Black Cat Weekly #88

Chapter 7-1

byWhen several screams echoed from next door, Mariah glanced at the time. Noon. That was a new one for a Thursday, especially in early November. Screaming was more common on weekends and in the summer. She rose from her bookkeeping work, spread before her on the pine table in her breakfast nook, and opened the notebook she kept on the kitchen counter. After scrawling the date and the time, she wrote “screaming woman,” then flipped through the pages of the notebook, looking for the last time she’d documented screaming. Ah. Two weeks ago. The time a boys’ sports team stayed next door from Friday through Sunday. Five cars, at least fifteen people, always speeding down the residential street.

Mariah sighed and missed Kiti and Juan again. When they left on their medical missionary work, they hadn’t known that the couple who bought their house didn’t intend to live there. While Mariah didn’t begrudge Kiti her empty-nester dream of traveling and doing some good in the world, she did wish the buyer of the house had been someone other than a pair of real estate investors. When Juan and Kiti moved away, the house next door went from being the heart of the neighborhood, the center of block parties and social gatherings, to the neighborhood pariah. Mariah had even renamed the house in her mind. It wasn’t the Cuero house anymore. It was the “w***e house.” Not that it was an actual brothel.—Well, who knew? Maybe it was a brothel some weekends.—But the house itself was a p********e, a short-term vacation rental. The building, no longer a home, was used by “Johns,” weekend partiers with no concern for the physical care of the house, no attachment to the suburban neighborhood, and no interest in the well-being or long-term health of the community of Round Rock, thirty miles north of Austin, Texas.

wasThe short-term rental had torn a hole in the fabric of the neighborhood and destroyed Mariah’s peace. Plus, she’d lost her friends next door with no chance of gaining new ones. With disappointment curling her lips downward, Mariah closed her notebook and returned to her work at the table, wishing for the thousandth time that people would stay in hotels when they traveled instead of next door to her.

Someone banged on the front door.

“Help!” cried a woman’s voice. “Please, help me!”

Mariah ran to the door, wondering what fresh hell the w***e house was serving her this time.

“Walk me through it again,” Detective Hill said, tapping her fingers on Mariah’s pine kitchen table. The detective was in her late twenties, with tightly French-braided, auburn hair and a serious face made harsh by heavy eyebrows.

Her partner, Detective Caslov, had a look of polite interest that gave nothing away. Mariah thought he had the best poker face she’d ever seen.

Mariah fingered Detective Hill’s business card, feeling its sharp corners. How many different ways did these detectives want her to repeat the facts? She’d told them all she knew yesterday. “I was here working on billing accounts for my bookkeeping customers. I heard a woman scream at noon. I logged the scream in my notebook. As I went back to my work, a woman, who I now know worked for the company contracted to clean the house next door, banged on my door. She told me someone was dead. I called the police and gave her a cup of tea to calm her down. I assumed a guest died of natural causes.”

Detective Hill raised her thick eyebrows. “Ma’am, you’ve called the police about the house next door six times in the last six months. Is it fair to say you’ve had disagreements with the owners?”

Mariah shook her head, making her short, brown locks bob around her ears. “I’ve never met the owners. So, no. I’ve never had a disagreement with them.”

“But you’ve written multiple letters to them, complaining about the noise, trash, and traffic, haven’t you?” said the expressionless Detective Caslov.

“I wrote to ask them to consider turning the house into a long-term rental. The neighborhood has several rental houses with couples or young families in them. They’ve made the neighborhood their home. Having a short-term rental here that is advertised to sleep up to twenty-five people with parties of up to fifty is disruptive and causes an array of problems from parking and speeding to loud noise, trash piles, and substance a***e. The trash produced is far more than any single-family home and frequently overflows the available bins. The mess is awful. Having a commercial business property that’s basically a hotel and party venue in the midst of a residential area isn’t usually allowed by zoning ordinances.” Mariah was warming to her subject. She could lecture for an hour on the problems that house next door had caused. “There’s a reason most cities regulate commercial activity in residential areas. That house, as a short-term rental, exemplifies—”

Detective Hill leaned toward Mariah. “I understand your complaints. What I find odd is that you didn’t even have the curiosity to investigate when a woman started screaming.”

Mariah crossed her arms on her chest. “Do you know how many times I’ve heard screaming coming from over there? I could show you in my log book. The last time I called the police about a woman screaming, the officer who arrived to investigate talked to the guests and told me that he’d asked them to keep their outdoor, romantic activities quieter. He advised me to buy ear plugs. So, no. I wouldn’t investigate a woman screaming,” Mariah clenched her fists, her toes inside her boots, her jaw, her glutes, maybe every muscle in her body that could be clenched in annoyance.

“Was anyone here with you yesterday morning?”

“I live alone. No spouse. No kids. I work alone handling bookkeeping for a number of independent therapy practices. No one was here with me.” Mariah glared at Detective Hill, challenging her to suggest there was anything wrong with living alone. Mariah wasn’t embarrassed by the fact that she lived alone. She’d never planned to marry. At thirty-eight, she was content with that decision, happy to be a friend, sister, and aunt.

Detective Caslov asked in a conversational tone, “Are you sure you didn’t see the owner enter the house yesterday and decide to have a word with him about his guests? Perhaps you even planned a surprise for him.”

While the detective’s relaxed posture and face held nothing but polite interest, his words stunned Mariah. She jerked back, scraping her chair along the floor. “Excuse me? Are you saying the dead body was one of the owners? I wouldn’t know the owners if I saw them.” Mariah rose from the table. “You think I had something to do with this? We’re done. I don’t know anything beyond what I’ve already told you. Goodbye.” Mariah crossed her galley kitchen and cozy living room and opened the front door. She waited for the detectives to follow.

Detective Hill crossed the threshold and looked back at Mariah. “We have the letters you wrote. We’ll be back with more questions, Ms. Grant.”

“Maybe you should take the time to read those letters. They are business letters, not personal letters. While they emphasize the problems created by the owners’ usage of the property, they are not threatening. If you want to speak to me again, you’ll have to do it through my attorney.” Mariah slammed the door, wondering where to find an attorney.

How could the detectives suspect her?

The owner of the w***e house was dead?

The detective had said “him.” That would be Wilton MacDade. He was a co-owner of the property with his wife, Selda Range-MacDade.

Mariah sank into an overstuffed chair in her cozy living room. She should have asked more questions about what happened. How did MacDade die, if it wasn’t from natural causes? What kind of “surprise” had been left for him?

Mariah gave herself a mental shake. She needed to focus. What was she going to do about the fact that the police suspected her of murder? She had no alibi. She’d been working alone all morning. Her computer activity would help establish that, but it wouldn’t be enough to prove that she hadn’t crept next door to kill Wilton MacDade. How could she prove that she didn’t leave her house?

Silvia Montaño across the street had security cameras.

Mariah grabbed her house keys and phone and went out the front door, locking it behind her. A mild breeze made Mariah wonder if she should have thrown a jacket over her favorite purple plaid shirt as she jogged across the narrow street to Silvia Montaño’s immaculately kept house. Silvia’s yard service was thorough. They kept the bushes neatly trimmed and the flowers in the front bed blooming in a seasonal sequence. For fall, Silvia had yellow, orange, and deep red chrysanthemums. As Mariah approached the door, Steve, an elderly Yorkie, started yapping, announcing her presence with all the enthusiasm of a tiny dog who thought he was a big dog.

The door opened before Mariah could knock. Silvia Montaño stood in the doorway leaning lightly on a wood cane. Mariah smoothed the wrinkles on her own purple plaid shirt, aware she hadn’t ironed it and feeling frowzy compared to Silvia’s business-like aqua pullover sweater and cream slacks. With her blond hair in a sophisticated French twist and flawless make-up, no one would ever have guessed that Silvia was on medical leave from work due to injury if it weren’t for the cane she still used. Had Mariah been stuck at home, injured, she might have lived in her pajamas or sweat pants.

“Mariah, welcome.” Silvia smiled, deepening the laugh lines around her wide mouth. She hushed her dog and said, “What can I do for you?”

“I’m here about the goings-on at the vacation rental yesterday.”

Silvia glanced at the house across from hers. “Someone died. I assumed of natural causes.”

“Apparently not.”

Silvia’s well-shaped eyebrows rose. “Come in. Tell me what you know.”

Mariah followed Silvia into her florally decorated living room, which featured comfortable sofas and chairs, floral-themed art, a multitude of houseplants, and cut flowers in vases scattered around the room. A bay window at the front of the house let in bright sunlight and gave the room the aura of a greenhouse. With all those flowers and plants set against pale-green walls, wide windows, and hardwood floors, the space looked more like a British manor house conservatory than the living room of a middle-class home in central Texas.

Mariah noticed Silvia’s limp was less obvious than it had been. Her neighbor was barely using her cane with its g*n-handle grip. Now that she’d graduated from the walker to the cane, Silvia looked taller, healthier, and closer to her actual mid-fifties age. Her face, which for months had appeared washed-out and gaunt with pain, had regained its color and softness, and the dark circles under her eyes had vanished. “You’re walking much better,” Mariah said as she sank into a brown leather sofa.

“My recovery has been slower than I wished, but I’m hoping to dispense with the cane soon,” Silvia said as she sat on a wingback chair. Her dog, Steve, sprawled on the floor, knowing he wasn’t allowed on the furniture.

Mariah wondered, not for the first time, the nature of Silvia’s injury. Silvia never explained how she hurt her leg, simply saying it was a silly knee injury. Mariah took the hint that her neighbor preferred privacy regarding medical issues. Unlike Mariah, Silvia wasn’t one to describe all the gory details. But that wasn’t what Mariah had come to discuss. Mariah clutched her hands in her lap. What if she couldn’t prove she didn’t kill anyone?