1 Odds and Ends (10 page)

Chapter Eighteen

“Margot?” Peter squatted beside her.

She moaned.

“Are you okay? We got him. There’s no evidence that the gun went off, but are you hurt in some other way? Should I call an ambulance?”

“I think this is it, Peter,” she whimpered. “If I broke my hip this time, I might not come back from it.”

He chuckled. “Somehow your voice sounds too strong to be on the verge of death. Besides that, you’re too young.”

“I’m sixty-six, young man.”

“Too young,” he insisted, and she melted.

“All right, if you help me.”

He did, and soon she found herself ensconced on one of the overstuffed chairs. Sure, she hadn’t broken anything, but she still hurt. Diving onto the floor wasn’t something she wanted to do ever again. Detective work could be left to the professionals like Peter, but her curiosity did get the better of her to know the details.

An officer led Mercer out of the apartment in handcuffs. Margot caught Peter before he could follow. “How did you know to come, and why did he do it?”

“I was coming to question him again,” Peter said. “Last night I had an odd dream. Well, anyway my hunch led me to look further into the dealings concerning the owner. I no longer bought the absentee thing.”

Margot nodded, understanding so far.

“Turns out Coley visited him a few months ago, asking for a loan. He said his daughter needed an operation.”

Nancy interrupted. She sat in the chair opposite to Margot’s and still looked a bit pale, but she seemed to be following the conversation okay. “Daughter? I’ve never seen a daughter. As far as I know, Coley didn’t have family.”

Peter shrugged. “Anyway, Mercer said no, even humiliated the guy according to the assistant.”

“But wouldn’t Coley have recognized Mercer?” Margot asked.

“No, he never saw Mercer face-to-face. He met with the assistant. Mercer was always a recluse, shutting himself away to work in his office or at home, seeing no one. Conference calls were what he did most of the time and relied heavily on his assistant to be the face man.”

“Sounds sneaky,” Margot quipped.

“But not unheard of among the rich,” Peter told her.

“Lou would never stoop to—” Margot cut herself off and clamped her teeth together.

Peter continued. “Coley apparently grabbed the statue in a snit, and when the assistant turned his head, the flash drive as well. He didn’t know what he had until Mercer himself called wanting it back. That’s when Coley decided to blackmail him.”

Odds jumped on Margot’s lap and curled up. She gave him a rub for a job well done. “What
did
he have?”

“Plans for hostile takeovers. If word got out, Mercer stood to lose millions. He couldn’t let that happen. At first he gave into Coley’s demands and let him be the lazy bum he was.

“He gave him a lot of freedom to do whatever he wanted, as long as he kept his mouth shut. Coley got greedy, and Mercer decided to take matters into his own hands this time.”

“He came to kill him,” Margot guessed.

“Yes, but first he needed to find the drive. That proved to be not so easy.”

Margot glanced over at Nancy, who had the grace to blush, but then tears filled her eyes. “It’s my fault he’s dead.”

“No, it’s not, Nancy,” Margot insisted. She set Odds down on the floor and ignored her aches and pains to walk over and hug Nancy. “It’s Mercer’s. He was a bad man, and it’s likely he would have killed Coley anyway because he knew too much.”

“Agreed,” Peter said. “I have to question Mercer at the station, but my guess is Coley eventually figured out who Mercer was and was going to blow the whistle.
That
is what got him killed, not you.”

Nancy dug rumpled tissue from her pocket and wiped her nose. “Thank you, Detective Peter. You saved our lives. I don’t know how to make it up to you.”

He frowned at Margot, and she shrugged smiling. Peter strolled to the door. “I will need both of you to come to the station to make an official statement. Stay out of trouble, ladies.”

“No more death and danger for me,” Margot promised.

He nodded and disappeared out the door.

* * * *

Margot awakened a few days after Mercer had been taken away to more noises in the hall. She glanced at the clock. Well, at least this time it happened at a decent time. Whoever disturbed her sleep had cheated her by ten minutes, so she didn’t mind so much. The noise they were making was a different matter altogether.

She rose from bed and straightened her pajamas, then threw on a robe and slid her feet into slippers. Odds met her at the door and darted into the hall just as an enormous couch barreled past.

Margot shrieked. “Odds!”

The two men carrying the couch started at her shout and dropped the couch hard onto the floor. Margot leaned against the archway, sick with a pounding heart. Then Odds himself jumped up onto the couch, sat down, and began licking himself.

“You scared me,” she scolded him and waited for him to speak.

He went on with his grooming.

“Lady, you want to get your cat?” one of the men said.

She scowled at Odds. “He’s not mine. Take him with you if you like.”

Nancy’s door opened, and she waved at Margot across the blocked path. “Isn’t it exciting, Margot?”

“Isn’t what exciting?”

“We’re getting a new Super, and I hear he’s
not
going to take the big apartment. Let the games begin!”

Margot didn’t want to ask, but she couldn’t resist Nancy’s hopeful, wide expression as she waited for Margot to respond. “What games?”

“The competition,” Nancy chirped. “I’ve decided we should all have a contest to see who gets the apartment. Then we can tell the Super when he arrives who has won, and that’s it. Sounds simple, right?”

“Oh, yes, it sounds simple, dear,” Margot agreed. Her cheer was false because she hadn’t had coffee yet. “You forgot one important factor.”

“What’s that?”

Margot straightened. “Since this new Super probably isn’t blackmailing the owner, he will have to play by the rules. From what you and the others have told me, the rules say that apartment upstairs is much more expensive than our apartments. So, it’s only whoever can afford it who gets it not anyone who’s lucky enough to win a contest.”

Nancy huffed. “Margot Gardner, I was going to bring you coffee this morning, but now I’ve changed my mind. Have a nice day.”

Nancy slammed the door, and Margot groaned, thinking of the woman’s delicious brew. She had only instant, which was a terrible alternative. As Margot turned to go back into her apartment, she thought she heard a snicker inside her head that wasn’t her own. Well, she guessed the craziness hadn’t ended just yet.

The End

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