Maggie Box Set

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  She’d just prefer they make the trip together.

  Heaving a sigh, she returns her mind to her list and tackles it in order of difficulty, Mom first.

  Her mother answers on the first ring. “Maggie, honey.”

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Are you home?”

  “No, just calling to give you an update.”

  “And?”

  “I’ll be home by Sunday or Monday.”

  “You’re going to just miss the Lindenhauers’ big estate sale.” Her mother delights in monitoring local papers for deaths and property liquidations in the area. Maggie has a news clipping service that does the same thing online, but some of her best junk has come from Charlotte’s finds.

  “Do you want to shop it for me?” Maggie developed her eye at Charlotte’s knee.

  “Oh, honey, I wish I could.” Charlotte doesn’t elaborate.

  Maggie puzzles this over. The mom she knows would jump at the chance. But she’s not up for twenty questions. “Listen, I don’t want to alarm you, but I have some bad news.”

  Charlotte’s voice goes up an octave. “Are you hurt?”

  “No, nothing like that. There was a break-in and some damage at Flown the Coop. Probably some drunk teenagers. I just wanted you to hear about it from me.”

  “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. And right before the fall antique show.”

  “No worries. A minor speed bump.”

  “Does this have anything to do with that new antique store that’s opening near you? The owner is bragging about how he’s going to put you out of business. I try to ignore that kind of gossip, but he burns me up.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Hmm. He’s been telling people he tried to buy your place but you turned him down.”

  Maggie remembers an offer from months before. She hadn’t taken it seriously. A man with far too high an opinion of himself had walked in and demanded to know how much she wanted for the Coop. His visit was like an earthquake, his vibe and mannerisms so at odds with the store that she’d had a vision of it falling down around their ears. She’d sent him packing. She dredges up his name. “Rickey Sayles?”

  “That might be him.”

  “So he bought a place. Good luck to him, then.” He’ll need it, because she’s going to make him eat his words about putting her under.

  The low-gas indicator lights up on the dash. Damn Hank. She’d been rushing to avoid him. They stock bulk fuel for the equipment at the ranch, and she could have filled up there.

  “Have you talked to Michele?”

  “Not today. Why?”

  “No reason. Can we plan on dinner Monday night? Remember, I need to talk to you.”

  “Monday night.”

  “Yes.”

  Maggie almost argues in favor of a phone call. She stops herself. Don’t be a shitheel. “Monday it is. Bye, Mom.” She ends the call.

  A sign announces Buffalo. She veers onto the first exit and stops at the Maverik. While gas is pumping, she takes the easy way out with Boyd. A text.

  Sending up smoke signals from WY. Having a run of bad luck. Haven’t seen any Crow. Home in a week.

  Maggie feels moderately virtuous and completely drained. Both living parents dealt with. She assumes the nonliving ones are keeping an eye on her whenever the fancy strikes, but she whispers a hello to them both anyway.

  “Maggie, isn’t it?” a male voice—it’s always a male voice here—asks.

  She puts her hand on the gas nozzle and pretends not to hear the guy.

  “Excuse me, miss?”

  He didn’t call her ma’am. She can reward that. “Yes?” She turns to him. It’s the Occidental bartender. Patchy face.

  “Were you at the Ox last week?”

  “You introduced me to Koltiska.”

  “I thought it was you. We keep running into each other. The Wagon Box, here.”

  “I keep running into everyone I’ve met.” The gas nozzle clicks off. She replaces it on the pump.

  “You’re not at the service.”

  Maggie screws on the gas cap and shuts the cover. “Excuse me?”

  “Chet Moore’s funeral. I thought, well, you know.”

  “I barely knew him.” She punches no to decline a receipt.

  He cocks his head, like he’s listening to something far away. “I heard you two were getting married.”

  Maggie busts out laughing, then reins it in. “That’s preposterous. Where do people come up with this crap?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Not your fault.”

  “Well, if you’re not getting married, I guess that’s good news for the rest of us.”

  “Not for long.” She lets herself back in the Tahoe.

  “Wait.”

  She leaves the door open a crack.

  “Let’s trade numbers.”

  She smiles. One thing she won’t miss about Wyoming is the edge of desperation in the men, like she’s the only source of warmth for a long cold winter. “Let’s not. You take care now.” She closes the door and pushes the electric lock button.

  Twenty-Four

  The Buffalo Police Department is across the street from a church for the Jehovah’s Witnesses and next door to a bowling alley. Up the street is the looming hulk of the Bighorn Mountains. A town that has it all. She still has fifteen minutes before her scheduled statement, so she heads into downtown. She can tackle the next call on her list. Sheridan County Sheriff’s Department. Only she forgot to Google the number before her drive. She remembers using the Wi-Fi at the Occidental and parks out front. When she has signal, she makes the call. After several transfers, she’s connected to a deputy. Bad cell reception eats his name, but she doesn’t let that slow her down.

  “I’d like to report a break-in and theft.”

  The reception improves. His voice is deep with an underlying sense of fun threading through it. “A burglary.”

  “Same difference.”

  “Address?”

  “I’m not sure. Piney Bottoms Ranch.”

  The bartender strolls into the Occidental, seeming not to notice her.

  “Who am I speaking to?”

  “Maggie Killian. I’m staying in the guest cabin there.”

  “Ah. Okay. We can send someone out to the Sibley place to take a statement later this afternoon.”

  “I’m . . . out today.”

  “Okay. I’ll have someone call you to schedule it, then. I’m off the rest of the week. Any items we should be on the lookout for in the meantime?”

  “A 2002 Cheyenne Frontier Days belt buckle.”

  There’s a long silence. “That’s the year Hank won. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him wear the buckle.”

  “He hasn’t. I’ve had it.”

  She can hear a smile in his voice. “Anything else of value?”

  “A guitar strap embroidered with peace signs.”

  “Seriously?”

  She scrunches her eyes shut. Exactly the reaction she’d feared. “It has great sentimental value. But there’s nothing else.”

  “Gotcha. Maggie Killian. Burglary. Guest house. Piney Bottoms.”

  “You know where Piney Bottoms is?”

  The deputy laughs. “Part of our job to know the county. Piney Bottoms takes up a nice chunk of it. I’ll have someone call.”

  “Okay, then. Thank you.”

  Maggie drives back to the police station. She trudges into the station like she’s heading for a saltwater enema. To her surprise, the process is anticlimactic. A city employee hands her a piece of paper and a pen, and directs her to a small room with a table and chairs one small step up from the folding variety to write her story.

  When she’s almost done, Lacey appears and mashes a chair across from her. Seated, he looks taller than when he stands. “You get it all down?”

  Maggie pushes the paper toward him. “Want to double-check my work?”

  He reads it, nodding, then hands it back. “This will do.” />
  “Have you gotten any good leads?”

  “I’m not at liberty to talk about the details of the case at this stage of the investigation.”

  “I’ll take that as a no.”

  Lacey shrugs. “Honestly, our best lead is you.”

  Her face feels like boots a size too small on a shoe stretcher. “You’re cracked.”

  “You’re the one with means and opportunity.”

  “Means?”

  “His tire iron.”

  “He was killed with his own tire iron?” She remembers Chet telling her he kept it in his truck bed. Handy for him, but unfortunately handy for someone else this time. She shudders. Poor Chet. He might not have been the one for her, but he wasn’t a bad guy, and no one deserved what he got.

  “Yep.”

  “Well, I was at the hotel. So was his truck. But I had no motive to kill him. And anyone could have gotten hold of his tire iron.” A face flashes into her mind. Dimples. Navy blue eyes. She rejects it. Hank may be a liar, but he’s no killer.

  “What if I told you we had a witness that overheard the two of you arguing, and him refusing to see you again?”

  “I’d say someone is very confused or a big fat liar-liar-pants-on-fire.”

  “I’d say it’s motive.”

  “If that had happened, it’s motive to tell him to fuck off, not to kill him. But it didn’t happen.”

  Lacey stares at her with his strangely milky eyes.

  Maggie leans forward on her palms. “Come on, detective. Doesn’t Chet have a string of unhappy exes, one-night stands, and cheated-on husbands and boyfriends? He could have work rivals. Creditors. Maybe he was blackmailing someone. Dig deeper. I’m not your killer.”

  Lacey keeps staring at her.

  “Did you talk to the slap-happy meth head and her brothers? The ones who were pissed at Chet?”

  “We haven’t been able to track them down.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find them soon. It’s a small town. But it’s not my town. I wish you Godspeed, because my livelihood depends on me leaving Friday.”

  “I wouldn’t get in too big of a rush, Ms. Killian.”

  “Can’t I sign some sort of agreement that I’ll come back if you need me to? It’s not like I’m going to Costa Rica. Just Texas. Wyoming’s ideological sister state. Maybe it would help if you thought of it as ‘South Wyoming.’”

  Lacey stands, a short man once again. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Maggie makes a strangled sound in her throat. “I’ll never get to go home unless I solve this for you. You’re not even trying.”

  “I don’t recommend it. This is a police matter.”

  “Maybe. But it’s also a Maggie matter when you’re holding me hostage in Wyoming and taking your sweet time.”

  His voice grows hostile. “You’ll think hostage when I arrest you for interfering with a police investigation. I’m not afraid to throw your famous butt in jail.” He sucks in a breath, and when he exhales, the hostility drains from him. “Good day, Ms. Killian.”

  Fuming and mumbling suggestions for what inanimate objects Lacey should have sex with, Maggie finishes up her statement. She stops to have it notarized with a department admin. As she waits, her mind is in turmoil. She has no experience catching murderers, but she’d spouted off a list of potential suspects for Lacey without even trying. What’s wrong with him? Is he lazy? Stupid? Or is she just expedient because she’s from out of town?

  “Sign here,” the admin says. She presses her finger so hard the tip turns red, indicating a line in her notary book.

  Maggie scrawls her signature. “Am I done?”

  “All done,” the woman chirps. Her eyes are beady and birdlike, too, but her hair is the curly steel wool of a black sheep.

  Maggie reminds herself it’s not this woman’s fault. She chokes out a “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, Ms. Killian.”

  Maggie rounds the corner to the lobby. Patrick Rhodes is coming down another hall, their paths set to intersect.

  “Hey, Patrick.” she says.

  The big man ambles up to her. “Hey, pretty lady.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Giving a statement on the Chet Moore case.”

  “Me, too.”

  He nods. “They asked me about you.”

  “Surprise, surprise. What did they ask?”

  “Just what I knew about your actions and whereabouts, since you spent his last night with him and all.”

  “They told you that? Assholes.”

  “No. I heard that over breakfast at the Busy Bee. I felt half-famous by association.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Sorry. No offense. Let me make it up to you. Buy you a drink.”

  She remembers his solo lap of the Wagon Box and the way he’d given her the creeps at the end of their date. “Why, so you can show the mystery harlot off to your cronies?”

  He grins, his laugh lines crinkling. “Actually, there’s a few things you may want to know about Chet Moore.”

  She feels her eyebrows shoot up. Creeps or no, this is an opportunity she can’t pass up. “Lead on.”

  Maggie drives the Tahoe downtown and parks behind Patrick, just short of the creek.

  She joins him on the sidewalk, and he points to a neon sign for a bar called the Century Club. “They’re just about always open.”

  A cloud of cigarette smoke greets them, flashing Maggie back to playing for coins in a tip jar and shots of cheap whiskey. The interior is tight, poorly lit, and dominated by a wooden bar on the left and a pool table on the right, where a lanky cowboy is breaking as a redhead leans on her cue, waiting. The decor is mainly courtesy of big beer. A Miller High Life clock. A neon Coors wall hanging. A Pabst Blue Ribbon light fixture over the pool table. Flyers announcing beer specials cover nearly every inch of the mirror behind the bar. Maggie sees—barely—two men and a woman seated on stools lift a hand in greeting, not at her. Patrick lifts his in return.

  The bartender tosses his long brown ponytail over his shoulder. He plonks two napkins on the counter and nods at Patrick.

  “Budweiser.” Patrick points at Maggie.

  Maggie pulls a credit card out of her wallet. She scans the bottles. This isn’t a craft-beer-and-specialty-liquor type of place, but she tries anyway. “Koltiska and tea.”

  The bartender grunts and swings his head toward a bright yellow poster-board sign. CASH ONLY is written in block print. “Jack all right?”

  “Fine.”

  Patrick puts a twenty down.

  Maggie says, “Thanks.”

  A text comes in for Maggie from Hank: I called the sheriff. Theft on our property is my business.

  Maggie types fast and hits send: Beat you to it.

  “There’s your boy.” Patrick raises his beer toward a 2002 Cheyenne Frontier Days signed photograph of Hank.

  Maggie is drinkless. The bartender is refilling whiskeys for the patrons along the bar. “Not my boy.”

  “Didn’t you play there that year?”

  “Yep. How did you know?”

  “I saw your show. You were amazing.”

  “Still am.”

  He swallows half his beer in one chug. “And I heard about you and Sibley.”

  Maggie gyrates her upper body over the bar, trying to catch the bartender’s eye. “Ancient history. I thought we were here to talk about Chet.”

  “Keep your panties on, if you can. Although I hear you have trouble with that.”

  “Fuck you.”

  He chuckles. “If you want, it can be arranged.”

  “Don’t hold your breath.” Maggie’s starting to regret coming with him. Especially sober.

  The bartender wipes down an infinitesimal square of counter space that’s already clean.

  Maggie clears her throat. “Excuse me. Jack and Coke when you get a chance?”

  The bartender nods and keeps wiping.

  “What does a woman have to do to get a drink arou
nd here?” She snaps at Patrick, angry with him and the slow service.

  “This is a local hangout.”

  “And I’m not local.”

  Patrick purses his lips.

  “Can you help me out?”

  Patrick taps the bar with a knuckle. “Darrell, can you get my guest a Jack and Coke, please, seeing as you already have my money?”

  Darrell the bartender shoots Maggie a glance. He pours her drink, then hands it to her. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

  “Darrell, this is the world-famous Maggie Killian.” Patrick’s emphasis on world-famous borders on sarcastic.

  Maggie imagines Patrick’s head filling with helium until it explodes. It helps.

  The woman a few stools down from Maggie leans out around her companions. She takes her time checking Maggie out. Maggie returns the favor. Tattoos cover the woman’s arms and shoulders under her tank top. The short spiky blonde hair, sullen expression, and skeletal frame look familiar to Maggie.

  Darrell puts up the Jack. “Maggie Killian? Never heard of her.”

  “Maggie, this is Darrell, the proprietor of one of the finest bars in the west. Since 1900.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  Darrell throws back his head and laughs, his lips retreating donkey-style over tobacco-stained teeth. His merriment ends in wet, phlegmy coughs. Without another word, he walks to the jukebox.

  “Friendly.” Maggie slams her mostly-Coke onto the bar. She should have ordered a double.

  “He grows on you.”

  “Like a wart, or more like athlete’s foot?”

  “Speaking of things you want to get rid of, how come you haven’t ditched Wyoming?”

  “The part for my truck won’t get here for a few more days.”

  “I’ve got one just like it, you know.”

  “One what?”

  “Old Ford pickup. What year do you drive?”

  “1942.”

  He drains his beer and sets it down loudly on the bar.

  Darrell hollers, “Refill?”

  Patrick matches his volume. “Do bears shit in the woods? One for Maggie, too.” He lowers his voice. “Mine’s a forty-four. Doesn’t run. We could probably scavenge you a part off it.”