Bowled Over

Chapter Nine

Maggie and Alex had walked the long block from her father's borrowed bachelor apartment to her mother's condo. Well, Alex had walked it. Maggie had hopped it. They now retraced their steps slowly, by necessity, Maggie with her chin tucked into the collar of her new winter coat against the late December wind off the ocean as she hopped, stopped, rested, hopped again.

"Smell that, Alex? I really like this city, much as I was glad to get away from home. I miss the smell of the ocean," she said during one of her rest stops. "But I think I enjoy it more in July, when my teeth aren't chattering. At least it isn't snowing tonight. No white Christmas this year."

"It will be midnight in another minute," Alex told her, slipping his arm around her waist during one of her long pauses to catch her breath, drawing her against the side of his body. "Happy Christmas, sweetings."

She peered up at him in the light from a streetlamp. "Our first Christmas together, a house of our own, my stupid foot, a jackpot, a murder. I guess we'll never forget this first one, huh? Alex?"

He pressed a kiss against her forehead. "Yes, my dear?"

"There's something you should know."

"There are many things I should know, beginning with why your mother seems to, as you say, freak out every time Walter Bodkin's name is brought into a conversation."

"Well, yeah, we need to know that. Definitely. And did you notice Maureen? She went sort of ape herself, don't you think? Even her little pink pills couldn't disguise that she was—well, that she's hiding something. If we can't get Mom to talk with us tomorrow, she'll be my next move."

"Ah, Maggie, we're splendid together, do you know that?"

"Meaning? Oh. So you saw it, too. Maureen's reaction. Even for her, it wasn't quite right."

"Was there really any question that I would notice?"

"No, I suppose not. The great Viscount Saint Just is on the case. And, for once, I'm not arguing with you or telling you to butt out. But that's not what I wanted to say to you right now. I just think you should know something. Not all families are like ours. You know—wacko? They really aren't."

"Then those families must be exceedingly dull and uninteresting," Alex told her as they turned the corner on Thirty-seventh Street, heading up the sidewalk for one short block, to Evan's apartment.

"We're dysfunctional, textbook dysfunctional," Maggie pushed on, needing Alex to understand. "Doctor Bob said that to me, first thing. Although he'd be proud of the way I stopped myself when I started off on that tangent about being the unappreciated middle child—although finally putting at least some of how I feel into words, and saying those words to Mom, really was liberating there for a moment. But it was also petty. I'm learning, Alex, I really am. I'm a big girl now, and I have to accept my past, understand it, forgive it, and then move on. I can't just keep blaming my unhappy childhood for everything and never become my own person."

"And you made a great leap in that direction this evening, my dear, no pun intended. My felicitations."

"Yes, I think I did. And they love me. I know that, somewhere down deep inside. And I have to acknowledge that every hang-up I have can be pretty much laid at their doorstep, but if I believe that, then I also have to believe that anything good about me also came from them."

"A reasonable conclusion, yes."

"If I hadn't wanted so badly to get away from them, prove myself, I might never have gone to New York, might never have written one book, let alone all the books I've written. I might still be living here, maybe working in a bank, or something, and popping little pink pills, like Maureen."

"You're thinking that you might never have imagined me, aren't you, Maggie?"

She felt her cheeks grow hot, even in the fairly frigid breeze. "According to you, I've been imagining you since I hit puberty, in one way or another. Which is fairly disturbing. Like I've been looking for, and imagining, a white knight for most of my life. I'm an independent woman. A modern woman."

"A hopping woman."

"Now you're laughing at me," she said, pushing herself out of his light embrace and hopping ahead of him before turning about to face him once more—man, she was getting good on this walker. If they made walker-hopping an Olympic sport, she might just capture the bronze.

"Indeed, no. Don't you realize what you did this evening, sweetings? You took charge. In the usually daunting face of authority, in the face of the policeman's uniform, in the face of your mother's anger, your brother's usual ridiculousness, Cynthia Spade-Whitaker's cool condescension—I could go on—you stood tall, you stood your ground. You were, in a word, magnificent. A modern Boadicea. And all by yourself. Or may I take any of the credit? I'd like to think I could."

Maggie let him put his arm around her again. "It is nice, knowing you have my back," she admitted. "Does that give me a new problem—I'm nothing without a man?"

"I have no idea what that means," Alex told her. "Are you tired? I can carry you, you know."

Maggie looked at him, so handsome in the light from the streetlamp. He wore his long black cashmere topcoat with flair, as he wore every stitch of his clothing with flair; the creamy ivory silk scarf hanging loose around his neck setting off the perpetual light tan of his face beneath the wide, flat brim of his black hat that always reminded her of one worn by a young Clint Eastwood in those spaghetti westerns. Black leather gloves, his gold-topped sword cane—the man was, as they had said in the Regency, well set up, and definitely well put together.

On most other men, the clothes might look like a costume. But Alex was so self-assured, so comfortable in his own skin (and designer clothes), that all a person could do was be impressed. Damned impressed.

She certainly was impressed.

And he was going to be bunking in with Sterling, just as he had when he and Sterling had first poofed into her life. After a few lovely weeks of sharing her bed. Was she an unnatural child to think about that right now, rather than concentrate on her father's terrible problem?

Well, yeah.

But that's life.

Maggie looked up the block, to see that they were only two doors away from the stairs leading up into her father's building. "No, I can make it, thanks. I don't know about those steps, though. I might let you play Sir Galahad this time, and carry me up them, instead of me bumping up them on my fanny. Alex?"

He fell into step with her once more. "Hmm, yes?"

"I miss you."

She didn't turn her head to see his smile, but she could feel it.

"I miss you, too, sweetings. As incentives go, I believe being denied the pleasure of watching you fall asleep in my arms will go a long way toward the speedy resolution of your father's dilemma."

"You watch me sleep? Oh, God, Alex, don't do that. I probably drool."

"No comment, as I pride myself on being a gentleman. Which means, naturally, that I also refuse to mention the occasional soft snore."

"Bite me," Maggie said, and then hopped around in a half circle so that she had her back to the wide wooden steps. She lowered herself down, slowly, carefully. "Wanna neck a while before we go in? That is, my hero, do you wish to partake of a small, necessarily limited romantic encounter?"

"I thought you'd never suggest it," Alex said, sitting down beside her and pulling her into his arms. "You're more than usually beautiful in the moonlight, sweetings. Your eyes seem to shine with a special light."

She blinked once, and then smiled up at him. "It's not the moon, it's the streetlamp. But don't let me stop you. Tell me more about my eyes. And don't use any lines I've put in your mouth over the years."

"Never. Let's see," he said, trailing the tips of his fingers down her cheek. "Where do I begin? With the soft velvet of your skin ... the pertness of your perfect little nose ... the lush, sweet fullness of the most delectable lips I've—stay here."

"Huh?" Maggie opened her eyes as Alex rapidly stood up, unsheathing his swordstick and pointing it into the darkness beyond the circle of light cast by the street lamp. "Alex, what in hell are you—oh, shit ..."

"Google," Henry Novack said proudly, sitting in the street, perched on his stupid motorized go-cart. He wore a bright green nylon ski jacket over his considerable bulk, one with orange Day-Glo reflector stripes on the sleeves, and a huge orange woolen cap—with earflaps. He looked, to Maggie, like a cross between a duck hunter and the logo for the Orange Bowl parade.

"Google what?"

"The Google, the one on the Internet. All you need is a name. Okay, and a city helps. Evan Kelly. Ocean City. And up pops the address. I followed you here from there. Man, you move slow. You and me, Kelly, we're gonna deal."

"Oh, yeah? Really?" Maggie said, pushing herself to her feet—foot, anyway. "I'm on one foot, sure, not able to run away. But tell me something, Novack. Did you happen to notice this guy with me, huh? The tall, athletic one with a freaking sword in his hand, pointed at you? We're not going to do anything I don't want to do. Not now, not ever. Not unless you want me to sic him on you."

"I begin to believe, sweetings, that this hero-to-the-rescue business has begun to go to at least one of our heads," Alex told her dryly, not taking his eyes, or his sword, off Novack. "I remember a time when you weren't quite so comfortable depending on me."

"Yeah, well, I wasn't hopping around in this stupid cast then, either," Maggie pointed out, still rather heady with her earlier bravado at the police station and at her mother's house. "Novack? You still here? Why are you still here? Oh, I know. You want to ask me how I broke my foot, right?"

"What the hell do I care how you broke your damn foot?"

Maggie grinned. "Don't do that. I could begin to like you, Novack. Tell me something—how many miles a charge do you get on that thing?"

"You stole my machine. You stole my jackpot."

"Mr. Novack," Alex said, lowering the sword to his side, "you become wearisome, not to mention redundant."

"You've got money," Novack went on, as if Alex hadn't spoken. "I Googled you, too. The great Cleo Dooley. You didn't need that jackpot. I need that jackpot. Sam says you'll pay me, just so I don't sue. Just so you can keep your face out of the papers and off the news, because the great Cleo Dooley can't be seen as cheap, and a cheater. Especially not with her daddy in the slammer for murder. And me handicapped, too. That's the topper."

"Who's Sam?" Maggie asked, subsiding onto the wooden stair once more. She'd had worse days, but she couldn't think of any of them at the moment.

"My lawyer, that's who Sam is," Henry Novack crowed in some satisfaction. "My brother's second daughter's husband's cousin—and he's smart, too."

"It's possible, seeing as how he's not your blood relative," Maggie said, reaching into her pocket for her empty nicotine inhaler.

"Sam says Fox News eats up stuff like this. And that blonde with the bulgy eyes on CNN? Her, too. What's her name? I can't remember. Haircut like she belongs on one of them Dutch Boy paint can labels. Now there's a real barracuda for you. They'd all want me on the air."

"I'll just bet they would," sparing a moment to think of Alex's "pal" at New York's Fox News, Holly Spivak. She wasn't Nancy Grace, thank God—the barracuda—but she sure did love a juicy bit of scandal. Maggie searched through her purse for her very last, hoarded, nicotine cylinder. And people who couldn't get through stressful days without their caffeine or their daily booze wondered why other people smoked ...

"Every week, I play that machine. Every week since the day the machines went in. Do you know how much money I've put through that machine?"

"Maybe you should have used that money to join a health club instead," Maggie muttered under her breath, figuring the man weighed four hundred pounds if he weighed an ounce. No wonder he used a cart—he could have used a U-Haul.

"Mr. Novack," Alex said, stepping in front of Maggie. "Impressed as we both are by your tenacity, if not your arguments, we would appreciate it greatly if you were to, um, retire from the field for the night. Now, what would it take, Mr. Novack, for you to do just that, hmm?"

"Here it comes," Maggie muttered, then sucked on her inhaler.

"I want to talk, that's what I want. I want to deal. You deal, you do right by me, and I won't talk to reporters anymore."

"Oh, God, Alex," Maggie moaned. "Can't I just pay him?"

"Hush, sweetings." He stepped closer to the street even as he sheathed his sword, sliding it back inside the cane. "As you have told us you know about Miss Kelly's other problems, and as tomorrow—today—is Christmas, I believe we would like very much to postpone our conversation until Boxing Day, if that's agreeable to you."

"Boxing Day? When the hell is that? There's no fights scheduled at Caesar's until January, I know that much. Is there one at the old Convention Hall? Who's on the fight card? Any heavyweights?"

Maggie eased back against the steps, giggling. Sometimes, she thought almost hysterically, you just had to roll with the punches.

"December the twenty-sixth, Mr. Novack," Alex explained. "Somewhere discreet."

"Oh, okay. Why didn't you just say so? Boxing Day? That's some English thing, right? And I'm not a monster, ya know," Henry Novack said, his go-cart beeping as he backed away from the curb. "I got feelings, too, ya know. I just want what's mine. Okay, okay. Day after Christmas, right here in Ocean City, up on the Boardwalk. We'll meet in front of the Music Pier, off Eighth Street. Nobody's going to be there at night. Too cold, right? Midnight good for you? It's good for me."

"Oh, for crying out loud, Alex. The guy thinks he's freaking Deep Throat on a go-cart, or something. And not on the twenty-sixth. That's the day of my appointment to get this foot X-rayed, get into a walking cast, remember? I have to drive back to the city. Make it the twenty-seventh. At eight o'clock. Otherwise Dad would want to know why we're going out so late."

Novack put the go-cart in drive, bumped at the curb. "Now you're putting me off, aren't you? Hoping I'll go away. Not happening, cupcake. You go to the city, sure, but you'd better come back, because I know where you live. Wherever you go, whatever you do, I'm going to be watching you. I'm your worst nightmare."

Okay, fun was fun, and all that, but fun time was now over. Maggie grabbed the walker and stood up. "Buddy, you don't even come close to being my worst nightmare, so just take a number and get in line, okay. I said we'd be there, and we'll be there. The twenty-seventh, eight o'clock, at the Music Pier. Pin a red midsize Buick to your lapel, so I recognize you. Now go away."

Alex watched until the go-cart had turned the corner before walking back over to Maggie and allowing her to steady herself against his shoulder while he folded the walker, slid it up and over his shoulder, then lifted her into his arms.

"A midsize Buick?" he asked her, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly.

"I know. That was pretty good, wasn't it? But he made me so mad."

"You're not meeting with that lunatic, you know," he told her as he carried her up the stairs. "I'm meeting with him."

Maggie snuggled her face into his neck. "Are we going to fight about this? Because I'm going. I know I don't owe the man. Not really, not legally. But I do feel sorry for him. I never would have sat down at that machine if he hadn't been such a jerk."

"You can't give him money, Maggie. He'll keep coming back for more, over and over again. He's gone beyond a rather pathetic man with bad luck, and graduated into stalking and a strange form of blackmail. That cannot be countenanced. Reach down and open the door, if you will, please."

Maggie did as he asked, then held on tight as Alex climbed the first half flight, turned on the landing, and mounted the second half flight leading to her father's door. Bless the man, he wasn't even breathing hard when they reached the second floor. That did a lot for her female ego. "So why did you suggest we meet with him? Are you planning to scare him off somehow? Threaten him?"

He put her down, opened the walker for her. "I've not as yet formed a strategy. Are you planning to adopt him?"

"No, of course not," Maggie said angrily, grabbing the walker. "I'm ... I don't know what I'm planning. Cynthia says I can't pay him. You say I can't pay him. I don't know what to do with him. I just know I don't want him following me around everywhere in that stupid go-cart like some motorized Lassie until we figure out some sort of solution that makes him go away. Did you take the key with you when we went to Mom's?"

Alex shook his head. "It's probably open," he said, reaching past her to turn the handle, which turned easily. "Ah, what a trusting man your father is, Maggie."

"And not a killer," she said, hopping into the dark living room. "Anybody with half a brain could figure that out in a millisecond. Hit the lights, will you? No, wait. Look, over there—the message light is still glowing on Dad's answering machine. Not blinking, like with a new message, but just glowing, because Dad didn't erase the messages he has stored on it. The cops should have taken that, shouldn't they? You know, for the message Dad said was on the machine? The one telling him about the free bowling?"

"Very true," Alex agreed, snapping on the large overhead lights that were a part of an equally large ceiling fan shaped like palm fronds. "The message is the reason Evan gave for going to the bowling alley last evening."

"Yes, and he said he and Bodkin and someone else were the only three to show up. How many people are on a bowling team, anyway? So maybe the real killer set up the meet, then took it from there. We may have the real killer's voice, right here, on the answering machine. God, this is going to be easier than I thought. I adore stupid criminals." Maggie hopped as fast as she could, eager to get to the machine, and pressed the Message button:

"You have one old message. Message One: Hi, Evan. Free bowling for all Majesties 'til eight tonight. Tournament's next week, so we need the practice. Be there! Message received December twenty-four, at four-fifty-three p.m. End of messages."

The call was short, the voice was male, with considerable background noise placing the origin of the call as most probably being the bowling alley. But someone might recognize it. Maybe.

Maggie collapsed into the chair beside the table holding the answering machine. "Well, there it is. Time stamped and dated. The police were sloppy, not taking the machine. Dad was lured. Right, Alex? He was lured, and if we can voice-print whoever called him with that message, we have our killer. He followed Dad, copped his bowling ball somehow, and used it to bash in the other guy's head. Walter Bodkin's head. Right? Right?"

"It seems plausible. Especially if we're fortunate enough to find a similar message on Bodkin's machine—if the man didn't answer his own phone. But, not to rain on your parade, my dear, it would seem, as another member of the team also was there for this free bowling exercise, that the entire call would be dismissed by the police as irrelevant. And one more thing—wouldn't your father have noticed if his bowling ball went missing?"

"Yeah, you're right. He'd notice. He loves that bowling ball. I gave it to him, you know, on his last birthday. He had to have taken it with him to the bowling alley. And a person notices if he's carrying a bowling ball bag with a bowling ball in it or a bowling ball bag with no bowling ball in it. Dad uses a twelve-pound ball, as I remember it. Twelve less pounds in your bag as you're heading for the parking lot? You'd notice."

Maggie felt tears stinging at her eyes again, when she'd thought she'd gotten them out of her system. She needed to be all business, concentrate on the facts. Even as she had to believe in her father's innocence.

"He didn't do it, Alex. I know he didn't. We have to make him tell us where he went after he left the bowling alley. We have to make Mom tell us why she thinks Dad killed Bodkin for her. We have to ..."

"We have to go to bed," Alex said, shifting the walker to one side and holding out his hands to her.

She took them, and pulled up to balance on her right foot, then gasped as Alex lifted her high against his chest. "I can walk to the bedroom," she told him even as she curled her arms around his neck.

"Just as I can find my way to the chamber I'm sharing with Sterling before the sun rises in a few hours. In the meantime," he said, stepping inside the door to Maggie's assigned bedroom and toeing shut the door, "where was I when we were so rudely interrupted? Ah, yes, I believe I was about to describe the remarkable beauty of your mouth ..."