Murder to the Max

by Tegan Maher

  “Excuse me,” Olivia said. “I thought this was a committee. How many other members are there? Surely it’s not just us. Shouldn’t we decide on a leader?”

  Ah, there it was. She’d expected to come here and be elected Miss Queen Bee over a larger body of people.

  "No,” Suzanne said. “This is it, but we may have a bit of a problem," Suzanne said. "Wheeler Construction won this bid, but obviously there's some confusion there right now. We should probably discuss what we want to do."

  "How many other bids did we get and how competitive were they?" Kelli asked.

  "Four," Suzanne said as she dug through a stack of folders she'd brought. She pulled one out and opened it up. "The next closest bid was from Jackson Construction. It was a little more expensive and they projected that the job wouldn't be finished for another two months." Her face flushed.

  "Honestly though, those aren't the main reasons we didn't choose them. I mean, time was definitely a factor since we want it done by Labor Day, but their reputation isn't exactly sterling."

  Marc spoke up. "I have some personal experience with them and wasn't impressed. We used them a few times when we needed improvements on homes to increase value or meet code, and their work is shoddy. One time, you'll get a decent job and the next, they'll lay tile that'll pop up six months later. Oh, and the owner is supremely rude and arrogant."

  I thought back to my conversation with Jeff. Apparently, he wasn’t exaggerating even a little.

  Suzanne grimaced. "Yeah, we sorta got that side of him with both barrels. When he found out we awarded the project to Wheeler instead of him, he showed up at the next council meeting. He was not a happy camper. Demanded to know what Max bid, and when we wouldn't tell him, he had an absolute conniption. He accused Max of everything from bribing us to fraud. He got ugly about it. Said he was tired of losing out just because Max had connections and he didn't."

  Kelli grimaced. "Now I'm kinda glad I haven't worked with them, but I have used Wheeler and the work was great every time. Do we know when—or if—they're gonna be back up and running?"

  "I talked to Emily Wheeler today," I said. "She's planning to go on with business as usual. From what I understand, they'll be back up and running as soon as she can find a foreman. After meeting her, I can't imagine that's going to take more than a few days." I smiled wryly. "Or at least I hope so. I have a huge hole in my backyard right now that'd be great for mud wrestling but not so much for swimming."

  "So we wait a couple of days to find out what Wheeler Construction is doing before we make a decision there?" Kellie asked, snapping my attention back to the conversation.

  We all agreed except for Olivia. "I think it may be a good idea to decide who we're awarding the project to if Wheeler falls through."

  "I disagree. I think it would be a waste of our time to debate something that's a what-if at this point," I said.

  "Agreed," Kelli added. "This is going to have lots of moving parts, and we can get some of those started while we're waiting on the Wheeler situation to resolve."

  The other two concurred, so we moved on to discuss fundraising and the final design of the memorial. Since there was already a fountain in the park, we'd opted to go with the rifle, boots and helmet on a pedestal, with plaques listing all of the lost soldiers from the county. There were other details and by the time we'd finished, I was happy with the progress.

  The fundraising part was, as expected, fairly boring. We divided up local businesses to hit up, then tossed around a few events we could host to raise money.

  Thankfully, the city was paying for most of it, but their budget was limited and there were some additions we wanted to make that was beyond their budget. We decided to reconvene in a few days to discuss progress, and I tittered—yes tittered—when I saw Olivia sneak a handful of my cookies into her crappy boutique-cookie box. Life was good.

  I took a couple of minutes to text Shelby to see if she'd already eaten, and when I looked up, there was only one other car, an older blue Intrepid, in the lot. I slid the key into the ignition and about jumped out of my skin when somebody pecked on my window.

  A middle-aged, birdlike woman was standing there holding a worn blue sweater-jacket closed over her front. She stared at me hopefully with red-rimmed eyes, her wispy hair blowing free of its clip. She looked pitiful, but with all the crazy things going on in Keyhole, it wouldn't have surprised me if she was there to spray me with acid for parking too close to the curb. I rolled my window down halfway with magic at the ready.

  "Can I help you?"

  "I sure hope so, because I ain't got anybody else to turn to."

  I was going to need a little more than that, so I waited for her to continue. She tightened her arms around her body and burst into tears. I'm not a crier, and it seemed like that's all anybody was doing around me lately. I pulled in a deep breath. "Maybe you should start from the beginning. Climb in."

  She hustled around the truck and pulled herself up into the passenger seat, then took a minute to get situated. She held a denim purse made out of a pair of old jeans, and even in its second incarnation, you could tell it had seen better days. That pretty much summed up the woman as a whole.

  "I'm Janie Huffman, Larry Huffman's mama."

  Oh, crap. I could already tell this wasn't going to end well for me.

  "I know there's not a guilty man in prison, but I swear to you, my son didn't do this, and I know you've got pull with the sheriff, and also some ... extra talents that you could use to find the real killer.

  Pht. Pull with the sheriff. Not after today, and definitely not after tonight, if this conversation ended the way I figured it would.

  "Okay, Mrs. Huffman. I don't know if I'll be able to do anything, but do you have any evidence at all to prove he's innocent? An alibi? A clue where he got all that money? Anything?"

  She looked down at her hands. "No. He said he was out at the lake thinkin' that morning, by himself. I believe that because he's done it since he was a kid. He goes down and walks along the shore on the home stretch when he needs to work somethin' out in his head."

  The home stretch was a mile-long section of beach that was pretty much inaccessible by anything bigger than a four-wheeler. It's a gorgeous stretch and locals keep a tight lid on it so we have a place to go when we don't want to deal with the crowds of tourists in the summer.

  "And what was he trying to work out?" From what I'd been told about his demon-in-law, I had a good idea, but I wanted to hear it from her.

  "Candy's mama needs a place to go. She's losin' her mind and can't take care of herself anymore, but Larry didn't want to take her in. Don't hold that against him," she rushed to say. "He's a good boy, but that woman's just ugly to the core."

  Janie twisted the strap on her purse so that it was aligned exactly across the zipper, a nervous "neat" movement that many people have but don't recognize.

  "He was thinkin' about divorce." He voice was so low I could barely hear her. He loves Candy, but that was just asking too much, and she knew it, too."

  "So where'd he get the ten grand?"

  She shook her head. I don't know. I've nagged him up one side and down the other, but he won't tell me."

  I turned my hands palms-up. You haven't given me much to work with, here. I'm not sure what I can do that's not already being done."

  "You can believe me, and don't stop lookin' just because the perfect suspect has popped up and fit into the puzzle nice and neat." She laid her hand on my arm and her chocolate eyes were imploring. "Please. I can't afford no fancy lawyer, and if they convict him, he could get the needle."

  I pulled in a deep breath and released it. "I'll see what I can do."

  "That's all I can ask." She climbed out of my truck and scurried to the blue car, holding up her hand when she reached it. I couldn't help but feel the weight of her trust settle on my shoulders.

  Truth be told though, she'd only reinforced what my gut had been saying all along. Now I had a reason to dig in.
/>   Chapter Twenty One

  I was off the next morning, so I slept in a little a woke up with some spring back in my step. I set the coffeepot to brewing, then stood at the kitchen window and looked out over the yard and to the barn. Max—the donkey, not the ghost—was grazing and swishing his tail. It’s a good thing I didn’t have to deal with them both at once, though considering their attitudes, I had to wonder if Max Wheeler wasn’t a descendent of Max the royal ass.

  Sometimes it was easy to lose sight of the fact that he was a human stuck inside that body, especially when he'd been a donkey for centuries longer than he'd been a man. He never really talked about the day-to-day of his lot in life, but sometimes I wondered. I’d lift his curse if I could, but that Irish witch knew what she was doing.

  Speaking of lots in life, my mind drifted back to the night before. I'd called Hunter and told him what had happened, and though he wasn't happy about it, he understood where she was coming from. He also made it clear he thought I was wasting my time.

  That was fine, because I figured if nothing else, finding even a scrap more evidence one way or another was a good thing. After all, what mama wouldn’t swear her baby boy was innocent?

  The smell of coffee wafted toward me right as the coffeepot beeped, indicating it was done. I'd just poured myself a cup when Shelby ambled in, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She opened the fridge and pulled out the mocha creamer then poured herself a cup. My teeth hurt when she poured a quarter cup of the sticky cream in her coffee.

  "Like a little coffee with your creamer there, sister?"

  She glared at me and grunted, her eyes still puffy with sleep. Neither of us was exactly what you'd call morning people and we had a ladies' agreement: the first half of the first cup of morning coffee is best enjoyed in silence. If you broke the rule and ended up with a fork in your eye or a broomstick up your ... well, it was your own fault.

  I slid into my chair at the table and she plopped down in the one next to me, pulling Facebook up on her phone. While she flipped through her feed, I turned the events of the week over in my head. No matter how I looked at it, there were people more temperamentally disposed to kill Max than Larry, or even Joe for that matter. By all accounts, Candy ruled the roost. Combine that with low motivation and I just didn’t see it.

  After several minutes and half a cup of coffee, she glanced at me. It's amazing how fast caffeine can work to make you bright eyed and bushy tailed. Okay, that may have been a little optimistic, but her eyes were open and she no longer looked homicidal.

  "We gotta hurry up and get the chores done. The guys are gonna be here in about an hour," she said.

  I flipped through my mental calendar, trying to remember why on earth they were coming, but I drew a blank. The only thing I could think of was the funeral, but it wasn't until four that afternoon.

  She rolled her eyes and huffed. "Cody's game!"

  "Crap on a cracker," I said, giving myself a mental forehead slap. "I forgot all about it."

  Since Max died, Cody had been coaching the team until they had a chance to find another head coach. We'd promised to go cheer for his kids tonight since it was their first game of the season, and we wanted to be there for moral support, too. I'm not sure who was more nervous—some of the boys, or Cody.

  "Let's get to it, then. We can always do stalls when we get home if we have to."

  I divided the rest of the pot of coffee between her to-go cup and mine, then added the requisite quarter-bottle of creamer to hers.

  Since we'd slept in, the horses were rattling their buckets, kicking the stalls, and raising Cain in general. Being the way I am with coffee, I couldn't blame 'em for being cranky. I gave some extra pats and scratches along the way, but I made it quick.

  We turned them out and still had about a half-hour before we had to get ready—just enough time to knock out the stalls. Shelby kicked on the radio and we had them clean in no time. She swept while I emptied the last wheelbarrow load and took care of the chickens, and we high-fived and hip-bumped when we did it with ten minutes to spare.

  "There were only fifteen eggs again this morning," I said. We had twenty chickens, so that was low. An average morning netted us at least sixteen or seventeen.

  "Sounds about right," she said. "We've been comin' up light almost every day. Usually only by a couple, but enough to notice. None of the girls"—meaning the hens—"seem sickly, so I don't know what's up."

  I furrowed my brow. Fifteen eggs a day sounds like a lot, but when I'm baking, it doesn't take long to go through them and I try not to buy store-bought if I don't have to.

  "I've noticed some other weird stuff, too," she said. "Like, the door to the feed room doesn't stick anymore. The saddle racks in the tack room don't wobble, either."

  Not that I minded having things up and fix themselves, but ... things don't just up and fix themselves.

  I've been asked why I don't just magic everything fixed or finished. It doesn't work that way for two reasons: first, magic is energy, and energy is finite. If I went around just waving my wrist and magicking things all day, I'd be exhausted by noon. Plus, with the way I like to eat, my ass would be the size of a house if the only thing I exercised was my wrist, high metabolism or not.

  So who was fixing all of the little things wrong in the barn?

  "And you haven't seen anything weird at all?"

  She shook her head. "Nope. But—"

  The sound of a motorcycle broke the stillness of the morning and interrupted whatever she was going to say. I'd gotten so used to the sound that I could actually tell the difference between Cody's bike and Hunter's. That was Hunter's.

  Sure enough, he rounded the curve in the driveway a few seconds later, followed by a cloud of dust. He pulled up in front the house and shut the motor off, then pulled off his helmet as he was leaning it over on the kickstand.

  "You're early," I said as he strode toward us. When he bent down to give me a peck, he smelled like soap and sun and the ocean. Nothing makes a girl feel pretty like standing there in her pajamas smelling like a horse when a good-looking man pulls up smelling like that.

  "I am." He reached around me to give Shelby a gentle shove on the shoulder. "Morning, Sunshine."

  "Mornin'." She ran up the steps ahead of us, no doubt to jump in the shower and use all the hot water before I could get to it.

  I put on another pot of coffee and told Hunter to make himself at home while I hurried to my own shower, hoping to grab enough time to wash my hair before the water went cold. Even in the summer, the water out of our well was icy. Great for drinking. Not so much for showering.

  I was massaging the conditioner through my hair when I got the two-minute warning: the water temperature dropped just a hair. I knew from experience I needed to finish up, and I barely made it. That last kick of cold water as turned off the faucet woke me up and lit a fire under me to get ready.

  I was just brushing on some mascara when Addy popped into the room. I jumped and smeared the brush up my eyebrow. "Dammit, Addy! I almost poked my eye out! And what if I'd been nekkid?"

  She snorted. "Girl, I've seen more of you than you have. Why are you gettin' all gussied up for a ballgame? Hurry it up. Shelby's gettin' antsy."

  "Tell her to hold her horses; I'm coming. And I'd hardly call putting on eyeliner and mascara getting gussied up," I said, wiping the black streaks off my eyebrow. I slicked on some cherry Chapstick and pulled my wet hair through the hole in my ball cap, then thumped down the steps into the kitchen.

  Cody had shown up while we were getting ready and now the three of them were sitting around the table tearing through my blueberry-cheesecake muffins like there was no tomorrow.

  "Honey," Hunter said, swallowing a mouthful of muffin, "these are amazing! Why don't you make these more often?"

  I smiled, plucking one out of the box for myself. "I make them all the time. You're just too hung up on the turnovers to try anything else."

  Cody popped the last bite of his muffin in h
is mouth and looked at the time on his phone. "We need to head out," he said, mouth full. "I have to be there in a half-hour."

  He turned a little green now that time was getting so close.

  "Don't be so nervous," I told him. "You're gonna do great."

  He sighed. "I'm trying. It's just, Chet Malcolm showed up yesterday and told me I was playing Kyle today or else."

  "Or else what?" Shelby asked, narrowing her eyes.

  He looked down. "I dunno. He just said he was playing. I don't want any trouble today. I just want the kids to have a good time."

  I didn't have to read Shelby's mind to know what she was thinking. Good ole Chet would do well to mind his manners around somebody she cared about unless he wanted to be reminded of them the hard way. Unless I missed my guess, she wouldn't be nearly as tactful as I had been.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Shelby and Cody took her car so they could stop by his place and pick up his equipment, and Hunter and I went on his bike. The first time I rode with him, I admit I was a little scared for the first ten minutes or so. Then I realized how liberating it was, and I was hooked.

  Raeann accuses me of being a buzz kill, and for her type of fun, I am. I don't have enough screws loose to jump out of an airplane or off a bridge. On the ground is another story.

  I love to go fast. Horses, cars, and now motorcycles. When I was a teenager, I got so many tickets because I couldn't keep my foot out the floorboard that I almost lost my license. I had one of the fastest barrel horses in the state. Uncle Calvin had helped me soup up our go-kart.

  Then I grew up. Cal died and Addy started to get old. I realized I had responsibilities and started slowing down. Then when Addy died, everything fell on my shoulders. If something happened to me, Shelby would have nobody. So, I quit taking risks.

  Almost dying a couple of months ago had me rethinking all that. I was tired of living vanilla, and riding with Hunter on that bike was my way of dipping my toe back into the Chunky Monkey. I was working my way toward wanting one of my own, but wasn't quite ready to pull the trigger on it yet.