The woman didn’t see me come down the stairs off the porch, her hard gaze fixed on the police workers who were traipsing around in the snow. I stood at the hedges for a moment, thinking she would notice me and move on. But she didn’t and, for some reason, this just irritated me more. I crossed the street and came up behind the car she was hiding behind and stood behind her.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
She jumped a foot off the ground and her entire face colored red, both from the cold and the embarrassment of my catching her.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No.”
I took a good look at her. She was about my age and about thirty pounds overweight. Small eyes, pug nose, a small circle of a mouth. Her hair wasn’t visible, tucked inside of a knit beanie. Her coat stretched across her ample midsection and her cotton sweatpants were shoved into the tops of her boots.
“Then why are you staring at my house?”
“I’m not,” she said, glancing across the street, then at me.
I shoved my hands in my pockets. “You’re not? Really?”
She started to say something, but then her expression morphed from embarrassment to anger. “Why did you do that?”
I lifted my eyebrows in confusion. “Do what?”
She pointed a gloved finger at me. “You know what.”
“No, I really don’t.”
“Yes, you do. Yes, you do.”
I took a step back. I wondered if she was mentally unstable and if maybe it wasn’t such a good idea that I was confronting her. “I’m going to let one of the police officers know you’re over here. I’m sure they’ll be happy to come speak with you.”
She made a face like she didn’t care. “You go do that.” And then, under her breath, she muttered, “Killer.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” she said, raising her voice and pointing the gloved finger at me again. “Killer.”
I blinked several times. “I’m going to get the police now.”
“Good!” she said, sneering at me. “Good! Then I can tell them you killed Olaf.”
“I didn’t kill anyone,” I said, anger bubbling up inside me. “And who are you?”
“None of your beeswax,” she said. Before I could process her childlike comment, she reached out and pushed my shoulder.
My eyes widened in surprise. She pushed me. She actually reached out and pushed my shoulder, like we were on the playground and we were going to fight over who was going to be the line leader. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been pushed. Fourth grade? Third? I wasn’t sure. And I wasn’t sure what my reaction was then.
But this time? After a grown woman had accused me of being a murderer, told me to mind my own beeswax, and then pushed me?
I reached out and pushed her back.
“Don’t touch me,” I said.
Her hand connected with my shoulder again, this time harder. “Don’t you touch me.”
I should’ve been the bigger person. I should’ve just walked away and crossed the street and gone back into the house and let the police deal with her. I should not have pushed her with two hands.
But I pushed her with two hands.
She took a step back, her brows furrowing together, her eyes narrowing to the size of seed beads. She steadied herself.
And then she charged at me.
I tried to get out of her way, but she got an arm around me and we both fell into the snow. Wet cold seeped through my jeans and clumps of snow stuck to my hair. The woman reached for my face, her nails poised like small daggers, but I caught her wrists and held her away. We stayed locked in that position, her face contorted with rage, before several officers jogged across the street and pulled us apart.
I got to my feet and brushed the snow off my pants. My chest was heaving and my hands were shaking. I hadn’t been in a fight since…ever. And I was an adult and here I was wrestling with a stranger on the snow-covered sidewalk. Not my finest moment.
The woman’s face was bright red and she was almost vibrating, her jaw locked and her eyes fixed on me. She tried to lunge at me again, but the officer next to her had hold of her and she didn’t make it very far.
The officer closest to me took me by the elbow. He wore sunglasses and an overpowering amount of Old Spice. “What’s going on?” he asked.
I brushed snow from the side of my face. “I came over to ask why she was watching the house. I saw her from inside. She was out here for easily fifteen minutes before I came out.” I didn’t want to mention that she’d called me a killer. I cleared my throat. “Anyway, she pushed me several times. And then we went down in the snow.”
He kept his hand on my elbow but looked at the woman. “That right?”
“She pushed me, too,” the lady muttered, still staring at me like she wanted to hurt me.
My cop looked at her. “Do you have any identification, ma’am?”
She paused, then shook her head. “No.”
“What’s your name?”
“Olga.”
She didn’t offer a last name and, for some reason, the cop didn’t ask for one. “Can you tell me what you were doing here on the sidewalk?”
“Minding my own business,” she said defensively. Her beanie had slipped a little and strands of brown hair were plastered to her cheek.
“Minding my business,” I said.
She glared at me, then turned to the cop who was holding her. “Are you arresting her?”
He looked confused. “Ma’am?”
“For murder,” she said. Her gaze bounced between the two of us. “Are you arresting her?”
The officers exchange confused looks and the one next to me said, “Well, we can’t really talk about the investigation.”
“She did it,” the woman said again. “She killed him.”
“I did not,” I said.
“Liar!” she yelled.
The fact that she was so insistent that I had done it was unnerving. A person I’d never seen before was accusing me of killing someone I hadn’t. And she seemed to believe it so certainly that she’d bet all the money in the world on it. What did she know that I didn’t?
The officer holding onto the woman cleared his throat. “Ma’am, we’re going to ask you to move along at this point. You’re interfering with…”
“She killed my brother!” she said, pointing at me. “She killed Olaf!”
Brother? She was Olaf’s sister?
The officer took her by the elbow and started walking her down the block. She kept turning around, twisting her neck, her face a red mass of fury and anger.
Olaf’s sister?
TEN
“Who was that lady that was yelling at you?” Will asked. He’d parked himself next to the counter and had a half-eaten cookie in his hand.
I shrugged out of my coat and kicked off my boots. “I thought you were upstairs playing?”
He shrugged. “I might’ve looked out the window. And saw you with her and two police officers.”
I frowned. I was fairly convinced he was going to grow up to be some sort of spy.
He reached for another cookie and I swatted his hand away. “How may have you eaten?”
Will subsisted on pasta, cheese and sugar. Or at least that’s what it seemed like to me. He maintained he abstained from meat for ethical reasons but I didn’t know why he’d decided to become a vegetable rights activist.
“The lady,” Will said. “Who was she?”
“I’m not sure.”
He shoved the last bite of cookie in his mouth and chewed. “Why was she yelling at you?”