Maggie Box Set

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

  “So am I.” Maggie stomps through the grass that needs mowing in her side yard back to her truck. “And stop calling me ma’am. I’m no older than you. I’m not your damn grandmother.”

  She slams the door and sprays gravel on a Lee County Sheriff’s Department Tahoe as she leaves.

  Twenty-Five

  Maggie blows in under a good head of steam when she gets back to Nowheresville. Michele, Rashidi, Ava, and Collin are drinking mimosas and eating bagels and lox. Bagels and lox. In the middle of the afternoon in the middle of nowhere, Texas.

  “Look what we found at a vendor for the antique show,” Michele says.

  Maggie stomps to the table, grabs Michele’s mimosa, and downs it. “That bitch changed the locks. She won’t leave. Then I got chased away by a deputy with a peashooter, who was no help whatsoever.”

  “Whoa, who? What?” Michele is on her feet.

  Ava puts a hand over her mouth.

  “You think this is funny?” Maggie points at her. “Five people have died around me in the last week, counting the corpse in my store last night. My so-called friends are leaking information to People.com. They’re calling me a black widow and libeling me to the entire universe.” Maggie throws Michele a look. “And you know my money is on Wallace for that one.”

  Michele’s face is pained. “We don’t know that.”

  “We might not, but I do.” Maggie directs her wrath back at Ava. “And you. You might be a publicity whore, but I’m not.”

  “Hey, now, watch how you’re throwing that word around.” Ava crosses her arms.

  “I’m a very private person. My heart is broken, my livelihood is destroyed, the cops are after me, and I can’t get back into my own home. This is the opposite of funny.”

  Ava raises both hands. “I wasn’t laughing. I promise. What’s happening to you makes me sick.”

  “Damn.” Collin puts a hand on Ava’s shoulder. “This sucks big-time, Maggie.”

  Rashidi hands Maggie his mimosa.

  “Thank you.” She downs his, too.

  Michele takes Maggie’s hand. “Come into my office. We’ll get her charged with trespassing.”

  “I tried that, and the deputy at my house wouldn’t help me.” Maggie allows herself to be led. “Can they haul her off my place? And what about the locks?”

  “Possibly. Probably. Maybe. All right, I don’t know.” Michele shuts the French doors behind them and pulls out her phone. “But the sooner we start, the better.” She pushes something on the screen. “Sadly, I have the sheriff’s department on speed dial.”

  It is sad, but familiar. “You and me both.”

  Michele holds up a finger. “Hello. I need to speak to Junior. Sure, I’ll hold.” She hits the screen and sets the phone down.

  After a few seconds of silence, Maggie flops into the chair in front of her. Louise paws at the French doors.

  “No,” Maggie says, shaking her finger at the dog.

  Louise flops to the floor with a long-suffering sigh.

  “Hello?” Junior’s voice fills the room.

  “Junior. It’s Michele Lopez Hanson.”

  “Ma’am. Long time no talk to.”

  “It’s your lucky day. You’ve got Maggie on, too.”

  He doesn’t reply, his silence a vacuum of sound.

  “Listen, we’ve got a problem. Maggie went to reclaim her house from her vacation renter, and the woman has changed the locks and won’t let her in.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah. We have a contract past its end date, multiple verbal confirmations of the terms, and today a very heated and clear instruction to vacate the premises at the agreed-upon time. We need her charged with trespassing, and arrested and removed from the property. And Maggie needs in her house.”

  “Goddammit.”

  “That’s not a very professional response. How about ‘No problem, Michele’?”

  “This is really bad timing.”

  Maggie raises her voice to be sure the speaker catches it. “Tell me about it.”

  “Seriously, there’s, um, stuff, um, going on.”

  “What kind of stuff?” Michele asks.

  “Evidence stuff. Relating to Gary’s case.”

  “Well, that case is in Fayette County and has nothing to do with this case in Lee County.”

  There’s a long silence before Junior says, “Can you bring in the paperwork?”

  “How about you meet us with it?”

  “Goddammit.” His voice is sounding more resigned.

  “So you said. See you soon.” Michele presses the screen to end the call and shakes her head at Maggie. “Methinks something is going on here.”

  Maggie doesn’t disagree. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know yet. But I have a feeling neither one of us is going to like it.”

  Twenty-Six

  While the minutes tick by without Junior’s arrival—or return visit, if the morning meeting with Karen and Boland is to be counted—Maggie checks her phone. She’s hoping to hear from Hank. There’s nothing from him, but she does have a message from Boyd.

  Got a call from a People.com reporter. They want to do a piece about us to coincide with Michele’s movie premiere. Joint interview?

  Her finger hovers. The interview would help Boyd’s political campaign and Michele’s book and movie ticket sales. But it would hurt Maggie’s own potential libel suit. Besides, she wants her star lower in the sky, now more than ever.

  She deletes the text. “Has Junior sent an update?”

  “Not since last time you asked. I’m emailing things to him, so he comes with the right paperwork.”

  “He hasn’t left yet?”

  “Hush, or he never will. Go do something and quit bothering me.”

  Maggie trolls the liquor cabinet. Gives the dogs some water. Eyes the liquor cabinet again. Checks her phone to make sure the ringer is on.

  She pokes her head back into Michele’s office. “I’m going for a walk.”

  “It’s ninety degrees out there. Or more.”

  “I can’t sit here.” Waiting for Junior, worrying about her home, her future, and Hank—it’s killing her.

  “Junior should be here within an hour.”

  Maggie calls for the dogs. She tucks a cold water bottle under her arm, then goes to the front door. Both dogs shrink back.

  “What? Don’t like it out there in the heat of the day? Prefer the air-conditioning, little princesses?”

  Gertrude tiptoes to Michele’s office. Louise wags her tail but won’t budge.

  “Wimps.” Maggie leaves without them.

  First she heads to the goat pen. The goats are lying down in the shade. They don’t get up.

  “You guys, too?”

  Omaha flicks his tail. Nebraska closes his eyes. They’ve eaten everything green inside their fence. She refills their feed and changes out their water. Cold, fresh water tastes so much better in the heat, something her father had ingrained in her as a child with her 4-H animals.

  “Treat them like you want to be treated, Maggie. They’re God’s creatures, too,” he’d told her.

  “I’d want to go in the house,” she’d replied.

  “So give them the next best thing.”

  She’d cracked ice trays into the stock tank for her lambs in the worst of the heat after their conversation. That had been so long ago. A lifetime. She was a different person then. One who’d left her 4-H past behind for Nashville. Until two orphaned goat kids fell into her lap. They’d taken her back two decades to memories of her father. Good ones. Not the angry man who couldn’t relate to his rebellious teenage daughter. Or the devout Lutheran worried for Maggie’s eternal soul. But the kind farmer who passed respect and love for animals down a generation. The firefighter who risked his life to help others.

  Unexpected tears sting her eyes. She hasn’t cried for that old bastard in as long as she can remember. She swipes them away. She’s not going to start n
ow. By her mid-teens, he was a different person. Judgmental. Authoritarian. Yes, she’d run away, but when she came home to visit, he hadn’t welcomed her. Because of his hardened heart, she hadn’t repaired her relationship with her mom until after he passed.

  She’d hurt him by leaving, Maggie knows. But pain is a two-way street with potholes big enough to swallow the John Deere tractor he used to drive.

  She calls goodbye to the unimpressed goats.

  She walks into the trees, seeking shade since there’s no breeze. Why is she thinking about her dad now? It takes a few minutes before the answer hits her. She’s at a crossroads. Again. Her reinvented life has caved in on itself. He would be pushing her for decisions, to finally make something of herself more pleasing to God. And even beyond the grave, he’s found a way to be here doing it again.

  “I’m fine, Daddy.”

  He’d criticize her distance from the church. The absence of a husband and kids. The profession, the career, or even a job—or lack thereof—wouldn’t bother him as much. He wanted her to live a life of piety, a biblical life.

  “Never going to happen, old man.”

  The funny thing is, her tears well up again at the thought. The image that comes into her mind is Hank. His ranch in Wyoming. The Bighorn Mountains casting a long evening shadow over the cabin in the foothills and overlooking the barns, stables, pens, and livestock. Horses, all ages, in every color, serene in the tall buffalo grass. Some of them superstars of the bucking horse circuit, but there on the ranch, just part of the herd. Cattle, the massive bulls separated from the rest, destined for rodeo greatness. At dusk, white-tailed deer appearing out of gulches, gullies, and trees, grazing with the livestock. Antelope crouching and crawling under the fences. Lily, the horse she’d come to think of as hers in one short week, nickering to be fed. The hands, Gene, and the family at the long dinner table in the main house, Hank’s mother chastising someone, everyone. Maggie actually smiles remembering the sharp tongue on the old woman in the tiny body. Alzheimer’s didn’t keep her from ruling that roost.

  Maybe some of the things her father wanted for her, that her mother wants for her now, aren’t so bad. But they aren’t ever going to be hers. Hank and Sheila will have a baby within a year, and a yard full of rug rats in five. Sheila will ride Lily. And Maggie will move on, without Hank. Without love, she’s sure, because she knows now Hank was it for her. She’ll find something to occupy herself. To sustain herself. Or maybe she won’t. Maybe she’ll sell the Andy Warhol and vintage Jaguar and travel the world.

  As she’s walking the fence line of Michele’s property closest to the road, a big red truck pulls to a stop across the strands of wire from her. She double-takes. It looks like the truck Gary used to drive. A small woman jumps out, leaving the motor running.

  “Merritt, what are you doing out here?”

  Gary’s mother comes to the fence. “We need to talk.”

  Her tone isn’t warm and friendly, but then, her son just died. Maggie gets it. Merritt needs someone to blame for her pain. Merritt had raised Gary and his siblings in a trailer. His father cut and run after Kelly was born and didn’t surface again until Gary hit the big time. Gary didn’t give him the time of day. But he doted on his mother. Built her a nice house and set up a trust fund for her. Even if Merritt hadn’t ever been crazy about Maggie, Gary would want Maggie to be nice to her now. Nicer than the woman has been to her.

  “Okay. But you didn’t seem to want to earlier. At Teague’s.”

  “I couldn’t. Not in front of Kelly and the others.”

  “You did call me this morning, didn’t you?”

  “I did. And I tried to again after lunch.”

  “Oh shit. I changed my phone number today. Sorry.” The conversation feels awkward across a fence. Maggie separates the barbed-wire strands and ducks between them, lifting her legs carefully to avoid being scratched. “Go on, then.”

  Merritt hugs herself. “Gary named me as the executor in his will.”

  “Makes sense.” Maggie uncaps her water bottle. It’s not cold anymore.

  “Something real strange happened this morning. I met with Gary’s financial advisor and this banker fella. They told me that Gary is nearly broke. That ain’t like him.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “He’s got some cash, but he’d signed away a bunch of his investment accounts.”

  “Do they know why?” Maggie takes a swig from her bottle.

  “No. But they told me they’d get to the bottom of it.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “That’s why I called you, right after. I figured if anybody knew about it, it would be you.”

  “I wish I did.”

  “Me and Kelly met Gary’s manager for lunch. Him and Kelly’s boyfriend, Thorn. Tom is manager for both of them now. He’s been real good to Kelly.”

  Maggie’s tongue itches to ask whether Merritt thinks it’s wise to let Kelly date a much older man like Thorn. Maggie had been down that road in her career. It was an ugly and dangerous one. But she doesn’t want to risk the well of Merritt’s information drying up, so instead she just says, “I saw.”

  “I told them about me being executor and Gary being broke and all. Tom pulled out this paper. He said I needed to know about it.”

  “What was it?”

  “An investment paper. From Gary. Tom said Gary put money in their company.”

  “Whose?”

  “His and Thorn’s. Clarkethorn Tour Promoters.”

  “How much?”

  “Half a million dollars.”

  Maggie drops her water bottle. “That’s hard to believe.” She squats and retrieves it.

  “It didn’t sit right with me. Which is why I came straight to talk to you.”

  “I’m glad you did. Gary would never have brought Thorn in on his tours. And he was way past the point of needing to invest in his own tours.”

  Merritt closes her eyes. “It wasn’t for Gary’s tours. It was for the one for Thorn and Kelly.”

  Maggie shields her eyes from the afternoon sun. “Merritt, he wouldn’t have backed Thorn.”

  “But Kelly?”

  “Do you really believe Gary would have sent Kelly on a tour with Thorn at this stage in her career?”

  Merritt’s forehead creases. “He wanted to help her.”

  “By teaching her the ropes. Giving her a start. Introducing her to people. Mentoring her. Protecting her. Not by throwing her to the wolves before she’s ready. She’s only a kid.”

  “Kelly’s got talent.”

  “Sure she does, or Gary wouldn’t have brought her on.”

  “He told you all this?”

  “Yes. When he asked what my advice was, since I was a seventeen-year-old girl in the business once upon a time, too.”

  Understanding dawns in Merritt’s eyes. “Oh. I’d forgotten about that.”

  “Yeah. It was rough. He didn’t want that for her. I just wish he hadn’t fired her. He didn’t ask my advice about that.”

  “Oh, he didn’t fire her. She quit.”

  Maggie’s breath catches. Merritt is full of surprises. “What?”

  “She and Thorn hooked up. And then Tom got that song for her. And Thorn and Tom invited her on the tour.” Merritt bites her lip. “You’re right. Gary didn’t want her doing none of it. So she quit. And it broke his heart.”

  “I’m sorry.” Maggie sighs. “There’s something else you need to know. Gary was about to fire Tom.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Gary told me so the night before he died. And it’s all making sense now. He called Tom a thief and said that after he fired him, Tom could spend all his time on his hotshot new clients.”

  Merritt may have grown up poor and country, but she’s nobody’s fool. “Oh, Maggie. The tour money. Tom and Thorn. Maybe they stole it. Maybe it wasn’t an investment.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking. And you know what else I think?”

  “What?”

/>   “That getting fired because you’re caught stealing half a million dollars is a pretty good motive for murder.” Maggie’s heart hurts for Gary and his mother, but she feels optimism for the first time in days. This could be her break. It could get Fayette County looking in the right direction instead of at her.

  Merritt presses a fist to her mouth. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Maggie pulls Gary’s mother to her and hugs her tight. “Whatever you do, you’ve got to be very, very careful about it. Tom and Thorn have half a million reasons to protect themselves. Reasons Fayette County needs to know about, and fast. You’ve got to take this to the sheriff.”

  “Tom and Thorn told me that you might say things about them that aren’t true. They said I can’t trust a junkie.”

  Maggie would laugh if it weren’t so serious. Junker, not junkie. “I hope you know I’m not lying to you. I cared about Gary.”

  She has a chilling thought. Why would Tom and Thorn be warning Merritt off her? Do they see her as a threat? Damn that TMZ article and damn Wallace. Tom and Thorn and the whole world know she and Gary talked before his death. And the two men had been probing her about what Gary had told her. Shit. They think she knows about their embezzlement. Maybe it’s not a coincidence that someone torched her store after burning down Gary’s house. Sweat trickles down her chest, between her breasts and into her belly button.

  Merritt pulls away. Her eyes are dazed. “Let me think on it.” She starts walking back to Gary’s truck. She stops halfway there. “When all this is over, let’s you and me look at old pictures and listen to Gary’s music together. Lift a glass in his honor.”

  Maggie hides her distress and smiles at Merritt. “More like drink a twelve-pack.”

  Gary’s mother laughs, but it changes quickly to weeping. Wiping her eyes, she says, “I’m sorry, Maggie.” Then she gets in the truck and drives away.

  Maggie crawls back through the fence. The afternoon is still and quiet without the loud engine. The sun is fierce. She ducks back under the strip of trees between the fence and Michele’s driveway. She’s completely alone. Her skin crawls, and she looks for Tom and Thorn behind every tree. She has to go tell Michele about what Merritt told her so they can call the cops. She can’t wait for Merritt to do it. Hell, she can’t trust Merritt to do it at all. Because if she was in Merritt’s shoes, she’d be protecting her daughter, and there’s no way this is going down without taking some of Kelly’s ass with it.