Murder Is No Accident

by A. H. Gabhart

  Anthony came to mind. Maybe she could tell him. But no, he’d want her to talk to Michael.

  Her mother pulled Jesse up on the couch beside her. “You haven’t been watching television all day, have you? It’s a pretty day. You should be outside riding your bike.”

  Maggie’s blood froze. Around the block on his bike where she couldn’t see him? She couldn’t let that happen. She was trying to come up with something, any excuse for passing up the nice day outside. Jesse beat her to it.

  “Maggie wouldn’t let me go outside. She’s been acting weird all day. Daddy said she was as jumpy as a frog in a hot skillet when the phone rang.” Jesse grinned over at Maggie. “Said she must have caught more than fish yesterday, but a boyfriend too.”

  Relief swept through Maggie even as her cheeks got hot. Her father had said that. She hadn’t paid much attention at the time. She was too focused on who might be on the phone. But her father said it was just one of those pesky sales calls. And Maggie could breathe again. She hadn’t thought about it being Anthony. She had been hearing that man’s voice in her head.

  “Don’t tease your sister. Nothing wrong with having a boyfriend. As long as she doesn’t get too serious too soon.” Her mother shut her eyes and leaned back against the couch. “Where’s your father?”

  “I don’t know,” Maggie said. “Said he had some things to do.”

  “Did he say when he’d be back?” Her mother opened her eyes to look over at Maggie.

  “No. He just put on a clean shirt and went out.” Maggie kept her eyes on her book. The numbers danced in front of her eyes. She tried to change the subject. “I can’t get these formulas in my head.” It didn’t work.

  “A clean shirt, huh?” her mother said. “Surprised he could find one unless you threw some clothes in the washer.”

  “I was going to, but Dad beat me to it. He loaded the washer right after breakfast.”

  “You don’t say. That’s a first.” A hint of bitterness sounded in her mother’s voice. “I didn’t think he knew where it was.”

  “Can I go dig for worms?” Jesse asked. “Daddy said he would take me fishing.”

  “Did he now?” Maggie’s mother made a sound that could have been a laugh if she hadn’t sounded so tired. “That daddy of yours is full of surprises today. So go hunt your worms. Maggie can help you. Your mama needs to rest a few minutes before supper.”

  “I don’t want to dig worms.” Maggie scrunched down lower in her chair. “Daddy can buy bait if he takes you fishing.”

  “Then take a walk or go study out on the stoop while Jesse looks for worms.” Her mother punched the couch pillow and swung her feet up to lie down. “And turn that TV off.”

  Maggie picked up her book and clicked off the television. She couldn’t let Jesse go out by himself anyway. She had to keep her eyes on him. Make sure he was all right.

  She was almost to the door when her mother said, “Oh, and before I forget, you need to head over to Miss Fonda’s house after school tomorrow. You can get started on the dusting before I get off work. Else we’ll be there all night.”

  Maggie had to force her legs to move on toward the door. She couldn’t go to Miss Fonda’s house by herself. She couldn’t.

  “You know where the key is.” Her mother sounded half asleep.

  Maggie went outside and sat down in the late afternoon sunlight. She wouldn’t think about it. She’d think about algebra instead, x’s and y’s. Maybe she could make them add up. Nothing else was adding up. She wished she was at church. And not just because Anthony would be there. But it might be easier to pray about what to do if she was at church. She knew a person could pray anywhere, but right now she just felt sick. And scared.

  The next morning, when Maggie got to school, Anthony was leaning against her locker. Her heart skipped a beat and then took off like it was in some kind of race. He was so handsome. Especially when he was smiling like that. At her.

  “Hey, Maggie. Missed you at church last night. I was worried all that funky fish smell maybe made you sick.” Anthony pushed away from the locker.

  “I’m fine. I just had homework. Algebra.” She hugged her book bag to her chest and made a face. “If Miss Keane gives us a pop quiz today, I’m in trouble.”

  “I used to think algebra was tough, but Miss Keane tutored me to keep me from flunking when I was a sophomore. Then one day, the light came on and it all made sense. So maybe I could come over sometime and help you study.” He hesitated. “Or maybe we could go to the movies or something.”

  “Oh, wow, that would be great.” Maggie grabbed the handle of the locker, glad for the cold feel of the metal. That might keep her from fainting. He’d just asked her for a date. A date. Not that she could go. She felt about five years old, but there was nothing for it but to tell him. “I’d love to go to a movie with you, but my parents say I can’t date until I’m sixteen.”

  “Oh.” He looked disappointed. “Well, okay, I understand. But I could still maybe come over and help you with that algebra.”

  “Maybe. Probably.”

  “Great.” He reached over and put his hand over hers. “And we can see each other at youth group. I’ll save you a seat.”

  She looked up into his wonderful blue eyes. “I’d like that.” It was good the first bell rang to bring her feet back down to the ground. She grabbed a couple of books and shoved them into her book bag. “I got to run or I’ll be late to class.” She started down the hall.

  “Sure thing. Why don’t I come by your house after school? We can work on that algebra.” He called after her, sounding like algebra was the last thing on his mind.

  Her heart skipped another beat or two. She wasn’t thinking about algebra either, but she had to turn him down again. She looked over her shoulder. “I can’t today. I have to help my mother clean the Chandler house.”

  She waved and took off in a near run. She didn’t want to get a tardy. Another peek back showed Anthony watching her and in no hurry at all. That’s how it was with seniors. They never looked rushed. But this one did look gorgeous.

  How did she get so lucky that a great-looking senior guy actually wanted to come see her? She wouldn’t think about why he couldn’t. She wouldn’t think about going to Miss Fonda’s house after school. She’d just think about Anthony’s smile and how he wanted to help her with algebra.

  But she couldn’t completely block out the memory of that phone call. If Mrs. Harper’s fall was an accident, why was that man worried about what she might have seen? Things weren’t adding up. Or maybe they were. Maybe they were adding up to something she didn’t want to think about.

  Whoever was in the house might have pushed Mrs. Harper. Made her fall. Made her die. Somebody who did that might do more. Might carry through the threats he made over the phone. No, not might. Would.

  She shook the thought away and tried to focus on the teacher. She was safe at school. Jesse was safe at school. It was when school let out that she would need to worry. That’s when she had to go to Miss Fonda’s house. If only she could forget seeing Mrs. Harper at the bottom of those steps with her eyes wide open and not seeing anything.

  Mrs. Harper would want somebody to pay for killing her. People weren’t supposed to get away with murder.

  18

  Monday morning when Michael got up, he was way too aware of his silent phone. It was good Sally Jo hadn’t needed to call him out during the night. Not good at all that Alex hadn’t returned his call. He could bear her silence when she was in Washington, DC, but not when she was in Hidden Springs. Just moments away.

  He went in early, without breakfast, to drive by Reece’s house. No lights on. All quiet in the neighborhood. Aunt Lindy was already off to school. She was an early riser and liked to get to school long before the first bell rang. Reece was generally an early riser too. That almost made Michael put on the brakes and go knock on the door. Maybe something had happened and Alex had taken Reece back to the hospital without telling Michael.

&n
bsp; But no, the rental car was in the driveway. He hadn’t heard an ambulance called out on the scanner. All was well. All except his silent phone.

  He considered banging on the door. He could bundle Reece up and take him fishing. Let Alex decide if she wanted to come or not. But he couldn’t do that today. Duty called. Sheriff Potter was on vacation. Michael had to show up for work.

  Betty Jean’s car was in her usual spot behind the courthouse when he parked his cruiser in the sheriff’s reserved spot. He checked the time and then called Betty Jean as he headed up the street to the Grill. “I’m grabbing some breakfast at the Grill. You want me to bring you something? A chocolate doughnut?”

  “No, I’m fine. I’ve got some yogurt.”

  Yogurt. He knew what that meant. Betty Jean was dieting again. All to impress a certain antique dealer. Michael glanced over at Vernon Trent’s store. Shuttered. The closed sign on the door.

  “I won’t be long,” Michael promised.

  “Take your time. Everything’s fine here.”

  That didn’t sound like Betty Jean. Not on a Monday. Not with her starting a new diet. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m wonderful.”

  He didn’t detect even a hint of sarcasm as she disconnected. Obviously her weekend had gone better than Michael’s. He stared at his phone a minute, then shoved it in his pocket.

  After he scooted into one of the booths, Hank Leland slid off his stool at the counter, picked up his coffee, and came over to squeeze in the other side. “They need to make these booths bigger,” he complained.

  Cindy poured Michael a cup of coffee and gave Hank a look. “Maybe you need to be smaller, Hank.”

  “I might be if you didn’t make such good pies.” Hank held up his cup for a refill.

  Cindy laughed and poured his coffee. “You want the usual, Michael? Omelet loaded down?”

  “Sounds good. I need something to get me going this morning.”

  “So toast and blackberry jam too. Coming right up.” Cindy headed toward the kitchen.

  Hank tore open three sugar packets and stirred them into his coffee. “Rough weekend?”

  “Could have been better. How about you?” Michael picked up his cup.

  “I would say same old, same old, but Geraldine coming to such an end wasn’t the same. I hear her son is supposed to be here today. Looked him up on the internet. If I found the right Grant Harper, the guy’s super rich. Wouldn’t have guessed that, the way his mother was always scrambling to earn an extra buck. Do you know him? He was gone from Hidden Springs before I moved here.”

  “I don’t remember him. Betty Jean says Grant was a couple of years ahead of her in school, so he would have graduated before I started high school. How did he get so rich?”

  “Came up with a better mousetrap.” Hank slurped his coffee. “Not actually a mousetrap, but some kind of electronic gizmo. Don’t ask me what. Not an engineer. Anyway, bingo. Money rolling in. Took some of that money and started an online flower shop. Figured out how to get flowers there fast to save a guy’s bacon. Not that those flowers are helping me much.”

  “Barbara still not ready to come home?” Hank’s wife had gone to her folks’ in Georgia last summer.

  “She’s not coming back.” Hank stared at his coffee as he ran his finger around the cup’s rim.

  “Has she told you that?”

  Hank let out a long breath. “Not in so many words, but some things don’t have to be out in the air between a couple. You just know. Things had been sort of iffy with us for a while anyway. You know, before all that other stuff last summer gave her an excuse to leave. Barbara likes it in Georgia. She enrolled Rebecca Ann in school down there. She wouldn’t have done that if she planned to come back here.”

  “I’m sorry, Hank.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not your fault.” Hank stared at the cowboy picture over the table. “Nobody’s fault. Isn’t that how divorces are these days? No fault. The thing is, I don’t believe in divorce. People get married and have a kid, they’re supposed to stay married.”

  “Maybe you should go to Georgia. Find a paper down there.”

  Cindy came over and slipped the omelet and toast in front of Michael. She must have heard Hank too, because she put her hand on his shoulder. “You want a doughnut, Hank? On the house?”

  “I’ll take a rain check and just stick with the coffee, Cindy. But thanks.” He waited until she headed back to the counter before he waved at Michael’s food. “Don’t let me crying in my coffee keep you from chowing down. I don’t want people feeling sorry for me. I’m fine. Not as fine as I could be. But fine enough.”

  “That’s good to know.” Michael attacked his omelet. “Rebecca Ann doing all right?”

  “She sounds okay when I talk to her on the phone. No tears or anything. Not from her anyway.” Hank took another long sip of coffee. “I might think about heading down to Georgia if I thought that would do the trick. Place doesn’t matter all that much if you’ve got love.”

  “No, I guess not.” Hank’s words hit Michael hard. Place seemed to be all that was keeping Alex and Michael apart.

  As if Hank read Michael’s mind, he said, “How’s things going with you and that gorgeous lawyer friend of yours? I hear she’s in Hidden Springs. Too bad about Reece’s stroke.”

  The news line was obviously working in Hidden Springs. “The doctors think he’ll be back fishing in no time.”

  “So Alex won’t be hanging around that long?” Hank gave him a long look. “Maybe you should have taken some doughnuts over to eat breakfast with her.”

  “Not likely she’d want any doughnuts.” Or him at her breakfast table, if his silent phone was any indication.

  “Guess neither of us is scoring high on the happy meter today. At least Betty Jean is finding romance.”

  “So it seems.” Michael smeared some jam on his toast and took a bite, but some of the sweetness seemed lacking.

  Hank frowned a little. “Can’t fault Vernon’s ambition. He says a man tries, a man can make a lot of money selling old stuff. That there are treasures in these old houses. He wants me to do another article about some of his finds. Free advertisement, I guess.” Hank shrugged. “But I have to fill the pages with something. Even if the Gazette does only come out once a week.”

  “Coming up with news hasn’t been a problem lately.”

  “Ain’t that the truth? Some of those hopping news weeks were enough to make me ready to go back to scraping up stories like Farmer Brown’s cow having twins. Some news isn’t so good. Sells papers though.” Hank put another packet of sugar in his coffee and shook his cup a little to mix it in. “Guess I’ll have plenty to fill the front page this week too with Geraldine’s untimely end. What do you think happened there, Michael?” He fingered the little notebook in his pocket but didn’t pull it out.

  “She fell. Broke her neck. Died.” Michael finished off his omelet. “Not much story there.”

  Hank did take out the notebook then to jot something down. Michael had peeked into the notebook a time or two and couldn’t make heads or tails of Hank’s scribbling. But Hank knew what was there. He got his facts straight and his quotes accurate.

  “Maybe not, but everybody knew Geraldine. They’ll want to read what happened.” He looked up from whatever he was writing down and fixed his newsman stare on Michael. “So a few details would be helpful.”

  “You can get Justin’s report.” Michael pushed his plate away from him.

  “He’ll probably sit on it until after I have to print.”

  “It takes a while to gather all the information, but I gave you what it will say. Accidental death due to a fall.”

  “Are you sure that’s all? You spent a long time in there looking around before you let Justin in.” Hank narrowed his eyes on Michael.

  “Making sure no surprises were going to jump out at us.”

  “And did something jump out at you?” Hank leaned toward Michael. “Ghosts? Boogeymen? Skeletons in the clo
sets? That old house looks to be full of surprises. I’ve been hearing rumors about it ever since I came to Hidden Springs.”

  “Rumors are just that. Rumors.” Michael wadded up his napkin and tossed it on his plate.

  “But sometimes rumors start from a grain of truth. Do you think some long-ago Chandler did hide treasure in those walls somewhere?”

  “I guess it might have happened.” Michael finished off his coffee. “But you have to remember that Miss Fonda has always laughed at the idea, and she should know.”

  “But it could be a treasure she doesn’t recognize. Like those stories you hear about people buying a priceless work of art at somebody’s garage sale. Something that was stuck up in their attic. I figure there’s plenty of ancient stuff in the attic of the Chandler house.”

  “Could be. I haven’t been up in the attic. If there is one.”

  “There’s always an attic in an old house. Always. And secrets hidden there for the finding.” Hank smiled as he tapped his pencil on the table.

  “Probably nothing but cobwebs and dust.” Michael threw down a tip and stood up to pay at the register.

  Hank stuck his notebook in his pocket and scooted out of the booth to follow him. “You might be right, but I bet Vernon Trent would like to do some dusting and take a look. He’s been buddying up to Sonny Elwood. He must think he can get first chance at anything valuable that way. On the other hand, he may be selling Sonny short. Sonny’s got dollar signs in his eyes when he thinks about that house. They tell me he still aims to list the house for sale. Geraldine’s ghost and all, notwithstanding.”

  “It’s not ghosts he has to worry about. It’s Miss Fonda. The house is still hers.”

  “True.” Hank leaned against the counter as they waited for Cindy to come take their money. “And scuttlebutt about town says Sonny can’t sell it anyway. That Miss Fonda couldn’t either. That when she dies, it goes to her sister’s kid. The sister who died after falling down those same stairs as Geraldine. Sounds like a legal nightmare to me.”