India.” I omitted my last name.

  She followed suit. “Nance. I’m Dr. B’s office manager.” She held out her hand. I shook it.

  She dropped her cigarette on the walk and crushed it with her flat foot. “Wait here while I tell him.” Nance dug a key out of her hip pocket and unlocked the office door, shutting it behind her. For the next ten minutes, I witnessed downtown Stripling loll through the long July afternoon. A handful of pedestrians shuffled by, and the garden club, grouped on a nearby corner, argued over the cause of the drooping petunias fringing the edges of the square. Some members decried too much water; others claimed not enough.

  The door opened, and Nance peeked out. “He’ll see you.”

  She led me through a mauve and walnut waiting room and past sterile, white-blue examination rooms to an inner sanctum. Dr. Blocken’s office was much like his home, expensive, tasteful, with artfully-selected décor: conspicuously manly, dark, and intimidating.

  Dr. Blocken hunkered at an expansive mahogany desk. My parents would suspect that the wood was stripped from a virgin African forest. The desktop was clear of files, papers, and all the other usual office trappings. Its only decorations were a green-hooded desk lamp, a telephone, and a broken plaster mold of a painful-looking underbite.

  Nance’s eyes boggled when she saw the broken mold.

  Dr. Blocken looked apologetic. “I dropped Nella Perkins.”

  Nance bustled out of the room and returned a minute later with a dustpan and small dust brush.

  “Nance,” Dr. Blocken said. “Schedule an appointment with Mrs. Perkins to crea
te a new mold. Sometime next week. Inform her that the visit will be free of charge.”

  “Of all the molds to drop. The old bat. She’s a gagger. The last time I fitted her for a mold she spit the compound into my eye. On purpose too.” Nance brushed the last of the mold dust into her pan and marched out of the room.

  With Nance and what was left of Nella Perkins’s underbite gone, he invited me to sit. I chose one of the two armchairs flanking the desk. The buttery leather would give my father heart palpitations. The chair nearly swallowed me.

  Dr. Blocken, resembling a bear with a particularly tricky pinecone, fumbled with a pen in his hands with ragged fingernails, and I could imagine how the mold had ended up in pieces.

  I placed my bag on my lap, using it as a shield. “Thanks for seeing me.”

  “Seeing you reminds me of Olivia as a little girl. Back then, it was hard to see one of you without the other,” he said.

  I shifted, trying to think how to start. I was facing a broken man who just lost his daughter. My own losses in life were so much smaller by comparison. I didn’t know what to say. How does anyone know what to say at times like these?

  I took a deep breath and tried my best. “I’m very sorry for your loss. I want you to know that. Olivia was a good friend, and I’ll miss her.”

  “Thank you.” He turned the pen over and over in his hands. His reading glasses slipped further down his nose. He removed them and tossed them onto the desk. They skittered across the glossy surface and came to rest next to the phone. He laughed. “I haven’t cried. Do you think that’s wrong?”

  I folded and unfolded my hands in my lap. “We are all still in shock.” After a pause, “Have arrangements been made for the funeral?”

  He laughed, hollow and short. “My wife’s taking care of all of that, just like the wedding. I don’t know anything about it. I only know the place and time.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Tomorrow. Afternoon. At the Lutheran church. It should be quite a production. Regina will get her event of the season after all.” His tone was bitter. “Everything will be picture perfect for the funeral and the wake afterwards. She was nearly hysterical this morning because she couldn’t find the engagement picture that she’d ordered.”

  My pulse quickened. “Engagement picture?” My voice sounded impossibly high. I hoped that Dr. Blocken would not notice.

  “A framed copy of Olivia and Kirk that she’d planned to put by the guest book at their wedding reception. She wanted to report it missing to the police, even though I said it was nonsense to bother them with things like that. Of course, things will be misplaced at a time like this.”

  “The police?” My heart skipped a beat.

  “She’s convinced the missing picture has something to do with Olivia’s death. She thinks everything has something to do with . . . the murder.” He clutched the pen tightly in his hands as if brandishing a knife.

  “Maybe Kirk has it,” I said, hoping to throw suspicion somewhere else. In my mind, I apologized to Kirk.

  “Kirk? Regina already asked him. He denies taking it.”

  “When did Mrs. Blocken talk to him about it?”

  “Yesterday. Our meeting was not a pleasant experience. Olivia never picked a man worth his salt.”

  I ignored the implied slur against my brother, knowing that he hadn’t been thinking about Mark—at least not at that moment.

  “Kirk’s successful,” I excused. “He owns a pretty successful business.”

  “Don’t defend him. If he was so wonderful, he wouldn’t be causing problems over where Olivia’s buried. She wasn’t married yet; it’s our right to decide what she’d want.”

  There was no way to ease into my next question, so I just asked. “What about Olivia’s car?”

  He blinked at me. “Why would we bury her car?”

  “No, I mean, didn’t she have some type of car to get around Stripling while she was here?”

  “Why do you want to know that?”

  “I’m wondering how she planned to get around town while she was here. I’m sure there were a lot of last-minute errands for the wedding.”

  “She and Kirk flew from Virginia, and we picked them up at the airport. She could’ve borrowed one of our cars if she needed one.”

  “Do you know where Kirk is staying?”

  “The Cookery Inn. I’m sure it’s costing me a fortune.”

  I wasn’t surprised that Kirk was staying at the Cookery. It was the best hotel in Stripling and not far from the square and the Lutheran church where the wedding was to have been held. It was also the place where Mrs. Blocken had been planning to hold Olivia’s lavish reception.

  Dr. Blocken’s eyes narrowed. “Why? Are you looking for him?”

  “I just wanted to give him my condolences. I’m sure he must be devastated.”

  Dr. Blocken snorted. “I hope you didn’t come here to petition on his behalf.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Good. In fact, I’m glad you came here. You’re the only one who can convince Mark to turn himself in. You have to do that, and if your friendship with Olivia meant anything to you, you will. You can spare all of us, my family and yours, the grief of a long, drawn-out trial.”

  I bit the inside of my lip, thwarting a smart-mouthed retort. “Dr. Blocken, I know that my brother is innocent. He never would have hurt Olivia.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that. I was hoping that you’d listen to reason. Your brother was angry, upset. Maybe was an accident, but it happened. We both know how he was about Olivia. The thought of her upcoming marriage made him snap . . .”

  I shook my head, unable to speak, hoping that my head shake was enough.

  “I see that you are wearing blinders where your brother is concerned. You always have.” He hit the intercom on his phone. “Nance, can you show India out?”

  I stood. “I am truly sorry about Olivia, but my brother is innocent.”

  Dr. Blocken looked away from me, out the window that gave him a scenic view of the square. A tear slid down from the corner of his eye.

  My heart broke for him, and tsking about Nella the Gagger the whole way, Nance led me to the door.

  Hurrying to the car, I planned to unlock my trunk. I pushed the carpet back and exposed the tire well.

  “India,” someone called.

  My head connected with the trunk’s lid.

  Ann Barnard, my mother’s long-time secretary, ran toward me from across the square. Her tight brown poodle curls and wide hips bounced in tandem with her awkward stride. “Thank goodness I caught you.”

  “What’s wrong?” I slammed the trunk shut.

  She doubled over, hands pressed to her knees. She gasped, “The reverend called and said if I heard from you, I should tell you—and, while I’m on the phone, I spotted you, standing right across the street, plain as day.” She took three more gulps of air.

  I held her shoulder. “Tell me what?”

  “Mark,” she gasped. “He’s been arrested.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I fished a water bottle out of my car and instructed Ann to drink. She chugged the twenty ounces like a salty seaman. After some coaxing, I convinced Ann to follow me back to the church. I was afraid she would pass out from the heat.

  When we entered the church office, Ann moaned when she saw the flashing red light on the answering machine and sank onto a small loveseat in the corner of the room.

  The church office was a testament to Ann’s abilities. Or lack thereof. Piles of office paper and old service bulletins indicated the location of her desk. The telephone tipped precariously atop the mound of files and memos; all incoming lines had lit up.

  She held the water bottle in a viselike grip; the plastic crackled in her grasp. “I can’t take it anymore. I love your mother, you know that. She saved me and my family, but I can’t take it anymore. Not one more thing. Not one more thing,” she mumbled to herself. “I know she cares, but I can’t work under these condit
ions. Not without her here to help me.”

  I put my hands in the hip pockets of my shorts before the urge to slap her overtook me.

  “I’ll resign today.” She sniffled.

  I watched without feeling any sympathy. On average, Ann vowed to resign twice a month. I knew the routine. My mother would console her, and Ann would agree to stay a little while longer.

  I took three giant steps away from the loveseat, putting myself out of smacking range. I wasn’t in a mood to be gentle. “Tell me what she said about Mark.”

  She rocked in her seat and tapped the empty bottle on the side of her head.

  “Ann,” I said sharply.

  She jumped.

  “Tell me,” I said, trying to mimic the voice of God—or at least that of my mother.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Here I am, worrying about myself, and your poor brother’s in trouble. I’m a horrible person. I’ll resign today.”

  I knelt down in front of her, shooting for the compassionate deity. “You’re not a bad person. Please, tell me what my mother said.”

  She blew her nose. “Mark was arrested at the Reverend’s house about an hour ago. A neighbor saw the arrest and called your father’s cell phone.”

  “Where are my parents, do you know?”

  “At the Justice Center. Protesting. Reporters have been calling left, right, and front. I’m sure they’ll be mobbing me here any moment.”

  “Is that all she said?”

  “I should have asked more questions. I’m horrible. I should’ve asked.”

  I was losing her again. “Ann, listen to me, I’ll have Saul drive you home. You can have the rest of the day off.”

  “But the Reverend!”

  “I promise you, my mother won’t mind. You’ve had a rough day. Will your daughter be home?”

  “I think so.”

  I stood up. “I’ll be right back.”

  I found Saul Mellon, janitor, in the sanctuary dusting the pew seats. With headphones on his ears, he jived down the aisle.

  Before Ann and Saul left, I called Ann’s daughter to make sure someone was there to monitor Ann and administer the correct dosage of antidepressants.