Maid of Murder

Chapter Twenty-Five

I stopped at Lula’s Flowers on the town square and bought the most expensive arrangement that my meager budget could bear. I might not eat for a few weeks, but the arrangement was worth its price. It was a cluster of yellow roses, orange lilies, and fragrant herbs in a blown glass vase. No carnations or baby’s breath. I signed the card simply “India.”

I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel as I drove the ten minutes to the Blocken home. I hadn’t seen a member of the family since they chased me out of the hospital on Saturday afternoon. I knew that I wouldn’t be welcome, not as long as they suspected my brother, but visiting them was the only way I could think of to find out how that photograph got into my brother’s office. Logic told me that one of the Blockens must have been involved because they were so certain that Mark attacked Olivia. Nostalgia told me that the family would never do such a horrible thing despite how they felt about Mark. Spite told me that Lepcheck planted the photos. As the three points of view fought for dominance, I found myself directly in front of the Blocken home.

I knocked on the door several times, but there was no answer. Either no one was home, or they saw me and refused to answer. I stepped off the Victorian’s elaborate porch and returned to my car with the flowers. I hesitated on the stone walk, then I meandered around the house to the wooden gate between the garage and house. I peered over the gate and saw O.M. sitting alone on a picnic table butted up to the side of the garage, smoking a slim cigarette and rifling through a box of chocolates. Her short hair was the startling neon blue hue that I’d seen at the hospital.

I tapped on the gate. Chocolate flew out of the box and onto the chemically treated lawn. She stubbed her cigarette on the underside of the tabletop. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“I didn’t mean to scare you. Can I come inside the gate?” I asked.

She shrugged.

I hung my arm over the gate to unlatch it. The gate was tricky, it had to be jiggled and jerked to cooperate. Although I hadn’t opened it in several years, I had no trouble. The gate saddened me.

Seeing that I was alone, O.M. picked up her half-smoked cigarette and fished a lighter out of her oversized dark denim jeans.

I set the flowers on one of the umbrella tables, remnants of the Blocken Fourth of July picnic that seemed so long ago. “Care if I sit beside you?” I asked.

She shrugged. I climbed onto the picnic table next to her and leaned against the garage. We didn’t speak for a few minutes. O.M. smoked, and I secondhand smoked. Her pixie-like face was devoid of makeup and expression.

“Want a cigarette?” She held the pack out to me.

“No thanks.”

She shoved it back in her pocket and turned her face away. I wished I smoked.

“Those chocolates look good.”

She handed me the box. Moon-shaped thumbnail prints indicated ninety percent of them had been investigated and passed over. Chocolate encrusted O.M.’s right thumbnail, creating a muddy swamp color with her poison-green nail polish.

I chose a piece that was free of nail marks. I popped it in my mouth. Apricot. Yuck. “You know there’s a guide on the box lid, so you don’t have to mutilate all the candies.”

“When they get all mixed up, the guide’s shot to hell.”

She had a point. I swallowed the apricot candy. At least she was talking to me, even if belligerently.

I tried to soften her further. “I like your hair.”

She ran her hand, the one free of chocolate, thankfully, through it. After a full minute of silence, she whispered, “I dyed it for the wedding to make Mom mad. She hasn’t noticed yet.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.”

“When is the funeral?”

“How would I know? They don’t tell me anything.” She took one last drag of her cigarette and stubbed it under the picnic table. She carefully placed the butt in her pocket. “My parents and Kirk are fighting over the arrangements and stuff. He wants her to be buried in Virginia. If he thinks that Mom’s going to let that happen, he really is psycho.”

“He did lose his fiancée,” I said in Kirk’s defense.

“I lost my sister, and I didn’t go crazy. He was so angry yesterday. I thought he was going to hit my dad.”

“Over the funeral?”

“Yeah, I guess. I was upstairs in my room with music on when he came over. I couldn’t really hear them until Kirk started yelling at Mom and Dad. By the time I got to the stairs and could see them, Kirk was so bonkers, I couldn’t understand what he was saying with that Southern accent of his. After Kirk left, I asked what happened, but Mom acted like I wasn’t even there.”

Looked like I had my first suspect: the furious fiancé.

I saw an opening. “Have you been missing any photographs of Olivia?”

She seemed surprised by the question. “No. I mean I’m not missing any. But if my parents are . . .” she shrugged. “Why?”

“Uh,” I began. I didn’t want to tell her about the engagement picture, but I didn’t want to be another exclusive adult. “Things get misplaced.”

O.M. frowned. Before she could persist, we heard a car roll up the driveway. A car door slammed, and a moment later, Mrs. Blocken stood by the gate I’d left opened.

I jumped off the picnic table.

“Olga!” she called. “Have you seen—” Mrs. Blocken stopped when she spotted me. Her face reddened to the shade of her coif. “What are you doing here?”

“I—”

“Leave my house at once. How dare you come here?”

O.M. pulled her knees to her chest and looked away, out into the yard.

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Mrs. Blocken.” I felt like a five-year-old.

Her eyes blazed. Her attention transferred to the bouquet of flowers I bought. “Where did these come from?” She picked up the vase and read the card. “Do you know why Olivia chose you as a bridesmaid?”

I blinked, struck dumb by the question.

“To get back at me.”

“At you,” I managed to say.

“She wanted to get married in Virginia, and I said absolutely not, that her father and I would only pay for a Stripling wedding.” She spun the vase in her hands. “I didn’t know about the wedding party until a month ago when it was too late to replace you. You should have heard the glee in her voice when she said your name.”

Mrs. Blocken looked me directly in the eye and dropped the vase onto the cement walk. The beautiful hand-blown glass shattered into a thousand pieces.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” I whispered and fled, trampling the lilies and roses as I brushed past her.