Mud Bog Murder

by Lesley A. Diehl

  “It’s over between us, isn’t it, Eve?”

  I nodded. “It’s not your fault.”

  “Oh, yes, it is. There’s something about you that I’m missing, isn’t there?”

  I thought about that and nodded again.

  “You’re crazy about sleuthing, aren’t you? It just brings out your competitive side, and then we fight. The making up is always good, but that’s no way to live. And it’s not the kind of relationship either of us needs.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him he was only half right, but the words wouldn’t come out. Maybe I didn’t have the words yet.

  “I love you, Eve, but not the way you need to be loved. And I know you care for me, too.” He reached for me and gave me a hug. I hugged back.

  We both wiped at wet eyes, but he spoke first. “Now about this George guy. You don’t mind buttering him up?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Good. You know, Eve, you would make a damn good private eye. You’ve got the drive, the intelligence, and you can ferret out clues. You just need one thing.”

  “A license?”

  “Nope. You need to listen better. You jump in with your own conclusions too soon. Let people talk. You’ll get more out of them.”

  I thought back on my conversation with Shelley. I’d labeled the harsh words between Clay Archer and her mother a ‘lover’s spat’ and thought Shelley agreed, but maybe I had jumped the gun. Maybe Shelley would have called it something else. What?

  “Good advice,” I said.

  Alex laughed. “Really. I can think of a time when you would have told me to go suck an egg.”

  “It’s good advice, and now go suck an egg.”

  We both laughed.

  “Can you take some more advice?”

  Well, maybe I’d had enough, but Alex seemed eager to play the part of mentor now.

  “There’s a guy, name’s Crusty McNabb. He’s been a PI for years now. He’s rented the small office front next to your shop. You should go talk to him.”

  My mouth dropped open in surprise. “I think Sabal Bay may have its share of PIs. They don’t need one more and a Yankee woman to boot.”

  “Just go chat with him. He’s older and wanting to retire soon. He might consider taking you on as an apprentice. I’ve told him all about you.”

  I could just imagine what Alex had said.

  “I run a consignment business, and I’m happy doing that. It takes up all my time.”

  “Does it? No time for snooping into crime, huh?”

  We finished loading the dishwasher together; then Alex left.

  I was about to go back to join everyone when Grandy came in.

  “I kept everyone out of here so the two of you could talk,” said Grandy.

  “Thanks.”

  “It was time, you know.”

  “Yep.”

  “But he was only half right, you know.”

  I looked at her, curious about what she had to say.

  “You do need to develop better listening skills ….”

  I was about to say something, but I snapped my lips together.

  “Yeah, like that. And you were pretty competitive with him when it came to ferreting out clues and chasing down the bad guys or girls.”

  I simply nodded.

  “What he doesn’t get is that you do all this because you’re a rescuer.”

  “A what?”

  “You heard me. A rescuer. Like with Shelley. Think about it, Eve. If you do, you’ll realize I’m right.”

  “Who else do you think gets this about me? I mean, if it’s true, and I’m not saying it is.”

  “Well, honey, you just think about that too. You need a man who gets that about you.”

  I knew someone like that.

  “Meantime, while you’re digesting all this, you might want to think about what Alex told you about Crusty McNabb.”

  I snorted. “Me? A PI? What about Madeleine and my business?”

  “Things have a way of sorting themselves out. Now come and say good night to your friends.”

  Before I left on my errand, Madeleine whispered in my ear, “We haven’t had time to talk. I do have information about the funeral.”

  I pulled her and David onto the porch and shut the door.

  “Tell me.”

  “Darrel was at Shelley’s side, as you suspected would be the case,” said David. “All the usual players from the ranching community were there. Jay Cassidy looked particularly upset.”

  “As well he should be with that shady deal he made with Jenny,” I said.

  “George was there too, David said,” Madeleine interjected.

  David added, “Most people weren’t happy at that, given he was one of the protesters, but I guess he was tolerated out of respect for Jenny, because of their engagement.”

  “Anything else interesting?’

  David hesitated. “Clay Archer showed up with his wife, soon to be ex. I thought that was kind of odd.”

  “Maybe they’re reconciling,” I said.

  “Everyone around here hopes not. We think Clay would be better off without her telling him what to do. I thought Clay was beginning to see it that way too. Maybe not,” David concluded.

  “She probably knew Jenny well since she was her nearest neighbor, the years before she and Clay split,” Madeleine said.

  Because we’d eaten early, it was not quite seven in the evening when I pulled up in front of George’s trailer. I had a perfect excuse for visiting him again. I had forgotten to give him the clothes and items he’d left at Jenny’s house. I pulled the bag out of my trunk and approached the door. It opened and George stood there, his arms crossed over his chest, a look of dislike on his face.

  “Now what do you want?” he asked. “Say, what happened to your face? It looks like you got hit with shrapnel.”

  “Someone took a shot at me. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  He shook his head.

  I remembered my assignment wasn’t to interrogate him, but to get him to tell me what he knew about Jenny, so I gave him one of my best Eve smiles, a bit of womanly friendliness thrown in. “I forgot to drop these off the other day.” I handed the bag to him.

  “What’s this?” He took the bag tentatively, opened it and peered in.

  “Some of your stuff from Jenny’s house. Shelley was going to toss everything, but I told her I’d take it to you. I forgot about it last time.”

  He looked more carefully into the bag, then glanced back at me.

  “What do you want?” he asked, his tone no friendlier than it had been before.

  “For heaven’s sake, George, it’s just your stuff, not a bomb I built to blow you up. We were friends once, you know.”

  He continued to stare at me, only with less suspicion. “Might as well come on in then.”

  “You sure I’m not disturbing you and your girlfriend?”

  “What girlfriend?”

  “There was a woman here who didn’t show herself last time I visited. I thought she might be permanent.”

  He smiled. “You know me better than that, Eve.”

  I laughed. “I do indeed, so I’m wondering what possessed you to want to marry Jenny McCleary. You must have thought she had money.”

  He didn’t answer my question, but walked over to the kitchen counter and held up the coffee pot. “Coffee?”

  “Sure.”

  He extracted a cup from the cupboard, filled it, and handed it to me, gesturing toward the plaid couch in the living area.

  I expected him to take the recliner across from the couch, but once he refilled his own cup, he joined me on the sofa, sitting a fraction too close for me to believe he saw me as anything other than a possible conquest. I wanted to shift away from him and say something smart, but I was here to obtain information.

  “Just like old times, huh?” George said.

  “Yep, but then we were drinking cheap wine, not coffee.”

  “I got some of that,
if you’d prefer.”

  I shook my head. “This is fine.”

  He leaned back into the couch and slid his arm onto its back. His fingers slipped down to touch my shoulder.

  “Now about Jenny. At first I thought she had money, but then she confessed she was doing the mud bog event to get some. That woman was dead broke. Did you know that?”

  I nodded.

  “I thought I was gonna talk her out of the event, but I couldn’t move her even when I proposed and told her I’d find a way to help her out. I think for a minute she believed me, but after several weeks, she seemed less interested in me and any money schemes I had for us. She broke off the engagement. I think she found someone else and came up with some way to get the money she needed to enter the mud bog event.”

  “She got Jay Cassidy to front her the money.”

  “So I found out later from her.”

  I was surprised that Jenny had been so up front about that with George.

  “You’re not telling me everything you know, George.” I was guessing, but my probe was worth a try.

  “I think she and Clay Archer got friendly.”

  “I thought they got friendly before you came along.”

  “Yeah, but I think they never really broke it off.”

  “Are you saying that Jenny used you, George?”

  “Maybe she did, but I used her too.”

  Well, of course he did. George always had ulterior motives when it came to his relationships with women. Some he let believe he loved while he was only after sex. Others he slept with for political advantage. And no matter whom he had a thing with, he had some other women on the sly. George might have been on the correct side of environmental issues, but he had no respect for women. I was secretly pleased that Jenny had used George for money until she found out someone else had more to offer. It wasn’t something I could admire in Jenny, but the woman was desperate and wanted to finds funds for her daughter’s education. I found Jenny more admirable than George, with his belittling attitude toward women and using ways. I wondered if George really intended to help Jenny find some money, and I was also curious about what schemes he might have cooked up to get it. I decided to go slow instead of plunging in and putting him on the defensive.

  I was missing something here, and it was the timeline for Jay’s arrangement with Jenny, Jenny’s engagement to and subsequent rejection of George, and Jenny’s friendship with Clay Archer. Clay told me his wife was interested in the mud bog event, but then lost interest. What about Clay? Had his interest outlasted his wife’s? Jay said she dominated him. Did she just tell him to forget the event? And was that before or after they separated?

  I needed to talk with Clay again. That was the interesting thing about trying to wheedle information out of someone. The more you knew, the more you could find out. People often didn’t outright lie to you, but you had to know the right question to ask or they kept important information to themselves. I had a great reason to visit Clay again because Grandy and Nappi were interested in his horses. Grandy had to cancel the time she’d arranged to ride Clay’s gelding because of Max’s heart attack, but maybe she and Nappi might like to visit again for a ride. We could take Max with us and see how he took to equine events.

  While I was ruminating about the events leading up to Jenny’s death, George had slipped his hand down over my shoulder and began working his way under the neck of my blouse. Once I became aware of his actions, I jumped off the couch.

  “George! Keep your hands off me.”

  He jumped up too and moved toward me. “You came here to be friendly, didn’t you? Now you’re giving me a hard time, Eve. You’re a little tease. You always were.” His face reddened as he reached out for me.

  I backed away. “You really don’t like it when women reject you, do you, George?”

  “Not when they first say they want me, then they toss me aside.”

  “Like Jenny did.” I maneuvered my way across the room toward the door, but George was close enough to grab my arm and pull me toward him. My body slammed against his, and I could feel the hard muscles in his chest. He pulled my face to his and pressed his mouth on mine. I bit his lip. He roared with anger and let me go for a moment, holding his hand over his bleeding lip. Before I could stumble to the door, he recovered from the shock of my bite and hit me opened fisted in the head. I fell to the floor.

  He was not only strong, but quick, and on me in a second. His knee came down between my legs, and he reached for the zipper of my jeans. The blow to my head was hard enough that I couldn’t think clearly, but I rolled to my side. He grabbed my hips and slammed me onto my back once more.

  “Help!” I yelled, even knowing no one would hear me, or if they did, come to my rescue. Suddenly I knew George was one of those men who didn’t understand that not getting a woman’s cooperation was rape. He didn’t care if sex was consensual as long as it was sex. It was likely that the residents of this fish camp had heard similar sounds from George’s visitors and chosen to ignore them.

  “Shut up, bitch. I’ve been wanting to do this for years, but I never got the chance until now. You know you want this, babe.”

  Maybe if I let him believe I was simply being coy in my rejection of him, that I really didn’t mean it …. “You’re right, George, but this won’t be any fun for either of us unless I help out a little. Just let me—”

  “No.”

  I looked into his lust-crazed eyes, and I realized something else about George. He preferred his sex this way—mean, hard, and with the woman resisting. His physical strength was too much for me. He didn’t want my cooperation. Now I knew what to do.

  I went limp.

  “Hey. What the hell are you doing? Wake up.” He shook me, but I remained as immobile and loose as a piece of overcooked linguine. He let my head and shoulders fall to the floor, then stood over me, legs on either side of my body, and leaned down to peer into my face.

  He slapped me, and I let my head fall to one side with the strength of his blow. Nothing. Out of the corner of my eye I saw his hand come back to deliver another slap, but before he could, I pulled back my foot and slammed it into his little boy parts. I’ll never know if that blow would have rendered him helpless—it certainly produced a wonderful effect, his holding his crotch and whimpering—because just then the outside door was flung open and a woman entered.

  “What the hell is going on here, George? And who is this blonde bitch?”

  George could only roll around on the floor, the sounds emanating from his mouth more animal than human.

  I got to my feet, still dizzy from too many blows to my head, but in far better shape than George. Tears ran down his cheeks, and he began producing huffing sounds.

  “I don’t think he’ll die on you, but you are certainly welcome to seek medical help. As for me, I’m calling the cops.”

  “Georgie, honey. What did she do to you?” The dark-haired woman bent over him, scattering kisses across his face and wiping his tears with her blouse.

  Despite my threat to summon the police, I knew I’d have one heck of a time making a case for attempted rape, so I left them together on the floor and walked out. On my way home, I phoned Frida and explained what had happened.

  “I know this isn’t much, Frida, but I’ve no doubt that George is capable of great violence, especially when a woman rejects him. And that’s just what Jenny did. It could have gotten out of hand.”

  “He’s always been my favorite suspect. There was just something about the guy. But we’ve got nothing on him.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you want to file charges?”

  “There’s no way to make them stick, is there?”

  “Your word against his, but let me pay him a visit right now while that gal is there. Let’s see what he says … or what she says. Maybe she’s jealous enough she might give us something more on Georgie. Are you going to tell Alex what happened? You said it was his idea to get you out there again.”

  �
��No! Alex would go ballistic.”

  “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  Frida’s visit to George didn’t take long. As I was pulling into my driveway, she called me back.

  “I talked with George and his woman, Mary Holbrook. I kept it casual and told them you registered a complaint. They both said you came to the trailer and were drunk and seductive and he had to get physical with you to get you out of there.”

  “I’m not surprised. What is it with some women’s taste in men? She’s completely duped by him.”

  “Maybe, but perhaps not for long. She supported the story, but she didn’t look happy about it. I’d bet their relationship is on its way out and soon.” I heard her sigh. “You really didn’t find out anything much from George before he attacked you?’

  “Well, no I didn’t.” It was true. George didn’t tell me anything I already didn’t know, but his comments about Jenny got me thinking about when Jenny talked with Jay, when she broke up with George, and when Clay was in and then out of the picture. Unfortunately those were simply the jumbled thoughts of an amateur detective. Nothing I wanted to share with Frida. She’d probably laugh herself off the phone with the absurdity of my suspicions.

  “Let me know if you think of something. Anything.” Frida ended the call.

  Of course I’d let her know if I thought of anything—if I thought of something I thought was worth thinking of.

  When I pulled into my drive, I looked into my rearview mirror. There was a fresh scratch on my cheek joining the other fading scratches and my blouse was unbuttoned. My punked hair looked about the way it usually did—punked. I hid the scratch as best I could with foundation and dotted blush on my cheekbones. I buttoned my blouse and tried to look calm. Sammy’s truck was in my drive, and he wasn’t visiting by himself.

  Grandy and Max sat on the couch and turned to look at me as I entered. Sammy got out of the easy chair and smiled. In the other living-room chair sat a woman with long black hair and gray eyes. She also got up. She was as tall as me and wore faded jeans, a black tee shirt molded over large breasts, and black stiletto heels. I admired her fashion sense. I felt the finger of jealousy tickle my neck. I took in the high cheekbones of her face, her olive skin, wide mouth, and even, white teeth. She was drop-dead gorgeous. Her only flaws were the laugh lines around her mouth and the fine lines at her eyes and on her brow. It was clear this woman was far too old for Sammy. But how could you blame a man—any man, no matter his age—for being taken with her? She would be the center of attention in any room.