“But why do you have him?” Mom asked.
“Lew was Victor’s lawyer and executor of his estate. His wife’s afraid of dogs.”
“How could she be afraid of him?” Dad asked. “Look how well he’s getting along with the kids?”
Mom wrinkled her brow. “It’s such a shame about Tess. She was so full of life. I can’t imagine who would want to do something like that to her.” She sat at the table. “I want you to be careful, India. If there’s some kind of crazed lunatic running around the campus . . .”
“I don’t think it was a crazed lunatic,” I said.
“Why not? That’s what Carmen said. And it’s close to Halloween. That’s when the crazies rear their heads.”
If it was a crazy running loose, what was I doing trying to solve the murder for Derek? I’d never be able to find such a person.
“Did Carmen get this idea from the police? Does she know something I don’t know?”
“Speaking of police, is Ricky on the case?” Dad asked.
Mom frowned. “That silly boy. If it were up to him, Mark would be in prison.”
I found myself defending Mains. “I’m sure he’d have come to the right conclusion eventually.”
My parents looked dubious. They didn’t have much faith in the man, especially if the man was in uniform. However, since Mains was a detective, I guess he’d be a plainclothes representation of the man.
“I’ll let you get away with it this time, but no more dogs in church. You’ll give the members ideas. I don’t want poodles hanging around the sanctuary when I serve communion.”
“I shouldn’t have the dog for too much longer. Lew’s looking for a kennel to place him in.”
Dad’s mouth turned down. “Seems a shame to put such a nice dog in the kennel. Look how he’s making up with the kids.”
Mom’s lips drew a thin line across her face, and I finished the rest of my pie.
“You’re not going to get involved in this murder like the last one, are you?” Mom asked.
“You were in involved in the last one, too.”
“It involved my son. Speaking of which, have you heard from Mark?”
“Got another postcard.”
Dad looked up. “From where this time?” His tone was sad.
Mom crossed her arms. “I don’t know why he’s sending you postcards and not us.”
I shrugged and reached into my shoulder bag. I handed Mom the postcard from Mark. She read it. “All it tells us is he’s in Utah. It says nothing of where he’s staying or what he’s doing to make a living.”
Dad’s mouth was downturned. “It doesn’t say when he’s coming home?”
Sometimes I envied Mark for running away from his life. I wondered why I couldn’t do that. Weren’t artists supposed to be free spirits? Where was my free spirit? And I was the youngest. Wasn’t the youngest supposed to be the irresponsible one? Somewhere birth order fell apart in my family.
Screams erupted. “The doggie ate my pumpkin!”
I turned in time to see Zach wolf down the last remnants of a jack-o’-lantern.
“India!” my mother bellowed, and trust me, my mother can bellow loudly. I don’t think a foghorn on an old-time riverboat could be half as deafening. “Get that dog out of here.”
Chapter Thirteen
Before going to bed, I settled Zach in my tiny kitchen with an old bed pillow. He was out the moment his curly head hit the pillow. My heart went out to the lovable scruffy-looking pooch. He’d lost Victor, his beloved master, and now was being passed around Stripling like a white elephant gift.
In the morning, I wasn’t feeling nearly as sympathetic. Apparently, a small apartment wasn’t adequate housing for a hostile feline and a bear-sized labradoodle. During the night, Zach had knocked a glass of soda off of my coffee table, eaten my favorite pair of flip-flops, and sent Templeton into a state of continuous nervous hissing.
I found him lying on the couch in my artist’s studio with a glob of yellow oil paint on the tip of his nose. My easel was upturned and throw pillows were shredded beyond recognition. Zach gave me a lazy doggie grin.
I could have sworn I’d closed the door to the studio before going to bed. I glanced back at Templeton, who was hissing softly to himself in the rocking chair. I wondered if he’d let Zach into the studio. Templeton bore his yellow-green eyes into me and let out a loud, triumphant hiss. I’d bet my life on it. Templeton had opened the door.
I cleaned up the soda and the dog and released Zach into the backyard. There was no way I was going through another night of that. I would have to find a suitable doghouse for the time being. I added “buy doghouse” to my to-do list. It sat right under “catch a killer.” Why did everything seem so much more manageable once it was on paper? I wondered.
An hour later, I walked around the side of the duplex with Zach on a leash to find Ina on my glider. She wore her best green polyester pantsuit and pillbox hat and clutched a matching tote bag bursting at the seams. This couldn’t be good.
I avoided eye contact. “Morning, Ina.”
She jumped up and followed me to my car. She was at the passenger side door before I fobbed the car unlocked.
“What are you doing?” I asked. I could just see the top of her pillbox hat over the car’s roof.
“I’m helping with the investigation.”
Oh, boy.
I gritted my teeth. “We agreed you’d come with me to talk to Debra. Nothing more.”
“That’s not how I understood it.” She adjusted her pillbox hat. “Now, are you going to unlock the door? This bag is heavy. I have osteoporosis, you know, if I hold this bag much longer, my whole arm could snap clean off.”
I unlocked the door.
When the three of us were settled in the car, Ina gave me the once-over. “Where’s that lovely pink dress you wore to the festival the first day?”
Et tu, Ina?
“I’d like to get me one of those. Do they have any extras?” She buckled her seatbelt.
“Umm, I don’t know. You’d have to ask Carmen.”
“I’ll do that.”
Great. I should keep my big mouth shut, I thought.
“Just give me a head start first,” I said.
She gave me a perplexed look.
Twenty minutes later, we stood in front of my booth. I produced a chew bone for Zach, and he settled underneath the table with a contented sigh. Then, I unfolded the extra folding chair I’d snagged from the garage before leaving home. This had been an excellent thought because Ina had already commandeered my chair.
I handed Ina the box of paints and told her to help set up. She plopped the box on the table. “Done.”
“If you really want to help, you could take the paints out of the box so the children can see all the different colors.” I set my paintings on the tabletop easels.
Ina huffed. “I’m not here to be your servant. I’m a working P.I. today. I need to get cracking on this case.”
It was going to be a very, very long day.
“Fine,” I said. “Why don’t you interview some of the vendors?”
“Really?” Ina grinned.
“Sure.” I pointed at Lynette, who fussed over her crocheted kingdom. “You can start with her. She knew Tess.”
Ina glanced over at Lynette, straightened her hat so the shamrock, which she’d added for a little Blarney flare, dangled over her left eye. “I’m on it.” Ina scuttled away. A minute later, I heard her coo, “What lovely tea cozies you have!”
I could never say something like that with a straight face, but for Ina, it worked. I watched Lynette lay out her best cozies for Ina to peruse. I hoped they would keep each other occupied for the rest of the morning.
I finished setting up the booth, just in time for the first onslaught of children to arrive. “I want an elephant,” one screamed.
“I want a butterfly. An orange one!”
“Me first!” A little boy in a yellow shirt shoved his sister out of the way.
The harried mother shook her head in despair.
In the middle of playing referee as the children clamored for face paint, I lost track of Ina. When I looked at Lynette’s booth again, she was gone. Carmen was going to kill me when she found out Ina was loose on the premises.
Before I could go look for her, my sister showed up. Again, she pushed the double stroller with my nieces inside. “I have a situation, and you need to fix it.”
“Me? Why me?”
“Because this is your campus.”
I knew it was a bad idea to have the festival at Martin. I knew I’d be the one paying for it. “What’s the situation?”
“Those otter haters are in the parking lot passing out pamphlets. They’re scaring festivalgoers away.”
“I don’t think they’re otter haters. I think they’re protesting because they’re otter lovers.”
“I don’t care what they are, just get rid of them. Now.”
“Did you call campus security?”
“Yes, and that Mutt person sent over a pimpled-faced teenager to do the job. The otter people laughed at him.”
“You should be used to this type of thing, Carmen, considering who our parents are.”
“Of course, I’m used to it, but I don’t want it happening on my watch. I saw two cars drive away when they saw those kids in the parking lot.”
“You don’t know that’s why they left.”
“Yes, I do, because I saw the kids chasing them out of the parking lot waving their flyers about otter equal rights, whatever that is.”
“I don’t know what I can do.”
“India, I can’t take it. Between the murder and now these otter people, the festival is going up in flames. I will be the laughingstock of the community.” She raked a hand through her hair, mussing her perfectly styled bob.
“Fine, fine. I’ll go see what I can do.”
“Thank you.” Her eyes narrowed. “I expect you to be in your pioneer dress tomorrow.”
I put my hands on my hips. “No way. I’m not taking care of these kids, and then wearing that pink nightmare tomorrow.” I sat back down to make my point.
“Fine. You don’t have to wear the dress. Your breaking the dress code is the least of my worries.” She pushed the girls and the stroller away.
I went off to find some otters.
Chapter Fourteen
I found the SOEC in the parking lot, pamphlets in hand. Erin said most Martin students referred to them as “So-Ick” because of their questionable hygiene.
The lone security guard shouted into the din, trying to be heard. “You must leave this area.” He didn’t look any older than the students he was yelling at. His skin was blotchy, and I wondered if he would break out in hives from the strain.
I almost retreated. A car turned into the lot. It held an elderly couple, who were obviously there to attend the festival. Their eyes widened when they saw the scruffy band of SOEC members. They circled the lot, threw a last regretful look at the students, then abandoned the parking lot for the open road. Although unlikely, they might have bought one of my paintings or been the source of my next big commission. Carmen was right; the SOEC crew was a problem.
I approached the person I assumed was the leader of the group by the way the female members hovered around him in a fascinated orbit. He was a white kid with blond dreadlocks and wire-rim glasses. Dreadlocks might work on some people, like reggae singers, but on this kid they resembled dirty blond sponges. By the way the girls hung on his every word, I guessed I held the minority opinion about his hairstyle.
Dreads looked me up and down. “Hey, you’re in my psych class, aren’t you? Want to help the cause?”
I sighed. I certainly hoped when I hit thirty years old, which I could see off in the not-too-distant horizon, I would no longer be confused with a student. I’m told I should take the confusion as a compliment, but it was most definitely a hindrance when I tried to exude authority.
The girls bared their teeth at me. Never fear, ladies. I’m so not interested, I thought.
“Uh, no. I’m not a student. I’m a librarian here.”
“The library is on the other side of campus.”
I tried hard not to sigh again. “I know that. I’m also helping out with the festival, and I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“We aren’t bothering anyone,” a girl piped up.
“Actually, you are. You’re scaring people away from the festival.”
“Are you India Hayes?”
I nodded.
“Your parents rock,” Dreads said. “I met them at a rally a couple weeks ago. They are awesome even though they’re so old. They gave me a lot of pointers about having my voice heard.”
Carmen would be so thrilled to learn we had our parents to thank for the uproar.
“They’ll be glad to hear it. It would be a big help to us—to my parents even—if you could move this . . . disagreement to another part of campus.”
“But this is where the community is hanging. We are spreading the word.”
“That’s admirable, of course,” I said, placating.
One of the girls stepped forward. She was a petite Indian student with heavy eye makeup. “I heard you’re going to find out who killed that woman on Thursday.”
My head snapped around. “Who told you that?”
She shrugged. “Everyone’s talking about it.”
“Yeah,” another agreed. “It’s huge. This is the first big thing to happen on campus all year.”
This was all said by people who weren’t related to the victim, who didn’t know her, who didn’t find her body and crushed skull. I could blame their interest on violent television, video games, or just plain media altogether, but I suspected people had been morbidly interested in these things before the media was ever involved. It always came back to the chicken or the egg.
The Indian girl spoke up. “It totally creeped me out to think I was nearby when the murder might have been going down.”
“Nearby? What do you mean?”
“I was riding my bike back to the dorm after a late class and heard some people fighting on the practice field as I rode by.”
“When was that?”
She thought. “Class got out at seven-fifteen, so probably seven-thirty.”
And I discovered Tess’s body at eight-thirty. What the girl said fit in with both Doc’s and my timetables. She probably did hear the killer.
“What did the voices sound like? Male? Female?”
“It was hard to tell. I didn’t hang around to listen. I wanted to get out of there. One was definitely female. I could tell she was upset.”
“You didn’t call security?” There was an accusatory tone in my voice.
The girl winced. “I just thought it was some couple fighting. You hear that all the time on campus. I didn’t think it was serious.”
I smiled at her. “It’s okay,” I said, even though it wasn’t. A quick cell phone call could have saved Tess’s life. I didn’t say that. I didn’t want to put the weight of Tess’s death on her thin shoulders. Truthfully, I didn’t know if I wouldn’t have done the same thing.
“What’s your name?”
“Raka.”
“Did you tell the police what you saw?”
“They never asked me.”
“That’s because they didn’t know you were there. You need to talk to them. Your information narrows down the time of death. It will make it easier to find who is responsible.”
“I don’t know if I want to get involved. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Dreads swung an arm over Raka’s shoulder. “You have to, babe. You’re cracking the case. You’ll be a hero. You’ll be protecting people just like we protect the otters.”
The crowd of disheveled students agreed. “You’re a hero, Raka,” one said.
Raka glowed with the cause. I’d seen the same expression on my parents too many times to count.
“I can take you to talk to an of
ficer now. There’s one here at the festival,” I said.
She nodded.
I thanked the rest of the group and suggested the library quad, which was right in the middle of campus, for their campaign. Hopefully, it wouldn’t get back to Lasha that I was the one who sent them there. I wasn’t sure whether the SOEC kids or the corn hole tournament would have been worse.
“She’ll catch up with you guys later,” I said and led Raka back to the festival.
As luck would have it, Office Habash was walking by. I waved her over. “Raka, tell her what you told me.”
Habash listened carefully. “This is very important information you have. I’m going to need to take you to the Justice Center for a statement.”
Raka’s dark brown eyes became huge. “I don’t know.”
“It’s no big deal,” I said. “My parents are there at least once a week.”
Habash smiled. “It will take a half hour at most.”
“Oh, okay.”
Habash looked at me. Her black eyes were questioning. “Should I tell Detective Mains you were the one who brought Raka to our attention?”
“Please don’t.”
“No problem.”
I smiled. Was I wrong, or were Officer Habash and I becoming friends? Now, if I could just win Knute over, I thought.
Back at my booth, Ina waited impatiently. I blinked when I saw her ensemble. She wore a green gingham dress and buckle shoes as well as her shamrock-laden pillbox hat. If she wanted to be historically accurate, Ina needed to replace the pillbox hat with a mobcap. Not that I was surprised. Even on a normal day, Ina was a walking anachronism.
“Where’d you find that getup?”
“I have my sources.” She wiggled her brows.
I let it go. I hoped there wasn’t a naked crafter running around the premises because Ina had swiped her dress.
She held two cups of fresh-squeezed lemonade. She handed me one. Zach half-rose to sniff my drink but snorted, returning to his bone.
“Where’ve you been?” I asked.
“Investigating.” She squirmed in the folding chair.
“How did your talk with Lynette go?”
Murder in a Basket (An India Hayes Mystery) Page 8