The Misadventures of the Laundry Hag 00 - Skeletons in the Closet

mouth. In that moment, as I looked into my Neil's eyes and heard the laughter of our boys, I could almost forget the worries that had consumed me for the past few weeks and be thankful for my life. I may never become a career woman , but I never really wanted that anyway.
    I’m alive, and my family is healthy and happy. Who could want more?
    “Earth to Maggie!” Marty snapped me out of my reverie and handed me the phone.
    “Who is it?” I mouthed at him.
    “Some guy, I dunno.”
    I rolled my eyes at my brother’s helpfulness and held the receiver to my ear. “Hello?”
    “Maggie, this is Detective Patterson. I want you to do something for me.”

Chapter Twelve
    “ I don’t like it,” Neil said. “I don’t understand why Patterson wants you to visit that psychotic bastard.”
    I didn’t stop to correct the notion that Patterson was behind this visit to the penitentiary outside of Worcester. That scheme was all me, but Patterson was taking the fall because I’d announced my intent to go visit Mr. Kline right after getting off the phone with him.
    “He might be able to point me in the right direction.” I slipped my sunglasses on. The pinks and oranges of Black Friday’s dawn gave way to hardcore sunlight.
    Neil had to be at work in an hour, and the return trip was about half that time, but he’d refused to let me come here alone. So instead of the marathon Christmas shopping I had planned for today, I was skulking to the county lock-up.
    “All Patterson really asked of me was to keep an eye out for gun collectors while I’m cleaning. I told you, we got to talking about Mr. Kline, and the idea came up that he might be more prone to open up to me than the cops.”
    “The guy has a lawyer to talk to. You’re no shrink,” Neil grumbled, like a big bear denied his winter nap. I couldn’t blame him. My own night was full of tossing and turning and a slew of dreams Freud would have a field day with. The news that Greg the Gym Rat had been shot by a marksman with a World War II rifle, the exact type I wasn’t told, had the police filtering down to suspects who had served or were avid collectors. I was under the impression that the gun was rare and perhaps the key to cracking the case. I was instructed to keep my eyes open for unusual firearms aficionados. That news didn’t disturb me nearly so much as it would have before I’d viewed Mr. Kline’s private collection.
    “What time did the leech say he was going to be here?” Neil looked at his watch as we stood outside the front entrance to the formidable building. After making the decision, I had called Jason Macgregor, who’d been willing to get up and come to the prison first thing, which would get us around both visiting hours and sitting in the common area.
    “Really, Neil, just because your parents are lawyers, doesn’t mean the rest of them are all bad.”
    Neil gave me a lopsided grin. “What do you call a thousand dead lawyers?”
    “Not again.”
    “A good start. What's the difference between a lawyer and a boxing referee?”
    “Neil, I’ve heard all these.”
    “A boxing referee doesn’t get paid more for a longer fight. Why is money green?”
Neil didn’t need me to answer; he could go on all day. I looked at my watch and estimated it was about a minute and a half before the dirty lawyer jokes started.
“Because lawyers pick it before it’s ripe. How can you tell if a lawyer is well hung?”
    “You can’t get a finger between the rope and his neck.” My blatant eye roll was accompanied by the revving of a large and costly engine. A Lamborghini shot into the parking lot and stopped on a dime about ten feet from our Escort. Jason Macgregor looked almost comical behind the wheel of such a flashy car. He was unremarkable in every way, from the top of his medium brown head all the way down his gangly frame. If he had a bigger nose, he’d have been a dead ringer for the cartoon version of Ichabod Crane.
    Neil winced as Macgregor first caught the lower half of his Gucci trench coat in the car door, then dropped his briefcase, which opened and scattered several documents to the wind. I felt an odd tugging on my heartstrings and bent to scoop up some of the papers. Neil was the beautiful sports car, and I was the bumbling fool.
    Well, at least we’re entertaining. I watched Jason take a flying leap at a yellow paper, hug it into his body like a football, and crash into a nearby Chevy. The sound of a car alarm pierced the