Murder in the Dog Days (Maggie Ryan) (11 page)

Mrs. Colby sobbed. So did Donna. But they both stood rigidly apart from one another.

Mr. Colby added angrily, “She’s a bad mother. Just the way she was a bad wife!”

“Well,” said Maggie in that sweet voice, “the fact remains that Donna is the person who has the right to decide. What do you say, Donna? Do you want Josie and Tina to go with their grandparents?”

Donna’s lip trembled. She shook her head.

“Not even for a few days?” Maggie continued.

Donna looked at her feet again. Olivia was exasperated with her. Okay, so right now she was devastated, that was understandable. Hard to be liberated in the midst of tragedy. But if she’d stood up to these people long ago they’d be more reasonable now. Wouldn’t they?

And Mr. Colby was blustering again. “We’re not talking about a few days, young lady! We’re talking about my grandchildren’s future!”

“So are we!” exclaimed Olivia hotly, unable to keep silent any longer. “What makes you think—” She broke off. Maggie’s hand, a powerful gymnast’s hand, was squeezing her wrist painfully.

“It’s Donna’s decision,” Maggie repeated gently. “Donna, I know it’s hard right now. But you have to take control of your life. You have to decide what’s best for your girls.”

Donna looked at Maggie and drew a deep breath. Then, blonde hair alight in the glow from the porch lamp, she squared her shoulders in Jerry’s robe and said, “It would be best for the girls to stay with me.”

Olivia cheered silently. Mr. Colby shouted, “You’ll regret this! We’ll—we’ll—”

Olivia said, “If you cause them any trouble, Donna can get a court order to keep you away.”

There was a spark of astonishment in the old man’s eyes. He waved a fist at Donna. “You do that and I’ll disown them! You, them, everyone!” He grabbed his wife’s elbow and steered her from the porch. “I’ll disown them!” he repeated, as though relishing the sound of it. “You hear that? I’ll disown them!” They disappeared down the front walk.

Donna stood there dazed until Maggie put her arm around her and drew her inside.

“Whew!” said Olivia as they rejoined the men. “I hate to insult your family, Donna, but they really are unreasonable.”

“Can I really get a court order?” Donna asked in wonder.

“If you want one,” said Maggie. “You have lots of rights, you know.”

“But Dale’s father is so …”

Maggie gave her hand a squeeze. “Yes. But I have a feeling that he’s mostly bluster. Stand up to him the way you did tonight and your girls will be fine.”

“I’m not very good at standing up to people.”

“You did fine.”

“I wish he would disown us,” said Donna with feeling. She glanced at the staircase.

“Fine. Then there’s no problem. Do you want to get back to your girls, now?” She squeezed her hand again encouragingly and released her to go back upstairs, then Maggie joined the others drifting back into the living room.

Jerry said, “Boy. I hope that man’s the murderer. I’d love to lock him up.”

“Just what I was thinking,” said Olivia indignantly. “Should have asked him for an alibi.”

“Well, I’m sure Schreiner will ask,” said Nick. “Now, where were we?”

“Drug overdoses,” said Maggie. “I suppose the cops will know to test for overdoses of those medications?”

“Yeah,” said Jerry. “Schreiner said she used to be a nurse.”

“Really?” Olivia was fascinated. “But she’s such a cold fish!”

“I don’t think she’s a cold fish.” Maggie was thoughtful. “I think she hurts.”

“Well, the effect is the same,” snorted Olivia unsympathetically.

“All cops act like cold fish,” said Nick. His lively eyes suddenly grew stony, watchful; his usually mobile face became neutral, impenetrable; his pleasant voice shifted to a flat contralto. It was an amazing transformation. “What time did you return from the beach?”

Jerry clapped his hands. “God, that’s Schreiner!”

“Why do they do that?” Olivia wondered.

Nick shrugged. “They never know if they’re talking to the damsel in distress or to the perp. It’s a grim job and they can’t afford mistakes.”

Maggie pulled them back to the problem at hand. “Okay, so Dale’s medication is not likely the problem, and—”

“Wait a minute,” said Olivia. She glanced apprehensively at the stairs and lowered her voice. “Could Donna maybe slip extra medicine into his sandwich? Or his coffee? I mean, she wouldn’t, but—”

“She didn’t,” Maggie said. “Or we might all be hallucinating right now. I know because Sarah went running into the kitchen about the time Dale asked Donna for his lunch. I followed Sarah. And I saw Donna pour his coffee from the same Thermos all the rest of us drank from. She poured it into a mug that she took from the dishwasher.”

“And the sandwich?”

“I was by the table and she asked me to hand her one. I just randomly grabbed one from the basket and put it on the plate she was fixing for him.”

“And the potato chips were in a sealed packet,” Olivia remembered. “Another theory shot. Thank God.”

“Well, the medication was involved in one important way,” Maggie pointed out. “It kept Dale close to home. So the murderer must have known his house.”

“Doesn’t help a lot,” Olivia said morosely. “He got out occasionally, though not a lot during this heat wave. And he got some of us to come to his house. Even did some interviews there if he could talk people into stopping by.”

“But from the murderer’s point of view there was a real advantage to knowing where he’d be. He wasn’t out running around unpredictably the way you usually are, Liv.”

“That’s true. But still, how did the killer get out of the locked room?”

“How about the air-conditioning?” asked Nick. “No one would have to get in or out if maybe some kind of gas could be fed into the system.”

“Not carbon monoxide,” said Maggie. “He wasn’t pink. Right, Jerry?”

“Right. But we’re really in never-never land here. Cyanide, mustard gas—these things leave signs too. I didn’t see any signs. But of course there’s always a chance the police will find something.”

Back to the damn police, to Ms. Ride-in-a-patrol-car Schreiner. Olivia leaned back, exasperated, stretched out her toes to kick angrily at the coffee table, and jammed her fists into her pockets. “Damn, I wish we didn’t have to leave it all to them!”

“Schreiner’s got access to labs,” Maggie pointed out reasonably. “She’s got lots of trained people. No need for us to meddle.”

“Well, maybe not. Not about how he died, anyway,” Olivia admitted as another thought occurred to her. “I mean, you’re right, all the theories we’ve come up with so far require some kind of evidence. Blood tests or door wedges or whatever. But we’re already ahead of the cops when it comes to Dale’s life, right? I can talk to Nate and Edgy tomorrow and find out about the stories he’s worked on. Donna can probably help us a lot once she’s had some rest, and—”

“Donna’s energy should go toward helping the police,” Maggie said.

“Yeah, I know, of course. But if we talk to her we can help her think of things to tell the police.” Olivia pulled her hands from her pockets and gestured upstairs. “I mean, Donna’s mind isn’t working all that well right now. We can help.”

“Well, it’s true that things make more sense when you know more background,” Maggie admitted.

Olivia didn’t answer. She was staring at her hand, at what she’d just pulled from her pocket. A paper napkin. The napkin that she’d picked up from the hall floor outside Dale’s locked door, before the horrible discovery had wiped it from her mind.

Jerry nudged her in the ribs. “What’ve you got, Liv?”

“Oh.” She dragged her eyes from the folded square, met his blue ones. “It’s, um, maybe a clue!”

“Donovan’s Bar?” he asked suspiciously, taking the napkin. The green logo, complete with shamrock, filled the corner.

“You found it at the Colbys’?” Maggie guessed.

“Yes. On the floor outside the den door when I first went to knock on it. I’m sure it wasn’t there earlier, before we went to the beach.”

“Yeah. You would have noticed. Donna’s a good housekeeper.” Maggie was on her feet, hurrying to the phone in the hall. She brought back the directory.

“Yeah, that’s why I picked it up,” Olivia said. “It seemed almost sacrilegious on that polished floor. So where’s Donovan’s?”

Maggie’s tracking finger paused on the page. “What do you mean, Donovan’s? I’m looking for the county police number.”

“Hey, wait a minute!” Olivia snatched the book away and turned to the D’s. “Schreiner won’t be at headquarters anyway,” she added lamely.

“You’re not saying you’re keeping this from her!”

“No, no,” Olivia said soothingly. “I just mean, she’s got more than enough to do tonight.”

“That’s not what you mean, Ms. Woodward-hyphen-Bernstein,” said Jerry darkly.

Nick returned to the point. “It might help the cops if they know about it right away.”

Cornered, Olivia protested, “Do you really trust Schreiner that much? She wears all that more-official-than-thou armor. But if she wants to learn things—well, hell, she just wasn’t very open with me.”

“Not her job to be open with us,” Nick said. “Besides, she did tell you a little about the plane crash victims.”

“Yeah, but I know what Liv means,” Maggie said slowly. “Schreiner’s got her own agenda. I think she wants to solve the crime, basically. But that armor you talk about has some odd cracks in it.”

Nick nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. She didn’t talk to me long. But there was a moment—I was talking about Berlin, and for a minute there we connected. Then suddenly the defenses went up again.”

“Right. That kept happening to me too. Swings back and forth.”

“So how can we trust her?” repeated Olivia, sensing an ally.

But Maggie betrayed her. “I trust her more than I trust us,” she said vehemently. Olivia was surprised at the dark emotion in her eyes. “Last time I meddled in police business somebody died. I don’t want to mess things up again.”

“Well, nobody’s asking you to.” Olivia put down the phone book and stood up briskly. “But just in case you hadn’t noticed, it is a reporter’s business to ask about things. So I’m going to go ask.” She grabbed her shoulder bag from the table.

“Hey, Liv, can’t it wait till tomorrow?” Jerry protested.

“This is a bar. Now’s the time.” She hesitated, thinking of one a.m. at some bars she knew. “Though I wouldn’t say no to some company.”

“Hey, I have to make hospital rounds five hours from now!” Jerry complained. “And I was hoping to have a couple more minutes to talk to Maggot while she’s here. We were so busy yesterday seeing the Mosby Museum and the battlefield, and this morning she was tooling around Maryland while Nick and I took Sarah to the Smithsonian. And then the beach. So can’t you do this tomorrow, Liv? I don’t even know what my own sister’s current projects are!” He glanced at Maggie. “Well, except for the obstetrically obvious.”

The hell with it, she could take care of herself. Olivia put her hand on the doorknob. “I’ll be back in an hour or two.”

“Hey, Liv, please!” Jerry said.

Nick lumbered to his feet. “I’ll play backup for you, Liv,” he said.

“I can manage.” But she was pleased.

“No, let’s let these Ryans chatter away. Leave them to their remembrances of days foregone. I tune out anyway when the talk turns to life in grade school.”

“Great! Well, let’s go!”

“Listen, be careful, Olivia.” Maggie was rummaging through a straw handbag. Olivia realized suddenly it was Donna’s. “Here,” said Maggie, and handed her a photo from the wallet.

“Oh. Right.” Olivia took the snapshot. In it Dale smiled his miserly smile, his arms around his two girls. “This could speed things up.”

“Take care,” Maggie warned them both.

Olivia waved, flung open the door, and dug out her keys as she ran through the rain to the van.

“Thanks for coming along,” she said to Nick as she flipped on the windshield wipers and pulled out of the driveway. “But it wasn’t really necessary.”

“I know. But in some bars, being alone would say something that you’d have to waste a lot of time explaining away.”

“Sexists,” grumbled Olivia.

“The millenium has not yet arrived.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

He grinned. “So where is this Donovan’s Bar?”

“Other side of the S-D offices. Fringy area.”

It was a working-class bar. Lots of jeans and plaid shirts, few women, a TV with sallow color propped on a high shelf in the corner. It was tuned to a wrestling match.

Olivia hauled herself onto a bar stool. Nick sat next to her and told the bartender, “Coupla Millers.”

Olivia didn’t want a Miller. But her flash of indignation was followed by grudging admiration. Maybe she wouldn’t have to use her press card yet. Nick sounded local. He sounded like her plumber. And her plumber would probably order a Miller for her.

The bartender was middle-aged, a surprisingly handsome man with smoky gray curls and only a hint of belly. His shirt was green plaid. “There you go,” he said genially, pushing two foaming glasses across the worn bar toward them.