Maggie and the Inconvenient Corpse

by Barbara Cool Lee

  She hung up.

  Called Mac's number. She'd deleted him from her contacts, but unfortunately still knew his number by heart. It was a repeat of the same: phone ringing, switch to voicemail, and then the boisterous "Big Mac here. Tell me about it after the beep."

  She hung up.

  She waited a full minute longer before she couldn't stand it.

  She grabbed her keys and slammed the door on the way out.

  She hesitated in the driveway. Go next door along the street, or the back way? She headed for the back way, since she knew Mac would see her at the front door on the security system and refuse to let her in.

  She marched through Casablanca's side yard and out the back, calling to Reese that she was heading through to use the beach stairs. It wasn't necessary, since his car wasn't in the driveway and he didn't seem to be home, but she did it anyway out of courtesy.

  She went past the pool and across the lawn to the stairs and headed down to the beach, then made her way along the sand to the next set of stairs that went up the cliff from there.

  She climbed the stairs as quickly as she could, and by the time she reached the top, she was completely out of breath—from the exertion, and from the anger that was bubbling up inside of her at Mac's selfish behavior.

  She was finally going to have it out with Mac. She'd been too nice, everyone said. She'd been too accommodating, too willing to let everything go and just move on. Well, no more.

  Her friends were right.

  She was going to tear up the divorce agreement she'd so foolishly signed. She was going to hire some Hollywood shark divorce attorney and sue the pants off him for fraud. She was going to take him for every penny she could wring out of his worthless hide. Not because she cared so much about the money, but because he needed to be taught a lesson about using and discarding everyone in his life.

  But first, before any of that, she was going to give him a piece of her mind and shake some sense into that selfish, mean, obnoxious, egotistical…

  dead man.

  Chapter 7

  It took her a minute to make sense of the scene in Big Mac's yard.

  Virginia was standing on the patio with her back to Maggie, and to the big pool, which was rectangular, and lined with a bilious green tile that made Maggie think of overgrown algae.

  Virginia was dressed to the nines in pink silk lounging pajamas that set off her red hair, and wore high-heeled gold slides.

  She was facing the house's French doors, and Maggie could see her features reflected in the glass, very pale and quite pretty. She held a tall pole in her left hand, her ostentatious engagement ring glittery against the dull metal pole. It was a pool skimmer, and she seemed to have forgotten she was holding it, because she was focused totally on the conversation she was having with someone on the phone.

  The gold iPhone in her right hand was pressed to her ear. Her fingers gripped it so tightly the knuckles were white.

  She was speaking coolly, almost contemptuously: "I have no idea what happened. What do you think I am? An idiot? Well, it's possible." She continued talking in a soft, serious voice that was drastically different from her usual ditzy tone.

  On the patio next to her stood a nice set of outdoor furniture, dark teak. On the table were a single martini glass, a cell phone, and a black snakeskin eyeglass case. The eyeglass case was open and empty. The drink was gone, but there was an onion on a toothpick at the bottom of the glass.

  A heavy white Turkish bathrobe was thrown over the back of one chair. The monogrammed BIG MAC was embroidered in blood red thread, stark against the white terrycloth.

  The patio paving was of stamped concrete, stained a rich dark bronze color that matched the smooth block siding of the house. A few bits of gray caught her eye. They were tiny scraps of torn-up paper, fluttering across the ground with each breeze.

  Jasper was still barking. He was a big dog, strong and muscular, and appearing even larger because of the thick coat in shades of mahogany and sable, with a huge white ruff that ran down his chest like a snowy river. His voice echoed off all the hardscape of decking and patio and glass windows and swimming pool.

  He wasn't paying attention to Virginia.

  He wasn't even concerned that Maggie had come bursting up onto the deck out of nowhere.

  He was pacing back and forth along the edge of the pool, staring down into the depths, and barking his fool head off.

  At the bottom of the pool lay Big Mac McJasper. His large form loomed dark and forbidding down there. But she knew it was him. After ten years, she would know his shape anywhere. He was very quiet way down there under the water. And very still.

  "How long until they get here?" Maggie shouted to Virginia, who jumped. She turned around, mouth open in shock.

  Maggie pulled off her sneakers and shouted again. "The paramedics. How long?"

  Virginia just stared at her.

  Maggie dove into the water.

  She wasn't a great swimmer. But she'd lived in houses with swimming pools for a decade, and she knew how to push herself down to the bottom.

  He must be still alive. He couldn't be dead.

  The pool was only about eight feet deep, so she reached him in seconds.

  Mac was face down in the water, and she tugged at his arm to turn him toward her.

  That's when she knew it was over. There was nobody there. It was the shell of her ex-husband, not the man she'd lived with, fought with, loved and hated for all those years.

  But still, she tried. She pulled at his big body, which was clad only in swimming trunks. She tried to move it in the water, haul it toward the surface. But it came up just a foot or so, and then collapsed back down to its resting place.

  She had to go up for air.

  She surfaced, gasping. The dog had stopped barking, and was now whining as he ran back and forth along the pool. She didn't have the oxygen to hush him.

  She could hear Virginia talking to Mac's personal physician Dr. Rivers, saying that her husband had hit his head in the pool and needed help.

  Maggie took a big breath and dove again. On the way down she thought about how Virginia was only now calling Mac's doctor, after Maggie showed up and asked when the paramedics would be arriving.

  As she dove she saw Mac's flip flops on the bottom of the pool, a few feet away from him. There was another shape that she realized were his reading glasses, resting on the ugly green tile.

  She reached Mac again and tried to drag him up. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe he was still alive and could survive if she got him to the surface to breathe. Maybe the big long gash in his head that looked like he'd been struck with a heavy round pole had just knocked him unconscious, and he could still be revived if he hadn't breathed in too much water. But his eyes were open, and there was nothing there.

  She tried to pull him up again anyway, but he slipped out of her grip, and she watched him fall back down, the thick black hair parting to show where his last set of hair plugs had been inserted, looking like a field of cornstalks marching across his scalp.

  She headed for the surface again, realizing it was over. There was nothing she could do for him now.

  She made it back to the top and hung there, clinging to the edge of the pool and trying to breathe.

  She caught her breath enough to pull herself up out of the pool and sprawl on the deck, coughing and gasping and suddenly realizing how heavy her wet jeans were.

  But she managed to roll over on her side, to reach into her jeans pocket, the clammy fabric clinging and making it hard to get her phone out.

  She held the phone up high so she could see the screen. It still worked, despite the dip into the water. She pulled up her contacts list and hit the button to call someone she'd met once before, a few months ago.

  "Lieutenant Ibarra," she gasped into the phone. "Big Mac is dead at his house. Come right away."

  Then she rolled over to lie on her back and stare up at the sky, which was beginning to darken toward one of Carita's epic sunse
ts.

  Chapter 8

  A short time later she heard a big splash as somebody dove next to her, then there were shouts as more people came and helped the big man who had dived into the pool pull Mac's limp body up to the surface and out onto the paving on the opposite side of the pool from where she lay, staring up at the sky, and trying to breathe.

  Jasper came over and lay down next to her and cried. She cried with him, burying her face in the big dog's thick white ruff.

  "Here, Mrs. McJasper," said a voice.

  She sat up and took the towel handed to her by Lieutenant Ibarra.

  He was a big man in his forties, with a muscular physique and a smattering of gray in his pepper-black hair. He was soaking wet, too, and must have been the one who had dived in fully clothed and pulled Mac to the surface.

  He sat down next to her, and she saw he was breathing as heavily as her. They both sat, defeated and dripping pool water, and watched Mac's personal doctor working on the body.

  But it was clear it was only a body. Not a live person anymore.

  She didn't know how long she sat there, but when the paramedics arrived, Mac's doctor shook his head at them.

  "He's been dead at least a half hour," she heard the man say in an authoritative way, and she gasped at the words, even though she'd already known that.

  On the other side of the big pool, Virginia stood next to other police officers. Her hands were clenched together, white-knuckled.

  "Where's the pool skimmer?" Maggie asked.

  "What?" Lieutenant Ibarra asked.

  "Virginia was holding a pool skimmer when I got here," she said. "Where is it?"

  Ibarra pulled a notebook out of his shirt pocket. It was paper, and when he tried to open it to a fresh page, it stuck together in a lump of wet paper pulp. "Hey!" he said to a young cop walking past. "I need a notebook."

  The officer handed him his, and a working pen, and Ibarra turned back to her. "So tell me everything you saw when you got here…."

  An hour later the yard was even more filled with cops than it had been. She had told Ibarra everything she'd seen from the time she'd gotten up the stairs to the yard, and now the police had surrounded Virginia, and she stood with arms crossed defensively in front of her and glaring across the breadth of the pool at Maggie.

  "So you're saying you were with the food delivery guy around six?" Ibarra was clarifying.

  She nodded. "We both heard the dog barking, and that's what made me come over here to see what was wrong with Jasper."

  The dog was leaning against her wet leg, pressing the damp jeans into her side.

  "So you're saying you have an alibi."

  "I suppose. But I don't need an alibi, because I don't have a motive."

  "How much money did he have?"

  "It doesn't matter," she said. "Our divorce was final. We signed all the papers and the decree was handed down by the judge just two weeks ago."

  He looked across the pool toward Virginia with a speculative expression on his face.

  "And no, she didn't have a motive either," Maggie offered. "Mac happened to die in the sweet spot. His divorce from me was final, but he hadn't yet married his girlfriend. So neither of us get the money. And that means neither of us have a motive."

  "You sure about that?" he asked.

  "I'm sure I don't get a dime," she said. "My friends are going to kill me for signing the papers so quickly. If I'd waited, it turns out I could have gotten a big payday." Then she stammered, "I'm not saying Virginia does get anything. I'm not accusing her of anything."

  "You described her holding a pool skimmer that happens to be the same shape as the wound on his head. You described her talking to someone on her phone, with her back to her dead fiancé. You described her not calling the doctor until you told her to. But you're not accusing her of killing him."

  "She doesn't have a motive," Maggie said, wondering why she was defending that awful woman.

  "She was here alone with him. I'm not sure the reason she did it is the biggest concern right now."

  It was getting toward dusk, and the sky was softening as the sun dipped down over the ocean. But still, there was enough light left to cast a shadow when a man came to stand over them.

  "What's the word?" the man asked.

  Ibarra got to his feet. "We're gathering information, Chief," he said to the slender man with the dark uniform and the thin, arrogant face.

  Maggie had met Chief Randall before, at snazzy fundraisers on The Row that served to raise money for the Carita police department—and smoothed the way for the special treatment the rich in town got from the cops.

  He looked down at her with interest. Ibarra reached out a hand and helped her stand up.

  "Mrs. McJasper," Chief Randall said. "You're a witness to the death of your husband?"

  "Ex-husband," Maggie said. "And he was dead when I got here."

  He looked her over with a cool assessment that made Maggie think he was adding up the dollar value of each item of clothing and jewelry she wore.

  He found her dollar value lacking, because he asked coldly, "and can you account for your whereabouts earlier this evening?"

  "Well, I got off work a little after five, and then I ordered takeout. The delivery guy saw me at my house just before I came over here."

  "She was with the delivery driver at the time of the murder," Ibarra offered. "She's not a suspect."

  Randall's cold eyes looked her up and down again. "Sounds like you have an alibi."

  He dismissed her as unimportant, then walked over to where Virginia was standing to talk to her.

  Ibarra stared after him, and Maggie was pretty sure the look he gave his boss was not an admiring one.

  "Whew," she said sarcastically. "I'm glad that's cleared up. I was worried I might have done it."

  "Don't joke, Mrs. McJasper. You don't want to be on Randall's radar."

  "Fine, Lieutenant. I won't joke. So what about Virginia?"

  "What about her? You want to make sure your rival gets the chair?"

  "She's not my rival and California doesn't have the chair."

  He turned to her. "I know that. But why do you?"

  "I'm a big mystery fan."

  "Sure you are."

  Jasper tried to wander away then, and Maggie bent down to hug him around the ruff. "Hold on, big boy. We don't need you getting into trouble here."

  She stood up again. "Did you notice the shredded check on the pool deck?"

  "I saw the bits of paper. The crime scene people are collecting them. How do you know it's a check?"

  "When Mac writes personal checks, he uses those dark gray ones. The ones from his accountant are computer generated, on white paper. What do you think it means?"

  "I can't discuss the case with you," Ibarra said.

  "Okay. Then I won't tell you what else I saw."

  He narrowed his eyes at her. "All right. What else did you see?"

  "He was wearing his flip flops."

  "So?"

  "He only wears those after he goes swimming. He doesn't walk around in them all day or anything."

  He smiled. "And he wouldn't be wearing them in the pool. That's obvious. But he could have fallen when he was getting out and putting on his flip flops. What else?"

  "His eyeglasses. He takes out his contact lenses before swimming, and then wears his glasses after that for the evening."

  "Okay. All this just means he had just gotten out of the pool and then fell or was pushed back in."

  "Nope. He hadn't just gotten out. He got out at least an hour ago. And there's another thing: Jasper here was loose. He keeps the dog locked up when he's around."

  Ibarra shook his head. "Virginia said she always lets him out to run around. Feels sorry for him being locked up all the time."

  "Oh."

  His smile was malicious. "So nothing else, Ms. Amateur Detective?"

  "Like I said, he finished his swim an hour ago. That could be significant."

  "How do you
know the time?"

  "He finished his martini. He never drinks his martini until after he swims. It's a ritual. Swim his laps and then rewards himself with the martini. He sits there and sips it slowly, because he only drinks one and he wants it to last."

  "He hadn't finished," Ibarra pointed out. "The onion's still in it."

  "He never eats the onion. He always puts an onion in it, but he never actually eats it. He leaves it behind."

  "So he must have finished swimming."

  "Yes. And he then fell or was pushed into the pool."

  "Or got hit with that heavy-duty pool skimmer," Ibarra said. "Have you felt how thick that pole is?"

  "No, lieutenant. I'm sure my fingerprints aren't on it."

  "Nobody's are," he said, then clearly wished he hadn't.

  "It was wiped off?" she asked. "Interesting. Do you know if anyone else was here this evening?"

  "Ma'am, you're supposed to be giving the statement, not asking questions."

  "Fine," Maggie said. "But it is definitely murder."

  "Because he'd already drunk his martini," Ibarra said sarcastically.

  "Yes," she said.

  "Okay."

  "You think I'm nuts."

  "No," he said. "I was married once."

  "Hard to believe," she said, looking him over.

  "I know," he said. "How could any woman walk away from all this charisma?"

  She laughed. "But why do you mention it?"

  "Because I believe you, Mrs. McJasper. I believe a woman who was married to a man for ten years knows when he drinks his martini. I believe he didn't slip getting out of the water. I believe they will find that the gash on his head came from the pool skimmer and not the edge of the pool. I believe someone was here with him while he was drinking his martini, and they argued, and that someone hit him in the head and dumped his unconscious body in the water to drown and then stood with her back to him and made phone calls while he lay a few feet away, dying."

  They both looked across the pool toward Virginia.

  "Oh, yes, Mrs. McJasper," Ibarra said. "It's murder all right."

  Chapter 9