The Motif

Chapter 11

Jennifer woke up the next morning – after a particularly sensual vision of herself and Tim – to find she was touching herself. She yanked her hand away and groaned with frustration. She did not need this right now. Why did her feelings for Tim have to choose now, of all times, to suddenly possess her thoughts (and libido) so thoroughly? Was it because she'd been away and hadn't seen him in almost a week? Was it just her mind's way of coping with Kimmi's death? Or was it something else?

Worse than that, the music box tune was now running through her head louder and with more intensity than ever. She tried thinking of other annoyingly catchy songs, but nothing would banish the melody from her mind. Not even It's A Small World could compete with the music box song.

Frustrated, in more ways than one, she pulled herself out of bed, showered, and dressed to head out to Roslindale. Before leaving the room, she looked out the window to see whether the weather had improved any overnight. Although it had stopped raining, the sky was still a grim, dark, grey, as if it were threatening at any minute to unleash an encore of its torrential symphony from the night before.

She took the subway from South Station to Downtown Crossing, where she changed from the Red Line to the Orange Line, which she stayed on until the end of the line, at Forest Hills. From there, she called a Lyft which took her to the Washington St. address Tim had given her the night before. Throughout the entire trip from South Station to Roslindale, the music box melody continued to play in her head, refusing to relent its hold on her mind.

The Lyft driver dropped her off in front of a small, two-story house, surrounded by a metal chain-link fence. The house did not appear to be particularly well taken care of; paint was cracking, a shingle or two were showing signs of coming loose, but otherwise it looked to be a reasonably cozy home. The yard, unlike some of the neighboring lawns, was devoid of toys or other ornaments. The mailbox at the gate simply read: Kyrie.

She unlatched the gate, and then crossed the short cement walkway which led to the front porch. Laying on the stoop was a doormat, decorated with musical notes and a quote which read, 'Bach later...Offenbach sooner.' Jennifer rolled her eyes at the bad pun. Next to the doormat, guarding the front door to the house, was a rather ugly-looking ceramic frog.

Jennifer looked through the window, but what little she could see was dark and poorly lit. It looked as if no one was home, but she rang the doorbell, nonetheless.

"There ain't no one home, miss," came a voice, startling Jennifer half to death.

She turned and saw for the first time an elderly African American gentleman sitting in a rocking chair on the neighboring porch.

"Oh, I'm sorry, you startled me," Jennifer said, slowly feeling her heart rate returning to normal. "I didn't see you there."

"My apologies, miss. Didn't mean to startle you. Just figured I'd save you the effort. Mr. Kyrie's not been home for over a month, now."

"Has no one informed the police?"

"Figured there was no need," the man shrugged, nonchalantly. "Mr. Kyrie comes and goes as he pleases, sometimes he goes on trips for six months or more, even. Never really tells anyone when and where he's goin', so we don't concern ourselves with him. You police?"

"No. Why?"

"Well...let's just say that no one on this block would be surprised if it turned out Mr. Kyrie caught himself on the wrong side of the law. Odd duck, that one. Not very sociable. Not very sociable at all."

"I just needed to talk to him. You don't know any way of getting in touch with him? Any family?"

"Nope, sorry. Like I said, he mostly ignored us, so we mostly ignored him. If he had any family, we certainly never knew about it."