Maggie and the Inconvenient Corpse Read online

  She stood there and stared at him, gaping like an idiot.

  "My mom used to say, close your mouth before the flies get in."

  She closed her mouth.

  "Anything else bothering you?"

  She just stood there, holding the receipts. "What?"

  He laughed.

  His companion Eva came into the kitchen then. She was a statuesque model, and even in her jeans and ragged Rolling Stones T-shirt she made Maggie feel short and dumpy.

  They said hello. Eva went to sit down on a stool at the island, but Reese said, "don't you have shopping to do?" and she shrugged and left the house without another word.

  "You are such a douche," Maggie said.

  He frowned down at her from his six-foot-three height. "I'm a douche? really?"

  "Little old Moi?" Maggie replied, tilting her head in an exaggerated imitation of his surprise.

  "Seriously," he said, furrowing his brows. "I don't want to be a douche."

  "Reese, you just ordered Eva to go away and she did."

  "I didn't order her. I suggested that she go shopping. She'd been wanting to get a new dress. We're going to an industry party tonight and she wants to impress everyone. That's why she's here. That's why she's with me. It's a mutually beneficial agreement. It's not like we sit around and discuss philosophy, Maggie."

  She shook her head in disgust. "She's using you to get her foot in the door. And what are you getting?"

  "Companionship. I don't like being alone. And since my best gal only wants to be platonic"—he gave her a pointed look—"I'm stuck with whoever I can get to put up with me."

  She rolled her eyes at him. "But come on, Reese. It's so superficial. What kind of a relationship is that?"

  "I'd like to think it's an even-handed one. I don't promise women anything and I don't take advantage of them. We each get something from the relationship."

  She felt herself bristling, thinking of Brooke's Hollywood experiences. "Haven't you heard of the Me, Too movement?"

  "Of course I have. You think no randy executive ever stuck his hands on me during an audition?"

  Maggie sat back on the stool. "I guess I never thought of that part of it. Really?"

  He looked at her with a bemused smile. "I don't know how you've managed to stay such an innocent soul, Magdalena. Of course, really. Big Mac may not have tried it, but there were plenty of others who did. I used to be rather pretty, my dear."

  "Still are," Maggie agreed.

  "Yeah. Still am. I learned a long time ago how to joke around and jolly them out of it and move fast to get out of their reach," he explained, in a chilling echo of Brooke's confession.

  "I had no idea."

  He shrugged. "Now they don't dare try it. Because they know I can destroy their careers if they pull any stunts with me. It's all about who has power."

  "And you've got it in spades."

  "Yup. So no one messes with me. And I tell that story that to anyone I date. All I can do is give them a heads-up to be careful and be wary of people trying to take advantage of them."

  "Kick them where the sun don't shine," she muttered bitterly.

  "Yeah. After all, not everyone is as angelic as I am." He batted his blond eyelashes at her and made her laugh. "But I'm not going to refuse to go out with women because other men are jerks. What am I supposed to do? Be a monk? I don't like being alone all the time. And I don't pursue women. They approach me. I'd like to think it's because they find me rather attractive."

  "It's possible they find you attractive," Maggie admitted. "Most people with a pulse do."

  "Women literally throw themselves at me."

  "Literally," she said, remembering that one obsessed fan from his rock star days who climbed over a railing and launched herself down twenty feet to his hotel suite balcony. Then she strolled into his room, naked as a jaybird, and with what turned out to be a broken ankle, and climbed into his bed while he was fast asleep.

  Though when she mentioned that incident, he responded with bewilderment. "Can you describe her?"

  "Well, I didn't see her personally," Maggie said. "But she was naked. In your bed. When you were asleep. She had a broken ankle. After climbing over a railing and landing on your balcony."

  "There've been so many…," he mused with a shake of his head, and even that didn't clue her in until he grinned like a naughty boy. "Had you going."

  She shook her head at him. "I sometimes forget you're an actor."

  "So do the critics," he said with a smirk. "Speaking of which, I've got to go to this big bash at that critic's house down The Row this evening. Nora says I have to make small talk with some dude from the foreign press so he'll write a nice review of my upcoming film."

  "Sounds like fun," she said dryly.

  "Want to come along?" he asked, perking up. "We could sit in the corner and make snarky comments about everyone."

  "Yeah. That sounds like a great way to spend the evening."

  "Come on, Maggie. Bail me out here. Why not?"

  "Are you joking? I spent a decade as a dutiful trophy wife, attending endless boring industry parties." She grinned. "Thank you for reminding me what I'm not missing."

  "You got something better to do tonight?"

  "Yup. I'm going to melt some triple cream brie in the microwave and eat it on ritz crackers while watching TV. Because I'm fancy like that."

  He was still laughing when she left.

  Back at her tiny house she stretched out on the daybed.

  Jasper jumped up to lie next to her, nuzzling that long snout of his into her ear and making her laugh.

  "Okay," she said. "That's enough, boy. I need to think."

  He stretched out on his side, and she leaned her head against him, using his big furry body as a pillow.

  She had a lot to think about. So she told Jasper about it, and he lay there and seemed to listen.

  "We learned a lot today," she started. "But I still feel I'm missing something about Mac's murder." She looked at the ceiling. "To start with, there's something bugging me about Pool Boy Ned," she said.

  The dog grunted softly in reply.

  "Did you ask what's bugging me? Well, I don't know what. That's what I'm trying to figure out."

  She sat up, and Jasper did, too.

  She leaned against the backrest and stretched out her legs.

  Jasper lay down to face her, putting his head between her feet and looking up at her adoringly.

  "So you want to know about Pool Boy Ned?" she asked him, and he lifted his head and grunted again. "Me, too, pup. There's just something off about him."

  She thought back to the way he'd behaved earlier today. "I never really noticed the guy. In all this time. And then today, it was almost like he was making a spectacle of himself. Trying to get us to notice him. Why would he do that?" She mused, "why would someone try to get us to notice him?"

  Jasper let out a sigh that sounded like, "ahhh."

  "A? As in alibi? Why would Pool Boy Ned need an alibi? Unless…."

  The dog's eyes were wide.

  "I agree," she told Jasper. "There was something almost performative about it: like he was putting on a show of himself. Look at me! I'm taking hours to clean this pool! I'm a gay man in my skimpy shorts flirting with Reese! I'm here on a different day just so you'll notice me! It was all a bit much."

  Jasper gazed into her eyes.

  "And he arrived in town around the time we started hanging out in Carita so much," she said. "I suppose that could be a coincidence."

  She pulled out her phone and sent a text to Brooke. She got a reply in a minute and read it to Jasper: "See? Brooke says she's never seen any man visit Ned's apartment. Isn't that odd?"

  Despite living in that tiny apartment court, Brooke had never once seen Ned with a man friend. He was always alone.

  Alone. In his apartment next door to Brooke.

  Brooke. Who had the apartment Virginia used to live in before she got engaged to a rich man.

  Jasper
rolled over and showed her his fluffy rear end.

  "I like your buns better than his," she said. "At least you don't have tattoos…." She trailed off when she remembered the tattoos she'd seen on Ned's nether regions. A Cheshire cat and a dolphin.

  Virginia had a dolphin tattoo on her rear end, too. What an odd coincidence. Maggie had only seen Ned's through his shorts, but she had unfortunately gotten a very clear view of Virginia's, um, assets.

  Maggie forced herself to think back to the gut-wrenching moment when she'd opened her husband's office door and seen him with Virginia Foley. The secretary's rear end had been exposed in all its glory, and Maggie remembered the odd-looking tattoo the girl had on one curvaceous cheek.

  It was a dolphin. The tattoo was done so inaccurately, it looked like a cartoon. This dolphin had gigantic eyes surrounded by huge circles of black eyeliner. And the oddest short snout, with fat little black lips.

  And now she'd seen Pool Boy Ned exposed in nearly all his glory in those skimpy white shorts that were so thin she could make out the dark outline of his tattoos beneath. And there'd been a tattoo on his ample cheek as well. And it had been a dolphin. There had been a shadow of dark eyes visible, and a snub nose that seemed like a mistake in the design, making it look like the cutest little fat-lipped toy, instead of the elegant torpedo shape of a normal dolphin.

  She realized the gay pool cleaner and the mercenary trophy-hunting girlfriend had the same tattoo.

  She wondered if the style was a trademark of a tattoo artist here in Carita. Maybe there were dozens of people walking around in Carita with stubby, big-eyed dolphins on their rear ends.

  She looked it up. There were three tattoo parlors in town. But none of their websites showed a tattoo like the one she remembered.

  She searched for "fat-lipped dolphins" on the off-chance the artist's distinct style was famous among tattoo aficionados.

  "Oh," she said, when a bunch of pictures came up on her phone screen. "It's a porpoise, not a dolphin."

  Jasper gave her a quizzical look.

  "Yeah," she said to him. "Me, neither. I didn't know the difference between dolphins and porpoises, but there you go." She looked some more. "Did you know there are six types of porpoises?"

  Jasper shook his head.

  "Yeah. Well, there are. You'd think the tattoo artist could get it right with all this info on the internet—"

  She stopped talking. There were six kinds of porpoises. But only one of them was pale gray, with big dark eyeliner around its eyes, and smiling lips also shadowed in dark pigment, making it look like an adorable cartoon come to life.

  And she realized how wrong she was. And how talented the tattoo artist was. And how completely she'd been fooled.

  She called Lieutenant Ibarra. "Do you have a minute? Can I come down to the station and show you something?"

  Chapter 18

  The Carita police station was a sleek, modern building of steel and glass plopped down on a large flat lot just off the main street.

  Inside, everything looked neat and efficient, with a spit and polish she hadn't expected of a small-town police department. The files on every desk were lined up straight. Even people's coffee cups were all the same, plain white with the Carita PD logo on them.

  Then she spotted Chief Randall standing by one officer's desk, and noticed the officer unconsciously straightening up his papers while talking to the boss. Apparently Randall gave brownie points for spit-and-polish.

  Someone called her name. "Mrs. McJasper? Come this way."

  A sergeant escorted her to a small office that appeared to be a converted closet. It was cluttered and stuffy, and there was a big, messy desk unapologetically stacked high with case files.

  Lieutenant Ibarra was drinking his coffee out of a defiantly bright orange mug. Maggie wondered if that was why his office was in a closet.

  He stood up when she entered, then gestured for her to take one of the two chairs in front of the desk. She did.

  "So what can I do for you, Ma'am?"

  "Is Virginia Foley married?" Maggie asked.

  Ibarra frowned. "Why do you ask?"

  "I have some information for you that you might find interesting."

  "Oh?" He perked up. "What is it?"

  "First I want to know if Virginia Foley is married."

  "Okay, I'll bite," he said. "No, she's not."

  "How do you know?" she asked.

  "Is there a point to this, Mrs. McJasper?"

  Maggie smiled. "There is."

  "We know Virginia Foley isn't married because we ran a search on marriage records going back ten years and found nothing. Anywhere."

  "Anywhere?"

  "Anywhere in the United States of America, Ma'am. So what's this about?"

  "How about Baja?"

  "Baja?" He looked confused.

  "The Baja California peninsula. The state in Mexico just south of the border."

  "I know where Baja is, Mrs. McJasper. No, we didn't check other countries. Why would we look there? She's an American citizen. If she were married abroad, she would register the marriage in the United States when she returned. And she would file her taxes jointly. It wouldn't be a secret."

  "Uh huh," Maggie said with a faint smile. "You'd think so, wouldn't you?" She leaned forward in her chair. "Let me start over. Do you know what a vaquita is?"

  He shook his head. "No idea, Ma'am." He picked up a case file. "Now, I'm sure this is all very interesting, but I really have a lot of work to—"

  "A vaquita is a small porpoise."

  "I'm thrilled to hear that," he said.

  "Did you know there are only six kinds of porpoises?"

  "No, I didn't." Ibarra's patience was clearly wearing thin. He began to tap his fingers against his orange mug. The sound was like rain falling on stones. The drumming grew louder the more she talked.

  But she kept going. "And of those six kinds of porpoises, there's one that's so critically endangered it is close to extinct."

  "Sorry to hear that. Are you fundraising for a cause? Is that what this is about?"

  She continued, undeterred. "And this almost-extinct porpoise, the vaquita, is quite unusual-looking. It has a pale gray side, with big round marks around its eyes and prominent dark-colored lips. It's really cute."

  "Wonderful," Ibarra said.

  "It only lives in one small area of the world. Only one. And the officials are trying desperately to save it because it's unique in all the world."

  "Terrific," he said.

  "It's a big tourist attraction. Visitors who come to that area can buy little stuffed vaquita toys, and vaquita paintings, and vaquita keychains—"

  "—How fascinating," Ibarra said, clearing not finding it the slightest bit fascinating. "Now—"

  "—That one place is the northernmost part of Baja California," Maggie added.

  "I think we're done," Ibarra said. He stood up from his desk, but Maggie didn't move from her chair. "Ma'am, I really have a lot of work to—"

  "—Virginia Foley has a tattoo of a vaquita on her butt."

  "I fail to see—"

  "—So does Ned Owens."

  "Who?"

  "Pool Boy Ned."

  Ibarra sat back down. He picked up his coffee cup and began tapping on it again. "Should I ask how you know what tattoos people have on their behinds, Ma'am?"

  "I know because I walked in on Virginia Foley and my husband six months ago in the midst of a very personal moment. And because Pool Boy Ned was wearing thin white shorts when he very flamboyantly flirted with my tenant at my house today."

  "Pool Boy Ned's gay, in other words."

  "No. In other words, Pool Boy Ned very obviously wants people to think he's gay. And for some reason, after Virginia Foley was arrested for Mac's murder, and the police started asking everyone for their alibis, Ned decided to make a spectacle of himself and reinforce the idea that he couldn't possibly have anything to do with the murder because he's gay and uninterested in the very sexy Virginia F
oley, who, by the way, lived in the apartment next door to him for the past year."

  Lieutenant Ibarra stopped drumming on his coffee cup. He leaned back in his chair with a creak. And smiled at her. "I see."

  She sat back in her chair. "I think you do, Lieutenant Ibarra."

  He got out a notebook and a pen. Then he sat forward and looked at her with a new respect. "All right, Mrs. McJasper. Let's start over. Tell me all about it."

  "Well, I think Ned and Virginia were playing a high stakes gamble, with the payoff of Big Mac's millions if they pulled it off…."

  By the time Maggie left the police station, Ibarra had discovered that Virginia Foley and Ned Owens had been married in Baja two years ago, but never registered the marriage when they returned to the United States.

  Her guess about the Baja connection had panned out. Ned was straight, married to Virginia, and was hanging around Carita to be close to her.

  Virginia and Ned must have set up the seduction of Mac with the intention of cashing in on his wealth.

  Or maybe Virginia had innocently gone to work for him. And when he showed an interest in her, she realized being single would give her a chance to not just have an affair with a rich man (like so many of his secretaries apparently had, Maggie thought with a grimace), but possibly convince Mac to marry her.

  Until they were questioned about it, it would be impossible to know exactly how this whole thing had started.

  But at least now they knew how it had ended, with Mac's death. Had Mac found out Virginia was about to commit bigamy? Had he threatened her in some way? Was the murder impulsive, or planned? That was for the police to solve.

  Ibarra had sworn her to secrecy. He didn't want the couple to get spooked. Virginia and Ned had no idea their connection had been discovered, so Ibarra had ordered her to tell no one what she'd figured out. In just a little while they would both have to answer for their crimes.

  She walked home slowly. The late afternoon sun was beaming down, and the sidewalks were filled with tourists.

  It was over. She'd been totally wrong. Her instincts had told her that Virginia Foley may be a jerk, but she wasn't a killer. And yet, it now seemed certain that she was, at the least, a co-conspirator in Mac's murder.