Maid of Murder (26 page)

I marched to my car, left undisturbed on the street. Even in this neighborhood, my car was a clunker. Inside the car, I locked the doors and rooted in my shoulder bag for the list of names and numbers of bond officers that Lew had given me. I scratched off North and South Bond Offices, the last name on the list. I was out of bondsmen and out of luck. I couldn’t buy Mark any more time—not with my measly resources and lack of collateral.

I sat there for a few minutes collecting my thoughts. Both of the car windows were rolled all the way down, but no breeze cooled its interior. A local denizen spat tobacco juice in a beer can and crossed the street when we locked eyes. He looked away and ambled on. I wondered if his parents wouldn’t bail him out of jail, and that’s how he ended up where he was. There had to be a way I could help Mark. I thought about talking to my parents again, but knew it was a lost cause. When they were taking a stand, they wore blinders.

Suddenly, I had the heart-stopping fear that the engagement picture was no longer in my trunk. Sure, the trunk was locked, but the car was old and the lock could be jimmied with a screwdriver. I’d even used that method to get into the truck a few times when I couldn’t find my key.

I jumped out of the car and popped open the trunk. In this neighborhood, I wasn’t afraid of anyone recognizing me. I pushed back the carpet and exposed the tire well. There it was, wrapped safely in my T-shirt. I didn’t realize until I unwrapped the engagement picture to study it that I had used a Martin College T-shirt to protect the frame. I was sure there was some significance in that fact, but I was too drained to dwell on it. Carefully, almost lovingly, I rewrapped the framed photograph back in the T-shirt and pulled my cell phone from my jacket pocket. I hit the speed dial for Lew’s cell.

“How did it go with the bond officers?” Lew asked, clearly expecting my call.

“Three strikes, you’re out.” I said.

A man with a long, ratty ponytail walked out of the exotic dance studio.

“I’m not surprised,” Lew said.

“Not surprised. Well, that’s encouraging.” I kept an eye on the man so that I could kick him where it counted, if need be.

He lit a cigarette and leaned against the studio’s door.

In my ear, I heard Lew light a cigarette. “It never hurts to try.”

“It hurts me,” I muttered. “What’s our next step? Give me some more names.”

“That’s all I got. Those were the only names I thought would have even a remote interest in bailing out Mark.”

“But . . .”

“I’m sorry, India, but unless your parents take the initiative to post bond, he’s going to prison.”

I scratched my head angrily. “Will you speak to them?”

“I’ll do my best,” he promised.

I paused.

“What?” Lew rasped. Lew was a good attorney and knew when someone was holding something back.

“I found something,” I said, still unsure if I wanted to make a confession.

To my relief the pony-tailed man finished his cigarette. Throwing the stub back on the sidewalk, he reentered the studio.

“India,” Lew said impatiently. “What did you find?”

“A picture.”

“Am I going to have to guess of what?” He took a drag of his cigarette.

I took a breath and told him about my clandestine adventure and the engagement photograph.

Lew was not pleased. “Do you know how much trouble you could get into for this? Even if I can prove that your brother is innocent, you can still be charged with tampering with evidence.”

My chest constricted. I knew he was right. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Lew snorted into the phone so loudly, I jumped.

“Don’t you see? This proves that Mark was framed.”

“It would have, if you hadn’t removed the evidence,” he complained.

“Listen, Lew, I’m giving you a heads-up. I’m turning the photo over to the police.”

“I don’t know if that’s . . .”

“My mind’s made up. I can’t keep driving around with it in my car. It’s making me crazy. Maybe, I can use it to show them that Mark really was framed. I found the picture before the scarf was found, didn’t I? This shows that whoever planted the scarf in his apartment, first tried the picture. I foiled the first plot when I found it before the police did.”

“That, my girl, is called conjecture.” Lew took another drag of his cigarette. “You can keep Mark company in county prison.”

On that note, I said good-bye and disconnected.

I reached through the open window for my shoulder bag. After sifting through it for a few seconds, I dumped its contents on the hood and over the ugly message that Kirk had keyed there the day before. Compact, wallet, spare change, a small army of pens and pencils, sketch pad, used tissues, and gum wrappers clattered onto the metal surface. I rummaged through the mess and located the card, crumpled and covered with charcoal pencil.

Standing outside North and South Bond Offices, I examined it. Medium-weight paper with simple black lettering and the department’s seal in the upper left-hand corner. I gathered my things back into the bag.

With shaky fingers, I punched the number into my cell. Mains’s line at the police station rang four times before his voicemail picked up. “This is Detective Richmond Mains of the Stripling Police Department. I’m sorry to have missed your call. If this is an emergency, press one. If you’d…” The recording stopped abruptly. “Mains speaking.”

I held the phone away from my ear, dumbstruck. I was hoping to just leave a message that said something like, “Oh hi, Detective Mains, I happen to pick up Olivia Blocken’s engagement picture, and I wanted to turn it over to you. Oh, and by-the-way, I found it in my brother’s office just a day or so after she was attacked. Thanks. Bye.”

“Hello?” Mains asked.

I found my voice. “Rick?”

“Yes.” He was impatient.

“This is India, uh, India Hayes.” I mentally slapped myself on the forehead; how many other Indias could he know?

“What’s up?” I heard a smile in his voice. I could’ve imagined it, or worse wished it. Focus, India, I told myself.

“I think we should meet about my brother’s case.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell him what I had done over the phone. It was better to get the confession over with and turn over the picture all at the same time. Or, so I thought.

Mains agreed to meet me in Ryan Memorial Library’s parking lot in thirty minutes.

I climbed into my car, made an illegal U-turn in the middle of the deserted street, and headed back to Stripling.

Summer students lounged on the quad as I drove through campus. Two coeds of indeterminable gender played catch on the edge of the library’s lot. Mains waited outside of his cop sedan. His arms were folded across his chest.

When I got out of my car, I pulled at the hem of my shorts. “How’s Mark?”

Mains took a pair of sunglasses out of the breast pocket of his shirt and shielded his eyes from the afternoon sun. “He asked for paper and pencil so that he could work on calc problems in his cell. I gave him a box of tissue too. He’s been crying off and on. He hasn’t really said much.”

“That sounds like Mark.” I pushed the worry for my brother to the back of my mind.

“You could have asked me that over the phone.”

“You’re right.” I looked at the ground.

“Is there something else you wanted to tell me?”

I looked at the trees, the sky, the library, the sexless catch couple, everywhere but his face. When I had decided, I looked him directly in the eye. “Someone is framing Mark.”

He uncrossed and crossed his arms. I saw my reflection in his sunglasses—I looked small, misshapened, frightened. I straightened my shoulders, reset my jaw, and walked toward the back of the car.

Mains followed but then stopped short. He removed his sunglasses and stared at my car’s hood. “What the . . .”

“It’s nothing,” I said.

“Nothing? It’s a threat.” Mains clenched his jaw. “Who did this?” He leaned over to examine the angry letters more closely.

“It doesn’t matter. The car’s a piece of junk anyway. Bobby’s been begging me to buy a new one for years. Now, I have the proper incentive.”

Through clenched teeth, “Who did this?”

I turned to face him. “I didn’t ask you to meet me here to show you that.” I gestured at the hood as if I didn’t care, as if every time I saw it, it didn’t hurt me.

“Well, I’m seeing it, and I can’t ignore it. No one could. You need to file a report.”

“No,” I said resolutely.

“You could be in danger,” he protested. “Whoever did this is obviously not stable.”

I placed my hand on the warm hood and let my fingers trace the
r
in
killer
, such an ugly word. “I’m not in any danger.” I was certain that Kirk wouldn’t harm me. If he had wanted to, he would have taken his opportunity when we were in his hotel room.

Mains’s voice was gentler. He put his hand on my wrist, encircling it with his fingers like a bracelet or a handcuff. “At least tell me who did this. Something tells me that you already know, which is why you are reluctant to file a report.”

“Do you promise not to do anything about it? You have no crime if I refuse to file a complaint.”

He grimaced. “Fine. I promise that I won’t do anything without your permission.”

I nodded in acceptance. “It was Kirk.”

He let go of my wrist. “That son of—” he stopped in mid-curse and slammed his fist on the hood of my car. The couple playing catch glanced over.

“Don’t you think my car has enough abuse already?”

Mains’s eyes blazed. “I’ll have a little talk with him.”

“No, you won’t,” I said, using my sternest voice, the one I use to tell rowdy undergrads to pipe down in the library. “You promised. Besides I already talked to him about it.”

“You talked to him? Alone?”

I nodded.

Mains’s jaw twitched. “There was something you wanted to show me.”

I walked around to the back of the car and unlocked the trunk. Mains peered inside it. I waved him away, threw back the tire well cover, picked up the T-shirt-wrapped frame, and handed it to him.

“Where’d you get this? Why do you have it?”

“Let me explain,” I pleaded.

Mains examined the frame and the photograph. Angrily, he said, “I’m waiting.”

“I found them in Mark’s office.”

He wrapped the frame back up but didn’t return it to me. Not that I expected to ever see it again. “When?” he asked.

“Monday.” I didn’t clarify that it had been just before he’d arrived with a search warrant for Mark’s office on Monday. We both knew the exact time.

Mains took a quick breath.

“Someone planted it,” I said. “Just like they planted the scarf.”

Mains opened his mouth to protest.

“Hear me out. You arrested Mark because you found a scarf in his apartment that matched the dress Olivia was wearing the day she was attacked. How could Mark have such a scarf? He hasn’t seen Olivia in years, and I doubt she was wearing the same dress at the time. There was no time for him to take the scarf those few minutes he was at the Blocken picnic.”

Mains tried to speak.

“Wait, let me finish. If there was no time for Mark to take the scarf, there was certainly no time for him to swipe this engagement picture. Someone wants you to believe that Mark stole both.”

Mains peered down at the package in his hands. “The Blockens haven’t reported anything missing to the police.”

“With the funeral and everything, something like this would be easy to forget. I saw Dr. Blocken two days ago, and he mentioned that Mrs. Blocken was missing the picture, so they do know that it is gone. Dr. Blocken told me that his wife was talking about reporting it missing to you. Maybe she changed her mind because she thought it was misplaced in the confusion and not actually stolen.” I took a breath. “Or, maybe she doesn’t want you to know.”

“I know what you are implying, India, and I know that you don’t have the best relationship with the Blocken family.”

It was my turn to protest.

“I’ll be sure to ask the Blockens about this picture; you can bet on that. But that doesn’t change the facts about the scarf. You’ve neglected to consider that Mark could have taken that scarf from Olivia just before or after he pushed her into the fountain.” Mains walked back to his sedan, opened his trunk, pulled out a huge plastic bag, and placed picture, T-shirt, and all inside. He zipped that bag closed, dropped it back into the trunk, and slammed the lid. “I don’t want you talking to anyone about this case anymore.”

“What?”

“Contrary to what you might think, the police can do the job. Those stupid cop shows will be the death of me,” he mumbled under his breath. “I won’t arrest you for the time being, but taking and hiding evidence is a serious offense.”

Gee thanks, I thought.

“I didn’t know that it was evidence when I took it,” I said.

Mains gave me a look. We knew this was merely a technicality.

“You’ll need to stop by the station to make a statement. I have to speak to my superiors about the mess you’ve created, but I’ll expect you within the hour.” Mains opened the sedan’s door.

“Won’t you at least consider the possibility of Mark’s innocence?” I asked.

“This is my first murder case; I won’t screw it up.” He looked at me, and an emotion I couldn’t name crossed his face. “If your brother is innocent, I’ll do whatever I can to keep him out of prison. However, I would do much better if I didn’t have your bumbling help.”

I imagined that comment was more of a boost to his confidence than it was to mine.

He squeezed my wrist again, so quickly that I couldn’t be sure that it even happened. Then, he jumped in his car and drove away with his lights flashing.

My cell rang as I was driving through town. The feeling of Mains’s fingers encircling my wrist lingered as much as I wanted to ignore it.

I plucked the phone off the passenger seat and checked the caller ID. A picture of Bobby’s face rolled its eyes at me on the tiny screen. I smiled as I remembered that I took that picture during a particularly boring faculty meeting the year before.