Chapter Thirteen
Maggie looked across the kitchen table at her baby sister, who was sitting with her head lowered, her eyes cast down, playing the victim better than any French aristocrat riding the tumbrel on the way through the streets of Paris to the guillotine.
Maureen used to be fun. She really did. Well, fun in the I-lead-she-always-follows way of older sisters who talk younger sisters into stealing the cigarettes out of their mother's purse, and who will also then sneak a slice of cake upstairs when her older sister is grounded and sent to her room for talking the younger sister into copping Mom's Parliaments.
Maureen had let Maggie dye her hair orange for Halloween—with permanent dye. Maureen had helped her sneak into Tate's room one night and try out the experiment of submerging his hand in a glass of water so that he'd—and he did, too! Maureen dug in her heels and had eloped with John even when her mother told her she was making a big mistake in wanting to marry a garbage man.
Maggie's dad had helped then, stepped in, actually shut up Alicia Kelly by saying that when the rest of the world thought it was too good to collect somebody else's trash, the last garbage man in America would be a very wealthy man. Then he'd aimed the clicker at the TV and gone back to watching a documentary on prairie dogs, not to be heard from again for the next decade, Maggie was pretty sure.
Maureen used to have a spine, damn it!
What had happened to that Maureen? The silly, always ready for adventure Maureen? Where had she gone? Why did she go?
Now she was a mouse, a frightened, gray mouse. Walking quietly, on her toes, so that no one would be disturbed by her footsteps.
Now she wore an apron all the time, maybe to cover her swollen shape—when she'd always been slim, athletic.
Now she carried those damn little pink pills with her everywhere she went.
"Maureen? Reenie? It's me, only me, remember? And it wasn't a hard question," Maggie said now. "Who was Walter Bodkin?"
Maureen lifted a hand to twist at her hair, her hand shielding her face as she held it in profile. "But I don't know. He was a man, that's all. He ... he owned a lot of houses."
"And that's it? That's all you've got?"
Her sister finally looked at her. "He was a Majestic?"
Maggie looked to Alex, who had been standing quietly, his back to the kitchen counter, sipping a glass of wine. He'd found a bottle in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator and deemed it passable, and a clear cut above the boxed wine Maureen had made such inroads on during dinner.
"Help?" Maggie mouthed silently.
Alex approached the table and bowed his head slightly, wordlessly asking for permission to join them. Maggie rolled her eyes at him, still amazed at the man's dogged adherence to Regency Era manners. When they suited him, that is.
"Maureen, my good lady," he said once he'd sat down. "I am not, by and large, a particularly observant person—"
Maggie choked on her sip of diet soda.
He looked at her owlishly. "But I do believe I noticed your rather unusual reaction last night at the police station. Let me see if I can recollect the exact moment, shall we? Oh, yes. Maggie inquired of her mother if she was acquainted with Walter Bodkin, and you ... well, you giggled. You giggled, and then you burst into sobs. Do you recall that, my dear?"
Maureen looked at her sister, then down at her hands, which were twisting in her lap. "No, Alex. I don't remember that. I giggled? I didn't giggle, did I, Maggie? You're wrong. Really, you're wrong. I'm sure of it."
"Indeed. My apologies. So you never really knew Walter Bodkin, or of any association he might have had with, say, your mother?"
Maureen giggled ... and then quickly clapped both hands over her mouth, her eyes wide as she looked to Maggie. For help?
"You really have to stop taking those pills, Maureen," Maggie told her, reaching across the table to touch her sister's arm. "And something else. You have to stop lying to us. Dad's in big trouble, sis. If you know anything, you have to tell us. Good or bad."
"I can't, Maggie. I can't tell you. I'd rather die than tell you."
"Oh, for God's sake, Maureen, stop whining."
Maggie and Alex looked up to see that her mother had come into the room. She'd changed out of her clothing and into a deep sapphire blue caftan that didn't do a heck of a lot for her. But she looked comfortable. At sixty-three, maybe comfortable was enough? Maggie hoped not.
"Mom?" Maggie asked as Alicia Kelly held out her hand for the glass Alex was holding, and then downed the remaining contents in one long gulp.
"Ah, that's better. Wine in a box. Sometimes Tate can be so cheap. A limo for his friends, wine in a box for his family. Don't think I don't notice. Maureen, scoot over to the next chair and let me sit down. It's time we talked."
"But, Mom, you can't," Maureen all but whimpered. "John's in the living room."
"And snoring fair to beat the band," Mrs. Kelly said, shaking her head in disgust. "It's the tryptophan. In the turkey, you know? I read about that somewhere—it makes you sleepy. Considering he ate half the damn bird, he should be unconscious until New Year's."
Maggie shot a look toward Alex, who only shrugged. Big whacking help he was being. Didn't he know how she hated family conversations? Still, at least tonight her mom was being sort of an equal opportunity sniper, already taking shots a Maureen, Tate, and John. Could a swipe at Maggie be far behind?
Yeah, well. If she was going to be the new Maggie, the one who didn't buckle under every time things got a little sticky with her mother, now was the time to prove it, right?
"Why can't John hear what we're saying, Mom? What's somebody going to say? I don't get it."
"Nobody expects you to, Margaret, not without an explanation. Alex," she said, turning to spear him with her eyes. "I wouldn't do this, would never do anything so embarrassing, except that you and Margaret have had some success in solving crimes. Four of them, as I recall."
"Five," Maggie interjected. "Bernie's ex—well, both her exes—the murders at the WAR conference, and over in England, and the rat killer. More than five, if we just count bodies. Let's see, there was—"
Alicia Kelly sighed. An exasperated sigh, Maggie was pretty sure.
"But who's counting, right, Mom? Sorry for the interruption. You were saying?"
"I had an affair with Walter Bodkin," Alicia said, just throwing it all out there, with no preamble, so that Maggie sucked in her breath until she realized she was feeling a little light-headed.
"Oh, Mom ..." Maureen said, lowering her head onto her crossed arms.
Maggie recovered her breath enough to say, "You had two affairs? Walt Hagenbush and Walter Bodkin?" She shot a look at Alex. "Maybe I was right. You know, about the Walter fetish?"
"Shh, Maggie. I don't think your mother's quite finished. Please, Alicia, go on."
"I never had an affair with Walt Hagenbush, Margaret," her mother told her, her chin still high, her eyes defiant. "My God, the man had halitosis that could stop a Mack truck."
Had to say this for her, Maggie thought—the woman had brass ones. And was that something to be proud of, in a mother? Hmm ... ?
"When ... when I felt it necessary to confess my indiscretion of a decade ago to your father—"
"Yeah, while we're on the subject, Mom," Maggie interrupted. "Why in God's name would you do something like that?"
Maureen let out a choked cry—rather like a chicken in the midst of a neck-wringing—and ran out of the room.
Alica Kelly shook her head. "Never had half your spunk, did she, Margaret? I told your father because I was leading up to telling him something else."