"Absolutely not!"
"Maggie," Alex said quietly, "Henry is going to need repairs on his go-cart. I've been looking at it back here, and the paint is rather scraped. Henry, we are agreed. And here's what I would like you to do ..."
Chapter Twenty-Two
Because Maggie's rental was low on gas, Saint Just found himself sitting in the front seat of her father's car, holding onto the Crock-Pot filled with meatballs as Maggie drove the one short and one long block to her mother's condo.
"I really must procure an operating license of my own," he said as the seat belt warning system annoyingly chirped faster and faster while he tried, in vain, to hook the seat belt and not lose his grip on the Crock-Pot. "I do not believe I have the constitution of a passenger."
"Wrong," Maggie told him. "You don't like having a woman drive you around—that's your problem. That male chauvinism thing. You can't believe a woman could drive as well as you. You really need to work on that, Alex. Oh, and while you're working on that, work on this—we're in this thing together, you and me. So stop making decisions without me, okay?"
"Meaning?" he asked, knowing full well why she was upset. The poor dear, she was such a sentimental little darling. Now, piled atop all her other worries, she was worrying about Henry Novack.
"Meaning, Alex, that you had no right to send Henry off to try to talk to Mae Petersen."
"You believe she's our killer, Maggie?"
"No," she said, pulling in to the curb, and rolling the front passenger side wheel up and over it, which caused her to direct a daggerlike stare at Alex that told him he would be well advised to ignore her small logistical misjudgment. "My money's on it being a man, definitely. Women, as a general rule, don't go around bashing a guy's brains in. We're neater than that. Unless it was a crime of passion, which I don't think it was, not when Bodkin was found on the beach, when only an idiot would go walking on the beach at night, in late December."
Saint Just opened the car door, now suffering a logistical dilemma of his own, as he needed to put the Crock-Pot somewhere and go around the car, take the walker from the backseat, and unfold it for Maggie. "I concur, totally. Our killer is male. Anything else?"
"Yes, there's something else. On top of the beach, I mean. Because our killer set up my dad to take the fall, which also screams premeditation, right? Somebody had a big hate for Bodkin."
Saint Just decided to place the Crock-Pot on the Kellys' porch, and withheld his comment until he'd done so. Then taking the walker from the backseat, he unfolded it, and opened Maggie's door. Modern life was so much more complicated than merely waiting for the coachie to put down the steps and then magnanimously handing his lady of the moment down from the carriage. "Unfortunately, there are so many male somebodies who could hold this big hate for Mr. Bodkin."
Maggie turned neatly on the seat and rather gracefully pulled herself erect outside the car even as Saint Just prudently held his hand just above her head, as she'd more than once hit that head against the side of the roof as she attempted her egress. "Which is why we're going to do this quick, and then start knocking on some female doors."
"Yes, do this quickly," Saint Just said, following Maggie to the curb. "And may I inquire as to just what, precisely, we are about to do quickly?"
"You'll see. I had an inspiration while I was in the city," Maggie said, grinning at him over her shoulder. "Just grab that Crock-Pot and follow my lead, okay? You'll like it, trust me."
"I adore you, Maggie. I worship at your dainty feet, even while you lumber about in that cast. But trust you, sweetings? Not when you grin the way you're grinning now. I cut my wisdoms too long ago to be so gullible."
Saint Just did not feel comfortable in the role, well, the role played by the trusting Sterling in their books, but Maggie seemed happy, something she had not seemed in several days. So, after voicing his concerns, he did as she suggested, and promised to follow her lead.
Follow her orders, that was, which had to do with him leaving the Crock-Pot on a table on the ground floor and heading upstairs to collect Tate and his friends, the Realtor and the lawyer, bringing them back downstairs to a waiting—and still happily smiling—Maggie.
"Hi, guys," she said, fairly dancing on one foot as she gripped the walker. "Thanks for coming down. I didn't think I could take another flight of stairs on my fanny right now."
"Yes, well, we don't have much time, Maggie," Tate said, carefully placing himself on the far side of his friends, as distant from Saint Just as he could get—a move that gratified Saint Just no small bit. "We have an appointment, some business to attend to this morning."
"Really? You mean like Cynthia here going to talk to Daddy about the night Bodkin was murdered? Listen to his side of things? Tell him what to say and what not to say? You know, confer with him? That kind of business?"
Cynthia Spade-Whitaker rolled her heavily mascaraed eyes. "Are you once again hinting that I'm not performing my duties to your satisfaction, Maggie? Because if you are—"
"Oh, heavens, no, Cynthia," Maggie interrupted, and Saint Just raised one expressive eyebrow, having decided that Maggie had her target in her sights and it was not, as he'd supposed, her brother, Tate. "I'm here to give you this. Alex? Show Cynthia what we brought for her."
"With every outward appearance of pleasure, my dear," he said quietly, walking over to unzip the insulated cover and lift out the Crock-Pot that had spent the night in the refrigerator. He lifted the glass lid. "Cynthia? Even cold, do you smell that delicious aroma?"
Sean Whitaker leaned forward and looked at the contents of the Crock-Pot. And then, because, as Saint Just had already concluded, the man was not the sharpest arrow in the quiver, he announced unnecessarily, "Meatballs? You brought Cyndy meatballs?"
"Oh, no, I don't cook," Maggie said, laughing. "The last man I cooked dinner for ended up dead. It kind of put me off the idea. The meatballs are a gift. I had to go to the city yesterday, you understand, to see my orthopod, and while I was there a friend stopped by with the meatballs."
"No," Cynthia said. "I still don't understand. If someone gave you a gift, Maggie, why are you now giving it to me? Certainly," she added, sniffing, "not in lieu of my fee."
Saint Just lowered the lid on the Crock-Pot, at the same time surreptitiously looking at Maggie, seeing the way her knuckles had gone white as she grasped the walker, putting the lie to her seemingly genuine smile. What on earth was she about to do?
"Oh, heavens no, I'm not regifting in lieu of your fee," Maggie said, laughing. "Jerry Seinfeld would be appalled, wouldn't he? Regifting? Get it? Or maybe you don't watch Seinfeld reruns, huh?"
Ouch. That laugh sounded forced. Saint Just stepped closer to her.
"No, when I told my friend what was happening, about Daddy being arrested," Maggie went on, "he asked me to allow him to send my gift to me at another time, and deliver this gift to you." She looked up at Saint Just, blinking innocently. "That Salvatore. He's such a dear man."
And that's when, as Saint Just considered such things, the penny dropped, and he realized what Maggie was up to. No good, that's what she was up to.
How he adored her.
"Ah, yes, our own dear Mister C.," he said helpfully, pivoting slightly to look at Cynthia Spade-Whitaker, whose complexion had gone quite pale beneath her makeup, so that the blush on her cheeks stood out in stark relief. "So devoted to his friends. Very nearly parental, wouldn't you say, Maggie? Protective."