Mahjonged (An Alex Harris Mystery)

by Elaine Macko

  My sister got to the front door before I could and flung it open.

  “Well, it’s about time,” she said in no uncertain terms to rain-soaked Detective Jim Maroni.

  I pushed Sam out of the way. “Don’t pay any attention to her, Detective Maroni. Please, come in.”

  Jim Maroni was John’s partner. They had paired up together the last time we had a murder in Indian Cove and he saved my life when the killer turned on me. He entered the house with two police officers behind him, and stomped water from his feet.

  By now everyone was awake and all had come into the foyer to see what was going on. That is, everyone except Bert, who I could see through the archway thrashing on the floor again.

  “What the heck is going on here, Mrs. Van der Burg?” Detective Maroni asked taking his eyes from Bert back to me.

  “Alex, please,” I said.

  “The dispatcher said a murder was reported. That guy looks alive to me.”

  “He is. He’s an uninvited guest. Climbed in through an upstairs window. We tied him up after we found the body just in case he was the killer.”

  Detective Maroni took a few steps into the living room. “Well, you did a great job. He’s not going anywhere.” He turned to look at me. “Where’s the body?”

  “Through here,” I said motioning toward the study. Once again we acted like wildebeest. Everyone took a collective step toward the study.

  “Just Mrs. Van der Burg,” Detective Maroni said, turning to the gathering herd.

  There was an abrupt stop and then I heard my mother’s voice.

  “Come ladies. Let the police do their work. Samantha, Mary-Beth, will you girls help me in the kitchen. Looks like we could use more coffee and tea.”

  “This is going to be good,” Meme said with a tad too much enthusiasm.

  I turned back to see Meme, Theresa, and Mrs. Haddock take their seats again on the sofa. All three folded their hands in their lap and sat there as if waiting for the movie to start. Good grief.

  Detective Maroni and I, along with one of the officers, entered the study and I shut the door behind us. The officer pulled out a flashlight and I put the candle my mother just handed me on a side table. I hadn’t been in here since we found Penelope and I didn’t know what to expect. I mean, how long did it take for a body to start to smell? I guess the house being so cold helped, because mercifully the only thing I could smell was a vague lingering of Penelope’s perfume.

  Detective Maroni walked over to the body and studied it for a few minutes, taking in everything around Penelope.

  “What’s all this,” he asked.

  I took a step further into the room, my arms wrapped tightly around me. “We were playing mahjong. It’s a game kind of like rummy, but you play with tiles. We took a break for some tea and cake, and the lights went out. We all went into the living room area and no one knew where Penelope was. Then we found her in here. Like that.”

  The detective walked slowly around the room. He went over to the window and pulled back the curtain. “Have these been closed all night?”

  “Yes. No one could have come in there. They’re locked.”

  “Was anyone else missing right when the lights when out?”

  “I don’t know. I was in the kitchen with my mom and sister getting the coffee and tea ready. Then the power went out and we were busy looking for candles and flashlights.”

  “How long after the lights went out did you go back out to the living room?”

  I thought for a few seconds. “I’m not sure. We got the candles and flashlight. And then we got the drinks ready and took everything out. I put the candles around lighting them and then we thought it would be best if we all stayed in the living and dining rooms where there was a fire so we could keep warm. And then my mother, I think, noticed Penelope was missing and we went to look for her.” I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Detective, but at that point I wasn’t really paying attention to where everyone was at the time.”

  Detective Maroni turned toward the young officer. “How long before the road is cleared? We need to get the tech people down here pronto.”

  The officer pulled out a cell phone and made a quick call. He put the phone back in his pocket and turned toward the detective. “They’re just cutting the last of the tree and clearing the road. Should be here in about twenty minutes, sir.”

  “Okay. Take Mrs. Van der Burg out to the living room and find someplace private where I can talk with everyone. And Mrs. Van der Burg,” he said to my retreating back, “keep the coffee coming. It’s going to be a long night.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  None of us is born a liar. We come into this world pure as the driven snow; fresh as a baby’s bottom. So it always amazes me how easily lying comes to a person. Especially to me. I like to think of myself as quite virtuous, and the truth is I’m a pretty good person, but I can lie with the best of them when I have to and that’s exactly what I did when I got back out to the living room.

  With Detective Maroni’s words burning in my brain—it’s going to be a long night—I looked at all the expectant faces, so innocent in the glow of the fireplace and candles, and told them a lie.

  “Not too much longer, I should think.” I even added a smile for good measure. “The rest of the police are on their way and Detective Maroni just wants to ask us all a few questions.” I didn’t see any reason to clue everyone in on the fact they were going to be interrogated to within an inch of their lives. It was that stampede thing again, and I didn’t think the two officers standing sentry in my living room would be able to contain thirteen women hell bent on getting out of my house. Heck, I wanted to get out of my house and run as fast as I could and I lived here.

  “I’ve never been interrogated before,” Meme said. “But I see them do it all the time on TV. They like to try and trip you up.”

  I gave a huge sigh and shook my head.

  “What do you mean interrogate?” Mia asked, eyes wide with horror.

  I cast a murderous glance over to where Meme sat, but she conveniently avoided me. An air of restlessness began to permeate throughout the room. “Calm down, everyone. It’s only natural the police want to ask us all questions. Everything will be fine.” Except of course for the one who killed Penelope, I thought, but didn’t say. In all the confusion with the police arriving, I had forgotten, once again, that one of these women, or maybe Bert, was a murderer and had been in my house all night. I shook myself out of my thoughts and looked at the crowd again. “Now, I’m going to go see what we have left over to eat.” I eyed the coffee pot and tea sitting on the sideboard and suggested everyone have something warm to drink.

  After I pulled every edible thing out of my kitchen and brought it all out to the dining room, the police turned my little breakfast nook into an interrogation room where they systematically took us one by one.

  As I sat on the sofa sipping what seemed like my hundredth cup of tea and surreptitiously munching on M&Ms I kept hidden in my pocket lest I have to share, I watched a parade of police technicians marching in and out of my study. I glanced at my watch and saw it was two-twenty in the morning. I was fading fast and a quick look around showed so was everyone else. Most of the women slept except for the unlucky one currently being questioned. My mother look scared to death when asked to join Detective Maroni in the kitchen and she still hadn’t come out yet.

  I knew my mother wasn’t the murderer, but God only knew what she was telling the police and why it was taking so long. Meme hadn’t gone in yet and I had a feeling she was looking forward to it. I glanced over to where Bert sat. The police had cut the tape from his body and mouth. Of course he began ranting and raving the minute he was free until Detective Maroni told him to be quiet or he’d wrap him up in tape himself. This shut Bert up, but he still had a scowl for anyone unfortunate enough to glance his way, which I currently did. I quickly averted my eyes and nervously began fingering the fringe on the blanket covering my lap.

  I must have fal
len asleep because all of a sudden I felt groggy and lightheaded. I looked at my watch again and it was a little after three. And then I looked at the other end of my sectional sofa to where Meme had been sitting next to Theresa, but she wasn’t there. And then out of the corner of my eye I could see someone else was missing as well. Bert. No, it couldn’t be. Not with police all around.

  “Oh, my God!” I tried to jump off the sofa but felt a hand take firm hold of my arm.

  “Alex? What’s wrong?” my sister asked.

  I hadn’t even noticed her sitting next to me. “Where’s Meme?” I asked in a panic. “And Bert?”

  “Calm down. Bert is in with the police and Meme just went to the bathroom. You must have been dreaming.”

  I put my head in my hands. “Oh, Geesh,” I said. “I guess I was.”

  “You’ve never been much of a night person, you know,” my sister said, telling me something I was well aware of. “But how you could fall asleep with all that caffeine and chocolate, I’ll never know.”

  “What chocolate?” I asked, peeking into my pocket and finding it empty. “How’d you do that without my even feeling you?”

  “I’ve become very good at being stealth-like,” Sam said with raised eyebrows.

  “Since when?” I asked.

  “Since Henry started walking. I’ve had to fine-tune every sense I have just to keep up with him. You’d be surprised the things the kid hides in his pants. I grab him and give him a hug every time he comes into the house just so I can sneak a peek in his pockets. He likes to sleep with worms and I’m getting sick of scraping them off the sheets in the morning. And him. He had one smooshed in his hands the other morning. All night, apparently.”

  “Ick,” I smiled.

  I thought I could probably fall back to sleep when the power came back on causing me to squint in the brightness of all the lamps we had on earlier. All the sleeping bodies around me began to stir.

  Then the kitchen door opened and Detective Maroni came out and handed Bert over to one of the officers, asking him to take Bert to the police station for further questioning.

  Connie jumped up. “Bert is not a killer,” she said to Detective Maroni. “He may be a lying, cheating scumbag, and I probably should have listened to my mother’s advice and not married the creep,” she said turning hostile eyes to Bert, “but he’s not a killer.”

  Detective Maroni turned to the group of women who had now gathered around him and Connie. “Please do not leave the city without checking with me first,” he said. “I’m going to want to talk with all of you again.”

  This brought groans all around as if we had all signed up for a round the world cruise we needed to cancel. Everyone began to gather up their things and my guests started to leave.

  “By far, the best evening I’ve had in a long time,” Mary-Beth said. “Not about the body, I mean, but you really know how to throw a party, Alex.”

  I kissed my friend good-bye, too tired to figure out whether she was being sarcastic or not.

  My sister, mother, Meme, Theresa, and Francis decided to spend the night with me not wanting to leave me alone in a “murder house” as Meme put it.

  I pointed out the police were still here and probably would be for several more hours, but in reality I wanted them here. The sight of the yellow police tape tacked up across the study door already creeped me out and I couldn’t wait until John got home.

  So much for my Friday night with the girls.

  As we all trudged up the steps I thought about Bert. Connie was right, the man very well might be a lying, cheating scumbag, but I would bet my right arm he wasn’t a murderer. Which meant only one thing—one of the women I invited into my home, one of the women I sat next to all evening, chatted with, played mahjong with, and ate with was a cold-blooded killer. And I had invited her into my house. I had set everything in motion and now Penelope was dead.

  And starting first thing in the morning, I planned to figure out why.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  By eight-thirty the next morning we all gathered around my kitchen table eating Danish I’d had in the freezer and drinking tea and coffee. To my relief the police were gone. I had given Detective Maroni a spare key to the murder room hiding the other one in a kitchen drawer. I didn’t want any temptation for any of us to go in and have a look around.

  I actually managed to sleep well for someone who had a dead body in her house only hours earlier. My sister slept in my room, my mother and Meme in one guest room, and Theresa and Francis in the other. Maybe having my sister with me, bringing back all those warm, fuzzy thoughts of childhood had done the trick. Whatever it was, I slept and now I felt refreshed and eager to dig my teeth into this latest murder in our peaceful little part of the world where these things never happened. I got up and grabbed a pad of paper and a pen and went back to the table.

  Seeing me with my accoutrements of investigation made Meme smile. “Oh, good, honey. I was afraid finding the body in your own house might put you off and you might leave this one to the cops.”

  I smiled at Meme. “Ha. No way.”

  Meme wrapped her chubby hands around her coffee mug and asked, “Are you going to make a list of suspects?”

  “Not yet. First I want to know exactly who came with whom?”

  “Oh, that’s easy. Me and Theresa came with Sam,” Meme said.

  My mother put down her Danish. “Dorothy and Francis came with me.”

  “Dorothy?” I asked, looking around the kitchen. “Where is she?”

  “Judith took her home. She didn’t want to leave her husband alone,” Mom said.

  “She probably just didn’t want to stay in this, what did you call it Meme?” my sister asked.

  “Murder house,” Meme cackled.

  “Okay. Enough. Let’s not forget someone died,” I said.

  “Sorry,” Meme said.

  “All right,” I began again, my grandmother sufficiently chastised. “Who else?’

  “Mia came with Millie and Judith and Penelope came together,” Sam said.

  “And Jean was right behind me,” Mom said. “She followed us over.”

  “Connie and Liz came together and Mary-Beth came alone. Good. Now we know who came with whom.” I put my pen down and took a sip of tea.

  “What’s next?” my grandmother eagerly asked.

  I thought for a moment, chewing on a piece of raspberry Danish while I fine-tuned my plan of attack. “You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs - Victory in spite of all terrors - Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.”

  “And do you actually have a plan to achieve this victory?” my sister asked not even giving me any credit for my latest Winston quote.

  I cut my eyes at her and then turned my attention to the rest of table. “Okay,” I said, putting down the pastry and wiping my hands on a paper napkin. “Next, I want to know who sat where.”

  “But we switched players several times,” my sister said.

  “True, but I still want to know where everyone was as much as I can, especially the last hand right before Penelope was killed.”

  “I played with Mia, Millie, and Mrs. Chapman on the last hand,” Sam said.

  “That’s right. And Millie won if I remember correctly,” I teased. Sam gave me a sneer and I reached across the table and patted her hand. “I sat with Mary-Beth, Meme, and Theresa.”

  “Yep. You played with us, honey.”

  “And Mom, you were with Dorothy and Penelope and who else?” I asked.

  My mother got up and poured herself more coffee and turned the heat on under the kettle. “No, Alex, Penelope was at my table but Dorothy played with Connie and Frances. That would leave me with Penelope, Liz, and Jean, I think.”

  “How about earlier?”

  “Well, I played with Mom and Penelope at some point. Penelope played well,” Sam said.

  “So did Jean,” my mom added. “She picked
up the game very quickly. As a matter of fact, I think I still owe her some money.”

  “I played with Jean, Mia, and Penelope on the first game,” Meme said.

  I shook my head and held up my hand.

  “Stop! It’s too confusing. Let’s just say at some point in the evening, everyone got a chance to play with Penelope.”

  “It was your idea, Alex.”

  “What was?” I asked my sister.

  “To go around and tell who we played with.”

  “I know. It’s just too much and I can’t keep everything straight.”

  I leaned back in my chair and ran my hands through my short hair as I glanced around the table at a sea of white-haired women, myself and Sam excluded. A thought began forming in my mind. Everyone currently sitting at my kitchen table had played at least one hand with Penelope. And despite my constant prodding for people to take their turns, a good portion of each hand involved chit-chatting.

  “I can see the wheels spinning,” Meme said with pure delight. My grandmother was my biggest fan besides being just as nosy as I am. And like me, she really enjoys a good mystery. We read a lot of them, sharing books we purchase at various second-hand stores in the area.

  “You two,” my mother said with exasperation. “You,” she said looking at her mother, “have always encouraged Alex in these crazy schemes. And you,” she said now boring down on me, “you shouldn’t be getting your grandmother mixed up in this kind of stuff. Not at her age.”

  Meme and I just looked at each other and then burst out laughing. We couldn’t help it. We were truly like two peas in a pod.

  “Oh, calm down, Mable,” Meme said to my mother. “You’ve always been too serious for your own good. Besides, this isn’t a game. We’re helping the police.”

  “Maybe I should call John and tell him what his wife is up to.”

  I didn’t know if my mom was serious or not so just to be sure I jumped up and grabbed the phone off the counter.

  “Like I don’t have him on speed dial on my cell,” my mother said to me with a smirk. She put her hands palm down on the kitchen table. “Okay. I understand you want to find the person who killed Penelope. We all do, but I’m counting on you, Samantha, to look out for your little sister.”