Maggie didn’t care to listen to Carrie’s catty comments. But before she could change the subject, Carrie said, “The night at the parade, when you told me about her, it was like you had kicked me right in the chest. If your phone hadn’t rung and if you’d stayed there with us, I don’t know how I would have managed to answer your questions. But Steve lost interest in Jay’s love life as soon as you said you had to meet a friend at the ER. He said, ‘That Maggie has such an exciting life. When she’s not writing for the newspaper or solving crimes, she’s rushing to the hospital under mysterious circumstances.’ I couldn’t help it. Although I felt saddened by Jay’s betrayal, Steve made me laugh.”
Maggie found it preposterous that Carrie characterized Jay’s relationship with Gina as betrayal, but she didn’t think it was her place to point out the irony of the situation. “You told me before that you had no way of knowing anything about Jay’s personal life. Now that I know differently, is there anything you can tell me that might help us find him? Did he ever mention wanting to get away so he could start over again? Did he ever talk about fearing for his life or worrying that somebody might want to hurt him?”
Carrie shook her head. “I’ll be honest with you. Even if I knew something, I’m not sure I would tell you. I had developed feelings for Jay. It wasn’t just physical for me. I cared for him and I miss him, but Jay leaving is the best thing that could have happened to me. I feel bad for Gentry and Jay’s mom. I really do. But I hope he never comes back.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Maggie scrolled through Sydney’s Facebook page, counting the selfies.
“She changes her profile picture every other day, Barnaby, and that is not an exaggeration. How did I fail to notice her self-absorption before now?”
Although Sydney had sent Maggie a friend request the afternoon they met, Maggie hadn’t spent much time creeping on her. For that matter, she also hadn’t examined in detail the pages of Gina and Carrie, both of whom had also friended her.
“How could I have been so remiss?” she chastised herself. “Who knows what I’ve missed?”
As she continued searching Sydney’s past posts, she quickly realized she had missed more selfies as well as daily updates on the girl’s makeup and accessories, not to mention pep talks Sydney had given herself.
“U can do this Gurl!!!!!” read one. “U own this test!!!!!”
“I don’t know if she had anything to do with Jay’s disappearance, but she should be arrested for misusing exclamation marks,” Maggie said aloud.
During her examination of Sydney’s page, Maggie also was forced to admit that Gina had been truthful on at least one account – Sydney seemed to revel in her position as the missing man’s girlfriend. Post after post either pleaded for his return or expressed her despair.
“Please come back to us, Gentry Harris III.”
“Missing my baby today.”
“I am so empty and alone without you.”
And every post featured comments from friends who expressed their sympathy and offered words of encouragement.
“Let’s see what she was up to back in early May,” Maggie said to Barnaby, who had moseyed over and rested his chin on the arm of Maggie’s rocking chair.
Maggie labored through months of Sydney’s pouty selfies and excitable posts until she finally made her way back to spring. When Maggie located a flurry of posts in which Sydney wailed against friends who stab you in the back and people who break your trust, she said, “This must have been after she found Jay with Gina.” Such posting continued for a week. When a friend would ask Sydney for the cause of her cynicism, she’d either leave the question unanswered or comment, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I know her type. She’s one of those people who say just enough to pique your interest and then plead ignorance or discretion. She revels in creating her own drama,” Maggie said.
In the early morning on the day Jay disappeared, the nature of Sydney’s posts changed. She didn’t share a new profile picture or lament the behavior of so-called friends. Instead, she shared an unspoken prayer request.
Although Maggie’s Facebook friends frequently posted silent prayer requests, she didn’t fulfill such appeals. The way she saw it, if you wanted her prayers, you’d better reveal a little more information. Oh, she might send up a generic prayer asking that God provide comfort and guidance for people she hardly knew such as the arthritic bell ringer with the cold head or for strangers like the woman from the ER who had convinced herself she was pregnant. But from her way of thinking, an unspoken prayer request comprised too many possibilities. What if it requested that harm come to someone? Every time her cousin the respiratory technician posted such a request – and she did so with increasing frequency – Maggie remembered that the woman had wished cancer upon a very specific part of her ex-husband’s body and hoped that her boss fell victim to a fatal heart attack. Taking no chances, Maggie refused to participate in enigmatic appeals for prayers. She also declined to pray for people to complete ordinary tasks at work and home. She reckoned God had more important things to worry about than if her cousin the basketball coach finished copying playbooks for his assistants and if the Sentinel’s bookkeeper cleaned out her closets.
More surprising than Sydney’s unspoken prayer request was what occurred next on her Facebook timeline – silence. For the next three days, Sydney, who by Maggie’s calculation hadn’t gone more than seven hours without posting, didn’t share random and boring details of her life.
But not long after friends started mentioning Jay’s disappearance on her page, Sydney roared back to life and started accepting expressions of sympathy and goodwill.
“What do you make of that?” Maggie asked Barnaby, who had tired of reading over her shoulder and had settled onto the floor.
Maggie perused more of Sydney’s self-absorbed comments and viewed many more photos of her attempting to look serious and/or sensual for the camera before losing interest and checking out Gina’s page.
Although Gina didn’t post nearly as often as Sydney – then again, Maggie speculated that few people posted as often as Sydney – she did make at least one appearance every day. Her posts primarily featured photos of her children at home, at play, and at various school functions and sporting events. She also relied heavily on memes to convey her love for chocolate and coffee.
“Wonder what memes she shared in May?” Maggie asked.
Gina’s springtime posts were not out of the ordinary – pictures of her children playing baseball, memes of harried-looking cats demanding caffeine, and meditations on motherhood. But, a few days after Gentry reported Jay missing, Gina posted a family photo of her and her kids camping with her husband. The husband made more appearances in her subsequent pictures and posts.
“It appears that their reconciliation coincided with Jay’s exit. Interesting. Let’s see what Carrie was up to back in the spring.”
Carrie posted much less frequently than Sydney and Gina, but she did share a daily message of inspiration as well as links to home decorating websites and, of course, obituaries. She also served as the administrator on a page representing her high school graduating class. A quick review of her history showed that she announced her pregnancy in the second week of May.
“Wow,” Maggie said. “The three ladies in Jay’s life behaved curiously around the time he vanished. Sydney took a break from compulsively posting on Facebook. Gina reunited with her husband. I assume this occurred after he literally crawled on his hands and knees, begging for forgiveness. Carrie, whom I presume no longer worried about jinxing her pregnancy, decided it was a good time to tell everyone she was expecting a baby. Could all this be coincidental?” Staring at the laptop, she asked, “Too bad Jay didn’t have a Facebook page. But with two jobs and three girlfriends, I guess he didn’t have time for social media. I don’t understand people, Barnaby. Maintaining one relationship is exhausting. I can’t imagine juggling three men.”
Next, Maggie went
to Belinda Harris’ page. As she had done numerous times since agreeing to look for Jay, she examined the photos Belinda had shared of him on her timeline. This time, she studied the pictures for evidence of his animal magnetism. She considered him attractive enough, but she wasn’t attracted to him. When she looked at him, she saw a kid. A kid of average height who had kept his sandy-colored hair closely cropped since childhood. A kid with different colored eyes, one hazel and one gray. A kid who hugged his mom and posed for pictures with his hand resting on his pappaw’s shoulder. Without having met Jay, Maggie decided he had used his shy smile and attentive gaze to woo Gina, whose husband’s infidelity had left her vulnerable and starving for attention, and Carrie, who had wanted to recapture her youth.
Fixating on a photo of Jay sitting on Santa’s lap with his parents in the background suddenly made Maggie feel sad. “At that point in her life, Belinda probably imagined a future for herself and her son that didn’t involve her husband’s early death and Jay’s early departure from her life.” In a softer voice, Maggie added, “She has a granddaughter she doesn’t know about. No matter how this ends, I have to tell her about Mira. She deserves to know her.”
In an effort to improve her mood, Maggie typed W.L. Murphy’s name in the search bar. She had no luck finding him, but she did locate his brother, G.L., and clicked through dozens of photos of him where he appeared to be inebriated as well as more misspelled posts than she cared to count.
“Ant u cumin hear, cuz?”
“We iz gonna partee tonite!”
“DubL iz in the er. I ant never gonna foregiv miself if he diez.”
Maggie read the last post four times before laying aside the laptop and reaching for the police report that detailed W.L.’s attack. She searched through it until she found what she was looking for. Closing the file, she said, “Oh, no.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Maggie sat in W.L.’s driveway and tried to summon the courage to exit her car. Her attempt to find someone to accompany her to his trailer had proven unsuccessful. She had first asked Luke, hoping to mend their fractured relationship by sharing the sleuthing side of her life with him.
“I’m heading home for Christmas tomorrow,” he had told her the evening before at her house.
“Oh,” she had said. “When did you decide this?”
“Last week. I have some days coming to me, so I thought I’d take them now.”
They had exchanged presents and filled the evening discussing basketball and their respective presents. Yet, Maggie couldn’t help but speculate on the reason he had waited until the eve of his departure before telling her he was leaving town.
She didn’t have the luxury of fixating on Luke’s leaving. She needed to talk to W.L. and she didn’t want to do so alone. She had called Sylvie, but when she asked if the older woman had plans for the following day, Maggie learned she had a commitment to attend a Christmas luncheon.
“It’s at the fancy dress shop I do alterations for,” Sylvie had explained. “The owners have it catered by one of those fancy restaurants in town. I’ve never stepped foot inside of it. I reckon it would be too pricey for my liking. If you ask me, most of the food ain’t that good anyway, except for the spinach dip. That’s the most delicious dip I’ve ever tasted. If you ain’t never tried it, you should.”
“I think I know the restaurant you’re talking about. You’re right. The prices are kind of steep, but they do serve some good spinach dip.”
“Now, what’s this all about?” Sylvie had asked. “You don’t call up somebody and ask them about their plans unless you got a reason.”
“I was going to ask you to visit W.L. again, but it’s not a big deal.”
“Are you sure? I don’t have to go to that ole party. I can get one of the girls to save me some dip.”
“You go to that party and eat spinach dip until you founder on it, Sylvie. I’ll be fine.”
When Maggie hung up the phone, she realized she had two problems – she still didn’t have an escort to W.L.’s and she was craving spinach dip. She had then called Robert, who told her of his plans to help Lena ready the house for the arrival of Mark and his family. After that, she had considered taking up Gentry Harris on his invitation to accompany her to interviews, but decided against doing so. She didn’t want his presence to influence W.L.
That’s why Maggie sat alone in W.L.’s driveway. At least she did until he stuck his head out the front door, smiled, and motioned for her to come inside. Telling herself she had nothing to fear from a man the same size of her who suffered from symptoms of a concussion, she headed for the trailer. As she climbed the porch steps, she noticed that the rusty – or bloody? – knife occupied the same position as before, but the pine cone had been kicked or blown off the porch. She didn’t see the brick.
The inside of the trailer looked remarkably different than it had on Maggie’s first visit. Clothes, food, dirty dishes, small appliances, mechanical parts, and tools no longer cluttered the now-tidy front room, and a broom and dust pan leaned against a wall.
“Wow, W.L., you’ve really been cleaning up in here. I hope you haven’t overdone it.”
“Nah. My aunt done that for me. She come in and threw everything in two piles – one to keep and one to throw away. She boxed up just about everything she decided to keep and packed it over to her house. I’ve been staying with her most of the time. She’s been looking out for me and taking care of me. I’m going to move in with her full time.”
Maggie wanted to know why he wasn’t moving in with his mother, but remembered that she hadn’t visited W.L. in the ER or in his hospital room, and decided to keep that question to herself. She did ask if he planned to take the chickens and dog to his aunt’s.
“Those ain’t mine. They belong to the guy that owns the trailer. I feed them for him, so he knocks a couple dollars off my rent.” W.L. peered out the front window. “The dog don’t have no personality, but I’m gonna miss those chickens.”
Although Maggie had spent her entire life around chickens, she had never speculated on their particular charms. Smiling, she asked, “When are you moving?”
“I have to be out by the end of the month. He’s got somebody moving in the first of the year.”
“Oh,” Maggie reflected on the black garbage bags taped to the trailer and asked, “he’s found another tenant that fast?”
“Yes, ma’am. You’re lucky you caught me here today,” W.L. continued. “I still can’t drive, and my aunt dropped me off so I could get some more of my clothes. She’s fixing to pick me up after she gets off work.” W.L. motioned to the couch, “Well, sit down.” When Maggie joined him on the sofa, he asked, “Where’s the old lady?”
“She’s at a Christmas party. I’ll give her your regards.”
“You know, I keep thinking, if it hadn’t been for her card, they might never have figured out who I was.”
Although roughly seventy thousand people lived in Geneva County, with the way news spread, Maggie believed the police would have identified W.L. in short order, with or without Sylvie’s card. She didn’t contradict W.L., though. She simply nodded and asked, “Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah, I still have headaches and I can’t be around a lot of light or watch too much TV, but like my aunt says, it could have been worse. Hey, she’s wrapped that toaster for my mom. I’m gonna give it to her on Christmas Eve when she comes over to my aunt’s house.”
“What about your brother? Will G.L. celebrate Christmas with you?”
“As far as I know.”
“You know, I saw him that night in the ER. And he said something that’s bothered me.”
“What’s that?”
“That when he saw you lying there bleeding with your eyes open, he thought you were dead. I thought it was odd that he was worried about your eyes being opened. If I visited somebody in the hospital and their eyes weren’t open, that’s when I would worry. But he wasn’t talking about when he saw you in the hospital, was he?” Magg
ie searched W.L.’s eyes, which looked more vacant than usual. “Are you following me?”
“No.”
Maggie decided to try a different approach. “I also looked at your brother’s Facebook page. On the night of your attack, he posted that he would never forgive himself if you died. I couldn’t understand why he would blame himself, so I looked at the police report again. You were found lying face up. But that can’t be the position in which you fell. You had to have fallen on your face. That’s how you got those fresh cuts and scratches on your face. So, unless G.L. saw you lying in that parking lot, how did he see your eyes opened and face bloodied?”
W.L. stretched out his legs and rested one foot on the other. “I felt bad for not telling you the truth. You’ve been so nice to me, visiting me in the hospital and buying that toaster for my mom. But I didn’t want to get in trouble. That’s what started all this. Me and G.L. trying to stay out of trouble.”
“Did G.L. have something to do with you getting hit in the head?”
“He sure did. He’s the one that hit me.”
“What?” Maggie didn’t know what answer she had anticipated, but it wasn’t the one she received. “Why on earth would he do something like that?”
“Cause I asked him to.”
Maggie wasn’t sure she had heard W.L. correctly. “You asked G.L. to hit you in the back of the head?”
“I sure did.”
“And why did you do this?”
“After you and the old lady came by, I started thinking that I might get blamed for whatever happened to Jay. You know, on account of me killing that deer. I thought on it real hard and remembered this movie where a man kills his wife and then stabs himself. You know, to throw the police off the track. I knew I needed to do something like that. I needed to throw you and the police off the track. I didn’t want to get stabbed. I figured that would hurt too much. And G.L. don’t like blood. The sight of it makes him sick. So, I asked him to hit me in the back of the head with a hammer. He was afraid that would make me bleed, so he found a brick that was laying around here somewhere and wrapped it in a towel. That G.L., he’s always been smart.”
Murder on Calf Lick Fork Page 12
