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.
Chapter Forty-One
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 thank
s, 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.
Chapter Forty-Two
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.
Bobby’s voice was apprehensive. “I need to tell you something, but you have to promise not to freak out.”
“That’s an encouraging opening,” I said.
“Promise?”
“Okay, I promise, but if this has something to do with Martin Campers’ Week, all bets are off.”
“Must all our conversations revolve around the library?” he asked.
I stopped at a red light. “Nope. Spill it.”
“Bree’s been turned out of her hotel and needed a place to stay.” He took a deep breath. “So she is crashing with me.”
A pause. The light had turned green, but I didn’t take my foot off the brake. The guy in the car behind me honked and saluted me with his middle finger. I rolled the car forward.
“India?” Bobby asked. “Bree told me that the two of you had a misunderstanding over dinner last night.”
A misunderstanding. The woman was carrying a gun. I bit my lip and wondered if I should tell Bobby about the gun. Would it make any difference? Would it change his mind about her?
“Why are you telling me this? You’re your own man; you can spend time with whoever you want.”
“I know that, but things have been weird between us this week and I just thought . . .” He trailed off.
I made another turn onto a commercial road lined with fast-food restaurants, grocery stores, and discount supercenters. “You just thought what?”
“I just thought you should know.”
“Consider it noted,” I said and snapped the phone shut.
My cell rang again, almost immediately, and Bobby rolled his eyes at me again from the screen, but I ignored him. I knew that I would regret hanging up on him later and would have to do some serious groveling to get in his good graces again. However, I’d reached my limit. My first priority had to be Mark.
I turned the car into the parking lot for Topaz Bridal. In the store window stood the exact replica of the wedding dress Olivia had described to me in excruciating detail so many months ago. The antique-white gown was full-length and strapless with thousands of delicate silver stars and a gold sunburst embroidered on the bodice. The waist was so narrow that it crushed the headless mannequin’s Styrofoam innards. The bodice exploded into a full multilayer skirt heavy on taffeta; silver and gold threads wove in and out of the cloud of fabric. In that dress Olivia would be—would have been—breathtaking. I almost walked away.
A bell chimed at my entry. A voice called from the back, “Be with you in a minute.”
I walked around the store. Being so surrounded by wedding gowns and their trappings, my stomach clenched. I glanced at a few price tags and whistled. Each one had the Topaz trademark and a lofty declaration that each gown was one of kind. I glanced at the mannequin in the window. One of a kind, I thought.
If I ignored what the dresses signified—commitment, a lifetime of compromise, companionship in old age—and considered the gowns with a purely artistic eye, Topaz was an amazing designer. I wondered, and not for the first time, why she lived in Stripling. She was obviously talented. Wouldn’t she be more successful in New York, L.A., or Atlanta?
A teenage boy emerged from the back room. He walked with a pronounced slouch and had an unfortunate case of acne.
Topaz followed behind him. “I’ll see you in two weeks for your final fitting.”
The boy grunted and fled the store.
“He’s buying a wedding dress?” I asked dubiously.
Topaz chortled. “No, I do alterations and tailoring on the side. I’m glad you’re here. It’s all ready.”
Ready? I must have looked confused because Topaz said, “You’re here to pick up your bridesmaid dress, aren’t you?”
“Well, I thought—”
“Don’t tell me you’re not going to pay me. I feel horrible about Olivia, but I have to run a business. I’ve spent hundreds of hours on the gowns for the Blocken wedding and that doesn’t include the time I spent on the bride’s gown. And no one wants to pay.”
“No one?”
“Didn’t you see Olivia’s dress in the window? It’s for sale. Apparently, the Blockens are no longer interested.”
“That’s Olivia’s dress?” I asked, hoping that my assumption about the dress had been wrong.
“Of course it is. Every Topaz wedding gown is one of a kind.” Topaz paced around the room adjusting and readjusting gowns every few steps.
“How much?”
She beamed. “Perfect. Follow me.” Topaz led me to the back of the shop and through a heavy curtain that obscured the back room. The room held thick pallets of fabric organized by an expert’s hand shelved along the right wall. White, white, and more white. Each shade of white was one wash darker than the last. I peered through the small doorway into an adjacent room that housed Topaz’s many sewing machines. Several works in progress were pinned to much-abused dress dummies. To my left a long metal rack held dress after dress, all wrapped in plastic. I suspected that my gown was among them.
Topaz sat behind an antique writing desk, pulled a leather ledger from one of its impractical drawers, and quoted a figure. My eyes boggled. My hands shook when I tore the check out of my checkbook. The price was more than two months’ rent for my apartment. Templeton would be living on generic cat food while I would be dining on Saltine crackers for the remainder of the summer.
Topaz thanked me, confirmed the amount, folded the check, and slipped it into her jeans pocket. She handwrote a receipt.
“You can change behind that screen there.” She pointed to a paisley-patterned screen in a small corner of the room.
“Excuse me?”
Topaz glanced at her watch. “I have time for your final fitting.”
“Fitting?” I was slow to catch on.
“Of course I can’t let you buy the dress without trying it on first.” She pulled a plastic-wrapped gown from the rack and handed it to me. Déja vu.
I held the garment bag at arms’ length. “Really, Topaz, I trust your expertise. I’m sure it’s a perfect fit. I know you’re very busy. Summer is the height of wedding season, right? I don’t think—”
She pointed, and I ducked behind the screen with the garment bag. Remembering my temporary blindness, I didn’t look directly at the dress while I put it on. This time it zipped up without a hitch. I walked out from behind the screen. The hem of the skirt brushed hardwood floor.
Topaz placed a stout pedestal in front of the unforgiving three-way mirror. Moors during the Spanish Inquisition never faced such a horror.
“Arms out,” Topaz directed.
Three sharp pins glistened in the ri
ght corner of her mouth. I unlocked my knees and shifted my feet on the small pedestal, intended for someone with a shoe size smaller than ten.
The gown’s painful golden color against my pale skin, my genetic destiny passed down by Celt and Fin bloodlines, remained hideous, but it did fit, or at least I thought it did until I saw my reflection in Topaz’s torture chamber. The three-way mirror was merciless and considered my figure from the worse possible angle. I closed my eyes.
“Were you surprised when Mrs. Blocken asked you to bring the bridesmaids gowns to her house on the Fourth?” I asked.
Topaz snorted.
“She can be demanding.”
“You could say that.” Topaz circled me like a lioness contemplating a baby zebra.
I shifted my clown feet and nearly fell off the tiny pedestal.
“Stop moving.”
“Sorry. Did you notice anything strange at the picnic?”
“The only strange thing I saw was your brother crash the place. This is about your brother, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “But after we left, what happened? Anything that you can tell me might help. I know Mark’s innocent.”
“You’re a nice girl, but I can’t discuss my clients if I want to pay the rent.” She stepped back. “You can get down now. The dress is a perfect fit.”
Not according to the three-way mirror, I thought. “You mean your former clients. You said Mrs. Blocken refused to pay for Olivia’s dress.” I stepped off the pedestal. My feet sang the Hallelujah Chorus.
“Go ahead. I know that you’re dying to change.”
I leapt behind the Chinese screen. “Mrs. Blocken hates Mark and me—that has to give us some credibility.”
I tugged at the zipper and sighed with relief when it gave way. I put on my own clothes as quickly as possible. Why anyone would wear a bridesmaid’s dress when there are T-shirts and jeans in this world, I would never know.
When I emerged, Topaz was sitting behind the desk. “I wish I could help you, I really do, but nothing happened after you left. The group was shocked, but that’s no surprise. Lady Blocken put a stop to that fast. I took O.M. upstairs for her fitting, and that was the end of that. While I was in the upstairs hallway, I heard some debate as to whether you”—she gave me an apologetic smile—“should still be a bridesmaid. Olivia was determined that you would be. She didn’t seem to be overly concerned about seeing your brother. I remember Kirk was pretty fired up about it, but Olivia said not to worry.”
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