by Peggy Webb
In my typical fashion, I skirted around the bad news with silly questions like, “Are you having fun?” “Did you get to the Big Island to see all the waterfalls and the volcano?” “Have you gone surfing?” “How big are the waves?”
“Maggie! What on earth is going on?”
“What do you mean?” I looked out the window and frantically searched the horizon, expecting to see Mom and Dad magically transported from some deep, watery unknown to their own front yard.
“Quit beating around the bush. I know good and well you didn’t call for a blow-by-blow description of my honeymoon.”
I told her then, “Mom and Dad are missing,” just like that. I told her the rest of it, too, the futile searches, the questioning that lead nowhere, the fading of hope that they were off on some misadventure. She was crying so hard, I don’t know if she heard a thing I said.
At some point, Steve came on the line. “Maggie, what’s this?” I had to repeat everything to him, and every word was a thorn dragged across my flesh.
“We’ll take the next flight home.”
I didn’t tell him no. Call me selfish. Call me weak. I needed my sister.
Chapter 4
In which the grapevine is alive and well in Alabama
Lucy and her new husband arrived in a swirl of tears and speculation and hope. As the search continued into the second week without any results, my sister and I became ghosts of our former selves.
“Lucy, we can’t keep this up,” I said to her over breakfast. “We’ve got to reopen the restaurant.”
“I can’t possibly think about that now. “
“You have to.” I know nothing about the business, but she’d been Dad’s assistant manager since she got out of college. “We can’t let everything Mom and Dad worked for fall apart.”
Steve had already taken hold of the ranch, splitting his time between Dad’s and his own, where he was currently training horses with Triple Crown winning bloodlines for other owners. I admired the ease with which my new brother-in-law shouldered responsibility.
So did Lucy, but I could tell by the stubborn look on her face and the set of her shoulders that she was going to keep on balking about opening the restaurant. And so I played my trump card.
“I don’t know about you, but when Mom and Dad come home, I don’t want them thinking they raised me to be wimpy. I’ll open it, myself.”
“Good grief!” Lucy jumped up from table so fast you’d think she was sitting on a bed of fire ants. “I can’t let you make a mess like that! Let’s go.”
I was secretly gleeful as I followed her out the door. My sister hadn’t intended to insult me, she just knows me well. I never even tried to make more than a nodding acquaintance with bookkeeping and management. My involvement with Wild’s was limited to the summers between semesters and holidays when I waited tables. I’m good with people when I want to be, but that’s not often. I’d much prefer to be out in the pasture by myself shooting at targets, improving my skill. Winning Olympic Gold was a bonus.
It was hard not to cry when we unlocked the restaurant and went inside. Wild’s is usually filled with chatter and the smell of good cooking, the sound of a football game on the giant TV screens on either side of the bar and of my dad’s hearty welcome as he works his way through the crowd.
Lucy reached for my hand, and I squeezed hard. “It’s going to be okay, Luce. Let’s go.”
Lucy went into her office and immediately got to work calling the staff back. I vanished into Dad’s office and stood there inhaling the lingering scent of tobacco from the pipe he occasionally smoked, the woodsy aftershave he used and an undertone of Mom’s gardenia perfume.
Suddenly it occurred to me that I might find something to unlock the mystery of their disappearance, something the sheriff and his deputies had not unearthed when they’d questioned the wedding guests, the neighbors and the list of Dad’s business associates Lucy had given them after she came home.
Right now, they were calling the disappearance “a possible boating accident.” Tomorrow they were going to start looking for wreckage.
But what if there was more? What if somebody had wanted my dad and my mom to vanish?
I sat down in Dad’s swivel chair and started going through his daily planner. He kept meticulous records of his appointments. I started checking his calendar two weeks before the wedding. A couple of country music stars were listed. Some of them liked to let Clint Wild know when they were coming so he could roll out the red carpet. There were appointments for three business associates whose names I recognized, but Rex Langley’s name was not there. Lucy had said he’d dropped by unexpectedly, so no mystery there. Dad never went back to make note of drop-in visitors.
Suddenly a cryptic note from a week prior to the wedding jumped out at me--FINISH THIS THING, followed by the date of Lucy’s wedding. I got goosebumps. What thing? How was he going to finish it and with whom?
I snapped a photo with my mobile phone. Just for me. I was no detective and didn’t intend to go running to the sheriff and wasting his resources with a note that might mean nothing more than Dad simply wanting Lucy’s wedding to be over and done with. He was in his element around horses and football players and fishermen and ordinary people going about their ordinary business. Pageantry was not his thing. And my sister’s wedding had certainly been a grand pageant. You couldn’t hogtie me and get me into that bridesmaid’s dress again. Ditto, those killer high heels.
“Maggie?” I startled when my sister walked into Dad’s office. “I’ve scheduled the re-opening for the day after tomorrow.”
“Great. I’m proud of you.”
“You might not be so proud when you hear what’s next.”
I wanted to yell at my sister to just spit it out. She loves talking in circles so much she would have made a terrific politician. Or con artist. I throttled back my temper and said, “What’s next?” in the most civilized tone I could muster.
“We’ve got to get downtown and pick up a few things.” She unfurled a list that would reach halfway to Texas.
“A few things, my foot!” Still I grabbed my purse and trotted beside her to the car. Hers, not mine. She calls my Beetle many names, none of them flattering.
At the grocery store I bowed to Lucy’s opinion on everything. My culinary skills run the gamut from peanut butter sandwiches to crackers and cheese with an occasional scrambled egg thrown in for good measure. I was wheeling my cart alongside Lucy’s, feeling a return to something resembling normalcy when a voice on the other side of the bread aisle stopped me in my tracks.
I grabbed Lucy’s arm, and we stood transfixed as Connie Mae Gafford, the root of south Alabama’s gossip grapevine, spewed forth her venomous accusations.
“The Wilds are not as high and mighty as they think. If you ask me, Alice Ann took her husband out there on the Gulf and pushed him overboard.”
“You don’t say? I thought she was sweet as peaches. Why would she want to do a thing like that?”
I couldn’t place the voice, and Lucy mouthed, “Jill Black. Bridge club.”
“Why? Well, it’s as obvious as the nose on your face. She was having an affair and wanted to meet up somewhere with her lover. Clint Wild was in the way so they plotted to get rid of him.”
I could feel steam coming out of my ears. “I’m going to kill her.”
Lucy grabbed my arm. “It’s just petty gossip.”
“It’s vicious, and I’m going to put a bullet right through her lying mouth.” I could, too. I’m licensed to conceal and carry, and I could feel the reassuring weight of my gun in its slender holster underneath my shirt. I left my cart standing in the middle of the aisle and marched off.
“Maggie, wait.”
My sister caught up with me just as I rounded the corner. Jill Black let out a squeak and Connie Mae Gafford dropped a ten pound bag of self-rising flour. It exploded and spewed up as far as her knobby knees.
“Well, I never,” she said, as if the dusting of f
lour she now wore was my fault.
“You’d better take back every evil word you said about my mother, or I’m going to make sure it’s your last.” Lucy plucked at my sleeve, but I shook her off. “Take it back!”
Connie Mae’s mouth worked like a fish and finally she said, “Well, I can’t prove anything, of course, but I saw a TV show where the same thing happened, and it just suddenly made sense to me.”
“You’re an idiot.” Lucy said. Then she released me and stepped right into Connie Mae’s safe space. “If you don’t stop spreading these lies I’m going to hold Maggie’s ammunition belt while she blows you to Kingdom Come.”
My sister linked arms with me and dragged me off, leading with her stubborn chin.
“Bravo, Luce. I was never so proud of you.”
“Mom calls it rising to the occasion.”
“What occasion would that be?”
“I couldn’t let you commit murder in the Piggy Wiggly.”
Chapter 5
In which Maggie battles the vultures and life goes on
That wasn’t the last nasty rumor we heard. As the weeks wore on and there was no sign of our missing parents, Lucy and I had to endure tales that Dad was having an affair and had taken Mom off to drown her, that he was up to his neck in debt and faked his own death, that he wasn’t really Clint Wild, that the real football legend had been murdered twenty years ago and a dead ringer put in his place.
Finally, we learned to shut out all the noise and go on with our lives. Lucy did a better job than I. She had a husband to lean on and a restaurant which she ran in a way that would have made Dad proud.
But I was still being sought after by the reporters who hung, vulture-like, around our house and ambushed me everywhere I went—the bookstore, the beach, the riding path through the woods, even my target range.
I had just taken aim with my semi-automatic Browning 9 mm when a reporter I recognized stepped between me and the bullseye.
“You nearly got your head shot off.” I lowered my weapon and glared at him-- John Cabot, a particularly pushy newshound from one of the major networks who had come all the way from New York to cover Dad’s and Mom’s disappearance.
He stood his ground while his cameraman filmed. “That’s great, Maggie. Could I get you looking down the barrel of your gun?”
“Certainly.” I fitted the stock against my shoulder. “Shall I point it at you?”
“You could, but I’d prefer the target.” His laughter was nervous as he stepped away from my target. He wasn’t’ sure whether I was kidding, and truth to tell, neither was I. “I just want to show the world how an Olympic champion gets on with her life after losing a football-legend father.”
“I haven’t lost either of my parents. The investigation is on-going, and until we have definitive evidence to the contrary, both my sister and I believe our parents are alive.”
“Could I get one more quote from you, Maggie? Something memorable and witty.”
He expected me to be witty with Mom and Dad out there in the blue beyond, heaven only knew where?
“You can be the first to know. From now on, no one in my family will be available for comment. The sheriff holds periodic press conferences, and he will tell you everything you need to know.”
“Just one more thing…”
He kept talking, but the only sound I cared about was my bullet hitting dead center of the bullseye. I kept shooting, hitting the bullseye in such rapid succession I was barely aware of the reporter and his cameraman stealing away.
When I went back to the house, my sister was standing on the back porch waiting for me.
“I saw that,” she said. “The pest. I wish they’d just leave us alone.”
“Maybe they will now. I told him there would be no more comments from this family. And I think I scared him a little with my target practice.”
“I believe he wet his pants.”
“Good.”
Lucy linked arms with me and we went inside. “Still, they’ve been helpful in airing our appeals for information that might lead us to Mom and Dad. “ I didn’t respond, and she didn’t require one as she got two mugs and filled them with hot coffee.
Just as we sat down, my cell phone rang. It was Aunt Pearl.
“Maggie? How are you and Lucy holding up? Are things settling down over there?”
“We’re hanging in there. And I think I ran off the last of the reporters with my Browning 9mm.”
“If you didn’t, Grace and I will drive over and I’ll finish them off with my knives.”
I laughed out loud for the first time since my parents vanished. How my family could have kept these lively aunts out of sight for so long was beyond my comprehension. Still, I didn’t want anybody else here. Lucy and Steve had practically no honeymoon, and now I was in the house with them. The only privacy they had were stolen moments here and there when I announced that I’d be at the beach or at the library for a couple of hours or when I was gone, fulfilling the obligations of my product endorsements.
“Thanks, Aunt Pearl. But we’re doing just fine.”
She accepted that without argument, a refreshing change from Grandmother Jones, who had wanted to move in with us, lock, stock and barrel. I don’t know how sisters could be so different. Finally, Aunt Pearl said that if I needed her for anything, all I had to do was call.
After I hung up, I told my sister, “I can’t keep staying here.”
“Don’t you dare think of leaving. I couldn’t do without you.” The extent of my contribution was occasionally greeting customers at Wild’s or waiting tables in a pinch when the crowd was larger than the staff could manage. “Besides, Mom and Dad are going to show up, and they’ll want to see both of us.”
That’s how I ended up living an aimless and fairly useless life for nearly a year while Mom and Dad’s trail grew cold and law enforcement moved onto more pressing cases. At a time when I should have been grabbing the brass ring and planning my future, I was lost in a fog, alternating between despair and hope.
One day I woke up in the early dawn in the same bedroom I’d had as a child, looked at the same shooting trophies lining the wall and the same frilly curtains I’d argued over but Mom had insisted on putting there anyhow…and I knew I was going to leave.
Lucy would argue. Steve would, too, if he found out, but I’d heard him leave the house ten minutes earlier. Race horses don’t care about our clocks and our schedules.
I packed my bags and loaded my car while my sister was still asleep and my brother-in-law was at the stables. When I heard Lucy stirring I went into the kitchen to pop bread into the toaster and scramble some eggs.
“Look at you, early bird.” She was still in her robe and I imagined what fun she and Steve would have at breakfast after I was gone. “What’s the occasion?”
“I’m leaving.”
“Just like that? We didn’t even discuss it.”
“There’s nothing to discuss.” I stared at Lucy, reading the truth in her eyes, just as she would read mine. Chances of finding our parents alive were very slim. We couldn’t put our lives on hold forever.
“Where will you go?”
“I have some connections in the northeast.”
One high school acquaintance—I couldn’t even call her a girlfriend--who sent a Christmas card every year. But I didn’t tell Lucy that. I also didn’t tell her that I wanted to get as far away from Alabama and its sad memories as I could possibly go. Of course, California would have been a better choice for that, but I didn’t want to be on the West Coast.
“As soon as you get an apartment, you’ll let me know.”
“Definitely.” I hugged her close. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. You’ll be fine.”
“Don’t leave without telling Steve goodbye.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
I gave my sister one last hug then walked toward the paddocks to say goodbye to my brother-in-law. He wished me luck then told me to call if I needed him for any
thing. And I drove off in my Beetle.
After I crossed the Causeway, I pointed my car north and didn’t look back. My future didn’t exactly beckon but still, I was making a fresh start.
The End
Continue reading for Chapter 1 from Book 1 of Peggy Webb’s new mystery series, A Charmed Cat Mystery In Which Magnolia Wild Vanishes.
A Charmed Cat Mystery
In Which
Magnolia Wild Vanishes
(Book 1)
Peggy Webb
“Clever and wickedly witty…”
Tom Wilson, creator of Ziggy ©
WH
Westmoreland House
A Charmed Cat Mystery In Which Magnolia Wild Vanishes © 2019 by Peggy Webb
Published by Westmoreland House
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design 2019 by Vicki Hinze
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the written permission of the author and publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
First Printing: October 2019
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Chapter 1
In which life is full of surprises
A Volkswagen Beetle does not make a good getaway car. As I barreled down the New Jersey Turnpike in the darkness like a one-eyed Cyclops, I wondered who would catch me first, the cops or the Mafia. My Beetle is older then dirt and barely holding together. It has a missing headlight and a top speed of fifty-five miles an hour. If I got stopped by the cops, I’d end up under the jail. I was packing more heat than Rambo.