‘We will never know what he was up to,’ Scott thought.
Now that it was almost noon, and Mandy would be at work in the bakery, Scott stopped back in to have another word with the young woman about the night Theo was murdered. Under the disapproving look of Bonnie Fitzpatrick, Scott took Mandy out in the alleyway behind the bakery to talk to her.
“Theo tried to come in with that pervert Willy around midnight, and Patrick throwed them out of the bar,” she said. “He came back later, right after last call, and got throwed out again. He offered Patrick $500 for a bottle of whiskey. I couldn’t believe that. I’d a took it.”
“What happened then?”
“Theo tried to pick a fight with a couple guys, and said somethin’ purty rude to me. Then he got right up in Patrick’s face and mouthed off, so Patrick told him he could walk out or get carried out, it was up to him.”
“What did Theo say to Patrick, exactly?”
“He said ‘you’ll never have her, I’ll make sure a that,’ or something like that.’”
Scott wondered if Theo meant Mandy or Ava.
“What did Theo do after Patrick threatened him?”
“Well, what would you do if Patrick was wavin' a baseball bat in your face, tellin’ you to get outta there?”
“Patrick had a bat in his hand?”
“Well, yeah, the one we keep behind the bar.”
“Is it metal?”
“No, it’s wood.”
“Did Patrick go out after that?”
“No, we was busy and he didn’t have no help but me.”
“So then what happened?”
“We take last orders at 1:00 and then throw everybody out by 1:30 so we can clean up. Patrick puts the chairs up so I can mop while he counts the till and gets the trash together.”
“And then?”
“We get outta there by 2:00 most nights. We drop the trash off in the dumpster in the alley and he walks me home.”
“Did you see or hear anything unusual?”
“No. It was really foggy.”
“How does he go from your place home?”
“Down Iris or Marigold, I guess.”
“But not the alley.”
“I don’t see why he would,” she said. “That’s backtracking, ain’t it?”
“Does he ever drop you off and then go in a different direction?”
“If he has a date, he might. I never watched him enough to notice.”
“And Patrick didn’t leave the bar at any time before 2:00, even for a short while?”
“Well, he mighta gone to the bathroom, Scott, but I don’t remember nothin' in particular.”
Mandy looked worried.
“You don’t really think Patrick had anything to do with Theo getting his self murdered, do you?”
“No,” Scott said. “I want to be sure no one else can say he did.”
“Well, I didn’t like Theo, and I don’t know anyone who did, but you can’t just go around killin’ people ‘cause you don’t like ‘em. There wouldn’t be nobody left in this whole world.”
Scott looked in Mandy’s big green eyes and saw she was sincere and serious.
“You’re right about that, Mandy,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “It’s the truth.”
“Was Tommy up when you got home?” he asked her.
“Course not. He delivers the papers of the morning, so he goes to bed early. He’s always sound asleep when I get home.”
“He told you about the fight at Phyllis’ trailer, though, right?”
“Oh Lord, everybody done told me about that fight. They was always fussin’ and fightin’, those two.”
Scott thanked her and left. He thought she was telling the truth about Patrick, but she owed her living to the Fitzpatrick family, and would be likely to protect them if she could. Scott was anxious though, to confirm the bat they kept behind the bar was made of wood.
Scott stopped by the service station and asked Patrick to show him the bat. Patrick led him across the street to the Rose and Thorn, unlocked the door, walked around to the back side of the bar, and handed Scott an old wooden bat. Scott examined it before handing it back, and then took a seat. Patrick poured him a soda, and poured himself a beer.
“We need to have a serious talk,” Scott said.
“Shoot,” Patrick said. “I’ll answer any question you got.”
“When Theo said, ‘You’ll never have her,’ or whatever it was he said that night, was he talking about Mandy or Ava?”
“I don’t remember exactly what he said,” Patrick said. “It all sounded like typical Theo bullshit to me. He hit on Mandy because he knew it irritated me, and everyone knows he had a thing for Ava a long time ago.”
“Did Theo know you and Ava were involved?” Scott asked.
“I was cut out of one of those pictures he had of her; it was taken through her bedroom window. So I would say, yeah, he knew. I burned it up in the trash barrel out back of the fire station the night you tried to arrest Maggie.”
“Did he ever threaten to reveal the affair?”
“No, but I wouldn’t have cared if he did. The only reason it’s a secret is because Ava wants it that way. If it were up to me she would get an annulment, marry me, and what anyone else thinks be damned.”
“So he couldn’t blackmail you.”
“Hell no. Besides, he could hardly use a photo he’d taken that way, could he? He’d be arrested for invading her privacy.”
“Maybe he couldn’t bring himself to do anything that would hurt her.”
“Except leaving her that money is as good as claiming they were involved, at least as far as the whole town is concerned. That’s hurting her.”
“But it’s also providing security to her and the kids.”
“It’s hard for me to believe the bastard didn’t have a nugget of coal where his heart should be, but maybe he really loved her. I don’t know and I don’t care.”
“He must have really hated you, though. If he knew you and Ava were having this affair, why didn’t he try to sabotage it somehow? Seems like it would have eaten him up inside to know you had what he wanted. It wasn’t like Theo to let something like that go unpunished.”
“He bought the building next door to this one, the one everyone knew I wanted to buy so we could expand this place. Theo outbid me by some ridiculous amount and then put a price tag on it he knew no one would or could pay, so it sits there empty. That might have been his revenge, a way of taking something I wanted away from me.”
“But he never got into it with you directly. Physically, I mean.”
“He was always telling me he’d like to kick my ass, but when I’d say, ‘come on then’ he was afraid to throw the first punch. I’ve never beat the hell out of anybody like I did Theo when we were kids. I really lost it that day. He knew after that I wasn’t afraid of him.”
“Brad came and got me,” Scott said. “When I got there Theo was holding Sean under the water. Brad and I tried to stop him but Theo was too big. He broke my nose and punched Brad in the stomach, knocked the wind out of him.”
“Ava came and got me,” Patrick said. “I got there right when he broke your nose. I thought he’d drowned Sean. I don’t remember everything that happened after that.”
“When Theo saw you coming he tried to get away but the water slowed him down. While you whooped his ass, Ava and I pulled Sean out of the lake. Brad ran to the lodge to get help.”
“Just think, if I’d killed Theo that day, Brad would be here now, and I would have saved everyone so much aggravation.”
“But you’d be in jail.”
“I was under age. I might have got away with it.”
The two men were silent for a while, remembering that day.
“Did you ever confront Theo about burning down Maggie’s house?” Scott asked.
“I told him I believed he did it, that everyone believed he did it, and as soon as I had proof I was coming for him. But I trusted C
hief Estep and he said it was electrical, so I couldn’t justify going after Theo.”
“Maggie said Theo had photos he may have used to blackmail Eric Estep. That’s probably why the poor man blew his brains out a year later.”
“I burned up those photos, too, in case you wondered.”
“If it’s not directly connected to Theo’s death I’m not officially interested, but Sarah would be. I hope you will remember if she questions you to only answer the questions she asks, and not to volunteer any additional information.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not that stupid. Besides, she’s already been in to see me, and she was more interested in where I’d be when she got off work than where I was when Theo got killed.”
“She’s pretty aggressive.”
“She seems like a scratcher and a biter. I’d watch out if I were you.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not stupid, either.”
“Ian’s gonna be here in about ten minutes. Unless you want him sticking his nose in, you better wrap this up.”
“Just one more thing; I know you know where Brian is. Have you been in contact with him?”
“No. He might as well be dead as far as I’m concerned. He broke our mother’s heart and left Ava and the kids. How could someone raised the same as me do something like that? I hope he never comes back, and if he knows what’s good for him, he won’t.”
“No chance he came back and killed Theo, then.”
“No way. My brother Brian is a weak man. When the going gets tough he runs away.”
“Why do you think he left?”
“I think Theo had something on him, something he couldn’t face. I think Theo paid him to go, and those loan papers were a cover up.”
“You saw Sean’s letters.”
“Yeah, and I know they weren’t written to Gwyneth.”
“Maggie still thinks so.”
“I’m not going to be the one to tell her any different. I don’t care, you know. I’m not that big a jerk. I don’t understand it, but Sean’s a good guy, and he’s the only decent brother I’ve got left. I think those guys are probably born that way, and there’s nothing they can do about it.”
“Theo held those letters over Sean’s head so he wouldn’t tell anyone Theo was the last one with Brad before he died.”
“The more I find out about that prick the more I think we should thank whoever did kill him.”
“You were one of the last people to see him alive,” Scott said. “Although Sarah doesn’t seem too interested in solving the case, you’re probably still on her list of suspects. She may not be telling me because she knows how close I am to your family.”
“What can I tell ya? I didn’t do it, but everyone knows I think he deserved it.”
“I wish you had a better alibi.”
Patrick shrugged and Scott got up to leave. When he was halfway to the door Patrick stopped him.
“I can tell you this,” Patrick said. “If it’d been me taking a bat to him, there wouldn’t have been enough left of him to ID.”
Scott looked around the bar, empty except for him and Patrick.
“Please don’t say that to anyone else,” he said, and left.
When Scott got back to the station he called Maggie, and asked her if she knew about any rumors regarding Margie and the mail.
“Everyone knows Margie snoops in the mail, Scott. Where have you been?”
Scott remembered Mamie claiming Margie stole her National Geographic magazines. He spent a couple hours in the files, looking for complaints about the mail, the post office, or Margie, and found plenty in files dated before he came to work there. Put together, there was a damning amount of evidence suggesting Margie had been “tampering” with the mail for many years, and so far, had got away with it.
The complaints included things missing and assumed stolen, like magazine subscriptions and mail-ordered items; mail that had obviously been opened and re-sealed; and in one complaint Margie was overhead sharing confidential information she couldn’t have known unless she’d read a certified letter before the intended party received it. In one kind of humorous incident, she had been accused of switching envelopes so a sexy lingerie catalog went to Father Stephen at his office address, and the person meant to receive the catalog got a religious magazine.
More serious, though, was the fact that it was Margie who provided the evidence which sent Willy Neff to prison.
Scott went straight to the Rose and Thorn to confront Ian Fitzpatrick about what he’d found. Ian was offended at being questioned, and told him it was all just “women’s gossip” and nothing more.
“Her father was a war hero, did you know that?” Ian said. “Eric Estep had a Purple Heart, shrapnel in his leg, and was fire chief of this town before you were a gleam in your mother’s eye!”
Scott was familiar with the stone wall which was formed out of Ian’s personal prejudices, especially where friends and family were concerned.
“We were in a war together,” Ian told Scott, as the younger man stood to leave. “I won’t have you dragging his good name through the mud.”
Ian and Scott had been the first police officers on the scene after Eric was found, in his office at the fire station, having blown most of his head off with a shotgun. It was Scott’s first year working in Rose Hill, and his first violent death as well, and he still had nightmares about it.
If Eric left a suicide note Scott wouldn’t know. He was out in the hallway puking his guts out while Ian, and Malcolm, Eric’s second in command, rearranged the scene to make it look like the accident it was later claimed to have been. Before his retreat to the hallway, Scott had seen what was left of Eric and the position of the gun, and knew better, but dutifully supported Ian’s official determination.
Scott fumed as he walked down to the post office to confront Margie. He knew he shouldn’t undertake any sort of questioning when he was this angry, but he wanted her to know he was onto her, to put her on notice that he would not tolerate this kind of thing just because she was the daughter of a local war hero and the former fire chief.
Margie saw Mrs. Crawford give Theo the card, and could easily have plucked the card and photo out of the trash. If a sentimental gesture from a kind woman could be made to look like a death threat, what other horrible things had Margie done no one knew about?
Did Willy really seek to procure the pictures that put him in prison, or had Margie just made it look as though he did? Mrs. Crawford told Scott Margie used to be sweet on Willy when they were younger. Had Margie’s accusation actually been revenge for his romantic rejection?
Scott was angry with Margie, and angry with Ian for protecting her. He had to admit the special treatment he resented Ian for giving out was really no different from what he was doing for the Fitzpatricks in Theo’s murder investigation. He was disgusted with himself and disappointed in how easily he had been corrupted. Scott felt dirty and felt like cleaning things up. He decided to start with Margie.
Margie wasn’t at work, so Scott went to her home, down near the river on Lotus Avenue. Margie’s mother, Enid, was alone at home, and it took her a long time to answer the door. Enid had crippling rheumatoid arthritis, and she could do very little for herself. Scott peeked in the window to show her who it was, and she made her painful way out of a recliner and across the room to the door.
On a small pension and social security payments, Enid was obviously dependent upon her daughter to support and care for her. Scott was abruptly reminded of all this as the tiny, bent woman wrestled with the lock and the door handle. By the time she managed to open the door, Scott’s face was burning over having caused her so much pain and effort. He should have called first.
Enid smiled up at Scott and asked him in. The house was small and hot, and smelled like camphor and mentholated ointment mixed with talcum powder, but there was also an undercurrent of body odor. He tried breathing through his mouth and it helped a little.
Enid was dressed in several layers, including a
housedress, tan-colored woolen tights, oversize boiled wool slippers, and a heavy wool cardigan topped off by a kind of apron vest like one Scott remembered his own grandmother wearing. Her white hair, what there was of it, was scraped back into a small bun, no bigger than a button mushroom, on the back of her head. She had droopy, red-rimmed, faded blue eyes, and the sagging skin of a woman who was once much fuller figured, but who had lost a great amount of weight. Her hands were knotted and curled inward, and Scott imagined her feet looked much the same.
“Is your daughter home?” he asked.
“Mary Margaret is at the grocery store,” she said.
It took Scott a moment to realize she wasn’t talking about Maggie; Margie was a “Mary Margaret” too. Enid offered to fix him a cup of tea or a snack and he refused politely, apologizing for making her come to the door.
“Well, when you see it’s the police you can’t ignore it,” she said. “I was afraid you’d come to tell me something had happened to my daughter.”
Scott cringed inwardly at having also caused this worry on top of the physical strain.
She shuffled her way back to her recliner and gingerly seated herself. She was watching a game show on a tiny black and white TV.
“What’d you want with Mary Margaret?” she asked him.
“I have a question about the mail,” he said.
“Well, she’s the expert on that, all right,” Enid laughed. “She’s been working there for over twenty years now.”
“How are you doing?”
“I’m fair to middling,” she said. “This gettin’ old is for the birds.”
“Happens to all of us,” Scott said, because he didn’t know what else to say.
“The home health girl brought a kitten to visit me a few weeks ago.”
She gestured to a calendar pinned to the dark wood paneling near her chair, where January featured a gray and white kitten, playing with a pink ribbon.
“It was a pretty little thing, with yellow and white stripes. I wish I could keep a cat,” she told Scott. “I’m too old for it now. Eric never liked cats. He liked those big old red dogs like Fitz always had; what are they called?”
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