Mother Knows Best (A Margie Peterson Mystery) (9 page)

“It happened last night.”

“Usually I’d say ‘poor man,’ but in this case, I think it serves the bastard right,” Becky said. “Although I do feel bad for his wife. He has a wife, right?”

“He does,” I confirmed.

“I still don’t know why you decided to send Elsie to that school.”

I maneuvered out of the parking lot, stifling a sigh. “You’ve mentioned that.”
Practically hourly, for months,
I thought but didn’t add.

“It’s all about the money for him,” Becky said. “One of the teachers told me that’s why the board hired the guy. What happened to him? Heart attack? Death by shame?”

“Actually, he didn’t die of natural causes.”

“What, did some angry parent finally off him?” She snorted into the phone, and I remembered why I missed her so much. “I do feel bad for him, believe it or not, but I’m not surprised. After all, a guy who would give Zoe’s spot to that hair-care guy, just because he moved in from California and offered to pay for a building, isn’t exactly high on morals!”

“Becky,” I said. “I just talked with Detective Bunsen. I don’t know why, but the police think you might have been involved in his death.”

There was silence on the phone for a moment. “Involved?” she said, sounding confused. “What do you mean, involved?”

“Well, you wrote that article in the
Picayune
, for starters, so they know you weren’t fond of him.”

“I wrote a letter to the editor on Holy Oaks’ admissions policies and said I think the headmaster was selling spots in the school to the highest bidder. That’s not quite the same as knifing him in the back,” she said. “I haven’t seen the man in five months. How did he die, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” I lied, again banishing the image of George Cavendish’s bullet-perforated, urine-soaked body. “Where were you last night?”

“I was at home with the kids,” she said. “It was a school night.”

“Was Rick there?” I was hoping her husband could give her an alibi.

“No, he’s in Houston on business. Why?”

Damn.
“Was anyone else there?”

“Of course not. Why would they be?”

I let out a long, slow breath. “Well, the police are going to be in touch with you today. I don’t know why, but they think you may be linked with the crime. Be careful.”

“They won’t find any physical evidence, anyway. Like I said, it’s been months since I talked with him.”

“You do have that going for you,” I told her as I pulled into the Starbucks parking lot a few spots down from Bunsen. “I have to go talk with Detective Bunsen now. I’ll call you later.”

“Isn’t that the guy from the last case—the Selena Sass thing? Why do you have to talk with him?”

Because I’m an idiot who can’t keep her mouth shut
, I wanted to tell her, but didn’t. “I’ll . . . it’s complicated. I’ll catch you later, okay?”

I hung up before she could answer and stepped out of the car to join Bunsen; his partner had remained behind at Holy Oaks, presumably to break the news and talk to the staff.

Bunsen and I stood awkwardly in line. We’d first met over a dead transvestite in the Princesses’ room at an Austin bar, and our relationship had never been chummy. Now, as we stood in line at Starbucks, I considered offering to pay for his coffee, but decided that would seem too much like a bribe. Besides, he wasn’t a cheap date; he ordered a six-dollar venti quadruple-shot mocha latte. I ordered a small drip, and we retired to a table toward the back of the shop.

“Do you have children?” I asked, to break the silence.

“No,” he said curtly as I took a sip of my budget coffee, which I’d doctored with several sugar packets and a good dollop of cream while he waited for his latte. “But you’ve got a kid at Holy Oaks now. Business must be pretty good.”

“It’s not bad,” I said, which was stretching the truth more than a bit. So what if we only had one case this week? Summer was slow in the PI business. At least, that was my theory. Besides, Peaches had mentioned last night that she had a new job for me.

“Where’s your new office? Or did you rebuild the old one after it blew up?”

“It’s, um, on the east side of town,” I said. I wasn’t about to tell him we were sharing it with a Brazilian waxing salon. “How about you?” I asked politely. “Keeping busy?”

“Oh, it’s going much better now that I know someone who has information on the case I’m working,” he said with a slow smile and pulled an iPad out of his briefcase.

I blinked. “Who?”

He stared at me, stylus poised over the iPad screen. “How did you know I was talking about George Cavendish this morning?”

“I . . . heard a rumor.” I took a swig of coffee, burning my mouth.

“Really,” he said in a dry sort of tone that didn’t inspire confidence in me. “Who told you?”

“I don’t remember,” I said. “I hadn’t had coffee yet.” There was a long silence. “Also, I’m a little psychic sometimes.”

“Psychic.”

“I get it from my mother.”

He sighed and jotted a note on his iPad. “Tell me about your friend Becky,” he said. “She wasn’t very happy with Mr. Cavendish, was she?”

“She didn’t like anything about Holy Oaks,” I told him. “They booted her daughter to let in the kid of a hair-care magnate who offered to pay for a new building.”

“And yet you sent your daughter to the school. That can’t have been great for your friendship.”

“What happened to Cavendish, anyway?” I asked, feigning what I hoped looked like natural curiosity.

“Why don’t you tell me?” he smirked. “You can use your psychic powers.”

I took another sip of my coffee and attempted to look innocent. “I’m assuming it must be foul play, since you’re involved,” I said. “But why are you so interested in Becky? People write letters to the editor all the time, and they don’t get questioned by the police.”

“We found something at the crime scene,” Bunsen said. He reached down and pulled a piece of paper out of his briefcase, then slid it across the table to me.

My heart almost stopped.

It was a copy of Becky’s Mary Kay Consultant business card.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

W
hat was he doing with Becky’s card?” I asked out loud, even though I knew. When I’d pulled out my new business cards to show Peaches, I must have dropped Becky’s card—I always carried a few to help her network. How had I missed it?

“I was wondering the same thing,” Bunsen said.

“She gives those cards out all the time,” I improvised. “He probably had tons of cards with him.”

“No,” Bunsen said mildly. “Only this one.”

“Maybe he was going to call and offer her a spot at the school,” I suggested. “You can’t possibly think she did him in and left her card behind. She’s not stupid.”

“When we found him, he didn’t look like he was about to make a phone call,” Bunsen said. “I have to ask you again. How did you know the headmaster was dead?”

“Someone said something,” I said. “Normally, I wouldn’t think anything of it, but he wasn’t there that morning, and the elementary-school head seemed uncomfortable. And when you showed up . . .”

“You somehow divined that the headmaster had died in suspicious circumstances,” he said. “Right. Did your friend call you last night?”

I hesitated, thinking of Peaches, then realized (duh) that he was talking about Becky. “No,” I said. And then remembered that I was wrong. Becky had called me. “Actually, she did,” I said. “My husband took the message, but I didn’t get a chance to call her back.”

“What time was that?” he asked.

“Oh, around six, I think.”

He made another note on his iPad. “We’ll check the phone records, you know.”

Would they? And if so, what would they think of Peaches’s call to me at three in the morning? I’d burn that bridge when I got to it, I decided.

Bunsen took a long swig of his giant latte and looked at me as if he wanted to shake the truth out of me. I gave him a bland smile. “I suppose that’s it for now,” he said grudgingly. “But this isn’t over yet. I’m going to find out how you knew he was dead. And I’m going to find out what your friend Becky Hale had to do with it.”

My coffee curdled in my stomach as he flipped me a business card. “I’m sure we’ll be in touch.”

Things were hopping at the Pretty Kitten when I pulled up to the strip mall a half hour later; three young women and a man with tweezed eyebrows were reading fashion magazines in the waiting room when I pushed through the front door. Unfortunately, things at Peachtree Investigations were a little less frenetic. The only lead we’d gotten that week involved a missing pet, and we’d lost the Krumbacher case. If things didn’t turn around soon, Peaches and I might have to consider moonlighting as assistant crotch waxers.

“We’ve got a problem,” I told Peaches when I walked into the office.

“If it’s about last night, I’m sorry,” she said. “I put my back out doing one of those P90X exercise videos the other day, or I would have handled it myself.”

“The cops were at Holy Oaks this morning,” I told her in a low voice.

Peaches leaned forward, taxing her zebra-print spandex. “They figured out who he was, then.”

“They found my friend’s business card on the body,” I told her. “I must have dropped it.”

A furrow appeared between her eyebrows. “Did she know him?”

“She wrote a scathing letter to the editor about him to the
Picayune
a few months back, and they published it. And I said something about Cavendish being dead, even though there was no way for me to know it was him.”

Her eyes got round. “Smooth.”

“Exactly.”

She fished her e-cig from under a bra strap and took a long drag, blowing out a vapor cloud. Menthol. “Did they interview you?”

“Of course,” I said, collapsing on the plastic visitors’ chair.

“How did it go?”

I shrugged. “They’re going to talk to Becky. I am such an idiot.” I slumped in the chair. We’d rescued it from the original office; part of the seat was melted and a little bit blackened. “It’s my fault.”

“It’s going to take a lot more than a business card for the police to charge her with murder,” Peaches said. “Does she have an alibi?”

“No. Her husband was out of town last night.”

Peaches grimaced. “That’s too bad.”

“And she called me last night,” I said. “My husband answered, and I didn’t call her back, but there’s no way to prove she didn’t talk to me. They think that’s how I knew Cavendish was dead.”

“But he wasn’t dead yet. So that’s something.” Peaches toyed with her e-cig. “How are things going with your hubby, anyway?”

“He’s starting this program called Journey to Manhood,” I told her. “He made me swear not to tell anyone. It’s supposed to cure gay men.”

She barked out a laugh. “What do they do, smack them in the doodad every time they start making eyes at each other?”

“Umm . . . I think there’s a lot of group work,” I said. “And hugging.”

“That should help,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Hugging lots of men is going to miraculously turn him straight?”

“That’s the theory,” I said. “There’s supposed to be a support group for wives, too.”

She stared at me. “A
support
group? What do they do? Suggest ways to look more butch?”

“Hey. At least he’s trying.”

“How long have you been in separate bedrooms?” she asked.

I shrugged. “About six months.”

“You’re not getting any younger, sugarplum. You might want to start thinking about the big D.”

“I’ll give him another month,” I said. My stomach wrenched just thinking of it. If I weren’t a mother, separation from Blake would be a no-brainer. But I had children; any decision I made would affect them, too. I wanted so much to give them the intact home I’d never had. It killed me that it might not be possible.

Peaches gave me an appraising look. “Nobody knows about him yet?”

“No one but me,” I told her. “His parents would probably disown him. And my mother’s in town, so he’ll have to move back into the bedroom. We’re all going to dinner tonight, at a vegan macrobiotic place.” I made a mental note to stop by the store for potato chips and earplugs. And maybe a flask.

“Relationships,” Peaches said, taking another moody drag. “Not worth the trouble, if you ask me.”

“Uh-oh,” I said. “Is everything okay with Jess?”

“We broke up,” she said, examining her e-cig. “I never thought I’d say this, but I think I like menthol.”

“What do you mean, you broke up?” Peaches and Jess had met about six months ago, after he saved me from a particularly unpleasant premature death. I had warm feelings for him, obviously, but sparks had flown between him and Peaches, and they’d been two-stepping every Saturday night since. Last I heard, they were talking about moving in together. “When did this happen?” I asked.

She waved a plump hand. “A couple of weeks ago.”

“And you’re just now telling me? What happened?”

She shrugged. “We got into an argument, and it just kind of went downhill from there.”

“An argument? About what?”

“It doesn’t really matter,” she said.

“Come on,” I said. “I’ve told you my husband was sleeping with a transvestite named Selena Sass. And you can’t tell me what you and Jess argued about?”