Karen MacInerney - Margie Peterson 01 - Mother's Day Out (27 page)

As the elderly organist began cranking out a wheezy dirge, I examined the program in my hands.  My heart twinged at the photo of Evan Maxted on the front—smiling, young, full of life and hope. 

Nothing like the dead body in the ladies’ room at the Rainbow Room.

I opened the program and blinked.  The officiant was Rev. Ronald Maxted.  Peaches had said Evan’s father was a preacher out west, and now I recognized the name.

Ronald Maxted was a fundamentalist televangelist.

For a moment I wondered why the memorial service was being held in a small church in Austin, instead of Maxted’s sprawling church compound in California.  Then I remembered the circumstances of Evan Maxted’s death.  Rev. Maxted probably wanted to avoid the publicity. After all, his son had been wearing a ball gown when he died, and he’d been found in the ladies’ room of a gay bar.  That probably wouldn’t go over too well with his national audience.

The dirge died away, and the Rev. Ronald Maxted walked down the aisle, a woman I recognized as Evan’s mother clutching his arm in a tragic parody of a wedding procession.  She wore an ill-cut black dress, and the bleakness in her tear-streaked face hit me like a blow.  Tears sprang to my eyes as she stumbled to the front pew, helped to her seat by the blonde I had noticed earlier.  As the younger woman put her arms around the grieving woman, it occurred to me she must be Evan’s sister.  The woman who was to be married in October.

While Mrs. Maxted was obviously falling to pieces, Rev. Maxted’s lips were set in a grim line.  As he mounted the stair to the altar and turned to address the small congregation, I could understand why he had such a following.  His high cheekbones and shock of dark hair gave him a boyish look, and I could see millions of lonely housewives swooning over this handsome man and his promises of salvation.  Beside her husband’s good looks and charisma, Violet Maxted seemed small and washed out.  An odd match.

“Thank you all for coming to honor the life of my son, Evan Maxted.”  A keening noise came from the front of the church, where Violet Maxted doubled over in her pew.  “God giveth,” he said, his voice like warm chocolate despite the circumstances, “and God taketh away.” 

As he moved through the service, I found myself hypnotized by his voice, which was low, soothing, and bore an undercurrent of authority that was somehow comforting.  Were it not for the shared last name, and the blown-up photo of Evan that stood in a place of honor by the altar, the cheekbones and dark eyes an eerie mirror image of the man speaking, I wouldn’t have known it was his son’s funeral Rev. Maxted was officiating.

It wasn’t until he began the eulogy that a current of raw emotion pulsed through his voice.  “Evan was a kind, good boy.  His mother and I always taught him to walk in the light, in the way of the Lord.”  He paused and looked down for a moment.  “We are all sinners,” he said slowly, “each in our own way.  Let us hope that our misdeeds, and those of my son—” his voice cracked “—will be washed clean in the next lifetime, and that we will all be spared the fires of hell.”

The church was silent for a long moment, except for a choking sob from Evan’s mother.  My heart tore for both of them, and I thought of my own precious babies, safe at home.  How could the Maxteds bear to go on living when their child was dead? Life was so unfair.

There was a long, painful moment.  Then Rev. Maxted jerked his head toward the organist, and she cranked out another dirge.  He stood at the front of the church, eyes closed, until the last strains died away.  He looked up slowly.  “Thank you all for coming to honor my son.  May the Lord be with all of us, and lead us all in the paths of righteousness.  Amen.”

He stepped down to join his wife, and the service was over.

As the people in the pews rose and moved toward the aisle, I pretended to search for something in my purse.  The lecherous man from ISC walked by my pew, followed by the woman who had caught me in Evan’s office.  I ducked my head and peeked out again just in time to see Willie hobble down the aisle on the arm of a stooped, liver-spotted man.  I tried not to imagine his exploits with a Zambian princess and glanced instead at the rest of the group coming down the aisle.  I was surprised to see Trevor among them, wearing a black turtleneck and black horn-rimmed glasses.  His eyes slid to me, and I lowered my head again, focusing on the contents of my purse.  When I looked up again a moment later, my heart stopped.

A few steps behind Trevor was my husband.

I buried my hands in my purse, hands shaking, trying to control my body.  My husband had lied about his client meeting so that he could attend Evan Maxted’s funeral.  Bile welled up in my throat.  Did I know my husband at all?

When the murmur of voices dissipated, I staggered to my feet and stumbled into the nave.  I opened the heavy double doors to the outside just in time to see my husband’s rented Subaru pull onto Loop 360. 

Somehow I made it across the parking lot to the minivan.  My fingers trembled as I slammed the door behind me and dialed Becky.

“How’d it go?”

“Blake was there,” I croaked.

Becky sucked in her breath.  “Oh, Margie…”

All of the pain and anger—the betrayal—swamped me.  I clutched the phone to my ear as a deep, heaving sob racked my body.  The steering wheel was hot against my forehead, and tears coursed down my cheeks.

“Margie… Where are you?”

“I’m at the church,” I whispered, my mind reeling through all the lies: Maxted, the pay raise I never found out about, my husband’s face at the funeral. “I don’t know what Blake is mixed up in. I thought it might be me they were going after when they blew up the car.  Now I just don’t know… I don’t know anything anymore.”

“Ask him about it.”

“No,” I said.  “Not yet.”  I took a shuddery breath and straightened in my seat.  “There’s one more thing I need to do.”

“Margie…”

“I’ll call you later,” I said, and hung up.

I gripped the steering wheel for a few minutes, ignoring the frantic ring of the phone.  Then I wiped my tears away, reversed out of the parking spot with a jerk, and headed toward town.

#

The warehouse on Seventh Street looked even more dilapidated in the blazing afternoon sun than it had the night before.  I circled the building and discovered a loading dock I had missed the night before.  Then I drove a short way up a neighboring street and turned around, parking in front of a sagging bungalow whose yard was littered with dead cars.  I put the minivan in park and stared at the building.

Graffiti covered the peeling brown paint in places, and the rusted-out appliances adrift among the weeds gave the building a forlorn and dangerous air.  The loading dock door was probably locked, but it wouldn’t hurt to check. 

I got out of the minivan and scuttled across the pitted street, my high-heeled shoe slipping on a slick of old oil.  Then I trotted up to the loading dock door and yanked at the handle.  It didn’t budge.  I snuck around the corner of the building to the door Maria Espinosa had used last night.  It, too, was locked.

As I returned to the minivan in defeat, I remembered what Maria Espinosa had said last night. Two more deliveries were due.  Was this their destination? A freight train rumbled by just ten feet from the building as I closed the van door behind me, the events of the past week a jumble in my head.  Maxted, International Shipping Company, the McEwans, Maria Espinosa—everything intersected here.  My eyes bored into weather-stained concrete.  I was more convinced than ever that the answer to the puzzle of Maxted’s murder, and my husband’s lies, lay behind that rusty metal door.

An hour passed, then two, and nothing happened.  The air conditioning was on, and the gas gauge was dropping perilously low. I probably had another twenty minutes left.  Maybe the delivery Maria was talking about was destined for the store, not this abandoned warehouse.  I had just decided to wait another ten minutes and leave to confront my husband when a dirty white truck rolled down the street and backed up to the loading dock. 

I shrank down in my seat, peering out the window as the driver got out and rapped at the loading dock door.  A moment later, it rolled open.  I craned my neck to see inside, but glimpsed only a concrete wall.

The driver fumbled with the back of the truck, and a moment later the white doors swung open.  A few Hispanic-looking men in threadbare jeans emerged from the warehouse’s open door and helped pull out the loading ramp.  Then they began unloading something that looked like long rolls of paper from the back of the truck.

Paper? Why paper?

I watched as they hauled dozens of rolls into the building, wishing I could figure out a way to slip inside while the door was open.  When they finished, the older of the warehouse men pointed back toward the building.  His two helpers disappeared inside, and he pulled the door down behind them before walking around to the front of the truck.  A moment later, he and the driver lit two cigarettes and leaned against the driver’s door.

My eyes darted to the loading dock door.  When he rolled it down, it hadn’t gone all the way. A foot-high gap remained at the bottom. 

I shoved my keys into my skirt’s tiny pocket and shoved the cell phone and the pepper spray Becky had given me into the waistband of my skirt.  Then I slid out the door, closing it softly behind me, slipped off my shoes, and sprinted across the road toward the warehouse.

As I darted past the appliances, a stab of pain lanced through my foot.  I ignored it and hobbled around the truck.  The sound of Spanish floated to me from the driver’s side, along with the smell of smoke.  I crept to the open door and crouched down, peering under it.  I could see the rolls of paper, but the men had gone.  I dropped to my belly and scooted inside, losing a button of my new suit to the rough concrete lip.

I scrambled to my feet and scanned the dim room, which was lit by a single bulb dangling from the ceiling.  The paper rolls had been deposited in a corner next to a pair of big double doors.  A whirring sound came from the other side of the doors, and something told me it wouldn’t be a good idea to go in that way.  My eyes focused on a dark doorway near the other corner.  I tiptoed over it.  As I peered around the corner into a darkened hallway, a volley of Spanish sounded just outside.  I whirled around to see two pairs of feet in the gap of the bottom of the loading dock door. 

I dashed through the door and ducked through the first doorway on the left just as the loading dock door rumbled open behind me.

TWENTY-TWO

The room around me was pitch black and oppressively hot.  The air smelled like mildew, automotive oil, and something else—something rotten.  I pressed myself against the wall and inched to the side as the door outside screeched shut again.  A clicking noise that sounded ominously like a lock followed, and I held my breath, half expecting the voices to round the corner and flick on a light.  Instead, the whirring sound grew louder, then faded along with the voices, and I thought I heard the snick of a door shutting.  The big double doors, probably.

I waited a few minutes, listening for any further sound, but heard nothing but the faint whirring in the background.  I cursed myself for not thinking to bring my flashlight.  It was safely tucked away in the glove compartment of the minivan, not fifty yards from where I stood. 

I inched back toward the doorway, fumbling for a light switch.  It was risky, but it was the only way I could figure out what was going on in this building.  Besides, I was pretty sure I’d hear someone coming.  My fingers found the switch, and I let a couple of long minutes pass, during which no sound but the whirring and the faint drip-drip of water somewhere nearby reached my ears.  Then I took a deep breath and flicked it up.

Bluish fluorescent light flooded the room, and I cringed, half-expecting one of the men to burst through the door and grab me.  But nobody did.  My eyes roamed the cramped room.  Plywood covered windows along the back wall, and the concrete floor was crowded with several mismatched tables, most of them brown or gray laminate, the chipped tops exposing stained particleboard underneath.  They were ringed by metal chairs.  Here and there, a few stray kernels of corn were strewn across dirty concrete floor.  I took a step forward, and a movement caught my eye.  A massive brown roach.  I wrinkled my nose.  What was this place? Some kind of lunchroom?

I flipped the light off again, and was plunged into inky darkness.  Cautiously I maneuvered back toward the hall, working on what I remembered seeing of the dim hall before the lights from the loading dock went out. 

A few feet down the hallway was another door, and the single bare bulb that flared when I hit the light switch revealed a small, somewhat dirty kitchen.  The rotten smell was stronger in here.  Giant cans of vegetables and beans stood in the corner, and heap of empties poked out of a plastic bag beside it.  As in the first room, plywood covered the only window.  Two massive, dented pots stood on a decrepit-looking stove.  The sink was stained evil orange with rust.

The smell of urine from the last door on the left side of the hallway told me what kind of room it was before I switched on the lights.  I took a brief glimpse, seeing a single, lidless toilet and a sink with a leaking faucet, the source of the maddening drips. Backing out quickly, I extinguished the light and promised myself that I’d never complain about the state of our bathroom again.  Then I crossed the corridor and felt my way down to the only door I remembered seeing on that side. 

The stench of unwashed bodies hit me as the door opened, and I staggered back, pulling my shirt up to my nose and swallowing back bile.  I stepped forward again, clutching my shirt to my face, and felt the wall for a light switch.  The whirring was louder in here. The room must adjoin what I assumed was the main part of the warehouse, the one on the other side of those double doors.

Another bank of fluorescent lights, greenish this time, illuminated a floor littered with scraps of foam and old mattresses so stained and mottled with mildew that the original fabric pattern was indecipherable.  A few old blankets were scattered around. The concrete walls were bare, and a roach scuttled under one of the blankets.  I shuddered and doused the lights, backing out of the room quickly and trying not to vomit.