“Where do you want me to start?” Maggie asked, fidgeting in her seat, her gaze darting from Emily to Colin and back.
“From the beginning, Maggie,” Emily said, setting a small recording device on the coffee table. She hadn’t meant to sound condescending, but they needed to hear it all.
Colin patted Emily’s thigh, and she got the hint that he would ask the questions. “Tell us what you know about Elise’s disappearance.”
Emily appreciated that. With Colin asking the questions, perhaps she had a chance of salvaging her friendship with Maggie when this was all over.
“As I already told you, I went out with Jake a couple of times, but it was awhile back, before he started seein’ Elise. I had done a few workouts with Elise, when Jake wasn’t available, and I really liked her. We were becomin’ friends and she made a few comments here and there about her husband and their marriage from time to time.”
“Like what?” Emily leaned forward, momentarily forgetting that Colin was doing the questioning.
“Like the arguments and the fights, and how lonely she was because he was gone so much. And like how tightly he held the reins on their money. But then you already know that.”
“Did she say anything else?” Emily asked, then sat back to let Colin take over. “Sorry,” she whispered to him.
“Just that he wasn’t like that in the beginning. When they first got married, apparently he was lovin’ and considerate, showerin’ her and Kaitlyn with gifts and takin’ them on expensive vacations. But something changed in him in the last few years, Elise said, but she didn’t know what. Maybe it was the financial pressures of managin’ such a mammoth business that just keeps growin’. That’s what she said, anyway.” Maggie sat back in her chair, like she believed she was finished with her interrogation.
“That’s all well and good, Maggie, but what we really need you to tell us is what you know about Elise’s disappearance,” Colin said. “We’re pretty sure it was staged.”
Maggie’s eyes widened, apparently surprised that they knew that. She shot up straight in her chair and took a deep breath and a long pause. “Yeah, you’re right,” she nodded, “it was. We didn’t think anyone would notice.”
“We?” Colin asked.
“Elise and Jake had been seein’ each other and they asked me if I would help ‘em.”
“But why?” Emily asked, leaning forward again.
“When Elise first told me about how unhappy she was with Patrick, how abusive and controllin’ he was, I shared with her about my scumbag ex-husband—you know, the one I left back in Hollywood years ago.”
Emily nodded.
“I guess she and Jake thought because I’d been through somethin’ similar that I’d understand and be willin’ to help her get away from him.”
“When you say her husband was abusive, did you see any bruises or anything like that?” Colin asked.
“No, I never saw anythin’ like that. Maybe it was more like verbal and emotional abuse—I don’t know.”
“You mean like yelling at her?” Emily asked. “Belittling her, calling her names. That kind of stuff?”
“I guess,” Maggie replied, her mouth turning down at the thought. “She didn’t really go into much detail. I did notice, though, that she seemed sad when she talked about how lonely she was, that is, until Jake came into her life.”
“Yes, good old Jake,” Emily muttered.
“Sounds to me like he jumped on the chance to prey on a lonely rich woman,” Colin said.
“I don’t think it was like that,” Maggie defended. “I think it was more like they were both unhappy and they found each other. I think he wanted to help her move on to a happier life.”
Colin’s eyes narrowed. “Exactly what part did you play in her escape?”
Maggie paused and looked down at her hands as they fidgeted in her lap. “During the time I told you I was doin’ a workout with her,” she lifted her head to meet Colin’s gaze, “I was actually helpin’ her make her house look like there’d been a struggle.”
Emily had wondered why Elise would have changed out of her dress and jewelry for a workout and then put it back on. Now she knew—she never changed at all.
“What about the blood?” Colin asked. “You said she accidentally gave you a bloody nose.”
“Well, that part is actually true, but not when I was showin’ her a yoga pose. It was when we were tryin’ to flip that heavy sofa over.”
“Anything else?”
“I bought her a change of clothes and shoes, along with some makeup and toiletries, and stuck them in a backpack. I brought the bag with me when I came over that day to help her.”
“What else did you do?” Colin asked.
“That was it—I swear. Jake took it from there.”
“And you didn’t think you should tell me or Emily when we launched a whole investigation?”
“I couldn’t. She said if she didn’t get away this time, she probably never would. She had one shot at withdrawin’ what cash she could and that was it.”
“Did she offer any of the money to you for helping her?” Colin asked.
“She offered, but I said no. I wasn’t doin’ it to make a few bucks off of her. I was tryin’ to help.”
“What about the clothes and toiletries?” he asked.
“I bought those with my own money, simply to help her out.”
Emily turned to Colin. “Do you guys mind if I ask a question?”
“I think you’ve already asked several,” Colin said. “What’s one more?”
Maggie shrugged her ambivalence.
“Do you remember the necklace Elise was wearing the day she disappeared?”
“Let me think.” Maggie’s eyes flew up to the right, pausing as she searched her memory. “Oh, yes, yes—a big ol’ red garnet, I think.”
“That’s right.” Emily nodded.
“I’d seen her wear it before. I recall commentin’ on how beautiful it was the first time I saw it.” Maggie seemed to relax a little, sitting back in the chair. “She said her husband had given it to her on their weddin’ day. It had belonged to his mother, and his grandmother before that.”
“A family heirloom,” Emily said, shooting a glance at Colin. Apparently the necklace had sentimental value to whoever snatched it, which would most likely be Patrick Murphy.
“Are there any more questions?” Maggie asked, leaning back and running her fingers through her long blonde hair. “I’m gettin’ a real bad headache.”
Emily popped up off the sofa. “I can get you some Advil.”
“No thank you. I just want to go home.”
“We’re almost done,” Colin said.
Maggie let out a loud sigh. “What else?”
“What did you think was going to happen to Elise when she left?”
“I figured she’d take some money out of their joint checkin’ account, which would be far less than she would get in a divorce, and she could go somewhere else and start a new life.”
She can’t be that naïve, can she? Emily shifted her position to look closer at Maggie.
“So, you’re saying neither Elise nor Jake shared their plan with you?” Colin asked.
Maggie closed her eyes and massaged her temples. “Just the part about makin’ her husband think she was dead so he wouldn’t come lookin’ for her.”
“I hate to say this to you, Maggie,” Colin said, causing her eyes to fly open in anticipation, “but don’t leave town.”
“Am I a suspect?” Her brow wrinkled in surprise.
Emily settled on the arm of the sofa. “More like an unwitting accomplice.”
~*~
When the questioning was over, Emily offered to walk to Maggie out.
“That’s not necessary,” Maggie said.
“I want to.” Emily had more she wanted to talk to Maggie about, but she thought she’d have better luck doing it in private.
Maggie shrugged and turned toward the door.
Emily
opened it for her and followed her out onto the porch. “Wait up,” she called out as Maggie was going down the front steps.
Maggie twisted back around. “What?” she groaned with a sigh of exasperation.
“Just one more question.” Emily moved to the edge of the porch. “I want to know why your DNA is in the national database.”
The color drained from Maggie’s face as an astonished expression swept over it. “I’d rather not say.”
“We’re going to find out one way or the other, so you might as well tell me.”
“I had hoped you’d never find out. Not any of you.”
Emily motioned toward the carved wooden bench at the end of her porch, urging Maggie to take a seat and tell her the story.
Maggie took a seat at the end of the bench and buried her face in her hands for a few moments. Finally she sat up straight and expelled a loud sigh. “It’s a long story, Em.”
“I have time.” Emily knew Colin was waiting inside, probably wondering what happened to her. Hopefully, once she got Maggie’s story, he would be glad she took the time to pursue the answer.
“It was a long time ago,” Maggie began, looking straight ahead, “before my son and I moved to Idaho.”
“When you lived in Hollywood with your ex-husband?”
Maggie nodded slightly. “Yes, Tony.”
Emily could see it was difficult for Maggie to talk about it, but she had to know. “Go on.”
“Josh was about four at the time. I worked as a waitress, at an Irish pub called O’Leary’s, to cover the bills. They served food as well as alcohol, and it was owned by an older couple, Mr. and Mrs. O’Leary, of course, who knew my situation and were very kind to me. They had three grown sons and a couple of them worked at the bar too. The boys treated me like a little sister.”
“I see.” Emily wondered when she was going to get to the part about the DNA. “Go on.”
“Do you really need to hear this?” Maggie shifted her body to face Emily.
“Sorry, but yes.”
“All right.” Maggie took a deep breath before proceeding. “My ex was out of work most of the time we were in Southern California. You already know I had tried my hand at becomin’ an actress, but that never went anywhere so I had to take the other job. Tony was always in a bad mood because he couldn’t find work, and he would drink, more and more as time went on. Then he started gamblin’, which only got us into trouble—phone calls and men comin’ to our house at all hours of the day and night, wantin’ to collect.”
“That doesn’t explain why the police have your DNA.”
“I’m gettin’ to that.” Maggie cleared her throat and went on. “Sometimes when Tony drank he got mean and he hit me and Josh.”
“I do remember you mentioning that before,” Emily said, briefly draping an empathetic arm around Maggie’s shoulders.
“I came to work one night with a black eye. I tried to cover it with makeup, but it was still pretty visible. Mr. O’Leary asked me about it and I told him what happened. Tony was drunk and had taken a belt to little Josh for some stupid reason. I stepped in to stop him and he backhanded me, then he turned his anger toward me. He hit me with the belt a few times, then he grabbed his old wooden baseball bat and pinned me against the wall. The bat was pressin’ on my throat and I couldn’t breathe.” Maggie rubbed a hand over her throat as her voice strained at the memory. “I thought I was gonna die.”
“Then what happened?” Obviously Maggie survived, but Emily was anxious to hear the rest of the story.
Maggie paused and regained her composure. “Luckily, someone came knockin’ hard on the front door. It made Tony stop. He dropped the bat and ran into the bedroom, like he thought it might be someone comin’ to collect on his gamblin’ debts again.”
“Was he right?”
“No, it was the landlord, looking for the past due rent. We didn’t have the money for him, again, and he was pretty steamed. It took me quite a bit of talkin’ to get him to leave.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said I was gettin’ paid in a couple of days and I promised to bring it to him when I did. I apologized profusely and told him how Tony was really tryin’ to find work. Eventually, I must have convinced him to give us a few more days because he left.” Maggie stood and walked to the porch railing, wiping a tear from under her eye. She crossed her arms and stared out at the street. “I had to work that evening, but I couldn’t leave Josh home with Tony, not after what he’d done.”
“So what did you do?”
Maggie turned around and rested her hips against the railing. “I packed his pajamas and toothbrush and took him to a friend’s house to spend the night. She knew how Tony could be and she was happy to help me out. Then I went to work.”
“What about Tony?”
“I didn’t want to be in the same room with him. Like I said, he’d gone into the bedroom when the landlord came, and I never heard a sound out of him after that. I scooted Josh out of there as fast as I could and left. That night at work is when Mr. O’Leary asked me what happened and the whole awful story spilled out.”
“Then what did you do?” Emily’s attention was riveted on Maggie and her heartbeat quickened as the story unfolded.
“By the time my shift was over, Mr. O’Leary had spoken to his wife about my situation. They decided to give me some money so Josh and I could get away from Tony for good, before he killed the both of us.”
“Did you take the money?”
“I didn’t want to, but as he held out the white envelope stuffed with cash, I thought about the new life that money would buy for Josh and me. So, yes, I did take the money. As soon as I touched the envelope, I felt a weight lift off of me and I felt free. My boss suggested I go get my son, hit the road, and never look back.”
“How much did he give you?”
“Several thousand dollars.”
“What wonderful people.” Emily was touched. Where would Maggie and Josh be if the O’Learys hadn’t helped them? “But you still haven’t said why your DNA is in the national database.”
“I picked up my son after work and drove all the way here to Paradise Valley, because my brother and his family lived in this place. I knew they’d let me stay with them until I got my feet under me. It wasn’t a week later that the State Police showed up on our doorstep, lookin’ for me.”
Emily frowned as she cocked her head. “What for?”
“Someone murdered Tony.”
“Oh, no!” Emily gasped, putting her hand to her lips.
“Yes, with the old baseball bat he tried to choke me with. There were some blonde hairs caught in a rough splintery section of the bat, and they thought I might have done it—killed Tony that is.”
“You?” Emily frowned. “Why?”
“Because I’m the wife, I guess. They went lookin’ for me at O’Leary’s, the state cops said, and my boss told ‘em Tony had been beatin’ on Josh and me. Mr. O’Leary had said that he tried to rescue us before Tony killed us, by givin’ us the money to get out of town. The police thought maybe I snuck home to get my stuff and could have been the one to beat Tony to death with the bat. So I had to give them a sample of my hair to check against the hair stuck in the bat. It was a perfect DNA match, of course, but I explained to them that it probably got stuck there when the SOB tried to choke me to death with the darn thing. Eventually, they believed me and left me alone.”
“Were your finger prints on the bat?”
“Yeah, but only at the top, when I picked it up off the floor and set it on the counter so no one would trip on it, but months later, the cops told me whoever killed him must have used gloves, because Tony’s were the only prints on the neck of the bat, and some of them were smudged.
“So did they ever catch the killer?”
Maggie shrugged. “As far as I know, the murder was never solved. Tony made a lot of enemies, but my guess is that it was probably the guys he owed money to for his gamblin’ debts.”
Or one of the O’Leary boys sticking up for their little sister.
“How come you never told any of us about this? We would have understood.”
“By the time we all became friends, I’d put it behind me. I was doin’ well with my fitness trainin’ business, and I didn’t want y’all lookin’ at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you are now—with pity in your eyes.”
Emily rose from the bench and stepped to the railing. She drew Maggie into her arms and hugged her tightly. “I’m just so sorry you had to go through that.” Now Emily understood why Maggie would be so readily willing to help Elise escape from an abusive situation.
Chapter 18
“How can two people love each other so much on their wedding day that they pledge their lives to each other ‘til death do us part, then they come to the point where they hate each other so much that one is willing to kill the other?” Emily shook her head, then snuggled into Colin’s chest as they sat on her sofa. “I don’t get it.”
“I don’t either, Babe.” He pulled her in a little closer and kissed the side of her head.
She tilted her head up and looked at him. “He gave her his grandmother’s necklace. Obviously, on the day they married Patrick thought he would be spending the rest of his life with Elise.”
“We don’t know for sure that he’s the one who killed her. For all we know, it was Jake. It’s plausible that it happened the way Murphy said, that he was there to rescue his wife, but she was already dead.”
“The necklace was ripped off Elise’s neck.” Emily’s hand flew to her throat at the thought. “That says it was the husband, he wanted the family heirloom back.”
“Or Jake saw value in it, something he could pawn for cash.”
“You might be right. We’ll need to check out the local pawn shops.” Emily sat up and faced Colin. “This is what I don’t understand. Patrick looked so distraught when Elise went missing, and even more upset after she was discovered murdered, like he really loved her. But from what Camille and Maggie said, the guy was abusive and controlling. That doesn’t sound like he loved her at all.”
The Betrayal of Lies Page 13