Alex shook his head. "It's probably open," he said, reaching past her to turn the handle, which turned easily. "Ah, what a trusting man your father is, Maggie."
"And not a killer," she said, hopping into the dark living room. "Anybody with half a brain could figure that out in a millisecond. Hit the lights, will you? No, wait. Look, over there—the message light is still glowing on Dad's answering machine. Not blinking, like with a new message, but just glowing, because Dad didn't erase the messages he has stored on it. The cops should have taken that, shouldn't they? You know, for the message Dad said was on the machine? The one telling him about the free bowling?"
"Very true," Alex agreed, snapping on the large overhead lights that were a part of an equally large ceiling fan shaped like palm fronds. "The message is the reason Evan gave for going to the bowling alley last evening."
"Yes, and he said he and Bodkin and someone else were the only three to show up. How many people are on a bowling team, anyway? So maybe the real killer set up the meet, then took it from there. We may have the real killer's voice, right here, on the answering machine. God, this is going to be easier than I thought. I adore stupid criminals." Maggie hopped as fast as she could, eager to get to the machine, and pressed the Message button:
"You have one old message. Message One: Hi, Evan. Free bowling for all Majesties 'til eight tonight. Tournament's next week, so we need the practice. Be there! Message received December twenty-four, at four-fifty-three p.m. End of messages."
The call was short, the voice was male, with considerable background noise placing the origin of the call as most probably being the bowling alley. But someone might recognize it. Maybe.
Maggie collapsed into the chair beside the table holding the answering machine. "Well, there it is. Time stamped and dated. The police were sloppy, not taking the machine. Dad was lured. Right, Alex? He was lured, and if we can voice-print whoever called him with that message, we have our killer. He followed Dad, copped his bowling ball somehow, and used it to bash in the other guy's head. Walter Bodkin's head. Right? Right?"
"It seems plausible. Especially if we're fortunate enough to find a similar message on Bodkin's machine—if the man didn't answer his own phone. But, not to rain on your parade, my dear, it would seem, as another member of the team also was there for this free bowling exercise, that the entire call would be dismissed by the police as irrelevant. And one more thing—wouldn't your father have noticed if his bowling ball went missing?"
"Yeah, you're right. He'd notice. He loves that bowling ball. I gave it to him, you know, on his last birthday. He had to have taken it with him to the bowling alley. And a person notices if he's carrying a bowling ball bag with a bowling ball in it or a bowling ball bag with no bowling ball in it. Dad uses a twelve-pound ball, as I remember it. Twelve less pounds in your bag as you're heading for the parking lot? You'd notice."
Maggie felt tears stinging at her eyes again, when she'd thought she'd gotten them out of her system. She needed to be all business, concentrate on the facts. Even as she had to believe in her father's innocence.
"He didn't do it, Alex. I know he didn't. We have to make him tell us where he went after he left the bowling alley. We have to make Mom tell us why she thinks Dad killed Bodkin for her. We have to ..."
"We have to go to bed," Alex said, shifting the walker to one side and holding out his hands to her.
She took them, and pulled up to balance on her right foot, then gasped as Alex lifted her high against his chest. "I can walk to the bedroom," she told him even as she curled her arms around his neck.
"Just as I can find my way to the chamber I'm sharing with Sterling before the sun rises in a few hours. In the meantime," he said, stepping inside the door to Maggie's assigned bedroom and toeing shut the door, "where was I when we were so rudely interrupted? Ah, yes, I believe I was about to describe the remarkable beauty of your mouth ..."
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"