Karen MacInerney - Margie Peterson 01 - Mother's Day Out (35 page)

“So embarrassing,” she murmured.  And then she fainted.

TWENTY-NINE

Peaches had finished her first cigarette and started on a second by the time we pulled into the parking lot of the Green Meadows Day School.  Prudence hadn’t offered to take me—and frankly, after the fainting fit, I wasn’t sure I wanted her to, anyway.  Fortunately, Peaches had stepped into the breach.

“By the way,” I said as we crossed the parking lot, “did you ever find out who burned down your office?”

Peaches paused to light a cigarette.  “Oh, didn’t I tell you? It was Irwin Pence.  His wife accidentally left my card by the phone.  After Mrs. Pence broke the news about the photo you took, he got pissed one night, came and drenched the office with gasoline, and lit a match.”

“How did they catch him?”

“He left the gasoline can fifteen feet away.  His prints were all over it.”

“Huh.  I wonder if he’s the one who blew up Blake’s car.”

Peaches shrugged.  “Maybe.  Oh, and I almost forgot.”  She dug through her purse and pulled out a red plastic object.  “I think this is yours.”

“Elsie’s fry phone!”

“Mrs. Pence dropped it off at my house yesterday.  Said she figured it was the least she could do.”  We climbed into the car and slammed the door.  “Now that that’s taken care of, let’s go get your kids.”

#

Twenty minutes later, over the protestations of the teaching assistants, we loaded the kids into the back of the Buick without car seats.  “Cool,” said Elsie, and turned to Nick.  “You know what this means, don’t you?”

“What?”

“We’re adults now.”

I tossed my daughter her fry phone as Peaches pulled away from the pickup zone.  Elsie was still squealing with delight when Peaches dropped us off at my house a few minutes later. 

“Got a big date tonight,” she said.  “Gonna see if I can fit in a few hours of beauty sleep.”

I gave her a big hug.  “Thanks, Peaches.  Thanks for everything.”

She gave me a long, hard look.  “I’m forwarding my home phone to my cell.  If you need anything tonight, you give me a call, okay?”

I swallowed hard and nodded.

“Any time of night.  Understand?”

I nodded again.  “Got it.”

Peaches gave me another big, musky hug.  Then she clicked down the stone walk to the Buick.

As Peaches revved the engine, Elsie sidled up behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist.  “Why did that lady say to call you, mommy?”

“Because she’s a friend, Elsie.  A good, good friend.”

I waved until the Buick disappeared down the street.  Then, my children at my side, I walked back into the house to wait. 

#

The phone rang almost as soon as the door closed behind me.  It was Becky. 

“Margie! Where have you been? I’ve been calling you all day…”

“It’s a long story,” I said.

“I’ve been dying to talk to you.  I checked with the bank first thing this morning, and you’re not going to
believe
who’s been stealing money from Green Meadows.”

“Who?”

“Lydia Belmont.”

“No.  It can’t be.  Sign-the-petition-Lydia? With the silver Mercedes?”

“Yup.  I called Attila about it—she’s home, by the way, they thought it was a heart attack but it turned out to be just a scare—and she called Lydia right off.  She confessed to everything.  Apparently she used some of the money on laser treatments and plastic surgery—and the rest she invested with Bitsy McEwan.”

“Lovely,” I said.

“She didn’t want her husband to know about it, so she embezzled the cash she needed from the school.  That’s why she took so many ‘vacations’ last year—she was having surgery done in Costa Rica, then staying there for the recovery.”

“Why didn’t she want him to know about it?”

“She didn’t want him to think she was getting old.  She was afraid he was going to divorce her for a younger model.”

“You’re joking.”

“Nope.  And there’s more.  Apparently Bitsy promised her big gains on whatever she invested into the fashion line, and Lydia fell for it.  For all the fancy cars, her hubby put her on a tight budget.  The profits were going into a rainy-day divorce attorney fund.”

“You’re kidding me.”  How many other Junior Leaguers had helped fund the slave-run factory? I wondered.  Probably my mother-in-law, although I doubted she’d admit it.  I was guessing it would all come out as the police investigation got underway.

“On the plus side, I’m guessing that petition won’t be going anywhere soon.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Also, there’s this rumor going around that Bitsy McEwan was arrested for running some kind of immigrant ring.  Does this have something to do with the fashion line?”

“She was,” I said.  “Remember that warehouse we visited the other night?”

“The one where we saw Maria?”

“That’s where all the clothing for Couture with a Conscience was made.  Bitsy was transporting illegal immigrants over the border and holding them hostage there, making them sew clothes.”

“You’re kidding me.  How do you know all that?”

“She was also arrested for murder,” I said.”

“What?”

“She was the one who killed Evan Maxted.”

“Oh, my God.  Bitsy McEwan?”

“It’s a long story,” I said.  And one I wasn’t ready to tell right now.  I had other things I wanted to get off my plate, first.  “I’ll tell you all about it soon… but for now, can you do me a favor?”

“Sure, Margie.  Wow.”  She paused for a moment, still digesting what I’d told her.  “Sorry.  What do you need?”

“Can you watch the kids for a while this afternoon?”

“Of course! Why? What’s going on?”

When I told her, she breathed, “Oh, God.  I’ll be over in ten minutes.”

“Thanks,” I said.  Then I hung up the phone and dialed another number.

#

I was sitting on my Broyhill couch when the front door opened.

“Hi,” I said.

Blake closed the door behind him.  “What’s going on? Where are the kids?”

I pointed to the armchair across from me.  “Please sit down.”

He put down his briefcase and approached the chair warily.  “What’s the emergency?”

“How long have you been seeing Evan Maxted?”  My voice was ragged.

“What?” He paled.  “Evan’s a client.  I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I slapped the photo I’d found in Evan’s apartment on the table between us.

He reached out and snatched the picture.  “Oh, God.  I didn’t want you to find out.”

A wave of dizziness washed over me.  “How long have you been hiding this from me?”

He leaned forward with his head in his hands, rocking back and forth on the chair, staring at the floor between his feet.  “I’ve always been this way,” he whispered.

Although I already knew it, his admission hit me like a shock wave.  A sob escaped my chest.  Even with my eyes closed, the image in the photograph was burned into my retinas.  Blake, reclining on a leather couch with a blue-sequined Selena Sass in his lap. 

Tears squeezed out of the corners of my eyes.  “Even when we got married?”

“Since high school,” he said.  “I tried so hard to be normal, to be the pride of the family… I hated that part of myself, tried to destroy it…”

“Did you ever love me?” I whispered.

He crossed the gap between us and put his arm around me.  I flinched, and he backed away.  “Of course I loved you.  I still do.”

“I saw you at the funeral the other day.”

“How do you know about the funeral?”

“I was there.  The woman in the black hat.”

Blake blinked.

“How could you do this to me?” I raged.  “And you were stealing money, too!”

“Stealing money?”

“Two thousand dollars a month,” I hissed.  “You never told me about your raise.  Or that you embezzled to get it.”

“I had to,” he said.  “To protect you.”

“Where’s it all going? To Evan?”

“No, no,” he said.  “Evan and I broke up months ago.”

“Oh really? Then how come he called you on her cell phone the night she died?”

He closed his eyes and leaned back against the couch.  “Selena—Evan—thought there was something going on with International Shipping that wasn’t quite right, and he thought it had something to do with Bitsy McEwan.  He was calling me for help. Not that I could do anything about it.”  He gave a bitter laugh.  “The thing is, there was nothing I could do about it; I was the one who covered it up.”

“You knew they were transporting illegal immigrants?” I asked.

“No,” he said, his eyes widening in horror.  “I would never do that.  I knew they were shipping something, but I didn’t know it was… people.  Herb and Bitsy told me it was fabric for her clothing line.  To cut costs.”

That explained the calls to Bitsy, but not the missing money.  “That still doesn’t explain where the money went.”

He sighed.  “I was being blackmailed.”

“Blackmailed? By who?’

“By a man named Trevor.” 

An image of Trevor backing into a display at Miss Veronica’s Boudoir flashed into my mind.  It must have been because he recognized my name, I realized now.  “The one who works at Miss Veronica’s Boudoir?”

“How did you find that out?”

“I went there the other day to ask about Evan Maxted.  So you were paying Trevor money that should have come to the family just to keep your affair quiet.”

“I felt awful about it.  I even threatened to stop making the payments. That’s why he blew up my car.”

“He blew up your car?”

“To scare me.  Yes.”

I cradled my head in my hands.  “Jesus Christ.  I don’t believe this.”

“Selena… I mean, Evan and I met two years ago, when ISC first became a client.  There was a mutual… attraction there, and things just kind of happened.”  He held my gaze with his blue eyes.  “It was my first time,” he said.

I looked away.

Blake voice was thick.  “About a year ago, we went to a party together.  Somebody snapped a few photos, and somehow Trevor got hold of one.  He contacted me about it six or eight months ago.”  He sighed.  “I didn’t want to destroy our family.  So I paid.”

We stood in silence for a moment.  A breeze ruffled the roses outside the front window and made the wind chimes hanging from the eaves tinkle.  I fingered the tear in the couch.  How could everything around me seem so normal when my life was falling apart?

I looked at my husband, with his patrician nose and remorseful eyes.  “Is that why you’ve been such a jerk lately? Because of the blackmailing?”

“I’m so sorry, Margie.  Yes, it was that.  I was worried it was all going to blow up in my face.”

“It did blow up.  In the driveway, actually,” I said acidly.  “You blamed me for that, too, if I remember correctly.”

“I know, and I’m sorry.  I was also worried about the ISC thing.  Everything just went wrong, and I didn’t handle it well.”

“You made me feel like it was my fault,” I said.  “And all the time, you were lying to me.” 

We sat together for several minutes, the air thick with anger and unspoken words.

When Blake spoke, his voice was soft.  “Where do we go from here, Margie?”

I buried my head in my hands.  “I don’t know.  I don’t know anything anymore.”

“I love you.  And I love the kids.”

I raised my head and looked at him.  “How can we stay married if you only want to sleep with men?”

“Maybe I could change…”

“No.  No, I don’t think so.  I need some time, time to think.”

“Maybe I should leave for a while.”

“I think that would be a good idea,” I said, crossing my arms.

He sighed.  “I didn’t want it to happen this way.”

“Me neither,” I whispered.  “Me neither.” 

He sat beside me on the couch for a moment.  “I guess I’ll go pack my bags, then.”  I wiped my eyes and nodded.  He sat beside me for another minute.  Then he got up and climbed the stairs to our bedroom, the wooden steps creaking under his heavy tread.

Twenty minutes later, he was gone.

#

Becky arrived first, holding a bag of chocolate chip cookies and a bottle of Chardonnay. 

“Where are the kids?” I asked.

“Rick came home early.  They’re with him.”  She set the food down on the table and put her arms around me.  “Oh, Margie.  I’m so sorry.”

My body heaved with sobs, and tears poured down my cheeks.  Becky held me for a few minutes, then guided me to the couch and went searching for a tissue box.

“They’re in the laundry room,” I snuffled.

“Hang in there,” she said.  “I’ll be right back.”

A moment later, a yowl sounded from the direction of the laundry room, and an orange streak whizzed across the living room.  Snookums.  Only instead of turning to face down Rufus, he jumped onto the couch and cowered beside me.  Becky appeared at the doorway a moment later, Rufus bristling at her feet.

“I’m so sorry. I forgot about the cat.”

I stroked Snookums, who had burrowed in beside me.  “It’s okay,” I said.  The orange tabby trembled under my touch.

“Isn’t that the lunatic cat? The one that bit you the other day?”

“I think he’s just had a rough time of it lately,” I said. 

Becky went to the kitchen for a corkscrew and glasses while Snookums pressed his warm body against me. 

“You may just need a little TLC,” I crooned to Snookums, fondling the orange cat’s ears.  Rufus hissed from the doorway.  “Cut it out, Rufus.  Becky, could you let him out?”

Becky returned with two full glasses of wine.  She handed one to me and opened the front door, and Rufus stalked out of it, giving me a baleful look. 

“There’s a weird looking woman with red hair and a miniskirt coming up the walk,” Becky hissed.

“That must be Peaches,” I said.  A moment later, her stiletto heels clicked on the hardwood floors, and she set a fifth of tequila down on the front hall table with a clunk.  Then she walked over to the couch and gave my shoulder a squeeze.

“How are you doin’, sweetheart?”

I smiled feebly and raised my glass.  “I’m still upright, aren’t I?”

“Then you’re not drinking enough,” Peaches said.  Then she turned to Becky.  “I’m Peaches,” she said, thrusting a hand out.  “You must be Becky.”