Mains handed me one of his business cards, the third he had given me in the last twenty-four hours. Was the accident really only yesterday? I wondered.
“If you see your brother, call me, or ask him to do so.”
I dropped the card into my shoulder bag along with the other two that languished there.
“As of right now, this is a homicide investigation.” With that, he was gone.
My key wouldn’t fit; it repeatedly missed the lock in the brass doorknob. I kicked the wooden door with my flip-flopped foot. Pain shot through my toe and up my ankle. A black scuffmark marred the door’s paint. I held one shaking hand with my other and forced the key into the lock. I dumped my keys and shoulder bag on the hardwood floor just inside the doorway. I shut, locked, and bolted the door. Hobbling to the kitchen-cubby, I opened the freezer and grabbed an ice pack. On the living room couch, I elevated my foot with the blue-gelled ice pack.
I wrapped the remainder of my body in the orange bed sheet. Silky black fur clung to the bright cotton. Head under the light sheet, I felt entombed, distanced, but not completely safe from the terrifying world on the other side of the cotton. The bright summer sun dripped through the kitchen window and penetrated the cloth. My pale skin gleamed in the hot ocher light. The determined sunrays fought through my clenched eyelids, and the shadows alternated red hot and bright black. Second by second my foot released hold of its pain.
I felt Templeton’s body alight on the back of the couch. Walking the sofa’s length, he butted my shrouded head with his own. My acute memory replayed every slight, every remark, every hurtfully cruel word or deed I had ever committed against Olivia, a lifetime’s worth, until she was the princess and I was the mustachioed villain.
And then I thought about Mark.
I threw off the sheet and catapulted up. Templeton flew across the room, his expression astonished. I ran into my bedroom and changed into a T-shirt and long men’s shorts with a few flecks of indigo paint on the right hemline. In the bathroom, I washed my face, damp with tears I could not recall. After scooping my heavy hair into a tight knot, I scooped up my keys and shoulder bag and ran out the door.
As I turned the car off quiet Calvin Road, Ina and her blue-haired friend Juliet careened onto the street in Juliet’s vintage compact automobile. Ina waved wildly. I didn’t wave back.
Chapter Thirteen
Mark’s apartment was in a low-rent district just inside Akron’s city limits. A few miles from downtown and the state university, the apartment complex was a haven for financially strapped college students. Martin students, courtesy of their parents, lived in the nicer buildings found in Akron’s compacted suburbs such as Stow, Tallmadge, or Stripling. Mark moved into the apartments as a Martin undergrad, wanting to pay his own way and choosing all that he could afford. Even as his educational and financial levels rose, he never mentioned moving. The apartment complex was a tight cluster of wood-sided structures, maybe twenty in all. Each building held nine apartment units on three floors. My brother’s building sat in the middle of the complex, next to the swimming pool.
When I parked my car in front of Mark’s building, pulsating rap music from poolside shook the windows. On this hot summer day, the pool crawled with late teens and early twenty-somethings. The high-pitched chatter from the female sunbathers competed with the rap in volume and pitch. A mid-summer sheen of suntan lotion and dirt glazed the improbably blue water’s surface.
Mark’s apartment was on the first floor. I knocked, scraping my knuckles on the coarse wood. After several minutes, hearing nothing from inside, I used my key. The door opened into a small great room that functioned as his living and dining space. The back wall consisted of his kitchen, not much bigger than my own. The apartment was a sty. Papers, books, clothes, aluminum cans, and plastic wrappers littered the floor and furniture.
Even on such a beautiful day, the shades were tightly drawn. I turned on a light. I called his name, but I knew that he wasn’t there. Out of habit, I picked some of the junk off the floor and tossed the cans into the recycling bin. I leafed through a pile of mail that I found by the front door. It was postdated the previous year. I dropped it on the ground—if he wanted to live like a slob that was his choice to make. I snooped through his papers on the kitchen counter to see if I could discover where he had gone, but they bordered prehistoric.
An enormous thud sounded in the bedroom. I yelped. The tip of Theodore’s tail flicked over the kitchen counter.
“Hey, Theo.” I patted his head. He squeaked at me and pointedly glared at his empty food dish. I rummaged around the kitchen for cat food and placed a handful in his bowl. His expression plainly said, “More.” Feeling sorrier for Mark than Theodore, I placed two more handfuls in the dish. I hoped animal rights groups wouldn’t picket me for contributing to feline obesity. I asked Theodore where Mark was, but his face was too deeply ensconced in his turkey-flavored cat food to reply.
Before leaving, I scanned my brother’s bedroom—surprisingly clean—and the small bathroom—which decidedly wasn’t. I found Theodore’s leash draped over the secondhand sofa. I wrestled him into his harness and clipped on the leash. I couldn’t bear to leave him in Mark’s drab apartment alone. I scribbled a note to Mark telling him where Theodore was should he come home. Using the lead, I tugged the cat away from the bowl. His thick pads flattened out to the kitchen floor, and his nails dug into the brown linoleum. I tugged again. He didn’t budge nor miss a beat in his chewing tempo. I hefted the great cat into my arms. He yowled and hissed. I picked up the half-empty dish, holding it to his mouth so he could eat, and carried the cat and meal out of Mark’s apartment.
A couple tankini-clad girls watched me manhandle Theodore into my car. They looked about eighteen and were the walking poster children for the benefits of tanning beds. The sportier of the two wore a silky pageboy haircut; the other had long, blond locks.
“Man, that’s a big cat,” Pageboy called out.
I pushed flyaway hair out of my face and readjusted my glasses. “He’s a Maine Coon cat. They’re generally a big breed, but he might be a little too big.”
I slammed the door before Theodore could escape, not that I thought he’d move as long as he was in the vicinity of a well-stocked food source.
Blond Locks smoothed her swimsuit over her flat stomach. “You shouldn’t let your cat get that big, you know.”
I mentally snorted, no one
“The cat’s not hers,” Pageboy said.
Before they could accuse me of cat-napping, I said, “He’s my brother’s cat.”
“You’re Mark’s sister?”
“Uh, yeah,” I said.
She snapped her gum. “We live next door to him. I’m Brit. This is Karen.”
“I’m India. Have you seen Mark today?”
Brit and Karen consulted each other with a look.
Apparently spokesperson for the duo, Brit said, “Saw him this morning, when we were heading to the pool at about ten.”
Karen nodded in agreement.
“He was acting really weird,” Brit added.
I stepped closer to the aluminum fence. “Weird?”
“Yeah, like he was crying really hard, and when we asked him if he was okay, he didn’t even look at us.”
My shoulder began to throb as it always does when I’m upset. “So he didn’t say where he was going or anything?”
“Naw,” Brit said and wrapped a bright towel around her waist. “But after he left, this older guy pulled up and banged on his door. Me and Karen were talking to Kev at the time, he’s, like—well, we’re kinda dating or will be. The only reason I noticed is because this old guy showed up with a couple of cops. Kev, he’s going to the police academy after he graduates; he said it was, like, a takedown.”
Mains and reinforcements.
