It was my turn to protest.
“I’ll be sure to ask the Blockens about this picture; you can bet on that. But that doesn’t change the facts about the scarf. You’ve neglected to consider that Mark could have taken that scarf from Olivia just before or after he pushed her into the fountain.” Mains walked back to his sedan, opened his trunk, pulled out a huge plastic bag, and placed picture, T-shirt, and all inside. He zipped that bag closed, dropped it back into the trunk, and slammed the lid. “I don’t want you talking to anyone about this case anymore.”
“What?”
“Contrary to what you might think, the police can do the job. Those stupid cop shows will be the death of me,” he mumbled under his breath. “I won’t arrest you for the time being, but taking and hiding evidence is a serious offense.”
Gee thanks, I thought.
“I didn’t know that it was evidence when I took it,” I said.
Mains gave me a look. We knew this was merely a technicality.
“You’ll need to stop by the station to make a statement. I have to speak to my superiors about the mess you’ve created, but I’ll expect you within the hour.” Mains opened the sedan’s door.
“Won’t you at least consider the possibility of Mark’s innocence?” I asked.
“This is my first murder case; I won’t screw it up.” He looked at me, and an emotion I couldn’t name crossed his face. “If your brother is innocent, I’ll do whatever I can to keep him out of prison. However, I would do much better if I didn’t have your bumbling help.”
I imagined that comment was more of a boost to his confidence than it was to mine.
He squeezed my wrist again, so quickly that I couldn’t be sure that it even happened. Then, he jumped in his car and drove away with his lights flashing.
Chapter Forty-Two
My cell rang as I was driving through town. The feeling of Mains’s fingers encircling my wrist lingered as much as I wanted to ignore it.
I plucked the phone off the passenger seat and checked the caller ID. A picture of Bobby’s face rolled its eyes at me on the tiny screen. I smiled as I remembered that I took that picture during a particularly boring faculty meeting the year before.
Bobby’s voice was apprehensive. “I need to tell you something, but you have to promise not to freak out.”
“That’s an encouraging opening,” I said.
“Promise?”
“Okay, I promise, but if this has something to do with Martin Campers’ Week, all bets are off.”
“Must all our conversations revolve around the library?” he asked.
I stopped at a red light. “Nope. Spill it.”
“Bree’s been turned out of her hotel and needed a place to stay.” He took a deep breath. “So she is crashing with me.”
A pause. The light had turned green, but I didn’t take my foot off the brake. The guy in the car behind me honked and saluted me with his middle finger. I rolled the car forward.
“India?” Bobby asked. “Bree told me that the two of you had a misunderstanding over dinner last night.”
A misunderstanding. The woman was carrying a gun. I bit my lip and wondered if I should tell Bobby about the gun. Would it make any difference? Would it change his mind about her?
“Why are you telling me this? You’re your own man; you can spend time with whoever you want.”
“I know that, but things have been weird between us this week and I just thought . . .” He trailed off.
I made another turn onto a commercial road lined with fast-food restaurants, grocery stores, and discount supercenters. “You just thought what?”
“I just thought you should know.”
“Consider it noted,” I said and snapped the phone shut.
My cell rang again, almost immediately, and Bobby rolled his eyes at me again from the screen, but I ignored him. I knew that I would regret hanging up on him later and would have to do some serious groveling to get in his good graces again. However, I’d reached my limit. My first priority had to be Mark.
I turned the car into the parking lot for Topaz Bridal. In the store window stood the exact replica of the wedding dress Olivia had described to me in excruciating detail so many months ago. The antique-white gown was full-length and strapless with thousands of delicate silver stars and a gold sunburst embroidered on the bodice. The waist was so narrow that it crushed the headless mannequin’s Styrofoam innards. The bodice exploded into a full multilayer skirt heavy on taffeta; silver and gold threads wove in and out of the cloud of fabric. In that dress Olivia would be—would have been—breathtaking. I almost walked away.
A bell chimed at my entry. A voice called from the back, “Be with you in a minute.”
I walked around the store. Being so surrounded by wedding gowns and their trappings, my stomach clenched. I glanced at a few price tags and whistled. Each one had the Topaz trademark and a lofty declaration that each gown was one of kind. I glanced at the mannequin in the window. One of a kind, I thought.
If I ignored what the dresses signified—commitment, a lifetime of compromise, companionship in old age—and considered the gowns with a purely artistic eye, Topaz was an amazing designer. I wondered, and not for the first time, why she lived in Stripling. She was obviously talented. Wouldn’t she be more successful in New York, L.A., or Atlanta?
A teenage boy emerged from the back room. He walked with a pronounced slouch and had an unfortunate case of acne.
Topaz followed behind him. “I’ll see you in two weeks for your final fitting.”
The boy grunted and fled the store.
“He’s buying a wedding dress?” I asked dubiously.
Topaz chortled. “No, I do alterations and tailoring on the side. I’m glad you’re here. It’s all ready.”
Ready? I must have looked confused because Topaz said, “You’re here to pick up your bridesmaid dress, aren’t you?”
“Well, I thought—”
“Don’t tell me you’re not going to pay me. I feel horrible about Olivia, but I have to run a business. I’ve spent hundreds of hours on the gowns for the Blocken wedding and that doesn’t include the time I spent on the bride’s gown. And no one wants to pay.”
“No one?”
“Didn’t you see Olivia’s dress in the window? It’s for sale. Apparently, the Blockens are no longer interested.”
“That’s Olivia’s dress?” I asked, hoping that my assumption about the dress had been wrong.
“Of course it is. Every Topaz wedding gown is one of a kind.” Topaz paced around the room adjusting and readjusting gowns every few steps.
“How much?”
She beamed. “Perfect. Follow me.” Topaz led me to the back of the shop and through a heavy curtain that obscured the back room. The room held thick pallets of fabric organized by an expert’s hand shelved along the right wall. White, white, and more white. Each shade of white was one wash darker than the last. I peered through the small doorway into an adjacent room that housed Topaz’s many sewing machines. Several works in progress were pinned to much-abused dress dummies. To my left a long metal rack held dress after dress, all wrapped in plastic. I suspected that my gown was among them.
Topaz sat behind an antique writing desk, pulled a leather ledger from one of its impractical drawers, and quoted a figure. My eyes boggled. My hands shook when I tore the check out of my checkbook. The price was more than two months’ rent for my apartment. Templeton would be living on generic cat food while I would be dining on Saltine crackers for the remainder of the summer.
Topaz thanked me, confirmed the amount, folded the check, and slipped it into her jeans pocket. She handwrote a receipt.
“You can change behind that screen there.” She pointed to a paisley-patterned screen in a small corner of the room.
“Excuse me?”
Topaz glanced at her watch. “I have time for your final fitting.”
“Fitting?” I was slow to catch on.