High Heels and Holidays (28 page)

Bernie peered over her shoulder. “That's the only thing I don't like. If they were going to put up a sidebar, why couldn't it have been a listing of your titles. I should messenger one over. You know, in case they do a follow-up story tomorrow.”

“You're a sick woman, Bernie. Damn, there it is, second paragraph. My real name,” Maggie said, reading the article as she sat down in her desk chair, trying not to think about how all of these murders had only begun happening since Alex had shown up in her life. “Look at this—they've got Francis. They've got Jonathan. They've got the rats? Bernie, they've got the
rats
! I thought Steve said they were going to withhold that information from the press. Somebody talked. Somebody
leaked
this to the press, somebody who knows what we know. Is it only the
Post
? Because if it's only the
Post
, maybe that's not too bad and—oh, shit.”

Three women looked at the ringing telephone while the fourth sat on the floor, legs spread, trying to touch her nose to her knee.

Ri-i-ng . . . Ri-i-n-g . . . Ri-i-ng . . . Ri-i-ng . . . My Doberman pinscher, Satan, is home but I'm not, please leave a message at the beep
. . .
BEEP
. . .” You ungrateful child! I opened the paper this morning and what do I see but—”

“Okay, question answered. The story hit more than the
Post
,” Maggie said, diving across the room to turn down the volume on the machine. “Love you, too, Mom,” she said, grimacing at the machine before heading back to her glass of orange juice. There were already a bunch of messages, but she'd turned off the ringer on her phone in the bedroom, so she'd missed them. Thank God. “Faith, will you cut that out!”

“Four more, Maggie,” Felicity said, bending her head once more, this time grasping her ankles with both hands.

“Yeah? Well, you'll have to do your own counting,” Maggie said, picking up the remote and switching off the television.

“What's she doing down there anyway?” J.P. asked, coming back into the room carrying a glass of orange juice. “Is that Pilates? I don't know about Pilates. Pontius Pilate, I know about him, but that's not it, right? I put the kettle on. You don't have anything but instant coffee?”

“Sorry,” Maggie said, reading the article once more. “If I had known you were coming I'd have hired Juan Valdez and a damn donkey.”

“Um, testy this morning, isn't she?” J.P. said, lowering herself onto one of the couches. “Silly me, I figured you might want to cash in on that offer of free legal advice for life. My advice, by the way, is to hop the first Disney cruise and get the hell out of Dodge. Lose yourself in with the other cartoon characters.”

“Funny,” Maggie said, tossing the newspaper at her and then looking down at Felicity, who was now lying prone on the floor, her arms and legs splayed out as her silcone rapidly rose and fell as she breathed through her mouth. “All done? Good. You look terrible, Faith, by the way. Anything I can get you? You just have to ask, being my guest and all. So, what do you need? Pillow? Blanket? A chalk outline?”

“I like this girl, I really do,” J.P. said, chuckling. “Hey, there goes your phone again, sunshine.”

“I know that, J.P. I'm ignoring it. If I ignore it long enough, it might even go away.”

“Yeah, I keep thinking that about the Bush administration.. . .”

“Good morning, ladies,” Alex said from the doorway, and Maggie grabbed the
Post
and went at him with full intentions of beating him about the head and shoulders with it.

Naturally, he snatched it away from her first. “Yes, I've seen it, thank you. Socks brought a copy up to me earlier. I don't think they got your best side, unfortunately,” he told her, and Maggie knew he was right, even as she wondered where the hell the
Post
had gotten her photograph.

“Oh, wait, I remember that photo,” she said as Sterling struggled to slip a nervously yapping Brock into his little plaid coat yet again. “That's the one someone got as we were leaving Bernie's condo that one time, I think. I was the unknown female companion, right?”

“Yes, I believe you're correct,” Alex told her, depositing the newspaper in the large trash can beneath Maggie's desk. “Ah, and before I forget, surrounded as I am by all you lovely ladies, Maggie, your father phoned me this morning when he couldn't reach you.”

“Dad? Damn, I forgot all about him. Do you see what's happening to me here, Alex?
Everything
, damn it, that's what's happening to me. I forgot my own
father
. What did he say? Is he all right?”

“He's fine,” Alex assured her. “But he's also on his way back to Ocean City, feeling that you have enough on your plate right now without having him underfoot.”

“He saw the
Post
.”

“Oh, sweetings, the story is not limited to the
Post
. I was first alerted to the fact that the media had picked up on the story as I watched the early morning news.”

“Television, too? Why? Why me? I mean, seriously, folks. This story is about Francis, and Jonathan, not me. So why do I get singled out? What did I ever do to anybody? I mind my own business. I don't cause trouble. No, I don't
do
anything, I don't
go
anywhere—”

Sterling looked up from his task of maneuvering Brock's legs into the plaid coat. “We just got back from England, Maggie.”

“Shh, Sterling,” Alex told him. “Don't interrupt her. I think she's almost done. Are you almost done, Maggie? We do need to move on now. First, would you like to hear the message your father left for you?”

“If it was the only message on there, sure,” Maggie said, looking at the rapidly blinking red message alert light. “Oh, okay, I'll do it.”

“Fine,” Alex told her, heading for the door once more. “But I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me. Sterling? Please remember that you and George and Vernon are to meet me just outside the Santas for Silver headquarters at ten-thirty.”

Maggie wanted to ask Alex what was going on at ten-thirty, but he was gone before she could open her mouth, leaving her with nothing much else to do but listen to the messages. There were six:

“Miss Kelly, this is Roseanne Miller calling, from the staff of Fox news? If you'd be so kind as to return this call, Miss Spivak would like to arrange an interview at your earliest convenience. Our number here at the studio is—”

Maggie hit the
skip
button. “I don't think so, Ms. Spivak,” she said, hunting for her nicotine inhaler on her desktop as Bernie woke her computer.

“Margaret? This is your mother . . .”

“Yeah, wouldn't have known that one on my own,” Maggie said, hitting
skip
again.

“Margaret, Dr. Bob Chalfont here. I just saw the morning news, and I'm very concerned about you, my dear. If you feel the need to talk about this, arrange an emergency appointment, please don't hesitate to—”

Another hit to the
skip
button.

“Margaret, it's Dad. I was hoping to talk to you, pumpkin. I saw the newspapers. Are you all right? Why didn't you tell me about this? Look, I'm going to go home this morning. Well, not home, not really. But I have a friend who has a summer place on Eleventh Street he rents out and he said I could crash there—that's the term, isn't it,
crash?
Isn't that what bachelors do? So, don't you worry about me, I'll be fine. I'll even try to . . . try to talk to your mother, see if we can't work something out. Just as soon as she apologizes. All right, I'll call Alex—he gave me his cell phone number in case I needed it. A good man, Alex. I like him, and I know he'll take care of you. And I'll call you tonight.”

“As soon as she apologizes? He's still on that? They're both nuts,” Maggie said, shaking her head. “Maybe I can just send them each a nice poinsettia. . . .”

“You ungrate—” Maggie hit the
skip
button with the speed of a frog snagging a fly in midair.

And the last message: “Maggie, it's Bruce McCrae. Sorry to bother you. Is J.P. there with you? We had a . . . we had a small disagreement this morning and I wanted to apologize, so if she shows up, will you have her call me, please? Thanks. Maggie, I saw the news, read the paper. How did they get that stuff about the dead rats? What's the matter with these cops, giving out inside information like that? Unnamed source, it says. What a crock. I can't believe Jonathan's dead, can you? And it blows our theory all to hell, too, doesn't it? Well, anyway, you're not there, obviously, so I'll hang up now. But if J.P. stops by, have her give me a call, okay? Thanks again. Stay safe.”

“Trouble in paradise?” Maggie asked J.P., who had commandeered Maggie's plastic container of M&M's from the desk. “And here I thought yours was a match made in heaven.”

“Zipper it, sunshine,” J.P. said, picking through the container and taking out three blue M&M's, Maggie's favorites. “So I'm not the sweet, gullible little girl everyone thinks I am. I'm a criminal attorney, remember, and I don't take anyone at face value. I was checking up on him and, big deal, he caught me. That's all. But, hey, a girl can't be too careful these days.”

“Checking up on him? How? And don't eat the blue ones. I always save those for last.”

J.P. shrugged and picked up one more blue M&M, popped them all in her mouth. “You wouldn't want them back anyway, I already touched them. And nothing too terrible. Remember how we talked about getting people's cell phone records online? For a fee? I tried it with Bruce's number that first night. I don't know why, I just did. And Bruce came in and saw the printout I got back this morning before I could hide the damn thing. He'll get over it. He
is
over it—he just said so in that message.”

“Maggie?”

“Not now, Faith,” Maggie said, trying to ignore the fact that Felicity had come into the room wearing one towel on her head, one wrapped around her body from breast to thigh, and that's all. “And get dressed. Sterling will be back soon and you'll give the poor guy a heart attack.”

“Maggie,” Felicity went on as if Maggie hadn't spoken, “I can't stay here. You don't have bottled water, you don't have a treadmill. You don't have a steam shower—Maggie,
everyone
has a steam shower. There isn't a single green leafy vegetable in your entire refrigerator. I can't live like this, I really can't.”

“Tough,” Maggie said, turning her back on the woman. “Believe me, I don't want you here any more than you want to be here, but we're just going to have to make the best of it, that's all. Now go get some clothes on. Please.”

“Well,
fine
. But I'm ordering a treadmill, Maggie. And a bottled-water dispenser. And some
broccoli
! You can consider them all a present once I'm gone—oh, and then we're even-Steven for everything.”

“Wait—no, you can't—I don't want—oh, God. Anybody—is there a
Welcome
sign on my back that I can't see? And why do I let her think I'm a doormat?” Maggie said as she made her way to her desk and began hunting through the top drawer for a nicotine cartridge to slip into her holder. “If anyone knew just how
bad
I want a cigarette right now. . . .”

“Not my drug of choice, but I know how you feel, hon,” Bernie told her sympathetically. “Hey, how are you liking this, anyway?”

“Hmm? How am I liking what?” Maggie asked, ashamed to realize how good it felt to feel the nicotine cylinder pop open inside the inhaler. She lifted it to her mouth, ready to take a long, smokeless drag of air and chemicals.

“Bruce's book, of course,” Bernie said, pointing to the computer screen. “He only gave you a draft, I see, not the finished product, but it's wonderful, isn't it? Maggie? Are you choking?”

Maggie's attempt to hold back a startled exclamation after her initial inhale had only made things worse, and now she'd swallowed down the wrong throat, as she used to call it when she was a kid, and her eyes were tearing as she ran into the kitchen for a glass of water. A minute later she was back, wiping at her eyes with a dish towel she'd grabbed from the counter. “Did you say what I thought you said?”

Bernie shrugged. “What did I say? You're reading Bruce's new book. I haven't read all of it yet, but if it holds up, I'd have to say it's the best thing he's ever done. He was a good six months past his deadline, you know, and I was beginning to worry. Especially since his last book didn't exactly burn up the lists. Maggie, are you sure you're all right?”

“No, I'm
not
all right. I've got to think, okay? Just everybody be real quiet, and let me think. Damn it, where's Alex?”

“The phone's ringing, sunshine,” J.P. said as Maggie paced the carpet, sucking on the nicotine inhaler.

Maggie just waved in the machine's general direction and kept walking as Steve Wendell's voice came over the speaker.

“Maggie? I wanted you and Alex to know, I guess. We did a rush on the post, and West's wounds were not self-inflicted. The ME could tell from calluses on his hands or something that he was right-handed, and the cuts were definitely made by a left-handed person. We already knew some of that, considering there was no bloody knife or razor on the scene. Plus, he had a hell of a knot on his head. So it looks like the same MO as Oakes—knock the guy out, then hang him up or slit his wrists, make it look like suicide, but not so much so that we wouldn't be able to figure out it was murder. Really stupid. Anyway, it sure looks like we've got a very specialized serial killer here, so stay home, okay, and don't let anyone up to the condo, even if you know them. There was no forced entry, so we're thinking West and Oakes might have known their killer. West and Oakes? Hey, sounds like a singing group, doesn't it? Okay, gotta go. You'd damn well better be in the shower, and not out running around.”