Maisie Fezziwig 01-Hickory Dickory Dead

by Cheryl Bradshaw

  “We all do.”

  Wanda opened the door a bit wider. “You ever have to identify a dead body before?”

  “No, but I—”

  “No, but nothing. Until you have, there’s no way you could understand what I just went through.”

  “Actually there is something I can say if you’ll pipe down long enough for me to say it,” Maisie said. “It used to be my job.”

  “What was your job?”

  “Performing autopsies, examining bodies.”

  “How did you do it? I just don’t know how anyone could have a job like that and like it.”

  The answer was hard to explain, and even if she could have, she wouldn’t have. Ever since she was thirteen, Maisie had been fascinated with forensics, fascinated with dissecting worms in class, fascinated with seeing what things looked like on the inside. To her, it was a treat. While her female classmates whined and squirmed, she’d picked up the scalpel and dove right in.

  “There is satisfaction in it.”

  “How could there be? Don’t you feel guilty? Don’t you feel bad for them?”

  “Over the years I’ve made plenty of discoveries. Some helped police nail the bad guy, bringing closure to grieving families. When I helped solve a case, every second of the process was worth it. I couldn’t bring them back, but I could help them get justice.” Maisie paused. “So, are you going to invite me in, or what?”

  Wanda hesitated. Maisie didn’t. She pushed the door all the way open and walked right in.

  “What are you ... you can’t just walk in here and—”

  “Why not? You walked into my home yesterday. Today I’m walking into yours.”

  “This isn’t my home though. It belongs to someone else. I’m just here temporarily.”

  Maisie shrugged. “Doesn’t look like anyone else is here right now, so who cares? Answer my questions, and I’ll leave.”

  “I haven’t talked to my son in a long time. I don’t know how I can help you.”

  “Tell me about the last time you saw him.”

  She leaned against the wall, crossed her arms in front of her, closing her eyes like she was trying to remember. “It was a Sunday. I remember because we were outside and women in dresses were walking by, going to church. He was angry. So angry.”

  “About the money?”

  She nodded. “It had been a week since I’d taken it, and I only had about ten percent of what I was supposed to pay back. I thought I could pay him in installments and everything would be all right, but he said he needed it right then.”

  “Why? What was the urgency?”

  “He was trying to buy something from the pawnshop.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

  Maisie raised a brow. “You’re lying. Why are you lying to me?”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “He’d dead, Wanda. Tell the truth. What difference will it make now?”

  She threw her hands in the air. “A ring. I’m guessing for the girl he married.”

  “When you didn’t give him the money, what did he do?”

  She took a deep breath. “He yelled at me, kept going on and on about all the things I’d done wrong in my life, what a terrible mother I’d always been to him. He said he didn’t want me in his life, said I was dead to him. He was embarrassed of me. I thought he was just mad, that he’d come around, but he never did. He left, and I never saw him again.”

  “Did you try reaching out to him?”

  “I called a few times. When he didn’t answer, I thought he was just angry. I figured he’d call or come see me once he calmed down. A few days went by, then a week, then several weeks, until I realized he really wasn’t going to speak to me again.”

  “Because you’ve been straight with me, I’ll share something with you,” Maisie said. “One of my neighbors saw your son trying to bury something right before he was murdered. He didn’t know what. I went over to the house and did some digging on my own. I found a gun. I believe it belonged to your son, and I believe he put it there. What I don’t understand is why he buried it. People keep guns around all the time. He could have put it in a locked gun case, but he didn’t.”

  Wanda smacked a hand over her lips. “I ... I think ... I mean, I’m worried my son may have been caught up in something out of his control. I mean, I don’t believe he’d ever hurt someone, but now I ... I just don’t know.”

  “I thought you said he wasn’t a violent person?”

  “He’s not. Never got in a single fight growing up with anyone. He’d always been more of a peacemaker, the kind of kid who never made waves.”

  “Then what makes you think he got involved in something he shouldn’t have been involved in?” Maisie asked.

  “Not long ago, one of his childhood friends told me Lane came to him, asking where he could get a gun without anyone knowing.”

  “What did the friend say?”

  “He gave him the number of a guy he knew who might be able to help.”

  “Did the friend ask Lane why he needed it?”

  She nodded. “He said it was just a precaution. Protection for his family—the girl he planned to marry and their baby. His friend thought it seemed legit and didn’t think anything of it until Lane walked away and made a phone call on his cell phone.”

  “To whom?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What was the conversation about?”

  “He said he didn’t catch very much of it, only the end when my son said: Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of him. He’s a dead man’.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Maisie left Wanda’s house with more questions than answers. Why had Lane needed a gun? What was he planning on doing with it? Kill someone? And if so, who was he going to “take care of,” and why? And even more confusing was why the killer murdered Lane but didn’t murder Zoey—at least not there at the house. And what was her role in all of this?

  With no other leads to follow, Maisie did what she was good at when she needed answers. She baked two dozen cookies and picked up Maude, deciding now was as good a time as any to check in on Alice, and to do a bit more digging in the process.

  Not one to obey speed laws, Maisie rounded a corner too fast, causing her cell phone to slide out of the cup holder in the center console and plop in front of Maude’s feet on the car mat.

  Maude grimaced, bent down, and picked it up. “Seriously, Maisie, do you really need to drive so fast?”

  “The speed limit’s fifty on this road. I’m going fifty-five. I don’t see the problem.”

  “The curve speed isn’t fifty, surely.” Maude glanced at the screen on Maisie’s phone. “Umm, you have two missed calls and five texts from a man named Daniel. Who’s Daniel?”

  “The guy whose belt you saw on my kitchen table.”

  “Is he your boyfriend?”

  “No. I don’t do boyfriends at my age.”

  “Then what is he to you?”

  Maisie considered the question. “Complicated. Very complicated. And not great at taking a hint.”

  Maude tapped the phone’s screen and read the text message aloud: Hey baby, you up for a roll in the hay tonight? Let me know, darlin’. Unaware the text would be so personal, Maude dropped the phone like it was a hot potato. “Eww, Maisie. Disgusting. Are you going to see this guy tonight?”

  Maisie snatched her phone out of her sister’s hand. “No.”

  “Does he know that?”

  She shrugged. “Who knows? If brains were lard, he’d be hard pressed to grease the pan.”

  “Seriously, Maisie. You don’t have to be mean.”

  “I’m not being mean. If you met him, you’d understand. I can’t help it if his head is shoved so far up his ass there’s no hope of him ever seeing daylight again.”

  “Language, Maisie,” Maude scolded.

  Maisie sighed, then parked in front of Zoey’s mother’s house. She got out of the car, bag of cookies in hand, and walked
with Maude to the door. Maude knocked. A woman with wavy, shoulder-length, ash-blond hair opened the door, her eyes red and puffy, her face somber.

  “Hello,” Maisie said. “I am your daughter’s neighbor. That is to say, I live on the same street your mother Mildred lived on.”

  “Yes,” the woman replied, voice monotone. “Mother spoke about you from time to time. You’re the sisters who found Alice and took care of her, right?”

  Maisie thumbed to Maude. “Actually, my sister gets all the credit for Alice, but yes, she was at my home for a short time until the caseworker brought her to you.”

  The woman turned, glancing into an oval mirror hanging on the wall in the foyer. “I apologize for how I must appear to you. I haven’t showered or slept since my daughter went missing. We’ve been making flyers, taking them around, doing everything we can to get the word out.”

  Maisie handed the cookies to the woman. “I shouldn’t have brought you cookies. I should have brought you a casserole, or real food, or something to feed your entire family. I apologize.”

  “It’s fine,” the woman said. “My name’s Erin, by the way. Are you here to see Alice?”

  They both nodded.

  Erin held the door open, and they walked in, following Erin to the living room where Alice was wrapped in a blanket on the sofa.

  “May I?” Maude asked, reaching out for Alice.

  “Of course,” Erin replied. “Spend all the time you like.”

  While Maude doted on Alice, Maisie turned to Erin, using the time to her advantage. “I was also hoping to talk to you about Zoey. You’re not the only one interested in finding her. Aside from the police, I’d like to know what happened to her too. I imagine I’ll feel a little unsettled until she’s found, and until the person responsible for Lane’s murder is behind bars.”

  Or dead. Either outcome would suffice. As far as she was concerned, the death of the killer would be a perfectly logical way of rectifying a situation such as this one. If she had her way, the vast majority of murderers wouldn’t be alive long enough after they were caught to talk about it.

  “I appreciate your regard for my daughter. I just wish the police knew something. Anything. The waiting is what’s hard, and the unknown. Not knowing if I’ll ever see her again, ever hear her voice again. It’s the kind of thing you don’t think about until it happens, and when it does, all you can think about is all the things you wished you’d said that you might never get to say. I’ll never take a single second for granted again.”

  Overwhelmed with emotion, tears poured down Erin’s face. Maisie paused, waiting for her to compose herself before speaking. Then, “I wonder, what sort of man was Lane?”

  Erin looked over like she didn’t understand the question. “I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

  “Was he kind? Loving? Quick-tempered? Aggressive?”

  “He was a quiet, soft-spoken boy. Polite. Respectful. In all the time we knew him, he never raised his voice—not to me, not to my daughter, not to anyone. It makes no sense to me why any of this happened.”

  “Why don’t we sit down?”

  Panic gripped Erin’s face. “Why? Is everything okay? Did something happen? Do you know something?”

  “I don’t know much more than you do, I’m sure, but there is a thing or two I’d like to talk to you about.”

  Erin nodded, sat on a chair. Maisie sat across from her.

  “What is it? What do you want to tell me?”

  “A neighbor thought he saw Lane trying to bury something in the backyard right after he moved in. I did a little poking around and found a gun.”

  “I don’t believe it. I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “For starters, guns aren’t the type of thing Lane or Zoey would have owned, let alone kept around. I’ve never allowed guns in the house. I don’t agree with keeping firearms around children. I’m leery to keep them even when they’re locked up. I can’t see my daughter allowing Lane to keep a gun with a baby around, no matter if he chose to hide it or not. Lane was a sweet boy. The idea of him owning a gun doesn’t make sense.”

  Erin’s comments had Maisie clutching her handbag even tighter to make sure the magnetic closure remained closed. Not only did she have her own pistol in the zippered pocket, it was loaded. The safety was on, and there was no chance of anyone being harmed, but still. She was unnerved.

  A door cracked open down the hall. Lena popped her head out, then walked toward them, dressed in a tank top and knee-length yoga shorts. She yawned, stretched her arms into the air, and said, “Hi, Maisie. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m talking to your mother about your sister.”

  Erin looked at her daughter. “Maisie was just telling me she dug up a gun in the backyard of Nana’s old house, and a neighbor thinks he saw Lane put it there.”

  Like her mother, Lena’s eyes were also red and tired, lacking sleep. She blinked a few times, crossed her arms in front of her, and rubbed her lips together like she’d just applied Chapstick. What she didn’t do was utter a single word. She just stood there, absorbing what had just been said. Maisie found her behavior curious. This was heightened even more when she turned, walked into the kitchen, and grabbed a granola bar from the pantry, disengaging from further conversation.

  “She’s struggling with it all right now,” Erin whispered. “They were very close. They even double dated for a while ... well, until the Grady boy ... well, until she broke up with him and he tried to take his life.”

  Maisie had a vague memory of seeing a story in the paper about a boy who had tried to kill himself and failed. “Do you mean Kyle Grady?”

  Erin nodded. “A couple months ago, he drove to the mountains with the idea he was going to shoot himself in the head. Shot his ear off instead. Strangest thing. Of all the boys to stoop so low to do such a thing, I never thought he’d be the one to do it. Well, try to do it, anyway.”

  “Why not?”

  Although Lena behaved like she was out of earshot, she said, “Mother, please. I’m sure Maisie doesn’t need to know all the details about what happened with Kyle.”

  “Nonsense. I’m interested in the story.”

  “You said you read it in the paper,” Lena said. “I’m sure it went over everything in detail.”

  “The paper only reports what they’re told. It isn’t always the full story.”

  “He was such a nice boy,” Erin said. “A happy boy. Always so positive and upbeat. He came from a good family, had so many things going for him.”

  “What was his motivation behind the attempted suicide?”

  Erin glanced at Lena like she wasn’t sure how much to say, but it was too late. The discussion was in full swing. “All anyone has is speculation. Rumor was he battled depression. Had for years, I guess, although I never saw it in the few times he was here. He had a football scholarship, but he was injured this past year. The injury was substantial enough that it was ‘game over’ for his career.”

  Lena flinched, rubbing her hands up and down her arms like she felt a sudden chill, even though Erin’s home was so warm, that Maisie was experiencing hot flashes.

  “Lena, how long did you two date?” Maisie asked.

  Lena hopped off the kitchen stool, came back into the living room, and sat down. “About two months.”

  “They ended things right before he tried to kill himself,” Erin added.

  Maisie raised a brow. Lena looked at her mother like if she had some tape, she’d stick it across her mother’s mouth.

  “If you’re thinking he ended his life because of me, he didn’t,” Lena said. “After he was injured, he decided to enroll in medical school next year. Well, he didn’t decide. His father decided for him.”

  “Why? Was it what Kyle wanted?”

  “It didn’t really matter. His dad is the kind of guy who can’t accept his children not excelling at something, so when the chance to see his son make it to the NFL didn’t work out, his dad already had a Plan B.�
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  “And Kyle just went along with it?”

  “He didn’t have much choice. His family is well off. Kyle grew up having everything he ever wanted. Not doing what his father expected of him meant Kyle would be cut off. And he was more afraid of standing up to his father than he was of having a career he had no interest in.”

  “Why did the two of you break up?”

  “I wanted him to stand up to his dad. I kept telling him to grow up, be a man, like the man he was with me. Going to medical school meant we wouldn’t live near each other, and we had such a good thing going. I didn’t want to end things with him. He didn’t either, but he kept saying it didn’t have to be that way. We could have a long-distance relationship. I couldn’t handle a boyfriend who lived so far away from me, so I ended it.”

  “How did he take the break-up?”

  She frowned, clasped her hands together on her lap, struggling to keep her emotions together. “Not well. He cried, which shocked me. He’d never been emotional in front of me before. He just stood there, tears streaming down his face, holding my hands, and begging me to change my mind, but I didn’t. I wanted to stay with him. I really did, but I thought if I pushed the issue, maybe he’d stand up to his dad.”

  “And when he didn’t?”

  “He came by a few times. I refused to see him. And that’s when—”

  “He tried to kill himself. How is your relationship with him now?”

  “Better. We’re actually good friends.”

  Maisie switched topics. “Did Lane or your sister have any enemies?”

  “My sister is very quiet and kind. As far as I know, everyone liked her.”

  “What about Lane? Did he have enemies?”

  “Lane was nice to everyone. I never saw him—”

  She stopped midsentence.

  “Never saw him what?”

  “I’ve only seen him get angry with someone one time. After Zoey moved out of the dorm, I stopped by one day to get a few things her roommate said she’d left there. She’d been feeling really tired with the pregnancy and asked me to stop by for her. When I arrived, Lane was in her room, which I thought was weird, because if he was there, he could have just brought her the stuff she left.”