"Donald? Of course he is. My goodness, he's only a few years older than your father and me."
"Wow," Maggie said, once again steering toward a side road, because it was easier to take the information her mother was handing her in small doses. "I used to think he was ancient. So much for a child's perspective on the world—something I should have remembered five Doctor Bob years ago."
"Excuse her, Alicia," Alex said. "As you've already pointed out, she will do this sort of thing from time to time. So, if I might put a voice to some things I've been thinking as we've spoken?"
"Of course, Alex," Alicia said, her voice almost girlish.
Maggie curled her upper lip. No woman was immune to Alex. Although she was giving hopping down to see Doctor Helsing tomorrow for an immunization shot some serious thought at the moment.
"You told Evan about your long-ago affair, begged his forgiveness even as you gave him the name of a dead man instead of the person actually responsible ..."
"So he wouldn't go after him, try to fight him," Alicia said. "Evan gets some strange ideas sometimes."
"Yes, I understand. You were protecting him. Totally understandable. You then told him that Maureen also had an affair with the man, and had been—what is the word?—traumatized to learn that she had made the same mistake her mother had made."
"She freaked," Alicia said, looking at Maggie, and impressing her daughter again with her terminology. "She went to bed for two weeks. Wouldn't talk to anyone, wouldn't eat, kept showering all the time. Then she stopped that, and began eating. All the time. She's gained forty pounds, Margaret."
"I noticed, yes."
"Every pound she put on, I felt worse. My baby, my youngest, and I'd done that to her. I began to think of what else I ... I might have done. To anyone else. Confession was the only thing I could think of that might help me. But still I couldn't bring myself to tell your father all of the truth. I'd said Walter, but then I said Hagenbush, not Bodkin. I was, am, a coward."
"Don't beat up on yourself, Mom. Alex? This is why Daddy won't talk to us. He doesn't want us to know about Maureen. I'll bet that's it. But did he know about Bodkin anyway, did he find out on his own somehow? Mom? Is that why you said what you said last night? You think Daddy found out it was really Bodkin, not Hagenbush, and he went nuts? Bopped him over the head with his bowling ball?"
"It would be as silly as going off to have that affair with his little chippie, just to punish me. Yes, he knew it was Walter Bodkin, not Walt Hagenbush. He's known for a few weeks now—and I've been worried sick. You don't know your father, Margaret. You think I'm the horrible woman who browbeats him, keeps him under her thumb. But your father needs to be under someone's thumb. Trust me. He's no Wally Cox."
"Pardon me?"
"He's no wimp, Alex," Maggie explained, and then looked to her mother once more. "Mom? You're telling me that underneath that gray button cardigan and orthopedic shoes, my father is a wild man?"
Alicia Kelly sat back, folded her hands beneath her ample breasts. "Ask Walter Bodkin. Oh, wait, you can't, can you? Because he's dead."
Maggie's head felt ready to explode. Information overload. Definitely. But something was knocking at the back of her skull, and it wasn't just her headache. "But Daddy couldn't have known. You have to be wrong on that. He wouldn't have bowled with the guy last night, if he'd known. Would he?"
Alicia shrugged. "He said they'd settled things between them. They're—they were—teammates on the Majesties, remember? Nothing and nobody can come between the members of the Majesties. I could hate him for that, except that the Majesties are all Evan has, especially now that he's taken early retirement."
"Damn. So how did he know? How did he find out?"
"Maureen told him. She didn't mean to, but when your father finally went to her, to tell her he wouldn't go to therapy with her, but he would pay for it, she opened her big mouth and said Walter's name."
"And when was that, Alicia?" Alex asked her.
"Two weeks ago? Three? I think Evan thought that if he made some sort of gesture, like paying for Maureen's therapy, I'd forgive him, let him come home."
"And you said they'd settled things between them? That he confronted Bodkin? Two, three weeks ago?"
"It was about then, yes. They rolled around in the parking lot of the bowling alley like two idiot teenagers, hitting at each other, making fools of themselves. But then it was over, or at least I thought so."
"Yet you said Evan killed Bodkin for you."
"Yes, Alex, I did, and I don't know why I said that. They made up, didn't they? Evan prizes the Majesties over me, over his own daughter. Men are asses. They think they can hit each other and then go off to bowl together. Or so I thought."
"That'd put me in therapy," Maggie said, feeling sympathy for her mother. "How could Daddy bear to be in the same room with the guy?"
"Because he's a man, Margaret. Men fight, and then they go on with what they want to go on with—like your father's stupid Majesties. I can't honestly believe Evan killed Walter, but if he did, he did it because he thought it would make me happy. I wasn't happy, you understand, when he told me he'd fought Walter, and then they'd made up as if nothing had ever happened. The man actually said to me—water under the bridge can't be called back, Alicia. He forgave me, he said. He forgave Walter. Can you imagine? But I was wrong, I'm sure of that. Evan couldn't have killed Walter. He can be difficult, but he's no killer. And he'd never lie to me. He wouldn't dare."
"Mom?" Maggie would return to the idea of her father being a wild man, difficult, some other time. For now, she had a much more important question. "Did anyone see them fighting? Were there witnesses?"
"It was a Friday night, Margaret. League night. Of course there were witnesses. Dozens of them. I stayed away from the supermarket for a week, too embarrassed to show my face. And nobody knew why your father and Walter had been fighting. Now they'll know it all, the whole world will know. If I didn't have a fully stocked freezer, we'd all starve to death."
"This isn't good," Maggie said, sighing. "Well, none of it is good. But, damn, Alex, people saw Daddy fighting with Bodkin."
"Yes, I understand. And at least one of them will have contacted the police no later than tomorrow, eager to share that very information," Alex said as Maggie sat back in her chair, dragging hard at her nicotine inhaler ...
Chapter Fourteen
"No, let's not go up yet, Alex," Maggie said as he put his foot on the first step, having won the battle and carrying her from the car rather than to stand back, helpless, watching her hop on one foot. He believed himself to be the perfect hero, but Maggie seemed to continue having some difficulty fitting herself into the role of the swooning, helpless heroine.
"You're tired, Maggie," Saint Just told her, hesitating. "One way or another, it's been another long day. You've been on that foot too much. It won't help your father if you have to take to your bed for a few days."
"I know, but Dad's up there. And my mind is still racing. I really need to talk to you, and I don't want to have to whisper. Please, put me down so we can sit a while on the steps."
He did as she asked, taking off his coat and spreading it on the step before she sat down. He then retrieved the walker from the car and sat down beside her. "We have to speak with him at some point, you know. We really can't go much further in any direction without his cooperation. And, as characters on the current police dramas on television say, the clock is ticking. Most homicides, unless solved within the first forty-eight hours, remain unsolved. A good thing no one said that during the Regency, or our books would all be short stories."