Artful Dodger (Maggie Kean Mis-Adventures) (8 page)

“You really ought to eat your vegetables.”

“You really ought to mind your own business. So far, all you’ve done is voice your unsolicited opinion about my clothes and my eating habits. Is there anything else you’d like to expound upon?”

“Uh-huh. The will.”

“Oh, yeah, that.  That was easy. I just roped the dotty old lady in, little by little. Elizabeth really was quite senile, you know. She’d wander over here in a daze and I’d sit her down in front of small clump of clay... humor her, you know?  Make her feel important. Every once in a while, I’d give her a pad of paper and pencil and she’d try her hand at sketching. Then I started working on her paranoia, subtly suggesting that her money might be in jeopardy.”

Villari simply lifted his brow and kept eating.

“It worked like a charm.  I had her completely convinced that Preston and Cassie were plotting to put her in a nursing home, take over the house and confiscate all of her money by having her declared incompetent. The only way to stop them was to put me in charge of their inheritance. She fell for it like a ton of bricks.”

“You’ve got a smart mouth, don’t you?”

“No, it’s true,” I insisted between bites. “I’ve always wanted to be intricately linked with Preston and Cassie, I just love those two...I mean what’s not to love? It was the perfect solution. Now we’re one big happy family.”

“Maggie.”

I leaned over and whispered conspiratorially, “So one day I called up Hawthorne and pretended to be Elizabeth, using my best old-lady voice with a slight tremor, and asked him to draw up the necessary changes. Then I snuck over to her mailbox every day to check for the updated will. When it arrived, I slipped the last page of the document on top of her sketches and asked her to sign her drawings. Well, the lady was blind as a bat, and not too bright to boot, so without further ado,” I said, flourishing my slice of pizza, “I was in the will.  Signed, sealed, and delivered.”

“Funny, real funny,” Villari said, slowly wiping his hands on a paper napkin. “You’re a real comedian. Now let’s try this one more time and see if you can answer a straight question with a straight answer. You might be surprised at how efficient a straight line is compared to the convoluted route you seem to prefer.”

I threw down my pizza. “I’m so tired of this. If you knew Elizabeth at all, you’d know how ridiculous this is. That lady had more brains, more stamina... more sheer willpower than anyone I know and she was in her seventies. She was on the board of I don’t know how many charities and she went to all sorts of functions and dinners. After all that, she still had enough energy left to critique my work.  In a constructive way.  She had a great eye and was able to point out areas I needed to improve in order to grow as an artist. The idea that I bamboozled her, or tricked her into putting me in as trustee, is so absurd it’s laughable.”

Villari leaned his elbows on the table and steepled his fingertips. “So you weren’t surprised that she included you?”

“Are you kidding? I was shocked. But the fact is, she did include me, and I’m not going to start casting doubt on her sanity. Her letter pretty much explains the whole thing.”

“What letter?”

“Elizabeth wrote me before she died. That’s why Hawthorne wanted to see me after everyone had left.”

“Where’s the letter now?”

I hesitated at first because I couldn’t remember where I had put the letter after showing it to Lisa.

“It’s in a nice safe place,” I said, once I realized where it was.

Villari’s eyes narrowed.

“Under the pizza box.”

Muttering curses, he reached out, grabbed the box, and lifted it off the table. The letter was tucked in its envelope, now sporting a small grease stain in the corner.

Villari stared at me in shock. “A lady dies. No, she doesn’t just die, she’s murdered, and she isn’t your average, everyday sweet old lady with white hair, but a very rich lady with money to burn.  And you—” He stopped, too stunned to continue.

For once in my life, I kept quiet.

“And you leave her personal letter to you under the pizza box like it was no more than a coupon from a box of Froot Loops?” He shook his head. “You’re already on shaky ground in this investigation, Maggie. You have a stronger motive than anyone else to kill Elizabeth Boyer, especially now that we know you’re in control of a large portion of her estate.”

“What difference does that make? I don’t get to keep the damned money. I just get to baby-sit the stuff to keep those two parasites from pitching it down a black hole.”

“Either you’re a better actress than I thought or you really don’t get it,” Villari said.  “You’ll make somewhere around one percent annually with this little job. Minus the taxes, that works out to be something in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand a year. It won’t make you one of the rich and famous, but as long as you decide to keep Elizabeth Boyer’s money intact without handing anything to the grandkids, you’ll have a nice steady income for as long as you want.”

I glared at Villari. “You’re starting to sound like Preston, as though I rigged this whole thing. I did not plan to be in her will and I certainly did not murder Elizabeth,” I said emphatically.  Much to my dismay, though, my voice cracked slightly and I could feel the heat on my cheeks, all part of my pre-crying routine. I jumped up, ran to the kitchen, and rummaged in the refrigerator just to have something to do. I grabbed a soda and slammed the door shut. Tears burned behind my eyes, but I could no longer tell whether they were tears of sorrow or anger.

Villari turned around so he was facing me and straddled his chair. “I haven’t accused you of anything, Maggie. I just don’t understand why you would treat a letter from a murder victim so carelessly. This could be entered as evidence in a courtroom and you’re using it as a place mat.”

“Evidence for what?” I asked, my hands on my hips.

“Nothing yet.”

“ ‘Yet’?”

“Be realistic. Those two grandkids want that money and they want it right now. Chances are very good that they’re going to file a suit asserting, in very nice legal terms, that Mrs. Boyer was off her rocker. This letter could help your case as long as you don’t use it to line the bottom of the birdcage.”

“I don’t have a bird,” I muttered.  “But that’s not your biggest worry, is it? You’re really worried that I may be the murderer.”

“I can’t overlook anything, Maggie. Every little piece fits in somehow, somewhere. Part of my job is to figure out where you fit in.”

“But I’m just an innocent bystander with a clogged toilet,” I insisted. I walked to the table and dropped into my chair, slouching against the back. “Next time I’m sticking with the plunger.”

Villari chuckled. “Try to look at this objectively. A lady is murdered and you find her in your yard. Is there a reason she’s in
your
septic tank? Was it deliberate or just the nearest drop-off site?”

“But what does the letter have to do with where her body was found?”

“I don’t know. That’s why you should take care of it and why I’d like to read it.”

“No.”

Villari scowled. “And why not?”

“Because it’s private. It’s mine. And frankly, I’m tired of everyone jumping on my butt, acting as though I did something wrong. Until I’m formally charged, the letter stays in my possession. You’re looking in the wrong place, Detective. Maybe you could use a little help.”

“Help from whom?” he asked, staring me down. I thought about telling him how handsome he was when he was angry, but I didn’t think he’d take it too well.

“Me. I know the neighborhood. Like I said at the funeral, people around here will be more willing to talk to someone they know, especially someone who knew and cared about Elizabeth, than a strange cop with a surly attitude.”

“Stop right there and listen up.”

“No, you stop. Elizabeth was more than my neighbor. She was an important person in my life... maybe I’m just beginning to realize how important. She helped me out over the years, and if I can help find out who killed her, then that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“That’s exactly what you will
not
do. What you will do is stay out of this investigation, and I mean completely out. This is not a game we’re playing, and the last thing I need to worry about is where you are and what mess you’ve waltzed yourself into.”

I gritted my teeth. “Do you have any idea how chauvinistic you sound?”

“I couldn’t care less how I sound. This is not a man–woman thing.  This is about knowing what the hell you’re doing... which you most definitely do not.”

“But—”

“But when this is all over, we can discuss my surly attitude,” he said, reaching over the table and cradling my chin. “And that discussion will very definitely be a man–woman thing.”

After Villari left, I wandered around turning on lamps scattered through the house. Built over fifty years ago as the caretaker’s cottage for the estate in which Elizabeth spent her married years, the house had no ceiling lights, except in the kitchen. I’d grown accustomed to the soft shadows flung against the walls by these shaded light bulbs. Listless, I roamed aimlessly from one room to the next, stopping briefly to trail my fingers across the ratty couch in the front room. It was covered with an old and much-loved afghan my grandmother knitted for my mother on her birthday, two years before she died. The bold splashes of purple and white were supposedly nothing more than a cheery color choice, but I had a hunch my grandmother was a secret fan of the Minnesota Vikings, something you never admitted out loud in Broncos territory.

Standing in the doorway of my studio, a quiet calm washed over me. The thick mounds of muted brown clay scattered around the room in different positions and different stages of completion added depth to the stark white room. It seemed alive in some sort of symbiotic way, a place where life was still evolving, like one of those photograph series that show an unborn child changing from month to month. I always breathed easier in this room, a place where I was still discovering who I was and what I wanted. It is probably why I’ve always had trouble finishing a piece.  I can’t bear for the work to be done, for the movement to stop.  It was the tempo, the motion, and the rhythm that captured the imagination.

I slid onto a stool placed in front of a mound of clay that was still quiet, still hesitant to tell its story. Each day I sat on this seat, locked my feet behind the footrest, and ran my fingers over the clay, pushing, prodding, pulling, and kneading, coaxing its secret into the light. It’s like trying to get a wild animal to trust you enough to eat food from your hands. In the beginning, you have to remain at a safe distance and stand completely still until the animal makes the first move.

Stroking the clay, I traced the deep fissures, my fingertips listening and searching as I stared out at the forest through the large window in front of my worktable. I could see the beginning of the trail I followed on my daily treks. At the bend, the trees obscured the rest of the path and I longed for the quiet peace of the woods, the respite from life. But now, I was no longer brave enough to walk to my mailbox at night, much less hike through the trees with nothing but pinpricks of moonlight to illuminate the forest floor. Like Elizabeth, there would be no witnesses to see my murder, no one to hear my screams.

I shuddered. Things that went bump in the night were not just childhood fears any more.  Now they were real.  Real criminals and real threats to bolt the door against. Questions flooded my brain. Did Elizabeth know her killer? Did she know she was about to die? Was it a crime of revenge, a crime of hate?  I couldn’t sit around and wonder anymore, relegated to the sidelines. No matter what Villari thought or said to me, I had to do something. There had to be notes, clues, something left behind to explain the murder of a seventy-year-old woman.

Her house. A picture of that majestic house with its stone columns flashed in my brain and I knew what I had to do. Elizabeth’s life was in her house. I had to get in there and look around, and draw the secrets from its silent walls. In other words, I desperately needed to snoop.

And suddenly it was all so simple. Not only could I get into her house, but I could walk right up to the front door, ring the bell, and be invited in. Elizabeth herself had paved the way. Her picture, the one she had willed me, was my ticket.

I hopped off the stool and rewrapped the clay in the plastic sheet. Sprinting down the hallway, I grabbed my car keys, purse, and a light jacket to protect me from the ever-present evening chill.  I could have easily walked through the maze of trees that flanked our properties, but I was truly spooked by Elizabeth’s murder and decided to drive instead. Mercifully, my temperamental Jeep immediately roared to life without the usual pedal pumping or clutch popping down the long incline of my driveway.  I parked in front of Elizabeth’s house, jogged up the steps, and pushed the doorbell.

“Who is it?”

The deep, impatient voice crackling over the intercom startled me. Benton, Elizabeth’s longtime butler and close friend all rolled in one, normally answered the door in person. 

I pressed the talk button. “It’s me, Preston. Maggie.”