me in paradise,’ the son of a bitch says to her on the phone. Meet me in paradise, indeed! I’m here to tell you that if that SOB has killed my sister, I’m going to plug him full of holes. Where’s my gun, by the way? Give it back. I’ve got a license to carry, if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s right over there on the counter in my purse. Check it out for yourself if you don’t believe me.”
“You’re saying you think your sister’s dead?” Joanna asked. “Why’s that?”
“The neighbors called me because Connie took off sometime on Thursday. They noticed she left the garage door open. When it was still open . . . What day is it?”
“Saturday,” Joanna answered.
“When it was still open on Friday, they were worried enough to call, and I came to check things out after work. That’s when I heard the message on the machine. You can listen to it too, it you want to.”
An answering machine sat on the kitchen counter next to a large black satchel-style purse. Joanna pressed the message button. “You have no new messages,” a recorded voice told her.
“Damn,” Maggie MacFerson muttered, taking another swig from her glass. “Must have punched ‘erase’ without meaning to. But that’s what he said. ‘Meet me in paradise.’ The dumb broad was so completely enthralled, so totally besotted with the weasely little shit that if he had said ‘Jump in the lake,’ Connie would have done it in a minute even though she can’t swim a stroke. There’s no fool like an old fool.”
“You said something about her money. What about that?”
“There was another message on the machine as well—from Ken Wilson. He’s Connie’s personal banker, but he’s also mine. He was our parents’ private banker before that. I heard that message, too. He said Connie had bounced a check. Which wouldn’t happen—never in a million years. Connie never bounced a check in her life—unlike some other people I could mention.”
Maggie grinned ironically and took another mouthful of Johnnie Walker. “I, on the other hand, have never balanced a checkbook in my life, and I’m still here to tell the tale. But I did call Ken Wilson. I nailed his feet to the ground and made him tell me what the hell was going on. That bastard Ron Haskell has cleaned Connie out, lock, stock, and barrel, just like I said he would. Except it doesn’t feel all that good to say I told you so. It’s gonna break Connie’s heart, as if she hasn’t had enough heartbreak already.”
Standing at the counter, Joanna glanced into the purse. A small wallet lay at the top. “Your license to carry is in this?” she asked, lilting the wallet.
Maggie MacFerson glanced away trout pouring herself another drink. “It’s there,” she said. “Help yourself.”
Joanna opened the wallet and thumbed through the plastic card holders. One of the first things she saw was a press credential that identified Maggie MacFerson as a reporter for Phoenix’s major metropolitan newspaper, the
Behind the press credentials was indeed an embossed concealed-weapon license. Joanna put down the wallet and then reached into her pocket to remove the weapon. “Is this thing loaded?” she asked.
“Sure is,” Maggie replied. “My father used to say that having an unloaded weapon in the house was about as useful as having one of those plumber’s whaddaya-call-its without a handle. I can’t think of the name for the damned thing now. You know what I mean, one of those plunger things.”
“You mean a plumber’s helper?” Joanna offered.
“Right,” Maggie agreed. “A plumber’s helper without a handle. Dad wasn’t big on telling jokes. That’s about as good as his ever got. And that’s gone, too, by the way.”
“What’s gone?”
“Dad’s gun. From the bedroom. The safe is open and the gun is gone. I’ll bet the jerk took that, too.”
Gingerly Joanna opened Maggie MacFerson’s gun and removed the rounds from the cylinder. If Maggie wasn’t
