Design on a Crime

by Ginny Aiken

  His sad face tightened into anger, and his lips sprouted a white rim. "Very well, miss. Please do let me know if I can be of assistance."

  What was his deal? Hadn't he realized even the twentieth century was done and gone? He reminded me of a Victorian butler in a black-and-white classic movie.

  "Thanks, Ozzie."

  It didn't take long to realize that whatever the person who tossed the place wanted, they thought they'd find it among Marge's papers. A blanket of sales records hid the mahogany desk and cordovan leather executive chair. Because of the chaos, it was going to take time to sort through the mess and familiarize myself with Marge's filing system.

  I started a series of piles. Receipts went into one, estate inventories into another, a year's worth of appraisals into the next. The rest wound up on the miscellaneous pile. This one grew at an alarming rate.

  I picked up what looked like a memo, but a phrase caught my eye. "It is exceedingly mean-spirited of you to continue to deny me the opportunity to advance. To leave and seek employment elsewhere at this stage in my life would be sheer folly, as you well know.

  "Forgiveness is a virtue, and while you assure me you've given it, your actions appear far more those of an extortionist extracting yet another drop of blood from her victim.

  "I have more than paid restitution for my transgression, and you have even said you understood the desperation that drove me to it, yet you still seem to relish withholding the opportunity, the right, that would otherwise be mine. I don't know how much longer I can bear the status quo. Every man has a breaking point, and I'm afraid mine is frighteningly close. I dread to think what might push me over the edge, and much more what I might do once that happens."

  The thinly veiled threat was signed by Ozzie.

  And I was alone with him in this huge, empty warehouse. Not good.

  I folded the memo, stuffed it into the zippered side pouch of my backpack purse, and then ran back into the hallway. "On second thought, Ozzie," I called, my voice reedy and shaky, "I'm heading home now. I'll wait until the power's back. The window in Marge's office doesn't let in as much light as I thought at first. See ya!"

  Ozzie did have a motive for murder. And although I spent a few minutes with him during the intermission, most of the time I was on my own.

  Who knows what he did while I was gone.

  Some days just don't end soon enough. Today was one of them.

  I went to the dojo to clear my head of all the crud, but when I got there, I walked right into Tyler's setup. While I'd never seen Detective Tsu in any of my classes-until the one she taught, that is-tonight she stood front and center among the other students.

  I felt like screaming and yelling and crying and kickingnot a very adult thing. That was how I felt but not what I did. I bowed before Tyler with all the respect he was due as my sensei, and not once did I pout ... much.

  Even when he chuckled at my discomfort.

  Even though I found no humor in the situation.

  Really, I didn't.

  I focused like a good little judo student and did everything he asked the class to do. In fact, I did so well that I managed to forget he and the omnipresent Ms. Tsu were anywhere near.

  Until Master Tyler decided this was the night for sparring.

  When he told me to greet my partner, I learned the true meaning of the cliche about looks that could kill. The one I shot could've felled a bull three counties away. It didn't do a thing to him.

  Ms. Tsu and I took our places in the center of the room. I don't know if the rest of our classmates could sense the tension between us, but the air seemed to bristle with something tight, something that challenged me for every breath I took.

  I met Ms. Tsu's hazel gaze and, without looking away, I bowed.

  She did the same.

  We'd both thrown an invisible gauntlet. Everyone knew it.

  Even Tyler, the wretch.

  We slowly, warily circled each other. I riveted my attention on my opponent. More than a sparring match was taking place.

  I felt as though my future was at stake.

  Step ... sidestep ... another one. Ms. Tsu's graceful movements might have lulled me into a sense of superiority; I was taller, more muscular. But this wasn't that kind of a match. Martial arts are about the mind, understanding human nature, thinking ahead of the other person's next move.

  She made her move.

  I anticipated and blocked it.

  We resumed our circling motion, silent, focused, determined.

  With Tyler's lessons in mind, I paid attention to the detective's breathing, even the rhythm of the opening and closing of her eyelids. After eons of this, I waited for the moment when her lids dropped a fraction slower than before. Then I lunged.

  She parried.

  I backed away.

  The tension grew.

  My heartbeat sped, but I made my breathing even, measured, controlled. I couldn't let fear get in my way. I couldn't let her psych me out.

  She attacked.

  I thwarted her.

  I pounced.

  She repelled me.

  Sweat beaded my forehead. A drop rolled by millimeters down my spine. I took note and let the sensation pass. I had to focus on the detective, the woman whose efforts would either clear me or condemn me to an unthinkable future.

  The dangerous dance went on for what felt like hours. I had no notion of time, no sense that anyone else existed. My world had shrunk to encompass only a cop and me.

  Tyler finally brought things to an end. "Enough! It's ten fifteen and way past my bedtime."

  I blinked.

  Ms. Tsu shuddered.

  We both faced Tyler.

  "Go on. Bow, then head to the shower. Everyone left about forty-five minutes ago."

  I looked around. The three of us stood alone in the large room. I hadn't noticed anything, anything but Detective Tsu.

  Cold suddenly overtook me. I shivered, then faced my foe and bowed. "Thank you."

  She bowed as well. "You're a worthy opponent."

  Tyler snorted. "I wish you'd both just knock it off already. Lila, she didn't kill Marge. And you, Haley, had better get that cop chip off your shoulder. Lila had nothing to do with what happened four years ago."

  I gasped. "How ... how could you?"

  "I can because I've watched you, and I know you better than you think. I also know Lila, and I know Marge's killer won't go free. Not like-"

  "Don't," I said through clenched teeth. "Don't even say it. As long as she's working so hard to prove I killed Marge, I'll reserve the right to doubt."

  My attacker was given a brief probation and forty hours of community service, thanks to the Mickey-Mouse investigation the police conducted. Is it any wonder that I couldn't make myself trust homicide detective Lila Tsu?

  Little by little my world had started to peel apart. I'd worked so hard to overcome the devastation of four years ago, and now I felt as if I was being shoved right back into the pit.

  This time I didn't have Mom or Marge, and Dad spoke only of God, that God who let the chaos happen in the first place.

  I left the practice room with what dignity I could muster, went to the locker room for my duffel bag, and left the dojo as fast as I could. The drive home was an exquisite form of torture. Painful memories tangled with rioting emotions.

  The idea that one person could wield power over another, enough to ruin or take a life, seemed contrary to all I'd learned in Sunday school about a loving, generous God. Now I was stuck in a hole of someone else's digging, unable to catch a foothold and pull myself out. How could I square that with a benign God? How loving could he be if he abandoned the children he called his own to such a rotten fate?

  I didn't see it.

  I loved Midas. I'd never leave him so that someone more powerful could abuse or destroy him. I'd protect him with all I had.

  If God was all-powerful, why did he abandon me? Why did he abandon Marge? Why did he continue to leave me at the mercy of merciles
s vultures?

  As I drove up the manse's driveway, I knew I had to pull myself together. I was headed down a familiar, frightening road. I'd already traveled that nightmare, and I couldn't do it again. I couldn't drag Dad down it either. The first time had been almost more than he could bear.

  I'd seen in him the pain of a father whose child had been harmed. I'd have to put on a happy face. I'd have to smile and kid around, at least until I could escape to the freedom of my room.

  But exhaustion claimed me. I felt beaten, tired, drained; I wondered how I could pull off any charade. From the recesses of my memory, those dust-bunnied corners I avoided like the plague, my mother's voice whispered, "He'll never leave you nor forsake you. "

  Hunger gnawed at me, and it had nothing to do with the dinner I'd missed. It was hunger for the assurance I'd once had in God's provision, the assurance that he'd be there to catch me if I fell.

  At the same time, I felt as if I'd plummeted down a black void where every inch I traveled, new and riskier traps reached out to snag me. I was so alone.

  Midas's exuberant barks pierced my desperation. I couldn't stay in the car all night. Sooner or later Dad would worry enough to come for me, and I couldn't let him see how far I'd relapsed.

  I took a soul-deep breath and opened the Honda's door. Once inside, I fended off my dog's ecstatic welcome. "It's not as if you hadn't seen me for years, you big goof!"

  The best thing about a dog is that no matter what, he always welcomes you home. Tonight, Midas helped me mask my dismal mental state.

  "Did you have a good class?" Dad asked from behind his newspaper.

  Swell. 'Ah ... the usual. We worked on strength moves, and then Tyler had us spar."

  "How'd you do?"

  How did I do? Not well. "He called it a draw. Neither one of us would concede the match, and we'd already gone an hour and a half past the end of the lesson."

  "It did seem late. With all that's happened lately, I wondered if I'd have to call that lovely lady detective to see if she could find you."

  Hah! If he only knew. "I'm fine, Dad, but the lesson wiped me out, so I'm off to bed." I dropped a kiss on his balding head, and before he had a chance to get a good look at me, I ran upstairs.

  "Good night, dear." I heard him rummage through the sections of the newspaper, and then the TV went on. Good. His news program would keep him busy until I fell asleep.

  I dragged myself through a lick-and-a-promise bedtime wash and was about to crawl into bed when Dad's yell jolted me to army-recruit attention. "What's up?"

  "You'd better hurry down here and listen to this. I'm not sure what it might mean for you."

  Dad was no alarmist. That much worry made me run.

  "It would seem," the newscaster's resonant voice boomed out, "that murder's tentacles spread farther than most would think. A source under promise of anonymity tells us that socialite Noreen Daventry is involved, indirectly perhaps, in the murder of local businesswoman Marge Norwalk. At first, authorities discarded her as a potential suspect, but word of an affair with the deceased's husband has made the investigators take a second look."

  "Is that true?" Dad asked, his voice quiet, distressed.

  "That the cops are looking at Steve and Noreen?"

  "No. That Steven committed adultery with that woman."

  I had no patience with deception in general and sexual sin in particular, but Dad saw things in an eternal light. "I saw them together the other day. It was disgusting, especially since Marge had only been dead a couple of days."

  "So he'd been unfaithful to her."

  "It would seem so."

  "Your mother was afraid of that."

  "I remember, Dad. You agreed."

  He shook his head, sadness on his face. "It's beyond me how people can hurt others so easily."

  It wasn't beyond me. I knew all about it. But before I had to respond, the commercial was over, and the news anchor was back.

  "Another element in this case," he said, "is the widower's sudden unemployment. A teacher at the Carleton-Higgins Academy in Wilmont, Mr. Steven Norwalk, was relieved of his duties when the headmaster learned of the math teacher's romantic escapades. It seems he figured in a recent messy divorce, and students have linked him to one teacher and at least one former student. Now there are questions about the widower's innocence. And if he had something to do with his wife's death, was Mrs. Daventry involved too?"

  My stomach churned. I couldn't listen to another word. I stood. "Sorry, Dad. I can't sit through any more. Gotta go."

  This time I burrowed under my blanket, and Midas took up his spot at my feet. Nothing would get me out of my cocoon before daylight. Sleep was no longer a possibility.

  I had too much burning up the synapses in my mind.

  Saturday morning dawned clear and warm. Unfortunately, a phone call dragged me awake a brief hour and forty-five minutes after the last time I'd checked the clock.

  "H'lo?"

  "Haley, honey," Gussie said, her voice strained and full of apology. "I'm so sorry to do this to you, but I'm afraid I can't get out of bed this morning. Tom is preparing my morphine pump, and you know how that knocks me out. I won't be able to help you with today's meeting."

  Great. I'd forgotten that the second episode of "Haley Trashes the Missionary Society" was slated for this morning. And now I wouldn't have Gussie to count on. But what could I say?

  I sat up. "Don't worry about it. I'll figure out some way to get through it without making too much of a mess of things."

  "Give yourself some credit, dear. I know that if you set your mind to it, you'll succeed. You have enormous energy and far more talent than any of the rest of us. Use your gifts wisely, and the Lord will see you through."

  Yeah, sure. "Ah ... I'll call you after we're done to see how you feel and to bring you up to date on what the ladies decide."

  "You might wind up talking with Tom, you know. I'll sleep on and off for the rest of the day."

  "That's fine. He can tell me how you're doing, and I can tell him what kind of hash I made of things."

  "Stop that, Haley," Gussie scolded gently. "You can do far better than you give yourself credit for. Now head on out, and don't let Penny steamroller you."

  Boy, did I ever do a great job of reassuring the woman. "Don't mind me, Gussie. I just made some lousy jokes. I'll be fine-the missionary society will be fine. You'll see. You just take care, and get the rest you need."

  After I hung up, Midas came and nosed his way into an ear scratching. "Yep, big guy, I sure do have talent, don't I?"

  But time wasn't on my side, so I threw on a long denim skirt and an embroidered cotton blouse and reined my hair into a braid. Birkenstocks in hand, I flew through the kitchen.

  "I'm on my way to a missionary society meeting, Dad. If I'm not back by twelve thirty, send out the troops. Penny'll probably have fed me to cannibals somewhere in the deepest heart of ... of ... well, I don't know where, but you get my drift."

  Dad just shook his head, his attention on the batter in his tub-sized yellowware mixing bowl.

  I darted into the meeting room just as the light on the coffee urn turned red. I smiled at Ina. "Bliss is forthcoming."

  "I remembered you like the Starbucks House Blend." She patted a five-pound sack of my favorite source of caffeine. "Let me know if it's too weak."

  I helped myself to a brimming mugful. I closed my eyes to savor the aroma and the taste in my mouth. "It's perfect, Ina, thanks. But you didn't have to go to that much trouble just for me. I'll drink any coffee, especially in the morning."

  "I know that, but your father's told me and Sandy how much you like this particular kind. It's only a few pennies more per pound than the regular grocery-store stuff, and it does seem to wake one up a bit faster."

  Yay for a quicker return to full function!

  Although I bumbled my way through the meeting, by the time I adjourned it, the society was still intact and I hadn't throttled Penny. The temptation had hit more tha
n once though.

  I'd begun to gather the folders of fundraiser info that Sarah Osborn had put together, when the hiss of gossip came from my right.

  "Did you catch last night's late news?" Penny asked.

  I looked over to see whose ear she was bending. I should've known. Carla Stewart was the town's human repository of rumor and innuendo, and outright slander and gossip too.

  Carla nodded. "Who could've missed you-know-who's merry widower splashed all over the place?"

  "Well," Penny answered, "we all warned Marge about that gold-digger pretty boy, but she wanted the guy enough to marry him, no matter what anyone told her."

  I should have said something to stop them, but I hated to miss anything that could help.

  "Noreen gave Steve an ultimatum," Carla said.

  Penny shrugged. "Sure. She told him it was either divorce court or the road for him. But he was in no hurry to dump Marge."

  "Why would he be?" Carla countered. "My niece knows Noreen's housekeeper's daughter, and she says Noreen wasn't going to share her millions with Steve. She'd had her lawyer do one of those prenups, and he was only getting an allowance once they married."

  Penny tsk-tsked. "That would crimp his style. Marge spoiled him with the goodies her money bought."

  "A gold digger never falls in love with anyone but himself," Carla added. "Besides the other fool's money, that is.

  "Oh, Steve isn't in love with Noreen any more than he was with Marge." Penny chuckled. The sound grated on my ears. "My dentist is the one who did Steve's caps, and she says he complained plenty about Noreen. He said she was fun for ... well, for kicks, if you get what I mean, but he also said more than once that he'd never tie himself to that shark in any way, shape, form, or fashion. And Dr. Worley says that's how he said it too."

  Carla pursed her purple-lipsticked mouth. "I believe it."

  I'd had all I could stomach. I fixed them both with my sternest glare. "I think you should think before you spread that kind of thing. Gossip's nasty, and it reflects back on those who pass it on. Besides, Marge hasn't been dead long, and look at the kind of stuff you're saying about her. Let her at least rest in peace for a few days."