50% off Murder

by Josie Belle

  They were silent for a moment. Maggie was trying to process all that she had learned, and Claire seemed to be lost somewhere in the past.

  When the door opened at the end of the hall, Maggie glanced up, expecting to see Sam Collins. When she recognized the crotchety deputy making his way toward them, she was surprised to find she felt disappointment instead of relief.

  “Time’s up,” he said. “We’re having a shift change.”

  Maggie glanced at her watch. She had to get to Dr. Franklin’s anyway.

  “Listen, Claire, I know telling me all of this was hard for you, but I’m glad you trusted me,” she said. “It’s going to help you get out of here. I promise.”

  “Thanks, Maggie,” Claire said. “And not just for the pep talk.”

  Maggie tilted her head. She wasn’t sure she under-stood.

  “What I mean is, thanks for not treating me any differently now that you know everything,” Claire said. “You’re a good friend.”

  “So are you,” Maggie said. “No matter what happened when you were a teenager, you are a good person, and you did the right thing. Is it all right if I tell Ginger and Joanne?”

  Claire nodded. “Yes, I trust you—all of you.”

  “Yeah, blah blah,” the old deputy said. “You’re cutting into my break time. Let’s go.”

  Maggie reached through the bars to give Claire a half hug. “I’ll be back later today or early tomorrow,” she said. “And I know Max is coming by later. I’ll see if we can get you something to read in there.”

  Claire looked like she might weep with relief, “Oh, please! All this time on my hands with no books is killing me.”

  Maggie grinned. Claire was such a librarian.

  With a wave, she followed the deputy out to the front desk, where she retrieved her purse.

  “Bye, Dot,” she said.

  “Bye, Maggie. Remember my shoe size is seven and a half.”

  “On it,” Maggie said. She swept out the front door, feeling optimistic for the first time in days. They were going to get Claire out of jail, and they were going to prove she was innocent by catching the real killer.

  Of course, she had no idea how they were going to do that; it just seemed more in the realm of possibility than it had yesterday. She hurried down the sidewalk. She had parked farther away, around the corner at the unmetered parking. As she strode toward her car, she heard a set of heels clicking purposefully behind her.

  She glanced over her shoulder to see Summer Phillips bearing down on her like a warship with its canons primed. Perhaps it was because she was leading with her bust like the carved wooden figurehead on the bow of a ship. In any event, Maggie wanted to get out of firing range.

  She supposed Summer was out for revenge for the ice cream incident, which would not be out of order, but Maggie really didn’t have time for a tussle before work. She was pushing being late as it was.

  “Do not try to outrun me, Gerber,” Summer barked.

  Which told Maggie, of course, that that was exactly what she should do. She picked up her pace, and she heard Summer pick up hers as well. Darn it. This is when peep-toe pumps were not helpful, not at all. She didn’t want to go faster for fear of a taking a header, but Summer had at least four inches in leg length on her, and the odds were good that she would be able to make up the ground between them pretty quickly. Maggie poured on a burst of speed.

  Two men dressed in fluorescent orange vests were surveying the street, trying to determine if they needed to add a streetlight on the corner of Chestnut and Main. They did this every year, as old man Wilcox, who lived in the big house on the corner, attended every town council meeting and complained loudly that he could never cross the street on account of there not being a light.

  So every year it was surveyed, and every year they discovered that Mr. Wilcox was just moving slower and slower and, no, they would not be putting in a light.

  This, of course, made old man Wilcox mad, and he would soon be dragging his lawn chair out to the sidewalk to count the number of cars that turned the corner onto Chestnut. He would then make a fancy colored graph showing the peak traffic times and how they correlated with his day’s schedule of trying to cross the street. Then he would attend all of the council meetings until they agreed to have the corner surveyed again. Maggie thought they should just give the old man his light. Really, was it asking so much?

  Both of the surveyors stopped what they were doing and took in the sight of Maggie trying to outrun Summer. Maggie could hear Summer wheezing up behind her and suspected she was about to have all of her hair pulled out by the roots.

  Abruptly, a blue sedan screeched to a stop right in the middle of Chestnut Street, and the passenger door popped open.

  “Jump in, she’s gaining on you!” Ginger ordered.

  Chapter 22

  Maggie jumped into the car, and Ginger zipped away before she had even shut her door. Maggie scrambled around in her seat, slamming the door. She glanced back to see Summer stomping her size twelve high heel on the sidewalk. The two surveyors stared openmouthed as Summer let loose a string of curses that could have bubbled the tarmac.

  “How did you know I needed back-up?”

  “One of my boys was at the Perk Up getting an iced coffee and saw you leave the jail with Summer hot on your tail, so he called me,” Ginger said. She glanced at Maggie out of the corner of her eye. “He said he wasn’t sure it was you, given that you were all decked out like you were going on a date or something.”

  “It’s the one-year rule,” Maggie said.

  “But you wore that when we—”

  “I know,” she said. “Claire already reminded me. So I forgot? Sheesh. Why is everyone making such a big deal about it? Do I normally look so terrible?”

  “Is that a rhetorical question?” Ginger asked. She smiled as she drove around the corner and parked under a large, shady maple tree. The morning was already heating up, and both ladies rolled down their windows to allow for a cross breeze.

  “As scintillating as discussing my wardrobe is, I have bigger news,” Maggie said. She then told Ginger all about her conversation with Claire.

  “Oh, wow,” Ginger said. “This certainly fits in with what I’ve found out about Templeton so far.”

  “What do you know?”

  “His venture capital company is really just a giant shark swallowing up any guppies stupid enough to invest with him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Okay, you know how the country is in an economic bust, partly because people used their houses for ATMs and took out home equity loans at high interest rates, and then found when their home values tanked that they now owed more than their homes were worth?”

  “Yeah,” Maggie said. She felt her tightwad insides pinch at the thought.

  “Well, Templeton’s venture capital company pretty much did that with all of the small businesses they financed. If I’m reading the financials right, he loaned money, waited for the company to fail, and then swooped in and bought them out.”

  “So, he was like the black death of financing,” Maggie said.

  “He was definitely a parasite,” Ginger agreed. “And of course his real profit came when he unloaded the dead business onto a new buyer.”

  “Well, that would certainly give someone a motive to kill him,” Maggie said.

  “Agreed. So, what next?” Ginger asked.

  “I have to go in to work,” Maggie said. “But then I want to meet with Max and see how this new information will affect getting Claire out of jail.”

  “It might not help her,” Ginger said, chewing her lip.

  “Why, because she committed a crime as a youth?”

  “No, because she fled a crime scene before,” Ginger sighed. “She may be perceived as a flight risk.”

  “I didn’t think of that.”

  “What can I do to help?” Ginger asked.

  “For starters, would you mind dropping me off at work?” Maggie asked. “I can hoof it
back to get my car later. I’m afraid Summer is going to camp out next to it.”

  “Not a problem,” Ginger said. “I’m going to go back to the office and see what I can find out about the young entrepreneur’s group, as in who invested with Templeton and how much.”

  “You can do that?” Maggie asked.

  “I have some sources.” Ginger put the car in drive and pulled out onto the main road.

  Maggie gave Ginger an impressed look.

  “I had no idea accountants were so well connected.”

  “We know where the bodies are buried—financially speaking.” Ginger took two right turns and pulled into the long driveway in front of Spring Gardens.

  “Thanks, Ginger,” Maggie said as she opened her door. “You’re a lifesaver, and I do mean that literally.”

  “That’s what I’m here for.” Ginger said. “But repayment with some blackberry cobbler would not be refused.”

  Maggie laughed. “How did you know Josh and I spent yesterday picking blackberries off my bushes?”

  “I saw him with Sandy at the park, and his fingers were still purple.”

  “Excellent. Recon at my house at seven?” Maggie said. “And I’ll let you bring the vanilla ice cream.”

  With a wave, Ginger headed back out of the lot, and Maggie hurried into the entrance she used for Dr. Franklin’s office.

  “Well, look what the wind blew in,” Cheryl Kincaid said. Cheryl was Dr. Franklin’s longtime nurse practitioner and had become a good friend of Maggie’s over the years. “So, do you have a hot lunch date or what?”

  “No, I’m just behind on laundry,” Maggie said. Man, she wished she’d never worn this dress today. It all seemed so stupid, since she’d never even seen Sam.

  “Well, you’d better stay in your office or you’re going to give my older male patients heart attacks,” Dr. Franklin said as he stepped out of the exam room with a chart in his hand.

  “Oh, aren’t you sweet,” Maggie said.

  Dr. Franklin was tall and thin, with a thick thatch of white hair on his head. Maggie had learned years ago that she could mark the time of day by his hair. In the morning he always started with a head of properly pomaded and sculpted hair but, by the time lunch rolled around, his hair would escape its chemical bonds and would have less of an Elvis and more of an Einstein thing going. By the end of the day, it was full-on mad scientist.

  His wife, Alice, had tried every beauty product available on his hair, but nothing could tame Dr. Franklin’s crazy mane for long. Maggie knew she had managed to arrive on time today, as not a hair was yet out of place.

  “Unless, of course, we need Maggie to restart a heart,” Cheryl teased. “In that dress, she might be able to pull it off.”

  Cheryl was short and stocky, played in the town softball league and was known for her love of beer, brats and brawn. She and Tim Kelly, who owned the local tavern, had been a couple for years, but they had never married and didn’t live together. Cheryl said it was because they liked their space, and this relationship worked out fine for both of them. Maggie couldn’t fault it. They seemed happy.

  “Thank you both,” Maggie said. She was feeling embarrassed and longed to duck into her office. “Would you look at the time? I’ll just get to work then. I want to see if we’ve heard back from Mr. Stevenson’s insurance company. They’re being awfully evasive about covering his heart medication.”

  “Coffee is hot if you need it,” Cheryl called after her.

  Maggie’s office was in the back of Dr. Franklin’s suite of rooms. Nestled between the bathroom and the exterior wall, she was happy to have a window that overlooked the grounds, even if the occasional flushing noise made her bladder spasm.

  She turned on her computer and waited for it to boot up while she went through her voice mail. She had several messages from insurance companies that she had to return, as well as some from patients. She didn’t love doing the billing for Dr. Franklin; in fact, sometimes she was sure her brain was turning into tapioca dealing with all of the insurance companies and their ridiculous parameters for care. But still, she knew she was making a difference for Dr. Franklin’s patients and for Dr. Franklin and Cheryl, because no one got paid until Maggie got the money in.

  On particularly bad days, she envisioned herself storming the offices of the insurance companies, swinging a baseball bat and threatening to smash some skulls until she left with what they owed Dr. Franklin. But that was only on particularly bad days.

  She turned her radio on low to NPR and listened to the news while she worked her way through the files in front of her. She had been billing for Dr. Franklin for so long, she knew which companies she had to call, who she had to send letters to and who she needed to turn over to collections. She didn’t enjoy doing that, but sometimes even she needed to call in the heavies.

  “Knock knock.”

  Maggie turned to her door to find Dr. Franklin standing there. His hair was mussed, indicating that they were about halfway through the workday.

  “What’s up, Doc?” she asked with a smile. He shook his head. How many years had she been teasing him with that one? Too many to count, and yet he always smiled.

  “Do you have a minute, Maggie?”

  “For the boss? Always.”

  “I wanted to talk to you about Claire Freemont,” he said.

  Maggie waved him into her little office, and he sat in the only other available chair. She reached over and switched off the radio right in the middle of the local weather forecast. They were predicting thunderstorms. Not a big surprise in southern Virginia in August.

  “I take it you’ve heard,” Maggie said.

  Dr. Franklin was well into his sixties, and his face was lined with wrinkles. Most were laugh lines, but Maggie knew the deeper creases came from worry, worry about patients he couldn’t cure or patients who wouldn’t follow the treatments he prescribed.

  Claire was one of his patients—as were all the GBGs, since they were referred by Maggie—and Maggie knew Dr. Franklin well enough to realize that Claire’s situation would concern him greatly.

  “I went to see her this morning,” Maggie said. “She’s bored, but otherwise, I think she’s holding up very well.”

  Dr. Franklin nodded. “Good, that’s good. She’s had a—very difficult life.”

  Maggie tilted her head and studied him. Had Claire told him about Baltimore?

  Dr. Franklin’s eyes were a pale blue, and he watched Maggie as if he was waiting for her to put it together without him having to break any patient confidentiality.

  Yep, she had told him.

  “Things were difficult for her,” Maggie said. “But she made several good choices, and I’m hoping that will weigh in her favor when Max tries to get her bail set.”

  “Ah, the young Mr. Button,” Dr. Franklin said. “How is he holding up under the strain of his first big case?”

  “Well enough to boss me around,” Maggie said. “And his mentor, a defense attorney in Richmond, is helping him with the case.”

  Dr. Franklin nodded. “Excellent. I heard Judge Pearson is presiding. He’s very fair-minded. Max should do well with him.”

  “I’ll be there to help, too,” Maggie said.

  Dr. Franklin looked alarmed.

  “What?” Maggie asked.

  “Won’t Sheriff Collins be there?”

  “Probably,” she said. “I suppose he may be called upon to testify. Why?”

  “Do you think it’s wise for you to be in the same room with him?”

  Maggie shrugged and avoided his kind gaze. Dr. Franklin always had the ability to make her feel as if she were still a teenager. She had begun working for him when she was seventeen, part-time and after school; it had worked well with her schedule.

  When things had ended between her and Sam, she had tried to pretend nothing was wrong. She worked through her tears, learned her new job and never said a word to anyone. Then one night when they were closing the office, Dr. Franklin invited Maggie to take a
walk with him.

  They had strolled around the town green, not talking until he finally said, “Maggie, I’m a doctor, but I don’t need my stethoscope to diagnose a broken heart. Are you all right?”

  Maggie had been fine…well, she’d been doing a fine job of faking it until Dr. Franklin gazed at her with those worry lines creasing his forehead. Then she had fallen apart.

  They had ended up sitting in the gazebo in the middle of the town green while Maggie cried her eyes out into his handkerchief. He had tsked in all the right places as she recounted the story, but he had never offered her any advice or told her she’d been a fool. He’d let her cry it all out, and then he invited her to dinner with him and his wife, Alice.

  Maggie had always liked Dr. Franklin before, but from that day forward she loved him like the father she’d never had, the uncle she wished she’d had and the grandpa who had died too young for her to know him.

  “So much time has passed since that teenage heartbreak,” Maggie said. “I married Charlie, a wonderful man, gave birth to our beautiful daughter and had to bury my dear Charlie entirely too soon. That was real heartbreak. I’m a different person now. I really think I’m over Sam, and I can handle being in a courtroom with him.”

  “So, the outfit is for…?”

  “I may be over him, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want him to notice that the years have been good to me,” she said.

  Dr. Franklin gave her a dubious look. Then he gave her a slow smile that took in her outfit. “So, did you see him at the station today?”

  “No, he was out on a call,” she said. She gave a frustrated sigh.

  “Shall I call in a crime and get him over here?” he asked. “It’d be a shame for him to miss out on your…er…need to do laundry.”

  Maggie smiled. “I think calling in a false report is a crime, and I already have my hands full visiting Claire, but thanks for offering.”

  “I know it’s cold comfort,” Dr. Franklin said. “But I’d bet my last tongue depressor that he regrets what happened all those years ago.”

  “Eh.” Maggie waved a hand as if she didn’t care. But there was a treacherous part of her that really hoped Dr. Franklin was right.