Bowled Over

Chapter Twenty-Six

"What's he doing here? I didn't invite him here. Who invited him here? Margaret, is this your doing? Why would I want him here?" Alicia Kelly asked rapid-fire, pointing at her husband as the gang, one by one, emerged at the top of the staircase leading to the main floor of the condo.

"Think I'll go get a bowl of puffed rice," Evan muttered, his chin on his chest as he scuttled past his wife on his way to the kitchen. "Sterling? You want a bowl of puffed rice?"

Saint Just motioned with his head that Sterling should accompany Evan to the kitchen—and out of the line of fire.

"I suppose so," Sterling said, hurrying after Evan. "How many calories do you think are in a bowl of puffed rice, Evan? Do you have any skim milk?"

"Since when does Sterling worry about skim milk?" Maggie asked, but then just shook her head. "Never mind, it's not important. Mom, look, it's like this. We think maybe Dad's in danger."

Alicia sat down all at once. Thankfully she had been standing directly in front of the couch. "Evan? Somebody is after Evan? Is that what you're saying? Why? Because of Walter?"

"Alex?" Maggie said, looking at him for help.

Which he gladly supplied. After all, he might not know exactly what was going on, but he knew his impeccable English accent often concealed that fact from his American listeners.

"Yes, allow me, please. First, Alicia, I'd like to introduce to you J.P. Boxer, Maggie's and my very good friend and your husband's new attorney."

Alicia smiled rather weakly as J.P. bounded across the room and stuck out her hand to the woman.

"English over there will take an hour getting to the point, Mrs. Kelly," J.P. said, "so I'll just lay it out for you. The D.A. has dropped the charges against your husband for lack of evidence. My doing, because I'm very good at what I do. Which, for some reason, English and sunshine over there seem to think makes everything worse, not better. Alex, back to you."

"Yes, thank you, J.P." Saint Just looked about the room, Tate's absence noticeable. "Your son, Mrs. Kelly?"

"Upstairs, packing. Cynthia and Sean have already left."

"Ah, shucks," Maggie said happily. "Did she take the Crock-Pot of meatballs with her? Nah, I guess not."

"I have no idea, Margaret. They called themselves a cab and went sneaking off without so much as a 'thank you for having us.' And Tate and I ... well, we aren't speaking, so I have no idea what he's doing or where he's going. This entire family is falling apart."

"Not that it had far to fall," Maggie said quietly before joining her mother on the couch. "Do you want me to talk to him?"

"Would you, Margaret? I don't want him leaving in a huff. And I think," she added, attempting a whisper that failed badly, "I think he may have, you know, money problems? And I thought he was doing so well with his new business venture."

"A three-state tanning bed franchise might not have been the way to go right now, Mom, what with all the skin cancer scares. He should just stick to mechanical engineering—that he supposedly knows how to do. What did you two argue about anyway?"

"This place," Alicia said, spreading her arms to encompass the entirety of the condo. "He wants to sell it, and I said, no, I can't do that. Not without speaking to your father. And since I'm not speaking to him, I suppose the condo won't be going on the market anytime soon."

"Logical," Maggie said, grinning up at Saint Just. "Kelly-logical, anyway."

"Can't you ever be serious, Margaret? And now you say your father has been exonerated?"

"The charges were dropped, Mrs. Kelly," J.P. said. "That doesn't mean they can't be brought again, if the police find new evidence. But, yes, for now, your husband is no longer a suspect."

"But he's in danger? Didn't someone say he's in danger? You said it, didn't you, Margaret? In danger of what, for pity's sake?"

"Danger? Who's in danger?" Tate Kelly asked, entering the living room, his suitcase in his hand. "Hello," he said to J.P., holding out his hand. "I'm Tate Kelly, and you would be ... ?"

"Wondering what the hell I'm doing here," J.P. said, shaking his hand, her firm grip, Saint Just noticed with some amusement, causing Tate to flinch. "I hear you might need a good bankruptcy lawyer? I don't do bankruptcies as a rule, but I could make an exception for a friend of Sunshine's here."

"Mom!" Tate exploded. "What did you do—rent a billboard, for crying out loud."

"Don't you yell at Mom!"

"Don't you tell me what to do!"

"Stop that this minute, you're both an embarrassment! Margaret, sit down, and tell your brother to do the same! Don't you yell at each other. You weren't raised by wolves, you know!"

"Alicia? Children? What's going on in here? Sterling and I could hear you all the way out in the kitchen."

"What do you care, Evan? I raised these children, not you. Four children, and I raised them on my own. Not you, working all the time, bowling all the rest of the time, watching television all the rest of the time."

"That's a lot of rest of the times, Mom," Maggie broke in, looking at Saint Just, her expression now more embarrassed than angry.

"I'm sorry you feel that earning a living, keeping a roof over my family's head wasn't enough for you, Alicia," Evan said, showing a remarkable amount of backbone, Saint Just thought. It was probably a shame he hadn't shown it earlier, as in for the last forty or more years.

"Hi, everybody, I saw Daddy's car outside and figured you were here, Maggie, and might have some news?" Maureen said from the head of the staircase, smiling as she walked into the room, her winter coat hanging open over a nondescript blue dress and her ever-present apron. "Daddy? You're here? What's going on?" Then she must have sensed the tension in the room. Her smile began to slip and she backed up a few paces even as she began digging in the pocket of her apron. "Ex ... er ... excuse me. I need to go get a drink of water."

"And there she goes, off to swallow one of her little pink pills," Alicia said, collapsing onto the couch once more. "What have I done, Evan? What did I do wrong? Erin's as good as gone, Tate's trying to sell our house from under us, Maureen's a ... a pill-popper, and Margaret—" She stopped, blinked, and looked at Maggie. "I don't know anymore, Margaret. Sometimes you seem so normal."

"If she's normal, I'm Donald Trump," Tate declared hotly.

"Oh, I don't know, Tate," Maggie said sweetly. "You might not have his money, but you might want to consider trying his comb-over soon. And now that the subject's out in the open—how dare you try to sell Mom and Dad's house out from under them?"

"Maggie," Evan said, "we'll handle this, your mother and I."

"How are we going to do that, Evan? I'm not talking to you, you philandering old fart."

"Me? I philandered? What about you, Alicia? If I philandered, it was only because you philandered first."

"Mom had an affair, too? Why did I think it was just Dad?" Tate finally found his way to a chair and sat down. "Oh, I love this. I just love this."

"You would," Maggie growled at him. "You'd love anything that gets them to split up so they let you sell the house."

"They were already splitting up. Mom kicked him out, remember? And I can sell this house anytime I want to sell this house. It's my house!"

"Oh, yeah?"

"Oh, yeah!"

"Over my dead body, sport!"

"And speaking of dead bodies, Maggie ... ?" Saint Just wasn't easily discommoded, but the idea that a family war might be about to break out in front of him was decidedly discomforting. In case everyone else had forgotten, they had a murderer to unmask. "If we could just get back to the point ... ?"

Maggie, who was pointing a finger within an inch of her brother's jutted-out jaw, dropped her arm to her side and sighed deeply. "Well, that was fun, wasn't it? Like a flashback, or something. You're right, Alex. Back to the problem at hand. This is an old problem, and we've embarrassed ourselves enough in front of you and J.P. Sorry, Alex, sorry, J.P."

"Don't worry about it," J.P. said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "It's not really a family fight until somebody throws something. My mom's favorite was always the TV remote. She had a real hate for my dad's TV remote."

Evan, intelligent enough to know that retreat was sometimes not only the best but the only option, crossed the room to stand beside Saint Just. "I think she's weakening, Alex," he said quietly as Maggie and her mother engaged in a low conversation on the couch. "Maybe if I bought her a gift or something? Jewelry? Jewelry would be nice, don't you think?"

"Ah, no, not jewelry, Evan. Not in this case."

"But Carol could probably get me her store discount on—oh. Right. Flowers?"

"A good thought, yes."

Maggie waved to him from the other side of the room. "Alex? Mom says she's ready to hear about Dad being in danger. Our theory on it, anyway."

"Excuse me, Evan," Saint Just said before crossing the room to take up a chair only in time to rise politely from it again as Maureen reentered the room, carrying a bowl of puffed rice and followed by Sterling, whose ears were quite red, obviously a result of overhearing the Kelly Family At War.

Saint Just was more than willing to explain his and Maggie's theory, even as he knew that theory had more than a few gaping holes in it that had to be filled in only by rather large leaps in logic.

When he was done, Evan Kelly was shaking his head. "Barry Butts? But I barely even know him. Why would he want to frame me for Walter's murder?"

"Because you were handy, Dad," Maggie explained. "You and Bodkin had that fight in the parking lot. Everyone saw it. You pretty much set yourself up to be a logical choice when Butts wanted to point the finger of suspicion—trite as that sounds—away from himself."

By now, Maggie had joined Saint Just as he stood in front of the gas fireplace. Evan, wonder of wonders, had taken his place on the couch, beside his wife.

"So this is all my fault," Alicia said, her spine straight, her chin raised. "It figures. One way or another, a woman always takes the blame."

"Now, now, Alicia," Evan said, patting her hands as they lay clenched together in her lap. "I did a stupid thing. I ... I let my outrage get the better of me. And Walter was so ... so smug. So happy with himself about what he'd done."

Maureen, sitting on the piano bench, lifted her apron to her face, hiding behind it.

"No, Evan, it's my fault. I never should have told you what I'd done. What Walter did to me, to ... well, you know."

Maureen's shoulders began to shake, and Maggie went to sit beside her, put her arm around her shoulders. "It's okay, Reenie."

"What's okay, Reenie?" Tate asked, and then smiled. Okay, leered. "Don't tell me Maureen—cripes, what is this, an outtake from Desperate Housewives?"

"Tate, I believe you owe your mother and sister an apology," Saint Just said smoothly.

"The hell I do. I'm not the one who was catting around. My God, my own mother?"

"That's it, big mouth. We've heard enough from you. Come with me. And I mean now, buster!" Maggie said, using her walker to all but herd him toward the kitchen. Saint Just filed away the thought that he might want to point out to his beloved one day that she might have more of her mother in her than she would suppose. But he would probably point that out from a distance.

This departure left Saint Just to answer J.P.'s next question. "Okay, I think I've got this now. Barry Butts—what a stupid name—wanted Walter Bodkin dead because his wife was having an affair with him, or pretending to have an affair with him. Because Maggie's mom and sister had also been ... victims of this guy. Evan and Bodkin were seen fighting, Butts figured the best way to keep suspicion off him would be to put it on Evan. How am I doing so far?"

"Well enough," Saint Just said, smiling. "Now ask the question you're burning to ask."

"I was just getting to that, English. I got the charges dropped against Evan. A good thing, or at least ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the population would see it that way. But you and sunshine think I've just put the man in danger. Drumroll please, here's the question—why?"

"We can't be completely sure, but it's possible that Mr. Butts believed that his wife had ... tender feelings for Evan."

"For me?" Evan looked at his wife. "Alicia, I swear—"

"Don't you talk to me, Evan. Don't you dare try to talk to me. Not ever again."

"You were kind to the woman, Evan," Saint Just explained quickly, "when you frequented the Laundromat where she was employed. For a man like Barry Butts, being kind to a woman he denied any male companionship could be misconstrued. Especially if Lisa Butts told her husband the sort of thing she told us—that you're a very nice man."

"I don't know if I swallow that. Isn't that pushing things, Alex?" J.P. asked him. "I know the type. They're mean, irrational. But to see Evan over there as a threat to his marriage?"

"Not to his marriage, J.P., not at the bottom of it. But as a threat to his fanatical control over his wife? He'd already believed that she'd strayed with Mr. Bodkin. To have her now saying nice things about another man? Mr. Butts would have felt he was losing his position of absolute power. Mrs. Butts is convinced, or so she says, that Evan is innocent. I think she has reason to know that Evan is innocent. Innocent, but still another man Mr. Butts's wife turned to, in defiance to him. After all, Bodkin was about your age, Evan, so Lisa turning from one man of a certain age to another of a certain age wouldn't be so unusual. What do they call it on Dr. Phil —a father figure?"

"I'll say it once more, Evan. Don't you ever speak to me again! That girl is our Margaret's age. Young enough to be your daughter!"

Evan all but leapt to his feet, to look down at his wife. "Alicia ... shut ... up!"

Alicia opened and closed her mouth a few times, rather like a beached fish, and finally managed, "What?"

"I said, shut ... up. You talk too much, do you know that? Way too much. That's why I don't talk—I haven't been able to get a word in edgewise in about forty years. And you only ever hear yourself, only listen to yourself. Yes, we've got problems. Our kids have problems. We have problems with our kids. The whole world's got problems. The good thing is, we can fix ours, if we stop jumping off cliffs every time things don't go our way."

He turned to look at Saint Just. "Sterling told me that, told me some story about lemmings or something like that," he said, smiling weakly. "And you showed me I'm to keep my head up, be a warrior, not a victim. I like being a warrior." He sat down next to his wife once more, looking her straight in the eye. "This is my house. You are my wife. And that's the way it's going to be. You got that, Alicia? The kids? They're grown—let them do what they want. We started together, Ally, and we're going to finish together, the two of us. No more ultimatums, and no more cliffs."

Saint Just was tempted to close his eyes and block his ears before Alicia Kelly found her voice. He may be a hero, but any man of any sense is careful to stand very clear of marital discord.

But then he opened his eyes as Alicia said, "Oh, Evan. Where have you been all these years? I don't want to do it all by myself, I really don't."

"It sure looked like you did," Evan said, losing some of his bravado. "But that's all right. We'll work it out, won't we? We'll talk. We'll go to that counselor you want me to go to, all of us."

"Yes, Evan. We'll work it out. You can say anything you want, and I'll listen. I promise."

"And I'll listen to you, I promise." Evan smiled at his wife and then looked up at Saint Just. "I brought Lisa Butts a pizza from Mack and Manco's one Saturday, because she wasn't allowed to leave the Laundromat," Evan said as Alicia rubbed his back. "And I helped her fold some king-size sheets she washed for one of her customers. You know how big those are? I helped her fold them. I remember now ... Barry came in, and just stood there, looking at her. She sort of stood there, too, shaking a little, and then he turned and walked out. Didn't even say hi, you know? We'd been laughing, because I kept folding to the left when Lisa was folding to the right, and the sheet was getting all tangled and—he'd kill for that?"

"We don't know, Evan," Saint Just told him as Maggie and Tate reentered the room—Maggie looking satisfied, Tate looking like a man who'd moments earlier lost the family estate in a reckless game of faro. "But, for now, we'd like you to stay here with Sterling and Alicia. And you, Tate, if you will."

"Ah, that's too bad, but Tate has to leave," Maggie said brightly. "Don't you, Tate? But he'll be back next weekend, to help you fix that piece of siding that came off the side of the house in the last nor'easter that you've been worried about, okay, Dad? And he'll be back the week after that to do anything else you need done. Mom, you'll make a list?"

"I've had a list for two years," Alicia said, sighing. "And I'll believe this when I see it, Margaret."

"Oh, you'll see it, you'll believe it. Won't she, Tate?"

Twenty minutes later, after waving good-bye to J.P., who was more than ready to climb into her rented Mercedes and head back to the city, Maggie and Saint Just stood outside the Wesley Street condo and looked at each other. Smiled.

"I rent a Taurus, J.P. rents a Mercedes, and my spendthrift brother rents a freaking limo. It's transportation, right? Getting from point A to point B? One of these days I'm going to figure out if I'm an idiot or the rest of the world is nuts," Maggie said as the taillights disappeared in the early dusk. "Or maybe I'll just buy a Mercedes for myself, now that we've got a garage of our own. You know, more than the roof terrace, the enclosed garden, it's that garage. You know how unheard of garages are in Manhattan?"

"Maggie, you're avoiding the inevitable," Saint Just told her. "What happened with Tate?"

"You know what happened, Alex. I loaned him the money he needs. At no interest, unless he screws up. Like, if he doesn't visit Mom and Dad once a week, help them with anything they need help with, like that piece of missing siding, and the leak in the guest bathroom. Tate's really good with his hands, when he wants to be. Anyway he breaks the rules, bam, I start charging interest. And like I told him—there's bank rates, and then there's loan-shark rates." She grinned. "You can just call me Jaws. Now tell me what happened back there. I heard voices for a while, and then I didn't. And Mom's looking at Dad a little funny."

"Maggie, you wouldn't believe me if I told you," Saint Just said as he helped her into the driver's seat of her father's car. "For now, I believe it's time you and I reconnoitered this bowling establishment where Bodkin was last observed alive. We'll be obvious to anyone who remembers you from your childhood, but the time has come to do our own detecting. And then later this evening, as I've already discussed with Evan, he and Sterling will join us there."

"Daddy? Why? If he's in danger—"

"We'll protect him, Maggie. But Evan tells me that the Majesties will be practicing their bowling maneuvers every night this week, in preparation for something called the New Year's Tournament. As Barry Butts is now a Majestic, gathering everyone in one spot seems a workable solution."

"You mean you want to do a classic Saint Just Mysteries' we-gather-all-together denouement, right? But we don't have enough evidence for that, Alex."

"Which is why, my dear, I'm asking you to drive us to the bowling establishment, so that we might hopefully locate more clues."

Maggie put her father's car in gear. "All right, all right. As long as you stop calling it a bowling establishment. It's a bowling alley, or bowling lane. Got it?"

"And those two terms make sense to you?" Saint Just asked, facing front, as they headed up the street as dusk faded into yet another early winter darkness. "I don't think you Americans really listen to yourselves when you speak. A building can be neither an alley or a lane."

"Well, pardon us," Maggie said, clicking on her left turn signal. "Now tell me what happened with Mom and Dad while I was gone. The way they were looking at each other when we left? It sort of gave me the creeps ..."