Mahjonged (An Alex Harris Mystery)

by Elaine Macko

  “Then the lights went out,” Bert continued, “and I heard screaming and something about a body and then someone called the police. I didn’t know what to do. But then I heard you all talking about soup and I was pretty hungry. I came directly here from work. See? I’m a mess, Connie. I’m still in my work clothes,” Bert said, looking at Connie in an apologetic way.

  Despite the wet clothes and the wet hair dripping down his face, Bert wasn’t a bad looking guy. He had on heavy work shoes and I could see a flannel shirt sticking out from beneath the wet jacket. I got the impression Bert worked with his hands. And he also obviously worked out the rest of his body as well because like his wife, his estranged wife I reminded myself, he was in great shape.

  “Wait a minute. How did you know Connie was here?” I asked.

  “I stopped by the club and one of the instructors told me she was playing some kind of game with a bunch of ladies.”

  “Who?” Connie asked.

  “I forget her name. What does it matter?”

  “How did you know where I lived?” Bert was starting to freak me out.

  “I found your name and address in the phone book.”

  “No you didn’t. I’m not listed.”

  “Bert, how did you find me?’ Connie demanded.

  “Okay, okay. Don’t get mad. I put a tracking device on your car. I got it on the Internet. Works pretty good.” Bert smiled, clearly very proud of himself.

  “You what? How long has it been on there?”

  “About a week. I swear.”

  Connie took a deep breath. “Bert, you need to leave. Please,” Connie pleaded. “I told you I don’t want to see you anymore. You’ve got to get it through your stupid head once and for all.”

  From behind me I heard the voice of Liz Throckmorton.

  “He can’t leave. He killed Penelope! Grab him, ladies. We need to tie him up until the police get here.”

  The group of wildebeest on the other side of the table made a sudden move. Any minute pandemonium would reign as if it hadn’t all evening.

  “Now hold on,” Connie said, turning to face the herd. “Someone in this room murdered Penelope but it wasn’t Bert. He may be a jerk, but he’s not a killer.”

  “Thanks, honey,” Bert said with a “so there” look to everyone else.

  “Don’t call me honey,” Connie glared. “And for my money,” she said, turning back to face everyone else, “it could only be one person.”

  “Hey! I didn’t kill anyone. Why is everyone looking at me?” Mia began to cry as all eyes rested on her.

  “I think we should all remain calm,” my mother interrupted before a lynch mob could form. “And tossing accusations around will not help the situation. Let’s leave the detecting to the proper authorities.”

  “That’s right,” I said, trying to gain back control of the situation. Could things get any worse? Apparently, they could.

  “Excuse me,” Bert said quietly. “Did you say Penelope? Penelope Radamaker?”

  Connie walked up to Bert, hands on slim hips once more, and stared at him. “Yes, Penelope Radamaker. Why? You know her?”

  “Know her? She’s the old battleaxe who’s been giving me grief for the last five months over the kitchen job. The one who refuses to pay her bill. She got killed?”

  I could see a small smile on Bert’s lips. This didn’t look good.

  “Oh, my God,” Connie said, slowly backing away from Bert and covering her heart with her hand. “That’s the woman you said you wished was dead.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  That was all Liz needed to hear. Before I could figure out what happened Mary-Beth, Judith, Millie, and Dorothy grabbed Bert and tried to hold him down. Bert was a strong guy and was having none of it. He kept squirming and then my grandmother walked up to him and smacked him across the face.

  “Pipe down,” Meme said using one of our favorite quotes from Lady Mary in Downton Abbey.

  Bert was so stunned he actually complied while Liz first secured his hands and then wrapped him up with duct tape like he was being mummified.

  “Wow,” I said to Meme with awe and admiration. My grandmother could clearly take care of herself. Then I turned to Liz. “Where did you get that tape?”

  “Right there,” she said, pointing to the sideboard in my dining room.

  Sure enough, she was right. John had dropped it the other night after he used it to secure some wires behind the sideboard. I never got around to putting it back in the garage and now my guests had used it to apprehend a murderer.

  For a long time no one said anything. We just stood there, looking over Bert as he struggled in vain against the tape. Dorothy tore off a piece and slapped it across Bert’s mouth. It was like we were all in a trance, totally enthralled with watching this man roll around on the floor. First he was on his stomach, making kicking motions with his legs much like a fish tangled up in a fishing line. Then he rolled over onto his back and rolled back and forth from one side to the other. His face was red from the exertion and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I reached down and pulled the tape from his mouth.

  “Ooooooch!” Bert screamed. “Untie me! Will someone untie me? NOW!”

  We listened to Bert scream out, calling Connie all sorts of names. When that didn’t work, he started to plead with her, professing his love. My sympathy for the man gone, I reached down and slapped the tape back on his mouth under a murderous gaze from Bert.

  “Maybe we should try playing a word game,” Dorothy offered. This feeble attempt at breaking the tension went totally ignored.

  I couldn’t look at Bert’s contortions anymore and went into the kitchen followed by my sister.

  “What do we really know about these women?” I asked while leaning on the counter and popping M&Ms into my mouth. The jar was getting dangerously low and I didn’t think I had any more bags in the cupboard. I slowed my popping speed down a tad in an effort to conserve my drug, which, by the way things were headed, I was going to need throughout the night.

  “Obviously, not much,” Sam said. “I can’t believe one of our friends is a killer.”

  “Well, believe it. And if you need a little help, go take another look in the dining room. But they’re not all our friends. Some of these women I’m just meeting for the first time.” I took the tea kettle to the sink and refilled it, then replaced it on the burner and turned the heat up to high.

  “Well, that helps. I mean maybe the killer is one of the women we don’t know,” my sister said at my bewildered look.

  The water boiled, I took it out to the dining room with fresh tea bags and refilled the pot. Everyone had settled down, including Bert. A few of the women got up for a cup of tea and then everyone settled back down into peaceful quiet.

  My sister wedged herself on the sofa next to Meme and after grabbing a cup of tea for myself, I plopped down on one of my rockers. Mia and Millie slept on the floor, wrapped up in blankets with a pillow under their heads. The others were blessedly silent, some asleep, and others just staring at nothing.

  So what did I know about these women, I asked myself again. I took a sip of my tea and looked over at the sofa. My grandmother, sister, Theresa, and Mrs. Haddock sat on the sofa. I knew I could scratch all of them off my list of suspects. I knew all of them since I was born, with the exception of Francis Haddock.

  When I first met her after her neighbor and friend had been murdered she was so lonely. But what did I really know about her except she made a great cup of tea she always served in beautiful china, and my grandmother was turning her into a bingo player extraordinaire.

  I looked at her now. She dozed off with her cardigan pulled tightly around her. Her full head of white hair and flawless pale skin made her look so angelic. No, she wasn’t a killer. I crossed her off my list and moved my gaze over to the other side of the sofa where Jean, Judith, and Liz sat. I knew I was playing favorites here, but I immediately crossed Judith off the list. I couldn’t believe a person who had raised Millie cou
ld be a killer. Judith, Millie, and Mrs. Chapman, Millie’s grandmother, were three of the most kind-hearted people I had ever met. I suppose that didn’t preclude them from being cold-blooded killers, but I mentally scratched them off my list, thought about it a bit more, and decided to keep Judith on. I don’t know why exactly except Judith was the only person who knew Penelope before tonight. Except for Bert.

  Jean and Liz were two of the women I didn’t know and this made them far more interesting to me. Liz Throckmorton came with Connie and I had no idea how Connie knew her, but I would find out later. Liz looked about forty-eight to fifty years of age by my guess, which meant nothing because I never managed to get that right for some reason. There was nothing about Liz that would make her stand out in a crowd. She was of medium height and weight, attractive but not a beauty, and had shoulder-length dark blond hair with a touch of gray. She had a slightly husky voice and this made me think she may have been a smoker at one point in her life, which seemed odd considering she was a nurse and should know better. But she wasn’t a nurse now and this made me wonder what the woman currently did for a living.

  Then I turned my attention to Jean who arrived at the same time as my mother and Dorothy. Jean Malansky was a tall woman. Though not as tall as my mother’s five foot ten inches, she was very thin and this made her seem taller somehow. She wore glasses and kept her pale red hair short. Her face held many wrinkles, more than the other women older than she, including my mom. I put Jean in her late fifties. She didn’t have a wedding ring on and I hadn’t heard her speak of children so as far as I could tell at this moment, Jean was on her own.

  Next, I turned my gaze to Mia, who still slept on the floor. Mia was quite simply stunning, when she wasn’t screaming. Mia Christenssen sounded like a Danish name to me and she lived up to what I expected Danish women to look like. About five foot seven and strong looking—not fat by any standard but she looked like she worked out and kept healthy and could probably thrust a knife deep into the back of Penelope Radamaker. She had sleek blond hair she wore in a bob and cat-shaped deep blue eyes. At one point in the evening I saw her laughing over something and she had a beautiful smile of perfect white teeth. But I couldn’t let myself get distracted by a mouthful of good teeth. After all, this was the same young woman who stood in my foyer screaming her lungs out at Liz. There was definitely a story there.

  Connie Cabrizzi sat across the room on the floor next to Bert. Connie was a tiny little thing with a body to die for which she kept toned by teaching aerobic classes at my health club. Bert also had a body to die for. I never saw him at the club and wondered how he kept in such good shape. Both Connie and Bert were in their early thirties. Bert’s body and age didn’t seem to fit the name Bert, but maybe it was a family name passed down through the ages. Bert saw me looking at him and I quickly turned my gaze to the fire, embarrassed to have been caught.

  So exactly why was Bert here? Sure, he said he only wanted to check up on his wife but by an amazing coincidence he also happened to know the deceased and didn’t seem to have a good relationship with her. As a matter of fact, from what Bert said, it sounded as if Penelope caused him a lot of grief by not paying her bill. If he had remodeled her kitchen, then that must have cost a lot. And now she was dead.

  But something didn’t seem right. To my way of thinking why would Bert kill her if she hadn’t paid? Now he would probably never get his money unless he went after her estate. I shook my head. I needed to have a talk with Bert.

  Mary-Beth Ramsey, my best friend from school, sat in the other chair I had dragged into the living room. She just stared into the fire, an almost empty cup of tea cradled in her hands. Here was someone I could be certain of was definitely not a killer unless you died laughing from one of her many tales of a past schoolmate long forgotten. Mary-Beth always had a story. No, Mary-Beth was not on my list of suspects.

  My sister came over and sat next to me. “What are you thinking about sitting here alone in the dark?”

  “I’m trying to decide who the killer is.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. No one in this room is capable of murder. At least not for any reasons I can fathom.”

  “True. Unless of course, Penelope was killed because of the game.”

  “The game. How so?” I asked with fascination at where my sister could possibly go with this thought.

  “Maybe someone got her tile. I’ve seen it happen. Women can be vicious when they get together for a game. Look at our own mother. When she loses at Scrabble there is just no talking to her.”

  I looked at my sister over the glow of the candles sitting on the end table by my side. “Honestly, Samantha. One does not kill because another player got their three Bam. Or the North Wind.”

  The candles flickered creating a dancing pattern across Sam’s face. “Yeah, well, tell it to those two guys in that chess championship. Didn’t the Bulgarian guy hire someone to try and run his opponent down with a car before the big match?”

  “I hardly think a mahjong game, in my home, constitutes major concern.”

  “Well, then do you think it’s Mia?”

  “I hope not,” I whispered. “She looks like such a sweet young girl and she and Millie have become such good friends.”

  Sam got herself a cup of tea and moved back over to the sofa, where Meme and Theresa quietly talked.

  At some point I must have dozed off when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

  “Mia. You scared me half to death.”

  “Sorry, Alex. Millie and Mrs. Chapman are sleeping. No one else seems to want to be near me.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Then you believe me? You don’t think I killed Penelope?”

  “I’m sure you can understand the reaction of the others,” I quickly said, not bothering to answer Mia’s question because I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t know this young woman at all. Tonight was the first time I had met her and so far all I really knew was she could scream like a banshee.

  “I guess I can. I did act like a lunatic when I came out of the bathroom and saw Liz standing there.”

  “Would you like to tell me about it? I mean exactly what happened between the two of you?”

  Mia pushed a piece of hair over her ear. She looked into the fire, her blue eyes sparkling in the light. “My father died several years ago. He had been very sick and my aunt, she’s his sister, and I took care of him at home. My mother left when I was young, just a baby really. She told my father she wasn’t ready to have a child and be a full-time mom,” Mia said, with no trace of bitterness in her voice. “So my dad and I became very close. My aunt, too. She took care of me a lot while my dad worked. Anyway, he became sick and we just couldn’t take care of him anymore at home. So we put him in a hospital in New Haven. He didn’t have much longer to live.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “On his final night, he had some kind of a seizure or something. And no one did anything.”

  “Because of the DNR?” I asked.

  “Yes. But it wasn’t supposed to be on his chart. They got the names mixed up. You see, my dad’s name was Elgin Christenssen, spelled C H R I S T E N S S E N. The other man, the one with the DNR, was Elliot Christianson, C H R I S T I A N S O N.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “Yes. Well, the order had somehow been written on the wrong file.”

  “By Liz?”

  “No. By another nurse. She got fired.”

  “Then it was an honest mistake.” I touched Mia lightly on her arm. “I’m sorry, Mia, that wasn’t very sensitive, but you know what I mean.”

  “Yes, I do.” Mia became very quiet. Her tears glistened in the light of the fire.

  I waited a few minutes before asking, “Did you sue the hospital?”

  “Yes. Nothing could bring him back but my aunt insisted on it. The hospital finally offered me a settlement and I took it. It wasn’t a lot, but it paid for me to finish school. I’m an accountant. Up until that point, I went at night wh
ile working during the day. And I have a bit put away. The nurse who made the mistake was terminated and her license revoked. But it wasn’t good enough as far as I was concerned. I wanted more done to her but I couldn’t think of what.”

  “Then why did you lash out at Liz if the other nurse got it wrong?” I asked, wondering if there was more she wasn’t telling me.

  “Because Liz was the charge nurse. She was the one who should have made sure the other nurses did their job. I loved my dad. And today is his birthday. Seeing Liz just brought all the pain up again. She should have had her license taken away as well.”

  “She didn’t?” I asked. “But she doesn’t practice any more from what I gather.”

  “I don’t know about that and I don’t really care,” Mia said defiantly. “My father was all I had. Except for my aunt. And I love her, too, but, you know, it’s different. And she was so cold the night he died.”

  “Liz?”

  “Yes. She didn’t offer any condolences. Didn’t say she was sorry. Just acted like it happened everyday. Which I guess to her, it did. But it was my father!”

  “I can understand your reaction under the circumstances.”

  “Thank you. I don’t think the others can.”

  “They will when they know the entire story.” I patted her hand.

  “I didn’t kill her. Honest.”

  I gave Mia a small smile. I wanted to tell her I believed she didn’t kill Penelope thinking she was Liz, but I didn’t want to lie. She had good reason to be upset seeing Liz, but her reaction earlier in the evening had been so strong. I wasn’t sure she could just let it go so easily. She looked at me expectantly, her blond hair looking beautiful in the candlelight. I smiled at her again and just patted her hand.

  “Alex? If I didn’t kill her, then who did?”

  That was the million-dollar question and I wanted an answer.

  I pushed myself up from the chair, ready to go have a long talk with Bert, when there was a loud bang at my front door.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN