“I’m sure you were right, Po,” Kate said. “I sort of had that thought. That’s why I keep calling you instead of her. I imagine what she might be doing right at that moment, and decide it’s not the time to interrupt.” There was a short moment of silence. “But it’s killing me!” Kate blurted. “I can’t believe they’re investigating Maggie and her clinic. Those are the most caring people in the world!”
Po smiled, despite herself. Kate’s passion for justice and deep caring for her friends got her into trouble sometimes, but it also made her Kate.
“So, what have you learned?” Po asked. “Was it P.J. who gave you the scoop?”
P.J. Flannigan had been Kate’s on-again off-again flame all through high school. And when she’d come back to town, he not so surprisingly reappeared on the scene—just as tall, dark and handsome as ever, and with the same cheeky smile. Although now he was an officer in the local Police Department, with a more subtle understanding of human nature and a lot more experience and responsibility than he’d had at 17. Po thought he was all the better for it. But she tried to keep those thoughts mostly to herself. Or, at the very least, limited to the conversations she had late at night with Kate’s mom, when she gave her best friend updates on her now grown little girl–and reassured her that she was still looking out for her.
“Uh huh,” Kate confirmed. “He came over when he got off last night, and he said that the department was pursuing the investigation with diligence. You know how he gives me that ‘I can neither confirm nor deny’ stuff. But then he got a call during our run this morning, and had to go in early. I could tell from his end of the conversation what was happening. So I called you on my way to work.”
“I’m sure he’d never guess that you’d do that,” Po said wryly.
“You know and I know that he knows that’s exactly what I did,” Kate said. “And I’d do it again this minute.”
“Well, thank you for learning what you could from that sweet young man of yours,” Po said. “But don’t get in trouble. I like him.”
“I like him, too, Po,” Kate said. “So much that I think I’ll see what he’s doing tonight. Maybe I can learn some more from him. Plus, I’m in the mood for Italian.”
Po attempted to listen while Kate rattled on about her plans for the rest of the day. It was at least 30 seconds before Kate realized Po wasn’t hearing her.
“What is it?” Kate asked.
“What?” Po asked, snapping out of her reverie.
“I can tell you haven’t heard a thing I’ve said,” Kate laughed. “What are you thinking about?”
“It’s probably nothing,” Po said with a shrug. “But I can’t stop thinking about Aaron saying no one was home when he took Fitzgerald back. I wonder where they all were.”
“Excellent question,” Kate said. “I’ll look into it.” Po frowned. “You know how P.J. feels about you interfering in an investigation,” she said. “And you know, I’m not that wild about the idea, either.”
“Come on, Po,” never-to-be-tamed Kate said with a smile. “Don’t worry.”
And she was gone.
Po smiled, set down the phone on the edge of the table, and shook her head at her impulsive goddaughter. And then she went back to the designs she’d laid out. Before more than half an hour passed, her phone rang again, and during this call she had very few reasons to smile.
“Maggie,” she said. “Are you OK?”
“Oh, Po.”
“I’ve got soup on. Come over. Maybe I can help,” Po said. And with very little more persuading, a very upset Maggie agreed.
Po opened the heavy front door and made sure the porch light was on. The fall nights were starting to darken earlier. Then she went and started mixing her special occasion drink: a vodka martini. She floated an apple slice on top and had it ready to hand to Maggie when she walked in, looking tired and strained.
Maggie collapsed moments later into one of Po’s comfortable club chairs. Po carried over a plate of Havarti cheese and water crackers and joined her. Then she waited patiently for Maggie to open the conversation.
“So,” she said finally. “I got your note, of course.” Po just nodded.
“And you knew,” Maggie said. “How’d you know?”
“Kate called just after I walked out,” Po said. “I thought it would just worry you more.”
Maggie sighed. “You were probably right,” she said after a pause. “But, man.”
Silence ensued for a while. But finally Po couldn’t take it any more. “So, what all happened?”
“Well, for starters, they shut me down for the day,” Maggie said. “Angela spent the first two hours doing nothing but calling to reschedule with everyone, or taking calls and arranging for our clients to go to Dr. Conrad’s practice for immediate care.” She sighed again. “Just what I need with my current cash flow problem.”
She took a piece of cheese and a sip of her drink. “Then, one officer started interviewing each staff member in one of the exam rooms, while another started taking pictures of every room. They took every angle. They dusted every surface for fingerprints.” Another silence. “It’s going to take hours to get it cleaned up again.”
“Did they say what they were looking for?” Po asked.
“They just kept saying they were investigating a homicide,” Maggie said. “They think someone killed Mercedes, Po. Not that she decided she had enough and left for the Caribbean without warning. Not that she got sudden amnesia and can’t find her way home. They think she’s dead!”
“I was shocked, too,” Po said.
“And apparently they think there’s some chance she died at my clinic! Can you imagine?! It’s impossible.… I tried to tell Officer Rainey that. It was like talking to a brick.”
She paused to take a bite of the cheese she’d been waving as she talked.
“They asked me how long everyone had worked at my clinic. Whether any of them had a police record. Whether anyone had a particular problem with Mercedes. There were a million questions.”
“Did they take pictures of anything specific, or just the whole place?” Po asked.
“Well,” Maggie paused to think. “I was a little distracted. But I did notice that they were taking a close look at the doors. I think they took pictures of the handles and latches and keypad.”
She thought again. “They seemed interested in the drug safe, too.” A momentary pause. “But Po, you’ve got to understand, they seemed interested in every square inch. They even took pictures of the storage closet.”
“Maybe they really didn’t know what they were looking for,” Po said. “So they were looking at everything. That could mean that they don’t really have any evidence that your clinic is involved, for sure.”
“They apparently had enough evidence to convince a judge,” Maggie said. “They had a warrant. So I had no choice about letting them search. And they closed the clinic for the day.”
“So, they had a reasonable suspicion they might find something there,” Po said. “They’ve learned something that makes them think she was at the clinic before she disappeared. But that doesn’t mean they’re right.”
Maggie lapsed back into silence.
“Are you OK, Maggie?” Po asked finally. “I can’t imagine how upset you must be feeling.”
“I’m exhausted, Po,” she said. “I just can’t deal with all this.”
She shook her head. “Poor Aaron. They asked me a lot about him. I think he’s their top suspect. And I know he wouldn’t hurt a fly. So that’s a huge problem.”
Po thought about the flashes of anger she’d seen, and speculated privately that if the police had seen similar demonstrations, they’d think differently about Aaron’s propensity for violence. At those moments he looked less like the quiet young man they knew who was always ready to help out and more like a towering figure with the strength to do damage. Unaware of Po’s momentary preoccupation, Maggie continued.
“Then there’s the business I lost today,” sh
e said. “And the bad publicity. And the consultant I hired is coming tomorrow. The financial picture is looking worse than ever.”
“And then,” she continued “we’re going to have to do clean up before anything else. The clinic is a total mess.”
“Well, that part I can help with,” Po said. “I’ll come first thing. And maybe we’re learning more that can help at this very minute. Phoebe is at the Women’s Club meeting at the country club tonight, sniffing out information about who else could be angry enough at Mercedes to do her bodily harm. And Eleanor is having dinner with Mike Walters, the managing editor at the paper. So maybe she’ll know more by tomorrow, too.”
Tears filled Maggie’s eyes. “You guys are so wonderful,” she said. “What would I ever do without you?”
Po smiled. “We sure find our way together, don’t we?” she said. “But that’s what friends are for. Now how about some soup?”
Maggie wiped her eyes and gave Po a small smile. “I’d love some,” she said. “But I’m worried about getting home as it is. I am so exhausted. I might fall down. I think I’d better just go home and go to bed. I need to get up early to get the place cleaned up again.”
“I thought you had blocked out a bunch of your schedule tomorrow, to see the consultant,” Po said.
“I did,” Maggie said.
“Well, then, why don’t I meet you there 30 minutes before you open. We can do a quick pass through the reception area, so if someone shows up unexpectedly, it’ll look OK. Then your team can help clean up the rest while you’re busy.”
Maggie thought it over. “You’re right, Po. I don’t have to have the whole place clean at 8. And I don’t have to do it all myself.” She smiled again. “Boy, I need you to help me think it through tonight.”
“Tomorrow you’ll feel better,” Po said. “We can regroup and decide what to do next.”
She packaged up a container of the soup and a chunk of bread in a paper bag and handed it to Maggie, giving her a hug on the way out.
“It’s going to be OK,” she said.
“I sure hope you’re right,” Maggie said. And as Maggie walked out to her truck, Po could see the stress in every line of her body.
“Me, too, Maggie,” she said quietly as she watched her friend of 20 years walk out. “I sure hope I’m right.”
CHAPTER 12
Po was sitting in the same spot she’d occupied during the conversation with Maggie when Max knocked softly on the front door and let himself in. She was happy to see him tonight. He came into the room, following her call of greeting, and squeezed her shoulders.
“Tough day?” he asked, looking at her still-furrowed brow.
“You could say that,” she said with a small laugh. “You are just the person to put my mind back at ease, though.”
Under her direction from the sofa, Max ladled the soup into two bowls, put together a quick salad and sliced the bread Po had baked. Within minutes the two of them were ensconced at one end of the table, eating the hearty soup. Po gave a deep sigh as she felt her body start to relax, degree by degree.
Max put down his spoon for a moment, taking her hand and giving it a little squeeze. “Now,” he said, with his characteristic smile, “what’s going on?”
She had talked to Max just before she’d dropped into bed the night before, and had tried to fill him in about Mercedes’ disappearance and the conversation with Aaron. So now Po recapped her visit to Maggie’s clinic and the discovery of Mercedes’ car while they ate.
Spurred to greater levels of detail by thoughtful questions from Max, she explained her trip to Eleanor’s house and their investigation of the site where Aaron found Fitzgerald. They finished up their dinner, cleared the dirty plates, leaving them on the counter, and moved back to the sofa to finish their conversation. Po found Max’s closeness comforting and she recounted some bits of her conversations with Maggie that she’d overlooked. And finally, Po told Max she was planning to go help Maggie clean the clinic the next morning.
“You’re a wonderful friend,” he said with a smile.
“The way you say that makes it sound like a bad thing,” Po said. “Is there a rebuke in the offing?”
“Of course not,” Max said. “I love that you’re so caring. That’s one of the incredibly attractive things about you.” He paused, looking worried. “But this is no light matter,” he said. “A woman has been killed. And you’re in the thick of it again, it looks to me.”
Po had to acknowledge that she’d been involved in more violent episodes than the demographics of the area should allow. Crestwood was such a pleasant, safe town. And yet there was the time she found Owen Hill’s dead body outside of Selma’s quilt store during her morning run. It was during that investigation that she’d really gotten to know Max.
And then about a year later she and the Queen Bees helped defend Picasso, the owner of The French Quarter, when he was wrongly accused of murdering his wife. And then the time they’d made all the quilts for Adele’s bed and breakfast after her brother died and discovered the murderer along the way. She did seem to find herself faced with deadly weapons more often than she’d like. But still.…
“I’m just helping Maggie,” Po said. “If I had any helpful information, I would go right to the police. I don’t know a thing. I wish I did.”
“It’s that wishing that’s bothering me,” Max said.
Po knew he had her best interests at heart. But she could not—would not—stand by and do nothing if she could help a dear friend in trouble. And she knew Max understood her well enough to know that was true.
“Do you know who benefits from Mercedes’ death, if she’s dead?” Po asked finally.
Max looked troubled. “I’ve been hoping you wouldn’t think to ask me that,” he said. “But other people are asking, too.”
“Really?” Po said. “Who?”
“The detective in charge of Mercedes’ case,” he said, with the furrow in his brow getting even deeper. Then he looked at her, and his expression grew warm again.
“I’ve got to get a few things cleared up,” he said. “And then we can talk about it.”
And Po agreed to that, knowing it was the best she could do for the time being.
“I suppose it’s no good asking you to start locking your doors,” he said on his way out. He’d made this sensible suggestion more than once or twice before. Po had stubbornly refused. There was something about making the change that seemed to admit fear. Or worse, that her world had dramatically changed and that she had to release her long-held faith in the goodness and kindness of the people who formed her community. And even today, with the knowledge that Mercedes was likely dead, she would not yield.
“No,” she said. “No, it’s no good.”
CHAPTER 13
Po slept fretfully and was up early, so she hit the streets. A fog hung over the fall morning, and a damp, slightly musty smell seemed to fill the dips in her path and her hard-working lungs as she ran through the quiet. Her mind slowed, as it almost always did, falling into the rhythm of her steps and relaxing into her routine.
As she turned back toward home, her thoughts turned back toward her plans for the day, starting with another trip to Maggie’s clinic to talk with Angela. She’d been thinking about the list Angela had given her of people who had access to the clinic during the time that Fitzgerald had escaped or been stolen. “I have to admit, I’m leaning toward stolen,” Po muttered to herself, and she cooled down, walking up her own block and back to her front steps.
Thirty minutes later, she headed back out, dressed in her favorite jeans and a million layers in shades of gray, so she could adjust for the temperature fluctuation they predicted as the day went on. She loaded two buckets and a box of cleaning materials into the car and started off, but she got only halfway out of the driveway before she pulled back in and ran into the house, emerging two minutes later with the digital camera her daughter and son-in-law had bought her for Christmas.
Maggie’s truck
was at the clinic when she arrived. “No surprise there,” she thought to herself.
“Good morning,” she said as she walked in the door and saw Maggie filling a bucket using a faucet in the cleaning closet off the reception area.
“Morning,” Maggie returned.
“Did you get any rest?” Po asked.
“I slept for a while,” Maggie said. “but I woke up early. So I figured I might as well get on this.”
“Before you start,” Po said, “I’d like to take pictures. If the police think there’s something to look at, I’d like to see it, too.”
Maggie arched an eyebrow. “Really? I keep telling them there’s nothing to see.”
“I know,” Po said. “But still. It seems safer. Armed with data, rather than not. I’ll be quick so we can get going.”
She pulled out a thermos of hot, strong coffee. “Here, pour this while I take these.”
Maggie smiled. “You know just how to sweeten me up, don’t you.”
“You know what we forgot?” Maggie called over her shoulder a few minutes later.
Po had started taking pictures of the reception area. She tried to get an overview of the room from each angle. And now she was taking a series of close ups of the inside and outside of the door. “No,” she said. “What?”
“We didn’t go to Selma’s last night,” Maggie said.
“Oh, man,” Po said. “I didn’t think of it once.”
The Queen Bees often gathered on Tuesday nights at Selma’s informally, just to sew in the company of their friends. And while it was unusual for the whole group to make it, Po hardly ever missed. “We must have had quite a day to throw me off that much,” she said with a laugh.
“You’re telling me,” Maggie said, drinking her coffee still.
Po had moved onto the reception desk, snapping shots of everything she could see. “No appointment book these days,” she thought.
“Maggie,” she said. “Could you print me a list of all the people who’ve been in with their pets in the last month?”
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