As the minivan passed the Bartleby Bank building, my eyes counted up the glass windows to my husband’s office. The building was open twenty-four hours a day. I was sure it was in an attempt to wring as many billable hours as possible from the overworked attorneys of Jones McEwan.
I remembered Peaches’ question: How much access do you have? Well, I had access to Blake’s keys. Which also meant I had access to his office. I was wondering whether to plan a nighttime foray into Jones McEwan when my cell phone burbled again. I glanced at the display, but didn’t recognize the number. I hit Talk.
“Hello?”
“Mrs. Peterson?”
Adrenaline shot through me. It was Bunsen.
“Hello?” I said, louder.
“This is Mrs. Peterson? You never did return that phone call yesterday.”
“Hello?” I yelled. “Is someone there?” I whacked the phone against the steering wheel a couple of times and put it to my ear again. “I’m sorry. You’re breaking up.” I hit End and tossed the phone onto the front seat of the car.
A moment later, it rang again.
I ignored it and focused on the road, wondering what the penalty was for avoiding a police interview. A slap on the wrist? A few days in a holding cell? Or serious jail time?
After what felt like ten minutes, the phone finally stopped ringing, and I pushed thoughts of Bunsen and state penitentiaries from my mind. I was deep in SoCo, a hip part of town that specialized in lava lamps, saggy couches on peeling front porches, a few ‘new vintage’ homes, and a growing number of ultra-modern concrete monstrosities that the Style page of the Austin American-Statesman loved to feature.
I turned my eyes from a new block of upscale apartments that was under construction and peered at street signs, concentrating on finding Annie Street among the gaggle of streets that 1920s developers had named after their daughters.
The green rectangular sign was buried in an ancient magnolia tree. I was halfway past it when I spotted it, and the station wagon behind me almost plowed into my back bumper as I slammed on the brakes and veered right. Once on Annie, I consulted the address on the scrap of paper Trevor had handed me. I drove a few blocks, scanning the mix of decrepit and recently expanded wooden houses for numbers, but it turned out the house wasn’t too hard to spot. Three police cruisers were parked in front of it.
As the minivan crept by, two women in blue stepped out from the yellow front door, flanking a tall, muscular man. Marcus Patterson, I guessed. Despite his violent reputation, I could see why Maxted found him appealing; he looked like something out of a Calvin Klein underwear ad. As the trio approached the street, I hunched down in the driver’s seat; I didn’t think either of the cops was Carmes, but I wasn’t sure. Just before they got to the mailbox, the man turned back toward the house for a second, and something metallic flashed in the sun.
Handcuffs.
As I stared at Patterson, my foot left the gas pedal and the minivan slowed to a crawl. The cop on the right fixed me with a hard stare. I hunched down further and accelerated, hoping that the cop hadn’t seen enough of me to pick me out in a lineup. On the plus side, now that they’d arrested Marcus Patterson, my odds of ever being in a lineup had just dropped dramatically.
I turned at the end of the street and steered the minivan back to South Congress. Despite the relief of not having to ask a violent man whether he was involved in his ex-lover’s death—and, by the way, did he know my husband?—something akin to disappointment washed through me. The cops had figured things out before I had. In fact, that was probably why Bunsen had called. To tell me they’d arrested someone. I should be happy, right? I was no longer a suspect.
But Patterson’s arrest didn’t mean all of my problems were solved.
Someone had blown up my husband’s car last night. My husband had lied about knowing a murdered transvestite. And sixteen thousand dollars were still missing from our joint bank account.
I glanced at my watch. I still had forty-five minutes before it was time to pick up the kids. Enough time to swing by Peachtree Investigations and see if Peaches had any advice on tracking down car bombers. I should probably also call Bunsen back; since the cops had already arrested someone, it would be a good time to get in touch.
I scrolled through to “Missed Calls” and hit Talk.
“Detective Bunsen here.”
“Hi. This is Margie Peterson. Did you try to call me a few minutes ago?”
“When we had the ‘bad connection’?”
“Um, yeah. I need a new phone; it does that all the time, lately. Anyway, sorry I didn’t get a chance to call you back last night.”
“We need to schedule a time for you to come in and talk, Mrs. Peterson.”
I blinked. “But I thought you arrested someone!”
“Excuse me?”
“I just drove by Marc…” I trailed off.
“You just drove by what?”
“McDonald’s,” I stammered. “And I heard on the radio that someone had been arrested. For a homicide.”
“Well, I don’t know what station you listen to, but we’ve made no homicide arrests today.”
I swallowed.
“But if you’re talking about Marcus Patterson, yes, he was arrested just a few minutes ago on drug charges.”
“Who?” I croaked.
“Mrs. Peterson, for someone who never met Evan Maxted before, you seem to know an awful lot about him. And he seemed to know you, too. Unless he accidentally dialed the wrong number the night he died.”
My throat closed up. I had erased my number from his phone! Then it hit me. Cell phone records. Duh. The same way I had tracked Blake’s calls. I forced myself to focus. Bunsen was still talking.
“Mrs. Peterson, I expect you in my office at eight o’clock Monday morning. If you don’t show up, I will issue a warrant for your arrest.”
“A warrant?” Oh, God. My palms went slick. He thought I had murdered Evan Maxted. “A warrant for what?” I finally managed to croak.
“Obstructing justice.” My body went limp. Still safe. For now, anyway. “Now,” Bunsen continued, “can I count on you showing up?”
“Yes. I mean, of course.” I reviewed my schedule mentally. Eight was too early. I’d have to ask Blake to take the kids into school for me. But what would I tell him I was doing? Going to talk to the cops about the dead transvestite he had denied knowing? “Actually,” I said, “could we make it eight forty-five? I have to drop my kids off first…”
He sighed. “Fine. But if your ass is not in my office by eight forty-six, I’m sending someone to get you.”
“Got it,” I said. “By the way, someone blew up my husband’s car last night.”
He was silent for a moment. “Blew it up?”
“Yeah. They think it was a Molotov cocktail.”
“Well, thank goodness there was a private investigator in the house. Got the case solved yet?”
“No. I was hoping you guys could do that.”
He sighed. “What’s your husband’s name?”
“Peterson. Blake Peterson.”
“I’ll look into it.”
“Thanks. See you Monday.”
“Remember. Eight-forty-five or else.”
“Got it.”
He hung up.
I hit End and turned onto South First, my hands trembling on the steering wheel. Why had I opened my big mouth about Marcus Patterson? Maybe Peaches could help me figure out a way to talk myself out of it. It might be time to come clean with her about my husband, anyway.
Five minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot of Peachtree Investigations.
All that was left of the building was a smoking pile of cinderblocks.
My body turned cold. Another bomb?
First, my husband’s car had been blown up. Now my office. I had thought Blake was the reason for the Molotov cocktail. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
I swung open the minivan’s door and stared at the scorched remains of the building. With th
ose stacks of files, it must have gone up like a torch. Then an awful thought occurred to me. Had Peaches been there?
A cold knot formed in my stomach. If she had, had she gotten out? I started to search the parking lot for her car. Then I realized I didn’t know what she drove. Oh, God. Why would someone burn down Peachtree Investigations? Was it a coincidence?
It was always possible that the fire started on its own. Maybe one of the ashes from Peaches’ Ultra-Slims had landed on a file folder or a pile of dried-up doodlebugs. But the police tape made me think otherwise. Peaches’ desk—1950s army issue, solid metal—was the only thing still intact. What was left of her chair lay on its side in the middle of the rubble like a dead three-legged spider.
A prickle of fear crept up my back. Had someone done this to warn me away?
I thought about my actions for the last few days. I’d gone down to the Rainbow Room to talk with Cassandra about Maxted — had that been what motivated this? Someone telling me to stop asking questions about Evan Maxted? Personally, I would have preferred a nice handwritten note.
On the plus side, if it was Marcus Patterson who was unhappy about my asking questions, he wouldn’t be able to commit any more acts of arson from jail. Looking at the remains of Peachtree Investigations, I was thankful that whoever had thrown that Molotov cocktail last night had aimed at my car and not my house. Still, if bad things happened in threes, I didn’t even want to think about what might be next.
As I stared at the blackened rubble, a chilling thought crept into my head.
What about Elsie and Nick?
I fumbled for my phone and picked out the number for Green Meadows. The line was busy.
Just like the line at Peachtree Investigations had been all day yesterday.
I dashed back to the minivan and gunned the engine, punching the redial button as the minivan screeched out of the parking lot.
Still busy.
I raced up South First, running two red lights and scanning the northwest horizon for signs of smoke. Surely they wouldn’t go after my children.
Would they?
Horrible thoughts passed through my mind as I dodged slow-moving SUVs and almost took the front bumper off a mini, cursing the traffic lights. The ten minutes it took me to get to my children’s school felt like an hour. I roared off at the Enfield exit, then gunned the engine and ran the last red light, breathing a sigh of relief as Green Meadows Day School came into view. No smoke, no flames. It looked just like it had when I dropped the kids off. At least something was going right today.
And then I saw the ambulance.
I hurled myself out of the minivan and across the parking lot to where group of mothers huddled, looking white-faced and somber.
“What happened?” I gasped. “Why is the ambulance here?”
Nina Jeffreys looked at me with big, soulful eyes. “Didn’t you hear?”
“No!” I yelled. I resisted the urge to grab her by her scrawny throat. “That’s why I’m asking you!”
Marina Helden said, “Relax, Margie.”
“How can I relax when there’s an ambulance in the parking lot? Will someone tell me what the hell is going on? Are my kids okay?”
Betty patted my arm. “They’re fine, Margie.”
Relief gushed through me. “Oh, God. Thank God.” I sagged against somebody’s SUV. “But why is the ambulance here?”
“Mrs. Bunn collapsed in the office.” As Marina spoke, a gaggle of paramedics and firemen staggered through the school’s front door, struggling to maneuver a stretcher over the rough stone pathway. From a distance, Mrs. Bunn looked like an immense loaf of half-risen dough covered with a massive floral dishtowel. I caught a glimpse of her face when one of the men carrying her stumbled on a rock. Under the oxygen mask strapped over her face, her skin looked like pork roast that’s been in the fridge a few days too long.
“Is she going to be okay?” Marina asked as they approached the ambulance.
One of the paramedics grimaced and shrugged. As they heaved the stretcher into the back of the ambulance, I asked him, “Do you have any idea what’s wrong?”
“Heart attack, I’m guessing,” he huffed. “We won’t know until we get her to the emergency room.
Then they slammed the back door shut and hustled to the front of the ambulance. A moment later, the siren started, and the ambulance pulled out of the parking lot, flashing its lights as it sped down Enfield Road.
I turned back to Nina, who I knew volunteered in the office on Fridays. “How did it happen?”
Tears welled in her brown eyes. “She had just come back from circle time and fixed herself a cup of tea. I walked into her office to ask her whether she wanted to order I Love Fire Trucks or Bluebonnet Bunny for one of the birthday books, and she was sitting there in her chair, all purple, looking like she was choking or something. I tried to help her, but then she fell out of her chair.” She blushed slightly. “I… I tried to help her up, but I couldn’t move her, so I called 9-1-1, and…” I put my arm around her as she started to sob.
“Could it have been a heart attack?” Marina asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen one.”
“Well I have,” piped up Melissa Steck. “And that doesn’t sound like a heart attack. Maybe someone finally got tired of the old witch and poisoned her.”
A stunned silence fell over the little group. Nina’s shoulders shuddered as she sobbed quietly.
“We’ve all had issues with Mrs. Bunn from time to time,” Marina said finally. “But I just can’t imagine anyone would want to poison her.”
I could think of a lot of people. But all I said was, “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
EIGHTEEN
I had just gotten the kids a snack and settled them in with Lady and the Tramp when the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“It’s Peaches.”
“Peaches!” I gripped the phone. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “But the office isn’t.” Her gravelly voice wobbled a bit, and I could hear her sucking in smoke.
“Thank God you’re all right. I saw it this morning, but I didn’t know how to get in touch with you. What happened?”
“Arson.”
I sank into a chair. “I was afraid of that. How did they do it?”
“They think someone got in and soaked the place with gasoline. Went up like a torch.”
“Any idea who?”
“Not a clue. Thank God for insurance, though. I’ve been meaning to get a new place for years, actually, but I was hoping to take my files with me.”
“Gosh. I hadn’t thought about that. What does that do for some of your cases?” My mind touched on Pence. Would I have to follow him to the Como Motel again?
“Fortunately, all of my clients have copies of their reports and photos. And I’d just done the billing on Wednesday.” She sighed. “I still lost a lot of important stuff, though.”
“Your office wasn’t the only place that went up in smoke. Someone bombed my husband’s car last night.”
“What?”
“Yeah. They said it looked like a Molotov cocktail.”
“Looks like you’re getting into some heavy shit. Maybe you need to back off. You got kids, don’t you?”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah.”
“People like this, who knows what they’ll do? If I were you, I would just cool it with your ‘friend’.”
I bit my lip. Since my friend slept in the same bed with me and was the father of my children, that was going to be tough to do. “Wouldn’t it be better to find out what’s going on?”
“Honey, you’ve done a great job. Better than I thought you would. But this stuff is getting serious. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. I think you need to let things die down a bit.”
I gritted my teeth. Italian music swelled in the living room. It must be the big spaghetti scene. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because th
e ‘friend’ I’ve been telling you about is my husband.”
“Shit.” She sucked on her cigarette again. “I was afraid of that.”
I told her everything I’d found out. “What do I do next?” I asked.
“So, you’ve looked through his home office, but you haven’t gone to his office yet.”
“No. Not yet. I’ve been thinking about it, though.”
“Do they have a security person?”
“I think so. But I don’t think they make you sign in or anything. Blake just uses one of those security cards to get in and out.”
“Is the building open twenty-four hours a day?”
“Uh huh.”
“That would be my next move, then. Wait till he’s sound asleep, then grab his keys and go. I’d tell you to search his car, too, but I guess that ain’t gonna happen now.”
“What do I do if the security guy asks me what I’m doing?”
“You got into a dead person’s apartment while the police were there and then snooped through his office and stole his appointment book, and you’re asking me how to deal with a security guard?”
“Good point. I’ll think of something.”
“And make sure you get into his computer, too. People hide lots of stuff on computers. I’d go with you, but it might look a little weird, the two of us going up to McWatson and Kinks at three in the morning.”
“Jones McEwan,” I said.
“Whatever. Anyway, let me know what happens. Then we’ll figure out what to do next. Want me to run a background check on him?”
“On my husband?”
“Can’t hurt. You never know.”
I sighed. “I suppose you’re right. It can’t hurt, can it?”
“I’ll see what I can do. And let me know what you find out tonight.” Her voice was suddenly serious. “Be careful.”
“Thanks. I will. Are you going to be okay?”
“Once that insurance check comes through, I’ll be right as rain. What do you think… should we move downtown? Or maybe one of those redone bungalows, over where all the lawyers are?”
“How much was the place insured for?”
“Let’s just say it’s a good thing I called my ex last night.”
Karen MacInerney - Margie Peterson 01 - Mother's Day Out Page 17