Murder to the Max

by Tegan Maher

  Wow. Apparently, I'm just in the wrong generation, but I'd never thought casket shopping would have so many gopher holes. Yet another reason to be cremated.

  Since Coralee was babysitting Max, I grabbed a cup of coffee and commandeered a corner so I could watch who came and who went, and Hunter joined me. According to Bobbie Sue, Max's daughter and her husband were in town, but I didn't know what they looked like. There wasn't anybody with Emily, so I assumed they either weren't there or were outside.

  I was surprised by how many people of all ages showed up and the more I listened, the more I understood just how not-crusty he was, no matter how hard he worked to maintain the facade. I heard snippets of several stories telling how he'd helped one kid or another in both small ways and large.

  It seemed that he and Emily had even fostered a few kids throughout the years, a fact that was so incongruous with my image of him that I had a hard time reconciling. From all accounts, he was a good father regardless of whether the kid shared his blood or just his roof.

  I'd made it three-quarters of the way through my cup of coffee when Joe Sneed walked into the reception room, felt hat in hand, and made his way to Emily.

  She started crying when she saw him, and he wrapped her up in a hug, looking almost as torn up as she did. I tried to look for a bandage, but he was wearing a suit jacket so that was a no-go.

  I nudged Hunter and pointed him out. “Look how upset he looks. Does that look like a guilty man to you?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s that upset because he likes Emily and feels bad for putting her through this, or maybe he really did like Max and killed him in a moment of rage and regrets it now.”

  I pressed my lips together. There was no point in debating it with him.

  After talking with Emily for a few minutes, he stood over Max and took his hat off. I stepped a little closer, hoping to hear any parting words.

  "You old dog, I can't believe you went before me. And I'm sorry I couldn't do more about it." He started genuinely crying. "I'm so sorry about that danged boat. If I could just have one do-over ...," he paused to pat down the few straggling tendrils of hair that he had left, then put his hat back on.

  Max appeared over the coffin, looking a little sad as Joe cleared his throat and continued. "Well, I suppose I'd probably still sell it to ya. I'd just lock my garage." He smiled and pulled out his hanky to wipe his eyes. "It's what you get for sellin' me that old mower you hobbled together. I didn't even mow half my yard before it broke down." He sniffed and wiped his eyes again, then patted Max's hand. "Hope you found greener pastures, my friend."

  Yeah, like the ones at my house, I thought. My cynicism melted at the expression on Max's face and I turned to look at Hunter. He had his brows drawn together when he looked at me, but I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

  He quirked up one side of his mouth, but his eyes were sad. "You crooked old coot. I'm gonna miss you," he said.

  "Oh, c'mon." I said in an attempt to cheer him up once Joe had walked away. I turned to pretend I was admiring one of the big bouquets so people wouldn't see my lips moving and think I was talking to myself. I had to say something though; I felt bad because he looked so down in the mouth. "If you stick around, you can still see him."

  "Yeah, but I've been thinking about that. I don't know if I want to stay around or not. As much as I want to, it don't seem natural. I think I may just stick it out 'til you find out who killed me, then head on to those greener pastures Joe was just talkin' about."

  "That's all on you," I said, sniffing a particularly pretty lily. "You can do whatever you want, or at least that's what Cheri Lynn says. She said it feels optional, like she can go whenever she wants."

  "Yeah, that about sums it up."

  "What did he mean when he said he wished he could have done more about it?"

  He scowled at me. "How am I supposed to know what a crazy old coot rambles about?"

  "Geez! Okay. No need to get your knickers all twisted." There was a little too much bluster in his words, but he turned away before I could question him further.

  I saw a couple of groups of people that looked familiar to me and started to ask him who they were, but then three men and a woman joined Emily at the front of the room.

  "Hey Max, are those your kids?"

  "Yeah," he said, smiling with pride before he started to flicker. “That’s my daughter Louise, I sighed as he looked at his watch, uttered his phrase, then popped out. At least he was able to hang around long enough to see most of his funeral.

  I, on the other hand, learned nothing, unless you count the fact that my belief in Joe's innocence was now rock-solid. Maybe Larry Huffman did do it, or maybe it was the fired foreman, Basil Bennett. The only thing I knew for sure was that it wasn't Joe.

  Why couldn't murders around this town just be easy? Or even limited to cheating spouses offing one another like it used to be? Ah, the good ole days.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  The next morning, I was sitting in the swing on the shady part of the porch drinking a cup of coffee and shootin' the breeze with donkey-Max when somebody in a newer-model truck rumbled up the driveway driving like his tail feathers were on fire. I squinted to read the sign on the door through the dust it was kicking up. Jackson Construction.

  The idea of uninvited guests who interrupted what amounted to my morning meditation didn't give me the warm and fuzzies, so I didn't bother to get up. I waited with my feet up on the railing until a guy a little taller and a lot broader than me stepped out.

  I dropped my feet the boards of the porch and stood, coffee still cupped in my hands. The cool boards of the porch were actually a little cool on my bare feet; nights were starting to get a bit chilly as summer faded, turning the leaves of my oak trees brilliant colors.

  They wouldn't be that way for long and I felt another surge of irritation. The only time it was okay to show up to a stranger's house unannounced was if somebody was dead or they'd won that giant check from Publisher's Clearing House I mentioned earlier.

  He came within a few feet of the porch and looked up at me. "I'm looking for Noelle Flynn. You her?"

  I squinted at him. "Who's askin'?"

  "I'm Bo Jackson of Jackson Construction."

  "Okay. I'm Noelle. What can I do for you, Mr. Jackson?"

  "One of my crew chiefs came out and gave you an estimate on a pool and deck a couple of months ago."

  I waited for him to say more, but he was straining his neck around trying to see into the backyard. When he couldn't, he looked around the front yard and porch as if he were looking for things that needed fixed. Or more accurately, things he could convince me needed fixed.

  I liked him even less than I'd liked his crew chief, and that was saying something.

  "What about it?" I narrowed my eyes; something was squirrelly.

  "Well, I figured I'd follow up," he said, still looking around.

  I cocked a brow. "You personally follow up on every bid you or your crew puts out there? Seems like a waste of valuable time, especially since I called and told you I was going with another contractor."

  A flash of that good-ole-boy irritation flickered across his face before he could mask it with a snake-oil smile. Eww.

  "I don't follow usually follow up, ma'am, no. But in this case, I saw in your notes that you'd decided to go with Wheeler instead of me."

  "All right. So now I'm even more confused. You know I went with another company, and you're following up? That makes no sense."

  "It does when I know your entire project is on hold because the owner of that company is dead."

  That was disgusting and underhanded even by local standards, and honestly, with the way the town had been run until recently, that was saying something.

  "That's pretty ballsy of you. What makes you thing Emily won't have it up and running soon? I have no reason to switch contractors mid-project. I've spent hours just picking out tiles. I'd rather not have to repeat that."

&nb
sp; He scoffed. "Emily Wheeler doesn't know anything about this business. All she did was lean back and spend the money. And Max fired his foreman before he got brained. She ain't got a chance."

  I crossed one ankle over the other and leaned my shoulder against the porch post. "And so you're going around to all Max's current jobs and poaching them one day after he's in the ground?"

  He scowled. "It ain't like that—"

  "It looks exactly like that to me."

  "Wheeler Construction made it impossible to make a decent living around here in this business. He undercut all of us to the point that we can't bid any lower. I don't know how he did it, but that had to be how he was gettin' so many of the jobs we all bid on. Maybe now, the rest of us will have a chance."

  Interesting. He just climbed a notch on my list of possible suspects. "Just so you know, I didn't choose Wheeler because they were cheaper—the bid was lower than yours but not by much. A couple hundred bucks. I chose them because he said he could start immediately and have it done within a reasonable time. And even with this setback, Wheeler will still have it done before the date your man quoted me."

  This time he didn't make an effort to hide his contempt. "You'll be callin' before the month is out. By then I'll be so busy you'll have to pay a rush fee if you want that job finished."

  "Mister, you were in the running if Emily decided to dissolve the business, but after today, I'd rent a backhoe and fill it back in myself if you were my only option. Which, by the way, you're not. Good day, Mr. Jackson."

  I jerked my chin toward his truck.

  "You're gonna regret this."

  "Is that a threat? Because I don't take kindly to threats."

  He curled his lip into a contemptuous smile. "What are you gonna do about it? I've heard the rumors about your family and I don't believe a word of it."

  I gave him my witchiest smile. "You don't have to believe it."

  The smirk slipped a bit and he got back in the truck, spinning gravel as he did. Just for fun, I threw some of it back.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  I sat back down on the porch swing and wrapped my hands around my now-cold coffee and absently warmed it back up while I considered what had just happened, especially as it related to Max.

  "Not that I care, but it seems that you just found another suspect in your newest little caper," Max said.

  "Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing."

  "Why does it matter to you who killed him?"

  That was a valid question. "I don't know," I said after thinking about it for a few seconds. "I didn't know the guy or his family, but what am I supposed to do when the guy shows up dead and asks for help? Even if it is in one of the most backhanded ways I could imagine?"

  "He didn't ask for your help; he came for your boy-toy." Max went to the porch post and rubbed his shoulder against it.

  "This is one of the worst things about not having hands," he said as he shoved his nose in the air and curled his lip in donkey-pleasure. "Or being able to reach all of your body parts, for that matter."

  I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, that's definitely the worst part that I could think of."

  "To me, it seemed that rather than winding up, things are more complicated," I said as I pushed him away from the railing. "There are people galore who had plenty of motive and more than enough anger issues to follow through," I told him.

  He just grunted in response and shook, sending dust and fur into a cloud around him.

  I covered my coffee cup and turned my head. "Do you mind?"

  He ignored me and meandered away to find a sunny spot to sleep in. Apparently, our quality time was over.

  "Yeah, good chat. Thanks," I called.

  "No problem," he said as he started to circle.

  I could never figure out if sarcasm was lost on him or if he just chose to ignore it if he wasn't the one using it.

  I took a sip of my coffee and gazed out into the pasture, the lazy swishes of the horses' tails hypnotizing me a little. Hunter was convinced it was Larry. To be fair, he seemed to be the obvious choice. I mean, having motive, roughly the same amount of money as was missing from the safe, and being at the crime scene? Yeah. Open and shut.

  I sighed. Maybe I was making a big a fuss about nothing, plus Chet was at the scene of the crime, too. Hunter was questioning him about today.

  My phone alarm interrupted my musings and I shoved it all to the back of my mind to think about later. I was working the lunch shift for Bobbie Sue because this was one of the many days that Miss Ditz had listed as a no-go for the week. It must be nice to be able to put work at the bottom of the priority list.

  I made it to work in plenty of time to prep and was glad to see that Earl had finally gotten around to leveling out the picnic table legs in the patio area. I was getting a little tired of cleaning up spills that happened just because somebody shifted their weight and bounced the table. Last time I worked, the top board had come loose on one and pinched my finger.

  When I went back to get the sauces out of the walk-in, I tossed a thank-you over my shoulder to Earl.

  "For what?" he asked, looking up from the pork shoulder he was shredding.

  "For fixing the outside tables. They were killing me."

  He looked at me, perplexed. "I didn't fix no tables. I been meanin' to, but ain't got around to it yet."

  I furrowed my brow. "Then who did? Because they're fixed."

  He frowned and washed his hands, then went out to see.

  I motioned to them. "That one over there had a board completely loose on the top. These three”—I pointed to the ones I'd arranged toward the back where people only sat when it was busy—"were crazy wobbly."

  He bent down and examined the legs of those, shaking them to test their sturdiness. Looking closer, there were fresh slivers of wood affixed to two of the legs on each one, shimming them so they were sturdy.

  Earl stood up, took his grubby Bulldogs cap off, and scratched his head. "That don't make no sense."

  My thoughts drifted to the feed-room door and the saddle racks, and I told him about it.

  "So we got a fixer-upper fairy floatin' around doin' good deeds?" He drew his brows together. "I don't buy it. No such thing as free."

  I had to agree with him there.

  "What do you think's going on? What's in it for them?"

  "I can't say, but I guaran-damn-tee there's an angle. We just ain't seein' it yet," he said, slapping his hat back on and ambling back toward the kitchen.

  I HAD A COUPLE OF BUSINESSMEN come in early for a quick bite, then was a little surprised when Emily walked in with four other people: three men and a woman. I recognized Darren from Fancy’s, so I assumed the others were her son, daughter, and son-in-law.

  "Hey Emily!" I said, my gaze roaming over the rest of her crew. Darren showed no sign that he recognized me, but I wasn’t surprised. I don’t think he looked at anything other than the beer bottle the entire time Anna Mae and I were in there.

  "Hi Noelle. It's good to see you again."

  "Yeah, it is, though I'm sorry we've gotten to know each other for the reasons we have."

  She shrugged. "Things happen for a reason, I suppose." She turned her attention to the people with her. "Noelle, this is my daughter Louise and my sons Scott and Darren. And this,”—she pointed to a shy-looking man about the same age as the rest of them—"is my son-in-law Jared."

  I nodded. "Pleased to meet y'all. Take a seat wherever you want." I followed them with menus and took their drink orders.

  While I was in the waitress station getting their drinks, Max popped in. "I think I know where you can find Basil Bennett," he said.

  "Fabulous! Where?" If we could run him to ground, that would be just lovely.

  "He has an old fishin' cabin on the other side of the lake. It was his grand-pappy's."

  He gave me directions, local-style by using landmarks, the turned to look into the dining room and gasped. "Emily and Scott and Louise are here. Is that Louise’s new hu
sband with her?"

  I looked at him like he was nuttier than squirrel poop, because obviously he was. "I'd think you'd know that better than me," I told him as I turned to look at the table.

  He shook his head, not taking his eyes off of them. "No. I wouldn't. We were on the outs. She moved to Atlanta over a year ago, and met him when she was working at one of them fancy coffee shops. He convinced her to elope. To Las Vegas! Without even meeting us first!"

  I could see where that would piss him off. Keyhole is a little behind the times when it comes to things like ... well, everything. But especially family. I wasn't afraid to break tradition with most of the archaic stuff, but when it came to that kind of thing, I was a little old-fashioned, too. You had to at least try to make good with the relatives.

  Max hadn't been asked for his official stamp of approval, but I was still surprised he'd hold a grudge that long after what I'd heard about him and his kids.

  "Okay, so you didn't approve of the method, and I can't say as I blame you, but ... a year?"

  He floated around until his back was to them, and looked down, ashamed.

  "I flew off the handle, then she did, because she's got my temper, and things just kinda snowballed from there. Now I'll never get the chance to tell her I love her." I glanced at him sideways and was shocked to see he was crying. The man continued to surprise me.

  I turned back to them. They were an incongruous lot. Scott was dressed well in khakis and carried himself with the air of somebody successful and comfortable in his own skin. Emily, Louise, and Jared were wearing faded jeans and casual shirts that screamed working class. Darren wasn't at the table right then for comparison, but was dressed similarly to Scott. The major difference was that his clothes were obviously Walmart rather than L.L. Bean.

  I took them their drinks, then took their order, and when I came back, Max was still there. The waterworks had dried up, which I was glad to see.