Ink, Red, Dead (A Kiki Lowenstein Scrap-N-Craft Mystery)

by Slan, Joanna Campbell

  Watching a field hockey game was last on my list of fun activities in the best of times. I mean, I love seeing my daughter enjoy herself, but I’m not a sports fan. I never know when to cheer, so I try to sit with other CALA parents and follow what they do.

  Further torture came in the form of seeing Detweiler, and knowing I needed to keep my distance from him. He was working part-time as a security guard for CALA, the Charles and Anne Lindbergh Academy, the swanky private school that my daughter attended on my mother-in-law’s dime.

  See, his wife Brenda Detweiler has her spies, whenever they report seeing the two of us at the same place or at the same event, Brenda retaliates in a nasty way. Once I found my mailbox filled with human excrement. Another time, all the air was let out of my tires. Recently my car was egged (what a waste—I was all out of eggs and would have gladly eaten them!), and my windows were soaped while I was in a local library teaching a class. Detweiler suffers, too, but he doesn’t tell me about these incidents. I learn of them from Hadcho, who shakes his head wearily and says, “That woman has always been trouble. Now she’s trouble on drugs, so she’s totally irrational. She’s gone right over the edge.”

  Anya wasn’t the strongest girl on her team or the toughest. However, in a mad scramble I didn’t understand, she scored the winning point for her team. Detweiler had been standing ten feet from me when it happened—and he raced to my side, grabbed me and gave me a spontaneous hug.

  The other parents were cheering, but a few of them nudged each other and pointed at us. I tried not to worry about it, but I did.

  Detweiler set me down, turned toward the field where the team was congratulating Anya, and yelled, “Woohoo! Way to go, Anya!”

  A grin split her face from ear to ear.

  I sighed. Detweiler was filling a hole in her heart and mine. I wasn’t sure I could feel happy about that. Not yet at least.

  We walked toward the car, the three of us. A woman bumped me hard with her shoulder and hissed, “Slut.” The impact caused me to stumble. Detweiler had been talking with Anya and his hand shot out to steady me.

  “Rock,” I said. “No biggie.”

  I chose to ignore the cruel commentary on my character, or lack thereof, but I couldn’t ignore the sick feeling in my gut. When Detweiler asked if he and Hadcho could borrow my kitchen table for a couple of hours, I quickly said, “Sure,” because I was happy to have them around. My place was mid-way between both of their homes, and the idea of company helped wash away the sick feeling that stuck to me like a wet woolen blanket.

  First we drove to Ted Drewes for a celebratory round of frozen custard. Hadcho joined us there. I had my customary Terramizzou, and Anya ordered a “Dottie,” named for Mrs. Drewes, and a mix of chocolate, mint and macadamia nuts. The guys ordered a Strawberry Shortcake (Hadcho) and a Southern Delight of praline pieces and butterscotch (Detweiler). Leaning against our vehicles, we stood in the busy parking lot, under the street lights, and enjoyed our treats.

  I led the way to my house, driving ahead through dark city streets in my old and battered BMW convertible. Anya was thrilled to have scored the winning point, so she chatted non-stop. Usually we referred to her participation in sports as “character building,” because her teams lost so often. This was a refreshing change for us.

  It was unusual for me not to have a dog in the car. Rebekkah had kindly offered to stop by my house and let out Gracie and Petunia, when she dropped off Martin. Since I was putting in a full day at Marla’s Mess (my unkind name for the Lever house) that sounded fine to me. I harbored the sneaking suspicion this good deed was Rebekkah’s way of apologizing for being such a pill to work with.

  As I pulled into my carport, I noticed she’d left the porch lights on. I made a mental note to thank her effusively for being so thoughtful.

  That thought didn’t last long because Gracie galloped up out of the darkness to greet me.

  “What? You aren’t supposed to be running around,” I said as Petunia raced up beside Gracie. I said a few bad words under my breath.

  “Anya? Grab Petunia. I’ve got Gracie.”

  “Mom? What are they doing running around? They could have gotten hit by cars or stolen.”

  “I know, I know.”

  Detweiler trotted over from his parking space on the street. “What happened here?”

  “Beats me. Rebekkah offered to take care of the animals,” I said. “She and I will have a talk tomorrow.”

  He took Gracie by the collar, and since she loves him best of all the humans on earth, she happily pranced alongside of him, looking very, very pleased with herself that she nabbed the tall guy. Hadcho fell into step with us and reached the backdoor first. He grabbed the knob and it turned easily in his hand. “You know the drill. If the door is open—”

  “You can’t walk in. Someone might have broken into the house,” finished Anya.

  “Good girl,” said Detweiler.

  “Unless of course, you are with two cops.” Anya grinned.

  “Even then. You all wait here. I’ll check and clear the house,” said Hadcho.

  I stood there on my back step and tried not to feel grumpy. The temperature dropped with the sun. I was tired and worn out and I wanted nothing more than a nice hot bath. Instead, I waited. When Hadcho didn’t show up right away, Detweiler handed Gracie over to me. “Stay here.”

  He disappeared into my house.

  “This is silly.” Anya leaned against the side of our house, which was a converted garage on the grounds of Leighton Haversham’s large Webster Groves estate. Really, Leighton’d done a wonderful job of remodeling the place. At the time, he planned to use “my” house as a writing studio, but after a few abortive attempts to write here, he decided to remodel his attic instead. “I know, I know. It seems foolish, but I only have one window in the attic, so my imagination supplies the scenery and that works best for me and my work.”

  I reviewed all this in my head, as I shivered and waited. Detweiler stepped out the back door. “You need to get back in your car and go to Sheila’s house.”

  “Why?” I really, really did not want to put up with my mother-in-law tonight.

  “Trust me?” His eyes told me not to ask anything more.

  “Martin—and Seymour?” I could scarcely get the words out.

  “I’ll find them.”

  I nodded and took Anya by her free hand. We had started for the cars when Detweiler called to me, “I’ll be by later.”

  Chapter 23

  All the way to Sheila’s house, Anya cried. She was sure something awful had happened to Seymour and to Martin.

  I was, too.

  Sheila wasn’t home. She and Police Chief Robbie Holmes had gone to see an artsy-fartsy foreign film over at the Frontenac theatre. I text-messaged her. She said they’d be back late. I asked if we could spend the night. She messaged back: Ptobkm?

  Which I took to mean “Problem?” since she and I both were new to texting.

  “A small one.” That’s what I told her. As far as I knew, and hoped, it was.

  Anya showered and went to bed in the room that Sheila had decorated especially for her granddaughter. Both dogs were upset by her sobbing, so they piled on top of her and licked away her tears. Anya finally fell asleep exhausted. When I checked, you could barely see the top of her platinum blonde head between Gracie’s black and white muzzle and Petunia’s brown and black smashed-in pug face. In the sliver of light from the hall, I also noticed that my child had one arm around each pooch.

  I hoped I’d have better news for her when she woke up. I pointed out, “You know if Gracie was loose, she wouldn’t let anyone in our house, honey. Seymour would have hidden.”

  “What about Martin?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure where Rebekkah would have put the cat carrier. I mean, if she put it on the kitchen table, someone would have had to get past Gracie—and that’s not likely. See?”

  “Can you call her and ask?”

  “Sure.” But Reb
ekkah didn’t answer her phone.

  That figured.

  Detweiler showed up an hour and a half later. Hadcho was right behind him. They pulled their cars up in front of Sheila’s house. I heard the doors slam in tandem.

  I opened the front door with my heart in my mouth, prepared for the worst possible news. All sorts of scenarios raced through my mind. None of them pretty. All of them brought tears to my eyes. I stood with one hand on the lock and thought to myself, “It’s my fault.”

  I shouldn’t have let Detweiler hug me at CALA when Anya scored.

  I shouldn’t have gone into Marla Lever’s house for the crop.

  Somehow I’d brought this upon us, hadn’t I?

  Don’t be stupid, I told myself. You’re really not that important. The universe does not respond to your every move.

  Yes, once upon a time I would have absolutely bought into the “blame me” mentality. (Otherwise known as “kick yourself swiftly and hard before anyone else gets the chance to.”) But in the years since George died, I’d grown up. Some. Okay, lots. But not so much that I didn’t still have that impulse to blame myself. Just enough that I could step back and think, really think, and realize how stupid it was to plaster myself with a heaping helping of victim mentality.

  I pulled the door open before Detweiler knocked, but I didn’t look at his face. I couldn’t. I needed to steel myself for bad news—and I needed to pull up my big girl panties and get ready to take whatever life dished out.

  I loved Seymour. He’d brought a brightness to my daughter’s face and a happiness to her life. If he was gone, well…he would be very hard to replace. And yes, I had to admit that little Martin was a joy, too. Although he hadn’t been a part of our lives for long, I admired his spunk. Since I’d been feeding and mothering him, I felt a pang of grief much deeper than there should have been, considering how briefly I’d known him.

  But I’d survive and so would Anya.

  I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders and stepped aside to let the guys in.

  Chapter 24

  “You know how sometimes the latch doesn’t quite catch on Gracie’s crate? I suspect that Rebekkah didn’t get it quite hooked.” Detweiler took my hand and squeezed it gently.

  “When your intruder got to the kitchen, Gracie must have pushed the crate door open,” Hadcho said as he sipped his coffee. The smell of the hazelnut brew lingered in the air, a warm and delightful aroma.

  “Maybe Rebekkah put Petunia in the crate with Gracie. Tunia gets so frightened, and Rebekkah probably thought it would calm him down. That would mean both dogs burst out at the same time. Neither of them are barkers, so the intruder didn’t realize what waited for him or her,” I said.

  “Right. Suddenly this huge dog comes chasing him, with a smaller dog behind her. Even though Tunia gets nervous, he feels pretty brave when he’s with Gracie.” Detweiler stroked my hair. We were curled up on Sheila’s sofa in her living room. I’d turned on the fireplace, which I loved doing because it only took a flip of a switch. The fake flames brought an instant warmth and comfort to the room.

  “Thank goodness the cats were all right,” I said. I’d taken Seymour upstairs to snuggle along with the dogs on top of Anya. Waking up to him would do her heart good. Then I fed Martin, who was now curled up in Hadcho’s lap.

  “Seymour hid under your bed. Martin was still in the cat carrier, and Rebekkah must have put that in your room and shut the door, not realizing Seymour was there, too.” Hadcho drained the last of his cup. “More?”

  “Help yourself,” I said. I probably should have gotten up and poured it for him, but I was too worn out. Besides, he was perfectly capable of helping himself, even if it did entail moving Martin.

  As the dark-haired detective took off for the kitchen, I asked Detweiler, “Who do you think did it? And how did he or she get into my house?”

  “I suspect Rebekkah didn’t lock the front door properly. There were no signs of forced entry. Maybe your intruder saw Rebekkah pull up and drive away. I checked and from a parking spot on the street, you wouldn’t be able to see someone getting in and out of a car. Those stupid spirea bushes block the view. Someone watching wouldn’t know that Rebekkah was unloading animals. Especially since Petunia and Gracie are both so quiet.”

  “How bad is it?” Now that the cats were fine, I could hear the rest. I could take it.

  “There’s excrement smeared on two of your walls.”

  Not so bad. It could have been worse. “Whew.”

  “It’s ugly and it smells, but I think your intruder was interrupted before he or she could do any major mischief.”

  I said nothing. I wondered if this was the work of Brenda Detweiler. I hated to ask because Detweiler felt awful about Brenda’s shenanigans, and I saw no reason to make him feel bad. It wasn’t his fault she was on drugs. In fact, he’d stayed with her through one bout of rehab already.

  But Detweiler knew exactly what I was thinking. “She’s out of town.”

  “Oh?” I thought about adding, “Who’s out of town?” but that would be going too far.

  “Her sister in Colorado invited her out. It’s their parents’ thirty-fifth wedding anniversary.”

  I sighed with relief.

  Hadcho came back with his cup of coffee, sat in the chair across from us and stared at me intensely with his dark chocolate brown eyes. “Who was it, Kiki?”

  “How should I know?”

  Hadcho shook his head and withdrew his notebook from the pocket of his navy blue jacket. That was his un-uniform uniform: gray slacks, a blue Oxford cloth shirt, and a navy jacket. He was a bit of a clotheshorse, but not so much of one that you’d call him a dandy. “I called Mert and asked her to come clean your house tomorrow. You don’t need to do it. Your renter’s insurance will cover it, and seeing the mess’ll upset you. She told me that two men threatened you today. I’d like to hear about it from you. Not secondhand.”

  I told them about the visits from Devon Timmons and Allen Lever.

  “Which one do you think could have done this?” Detweiler’s voice was firm but demanding.

  “I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t them. Someone also knocked into me tonight after the field hockey game.”

  “Is that what happened? You said you stumbled.”

  “I did, but after someone called me a slut and knocked into me.”

  Detweiler closed his eyes. I could see the muscle along his jawline flickering. That happened when he got mad. “This has to stop.”

  “I don’t think that person at the game broke into my house. CALA parents don’t do stuff like that. It’s beneath them. I mention it because, I mean, it could have been anyone, couldn’t it?”

  Hadcho smiled. “You do seem to have a talent for ticking people off. But my money’s on the two yoyos who visited you at work today. Mert Chambers thinks they are both idiots.”

  “I guess. She’s right; they both acted like morons. Either one of the guys who came by Marla’s house could have smeared my walls. They both blamed me for Marla’s situation.”

  The front door opened and we heard voices. Sheila and Robbie Holmes were home.

  Chapter 25

  Since the three of us had downed enough coffee to keep Seattle sleepless all night, we decided to stay up and brainstorm the cold case file that Hadcho and Detweiler were tackling.

  “I’d rather try to figure out who vandalized your house, Kiki,” said Police Chief Robbie Holmes. Ever since he and Sheila have gotten engaged to be married, he’s started acting like a surrogate father to me. That’s great because I never really had a dad. Mine was too busy getting drunk and chasing barmaids to do much parenting.

  “Thanks, Robbie. I appreciate it, really I do. I think the guys plan to ask both Allen Lever and Devon Timmons a few questions tomorrow. I bet one or the other of them won’t have an alibi.” I wanted the spotlight off of me and onto the task at hand.

  “Mr. Haversham has been planning to install an alarm system,” said Detweiler. �
�I text-messaged him earlier. He told me he’ll see to it as soon as he returns from his book tour.”

  “When’s that?” Robbie wouldn’t let this drop.

  “Next week. Monday or Tuesday.”

  “Sweetie, can Kiki stay here until then?” Robbie looked over at Sheila.

  “Of course she can. She and her menagerie.” My mother-in-law, the former Ice Queen, positively melted when her fiancé talked to her. Her face glowed with affection for her betrothed, making the denim blue of her eyes more vivid in contrast to her snow white hair.

  “Sorry about that,” I said with a shrug. “Um, did you know my brood has grown by one?”

  “Good grief,” Sheila rolled her eyes. “What now?”

  I produced Martin, and Sheila took him from me. “He’s one of those cats? From the hoarder? Isn’t he precious?”

  The “old” Sheila would have thrown a hizzy of gargantuan proportions, but the nearly-newlywed Sheila was a kinder, gentler Tigger. Robbie Holmes had domesticated that wildcat, and she purred like a mother cat as she held Martin to her breast.

  “Since you’re so taken with him, uh, would you like to give him his bottle?”

  Okay, that was taking a walk on the wild side, but I’ll give her credit: Sheila was game. She not only fed him, she even made sure that what went in came back out.

  Meanwhile, Detweiler, Hadcho, Robbie and I read over the interviews of the friends of the missing women. The paperwork pile had grown to a foot-high stack. I went through one interview, then another, and a third, and realized I had no idea what similarities might exist. And that’s what we were looking for, similarities.

  I set down the report I was re-reading for the second time. There had to be a better way.

  In my purse was a set of colored markers. Although Zentangle is done, classically, with nothing but a black ink pen on white paper, using colors is tons of fun. I’d been experimenting with adding colors to my tangles, and so I still carted around the colored pens.