Bowled Over

Chapter Ten

Ocean City, New Jersey, is accessible by main bridges at Ninth and Thirty-fourth Street and smaller bridges that dot the scenic highway that runs along the coast both north and south.

The island is long rather than wide, and the north-south blocks are about as long as city blocks in Manhattan, with the east-west blocks running short.

The numbered streets run east-west, from the bay to the ocean.

With land at a premium, the building lots are for the most part narrow and long, the houses built on them fitting from the street to the alleys that run parallel to the north-south streets.

Is this important? Well, yeah. Maybe.

If your house is on First Street, you are one heck of a long haul from, say, Fifty-fifth Street. But if someone lives on Wesley near Thirty-eighth (as did Maggie's mother), and you reside on Thirty-seventh (as did Maggie's father), chances are you could gaze out your back window, look down the alley, and wave to your neighbor a full city block away on Wesley.

As Saint Just was finding out to his surprise and amazement at eight o'clock on Christmas morning.

"Interesting," Saint Just remarked as he stood in the kitchen alcove, nursing his morning cup of coffee, squinting at the sunlight glinting off what he was fairly certain was the lens of a pair of binoculars.

He heard the clump-clump of Maggie's walker on the tile floor behind him. "Maggie, good morning, my dear. Would you care to hobble over here, perhaps see something interesting?"

"Only if it's yellow, and scrambled, comes with toast and bacon, and I didn't have to cook any of it," Maggie grumbled as she stumbled into the kitchen, stopped, scratched at her—well, Saint Just would delicately call the general area of her scratching her derriere.

His Maggie was a true lady, she really was. But probably not before her morning coffee and toilette.

"I think it's possible that someone is observing us," he told her as she made her way over to him, taking her by the shoulders and placing her in front of him, turning her body so that she had a clear sight down the length of the alleyway. "There you go. Your mother's condo is light green in color, correct? With the kitchen to the rear of what you Americans call the second floor? Look for the flash of sun off glass, if you please."

Maggie leaned her head forward and squinted, as if pushing that particular appendage two inches forward would give her a better view. "Okay. I see it. What am I seeing?"

"That flash of light, I believe, is caused by the sun hitting the lens of a pair of binoculars trained in our direction. Held, one could suppose, by your mother. Would you care to wave?"

"Holy cripes!" Maggie ducked out from beneath Saint Just's hands and, scuttling like a five-legged crab on her walker, all but plastered her back against the refrigerator door on the far side of the room. "She's watching? She's been watching him—spying on Daddy? She could see us just now, too, if she's been watching? She saw us seeing her? Are you sure? You can't be sure, you're only guessing. How do you know the sun's hitting binoculars?"

"So many questions, all of them meaning much the same thing. As for my conclusion, it is an educated guess, actually," Saint Just told her, putting down his coffee cup. "Earlier, on a hunt for spoons, I opened a few drawers, and found this." He opened the bread drawer and pulled out ... a pair of binoculars.

"And now that's just sick. He's watching her, too? While she's watching him? No wonder I'm a borderline nutcase. It's in my genes. What is the matter with these people?"

"I've been considering that very question. I would imagine your mother has been monitoring your father in hopes—or dread—of seeing him with a guest present. Carol is her name, yes? The paramour who is employed, as I believe your mother said, at the best jewelry store in Ocean City"

"I stand by my first impression. That is sick. So what's my dad been looking for?"

Saint Just picked up his cup of coffee once more. "Similar evidence of marital infidelity?"

"No, that can't be it. That makes them both voyeurs. I can't live with that, so I'm not going to believe it. They're just nosy. And don't correct me. I write fiction. I like fantasy, happy endings. Anything else is too real, especially this early in the morning. Lower the blinds, will you? I don't like being on display. Or would that be too obvious?"

"Too obvious by half, yes."

"Damn, I think so, too. Well, then let's just behave normally, like we don't know she's out there. And, boy, is she out there. Oh, good," she added, raising her voice, "there's more coffee. You made the coffee, Alex? Thank you so much. I believe I'll have some coffee now."

"Yes, I did indeed prepare the coffee. There's really no end to my talents, once I apply myself. But, as you playact, sweetings, remember that we are only, in a way of speaking, on video, and not audio."

"You'd hope so, wouldn't you. I don't know how good Mom is. They sell a lot of weird things at Radio Shack these days. Do you think Mom can read lips from that distance?"

Saint Just smiled at her pained grimace. "Sterling, by the way, has gone in search of donuts, as your brother failed so miserably to do so last night. Your father went with him. I've asked that they procure copies of all the morning newspapers, as I'm convinced you'll wish to read them."

"I guess I have to. As long as a picture of my dad doing the perp walk in leg shackles isn't above the fold. Anyway," she said, balancing on one foot as she spooned three sugars into her coffee as Saint Just manfully suppressed a wince, "Dad can't be watching to see if Mom is up to any hanky-panky. Walt Hagenbush died three years ago."

He took her coffee cup and placed it on the table for her. "I beg your pardon? Who?"

"Thank you." Maggie slid onto the slick, curved plastic cushion of the built-in bench and table that fit below a rather lovely bow window. The garishly flowered plastic, however, seemed an unfortunate choice. "Mom's lover, Alex, remember? That's what started all of this in the first place."

"Ah, yes, I believe I can recall that now," Saint Just said, sitting down across from her as she scooted farther onto the bench and rested her casted leg on a display of unnaturally large begonias. "Vaguely."

Maggie slid her forearms forward on the tabletop, the mug with the words "Lefties Do It Better" grasped between her palms. "On the occasion of their fortieth wedding anniversary this past summer, Mom decided to make a clean breast of things and tell Dad about an affair she had with Walt Hagenbush ten years earlier. That's when everything started to go off the rails. Coming clearer now?"

"Yes, it is. I had attempted to banish such intimate knowledge of your family's domestic travails from my memory, I'm afraid. Your father, worried over the admission of your mother's foray into infidelity, decided that the only way he could ever find it in his heart to forgive her would be if he had an affair of his own. Enter Carol, the jewelry shop clerk."

"The little chippie, as Mom calls her, yes. And exit Dad, to this place, when Mom found out about it," Maggie said, lifting the coffee cup to her lips. She took a sip, frowned, and asked Saint Just to please bring the sugar bowl and the spoon over to the table for her.

This time, as Maggie added another heaping teaspoonful of sugar to the cup, Saint Just did wince. But he did politely refrain from pointing out that it might be easier if the dear woman simply poured coffee into the sugar bowl, rather than the other way round.

"So your father couldn't have been watching your family home to ascertain whether or not your mother had taken up a romantic association with the late Walt Hagenbush once more. Leaving us to assume that he may have been watching the condo and saw her—"

"Playing house with Walter Bodkin," Maggie finished for him, subsiding against the back cushion of the banquette. "What is it with men named Walter, anyway? Does my mother have some kind of a name fetish? No, don't answer that. And I mean that sincerely. A daughter should never say the words mother and fetish in the same sentence, not if the daughter hopes ever to be able to look that mother in the face again."

"We have to look at this thing logically, Maggie."

"I know that. But it's not easy for a daughter to think sordid and Mommy and Daddy at the same time. Hell, I think I was twenty-one before I'd finally given up the fantasy that my parents had four kids, which meant they'd had sex four times. God, Alex, I'm going to be seeing Doctor Bob every week for the rest of my unnatural life, I swear it."

"But you are thinking about the situation now, correct? I'd forgotten the late and unlamented Mr. Hagenbush, but this might come down to your mother having an affair, your father having a revenge affair, and your mother then launching a double-revenge affair. You know, Maggie, this scenario has all the earmarks of a two-part Doctor Phil special."

"Bite your tongue! So what you're saying—what you think the cops could say—is that Dad saw Mom and Bodkin—we'll just call him Bodkin, because Walter is too confusing—and offed him?"

"They might think that, yes. Shall we dispose of the binoculars? Or, at the very least, relocate them?"

"Tampering with evidence. We can't do that," Maggie muttered, her brow creased, as she appeared to be deep in thought. "Besides, this is a pretty small town, especially in the winter, with the tourists gone and half the condos empty. If Mom was ... with Bodkin, someone would have seen them, and someone would most probably have told Dad. Mom said Dad did it for her—killed Bodkin for her, that is. Not because of her, because she was having an affair, but for her. That doesn't quite fit, does it?"

She looked toward the doorway. "He's got to talk to us this morning. Be honest with us. He looks guilty, refusing to tell anyone where he was last night. And Cynthia is just going to tell him not to say anything to anybody, so we have to get to him first. How long ago did he and Sterling leave?"

Saint Just glanced up at the wall clock. "No more than forty-five minutes ago, I'd say. I wasn't particularly paying attention. That was lax of me. Perhaps I was still quietly rhapsodizing about the woman I'd just left and the pleasant memory of a most remarkable interlude."

"We had sex, Alex. And this damn cast didn't make it easy, either," Maggie said, rolling her eyes as she struggled to stand up. "So enough with the romantic interlude business, and definitely enough with sitting here, pretending we don't know Mom is playing secret agent with us in her sights. Take my coffee cup into the living room for me, will you, please? My leg will be more comfortable on the couch. I can hop, but I still can't juggle worth a darn."

His Maggie was so easily flustered in the daylight. Thankfully, not once they were alone together, in the dark. But it was early days yet, he'd give her all the time she needed. Saint Just brushed his fingertips across the back of her neck as he led the way past the doorway, and into the living room of the condo. "Call it what you will, sweetings. I know what it was."

"Yeah, well ... okay," Maggie said, tagging after him, her casted left leg bent at the knee, her right foot bare, and probably cold on the tile floor. "Hey, where are you going? Aren't you going to stay here with me? Aren't we going to talk about this some more?"

"Then you do wish to discuss our romantic interlude?" Saint Just inquired, pausing at the short half flight of steps that led up to the three bedrooms in the condo apartment. "Anything you wish, Maggie."

She fell backward onto the couch, then struggled to sit upright, grabbed her coffee mug once more. "Ha. Ha. I meant Dad. And Mom. And the two of them spying on each other. That's creepy. Don't you think that's creepy? If they don't care about each other, why watch each other?"

"Because they do care about each other?"

Maggie pointed a finger at him. "Aha! That's what I think. Mom fell apart last night, at least as far apart as I've ever seen her since the day I swung my softball bat in the dining room and took out her grandmother's pedestal vase that the woman brought here from County Clare."

Saint Just looked at her levelly. "You weren't an easy child, were you, Maggie?"

"Another subject, for another time. I don't go to my high school reunions, though, if that gives you any indication of how well I dealt with being a teenager. Anyway —it stands to reason that Mom and Dad do still love each other, or whatever has ever passed for love between them. And, no, I don't really want to go there, either. But, if Dad still loves her, and if Bodkin did something to her, or even tried to do something to her ..."

"Such as?" Saint Just asked her, taking a seat in a nearby chair. He thoroughly enjoyed watching Maggie's mind work. He believed he could almost hear the gears turning inside her head.

"I don't know. They've been separated since around Thanksgiving. She might have started dating? After all, Dad was—maybe still is—dating that Carol woman. Bodkin might have brought Mom home, gone into the house with her, made a pass at her in the kitchen, where Dad could see—"

"We can see clearly into the side windows of the kitchen, Maggie. I had the chance to tour the entirety of your mother's condo when we first visited last month. If you'd raised your gaze slightly, to the next floor, you'd realize that we could also see into what I believe is the master bedroom."

"Worse!" she said, plunking down the now empty mug. "Bodkin wormed his way upstairs, attacked Mom, she had to fight him off. Now she's afraid of him. Dad figures that the way back into Mom's good graces is to play the hero for her, confront the guy, warn him off. They have words, it gets physical, yadda-yadda. Oh, damn, Alex. I'm building the prosecutor's case for him, aren't I? Oh, hi, Dad, Sterling. Merry Christmas!"

Saint Just got up as the two men closed the door behind them. As they shrugged out of their coats, they stamped their feet as though to rid themselves of the cold air they'd walked through. "Yes, Happy Christmas, everyone."

"Thank you, Saint Just," Sterling said, pulling a face as he repeatedly shot his gaze toward Evan Kelly.

But Saint Just hadn't needed Sterling's worried expression or eyeball gymnastics to ascertain that Evan Kelly was not quite as jolly as the red and white Santa cap on his head.

"Daddy? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, sweetheart," Evan said, handing the bag of donuts to Sterling before heading for the steps to the bedrooms. "Merry Christmas. Everyone. Please excuse me."

"Sterling?" Maggie asked as he handed several newspapers to Saint Just, who saw nothing alarming on any of the front pages. That was, until he'd rifled through the first one to find the first page of the Local section, to see Evan Kelly smiling at him as he held up a bowling trophy. Saint Just knew it was a bowling trophy because the copy beneath the photograph supplied that information. The garish thing had, to him, looked like something one might employ to prop open the door of a brothel. The headline read: Police Arrest Local Man in Murder of Bowling Buddy.

"No perp walk, as you termed it, my dear, but I doubt there is anyone in Ocean City who is unaware of your father's dilemma."

"Oh, yes, Saint Just. Everyone knows. It was terrible, Maggie," Sterling said sadly as he subsided into a chair, still holding his red knitted hat with the pom-pom on top—the pom-pom he was doing an admirable job of shredding in his agitation. "It took us some time to find a shop that was open on the holiday, and it was quite crowded. People looked at Evan. Nobody spoke. They just looked. And then they turned and walked away."

"The cut direct," Saint Just said, sighing. "I should have realized. It's as Balzac said, 'Society, like the Roman youth at the circus, never shows mercy to the fallen gladiator.' "

"Oh, God. Poor Daddy. What did he do?"

"Lifted his chin and ordered a dozen glazed, seemingly having forgotten that I'd told him I prefer powdered, with that lovely jelly filling," Sterling said, and then shook his head. "That is, he stood up manfully, Maggie. Until this person approached him. I'm afraid I didn't get his name, but he spoke to Evan, just for a moment, and then he, too, turned on his heel and walked away. Evan, well, Evan just stood there, looking as if he'd been poleaxed. I brought him straight home."

"Do you know what the man said, Sterling?"

"Yes, Saint Just, I do. The man told Evan that he is no longer to consider himself a member of the Majesties. I can't be sure, unaware of the level of prestige the Majesties may hold in this community, but I gather this must be the way Byron felt when the ton delivered him the cut direct at Almack's that night—you know, before he was forced to leave England entirely. He's a broken man, Saint Just, his spirit crushed by this terrible turn of events."

"They threw him off his bowling team? Daddy lives for his bowling team."

"Yes, Maggie," Sterling agreed. "I thought I saw a tear in Evan's eye, although that may have been from the cold and wind. In any event, we must do something. We must do something very soon."