Maggie considered Sylvie’s declaration. If people could get their disability based on weird behavior, she thought to herself, then I might qualify to draw a check due to my morbid curiosity for murder mysteries. “Did the sisters get along well?” she asked Sylvie.
“They did. When Hazel was carrying on about something, Stellie would listen until her patience wore out. Then, she’d come around with a smart remark that would shut Hazel up. Like the time Hazel was complaining about how that old doctor’s daughter made changes around the office. Stellie smiled and suggested that maybe they could bring back the old doctor as one of those sombies.”
“Sombies?”
“Like on the TV. They’re dead but they walk around like us and eat people. I think it’s disgusting and don’t know why they allow such as that on the TV.” Sylvie shook her head. “There ain’t been nothing good on since they took Magnum off.”
Maggie giggled. “What do you think of Stella?”
“I like her all right. Why?”
“She’s just … I don’t know. She’s nice to me, but it’s like she went out of her way to put me down in front of Boone Osborne. What’s strange is that she also talks me up and acts like I’m an investigator on the level of, well, Magnum. And she talked about Hazel’s renter like a dog, but played with her little boy. Not that I think she should have been rude to the little boy. It’s just, I don’t know, hard to define.”
Sylvie said, “If I thought as little as they do for that girl, I wouldn’t let her inside my mommy’s house, let alone live in it. But that was Hazel’s doing. I reckon Stellie told you about that.”
“She did.” Maggie continued trying to find the right words to explain Stella’s actions and behavior. “She also has this way of manipulating people to get them to do what she wants. She did that with Earl David, the guy who owns the pay lake, and she tried it on Earnest.”
“I know what you’re talking about. She tried that with me, too. She had some big shindig to go to and waited until two weeks before the thing to ask me to make her a dress. And it prom season. I told her I had too many alterations to do. She started this whole song and dance about how good I was and I said, ‘Stellie, me being good ain’t going to get these dresses let out and hemmed for those girls.’ She didn’t try that tack with me again.” Sylvie finished cutting the yellow scraps and rifled through her basket until she produced solid lilac material. “She’s not one hundred percent fake, but she can turn it on and off. At least you knew what you was getting with Hazel.”
“Exactly,” Maggie said excitedly. “Well, I guess. I didn’t know Hazel, but I see what you mean about Stella.”
“But Stellie does have a good personality, I’ll give her that, and she ain’t ashamed of where she come from. But I think she talks about how poor she was so she can tell you how good she has it now. And she and Hazel put their mommy on a pedestal. Now, I didn’t know the woman, so maybe she was as good and perfect as they make her out to be, but they carry on about her too much for my taste. Other than that, I don’t really have a problem with Stellie. I take that back. The way she calls that weirdo Dennis, ‘Brother,’ gets on my nerves.” Sylvie pursed her lips. “It’s just as bad as that ole ‘Bubby’ and ‘Sissy’ routine. Say their names and get on with it.”
Smiling, Maggie said, “So, Sylvie, you knew Hazel. What do you make of the way she died?”
“It does seem strange. I don’t go traipsing over to the neighbor’s in the middle of the night. But we don’t know what goes on in other people’s minds. Who knows why they do what they do?”
When Maggie pulled into her driveway, she spotted someone in the garden with her dad. As soon as she got out of her car, Robert waved and yelled at her, “Come over here. You have a visitor.”
Maggie didn’t place the bibbed-overall-wearing man standing beside her dad until he walked out of the garden with Robert. “Hey, Boone,” she said when she recognized him. “You said you might take a notion and come over here one day to see Daddy. I guess that day’s today.
“It is, it is,” Boone said. “And I came to see you, too. I need to tell you that I remembered something about the night Hazel Baker died.”
Chapter Nine
By the time Maggie, Robert, and Boone reached the porch, Lena had come outside to join them.
“Boone, you ought to stay and eat with us,” Robert said. “Maggie went to the chicken house and got our supper.”
“I’ve been putting up kraut all day and when I can, I don’t cook,” Lena explained. “I try not to make a habit of eating out, but sometimes it’s easier.”
“Especially when she’s buying,” Robert said, grinning at his daughter.
“I don’t know,” Boone objected. “I’m already walking off with a half a bushel of tomatoes. I can’t take your supper.”
“There’s enough chicken in this bucket to feed all four of us,” Maggie said. “We have sides, too. KFC’s mashed potatoes are really good, especially if you douse them in gravy.”
“Well, in that case,” Boone said.
Maggie removed the skin from a fried chicken breast, praying Boone wouldn’t remind her of the reason for his visit. If everything went right, she planned to ask him what he had remembered while helping him to his truck. And only then would she fulfill her promise to Sylvie and tell her parents that she was looking into the circumstances surrounding Hazel Baker’s death. As so often happens, events did not transpire as Maggie had hoped.
“Oh,” Boone said as he crumbled a biscuit into his plate of food. “I didn’t get to finish telling you about that night.”
“What night?” Lena asked.
“The night Hazel Baker died,” Boone said.
“That’s right,” Robert said. “I remember reading in the paper that you were the one that found her.”
“I did, I did. It was not an experience I like to think about, but there was something I didn’t think to tell Maggie that day she came to my house.”
Lena stared at Maggie. “You went to his house?”
“Later, Mom, later.” Maggie asked Boone, “What did you want to tell me?”
“I remembered that I saw something that night when I got up to make water.” Boone moved in his chair so that he faced Robert. “I take those fluid pills for my heart and they make me go to the bathroom a lot.” Addressing Maggie, he said, “When I got up that night, I saw headlights over at Hazel’s. Then a car pulled out of her place. I thought that was kindly odd. She don’t get much company and it was late. But I figured that maybe somebody got lost and pulled off and turned around in her driveway. It could be that or,” Boone turned over his hand, “it could be something else.”
Maggie looked at the bespectacled octogenarian and asked, “Do you always wear your glasses?”
“Maggie!”
“I just want to make sure, Mom.”
“It’s all right. I ain’t no spring chicken. I understand, I understand. Those police asked me the same thing the morning they came to the house. They didn’t think I should have been able to see something floating in the lake from my porch.” Boone again spoke to Robert. “I was afraid they aimed to blame me. Me living right beside her and all. But, I’m here to tell you, I saw her and I saw a car at her place that night. I can see real good with my glasses and I put them on that night when I got up to make water. Something I ate went down wrong and I chewed on a Tums before I went back to bed. I put on my glasses when I was getting the Tums. I wanted to make sure I didn’t take the wrong pill. The good Lord knows I have more medicine bottles in my cabinet than they have at the drugstore. And when I was taking that Tums, I saw car lights over at Hazel’s.”
“Are you sure this wasn’t a dream?”
“Maggie,” Lena pressed her thumb into her forefinger, “I’m this close to sending you to your room.”
“No, it wasn’t something I dreamt,” Boone answered. “And I wasn’t confused by sleep, neither. I was chewing a cherry-flavored Tums when I saw the lights.”
&nbs
p; “Do you know what time this happened?” Maggie asked.
“No, I did not look at the clock, but I wish I had.”
“Well, you had no idea this information might be important.” Maggie paused. “Earl David’s property sits between your house and Hazel’s. Are you sure you didn’t see a car turning at the pay lake? Or maybe it was a reflection from the road? Or –”
“Maggie,” Lena scolded. “He’s not on the witness stand and you’re not Matlock.”
“I understand why she’s asking these questions,” Boone said, “but I know what I saw that night. First, I saw the headlights and, when the car turned out of the driveway and started driving away, I saw the taillights. And I know it was at Hazel’s. The lights wasn’t close enough to be at Earl David’s.”
Maggie envisioned the events Boone explained as he and Robert compared and contrasted the flavors of Levi Garrett and Beech Nut chewing tobacco. After supper, they saw Boone off. Before the old man had even backed out of their driveway, Lena said to Maggie, “Now is later.”
Maggie provided her parents with a timeline of her activities from the day Stella contacted her to her conversation with Sylvie Johnson. When Maggie finished, Lena threw up her hands and walked out of the room. Robert shook his head and asked, “Didn’t you learn your lesson last time?”
She didn’t have time to ponder lessons learned. When she arrived at her house, a light flashing on the telephone alerted her to a message. She pressed play and heard an unfamiliar voice saying, “Hi, I found your name in the book. I need to talk to you. This is Earnest Baker.”
Chapter Ten
Maggie met Earnest a few days later in Jasper at the Dinner Bucket Diner. Before they ordered, she asked him, “How did you know my name?”
“When Stella called you Maggie that rang a bell, but I didn’t realize why until I was looking through the paper and saw your picture. I read your articles all the time. I loved the one about how you finally realized Dick Button the ice skater was not the same person as Dick Butkus the football player. Hazel loved ice skating. That’s the only reason I know who Dick Button is.” Earnest chuckled. “She loved football, too, and, actually, that’s the only reason I know who Dick Butkus is. Except for basketball and NASCAR, I don’t care for sports, but Hazel would watch any kind of televised sporting event. I always thought she had to be the only woman in the world who liked ice skating and football, but now that I’ve met you, I guess I was wrong about that.”
Maggie thanked him for his compliment and Earnest stared at her as if he expected her to say something else. She couldn’t think of anything to add and was grateful when the waitress stopped for their orders. Maggie had planned to deviate from her usual Dinner Bucket fare of pork chops and potato salad and go with a garden salad, but when Earnest asked for soup beans, cornbread, and salmon patties, she changed her mind.
“Can I have soup beans, cornbread, and fried potatoes?” she asked the agreeable waitress.
“I love soup beans,” Earnest said as the waitress walked away. “But bless Brandi’s heart, she can’t get the hang of cooking them.”
Maggie had no interest in hearing about Brandi’s lacking culinary skills, so she said, “On the message, you said you needed to talk to me. About what?”
“I wanted to talk to you for a couple reasons. I wanted to apologize for Brandi’s behavior and mine for that matter. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that you were an innocent bystander who was dragged into this by Stella.”
“Apology accepted.”
“The second thing is that I couldn’t help but think about what Stella said. I know she thinks I killed Hazel. Let me make one thing clear, I didn’t have anything to do with her death. I don’t believe anybody killed her. I think her drowning was an accident. Stella needs to accept that and move on. But I’ve known the family for as long as I can remember. I was with Hazel for years and we were a second set of parents to Stella’s daughter. So, if I can do anything to help bring the family peace, I’ll do it.”
Before Maggie could ask another question, Earnest said, “I’m doing this even though I don’t have to.”
Maggie once more got the feeling he wanted her to offer additional comment. Instead, she asked, “How would you characterize your divorce? Was it friendly? Contentious?”
“I thought it went as smoothly as a divorce could. I didn’t fight Hazel. I gave her everything she wanted.”
“Including part of your pension?”
“Yes. She said she had earned it and I couldn’t disagree with her.”
“Stella says you didn’t want to share the pension.”
“No, that’s a lie, that’s a lie,” Earnest shook his head so fast and so forcefully that Maggie suspected he was hurting himself. “That is a lie.”
The waitress brought their meals and Maggie noticed Earnest’s hands trembling as he brought a spoonful of beans to his mouth. When he started eating a salmon patty, Maggie noticed that he nibbled on his food in a manner that reminded her of a cartoon mouse. Suddenly, Earnest put his silverware on his plate and said, “It wasn’t Hazel’s fault I fell in love with Brandi, so I saw no reason to hurt her more than I already had. Not that I ever planned to hurt her. I thought we’d grow old together, retire, buy an RV, and drive cross country. That was our plan. To pack up and hit the road. But when I met Brandi, things changed. That’s when I realized Hazel wasn’t my soul mate. Brandi was.”
If our soul mates can be thirty-some years younger than us, thought Maggie, then maybe my recently-potty-trained soul mate is waking from his nap and getting ready to ride his Big Wheel. Wonder how we’ll meet? She put that out of her mind and asked, “I understand Brandi was your housekeeper?”
Earnest, who had resumed imitating a ravenous vermin, nodded and said, “She stopped by to clean our house once a week. Bless her heart, the poor thing, she was struggling. Her ex-husband, they were married at the time, wouldn’t work. They couldn’t afford daycare, so she cleaned house. That way, she could keep Paradice with her while she worked. As it so happens, I had hurt my back and was off work for a few weeks. We got to talking and fell in love.”
Maggie tried to imagine a romance budding between a well-past middle-age man laid up with a hurt back and a fiery young house cleaner, and in full view of a child.
“I guess it’s true what they say about love blossoming when we least expect it,” Maggie said. “When did you last talk to Hazel?”
“I’d go months without seeing or talking to her.”
That’s not what I asked, Maggie thought to herself. To Earnest, she said, “Do you remember the last time you saw her?”
Earnest kept his eyes on the salmon patty he had harpooned with a fork. “I ran into her at the post office a week or two or maybe even three before she died. I bet I hadn’t seen Hazel or even talked to her a handful of times since the divorce. That’s what I don’t understand about Stella. It’s not like me and Hazel were fighting. You don’t just up and kill somebody you haven’t talked to in months.” Earnest picked up his cup of diet soda with both hands and took a drink. “Of course, Stella talked to her every day.”
“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”
Earnest turned his head downward and said out of one side of his mouth, “Stella wasn’t happy when their mommy left her house to Hazel. She thought she should have left it to Dennis. But their mommy knew he couldn’t take care of a house and she knew Hazel would take care of the house and Dennis.”
“Dennis lived with their mother?”
“Yes.”
“So, why doesn’t he live in that house now?”
“Me and Hazel had to pay the taxes and insurance on that house and we thought it was only right for Dennis to pay rent. Stella wouldn’t have it. She found that old trailer down the holler that belonged to one of their cousins and talked them into renting it out to Dennis. But I did feel bad when he had to leave the house, so I mentioned to Hazel that we should get him to take care of it for us. You
know, I could have come in on that house, but I let Hazel have it free and clear. It was her mommy’s house and she was raised in it. I wouldn’t make a claim on it. That wouldn’t have been right.”
Maggie struggled to pay attention to Earnest, but a little voice in her head that repeated “this man is unbelievable” kept distracting her. She wanted to ask Earnest if they paid Dennis for the privilege of performing maintenance work on a house he had lived in his entire life before being evicted by his sister and if Earnest had heard himself proclaim not two minutes earlier that Dennis couldn’t take care of the house. She decided to steer clear of insinuating herself into family drama and said, “Let me see if I have this straight. Are you suggesting that Stella harbored resentment for years over Dennis’ housing situation and decided to finally exact her revenge early one morning beside a pay lake?”
“No, I’m just pointing out that Stella had about as good of a reason to kill Hazel as I did.”
Maggie stared at him, thinking to herself, he doesn’t realize he just admitted that he had motive to murder Hazel. After he left, Maggie remained in the booth and looked over her notes. She had documented how his hands shook during her and Stella’s surprise visit to his house and made note of how they trembled during lunch. She wondered if it was due to a medical condition and wrote a reminder to ask Stella about that as well as what she considered his self-satisfied demeanor and his accusations against Stella. Just as she closed her notepad, Seth slid into the booth across from her.
Murder at Catfish Corner: A Maggie Morgan Mystery Page 6
