Sick Puppy (Maggie #2)

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  “Not my fault, though. And she amounted to nothing because she had no talent.”

  Enough of that. She texts Michele the article link. More fodder for the libel suit. Now Leslie DeWitt needs her unwavering attention.

  But before she goes back to cyberstalking Leslie, she goes for a pit stop. On the way back to the bed, she trips and nearly falls on nothing but wood floor. Too much whiskey, not enough food. She opens the chips and salsa and digs in hungrily. Salsa dribbles down her chin. She scoops it back up and into her mouth with a chip, then offers one to Louise.

  Louise crunches it like it’s a beef rib.

  Maggie lays her phone on the bedside table. As she does, she notices a missed call banner. She leans closer to read who it was from, and she spits chips and salsa on the screen.

  “Hank!”

  Louise jumps up, wagging everything.

  Hank called her. She looks at the number in her Recents. He’d called her that afternoon. She counts back hours. Probably when she was at Lumpy’s. Why had her phone betrayed her and withheld this information? No ring. No notification of any kind. Until now.

  She doesn’t have an indicator for voicemail but she opens the screen anyway. Just in case.

  But there’s none.

  Sometimes when she’s out in the sticks her phone doesn’t tell her about voicemail for days. She calls in to listen for new messages.

  Nothing.

  She presses call back, smearing salsa on her phone screen. It rings once, twice, three, four times.

  “Come on, come on.”

  It rolls to voicemail.

  “No.” She redials. “No.”

  Hank’s voice prompts her to leave a message. Just the sound of it brings a tingling rush between her legs, to a place that misses him like a freeze misses the warm.

  “You’ve got Hank Sibley of Double S Bucking Stock, and I’ve got your mother buckers. Leave me a message.”

  She feels her cheeks smiling without her permission. “Hank, this is Maggie. I saw you called. If it was on purpose, call me back. If it was a butt dial, then listen to your butt. It’s telling you something.” She recites her new number, even though he already called it, and if he hadn’t, he’d have it from the record of this call anyway. Better safe than sorry.

  She puts the phone down on the bedside table. Then she picks it up to check the ringer. It’s on. She sets it down again. But she hadn’t turned up the volume. So she picks it up again. Checks the volume. It’s on max. She lays the phone down. Pats it. Stares at it.

  Louise walks to the edge of the bed to play the game, too.

  “Watched pot. No boiling.”

  The dog deposits herself on one of the pillows and wriggles to find a spot good enough for her sensitive hide. The princess and the pea, canine version.

  A mental kick in the pants is in order. Maggie smacks her cheek—tap-tap-tap—with her fingers, then does the same thing to the other side. She slackens her lips and gives her head a shake. Lifts her arms and wriggles her fingers. The distraction of waiting for Hank to call back is so intense she can’t remember what it was she sat down to do.

  Maybe the Balcones has something to do with it, too.

  She scans the room. Pictures of Michele with her kids and her deceased husband, Adrian. A Hawaii Ironman triathlon poster. She’s at Michele’s because she can’t be at her own place, thanks to that horrible bitch Leslie. And that’s what she was doing. Researching the renter from hell. Something she should have done before handing over her keys in the first place. Giving her head one more shake, she repositions herself on the bed, knees bent, leaning against the pillows and wall.

  “Ready or not, Leslie DeWitt, here I come.”

  She types the woman’s name in a search box. She hits enter and starts reading down the results. Facebook. Facebook. Facebook. Instagram. Tsunami survivors. Google Plus. Twitter. Maggie bites the inside of her lip. Had she even spelled Leslie’s last name right? DeWitt. Is that one t or two? With an h or without? She double-checks an email from Leslie before wasting too much time. Growls. Two t’s. She’d typed it with one. She fixes it, and the search results explode. Now she has sexual abuse trial verdicts, obituaries, and more.

  She wants to drink herself numb. She wants Hank to call. She wants to research Leslie DeWitt like she wants to sign up for a month of Sundays at church with her mother. But she’s out of other options. Nothing left to do but do it. She rolls her neck. It cracks, releasing stress, but not enough.

  She browses, looking for clear profile pictures. There are nearly twenty Leslie DeWitts on Facebook alone, but none of the profiles pictures look like the right Leslie. She pulls up the profiles without pictures. There’s not enough information in any to rule them in or out.

  She flips back to her Google results. Her Leslie isn’t the woman convicted of sexually abusing a kid she’d coached. That Leslie is in her early twenties and lives in Seattle. And she doesn’t know where her Leslie lives. Even if she did, that wouldn’t guarantee a match. Lots of people use their hometowns or fake information online. She decides to limit her search to records inside the United States, but she can’t narrow it any more than that.

  But she thinks she saw Leslie’s home address somewhere in their contracting process. Scanning the emails between herself and Leslie, she doesn’t see an address, even in the message confirming the dates of her stay and working out the details of payment. PayPal. That will give her Leslie’s address. She pulls it back up. Houston. It jogs her memory. She flips back to the newest People.com article.

  “A school teacher from Houston,” she reads aloud.

  She adds the new information to her search. The results are better—narrower, fewer hits—but not good enough yet.

  Her Balcones is calling. She sips it, dredging up everything she knows about Leslie. Age? About forty. Accent? The voice she hears in her mind is atonal, without accent. She wouldn’t even call it Middle American. Which is weird, because it’s rare she can’t pinpoint a region.

  She goes back to the twenty Facebook records, studies the pictures again. Looks can deceive. She eliminates the non–United States profiles and the women who are obviously too old or too young. She keeps five of them, even though they don’t look like the woman in her house. One of them seems somewhat familiar, but even if her Leslie had long gray hair, this wouldn’t be her. Too old. And the eyes are too dark.

  Could it be Leslie was telling the truth, and that she isn’t really Leslie at all? If that’s the case, Maggie’s back to square one. She’s not ready to face that possibility, but she doesn’t have to yet. Not when there’s still more information to review. She sets the Facebook profiles aside for the moment and moves to other social media. Instagram and Twitter yield similar results. No matches to her Leslie. She doesn’t understand Google Plus, so she skips it, along with the social media Michele’s kids use. Snapback or Smackchat or something? Maggie isn’t part of that younger generation, and Leslie isn’t either.

  Maggie racks her brain for more searches she can try. Why is this so hard? Her eyes are bleary from staring at the pictures. Maybe one of the women she’s seen is Leslie. Or maybe not. Maybe Leslie goes by initials or something. She saw a middle initial for her on PayPal. Leslie C. Thus, L.C. She’ll try that next. Or maybe Leslie isn’t even on social media and this is a big waste of time.

  She takes a slug of Balcones. An idea forms. She runs a few Google searches using the email addresses she’d found in PayPal for Leslie. She finds an image for the first email. Her pulse quickens and she leans in. The woman in the picture has gray hair, long and wavy, pale skin, and dark eyes. Nothing like her Leslie and the tight, expressionless face caked in makeup to cover her scars, with blue eyes so light they’re like clouds.

  Maggie snorts. Because it’s not her Leslie in the picture. It can’t be. Even with a haircut, a dye job, colored contacts, and plastic surgery, her Leslie is twenty years younger than the woman in the picture.

  But why would Leslie use someone else�
��s picture with the same email she uses on her PayPal account? Trying to figure it out hurts her head. She’s exhausted, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Maggie lies down. Just for a minute, she’ll ponder this from the horizontal. But before she can close her eyes, blue and red lights flash through the window and on the wall beside her.

  Thirty-Two

  “What the hell?” Maggie walks to the window and peeks through the blinds.

  Three county vehicles are parked outside, lights strobing. Junior is leading the charge to Michele’s door, with Boland and what seems like a legion of law enforcement personnel behind him. Maggie clutches the windowsill. The doorbell rings. Louise leaps from the bed like a flying squirrel and is sprinting before her paws hit the ground. Her barks join with Gertrude’s, reverberating through the house.

  Maggie runs to the bathroom. She squirts toothpaste on her finger and brushes her teeth as she walks to the front door. Her steps are slow, her heart pounding like she’s climbing the steps to a hangman’s noose. Her lungs shut like metal doors, refusing entry to the air she tries to breathe in. Why are all these officers here, after Michele was going to call Fayette and Lee County about Tom and Thorn?

  This can’t be good. Not good at all.

  The door hardware is icy cold under her hand as she opens it. Louise and Gertrude dash past her to Junior’s ankles. They sniff him thoroughly then move on to Boland, who shoves Louise away with his foot.

  Maggie says, “Don’t kick my dog. She won’t hurt you.”

  Boland says, “Restrain her.”

  “Louise, come.”

  Louise comes, although not eagerly. Maggie grabs her by the collar.

  Junior rubs his lips together. “Maggie Killian. We have a warrant to search the premises, as well as your vehicle.”

  Maggie’s a search warrant neophyte. She’d feared arrest, not a search. Can they even search the house without the owner present? She has no idea what to do. “Michele isn’t here.”

  Boland pushes his way around Junior. “Step aside, Ms. Killian, unless you want us to arrest you for obstruction of justice.”

  She doesn’t budge from the center of the doorway. “I need to call Michele. I’m just a guest here.”

  “No one’s stopping you. But meanwhile the law allows us to do what we’ve come to do. This is the last time I tell you to move out of the way. Next time, you’re taking a ride to lockup.”

  Maggie turns to the side. Boland, Junior, and several deputies and other county personnel she doesn’t recognize file past her into the house.

  “I need to see a copy of the warrant,” she says, trying to remember what she’s seen when she’d been boozed up and watching old cop shows on late-night television, something Gary loved to do.

  Junior hands it to her. Louise struggles against her as she reads. The words swim on the page before her eyes. It might as well be in hieroglyphics. Around her, things move at hyperspeed. Officers don gloves. Boland barks orders that don’t register with Maggie, and his minions disperse. She tries again to read the warrant. This time she can make out words, but she doesn’t comprehend much. It’s a Fayette County warrant to be executed by ten p.m., dated that day, specifically for the home of Michele Lopez Hanson and the Ford pickup belonging to Maggie Killian, for the purpose of looking for fire accelerants, electrical communications and data relating to Gary Fuller and setting fires, and Rohypnol.

  Rohypnol. The word jumps out at her. What is rohypnol? The officers are all inside now, so she lets Louise go. The dog tears off to join Gertrude and they run around with their sniff on. She snaps a picture of the warrant, texts it to Michele, and hits speed dial for her sister’s phone number. Just as Michele is picking up, Maggie places the word. Rohypnol. Roofies. Date-rape drugs.

  “Hi, Maggie. We’re just walking into Chuy’s. Are you okay?” Michele asks.

  “No, I’m not. Lee and Fayette County deputies—and Boland himself—are here executing a search warrant.”

  “At my house?”

  “Yes. And for my truck. I’m so sorry. I texted you a copy. What do I do?”

  “Watch them like hawks. Take pictures. Video or audio if things seem hinky. But let me read the warrant first. Hold on.”

  Maggie sits at the dining room table with the phone on speaker. She bounces her leg, watching strangers pawing through Michele’s drawers and cabinets. It’s wrong. Just wrong. Louise and Gertrude shadow them as best they can, but they’re far outnumbered. How can Maggie watch everyone at once any better than the dogs?

  Boland emerges from the hallway to Maggie’s room. “You’ll get an inventory of the things we’re taking, but for now, know that pretty much everything in that bedroom is coming with us.”

  “Wait. What do you mean? Not my guitar, laptop, my bag, my toiletries?”

  “Everything.”

  “You’re taking my IDs and credit cards?”

  Michele’s voice is hard and loud. “That’s bullshit, Boland. You can subpoena her records, but you can’t take her keys, cards, and cash. And that guitar is expensive and priceless.”

  “Who the fuck do you have on speakerphone?” Boland demands.

  “Michele Lopez Hanson, my lawyer and the owner of this house. I believe you know each other from the quality time we spent together this morning.”

  Michele’s voice takes no shit. “Leave her purse after you search it, Boland. And I’ll consider it a personal affront if you take that guitar. One that I’ll feel compelled to get noisy about.”

  “We’ll try to eliminate the purse and guitar onsite. No promises.”

  “None from me either. When can you have a copy of her hard drive made and get her laptop back to her?”

  “We’re a small department. We’ll do the best we can.”

  “It’s a simple dump to an external hard drive. We’ll bring you the hardware in the morning so you can have her computer back to her by noon.”

  Boland turns around, muttering, and heads back toward Maggie’s room.

  But Michele’s not done. “Why didn’t you return my calls, Boland? I’ve left you three messages in the last hour. We’ve got evidence for you.”

  Boland stops. “Call me tomorrow. I’m busy here.”

  “You’ll look like a jackass by tomorrow if you don’t hear what I have to say now, before the media gets hold of it.”

  Maggie jumps to her feet. “There are two men in town who the estate of Gary Fuller thinks stole half a million dollars from him. One is the manager Gary planned to fire last Friday. Tom Clarke. The other man, Thorn Gibbons, is having sex with Gary’s seventeen-year-old sister. We’d already told you about them, before we even learned about the embezzlement today.”

  Boland rolls his eyes like a teenage girl. “Thanks, Nancy Drew.”

  Maggie’s eyes burn, not with tears, but with rage. The kind of powerless rage she can’t do anything about without getting arrested.

  Michele’s voice goes super soft. “Don’t say we didn’t try to warn you, before you did this. And now you know.”

  Boland takes a toothpick out of his breast pocket and starts cleaning and sucking his teeth. “Duly noted.”

  “Have you found the witness to the fire at the Coop? The one Maggie told you about?”

  “Not my concern. I’m here about Fayette County.”

  “Well, has Lee County found her?”

  “Ask Lee County.”

  Michele growls. “Exactly what are the grounds for probable cause for this warrant?”

  “Besides the emails between them, Ms. Killian has a history of substance abuse and proven ability to obtain drugs, in addition to motive, means, and opportunity for administering them and starting the fire.”

  “What does Maggie’s history have to do with anything?”

  “Someone—we suspect Ms. Killian—roofied Gary Fuller before the fire.”

  Maggie’s mouth goes cottony and she feels suddenly, horribly sober. Gary was drugged. Drugged and left to burn to death. She clutches her stomach and r
ocks. A sob lodges in her throat, halfway up, stuck.

  “Dios mío. A roofie now has nothing to do with Maggie and cocaine addiction ten years ago. That isn’t probable cause. This is the cheesiest excuse for a warrant I’ve ever seen. I’ll get it tossed with one hand behind my back. Everything you’re collecting now, all fruit of the poisonous tree.”

  “Knock yourself out, counselor.”

  “What are you trying to do, other than harass my client?”

  “Prove the person who died in the Coop was roofied, too, because then your client will be going down for both murders.” Boland sticks the dirty toothpick in his pocket, winks at Maggie, and disappears down the hall.

  Thirty-Three

  Maggie jerks out of a deep sleep. By the time she realizes she’s awake, she’s bolt upright, her shoulders rigid. Sweat drips down her neck onto her heaving chest. A thunderous herd of Wyoming horses gallop in her ears. At the foot of the bed, Louise whines plaintively.

  She can’t remember what it is, but she knows something isn’t right. Is the wrong thing in a dream? But she smells the overripe half-eaten banana and the astringent odor of the open Balcones on the bedside table. This isn’t a dream. Boland and his crew were here. They tore the place apart. Took everything she had except her wallet and truck keys, and left with Boland looking pissed because, she assumes, they didn’t find what they were looking for. The fact that they accused her of burning the evidence in the Coop makes her assumption seem pretty darn reasonable.

  Maggie was so drained after the officers left that she toppled onto the bed in the wrecked room. She was out in seconds. Until moments ago, when she awoke. She didn’t have to go to sleep to have a nightmare. Her life already is one.

  Maybe she heard something outside. The curtains are open, the moon is full, and light is streaming through the window. Outside, the skinny oak trees are like dancing skeletons. She looks for movements along the ground but sees nothing. She holds her breath so she can hear, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary. So what woke her?