by Susan Breen
“Not at all, Maggie Dove. You’re never a waste of time.”
He walked her to the door, and she stopped for a moment, so that he almost walked into her. Up close he was even taller than she realized. It was like talking to a copper beech. “Walter, what do you think I should do?”
“You’ve done what you can do, Maggie Dove. You’ve alerted the police. You’ve spoken to Domino. I know you see this all the time on TV, but the fact is, sisters do not generally kill each other.”
But most sisters are not like Domino Raines, she thought.
Chapter 8
After she left the police station, Maggie headed down Main Street toward her detective agency, but as she got close, she had to stop. She still could not see that building without admiring it. It wasn’t an impressive building—simply a sturdy-looking blue structure with a signpost out front from which hung a large plastic tooth. Underneath the tooth, in smaller letters, was the sign for her detective agency. But it was hers, and she was ridiculously proud of it. She imagined her mother and her daughter standing alongside her. Will you look at what I’ve done, she said.
Fabulous, they answered. For just a moment Maggie thought of what Domino said, imagined her daughter’s spirit flickering around in the form of a tarantula or some other frightening being. She did not believe it. She felt her daughter’s presence, often, but as a joyful and beloved being. Not scratching and crawling about the earth.
When she got inside, she was glad to see both her partners there. Helen was on the phone. Her fingers were constantly scrolling, scrolling, and Agnes was talking to someone named Cherrelle, though when Maggie walked in she said, “Got to go, babe.” Edgar ran right into Maggie’s stomach.
“Oof,” she said.
“So, where have you been?” Agnes asked.
“Where haven’t I been,” she answered, and told them everything that had transpired.
“Did Racine write you a check?” Agnes asked. “When she hired you to threaten Domino?”
“No, but she’s the richest person in Darby. I’m not worried about her paying.
“The rich are the worst about paying. That’s how they get their money. The poor person doesn’t want you to think he’s poor, so he’ll pay you right away. But the rich person doesn’t care what you think, so she’ll stiff you.”
Maggie thought about how Racine had looked: frightened and worried about her mother, and she thought the last thing on Racine’s mind was surely the bill from Maggie’s detective agency.
“I don’t think Racine intends to stiff me.”
She could see Agnes beginning to boil. She was wearing a blue jumpsuit and stilettos. The skin under her neck was turning red.
“But I’ll go tomorrow and talk to her.”
“Bring a new-client memo with you,” Agnes said, as she stalked to the office door. “And make sure she knows that she has to pay half up front. No exceptions, I don’t care who she is. Don’t screw this up, Maggie,” she said, slamming the door.
“What is wrong with her?” she asked Helen. “I can’t say anything without her getting mad.”
“New romance,” Helen explained. “She’s under stress.”
“The lady from the bar?”
“No, this is Cherrelle Watson. She works for the county in the records department. Agnes was trying to develop some undercover sources, and it looks like she developed Cherrelle.”
“That sounds encouraging, on several levels,” Maggie offered hopefully.
Edgar climbed into Helen’s lap. She was wearing her standard outfit of Gap jeans and a button-down white shirt. Her eyes always closed when she talked, as though she were so exhausted it was impossible to stay awake. She had numbers written on her hand, which could have been the code to a nuclear missile, or the combination to Edgar’s locker at the YMCA. Or both. Maggie had yet to figure out what she did for a living. She just knew it was important enough that one phone call from Helen got them a detective license, something that would have taken hours of apprenticeship otherwise.
Helen sighed. “She’s worried Cherrelle’s too good for her because she has a master’s degree. Self-esteem issues. And then, she’s married, and that’s a problem.”
“To a man or a woman?”
“A man, so things are complicated.”
“How long has she known her?”
“Two weeks, I think,” Helen said, which reminded Maggie of Racine’s first visit around the same time, and the day Agnes lost her temper.
“It seems very early on to be so serious,” Maggie said.
“Don’t look at me. The last man I went out with…Well,” she said, stopping herself as she drew Edgar more closely to her, “enough said.”
“We live in complicated times,” Maggie said. “When I was young—Oh, never mind. I hate conversations that begin ‘when I was young.’ How are you?”
Edgar had fallen asleep on Helen’s lap. He was like a dog. He had the gift of being able to fall asleep in any position, in any place, at any time. The sun was setting, the sky a brilliant orange over the water. Across the way Maggie could see Edgar’s poster hanging on Iphigenia’s hair salon. She suspected Iphigenia would have preferred a poster with flowers, but she was a good sport. She’d root for Edgar to win.
“How am I? I’m okay,” Helen said, “for someone likely to win the Worst Mother in Darby-on-Hudson Award.”
“I doubt that,” Maggie said. “You’re a devoted mother.”
Helen shook her head. “Not according to the teacher I met with today. She’s concerned that Edgar refuses to skip. I told her I didn’t care if he skipped. I’ve never had to skip a day in my life, but it’s something to do with a Phys Ed requirement and she wants me to impress upon him that he should skip, and so I said that I was damned if I was going to force my son to skip, and so I got sent to the principal’s office.”
“Well,” Maggie said, looking down at Edgar, who twitched even in his sleep. “You know he can run.”
“Yes, that was another problem. I know these things are important, Maggie Dove. I know he has to learn to play by the rules and be an upstanding citizen, but I like his wildness. He’s free now in a way he’ll never be again. Do I have to be the one to rein him in?”
“No. But then you have to accept the fact that you have a lot of parent-teacher conferences in front of you.”
Helen grimaced. “I bet you didn’t have these problems with Juliet.”
Maggie started at the sound of her daughter’s name. It was true. Juliet had caused her no difficulty in school. She’d loved learning, had counted off the days in August waiting for school to begin. The highlight of Juliet’s year was going to Staples and stocking up on school supplies.
“That’s true,” Maggie said. “She was always good, but I think it was just her disposition. She liked rules and order. I don’t think I can take credit for that. Had I had another child, he might have been a terror.”
“Did she ever get in trouble?” Helen asked.
“Oh yes,” Maggie said. It was fun to think about her daughter as a troublesome child, as opposed to being a tragic figure. “One time she removed a book from the library without checking it out. The librarian found it and suspended her for a week.”
Helen looked at her solemnly and then she started to laugh. It was nice to see her laugh. She didn’t do it often. “Oh, Maggie Dove. She does not sound like a terror.”
“I suppose not,” Maggie said. Edgar began to rustle. Soon he would launch himself back into the world. “You are an amazing person, Helen. All the things you do. Flying here and there and solving the conflict in the Mideast and talking to the President.”
“Just once,” she said.
“You’re a great mother. You don’t need to be like everyone else. You love him, that’s what matters.”
“You think that’s enough?”
“I think that’s everything. Listen, I miss Juliet every day of my life, every hour, but the only comfort I have is that I loved her. I loved her w
ith all my heart.”
Helen leaned over and put her hand on Maggie’s. “Hey, listen, I have something to tell you and I hope you like it. I mean, I hope I’m not being pushy, but the school is having this Senior Friends day and Edgar doesn’t have any grandparents, or none that I’m speaking to anyway, and I wondered…we wondered…if you’d like to be Edgar’s surrogate grandmother.”
Maggie was touched, but she was afraid to speak because she thought she’d cry, so she just hugged Helen, kissed Edgar, and went home to her evil cat. Even he seemed a tad friendlier, and she went to bed and dreamed of Edgar and children on a playground and she woke up to find Kosi staring at her. He looked so much like Domino with his dark black hair and golden eyes.
Maggie carried him out of her bedroom and shut the door, but Kosi scratched the door, which was in its own way even worse. Eventually she opened the door again and went downstairs to the living room, where at least she could sit in her chair and look out at the rising moon and not worry about Kosi lying across her face. She must have dozed off at some point, and when she woke up, she had an idea.
She knew how to help Racine.
Genius, she thought, and then she fell back asleep.
Chapter 9
When the new day finally dawned, Maggie awoke and unfurled her cat from around her neck. Then she showered and put on her work outfit, which was exactly like her casual outfit. Black slacks, a black blouse, pearl earrings and a gray sweater. Maggie liked to think she was perennially underdressed for formal moments or overdressed for casual ones. Then she set out for the office, stopping off at the bakery to pick up a scone.
They made a different one every day of the week, but Thursday was her favorite because that was the day they made cranberry and walnut ones. She also picked up some coffee. For a long time she thought the bakery made the best coffee in the world and she was always trying to duplicate it, without success, and then she realized that the reason it tasted so good was that they put cream in it. Thus armored, she set out for the office.
Maggie intended to get there early, before either Agnes or Helen showed up. Her plan was to give Racine the teddy bear with the video camera. That way she could watch what was going on and evaluate whether Domino really was sneaking into Racine’s room. But she wasn’t sure how the teddy bear worked, and Maggie was not a technological sort of person, and so she figured she would get in early and read the directions. She wanted to have it all set up to avoid having someone, mainly Agnes, yell at her. It was ridiculous to feel so jittery about having someone angry at her, but she did.
Turned out the bear was not that hard to operate. It was an unhealthy looking, hairless bear that had a transmitter and antenna concealed inside it. You just needed to hook up the receiver to a DVR, and it would transmit the picture and sound. Maggie had a DVR in her office, but the problem was that the range was only 100 meters, which was 328 feet, which wasn’t far enough. Stern Manor was fairly close to her, physically if not metaphorically. An old iron fence cordoned the whole thing off. But she suspected she’d need to increase the range of the receiver significantly, and that was beyond her ken. She was still puzzling over that when she noticed the Walking Club go by.
The Walking Club consisted of the three Faraday sisters and Richard Strauss, who was looking for a wife. He was 90 and no one was eager to take him on, but he hovered around the Faraday sisters hopefully.
Too late did Maggie realize she should have pulled down the blinds.
The three sisters collided into a sudden stop. Then they pushed their way through the door and arranged themselves in front of Maggie.
“There’s trouble,” Leona Faraday said. She was the oldest of the sisters. She was also the tallest, the best-looking and the spokesman. She planted herself on one of Maggie’s high-tech ergonomic chairs, and the other two sisters flanked her. Mr. Strauss stood. He was a man who would always stand in the company of ladies.
“What’s happened?” Maggie asked.
“There’s a revolution. No one in the Dining Out Club wants to go to that restaurant in the Bronx.”
“They have to. That’s the one Reverend Sunday picked.”
“No one’s going to come. Do you know what it’s like driving around in the Bronx in the dark?”
“That will be insulting. She wants to share her culture with us. We should be honored,” Maggie said.
Their new minister came from Ghana. She’d moved to the United States as a health-care worker, had tended to one of the elderly parishioners. That woman died and left Sunday enough money to go to school. She’d gone to divinity school, got her doctorate, and after their most recent minister left to go on a year-long yoga retreat in Costa Rica, Reverend Sunday was hired to fill the position.
“I’m not disagreeing with you, Maggie. I’m just saying that no one’s enthusiastic, and I can’t force people to come.”
“Listen, I have put up with Margot Hunter’s tuna casserole every Christmas Eve for the last twenty years of my life,” Maggie snapped. “We can go to Bronx, we can try this food. Maybe we’ll all love it.”
The youngest of the Faradays began fiddling with the teddy bear. Her name was Hortense. Or Horty, to her friends and family.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Oh, it’s my genius idea come to nothing,” Maggie said. She explained the issue with the range and Horty began nodding. Then she opened up her pocketbook and began rummaging around.
“Donny Everett just got food poisoning,” Leona went on, “and that was at a seafood place in Tarrytown. Not the Bronx.”
“Would you stop saying Bronx like that. You make it sound like a war zone. The Yankees play there. “
“What type of range do you want?” Horty asked.
She was a very soft-looking woman, with the pallor people got from spending a lot of time inside. “I guess I would need 300 meters. That would do it.”
She began thumbing through the directions, looking up at the TV, fiddling around with the wires. The room was quiet except for the sound of Hortense muttering and Leona breathing furiously. Maggie knew enough about politics to know you could win a point, but lose the war. People were afraid. She could dismiss their fears or deal with them.
“What about this?” Maggie said. “One of my former Sunday school students runs a limo business. What if I ask him to drive us? I bet he’d give us a good rate.”
“That’s a great idea,” the middle Faraday exclaimed.
Suddenly Hortense pressed a switch and a picture popped up on the TV of the five of them sitting in the office.
“There,” she said. “I changed the range.”
“How did you that?” Maggie asked.
Leona looked at her younger sister proudly. “She’s a genius,” she said. “She set up our home entertainment system.”
“You’re a lifesaver,” Maggie said to Horty.
The three sisters stood up and moved toward the door, which Richard Strauss held open for them. On their way out, Leona stopped. “Don’t forget that limo driver,” she said, and the four of them swanned out of the office.
Now that the teddy bear was operational, all Maggie had to do was go over to Stern Manor and give it to Racine.
Once again she parked her red Audi TT in the driveway and went to that strange small door, but this time it was Racine who answered the doorbell, with a smile.
“Maggie Dove,” she said. “So glad to see you.”
She wore a lime-green pantsuit and a yellow scarf. She still had on her red beret, but she also had on eye shadow and lipstick. In fact, if it weren’t for the beret, Maggie wouldn’t have been sure it was her; she would have thought it her cheerful twin sister.
“You’re looking well,” Maggie said.
“Oh, I am,” Racine cooed. “I’m feeling better than I have in years.”
Even the bandage was gone, Maggie noticed. There were just two little red marks where the tarantula had bit her.
“Is that for me?” Racine asked, clutching at the
teddy bear. “You brought me a gift? How cute! No one’s given me a doll in years.”
“No,” Maggie said. “It’s not that type of doll. It’s more of a spy camera.”
“A spy camera? Why would I need that?”
“Remember you told me you thought your sister was trying to kill you? Remember the tarantula?” Maggie asked.
“Oh,” Racine said. She held up her arm to the sunlight. “That was a misunderstanding. Charlotte’s bite could no more hurt me than a bee’s sting.”
It was odd, Maggie thought, that she was using the same language Domino had.
“So things are good between you and Domino?”
“Very much so. I’ll tell you, Maggie. I didn’t realize how wonderful it was to have a sister. I’ve been foolish. You were trying to tell me something similar, weren’t you? You were trying to get me to understand the importance of family when I first met with you. You told me that it was a blessing for my mother to have Domino come home and you were right. I was so caught up in my own self-righteousness that I didn’t see the big picture.”
“I’m glad you’re happy,” Maggie said. “But there did seem to be some real cause for concern.”
Racine laughed. Maggie didn’t think she’d ever heard the sound. “Oh, how silly of me! I know what you’re worrying about,” she said. Then she reached for her pocketbook. “Your fee. I don’t want you to think I cheated you. I know we agreed on $1,000, but that doesn’t seem right. Would a check for $5,000 do it?”
“Racine,” Maggie said, as she watched Racine write out the check, her letters swirling in large flourishes. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “Never better.”
Maggie struggled to know what to do, but something about this didn’t sit right with her. “Would you just humor me, Racine? Would you just take this teddy bear and put it in your room? There’s no harm, is there? It will only work if someone comes into your room. I don’t even need to check on it, but it will give me peace of mind.”
Racine hesitated, but then she gave Maggie a wide grin. “Of course, Maggie Dove. Anything for you!”