Mahjonged (An Alex Harris Mystery)

MAHJONGED

An Alex Harris Mystery

ELAINE MACKO

Other Books in the Alex Harris series

Flossed

Poisoned

Armed

Copyright © 2013 by Elaine Macko

All Rights Reserved.

For my sister, April…

…whose irreverent wit keeps me laughing and

whose mothering skills keep me in awe

It was a dark and stormy night.

That should have been my first clue. But no, murder never even crossed my mind. I had too much to do to get ready for my party. But still, with my history of the last couple of years, I just should have known better. I should have seen it coming.

After a long week working at my temp agency I deserved to have a bit of fun. So was it too much to ask that at my first party, in my new home, no one would stumble upon a dead body?

No, I didn’t think so.

But I would be wrong.

It all started on, like I said, a dark and stormy night. I mean it had to, didn’t it? Dark and stormy night, howling wind, pounding rain against the windows, and a body. I couldn’t have made it better if I had written it myself.

Maybe I should start at the beginning. My name is Alex Harris. Well, actually, now it’s Alex Van der Burg ever since I got married three months ago, but I still use Harris for business purposes. My sister, Samantha, and I own the Always Prepared temp agency in Indian Cove, Connecticut, and along with our assistant, Millie Chapman, we have a good thing going.

After my honeymoon, I moved into my husband’s newly renovated house that his grandmother left him. It’s big and lovely and after some initial misgivings, I finally settled down and made it my home. So with my husband gone for the weekend, I decided to invite some friends over for an evening of mahjong. I hadn’t played in years but always loved the game so I made up a list, called the people I wanted to invite, added a few other friends of friends and really looked forward to it. I made up a menu and ordered dessert from my favorite bakery. Everything was set.

But before I could even serve dessert, my evening of mahjong would turn into a night of Clue with me acting the part of Miss Scarlett in the library with a candlestick.

Considering I have an overactive imagination and with a storm raging outside and my creaky old house, complete with a library room paneled in wood and lined with bookcases, I probably should have known exactly what I was in for.

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. My story starts about two hours ago, before all the guests arrived and one of them had the nerve to die and ruin my party.

I leaned against my kitchen counter holding the phone and looked out on a raging storm. “It’s actually a great night to have everyone over to play mahjong,” I said to my sister. “I just hope they all get here before this rain turns into snow. Snow in September,” I shook my head. “What the heck is going on with the weather? Maybe I should have asked everyone to bring pajamas. With the weather getting worse, we could have a big pajama party.”

“I’ll bring mine. I’ll call Millie and Mom, too,” my sister, Sam Daniels, volunteered. “Are you sure you want to play mahjong?” she asked begrudgingly. “It’s too confusing.”

“Yes, and you’re going to enjoy yourself. Don’t be a grump. There’s going to be a lot of people tonight who don’t play very well, including me. We’re just going to have fun.”

“Easy for you to say. How will I even know if I get a chung?”

“Pung. Not chung. And I’ll be there to help you. We can play at the same table.”

“Okay, but just keep it slow. I don’t care how the Chinese play. This is Indian Cove and we do things a bit differently here. Listen, I better go. I just saw Henry spit a piece of stew meat into his napkin and now he’s trying to push it under Kendall’s chair. He says he only likes meat twenty-three percent. Little rodent.”

“Wonder where he got that from,” I said with a chuckle. “So let him just eat the veggies and don’t pick on him.” I said this last part sternly. I loved my seven-year-old nephew Henry though he drove my poor sister crazy. Henry was a steamroller. He kept moving from the time he got up until the time he went to bed and he always talked in percentages. It was a wonder he did so well in school, but he loved it and it showed.

“Go tend to your children and I’ll see you in a bit.” I hung up the phone and took a large container out of the refrigerator. I poured the gooey mess into a pot where it would turn into a delicious tortilla soup with the help of a little heat.

I surveyed my kitchen; cupboards lovingly restored by my husband, granite counter tops, and sufficient lighting to brighten up the place even on this most dreary of nights. Truth be told, I wasn’t quite use to the house yet. Though lovely, it was old and had a lot of creaking noises which gave it a haunted house feel. And it was huge. It had three stories not counting the basement. I was home alone for the weekend and I felt very relieved I invited a lot of company.

Outside the huge window above the stainless steel sink, the rain continued to come down. It may not turn to snow, but it was going to be one miserable night. At least outside. Inside, we would be playing mahjong. I hadn’t played in years and now that I had moved into John’s large, renovated house, I finally had the space to invite a large group over.

I grabbed a handful of M&Ms from a glass jar I keep on the counter. It’s actually Swedish crystal, a wedding gift, and I thought it the perfect place to store my vice. Yes, I’m an M&Maholic. I love the darned things and always have some with me wherever I go.

While the soup simmered on the stove, I cut lettuce, tomato, cucumber, radishes, a red pepper, and chopped green olives and tossed them all together in a Portuguese pottery salad bowl. Then I went into the library, and took out a card table and four chairs from the closet. My mother and Sam would each bring another. I pushed the foot stool under an end table and looked around. It would be a bit crowded with all of us crammed into the room, but cozy.

I opened up the closet door again and took out my mahjong game and opened the box. With the exception of the last few weeks teaching Millie and Sam, I hadn’t played for years. I fingered one of the tiles, a dot. For some reason I liked them the best; the bams, the least.

I turned all the tiles onto the card table and placed a rack in front of each seat. My mother had another set and a friend of mine had the third and fourth.

I turned to go back to the kitchen and that’s when I heard it. It wasn’t a creak. It was a loud bang coming from upstairs. Someone was breaking in.

Did I mention my husband is a detective with the Indian Cove Police Department? Well, he is. So I should have known better than to go creeping up the stairs alone, but I was alone so I didn’t have much choice.

Okay, I could have called the police, but by the time they showed up whoever lurked upstairs would be gone or maybe would have already killed me. Besides, I was armed. In my hand I held the poker from the fireplace.

I had just reached the fourth step when the phone rang. I hesitated. What was the chance it would be the police telling me a neighbor had seen someone breaking in and they were on their way? I turned and went down to the kitchen.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Honey, it’s Meme. Why are you whispering?”

“Because I think someone is breaking in upstairs. I heard a bang.”

“You’re not use to the house yet,” Meme cackled. “You go up there and I’ll listen in.”

I took the phone and retraced my steps feeling more secure now that I had my eighty-something-year old grandmother on the phone. If there was a burglar, or worse yet, a murderer waiting for me to come up so he could kill me, by now he should be pretty pissed.

At the top of the stairs I turned left and peeked into the room we use as an office. One hand held the phone and my other the poker.

“Damn that thing!” I dropped both and went over to the window. The wooden frame needed repair work and the lock latch had finally broken off. The window banged in time with the howling wind outside. I picked up a brick, which John had brought up for some unknown reason, and placed it on the sill, praying it would hold a few more days until John got back.

“Honey? What’s going on? Are you okay?”

I heard Meme’s frantic cries from the other side of the room and went to pick up the phone.

“It’s just a broken window frame. I’m fine. John still has a few more things to do around here obviously,” I sighed.

“Just put something up against it and it’ll be fine until he gets back. I just wanted to let you know Theresa and I might be staying the night if it’s okay with you.”

My grandmother, Giannina or Meme as Sam and I had always called her, was welcome to stay with me whenever she wanted. “Of course you can stay. It’s the advantage of having such a big house—two guest rooms.”

“We’re leaving in a few minutes. Gotta stop by Fred’s and make sure he’s okay in this storm,” Meme said, referring to one of her neighbors in the senior community where she lived.

“Isn’t he still going out with Esther?” I asked, never quite up-to-date on the goings-on of all of Meme’s friend.

“They broke up. Esther wore him out. He was afraid his heart would give out right when they were in the middle of it and he didn’t want the ambulance people to find him like that.”

“Probably a wise decision,” I said smiling. Fred was in his nineties so I could understand his concern. He also had a penchant for popping generic Viagra he got from a dubious source and who knew the side affects it might be having on the man.

“I’ll see you in a bit,” Meme said and then hung up.

I picked up the poker and turned to go back downstairs and that’s when I screamed.

“Am I too early?” a very wet Mary-Beth Ramsey asked. She stood there dripping water all over the carpet but what really irked me was the grin on her face.

“You think you’re so funny, don’t you?” I asked my best friend from childhood.

“Sorry. The door was unlocked and I heard you up here talking. I did call out. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

I gave Mary-Beth a hug and we went downstairs.

“We haven’t seen each other since right after you got back from your honeymoon and I wanted to spend a bit of time together before everyone else showed up.”

“Perfect. You can help me while we catch up,” I said, leading her into the kitchen.

Mary-Beth took an apron from a peg on the wall and tied it around her waist.

“Why don’t you arrange the crackers on the platter over there and cut up some chunks of cheese.”

Mary-Beth looked around the kitchen. “Alex, this is such a great room! Are you more comfortable in the house yet?”

Like the rest of my family, Mary-Beth knew how reluctant I had been to give up my smaller house after John and I got married. I loved this house but my house was, well, mine. I had it fixed just the way I liked it and I wasn’t big on changes. Getting married was change enough without coming back from a honeymoon trip only to have to move into a strange place.

“You know, Mary-Beth,” I said, as I poured the contents of two cans of artichoke hearts into my food processor, “I love it.”

“I’m glad to see things are going well and the place looks great. You’ve been doing some decorating since I last came over.”

“Just some curtains,” I pointed with my chin to the window above the sink. “And a few rugs and cushions, that sort of thing. It all takes time. And money. And right now we have a window in need of repair more than I need to reupholster my rocking chair.” I sighed and ran my hand through my very short hair.

“Where exactly did John go?”

“Maine. With his father and brother.”

“I thought his brother lived in Philadelphia?” Mary-Beth asked, as she piled several slices of cheese on a cracker and took a bite.

“He does but he’s having some marital problems. Seems he came home early one day from work, stomach flu or something, and caught his wife in bed with the….”

“Don’t tell me. The mailman!”

“FedEx man.”

“No!”

“Yes.”

“She must get a lot of deliveries if she can get so close to her FedEx man,” Mary-Beth said somewhat skeptically.

“Not exactly. He lives next door.”

“Ahh. So why are they all in Maine?”

“John’s uncle has a cabin. Very rustic. Outhouse, that sort of thing. And John and his father thought it might be a good idea to take Ray up there just to get away.”

The fierce wind outside howled again throwing leaves against the kitchen window where they stuck to the wet pane.

“I just hope they’re having better weather than we are,” I mused.