Murder Is No Accident

by A. H. Gabhart

  When she swallowed, her throat felt tight. She looked out at the road. They were miles from anywhere here at the lake. She couldn’t take off and walk home. Pastor Karen would never allow that. She would insist on knowing why Maggie had to leave. She’d see right through Maggie claiming she was sick, even if she felt like she was about to throw up.

  Maybe she should throw up. As embarrassing as that would be in front of her friends. In front of Anthony. People believed you were sick if you threw up. No questions asked. She could call her mother to come get her. Except her mother was working at the Fast Serve today. It would have to be her father. She’d better be bleeding if she called him to come get her. A lot. Not only that, but by now he’d probably downed a couple of beers. The last thing they needed was her father getting a DUI. The very last thing.

  Even if he wasn’t drinking, he’d be mad if she begged a ride home. He hadn’t wanted her to sign up for the fishing trip in the first place. He said she should stay home and watch her little brother. Her mother and father had a big argument about it that ended with her father slamming out of the house and her mother banging pans in the kitchen. Maggie told her mother she didn’t have to go. She could stay home. Her mother had glared at Maggie and said indeed she would go. She didn’t want to hear another word about it.

  That was last Sunday night. Before Friday afternoon. Before Mrs. Harper fell down the steps and Maggie called 911. Before whoever else was there had left without calling anybody. Why couldn’t she have been like that? Or maybe she should have sent a text message. Nobody would recognize what finger typed in a text. She’s dead.

  A shiver walked up Maggie’s back. She couldn’t get the sight of Mrs. Harper at the bottom of the stairs out of her head. If she could talk about it, that might help. But she couldn’t tell her mother or anybody else.

  She thought about telling Miss Fonda. She wouldn’t remember after ten minutes, but she might pat Maggie’s hand and tell her it was all right. That might make Maggie feel better. Except somebody else was always around when she went to see Miss Fonda. And it might upset Miss Fonda, talking about Mrs. Harper dying in her house, even if she couldn’t remember who Mrs. Harper was.

  So she couldn’t tell anybody. Not without getting in trouble.

  Michael was watching her. She knew he was, even without glancing back at him. It was funny how you could feel somebody watching you. Actually feel it. Not that the feeling was always right. Sometimes you just imagined it. Like that morning.

  She’d felt sure somebody was watching her when she took the shortcut across the graveyard to the church. She always went that way. It had never bothered her. But that was before she saw a dead person with eyes open and everything. When her grandmother died, she looked like she was lying there in the casket sleeping. Peaceful. Ready for heaven.

  Mrs. Harper hadn’t looked a thing like that. Not a thing. She looked like she might stand up and chase Maggie. Maybe that was what spooked Maggie that morning on the way to the church. Not only the feeling that somebody was watching her, but that it might be Mrs. Harper mad about being dead and ready to take it out on Maggie.

  She shook her head. That was dumb. She didn’t believe in ghosts. She didn’t care if people did say they saw ghosts at Miss Fonda’s house. She never had. Never. And she’d been there a lot. In the very room people claimed they saw a woman peering out the window. Sometimes Maggie wondered if it was her shadow they saw in the window. But then, the ghost stories about the Chandler mansion had been around way before she started sneaking into the house. Trespassing.

  More likely a guilty conscience was what had been stalking her that morning. Pastor Karen said that could happen. She claimed something you did that wasn’t right could weigh down on you. Or something you didn’t do when you knew you should. Either one could cause somebody to think all kinds of wrong things. Like a ghost haunting them.

  “Hey, Maggie, where’s your pole?” Anthony was running toward her, a big smile on his face.

  Anthony was the reason she asked to go on the fishing outing. He was why she started going to Pastor Karen’s youth group. Anthony had asked her to.

  He was so cute. It seemed impossible he could be interested in her. She was just a sophomore. He was a senior. Maybe he was simply recruiting kids for the youth group for Pastor Karen. But he did have a way of looking at her with those deep blue eyes that made Maggie have trouble breathing. He was the best-looking boy at high school. The very best.

  “I left it back there.” She remembered her finger that she jabbed on the fishhook to have a reason to stop talking to Michael. “I stuck my finger. I thought maybe Pastor Karen would have a bandage or something.” She held out her hand. Her finger had stopped bleeding.

  When Anthony took her hand in his, her heart began pounding even harder. “You have to be careful with hooks.”

  “Yeah, but it’s okay now.” Maggie pulled her hand away from his and then wished she hadn’t. She liked him holding her hand.

  “I could kiss it and make it well.” He stared straight into her eyes with a tease of a smile.

  Her cheeks flashed hot and her tongue felt too big for her mouth. She had no idea what to say. She’d never flirted with a boy. At least not since she was in third grade and chased a boy named Lonny around the playground. She hadn’t caught him. He could run fast, but that was okay. She hadn’t really wanted to catch him anyway. The chase was the fun part then. But staring up at Anthony, she sort of wanted to be caught. She was already caught. Caught by his eyes.

  Michael came up behind Maggie, carrying the fishing pole she’d dropped on the dock, and broke the spell between them. “Is your finger okay, Maggie?”

  “Yeah.” Maggie managed to push the word out as she held up her finger.

  “Well, then here’s your pole. It’s best not to leave it where somebody might step on it.”

  “Sorry. I guess I don’t know much about fishing.” Maggie took the pole. She didn’t know much about anything, but she did wish her heart would stop galloping in her chest. She felt like she’d just run a mile.

  “No problem.” Michael grinned at Anthony and punched his shoulder. “And you best keep your mind on the fish in the lake, kid.”

  “I’m here to catch fish.” Anthony laughed, obviously a little embarrassed.

  Michael looked straight at Maggie. “Could be we should talk before you leave today, Maggie.”

  He wasn’t smiling. Not a bit. Maybe she would throw up. “Am I in trouble?”

  She shouldn’t have said that. It was like an admission she had done something wrong. She should have just thrown up on her shoes. But Anthony might never want to be within ten feet of her again if she did that.

  “What’s going on, Michael?” Anthony stepped a little closer to peer at Michael’s face. “You don’t have to warn her off from me. I know how to act.”

  Michael surprised Maggie by laughing. “This is between Maggie and me. Nothing to do with you. If she wants to let you teach her how to catch a fish or two, then she’ll just have to take her chances.” Michael winked at Maggie. “Play your cards right, Maggie, and he’ll do the worm squishing on the hooks for you. And no, you’re not in trouble. Not with me. I just thought you looked a little worried about something. Something we might need to talk about.”

  Maggie moistened her lips. “Okay.”

  She was relieved when Pastor Karen yelled at Michael to see if he had more bait. She let out a shaky breath when he walked away.

  Anthony touched her arm lightly. “Don’t let him scare you. He’s a good guy.”

  “He’s a policeman.”

  “As long as you haven’t broken the law, that won’t matter.”

  Anthony was joking. She knew he was, but it was all she could do to push a smile out on her lips to answer his. “Yeah. I don’t know what he could want.” That wasn’t exactly true, but she wanted it to be.

  “Don’t worry about it. He used to be on my case. We went some rounds, let me tell you, but he’s all rig
ht. And he’s got a great place to fish here.” Anthony put his arm around her shoulders and turned her toward the lake. “So let’s get at it. Time for you to learn all about worms and catch your first fish.”

  She could smell the clean scent of his shirt mixed with a little sweat. His arm, light on her shoulders, felt just right. They moved together without bumping into one another. Walking smoothly side by side, their steps matched. He was a head taller than her, but that seemed the perfect height too.

  It was almost enough to make her forget about Michael wanting to talk to her. Almost, but not quite. But she was still glad she hadn’t thrown up on her shoes. She was very glad Anthony was going to show her how to catch a fish. She would find a way to avoid Michael for the rest of the day. Maybe he’d forget about wanting to talk to her.

  11

  It was late afternoon by the time Michael headed to Eagleton. The kids had fished and taken turns out on the lake in his rowboat. Michael was surprised a few hadn’t “accidentally” fallen in the lake. But Karen told them no swimming and none of them wanted to get on her bad side. They seemed less worried about Michael’s bad side. He was the errand boy today, fetching more worms, untangling lines, making sure all the boys and girls stayed in sight.

  Maggie Greene stayed in sight, but she made sure to stay well away from Michael. It was plain she didn’t want to talk to him about cleaning Miss Fonda’s house or anything else. Once or twice he considered cornering her, but Karen would read him the riot act if he did anything to chase Maggie away from the youth group. Anthony wouldn’t be happy about that either. He was obviously smitten by Maggie.

  So those questions had to wait. He’d ask them. Just not today. Seems that was what he was doing with everything. Shoving it off until Monday. There was really no reason to spend the weekend making an accident into more than it was just because of one nervous kid. Along with the uneasy feeling that kept nudging him and bringing to mind even more questions.

  Answers. That was what he needed. Not questions. But then Aunt Lindy’s question kept circling in his head. Have you asked?

  He couldn’t just blurt it out. Will you marry me? These days women wanted elaborate proposals. Alexandria Sheridan deserved the most elaborate proposal any man could dream up. Maybe he should rent a sign in Washington, DC. Put his love for her in lights. Or buy two plane tickets and take her to dinner at some famous Parisian restaurant. Or carve a heart in the tree in front of Reece’s house and put their initials in it.

  He might have done that years ago when he got his first pocketknife, but if so, the memory was lost to him now, the way so many others were after his head injury when he was a teen. If he had carved that heart, Alex had never helped him recall that forgotten memory the way she had others. Things like how, when she was seven, she named her pet cat Dog, because she wanted a dog, not a cat. That was Alex changing life to meet her expectations. Reece had taken in the cat when Alex’s father got a new coaching job and the cat named Dog had to go.

  Michael didn’t remember the cat at all. Even though it had lived at Reece’s right next door. He’d been in a coma for weeks after the wreck. That blackness had soaked into his brain and made some memories too hard to dig out.

  Not that a heart carved on a tree trunk when they were kids or now when they weren’t would ensure her saying yes. Or even dinner in France or on the moon. But he hadn’t tried any of them. If he never actually asked in so many words, then she could never say no in one word. But she couldn’t say yes either.

  The very idea of her yes made his knees go weak. Will you be my lawfully wedded wife?

  He hoped Alex was still at the hospital. He had tried her cell number with no answer. His heart began beating a little faster when he stepped into the elevator to go up to Reece’s room. Where Alex might be. His pulse rose along with the floor numbers.

  As soon as he exited the elevator, he spotted her at the nurses’ station, her back to him. Her dark hair was loose around her shoulders, the way he liked it best. She had on an oversize sweater with black tights that somehow made her legs look even longer. She was up on her toes talking to the nurse at the desk, like an exotic cat ready to pounce or perhaps run. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was plain Alex was not happy, nor was the nurse, if the stony look on her face was any indication.

  “Alex.” Michael wanted to rush down the hall and take her in his arms.

  She was turning toward him even before he spoke as though she sensed him there. Instead of him running to her, she covered the space between them in a few strides and practically fell into his arms.

  “Oh, Michael. I’m so glad you’re here. I wanted to call you, but Malinda said you were doing something with the church kids.” She hesitated a bare second or two. “And Karen.” Her face was burrowed into his shoulder.

  “A big fishing outing. Planned forever.” He heard the hint of a question behind Karen’s name, but he simply tightened his arms around her to answer that. “I talked to Reece this morning and he seemed okay. Has something happened? Not another stroke?” He looked down the hall toward Reece’s room. He should have called again.

  She leaned back from him and shook her head. “No, no. Nothing like that. It’s just Uncle Reece. He’s throwing a fit to get out of here and go home.”

  “Reece throwing a fit? That I would have to see.” Reece was about the most laid-back person he knew.

  “He’s not happy. And that makes me unhappy.”

  She looked tired. Shadows under her gorgeous blue eyes. Makeup gone but never necessary to Michael’s eyes. She must not have slept any last night and then spent the day here with nobody doing what she said. Not Reece. Not the nurses. Not something she was used to happening in her world.

  “And that makes me unhappy.” He tightened his arms around her again and she leaned against him. Needed him. A good feeling. “So we’re all unhappy. What do we do about it?”

  “I don’t know. They won’t listen.” She didn’t lift her head. Instead her lips moved against his shirt, her breath warming him.

  “You want me to arrest somebody?”

  That was supposed to make her laugh and it did. She pulled away from him. “I think you left your deputy badge at home. You look like a regular Joe off the street in your jeans. No gun. No handcuffs. No power against these by-the-rules nurses.”

  “I’ve got my radio.”

  “On duty, huh?”

  “Always. Got to keep the peace in Hidden Springs.”

  “Not been all that easy lately, has it? Malinda said something else has happened. The real estate lady met an untimely end. Accidentally?”

  “So it appears.”

  “Uh-oh. That sounds like more investigation is in order.” The corners of her lips curved enticingly up, and then as quickly her smile was gone. “But can it wait until you help me convince Uncle Reece another ten hours in the hospital won’t be the death of him? I’ve never known him to be so contrary.”

  “You’ve never been around him away from Hidden Springs.”

  “That’s it. He’s threatening to move to a cabin by the lake where he can lie down and die without interference.” She tried another smile, but her lips were trembling. As close to tears as he’d seen her in years. She looked down the hall toward Reece’s room. “Do you think he’s going to die? I mean actually die?”

  “It happens to all of us sooner or later, but I’m guessing later for Reece.” He put his arm around her. “He’s got more fish to catch.”

  “Do you really think so?” She stepped away from him to move down the hall.

  He matched his steps to hers. “I do. More important, that’s what the doctors say too, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, as long as he takes care of himself and does what they say.”

  “So see? This is just a little rough water for him. He’ll get better.” He peered over at her. “But how about you? Are you going to be okay?”

  She managed a little laugh. “Maybe. Now that you’re here. It’s just that
I really do not like hospitals.” She shuddered. “Goes back to visiting some kid I thought I was in love with way back when. All those wires sticking out of you.”

  “Not good.” Especially the part about thought she was in love. He wanted her to know she was in love with him.

  She was still back in time, remembering. “I begged you to squeeze my hand, but your hand was so limp. No response at all.”

  “I’m sure I was trying to hold your hand.” Michael reached over and captured her hand. He wanted to ask her if she was in love right now, but the words stuck in his throat.

  “That’s what Malinda told me, but it scared me to death. I’ve never gotten over it.” She tightened her fingers on his hand. “I don’t think I ever will.”

  “Is that why you keep running away from me?”

  “Me?” Her eyes flashed up to his face. “I thought it was you doing the running.”

  “I’m right in Hidden Springs. Where I’ve always been.”

  “Where you’ll always be?” She raised her eyebrows at him.

  He was saved from having to answer by the nurse stepping out from behind the desk in front of them.

  “I’m very sorry you are upset, Miss Sheridan. We certainly understand your uncle’s frustration. And yours. Few people want to spend time in a hospital.” The nurse was several inches shorter than Alex. A little dumpy in her loose-fitting scrubs decorated with balloons. She looked concerned as she slid her gaze from Alex to Michael.

  Perhaps she thought Alex had called in reinforcements. He smiled a little to put the nurse at ease but didn’t say anything.

  All traces of a smile fled Alex’s face as she squared her shoulders and fixed cold eyes on the woman. “Hospitals are not jails. If a person wants to go home, there should be no locked doors.”

  The nurse met her look without flinching. “We don’t have locked doors, but we do have rules. A doctor releases a patient when it is determined the patient no longer needs hospital care. As I told you, your uncle’s doctor has not yet done that. Of course, your uncle can sign himself out, but that is not something we advise.” Her words said one thing, but she looked as if she knew exactly where those papers were and wouldn’t mind handing them to Alex.