Mahjonged (An Alex Harris Mystery) (27 page)

Crepes? Did my mother say crepes? Since when did she start making crepes? And if I hurried could I make it back to my parents’ house before they were all gone?

“You played at Penelope’s table right?” I asked.

“Yes, correct. With Liz and Jean. Henry, take the cat off the table.”

Cat?

“Mom, did you say cat?”

“The neighbor’s cat. Henry let it in and now he’s putting a cast on its leg using gauze and Scotch Tape. So what did you need to know, Alex?”

“What hand did you play?”

“The easy one. I can’t remember the name, but I think we all played the same thing because I could never get the character I needed.”

“And Penelope? She played it too?”

“I’m not sure, dear, but I think so. The entire time we played together she tried to get that hand. I tried a few harder ones, but I always went back to Daft. That’s it. Daft. It was called Daft. Henry, use a different fork to feed the cat.”

What? They were giving the cat crepes? Geesh. There would never be any left for me now. I hung up the phone and sat at my kitchen table thinking. I went out to the living room and opened up my purse where I had written down addresses for Liz and Jean. I had also written down their phone numbers and I first called Liz.

She said she played Daft at the end though she had tried to get a Christmas hand first because she loved the way it looked.

Next I called Jean. She said she started out playing a date hand, but couldn’t get the winds she needed so she switched to Daft. She said most of the night she either played Daft or Cornucopia.

I put the phone back in the kitchen and returned to the library. So everyone played Daft but somehow Snake in the Grass ended up on Penelope’s rack. Was there a connection to her murder? There had to be.

Or maybe someone put it there after they killed her. Except it was dark so how would they be able to see the tiles? Of course they could have had some little flashlight with them or they could have snuck into the library with a candle while we all sat in the living room after Penelope’s body was discovered.

And why were the tiles still in my library? Why hadn’t the police taken them all?

I sat there at my place and looked at my tiles not able to come up with anything concrete when I heard something. Had I remembered to lock the front door when I came in? I didn’t think so. Damn. I could hear footsteps out in the living room. I quietly took the tiles off my rack and picked it up, then walked to the door and stood behind it. There were still a couple of pieces of tape across the doorway and if the person on the other side tried to duck in like I had, I might be able to get a good whack on their head before they struck.

I lifted the rack above my head, ready to take aim when I heard a voice.

“Alex, are you in here?” Detective Maroni asked from the other side of the door.

“Oh, thank God,” I said somewhat out of breath. “I heard someone coming and I don’t mind telling you it scared me to death.” I put the rack down and ducked under the tape.

“I had another call in this area when I saw your car. I have your house key and the key to this door so I thought I’d return them. What are you doing here?”

“I needed to get a few things and I guess curiosity got the better of me and I wanted to take a look inside.” I turned to look at the library. “Am I in trouble?”

“No. That’s why I’m here, to give you your keys,” Detective Maroni said as he dropped them in my hand.

“Does this mean you caught the killer?” I asked hopefully.

“No. It just means we’re done with your house.”

“Oh.”

Detective Maroni ran his hand through his hair. “Alex, I’m stumped. I wish John was here. How about you? Anything?”

I felt touched he consulted me, but what could I say? I could tell him about the tiles I found on the racks, but why? They didn’t mean anything as far as I could tell. It was just a weird coincidence Penelope happened to be playing a hand called Snake in the Grass. I could tell him my theory about Penelope being Mia’s long lost mother but that hadn’t panned out the way I’d thought. I could tell him my other theory about the long lost boyfriend coming back and killing Penelope but then how did he get into my house and why would he come back after twenty-five years or more? And then there was the theory Els and Wilhelm’s mother may have come and killed Penelope but the woman had been away at a spa. At least that’s what she told her daughter and I had to believe it because again, how would she have gotten into the house and out again without anyone seeing her? Even if she managed to climb the tree, she would have run into Bert and he seemed to be alone.

I shook my head. “No. I’ve got nothing. But I do have a question for you. Why are the tiles still in place? I thought the police would gather them up.”

“We dusted the ones on the table where Mrs. Radamaker played but all the prints were smudged. Too many people touching them.”

“Yes, at some point in the evening I would imagine everyone touched every tile.”

Another dead end.

“It’s getting dark. Why don’t we get out of here, unless you planned on staying?”

I smiled at the detective. “No, I won’t be coming back until John returns.

My parents went to Dorothy’s house for an evening of cards so there was no need for me to rush home for dinner. Meme went to Bingo and so I headed over to my sister’s house. Michael had to work late and Sam and I made a bunch of homemade tacos and sat at the kitchen table with the kids.

Homemade tacos with soft shells happened to be one of Kendall’s favorites and she ate her third one with gusto while juice dripped down her chin. Henry tried his hardest to keep up but I had a feeling my mother filled him with too many crepes.

“Mom, can we get a cat?” Henry asked.

My sister rolled her eyes at me. Neither of us liked cats. Actually, she didn’t like them and I was afraid of them. Don’t ask me why.

“No, we’re not getting a cat. No pets. Not until you guys are old enough to take care of it yourselves.”

“Oh, Mom, I like cats. And I could feed it creeps.

“Creeps?” Sam asked looking at her son.

“I think he means crepes. Mom made him some this afternoon.”

“Ah, ha. So that’s why you’re not hungry,” Sam said eyeing Henry. “And since when does Mom make crepes?” This last bit she directed at me.

I shrugged. “Beats me. I never got crepes.”

“Neither did I,” Sam said with a mock pout.

“I’m special,” Henry said as he popped a chunk of taco into his little mouth.

“Yes you are. And you, too, Kendall.” I reached over and gave them both a kiss.

With dinner over I gave Kendall a bath and Henry a sponge bath then got them into their pajamas. Kendall had already done her homework and I helped Henry with the work his teacher sent home each day. He was doing so well the doctor felt certain he could return to school the following week. I had a feeling my parents would go through withdrawals once he went back to school.

“I think it’s important,” Sam said a while later after I told her about the mahjong hand.

“How?” I asked as I reached for a cookie from a plate she placed on the table.

“As in ‘you Snake in the Grass.’”

I thought about this for a moment. “Then you’re saying it wasn’t her hand, that the killer put it there after they stabbed her?”

“Whoever killed her despised her,” Sam said.

“Why does a person call another person a snake?”

Sam took a bite of a thin Belgian cookie with a layer of dark chocolate. “Why does someone call someone else a snake? Well, a lot of reasons, I guess. Someone who can’t be trusted, someone who cheats another, someone who’s just a rotten person all around. Lots of reasons.”

“Well, she was a lawyer…”

Sam looked at me. “Exactly.”

“So we go back to Mia and Liz. One of them clearly had issues with something Penelope did or didn’t do.”

“You did say Mia settled because she didn’t like her lawyers and just wanted to be done with the whole mess.”

“That’s what she told me.”

“So now she’s done with school. She’s out in the real world, she sees how hard it is to earn a buck.”

“And now she’s pissed she didn’t fight and get more. But why blame Penelope? Mia decided to settle,” I said.

Sam shrugged. “It sounds like she settled because she didn’t like her lawyers.”

“Then why not just go get another lawyer? No, it still doesn’t make sense. And if Penelope got killed over the lawsuit then what’s up with the picture in her grave?”

“Mia’s father? Are we sure the man isn’t Mia’s father?” Sam asked.

“Mia said she didn’t recognize him.”

Sam gave me the evil eye.

“Okay, so if she killed Penelope she’s not going to admit the picture is her father,” I said.

“Right. We need to find out what Mr. Christenssen looked like. They must have had an affair at some point, the man dies, the case doesn’t go well, Mia finds out the two of them had an affair and she kills Penelope in a fit of rage for some unknown reason. Maybe she just didn’t like her father having a girlfriend. She was already pretty upset seeing Liz at the party.

I nodded, warming to the idea. “At some point Penelope must have mentioned him. But wait, wouldn’t she know Mia was his daughter when Mia went to Penelope’s firm to handle her case?”

“Maybe that’s why she backed out and Mia never saw her again after the first day she went there. Penelope, realizing the dead man was the man she had an affair with years before, took herself off the case.”

“That could work, but how do we prove it?” I asked.

“We need to find out what Mia’s father looked like.”

“How do we do that without asking her for a picture?”

Sam smiled. “The Internet.”

What did the world do before the Internet and cell phones? I’m not much of a phone user, but still I had to admit they serve a purpose and a lot of things are much easier because of them. They’re also one of my pet peeves, what with people talking on them non-stop in lines, restaurants, and cars. And then there’s texting. After what happened to Henry I didn’t think I could even be friends with someone who texted while driving. And isn’t it against the law?

And then there was the Internet. That most valuable of tools and a cyber highway to hell in the wrong hands. The information floating around in the atmosphere was unfathomable.

So it didn’t surprise me one bit when Sam and I were able to pull up several newspaper articles about the accident that killed Mr. Christenssen. But so far no pictures. Then I had a brilliant idea—obituaries. None of the newspapers had a picture of the man, just a small paragraph summing up his life and naming Mia and her aunt as his survivors.

After going to several Web sites for the various funeral homes in the area, I found one in Bridgeport that handled the service for Mr. Christenssen and they included a picture of the man with their condolence message board for the family.

Sam leaned back and looked from the iPad screen to the picture of the man we found in the grave.

“Well, these are different men,” she said with a bit of shock in her voice, as if the Internet had let us down, and I suppose in a way it had. “Now what?” she asked turning to me.

I shrugged and took the picture from her hand. Mystery Man had brown hair. I knew because I had used our color copier to make copies before turning over the original to the police. He was nice looking but nothing spectacular. In the picture he stood on a street somewhere with a brick building behind him, maybe an apartment building? I couldn’t really tell. It looked like there might be a grassy area somewhere behind the building. Not much to go on.

Mr. Christenssen had been a very, very good looking man. And why wouldn’t he be based on what Mia looked like. They both had the blond hair and luminescent eyes. Mia had picked out a good picture for the funeral home to post on the Web site. Funeral home? I needed to call Reuben and find out if his father recognized Mystery Man. Probably not or he would have called me, or at least told Mille and she would have moved mountains to get me the information, but I still had to cover every base. I made a mental note to check with him in the morning.

“No matter how long you look at the picture, you’re not going to turn it into the same guy.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I know,” I said absently to my sister.

“What are you thinking about?”

I put the picture down and turned to Sam. “Nothing. Just the wheels spinning around in my head but so far they haven’t stopped on anything.”

Michael came home a few minutes later and I left. On my way back to my parents’ house I passed Radford’s Funeral Home and the lights were on. I quickly pulled into the drive and then made my way quietly up the walk. Only a few cars remained in the parking lot so any viewing that had taken place was probably over, or just about over by now, but I still wanted to be quiet. Funeral homes just instill respect in you.

Reuben stood in the lobby shutting things down for the evening when I walked in.

“Alex? Is everything okay?”

Reuben seemed to steady himself for bad news and then I realized it was almost ten.

“Sorry, no, nothing’s wrong. I saw your lights on as I drove by. I wanted to ask you about the picture. The one I left for you to show your father?” I added at his blank look. I guess solving the mystery of Mystery Man hadn’t preoccupied Reuben’s mind like it had mine.

“Oh, yes. I meant to call you but then we got rather busy. My father didn’t recognize him. He did a search of a few other mortuaries in the area and didn’t find any pictures that looked like your mystery guy. Sorry.”

“No problem. It was a long shot. Thanks, Reuben.” I turned to leave.

“The picture was taken in the Netherlands, but you probably knew that already.”

I turned around slowly. “Really? How do you know?”

“Come into my office. I think I still have your copy on my desk.”