"There he goes again, but I think I got the gist of that one," Novack said, once more hitching a thumb toward the backseat. "The lot was full, even the handicapped spaces, so I had to park my van down the block, you know, and take my go-cart. Some jackass didn't see me when I was leaving and ran me off the road into a ditch. I don't call that no misadventure, though. I call that a dumbass who had too much to drink at the lanes, that's what I call it."
Okay, so it had taken her a while. But Maggie was paying attention now.
"Someone ran you off the road? Alex? You know what I'm thinking? Oh, why am I even asking? Of course you do."
"Yes, sweetings, I have already deduced as much myself. But let us begin at the beginning, shall we? Henry, if you would please tell us about your evening at the bowling lanes?"
"That's what I was trying to do, until you guys started asking questions, stealing my chocolate. But I promised you a freebie, remember? A slice, not the whole cake. Not for free."
"You have a freebie for us, Henry?" Maggie asked him.
"Yeah, I do," he said, his eyelids narrowing as he looked at her. "Heard some guys talking in the bar. But, remember, you're not going to like it. The dead guy? He was maybe banging your mom. Or maybe your sister? One of 'em. All I caught was the name."
"Maureen," Maggie said hopefully. It would be bad enough, people knowing about Maureen. But her mother? That would be really, really bad.
"No, that's not it."
"Reenie?" Maggie suggested, this time desperately.
"Nope. Why don't I just tell—"
"Alicia?" Maggie asked. Squeaked.
"Jeez, if you'd just hold onto your undies, I'd tell you. Erin. The name was Erin."
"Steady, sweetings," Alex said, reaching over the seat to put his hands on her shoulders.
"If that bastard wasn't dead, I'd kill him myself," Maggie declared through clenched teeth and suddenly numb lips. No wonder her sister hadn't been home in years. "Man, when I moved to New York I must have screwed up Bodkin's personal scorecard, huh? And forget I said screwed."
Novack seemed oblivious to Maggie's pain, her Trauma of the Day. "So that's the freebie. I say anything else and it's going to cost you."
"And do you have anything else to say?" Alex asked, still rubbing Maggie's stiff shoulders.
"That's not the point. I'm talking generally here," Novack said, burrowing all of his chins beneath the collar of his jacket. But then he sat up straight, grinning. "You said you wanted to know everything, right? Everything that happened last night? You still want that?"
"I want to pretend I'm an orphaned only child," Maggie said, blinking back tears. But she had to stop this; there was no time for a personal pity party, although a long letter to Erin, once this was all over, was probably in order, damn it. "Okay, okay, how much will this cost me?"
"I don't know," Novack said, sounding unsure of himself for the first time since he and Maggie had "bumped into" each other. "What's the going rate for private detectives, anyway?"
"I don't know, Henry," Maggie told him, rallying. "But the going rate for guys in go-carts is twenty bucks an hour."
"Twenty bucks an—plus expenses?"
Alex chuckled in the backseat.
"Expenses? What expenses?"
"Well, I was at the lanes for about five hours or so, and the pizzas were twelve bucks a pop ..."
"Pizzas? As in plural pizzas? Oh, hell, all right. Let's make it an even two hundred for the night, okay?"
"Cash?"
"I'll tap my card later at an ATM."
"What kind of later? Later today, or later this week?"
"Later today, unless you make me really mad. Which you're doing. Now start talking."
Novack was nothing if not obedient, at least where the prospect of getting paid to talk was concerned.
He'd gone to the bowling lanes at around seven o'clock, when the leagues first began, and did what Maggie and Alex had told him to do. Be inconspicuous, while keeping his ears open. He walked from alley to alley, sitting down sometimes, pretending to look for a ball at others.
And listening. He did a lot of listening.
The topic of conversation, wherever he stopped to listen, was always the murder. The murder, and Evan Kelly's arrest for that murder.
"Oh, and somebody's got a pool going," he told them. "It's pretty much five-to-three odds that your dad gets life without parole. Sorry."
He went on to tell them that he'd found the alley where the Majesties were practicing, and stood behind a pillar so nobody could see him—
Okay, so Maggie wasn't really good at turning a laugh into a cough, but she gave it her best shot ...
—And heard the team talking about the murder, and the New Year's tournament that was coming up in a few days.
The redheaded guy, Novack told them, was having a small cow as he tried to get the new members of the team to understand that the bowling order would remain the same as it had been when Bodkin and Kelly had been on the team: the redhead first, some guy named Kelso next, then the lesbian—
"Henry, I don't think that's necessary," Maggie interrupted him. "And you're wrong. Trust me on this one."
Novack just shrugged and continued to list the bowling order. After the woman, the last one would be Barry Butts. And Barry Butts—"wild name, huh?"—hadn't liked that. He wanted to bowl second, not last. There'd been a near fight, but then the woman settled it, sort of smoothed things over. Novack figured the fun was also over, and since he'd just seen a guy walking by with a plate of nachos that looked pretty good, he took himself off to the bar for his own plate of nachos and a brewski. Light beer, of course, as he was trying to watch his calories.
"And that's it?" Maggie slumped in her seat. "Not much for two hundred bucks, Henry."
"There's more," he told her quickly. "In the bar? That's where I heard about your sister, I guess it was, and about some others. The guy with the red hair? Him? He came in with the other two guys, not the les—not the woman, and they were making jokes about the dead guy unzipping his pants all over town. The hothead? That Butts guy? He said he'd have paid the dead guy to take care of his wife for him. I laughed at that, and he looked over at me, all wild-eyed and mean all of a sudden, and asked me if I wanted to sit closer, so I could hear better. Then all three of them looked at me, all madlike."
"Ouch. Busted, huh? Next time you might want to try a cloak of invisibility ... pup tent of invisibility," Maggie said as Alex remained quiet in the backseat. He was probably thinking, and since Maggie couldn't think of a thing to think herself, that made her a little angry. Because he was probably thinking of some clue she'd missed. This was a thought that pretty much took the fun out of hearing that Lisa "She Stuffs" Butts's husband seemed to think the honeymoon was long over.
"Pup tent, huh? That's good, really funny, if I was a masochist. See, I know some big words, too. But, yeah, I guess they figured out I was listening to them," Novack agreed. "So I finished my chicken wings and left right after they did, picked up my go-cart—I chain it to stuff when I don't want to use it—and took off for the van. And got pushed off the road. Tapped right on the left rear fender and went, bam, into the ditch."
At last Alex said something. "Did you happen to see the driver of the car, Henry? The color of the car? The numbers on the license plate?"
"From where was I supposed to see any of that, huh? From the bottom of the ditch? He was a drunk. Blind drunk, because anyone else would have seen me. I've got reflectors, I've got lights. I got me. I'm not small, you know."
"Henry," Alex said sternly, "I thank you so much for all you've done, but you're now, as you Americans say, out of it. No more investigating, no more eavesdropping, nothing."
Novack shifted on the seat, once more sending the van's springs to protesting loudly. "What? You think somebody did that on purpose? You think somebody tried to—well, holy crap."
Maggie laid a hand on Novack's sleeve. "It could be a coincidence, Henry. But do we want to take that chance?"<
br />
Novack seemed to consider the question for a moment. "Well ... yeah, I think so. I mean, how much fun do you think a fat man has, anyway?" He turned as best as he could in his seat, to look back at Alex. "What do you want me to do next? Price has gone up, though, what with the hazardous-duty pay rules and all. Three hundred an hour?"
"Absolutely not!"
"Maggie," Alex said quietly, "Henry is going to need repairs on his go-cart. I've been looking at it back here, and the paint is rather scraped. Henry, we are agreed. And here's what I would like you to do ..."
Chapter Twenty-Two
Because Maggie's rental was low on gas, Saint Just found himself sitting in the front seat of her father's car, holding onto the Crock-Pot filled with meatballs as Maggie drove the one short and one long block to her mother's condo.
"I really must procure an operating license of my own," he said as the seat belt warning system annoyingly chirped faster and faster while he tried, in vain, to hook the seat belt and not lose his grip on the Crock-Pot. "I do not believe I have the constitution of a passenger."
"Wrong," Maggie told him. "You don't like having a woman drive you around—that's your problem. That male chauvinism thing. You can't believe a woman could drive as well as you. You really need to work on that, Alex. Oh, and while you're working on that, work on this—we're in this thing together, you and me. So stop making decisions without me, okay?"
"Meaning?" he asked, knowing full well why she was upset. The poor dear, she was such a sentimental little darling. Now, piled atop all her other worries, she was worrying about Henry Novack.
"Meaning, Alex, that you had no right to send Henry off to try to talk to Mae Petersen."
"You believe she's our killer, Maggie?"
"No," she said, pulling in to the curb, and rolling the front passenger side wheel up and over it, which caused her to direct a daggerlike stare at Alex that told him he would be well advised to ignore her small logistical misjudgment. "My money's on it being a man, definitely. Women, as a general rule, don't go around bashing a guy's brains in. We're neater than that. Unless it was a crime of passion, which I don't think it was, not when Bodkin was found on the beach, when only an idiot would go walking on the beach at night, in late December."
Saint Just opened the car door, now suffering a logistical dilemma of his own, as he needed to put the Crock-Pot somewhere and go around the car, take the walker from the backseat, and unfold it for Maggie. "I concur, totally. Our killer is male. Anything else?"
"Yes, there's something else. On top of the beach, I mean. Because our killer set up my dad to take the fall, which also screams premeditation, right? Somebody had a big hate for Bodkin."
Saint Just decided to place the Crock-Pot on the Kellys' porch, and withheld his comment until he'd done so. Then taking the walker from the backseat, he unfolded it, and opened Maggie's door. Modern life was so much more complicated than merely waiting for the coachie to put down the steps and then magnanimously handing his lady of the moment down from the carriage. "Unfortunately, there are so many male somebodies who could hold this big hate for Mr. Bodkin."
Maggie turned neatly on the seat and rather gracefully pulled herself erect outside the car even as Saint Just prudently held his hand just above her head, as she'd more than once hit that head against the side of the roof as she attempted her egress. "Which is why we're going to do this quick, and then start knocking on some female doors."
"Yes, do this quickly," Saint Just said, following Maggie to the curb. "And may I inquire as to just what, precisely, we are about to do quickly?"
"You'll see. I had an inspiration while I was in the city," Maggie said, grinning at him over her shoulder. "Just grab that Crock-Pot and follow my lead, okay? You'll like it, trust me."
"I adore you, Maggie. I worship at your dainty feet, even while you lumber about in that cast. But trust you, sweetings? Not when you grin the way you're grinning now. I cut my wisdoms too long ago to be so gullible."
Saint Just did not feel comfortable in the role, well, the role played by the trusting Sterling in their books, but Maggie seemed happy, something she had not seemed in several days. So, after voicing his concerns, he did as she suggested, and promised to follow her lead.
Follow her orders, that was, which had to do with him leaving the Crock-Pot on a table on the ground floor and heading upstairs to collect Tate and his friends, the Realtor and the lawyer, bringing them back downstairs to a waiting—and still happily smiling—Maggie.
"Hi, guys," she said, fairly dancing on one foot as she gripped the walker. "Thanks for coming down. I didn't think I could take another flight of stairs on my fanny right now."
"Yes, well, we don't have much time, Maggie," Tate said, carefully placing himself on the far side of his friends, as distant from Saint Just as he could get—a move that gratified Saint Just no small bit. "We have an appointment, some business to attend to this morning."
"Really? You mean like Cynthia here going to talk to Daddy about the night Bodkin was murdered? Listen to his side of things? Tell him what to say and what not to say? You know, confer with him? That kind of business?"
Cynthia Spade-Whitaker rolled her heavily mascaraed eyes. "Are you once again hinting that I'm not performing my duties to your satisfaction, Maggie? Because if you are—"
"Oh, heavens, no, Cynthia," Maggie interrupted, and Saint Just raised one expressive eyebrow, having decided that Maggie had her target in her sights and it was not, as he'd supposed, her brother, Tate. "I'm here to give you this. Alex? Show Cynthia what we brought for her."
"With every outward appearance of pleasure, my dear," he said quietly, walking over to unzip the insulated cover and lift out the Crock-Pot that had spent the night in the refrigerator. He lifted the glass lid. "Cynthia? Even cold, do you smell that delicious aroma?"
Sean Whitaker leaned forward and looked at the contents of the Crock-Pot. And then, because, as Saint Just had already concluded, the man was not the sharpest arrow in the quiver, he announced unnecessarily, "Meatballs? You brought Cyndy meatballs?"
"Oh, no, I don't cook," Maggie said, laughing. "The last man I cooked dinner for ended up dead. It kind of put me off the idea. The meatballs are a gift. I had to go to the city yesterday, you understand, to see my orthopod, and while I was there a friend stopped by with the meatballs."
"No," Cynthia said. "I still don't understand. If someone gave you a gift, Maggie, why are you now giving it to me? Certainly," she added, sniffing, "not in lieu of my fee."
Saint Just lowered the lid on the Crock-Pot, at the same time surreptitiously looking at Maggie, seeing the way her knuckles had gone white as she grasped the walker, putting the lie to her seemingly genuine smile. What on earth was she about to do?
"Oh, heavens no, I'm not regifting in lieu of your fee," Maggie said, laughing. "Jerry Seinfeld would be appalled, wouldn't he? Regifting? Get it? Or maybe you don't watch Seinfeld reruns, huh?"
Ouch. That laugh sounded forced. Saint Just stepped closer to her.
"No, when I told my friend what was happening, about Daddy being arrested," Maggie went on, "he asked me to allow him to send my gift to me at another time, and deliver this gift to you." She looked up at Saint Just, blinking innocently. "That Salvatore. He's such a dear man."
And that's when, as Saint Just considered such things, the penny dropped, and he realized what Maggie was up to. No good, that's what she was up to.
How he adored her.
"Ah, yes, our own dear Mister C.," he said helpfully, pivoting slightly to look at Cynthia Spade-Whitaker, whose complexion had gone quite pale beneath her makeup, so that the blush on her cheeks stood out in stark relief. "So devoted to his friends. Very nearly parental, wouldn't you say, Maggie? Protective."
"Uh-huh." Maggie moved the walker forward a few paces. "When he asked who was helping Daddy I told him about you, Cynthia, and how lucky we were to have you. And he knew your name. He said you had defended a dear friend of his some little while a
go, here in New Jersey. A Mr. Nicky Palmetto from Newark, was it? Such a small world."
"Cyndy? Palmetto. Isn't that the name of the concrete company guy you—well, you know," Sean Whitaker asked, taking hold of his wife's elbow as she staggered slightly in place. "But you got him off, so that's all right. Isn't it?"
"Shut up, Sean. For just this once, shut up. Salvatore Campiano," she said quietly. "That's who you mean, Maggie, right? Salvatore Campiano? Boffo Transmissions? And other stuff?"
"Well, he's more Alex's friend than mine," Maggie said, "but, yes, that's who I mean. Alex did his family a favor a little while ago, and you know how some people feel about returning favors. I told him—Mr. Campiano—that you're doing the very best that you can do for my father. Because you are, aren't you?"
"Uh ... well, yes ... yes, of course," Cynthia stammered. "The absolute best that I can. So you told Mr. Campiano that? That I'm devoting every moment to your father's defense?"
"Let's just say I told him what you've done so far," Maggie responded, not sounding quite so cheerful now. "He," and here she paused, a very pregnant, portentous pause, Saint Just thought, "sends his regards."
"Oh, shit ..."
"I beg your pardon? Shall I tell Daddy that you'll be by later, to talk about his case?"
"Huh?" Cynthia blinked several times, and then nodded. Furiously. "Oh, absolutely! Sean and Tate can go on without me. I mean, they're just going to go look at boats. Or yachts. Or something. Down in Cape May? It's much more important that I stay here, conference with my most important client."
"Yes, I rather think it is," Maggie agreed. Purred her agreement. "Alex? I believe I'm done here."
"Oh, wait a moment, Maggie," Cynthia said as Maggie turned for the door. "About that figure I quoted you as my fee?"
Saint Just discreetly coughed into his fist. If the woman wanted to, as the current saying went, score points with his beloved, she had most certainly chosen the perfect avenue.
"I've instructed my accountant to pay you the full retainer, yes," Maggie said, keeping her back turned to the lawyer. "You should have a check later this week or early next week."
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