Grounds to Kill Read online

  Detective Kellum was still staring at the mirror. He turned slowly and regarded me.

  “Yeah. Why’d you change from a clean shirt to a dirty one?”

  “I need a white shirt for work and I don’t have any clean ones.” I stepped past him and back into the bathroom. “Besides, I have to wear a stupid apron and it’ll cover the stain.”

  Snagging my hair dryer, I fluffed and brushed for a few minutes while Kellum stood staring. I resisted the urge to snag a hand towel and wipe off the words from the mirror, but I turned on the bathroom fan and they soon disappeared with the steam. I quickly applied some makeup, hard to do with Kellum staring so intently. I nearly took out an eye with a mascara wand.

  “Do you always write yourself letters on your bathroom mirror?”

  “Not always,” I admitted.

  Although if I was going to be honest with myself I was grateful for that one other time a few years ago when the Tremendous Trio were in Vegas for Beth’s bachelorette weekend before her ill-fated marriage to the scum-sucking-toilet-worm. That time the mirror message read “Dear Jen, the loser who gave you his number in the bar has an STD.”

  Sometimes the ol’ Hand of Doom was like a service announcement from God.

  When I broke away from my trip down memory lane, I noticed Detective Kellum was staring at me expectantly.

  “If there’s somebody you’re covering up for, now would be a good time to be honest about that.”

  “Trust me, I’m not covering for anyone,” I said throwing up my hands. “I’m sorry Misty is dead. We may not have gotten along,” I said in the understatement of the decade, “but she didn’t deserve to get murdered and I don’t know a thing about who would’ve killed her. Maybe it was just some random break-in. Have you thought about that?”

  I walked toward my kitchen to make coffee. I took my French press from the cupboard and put the kettle on to boil. After pulling out the plunger I spooned in the coarsely ground beans that Arthur had ground that morning.

  “What are you doing?” Detective Kellum asked.

  “Making coffee.”

  “In that?”

  “Yes. In this. If you have problem with coffee made in a French Press, you don’t have to drink any.”

  The kettle had reached hot, but not boiling, so I poured the water over the grounds, stirred with a spoon to ensure all the grounds were wet and then put the top on to allow the coffee to brew for a few minutes.

  “I’ve never seen anybody make coffee like that,” Kellum said, appearing genuinely intrigued. “It’s weird.”

  “Don’t worry, I think there’s a donut shop around the corner.” I glanced at the time on my Blackberry. “I’ve got ten minutes. The coffee will be ready in four. Go.”

  “So you and Misty shared a dad and are half sisters,” he prompted. “And your father used to be with Seattle PD.”

  Just then Mojo came running out of my bedroom with a red thong dangling from her bearded mug. She flattened her front paws on the ground and shook the panties, expecting this would inspire a chase.

  “I’m not playing,” I scolded her. Then to Kellum I added, “That isn’t a question. We already established all that.”

  I gave Mojo fresh water and kibble then opened the patio door for her to have one last chance to go out before I left for work. I picked up my panties nonchalantly and returned them to the pile of laundry on my bedroom floor.

  I came back and poured myself a full cup of coffee and looked at the Detective.

  “You want to try some of my weird coffee, or are you good?”

  “Sure. I’ll give it a whirl.”

  I wanted to tell him he wasn’t worthy of my coffee, but didn’t want to anger a man with the power to throw me in jail. I poured half a mugful and handed it to him.

  “So were your mom and dad divorced?” Kellum asked.

  “My mom died of cancer when I was nineteen. Dad had always been...well, let’s just say he wasn’t around much. I’d moved out of the house already and Dad came back when he heard mom was sick with cancer.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “After she was gone, I couldn’t count on Dad to hang around and I couldn’t keep up the rent of the house on my own, so I was preparing to move back in with friends. Then Dad showed up with Misty. She was sixteen. Dad said he’d had an affair with Misty’s mom, but her own mom took off and now he had to raise her. He claims my mother never knew. So we all lived together for a few months and tried the one-big-happy-family thing, but it didn’t work. Misty was trouble. Drugs and a lot of other stuff. She stole from me. Took my mom’s jewelry. Made my life a living hell. One night Dad moved out without a word and Misty blamed me. We may have shared some DNA, but by no stretch of the imagination were we sisters. I hated her.”

  I glanced over at Detective Kellum, and realized I probably could’ve left the last part out.

  “Not that I would’ve acted on those feelings of hate by killing her,” I added.

  “And yet you chose to live down the hall from her.”

  “She chose. I was in this building first. I swear she moved here just to mess with me.” I glared at Detective Kellum, becoming more than a little annoyed with his line of questioning.

  “Or maybe she just wanted to live close to her last remaining family.”

  My defenses crumpled a little. It was possible, although she had a funny way of showing it.

  “This is amazing.” He looked down into his cup and then up at me. “What did you call that thing?”

  “A French press.”

  “Gotta get my wife one of those things. Her coffee tastes like shit.”

  He lifted his mug and finished off his coffee then looked at me hopefully so I gave him a refill.

  “Why did you hate each other?”

  “Like I said, she stole from me. And not just my mother’s jewelry. I guess I felt like she stole my father too.”

  “Lots of blended families out there, Miss Hamby, and not all the kids hate each other. Most learn to work things out and get along.”

  “Blended families.” I blew an unladylike raspberry at the term. “Misty and I weren’t family and throwing us together in a blender certainly never changed that.”

  “Must’ve been hard on your dad having you two at each other.”

  His implication was clear. Two brawling teens had caused Dad to run for the hills. And maybe I would’ve taken on some of that guilt if Dad hadn’t always been a pit stop parent with demons of his own.

  At the mere mention of my father, I felt tears prick the back of my eyes. I cleared my throat.

  “My dad was...is...sick. I don’t think he really noticed, or cared, what was going on between me and Misty.”

  Kellum just stared at me.

  “Maybe I should talk to your dad about Misty.”

  “Good luck with that.” I glanced pointedly at my wrist as if I had a watch there. “Time’s up. I can’t be late.”

  “Misty had a listing in her cell phone under ‘dad,’ but the number was disconnected.”

  “The number was probably many years old.” I took our mugs to the kitchen and rinsed them out.

  Mojo came in from the patio, stretched and got comfortable in her princess bed.

  “Could I get your dad’s new number?” Kellum asked.

  “Sorry, but I haven’t talked to my dad in a long time.”

  It was perfectly true. In Dad’s world, talking is overrated.

  “So you don’t know how to reach him?”

  “No.” I’d been trying to reach my dad for years, but though his body might be in Seattle, his mind was definitely elsewhere. Maybe the planet Zoron. “He mostly lives on the streets these days.”

  I locked the patio door, snagged my purse and headed for the door.

  “When was the last time
you saw him?”

  I realized there was no way to come up with a witty or pithy answer. I opened the closet, snagged a hoodie and bent to slip my feet into my black flats. When I straightened up, I looked the Detective straight in the eye.

  “Look, my dad’s one of those homeless dudes who pushes a shopping cart and smells like sewage. He’s a paranoid schizophrenic. No cure for being schizo, but you can manage it if you stay on your meds. Many go on to lead normal lives. My dad isn’t one of those. He can only handle the medications for a few months at a time. He was diagnosed late. Held a regular job as a cop until I was ten then all things went to hell and he’d just come home whenever he remembered having a home. Right now I don’t have a clue when the last time was he was coherent.” I threw up my hands. “So, if you want to find him, I’m guessing you could check the local alleys or shelters.”

  “That must be rough.”

  Kellum opened the apartment door and we stepped into the hall and locked up.

  “So when did you say the last time was you saw your dad?”

  Even though most of the time I doubted if my dad knew my name, it didn’t mean I wasn’t still protective of him.

  “I see him from time to time in alleys or wandering the streets. Last time I saw him, I gave him a muffin and a list of homeless shelters. I don’t think he even recognized me.”

  It was the truth, even though I didn’t add that I was talking about yesterday. We walked down the hall and I pressed the button for the elevator and tried not to look down the hall to Misty’s apartment.

  “Misty kept a journal,” Kellum casually mentioned as we waited for the elevator. “Did you know that?”

  I tossed my hands up in frustration.

  “How would I know that? Misty and I weren’t big on sharing our day to day routines. She could’ve kept a journal, goldfish and a love slave locked in her apartment and I wouldn’t have known about it.”

  “Your name comes up a lot in her diary,” Kellum said.

  The elevator arrived and I hit L for lobby.

  “So?” I shrugged, although that did surprise me a little.

  “Yes. Her last entry was a couple of days ago and she said ‘Jen is going to kill me.’”

  Chapter Five

  I painstakingly explained to Detective Kellum on our brief elevator ride that Misty may have written her journal entry simply out of glee due to the fact that she was screwing Arthur.

  “So you’re saying she wasn’t really afraid of you?”

  With a mirthless chuckle I stated emphatically, “No.”

  As far as I was concerned, Misty knew I’d never hurt her. If I was going to cause her harm it would’ve been the first year we met when, at sixteen, she’d taken to wearing my clothes, taking family heirlooms, stealing my cash and humping my boyfriends. For cash.

  Kellum looked doubtful, but walked me to my car and left me to scurry off to work.

  Even though I did scurry, I was still late and was surprised to find Mitch working side by side with one of the interchangeable string-bean anorexic part-timer girls whose names I never memorized since they usually lasted only a month at the most.

  “It’s a three-person shift?” I asked, tossing the bib of my apron over my head and then tying it at my waist.

  “No. Two,” Mitch said. “I called Minnie to come in because I figured you were too traumatized to work today.”

  “Oh.” I thought about that and took a mental health check. “Nope. I think I’m good.”

  He raised his eyebrows with curiosity and offered me a look that said I definitely was not good, but he didn’t push the issue.

  Ms. Skinny, aka Minnie, was already working behind the counter elbow to elbow with Mitch so I filled creamers, napkins and lids and scrubbed the tables that hardly needed scrubbing since our clientele were mostly a tidy-up-their-own-mess kind. After wiping all I could wipe, I went in the back and got the glass cleaner and began spraying smudges off the front windows ensuring our prized customers a clear, unobstructed view of the concrete parking garage across the street. Noticeably vacant was my father’s square piece of sidewalk now speckled with fat raindrops.

  “I’m taking a break,” Ms. Skinny announced after serving the last customer in a short line.

  “Grab a muffin or three,” I told her over my shoulder. “Put some meat on your bones before you cut someone.”

  The comment slid right over Ms. Skinny’s dark roots as she sauntered into the back room.

  “That’s really unnecessary,” Mitch said. “Why do you always bug the part-timers about being slim?”

  “They are not just slim. Those girls are poster children for eating disorders.”

  “They don’t lay into you about your weird quirkiness and the fact that you always wear coffee stained shirts,” he pointed out.

  “What weird quirkiness?” I demanded, shifting the apron to cover the coffee stain on the front of my blouse.

  “Doodles at the cash register.” He shook his head. “Never mind. Sorry I brought it up.”

  Then a gaggle of yoga moms jogged through the front door and they looked severely caffeine deficient. I took orders while Mitch poured. At one point I noticed the moms at the pickup counter were giggling, o-o-ohing and ah-h-hing as they stared into their to-stay mugs. Sauntering over I was stunned by what I saw.

  “A rosette?” I gasped. I ran to glance into the other two mugs. “An apple?” Then at the other. “A heart?”

  “Aren’t they beautiful?” One of the moms gushed.

  “Gorgeous.” I stormed back behind the counter and pinched Mitch hard on his shoulder blade.

  “Ouch!” He whirled around. “What?”

  “Latte art? Seriously?” I demanded, hands on my hips. “Since when are we doing that?”

  “Not we. Me.” He shrugged. “I took a class.”

  “You took a class.” I shook my head. “You think you know someone and then they go off and do something like this.”

  “I can show you how it’s done,” he offered. “It just takes patience and lots of practice.”

  “Oh c’mon.” I rolled my eyes. “I was here a year before you, remember? When you started you didn’t know the difference between a café au lait and a latte.”

  “That was two years ago, Jen. I’m a big boy now.” He put his arm across my shoulders and pulled me into a lopsided hug. “I still love you.”

  I harrumphed and walked away. Later, when one of the yoga moms wanted a refill, Mitch was dealing with Charlie’s pastry delivery in the back, so I made an attempt at getting creative.

  “What’s that supposed to be?” Yoga mom asked, peering at her mug with a frown.

  I peered into her cup over her shoulder, and together we tilted our heads to make sense of the elongated rocket shaped sketch with round bulbous blobs at the bottom.

  “What do you think it is?” I asked.

  Yoga mom blushed up to her roots and hurriedly went to sit down with the rest of her group. When Mitch returned the tattletale snuck up to the pickup counter and showed him the latte I made.

  Afterward Mitch took a long milk thermometer and tapped me on each shoulder with it.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m knighting you. From now on you will be known as Lady Jen creator of Latte Penis Art.”

  I giggled. It had looked like a penis.

  “Okay, what’s my knighted name?” Minnie asked breathlessly.

  I opened my mouth to say something mean, but Mitch put a firm hand on my arm to stop me.

  It was a long shift made longer by dodging Minnie’s sharp knees and hips. Mitch and I left Merlot’s in the capable hands of another Skinny at five and ducked out the back door together. He’d worked eight hours, but Saturday was only a half-shift for me. My Neon was ne
stled cozily up against his older Camaro. Under our wiper blades were soggy lost dog flyers.

  Dad.

  Mitch lifted his wiper and removed the flyer, scrunched it into a ball and then sidestepped to toss it into the Merlot’s Dumpster. He offered me a half-hearted wave as he climbed into his car. I waved back and tried to remove the flyer under my wiper just as casually, but the rain-soaked paper shredded like tissue as I tugged. Mitch backed up and was out of the alley before I got behind the wheel of my car.

  Turning the key in the ignition, I flipped on the wipers to clear the window and my breath caught in my throat. My eyes opened wide at the sight of Merlot’s exterior wall. The dirty brown brick was papered from the ground six feet up and then ten feet across with lost dog flyers.

  Had Mitch noticed? If he had, he certainly hadn’t cared. I leaned forward and pressed my forehead against the cool steering wheel. There was no logical reason why I should find it so upsetting, but still my brain looked for some kind of reason Dad would feel the need to do this. Glancing down the alley as far as I could see, Merlot’s was the only business treated with good ol’ Dad’s decorating. At the end of the alley I saw a bag lady wearing a red beanie hat pushing her shopping cart, but I didn’t see Dad. He would’ve been out here in the pouring rain plastering the papers to brick using duct tape after I arrived today. Why?

  I shook my head sadly. No use in looking for reason because it was locked inside my dad’s skull.

  White hot anger burned in my gut.

  “Why can’t he just leave me alone?”

  The hardest part about dealing with my dad was being able to accept that there were no answers or reasons for his behavior. The only half-assed solution was medications to control the neurotransmitters in his brain. But he wouldn’t take them. My dad’s craziness could drive me insane if I let it.

  Abruptly, I flung open my car door and stepped into the rainy alley. Angrily I proceeded to strip the papers from the wall. The majority of the rain soaked sheets nearly disintegrated in my hands as I frantically clawed at the bricks. I had to stand on tiptoe to snag the last of them and ruined a perfectly good cheap manicure in the process.