Bowled Over

Chapter Twenty-Five

Maggie strapped herself into the seat belt as Alex closed the door on the passenger side. "And you say I'm too blunt? I ask too many questions? I push too hard? Is it, Lisa? Is it easier? Cripes, talk about pushing the button and turning on the waterworks. What the hell happened to her, Alex?"

"I would say that her husband happened to her. The man should be horsewhipped."

"Well, I agree on that one. All that crap she told us? How she can't leave the house unless he's with her? Not even to go pick up a carton of milk at the grocery store? Not even to work at that Laundromat unless he's right next store at his bike shop? That's abuse, Alex. Barry Butts is one sick ticket."

"Overly possessive, I agree. One has to wonder how such a cowed and frightened woman was able to sneak away, have an affair with our late, unlamented Mr. Bodkin."

Maggie put the car in gear and headed for the corner, turned left onto Wesley. "Good point, Alex. If Barry watches her every move, controls the purse strings, all her comings and goings, what she wears, what she eats—can you believe he tells her what she can eat?—then how could she possibly have an affair behind his back?"

"Yet she belongs to W.B.B."

"Lisa belongs to that select club, yes," she said, chewing on her bottom lip, her brain on percolate. "But Lisa belonged to everything. You name the club, the activity, and Lisa belonged to it. Maybe she thought she had to belong to W.B.B, too. Without, you know, really belonging? Her friends do, Brenda and Joyce, at least. I mean, it might be one way to get out of the house without Barry throwing a fit, since she was only meeting with other women?"

"An interesting if unappealing thought."

"Agreed. I remember Barry. Tall, pretty muscular, too. I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of that guy. Do you think he hits her? Oh, cripes, Alex, that would be awful. Why doesn't she just leave him? Get up, get out, you know?"

They pulled in to the curb in front of her father's bachelor apartment and Maggie turned off the ignition.

"I mean, I know he could come after her, stalk her, maybe try to hurt her. But there are shelters for abused women now, even if he doesn't hit her. It's still abuse. Lisa is an abused woman."

"I agree, Maggie. But I think it might be more than that. She's a frightened woman."

"Well, sure. She let a man in the house. From the way she says he watches her, distrusts her, she had to be scared spitless he'd find out she had a man—you —in the house."

"Again, I think it's more than that," Alex said as he helped her from the car. "Think about this, Maggie, if you will. What did you say to Lisa when she put forth her belief that your father is innocent?"

"What did I say? I don't know. That she's the only one who thinks so? Of course, Carol thinks so, too, but Carol's a friend, where Lisa is just an acquaintance, you know, with that Laundromat business she told us about."

"Yet she was adamant. Almost, one might say, as though she knew your father to be innocent."

"She calls him Evan. Old enough to be her father, yet she calls him Evan. And Bodkin was old enough to be her father." Maggie felt her eyes going wide. "You think Barry Butts killed Walter Bodkin? And you think Lisa knows he killed Walter Bodkin?"

"It would be very simple, very neat, wouldn't it? A fanatically jealous man believes his wife has become a member of the We Bopped Bodkin club, or whatever it's called. Who is to say what such a man, when he felt betrayed, would do?"

"Yeah, but that's no more motive than any other guy whose wife belongs to W.B.B. Okay, sure, Barry's a bastard, but that doesn't make him a killer—and you'd think he'd kill Lisa, too, if he thought she'd been sleeping with Bodkin. We need a lot more than a hunch, Alex. And there's still that business Carol brought up—about how maybe Dad has an enemy, remember?"

"And your friend Lisa calls your father Evan. Just as if he's her bosom beau. If Butts wanted to eliminate the rivals in his life, he could possibly believe he'd kill two birds with one bowling ball."

"Using that reasoning, if Dad were to get off, Butts would just go after him again. A man like that? He'd think it was his right to eliminate anyone who even looked crooked at Lisa. If you're right. We might just not like Butts, that's all, and want him to be guilty. That's what Steve would tell us."

She pushed her hands through her hair, and then leaned back against the headrest, exhausted, her eyes closed. "Oh, I can't think straight anymore, Alex. The only thing worse than no suspects is so many suspects. We're probably just jumping on the first one who looks good. Because we don't like Barry Butts for the way he treats Lisa, and because we're so tired. And if I'm the only one who's tired, let me remind you that you aren't dragging a hulking heavy cast with you everywhere you go day and night, and bearing down on a walker with each step. I should be getting a medal here, I'm being so good."

"How true. And all without uttering a single complaint. What a brave little soldier."

"Right. Another few days of this, and you can nominate me for sainthood. And don't think I don't know you're being facetious."

Then she opened her eyes, sat front, her heart pounding, as someone banged hard on the driver's side window.

"Well, well, look who's here," Alex said, opening the car door. "Shall we escort J.P. upstairs, or would you rather we speak to her privately before she sees your father?"

"I don't know. You choose." Maggie was still busy trying to slow her heart rate as she looked out at J.P. Boxer, who was leaning down to put her face all but against the window, and grinning as if she knew full well how much she'd startled her friend. "Back off, J.P.," she said, motioning for the lawyer to step away, and then she opened the door, swung her legs out of the car.

"Well, girl, would you look at you," J.P. said, her hands on her hips as she eyed Maggie up and down. "What did you do to yourself?"

"I broke my foot," Maggie told her as Alex unfolded the walker yet again and assisted her to her feet. "Tripping over a doorstop."

"Oh, sunshine, you have to do better than that. Make up a lie, make up a whopper. Tripped over a doorstop? That's so ordinary."

"Good thought, J.P., I'll consider it," Maggie said as they all moved to the sidewalk. "When did you get back from your vacation?"

"Last night, and I've been running myself up and down the county ever since, doing that voodoo I do so well, which you'd know if you'd turn on your cell phone, sweetcakes, or talked to your dad once in a while, because I cleared it all with him first—and Sterling, of course. He introduced us. God, I love Sterling, he's such a sweetie. You buy him the beanie hat? With the earflaps? I'll bet you did, that thing has Little Mary Sunshine written all over it. Hated to leave all that warmth for all this damp and cold, but friendship called, and I'm such an old softie," J.P. told them as she wrapped her coat more tightly about herself.

The coat was huge, bright red, cushioned more than just padded, and fell all the way to the tops of the lawyer's bright green high-top sneakers. J.P. was also huge, tall, the sort of overpowering figure that usually had the ability to intimidate the hell out of Maggie. And had, at least at first. Except that, for all her outward aggressiveness, J.P. had the proverbial heart of gold. And the worst clothes sense and choice in lovers of any woman in the history of the world.

"So you've been here, talked to Dad, seen Sterling, and then gone to the cops?"

"Not the cops. Never the cops, not after they've picked their man, put the collar on him. Had to go up the chain of command, all the way to the top. Never start at the bottom, it takes too long. Worked fast, because I like to work fast, and because I'm good, damn good. After all, how can I let my friend's daddy walk around with a murder charge over his head, huh? Which is gone, by the way, as of about fifteen minutes ago. You can thank me now. Even hug me. It might warm me up. Damn it's cold."

Maggie didn't know what to think, what to say. She turned to Alex. "Are we happy about this?"

J.P. dropped her arms, that she had opened so that Maggie could hug her, and looked from Maggie to Alex and back again.

"Okay. Somebody want to tell me what's going on here? I cut my vacation short, rush home to winter, drag myself down here to the hinterlands, tell Ms. Spade-Whitaker to take a hike—never saw a woman so happy to lose a client—take myself up to the D.A.'s office, present myself as the new attorney of record, read the evidence they have to show me, do a little dance, make a little love, get down to—well, they didn't have anything. All circumstantial, except for the bowling ball. That was pretty substantial. And your daddy has an airtight alibi in his mistress, so—"

"Carol's not his mistress, J.P.," Maggie explained nervously. "They're just very good friends."

"Never interrupt me when I'm blowing my own horn, sugar. Now, where was I? Oh, yeah. I threatened to paper the D.A.'s office with motions to dismiss, Miranda violations—more paper than the man could handle if he had a staff of twenty in Manhattan rather than sitting here in the boonies of Jersey. And he caved. Such a pretty thing to see, a man caving that way. So the charges have all been dropped, at least until they get more evidence. Which they ain't getting, right, because Sterling told me you and English here are doing your ride-to-the-rescue thing, and finding the real murderer. So, English? Did you find him yet?"

"Possibly, J.P.," Alex told her. "However, if one of our current hypotheses is correct, removing Evan as a suspect may have just put his life in danger."

Maggie sagged against the side of the car. "Go upstairs, please, Alex, and get Dad and Sterling. I'd feel better if we took Dad to Mom's house, had everyone in one spot."

"An excellent suggestion. We might arrive in time to wave fond farewells to Attorney Spade-Whitaker and her Realtor husband."

"And Tate. I'll bet he's going to bail at any moment. We have to finish this, Alex, we have to finish it today."

"Because you need to get back to the city and have me run the title search on that building Sterling told me you bought, and go over the sales contract that you're now going to tell me you didn't sign without letting me look at it, right?"

"Uh, well ... oops?"

"You signed a sales agreement without checking with me, your personal lawyer?"

"You reneged on the free legal service for life, J.P.," Maggie reminded her weakly.

"And a good thing I did, if you didn't have someone vet that sales contract, run a decent title search. You know, Sunshine, between tripping over murders and tripping over yourself the way you do, I could end up a very rich woman."

He-e-e's ba-a-a-ck ...

They let him go?

How could they let him go!

What did I do wrong? I didn't do anything wrong. I did it right.

Didn't I?

Now what?

Now nothing, that's what. I do nothing. I just sit tight.

I've got what I want now. Everything I want.

Unless they try to screw me.

Then they'll be sorry. Boy, will they be sorry.

I took out one for sure. I can take out another one ...

Well, isn't he a real fun guy? But who is he? What's his major problem, other than the fact that he's an eggroll short of a combination plate.

All the clues are there, though. Promised, and delivered.

So who killed Walter Bodkin?

Better yet, if you think you're so smart, and you already know the "who" of it—why did this person kill him?

Bet you don't know that (and, if you do, go write your own book; why are you reading this one?).

Maggie and Saint Just sure don't know why Bodkin is dead. As a matter-of-fact, they aren't even close.

Which, unhappily for our bad guy, never stopped them before when they uncovered a murderer for all the wrong reasons ...