Maid of Murder (2 page)

“I told you about the wedding.”

“Oh please, I know how many weddings you’ve been in, and this is the first time I’ve had to babysit you.”

“This one’s different.”

“Why?”

I ground my teeth. “Because of Mark.”

“Really?” Bobby said, sounding intrigued. “How’s that?”

Uh-oh, I thought, I know where this is going. “Mark had a thing for the bride, but it was a long time ago. And I haven’t seen any of the bride’s family since then, so it may be awkward. You’re the distraction.”

“Tell me about this thing your brother had for the bride.”

I thought about my telephone conversations I’d had with Mark earlier that morning with a wince.
Had
may be the wrong tense when describing how Mark felt about Olivia.

I eyed him. “You really want to know?”

“Of course I do. I should know what I’m getting myself into. I left my body armor at home, so no cat fights, please.”

“Olivia lived on the same street two doors down from us. Her parents still live there. Mine moved after Dad’s accident.”

I thought back to the day Olivia and her parents arrived with that huge moving truck. It was amazing how well I remembered even though I was barely four at the time. It’s funny the memories that the mind retains with crystal clarity.

I was wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt that my mother had made. It was too big for me, but she had said there was no point making it smaller because I was growing like a weed on steroids. I was already the tallest girl in my preschool class.

From my yard, I watched the couple and their daughter with glossy brown hair, cut to the shoulder, go in and out of the house. The girl skipped around the yard, twirling. Her mother yelled at her several times about grass stains. The girl waited until her mother’s back was turned and twirled again.

The moving van had been in front of the house for two hours before I worked up the courage to walk over. I inched up the street; stopping every few feet to inspect the ground as if the cracks in the sidewalk were oh-so-interesting. Eventually, I found myself in front of the house. It was a huge Victorian at least a hundred years old that sat on two lots. The rest of the houses in the neighborhood, including mine, were made from the same faux colonial cookie cutter used in the 1950s to satisfy the baby boom generation and sat on postage stamp–sized properties.

The mom and daughter looked at me. The girl smiled, but her mother pursed her lips. “What is she wearing? It looks like a neon pillowcase.”

I looked down at my shirt, which I had been so proud of up until that moment, and felt ashamed. The pair in front of me wore clothes bought at the mall. I knew because it was the kind of clothes my older sister, Carmen, complained we never bought because Mom and Dad said shopping at the mall fed consumerism. I started to back away. I desperately wanted to go home and change my shirt.

The girl looked at her mother with her chin jutting out. “I like her shirt, and she’s going to be my friend.” She walked to my side and took hold of my hand. Together we sat on the grass cross-legged and watched the big men unload the truck.

Bobby’s voice shook me out of the memory. “I’d appreciate it if you not daydream while driving. I do have a will to live.”

I shot him a look. “Do you want to hear this, or not?”

He made a gesture as if he was zipping his lips shut.

I knew it would take much more than an imaginary zipper to keep Bobby quiet. Nevertheless, I continued. “I think Mark fell in love with Olivia when we were still in grade school. Even at age six she was beautiful, and she knew it too.”

Bobby made hissing cat sounds.

I laughed. “Maybe I was a little jealous. She also knew how much Mark liked her, but she never showed any interest until high school when she and Mark dated briefly. I think she only did it because she was between boyfriends at the time and Mark was a senior when we were only sophomores. Even dating a senior nerd like Mark was more impressive than dating someone in our own class. It was never serious on Olivia’s part. She dated a lot of different guys from skateboarders to jocks. I guess she counted Mark as her geek quota. When they broke up, he didn’t take it well. He called her, hung around her house, waited for her after school. It was awful. Even when she was with someone else, she was all he talked about. Well, besides the Pythagorean Theorem, that is. After Mark graduated, he went to Martin in order to stay close to Olivia, despite the fact that he could have gone just about anywhere with his test scores.”

“I bet your parents loved that he gave up the Ivy League for a girl.”

“When it was her turn to choose a college, Olivia went to a school in Virginia. That’s when it got really bad.”

“Bad how?

I bit my lip. “Look, we’re almost there.”

Bobby crossed his arms across his chest. “Fine. I’ll make up my own ending.”

“Don’t even think about it.” I took my eyes off the road to give him my best dirty scowl, a look I perfected at the library’s reference desk.

“What?” He asked innocent as a baby lamb. I knew better.

“You’re wondering if you can use that story in one of your ridiculous plots.”

Bobby had a penchant of writing short fiction for romance magazines. He’d sold several to publications like
Minx
and
Velvet Rose
. I had proofread far too many of them to want my brother to be the inspiration for the next confounded hero.

“I wasn’t thinking that.”

“Yes, you were.”

“Okay, I was, but my readers would love it. It’s got all the elements: scorned heart, love lost—”

“We’re talking about Mark here. Please. I might have to pull over and throw up. It’s wrong to use his heartbreak that way, especially for a measly two hundred bucks.”

“Hey,
Minx
paid me six hundred last time for
Secret Kiss
, a three-part series,” he said proudly.

I shook my head and turned the car onto Kilbourne Street. I pointed at a two-story colonial. “That’s where I grew up.” Someone had painted it a dark khaki. I grimaced.

“Very suburban,” he remarked.

Two houses down, I parked in the driveway of a large Victorian, complete with wraparound porch and suspended swing, outshining all the other abodes on the block. When I lived on Kilbourne Street, the Blocken house had been painted a simple white with navy trim; now it was a supposedly Victorian pink with darker pink trim. I’m sure the decorator called the colors “damask” and “mauve.”

I wasn’t halfway out of my car when I heard a high-pitched yelp, resembling a frightened puppy at the groomer’s.

“Incoming,” Bobby said as he slipped expertly out of the passenger side door.

“India!” Olivia ran toward me with her arms outstretched and welcoming as if I was a returning war hero. Thankfully, I cleared the car door before she hit. She grabbed me in a crushing hug. Because she’s so thin, this would have surprised me if I had not known about her lifelong obsession with fitness. There was a kickboxing-hardened body hidden under her elegant sundress. After an excruciatingly long minute, she released me. All the while, Bobby smirked at me over her head. He was enjoying himself a little too much, in my opinion.

Olivia looked much the same as she had in high school—same build, same endearing smile and flawless complexion. However, her hair was red, and so expertly done that I wouldn’t have suspected anything if I hadn’t known her for twenty-some years as a brunette.

“I’m so glad to see you.” She repeated the sentence at least three times until she finally noticed Bobby standing beside my car with that infuriating grin on his face. “And who’s this?” she asked with the tone of an eighth-grade girl spotting a tenth-grade hottie.

Bobby looked especially fetching standing in the afternoon sun, dressed in pressed chino shorts and blue knit shirt I knew he’d picked to match his eyes. One of the arguments I had used to persuade him to accompany me was that he might meet a new lady friend. Bobby was always on the prowl for a new heart to break. Fortunately, I knew this from observation, not experience. When I started working at Martin’s library, Bobby’s looks had intimidated me, but sometime during the last three years, he’d grown familiar. I was only reminded how handsome he was when women reacted to him like Olivia just had. Or when female undergraduates strutted up to the reference desk to ask me when the “hot book guy” would return. I’ve never told Bobby about the “hot book guy” thing; his ego is far too large already.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Olivia,” I said, as if I should have introduced him while she was crushing my bones into powder. “This is Robert McNally. He works with me at Martin.”

“Really?” Olivia on her strappy high-heeled sandals sashayed over to Bobby and took his outstretched hand. “Hello, Robert. I don’t remember librarians being as hot as you when I was in college.”

I stopped myself just short of asking her if she’s ever stepped inside her college library.

“Call me Bobby,” he replied, his eyes looking her up and down.

“Call me Olivia,” she cooed.

Call me disgusted, I thought. “Olivia, I’m dying to meet Kirk. You know . . . your fiancé?”

Her head snapped up. She removed her hand from Bobby’s light grasp. “You’re going to love him.” Olivia led us up the front walk.

Hanging back, I squeezed Bobby’s arm. “She’s engaged, for Pete’s sake.”

He smiled back, pretending not to hear.

The front door opened into the living room or, as Mrs. Blocken liked to call it, the parlor. The inside of the house had changed as well. Mrs. Blocken had obviously maxed out her creative resources and her husband’s credit cards. The interior was faux-finished within an inch of its life.

Olivia’s parents stood by the door, ready to greet their guests. I met Mrs. Blocken’s gaze and the temperature dropped several degrees. Then again, some things never change.

I hadn’t spoken to Olivia’s parents since the unfortunate incident at Olivia’s high school graduation party. Sure, sometimes I would spot them in the local market but would dive down the next available aisle before they could recognize me.

“Look who’s here,” Olivia told her parents.

Mrs. Blocken extended a narrow hand with polished nails. She barely brushed my hand with hers. “Thank you for coming.”

Mrs. Blocken had abandoned the helmet bob that had bolstered her through the decades. In its place, she’d fashioned her hair in a short cut. Her hair was only a deeper shade of red than her daughter’s. The coif framed her face and elongated her tight neck. Plastic surgery? I thought so. She wore a sundress so frighteningly similar to Olivia’s that I blinked. Bobby noticed the twin routine too, judging by the amused expression on his face.

I introduced Bobby, and Mrs. Blocken held out her hand to Bobby in the same manner that she had to me. However, when he took it, she held on longer than necessary. Bobby’s physical appearance enthralled all generations of women. “And will you be India’s guest for the wedding?”

A look of panic flashed across Bobby’s face.

I took mercy on him. “No, unfortunately Bobby is working next Saturday. He’s a fellow librarian at Martin.”

Mrs. Blocken eyed me. “Then who are you bringing?”

“No one,” I said, the fake smile on my face already starting to hurt. “I didn’t think it would be fair to bring a date since I will be so busy as a bridesmaid.”

Bobby snorted, and I covertly stomped on his sandaled foot.

Mrs. Blocken’s attention returned to Bobby. “Are you all right?”

He gave her one of his charming smiles. “Whatever you’re cooking smells heavenly.”

She beamed. “Why, thank you.”

I mentally rolled my eyes and turned to Dr. Blocken, who stood quiet beside his wife. Even though he tipped the scale at three hundred pounds and resembled a bear, Dr. Blocken was an utterly forgettable man in the shadow of his wife’s personality. He practiced dentistry in one of the oldest dental offices in Stripling. I recently heard from my mother, who had an ear for town gossip, that Mrs. Blocken wanted her husband to retire that year so that they could jet set through the Keys and the Continent. My mother told me that Dr. Blocken was resisting her. He would eventually fold, I suspected, but I liked him better for trying to stand up to Regina Blocken.

Dr. Blocken pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. His nails were bitten to the quick. “I thought I saw you shopping for groceries the other day, but whoever I saw disappeared, and I couldn’t be sure.”

I laughed hollowly.

Bobby disentangled his hand from Mrs. Blocken, and she paraded us to the backyard.

Even though the sponged and dry-brushed walls of the Blocken home grated on my nerves, I preferred the cool relief of the Blocken’s central air to the sweltering backyard. Bobby didn’t appear too thrilled, either.

The lawn was expertly maintained. The grass, if measured, would prove to be exactly one inch high, and the flowers and plants were the attractive, if unimaginative, sort found outside of banks and office buildings. Every exposed patch of dirt was buried in a mound of pungent black mulch.

Two umbrella tables sat on the generous patio. A gorgeous woman and a burly, thirty-something man sat at one of the tables. A sullen-looking teenager slouched alone at the other, slumped on a patio chair with her arms folded in a defiant, piss-off pose. She wore baggy boys shorts and a T-shirt that read, You’re not the brightest crayon in the box, are you? She had her improbably yellow hair cropped close to her head.

With a start, I realized the teen was Olivia’s fifteen-year-old sister, Olga. I only recognized her because, despite the hair and the shirt, she was the identical version of Olivia’s teenaged self. I looked at her and at Olivia and back again. They had the same smooth forehead, straight nose, and wide mouth. For some reason, I found seeing Olga sitting at that table looking like she was ready to bolt more jarring to me than seeing Olivia earlier in the driveway. The last time I saw Olga she was eight or nine. That is how much time had passed between then and now, between seeing Olivia and her family every day to not at all.