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

by Karen MacInerney

  I picked up the photo and tucked it back into my bag. “Thanks, Cassandra. You’ve been a big help.”

  “Sure,” she said, sucking on her cigarette and fluttering her eyelashes at Domingo, who was now polishing glasses behind the bar.

  #

  “So I guess we call the cops now,” I said as we pulled away from the Rainbow Room.

  “What?”

  “We call the cops,” I repeated.

  “No way. We’re professionals, remember? We call the cops when we have all the evidence. I think a taped confession would do nicely, don’t you?”

  I turned to face Peaches. “We’re about to confront a murderer. Personally, I’d be more comfortable if I was accompanied by a bunch of people in blue polyester carrying guns.”

  “I think they wear tan these days.”

  “Blue, tan, whatever. The point is, they carry guns. And they know how to use them.”

  Peaches pulled pack of Ultra Slims out of her purse. “Look. This is going to be a piece of cake. I’ll keep my gun in my purse, and you can carry your stun gun. We go in, get the confession on tape, and call the police.”

  “It’s that easy, right? Just like the warehouse was supposed to be a snap.”

  She tapped out a cigarette, lit it, and took a deep drag. “We did what we meant to do, didn’t we? And Eduardo is free.”

  “Yeah, and we almost got killed. Look. There’s no reason not to call the cops this time. Besides, I don’t even know where we’re going. She could be anywhere.”

  “When’s the next League meeting?” Peaches asked.

  I Googled it on my phone. “This afternoon,” I said. “Two o’clock. At Austin Country Club.”

  “Well, that’s convenient,” she said. “Now we know where to go.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  We arrived at the Austin Country Club at a quarter to two, parking the Buick between a Lexus SUV and a BMW coupe. Peaches was resplendent in fuchsia spandex, with boots and a rhinestone belt, and her stiletto heels clicked on the limestone flagstone as we climbed the steps to the front door.

  “Nice place,” she said.

  “Far cry from the warehouse,” I said, looking around to take in the stately oaks and the expanse of Lake Austin, glittering in the sunshine. “Got the recorder ready?” I asked.

  “Of course,” she said.

  Together we walked into the building. I found myself smiling at the raised-eyebrow looks in the lobby, and was not surprised when one of the ladies behind the reception desk intercepted us.

  “Can I help you?” she asked in a nervous, chirpy voice, eyeing first Peaches’s fuchsia-encased décolletage, and then my eggplant-colored hair.

  “We’re looking for the Junior League meeting,” I said.

  She blinked. “Really?”

  “No, actually, we’re looking for the morgue,” Peaches drawled.

  “The Junior League meeting,” I reiterated, elbowing Peaches.

  “Um, it should be down the hall in the Magnolia Room. Are you a guest?”

  “Yes,” I said, smiling. “Of Prudence Peterson. I’m her daughter-in-law.”

  “Ah. And this is…” the young woman said, her eyes sliding to Peaches.

  “A friend,” I said. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we don’t want to be late.”

  I didn’t wait for a response, but breezed down the carpeted hall in the direction the woman had indicated. The door was open; inside were ten tables, all with white tablecloths and plated spinach salads on them. “We need to bring up the salads at our next board meeting,” I heard a woman say. “No one eats the onions, and they just make the room stinky.” The look on her companion’s face must have alerted her to something; a moment later she turned, eyes wide, to look at Peaches and me.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Can I help you?” the woman asked, archly, looking at Peaches’s prominently displayed décolletage, and then at my purple hair.

  “Margie!” Prudence hurried over to me, looking absolutely mortified. “What have you done to your hair? And who is… this?” She stabbed a manicured finger at my boss. “Let’s talk about this out in the hall,” she said, trying to shepherd me toward the door.

  “Not yet,” I said. “Have you seen Bitsy?”

  “Bitsy McEwan? Of course. She’s at the head table.”

  “Wonderful,” I said, smiling and walking past my mother-in-law to where Bitsy stood, looking at us with narrowed eyes.

  “But…”

  Peaches and I left Prudence behind us and focused on Bitsy, who looked no worse the wear for her conversation with the police. If they’d even contacted her.

  “So glad you decided to attend more League functions,” she said, as if she hadn’t ordered her henchmen to get rid of me just last night. “If you don’t mind, though, the meeting is about to begin, and I’m afraid we didn’t know you were coming. Perhaps the next meeting?”

  “I have a few things I need to talk to you about,” I said.

  “Perhaps after the meeting.”

  “Perhaps now,” I said. She opened her mouth as if to protest, then gave a sharp nod. She turned to the woman next to her, a petite woman wearing a lavender suit and a somewhat shocked look. “Janice, will you excuse me for a moment?”

  “Of course, Bitsy. But we’re about to begin…”

  “The ladies can get started on their salads if they get restless,” she said to Janice, then turned to us with a polite smile. “This way, please, ladies.”

  “You have it running?” I murmured to Peaches as we followed Bitsy out to the carpeted hallway.

  “Just started it,” she whispered back.

  “Let’s go in here,” Bitsy said, stepping into the next room down. It had been divided from the League’s luncheon room by one of those moveable accordion-style walls, but in here, the tables pushed to the walls, and there were stacks of chairs. Peaches and I followed her in, and she shut the door behind us. When she turned, all trace of the genteel Junior League President’s smile were gone.

  “Why are you here?” she barked.

  “Like I said, I had a few questions,” I said. “For starters, Bitsy, what are you doing with all the money you made off the slave labor in the warehouse on Seventh Street?” I asked. “It wasn’t really all going to charity, was it? Some of it was lining your pockets. A lot of it, in fact.”

  “You came all the way here to ask me that?” she said. “I have no connection to that warehouse. Maria handles production. Now, if that’s all…”

  “What about your earring?” I asked.

  Bitsy blanched, but her face didn’t even twitch.

  “You know… the prototype pair you wore to the gala last fall. Remember? Your photo was in the society pages.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

  “I didn’t notice the earrings when I saw you—the wig must have covered them—but I knew the one on the bathroom floor at the Rainbow Room looked familiar. You know. The one near Evan Maxted’s body.” I took a deep breath and realized she was wearing Anais Anais. The same perfume I’d smelled outside the bathroom at the Rainbow Room.

  She stared at me.

  “The police have it. All I have to do is show them the picture. They were one-of-a-kind, weren’t they?” I smiled. “And Cassandra remembers you, too. The one with the furry eyelashes? She told me you weren’t too chatty, but that you had very realistic cleavage.”

  “You can’t prove anything,” she hissed.

  “How did you know Evan was going to be there?” I asked. “That’s the thing I can’t figure out. He’d found out about your trafficking operation, hadn’t he? I’m betting you figured if you murdered him in a gay bar, no one would connect his death with you.”

  “Do you need a phone so you can call the police?” Bitsy asked, opening her clutch. Before I knew it, she had a pearl-handled gun in her hand.

  “Shit,” Peaches said.

  “You’re smarter than Prue gives you credit for,” she said.
She sighed, exasperated. “All right. I knew he’d be there. I’d had him followed. He went every week.”

  “Why didn’t you have one of your people do it?” I asked.

  “No time. He had a meeting with a reporter the next morning.”

  I was right. “He’d figured out what was going on in the warehouse, hadn’t he? That’s why your husband snatched the ISC files. Did Maxted know about those, too?”

  “He knew there were some accounting issues we were working on, but I don’t know how much he was aware of. Still, it was best not to take chances. And speaking of husbands,” she said, raising a plucked, penciled eyebrow, “yours isn’t lily-white, either.”

  My stomach dropped. “What do you mean?”

  “Who do you think helped us fix the books?” she asked. “He was a company man.”

  I felt sick as I thought of Blake helping Bitsy launder money and cover her slave operation. “Did he know about the warehouse?”

  “No, but he didn’t ask a lot of questions,” she said. “He knew we were shipping something illegally. It didn’t seem to bother him.”

  I thought of the files I’d seen at Jones McEwan—the ones Herb had taken. “Who’s E. M. Hernandez?”

  “He transported the workers, and made up fake bills of lading to cover his tracks. The only problem was, the IRS was onto him. Plus, he got searched at the border a month or two ago, and had to bluff his way through.”

  “The IRS? Don’t you mean the INS?”

  “No, it was the IRS. His accounting wasn’t in order. That’s where your husband came in.” Bitsy chuckled. “Why do you think he got that nice raise?”

  The raise I hadn’t seen, I thought, my stomach churning. Well, that explained why Blake had called Bitsy a while back. But it didn’t explain the money Blake had spirited from our joint account. “There’s still one thing I don’t understand,” I said. “Where did the money go?”

  “What money?

  “The money Blake was taking off the top of his paychecks.”

  Bitsy shook her head. “I don’t know about that. Looks like you’ve got some trouble on the home front, my dear. Prue was right. She thought your marriage had hit a rough patch.”

  For a moment, I was relieved Blake wasn’t directly involved in Bitsy’s slave-run factory, but the feeling was short-lived. My husband had evidently helped launder money, he had denied knowing Maxted, and was still skimming money from the family bank account. If the money wasn’t connected with the factory, where was it going?

  But I didn’t have time to worry about my husband right now. Bitsy was pointing a gun at me—and evidently didn’t have qualms about violence.

  I shivered involuntarily, thinking of Evan’s bloodied body. “You were pretty ruthless at the Rainbow Room. What did you use?”

  “A pistol with a silencer,” she said, waving the pearl-handled gun as if to remind us it was there.

  I knew I should shut up and try to figure out what to do, but adrenaline was pulsing through me, and I couldn’t seem to stop talking. “When did this trafficking start, Bitsy? And has it ever occurred to you that it’s a bit hypocritical? You know, hiring slave labor and sending the profits to charity?”

  Bitsy pursed her pink-frosted lips. “It’s business. They don’t stay here forever: just long enough to pay off the debt from the trip. And conditions are better than they have at home. So everything works out for everyone, really.”

  “You’re wrong about things being worse where they came from,” I said. “I know one of your workers. Eduardo. His wife is named Graciela, and she and her two teenaged daughters are sick with worry. He was supposed to be home weeks ago, and she thinks he’s dead. Hernandez was la serpiente, wasn’t he? Or is that what they call you?”

  “Start moving,” she said, pointing to a door in the back of the room.

  “That’s not a revolver. That’s a .22,” Peaches said, pointing to the gun.

  “The revolver wouldn’t fit in the clutch,” she said. “Now move.”

  “Okay,” Peaches said, putting her hands up. “But I don’t think you’re going to do much damage with a .22.” She glanced at me and flicked her eyes to the accordion wall. “Hang on a second,” she said. “I think there’s something in my shoe.”

  “Just move!” Bitsy barked.

  Peaches bent down, then hurled herself at Bitsy’s shins. I froze for a moment.

  “Go, Margie!” Peaches bellowed.

  I stumbled to the accordion wall and yanked at the handle. The wall reeled back, bringing a waft of onion with it. I caught a glimpse of several shocked ladies, most with their forks in mid-air, before there was a popping sound, and one of the lights exploded behind me.

  I whirled around, terrified that Bitsy had killed Peaches. I needn’t have worried. Peaches sat straddling the Junior League President, her tight skirt hiked up to her lime-green underwear, the .22 in her hand. Bitsy’s patrician face was as purple, and her blue eyes bulged as she squirmed on the carpet.

  “Are you okay?” I asked Peaches.

  “She missed,” Peaches said, grinning, and held up the recorder. “But the tape’s still running.”

  “Bitsy!”

  I turned around to see Prudence, one bony arm extended, staring in horror at the Junior League President. She turned her eyes to me and made a whimpering sound.

  “So embarrassing,” she murmured. And then she fainted.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Peaches had finished her first cigarette and started on a second by the time we pulled into the parking lot of the Green Meadows Day School. Prudence hadn’t offered to take me—and frankly, after the fainting fit, I wasn’t sure I wanted her to, anyway. Fortunately, Peaches had stepped into the breach.

  “By the way,” I said as we crossed the parking lot, “did you ever find out who burned down your office?”

  Peaches paused to light a cigarette. “Oh, didn’t I tell you? It was Irwin Pence. His wife accidentally left my card by the phone. After Mrs. Pence broke the news about the photo you took, he got pissed one night, came and drenched the office with gasoline, and lit a match.”

  “How did they catch him?”

  “He left the gasoline can fifteen feet away. His prints were all over it.”

  “Huh. I wonder if he’s the one who blew up Blake’s car.”

  Peaches shrugged. “Maybe. Oh, and I almost forgot.” She dug through her purse and pulled out a red plastic object. “I think this is yours.”

  “Elsie’s fry phone!”

  “Mrs. Pence dropped it off at my house yesterday. Said she figured it was the least she could do.” We climbed into the car and slammed the door. “Now that that’s taken care of, let’s go get your kids.”

  #

  Twenty minutes later, over the protestations of the teaching assistants, we loaded the kids into the back of the Buick without car seats. “Cool,” said Elsie, and turned to Nick. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “We’re adults now.”

  I tossed my daughter her fry phone as Peaches pulled away from the pickup zone. Elsie was still squealing with delight when Peaches dropped us off at my house a few minutes later.

  “Got a big date tonight,” she said. “Gonna see if I can fit in a few hours of beauty sleep.”

  I gave her a big hug. “Thanks, Peaches. Thanks for everything.”

  She gave me a long, hard look. “I’m forwarding my home phone to my cell. If you need anything tonight, you give me a call, okay?”

  I swallowed hard and nodded.

  “Any time of night. Understand?”

  I nodded again. “Got it.”

  Peaches gave me another big, musky hug. Then she clicked down the stone walk to the Buick.

  As Peaches revved the engine, Elsie sidled up behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist. “Why did that lady say to call you, mommy?”

  “Because she’s a friend, Elsie. A good, good friend.”

  I waved until the Buick disappea
red down the street. Then, my children at my side, I walked back into the house to wait.

  #

  The phone rang almost as soon as the door closed behind me. It was Becky.

  “Margie! Where have you been? I’ve been calling you all day…”

  “It’s a long story,” I said.

  “I’ve been dying to talk to you. I checked with the bank first thing this morning, and you’re not going to believe who’s been stealing money from Green Meadows.”

  “Who?”

  “Lydia Belmont.”

  “No. It can’t be. Sign-the-petition-Lydia? With the silver Mercedes?”

  “Yup. I called Attila about it—she’s home, by the way, they thought it was a heart attack but it turned out to be just a scare—and she called Lydia right off. She confessed to everything. Apparently she used some of the money on laser treatments and plastic surgery—and the rest she invested with Bitsy McEwan.”

  “Lovely,” I said.

  “She didn’t want her husband to know about it, so she embezzled the cash she needed from the school. That’s why she took so many ‘vacations’ last year—she was having surgery done in Costa Rica, then staying there for the recovery.”

  “Why didn’t she want him to know about it?”

  “She didn’t want him to think she was getting old. She was afraid he was going to divorce her for a younger model.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Nope. And there’s more. Apparently Bitsy promised her big gains on whatever she invested into the fashion line, and Lydia fell for it. For all the fancy cars, her hubby put her on a tight budget. The profits were going into a rainy-day divorce attorney fund.”

  “You’re kidding me.” How many other Junior Leaguers had helped fund the slave-run factory? I wondered. Probably my mother-in-law, although I doubted she’d admit it. I was guessing it would all come out as the police investigation got underway.

  “On the plus side, I’m guessing that petition won’t be going anywhere soon.”