Mother Knows Best (A Margie Peterson Mystery)

by Karen MacInerney

  “No wonder the program was called Sky High,” Blake commented.

  “The headmaster was killed because he wanted to go to the police,” I said. “Mitzi Krumbacher was afraid Cavendish would tell the police about Marty’s drug operation, and then her husband would end up going to jail and losing all his assets. She didn’t want to lose out on what she hoped to get from their divorce settlement. The Goldens were involved, too.”

  “I can’t believe it.” Prue looked shocked. First the headmaster, and now the board of Holy Oaks. It had not been a good year for the Austin social set. “There must be some mistake. They’re . . . they’re pillars of the community!”

  “Were,” I said. “Which is why we’re moving Elsie to Austin Heights.”

  “Perhaps we should check Saint Andrew’s?”

  “I think she’ll be happier with her friends, to be honest. Since we told her she’s going to Austin Heights, she hasn’t been wearing her collar.”

  “Hmm,” she said. “Well, I suppose, for now . . . But we should reassess sometime before high school.”

  Blake cleared his throat.

  “Yes, dear?” Prudence looked at Blake. I realized there was a young man in dark slacks and a white shirt standing next to him. He had very well-groomed eyebrows, I noticed, and his complexion was as smooth as my daughter’s. My thoughts suddenly turned to the “news” Blake had told me he wanted to share. I had a bad feeling I was about to hear it now.

  “I think we’re ready to order,” Phil said, looking at the young man. “I’m going to have the prime rib, I think. Rare,” he added, casting a glance toward where my mother had disappeared.

  “Frank’s not a waiter,” Blake said. I closed my menu, feeling something twist in my stomach.

  “Oh? A colleague from work? Or your networking retreat?” Prudence asked. “Lovely to meet you,” she said, extending a hand.

  “Good to meet you, too,” the young man said. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

  “Have you?” she said, her hand jumping to her throat again, but this time to twirl her pearls coquettishly. “All good, I hope.”

  The young man smiled, but didn’t respond.

  Blake cleared his throat. “This is Frank,” he said. “I met him on the retreat.” He looked around the table; I got the impression he was a dinner roll away from throwing up. “I know you’ve noticed that things between Margie and me haven’t been terrific lately. I have to be honest with you.” He took a deep breath. “It’s my fault.”

  “It’s nobody’s fault,” Prue said charitably—which was interesting, since she’d been suggesting for the last year that I was failing in my wifely duties.

  “What you’re experiencing is what every marriage goes through from time to time,” Phil said, patting Prue’s hand. “We’ve had our ups and downs, right, Prue? A few sessions with a counselor and you’ll be back on track. But what does this young man have to do with anything?”

  Blake took a deep breath and looked at his father. “I’m in love with him.”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  I barely remember the next hour, except that it felt like it lasted a year. Phil, after a moment of stunned silence, spluttered that Blake was off his rocker and they’d discuss it in more appropriate circumstances. Prue abruptly turned so white she looked like she’d been sucked dry by a vampire. I wished I’d brought some of Peaches’s smelling salts.

  And me? I felt as if I’d been rammed in the stomach by Bubba Sue.

  Frank squeezed Blake’s shoulder and drifted away, which was probably a good thing, as we all digested the news. I shouldn’t be surprised, I told myself. I knew Blake and I had a problem. But Barbie’s words at Warrior Wives kept coming back to me. Would it have been different if I had been more feminine? Was it something I had done that had driven him away from me and into the arms of that young, smooth-skinned man? I felt damaged. Flawed, somehow. As if I had been judged and found wanting.

  These awful thoughts were running through my head when the kids came back to the table, giggling about the lobsters in the tank, my mother smiling and looking like a hen with her chicks.

  Her smile faded when she surveyed our faces. We must have looked like we were on the wrong end of a firing squad.

  “Everyone okay?” she asked.

  “Fine,” Phil said tersely, his face so red I was afraid he might have a stroke. Thankfully, at that moment, the real waiter came.

  We spent the rest of dinner in strained silence punctuated by my mother rattling on about the kids and shooting worried looks at me. It wasn’t until we’d gotten home that I had an opportunity to talk with Blake.

  “I’ll take care of Elsie and Nick,” my mother told me. “Go talk with your husband.”

  “Let’s walk,” I told him. I couldn’t stand to have this conversation in the house.

  “Do you want to change?”

  “No,” I said, even though my dress was uncomfortably tight. “I’ll just put on a pair of flip- flops.”

  Although it was dark, the air was still stifling, as if someone had spread an electric blanket out over the city and turned the setting to “High.”

  “So,” I said after I’d closed the front door behind us. “Journey to Manhood didn’t work out.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I tried.”

  Tears leaked out of my eyes. I didn’t want to be with Blake anymore—I hadn’t wanted him to touch me for months—but somehow, him announcing he’d fallen in love with someone else felt like a betrayal.

  “Oh, Margie,” he said, reaching out to touch my shoulder.

  “No,” I said, shying away. “It’s just . . . Couldn’t you have told me before dinner?”

  “I tried—”

  “Not very hard,” I said.

  “There was no way to put it off,” he said. “Frank was already set to show up at the table.”

  “You’ve known him for less than a week, and you’re in love with him?”

  He hung his head, looking like a chastened boy, and for a moment, I could see the pain he’d carried with him his whole life.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice rough. “I know you didn’t mean to hurt me. What you did tonight must have been terribly hard. Facing your parents that way, I mean.”

  “If I didn’t go through with it tonight,” Blake said, “I was afraid I wouldn’t get the courage again.”

  We walked on for a while. The cicadas droned in the trees, and lights were on in the windows of the houses around us, looking cozy and inviting. I imagined the families inside, finishing up dinner, reading bedtime stories, snuggling next to each other in bed. My family would never be quite the same again I realized, with a sadness that seeped into my bones. My children would never have the family that I’d envisioned for them, and I couldn’t help feeling somehow that it was all my fault. If I’d been a better woman, somehow . . .

  Tears welled in my eyes, and everything seemed blurry. I took a deep breath and gathered myself. There would be time to cry later; right now, I needed to figure out what was going to happen next.

  “Where do we go from here?” I croaked. “I mean, you and . . . Frank. Are you going to move in together?”

  “No,” he said quietly. “Not yet, anyway. But I think it’s time for me to move out of the office and into a place of my own.”

  I nodded, wiping my eyes. “Probably,” I said. Would I be relieved to have him gone? Or would it just be a reminder of everything I had lost?

  “What can I do to help, Margie?” he asked, touching my arm. “It kills me to hurt you like this.”

  Not enough to not fall in love with another man, I thought bitterly. But in truth, there was nothing left for us. Wasn’t it right for him to move on? And, maybe, me? My mind flitted to Becky’s brother Michael, but I banished that thought. It wasn’t time to think about new relationships just yet. I still had to finish unraveling the old one.

  “I don’t know,” I said, feeling miserable.

  “I’ll move out this week,” he
said. “Find an apartment. I’ll do anything I can to help. I know this . . . this is all my fault. I’ve been horrible to you.”

  I looked at him then. My husband, with his high cheekbones, his sharp chin, his sweep of dark hair. I didn’t love him as a husband anymore, but I still loved him.

  “I still want to be the kids’ dad,” he said. “I want to live as nearby as I can. Coach soccer. Help them with homework.”

  I blinked, surprised. He hadn’t done either of those things in the past; was he really going to start now? “What are we going to tell them?” I asked.

  “Let’s talk to a counselor about it,” he said. “For now, we’ll just say we’re going to live in different places for a bit.”

  I nodded and wiped my eyes. I didn’t want to talk anymore; I needed time to process the huge earthquake that had just hit my life. “We should probably go back,” I said.

  “Are you ready?”

  “I think so,” I told him, although I was nowhere near ready. I might never be ready.

  But I couldn’t afford not to figure things out. My children needed me—and they needed their dad, too. We’d have to figure it all out together, somehow—apart.

  We were almost to the door when my phone rang. I looked down at it, but didn’t recognize the number. “Go on; I’ll be in in a moment,” I told Blake, and picked it up as he let himself in the front door.

  “Hello?”

  The voice on the other end sounded weepy. “Is this Margie Peterson? From Warrior Wives?”

  “Anne?” I recognized her voice. “What’s wrong?”

  She took a deep breath. “I . . . I was hoping I could take you up on coffee,” she said. “My husband and I are . . . are separating.”

  I took a deep, shuddery breath. “Funny you should say that,” I said. “I just had the same conversation with my husband. He’s moving out this week.”

  “Really?” she asked, sounding almost . . . relieved, somehow. “I guess Journey to Manhood isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

  “Doesn’t look like it,” I said. “So much for push-up bras and casseroles. How about Trianon, tomorrow at ten?”

  “Oh, that would be perfect,” she said. “Thank you. And I’m so sorry.”

  “Likewise,” I said, feeling a wave of sadness break over me.

  I hung up and stood on my front step for a few minutes, trying to process everything that had happened that night. I’d known it was going to happen, I realized. I just didn’t realize how awful it would make me feel.

  When the wave subsided enough that I felt I could keep my composure, I walked into the house, where my mother was looking at me worriedly.

  “The kids are down,” she said quietly. There was no sign of Blake. “Are you okay?”

  “Not at all,” I said, bursting into tears as she held out her arms and pulled me into a hug that went all the way to my toes. At that moment, the doorbell rang.

  “Blake?” my mother asked.

  I opened the front door. Peaches stood there, resplendent in yellow Lycra, with a cat carrier in her right hand.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Thank-you gift from Bubba Sue’s mom,” she said. There was a gentle grunting from the carrier.

  “It’s not . . .”

  She nodded. “It is. She’s only here to visit for a bit—needs to spend the next few weeks with her mommy. But Janette insisted.”

  “No,” I said, but Elsie was peeking around the end of the hallway.

  “Is that one of the babies?” my daughter asked.

  “Sure is, honey,” Peaches told her. “Say hello to the newest member of the family.”

  I held up a hand. “But—”

  “She is awfully cute,” my mother said.

  “I’ve got another thank-you gift for you, too,” Peaches said, fishing a box out of her bag. “From Desiree.”

  I cringed, imagining chaps, or a riding crop. “Do I want to know?”

  “Open it,” she said.

  “But Elsie’s here . . .”

  “We’ll take the piglet into the kitchen,” my mother said, and escorted Elsie from the room.

  I opened the box; inside was a fifty-dollar gift card to Pottery Barn Kids.

  “That’s really nice of her,” I said. “I know she’s on a budget.”

  Peaches looked at me. “How did the retreat go?”

  “Not quite as anticipated,” I said. “Blake and his boyfriend showed up at dinner tonight and announced that they’re in love.” With a twist in my stomach, I added, “I think we’re beyond redemption.”

  If I was expecting condolences, I was wrong. “Hallelujah,” Peaches hooted. “It was about damned time.”

  “You think?”

  “I know,” she said. “You’re too young and cute to wither away without a good man.”

  “I’ve got two kids. Who’s going to want to date me?”

  “Becky’s brother, from what I’ve heard,” Peaches said, and I flushed. “In the meantime, there’s plenty of business to keep your mind off things. Two more cases came in this afternoon. And when you’ve got things squared away, Jess’s got a friend he’d like to set up. We can double date.”

  “You fixed things with Jess?”

  “He showed up with a dozen red roses and a pair of cowgirl boots,” she said, holding out a foot so I could admire her new turquoise footwear. “How could I say no?”

  I grinned. “I’m happy for you.”

  She reached out and squeezed my shoulder. “We’ve got a bright future, kiddo. Now, I’ve got to get that piglet back to her momma, but I’ll see you at nine in the morning.”

  “Got it,” I said as we headed to the kitchen to retrieve Bubba Sue’s progeny, who I was hoping would not be back for a return engagement.

  “And Margie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You rocked the Holy Oaks case. You’re shaping up to be the best investigator I’ve ever worked with.” She cast an eye over my dress. “Even if you do need some help in the wardrobe department.”

  “You should talk,” I said, eyeing her stretchy top. “At least I don’t risk falling out of my clothes every time I tie my shoe.”

  “That’s why I wear boots, honey,” she said with a wink.

  As I followed her into the kitchen, I found myself shaking my head. A year ago, I never would have imagined I’d be a private investigator on the brink of divorce with a new pet piglet. But as I watched Peaches, Elsie, and my mother coo over the little chocolate-colored creature, I couldn’t help but smile.

  All things considered? I was a pretty lucky woman.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks first to my late mentor, Barbara Burnett-Smith, who encouraged me to write this series in the first place, and to Jason Brenizer (writing buddy and plot doctor extraordinaire) for helping me out of my usual plot dilemmas. Thanks to Cat Adair for help with research, and to beta readers Olivia Leigh Blacke, Samantha Mann, Norma Klanderman, J. Jaye Smith, Ellen Helwig, and Dorothy MacInerney for their thoughtful and thorough reading of the manuscript. (Thanks also to Dave and Carol Swartz for early read-throughs.) And, of course, oodles of gratitude to JoVon Sotak, my fun, patient, and incredibly on-the-ball acquisitions editor; to Charlotte Herscher, developmental editor extraordinaire and My Little Pony connoisseur; to sharp-eyed copyeditor Meredith Jacobson and proofreader (and continuity expert) Michael Schuler for helping me shape the manuscript and for catching my mistakes. I also want to thank Anh Schluep, Alan Turkus, Tiffany Pokorny, Sarah Shaw, Jacque Ben-Zekry, and the rest of the fabulous Amazon publishing team for all of the wonderful things they do!

  And, as always, thanks to my family—Eric, Abby, and Ian—for putting up with me. I love you!

  ANOTHER SERIES BY KAREN MACINERNEY

  Don’t miss the Dewberry Farm Mysteries by Karen MacInerney. In Killer Jam, a big crime in a small town turns Lucy Resnick’s focus from life on a farm to solving a murder.

  When Houston reporter Lucy Resnick cashes in her retir
ement to buy her grandmother’s farm in Buttercup, Texas, she’s looking forward to a simple life as a homesteader. But Lucy has barely finished putting up her first batch of Killer Dewberry Jam when an oil-exploration truck rolls up to the farm and announces plans to replace her broccoli patch with an oil derrick. Two days later, Nettie Kocurek, the woman who ordered the drilling, turns up dead at the Founders’ Day Festival with a bratwurst skewer through her heart and one of Lucy’s jam jars beside her . . . and the sheriff fingers Lucy as the prime suspect.

  Horrified, Lucy begins to talk to Nettie’s neighbors, but the more she gets to know the townspeople, the more she realizes she’s not the only one who had a beef with Nettie. Can she clear her name, or will her dream life turn into a nightmare?

  CHAPTER 1

  I’ve always heard it’s no use crying over spilled milk. But after three days of attempting to milk Blossom the cow (formerly Heifer #82), only to have her deliver a well-timed kick that deposited the entire contents of my bucket on the stall floor, it was hard not to feel a few tears of frustration forming in the corners of my eyes.

  Stifling a sigh, I surveyed the giant puddle on the floor of the milking stall and reached for the hose. I’d tried surrounding the bucket with blocks, holding it in place with my feet—even tying the handle to the side of the stall with a length of twine. But for the sixth straight time, I had just squeezed the last drops from the teats when Blossom swung her right rear hoof in a kind of bovine hook kick, walloping the top of the bucket and sending gallons of the creamy white fluid spilling across both the concrete floor and my boots. I reprimanded her, but she simply tossed her head and grabbed another mouthful of the feed I affectionately called “cow chow.”

  She looked so unassuming. So velvety-nosed and kind, with big, long-lashed eyes. At least she had on the day I’d selected her from the line of cows for sale at the Double-Bar Ranch. Despite all the reading I’d done on selecting a heifer, when she pressed her soft nose up against my cheek, I knew she belonged at Dewberry Farm. Thankfully, the rancher I’d purchased her from had seemed more than happy to let her go, extolling her good nature and excellent production.