Mother Knows Best (A Margie Peterson Mystery) (6 page)

“I’ll explain when you get here. I promise you’ll be home in time to take the kids to school.”

“But—”

“Thanks, hon. See you in a few.” And she hung up.

I sat in bed for a few minutes, still trying to process the conversation. Move a body? Whose body?

And why?

I got up and threw on a pair of shorts, wondering if Peaches had killed someone. If so, and if I had anything to do with relocating the body, wouldn’t that make me an accessory to murder?

But Peaches hadn’t said she’d killed anyone. She’d just said there was a body. But if the body had died of natural causes, why would she want to move it?

After tossing on the T-shirt I’d worn that day—if I was going to be moving a dead body, there was no point in putting on something clean—I called Peaches again, but she didn’t answer. Cursing under my breath, I entered the address into my phone’s GPS, tiptoed out of the bedroom, scrawled a note to Blake, and slipped through the back door and into the sultry Austin night.

The GPS led me past the high-rises of downtown. The streets were virtually deserted except for a few homeless people and late-night strollers—or stumblers, depending on how close they were to Sixth Street. Once I crossed IH-35, the architecture got a whole lot shorter, with a mix of gentrified bungalows interspersed with boarded-up old houses, barbecue and taco restaurants, and neon-colored billboards recommending ways to
Enviar Dinero a México!!!

The address was in a gentrifying area not too far from the roughest part of town, east of IH-35. There were more people on the street in this area, and I checked the locks on my van as I passed a pack of young men who seemed to be eyeing my back bumper with interest. Were they staring because it was falling off, or because they were considering tearing it off and selling it to a chop shop?

My worries over my bumper receded as I pulled up behind Peaches’s Buick. She must have picked it up after I’d dropped her off. The fresh paint job gleamed in the streetlight. Whoever had done the bodywork had done a good job; the baseball-bat-size dents had cleaned up beautifully, and the car was no longer missing large swaths of paint and glass. I checked the address on the GPS and stepped out of the van, locking the door behind me.

To my relief, the apartment was on the first floor.
At least we won’t have to drag the body down any stairs,
I told myself as I took a deep breath and tried to imagine what might lie behind the windowless front door.

I knocked lightly, half hoping no one would answer. It was not my lucky day. I’d barely lowered my hand before the door fell open, and I found myself facing a young woman in a leather bustier and a studded dog collar my daughter would have killed for.

“Who the hell are you?” she asked, eyeing me as if I were the one wearing a leather bustier and a dog collar. I kept my eyes on hers; it was too awkward to look anywhere else.

Peaches’s voice came from somewhere behind her. “Is that Margie?”

The woman in leather cocked an eyebrow at me, and I nodded.

“Think so,” she yelled back, still giving me a speculative look. “I thought you said you were calling some muscle.”

“She’s stronger than she looks,” Peaches said, coming up behind the woman in the bustier. “Beefy.”

“Beefy?” I said. Granted, maybe I did have a bit of a chocolate addiction, but . . .
beefy
? “You’re not exactly sylphlike yourself, you know.”

“Keep your pants on and get in here,” she said, waving me inside. I risked a quick glance downward. I did have pants on, but the woman who’d answered the door definitely did not. As I stepped inside and the leather-woman closed the door behind me, I reflected that I’d seen more female flesh in the past twelve hours than I had in the past year.

And I was about to see a dead body, too. Oh, boy.

“So,” I said, not sure how to broach the subject of the corpse. “The Buick looks just like new.”

“Tony did a good job, didn’t he?” Peaches asked, tugging her dress down. “I’m glad I got it back tonight—this isn’t the kind of job where you want to call a cab,” she said. “Did you bring the van?”

“Of course.”

“Good,” she said. “Because I don’t think we can fit him in my trunk.”

“I am not putting a dead person in my minivan,” I said, holding up my right hand. “I drive my children to school in that van!”

Peaches sighed. “Let’s at least show you what we’re looking at.”

“What
are
we looking at, anyway?” I asked, wishing I’d never answered my phone.

“We didn’t kill him,” Peaches said. “Promise. We’re just putting him in a place where he won’t get Desiree in trouble.”

I grimaced, feeling fairly sure that coming here was a really, really, really bad idea, but followed my boss into the living room anyway. The space was tastefully decorated, with light-blue couches and a green-and-blue swirly rug that looked like it could handle all kinds of stains. “Where did you get that rug?” I asked, thinking it would look good in my own living room.

“Isn’t it cute?” Desiree said, adjusting the strap of her bustier. “I found it at Pottery Barn last week. End-of-summer sale; it was thirty percent off.”

“If you’re done with the HGTV highlights, he’s in here,” Peaches interrupted from down the hallway.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry about that,” I said, and headed down the hall to where she stood next to an open door.

If the living room looked like something out of a lifestyle catalog, the bedroom—if you could call it that—was decorated in a style I’d call “Spanish Inquisition.” An assortment of whips and flails lined the walls, and a series of complicated-looking leather harnesses hung from a beam in the ceiling. The only thing out of place was the pink-mermaid wading pool in the middle of the floor. And the dead man in it.

“Why is he wearing green tights and a belt?” I asked. He was pale and paunchy, and had fallen so that he was half out of the pool. A big red gunshot wound gaped in the middle of his back, and blood was pooling on the pink vinyl. It wasn’t the first dead body I’d seen, and I’d known it was coming, but it was still a shock.

“And goggles,” Peaches added.

“He had a thing for water,” Desiree said. “He liked me to call him Aquaman.”

Peaches sniffed, and I wrinkled my nose. It smelled like the kids’ bathroom when we were potty-training Nick.

“Water, eh? You mean, like golden showers?” Peaches asked.

“Yeah.” Desiree sounded a little sheepish. “He paid extra for me to pee on him,” she said. “I always had to drink two Big Gulps before he came over.”

“Please tell me you’re joking,” I said.

“It’s better than the ones who want to pee on me,” she told me.

I didn’t want to think about that, so I focused on the more important issue. “Who shot him?”

“I don’t know,” Desiree said. “I cuffed him and left him alone for a few minutes. He usually liked to marinate for a little while.”

“What were you doing while he was . . . marinating?” Peaches asked.

“Buying curtains online,” she said. “The sale ends tomorrow. Anyway, I was just putting in my order when I heard a gunshot. I came in here, and he . . . he was dead.”

“Nobody else noticed the gunshot?” I asked.

She shrugged. “It’s a rough neighborhood. You get used to it.”

I couldn’t imagine getting used to gunshots, but I supposed anything could become normal if it happened often enough. “How did the killer get in?” I asked.

“Patio door,” Peaches said, pulling back a red-velvet curtain. The sliding glass door behind it was open. “Forced it.”

I looked at Desiree. Despite her Morticia Addams boudoir getup, she looked very young. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just can’t tamper with a murder scene this way.” I looked at Peaches. “Neither of us should be here.”

Tears welled up in the young woman’s eyes, and she hugged herself. For a moment, something about her reminded me of Elsie. Maybe it was the dog collar. “I can’t have him found here. My parents will disown me, and the police . . . I don’t know if they’ll believe me. I’ll never be able to finish school, and I’ll have to do
this
for the rest of my life.” She flicked a hand at a rack of whips.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated.

“You’ve got to help me,” she said, reaching for my hand. “My parents have no idea this is how I put myself through school; it would kill them if they found out. My mother . . .” She shuddered. “I’d lose her forever.”

I sighed. “But it’s tampering with evidence. And I can’t risk being connected with a murder. My kids have too much disruption in their lives already.” I looked at Peaches. “How do you know each other?”

“Desiree helped me on an infidelity case,” my boss explained to me, “so I owe her a favor. And all she wants us to do is move him out of the apartment.”

“But . . . there’s evidence here!” I protested. “If we move him, they might not be able to find out who killed him!”

“We don’t even know who he is,” Peaches said.

“He called himself John,” Desiree said.

Peaches snorted.

“Does he have a wallet with him?” I asked. I looked at the tights; if he did, he hadn’t tucked it in there. The tight spandex left far too little to the imagination.

“His clothes are over there,” the young woman said, pointing to a chair in the corner. “I’ve got gloves if you want.” She produced a box of latex gloves from a cabinet under the whip display.

“What do you use those for?” I asked.

“Don’t ask,” Peaches said, fishing out a pair of gloves and pulling them on, then tossing a pair to me. I found my eyes drawn to the dead man in the pool. He had a large, pink bald spot on the back of his head, and his doughy shoulders were dusted with freckles. Did he have a family? I wondered. Was he leaving a wife and kids behind? How would his wife react when she discovered her husband had been found dead in a wading pool, wearing nothing but green tights and a pair of goggles?

“Got it,” Peaches said, holding up the man’s license. “George Cavendish,” she said.

“George Cavendish,” I repeated. “Sounds familiar.” I’d heard it sometime recently, but couldn’t place it.

“Lives on Plato Court,” she said, peering at the license. Then she fished a hundred out of the wallet and handed it to Desiree. “I’m guessing he didn’t pay you. This should help with the curtains.”

“Thanks,” she said, waving it away, “but I just want him out of here.”

“There’s something else here, too,” Peaches said, pulling a clipped newspaper article out of his back pocket and unfolding it. “A story about one of those kids who died of that synthetic marijuana stuff.”

“Afterburn,” Desiree said, and shuddered. “Horrible stuff. One of my friends ended up in the hospital after smoking some of that. She still isn’t right.”

Peaches shoved the article back into the man’s pocket along with the wallet, then folded her arms over her ample cleavage and looked at me. “Are you in?”

I sighed. I didn’t want to be involved in this at all. But I was here. And Desiree looked pretty miserable. I guessed it wouldn’t hurt if we just pulled him out into the courtyard. “Do we take the pool, too?” I asked.

“I think we kind of have to,” Peaches said, “unless we want to get blood and . . . well, you know . . . everywhere.”

“We should probably . . . adjust him a little bit,” I suggested. He really was in an awkward position. “Before rigor mortis sets in.”

“Grab a leg,” Peaches said. “I’ll take his arm.” I put on the latex gloves and wrapped a hand around his spandex-clad ankle. It was still warm. “On three,” Peaches said, and at her count, we both pulled up, flipping him over. The bullet hadn’t penetrated his chest. If it weren’t for his head lolling to the side—and the blood—it would have looked like he was taking a nap in the pool.

“Watch the goggles,” Peaches said. They were askew on his head, about to fall onto the carpet.

Desiree reached down to adjust them, and they slid off of his balding head.

I dropped the ankle and stepped back. “Oh my God.”

Peaches looked at me. “What?”

“I know him,” I said, looking with horror at the round face and fringe of silver hair.

“One of your neighbors?”

“No.” I swallowed hard. “He’s the headmaster of Holy Oaks Catholic School.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Y
ou’re shitting me,” Peaches said, her mouth gaping as she looked at him.

“He didn’t like that, at least,” Desiree said, wrinkling her nose. “I have limits.”

“What was he doing here?” I asked, trying to reconcile the image of the headmaster in his Holy Oaks tie and blue suit with this goggled man in urine-soaked Aquaman tights.

“I think that’s fairly obvious,” Peaches said. “But the real question is, how are we going to get him out of here?”

“The patio door, I’m thinking,” Desiree said. “Why don’t I slip into something more comfortable?”

“Good call,” Peaches said. “Those stilettos will trip you up.”

As Desiree vanished into another room, I stared at Cavendish. “I can’t believe the headmaster got shot in a hooker’s apartment.”

“He doesn’t look like headmaster material,” Peaches mused, poking at his leg with her red pump.

“Who would want him dead, though?” I thought about it. “You think Desiree got tired of drinking Big Gulps?”

“Nah. He was just a john. And she wouldn’t have offed him in her own apartment, anyway.”

“True,” I said.

“I’m betting it was one of those private-school moms,” Peaches suggested. “Maybe little Madison didn’t get into Holy Oaks, and her parents got mad. Remember that cheerleader mom who put out a contract on another cheerleader mom?”

“They don’t usually cruise the streets of East Austin carrying howitzers,” I pointed out.

“It wasn’t a howitzer,” Peaches said, running a critical eye over what was left of George Cavendish. “The whole apartment would be gone. Looks more like a small-caliber gun.”

I looked down at the headmaster, wondering how he had ended up in this situation. There was obviously more to him than originally met the eye. And I wasn’t talking about the limp bratwurst in his tights.

“I guess I could poke around at school,” I said.

“Why?” Peaches asked. “It’s not our case. The police will look into it.”