Lena Akim…
They blinked at one another and at the slammed door.
“Well, that was rude. I’ll ring again,” Ginny said.
Before Amanda could stop her, the Westminster chimes echoed and the door flew open, this time with considerable force.
“What can I do to make you go away?” The beautiful black woman released the guard chain, but blocked their entry with arms crossed.
Amanda decided to beg. “Wait, I’m a friend of Sara’s. We work together at Metrolina, and I’m really worried about her.”
After a moment of intense scrutiny, the roommate stepped aside. “Okay, I am really worried about her too. Please come in.”
At second glance, the woman was even more enchanting than Amanda first realized. Being a tall woman herself, she estimated the stranger just topped six feet, and she moved with the grace of a leopard. She wore a flowing orange and brown patterned dashiki which enhanced her honeyed, mixed-race skin tones, and her shiny dark curls were banded into an unruly ponytail. Her erect stature and slim build reminded Amanda of pictures she had seen of Maasai warriors, yet the strength this woman projected was purely female. In short, she was more suited to a high fashion runway than a suburban living room.
Her long feet were bare as she glided across the dark hardwood floors, so Amanda removed her sandals and Ginny stepped out of her clogs. It seemed the right thing to do. They trailed her through the airy open interior to a black granite bar with a kitchen beyond. The visitors stopped at the bar while their hostess continued to the stove, where a red enamel teapot whistled.
“So who are you?” she bluntly asked. “Yesterday afternoon I had wall-to-wall policemen, and reporters at night.”
Amanda quickly introduced herself and Ginny, along with a quick recap of why she was worried about Sara. Once she started talking, she couldn’t seem to stop. She even told the roommate about Sara’s fight with Ben, until Ginny gave her T-shirt tail a rough tug, warning her to shut up. But Amanda couldn’t help herself. Something about the woman’s eyes drew her into their fast amber current, until that river turned dark and stormy when she mentioned the fight.
“So, is Sara here?” Amanda finished.
“Do you see her anywhere?” the roommate snidely asked.
Unless Sara was hiding under a bed or in a closet, she was not in the house. Amanda gave the roommate a dirty look.
“I am Lena Akim, by the way, Sara’s housemate. Would you care for some tea?”
“Yes, please.” Ginny jabbed Amanda in the ribs with her elbow. “We would both like tea, right, Mandy?”
Amanda nodded as she marveled at Lena Akim’s cool. If a housemate of Amanda’s had been punched in the eye and was a murder suspect, she’d be bouncing off the walls. “I’m sorry about the cops and the reporters, but have you seen Sara at all since the incident?”
Lena held up her hand, indicating that all conversation must stop until she’d completed the tea ceremony, which she accomplished calmly and elegantly. She placed steaming porcelain cups for each of them, along with a dainty etched silver sugar and creamer set. As a sweet, foreign-smelling fragrance wafted through the room, no one spoke until everyone had taken a sip.
Ginny, suddenly the soul of propriety, went first. “So, where are you from, Lena?”
“I was born in Casablanca, Morocco. My mother was French, my father was Arabian. I speak both languages, as well as Italian and English, of course. And I came with my mother to the United States when I was twelve. Next question?”
Amanda was floored by the absurdity of this small talk, astonishing though it was. She couldn’t decide if Lena was arrogant, or just plain dismissive.
“How in the world did you hook up with Sara?” Ginny continued. “She’s Puerto Rican, right?”
“Yes, so that adds Spanish to our repertoire. And believe it or not, I met Sara at a self-defense class. As single women, we wanted to learn how to protect ourselves in this big bad world.” She turned her hundred-watt eyes back to Amanda. “Please forgive the brief autobiography, but I find I can never get anything accomplished until I satisfy everyone’s curiosity. Now to answer your important question, no, I have not seen Sara since early Friday morning. We had breakfast together and then we both went to work.”
Amanda’s mind raced. She remembered that Sara had arrived at Metrolina after finishing work Friday evening. She was wearing her shrink clothes: cream-colored pantsuit, rose silk blouse, high heels. Then the next day, Saturday, Sara had worn a soft cotton shirt, jeans and tennis shoes. It didn’t add up.
“Lena, are you saying Sara never came home Friday night?”
“No, she did not.” Lena turned her back and returned to the stove. “She slept elsewhere.”
Now that was really interesting. Amanda and Ginny glanced at one another. Clearly Sara had another pied-à-terre, someplace where she kept an alternative wardrobe. Either that, or she’d packed an overnight bag Friday morning.
“So where has Sara been sleeping?” Ginny blurted it out, no longer the soul of propriety.
Eyes downcast, Lena poured them each more tea. “You sound exactly like Detective Molerno. The man is a bulldog. He asked me the same question seven different ways, as though my answer would change, if only he could wear me down…”
Amanda and Ginny waited for the answer, which never came.
“If I did not tell him, why would I tell you?” she said at last.
But Amanda detected a weakening of Lena’s resolve. “Please tell us. We only want to help.”
While Lena continued to hesitate, Amanda saw the exact moment that she changed her mind and decided to trust them. The clues were a subtle softening of her rigid posture and a sinking of her shoulders. The mist of tears in her eyes helped too.
“Honestly, I do not know where Sara has gone, and it scares me to death.”
Now they were getting somewhere, and Amanda’s heart went out to Lena. Friends or lovers, the roommates obviously shared history. She got the impression that up until now, Lena had been holding it all together with a very thin thread.
“Did you know the victim, Ben Marsh?” Amanda asked.
In a flash of outrage, Lena’s regal bearing was back. “Yes, I met that loser at a party for the Charlotte Community Center where Sara works. The horrible man would not leave Sara alone. The more she deflected his advances, the more he pushed. She was very frightened by the situation.”
“Was she?” The way Amanda remembered it, Sara had laughed it off when Marc got overprotective.
“Well, she was not precisely frightened by Ben,” Lena amended. “As you have noticed, our self-defense class prepared us well. No, Sara was more terrified by her brother Marc’s reaction. He absolutely hated the man.”
“But Marc never met Ben,” Amanda interrupted.
Lena’s laugh was more like a harsh bark. “Oh, you are quite wrong. At that same Community Center party, Marc shoved Ben so violently he fell over and broke the punch bowl. It was a terrible embarrassment for Sara, who believes she can take care of herself.”
Amanda was stunned because Marc when he saw the corpse had said, “Who the hell is he?” At the time, she’d thought it was improbable that they’d never met and had wondered if perhaps Marc was the world’s best actor.
“Did you tell Detective Molerno that Marc hit Ben?” Amanda asked.
“Of course I did. Do you think I want the police going after Sara for a murder she most certainly did not commit? I also told the detective that Marc’s affection for his sister was not natural.”
The very idea chilled Amanda to the bone, and the ferocity of Lena’s delivery sent Ginny scuttling away from the bar. She settled on a couch across the room and pretended to be engrossed in a pile of Vogue magazines. Surely Lena had not meant to imply that there was something incestuous about Sara and Marc’s relationship? Amanda’s mind refused to go there. Instead, it seemed more likely that Lena was green-eyed jealous of Sara’s closeness to her brother.
“And you told all this to Detective Molerno?”
“Yes, I told him they should arrest him.”
Whoa! Lena had suggested an extreme method to eliminate the competition. Surely such an attitude caused tension in the household, and maybe that was why Sara never came home Friday night.
“It’s Monday, so maybe Sara’s back at work?” Amanda said, hoping to defuse some of the tension.
“I have called her at work, again and again,” Lena scoffed. “According to her secretary, Sara did not show up at work, nor did she call in sick.”
Another dead end. Visiting Sara’s office had been next on Amanda’s agenda. All else failing, she decided to take the plunge. “Do you think Sara’s staying with a boyfriend?”
This question got the biggest laugh of all. Lena said, “Are you crazy? Sara does not have a boyfriend.”
From her perch on the couch, Ginny waved a copy of Vogue in the air. “Hey, Lena, are you a model? You sure as hell look like a model.”
It took everyone by surprise. Slowly, Lena shifted gears and smiled at Ginny. “Oh, I am sorry, that is another item from my standard autobiography. I try to dispense with the question upfront because everyone always asks. No, I am not a model, I am an accountant. Any more questions?”
Although Amanda had a million more things she’d like to ask, Lena Akim’s response shut her down cold. Ginny too could take no more. She dropped the magazine and headed for the exit.
“Are you ready to go, Amanda?”
“You bet. Thanks for the tea, Ms. Akim.”
Their hostess nodded graciously, but did not offer to walk them out. Soon after Amanda gently closed the door, they heard the deadbolt shoot home.
As they walked to the car, both shell-shocked, more little droplets of water from the sprinkler system raised goose bumps on their bare arms.
“What just happened in there?” Ginny wondered as she climbed into the driver’s seat. “Do you think that bitch was all bent out of shape over a lovers’ quarrel?”
Amanda sank into the passenger seat. “Who the hell knows?” She was more confused than ever.