by Susan Breen
How many people in this village hated him?
She thought of what Winifred said, that he seemed like a candidate for murder and Maggie suspected she was right. So much ill feeling swirled around the man. Anger created ugliness. She knew it had in her. She blushed as she thought of what her face must have looked like when she yelled at Bender. She’d always thought she had gentle features; but then, she never looked at herself in the mirror when she didn’t assume a smile first. How different would she look if her jaw was twisted in anger, her eyes hardened. She didn’t want to be that person, which was part of why she hated Bender so much. Because he turned her into somebody she didn’t want to be.
She considered the phone. Foolish to hold on to grievances. She didn’t want to be that person. She wanted to be good. She wanted to be kind.
“I knew you’d call,” Winifred said. “You don’t have the stomach for a real fight.”
“Why are you provoking me?” Maggie asked, sitting down by the window, at the very spot where last night she’d planned to throw a rock. Her desk was cluttered with papers. Everything seemed out of place.
“I don’t want to fight,” Maggie went on. “I want to have a friendly conversation.”
“About what?” Winifred asked.
“About the weather,” Maggie said. “It’s bad.” She wanted to tell her about Mr. Cavanaugh, about the bottle of drain cleaner, but suspected it would lead to a discussion of what an idiot Peter was, and she didn’t feel up to that.
“Yes,” Winifred said. “There does seem to be a lot of humidity. That reminds me. There’s a man I want you to meet.”
“No.”
“I just want to know what you think of him,” Winifred said.
“You’ve chosen this moment to set me up on a date,” Maggie said. “I had a man dead on my lawn just last night.”
It was like being back in high school, she thought. She was 62 years old and they were arguing over the same exact things. The two of them used to go to A&S to look for bathing suits and Winifred was always after her for not picking something more glamorous. “Don’t be a prude, Maggie Dove.”
She didn’t want to argue and yet she felt it was expected. This was their relationship. Had nothing changed? Was there no way to break through and establish a relationship on a deeper level? To say, You are the friend of my youth and I love you, but I can’t keep arguing about the same thing. Before Maggie had a chance to say anything at all, she noticed some commotion over at the Bender house.
“What?” Winifred said, with the talent for knowing what Maggie was thinking. For reading her mind.
“You’re never going to believe this.”
“What?” Winifred asked. “Is it a man? Is it George Clooney?”
“No. George Clooney is not involved, but there’s a woman dragging Bender’s kids out of the house.” The rain pounded down on the beleaguered group, drops hitting the ground and then bouncing back up.
“What type of woman?”
“She’s limping.”
“That must be Bender’s first wife,” Winifred said. “She has Parkinson’s.”
“How on earth do you know that?”
“I have my sources,” Winifred said. Maggie could hear her grin. Winifred had always known things before anyone else. Before she married for the first time, before she got pregnant, she’d planned to be a reporter and she probably would have been good at it.
“Come on now, Ariadne,” Maggie could hear the woman cry out. “Come on now, Lorelei. Come with Mother.”
“You’re right,” Maggie said. “She must be taking them away from Noelle.”
“Maybe there was something in the autopsy that worried her,” Winifred said.
“They can’t have the autopsy results already, can they? He only died a few hours ago.”
“I don’t know,” Winifred said. “You’re the mystery writer. But it seems strange.”
The woman was savage with movement, so desperate to get to the car that she seemed to be forgetting about the two children, who were getting drenched, and then she collected herself and pushed them into the car and slammed the doors closed. She was driving an old VW, which was not a car Maggie associated with scenes of anger—or children, for that matter.
The VW lurched into action, a shot of smoke blew out its exhaust, and then it drove away and the street was empty.
“It is strange,” Maggie said.
Her own hatred for the man, Mr. Cavanaugh’s anger, and now this act of what seemed to be desperation.
“I bet the wife killed him,” Winifred said. “I’m just not sure which wife.”
“It’s a heart attack, Winifred. That’s what Peter said.”
“And Young Sherlock’s never wrong.”
“I wouldn’t say that. But he seemed so confident.”
Maggie pictured the way Peter had looked last night, the argument over whether or not to call Campbell, the look of concern on Joe’s face. Was he wrong to assume so quickly that it was a heart attack? If he’d messed up, Campbell was not the sort of man to offer forgiveness, she felt sure of that. Yet she knew Peter to be a good police officer. He’d won awards; but then, he’d never had to investigate anything involving Maggie and she knew he had a blind spot where she was concerned. He was so intensely loyal that had he found her standing over Bender with a knife, she suspected he wouldn’t even give her a traffic ticket.
How far would he go to protect her?
She had to know what the village was saying, and there was one place she knew for sure she could get that information.
“I have to go,” Maggie said.
“Don’t get involved,” Winifred cautioned.
“Goodbye, Winifred.”
Maggie anointed herself for battle. She showered, flossed and put on her favorite J.Jill jeans, which had a nice expandable waist, not that she really needed it. She fluffed up her short white hair, put in her pearl earrings, a gift from her husband. He’d not been an extravagant man. More likely to write her a poem than give her jewelry, but he’d splurged on these after their daughter was born. Her gentle professor, who she’d fallen in love with as a senior in college and run off and married, the most scandalous thing she’d ever done. Dear Stuart Dove.
Finally, Maggie put on some pink lipstick and Chanel No. 5, which she wore for the sole reason that she once heard an interview with P. D. James in which the great mystery author said it was her favorite perfume. Then Maggie set out to find out how much trouble her dear friend was in.
Chapter 8
Iphigenia’s hair salon sat in the center of the village, both physically and metaphorically. Almost every woman in town passed through her doors, and because Iphigenia felt very strongly that all women looked best with blond straight hair, almost every woman in the village looked slightly similar. On village-wide occasions, such as the Fourth of July fireworks or the Spring Fling, there were so many blond women of all shapes and sizes that Maggie sometimes thought the whole village looked related. Which was a nice thought, but not so nice that she wanted to look like an elderly Marilyn Monroe.
“Tscha,” Iphigenia cried out. “Look at you, Maggie Dove. Look at your hair. You look like a rag doll. You ruin my reputation. Sit down. I have ten minutes.”
“I really just wanted to ask…”
Iphigenia stood before her, a fury of perfume. She wore her own hair blown up like an Egyptian princess, with bangs, an effect she highlighted by shading her eyes with lots of dark pencil. She was gorgeous. “We can do color too. I have time.”
“No color,” Maggie said, as Iphigenia propelled her toward a black chair.
“Why don’t we try something new today?” Iphigenia said. “We were talking about changing the shape.”
“Dear God,” Maggie cried out. “Nothing new.”
“Of course. Of course. I know, Miss Maggie wants to play it safe,” Iphigenia said, swiveling the chair so Maggie could settle in more easily.
“That’s exactly right. Miss Maggie wants s
afety.”
Iphigenia swung Maggie around so that she faced the mirror, and, confronting her image so suddenly, Maggie laughed out loud. Who was this person with the white hair and blue eyes?
“I’m turning into my mother,” she said.
“You’re beautiful,” Iphigenia said, snapping a black plastic cape around Maggie’s neck. “Beautiful. You haven’t aged a day. Isn’t that right, my friend Agnes, who sits over there so quietly?”
Maggie started. She hadn’t even noticed Agnes Jorgenson’s sullen figure in the corner, all swathed in black.
“Yes,” Agnes said. “You’re still beautiful. How are you, Margaret?”
They’d gone to high school together, Maggie and Agnes and Winifred and for some reason Agnes felt compelled to call Maggie by her full name, though Maggie wasn’t sure why. No one else in the world called her Margaret.
“I heard you found Marcus Bender’s body,” Agnes said. She was secretary to the traffic court judge and spent a good deal of time listening to people come up with excuses. She’d learned to trust no one. She had large blue eyes and should have been attractive, except she never blinked. She always looked startled.
“Tscha,” Iphigenia clucked. “Such a tragedy. Such a bad thing.”
“Bad for Bender, certainly,” Agnes said. She gazed at Maggie speculatively. Her lips twitched and Maggie had the strongest possible feeling she was laughing at her. For just a moment she thought of Bender collapsing on her lawn. She imagined his haughty face and the drop of blood on his lips. She shivered as she remembered the feeling she’d had that someone else was there. In the night. Watching her.
“I heard he’d just been to the doctor,” Agnes said.
“How many times does that happen? You go to the doctor and the next day you’re dead. That’s why I never go to the doctor,” Iphigenia said, laughing loudly. “Not for ten years.”
“That’s just foolishness,” Agnes said. “You don’t have mammograms?”
“No. Nothing. Nothing. And look at me. I’m healthy as a horse.”
“You should go,” Maggie said.
“No. Me? I want to go just like Bender. Alive one minute and then dead the next.”
She snapped her scissors at the thought, though Maggie noticed her hands were shaking. The scissors came a little closer to Maggie’s cheek than she suspected Iphigenia intended.
“Did you do CPR?” Agnes asked.
“There was no call for it. He was dead.”
“How could you be sure?” she asked. “I’ve heard stories about people being buried alive. They used to worry about that, didn’t they? That’s where the expression comes from. Saved by the bell. Because they’d put a bell down in the coffin.”
“Agnes!” Maggie interrupted. “The police were there. Trust me, Bender was not alive.”
“Was he stiff?”
“Tscha,” Iphigenia said. “Look over there. Edgar Blake must have lice again.”
The pharmacy was across the street from the hair salon. Sure enough, Edgar Blake’s mother was clutching her son with one hand and a bag with the other, the bag distorted by a familiar shape. Edgar was renowned for his lice; his mother said they kept reappearing, but the general consensus was they never went away.
“Such thick hair, the son has,” Iphigenia said. “I think maybe I cancel her appointment for tomorrow. Just to be safe. I don’t want any creepy-crawly things in my salon.” She shivered dramatically.
“He’s in your Sunday School class, isn’t he?” Agnes asked.
“Yes.”
“Better wear a hat this Sunday,” Agnes said. “Or maybe tell the reverend to call and ask them not to come to church.”
“Dear God,” Maggie exploded, “if the worst thing that ever happens to me is I get lice from one of my Sunday School students, I’ll consider myself lucky. For all we know, it’s a home pregnancy test. Am I going to cut a six-year-old boy off from salvation because we saw his mother with a bag?”
Agnes laughed at that. “You’re a good Sunday School teacher, Maggie, but I don’t know that you’re that good. Do you seriously think young Edgar’s salvation hinges on going to one of your classes?”
Maggie blushed. What was wrong with her lately? She didn’t recognize herself.
“Are you going to Bender’s funeral?” Agnes asked.
“No,” Maggie said, determined not to get pulled into this discussion. On the street one of the young skateboarders shot by, a tall Asian boy with pants that looked like they would slide right off his hips. He jumped to go over the curb and the skateboard seemed to attach itself to his feet, a move so dangerous and graceful that Maggie almost cried out.
“I can understand that,” Agnes said. “I wouldn’t go to his funeral if I were you. But I wonder if Peter will go.”
“Why wouldn’t he,” Maggie asked, a twinge of anxiety pinging through her. Please don’t let Peter get swept up in this mess, she prayed. Not this time.
Agnes peered toward her curiously. “Let’s just say that Bender was not a fan of our assistant chief of police. One might even say that Bender was trying to get him fired.”
“Why would Bender want Peter fired?”
“I didn’t say he was. I said he might be.”
“I don’t know what that means, Agnes. Are you saying Peter’s in trouble?”
She laughed at that. “My dear, Peter’s been in trouble since the day he was born.”
Maggie started to reply, but before she could go further, Iphigenia shouted, “Ping. Time’s up. Color’s ready. Time to do some blow-drying.” She swept Agnes out of her chair before she could speak. Then aimed the blow-dryer at her like a gun, humming loudly, fluffing her hair. Agnes sat rigidly throughout, a prisoner awaiting execution.
Iphigenia was a whirl of fluffing and blowing for the next few minutes, and when she was done, Agnes surveyed herself in the mirror, obviously pleased with the result. She took a check out of her pocketbook, pre-written, and handed it to Iphigenia and walked out the door, stopping, for just a moment, in the doorway.
“Don’t you worry, Margaret. Peter’s not the only one who doesn’t mourn Bender’s passing,” Agnes said. “I could name ten other people in this village who would have been happy to kill him too.”
Having said that, she exited through the door, sailing onto Main Street like the queenliest of ships, bowing to those who passed.
“Brrr. I don’t like her,” Iphigenia said.
“Me neither.”
“What makes someone like that?” Iphigenia said, eyeing Maggie’s hair speculatively, snipping every so often.
“I don’t know,” Maggie said. “She had a crazy family, I can tell you that. There were eight of those Jorgenson children, each one stranger and meaner than the next. But the father, he was really a piece of work.” He’d been thrown out of town after fondling some girl, or so the rumor had it, though Maggie figured she wouldn’t pass on that tidbit. She’d like to think she had a little honor left.
“She’s not happy. Her roots are unhealthy. I can tell.”
Iphigenia then turned her attention back to Maggie’s hair, which she cut and fluffed until Maggie thought she looked a little like Julius Caesar.
“Very young,” Iphigenia said. “Very beautiful.”
It will grow out, Maggie thought.
“Is it true you haven’t been to the doctor in ten years?” Maggie asked.
“I wouldn’t want to go through chemo. I’d rather die.”
“Do you think something’s wrong?”
Automatically Iphigenia put her hand to her breast.
“If you’re worried, it’s better to find out early. It’s not a death sentence, you know, but you’re better off finding out. You’re probably making yourself sick worrying about it.”
“No.”
“I’ll take you. Make an appointment with Doc Steinberg and I’ll go with you and then we’ll have lunch. Why don’t you make it for Monday?”
“We’ll see,” Iphigenia said, and the
n she nodded over at the pharmacy and they both looked at Noelle Bender, who was walking out the door of the pharmacy, carrying a white bag. Lice? Maggie wondered. Or something else? What else came in a box? A home pregnancy test? Good grief, Maggie thought. Living in a small town turns us all into spies, but before she could shift focus, Noelle looked straight at her.
Maggie blushed, and turned away.
After she left Iphigenia’s, her thoughts went back to Peter. Was it possible he had some sort of beef with Bender? Of course it was possible. Peter argued with everyone. But how bad was it? Probably he hadn’t told Maggie about it because he didn’t want to upset her. But she knew who he would tell. She knew who would know.
Chapter 9
Maggie drove over to Winifred’s nursing home, and there she found her friend, as she so often did, staring at the pictures of her four husbands. Winifred liked to define herself as a serial marrier. Although she’d hit a bit of a rough patch in the last few years, having developed Parkinson’s, that didn’t stop her from looking for husband number five. She’d divorced the four previous ones, being of the view that there was no point in staying in a bad situation, so it was something of an irony that Winifred had wound up in the ultimate bad situation, semi-paralyzed and in a nursing home. Yet she took it with a surprising amount of grace.
She didn’t complain, although she had enough justification. Maggie had noticed that often the people with the most to complain about did it the least, possibly because they didn’t need the attention. In any event, Winifred looked awful when Maggie walked into her room, dyed brown hair teased too high, right arm swollen, head craned perilously to the side. Blue eyes sparkling. Those eyes had been looking for trouble for more than sixty years.
“Here she is,” Winifred said. “I was just telling young Arthur here about your adventures last night.” Young Arthur grinned genially, a soft young man with large spongy hands. He was massaging Winifred’s arm, trying to build up her muscles. Winifred was determined to beat the disease and had done a lot of research on the Internet, trying to find alternative cures, or any cures, and one thing she was passionate about was exercise.