Macdeath (An Ivy Meadows Mystery Book 1)

by Cindy Brown

  “Hi Olive-y.” he said, combining my names. He laughed at his own joke. He always did. My bad mood began to lift.

  “Hey, Stu,” I replied. “Hot enough for you?”

  “It’s nice on the porch. Come sit,” he said, patting a white plastic lawn chair next to him.

  “Maybe later.” I rang the doorbell.

  It was opened immediately, as if someone had been waiting for me. I didn’t recognize the guy at the door. He was about my age, tall—maybe six-three—with curly brown hair and glasses. He smiled at me, glanced at my shirt, then reddened and kept his eyes on my face. I suddenly realized that my new form of air conditioning had another consequence—victory nipples. I crossed my arms over my chest and smiled, maintaining eye contact.

  “Olive?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Or you can call me...”

  “Olive-y.” He smiled. “Yeah, Stu told me.”

  My eyes adjusted as he led me into the dark, swamp-cooled foyer, which smelled pleasantly lemony clean.

  “Thanks for calling ahead.”

  We walked into the living room, which was full of easy-care furniture: vinyl couches and chairs, sturdy round tables with no sharp corners.

  “Yeah, sure.” I always called ahead. “You’re new?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry.” He thrust out a hand. “Matt.”

  Matt needed a haircut. His hair curled down over his collar and around his ears. I took his hand. He had a firm, dry handshake, and he looked directly at me with steady gray eyes. My uncle would have liked him.

  “What name do you prefer?” he asked.

  “They’re all good,” I said. “Ivy, Olive-y, or just plain Olive.”

  “Olive,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  I looked around after he left the room, found an old National Geographic, and sat in one of the vinyl chairs. Or tried to. The tin of makeup, even in my front shorts pocket, pressed against my hip uncomfortably. I stood up and flipped through the magazine. The pages with bare-breasted tribal women seemed especially worn, but then so did the ones with panda cubs.

  “Olive!” said a handsome golden-haired man, bursting into the room. My throat swelled. Was this what people meant when they said their heart leapt to their throat? He rushed to me and hugged me hard. Cody. My beautiful baby brother. Still held in his embrace, I tipped my head up so I could look at him, but he was tall enough that all I could see was a blonde stubbly chin.

  I tried to remember the last time I’d seen him. It had to be a couple of months. Guilt washed over me and I stiffened, ending the hug. Cody didn’t seem to mind. Guess he was done hugging anyway.

  “Do you like my new shirt?” he asked, thrusting out his chest.

  It was a South Park T-shirt, with the whole gang of politically incorrect little guys on it. I shot a glance at Matt, who shrugged and grinned. “Your parents had a fit when they saw it. Said it was inappropriate. Couldn’t believe I let him watch ‘that show.’”

  “A fit,” Cody agreed.

  Matt went on, “But, ‘hey,’ I said, ‘Cody’s an adult. He can watch, and wear, whatever he wants.’”

  Oh, my parents would really hate that. No one talked back to them. I liked Matt already.

  “Where do you want to go today?” I asked Cody. I already knew, but this was part of our ritual. Rituals were important to Cody. Like a lot of folks with his type of brain injury, he had a hard time learning new information, so old information, rituals we could play over and over, helped ground him. They grounded me, too.

  “Hmm,” said Cody, playing along. “Somewhere shady.”

  I shook my head sadly. “Not many trees in Phoenix.”

  “Somewhere with a lake.”

  “In the desert?”

  “Somewhere there’s a train.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Matt watching us, a smile playing on his lips.

  “Too bad they closed the train station.” I shook my head sadly.

  Cody waited, his eyes shining.

  “Wait,” I said, “There’s always...”

  “Encanto!” we both said together.

  Encanto Park was the greenest spot in Phoenix, with statuesque trees, man-made waterways that snaked through the park, and a kiddie-land amusement park complete with a small, slow train. It was a little bit of heaven for those of us who weren’t desert rats. As we drove there, Cody sang along with his favorite CD, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I always kept it in the car for him.

  “Will you still need me? Will you still feed me,” sang Cody, slapping a drumbeat on his thighs. “When I’m sixty-four?”

  He was so happy to be with me, so happy to go eat hotdogs and feed the buns to the ducks. Why didn’t I do this more often?

  Cody’s drumbeat got faster as we pulled into one of the parking lots at Encanto. You couldn’t always tell what he was feeling by his face (it’s called “flat affect” in psycho-speak), but his body often gave him away.

  Once we’d parked, I grabbed a tube of sunscreen from the glove compartment (another habit of smart Phoenicians), slathered the car-heated lotion on my face, passed it to Cody, and then squirted down our shirts with my spray bottle, avoiding my breasts this time.

  Cody and I had a ritual here, too. First we’d ride the train, then get hotdogs and Cokes and feed the ducks and talk. We tried it the other way around once, lunch first, but I soon learned that food before rides was a bad idea.

  We walked toward the “Enchanted Island” section of the park, Cody hardly able to keep from running. My parents hated this, too, the fact that I took him on “kiddie rides.” “Inappropriate,” they said, their favorite word when it came to anything Cody wanted to do. It made me crazy, no adult pleasures and no childish ones. It made me crazy enough, in fact, that I helped him move out of my folks’ home and into a residential program so he could be independent and have a little fun in his life. It didn’t exactly endear me to my parents.

  At the “station,” I paid for two tickets and we climbed aboard the open-air train. Cody sat next to me on the hard bench seat, wobbling a bit as he does when he’s excited and not concentrating on his balance. Cody’s disability didn’t really show outwardly, except for one thing. They call it ataxia, a lack of coordination, but what it looks like is drunkenness. Cody typically looks like an incredibly handsome twenty something-year-old with a couple of beers under his belt.

  The teenager who had taken our tickets stared at us, trying to figure out why we were there. I stared back until he looked away.

  The train pulled out of the station with a long whistle. Cody nudged me. He loved the whistle.

  The train chugged out of Enchanted Island and into the grassy main park. Families, mostly Hispanic, picnicked in shady spots, kids running and laughing and chasing ducks. Older kids pedaled splashing paddleboats around a big palm tree-rimmed lagoon and through the park’s canals.

  Cody twisted to look at me with a plea in his eyes, as he always did when he saw the paddleboats. And as always, I shook my head. I could hardly stand to cross over the water on a bridge, much less paddle around in some flimsy contraption on top of it.

  The train approached a bridge. I could smell the canal, green and funky, like dead, water-logged plants. I held my breath, and hooked a finger through one of Cody’s belt loops.

  My old therapist, the one they sent me to after Cody’s accident, said my fear of water was “perfectly normal.” Every time I was around water deeper than a puddle, I flashed back to that terrible moment. Even now, I could see Cody’s yellow hair floating around his head as he sank.

  I pushed those thoughts out of my head and managed to enjoy the rest of the ride. Once we’d returned to the tiny train station, Cody climbed out ahead of me and raced to our next destination, which he knew by heart. It was way too hot for me
to run, so I kept an eye on him as I walked toward the hotdog cart. When I caught up with him, he was reading all of the menu items out loud, even though he always had the same thing. “Two hot dogs with mustard, and a Coke,” he said to the vendor. “Please.”

  The hot dog man smiled at me as I approached. He was a Philippino man, maybe 50 or 60, who always wore a white yacht captain’s hat, as a nod to the paddleboats maybe. “And, young lady,” he said to me, “I bet you want a hotdog with everything, a Diet Coke, and an extra bun, yes?” I nodded.

  “That’s amazing,” said Cody.

  It was pretty impressive, seeing as how we hadn’t been there for months.

  “Haven’t seen you for awhile,” said the vendor as he prepared our dogs. I felt a flush creep up my neck as I searched for an explanation that would sound good to Cody. He surprised me by supplying one himself.

  “It’s hot. Been too hot,” said my brother, fanning himself with a napkin. “Aren’t you hot?” he asked the vendor.

  “Oh, no, I got the best fan.” He laughed, pulled out a stack of small bills, and fanned himself with them. “Best fan.”

  He laughed again. Cody joined him, but the vendor’s “fan” just made me nervous. I kept an eye out for whoever might be watching him wave around all that money. Sheesh, I was getting paranoid.

  I paid the guy and gave him a dollar tip. He smiled so big I could see a gold tooth near the back of his mouth. I made a mental note to always tip him and followed Cody to our usual shady bench by one of the canals. He settled in quickly, setting his Coke on the gravelly dirt beneath the bench. He took his time unwrapping his hotdogs, his fingers unsure, his balance wavering as he tried to concentrate on the task in front of him. Once he had the waxed paper off, he placed it in his lap like a big napkin. He checked to make sure I was ready to eat, then bit into his hotdog like he was starving.

  “Mustard check,” I said.

  Cody faced me and smiled. This little ritual started off being about cleanliness, but I kept it up as a way to check out Cody without seeming to stare. I loved his face. My brother had sun-yellow blonde hair, sky blue eyes, and a face that seemed slightly younger than it really was, maybe because his default expression was a slight smile. Guileless, that was how I thought of Cody.

  “You’re good,” I said. “Mustard-free.”

  We sat close enough that I could smell the mustard on Cody’s hotdogs. I popped open my can of Diet Coke and took a long drink. The can felt cold against my lips, and the soda fizzed pleasantly on my tongue.

  As we ate, we shared the extra bun I’d bought with the ducks that crowded around, watching out for the geese that liked to bite our butts through the back of the bench. We talked about Cody’s job at Safeway, about Matt the new guy, and about Star Trek and James Bond. The ducks punctuated our conversation, quacking and flapping and fighting over bread.

  I told Cody about the play, about Simon and Jason and Uncle Bob. I left out the gory details. I didn’t need answers, just wanted to sort through my thoughts and feelings out loud in the presence of someone who respected me. Who loved me.

  “Thanks,” I said after spilling my guts. “I needed someone to listen.”

  Cody nodded solemnly, then said, “Can I come see your play?”

  Cody rarely made requests.

  “Oh. Wow. It’s um, it’s Shakespeare. Do you think you’d...”

  “I like Shakespeare. To be or not to be!”

  Guileless, maybe, but obviously I wasn’t giving him enough credit.

  “Well, there are only a few more performances...”

  Why didn’t I want him to come? I wasn’t sure, but there it was.

  “I know. Matt said he’d take me.”

  “Yeah. Okay. Great. I’ll get some comps for you.”

  Somehow. I’d given all my complimentary tickets to my neighbors and Olive Garden friends, but didn’t want Cody to know he hadn’t been first on my list. As he should have been.

  I sat back, annoyed with myself. Did I always use Cody as a sounding board without thinking of him, without considering what he wanted? The tin of makeup in my shorts shifted uncomfortably. I took it out of my pocket.

  “What’s that?” asked Cody.

  “Makeup. The old-fashioned kind, where you just smear it on your face.”

  “Don’t you smear the new-fashioned kind, too?”

  He had a point.

  “Yeah, but this is thicker. They call it pancake.”

  “Pancake.” Cody’s sweet tooth asserted itself.

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with pancakes, it’s just...Here.” I unscrewed the top of the tin and handed it to him.

  He sniffed it. “Doesn’t smell like pancakes.” He was about to dip a finger in it.

  “No!” I leapt up, snatching it away from Cody, my heart beating a mile a minute. What in God’s name had I been thinking?

  Cody’s eyes filled with tears. Shit. I put the lid on the makeup and sat down next to Cody again.

  “Sorry. Sorry, hon. It’s not about you. I think this makeup may be...” What? What did I think? “Bad.”

  “Like poison?” Cody’s eyes had dried, but a sort of serious excitement shone in them.

  “Maybe. I’m not sure.”

  “Why don’t you test it? Like on CSI?”

  Of course. Pinkstaff would test it for me, I felt sure.

  At that moment I realized I’d underestimated Cody and had for years. I’d yelled at my parents to treat him like an adult, and yet I kept him in the role of baby brother. I resolved to get to know him all over again and to start right then.

  “So,” I said. “I never knew you liked Shakespeare.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Our Poisoned Chalice

  I called Pinkstaff after my picnic with Cody. We met up the next day for a bedside lunch at Uncle Bob’s house. Deli sandwiches for all, courtesy of Pink. In between bites of pastrami on rye, I explained my suspicions.

  “And you want me to take taxpayers’ money and test this makeup?” Pink put down his half-eaten sandwich and turned to Uncle Bob. “Just last week, Olive wanted me to exhume Simon’s body.”

  I did. C’mon, they did it all the time on TV. And how hard could it be to dig up a freshly dug hole?

  Pink picked up a pickle and waggled it for emphasis. “Changed her mind when I asked her to get permission from the widow.” Uncle Bob nodded at the pickle and took a ginormous bite of his potent-smelling chopped liver sandwich.

  I had been all ready to get a hold of Nuala. Even found her contact info in Ireland. Well, I found her headshot and agent’s contact info, but it would have been easy from there.

  “And to cough up $10,000 for the exhumation.” Pinkstaff punctuated this with a bite of pickle.

  Yep, that was when I decided it wasn’t such a great idea.

  “But testing this makeup shouldn’t cost much at all,” I said. “It’s just a teeny tiny tin.” It was actually regular size, but I was wheedling.

  “Alright, alright.” Pink finished his pickle.

  I saw—and ignored—the “poor deluded Olive” look he shared with my uncle.

  “But I have to tell you, I probably wouldn’t do this if you weren’t Bob’s niece.” Pink held his hand out for the tin. “And if you weren’t so damn cute.” My uncle frowned at his last comment (or maybe his smelly sandwich). I just smiled and handed over Simon’s pancake makeup.

  Being on my own at Uncle Bob’s office on Wednesday gave me the opportunity to research how he might have been poisoned. Helped me not a whit. All I really discovered was that it was possible someone put something in his Big Gulp while he’d left it unattended on the table in the greenroom.

  I got to the theater a little early that night, my mind stuck on the problem. I checked on the nail in the cup of
Diet Coke that still sat on our dressing room counter. Though the Coke had not dissolved the nail, it did jostle something loose in my brain.

  I could recreate the crime scene by putting a Big Gulp on the table where Uncle Bob left his. I wasn’t sure how this would help me learn anything new, but I’d seen it in cop shows. The detectives always seemed to make a new discovery when they did it. What did I have to lose?

  I ran out of the theater to where Homeless Hank waited in his typical corner. “If I gave you ten bucks, would you run down to the corner and get me a Diet Coke Big Gulp?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, Miss.” He smiled at me, his white teeth (probably dentures) glowing against his sun-baked skin. “That stuff’ll kill you.”

  Sheesh, was there an anti-Diet Coke conspiracy?

  I quickly convinced Hank that I didn’t want something healthier, gave him the ten dollars, and agreed to meet him outside the stage door at intermission.

  Hank was a man of his word. At intermission, I found him outside the stage door with a big, sweating plastic cup of Diet Coke. I thanked him, told him to keep the change, and walked into the greenroom with my Big Gulp.

  “Mmm,” I said, trying to draw attention to myself in a room full of buzzing actors. “Gotta love a Big Gulp.” Uninspired, I know. I never was great at improvisation. “Except when you drink too much and have to pee,” I said loudly.

  I really should take an improv class.

  I set my drink down on the table and ambled nonchalantly around the corner into the hall where the bathrooms were. I stopped and peeked back around the corner. I could just see the fake blood-stained table where my Big Gulp sat. Jason walked by it. My chest tightened. I hadn’t talked to him since overhearing his weird phone call with Edward. I shook my head to clear it. Needed to concentrate on the task at hand.

  I was beginning to think I had wasted ten bucks. This was a pretty silly idea. I mean, if someone did something with the Big Gulp now, it would mean they wanted to harm me, right?