Odin's Murder (11 page)

“Yeah, I think so.”

She stops, looking down at the envelope. “Is this the house?”

We stand in front of a small bungalow, behind a picket fence, nestled deep in overgrown bushes. The paint is a drab green, faded and peeling with age, but droopy potted plants line the porch, making the house seem comical and sad, like a neglected puppy.

“It’s the right number on the mailbox,” I say. Two newspapers lie in the driveway.

“There’s a man watching us.” She’s staring over my left shoulder. A big man with longish hair, graying at the temples with a matching beard, strolls along the opposite sidewalk, the way we’ve come. He wears a blue Carolina Panthers t-shirt, and an old faded baseball hat shades half his face. He’s eating an apple. “Do you think he’s like the neighborhood watch, or something?” she whispers, hopping from one foot to the other. “He looks important. Like he’s the neighborhood mafia Don. Or maybe an undercover policeman?”

“I don’t think he’s going to have us whacked or bust us for trespassing while he’s carrying a bag of groceries.” I wave to him. He nods, a quick lowering of the hat brim. “We’re looking for Sonja William’s house,” I call.

He gestures to the house in front of us with the half eaten apple, nods again, and keeps walking.

Faye breathes an exaggerated sigh. “Should we just walk up?”

“Why not?” I say. “Sonja and I were friends. We emailed and texted some. I think it’s reasonable for me to find out what happened to her this summer. See if she got a better deal somewhere, modeling in France or something fantastic. And if something bad happened, like a death in the family, we should offer condolences, or something, right?” I push the gate open and let Faye pass me. “Besides, we need to give her her mail.”

Together, we walk toward the house.

11.

Excursion

“Where are you going?” Julian asks as I turn to follow the girls. They disappear behind the stone wall surrounding the quad.

“Didn’t you ask me to keep an eye on your sister?”

“Yeah, but—”

“But nothing. Those two aren’t going on a walk. Faye was hiding something behind her back and Memory? Well, let’s just say I can smell trouble and she reeks.”

Julian stares at me as I walk away. I didn’t ask for the job of stalking Memory, but I can’t deny I’m suspicious anyway. Not to mention I kind of just like watching her tromp around campus in her silly shoes and short shorts. Even if I have no plans to ever touch that again, I can still
look
at her ass.

Faye’s excited rambles are only murmurs at this distance, though I have to fight to keep my laughter at Memory’s posture, the way she shrugs her shoulders and her head tilts in obvious confusion. I’m sure I seemed just as baffled, yesterday. I’ve never met anyone like Faye before. Blunt and self assured, she’s probably the smartest chick I’ve ever met. Cute, like a rebellious china doll, though not my type.

My type is taller. And wears clothes like a pin-up-girl and walked as high above the ground as she could get, and looked like she wanted to puke after I kissed her.

The girls prowl up to the chapel, though I don’t get why they’d have to keep follow-up on the project a big secret. Faye points at the front door, but they keep moving, to the path that curls around the building. I wonder if she’s got it in her mind to break into the basement without me, but then they’re beyond it.

Careful to stay in the shade and avoiding the twigs that will make noise underfoot,

I tail them around the building. It’s just as empty as yesterday, undisturbed but for the grass trampled under the back windows. I drop my bag on the ground, kneel at my shoe as if I’m tying it, and scan the scenery behind me for spectators. No one is watching me or the girls as they walk to the far gate. In fact, no one is around other than some kids with a Frisbee in the upper field, beyond the tree break.

I try the window. It’s loose, but still locked; there is no way they’ve had time to get inside and then re-lock the window back before I caught up to them. I snag the dean’s letter opener from my camera bag, and slip it into the space between the window frame and the building. It only takes a second of wedging the metal around in the gap, and I pop the window open, breaking the century-old lock.  Cold, dusty air gusts from the cellar. I lean in, but can see nothing through the dark.

No way the girls went in there, not Cherry in her absurd heels, and neither with flashlights.

I pull back, muffle my cough in my elbow, and close the window.

Standing, I stash the knife and grab my camera, clicking a shot of the one that is unlocked. I scout the two tracks of footsteps disturbing the grass, curving around the edge of campus. I follow after them, holding the camera like I’m taking random shots of the scenery, but the Frisbee players pay no attention to me.

The girls are nowhere in sight.

“Where are you going, Cherry?” I mutter, but no-one answers, save for a bird, cawing into the distance. I glance down at my camera, and stop. I frown, adjust the viewfinder and look through it again.

A house stares back at me, tumbledown green, with paint peeling off black shutters, and a sorry looking potted plant on the stoop. I lower the camera, look at the Frisbee kids, the chapel in the trees, the trod-on grass leading through the back gate of the campus, but there are no houses in view.

Still walking as casually as I can, I turn the camera off, and adjust the settings. I scan through the images saved to the card. The last one I took was of the window by the basement door of the stone church. I pass the sleeping guard and ease through the open gate, spinning once around to look behind me. The wooden striped bar doesn’t slam down with an alarm, and the fence doesn’t roll in on its motored wheels. There’s no electric or barbed wire at the top.

My heart is beating heavy against my ribs. I look at the outside world, the trees that go forever, the horizon behind them, easy hills. Freedom.

I step to the left, but Memory’s voice calls to someone, from the other direction. Digging in my bag, I duck into the shadow of a low branched tree and find the zoom, twisting off my usual and mount the larger lens. I hold it up, pan to the right. “Where are you?” I whisper.

There’s a sofa on the view screen. A couch with ivy fabric cushions, against a shadowed wall with scribble print wallpaper. I’m looking at someone’s living room, someone with butt-ugly furniture.

I lower the Nikon. In front of me is a narrow street, one lane, curving through the sparse trees. I raise the camera, focus again. This time I see the houses at the end of the street. In the distance a figure is walking away, a brown paper bag under one arm. I take a picture, look back at the saved images, but see no house, or couch. Only a guy with groceries.

One of the Frisbee kids shouts at another, or maybe it’s the bird cawing again. I look back at the gate, take a deep breath. “Sorry, Mary,” I say under my breath, as I break every rule handed down from Zoe, Dean Burnett, and several family court judges. “Extenuating circumstances.”

I walk down the street, one foot in front of the other. No one is watching me. My chest is still pounding, and I take huge strides, fast. I come to the end, and the scattering of houses, old nice ones, all well-kept and maintained—except one. It’s green, with black shutters and sulking plants in orange clay pots.

My stomach ties a square-knot and I know without a doubt the girls are in this one, the one I’d seen in my camera, though I shouldn’t have. Of course they couldn’t have picked the nice, freshly painted yellow one, or the one on the left with the tricycle in the front. I stand at the little fence and sure enough, the grass to the door is marred, pushed down by useless sparkly platforms and a tiny pair of witch boots.

I unlatch the gate and walk to the door, only pausing for a second to knock on the torn screen door. The interior door is open and the heat from inside the house is harsh and ripe, the opposite of the air in the chapel basement. No one responds to my knock.  “Cherry? Faye?” I call. “Dammit.”

I’m not breaking, I tell Mary. I’m only entering. And we need to get my camera looked at, too, please.

“Hello,” I say louder, pulling back the screen door. The springs protest with a loud creak. I hear a muffled thump and a small Faye-voiced-squeak, but then my mouth goes bone-whisper dry. I’m staring at a small living room, with scribbled wallpaper, shadows drifting over a hideous couch with ivy print on the cushions.

Shit. My mouth forms the word, but no sound comes out.

“Ethan?”

Relief washes over me. “Cherry. What are you doing here?”

“Come in here.” She waves from a hallway, pointing into another room.

I walk past the sofa. She takes my hand, tugs me deeper into the house. Her fingers are tight on mine. “What is going on?” I ask Faye.

The tiny girl’s mouth is open, lips in a perfect circle, eyes midnight dark. “Take pictures,” she breathes.

“There’s something wrong with my camera,” I say, but I fumble in my bag, and snap a one handed shot of Memory’s fingers, still clutching my wrist. I check the saved data. An image of a pale slender hand, with black glittery nail polish, grasping tanned, rough skin. Back one is a long shot of a street, and before that, a chapel window. No green houses, no sofas. I change the lenses out again.

“Is it working?” Memory asks. I nod, and stare around the room. “We came looking for Sonja and found all
this
.” She points to a tall antique shelf filled with tiny figures. “Make sure you get pictures of that corner.”

“And the paintings,” Faye directs, her nose an inch from one on the wall, like she’s reading the scribbly paper that covers the room.

“Is this her house?” I ask.

“Yeah. I’ll explain in a minute. Just take the pictures so we can get out of here before the guard wakes up.” Memory places a package on the dining room table and ducks from the room. “I’ll be right back.”

I watch her leave. “We need to go. We shouldn’t be here.”

“Five minutes,” she calls back. “Less. Three.”   

“What’s in the package?” I ask Faye. It has Sonja’s name on it and a dorm address.

“That’s why we came. To bring it to her.”

“Did you open it?”

“Oh, no. Opening someone else’s mail is a felony.”

She’s eager to trespass on private property, but wouldn’t open someone’s mail? I’d be amused if I weren’t so nervous. I lift my camera and start taking photos of the paintings and wallpaper, the gold dusty mirror hanging over the fireplace. I snap pictures of each shelf in the china cabinet, the embroidery on the footstool in front of a plush chair. I take pictures of everything and when I’m done I call to both girls, stashing the package to Sonja in my camera bag.

We scan the street before we leave, and pull the door closed behind us. Faye darts off the steps, to a tall plant that grows off the porch, and wrenches a yellow flower cluster from the top.

“What are you doing?” Memory hisses.

“It’s tansy. A natural bug repellent. Good against bees.”

Cherry groans and grabs Faye by her sweater sleeve, hauling her to the sidewalk. The girls run. I jog behind, and stop short when Faye does, nearly mowing down Memory. I catch her before she topples, arm around her waist. “Dammit!” she hisses.

The guard is up and awake, talking to someone.

“What do we do?” Faye whispers.

The rent-a-cop points up toward campus, and then steps out, gesturing up the hill while a tall skinny dark haired boy in glasses nods and points to his phone. Julian takes a few steps from the shack, and the man follows him, his back to us.

“Go,” I say, and Memory snatches the shoes from her feet and dashes past the gate. Faye flies behind her. I stride past as Julian’s words trail behind us, up the hill. “…just wondering if there were any local legends of the area, or old local landmarks that…”

We’re back on campus. The Frisbee players are gone. The girls stop to breathe in the shade near the chapel. Julian is still talking to the guard.

“What was all that about?” I wipe the sweat off my face with my t-shirt. Memory says nothing. She’s staring at my bare stomach, and I’m pinned still by the look on her face.

“We have to show Julian the pictures. He’s not going to believe it!” Faye says, peeling off a sweater and tying it around her waist. She bounces in her shoes. “Why would Sonja have all that in her house?”

Memory looks away, brushes her hair from her face. A few sweaty strands curl at her ears, the nape of her neck. “I think we need to figure that out. Come on, let’s wait for my brother inside.”

I look behind me at the gate that I’ve just walked back through on my own volition, and then keep following her.

*

The girls walk straight to my dorm room, only stopping to let me enter the code on the security door. We take the stairs in silence, and I unlock the door. Once we’re inside, Faye bursts out in wild giggles, and flops down on Julian’s bed. “Oh my god, that was crazy. Maybe the craziest thing I’ve ever done.”

Cherry and I share amused glances, the first she’s met my eyes since I kissed her and got the mental whiplash of my life. I sit on my bed, giving her room, but she moves to the mini fridge and passes out Julian’s sodas, one to each of us.

Julian bangs the door open less than a minute later. “You owe me. Seriously. What the hell were you thinking?” he yells at Memory, and then shuts up tight when his eyes land on Faye on his bed.

The girls look at me and I shrug. “You start. I have no idea what is going on.”

Cherry rubs the ink on the inside of her wrist. “Sonja received a package. It was in our room. But she lives nearby, so Faye and I decided to take it back to her mom’s house, and find out where she was.”

“You just decided to walk off campus?”

She scrunches her nose. “No, we skipped like school girls. Yes, we found her house. And we went in.”

“Was she there?” Julian asks.

“No one was,” I say.

“We totally broke in!” Faye kicks her feet in the air. “It was awesome!”

“What?” Julian glares at me.