Death of a Bankster by David Bishop Page A

join her mother to watch a Kirk Douglas movie. Rita had carried her teenage torch for Kirk into her senior years. Maddie understood why. In his prime, Kirk Douglas had been a hunk, and Rita still saw him that way as she and Kirk had aged together. He was a fine actor. Recently, Maddie’s mother had begun to make comments about Robert Mitchum. “No one can replace Kirk,” she had said, “but I know all his movies so well that it may be time for a new man in my life, or maybe a second man,” she added with a chuckle.
    Maddie envied her mother. After having accepted and grown into her life as a widow, Rita seemed completely comfortable with herself and her life. When her husband died, she gave up her enchantment with men. “What can I tell ya? I’m a one-man woman. Your father was that one-man.”

Chapter 7
    Maddie’s morning started like many others, with a cup of coffee and half of a bagel on the patio with her mother while they tag-teamed getting Bradley off to school.
    At times, Maddie found her mother exasperating; still she adored the woman who was indispensible if Maddie was to remain a cop. As for Rita, she loved the arrangement, or seemed to. It allowed her the opportunity to beat the same drum to Bradley, as she had to Maddie, about heaven and how you get there. She did it with love, not brimstone, so it was okay with Maddie who had grown up with that same message. As with most of us, her mother was her mother and nothing on earth would change her. The nuns at the school Maddie attended had served up the same message in the daytime. At least they had when they weren’t preaching fractions, decimals, and the multiplication tables. Rita’s messages were sandwiched around Maddie’s father beating the drum about being a good cop. As for Maddie’s ex-husband, Curtis beat … well, that’s another story for another time.
    “So what’s in your plans for today?”
    “Annie Smiddle and I are going shopping. To the mall, then the grocery store. We’ll leave in about two hours and be back before Bradley gets home.”
    “You and Annie Smiddle are getting pretty chummy aren’t you?”
    “Yeah. We’re both widows. She lives alone. She had one son who was killed in the Middle East, so she’s completely alone. She’s crazy about Bradley.”
    “That’s nice. She seems to be a good woman. Your feet must be feeling better if you two are going traipsing around in the mall.”
    “Feet are doing pretty well. But my hemorrhoids are killing me, Madeline Jane.”
    “I don’t really need to know that mother. Have you seen a doctor about them?”
    “Not yet,” her mother said while refilling their coffee cups. “But I need to. The damn things look like a handful of purple M&Ms.”
    “I’m not sure they make purple M&Ms, but how do you know how they look?”
    “I looked at them using that handheld mirror in your bathroom.”
    “Thanks Mom. You’ve succeeded in changing the taste of my bagel. I’m glad my mirror came in handy. How ‘bout running it through the dishwasher today?”
    “I didn’t sit on the damn thing, Madeline Jane, I only looked in it. That’s what mirrors are for, you know.”
    “I understand. Still, I’m kinda freaked out by the image of your hemorrhoids hovering over my hair mirror.”
    “I don’t understand them being called hemorrhoids, they should be named asteroids.”
    “That word was already taken, mother.”
    “Un-uh,” Rita said. “The butt problem came way before them things in the sky. The word asteroids had to have been available and waiting to be used when they came up with hemorrhoids.”
    The discussion of her mother’s hemorrhoids didn’t survive the interruption when Bradley hollered good-bye and headed out the door for the bus stop. Rita went back to bed. Maddie went in and took a quick shower, put on a pair of size ten black slacks, low heeled black flats, and a lime green jersey with half sleeves. Next she slathered on some make-up and ran a brush through her