The Art of Love and Murder (6 page)

“I thought perhaps you’d like me to make an offer if the sketches were something you’d—”

“Where is she now?”

“She said there were some other people that might be able to help her.”

An uncharacteristic, guttural sound escaped. “You have her number?”

“No, but she’s at the Grand View in room two one eight. I could leave her a message or perhaps stop in on her before coming to you tonight.”

He snatched the pencil and wrote the room number on his desk pad. “Let me consider this, sweetness.” His breaths became shallow as his mind tripped over memories. Justine’s breathing synched with his. He breathed in, she breathed out. A noise in the hall outside his office door eased him back to the present. “We’ll talk tonight.”

“Of course, darling.”

His hand rested on the receiver after hanging up. Thoughts of Muuyaw swirled. His chest ached with an age-old passion. He would need Justine tonight.

Chapter Three

“Turn left and you have reached your destination,” the lady with the English accent spoke in a singsong voice from the GPS.

Lacy pulled along the curb, shut off the engine and sighed with dread. Carol Katz sounded like a crotchety old biddy, and when she’d mentioned Kaya, her mother and Carol’s stepsister, the lady became more crotchety. Until mention of the drawings. She glanced at the khaki bag in the passenger seat. Carol Katz’s abrupt turnaround in attitude, and her invitation to visit her, left Lacy unsettled.

After putting the top back on the BMW, she slung the khaki bag over one shoulder and her purse over the other, stepped onto the cracked sidewalk and double clicked the lock button on her key ring to set the car alarm.

She faced the house, her stomach churning; the veggie sandwich for lunch hadn’t settled well. A healthy choice of whole grain bread with hummus instead of mayo hadn’t made a difference. Her nerves agitated the combination like sludge. The day had turned gray with an overcast sky, which didn’t help the curb appeal of the box-like gray house that had seen better times. She pushed through the thigh-high picket gate hanging precariously from its hinges. The long squeak gave her chills like teeth scraping metal. The postage-stamp-sized yard displayed a neatly mowed lawn, and a few white flowers bloomed on each side of the front step. They might have chosen something more colorful than white.

Her knuckles rapped the weathered wood. After several seconds, the door opened and a short, older woman faced her. The lady smiled, or at least her mouth smiled. Steely eyes lacking in welcome stared at her. Not what she’d expected. From the voice on the phone, the vision of a stooped over, slovenly, unkempt witch had come to mind. Carol Katz’s tiny frame looked fit, her jeans and sweatshirt youthful and the short and stylish white hair suited her. She had to be at least in her mid-sixties, but her youthful face showed only a few lines by her eyes and subtle sag on her jaw line. When she dropped the smile to speak, the way her mouth fell into a frown without effort struck Lacy.

“Please come in.”

The small entryway doubled as a cramped mudroom, not found in homes down in the valley but common in northern Arizona. A line of hooks on the right held an array of cardigans and coats. Below them, a pair of women’s boots, dusty from lack of wear in the spring, and two pairs of rubber flip-flops lined the floor next to the wall.

“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” she asked over her shoulder as she led the way into a living room.

“No, thank you.”

“Well, my cup needs freshening. Please have a seat. I’ll be right back.”

She chose the armchair covered in a pattern of faded red roses. The tops of the arms and the seat showed heavy signs of wear from years of use and cleaning. Matching sofa, shag rug and pressed wood coffee table in a cherry finish completed the décor that hadn’t been changed in decades. A mirror hung over the sofa and reflected the window, allowing a view of her Z4 parked on the street.

For a moment, she listened, thinking she heard voices from the direction Carol had gone, but quiet now.

She turned her attention to the framed photographs on the end table and recognized a younger Carol in one, with a man the same age, a teenage girl and a younger boy. Probably a family snapshot. Snow covered the ground where they stood in front of the house.

An older photograph in sepia tones, somewhat faded, drew her interest. Another family snapshot, but not Carol’s husband and children. This one had been taken at a restaurant or ice cream parlor, on a street corner, the family sitting around an ornate iron table on matching chairs. She lifted the frame for a closer look. The man, obviously Native American, and the Caucasian woman looked to be in their early to mid-thirties. She guessed the man to be her grandfather Mockta and the woman his second wife, Janice. A boy of eight or nine years of age licked an ice cream cone with a comically messy face. The boy would be the result of the marriage. Two female children, ice cream cones in hand, sat next to each other. Although close in age, perhaps twelve or thirteen, their striking differences glared from the photo. The unmistakable frown of the present day Carol, blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, tilted her head away from the camera. Dark-haired Kaya addressed the photographer with an open smile.

“I suppose you might recognize someone in that picture.” Carol came into the room carrying her coffee.

“Sort of. More of a guess than recognition.” She set the frame back on the table. “Is this my grandfather?” She touched the man in the photo.

“Oh, yes, the one and only.” Carol sipped her coffee as if to rinse the bitterness from her voice.

“Was he a bad stepfather?”

“He wasn’t abusive, if that’s what you mean.” She brought her legs up under her on the sofa. “He played favorites.”

Lacy could guess who hadn’t been his favorite. “So, he married your mother when you were quite young?”

“Yeah, I was three. Kaya was two. His Hopi wife, your grandmother, hadn’t been dead six months.”

“Mansi Mockta. I found a picture of her in Kaya’s things. You said on the phone John Mockta, my grandfather, is dead?” She sat forward, unable to relax with the conversation.

“I hear he died about nine years ago. No one had seen him in years, not since Kaya and I were teenagers. Hit Kaya real hard when he took off. Such a daddy’s girl, and he never even called his precious princess.” Again the bitterness crept into her tone. She waved a hand in the air. “So, here you are after all these years.”

An intrusion. “I don’t mean to impose on you. I only—”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” She sipped her coffee. “When the old man left, well, my momma turned kind of sour. Then Kaya left.” She jutted her chin. “Your mother was a strong-willed woman, and we weren’t related, not really. I thought she might keep in touch with me, but what the hell.”

“Were you close growing up?”

“We were...like sisters.”

Like the stepsister to Cinderella.
“Did she have any ties to her Hopi roots?”

“Not really. She’d hang with some of the Indians in school. The old man had a brother who died not long after we all started living together. He’d go drinking in town once in a while with some guys I assumed were cousins. I only saw them once. They may have lived on the reservation, but I’m not sure. I don’t remember any relatives of Kaya’s mother.”

“Mansi Mockta was an only child.”

“That could be the reason then.”

Lacy glanced at the photo of the funny-faced boy eating ice cream. “And where is your brother?” Would he have been closer to this half-sister or to his half-sister Kaya? Perhaps he knew details of Kaya’s life the jealous Carol hadn’t bothered to remember.

“You don’t know?”

She jerked at the tone in Carol’s voice. “Know what?”

“I thought you might have discovered what happened when you researched your parents.” The frown furrowed deeper across her brow.

“Discovered what?” Her nerves tingled at the hate in the older woman’s eyes.

“He died along with Kaya and her Austrian lover in the plane crash.”

Her breath caught. “I...I’m so sorry.”

“He was flying the plane.”

The air whooshed from Lacy’s lungs as the implications of another dead end smacked her hope down. Everywhere she turned, she hit a wall. Yes, her main purpose in coming had been to find out about the mysterious sketches for her daughter, but as the day droned on, learning more about her blood parents spiked her enthusiasm. She’d expected to learn something from the only relatives known, Carol and her half-brother. Now, all she had left were slanted stories from a life of bitterness of one old woman.

“They were all a bunch of fools to take off in that little, rickety plane with a novice like Johnny. He hadn’t had his license long. He wasn’t much more than a kid. All he had to do was fly to Phoenix and turn around and come back. They ruled it pilot error. Just another notch in my memories.”

Lacy had been the only survivor. And now every link to her mother, her first mother, no longer existed. Dead ends. Literally. “I’m so sorry.” The regret tore at her for selfish reasons.

“Before your time.”

“Can you tell me anything about Kaya?” The sketches forgotten, she had an overwhelming desire to put more than a face to her mother.

“Hmm...well, you look like her. Got her smile, that’s for sure, and her coloring. Her hair, too.”

She’d learned that much from the photographs. “Where were they headed that day?”

“Johnny told me they were going to Austria to get married. He had to drop them at Sky Harbor Airport down in Phoenix, and they’d get on the plane there for Austria. The marriage was kind of a last minute thing. Kaya was always impulsive.” She stared into her coffee cup. “Johnny said Hartmut wanted to go home for a visit, alone. At the last minute, plans changed. It was some big surprise for your father’s family. Johnny said Hartmut had broken ties with his family when he took off for the States a few years earlier, and he was going to take Kaya and the baby, er you, back to Austria.” Steely eyes regarded her. “Make up with them, I guess.”

If they had lived, she might have been raised in Austria? How different life would’ve played out.

Lacy tipped the picture closer, looked at the little boy licking his cone, ice cream dribbling down his chin. Her attention shifted to Janice in the photo.

“And where is your mother now?”

“She’s in a home, Alzheimer’s. Doesn’t know any of us.”

“That’s too bad.” My God, this woman had nothing good to say about her life.

“She’s not unhappy.” Carol cleared her throat and tossed a smile across the room. “You said on the phone, you had some drawings of Kaya’s.”

“Hmm, yes. Although, I’m not sure Kaya is the artist. Did she want to be an artist as a child?”

“She drew all the time. You have the drawings...with you?”

She bent to pick up the bag and glanced in the mirror over Carol’s head just as the alarm sounded on her car. The reflection of a man by the driver side door froze. Carol’s eyes widened as they jumped to their feet. The man appeared ready to flee, but he’d spotted them and shrugged in resignation.

“Son of a...” Carol muttered.

Lacy darted toward the front door, flung it open with Carol close on her heels. “Hey, you! What do you think you’re doing?” She got partially out of the doorway and stopped. What if the would-be car thief carried a weapon?

“Calm yourself,” Carol said, pushing past her. “That’s just Kitty’s boy, my grandson.” She waved, beckoning him to come to the house. “What’re you doing, Clark?”

Lacy dug the keys out of her pocket and killed the alarm.

“Nothing, Gram. All I did was bump into the fucking car, and it went off.”

“Watch your mouth and get your ass over here.”

Tall and lanky, not much of a man at all, he lowered his head like a reprimanded puppy. She guessed him barely in his twenties. His long strides covered the small yard in no time. He brushed hair from his eyes as he faced his grandmother, towering over her. His oversized shirt didn’t fit him any better than his pants slung too low on his hips. He wore black high top sneakers, untied. The sneer on his face looked permanent, like his grandmother’s frown.

“I got done with my job interview, and thought I’d stop by to say hi.”

She wondered what sort of interview he could’ve had dressed like a teenage thug.

“You remember hearing us talk about Kaya, my stepsister? This is her daughter, Lacy. Lacy, this is my grandson, Clark.”

“Yeah, I remember. Hi.”

“Hello.” She nodded, as pleased to meet him as he looked to meet her. This must have been the young man she’d spoken to when she returned Carol’s call.

“Come on back in.” Her “aunt” took her grandson by the arm. “I’ve got coffee on, Clark. Lacy, excuse the interruption. Be right back.” She tugged him toward the kitchen.

Lacy took up her seat again. To get the alarm to go off, he had to have tried the door, with more than a little force. And right in front of his grandmother’s house. Lovely family. She’d show Carol the drawings, get her opinion and scoot out as soon as possible.

Voices from the kitchen drifted out to the living room, although too low to hear the conversation. The tone sounded like a reprimand from Carol and whining from the grandson. Yet she returned with a smile plastered on her face.

“Now, where were we?” Carol sat on the couch, her glance at the khaki bag obvious. “Oh, yes, you had some drawings you wanted me to look at.”

“I thought you might be able to tell me if Kaya drew them or not.” She reached in and pulled the roll of sketches from her bag.

“Didn’t you say you had a sculpture, too?”

Signed or not, the half-finished wolf would have to be Kaya’s work. Lacy had already decided that on her drive from the gallery. No artist would turn over an unfinished piece of work to someone else. And Carol’s interest bothered her, didn’t feel right. The two sisters hadn’t exactly been close, so why the interest now? “I brought only the sketches.”

“Oh? Well, that’s too bad.”

She opened the roll of papers, and scooting to the edge of the chair, set them on the coffee table. “Did Kaya do much sculpture or wood carving?”