Mahjonged (An Alex Harris Mystery)

by Elaine Macko

  I shrugged. “Beats me. I never got crepes.”

  “Neither did I,” Sam said with a mock pout.

  “I’m special,” Henry said as he popped a chunk of taco into his little mouth.

  “Yes you are. And you, too, Kendall.” I reached over and gave them both a kiss.

  With dinner over I gave Kendall a bath and Henry a sponge bath then got them into their pajamas. Kendall had already done her homework and I helped Henry with the work his teacher sent home each day. He was doing so well the doctor felt certain he could return to school the following week. I had a feeling my parents would go through withdrawals once he went back to school.

  “I think it’s important,” Sam said a while later after I told her about the mahjong hand.

  “How?” I asked as I reached for a cookie from a plate she placed on the table.

  “As in ‘you Snake in the Grass.’”

  I thought about this for a moment. “Then you’re saying it wasn’t her hand, that the killer put it there after they stabbed her?”

  “Whoever killed her despised her,” Sam said.

  “Why does a person call another person a snake?”

  Sam took a bite of a thin Belgian cookie with a layer of dark chocolate. “Why does someone call someone else a snake? Well, a lot of reasons, I guess. Someone who can’t be trusted, someone who cheats another, someone who’s just a rotten person all around. Lots of reasons.”

  “Well, she was a lawyer…”

  Sam looked at me. “Exactly.”

  “So we go back to Mia and Liz. One of them clearly had issues with something Penelope did or didn’t do.”

  “You did say Mia settled because she didn’t like her lawyers and just wanted to be done with the whole mess.”

  “That’s what she told me.”

  “So now she’s done with school. She’s out in the real world, she sees how hard it is to earn a buck.”

  “And now she’s pissed she didn’t fight and get more. But why blame Penelope? Mia decided to settle,” I said.

  Sam shrugged. “It sounds like she settled because she didn’t like her lawyers.”

  “Then why not just go get another lawyer? No, it still doesn’t make sense. And if Penelope got killed over the lawsuit then what’s up with the picture in her grave?”

  “Mia’s father? Are we sure the man isn’t Mia’s father?” Sam asked.

  “Mia said she didn’t recognize him.”

  Sam gave me the evil eye.

  “Okay, so if she killed Penelope she’s not going to admit the picture is her father,” I said.

  “Right. We need to find out what Mr. Christenssen looked like. They must have had an affair at some point, the man dies, the case doesn’t go well, Mia finds out the two of them had an affair and she kills Penelope in a fit of rage for some unknown reason. Maybe she just didn’t like her father having a girlfriend. She was already pretty upset seeing Liz at the party.

  I nodded, warming to the idea. “At some point Penelope must have mentioned him. But wait, wouldn’t she know Mia was his daughter when Mia went to Penelope’s firm to handle her case?”

  “Maybe that’s why she backed out and Mia never saw her again after the first day she went there. Penelope, realizing the dead man was the man she had an affair with years before, took herself off the case.”

  “That could work, but how do we prove it?” I asked.

  “We need to find out what Mia’s father looked like.”

  “How do we do that without asking her for a picture?”

  Sam smiled. “The Internet.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  What did the world do before the Internet and cell phones? I’m not much of a phone user, but still I had to admit they serve a purpose and a lot of things are much easier because of them. They’re also one of my pet peeves, what with people talking on them non-stop in lines, restaurants, and cars. And then there’s texting. After what happened to Henry I didn’t think I could even be friends with someone who texted while driving. And isn’t it against the law?

  And then there was the Internet. That most valuable of tools and a cyber highway to hell in the wrong hands. The information floating around in the atmosphere was unfathomable.

  So it didn’t surprise me one bit when Sam and I were able to pull up several newspaper articles about the accident that killed Mr. Christenssen. But so far no pictures. Then I had a brilliant idea—obituaries. None of the newspapers had a picture of the man, just a small paragraph summing up his life and naming Mia and her aunt as his survivors.

  After going to several Web sites for the various funeral homes in the area, I found one in Bridgeport that handled the service for Mr. Christenssen and they included a picture of the man with their condolence message board for the family.

  Sam leaned back and looked from the iPad screen to the picture of the man we found in the grave.

  “Well, these are different men,” she said with a bit of shock in her voice, as if the Internet had let us down, and I suppose in a way it had. “Now what?” she asked turning to me.

  I shrugged and took the picture from her hand. Mystery Man had brown hair. I knew because I had used our color copier to make copies before turning over the original to the police. He was nice looking but nothing spectacular. In the picture he stood on a street somewhere with a brick building behind him, maybe an apartment building? I couldn’t really tell. It looked like there might be a grassy area somewhere behind the building. Not much to go on.

  Mr. Christenssen had been a very, very good looking man. And why wouldn’t he be based on what Mia looked like. They both had the blond hair and luminescent eyes. Mia had picked out a good picture for the funeral home to post on the Web site. Funeral home? I needed to call Reuben and find out if his father recognized Mystery Man. Probably not or he would have called me, or at least told Mille and she would have moved mountains to get me the information, but I still had to cover every base. I made a mental note to check with him in the morning.

  “No matter how long you look at the picture, you’re not going to turn it into the same guy.”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah, I know,” I said absently to my sister.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  I put the picture down and turned to Sam. “Nothing. Just the wheels spinning around in my head but so far they haven’t stopped on anything.”

  Michael came home a few minutes later and I left. On my way back to my parents’ house I passed Radford’s Funeral Home and the lights were on. I quickly pulled into the drive and then made my way quietly up the walk. Only a few cars remained in the parking lot so any viewing that had taken place was probably over, or just about over by now, but I still wanted to be quiet. Funeral homes just instill respect in you.

  Reuben stood in the lobby shutting things down for the evening when I walked in.

  “Alex? Is everything okay?”

  Reuben seemed to steady himself for bad news and then I realized it was almost ten.

  “Sorry, no, nothing’s wrong. I saw your lights on as I drove by. I wanted to ask you about the picture. The one I left for you to show your father?” I added at his blank look. I guess solving the mystery of Mystery Man hadn’t preoccupied Reuben’s mind like it had mine.

  “Oh, yes. I meant to call you but then we got rather busy. My father didn’t recognize him. He did a search of a few other mortuaries in the area and didn’t find any pictures that looked like your mystery guy. Sorry.”

  “No problem. It was a long shot. Thanks, Reuben.” I turned to leave.

  “The picture was taken in the Netherlands, but you probably knew that already.”

  I turned around slowly. “Really? How do you know?”

  “Come into my office. I think I still have your copy on my desk.”

  I followed Reuben even though I already had my own copy in my purse.

  “See? Right there.”

  I looked at where Reuben pointed but didn’t see much.

  He opened a s
mall drawer in the center of the desk and pulled out a magnifying glass. “Right there, on that small plaque at the corner of the building. I can’t make out any of the words except one. Kerk. It means church in Dutch.”

  I took the magnifying glass from his hands and sure enough it said Kerk. How had I missed it? And even if I had seen it, I would have no idea what it meant.

  “Of course, it doesn’t have to be the Netherlands. It could be some other Dutch-speaking country or it could even be in the U.S. in some Dutch community somewhere.”

  “No, I’m sure it’s Holland. Amsterdam.” I thanked Reuben again and left him to finish closing up the funeral home.

  As I drove through the quiet streets of Indian Cove I thought about this latest revelation and realized with a jolt it didn’t mean a thing. So what? Penelope had a picture of the man, the two of them together with a canal in the background and it had very obviously been taken in Amsterdam, or at least a big city in Holland. So why did the fact this picture also originated in Holland seem odd?

  And then it hit me and I almost swerved across the center lane into oncoming traffic, of which, luckily for me, there was none at this hour.

  If the Mystery Man picture from the grave was taken in Holland about the same time as the picture I found in Penelope’s room, and from the look of the guy he seemed to be about the same age in both, then how did it get in the grave? Penelope was dead and couldn’t put it there herself. But it must have come from her collection. There must have been more pictures of Mystery Man in her house that I never found.

  But someone did. And that someone had to be Els or Wilhelm. Or maybe Bert.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  The next morning I sat at the kitchen table talking to my husband on the phone. I almost forgot the sound of his voice. He had good news. They had the part, the mechanic felt better and they were sure they could be on their way home in the next day or two.

  Okay, so I didn’t actually sound overjoyed, which drew a few nasty looks from my mother, but I knew once he came home, my investigation would be shut down. Not to mention John had no idea someone had been killed in our home. Come to think of it, my marriage might be shut down as well. Maybe those rumors going around town were a premonition of things to come. I couldn’t dwell on the state of my marriage right now. I had a murderer to find and not much time to do it.

  After my revelation last night I wanted to drive right over to Penelope’s home and ask Els about the picture, but good sense and proper manners made me change my mind. I warmed to the idea she had tossed it into the grave. The problem was she probably did it out of spite—finding more pictures of Penelope with a man not her father just pushed her too far—and not because she had killed Penelope.

  But at least if I knew Els put it there, or maybe Wilhelm, then I could rule out Mystery Man and I could concentrate on other leads. What exactly were my other leads? With a start I realized I didn’t have any. I kept putting all my eggs in the Mystery Man basket. Now, if Bert found the picture in Penelope’s things that would be better. The fact he rummaged around in her stuff and was angry enough to toss the photo in her grave would mean he was mad enough to kill her. But if Bert found the picture, how would he have known it wasn’t a picture of Pieter? How would he know anything?

  “Damn!” I slammed my hand on my placemat sending my mother’s piece of toast from her plate to the table.

  “Alex, what the heck is wrong with you? And why weren’t you nicer to John?”

  I looked properly chastised. “I was nice to him. I just want him to take his time getting home. You know, I don’t want him to drive too fast and get into an accident.”

  “Who do you think you’re talking to? Somebody you just met? You want to continue putting your nose into things you shouldn’t.”

  She had me there, but as I recall she attended the gathering on Saturday night helping to sift through clues. As a matter of fact, we had the little shindig right here with her hosting. Of course, I wasn’t about to throw this in her face lest the piece of toast get tossed into mine.

  “Don’t you want to know who killed Penelope?” I asked while munching on my English Muffin.

  “Of course I do, but I believe the police will find out in due time and with John back, it will probably happen sooner than later. He’s very good at his job.”

  My mom got up and turned the heat on under the tea pot just as Sam came in with Henry.

  “Hi, Grandma.”

  My mother’s face brightened as she wrapped her arms around Henry.

  “You smell so good this morning,” she said nuzzling Henry’s head of deep brown hair.

  “Mom washed my hair with coconut shampoo. It leaves it shiny and easy to manage.”

  “Tell Grandma the good news. You’ll be able to go back to school next week,” Sam said.

  My mother’s face instantly drooped, as if someone had stuck a fork into it and let out all the air.

  Sam put her hand on Mom’s shoulder. “He has to go back sometime.”

  “I know,” my mom said, trying to hold back the tears.

  After a few minutes my mom and Henry left the kitchen. They had completed a puzzle the day before and wanted to glue the pieces down so Henry could hang it in his room.

  “Mom and her little boyfriend. He’s so attached to her.”

  I sipped my tea, cradling the cup in my hands. “We were just like that with Meme.”

  “Still are,” Sam said with a smile. “So. What’s on your agenda for today?”

  I told her what Reuben found out about the picture and that John was coming home soon.

  “Yikes. You had better hurry up and solve this thing.”

  “Do you think there’s something wrong with me? I mean, getting so mixed up in murder?”

  “No, cops do it all the time.”

  “That’s their job.”

  “Maybe you should have been a cop. You just got sidetracked with opening up our business,” Sam said, always the voice of reason.

  “I just want to do the detective part. I don’t want to get shot at or anything,” I said as I wiped crumbs from my chin.

  “I don’t think you get to pick and choose,” my sister said, grabbing the last bit of my English Muffin.

  I stood up and smoothed down my skirt. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a murder to solve.”

  Sam, with a mouth full of muffin, gave me the thumbs up sign before I left.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  With my car idling, slowly emitting more pollutants into the atmosphere, I sat there trying to gather my thoughts. Okay, I needed to go over to see Els and find out about the picture. Of course, I already asked her and she said no, she hadn’t found any more pictures of Mystery Man in the house, but she could have been lying. Once again I asked myself why. If she had found more pictures and got mad and tossed one into the grave, big deal.

  I gripped the steering wheel with both hands and gently banged my head on it. I didn’t need to bug Els any more. She had enough to do with selling the house and trying to get rid of all of Penelope’s stuff. I already asked her and she already answered. End of story.

  So now what? I could almost feel John getting closer to Indian Cove and then my operation would be closed down. Think. I needed to think. I took the picture from my purse and gave it another look.

  The picture I found in Penelope’s things showed another side of Mystery Man. In the picture he looked happy. Like maybe they had been out for a picnic or sightseeing in the city. In this picture he looked bored. Of course he could have just been tired of having his picture taken all over Holland, but it was obviously a different day as he had on different clothing. In the picture I found he wore a coat. The other, just a button-down shirt. So in one the weather was clearly colder than the other. Boy, I could really figure things out.

  Something in my brain tingled. A thought started to form but then dissolved just as quickly. All of a sudden my car moved down the driveway. My subconscious took over and I pulled onto the st
reet and headed over to Meme’s.

  My grandmother and her gang where in full swing. Meme, Theresa, and Francis Haddock sat at the kitchen table playing three-handed pinochle.

  “What brings you over so early in the morning?” Meme asked as soon as she finished making me a cup of Earl Grey.

  “John should be home in a day or two and I can’t figure this thing out.”

  “You better hurry up, honey. He’s not going to be too happy and wait til he sees the house and all the crime scene tape.”

  “I feel like something is starting to come together and I just can’t focus,” I said, leaning back in my chair and crossing my arms.

  Three white-haired little ladies stopped playing and looked at me. Then Meme got up and took a pad of paper out of a kitchen drawer and sat back down.

  “Let’s go over everything again. You tell us everything you remember and I’ll write it down,” Meme said, all business-like.

  Theresa reached across the table and grabbed the pad and picked up a pencil next to her cards. “Meme, no one can read your writing. Let me do that. You help Alex remember stuff. My memory’s not what it used to be.”

  Francis Haddock put up a hand and got up and walked into the living room. A moment later she returned with Meme’s laptop. Yes, my grandmother had a laptop and a wireless Internet connection. Sam and I bought her the laptop for her last birthday and she had promptly installed the Internet service and proceeded to find every card game known to man out there in cyber space. Sometimes she stayed up all night playing cards online with people in other countries.

  And obviously Francis knew what she was doing. I watched in awe as the woman powered the thing up and opened up a blank Excel worksheet. Who were these people?

  “I could type eighty-eight words a minute back in my day,” Francis said. “You start talking Alex, and I’ll enter the data into columns under each of the suspect’s name. Then we can create a pivot table or apply a filter and see what comes up.” At my stunned expression Francis smiled. “I like to keep all my household accounts in order. I also like to keep track of all the books I read by author so I don’t buy books I already read. You forget a lot of stuff at our age,” she said and Meme and Theresa nodded their agreement. “Excel works wonders.”