A Taste of Death (Maggie Olenski Series) (22 page)

Maggie scrubbed floors and polished tabletops until her nervous energy finally ran out. Then she collapsed on the living room sofa. Ali, who had been lurking in a dark corner, immediately scooted over and made an attempt to climb up with her, but Maggie pushed him firmly away.

"We've had enough togetherness for a while. You belong to Dyna, you know. You'll just have to wait for her to come back."

After trying one more time and being deterred, the large cat gave up and wandered over to his food bowl. He gobbled a bite or two, then played with the crunchy bits, scooping pieces ou
t of his bowl with a curved paw
and scooting them around Maggie's clean floor, hockey style. Maggie swore he looked over his shoulder to catch her reaction.

She sighed, too tired to get up and stop him. "You're a devious little thing - make that BIG thing - just like Leslie said. Go ahead, have your revenge. But just
wait until you're hungry again
and see how you like searching for your food all over the cabin."

The tip of Ali's tail flicked, and he moved over to his water bowl, testing it with a paw as if deciding what he could do with this. Maggie closed her eyes, not wanting to know. She reached for the afghan that had been draped over the back of the sofa, pulled it around her, and breathed deeply.

The next thing she knew, the phone was ringing and it had grown dark out.

"Maggie? Hello? Is that you?"

"Mmmph." Maggie coughed, snuffled, then said, "Dyna?"

"Did I wake you?"

Maggie straightened up, letting the afghan fall away. The only light in the room came from the overhead in the kitchen, but she clearly saw Ali's face gazing at her from the foot of the couch, the front half of his body on the edge of the afghan. It might have been a trick of the light, but the look on his face seemed definitely smug.

"Little devil," she muttered.

"What? What did you say, Maggie?"

"Nothing. How's it going, Dyna?"

"Great. Pam and I have been busy. She left the baby with her mother-in-law, and we've been tramping all over Atlantic City. Like I said, a lot of her neighbors work there, so we talked to several of them."

"What did you find out?"

"Well," Dyna took a deep breath, and Maggie, hearing the flutter of paper, pictured her reading from a notebook of scribblings. "First of all, Alexander - no surprise here - was well known as a big gambler. He ran up some pretty big debts, and he almost always stayed at Jack Warwick's hotel."

"That's interesting."

"It's called the Turtle-wick. Jack owned it in partnership with someone named Turtletaub. The original name of the hotel was going to be something like 'The Green Turtle', but Jack, of course, had to get his name in there somehow. Anyway, people at the hotel knew Alexander. He ate in the restaurant there a lot - someone said he was a big tipper. But there didn't seem to be any sign of an affair going on. They said he was hardly ever seen with the same people twice, and a lot of the time he was alone. That probably blows my theory of a Mafia princess mistress."

"So it seems
. Did anyone see Alexander with Jack?"

"I asked about that. They did remember seeing them once or twice, having dinner together. Just before Jack and Leslie came up to Cedar Hill."

"I wonder if Alexander made the first move to Jack about buying Big Bear."

  "Could be. Maybe Alexander made big promises about being able to get the zoning changed and arrange the sale."

"Mmm." Maggie wondered what that might have to do with the eventual murders of both men.

"Everyone we talked to, by the way, knew about Jack's playing around - his `womanizing', as someone put it. Said he was pretty open about it, even hitting on hotel employees. His partner was getting pretty ticked off, they said. He felt they lost some good workers, people in upper management and all, because of it."

"I'm sure they did." Poor Elizabeth. If she had only known. "What about Leslie? Where was she? Was she ever seen with Alexander?"

"You mean just the two of them? No, there was nothing like that. And I don't think she was with them when Jack and Alexander were seen talking. That sounded like a private kind of business thing. Leslie only seemed to be around when there were these big to-do's for the hotel, you know, entertaining the big-wigs to drum up b
usiness for the hotel. Playing
hostess."

"Hmm."

"Tomorrow we're going to talk to people at the casinos. Maybe we can dig up something there."

"Okay
. You're doing a great job. Just be careful."

"No problem. What's happening up there? I heard on the weather news you got some more snow."

"Yeah, enough to keep me inside today. I'm not crazy about driving in deep snow with my Cavalier. But," Maggie craned her head to look out the window,
"I think it's stopped, so the
roads should be cleared
soon. I'll go into town tomorrow, see what I can dig up."

"Great. How's Ali doing?"

Maggie looked over at Ali, who had inched even further onto the afghan while she had been talking. She thought about the scare he had given her this morning, and the cat food s
cattered into about
the cabin. And who knows what other surprises he had arranged while she slept.

"Ali's terrific," she said, her voice taking on the forced enthusiasm she used when trying to talk positively to parents of particularly difficult students. "Just super."

"Oh, good. Give him a b
ig hug for me," Dyna instructed
and signed off.

Maggie looked at the orange cat. He gazed calmly back at her.

"It seems I owe you a hug."

Ali blinked contentedly.

T
he next morning Maggie looked out at bright sun shining on clean, white snow. The plow had cleared Hadley Road and much of the cabin's driveway. All Maggie had to do was clear the pile of snow pushed up close to the garage door and she could be on her way into town.

Last night she had decided to talk to Annette, who didn't seem to miss a thing as far as the town's business was concerned. Surely she would have information that would be helpful to Maggie, and to Elizabeth. And to the town, which, whether the townspeople realized it or not, was in serious trouble. Someone was living in their midst who had no qualms about killing.

The first murder, Jack's, may have been a long time in the planning. But the second, Alexander's, seemed impulsive, a hasty action possibly spurred by a greater urgency. It looked to Maggie as though the murderer were getting bolder and less cautious. What would he or she do next, to be rid of a perceived threat? How desperate was this person becoming?

She loaded her breakfast dishes in the dishwasher and rinsed out the coffee carafe. Ali's bowls had been attended to, but the cat still slept upstairs, this time in Dyna's bed. Maggie wondered if he were sulking, as she had kept her bedroom door clos
ed against him last night. Well.
Dyna would be back before long, and he would get more than his share of pampering. He'd just have to wait.

She pulled on her boots and
jacket
and grabbed her keys from the kitchen counter.

"So long, Ali," she called out, immediately feeling ridiculous for doing so, then tramped down the cabin steps and started shoveling.

Maggie backed
her Cavalier out of the garage
and drove cautiously down the scraped and sanded road toward town. Hers were the only tracks being laid on the thin layer of snow that had blown onto the road after the snow plow had done its work. She drove past empty
cabins with shade-drawn windows
and was glad to turn onto Main Street with its signs of life and activity. One full day of solitude had been enough for her.

She had checked
Annette's address, remembering Dyna's scramble for it a few days back. Timber Drive was easy to find, not far off Main, and when Maggie pulled up to number 238, she saw someone she thought might be Annette, shoveling the front walk. She wasn't sure since the
person stood knee-deep in snow
and wore a knitted, face-covering ski mask, topped with a pom-pom
-
festooned hat. The apple-red jacket, however, as well as the shape, was identifiable as Annette's, and Maggie climbed out of her car and called a greeting.

The masked figure looked up and set down the snow shovel.

"Well, hellooo." Annette's voice came through the mouth hole of the mask, and she stepped out of the snow onto a cleared portion of her walk. "And how are youuuu?"

"I hate to interrupt you, but I wondered if I could talk to you a minute? About the murders?"

Annette whisked off her cap and
ski mask at Maggie's last words
and beckoned Maggie toward the house. She was already bustling up her porch steps as she said, "Come in, come in. I'll fix us some nice tea."

By the time Maggie stepped through her front door, Annette had peeled off her snowy outerwear and was making clattering noises in the kitchen. "Just drop your things anywhere. Jason! Turn off those cartoons and go play in your room with your brother!"

A small boy
about five years old darted out of the nearby family room and brushed by Maggie in his scramble to get up the stairs. Maggie heard a door slam above her as she pulled off her boots and jacket. She followed the clattering sounds to the kitchen and saw Annette pulling out cups and saucers, small plates, and utensils. A teakettle sat on one of her stove's burners, and a pound cake had been uncovered from its Tupperware dome.

"Please don't go to any trouble for me," Maggie protested.

Annette waved a hand impatiently. "No trouble at all. We'll be all set in two shakes of a lamb's tail. Sit down."

Maggie obeyed, pulling out a yellow and white vinyl-cushioned chair from the table. She looked around at the spotless kitchen as Annette scurried about, feeling somewhat bombarded with cheeriness from the daisy-printed wallpaper and duck-trimmed curtains, to the framed embroidered mottos on the wall. The cake Annette plopped in front of her, however, looked good.

The tea ket
tle whistled, and Annette emptied it into the tea pot, centering the pot
on the table as she settled herself across from Maggie.

"Now, what was it you wanted to know."

"What's been happening in connection with Alexander's death?" Maggie asked.

Annette's face took on such a business-like expression Maggie eerily felt as though she were facing a school superintendent preparing to expound on the next year's budget. "The sheriff's been busy," Annette began. "He and his men, as you probably know, visited every house in town right after Alexander was discovered."

Maggie nodded.

"They said they were checking on everyone's well-being, but I think they were also checking for alibis."

Maggie remembered Elizabeth telling her the deputy had asked if she had been out early that day. He probably had looked for fresh footprints in the snow, as well as other signs.

"Did they come up with anything?"

Annette took a breath, said, "Indeed they did," then looked into the teapot. She pulled out a dripping tea ball, then poured out a cup of golden brown tea for each of them. Maggie waited, aware of how Annette enjoyed building up the suspense. Finally, she continued.

"Paul Dekens, it seems, had been out early that morning."

"Paul!"

"Yes, Paul. He said, from what I've
heard, that he went to Big Bear
to work on some papers."

"But nobody was there who can confirm it?"

"No one." Annette smiled. "Sugar?"

Maggie shook her head. This would be terrible news to Elizabeth. Elizabeth had feared Paul would be highly suspect. He had
strong motives for both murders
and now apparently opportunity as well, for both.

"Paul has been to the sheriff's office, accompanied by his lawyer, I'm told." Annette shook her head as though in dismay, her lips pressed grimly, but the light in her eyes reflected an inner excitement. "Such a terrible thing. Now, I'm not saying Alexander deserved to be shot, but, you know, he did bring a lot of this on himself. The life he was leading! If he hadn't been murdered, he would have killed himself, eventually."

"Do you mean suicide?"

"Oh, no. He'd never have done anything as thoughtful as that. I mean his drinking would have killed him. His drinking and driving. Why, I saw him myself, walking past here at three in the morning one night. It was the
same
night that poor Mrs. Morgan was killed, driving on icy roads. I was up because of my youngest, Jason, being sick with the croup. I could hardly believe it when I happened to look out, and there he was, Alexander Dekens, tramping up the hill. More cake?"

Maggie shook her head.

Annette cut a slice for herself then continued. "I thought I was seeing things at first, but it was him. Drunk as could be, weaving and grabbing on to things. I watched him all the way up to Piney Grove, where he turned toward his house and I couldn't see him anymore. Turned out he had plowed his car into a snow bank at the bottom of Main. Just left it there and walked on home. Why, he could have fallen down somewhere and frozen to death. No one would have found him until the next day."