Black Cat White Paws_A Maggie Dahl Mystery

by Mark McNease

  Two months later they were living in the house, and David had hired Chip McGill to help him restore it. David’s grand vision for their home was far from realized when he died. Maggie wasn’t sure it would ever be what David imagined it, but she would at least finish with the basics. Selling was not an option at this point. The house was too much a part of their dreams.

  But why would Chip want a key to this house? Had he played there as a child? Had he done something only he knew about, there in the spacious living room? Or maybe he’d dated a girl who’d lived there and he had wanted to relive whatever moments he’d had with her alone when Maggie and David were gone. Or maybe he was just a thief. He was certainly an intruder. Maggie was convinced Chip was the one who’d come into her home and startled the ever-watchful cat. Only someone with a key could have done that. She’d had the locks changed, so it wouldn’t happen again. But it was what happened in the past that concerned her now.

  Heather was at the front desk using her smartphone when she heard the door open. She was not surprised to see Maggie enter her galley again. She was also not pleased and made no attempt to hide her displeasure.

  There was no one else there—Maggie had long observed that art and photography galleries were often empty—which gave her the opportunity she’d hope for to speak with Heather alone and uninterrupted.

  Maggie said, “Good afternoon,” and closed the door behind her, glancing out the front window as to make sure no one else was coming in.

  Heather did not return the pleasantry. She also did not budge from her place behind the desk.

  Walking up to her, Maggie said, “I was hoping we could speak a little more.”

  “About what, Mrs. Dahl? I told you everything I had to say. Some might think I told you too much.”

  “Because of the debt business with Alice?”

  “Possibly. But holding someone’s debt is not a crime. I never loaned her money, and I never collected payment, with or without interest.” Finally getting up, while keeping the desk between them, she added, “If speaking will hurry this along, then fine. What did you want to talk about?”

  This was the hard part for Maggie. She’d tried to sort it all out on the walk over from the store, but she was still not sure what it was she needed to know, or how to go about asking. She decided on the spot that a direct approach would be the best, especially with a woman as blunt as Heather McGill.

  “I believe your father secretly had a key made to my house and I can’t figure out why.”

  Heather stared at her as if Maggie had just suggested an asteroid was about to crash through the gallery window.

  “Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?”

  “I understand why you would think that …”

  “I would think that?” Heather was angry now. “Anyone would think that. Why on earth would my father want a key to your or anyone else’s house? He stopped keeping keys to people’s homes when all that Lilly Stapley business happened. The last thing he wants is a key to your home. You really are going off the rails with this, Mrs. Dahl.”

  “I have good reason to, Heather,” said Maggie. She could see the woman bristle at being addressed by her name in such a casual way. “Ms. McGill,” Maggie corrected. Someone broke into my home a few nights ago.”

  “And you think it was my father. But why would anyone with a key break in?”

  Maggie chastised herself for not being clear. “No, I’m sorry, they didn’t break in, they came in … they intruded.”

  “Again, Mrs. Dahl, why would you think it was my father?”

  Maggie hesitated. She did not want to bring Cal Davies into the conversation. What he’d told her seemed like important information she should keep to herself for the moment.

  “I just do,” said Maggie, avoiding any further explanation.

  Heather shook her head sadly, as if the woman asking her to incriminate her own father was more troubled than Alice Drapier had been. Then, having a thought, she asked Maggie, “What night was this?”

  “The night before last. Why?”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “Yes. Two nights ago, at three a.m. I looked at the clock on my nightstand when I heard someone downstairs.”

  “I see.” Heather sighed, offering a sad expression. “It could not have been my father.”

  Thinking Heather was simply protesting her father’s innocence again, Maggie said, “I know you want to protect him, but …”

  “He was in detox that night, he couldn’t have been in your house.”

  The statement started Maggie.

  “Detox?”

  “Yes. It’s where someone who drinks like my father drinks—”

  “I know what it is.”

  “—goes when he has to sober up. This one’s in Flemington. My father spent the night there. It’s not unusual for him to go to detox for a night, then check himself out the next morning and go about his life as if nothing had happened. It’s mostly just a way for him to stop drinking.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Not nearly as sorry as I am. Are we finished here?”

  Maggie was still trying to process the information. She had no reason to disbelieve Heather, but she knew it was natural for a daughter as protective as this one to shield her father.

  “You don’t have to believe me,” Heather said, reading Maggie’s thoughts. “I’d be happy to provide you with his release papers … if you get a warrant. Trust me, he was in detox that night and I can prove it. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  “Of course,” Maggie said, feeling completely foolish for having come here, for having all but accused Chip McGill of breaking into her home. “Thank you for your time.”

  Heather offered no reply, instead giving Maggie a look of contempt. McGill did not know her, but she projected all her bitterness about her father’s failed life and the people who’d ruined it onto the woman standing in front of her.

  Maggie turned and headed toward the door.

  “If I were you,” Heather said behind her, “I’d take a closer look at the people who wanted to hurt my father. Alice Drapier was not the only one.”

  Maggie turned around. “Who else is there?”

  “You’re the amateur sleuth. When you find out, let me know. Revenge is a dish best served cold, they say. And I have some that’s nearly frozen.”

  The comment made Maggie shiver. She suddenly wasn’t sure Heather McGill was incapable of murder.

  “Thank you.”

  “You already said that. And please don’t come back.”

  Maggie nodded. She had caused this woman pain, and she was deeply sorry for it. But she did not regret it. Each rock she overturned led her closer to the truth. She only hoped the next one didn’t hide a viper.

  CHAPTER Twenty-Nine

  MAGGIE HAD SPENT THE REST of the day unfocused and distracted. She’d gone to the factory after her conversation with Heather McGill, and as hard as she’d tried, she had not been able to pay attention to what was going on around her. Janice had gone over the latest accounting; Gloria and Sybil had assured her they’d completed enough stock to supply the store opening and any orders that came in for the next two weeks. Even Peter had come out of his shell, as much as was possible for a man so broken, to ask her what was wrong.

  “Nothing,” Maggie told him, suddenly aware how much her fixation with all things Alice was evident. If Peter notices, it’s obvious, she’d thought, and she had tried to pull out of it.

  The end of the work day came slowly but mercifully, and Maggie told them all to have a good evening as she headed home for what she hoped would be a quiet evening with her sister. Gerri had told her she had no plans for the night; her increasingly busy social calendar was free—no dinner with Tom Brightmore, no get-together with the friends Maggie knew she would make quickly in her new home. Gerri was like that: a gregarious, sometimes abrasive, firebrand who attracted friends and acquaintances easily. It would not be long, Maggie knew, before Gerri had a roster
of friends to spend time with any day or evening she chose, and possibly a new manfriend. Rather than discourage Gerri, Maggie had decided to support her efforts. It could mean Gerri finding a place of her own, which would be best for both of them in Maggie’s opinion. Siblings seldom made good housemates for very long.

  That night they’d watched the national news and eaten pasta Gerri made. Maggie had stopped watching news several years ago, preferring to get her information online where she could choose sources she trusted.

  They were enjoying cups of after dinner tea on the couch, the television muted while some sitcom played onscreen.

  “So what exactly did Heather McGill tell you?” asked Gerri.

  She’d been as aware as the others of Maggie’s distracted state after her visit to Valley Visions.

  Maggie set her cup on the coffee table. “She told me Chip could not possibly have been the intruder.”

  Gerri looked at her skeptically. Maggie knew she was still not convinced anyone at all had been in the house

  “Maybe it was a sleepwalker,” Gerri said. “You know, someone who takes a sleeping pill and ends up wandering the neighborhood. It happens. The door was open, they came in thinking it was their own home …”

  “The door was not open,” Maggie bristled. “It wasn’t unlocked, either. Someone was in this house. I scared them off, or the cat scared them off. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that it was not Chip McGill.”

  “And how is Heather so sure of this?”

  “Because her father was in a detox facility in Flemington.”

  Gerri’s eyes shot up. “Really? But he was here the next morning.”

  “From what Heather says, that’s sometimes how he stops drinking. He goes into a detox to sleep it off, then checks out in the morning.”

  “Sort of like a hotel.”

  Maggie grimaced. “I wouldn’t put it that way, Gerri. The man is a serious alcoholic. Spending nights in a detox to stop drinking is not a fun stay in a Hilton somewhere.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  Of course she didn’t, Maggie thought. You’d have to be cold hearted to think someone like Chip McGill enjoyed his life. His daughter certainly knew better.

  “What I don’t understand—what has had me flummoxed all day—is why Chip would lie to me about the house key. He had two of them made. Cal Davies told me that. But why would he do that? And since he’s not the one who came into the house, who was it?”

  Gerri stood up and took both their empty cups.

  “I suggest you sleep on it. You’ll have a clear head in the morning and maybe an answer will come to you. It works for me.”

  As Maggie headed into the kitchen, Gerri said behind her, “I woke up one morning knowing I should move here to support you! Clear as day.”

  “Well, thank goodness for that,” said Maggie, not quite sarcastically.

  “You love having me here. Or you will, just be patient.”

  Maggie knew patience was in short supply. The store opening was fast approaching. Her sister was living with her in a house she’d intended to live in for years with her late husband. And a murderer was out there … possibly the same man who had come into her house.

  “Maybe he had the key made for someone else,” Maggie said to herself. She was throwing out ideas now, hoping one would take hold. “Maybe he had help killing Alice, or he knows who did. Maybe I’m losing my mind …”

  She felt movement at her feet. Checks had come into the room, ready for bed. He told her what time it was by rubbing around her ankles: it was either time to eat, or time to sleep. He didn’t seem to do much else.

  Maggie said to him, “Yes, I know. It’s time to head upstairs. I’ll read awhile. That always helps me relax.”

  “Who are you talking to?”

  Gerri was back, wiping her hands on a dish towel. Seeing Checks at Maggie’s feet, she said, “Never mind.”

  “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Going to bed so early? It’s only seven o’clock.”

  “I’m exhausted,” Maggie said. “And I’ll read for an hour first. It kills the time and it’s the best sleeping pill I’ve ever known. See you in the morning.”

  Maggie headed toward the stairs, with Checks padding along behind her.

  She was facing several doors, too many to count. She kept trying to open them, but none budged. She felt herself growing frustrated in the dream—not frightened or panicked, but increasingly agitated when none of the doors opened.

  “You’re looking in the wrong direction.”

  It was David’s voice. Maggie swiveled around, expecting to see him. He was the most frequent presence in her dreams. But he wasn’t there. Just as the doors would not open, David would not reveal himself this time.

  “But I’m not,” Maggie said, in an almost pleading tone. “I’m only looking at what’s in front of me. Where else would I look?”

  “Behind you.”

  She twirled around. Nothing. Only the darkness of a dream crowded with unopened doors.

  “I’m looking behind me!” she cried.

  “Not there,” said David’s voice. “Behind you. Behind it all. In the past.”

  Those three words—in the past—shocked her, the way a defibrillator jolts someone who’s had a heart attack. The doors didn’t matter. Nothing in the dream mattered. The answers she needed weren’t in the dream.

  She sat upright, gasping for air as if she’d swum frantically to the surface of a lake from deep within it.

  Startled, Checks jumped off the bed.

  Maggie sat in the dark, staring at the opposite wall, understanding two things clearly: that Alice Drapier’s death was somehow connected to the murder of Lilly Stapley, and that whoever killed the girl, killed the woman ten years later.

  Discovering the why of it was now her mission. It was also a dangerous one, a path that had led Alice to her death.

  Maggie reached down and opened the night stand. The gun was there. She had no need of it in the dark of the night, but its presence gave her comfort, and pause. What if the person who’d come into her home hadn’t been there to warn her, but to kill her?

  She would pursue the answer in the morning, beginning with a look back at the disappearance of a child whose body had never been found.

  “Be very careful, Maggie Dahl,” she whispered to herself. “It might be behind one of those doors you dreamed about.”

  She eased back onto the pillow, hoping that if she closed her eyes and took ten deep breaths—or twenty, or fifty—sleep would take her again, this time without dreams.

  CHAPTER Thirty

  HER SISTER HAD BEEN THERE less than a week but they were quickly developing a morning routine. Maggie was ambivalent about that but admitted to herself it was comfortable. For nearly twenty-five years she’d had David to wake up to, to eat breakfast with—or not—and to share the most intimate spaces of her life. She’d been unaware (deliberately? willfully?) of the absence she’d felt since his death, and Gerri’s arrival had brought it into stark relief. It was like living in a state of silence for six months, then suddenly finding yourself surrounded by sound. Add to that the presence of a cat, and Maggie might have to admit she liked not being alone anymore.

  “A dream, you say?”

  Gerri was at the table having her morning coffee. She’d toasted a bagel, smeared it with cream cheese, and set the two halves on plates for them.

  Maggie finished lightening her coffee and brought it from the counter, sitting across from Gerri.

  “It’s weird, I know,” said Maggie. “I never dreamed much until David died. I didn’t remember them, anyway. But since then? Pretty much every night.”

  “Is he in all of them?”

  “No. I’d say about half. But they’re so vivid now. And this one … there were these doors, and I kept trying to open them.”

  “Like on ‘Let’s Make a Deal.’”

  “Sort of, but dangerous. I could tell by the whole experience I
wasn’t going to like what I found behind any of them, but I was compelled to try. Then David said, ‘Behind you,’ or something like that.”

  “There were doors behind you?”

  “I thought that’s what he meant,” Maggie said, “but he meant behind me … behind all of us, in the past.”

  Gerri took a bite of her bagel. She was intrigued by Maggie’s story and quickly swallowed.

  “Your and David’s past?”

  “No, that’s not what he meant. He meant in Alice’s past. Chip McGill’s past. Lilly Stapley’s past.”

  Gerri asked, “Who is Lilly Stapley?”

  Maggie had kept Gerri informed of her various conversations but was not surprised she wasn’t making much of an effort to remember the details.

  “Lilly Stapley is the girl who disappeared ten years ago. She was twelve at the time.”

  “I didn’t know things like that happened in Lambertville.”

  “They happen everywhere, Gerri. You watch all those murder shows on TV, you should know that.”

  It was true. Gerri was addicted to a channel that fed its viewers disappearances, death and homicide twenty-four hours a day. But having things like that happen within blocks from where you lived was still hard to imagine.

  “What do you know about this Lilly Stapley thing?”

  Maggie slid her plate away. She’d lost whatever appetite she had.

  “Not as much as I’m going to.”

  Gerri watched Maggie, knowing when her sister had an idea. It was in Maggie’s eyes, and the determination in her expression.

  “Where are you going to find all this out?” Gerri asked.

  “From her father.”

  Maggie could see Gerri remembering now, realization dawning on her face.

  “He works for you, doesn’t he? At the factory.”

  “Peter Stapley. He does indeed.”

  “You said he was fragile, or something.”

  Maggie had been thinking about this all morning. She knew Peter had been nearly destroyed by his daughter’s abduction. His wife had left him. They had no other children. And while it came much later than the events that ruined his life, working at Dahl House Jams had given him just a glimmer of hope, of living a few good years beyond the tragedy that defined him.