Bowled Over

Chapter Thirteen

Maggie looked across the kitchen table at her baby sister, who was sitting with her head lowered, her eyes cast down, playing the victim better than any French aristocrat riding the tumbrel on the way through the streets of Paris to the guillotine.

Maureen used to be fun. She really did. Well, fun in the I-lead-she-always-follows way of older sisters who talk younger sisters into stealing the cigarettes out of their mother's purse, and who will also then sneak a slice of cake upstairs when her older sister is grounded and sent to her room for talking the younger sister into copping Mom's Parliaments.

Maureen had let Maggie dye her hair orange for Halloween—with permanent dye. Maureen had helped her sneak into Tate's room one night and try out the experiment of submerging his hand in a glass of water so that he'd—and he did, too! Maureen dug in her heels and had eloped with John even when her mother told her she was making a big mistake in wanting to marry a garbage man.

Maggie's dad had helped then, stepped in, actually shut up Alicia Kelly by saying that when the rest of the world thought it was too good to collect somebody else's trash, the last garbage man in America would be a very wealthy man. Then he'd aimed the clicker at the TV and gone back to watching a documentary on prairie dogs, not to be heard from again for the next decade, Maggie was pretty sure.

Maureen used to have a spine, damn it!

What had happened to that Maureen? The silly, always ready for adventure Maureen? Where had she gone? Why did she go?

Now she was a mouse, a frightened, gray mouse. Walking quietly, on her toes, so that no one would be disturbed by her footsteps.

Now she wore an apron all the time, maybe to cover her swollen shape—when she'd always been slim, athletic.

Now she carried those damn little pink pills with her everywhere she went.

"Maureen? Reenie? It's me, only me, remember? And it wasn't a hard question," Maggie said now. "Who was Walter Bodkin?"

Maureen lifted a hand to twist at her hair, her hand shielding her face as she held it in profile. "But I don't know. He was a man, that's all. He ... he owned a lot of houses."

"And that's it? That's all you've got?"

Her sister finally looked at her. "He was a Majestic?"

Maggie looked to Alex, who had been standing quietly, his back to the kitchen counter, sipping a glass of wine. He'd found a bottle in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator and deemed it passable, and a clear cut above the boxed wine Maureen had made such inroads on during dinner.

"Help?" Maggie mouthed silently.

Alex approached the table and bowed his head slightly, wordlessly asking for permission to join them. Maggie rolled her eyes at him, still amazed at the man's dogged adherence to Regency Era manners. When they suited him, that is.

"Maureen, my good lady," he said once he'd sat down. "I am not, by and large, a particularly observant person—"

Maggie choked on her sip of diet soda.

He looked at her owlishly. "But I do believe I noticed your rather unusual reaction last night at the police station. Let me see if I can recollect the exact moment, shall we? Oh, yes. Maggie inquired of her mother if she was acquainted with Walter Bodkin, and you ... well, you giggled. You giggled, and then you burst into sobs. Do you recall that, my dear?"

Maureen looked at her sister, then down at her hands, which were twisting in her lap. "No, Alex. I don't remember that. I giggled? I didn't giggle, did I, Maggie? You're wrong. Really, you're wrong. I'm sure of it."

"Indeed. My apologies. So you never really knew Walter Bodkin, or of any association he might have had with, say, your mother?"

Maureen giggled ... and then quickly clapped both hands over her mouth, her eyes wide as she looked to Maggie. For help?

"You really have to stop taking those pills, Maureen," Maggie told her, reaching across the table to touch her sister's arm. "And something else. You have to stop lying to us. Dad's in big trouble, sis. If you know anything, you have to tell us. Good or bad."

"I can't, Maggie. I can't tell you. I'd rather die than tell you."

"Oh, for God's sake, Maureen, stop whining."

Maggie and Alex looked up to see that her mother had come into the room. She'd changed out of her clothing and into a deep sapphire blue caftan that didn't do a heck of a lot for her. But she looked comfortable. At sixty-three, maybe comfortable was enough? Maggie hoped not.

"Mom?" Maggie asked as Alicia Kelly held out her hand for the glass Alex was holding, and then downed the remaining contents in one long gulp.

"Ah, that's better. Wine in a box. Sometimes Tate can be so cheap. A limo for his friends, wine in a box for his family. Don't think I don't notice. Maureen, scoot over to the next chair and let me sit down. It's time we talked."

"But, Mom, you can't," Maureen all but whimpered. "John's in the living room."

"And snoring fair to beat the band," Mrs. Kelly said, shaking her head in disgust. "It's the tryptophan. In the turkey, you know? I read about that somewhere—it makes you sleepy. Considering he ate half the damn bird, he should be unconscious until New Year's."

Maggie shot a look toward Alex, who only shrugged. Big whacking help he was being. Didn't he know how she hated family conversations? Still, at least tonight her mom was being sort of an equal opportunity sniper, already taking shots a Maureen, Tate, and John. Could a swipe at Maggie be far behind?

Yeah, well. If she was going to be the new Maggie, the one who didn't buckle under every time things got a little sticky with her mother, now was the time to prove it, right?

"Why can't John hear what we're saying, Mom? What's somebody going to say? I don't get it."

"Nobody expects you to, Margaret, not without an explanation. Alex," she said, turning to spear him with her eyes. "I wouldn't do this, would never do anything so embarrassing, except that you and Margaret have had some success in solving crimes. Four of them, as I recall."

"Five," Maggie interjected. "Bernie's ex—well, both her exes—the murders at the WAR conference, and over in England, and the rat killer. More than five, if we just count bodies. Let's see, there was—"

Alicia Kelly sighed. An exasperated sigh, Maggie was pretty sure.

"But who's counting, right, Mom? Sorry for the interruption. You were saying?"

"I had an affair with Walter Bodkin," Alicia said, just throwing it all out there, with no preamble, so that Maggie sucked in her breath until she realized she was feeling a little light-headed.

"Oh, Mom ..." Maureen said, lowering her head onto her crossed arms.

Maggie recovered her breath enough to say, "You had two affairs? Walt Hagenbush and Walter Bodkin?" She shot a look at Alex. "Maybe I was right. You know, about the Walter fetish?"

"Shh, Maggie. I don't think your mother's quite finished. Please, Alicia, go on."

"I never had an affair with Walt Hagenbush, Margaret," her mother told her, her chin still high, her eyes defiant. "My God, the man had halitosis that could stop a Mack truck."

Had to say this for her, Maggie thought—the woman had brass ones. And was that something to be proud of, in a mother? Hmm ... ?

"When ... when I felt it necessary to confess my indiscretion of a decade ago to your father—"

"Yeah, while we're on the subject, Mom," Maggie interrupted. "Why in God's name would you do something like that?"

Maureen let out a choked cry—rather like a chicken in the midst of a neck-wringing—and ran out of the room.

Alica Kelly shook her head. "Never had half your spunk, did she, Margaret? I told your father because I was leading up to telling him something else."

"Something else?" Maggie looked to the doorway. "Let me guess. Something about Maureen?"

"I wanted, still want, to pay for Maureen to go to some sort of therapy. John's insurance doesn't cover more than three visits, and, well, we all know three visits isn't even going to scratch the surface, don't we?"

Thinking of her own visits to Doctor Bob that were well into their fifth or sixth year now, Maggie only nodded her head.

"Your father didn't think therapy was necessary."

"You needed his permission? Wow."

"I need your father's permission for nothing, Margaret. I wanted his agreement. And, perhaps, I needed him to understand. Because ... because I wanted to go into therapy myself. I wanted us to go into therapy as a family. And maybe even the garbage truck jockey, too," she added, shrugging.

"You wanted to go into therapy?" Maggie was fairly certain her eyes were popping halfway out of her head, and was sure they were when Alex cleared his throat delicately as he kicked her, ever so slightly, beneath the table. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry. I just had this flash. You know, this throwback, to a late-night rerun of that old show, The Odd Couple? Remember that one, Mom? With Felix Unger and Oscar Madison? Well, those were the names of the characters."

She turned to explain to Alex. "Felix was a fussbudget, a neat freak. He and Oscar were roommates. Oscar was a slob, and Felix was always picking up after him, always nagging him, driving him crazy. So Oscar got a stomach ulcer, and Felix—he was a hypochondriac, too—worried that he was going to get a stomach ulcer as well. But the doctor told him, that in the world of stomach ulcers, Felix was what one called a carrier. Get it, Alex? Felix wouldn't get an ulcer—he gave ulcers."

"Very amusing, Maggie," Alex told her. "And you'll now explain the relevance?"

Maggie opened her mouth to do just that, but then realized that she was going to say that her mother didn't go to therapy—she sent others running there. "Nevermind. I guess it was funnier in the episode where Felix Unger kept writing Oscar notes and signing them with his initials, and Oscar couldn't figure out if it was Felix's initials, or an insult. You know—Felix Unger? F for Felix, U for—go on, Mom. Sorry for the interruption."

"I've been watching Dr. Phil," Alicia Kelly said as Maggie did what she was pretty sure was a good Maureen impersonation—lowering her head, looking at her entwined fingers. "Some of it is pure drivel. But not all of it. I'm not blind, Margaret. I know there are problems here, in our family."

"Let me count the ways ..." Maggie muttered under her breath.

"Tate is—well, Tate is becoming a disappointment, after all my high hopes for him. I don't know if Erin is a disappointment, as I haven't seen her in nearly a year. I expect her husband will come down with bubonic plague just in time for her to back out of Easter dinner. Maureen? God, we all see Maureen. In fact, Margaret, you're the only one who seems to be ... normal."

"Me? Surely you jest—and don't call me Shirley," Maggie blurted, and then wished she could kick herself.

"Your mother keeps a scrapbook, Maggie, concerning our exploits," Alex told her, an overload of information, considering all her mother had just said.

Maggie's head was reeling. "A scrapbook. Of me? Wow. That's ... that's so normal."

"You're not perfect, Margaret, so you can stop grinning like an idiot over there. You embarrass us on a depressingly regular basis with your shenanigans. And, of course, those dirty books of yours."

"You've never read any of my books."

"And I never will. A mother must retain some illusions. Maureen, however, destroyed many of them."

"And we're back to Maureen," Maggie said, grateful for the shift. "What happened to her anyway, Mom? The past three or four years she's been—weird. Spacey. Jumpy, too."

Alicia Kelly looked to Alex. "Where was I? Margaret will insist on going off on tangents. She was always like that, if only hoping to prolong the inevitable. But not this time. The inevitable must be said, if you two are to make sure Evan doesn't end up doing hard time as somebody's bitch."

"As somebody's—o-o-o-kay," Maggie said, reaching for her nicotine inhaler. "So tell us, Mom. What do we need to know?"

"I had an affair with Walter Bodkin."

"You really don't have to keep saying that, Mom, we got it," Maggie said, then inhaled deeply on her plastic pacifier, hoping like hell there was still some nicotine joy juice in the cylinder.

"But I told your father I'd had an affair with Walt Hagenbush."

She turned to Alex, a plea in her expression. "I started to say Bodkin, but Evan looked so crushed, and yet so angry, that I couldn't do it, I couldn't say it. So I said Walt Hagenbush instead. Walt was dead. Evan couldn't go beat him up if he was dead, right? And the problem was still the problem. What difference was there in a name?"

"Oh, brother," Maggie said. "Mom, it makes all the difference in the world. Doesn't it, Alex?"

"I don't know, Maggie, as we've yet to be told the details of this problem, remember?"

"It was a quick thing, a stupid thing. Ten years ago. We'd been looking to buy a new condo, and your father was never home to go look at them with me, so I went by myself—with Walter as our Realtor. We were together a lot, had lunch a few times. He was ... he was very smooth. And all those condos. All those bedrooms. It ... it just happened."

Maggie looked quickly from left to right, her knuckles white on the edge of the table as she tried to hold onto her sanity. "Anybody got a barf bag around here anywhere?"

"Maggie, hush."

"But it was over and done, and I tried to forget about it." Alicia Kelly looked to Alex again, and he took her outstretched hand in his, gave it a reassuring squeeze. "And then ... and then, about three years ago, Maureen and John decided they wanted to buy a condo."

"Sweet Jesus in a cherry tree—Maureen? Maureen hopped between the sheets with Walter Bodkin?"

Alicia bit her lips together between her teeth, nodded. "I think she was regretting the garbage man, not that I hadn't warned her. I noticed the change in her during those weeks—the giddiness, the sudden, unexplained smiles—and I was fairly certain I knew why she was giving me excuses not to ask me to come along when she went looking at condos. So I finally confronted her, told her of my affair with Walter, hoping to warn her off before she did something stupid ..."

"But she'd already done something stupid," Maggie said, sighing. "It's like you said, Mom. All those condos. All those bedrooms. Reenie had an affair with her mother's former lover. Two generations of Kellys, in the same sack with the same man. Oh, yuck. Oh, double yuck. No wonder she's popping all those pills. That's sick."

"Perhaps, Maggie, you should leave the room, just until you can compose yourself," Alex suggested quietly.

Maggie squeezed her eyes shut, tried to block the images that seemed determined to lodge forever in her brain. "I'm sorry. You're telling us important stuff, Mom, and I'm being a jerk. So, um, so you fudged this summer, when you went to Dad with your big confession. You told Dad, but you told him Hagenbush, not Bodkin. That wasn't so bad, really, and the problem was still the problem—that you and Maureen had both been—at separate times, separated by whole years, right?—both been seduced by Walt Bodkin."

"I'd hardly say seduced, Margaret," Alicia Kelly said in an aggrieved tone. "That would make us both silly, vulnerable women. I'd like to believe we knew what we were doing. Or at least I did. Although I will admit I stopped taking those hormone pills Donald Helsing insisted I try to be rid of hot flashes. I had some very strange thoughts when I was taking those pills, I tell you."

"Doctor Helsing? He's still practicing?"

"Donald? Of course he is. My goodness, he's only a few years older than your father and me."

"Wow," Maggie said, once again steering toward a side road, because it was easier to take the information her mother was handing her in small doses. "I used to think he was ancient. So much for a child's perspective on the world—something I should have remembered five Doctor Bob years ago."

"Excuse her, Alicia," Alex said. "As you've already pointed out, she will do this sort of thing from time to time. So, if I might put a voice to some things I've been thinking as we've spoken?"

"Of course, Alex," Alicia said, her voice almost girlish.

Maggie curled her upper lip. No woman was immune to Alex. Although she was giving hopping down to see Doctor Helsing tomorrow for an immunization shot some serious thought at the moment.

"You told Evan about your long-ago affair, begged his forgiveness even as you gave him the name of a dead man instead of the person actually responsible ..."

"So he wouldn't go after him, try to fight him," Alicia said. "Evan gets some strange ideas sometimes."

"Yes, I understand. You were protecting him. Totally understandable. You then told him that Maureen also had an affair with the man, and had been—what is the word?—traumatized to learn that she had made the same mistake her mother had made."

"She freaked," Alicia said, looking at Maggie, and impressing her daughter again with her terminology. "She went to bed for two weeks. Wouldn't talk to anyone, wouldn't eat, kept showering all the time. Then she stopped that, and began eating. All the time. She's gained forty pounds, Margaret."

"I noticed, yes."

"Every pound she put on, I felt worse. My baby, my youngest, and I'd done that to her. I began to think of what else I ... I might have done. To anyone else. Confession was the only thing I could think of that might help me. But still I couldn't bring myself to tell your father all of the truth. I'd said Walter, but then I said Hagenbush, not Bodkin. I was, am, a coward."

"Don't beat up on yourself, Mom. Alex? This is why Daddy won't talk to us. He doesn't want us to know about Maureen. I'll bet that's it. But did he know about Bodkin anyway, did he find out on his own somehow? Mom? Is that why you said what you said last night? You think Daddy found out it was really Bodkin, not Hagenbush, and he went nuts? Bopped him over the head with his bowling ball?"

"It would be as silly as going off to have that affair with his little chippie, just to punish me. Yes, he knew it was Walter Bodkin, not Walt Hagenbush. He's known for a few weeks now—and I've been worried sick. You don't know your father, Margaret. You think I'm the horrible woman who browbeats him, keeps him under her thumb. But your father needs to be under someone's thumb. Trust me. He's no Wally Cox."

"Pardon me?"

"He's no wimp, Alex," Maggie explained, and then looked to her mother once more. "Mom? You're telling me that underneath that gray button cardigan and orthopedic shoes, my father is a wild man?"

Alicia Kelly sat back, folded her hands beneath her ample breasts. "Ask Walter Bodkin. Oh, wait, you can't, can you? Because he's dead."

Maggie's head felt ready to explode. Information overload. Definitely. But something was knocking at the back of her skull, and it wasn't just her headache. "But Daddy couldn't have known. You have to be wrong on that. He wouldn't have bowled with the guy last night, if he'd known. Would he?"

Alicia shrugged. "He said they'd settled things between them. They're—they were—teammates on the Majesties, remember? Nothing and nobody can come between the members of the Majesties. I could hate him for that, except that the Majesties are all Evan has, especially now that he's taken early retirement."

"Damn. So how did he know? How did he find out?"

"Maureen told him. She didn't mean to, but when your father finally went to her, to tell her he wouldn't go to therapy with her, but he would pay for it, she opened her big mouth and said Walter's name."

"And when was that, Alicia?" Alex asked her.

"Two weeks ago? Three? I think Evan thought that if he made some sort of gesture, like paying for Maureen's therapy, I'd forgive him, let him come home."

"And you said they'd settled things between them? That he confronted Bodkin? Two, three weeks ago?"

"It was about then, yes. They rolled around in the parking lot of the bowling alley like two idiot teenagers, hitting at each other, making fools of themselves. But then it was over, or at least I thought so."

"Yet you said Evan killed Bodkin for you."

"Yes, Alex, I did, and I don't know why I said that. They made up, didn't they? Evan prizes the Majesties over me, over his own daughter. Men are asses. They think they can hit each other and then go off to bowl together. Or so I thought."

"That'd put me in therapy," Maggie said, feeling sympathy for her mother. "How could Daddy bear to be in the same room with the guy?"

"Because he's a man, Margaret. Men fight, and then they go on with what they want to go on with—like your father's stupid Majesties. I can't honestly believe Evan killed Walter, but if he did, he did it because he thought it would make me happy. I wasn't happy, you understand, when he told me he'd fought Walter, and then they'd made up as if nothing had ever happened. The man actually said to me—water under the bridge can't be called back, Alicia. He forgave me, he said. He forgave Walter. Can you imagine? But I was wrong, I'm sure of that. Evan couldn't have killed Walter. He can be difficult, but he's no killer. And he'd never lie to me. He wouldn't dare."

"Mom?" Maggie would return to the idea of her father being a wild man, difficult, some other time. For now, she had a much more important question. "Did anyone see them fighting? Were there witnesses?"

"It was a Friday night, Margaret. League night. Of course there were witnesses. Dozens of them. I stayed away from the supermarket for a week, too embarrassed to show my face. And nobody knew why your father and Walter had been fighting. Now they'll know it all, the whole world will know. If I didn't have a fully stocked freezer, we'd all starve to death."

"This isn't good," Maggie said, sighing. "Well, none of it is good. But, damn, Alex, people saw Daddy fighting with Bodkin."

"Yes, I understand. And at least one of them will have contacted the police no later than tomorrow, eager to share that very information," Alex said as Maggie sat back in her chair, dragging hard at her nicotine inhaler ...