Shoots to Kill (25 page)

“Chris can take over for me for a while.” He was quiet for several minutes, then asked, “So, are you heading for the country club for your family dinner?”

“Not this week. Mom wants us to come to her house instead.”

“What’s the occasion?”

“Nothing special. She’s waiting for a delivery and doesn’t want to leave the house.”

“What kind of delivery?”

“A truckload of yarn is my best guess.”

“Couldn’t the package be left on her porch?”

“This is my mom we’re talking about, Marco. We don’t question her reasons. We just show up and shut up.”

After a stop at the police station to pick up the report for Oliver,
show up
was what I did, arriving at my parents’ old-fashioned, two-story frame house just as my oldest brother, Jonathan, and his wife, Portia, pulled up in their Jag. I watched as the passenger door opened and Portia wafted out, which is how one exits a car when one is five feet seven and weighs only ninety-three pounds. I had secretly dubbed her Partial Portia.

Having grown up in a wealthy home in the Gold Coast area of Chicago, Portia was something of a snob. If a piece of clothing didn’t have a Parisian designer label inside, it wasn’t fit to hang in her closet. If her food wasn’t cooked to a certain temperature, her minuscule stomach held a protest rally. And if, like today, I was sporting a garden-variety pair of jeans with a generic, long-sleeved cotton T-shirt, her tiny nose would wrinkle like a prune. For those and other reasons I’d appointed myself Minister of Keeping Portia Humble.

“Hey,” I called from the porch as they came up the sidewalk, “where’s the beer?”

Portia gave my brother an alarmed glance. “We’re having
beer
?”

“Didn’t Mom tell you we’re having a beer-and-brats night?” I asked.

“Jonathan,” Portia said with rising panic, “why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell her you’re joking, Abby.”

“Fine. I’m joking, Portia. We’re actually having Polish sausage and sauerkraut.”

With a huff, Portia tossed her long, pale blond hair and marched past me into the house.

“Why do you do that?” Jonathan asked me.

“It’s fun.” I stepped inside and sniffed the air. There was a peculiar odor inside the house, and it wasn’t coming from the kitchen. “Do you smell that?” I asked my brother.

“Why am I thinking of the county fair?” Jonathan asked.

“Hey, kids,” my dad called from the back of the house, “come back here.”

Dad was in his wheelchair in the kitchen with my brother Jordan, his wife, Kathy, and their only child, Tara, a somewhat gawky but utterly precocious thirteen-year-old who had inherited the Knight family’s red hair and freckles.

“Grandma has a surprise for us,” Tara announced. She tried to act indifferent, but there was a sparkle of excitement in her eyes.

“Does this surprise have anything to do with her knitting? ” I asked Dad.

His eyes twinkled. “You could say that.”

“Please prepare us, Dad,” Jordan said. “We’re begging you.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible,” Dad replied, clearly enjoying the role of insider.

All but Portia groaned. She was too busy sniffing the contents of the pots simmering on the stove. “Are these organic beets? Does anyone know?”

“Are you ready?” Mom called from behind the closed door of her studio.

“Yes, Grandma,” Tara answered, rolling her eyes.

I heard odd clicking noises on the other side of the door, like tap shoes on ceramic tiles.

“Okay, come in slowly, one at a time, and keep your voices down.”

We left Portia inspecting the food and filed into Mom’s spacious studio.

“Everyone,” she said, stroking the neck of a six-foot-tall, slender, silky-coated llama, “meet Taz.”

For a long moment no one uttered a word. We merely gaped. Finally Jonathan found his voice. “You bought a
llama
?”

“They make great pets,” Mom said, holding on to Taz’s leash so he didn’t shy away. “They’re very affectionate and quite intelligent, as intelligent as some dogs. Isn’t he beautiful? His coloring reminds me of a calico cat. Tara, do you want to pet him?”

Tara stepped behind her dad. “He might bite me.”

“Taz is very gentle,” Mom explained. “And his teeth are flat, designed for chewing grass. He even has an under bite. Want to show off your teeth, Taz?”

The llama regarded us warily through his big brown eyes, obviously preferring not to bare his teeth to perfect strangers.

“Approach him slowly,” Mom said, drawing Tara toward the animal. “He’s very timid. In llama years, he’s still a teenager.”

“You’re not going to keep him in the house, are you?” Jordan asked.

“Of course not,” Mom said with a laugh. “We’re having the toolshed turned into a stable, with a heater and an air conditioner inside, although we won’t use the heater much because llamas prefer the cold. See how much luxuriant fur he has, except around his middle? We have to keep that area clipped so he won’t overheat. Then I can send the fleece out to be carded and woven into yarn so I can knit with it.”

“Are we to understand,” Jonathan asked, using his official doctor’s voice, “that you bought this llama so you can knit sweaters?”

“Not just sweaters, Jonathan. Scarves, hats, mittens, shawls, even throws. Llama fur doesn’t contain lanolin, you see, so it won’t make you itch. The problem is that you can’t find yarn made from llama fleece, so I decided to go right to the source. Isn’t that clever?” She gazed around at us. “Isn’t anyone going to say anything?”

Couldn’t Mom feel the air in the room vibrating from all of our silent screams?

“I think it’s awesome, Grandma,” Tara said, fearlessly stroking the animal’s soft fur. “I like Taz. How did you think of his name?”

“He was already named,” Mom said. “Actually, Taz is short for Catastrophe.”

“Which is what this is going to be,” I muttered to Jordan, “a catastrophe.”

He snickered.

“What did you say, Abigail?” Mom asked. She had ears like a bat.

“I said, ’Welcome to the family, Catastrophe.’ ”

“I’m glad you approve, honey,” Mom said to me, “because I’d like to sell my knitting projects at Bloomers.”

I bit my lip to keep my scream from going public.

“What’s this big surprise that kept us from dining at the club tonight?” Portia asked in a snippy voice as she joined us. I stepped aside to give her a clear view of the llama. She took one look at the furry beast and staggered back against Jonathan. “What is
that
thing doing here?”

“I was wrong about the sauerkraut and Polish sausage,” I told her. “We’re having roast llama for dinner.”

Portia wafted to the floor like a feather from a nest. My job there was done.

“Did your mother get her delivery?” Marco asked later as he drove me out to Oliver’s apartment.

“Um—” Did I really want Marco to know that my mother bought a llama so she could have her own supply of yarn? He’d already witnessed many of her other strange projects, including the neon-hued Dancing Naked Monkey Table, and the seven-foot palm-tree coat-rack, made up of many green hands on the ends of bark-coated, curving arms. Weren’t those bad enough?

Then again, what did it matter? It wasn’t like he was planning to marry into my family.

“Yes, it did arrive, or I guess I should say Catastrophe arrived.”

He glanced at me in concern. “A catastrophe? What happened?”

“Catastrophe is the name of her pet llama.”

Marco nearly blew a stop sign. “Did you say
llama
?”

“You heard me right. Mom bought it for its fleece. She’ll have to shear it, then send the fleece away to be turned into yarn.”

“How do you take care of a llama? Aren’t they like camels?”

“More like alpacas, kind of a cross between a deer with long, soft fur and a small camel with a sparkling personality. They eat grains, but not a lot, so it doesn’t cost too much to feed them, and they’re really very gentle. Mom fully believes Catastrophe will behave like a pet dog.”

Marco shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe she’s going to keep a llama in town.”

“Yep. In the toolshed, which they’re turning into a stable.”

“What does your dad have to say about it?”

“I think he likes the idea. He left the dinner table early so he could spend time with Taz. That’s the llama’s nickname. ”

“Aren’t there laws about what kinds of animals can be kept in town?”

“I’m assuming my dad would know about that. But you haven’t heard the best part. I get to sell Mom’s knitting projects at Bloomers.”

“I don’t know what to say except I’m sorry. I can guess what you’ll be getting for Christmas this year.”

“And probably for the foreseeable future.” I sighed. “Knowing Mom, she’ll slipcover everything in her house with Taz’s fleece. Then we can call it the catastrophe house and mean it.”

“It could be worse. Remember the mirrored tiles?”

I groaned at the recollection. A trip to the bathroom at my parents’ house had been like a visit to the House of Mirrors at the fair. Some body parts just didn’t warrant that much reflection.

Marco turned onto the road that intersected Delphi’s street and pulled over to the curb beneath a huge maple tree that blocked most of the streetlight. From there, I had a good view of Oliver’s apartment while still being hidden from view. I noticed the Blume van wasn’t in sight.

I pulled out my cell phone and punched in a number, explaining to Marco, “I have to call Oliver so he can tell me where to meet him.”

Marco kept watch over the apartment and surrounding street while I made the call. It rang five times, then went to Oliver’s voice mail. “It’s Abby,” I said, “O.O.T.T.O. I have the report. I’m here. Call me back.”

“What’s O.O.T.T.O.?” Marco asked.

“One of the trusted ones. That’s what he calls me.”

Marco rolled his eyes. I glanced away, wishing I were one of Marco’s trusted ones.

We waited for ten minutes; then I called him again and left a second message.

“Did he know what time you were coming?”

“I told him around eight.”

After another ten minutes, I phoned Blume’s Art Shop, but no one answered there, either.

“Maybe Libby knows something,” Marco said, dialing her number, which I noticed he’d memorized. “Hi, it’s Marco,” he said when she answered. “What’s Oliver up to this evening?”

He listened, then said, “So you haven’t seen him since five o’clock? Did he mention what he was doing tonight?” He listened again, then said, “It’s nothing important. There’s no need for you to worry. He’s probably asleep or out with his buddies. I’ll catch up with him tomorrow.”

Another pause, then he said, “Okay, I’ll talk to you later.”

Later, huh? As in, while on a date?

Marco closed his phone. “Libby doesn’t know where he is, and now she’s worried. Apparently, Oliver didn’t say anything about going out with his friends this evening. In fact, he told her he had a headache and was going straight home after he finished at Blume’s.”

“Great. Now what should we do?”

Marco checked his watch. “Let’s give him another ten minutes. If we don’t hear from him by then, we’ll investigate. ”

We sat without talking for ten long minutes, having exhausted all the filler conversation earlier. It was impossible to sit that close to him, almost touching, and not wish he’d pull me into his arms, apologize for being an idiot, and smother me with kisses. But it was not to be.

“That’s it,” he said. “Let’s go check it out.”

We got out of the car and started up the block. Marco had dressed all in black, making it easy for him to blend in, but I had worn my navy coat with jeans and brown boots, my red hair uncovered, thinking this was going to be a straightforward meeting. Luckily, there was a thick gray cloud cover that obliterated the moonlight.

“I’ll wait across the street,” Marco said, pointing to a tall shrub border that ran along the edge of a neighbor’s driveway. “Approach his apartment as though you were expected. Ring the doorbell, if there is one, or knock. If he doesn’t answer, use your phone to call him again and let him know you’re at his door. If he still doesn’t answer, come back, and I’ll take it from there.”

I continued the rest of the way alone, entering the yard through the back gate and climbing the stairs leading to the apartment above the garage. There was no buzzer, so I rapped on the door. No lights showed from behind the blinds, but I would have expected that if Oliver was out or sleeping.

I rapped again, waited another minute, then phoned him. I didn’t hear any ringing coming from inside the apartment, and when the call went once again to his voice mail, I hung up. Had Oliver forgotten our meeting? Had he taken something for his headache and gone to sleep?

I started to turn away, ready to give up, then, on a whim, tried the doorknob. To my surprise, the door opened. Well, that was convenient. But it was also odd. People didn’t leave doors unlocked anymore, especially not people who were paranoid.

Fat chance.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“Oliver? Hey, it’s Abby.” I stood just inside the open doorway and listened for a reply. Hearing nothing but the distant hum of a refrigerator, I stepped farther into the apartment. A fresh cedar scent filled the air, bringing back not-so-fond memories of the hamsters my brothers owned briefly. I still had nightmares about those few frightening months of listening to hamster wheels turn all night. I’d hardly slept a wink, fearing human mothers ate their young, too.

“Oliver! Hey!” I rapped on the doorframe. “Are you sleeping?”

Silence. I felt for a light switch beside the door and flipped it up. A table lamp turned on, illuminating the living room. Across from me were two blue recliners on either side of a white leather sofa that faced a giant-screen TV. In the middle of the polished wood floor was a blue and white area rug, with blue miniblinds over the windows. The room was immaculate, symmetrical, and sparsely decorated. No photos, knickknacks, or magazines were to be seen. Also no aluminum foil.