"I'd hardly say seduced, Margaret," Alicia Kelly said in an aggrieved tone. "That would make us both silly, vulnerable women. I'd like to believe we knew what we were doing. Or at least I did. Although I will admit I stopped taking those hormone pills Donald Helsing insisted I try to be rid of hot flashes. I had some very strange thoughts when I was taking those pills, I tell you."
"Doctor Helsing? He's still practicing?"
"Donald? Of course he is. My goodness, he's only a few years older than your father and me."
"Wow," Maggie said, once again steering toward a side road, because it was easier to take the information her mother was handing her in small doses. "I used to think he was ancient. So much for a child's perspective on the world—something I should have remembered five Doctor Bob years ago."
"Excuse her, Alicia," Alex said. "As you've already pointed out, she will do this sort of thing from time to time. So, if I might put a voice to some things I've been thinking as we've spoken?"
"Of course, Alex," Alicia said, her voice almost girlish.
Maggie curled her upper lip. No woman was immune to Alex. Although she was giving hopping down to see Doctor Helsing tomorrow for an immunization shot some serious thought at the moment.
"You told Evan about your long-ago affair, begged his forgiveness even as you gave him the name of a dead man instead of the person actually responsible ..."
"So he wouldn't go after him, try to fight him," Alicia said. "Evan gets some strange ideas sometimes."
"Yes, I understand. You were protecting him. Totally understandable. You then told him that Maureen also had an affair with the man, and had been—what is the word?—traumatized to learn that she had made the same mistake her mother had made."
"She freaked," Alicia said, looking at Maggie, and impressing her daughter again with her terminology. "She went to bed for two weeks. Wouldn't talk to anyone, wouldn't eat, kept showering all the time. Then she stopped that, and began eating. All the time. She's gained forty pounds, Margaret."
"I noticed, yes."
"Every pound she put on, I felt worse. My baby, my youngest, and I'd done that to her. I began to think of what else I ... I might have done. To anyone else. Confession was the only thing I could think of that might help me. But still I couldn't bring myself to tell your father all of the truth. I'd said Walter, but then I said Hagenbush, not Bodkin. I was, am, a coward."
"Don't beat up on yourself, Mom. Alex? This is why Daddy won't talk to us. He doesn't want us to know about Maureen. I'll bet that's it. But did he know about Bodkin anyway, did he find out on his own somehow? Mom? Is that why you said what you said last night? You think Daddy found out it was really Bodkin, not Hagenbush, and he went nuts? Bopped him over the head with his bowling ball?"
"It would be as silly as going off to have that affair with his little chippie, just to punish me. Yes, he knew it was Walter Bodkin, not Walt Hagenbush. He's known for a few weeks now—and I've been worried sick. You don't know your father, Margaret. You think I'm the horrible woman who browbeats him, keeps him under her thumb. But your father needs to be under someone's thumb. Trust me. He's no Wally Cox."
"Pardon me?"
"He's no wimp, Alex," Maggie explained, and then looked to her mother once more. "Mom? You're telling me that underneath that gray button cardigan and orthopedic shoes, my father is a wild man?"
Alicia Kelly sat back, folded her hands beneath her ample breasts. "Ask Walter Bodkin. Oh, wait, you can't, can you? Because he's dead."
Maggie's head felt ready to explode. Information overload. Definitely. But something was knocking at the back of her skull, and it wasn't just her headache. "But Daddy couldn't have known. You have to be wrong on that. He wouldn't have bowled with the guy last night, if he'd known. Would he?"
Alicia shrugged. "He said they'd settled things between them. They're—they were—teammates on the Majesties, remember? Nothing and nobody can come between the members of the Majesties. I could hate him for that, except that the Majesties are all Evan has, especially now that he's taken early retirement."
"Damn. So how did he know? How did he find out?"
"Maureen told him. She didn't mean to, but when your father finally went to her, to tell her he wouldn't go to therapy with her, but he would pay for it, she opened her big mouth and said Walter's name."
"And when was that, Alicia?" Alex asked her.
"Two weeks ago? Three? I think Evan thought that if he made some sort of gesture, like paying for Maureen's therapy, I'd forgive him, let him come home."
"And you said they'd settled things between them? That he confronted Bodkin? Two, three weeks ago?"
"It was about then, yes. They rolled around in the parking lot of the bowling alley like two idiot teenagers, hitting at each other, making fools of themselves. But then it was over, or at least I thought so."
"Yet you said Evan killed Bodkin for you."
"Yes, Alex, I did, and I don't know why I said that. They made up, didn't they? Evan prizes the Majesties over me, over his own daughter. Men are asses. They think they can hit each other and then go off to bowl together. Or so I thought."
"That'd put me in therapy," Maggie said, feeling sympathy for her mother. "How could Daddy bear to be in the same room with the guy?"
"Because he's a man, Margaret. Men fight, and then they go on with what they want to go on with—like your father's stupid Majesties. I can't honestly believe Evan killed Walter, but if he did, he did it because he thought it would make me happy. I wasn't happy, you understand, when he told me he'd fought Walter, and then they'd made up as if nothing had ever happened. The man actually said to me—water under the bridge can't be called back, Alicia. He forgave me, he said. He forgave Walter. Can you imagine? But I was wrong, I'm sure of that. Evan couldn't have killed Walter. He can be difficult, but he's no killer. And he'd never lie to me. He wouldn't dare."
"Mom?" Maggie would return to the idea of her father being a wild man, difficult, some other time. For now, she had a much more important question. "Did anyone see them fighting? Were there witnesses?"
"It was a Friday night, Margaret. League night. Of course there were witnesses. Dozens of them. I stayed away from the supermarket for a week, too embarrassed to show my face. And nobody knew why your father and Walter had been fighting. Now they'll know it all, the whole world will know. If I didn't have a fully stocked freezer, we'd all starve to death."
"This isn't good," Maggie said, sighing. "Well, none of it is good. But, damn, Alex, people saw Daddy fighting with Bodkin."
"Yes, I understand. And at least one of them will have contacted the police no later than tomorrow, eager to share that very information," Alex said as Maggie sat back in her chair, dragging hard at her nicotine inhaler ...
Chapter Fourteen
"No, let's not go up yet, Alex," Maggie said as he put his foot on the first step, having won the battle and carrying her from the car rather than to stand back, helpless, watching her hop on one foot. He believed himself to be the perfect hero, but Maggie seemed to continue having some difficulty fitting herself into the role of the swooning, helpless heroine.
"You're tired, Maggie," Saint Just told her, hesitating. "One way or another, it's been another long day. You've been on that foot too much. It won't help your father if you have to take to your bed for a few days."
"I know, but Dad's up there. And my mind is still racing. I really need to talk to you, and I don't want to have to whisper. Please, put me down so we can sit a while on the steps."
He did as she asked, taking off his coat and spreading it on the step before she sat down. He then retrieved the walker from the car and sat down beside her. "We have to speak with him at some point, you know. We really can't go much further in any direction without his cooperation. And, as characters on the current police dramas on television say, the clock is ticking. Most homicides, unless solved within the first forty-eight hours, remain unsolved. A good thing no one said that during the Regency, or our book
s would all be short stories."
"Very funny. And I watch the programs with you, so I know about the forty-eight hour thing. I'm delaying right now, stalling. We'll work on him tomorrow, when I'm not feeling like such a wimp. For now, with any luck, he'll have gone to bed before we get up there. Alex?"
He was lightly rubbing at her shoulders, as she'd told him more than once that they ached after a day navigating on the walker, and had even teased him that she'd soon have shoulders like a fullback. "Hmm?"
"We're doing a really good job, you know, unearthing evidence. Clues, to you. We learned a lot today. The problem with those clues is that we should be working for the prosecution. Everything we've learned just points to Dad crushing Bodkin's skull for him."
"I was wondering when you might stumble over that conclusion, my dear, no pun intended."
"Ah, that feels good," Maggie said, hunching her shoulders as he worked on her neck, as he pressed his lips against her neck. But if his touch only felt good, obviously a romantic interlude this evening was out of the question. Pity.
"It could feel better, but I suppose not."
She ignored that statement, or just hadn't heard it. Yes, definitely Maggie had to work on the swooning, grateful, can't-help-herself-but-falls-into-his-arms aspects of being a heroine. "We have another suspect, though. Three, if you want to push it to Mom."
"John, if he is aware of his wife's indiscretion, and Maureen. Yes, I have deduced that much. But attempting to include your brother-in-law may be pushing the envelope. The man sleeps the sleep of the innocent—"
"Or the tryptophan stuffed."
"True. And Maureen doesn't strike me—again, no pun intended—as the sort who could cold-bloodedly kill anyone. Your rather redoubtable mother, on the other hand ..."
"I know. She's freaking amazing, isn't she? Even in that horrible blue caftan, she commanded the room, didn't she? Or, as I used to say before I knew she actually keeps a scrapbook of our press clippings, like a normal mother—that is one scary broad. But she wasn't faking going all white and nearly fainting when she heard Bodkin was dead. Nobody's that good."
"Bringing us back to your father."
"Unfortunately, yes." Maggie leaned her head on Saint Just's shoulder. "You know what we need, Alex? We need to broaden our investigation. We need more suspects."
" 'The more the alternatives, the more difficult the choice.' "
Maggie nodded against his shoulder. "Yeah, like that. We dig up enough suspects, maybe even feed some of them to the press, and the police can't just pin it on Dad and not investigate other possibilities. We make this as hard as we can for them, right? Very good, Alex."
"I blush to say that I'm not the first to utter the words. You had me quote the Abbe D'Allainval in The Case of the Pilfered Pearls, remember?"
"Are you kidding? You're the one I gave the steel-trap brain, not me. I have at least a half dozen thick quote books in my office. I get an idea, look through them for a key word, and then steal like crazy. You don't really think I commit all that stuff to memory, do you?"
"Another illusion cruelly shattered by my pragmatic heroine," Saint Just said, pressing a kiss against her hair. "And here I thought you were a walking encyclopedia of knowledge."
"Only if I pushed a set of encyclopedias in front of me in a shopping cart. But people seem to think I have it all in my head, and ask me questions about obscure stuff I may have found, and written about, but then forgot. And they get all torqued when I don't remember. It's like walking up to comedians and demanding they say something funny. It just doesn't work that way."
"Is this going anywhere?"
"No, Alex, I don't suppose it is. I'm just saying, I'm not a genius. You, by association, are not a genius. Good, even great, but not a genius. We just do the best we can with what we've got. And what we've got right now is bupkus. That's nothing, Alex. Bupkus."
Saint Just knew he had to agree. Other than to supply even more motive that could send Evan Kelly, as Alicia had said, 'up the river to become somebody's bitch,' they really hadn't accomplished anything at all concrete a full four-and-twenty hours after the murder.
But he had learned something.
"Maggie," he began slowly, "there's more going on here than Bodkin's murder and your father's arrest. Loathe as I am to add to your burden, I believe I must tell you that I overheard your brother discussing his plan to sell your parents' home out from beneath them."
Maggie sat up straight, looking at him in the yellow light of the street lamp. "What? He's doing what?"
"Sean Whitaker is a Realtor, Maggie. Tate invited him for the holiday so that he could come into the house without being too obvious, inspect it, and then set a sale price."
"Why, that sneaky, no-good, son of a—"
"You'll want to hold onto that righteous anger a moment more, sweetings, as there's more to tell. Cynthia Spade-Whitaker, as you already know, is an attorney. She has been invited along as Sean's wife, but also to assist in preparing divorce papers Tate hopes your mother will then sign. Now, feel free to rant."
But Maggie didn't say anything. Not a single word.
"Maggie? Are you all right?"
"No," she said, her voice small. "God, what a twisted, sick family we are, Alex. Maybe Mom's right, and I've turned out to be the only normal one. And if I'm normal, sitting here, talking to my imaginary perfect hero somehow come to life, then the rest of them are freaking certifiable!"
Saint Just chuckled quietly at that bit of self-deprecating wit. "Are they, Maggie? Ready to be carted off to Bedlam in their own straight waistcoats? Your sister Erin, whom I haven't yet had the pleasure of meeting, seems to have found her own path. Granted, one that leads away from her parents."
"But she lies about why she doesn't come home. You're not normal if you can't just stand up and say, no, folks, you make me nuts, and I'm not coming home anymore."
"Really? You come back here, while longing to stay away, because you can't say the words you expect Erin to say."
"I hate when you're logical. Erin lies and hides, I try to lie, and eventually buckle. Okay, so Erin and I are maybe working out the same problem, each in our own way. But Tate? Mom and Dad have always treated him like the golden child. Tate this, Tate that, Margaret, why can't you be more like Tate—all of that. And yet he's the one trying to pull the rug out from under them."
"You once told me that Tate bought the condo for your parents as a business investment."
"And to score points with Mom and Dad by telling them they could live in it as long as they wanted. Don't forget that one, Alex. Tate's all about scoring points, keeping score."
"Like a dog with a bone, aren't you, sweetings? But to return to my hastily assembled theory, if you don't mind? He may have suffered some business reversals, Maggie. If you'll recall, he rather blanched at the idea of producing the fifty-thousand dollars necessary for your father's release from the police station last evening. Selling your parents' house may give him the money he needs. Sean mentioned a half million-dollar profit."
"So Tate's cold-bloodedly planning to kick Mom and Dad to the curb—for money? Why didn't he just come to me? He knows I have money."
Saint Just smiled in the darkness. "Would you apply to your brother for funds, if you found yourself in need?"
"Are you kidding? I'd rather eat dirt."
"Yes. And it is to be assumed that your brother feels likewise. I could pity him, except for the fact that I believe he sees your father's current difficulties as a prod to induce your mother to file the divorce papers and leave Ocean City, and her embarrassment, behind."
"He's a snake," Maggie sneered. "My mother has nurtured a snake at her bosom."
"A very poetical if rather dated turn of phrase, one common to the Regency. And here you protest that your knowledge of the era runs into and out of your mind as if it is a sieve. We will not, of course, allow Tate to succeed in his plan—both his plans—so let us put the subject of your scaly brother to one side for the nonce."
"A worm. A wiggly, squiggly, slimy, filthy little—oh, okay, I'm done now. For the moment. Because I'm not finished, not by a long shot. Tate's going to pay for thinking he can dump Mom and Dad after promising them they had that condo for life. That limo? He hired that for show. Maybe it took his last money, but he did it to impress his pals, make them think he's loaded and doesn't need the profit from the condo. God, I hope so. I hope he's down to his last penny. The bastard. I don't know how, but he's going to pay."
"He will cower in a corner beneath the force of your righteous wrath, tremble in his boots, yes. I look forward to the sight."
"You bet! And when I say pay, I mean with money. Real money."
"But if he's already embarrassed for funds ... ?"
"Then I'll pick his last pocket, for his last dime. Money, Alex. It's the one thing Tate loves. He used to keep his money shoved up in the bottom of the lamp in his bedroom. Pulled off the felt thingie on the bottom, and shoved his weekly allowance up into the base, put the felt back on, all nice and neat."
"Clever."
"As you'd say, too clever by half! Then he'd fib and say he didn't have any money, or he'd pull out a ten for a gumball and whine that he couldn't bear to break it, and Maureen or Erin or I would end up buying him his damn gumball. He did it all the time. But Mom? Mostly it was Mom who paid, let him off the hook, just warning him that he'd have to learn to be better with his money. But I knew better, because I'd see his smile when Mom turned her back, handed over the money for whatever it was Tate wanted. It took me a while, but I finally found his stash, and took it, hid it under his mattress, where I was sure Mom would find it when she changed his sheets."
"Pardon my interruption, but just how old were you when you formed this Machiavellian plan?"
"I don't know. Six? Seven? I was precocious, okay? He never even suspected it was me who'd done it. Although I'd love to tell him someday. Maybe soon, huh?"
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