A Taste of Death (Maggie Olenski Series)

by Hughes, Mary Ellen

  "I know, but you've got your car. I thought...."

  Dyna stopped after a quick glance at Maggie. Maggie wasn't thrilled at having the cat move in with them, but could hardly object since, after all, it was Dyna's cabin. Her own car, though, was under her complete control, and lugging a fur-loaded cat contraption back to Baltimore among her luggage and laptop was not going to happen. No way.

  "I guess I have enough for now," Dyna said, and turned the basket toward the check-out.

  They were loading it all in Dyna's car when Maggie suggested they stop at Elizabeth's before picking up Ali.

  "I want to talk to her about what's happened. Just a few minutes."

  "Sure. There's plenty of time to get Ali. I'd like to see Liz too."

  After the short drive up Main, Dyna parked next to the snow-piled curb in front of the Book Nook. The store's windows were dark.

  "I really wish she'd open for business," Dyna said. "It must be too depressing to sit all alone back there. 'Course she's got plenty to read."

  They climbed out of the car, and Maggie led Dyna around to the back door. A light tap brought Elizabeth to the window, and, seeing them, she quickly unlocked the door and opened it. She seemed in better shape than the last time Maggie had been there. No afghan clutched around her this time, and the television, instead of being blank, was tuned to a talk show whose subject, judging from occasional laughter, was cheerful. She had obviously taken some pains with her hair - always a good sign. It looked freshly shampooed and curled softly on her neck. Her smile, however, did not reach her eyes, which looked unhappy.

  "You've heard what happened this morning?" Maggie asked.

  "Yes, one of the deputies came by. He checked my doors and windows and warned me to keep them locked, but I think he was also looking around for a stash of rifles and ammunition. He asked if I'd been out early today."

  "As if you could ever do such a thing!" Dyna's face was indignant.

  "I don't blame them."

  "But Liz, Maggie thinks this could actually prove your innocence – in Jack's murder, I mean."

  Elizabeth looked at Maggie, who nodded.

  "I think the two deaths could be related. If the same person who poisoned Jack also shot Alexander, you would be eliminated as a suspect for not being able to have shot Alexander. You don't own a gun or know how to shoot, do you?"

  "No! That would be the last thing in the world I would ever want to learn. Even for protection."

  Elizabeth clicked off the television, then sank down onto the overstuffed chair. She put her hands to her face, elbows on knees. Instead of looking pleased at the possibility of being cleared she seemed more upset. Her face grew flushed.

  "Oh, this is awful."

  "What's wrong?" Dyna asked.

  "Paul hunts." Elizabeth looked at Maggie, letting those two words hang in the air.

  Maggie nodded, knowing what was going through Elizabeth's mind. Paul has guns. Paul loves Big Bear. Jack Warwick wanted to take Big Bear from him and died. Alexander wanted to dispose of Big Bear and had been shot.

  "But Alexander is his brother. He couldn't...." Dyna stopped, unable to finish.

  "I'm sure John will be questioning Paul. He'll have to. But I wouldn't worry about him yet. He might have a very good alibi. Besides, I'm sure he's not the only one in Cedar Hill with hunting rifles." As she said it, Maggie's thoughts flashed to Regina's living room. The living room with a gun case, which stood there, carefully preserved, protected, polished. Had Regina learned to shoot as a young girl, Maggie wondered, at her beloved father's side, before her own strong opinions against hunting had developed?

  Mona's tale, at the dress shop, of the death of Regina's brother by gunshot, ran through Maggie's mind. It was followed soon by the image of Regina at last night's dinner, coming up to Maggie after Alexander's drunken outburst. Regina, quiet and grim, had spoken in a low voice, as though thinking aloud.

  "Some people the world would be better off without".

  Maggie shivered.

  CHAPTER 18

  "Ali!"

  Maggie rushed to prevent the large orange cat from scattering the carefully sorted papers next to her laptop.

  "He's just exploring," Dyna said.

  Maggie lifted the cat, which must have weighed a good eighteen pounds, off the round oak table and handed him to Dyna.

  "Please tell him to explore at floor level."

  Dyna fell back onto one of the soft chairs, holding onto Ali who immediately made himself comfortable on her lap. A purr that sounded to Maggie like something between asthmatic wheezing and her father's weed whacker began to emanate from the cat.

  Dyna hugged the furry, vibrating creature and scratched under his chin.

  "Poor little thing. He has to get used to another strange place. I wonder how many times he's had to do that."

  If his other homes were with people who expected a cat to respect their possessions, probably quite a few, Maggie thought. Ali had already been removed from the food-covered kitchen counter twice, and had nearly pulled down the small lamp on Dyna's bedside table by its cord. Maggie would put up with Ali for Dyna's sake. And keep her bedroom door firmly closed at all times.

  The phone rang. Since Dyna was out of reach and pinned down by the heavy feline, Maggie picked it up.

  "Hey, Maggie." Her brother Joe's hearty voice rolled out. "Your friend up there still need that lawyer?"

  "What?" As soon as she said it Maggie remembered asking Joe to check on the lawyer Paul was getting for Elizabeth. It was hard to believe that was only two days ago with all that had happened.

  "Judd Ambler. Remember? I thought it was important."

  "It is. Or it was. It's beginning to look like she won't really need him."

  "Well, that's good. Dave Schaeffer, the lawyer I worked for last summer, says Ambler's fine, but that he's into criminal law. I thought your friend was just being sued or something."

  Maggie sat down, holding the phone. She watched Dyna slide Ali off her lap with some difficulty and onto one side of the wide chair cushion. Ali had clearly decided he preferred to remain prone and wasn't helping in the least now that Dyna wanted to stand up.

  Maggie hesitated, then decided to come clean. "No, she wasn't being sued." Maggie crossed her legs and braced for what she knew would come. "She was under suspicion of murder."

  "What!"

  "It's Elizabeth Kerr." Maggie spoke rapidly. "Betsy Kerr. I knew her from Girl Scout camp back in sixth grade. Remember that year I went to Camp Kittiwake and I came home with...."

  "No, I don't remember. You're friends with a woman who murdered someone?"

  "Of course not. Elizabeth didn't murder anyone. And that's why she needed a good lawyer. I was simply making sure of that."

  "And what else have you been making sure of?" Joe's tone had become stern. Although younger than Maggie by two years, he had the irritating tendency to occasionally treat her as the younger sibling.

  "Only that justice is done."

  "Maggie...."

  "Never mind, Joe. I already know everything you're going to say. I am being careful, and I do have to do this."

  "You went up there to write a book."

  "I'm doing that too." Maggie's conscience tweaked her as she said that. She’d hardly touched her notes lately. "Kind of," she added, recalling her intention of honesty.

  Joe grunted and groused some more, and the call ended on an unsatisfactory note for both. Maggie had managed to pull a reluctant promise from him not to bother their parents with what she had told him. For now. She couldn't count on that for very long, she knew, if Joe decided he needed back-up pressure to bring her home. But surely this would all be resolved before too long. It had to.

  As Maggie hung up the phone, she stared at it a moment, thinking, then turned dolefully toward her math papers.

  "What's the matter?" Dyna asked

  "Oh, Joe's giving me a hard time as usual. But he made me realize how little I've been getting done on the book. I ha
d been toying with the idea of us taking a quick trip down to Atlantic City, and I don't – "

  "Atlantic City? What for?"

  "To look into Alexander's activities. Alexander did much of his gambling there. I thought perhaps talking to people who had some connection with him there might turn something up, or at least give us a bigger picture of him."

  Dyna thought for a moment. "Yeah, Annette did say he was there a lot. Gosh, what if he had some kind of secret life going on, besides the gambling, I mean. You know, like, maybe he had a mistress stashed there, and her brother was in the mob. And the brother found out he's really married and came here and shot him." Dyna frowned. "Except, that wouldn't explain Jack Warwick's murder, would it?

  "No, but maybe just learning where Alexander spent his time and with whom would turn up something useful."

  "Yeah, I think you're right. Well, here's an idea. Why don't you stay here, and I go? That way you can work on your book, but still keep tabs on things here."

  "Hmm, that's a thought."

  "Sure." Dyna was revving up now. "I could call my friend Pam. Remember, I told you about going to her house-warming once and getting so lost on the drive home? Anyway, she's in the south Jersey area, not too far from Atlantic City. She said once that lots of her neighbors work there, at the casinos and such. I could start by talking to some of them. They might have good contacts."

  Maggie smiled. "That sounds like it might work."

  "Sure it will. I'll just call Pam and... Oh!" Dyna's face fell. "But you'd be here alone. Maybe that's not such a good idea."

  "Now don't you start sounding like Joe," Maggie said, shaking her head. "I can take care of myself. I've been living on my own for what - three years now? - in Baltimore, and I've picked up a thing or two about personal safety. I'll be fine. But I just thought of something else - what about you and John? Do you mind leaving just as things were starting to, well, warm up?"

  "Oh, John," Dyna smiled. "He won't have time to give me a passing thought for a while. I'll just put him on hold, and we can pick up where we left off when this is all over."

  Dyna headed for the steps. "Well, if you're sure about staying here by yourself, I'll give Pam a call. I've got her number in my room somewhere." She patted Ali's head as she went by. "At least you'll have Ali for company. Wasn't it lucky we picked him up today?"

  Maggie looked at the snoring feline, now stretched over the entire chair cushion and snoring noisily. She wasn't sure she would use the word 'lucky'. In fact, she had forgotten about Ali when she first considered going off with Dyna to Atlantic City. They certainly couldn't have taken him with them and would have had to deal with arrangements for his care. Now it looked like responsibility for his care and feeding, as well as protecting most of the breakable objects of the cabin had fallen onto her. What 'luck'.

  Maggie headed for her laptop, and skirted his chair widely on her way.

  CHAPTER 19

  The cabin seemed unnaturally quiet to Maggie after Dyna left. Ali had immediately commandeered Dyna's bed and lay there in the jumble of its covers, blissfully asleep, leaving Maggie to fend for herself. She didn't mind in the least, but was glad of the distraction-free time to work at her computer.

  As hard as she tried to concentrate on her book, though, she found her mind flitting back and forth between the mathematical problems in her notes and the very real problems surrounding her life in Cedar Hill. Never before had she had so much trouble concentrating on numbers. Only the threat of another call from her editor kept her plodding along.

  When the afternoon shadows began to darken the room, Maggie got up to stretch, thinking she might heat up a quick dinner and then get back to work. She was poking through the meager pickings of the refrigerator when the phone rang.

  "Maggie?" a lilting female voice asked. "This is Leslie Warwick. I'm so lonely here I could die. Will you and Dyna do me the greatest favor and come have dinner with me? It's Mrs. Hanson's day off, but there's so much left over from last night's party we could have ourselves a banquet."

  Maggie thought rapidly. Dyna, she knew, considered Leslie a prime suspect and would tell Maggie in an instant not to go. She could almost hear Dyna's voice: "She poisoned her husband, as well as her cat. Go there alone, and she'll poison you too. Don't do it!"

  However, Maggie, though she had certainly once considered Leslie a possibility in Jack's death, was now far less certain of that than Dyna. Leslie may have had a good motive to get rid of Jack, but why poison him? A good divorce lawyer could surely have arranged a settlement that would take care of her for life. Why put herself at risk for life in prison or worse? And if Leslie had suddenly become enraged enough to override good sense, poison would not have been the method of choice. Something fast, like a gun, was the weapon one used in the heat of passion. Poison took time and a cool hand.

  "Dyna's gone off for a couple days," Maggie said, "but I'd love to come."

  "Wonderful. Come as you are," Leslie instructed. "And soon."

  Maggie smiled as she hung up. She had a good supper to look forward to and an interesting evening ahead. Who knew what conversation with Leslie would turn up? Maggie fairly bounded up the stairs to get herself ready.

  With her jacket on, though, having grabbed her keys from the counter where she usually left them and ready to go out the door, Maggie remembered Ali. With a sigh, she turned back. She added dry cat food to his bowl, checked his water, then thought of her papers laid out on the oak table. Leave them like that and there was a high possibility of finding them scattered to all corners of the room when she returned. Trying hard not to mutter about the 'luck' of having this extra trouble, Maggie devised some cat-proofing using a few of the heavier books from the nearby shelf to cover and weigh the papers down. She took one more look around, decided to leave one of the lamps lit, and, finally, left.

  <><><>

  Leslie's home looked none-the-worse for wear to Maggie after last night's big party, as the not-so-grieving widow led her back to the kitchen. Maggie imagined a team of house cleaners whisking away all traces of the festivities. Probably the same team had prepared the rooms beforehand as well, she mused, polishing and rearranging furniture. Then Dan Morgan had shown up with the food, cooked and ready to serve. All Leslie had to do, she guessed, was make herself beautiful, and she probably had some help with that too. Must be nice, Maggie thought. Except for what it may have cost Leslie to attain this kind of life style. Sometimes the good life came with a very high price tag.

  Leslie stopped in front of the over-sized refrigerator and pulled the door open wide.

  "See how much there is! And we even sent scads of it over to the homeless shelter in Chesterton. Those people will be eatin' like kings tonight." She started pulling out plastic containers, and Maggie pitched in, lining them up on the large kitchen table.

  "Let's just open everything up," Leslie suggested, "and pick and choose whatever we want onto our plates. If something looks like it should be warmed up, the microwave is over there."

  "This is great," Maggie said. "I really didn't get to try as much as I would have liked last night. Too busy talking, I guess." Or too busy snooping.

  "I ate like a pig. After tonight, I'm going to tell Mrs. Hanson to take most of this away. My figure will be ruined." Leslie pulled a three-quarters full bottle of wine from the bottom shelf of the refrigerator and squinted at the label. "Let's see. Chablis? Or do you like red?"

  "White's good." Maggie licked her fingers after putting one of Dan's salmon roe and cream cheese pastries on her plate. She looked up and saw Leslie pouring wine into only one glass, which she then held out to Maggie. She filled a glass with ice water for herself. Maggie made no comment, but remembered how Dan had steered Leslie away from alcohol during the party. It seemed to be having a lasting effect.

  Leslie looked more relaxed tonight than Maggie had ever seen her. Of course last night, as hostess, she had been keyed up. But the other times, both before and after Jack's death, Leslie had shown signs of
a tension that seemed of long duration. Like someone with a chronic pain who has learned to live with it. Leslie's pain, whatever its source, seemed relieved, at least for now.

  When both their plates were fully loaded, Leslie directed Maggie to a small sitting area, divided from the kitchen by a built-in planter. The combination breakfast nook/family room had a stone-faced fireplace. Leslie aimed a remote control at the hearth and flames leaped up in an instant.

  "There, that makes it all nice and cozy," she said. She sat on the love seat and tucked her feet up under her.

  Maggie set her wineglass on a small end table and sat across from Leslie in the only other chair, angled slightly toward the fireplace. "That's nice,” she said, nodding toward the remote. “Wish we had one of those.” There's a fireplace at the cabin, but the kind that actually burns wood and needs kindling and matches and such, so we haven't gotten around to using it yet." She took a sip of wine, then studied her plate, deciding where to begin.

  "We could pop in a movie if you like," Leslie said. "There's boxes of them, maybe even some I've never seen."

  "No, that's all right. I'd rather just talk."

  "Okie-doke. You know, I just realized I hardly know anything about you. Why don't you tell me all about yourself."

  Maggie rolled her eyes. "Not that much to tell." She took a bite of honey-sweet, melt-in-your-mouth ham and gave Leslie a condensed version of her life growing up in Baltimore with Joe and her parents, pitching in at the bakery and going to school.

  Leslie had been smiling as she listened, but Maggie caught a glimpse of wistfulness in her eyes. "You're lucky," Leslie said. "I bet you've got grandparents, and aunts and uncles and all that too."

  "Well, yes. Some of each. And a few cousins."

  "I don't have anyone."

  Leslie said it very matter-of-factly, which stopped Maggie cold.

  "You mean, no family whatsoever?"

  "No family, nothing. Mama died before I finished high school. Never had a daddy. No husband now, either. Although, I didn't really have him for quite a while."