"Because they do care about each other?"
Maggie pointed a finger at him. "Aha! That's what I think. Mom fell apart last night, at least as far apart as I've ever seen her since the day I swung my softball bat in the dining room and took out her grandmother's pedestal vase that the woman brought here from County Clare."
Saint Just looked at her levelly. "You weren't an easy child, were you, Maggie?"
"Another subject, for another time. I don't go to my high school reunions, though, if that gives you any indication of how well I dealt with being a teenager. Anyway —it stands to reason that Mom and Dad do still love each other, or whatever has ever passed for love between them. And, no, I don't really want to go there, either. But, if Dad still loves her, and if Bodkin did something to her, or even tried to do something to her ..."
"Such as?" Saint Just asked her, taking a seat in a nearby chair. He thoroughly enjoyed watching Maggie's mind work. He believed he could almost hear the gears turning inside her head.
"I don't know. They've been separated since around Thanksgiving. She might have started dating? After all, Dad was—maybe still is—dating that Carol woman. Bodkin might have brought Mom home, gone into the house with her, made a pass at her in the kitchen, where Dad could see—"
"We can see clearly into the side windows of the kitchen, Maggie. I had the chance to tour the entirety of your mother's condo when we first visited last month. If you'd raised your gaze slightly, to the next floor, you'd realize that we could also see into what I believe is the master bedroom."
"Worse!" she said, plunking down the now empty mug. "Bodkin wormed his way upstairs, attacked Mom, she had to fight him off. Now she's afraid of him. Dad figures that the way back into Mom's good graces is to play the hero for her, confront the guy, warn him off. They have words, it gets physical, yadda-yadda. Oh, damn, Alex. I'm building the prosecutor's case for him, aren't I? Oh, hi, Dad, Sterling. Merry Christmas!"
Saint Just got up as the two men closed the door behind them. As they shrugged out of their coats, they stamped their feet as though to rid themselves of the cold air they'd walked through. "Yes, Happy Christmas, everyone."
"Thank you, Saint Just," Sterling said, pulling a face as he repeatedly shot his gaze toward Evan Kelly.
But Saint Just hadn't needed Sterling's worried expression or eyeball gymnastics to ascertain that Evan Kelly was not quite as jolly as the red and white Santa cap on his head.
"Daddy? What's wrong?"
"Nothing, sweetheart," Evan said, handing the bag of donuts to Sterling before heading for the steps to the bedrooms. "Merry Christmas. Everyone. Please excuse me."
"Sterling?" Maggie asked as he handed several newspapers to Saint Just, who saw nothing alarming on any of the front pages. That was, until he'd rifled through the first one to find the first page of the Local section, to see Evan Kelly smiling at him as he held up a bowling trophy. Saint Just knew it was a bowling trophy because the copy beneath the photograph supplied that information. The garish thing had, to him, looked like something one might employ to prop open the door of a brothel. The headline read: Police Arrest Local Man in Murder of Bowling Buddy.
"No perp walk, as you termed it, my dear, but I doubt there is anyone in Ocean City who is unaware of your father's dilemma."
"Oh, yes, Saint Just. Everyone knows. It was terrible, Maggie," Sterling said sadly as he subsided into a chair, still holding his red knitted hat with the pom-pom on top—the pom-pom he was doing an admirable job of shredding in his agitation. "It took us some time to find a shop that was open on the holiday, and it was quite crowded. People looked at Evan. Nobody spoke. They just looked. And then they turned and walked away."
"The cut direct," Saint Just said, sighing. "I should have realized. It's as Balzac said, 'Society, like the Roman youth at the circus, never shows mercy to the fallen gladiator.' "
"Oh, God. Poor Daddy. What did he do?"
"Lifted his chin and ordered a dozen glazed, seemingly having forgotten that I'd told him I prefer powdered, with that lovely jelly filling," Sterling said, and then shook his head. "That is, he stood up manfully, Maggie. Until this person approached him. I'm afraid I didn't get his name, but he spoke to Evan, just for a moment, and then he, too, turned on his heel and walked away. Evan, well, Evan just stood there, looking as if he'd been poleaxed. I brought him straight home."
"Do you know what the man said, Sterling?"
"Yes, Saint Just, I do. The man told Evan that he is no longer to consider himself a member of the Majesties. I can't be sure, unaware of the level of prestige the Majesties may hold in this community, but I gather this must be the way Byron felt when the ton delivered him the cut direct at Almack's that night—you know, before he was forced to leave England entirely. He's a broken man, Saint Just, his spirit crushed by this terrible turn of events."
"They threw him off his bowling team? Daddy lives for his bowling team."
"Yes, Maggie," Sterling agreed. "I thought I saw a tear in Evan's eye, although that may have been from the cold and wind. In any event, we must do something. We must do something very soon."
Chapter Eleven
"Margaret? Margaret!"
Maggie pushed herself to her feet and hopped into the kitchen. "You bellowed—that is, I'm here, Mom."
Yes, she was here. And she'd been here for five hours now. Five hours that seemed like five days.
The Christmas tree was lit, decorated as it had always been decorated, in early after-Christmas-clearance items. One thing she had to say for her mother, though, she did faithfully hang up every ornament her children had made for her over the years.
Unfortunately, that included the one Maggie had made in sixth grade, with her school picture glued to the center of a gilt elbow macaroni frame. The photograph of her grinning maniacally in pigtails and teeth braces. Saint Just had gone up to it as if guided there by some sort of radar, and she'd glared at him, just daring him to say something, anything, that would force her to beat him heavily around the head and shoulders with her walker.
The nativity scene was spread out on top of the spinet, as always. The shepherd boy's flute was still missing its front end, the guardian angel's wing still oddly glued back in place where it had been broken the year their cat, Tuffy, had been frightened up onto the piano when Tate tried out his brand new drum set.
The lighted village—the one with the animated skaters whirling around a pond made out of a mirror—had been set up on the sideboard.
There were candles everywhere, none of them ever burned, of course, some of them slightly misshapen as a consequence of being stored in the hot garage.
The Santa candle's face had, for instance, melted slightly, so that it looked now as if he was leering at Mrs. Claus with an eye toward slipping away with her to someplace private for a little one-on-one celebration.
Maggie's whole day thus far, her surroundings, had been one big trip down Memory Lane, and if her father had been there, wearing his silly Santa hat, ho-ho-ho-ing from time to time from his favorite chair in the living room for no apparent reason, Maggie would have been a reasonably happy camper.
But he wasn't there. He was back at his apartment, behind the locked door of his bedroom, refusing to come out, refusing to talk to anyone.