Mother Knows Best (A Margie Peterson Mystery)

by Karen MacInerney

  “Yeah, but she could get an internship with a designer, and that would be so much better for her career. And she wouldn’t have to . . . well, you know.”

  “Pee on people?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “At least we got some good info out of her,” Peaches said as we pulled away from the Coffee Bean. “We should probably find out more about that Golden Investments.”

  “You think that was what Cavendish was talking about—the one the board didn’t want to let him out of?”

  “That’s the one that was making fifty percent annually, right?” she asked.

  “And Golden’s on the board. That’s suspect right there. If Aquaman was getting his panties in a wad about it . . . not that he was wearing panties, but you know what I mean.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Peaches said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  By the time I made it to the front door of Holy Oaks, I’d identified three red Lexuses in the parking lot, but only two sedans. I jotted down the license-plate numbers and left a message for Becky to see if she could pick up Nick for me; I was hoping to hang around Holy Oaks for pickup so I could see how many other red Lexuses belonged to school parents. On the other hand, if the owner of the Lexus outside Desiree’s apartment was a parent whose kid had been turned down, they weren’t likely to show up in the Holy Oaks parking lot. Honestly, though, would a parent really kill someone for not admitting a child to a school? I was about to dismiss the idea until I remembered Becky’s face as she pawed through the admissions files. It was not outside the realm of possibility.

  The office was buzzing with people, including Perky Desk Girl. I clutched the diaper bag to my chest; there was no way I was going to be able to slip those files back into their cabinet, much less shove Cavendish’s mail back into its cubby. I was still a little worried about the condition of the envelopes—they looked like they’d spent a few weeks in a tropical rainforest—but it couldn’t be helped.

  After loitering for a moment in the lobby, I headed into the library, slipped an SAT book out of the box behind the desk, and positioned myself with a view of the front-office door. Fortunately, only five minutes passed before a clump of people left the office, their wedges clip-clopping down the hallway. I waited a moment, then stood up and headed for the office door, one hand clutching the mail in the diaper bag, trying to look casual.

  I was in luck; even Perky Desk Girl was gone.

  All of the doors to the inner offices were closed, including Cavendish’s. Although I could hear murmurs from behind one of them, no one was in the main area. I grabbed the mail from the diaper bag and stuffed it into Cavendish’s empty mailbox, then opened the file drawer and jammed the files in, not taking the time to put them back in order. I was about to close the drawer when there was a thunk behind me. I turned to see the custodian standing at the door, a broom in his hand, watching me. I shoved the drawer shut behind my back. “Hello,” I said.

  He stared at me with dark, appraising eyes. There was a little scar to the left of his eye, and a corner of a tattoo peeked out from under his T-shirt sleeve. His hands on the broom were enormous, with fingers that reminded me of bratwursts.

  “Just doing some filing,” I said, giving the filing cabinet an affectionate pat.

  The custodian nodded and gave me a long, hard look before drifting away down the hallway. The man gave me the heebie-jeebies. Was it the scar on his face, or just the fact that he’d caught me doing something I shouldn’t be doing?

  Heart pounding, I hurried toward the office door. I was just about to round the desk when I noticed a set of keys on the corner closest to Perky Desk Girl’s chair. I hesitated a moment. Would Cavendish’s office key be among them? I grabbed them and shoved them deep into the diaper bag, then headed out the office door, where I almost knocked over Deborah Golden.

  “Oh. Sorry about that,” I said, clutching the diaper bag to my chest.

  Once she regained her balance and registered who I was, Deborah’s eyes narrowed; she looked behind me to the empty office. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m, uh, here to volunteer,” I said. “Thanks again for hosting the coffee; your house is gorgeous. At any rate,” I said with a bright smile, “I’d better get back to the library!” I hurried past her without giving her a chance to ask another question and hoped Perky Desk Girl wouldn’t notice her missing keys for a while. I glanced over my shoulder as I slipped through the door to the library; Deborah was glaring at me as if I were a scullery maid who had cracked her favorite hand-painted Moroccan teacup.

  I raced back to my spot in the library, where I was idly erasing answer bubbles when the gaggle of office staff reappeared.

  Moving dead bodies, stealing mail, and grabbing other people’s keys . . . I was turning into a real paragon of virtue, I thought glumly as I stared down at a geometry problem involving six angles and a dotted line. Over the past seventy-two hours, I had broken a number of laws.

  What kind of example was I setting for my children?

  Before I’d had Elsie, I’d envisioned a Pottery Barn Kids childhood for my children, with tidy, attractively decorated bedrooms, regular snack times, and myself hovering somewhere in the background, wearing stylish clothes in single-digit sizes and holding a tray of organic milk, homegrown carrot sticks, and whole-grain, date-sweetened oatmeal cookies. My (straight) husband would be watching admiringly as our spotless, white-clad children finger-painted a family portrait, with our beautifully decorated and remodeled house in the background.

  Dead bodies and husbands sleeping with transvestites hadn’t entered into the picture at all.

  I looked down and stared at an algebra problem. I was doing the best I could, considering the situation, I told myself. It would be a disaster for my kids if I ended up in jail. And I hadn’t murdered anyone; I had just been trying to help a college student stay out of trouble. So what if she was a college student with a fully equipped dungeon in her apartment? She was still following her dream.

  Unfortunately, I doubted Detective Bunsen would see it that way.

  I turned a page in the SAT book and erased another mark, acutely aware of the purloined keys in my diaper bag. If Perky Desk Girl hadn’t discovered their disappearance yet, she’d certainly figure it out when she wanted to go home. Would Deborah Golden tell her I’d been in the office? And what was I going to do about Detective Bunsen?

  I flipped to the next page and wondered how many messages he’d left. The more I thought about it, the happier I was that Bubba Sue had eaten my phone. At least I had a good excuse for not getting back in touch with Detective Bunsen.

  “Oh, there you are.” I looked up: it was Kathleen Gardner.

  “Hi,” I said weakly.

  “Did you hear about Mr. Cavendish?” she asked. “Such a tragedy . . . I’m guessing he worked too hard and had a heart attack.”

  “Mmm,” I said.

  “The memorial service is tomorrow,” Kathleen said.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “At Saint John’s Catholic Church,” she said. “I hope there’s enough room for everyone.”

  “I heard a rumor it wasn’t a heart attack,” I said. I was guessing Kathleen wasn’t in on the gossip circuit, but she was more familiar with Holy Oaks than I was; maybe she knew something that would help me figure out who had killed him. “The police were here the other day.”

  She blinked at me. “Don’t you think that was just routine?”

  “I don’t know. You don’t know of anyone who might have wished him ill?” I asked.

  “Well, of course there are all the parents of children who didn’t make the cut,” Kathleen said. “Holy Oaks is a very competitive school.”

  “Unless you have money,” I said lightly.

  “Oh, no,” Kathleen said. “The admissions process is entirely based on merit.”

  “You don’t think the fundraising campaign might affect who gets in?” I asked. “Somebody’s got to pay for the new squash
courts.”

  “I seriously doubt it,” Kathleen said. “Holy Oaks is all about caring and doing the right thing. And academic excellence, of course.” She looked at me. “Have you given any more thought to the Girl Scouts?”

  I gave her a strained smile. “I have to talk with Elsie about it.”

  A shadow passed over Kathleen’s face. “Your daughter is quite . . . unique, isn’t she? Not very socially integrated, it seems to me. Still, I’m sure if I had a chance to work with her, I could make some progress . . .”

  I could feel my hackles rise. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Catriona told me she only eats white foods, and that she walks around her chair three times before she sits down. And on the playground . . .”

  “What about the playground?”

  “Well, I’m sure she’s struggling with the adjustment.” Kathleen gave me an intent look. “Have you considered having her evaluated?”

  “I appreciate your concern, but I’m sure Elsie will be just fine,” I said, snapping the SAT book shut. Although my anxiety over Elsie was hitting new all-time highs, I couldn’t stand to be in the same room with this woman another moment.

  “But—”

  “I’ve got to go,” I said, grabbing my bag and heading blindly out of the library. If I hadn’t, there was an excellent chance a second homicide case would be opened at Holy Oaks.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The church parking lot was overfilled when I arrived at Saint John’s Catholic Church for George Cavendish’s memorial service the next day. I was still brooding over Elsie. She had been uncommunicative the night before, so I hadn’t tried to ask about what Kathleen had told me, but I was worried. I had gotten donuts for both kids before school, hoping that starting the day with a little sweetness would help improve their mood. Even though she had the morning off because of the headmaster’s funeral, Elsie still growled when I mentioned Holy Oaks.

  Now I was cruising around the Saint John’s parking lot and looking for Lexuses, but I only spotted one, and it had also been at Holy Oaks. I reminded myself to check with Peaches to see if she’d found out who owned it.

  The narthex was stuffed with well-dressed people wearing a smorgasbord of colognes and perfumes. Pulling my pre-pregnancy black cardigan around me—it didn’t quite meet in the middle these days, but I was hoping no one would notice—I inched my way over toward the open coffin. I barely avoided running into an earnest Kathleen Gardner, who was regaling another hapless person with her daughter’s ballet accomplishments. “She’s been asked to do the Nutcracker,” she was saying as I sidled by, her strawberry-blonde bob bouncing as she spoke. “It’s a big sacrifice for her in terms of time—her violin lessons are suffering now that she’s only getting an hour a day to practice—but even though her background is in tap, the ballet mistress said the production just wouldn’t have that sparkle without her. Besides,” she said, “it will look so good on her college application . . .”

  Mitzi stood in a corner of the narthex, talking with another woman who was her sartorial twin: they both wore belted black dresses and tall, high-heeled boots. Beside Mitzi was Marty, looking bored in a sober charcoal suit, his short dark hair slicked back. He caught me staring at him, and his mouth quirked up in a half smile. I could feel my cheeks warm, but I responded with my own awkward smile, trying to forget that he’d had a ringside seat as I’d wrestled Peaches away from a cream-covered Banana Twirl just a few days ago, and I looked down—right at the late headmaster.

  He looked pretty good for a dead guy. They’d de-goggled him before packing him into the casket, which was a tasteful mahogany, lined with a sober blue silk that matched his pinstriped suit. I found myself looking for goggle marks on his forehead, but the makeup team had erased any dents that might have remained. No sign of blood or urine, either. I tried not to imagine him with a pacifier in his mouth.

  “Pretty shocking, isn’t it?”

  I turned to see Kevin standing behind me. “It is,” I said as we moved away from the casket. “Did they ever find out what happened to him?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think it was a heart attack,” Kevin told me in a low voice. “The police were in the front office this week. There’s lots of talk, but nobody’s really saying anything.” He glanced over his shoulder. “They’ve already named an interim head.”

  “Who?”

  “Deborah Golden,” he said.

  I looked over at Deborah Golden, who wore a black sheath dress and almost disappeared when she turned sideways. “But she’s a real-estate broker!”

  “I know,” he said. “I thought it was weird, too. I hope they get someone qualified in there soon. The board’s keeping everything really hush-hush right now, though, so there’s no way to know.”

  No wonder, I thought. It wasn’t going to help Holy Oaks’ reputation if it got out that the former head had been found half-naked and dead in a urine-filled wading pool. If they ever discovered he’d died in a dominatrix’s dungeon, Kathleen Gardner would yank her little angel out of Holy Oaks and send her to boarding school—if she didn’t succumb to a fit of apoplexy first. As I watched her bear down on another first-grade parent, I briefly toyed with telling her.

  “Did you know him well?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No more than anyone else at the school. He was pretty cozy with the board members, but he just glad-handed the rest of us.”

  “So sad,” I said. “His poor wife.” I scanned the room, looking for a grieving widow. “Is she here?”

  Kevin nodded toward a petite, short-haired woman in a black pantsuit. She looked a little like Nancy Reagan, even down to the little string of pearls, and did not look particularly grief-stricken. Then again, I reflected, some people were like that; grieving looks different for different people. She was surrounded by a throng of mourners. “He didn’t have kids, did he?”

  “No, it was just the two of them.”

  “What’s his wife’s name, again?” I asked, watching her accept a hug from an older man with a cane.

  “Cressida.”

  “She looks like she’s holding up okay.” Particularly considering the circumstances of her husband’s death. Had they told her about the wading pool? Had the Aquaman tights been a surprise? Or had she already known—or seen them when she shot him? I thought about the mysterious red Lexus, and made a mental note to find out what kind of car she drove.

  “She’s not the dramatic type,” Kevin said. “Stiff upper lip and all.”

  “What does she drive?” I asked, but before he could answer, Kathleen Gardner materialized, looking dour in a black, sack-like dress.

  “It’s just terrible, isn’t it?” she asked. “I just can’t think what it’ll do for the school’s reputation. Catriona was traumatized when I broke the news to her. She’s such a sensitive child . . .”

  “Did you hear anything about what happened to him?” I asked.

  “Just that it was very sudden,” she said, glancing over at him. “Oh, look. They even put him in his Holy Oaks tie.” I followed her eyes to the coffin. Cherry Nichols, the voluptuous mom of twins, was hovering near the coffin, dabbing at her eyes. Behind her was Cressida Cavendish. Her face went tight for a moment at the sight of Cherry near her late husband, and just for a millisecond, a look of pure venom crossed her features. Then someone touched her arm and the brittle smile was back in place.

  Desiree had said Cavendish was having an affair. Was Cherry his lover? Desiree had mentioned his mistress being named after a flower. A cherry wasn’t exactly a flower, but a fruit wasn’t far off. And if Cressida knew they were having an affair, did she also know what Cavendish had been up to on the night he wound up with a bullet in his back?

  “Cherry seems awfully upset about the headmaster’s death,” I said, nodding toward the curvaceous mother as she sashayed away from the casket, drawing the glances of many of the men.

  “They seemed to be good friends,” Kathleen said. “It always seemed a bit surpri
sing—I mean, she’s hardly the academic type.”

  “No,” Kevin said. “I think she’s got other talents.”

  I glanced at him, my eyebrows rising, and his mouth quirked up into a grin. “Kathleen,” he said, pointing to the other side of the narthex. “There’s the music teacher. Did you ever touch base with her about Catriona doing a violin solo in the fall musical?”

  Kathleen’s bobbed head swiveled. “Oooh, there she is. I never did get a chance yesterday; every time I went to talk with her, she somehow disappeared on me.” She adjusted the neckline of her dress and turned toward the hapless teacher with a determined look on her face. “I’m going to go talk to her now,” she said, and marched off with a sense of purpose that made me pity the poor teacher.

  “There’s a rumor,” Kevin said, leaning down to murmur in my ear, “that Cherry Nichols’s kids didn’t get in on academic merit.”

  “You mean . . .”

  He nodded. “Someone saw her with Cavendish at the W Hotel this summer,” he said.

  “Wow,” I said, and my heart went out to Cressida Cavendish. The photograph I’d discovered of my husband with another woman still haunted me. Well, with a man dressed as a woman, anyway. I wasn’t sure you ever got over something like that. “Does Mrs. Cavendish know—or at least suspect?”

  “Did you see the look she shot Cherry a moment ago?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “So probably she did.”

  “That’s my guess,” he said.

  Before I could ask another question, the organ started up, and we filed into the sanctuary. I sat down next to Kevin in the back of the room, glancing at the program the usher had given me.

  A Celebration of the Life of George Ronald Cavendish, it read, along with a long list of accomplishments. He’d been head at about five Catholic schools, I read, and—at least according to the program—was a man of impeccable morals and strong values. I snort-coughed and looked up, watching as the mourners filed into the church.