Mother Knows Best (A Margie Peterson Mystery)

by Karen MacInerney

  “Do you have children?” I asked, to break the silence.

  “No,” he said curtly as I took a sip of my budget coffee, which I’d doctored with several sugar packets and a good dollop of cream while he waited for his latte. “But you’ve got a kid at Holy Oaks now. Business must be pretty good.”

  “It’s not bad,” I said, which was stretching the truth more than a bit. So what if we only had one case this week? Summer was slow in the PI business. At least, that was my theory. Besides, Peaches had mentioned last night that she had a new job for me.

  “Where’s your new office? Or did you rebuild the old one after it blew up?”

  “It’s, um, on the east side of town,” I said. I wasn’t about to tell him we were sharing it with a Brazilian waxing salon. “How about you?” I asked politely. “Keeping busy?”

  “Oh, it’s going much better now that I know someone who has information on the case I’m working,” he said with a slow smile and pulled an iPad out of his briefcase.

  I blinked. “Who?”

  He stared at me, stylus poised over the iPad screen. “How did you know I was talking about George Cavendish this morning?”

  “I . . . heard a rumor.” I took a swig of coffee, burning my mouth.

  “Really,” he said in a dry sort of tone that didn’t inspire confidence in me. “Who told you?”

  “I don’t remember,” I said. “I hadn’t had coffee yet.” There was a long silence. “Also, I’m a little psychic sometimes.”

  “Psychic.”

  “I get it from my mother.”

  He sighed and jotted a note on his iPad. “Tell me about your friend Becky,” he said. “She wasn’t very happy with Mr. Cavendish, was she?”

  “She didn’t like anything about Holy Oaks,” I told him. “They booted her daughter to let in the kid of a hair-care magnate who offered to pay for a new building.”

  “And yet you sent your daughter to the school. That can’t have been great for your friendship.”

  “What happened to Cavendish, anyway?” I asked, feigning what I hoped looked like natural curiosity.

  “Why don’t you tell me?” he smirked. “You can use your psychic powers.”

  I took another sip of my coffee and attempted to look innocent. “I’m assuming it must be foul play, since you’re involved,” I said. “But why are you so interested in Becky? People write letters to the editor all the time, and they don’t get questioned by the police.”

  “We found something at the crime scene,” Bunsen said. He reached down and pulled a piece of paper out of his briefcase, then slid it across the table to me.

  My heart almost stopped.

  It was a copy of Becky’s Mary Kay Consultant business card.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  What was he doing with Becky’s card?” I asked out loud, even though I knew. When I’d pulled out my new business cards to show Peaches, I must have dropped Becky’s card—I always carried a few to help her network. How had I missed it?

  “I was wondering the same thing,” Bunsen said.

  “She gives those cards out all the time,” I improvised. “He probably had tons of cards with him.”

  “No,” Bunsen said mildly. “Only this one.”

  “Maybe he was going to call and offer her a spot at the school,” I suggested. “You can’t possibly think she did him in and left her card behind. She’s not stupid.”

  “When we found him, he didn’t look like he was about to make a phone call,” Bunsen said. “I have to ask you again. How did you know the headmaster was dead?”

  “Someone said something,” I said. “Normally, I wouldn’t think anything of it, but he wasn’t there that morning, and the elementary-school head seemed uncomfortable. And when you showed up . . .”

  “You somehow divined that the headmaster had died in suspicious circumstances,” he said. “Right. Did your friend call you last night?”

  I hesitated, thinking of Peaches, then realized (duh) that he was talking about Becky. “No,” I said. And then remembered that I was wrong. Becky had called me. “Actually, she did,” I said. “My husband took the message, but I didn’t get a chance to call her back.”

  “What time was that?” he asked.

  “Oh, around six, I think.”

  He made another note on his iPad. “We’ll check the phone records, you know.”

  Would they? And if so, what would they think of Peaches’s call to me at three in the morning? I’d burn that bridge when I got to it, I decided.

  Bunsen took a long swig of his giant latte and looked at me as if he wanted to shake the truth out of me. I gave him a bland smile. “I suppose that’s it for now,” he said grudgingly. “But this isn’t over yet. I’m going to find out how you knew he was dead. And I’m going to find out what your friend Becky Hale had to do with it.”

  My coffee curdled in my stomach as he flipped me a business card. “I’m sure we’ll be in touch.”

  Things were hopping at the Pretty Kitten when I pulled up to the strip mall a half hour later; three young women and a man with tweezed eyebrows were reading fashion magazines in the waiting room when I pushed through the front door. Unfortunately, things at Peachtree Investigations were a little less frenetic. The only lead we’d gotten that week involved a missing pet, and we’d lost the Krumbacher case. If things didn’t turn around soon, Peaches and I might have to consider moonlighting as assistant crotch waxers.

  “We’ve got a problem,” I told Peaches when I walked into the office.

  “If it’s about last night, I’m sorry,” she said. “I put my back out doing one of those P90X exercise videos the other day, or I would have handled it myself.”

  “The cops were at Holy Oaks this morning,” I told her in a low voice.

  Peaches leaned forward, taxing her zebra-print spandex. “They figured out who he was, then.”

  “They found my friend’s business card on the body,” I told her. “I must have dropped it.”

  A furrow appeared between her eyebrows. “Did she know him?”

  “She wrote a scathing letter to the editor about him to the Picayune a few months back, and they published it. And I said something about Cavendish being dead, even though there was no way for me to know it was him.”

  Her eyes got round. “Smooth.”

  “Exactly.”

  She fished her e-cig from under a bra strap and took a long drag, blowing out a vapor cloud. Menthol. “Did they interview you?”

  “Of course,” I said, collapsing on the plastic visitors’ chair.

  “How did it go?”

  I shrugged. “They’re going to talk to Becky. I am such an idiot.” I slumped in the chair. We’d rescued it from the original office; part of the seat was melted and a little bit blackened. “It’s my fault.”

  “It’s going to take a lot more than a business card for the police to charge her with murder,” Peaches said. “Does she have an alibi?”

  “No. Her husband was out of town last night.”

  Peaches grimaced. “That’s too bad.”

  “And she called me last night,” I said. “My husband answered, and I didn’t call her back, but there’s no way to prove she didn’t talk to me. They think that’s how I knew Cavendish was dead.”

  “But he wasn’t dead yet. So that’s something.” Peaches toyed with her e-cig. “How are things going with your hubby, anyway?”

  “He’s starting this program called Journey to Manhood,” I told her. “He made me swear not to tell anyone. It’s supposed to cure gay men.”

  She barked out a laugh. “What do they do, smack them in the doodad every time they start making eyes at each other?”

  “Umm . . . I think there’s a lot of group work,” I said. “And hugging.”

  “That should help,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Hugging lots of men is going to miraculously turn him straight?”

  “That’s the theory,” I said. “There’s supposed to be a support group for wi
ves, too.”

  She stared at me. “A support group? What do they do? Suggest ways to look more butch?”

  “Hey. At least he’s trying.”

  “How long have you been in separate bedrooms?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “About six months.”

  “You’re not getting any younger, sugarplum. You might want to start thinking about the big D.”

  “I’ll give him another month,” I said. My stomach wrenched just thinking of it. If I weren’t a mother, separation from Blake would be a no-brainer. But I had children; any decision I made would affect them, too. I wanted so much to give them the intact home I’d never had. It killed me that it might not be possible.

  Peaches gave me an appraising look. “Nobody knows about him yet?”

  “No one but me,” I told her. “His parents would probably disown him. And my mother’s in town, so he’ll have to move back into the bedroom. We’re all going to dinner tonight, at a vegan macrobiotic place.” I made a mental note to stop by the store for potato chips and earplugs. And maybe a flask.

  “Relationships,” Peaches said, taking another moody drag. “Not worth the trouble, if you ask me.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said. “Is everything okay with Jess?”

  “We broke up,” she said, examining her e-cig. “I never thought I’d say this, but I think I like menthol.”

  “What do you mean, you broke up?” Peaches and Jess had met about six months ago, after he saved me from a particularly unpleasant premature death. I had warm feelings for him, obviously, but sparks had flown between him and Peaches, and they’d been two-stepping every Saturday night since. Last I heard, they were talking about moving in together. “When did this happen?” I asked.

  She waved a plump hand. “A couple of weeks ago.”

  “And you’re just now telling me? What happened?”

  She shrugged. “We got into an argument, and it just kind of went downhill from there.”

  “An argument? About what?”

  “It doesn’t really matter,” she said.

  “Come on,” I said. “I’ve told you my husband was sleeping with a transvestite named Selena Sass. And you can’t tell me what you and Jess argued about?”

  “Fine,” she said, taking another drag off her e-cig and exhaling slowly before answering. “We argued over ice cream.”

  I blinked. “Come again?”

  “Ice cream,” she repeated.

  “Ice cream.”

  She moved to stub out her e-cig, then remembered it was an e-cig and reached into her stretchy top for its plastic case instead. “He said Amy’s Mexican Vanilla was better than Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla. I’d had a bad day at work; that was the day the Fischer case fell apart.” I remembered it. She’d rear-ended the guy she was tailing, causing about three thousand dollars of damage and blowing her cover. It hadn’t been a good couple of months for the office. “He wouldn’t let it go,” Peaches continued, “so I hung up on him.”

  “You called him back, though, right?”

  “Nope.” She opened the plastic case, inserted the e-cig, and snapped it shut. “We haven’t talked in three weeks.”

  “Peaches,” I said. “While I completely agree with you on the merits of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla, that is not a reason to end a relationship with a good man.”

  “Are you sure?” she said. “I thought we had a lot in common, but then he starts talking smack about Homemade Vanilla. Next thing you know, I’ll find out he drinks Chardonnay and eats foie gras.” She grimaced. “What else is he hiding?” She jammed the case into her purse. “And if he cared so damned much, why didn’t he call me back?”

  I was beginning to understand the heavier-than-usual margarita consumption these last few weeks. “Uh . . . you hung up on him, not the other way around.”

  “What? Is chivalry dead?” She stood up. “Anyway, I’ve got bigger fish to fry now. Like getting your friend out of trouble.” She reached for a fresh file folder, scrawled HOLY OAKS on the top of it, and opened it up. “Tell me everything you know about our friend Aquaman,” she said. “I’ll run a background check, and you can see if you can get into his office while you’re volunteering at school, dig up some dirt.” She sucked on the tip of her pen. “It might not be a bad idea to check out his house, too. Is he married?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “Maybe you can get chummy with his wife,” she suggested. “It’s got to be a shock, finding out your husband died wearing goggles and Aquaman tights. Secret life and all.” She paused. “Come to think of it, you guys have a lot in common; you should hit it off just fine.”

  “Gosh. Thanks,” I said.

  “Don’t mention it,” she replied, and pulled up the background-check site on her computer.

  Peaches might occasionally run into trouble doing surveillance, but she was an expert on finding out about people. Within thirty minutes, I knew more about George Cavendish than I’d imagined possible. His home (a tony address in Rob Roy), his car (red BMW), his marital status (thirty years), his past job history (headmaster of expensive private schools in Massachusetts and Connecticut), and his children (none).

  “Nothing about his Aquaman fixation,” I remarked.

  “Must have been something that happened when he was growing up,” she said. “Cape Cod. Lots of water there.”

  “It doesn’t explain the peeing, though,” I said.

  “Maybe some of his summer-camp buddies peed on him as a hazing ritual,” she speculated, “and he decided he kind of liked it. You never know. Human sexuality is a mysterious thing.”

  “No kidding,” I said, thinking of my husband and his penchant for men in tights.

  Peaches looked up from her computer and squinted at me. “How much is your husband paying for this Journey to Manhood thing, anyway?” Evidently her mind had run along the same track as mine.

  “I never asked,” I said.

  “And you’re all alone for the next few days. Good thing your mother’s in town to help out with the kids,” she said.

  “That’s true,” I said, “until she tries to feed them on a diet of seaweed shakes.”

  “Whoever said suburban life was easy never met you,” Peaches said, rolling her eyes. “You’ve got the weirdest family I’ve ever heard of—and that’s saying something.”

  It was hard to disagree with her.

  She pursed her lips and looked at me. “I keep thinking about this Cavendish situation,” she said. “We might want to talk to Desiree again. See if she remembers anything.”

  “Do you know how to get in touch with her?”

  “We’ll pay her a visit tomorrow,” she said. “In the meantime, I’ll see what I can find out. No police records that I can see, but I might call a buddy of mine down at the station and see if she’s heard anything.”

  “Do you think the cops will really blame Cavendish’s death on Becky?”

  “I hope not,” Peaches said. “If it comes down to keeping her out of jail, I’ll fess up and tell them Desiree asked us to help, and I roped you into it. It will at least help explain how you knew—and why your friend’s card was in that pink pool.”

  “You’d do that for me?”

  “I would if I had to,” she said. “But I’d rather see if we can figure things out ourselves first. I haven’t waitressed in a long time, and if I lose my license I’m going to be slinging drinks down at Coyote Ugly. Just between you and me, I’m getting a little old for that.” She took a sip of her Diet Coke. “Also, jail is off the table. I don’t look good in orange.”

  “You wore orange yesterday,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah. But that was tangerine orange, not jumpsuit orange. Plus, those overall things make my butt look big.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know,” she said. A long, low moan sounded from next door, accompanied by a ripping sound that made both of us wince. “Desiree hasn’t called me, and I’m of the opinion that no news is good news.” Peaches reached into
a drawer and pulled out a slim file folder. “I’ve got something to take your mind off things, anyway.”

  “The missing pet?”

  “Little bitty pig, according to the owner. She’s pregnant with piglets.” While I digested that bit of information, Peaches slid the folder across the desk to me. “Lady thinks her ex-husband stole her and is planning to sell the piglets for big money. She’d go retrieve the pig herself, but she’s got a restraining order.”

  “A restraining order?”

  “Yeah. She’s not supposed to get within fifty feet of him or his residence.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t ask.”

  I flipped open the file. It included the ex-husband’s address, along with the pig’s identifying features. Evidently the missing porker was classified as “teacup-size” (whatever that meant), had a cocoa-colored coat with a white spot on its snout, and sported a tattoo in the left ear. Something to check in case I thought I might have picked up the wrong cocoa-colored teacup pig. How many pigs could there possibly be in Austin? Then again, the address was near South Lamar. I looked up at Peaches. “It answers to Bubba Sue?”

  “I didn’t name her. I just took the case.”

  I sighed. “I’ve got to go to a Holy Oaks first-grade-parent coffee,” I told her, closing up the file and tucking it into the old diaper bag that I used as my briefcase, “but I’ll check it out this afternoon.”

  “The coffee would be a good place to ask questions about Cavendish,” Peaches reminded me. “You might pick up something useful.”

  As I left, another shriek sounded from behind me. We really did need to find new office space.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The parent coffee was in Tarrytown, a posh neighborhood just west of central Austin, in a sprawling villa that looked like it had been plucked out of Tuscany and plunked Wizard-of-Oz-style on top of the three modest homes that must once have occupied the space. I’d left Becky two messages on the way to the coffee, hoping the police hadn’t already hauled her off to jail. Would she ever speak to me again? And if so, would we have to chat with a Plexiglas partition between us? I thought of Becky’s children, Zoe and Josh. I couldn’t bear it if my stupidity resulted in them growing up while their mom made license plates in a state penitentiary.