Karen MacInerney - Margie Peterson 01 - Mother's Day Out

by Karen MacInerney

  She nodded grimly. “We should have thought to call last night. Chances are they’ve covered their tracks, but it’s worth telling them.”

  “How’s Jess?”

  “He’s heading home this morning. He’s going to call me later.”

  “Looks like you caught yourself another bus,” I said as we turned onto Congress Avenue. “Any idea how you’re going to get into Maxted’s apartment today?”

  “I figured I’d wing it.”

  Peaches grinned. “Well, if what you did yesterday was ‘winging it’, I’d recommend you take a parachute.”

  “I’m hoping a seventy-year-old woman will be a bit less hostile than a group of heavily armed thugs.”

  “You thought that about the Junior League lady, too.”

  “Good point. But I doubt Willie is running a slave-labor factory in her bedroom closet.”

  “You want me to come with you?”

  “The more, the merrier,” I said as we pulled into a parking spot across the street from Evan Maxted’s apartment building.

  “Pretty swanky place,” Peaches said as we tip-tapped across the marble floor toward the elevator. The doorman’s mahogany desk was still vacant.

  “Maxted was doing pretty well for himself, I guess.”

  “So, what are you going to do when we get up there? Tell this Willie woman you forgot to pick up the cat food?”

  I sighed and stabbed the button marked 11. “To be honest, I’m considering telling her the truth.”

  “The truth? Are you nuts?”

  I shrugged. “You haven’t met Willie. Somehow I’d think she’d be okay with it.”

  Peaches groaned. “I was wrong. You need more than a parachute, honey. This is a frickin’ suicide mission. Why don’t you say your cat was on some kind of medication, and you have to go through the apartment and look for it?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure she bought the cat story last time.” The elevator dinged, the door slid open, and we stepped out onto the plush carpet of the hallway. As we walked past Maxted’s door on the way to Willie’s apartment, I noticed that the crime scene tape was gone.

  “Why don’t you just try the cat thing first? Then, if it doesn’t work, you can spill the beans.”

  “This is it,” I said as we stopped outside Willie’s door.

  “Couldn’t you just tell her you forgot the litter box?”

  I knocked three times, and the door swung open.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “Prudence! How are you?” Willie was wearing a purple and orange turban today, above a silky lilac housedress that hung loose on her thin frame.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “How are you?”

  “Oh, I just had another round of chemo, but I’m not in the hospital yet!” Her eyes twinkled as she smiled at me. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Willie, I’d like to introduce you to my friend, Peaches Barlowe.”

  Peaches stuck out a hand. “Hi, Willie. I’ve heard wonderful things about you.”

  “Oh, thanks. Lovely to meet you, my dear. And what a beautiful skirt that is! You have such nice legs. Oh, but here you are standing in the hallway… Do come in. I love a bit of company.” As we followed her in, she said, “How’s Lothario?”

  “He’s just fine,” I said.

  “Good, good. Sit down, sit down,” she said, waving us toward the animal-print couches. “Now, can I get you a cup of tea?”

  “No thanks,” I said. “I just had coffee.”

  “Well, then,” she said as we settled ourselves into the massive sofas. “What can I do for you girls?”

  I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry to bother you, Willie, but I came to ask you a favor.”

  “Is it about Evan? You know, that policewoman was awfully miffed when she found out you’d gone. I would have told her your last name, only I realized I didn’t know it.”

  I sighed. “Willie, I have something to tell you.”

  Peaches kicked me.

  “What is it, dear?”

  “I feel awful about this… but my name isn’t Prudence. It’s Margie. Margie Peterson.” It was like telling my grandmother that I had broken her favorite cookie jar. Only worse. I looked up to gauge Willie’s reaction.

  “Margie.” She nodded. “That’s a much nicer name.” She squinted at me. “Wasn’t your hair auburn last time?”

  “Yes, it was.” I bit my lip. “And I have to admit that the reason I came here last time was not because Evan was watching my cat.”

  She smiled. “I figured that was the case. Although I didn’t worry about it when you took him, because you seemed like a good person.”

  “You knew Snookums—I mean Lothario—wasn’t my cat?”

  Her eyes sparkled. “I may be old, but I’m not stupid. A cat with two names?” She rolled her eyes. “But I figured you had a good reason to be there. You seemed like such a nice person. I can usually tell with people, you know.” She pursed her lips. “So why did you come?”

  I took a deep breath. “I was the one who found Evan. He was dressed as a drag queen when he died, and my home phone number was on his cell phone.” I closed my eyes and leaned back into the overstuffed sofa. “I’m not divorced. I’m happily married—or at least I was until a week or two ago.” Tears bit at the back of my eyes. “I’m afraid my husband was mixed up with Evan somehow. That’s what I was trying to find out.”

  When I opened my eyes, Willie was holding a tissue out to me. “I’m so sorry, dear. Thank you for being honest with me. Marriage can be a difficult thing, and if you think your husband is involved with someone else…” she trailed off. “I can understand you wanting to know. Particularly if there are children involved?”

  I nodded.

  She sighed. “I was afraid of that. Normally I wouldn’t feel comfortable letting you into Evan’s apartment, but under the circumstances, I think I can make an exception. Wait right here, and I’ll get the key.”

  As she disappeared down the hallway, Peaches turned to me, bug-eyed. “I can’t believe it worked!”

  I reached for another tissue and blew my nose. “I told you she’d understand. Now let’s just hope we find something.”

  “I’ll bet he’s got some good wigs.”

  “That’s not exactly what I had in mind.”

  Willie returned to the room a moment later, a key dangling from her knotted fingers. “Ready, girls?”

  Peaches and I stood up. “Thanks, Willie,” I said.

  “Don’t mention it,” she said. “All I ask is that you come back and visit me from time to time. Let me know how things are going.”

  “I would love to.”

  We followed her down the hall, and a moment later we were standing in Evan Maxted’s apartment.

  Peaches eyed the art deco entertainment center, the sleek black leather couches, the 1920s prints and the panoramic view of downtown Austin. She let out a low whistle. “Heck of a pad.”

  “It’s a shame he’s not alive to enjoy it,” I said, remembering the youthful face in his driver’s license picture. And the horrible way he’d died.

  Willie shook her head. “I still can’t believe he’s gone. He was such a nice young man.”

  “I know. Or at least I’ve heard. I never got a chance to meet him.” I sighed. “Well, let’s get this over with. Where do we start?”

  “How about you take the bedroom, and I’ll start with the living room?” Peaches said.

  “I’d be happy to go through the kitchen,” Willie volunteered. “But what am I looking for?”

  The kitchen probably wasn’t going to produce much useful evidence, but I said, “Letters, photos… anything that looks like it might be useful.”

  “I’ll see what I can find.”

  As Peaches opened the entertainment center and Willie started rattling through the utensil drawer, I stepped back into Evan Maxted’s bedroom.

  The red satin coverlet lay neatly on the round bed, just as it had when I lured Snookums out from beneath it. Evan’s busi
ness clothes and dresses still lined the closet, looking just as incongruous, and the wigs were still on their stands. All but one—the one he’d been wearing the night he was killed, I thought with a shudder.

  I walked back into the bedroom and opened the drawers of Evan’s black lacquer dresser. One side of the dresser contained boxer shorts, dark socks, white T-shirts, and a stack of polo shirts. The other side was filled with lacy things that looked like they’d belong to a Playboy Playmate.

  I shivered and returned to the closet, averting my eyes from the empty wig stand, and noticed that the top shelf was still lined with shoeboxes. I stood on tiptoe, pulled down the nearest box, and peeked under the lid, hoping the box wouldn’t contain stiletto heels. It was filled with letters and photos. Bingo. Heart thumping, I carried the box to the bed and sat down.

  The first box was filled with notes and snapshots from high school and college, all jumbled together as if someone had rifled through them. The police, probably.

  Although Veronica had told me that a lot of transvestites were heterosexual, evidently Evan wasn’t among them. If his collection of high school notes were any indication, he hadn’t gone through the awkward stage many gay men do of trying to date girls. Based on the scrawled missives from people named Toby and Jacob, he’d known pretty early. The photos showed a younger version of Evan—fit, smiling, a sparkle in his dark eyes, always with other boys.

  Once he hit college, his mother started writing him, letters in which she implored him to “keep an open mind,” and “not discuss it with the family yet.” College appeared to have brought another succession of boyfriends. I leafed through the photos of handsome young men interspersed with what appeared to be family shots, including one of Evan with an arm around the blonde I had seen at the funeral.

  The contents of the second box were of a more recent vintage. Several photos of Evan with men I didn’t recognize, Valentine’s Day cards, and a few candid shots of handsome Marcus with his arm locked around Evan, who looked like a tall Hollywood starlet in a blonde wig and a sequined red ball gown. More letters from his mother, increasingly desperate as she realized her son wasn’t going to change his ways, including a fervent plea that he enroll in a Christian program in Florida designed to “rehabilitate” gay men.

  I was almost through with the box when I spotted a small photo tucked into the corner. I picked it up with a shock of recognition, and after a long moment, set it on the dresser. Then I forced myself to go through the rest of the box and return it to the shelf.

  I had just sorted through the third and final box when Peaches arrived at the doorway.

  “Well, he had a thing for Audrey Hepburn, but other than that, I came up empty.”

  Willie was stooped over in the kitchen, rifling through Evan’s pot drawer. When she saw me, she straightened up slowly, holding her turban with her left hand. “Nothing here, I’m afraid.”

  I wished I could say the same.

  #

  As we pulled away from Evan’s building, Peaches said, “I gotta hand it to you. You got us in.”

  “Yeah, but I’m still no closer to figuring out who killed him.” Despite my success getting into Maxted’s apartment, I still felt morose. And not just because of the photo I’d slipped into my purse. “I still feel bad about lying to Willie the first time.”

  “You do what you gotta do,” Peaches said. “By the way, what’s with the turban?”

  “She’s got ovarian cancer,” I said.

  Peaches winced. “Ouch.”

  I sank back into the vinyl seat, thinking I still didn’t know who had killed Evan Maxted. Or what had happened to the money my husband had been spiriting out of our account. My lying, embezzling husband. How had everything turned into such a mess?

  “I’m sure Maxted’s death had something to do with that warehouse,” I said, watching the runners on the Lady Bird Lake trail as the Buick motored down First Street, “but I still don’t know what the connection is. And what’s worse is that Bitsy will probably claim Maria was handling everything at the warehouse and get away scot-free.”

  “Let’s think about it,” Peaches said, “We know Maxted knew about the warehouse. We don’t know if he knew what was going on in there, but we can guess he might have. So there’s some motive.”

  “He did have an appointment to go and talk to a reporter at the Statesman the day after he died,” I said. “Do you think he was going to do an expose?”

  “It’s a thought,” she said.

  “It still doesn’t explain what was going on with the International Shipping Company files,” I said. “Why would Herb McEwan take them?”

  “Could be unrelated,” Peaches said. “Or could be that he was just being cautious. Maybe whoever was working on the account did some funny accounting, and he wanted to get rid of the paper trail.”

  My stomach lurched: could Blake be involved in that?

  “But why would Maxted talk to a reporter about the warehouse if there were problems with his own company? Wouldn’t that be risky?”

  “It would,” she said, “but maybe he wasn’t in on whatever was happening. Or maybe he figured McEwan had cleaned up the paper trail and would keep his mouth shut to avoid another set or charges.”

  “If Bitsy knew Maxted was going to blab to a reporter, she would certainly have a motive,” I said. “The problem is, there’s no link to the crime. Bitsy’s very good at insulating herself. If she did get Maxted, I’ll bet she had someone else do her dirty work.”

  “From what you’ve told me, she doesn’t seem the Rainbow Room type,” Peaches said, echoing my thoughts. “Her assistant Maria, maybe?”

  “Or Carlos,” I suggested.

  I thought again of the body on the toilet in the Princesses’ room, running the entire evening over in my mind and trying to remember if I’d seen anyone who resembled Carlos or Maria. My mind recreated the scene, and I suddenly remembered the earring on the floor nearby. The earring. I had seen it before, but where? As I stared out the window at the light glittering on the lake, a memory that had been floating just out of reach finally rose to the surface. “Holy shit,” I said, sitting up straight. Could it be?

  “What?”

  “I can’t believe I forgot about that.”

  “Are you gonna tell me, or are we going to play Twenty Questions?”

  “Sorry. I found an earring near the body,” I said. “I know where it came from.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  “Maybe.” I thought about it for a moment, then pulled out my phone and typed in a name.

  Could it be? I wondered as I scanned through the images the search had brought up. I cast my mind back to that awful night—and the person who had looked strangely familiar. Out of context, yes. But familiar.

  I found the photo I was looking for on the third page., and let out a whoop. “I think I’ve got what we need,” I told Peaches, feeling adrenaline surge through me. “But I need to double-check. We need to go to the Rainbow Room,” I told Peaches.

  “I knew I’d hired the right woman,” Peaches said, grinning at me. “Let’s just hope you’re right.”

  #

  We pulled into a parking space on Seventh Street, and Peaches squinted at the old brick building with the neon rainbow over the doorway. “Are you sure this place is going to be open?”

  “It opens at noon. It’s eleven-forty-five now.”

  Peaches opened the car door. “Let’s just knock and ask. It’s not like we want to buy a drink or anything.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Come on,” she said, and slammed the door behind her. I scurried out of the Buick and followed her to the front door of the Rainbow Room. She had already started hammering at the plate glass.

  When Domingo appeared at the doorway, sunlight glinting off his diamond studs, Peaches said, “We need to ask Cassandra Starr a couple of questions.”

  Domingo raised his eyebrows. “Is she in trouble?”

  “No,” I said. It’s about the
man who was murdered in your bathroom a week ago.”

  He shrugged and opened the door.

  “See?” Peaches hissed as we stepped into the air-conditioned darkness, which smelled like stale cigarette smoke and sautéing garlic. Lunch preparations must be underway in the kitchen. “It just takes a little authority.”

  I turned to Domingo. “Where’s Cassandra?”

  “Up at the bar.”

  “Thanks.”

  The only woman at the bar was dressed in a white clingy dress, and her hair was a platinum pouf. Dale Evans had been replaced by Marilyn Monroe.

  “Cassandra?” I said as I pulled a stool up next to her.

  “Margie, right?” She took a drag from her cigarette, leaving a ring of her trademark purple lipstick on the white filter.

  “Nice outfit,” Peaches said.

  “Who’s this?” Cassandra narrowed her furry eyes at Peaches’ short black skirt and clinging top.

  “This is Peaches,” I said. “A friend of mine. I’m sorry to bother you, but I want to ask one more question.”

  Cassandra rolled her eyes. “What?”

  I showed her the image on my phone. “Was this person here the night Evan—I mean Selena—died?”

  I held my breath as she glanced at the image. “That was the night of the Showdown, right?”

  “It was.”

  She picked up my phone and peered at it. “Oh, yes. I remember that one. I’d never seen her in here before, and I’m always interested in new men, so I went over and tried to start up a little conversation. He was older, but very convincing… cleavage, even!”

  “When did you approach her?” I asked.

  “Before the Showdown started, of course; once the girls are lining up, I’m too busy to even think! And then, afterward, with Selena…”

  “Did she talk to you at all?”

  She shook her blonde pouf and sighed. “She just got up and walked away. Can you believe how rude she was? That’s why I remember her. And I was wearing my best Chanel and everything.” She took another drag from her cigarette, and I noticed the beauty mark she had penciled in above her lip had smudged. “Some people have no taste. No taste at all.”