Bowled Over

Chapter Fourteen

"No, let's not go up yet, Alex," Maggie said as he put his foot on the first step, having won the battle and carrying her from the car rather than to stand back, helpless, watching her hop on one foot. He believed himself to be the perfect hero, but Maggie seemed to continue having some difficulty fitting herself into the role of the swooning, helpless heroine.

"You're tired, Maggie," Saint Just told her, hesitating. "One way or another, it's been another long day. You've been on that foot too much. It won't help your father if you have to take to your bed for a few days."

"I know, but Dad's up there. And my mind is still racing. I really need to talk to you, and I don't want to have to whisper. Please, put me down so we can sit a while on the steps."

He did as she asked, taking off his coat and spreading it on the step before she sat down. He then retrieved the walker from the car and sat down beside her. "We have to speak with him at some point, you know. We really can't go much further in any direction without his cooperation. And, as characters on the current police dramas on television say, the clock is ticking. Most homicides, unless solved within the first forty-eight hours, remain unsolved. A good thing no one said that during the Regency, or our books would all be short stories."

"Very funny. And I watch the programs with you, so I know about the forty-eight hour thing. I'm delaying right now, stalling. We'll work on him tomorrow, when I'm not feeling like such a wimp. For now, with any luck, he'll have gone to bed before we get up there. Alex?"

He was lightly rubbing at her shoulders, as she'd told him more than once that they ached after a day navigating on the walker, and had even teased him that she'd soon have shoulders like a fullback. "Hmm?"

"We're doing a really good job, you know, unearthing evidence. Clues, to you. We learned a lot today. The problem with those clues is that we should be working for the prosecution. Everything we've learned just points to Dad crushing Bodkin's skull for him."

"I was wondering when you might stumble over that conclusion, my dear, no pun intended."

"Ah, that feels good," Maggie said, hunching her shoulders as he worked on her neck, as he pressed his lips against her neck. But if his touch only felt good, obviously a romantic interlude this evening was out of the question. Pity.

"It could feel better, but I suppose not."

She ignored that statement, or just hadn't heard it. Yes, definitely Maggie had to work on the swooning, grateful, can't-help-herself-but-falls-into-his-arms aspects of being a heroine. "We have another suspect, though. Three, if you want to push it to Mom."

"John, if he is aware of his wife's indiscretion, and Maureen. Yes, I have deduced that much. But attempting to include your brother-in-law may be pushing the envelope. The man sleeps the sleep of the innocent—"

"Or the tryptophan stuffed."

"True. And Maureen doesn't strike me—again, no pun intended—as the sort who could cold-bloodedly kill anyone. Your rather redoubtable mother, on the other hand ..."

"I know. She's freaking amazing, isn't she? Even in that horrible blue caftan, she commanded the room, didn't she? Or, as I used to say before I knew she actually keeps a scrapbook of our press clippings, like a normal mother—that is one scary broad. But she wasn't faking going all white and nearly fainting when she heard Bodkin was dead. Nobody's that good."

"Bringing us back to your father."

"Unfortunately, yes." Maggie leaned her head on Saint Just's shoulder. "You know what we need, Alex? We need to broaden our investigation. We need more suspects."

" 'The more the alternatives, the more difficult the choice.' "

Maggie nodded against his shoulder. "Yeah, like that. We dig up enough suspects, maybe even feed some of them to the press, and the police can't just pin it on Dad and not investigate other possibilities. We make this as hard as we can for them, right? Very good, Alex."

"I blush to say that I'm not the first to utter the words. You had me quote the Abbe D'Allainval in The Case of the Pilfered Pearls, remember?"

"Are you kidding? You're the one I gave the steel-trap brain, not me. I have at least a half dozen thick quote books in my office. I get an idea, look through them for a key word, and then steal like crazy. You don't really think I commit all that stuff to memory, do you?"

"Another illusion cruelly shattered by my pragmatic heroine," Saint Just said, pressing a kiss against her hair. "And here I thought you were a walking encyclopedia of knowledge."

"Only if I pushed a set of encyclopedias in front of me in a shopping cart. But people seem to think I have it all in my head, and ask me questions about obscure stuff I may have found, and written about, but then forgot. And they get all torqued when I don't remember. It's like walking up to comedians and demanding they say something funny. It just doesn't work that way."

"Is this going anywhere?"

"No, Alex, I don't suppose it is. I'm just saying, I'm not a genius. You, by association, are not a genius. Good, even great, but not a genius. We just do the best we can with what we've got. And what we've got right now is bupkus. That's nothing, Alex. Bupkus."

Saint Just knew he had to agree. Other than to supply even more motive that could send Evan Kelly, as Alicia had said, 'up the river to become somebody's bitch,' they really hadn't accomplished anything at all concrete a full four-and-twenty hours after the murder.

But he had learned something.

"Maggie," he began slowly, "there's more going on here than Bodkin's murder and your father's arrest. Loathe as I am to add to your burden, I believe I must tell you that I overheard your brother discussing his plan to sell your parents' home out from beneath them."

Maggie sat up straight, looking at him in the yellow light of the street lamp. "What? He's doing what?"

"Sean Whitaker is a Realtor, Maggie. Tate invited him for the holiday so that he could come into the house without being too obvious, inspect it, and then set a sale price."

"Why, that sneaky, no-good, son of a—"

"You'll want to hold onto that righteous anger a moment more, sweetings, as there's more to tell. Cynthia Spade-Whitaker, as you already know, is an attorney. She has been invited along as Sean's wife, but also to assist in preparing divorce papers Tate hopes your mother will then sign. Now, feel free to rant."

But Maggie didn't say anything. Not a single word.

"Maggie? Are you all right?"

"No," she said, her voice small. "God, what a twisted, sick family we are, Alex. Maybe Mom's right, and I've turned out to be the only normal one. And if I'm normal, sitting here, talking to my imaginary perfect hero somehow come to life, then the rest of them are freaking certifiable!"

Saint Just chuckled quietly at that bit of self-deprecating wit. "Are they, Maggie? Ready to be carted off to Bedlam in their own straight waistcoats? Your sister Erin, whom I haven't yet had the pleasure of meeting, seems to have found her own path. Granted, one that leads away from her parents."

"But she lies about why she doesn't come home. You're not normal if you can't just stand up and say, no, folks, you make me nuts, and I'm not coming home anymore."

"Really? You come back here, while longing to stay away, because you can't say the words you expect Erin to say."

"I hate when you're logical. Erin lies and hides, I try to lie, and eventually buckle. Okay, so Erin and I are maybe working out the same problem, each in our own way. But Tate? Mom and Dad have always treated him like the golden child. Tate this, Tate that, Margaret, why can't you be more like Tate—all of that. And yet he's the one trying to pull the rug out from under them."

"You once told me that Tate bought the condo for your parents as a business investment."

"And to score points with Mom and Dad by telling them they could live in it as long as they wanted. Don't forget that one, Alex. Tate's all about scoring points, keeping score."

"Like a dog with a bone, aren't you, sweetings? But to return to my hastily assembled theory, if you don't mind? He may have suffered some business reversals, Maggie. If you'll recall, he rather blanched at the idea of producing the fifty-thousand dollars necessary for your father's release from the police station last evening. Selling your parents' house may give him the money he needs. Sean mentioned a half million-dollar profit."

"So Tate's cold-bloodedly planning to kick Mom and Dad to the curb—for money? Why didn't he just come to me? He knows I have money."

Saint Just smiled in the darkness. "Would you apply to your brother for funds, if you found yourself in need?"

"Are you kidding? I'd rather eat dirt."

"Yes. And it is to be assumed that your brother feels likewise. I could pity him, except for the fact that I believe he sees your father's current difficulties as a prod to induce your mother to file the divorce papers and leave Ocean City, and her embarrassment, behind."

"He's a snake," Maggie sneered. "My mother has nurtured a snake at her bosom."

"A very poetical if rather dated turn of phrase, one common to the Regency. And here you protest that your knowledge of the era runs into and out of your mind as if it is a sieve. We will not, of course, allow Tate to succeed in his plan—both his plans—so let us put the subject of your scaly brother to one side for the nonce."

"A worm. A wiggly, squiggly, slimy, filthy little—oh, okay, I'm done now. For the moment. Because I'm not finished, not by a long shot. Tate's going to pay for thinking he can dump Mom and Dad after promising them they had that condo for life. That limo? He hired that for show. Maybe it took his last money, but he did it to impress his pals, make them think he's loaded and doesn't need the profit from the condo. God, I hope so. I hope he's down to his last penny. The bastard. I don't know how, but he's going to pay."

"He will cower in a corner beneath the force of your righteous wrath, tremble in his boots, yes. I look forward to the sight."

"You bet! And when I say pay, I mean with money. Real money."

"But if he's already embarrassed for funds ... ?"

"Then I'll pick his last pocket, for his last dime. Money, Alex. It's the one thing Tate loves. He used to keep his money shoved up in the bottom of the lamp in his bedroom. Pulled off the felt thingie on the bottom, and shoved his weekly allowance up into the base, put the felt back on, all nice and neat."

"Clever."

"As you'd say, too clever by half! Then he'd fib and say he didn't have any money, or he'd pull out a ten for a gumball and whine that he couldn't bear to break it, and Maureen or Erin or I would end up buying him his damn gumball. He did it all the time. But Mom? Mostly it was Mom who paid, let him off the hook, just warning him that he'd have to learn to be better with his money. But I knew better, because I'd see his smile when Mom turned her back, handed over the money for whatever it was Tate wanted. It took me a while, but I finally found his stash, and took it, hid it under his mattress, where I was sure Mom would find it when she changed his sheets."

"Pardon my interruption, but just how old were you when you formed this Machiavellian plan?"

"I don't know. Six? Seven? I was precocious, okay? He never even suspected it was me who'd done it. Although I'd love to tell him someday. Maybe soon, huh?"

"Amazing. And what happened?" Saint Just asked, intrigued.

"And she took the money. Put it in the bank for him—over one hundred bucks! Wouldn't let him touch it. God, was he mad!" She smiled at Tate. "It's one of my happiest childhood memories. Yeah, that's it—money. I have to call Bernie in the morning, pick her brain. She's sneaky enough, and knows enough about finances. She'll come up with something."

"Maggie and Bernie on a Tate hunt. I almost find it in my heart to pity the fellow. But not quite."

"Good, because I'd have to hurt you. Okay, now, who's left on the Kelly hit parade? Oh, right, Maureen. Boy, there's a mess, huh?"

"We have to speak to her again, I'm afraid."

"But not me, Sherlock. It wouldn't get us anywhere. I don't want to look at her, and I doubt she wants to look at me. Not until we both get used to the idea that I know she was bopping Mom's ex-lover. Oh, God, there goes my stomach, turning over again."

"Very well, I'll speak to her tomorrow, while you and Sterling are in the city to see your surgeon."

"Doctor, Alex. Don't say surgeon. If this stupid bone moved, I'll be in surgery on Tuesday. Think miraculous healing, think nifty walking cast. God knows I am. Are you sure you don't want to go back with me?"

"Someone has to remain close to your father, my dear. And, if I'm delicate enough—which I have no doubt I will be—and with his daughter gone for the day, he may just confide in me. We must know where he was from the time he says he left Bodkin in the parking lot of the bowling establishment and the time the police arrived to arrest him. Clearly Cynthia Spade-Whitaker isn't rushing to establish an ironclad alibi for the poor man, put an end to this nonsense. J.P. can't return from her vacation soon enough to please me."

"Agreed. You'll have to tell him that you know about Mom and Maureen and Bodkin. That won't be fun."

"I will have spent more pleasurable hours, I'm sure, yes, but I will persevere." He put his arm around her shoulders. "You're beginning to shiver. Let me carry you upstairs."

"Not yet. I want a cigarette," Maggie said, regarding nothing. "I'd kill for a cigarette, Alex. I've been good, I've been brave, but I don't think I can hold it together much longer, not without outside help. Give me the walker, will you? I'll bet that convenience store down on Ninth is open. I'll get dizzy, the first couple of drags, because I did before, that time I quit for a whole week last year, but I can fight through it."

"Maggie ..."

"Mag-gie," she repeated, dripping sarcasm. "I need the real thing, Alex. It helps me think. It has been medically proven that, only seven seconds after taking a hit, the brain sort of, sort of perks up. If we're going to get Dad out of this mess, I need to be able to think, and on all cylinders. Please?"

"You've been so strong, for so long," he pointed out to her, part of him feeling sympathy for her, the other part knowing that she'd broken her addiction and she would hate herself if she slipped back into it now.

"Yeah, big deal. I made the world happy, I quit smoking. And now New York is after my trans fats. What's next for them, Alex, hmm? What are they going to stand up on their sanctimonious pedestals and condemn next? Because they're not done, not now that they've tasted success. Give the do-gooders a hand, and they take the whole freaking arm."

"Maggie, you're digressing."

"No, I'm not. I'm speaking the truth, Alex. They won't be happy until the rest of the world is miserable, and all marching in lockstep for what they want, what they see as best for everyone else. I see regimented, mandatory exercise in our futures, Alex, no lie. And book burning. And an official national religion. They'll just take, and take, and take. We never should have let them get away with the No Smoking crap. That was the first mistake. They're heady with power now. You'll see, everyone will be sorry when their own personal ox gets gored. They came for my neighbor's Marlboros, and I said nothing. They came for my other neighbor's french fries in saturated fat, and I said nothing. And then they came for me ..."

"Maggie, now you're obsessing."

"Damn straight, I'm obsessing. I have a right to obsess, to go a little nuts. My mother and sister were banging the same guy, and my dad's going to be on trial for killing the bastard. My brother's a worm. Erin bailed out years ago and won't be any help. Maureen? Get real. She's less than worthless right now. It's on me, Alex. It's all on me. And I can't even have a crummy cigarette."

"You've got me. And Sterling. You know you've got us standing at your back. You're not alone in this, Maggie."

"I can help, too, you know."

Saint Just grabbed onto Maggie's shoulders as she visibly jumped, and they both looked up to see Henry Novack standing on the sidewalk, holding onto the street lamp.

"Well, I can. Nobody knows me here. I can scoot around, asking questions, keeping one ear to the ground. Maybe find out things you two can't. For a price, of course."

"I don't believe this," Maggie said, pulling the walker open and bracing herself against it as she stood. "What are you doing here, Novack? And where are your wheels?"

"Back at the van, around the corner. Gets heavy, lifting it in and out, you know."

Saint Just looked down the street, then at Novack. "You don't need the cart, Mr. Novack? You're not infirm?"

"Hey, watch it. Obesity is an infirmity. You're not blind, sport, you can see what I look like. I'm morbidly obese. Four hundred twenty-seven and a half pounds at my last weigh-in. They weigh me on a fucking meat scale, pardon my French. I got good reason to have that cart. Is it my fault my mother overfed me, pushed food on me twenty-four/seven, huh? Set me up for a miserable life like this?"

"Mothers really can screw you up, can't they, Novack?" Maggie said, hopping toward him. "But you have to acknowledge that, forgive your past, and move on. Take responsibility for your own actions."

Henry Novack looked past Maggie to Saint Just. "Women. Always got an answer, don't they?" He turned back to Maggie. "You want my help or not?"

"Not," Maggie said, turning the walker and heading back to the steps. "Now go away."

"Come on, come on. I'm on Disability. I could use the extra bucks. Under the table, like, you know? Okay, here's the thing. I'll go out hunting tomorrow, give you something for free. I give you something, prove myself, and I'm on the payroll. Is it a deal?"

"Will you go away if I say yes?" Maggie asked as Saint Just coughed into his hand to hide his amusement. They were like children, squabbling. He should probably give one a carton of cigarettes, and the other a joint of beef to gnaw on, before things turned nasty.

"With some money, you know, I could go into one of those treatment centers? One of those fat farms? I'm forty-two. I have a life to live, somewhere inside me. Where the thin person lives. You took my machine, cost me my jackpot, cost me my chance. You killed me, Maggie Kelly. Now you have to save me."

"Oh, for crying out loud. Just what I need, another guilt trip. Alex?" Maggie bleated. "Help me."

Saint Just got to his feet. "You make a convincing argument, Mr. Novack," he told him. "Now, how can we use you, hmm? I know. Tomorrow, why don't you take yourself over to the bowling alley, listen to people talking, and then come back, tell us what they said? I agree, Maggie and I both would be too obvious. And, although it would be impossible to say that you, Mr. Novack, would blend into any crowd, I do think you wouldn't arouse any suspicions, now would you?"

"Not if he hangs out at the snack bar," Maggie grumbled, balancing rather precariously on her good foot. "Can we go upstairs now? I think I've just about had enough for one day."

"When do I meet you?" Novack asked, pushing away from the streetlamp, his enormous face shiny with sweat in the December chill. "Not the Music Pier, but maybe here? Same time, same place, tomorrow night?"

"Yes, that would be fine. But please bring your cart. You don't look well, Mr. Novack."

"I'll look a lot better when the thin guy gets out," he said sincerely.

And then Henry Novack shuffled off down the street, his massive corduroy slacks swush-swush-ing together audibly between his thighs, his shape in the fading light reminiscent of one of the balloon characters Sterling had so admired in the recent Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in Manhattan.

"The entire world has problems, Maggie," Saint Just told her as she leaned against him while he folded the walker. "And we all deal with them in our own way. Mr. Novack eats."

"And I smoke. Someone else crawls into a bottle, or hits things, or shops for fancy cars they can't afford. I get it, Alex, you don't have to hammer the nail all the way in. I'll make it through this without the damn nicotine, I promise. He's really something, isn't he?"

Saint Just lifted her up into his arms. "You're going to give him money, aren't you, sweetings? You've always been planning to give him money."

"I took his machine, Alex. You can say I didn't. The people at the casino can say I didn't. But I did. I saw him look at it, and I took it. With malice of forethought, you could say."

"Well, at least now we can pretend that he's earned whatever largesse with which you propose to shower him, hmm?"

"Works for me," Maggie told him, snuggling close. "At least something's working out ..."