by Susan Breen
“A thousand dollars,” Agnes cried out. “A thousand dollars.”
Maggie felt stunned by her anger. For so many years, decades really, people had treated Maggie with special care because she had suffered so much, and certainly no one had ever yelled at her like this. No one expected anything of her. Simply getting out of bed was an achievement. She felt off balance. I’ve lost a child, she wanted to cry. You can’t yell at me. But she realized that had happened 20 years ago and people had moved on. This was life, this was what Maggie had avoided for so long. This was the world she wanted to reenter. But it was scary.
“I can see how I should have spoken to you first, but I felt my decision was valid. We’re just starting to make our reputation and we don’t want to be associated with bizarre requests,” Maggie said. “We’re not exorcists, after all. We’re not qualified to take on theological issues.”
Agnes slammed her fist against the table, which must have hurt, Maggie thought, as it was a very strong table. “We do what people pay us to do,” she cried out. “We are in the business of assisting people, not judging them. If someone wants us to take pictures of their husband in bed with another woman, we do it. If someone wants us to drop off a subpoena, we hunt the person down and do it. If someone wants us to go undercover and pretend to work in a bank so that we can uncover information about a crime, we do it. We do not sit here moralizing about what is right and wrong.”
Several of the parents outside turned to look toward their window. Earlier in the day, Maggie’d pulled up the dark blinds to let in the sunlight, but now she strode over and yanked them closed. She didn’t want anyone witnessing this. The room began to smell dank with Agnes’s sweat and perfume.
And then, as if things couldn’t get worse, the sounds of John Denver singing “Country Roads” began streaming into the office. The dentist had an earphone he gave to his patients to soothe them, but some glitch must have caused the volume to surge. The song horrified Maggie. That very song had been playing when she’d arrived at the hospital after her daughter’s accident. Whenever she heard it, innocuous though it was, the song made her cry. So her eyes started to tear up, which was bad, because it looked like she was crying about Agnes yelling at her, which she wasn’t, precisely. Then the drill started going.
“This is an unsavory business. We deal with people’s feelings. You have to wrap your mind around that, Maggie. This is not Sunday School. We deal with the dark side of human behavior.”
Maggie could have pointed out that she dealt with plenty of unsavory behavior as a Sunday School teacher. One need only think of The Great Chewing Gum Episode of 2012. But she could see that Agnes was not in a mood to be jollied, and although Maggie disagreed with her manner of speaking, she suspected Agnes had a point. Maybe she had brushed Racine off too quickly. She looked at the row of books that Agnes had arranged so carefully on the bookshelf: The Gentle Art of Interviewing and Interrogation, How to Use the Freedom of Information Act, Thomas’s Pre-Marital Investigations. All so serious.
“The only thing you had to do was call Domino,” Agnes said. “It would have taken five minutes of your time, and then you could have written up a report. That’s all. That’s all, and then one thousand dollars.” Her voice cracked.
“I can see your point,” Maggie said.
“How did I even think I could work with a person like you,” Agnes said. “Someone who teaches Sunday School. A Puritan. A prude.”
“Agnes,” Maggie cried out. “You’re being a bully. I made a mistake and I apologize, but there’s no need to carry on. I can fix this.”
Maggie put out her hand to touch Agnes’s, feeling like she needed to make contact with her on a very basic level. How alone she felt, whereas only moments ago she’d been so happy. Suddenly the office felt cold and unfamiliar, the table itself a death-like slab, the drilling ominous. She felt like she was falling. How could she have seriously thought she could be a private detective?
“Agnes,” she whispered.
But Agnes brushed her away and went stalking out of the room, the second person Maggie had disappointed in less than an hour. She felt light-headed. She wished she drank more. She wished she drank during the day. She looked around at all the books and boxes Agnes had accumulated. She’d ordered so many things from the private detective catalog. There was the pen with invisible ink, and the TV with the secret surveillance system, and the clock radio that was actually a recorder, and the teddy bear with the hidden video system. It had all seemed a bit of a game, Maggie thought. Hard to take it all seriously.
But it was serious. It was serious to Agnes and it was serious to Racine.
She picked the piece of paper out of the garbage and smoothed it out. She looked at her notes. Evil, she’d written, and underlined it three times. In that moment, she recalled a story about Domino. One she’d completely forgotten about. Domino was seven years younger than Maggie and had gone to a private school, but still, Darby was a small village and stories went around. Domino had liked a boy, she remembered, but he was already taken. Domino was not a person who was used to hearing the word “no,” and she told his girlfriend to dump him, but she wouldn’t. So one day Domino put a voodoo doll in this girl’s locker. It had a needle in its neck and Domino announced the girl would die, and several months later she did. She got one of those horrible fast-moving cancers and it began in her lymph nodes. No one seriously believed Domino killed her, but Maggie remembered her mother crying over it. She told Maggie that there were people who brought suffering with them. Maggie realized now that her mother had been frightened of Domino. The memory made her shiver.
Maybe Racine was right, she thought. Maybe her sister was evil. Maggie had got so swept up thinking about the prodigal son that she didn’t consider what Racine was actually saying. Racine was afraid. The dryness in her lips, the agitation, the impatience, were all signs of fear.
She started to type Racine’s number into her phone, but right then the bus pulled up. She dashed out to retrieve Edgar. He was usually last off the bus, but this time he was first out the door, running down the steps and pummeling into her stomach. “Ooof,” she said.
“He loves you,” the bus monitor observed.
“And I love him,” Maggie said, though it seemed to her that the people she loved were causing her a lot of pain today.
They went into the office and Edgar headed right for the TV, clicking to download Detective Grudge, who would be talking about surveillance today. Then he vaulted over to one of their high-tech chairs, bouncing up and down as he waited for Maggie to accumulate her things. She needed her notebook and the sheet of questions she had to answer after each episode.
“Maggie, Maggie, Maggie,” he called.
“Patience is a virtue,” she called back. No point in getting him anything to eat just yet. It would wind up sprayed all over the office. She’d found out the hard way that you could not give that boy popcorn after school.
Finally they both settled down and Detective Grudge sprang into action, driving onto the scene in a sporty black car. He wore a dark wool coat, dark sunglasses, and his thick hair was tightly cropped. He didn’t smile. He never smiled. He wore a huge watch that Edgar coveted. “What I’m about to tell you may save your life someday,” Detective Grudge said.
Edgar was entranced, and Maggie seized that moment to tuck herself into a corner of her office and press in the number for Racine’s phone. Racine answered right away. Maggie pictured her standing by the phone, willing it to ring.
“Hi,” Maggie said. “I’m sorry about what I said before. I’d be honored to take your case.”
Racine emitted a low moan. “It’s too late,” she said. “It’s too late.”
Chapter 3
The next day Domino’s cavalcade arrived. Three long black limousines swanned down Main Street, moving slowly enough that everyone had time to admire them. The entire village was out because it was the opening day of the Halloween poster painting contest. First prize won a gift certifica
te at Modell’s Sporting Goods. Second prize was a gift certificate at Carvel’s. Third prize was a consultation with Maggie Dove’s Detective Agency.
Edgar was in the midst of painting a zombie with a spear coming out of his eye, in spite of Maggie’s best efforts to persuade him to paint a cheerful zombie, and as the procession rolled by, the lead car stopped right in front of her.
The tinted window came down. Behind it was a face Maggie hadn’t seen in a long time. Arched eyebrows, full lips, tufted hair, ageless. Domino waited a beat before speaking. Looked at Edgar, looked at Maggie, looked at the zombie, nodded slightly. “Yummy,” she said, and licked her lips. Then the window went back up, the limo pulled away. Maggie noticed the license plate said LUCIFER, which was the name of Domino’s husband.
“Was that a vampire?” Edgar asked.
“I hope not,” Maggie said, though she felt unsettled. It had all looked too much like a funeral procession. She remembered Racine’s words. It’s too late.
It was fall, but the day felt like summer. The kids wore shorts. The sky was a Mediterranean blue and the houses look whitewashed under the stark sunlight. Still, the air smelled of fireplaces and apples and homely smells. Yummy.
“Well, that was a spectacle,” a voice thick with a Boston accent cawed behind Maggie, making her jump. It was Joe Mangione, wearing, as he always did, his ambulance corps jacket. He took his job very seriously and last April, when Maggie had found a corpse on her lawn, he was one of the first there. He was generally first anywhere. “Talk about making an entrance. And what have you done here, Edgar Blake? Looks like a piece of roast beef.”
“It’s a zombie,” Edgar snapped.
“Ah yeah,” Joe said, tilting his head sideways. “I can see it now. And that’s an apple tree.”
“That’s his mother.”
“Ah yeah.”
Joe held his hands in front of him, the better to frame the picture in his sights. “Mebbe put in a pumpkin, young Edgar. Break up those colors.
“So what do you think,” Joe Mangione asked Maggie, gesturing in the direction of the limousines. “The return of the prodigal son, eh. I hope this story ends better than his.”
“Nothing bad happened to the prodigal son,” Maggie pointed out. Once you were a Sunday School teacher, it was impossible to stop teaching. “The older son refused to go to the party for his brother, but I’ve always liked to think he came to his senses. It would be nice to think he got over his resentment and went out and mingled.”
“He didn’t kill his brother?” Joe asked.
“No, nobody died in that parable. Except for the fatted calf.”
“What about the mark on his forehead?”
“That was a different set of brothers,” Maggie replied. “Cain and Abel.”
“Too many brothers,” Joe said. “Hard to keep straight.”
Maggie noticed Edgar beginning to add a cat to his picture, which was progress, she thought. At least the cat didn’t have a spear through its eye. In fact, it looked a bit like her own black cat, Kosi, whom she had rescued a few weeks ago, after his owner died. He was an unhappy cat. He missed his owner and was transferring his anger to Maggie, and she had the scratch marks to prove it.
“I hear he has a girlfriend,” Joe whispered.
“Who has a girlfriend?”
“That Lucifer Raines,” he said, gesturing to where the limos had just been. “She travels with them. Her and Domino together. It’s a menagerie,” he said.
Maggie was tempted to say that the word was “ménage à trois,” but decided not to. There were things she didn’t want to talk to Joe Mangione about, lovely though he was.
“How do you know that?”
“I heard it at D’Amici’s. They say Domino doesn’t mind. She always did like to do things differently,” he said, and then launched into a story about all the preparations D’Amici had made for her visit. He’d ordered in high-end cold cuts, because he assumed they’d want quality. He’d stocked up on gluten-free bread and fancy bottled water. He’d even made up a “Lucifer sandwich,” which had three kinds of meat, Joe said, blushing. The hair salons were offering Domino specials, and the pizza place was selling pineapple-topped pizza, because Domino had said once in an interview that she liked it.
Everyone, Maggie included, expected a lot of activity around this visit. They’d have a genuine rock star in their midst. They’d get to see him up close. And Domino was a fashion icon. The press would arrive. They would eat at all the restaurants. Tour buses would show up. It was all very exciting, except that nothing happened. Once the limousines turned into Stern Manor, no one emerged. It was as though they weren’t there at all.
Days went by. One of the high school kids said he saw a helicopter arriving to drop off supplies. A few people tried to pay a visit, but they were turned away by security. The only person who made it through the gates was Trudi Branch, who owned the town candy store. She and Domino had been friends in high school, and she explained afterward that Domino still had a hankering for one of her old-fashioned candies, a type of soda straw she couldn’t get anywhere else. For a while people flocked to Trudi’s store to ask her what she’d seen at Stern Manor, but Trudi said she hadn’t seen much and so everyone just went back to waiting.
What surprised Maggie most of all was that Racine didn’t come to church that Sunday. The Sterns always came to church, a minute before service began, striding through the center aisle as though leading a pageant—often the minister had to hold up the service while they got seated—so it was surprising to see that pew empty. Maggie felt a twist of concern for Racine. She would have mentioned it to Agnes, except she didn’t dare raise the subject. Things between Maggie and Agnes had normalized, but there were still bad feelings about the Racine incident, on both sides. There was something electric in the office that reminded Maggie of the charged atmosphere after a storm. She felt badly, and irritated, and guilty, all of which was why, when she was talking to the bank manager during coffee hour after church, she found herself asking if she had any work for the detective agency.
“We’re just getting started,” Maggie said. “But we’re eager. We’ll do anything.”
Ms. Lancome looked surprised to be asked. No more surprised than Maggie was for having asked. Even more remarkable was that Ms. Lancome said, “You know, we just might.” And that very Monday morning she called Maggie Dove’s Detective Agency to say that they were trying to update their background checks on their employees. She thought it would be about thirty hours’ worth of work and she’d pay Maggie $1,000. “That seems to be the going rate,” she said. “If you’re agreeable.”
“I am most agreeable,” Maggie replied.
She threw herself into the job, relieved to discover at the end of it that everyone was, for the most part, who they said they were. That Friday afternoon when she got the check, she set it on Agnes’s side of the table and waited for Agnes to walk in to the office. Nothing could have been more gratifying than Agnes’s response.
She scanned the check, jaw dropping, eyes bulging.
“I can’t believe you did this,” she cried out. “One thousand dollars. This is fabulous. Just fabulous.”
She flung her arms around Maggie and hugged her tightly. Maggie wondered if Detective Grudge hugged his associates, and thought probably not. But this was a nice thing. It was progress.
“I really do want this to work,” Maggie said. “I really do want to be a private detective.”
“You have made me so happy,” Agnes said. “We are going to be the best detective agency ever.”
“I hope so,” Maggie said. She felt relieved, but exhausted too. She still couldn’t quite get used to the idea of being a normal person in the normal world, of being subject to the evaluations and criticisms that most people had to deal with on a daily basis. Only now was she coming to realize what a bubble she’d been in for so many years. In an odd sort of way, her grief had protected her. It had been a shield. Real life took a form of courage
she wasn’t used to using.
When the Sterns didn’t come to church the following Sunday, Maggie began to worry in earnest that something was wrong. So, first thing Monday morning, she called Stern Manor. She decided to make the call from her own house, however, instead of the office. She might have resolved one issue with Agnes, but she had no desire to set her off again. Maggie settled herself into her living room and scouted out the position of her cat, who sat on Maggie’s desk, staring at her. He liked to stand as still as an onyx statue, and then, when you walked by, fly through the air like a bat and claw you.
A woman with a Southern accent answered.
“Stern residence.”
“I’d like to speak to Racine, please.”
“May I have your name,” she responded.
“This is Maggie Dove. I’m a friend of Racine’s. I’m just calling to say hello.”
“I don’t see your name on the list.”
Maggie began to get annoyed. “Please tell Racine that I’m on the line. She wanted to hire me to do work for her, and she’ll want to talk to me.”
Five minutes went by. Maggie sat, waiting. She looked at the cat. He looked at her with his amber eyes. Sometimes at night they seemed to glow. She would wake up and find them surveying her. She turned away from him, looked out the window at her little oak tree, which was sprouting off acorns in celebration of the fall. Marcus Bender’s house was now owned by a young family who had built a playground in the yard for their four children. Her old friend Winifred Levy would have loved that, she thought.
“Hello?”
“Racine,” Maggie said, surprised to feel so glad to hear her voice. She wouldn’t have said she liked her, but she respected her. She admired her for devoting so much of her life to her mother; she admired anyone who was a caretaker.
“I haven’t seen you around. I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”
“Not so good,” Racine whispered. “I had an accident.”