Madeline Mann (28 page)

She stepped forward and handed me a box of Junior Mints. “Sorry. The florist was closed,” she said. “How are you, Madeline?”

I already had some mints in my mouth. “Doing better. I have some questions for you.”

“I figured,” she said. “That's why I wanted to stop by.” She glanced over her shoulder at my family. “Could I have a moment with the hero?” she asked.

They all began talking at once, explaining where they intended to go and why. I laughed and popped some more candy into my mouth. At this point, my teeth were probably black. I didn't care.

I looked at Perez. “I'm sorry about the crazy phone call,” I said. “I was just so freaked out about—your name and all,” I finished lamely.

She smiled and patted my good arm. “It was good detective work, Madeline. That is what he called me. His treasure chest.” She shook her head, her face bemused. “But I want you to know, we didn't have a relationship. Not the kind Logan wanted.”

“So he was after you?” I queried.

“Yeah. And he called me the night he was murdered. Asked me to come out to his cabin. I refused. I feel kind of bad now. Maybe if I had…I'd been there once,” she admitted, “before I knew he was married. We had met at a restaurant bar in town, and he was his flirty self. I thought he was cute, so I went to look at the cabin he bragged about. I figured if he was looking for sex, he was going to be disappointed. We were there having a drink when his brother came over. His brother obviously assumed I was conquest number forty-two, or whatever the current number was. He asked me what I did, and I said I was a cop. That surprised Logan too. That's the night I told him my name, and what it meant. He thought that was really charming. That was the word he used—‘charming.’

“So before I went home, he asked if he could look me up next time he was in town. I said sure. The next day I mentioned him to someone at work, and she said he was Wick Lanford's son, and he was married. And at that point I considered it over. I didn't know Logan had designs on me.”

She gave me her clear-eyed stare, and I believed her. “How did you know I was with Pamela?” I asked.

She sighed. “You're one lucky lady. You pressed Auto Dial, right? I answered the phone. I almost hung up, and then I heard voices. I really had to listen hard, but after a while I figured out you were in trouble. Problem was, I didn't know where you were. Then I happened to see that Paley girl just walking down the sidewalk.”

“Really?”

“Unbelievable, right? I got her into my car. Pamela had had her locked in her apartment, tied up. She got away this morning and started making her way toward city hall. She said she was worried about you, because she thought you might be with Pamela. She saw Pamela the day of the murder, leaving the scene of the crime. She hadn't wanted to say anything; she's not a fan of the police, because of her fear that her brother will somehow get caught up in things. She thought turning in Pamela might hurt Quinn. But then she went to city hall. I guess the mayor took her out to lunch. Not sure why. Then they came back and Fawn confronted Pamela at city hall because she wanted to know if her theory was right. She figured she would tell the Webley Police and that would keep things further away from her brother.”

I stared at her. “She drove all the way out here to test out a theory?” I asked.

“She loves her brother. And she's actually a good young citizen. She told me Pamela had mumbled something about seeing you at city hall, and she said Pamela is kind of crazy. I'd been watching Miss Fey, of course, but I didn't know she had been confronted by Fawn and then by you. We raced to CH, and the rest is history.”

To me this sounded way too happenstance, as though I owed my life to a thread of fate. Or maybe to good police work. Or to a pale-faced teenaged girl whom I had greatly underestimated.

“Tell her I'd like to see her,” I said. “I'd like to thank her. Will this help her brother at all, do you think?”

Perez shrugged. “I don't know. Believe it or not, he's a first-time offender, and with a sister to support. Recently suffered a family loss. The dad died. He might get a lenient sentence.”

I sighed. “You should get some kind of commendation for this,” I said. “You, and not that fat partner of yours.”

Perez laughed aloud. “Good ol’ Krosky,” she said. Then she looked at her watch. “I'd better run. They get a statement from you yet?” she asked.

“A brief one. I guess they'll be back tomorrow.” I shuddered as I thought of talking again to the rather mean Officer Marlin, who seemed to have a grudge against reporters.

She held out her hand, which I shook with my uninjured one. “Madeline,” she said, “it's been real. We'll have a drink when you come out to Saugatuck. Definitely an off-duty excursion, okay?”

I nodded, and she walked toward the door. “Be prepared,” I warned her. “My brother will hit on you the moment you emerge.”

“Oh, I probably have time for a quick drink before I leave,” she said, surprising and disappointing me. I thought Perez had higher standards.

My mother immediately returned; she had managed to wring a clipboard out of someone, and she held it before her with an air of authority. “Madeline, there's so much to be done, I've taken the liberty of dividing it into categories that we can address step by step. Flowers, music, church, priest, hall, photographer, caterer—”

“That does sound like a lot,” I said, feeling nervous.

“Nonsense. All you need is efficiency and a few connections in town. If worse came to worst, it could be a small affair at church and a good meal at a fine restaurant afterward. I'll leave the honeymoon arrangements to you and Jack, but I can give you a great deal of input on these other matters.” She tapped the little board with a purposeful expression.

At this point, Jack, my saving, blood-giving angel, entered the room and softly suggested that my parents might wish to leave. “I can drive you,” he said. “I'm afraid Fritz just made off with your car for his, uh, date, and Gerhard took his so that he could return to the young lady who was with him at the festival.”

This shocked my mother, who apparently hadn't gotten a chance to meet the mystery woman. When she recovered from her disappointment, she told Jack that leaving was not possible at this time, due to the need for wedding planning. She held up her clipboard like a talisman. My poor mother. It was all she had left.

Jack assessed the situation, head cocked slightly to one side. Then he did the valiant thing. He said, “If it's all right with Madeline, I could go over those things with you tonight. She could look over our decisions tomorrow, see if she wants to make any changes.” He and my mother looked at me to see if that idea would fly.

I restrained myself from clapping hands and shouting “Hallelujah.”
Talk about taking a bullet for someone
, I thought, sending Jack a grateful glance. And what a wonderful way for Jack to exercise his need to make decisions without directing them at me. If anyone was born to elope, it was Madeline Mann. As it was, I felt confident that my mother and Jack would arrange something beautiful without bothering me unduly about the details.

I struggled to look disappointed. “I think Jack is right, Mom. I'm feeling done in.”

My mother was all apology then, telling me to get my rest. She tucked my covers up to my chin, as if to sweat me into renewed health. There was a gleam in her eye; perhaps she thought it would be advantageous to her aims if she worked with Jack rather than her daughter.
Good luck to them both
, I thought peacefully as I kissed my father good-bye. He looked pale, and I realized with a pang of guilt that I wasn't the only one who'd had a stressful day.

I
gave out two more kisses and watched my loved ones depart. Once they were gone, and their cheerful noise, I began to feel the pain in my shoulder and called for relief with my little buzzer. The bed felt impossibly hard and smelled like a hospital; something akin to depression settled on my heart. Added to that, I felt guilty, somehow, for Logan's fate.

Logan, I told myself, had been a selfish, dishonest, mercenary man. Once, though, he had been my friend. The good Logan had been funny, quick, clever. He'd written little poems for me on my birthdays, and on days I was depressed he'd draw funny faces and tape them to my locker. He always told me that my boyfriends weren't good enough for me, and he tutored me in physics with the infinite patience of a much older person. I think he loved me a little, and I had probably loved him a little too, if only unconsciously. It was only later that it turned to guilt, and the knowledge that I couldn't sustain the feeling.

The grown-up Logan seemed to be a different man—a man who had consumed the promise of the youth who had befriended me. This new man had indulged the selfish, cheating Logan and allowed him to grow.

He had tried to warn me, though, in his own way. He'd begun to write a note about the tape he'd sent me under false pretenses, perhaps to let me know it might put me in a certain amount of danger. That note, and the tape, had caused me a great deal of trouble. Perez said that I'd get the tape back eventually. I wasn't sure if I wanted it. His voice would be there—vibrant, confident, ready to inform me of all the people who had wronged him. There would have been no mention, I was sure, of his own guilt.

I heaved a mighty sigh and closed my eyes. A nurse tapped on the door, probably bearing pain pills. “Wake Logan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst,” I murmured.

“What's that, hon?” asked my matronly protector.

“Nothing,” I said. Still my eyes were dry.

twenty-four

November had been
cold and rainy; the eleventh was the first day that showed any promise of sun. Jack and I bundled into his car, bearing one of my mother's artistic baskets of food and treats (and more cars for Noah and Cal), and headed toward Saugatuck.

Jack was at the wheel. In the last month, my fiancé and I had made great strides as a couple. Jack admitted that he did like my blonde hair, now that he'd had time to get used to it. I admitted that I ate too much junk food and vowed to purify my system before the wedding. Jack had made visible efforts to be less controlling, while I tried to view each potential infraction as objectively as possible.

I had turned twenty-seven on the second, and after I'd stuffed myself with cake at the traditional family celebration at my parents’ house, Jack kidnapped me and piloted the car through the rain-wet, leaf-littered streets of Webley until he reached the Old School. We sat for a moment in the dark car, watching the wind bend the trees.

Jack had barely spoken about the tragic festival day, not even when we read about Pamela's arraignment (she was pleading insanity—I'd heard her lawyer was going to argue that she'd had severe PMS) or about Don Paul's resignation. Bill and I shared the byline of the article that changed Don Paul's plans. The investigation was ongoing.

On my birthday evening, in the dark car, Jack thrust his arm into a little bag between us on the seat and rustled around, eventually removing a box the width of a slice of bread. He held it before him in a contemplative silence, his eyes aimed somewhere in the direction of the steering wheel. I tried to prevent myself from ripping it out of his hands. Even in the dark I could appreciate the gloss of the silver and blue paper, the sheen of a metallic bow.

“I just wanted to say,” he began quietly, “that it hasn't escaped my attention that you were almost killed.”

Uh-oh
, I thought.
Here comes the lecture.

“But I know that you were doing something that you wanted to do. I got the impression that maybe you were testing yourself.”

I shrugged in the darkness. He wasn't far off the mark, but I wasn't sure where he was going.

Jack continued. “I didn't approve of you looking into this whole Lanford mess, but I came to admire you for it. You told me you were afraid, Madeline, but you didn't want to stop. And you got to the bottom of it, at great personal peril.” He smiled at me.

My brows wrinkled. It sounded like I was about to receive a special Oscar.

“Anyway,” he said abruptly, “let's go upstairs so you can open this in the light.”

I dashed up the stairs in record time; I waited for Jack at the top, smiling sweetly, my hands out. I'm terrible about presents. I'd never stopped wanting them, not even, apparently, on my twenty-seventh birthday.

The paper was quick work; beneath was a simple cardboard box that held a large number of plain white cards. I removed one. In raised blue lettering appeared my own name, with an addition:

Madeline Mann
Investigative Reporter

It was almost the best birthday present I'd ever received. The best was also from Jack, that same evening: an engagement ring, a small, elegant diamond on a platinum band.

In
Saugatuck, days later, we made several stops. First I met with Fawn Paley. She had made some pumpkin muffins and tea, and I found that the inside of her cabin was quite tasteful, even beautiful, thanks to her inspired decorating. She told us, glowing, that her brother had been given two years probation and community service. “Partly,” she told us, “because they couldn't prove Quinn sold to anyone. He did, I admit it, but he was pretty clever about the way he did it.”

I nodded, trying not to look judgmental. I had brought Fawn a little gift: an antique tea set that Quinn had assured me, via phone, that she would like. “She's really into antiques,” he'd said, “and she collects those little cups.” I'd been pleased to hear that her brother cared enough to know what she valued. I thought the two of them would be all right.

Fawn opened the box and looked at me with wide eyes. “Where did you find these?” she asked me.

“In Webley, believe it or not,” I said. “It's a thank-you for thinking of me, and helping to save my life.”

We chatted with her for another half-hour, hearing about her plans to attend community college and major in interior design. “Someday we'll hire you to do our house,” Jack said. I felt a little twinge of pleasure at the thought.