Maid of Murder

Chapter Twenty-Two

I circled campus with the windows down, hoping to locate my parents. Not much of a challenge. At the south end of campus near Dexler, I heard them.

“Hark, Hark, bring back Mark! Hark, Hark, bring back Mark!” A militant’s call that wrote itself, I thought. I still couldn’t see the protest from Dexler’s lot but heard it clearly. The chanting increased in volume and ferocity. “Hark! Hark! Bring back Mark! Hey! Hey! We want Hayes!”

My father’s specially-equipped van dominated the lot. Massive and olive green, a barely readable Save the Amazon sticker decorated its tarnished bumper.

I jogged around the corner of Dexler with escalating dread. Then, I saw them. My mother marched in front of a small band of protestors as they circled the fountain. My father was stationed in front of the marchers, bullhorn in hand, leading the chant. Nicholas sat on his lap, covering his tiny ears with his palms. I didn’t see Carmen or Chip. A small group of students and faculty congregated to the side of the spectacle. The dozen or so marchers carried chalkboard-sized placards that read, Unlawful Suspension!, Innocent Until Proven Guilty!, and my personal favorite, Martin College: Equal Opportunity Executioner! Mom toted that one. I suppose I should be relieved that they hadn’t strung an effigy of Lepcheck from the fountain.

Beyond the small cluster of Martinites, a TV van from Akron Canton News parked on the science quad. The finicky grounds crew would love that. A cameraman zoomed in on the protestors as the petite correspondent recorded a sound bite.

Not yet eleven, the day was already scorching in the low nineties. The marchers’ energy began to wane. Most participants were elderly parishioners from my mother’s church and associates from my parents’ liberal causes.

I proceeded across the brick walkway. Nicholas spotted me before I reached them. He jumped off his grandfather’s lap. Running full tilt, he flung his small frame into my arms.

“Ufh,” I uttered.

“Dia!” Nicholas’s cry was barely decipherable over the commotion.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, stalling the looming confrontation with my parents.

“Mommy and Daddy had to teach today.”

“They did?”

He nodded importantly. “They’re helping people get their graduate equalizer degree.”

“Ahh. GRE is probably easier to say.”

He thought about that and nodded. “I’m helping Gram and Granpa.”

“You are?”

“I’m learning to use my First Amendment right to peaceful protest.”

Dad bellowed through his bullhorn, instructing the protestors to continue their chanting, then wheeled over to Nicholas and me. Zealous and sheepish looks fought for control over his expression. The zealot won.

“Dad,” I said, the weight of my disapproval heavy in the name.

“That horrible article was in the paper this morning, and your mother and I had to do something to support our son.”

I shifted Nicholas off my hip and put him down. He unshouldered his Hugs-not-Guns backpack, a gift from his grandfather, and poured its contents of action figures, markers, papers, and plastic blocks on the brick walk. He squatted on the walk and began constructing an intricate fortress.

“The article upset me too, but you don’t see me marching on Martin. This isn’t just about Mark. I could lose my job.”

“Is it more important to keep your job than support your brother?”

I wiped both my hands down my face.

“Hey! Hey! We want Hayes!” the chanters shouted.

“Why would you want to work for an organization that condemns your brother?” He sounded disgusted.

The late morning sun burned my dark head. I wished I’d worn a hat like all good militants do. “All of Martin isn’t against Mark. Good people work here too. This is Lepcheck’s work. He’s wanted to boot Mark for years, because Mark never finished his PhD.”

“After everything settles down,” my father argued, “Mark will complete his doctorate. He needs more time.”

I wouldn’t be dragged into a debate about Mark’s perpetual dissertation. “Fine. Whatever. All I’m trying to tell you is it’s not the entire school. It’s Lepcheck.”

“Who has the most power?” He spat like a true patron of proletariat. “Individuals rise to the level of their incompetence.”

Under my breath, I counted to ten backwards. I don’t know why I thought my parents would retreat because it put me in an awkward position. They’ve been marching on something or other, motivated by sheer principle, since the Summer of Love.

Several of the elderly protestors sat on the knee-high stone wall that surrounded the fountain to catch their breath. They limply held their signs, every so often jerking them upright in a half-hearted wave.

I decided to change my tactic. “Your troops are exhausted. Why don’t you give them a break for at least a half an hour or so?”

“We will not break ranks,” he bellowed. Nicholas looked up from his blocks. “But I see what you mean,” he added in a normal tone. He fished into the Velcro pouch of his carpenter pants, which he wears for the endless amount of pockets. He’d said once that if his legs couldn’t carry him, at least they could hold odds and ends for him. He handed me the keys to the van. “I have a cooler of water in the van. Can you go fetch it for me?”

Who was I kidding? I took the keys. I played with the key ring, swinging it around my index finger as I walked back to the Dexler parking lot. The key chain was a palm-sized plastic ornament that declared, Save the Koalas.

I unlocked the van and opened the sliding door. More placards about Mark’s suspension lay across the bench seats. My parents expected more walkway warriors than those who had shown up. A box of bright poster paints and brushes sat on the floor next to the cooler. If I were in a more forgiving mood, I would’ve remembered that I have my parents’ activism to thank for my early interest in art. At a young age, I helped my father paint posters and pickets for different protests that he spearheaded across the country. Carmen and Mark took no interest in the activity, so it became my father’s and my own. When we painted those placards for AIDS awareness, gun control, and library levies, he noticed a talent that I hadn’t known I had and enrolled me in art class at a local studio. Three days a week for twelve years, I took classes from that studio, honing my skill. It was understood that I would one day be a famous painter that those outside of the art world would recognize.

I pulled the cooler out of the van. It ka-thunked onto the blacktop. Many understood things never happened. That was never truer than when I thought of Olivia, and what her life might have become.

On the sidewalk, I opened the lid to the cooler. It indeed held water. A lot of water. I tightened the lid, then hefted the container into my arms and waddle-walked back toward the fountain.

I was passing a cluster of evergreen bushes when I heard, “Psssst. Psst. India.”

Alarmed, I dropped the precariously held cooler. On my foot.