Mother Knows Best (A Margie Peterson Mystery)

by Karen MacInerney

  “Looks lively, too,” my mother said. “How did you get her in there?”

  “I fed her two beers and hog-tied her,” I said.

  “I think you need to work on your hog-tying technique,” she recommended.

  “I followed the eHow directions. Maybe she got loose while I was pulling her in the tarp.”

  “Got any more beer?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But it’s in the car.”

  My mother crossed her arms and considered the pig. “That’s too bad.” We both watched as Bubba Sue squeezed between the front seats and planted her hooves on the dashboard. With every ripple of her muscled hide, large chunks of mud and pig manure fell off onto the upholstery. I didn’t want to think about how I was going to explain this to the rental-car company. “How does she feel about scotch?” my mother asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But how are we going to get it in there?”

  “A bowl won’t work; it’ll spill,” she mused. Then she clapped her hands together. “Let’s try a baby bottle. You still have any?”

  A baby bottle? I looked at Bubba Sue’s teeth, which glinted in the reflection off the hood. “In the Goodwill box in the garage,” I said. “I don’t know, though . . .”

  “Got any other ideas?”

  “It’s worth a try.”

  We headed back into the house. I dug through the box in the garage and pulled out a baby bottle while my mother grabbed Blake’s bottle of scotch from on top of the fridge.

  “What are you doing?” Elsie asked as I unscrewed the nipple and emptied the rest of Blake’s Macallan 15 into the baby bottle.

  “Giving the pig some medicine,” I told her as I topped it off and put the nipple back on.

  “Daddy drinks a lot of medicine,” she said, looking concerned as my mother and I headed out to the car.

  If the Leaf was quivering before, now it was convulsing.

  “What is that pig doing?” Elsie asked.

  “It looks like she’s trying to rip out the seats,” my mother observed. “If I were you, Marigold, I’d get that scotch into her ASAP.”

  I advanced on the car, brandishing the bottle like a gun, and introduced the nipple into the cracked-open back window. A bit of scotch dribbled from the end of it. Fortunately, the scent was potent enough to distract Bubba Sue from her seat-removal campaign. She snuffled a few times, then turned her head, seeking the source of the intoxicating aroma.

  “It’s working,” my mother murmured as the giant pig shoved herself back between the front seats and lunged toward the window. She latched onto the end of the bottle, sucking hard on the nipple. She’d downed about a third of the scotch before giving the silicone nipple a playful tug that ripped it right off the bottle. About three-quarters of a cup of Macallan 15 sloshed out onto the backseat of the Leaf, which Bubba Sue immediately began licking.

  “Shit,” I said, then realized my daughter was standing right next to me. “I mean, snit,” I said.

  “Do you think she got enough?” my mother asked, peering at Bubba Sue through the side window.

  “I don’t know,” I said, watching as she snuffled the stained cloth seat, “but I think we should pull up that hog-tying site again.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  As it turns out, a third of a bottle of Macallan 15 was enough. Twenty minutes later, Bubba Sue was sprawled across the backseat, her head lolling to one side, looking much cleaner now that she’d knocked all the dried pig manure off onto the car’s interior. I could really make out the white spot on her snout.

  “She’s kind of cute when she’s sedated,” my mother commented as she tugged on Bubba Sue’s front legs and I shoved her from behind. I gave one more shove and she slid out of the car and onto the tarp. My mother helped me roll her onto her back, then read the eHow instructions out to me. The final product made her look like she’d tripped on a tangle of rope, but it would have to do; I had no idea when she’d wake up.

  “Are you sure you want her in your laundry room?” my mother asked as I gave the rope a final, futile tug. “Wouldn’t the backyard be a better option?”

  “Have you seen my fence?” I asked. It was essentially a few pickets held up by a mass of English ivy; in fact, I wasn’t sure there were any pickets left under the tangle of leaves and vines. “She’d be galloping down MoPac by dinnertime.” I stood up. “Can you get the back end? Elsie, will you open the front door?”

  “Sure, Mommy,” she said, and pushed the door open. My mother and I traipsed through the house with Bubba Sue suspended in her blue tarp, and deposited her in the laundry room. We stood and considered her for a moment.

  “Maybe I should untie her,” I said.

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, but we should at least put a water bowl in here,” my mother said. “And what about food? What do pigs eat, anyway?”

  “She seems to like phones,” I said.

  “Phones?”

  I glanced back to see Elsie approaching. “Never mind. We should probably leave her tied up for now—I’m sure her owner will be here soon. But water’s a good idea.”

  “But how will she get to it?”

  “We’ll put it by her head,” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel. “Elsie, can you get the bowl I left in the car? It’s in a bag in the back.” My daughter trotted off to retrieve it, and as my mother helped her rinse and fill it, I tossed a couple of seaweed snacks on the floor next to Bubba Sue’s head. I figured someone should eat them.

  The pig was secured in the laundry room by eleven o’clock. I walked out to survey the damage. The rental car smelled like a cross between a bar and a feedlot, and Bubba Sue had managed to take a few chunks out of the passenger seat, but at least it was pig-free. Did insurance cover livestock damage? I wondered. Could we pass the expense on to the client?

  I’d left a message for Peaches posing those questions, and I was about to take a shower and attempt to clean up the fry phone when my mother waylaid me in the bedroom hallway.

  “Marigold,” she said. “I’m worried about you.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Let’s go sit on the back porch for a few minutes,” she said. “Elsie’s building a kale forest, so she’ll be occupied for a few minutes.”

  “Sure,” I said reluctantly, reviewing all the unresolved situations in my life as I followed her out to the back porch. The calls from Bunsen I wasn’t returning. The attack on my van. The angry, deranged custodian. My husband’s predilection for men in dresses. And, of course, Elsie’s dog fixation. The only bright spot was that I had the fry phone—even if it was covered in pig manure.

  I really didn’t want to talk right then, but there was no way around it. My mother had been so wonderful to come and help out with the kids—and Elsie seemed to be blossoming under her care. I owed her listening to a nutrition lecture or two.

  I brushed a few months of pollen and dust off the patio chairs and we sat down across from each other. “I’m sorry I’ve been so distracted the last few days,” I said. “I got a friend of mine into some trouble accidentally, and I’ve been working hard to fix it.”

  “So it’s not always like this?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “And I haven’t told you how much I appreciate your help. Particularly with Blake out of town—you’ve been a lifesaver.”

  “I’m glad I can be here,” she said, smiling. “But I can tell that things are very out of balance for you.”

  That was the understatement of the decade. “Oh, it’s just been a crazy week.”

  “My intuition tells me it’s more than that. Everyone in the house just seems . . . disconnected, somehow.” She waved her arms around, bangles jangling, and smiled at me. “And I still think there’s more going on between you and Blake than you’re telling me.”

  “Um . . . We’re going through a bit of a rough patch.”

  She sighed. “I was afraid of that. I don’t sense a heart connection between the two of you,” she said.
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  I shrugged. “Doesn’t that happen in all marriages once the kids come?”

  She gave me a sad smile. “He was sleeping in the office before I got here, wasn’t he?”

  I looked down at the grass growing between the pavers. “The snoring was keeping me up.”

  “Hmm,” she said, and waited.

  Finally, I blurted, “It’s complicated.”

  She reached out and took my hand in hers. “Your father and I went through that. We tried to keep things together for your sake, but in the long run . . .” She shrugged. “I think parting ways was the best thing we ever did.”

  I wasn’t so sure. My father had pretty much disappeared from my life once I hit the age of ten, and it was a hole that no number of homeopathic remedies could fill.

  “He made the atmosphere in the house toxic,” my mother explained. “You don’t remember it that way, but he felt so . . . constrained by family life, even though he loved you. As painful as it was, I believe in my heart that it was better for everyone for him to leave. And I wouldn’t have been happy yoked to a man who really didn’t want to be with me.”

  I felt as if she had slapped me. Was it that obvious that Blake wasn’t attracted to me?

  “I know you’re worried about the kids,” she said. “And I know how important a stable family is to you. But I don’t want you to spend the next fifteen years in misery for their sake.” She reached out to squeeze my hand. “It’s not good for you—and it’s not good for them, either.”

  “He’s trying to work things out,” I said. “That’s where he is this week.”

  “I didn’t think it was a business trip,” she admitted.

  “But a stable family . . . It would hurt the kids so much if we split up.”

  “Elsie’s not doing so well right now as it is,” she said. “She’s a sensitive child. She knows something’s wrong. That’s why she’s retreating into her fantasy world.”

  “And a divorce would help that?” I asked, running my hands through my hair. “Are you sure it’s not just the school?”

  “Her dog fascination started several months ago, didn’t it?” she asked. “Although, to be honest, it doesn’t sound like Holy Smokes a great environment for her, either.”

  “Holy Oaks,” I corrected.

  “Anyway, she’s a creative child, and Holy Oaks . . .” my mother trailed off. “I just don’t know if she’ll thrive there. And your aura is so . . . muddy right now. I can sense it even on the phone.” She twisted the bangles on her arm. “I’m sure Elsie’s responding to that; she lives with you.”

  “I have been kind of stressed lately,” I confessed, “but it’s not just Blake.” I looked up at my mother, who was smiling expectantly. “Remember I told you the headmaster died?”

  “Yes? What about it?”

  “What I didn’t tell you was . . . well, Peaches asked me to help move the body.”

  My mother jangled as she sat up straight. “What?”

  “He was in a hooker’s apartment, wearing Aquaman tights and goggles.” I didn’t mention the urine. “Peaches was trying to help out a friend, and she asked me for help. Anyway, I accidentally dropped Becky’s card on top of him, and the police found it.”

  My mother choked out a startled laugh. “Aquaman?”

  “It’s not funny,” I said. “If I don’t get it figured out in the next couple of days, I have to tell the police that I moved the body, and I’ll probably go to jail.”

  “Why were you moving the body, anyway?” she asked.

  “He got shot in a hooker’s apartment,” I told her. “The hooker is a friend of Peaches, and she didn’t want her parents to find out what she was doing to pay her way through college.”

  My mother sat back in her chair. “That’s why you’ve been gone so much. I knew it wasn’t just the pig.”

  “Well, there’s been that, too.”

  “Any idea who did it?”

  “I must be getting close, since someone shot up the minivan at the office yesterday.”

  Her eyes widened. “What?”

  “That’s why I have the rental. I also found some strange words on a paper hidden in Cavendish’s office,” I said. “The problem is, I have no idea what they mean.”

  “That’s the headmaster—Cavendish,” she said. I nodded. “How did you get into his office?”

  “Never mind,” I said.

  “Is that where you were last night?”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “Well,” she said, “what’s done is done. And you did want a job with a bit of excitement. Maybe I can help. I was really good at codes when I was a kid.”

  It was worth a shot. “I’ll go get them,” I said. “Maybe you can make sense out of it. Oh—and I got Elsie’s fry phone back, but it’s covered in pig manure.”

  “Good for you! I know how to get that fixed up. Three-thieves oil sanitizes everything,” my mother said, nodding sagely.

  “Are you sure? I was thinking a bleach bath.”

  “Leave it to me,” she said. “Now, go get that paper.”

  As I went inside to retrieve the legal paper—and a plastic baggie for the fry phone—Elsie looked up at me with a big smile. “Look at my forest!” she said. “I even built a little house.” She pointed to a small structure built of seaweed flakes. Her dog collar, I noticed, lay discarded on the table.

  “Who lives there?” I asked.

  “The kale fairies,” she said, as if it were obvious.

  I kissed her on top of the head and gave her a squeeze. “You’ve got quite a forest growing there! Do you need another cookie sheet to expand?”

  “That would be great, Mom!”

  I gave her a second cookie sheet and another bag of seaweed snacks and glanced at the laundry room. There was a soft grunting noise, but nothing violent. At least not yet.

  “Thanks, Mom,” my daughter said as I stacked a second bag of seaweed snacks on the table. As Elsie adjusted the roof of her kale-fairy house, I grabbed the legal paper from my purse and headed out to the back porch.

  “She looks so happy in there,” I said, nodding toward my absorbed daughter. “I never would have thought of making a kale forest.”

  “It doesn’t take much when you’ve got such a creative kiddo,” she said. “Now, let’s take a look at this list of yours.”

  I spread the page out on the table and we both examined it.

  “Is it some kind of code, do you think?” I asked.

  “Arthur207,” she said, pointing to the first line. “Hmmm,” she said. “What did you say he was dressed as when he died?”

  “Aquaman,” I said. “Why?”

  “What was Aquaman’s ‘street’ name?”

  “I’ll look it up,” I said, retrieving my manure-coated phone from my back pocket and typing it in.

  “Arthur Curry,” I said, looking at the page. The second word on the line was C1U2R3R4Y5.

  “I thought so,” my mother said, eyes glittering. “I’ll bet this is a username and password.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  I looked at my mother; what she said made sense. “They do look like usernames and passwords. The problem is, to what?”

  “Let’s find out,” she said, reaching for my phone. “May I?”

  I took the phone out of its case and handed it over. It was slightly dented—probably a tooth mark—but it seemed to have passed through Bubba Sue’s digestive system intact. It was a modern-day miracle.

  “Let’s try the obvious suspects first,” she said.

  “Like what?”

  “Gmail,” she said. A moment later, she said, “Nope.”

  “Yahoo?” I suggested.

  Nothing. She went down the list of mail providers, with no luck. I was about to lose hope when my mother said, “Bingo.”

  “You found it?” I pulled my chair over beside her.

  “On Inbox.com,” she said.

  “What’s in the e-mails?”

  “Setting up meetings,” she said, clic
king through his e-mails.

  “With whom?”

  “Largely a woman named Desiree,” she said, “but there’s one other here.”

  “Who?”

  “Someone named Cherry,” she said.

  Hmm. “When did this happen?”

  She scrolled through the list. “Looks like last January is when the e-mails started,” she said.

  “Did they meet?”

  “Looks like it,” she said. I peered over her shoulder as she read, “Thank you so much for putting in a good word for me. I’ll be extra thankful this Friday night.” My mother looked up at me. “What do you think that means?”

  “I think one of the moms was trading . . . favors for getting her kid into school.”

  “Do you think she killed him?”

  “No,” I said. “I can’t think why she would. She got what she wanted, and it wasn’t something he was likely to tell anyone. Let’s try the other account and see what comes up.”

  My mother logged out of Aquaman’s account and typed in the next username and password. She was right; Cavendish had two e-mail accounts on Inbox.com.

  “Investments?” she said, wrinkling her nose as she clicked on the first few messages. “Why would he need a secret account for investments?”

  “Not a lot of e-mails, are there?”

  “Only five,” she said, pulling up the earliest one. “Second thoughts about investment direction. Cannot afford connection. Please advise soonest.”

  “What was the response?”

  She clicked on an e-mail from Rainbow2348. “Concern noted. When current shipment distributed, will divert funds to lower-risk enterprise.”

  “Per our meeting, events have become too dangerous. Need to divest soonest.”

  She clicked on the response from Rainbow2348. “Cannot withdraw immediately. Need four-week lead time.”

  Two days later, Cavendish sent one last e-mail. “Divest HO within 48 hours, or will be forced to take action.”

  “And that’s the last e-mail,” my mother said.

  “He was killed the next night,” I said, feeling my skin prickle.