Karen MacInerney - Margie Peterson 01 - Mother's Day Out (6 page)

I dialed 911 again with shaking fingers.  I didn’t think there was much the paramedics could do for her, or him. But I still had to try.

This time a dispatcher answered.  My body felt numb as I reeled out the details.

“Just stay there, and don’t let anyone in,” the dispatcher said in a warm cocoa voice that chased away some of the chill that had seeped into me.  “Do you need me to stay on the line?”

“No, no,” I said, turning my eyes from the woman in the stall.  The air conditioner clicked on, creating a breeze that smelled of stale urine.  “I’ll be okay.”

“Hang in there.  They’ll be there as fast as they can.”

“Thanks.” 

She hung up. 

Except for the low thump of music from the bar and the steady drip-drip of a water faucet, the room was eerily still.  The man on the toilet was dead, but his presence filled the small room in a most unpleasant way.  A single earring twinkled on the floor a few feet from the body—an unusual chandelier, with blue and green crystals that sparkled under the fluorescent lights.  It seemed utterly out of place.

I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered, wishing I’d listened to Becky and gone into Tupperware sales.   If I’d just turned around and walked back to the minivan instead of going into Peachtree Investigations, I could be home eating Kit Kats right now, instead of sharing a bathroom with the remains of a mutilated drag queen.  I moved away from the stall and positioned myself by the door to the corridor, turning to face the urinals.

As I shifted from foot to foot, the patter of dripping water was like a Morse code message to my overfilled bladder. 
Emergency!
it tapped out. 
Evacuate now!

I squeezed my knees together, wishing the dead man had ended up anywhere other than straddling the only available toilet.  My eyes roved over the row of yellowed porcelain receptacles.  If I got desperate enough, I could always try squatting.  With my luck, though, Austin’s finest would burst through the door the moment the control-top hose dropped to my ankles.

I ignored my bladder and shifted my eyes the phone in my hand.  The phone that had dialed my home number.  If I’d been at home when he called, could I have saved his life somehow? 

And why
had
he called my home?

I glanced at the man on the toilet again.  Could he be one of Blake’s clients? It didn’t seem likely.  Blake dealt mainly with corporations, and the attire tended more toward pinstripes than pinafores.

Everything I’d ever seen on
CSI
told me that I should keep my fingers to myself and wait for the police to investigate.  But I’d already touched the phone.  Would it hurt to look through the call history? After all, I was supposed to be a private investigator now.

I squeezed my thighs together and pulled up the call history.  My phone number popped up on the screen twice.  One was the phone call I’d made, at seven-fifteen.  The other call had been made at six that evening, while I was waiting for Jack Emerson outside the Bank One building.

Next I checked the speed dial list.  Four numbers were listed.  None of them were mine.

I was about to scroll through call history again when footsteps approached down the hall.  I tossed the phone into the purse and adjusted the neckline of my dress, preparing to greet the police or turn away a person in need (chances were they’d be just as comfortable in the Princes’ room anyway).  But whoever it was kept going, and the door to the Princesses’ room stayed closed.

I looked at the phone again.  I must have accidentally hit redial while I was fumbling to dial 911.  But why had the woman/man in the stall called my house?

Next to the phone, a brown wallet peeked out from under a tube of lipstick and a Gillette razor.  It would be easy to find out the dead man’s identity.  The answer was right in front of me. 

I stooped down, then hesitated.  Picking up a phone to call the police was one thing, but my limited knowledge of crime scenes told me that the police wouldn’t look too kindly on my rifling through a murder victim’s wallet.  I listened for footsteps.

Nothing. 

I took a deep breath and went for it.

My bladder threatened to explode as I squatted down on the floor and withdrew the wallet, using the feathered wrap as an impromptu glove.  Fingerprints on the phone I could explain.  Fingerprints on the wallet? Probably not.

I cradled the wallet in a hammock of pink feathers and lifted the edge with a fingernail.  It flopped open to reveal a Texas driver’s license.  The man pictured looked to be in his late twenties, with close-cropped black hair, a bright white shirt and a red tie. 

My eyes darted to the man in the stall.  The hair exposed where the blonde wig had been torn off was short and black.  The hair was a match, but I couldn’t tell about the face.  

Evan Maxted
, read the name under the picture. 
5’11”, 29 years old
.  I gazed from the picture to the person sprawled over the toilet.  Somebody’s son.  My heart twinged.  Did his parents know about his double life? How would they deal with the crushing news that their son’s life had been snuffed out? My eyes flicked toward the gruesome scene in the toilet stall again, prickling with hot tears. 

 
Get yourself together, Margie
. I swiped at my eyes with the back of my hand and forced myself to look away, focusing instead on the wallet cradled in the pink wrap.  Evan’s picture smiled at me from his driver’s license, a dimple in his right cheek.  I took a deep shuddery breath and closed my eyes for a moment, trying to regain control of my emotions. 
The police are going to be here soon.  You’d better get moving
.

Using the wrap to shield my fingers, I pulled out the credit cards tucked behind the license.  Platinum Visa, American Express Gold card.  Whoever Evan Maxted was, he didn’t seem to be hurting for money.  Or else he ran up impressive balances.

A short stack of white cards lined one of the inner pockets.  I pinched the corner of the top one between my fingernails and drew it out.  It was a business card. 
Evan Maxted.  Vice President, International Shipping Company.
  That explained the platinum Visa.  

I was about to slip the card back in when footsteps thundered down the hall outside.

I whirled toward the door, causing the wallet to tumble from its fluffy hammock onto the tile floor.  I thrust my hand into the feathers and grabbed at it, tossing it back into the purse next to the phone.  The door burst open as the wallet thunked on top of the phone, flapping open like a clamshell.  I curled Evan Maxted’s business card into the palm of my hand and turned to face the police.

Suddenly, people in uniforms flooded the room like a swarm of angry but efficient bees, transforming the echo-y room into a hive of activity.  The emergency medical technicians.

“She’s over there,” I said, pointing at the stall, but they had already located her.  As they approached the dead man, I turned away, feeling small and unimportant. 

A short man with a head of bristle-brush hair and a torso with the dimensions of a pickle barrel pushed into the room.  I hugged my wrap closer and smiled at him weakly.

“I’m Detective Bunsen.  Are you the one who called?” he asked in a gruff, no-nonsense voice.

I nodded and inclined my head toward her purse.  “I’m sorry. I had to use his phone to call 9-1-1.  Mine was dead.”

His hazel eyes flicked to the purse, taking in the wallet splayed over the phone.  Then he shifted his piercing gaze to me.  I was just the woman who found her.  So why did I suddenly feel like the subject of an interrogation?

“Why didn’t you just call from the bar?” he asked.

I shrugged, causing my dress to gape open.  I tugged it closed.  “I don’t know.  I panicked, I guess.  I saw her phone, so I just grabbed it.” 

He gave the wallet a meaningful look.  “And did you limit yourself to using the phone?”

My cheeks felt hot.  My eyes followed his to the wallet draped over the phone.  “I just used the phone.  I’m afraid things got a little jumbled in her… I mean, his purse.  I was nervous.  I’ve never seen a dead body before.” 

As Bunsen crossed his burly arms across his chest, two more men in blue entered the ladies’ room.  With the EMTs still circling the stall, things were getting a little crowded. 

The two cops glanced at the woman draped over the toilet.  The younger of the two turned pale. 

The older one turned to Bunsen.  “Do you need me to call forensics?”

“Yeah.  Call the coroner, and get the crime scene van out here.”

“Will do.  Want me to close off the bar?”

Bunsen gave a sharp nod. “Edwards is already working on it.  Give him a hand, and call for more backup.  Lotta people out there.”  The two men disappeared through the door again, and Bunsen turned back to me.

“Did you know the victim?”

I shook my head.  “Never met her.”

He raised a bushy eyebrow.  “Her?”

“Her, him, whatever.”  I squeezed my legs together, feeling like I was about to burst.  “I hate to interrupt, but do you mind if I slip over to the men’s room for a moment?”

His eyebrows rose in surprise.  “You’re a man?”

“No.  It’s just that I came in here to go to the bathroom, and there’s only one stall.” 

He nodded.  “Meet me in the hall when you’re done.”

I pushed through the door to the Princesses’ room with relief.  Relief to be away from the body in the bathroom. And to be away from Bunsen.  The thumping music was gone, and the dark corridor was flooded with light.  Apparently a corpse in the ladies’ room meant party time at the Rainbow Room was over.

 Fortunately, the stall in the
Princes
room was vacant, and few minutes later I emerged from the men’s room feeling much better. And with Evan Maxted’s business card stashed in my purse.  Bunsen hadn’t emerged from the ladies’ room yet, and the corridor was empty.  As I leaned against the wall to wait, Cassandra tripped down the hall toward me, her makeup even more garish in full fluorescent light.

She grabbed at my arm just as Detective Bunsen stepped out of the ladies’ room. 

“Emerald!” she said.  “There you are!”  She paused to flick an appreciative eye over Detective Bunsen’s stocky frame.  Then she fluttered her caterpillars and reached to squeeze his upper arm.  “Oooh, muscles.”  Bunsen stepped back.  Although his facial expression didn’t change, his olive skin reddened.  “Is this your boyfriend, Emerald?”

“Margie.  And no.  This is Detective Bunsen.”

“I’ll bet you look wonderful in uniform,” she purred to him.  Then she turned to me.  “Anyway, darling, I know there’s all this fuss going on—I heard somebody had a tiff in the Princesses’ room—but I was just coming to tell you that you won third place.”

Bunsen’s eyebrows rose.  “Third place?”

Cassandra smiled coquettishly.  “We have a little beauty contest here on Tuesday nights.  Emerald here was a smash hit.”

Now it was my turn to blush. 

“The trick with the dress was
so
sexy.”  She draped an arm around me and turned to Bunsen.  Her purple lipstick was smeared, and her breath was one hundred and fifty proof.  “Would you believe it, officer? It’s her first time out, and she takes a bronze!”  She leaned toward Bunsen.  “And what are all of you handsome men doing here? Did somebody get a little naughty in one of the stalls?”

“Cassandra,” I said.  “There’s been a murder.”

Her eyes got big, and she drew in a dramatic breath.  “A murder? Who?”

“The contestant in the blue dress.”

“Selena?”  Color leached from beneath the orange foundation.  “Oh, no… that’s awful!”  She clutched at Bunsen’s arm again.  “How did it happen?”

Bunsen pried her fingers from his arm.  “You knew the victim?”

“Oh, of course I did.  I just can’t
believe
it…  We met at Miss Veronica’s Tranny School.  What a gorgeous girl.”  She pressed two sausage-like fingers together.  “We were like
this
!” Cassandra’s eyes were wet behind the caterpillars.

For a moment, I forgot Bunsen was standing next to me.  “Tranny school?”

Cassandra perked up a little bit.  “Oh, that’s where we learn all the tricks for looking glamorous, darling.  How else do you think I learned to look this fabulous?”

Bunsen whipped out a notebook.  “The victim’s name was Selena?”

“That was her stage name.  Selena Sass.”

Bunsen jotted that down.  “And her… his… real name?”

“Something that started with an E, I think.  Edward? Edwin?”

Evan
, I started to say, but stopped myself just in time. 

“Evan,” she said.  “Evan something.”

“Would you mind going and having a seat at the bar?” Bunsen asked.  “I’ll need to ask you a few questions as soon as I’m done here.”

“Oh, of course, officer!”

“I’ll be with you as soon as I’ve finished with Miss…”  He turned to me.

“Peterson.”

“With Miss Peterson.”

“It’s a terrible tragedy.  Just terrible.  Of course I’ll do whatever I can to help, officer.”  Cassandra squeezed his arm again and sashayed down the corridor.  Despite the death of her friend, I noticed an extra waggle in her hips.  The show must go on, I suppose.

Bunsen turned to me.  “So, you were a contestant in a drag queen contest? But you’re a woman, you say.”  His eyes slid down to my dress, which was gaping open again.

I pulled my dress up and cleared my throat.  “It was an accident.”

“An accident?”

“I’m kind of on a job.”

“What kind of job?”

“I’m a private investigator.”

“A private investigator.  May I see your license?”

I shifted.  “Actually, I don’t have a license.”

“No license? But you’re here on a job.  What company are you working for?”

“Peachtree Investigations.”

He jotted that down.  “And you were in this drag queen contest with the victim?”

“That’s right.”

“I thought you said you’d never met her.”

“I didn’t.  I just saw her go up after me.”

His dark brown eyes bored into me.  “Exactly what were you investigating, Miss Peterson?”