Mahjonged (An Alex Harris Mystery) by Elaine Macko Page A

feeling you?”
    “I’ve become very good at being stealth-like,” Sam said with raised eyebrows.
    “Since when?” I asked.
    “Since Henry started walking. I’ve had to fine-tune every sense I have just to keep up with him. You’d be surprised the things the kid hides in his pants. I grab him and give him a hug every time he comes into the house just so I can sneak a peek in his pockets. He likes to sleep with worms and I’m getting sick of scraping them off the sheets in the morning. And him. He had one smooshed in his hands the other morning. All night, apparently.”
    “Ick,” I smiled.
    I thought I could probably fall back to sleep when the power came back on causing me to squint in the brightness of all the lamps we had on earlier. All the sleeping bodies around me began to stir.
    Then the kitchen door opened and Detective Maroni came out and handed Bert over to one of the officers, asking him to take Bert to the police station for further questioning.
    Connie jumped up. “Bert is not a killer,” she said to Detective Maroni. “He may be a lying, cheating scumbag, and I probably should have listened to my mother’s advice and not married the creep,” she said turning hostile eyes to Bert, “but he’s not a killer.”
    Detective Maroni turned to the group of women who had now gathered around him and Connie. “Please do not leave the city without checking with me first,” he said. “I’m going to want to talk with all of you again.”
    This brought groans all around as if we had all signed up for a round the world cruise we needed to cancel. Everyone began to gather up their things and my guests started to leave.
    “By far, the best evening I’ve had in a long time,” Mary-Beth said. “Not about the body, I mean, but you really know how to throw a party, Alex.”
    I kissed my friend good-bye, too tired to figure out whether she was being sarcastic or not.
    My sister, mother, Meme, Theresa, and Francis decided to spend the night with me not wanting to leave me alone in a “murder house” as Meme put it.
    I pointed out the police were still here and probably would be for several more hours, but in reality I wanted them here. The sight of the yellow police tape tacked up across the study door already creeped me out and I couldn’t wait until John got home.
    So much for my Friday night with the girls.
    As we all trudged up the steps I thought about Bert. Connie was right, the man very well might be a lying, cheating scumbag, but I would bet my right arm he wasn’t a murderer. Which meant only one thing—one of the women I invited into my home, one of the women I sat next to all evening, chatted with, played mahjong with, and ate with was a cold-blooded killer. And I had invited her into my house. I had set everything in motion and now Penelope was dead.
    And starting first thing in the morning, I planned to figure out why.

 
     
     

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
     
     
    By eight-thirty the next morning we all gathered around my kitchen table eating Danish I’d had in the freezer and drinking tea and coffee. To my relief the police were gone. I had given Detective Maroni a spare key to the murder room hiding the other one in a kitchen drawer. I didn’t want any temptation for any of us to go in and have a look around.
    I actually managed to sleep well for someone who had a dead body in her house only hours earlier. My sister slept in my room, my mother and Meme in one guest room, and Theresa and Francis in the other. Maybe having my sister with me, bringing back all those warm, fuzzy thoughts of childhood had done the trick. Whatever it was, I slept and now I felt refreshed and eager to dig my teeth into this latest murder in our peaceful little part of the world where these things never happened. I got up and grabbed a pad of paper and a pen and went back to the table.
    Seeing me with my accoutrements of investigation made Meme smile. “Oh, good, honey. I was afraid finding the body in your own house