Sick Puppy (Maggie #2)

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  A typing bubble appears immediately, and Michele’s answer follows seconds later. Why didn’t I think of that? Totally fine. I just talked to Papa and Charlotte. Don’t be surprised if they show up looking for you.

  The vehicle engine noise stops. A car door slams. Then another.

  “Yoo-hoo. Maggie?” The voice is high and sweet.

  Louise cocks her head and whines, asking Maggie about the new voice.

  “It’s Mom,” Maggie informs the dog. “She’s okay. Sort of.”

  Louise takes off like a bullet toward the front of the house.

  Maggie straightens her dirty top and skirt, wipes muck off her knees, and lifts her shoulders and chin. “Coming, Mom.”

  She wobbles through the clumpy grass in Michele’s side yard. At the corner of the house, she adopts a determined strut, marshaling courage and the right attitude to face her mother. When she reaches the front yard, she sees a low-slung Shelby Cobra in the drive. Michele’s father, Edward Lopez, is squatting beside it, petting Louise. He’s a handsome man, with olive skin and dark hair going to gray, wearing chinos and a golf-type shirt. He waves at Maggie.

  Walking toward Maggie, arms extended, is her mother. Charlotte is radiant in a white scoop-neck T-shirt, boots, and patchwork-quilt-patterned prairie skirt. Curling strands of hair have escaped Charlotte’s French twist to brush her face, ears, and neck. She’s a more demure version of Maggie, although with the help of L’Oréal, not a much older-looking one.

  Maggie moves straight into her mom’s hug. “Hi, Mom. Edward.”

  “Finally, you’ve returned!” Charlotte says, backing out of the hug but hanging on to Maggie’s arm like her daughter will run away if she lets go.

  To Edward, Maggie says, “I was gone for seven years once. Now I can’t leave for seven days.”

  He squeezes her shoulder. “Let’s get out of this heat.” He walks ahead of them and opens the door.

  Courtly. Always. A very likeable man. Michele dotes on him.

  “Wait,” Charlotte says. “Maggie, your arms. What’s with the bandages?”

  “You heard about Gary?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you know I was the one who found the fire and called for help. It . . . got me. A little. My arms.” She takes off her sunglasses. “My eyebrows and eyelashes. I’ll be fine.”

  “It’s all so horrible. I’m sorry, honey.”

  “Thank you, Mom. It’s very sad.”

  “I always worried your father would die in a fire. But he never got hurt in all those years as a volunteer. Not once.”

  At the door, Gertrude greets Louise. Maggie steps aside to let the dogs play in the front yard. Once inside, the air is too cool on Maggie’s sweaty skin. She wraps her arms around herself and heads toward the kitchen, dropping her sunglasses on the counter.

  “I’m making coffee. Anyone else?” She grabs a mug from the cabinet.

  Her mother and Edward follow her. They shake their heads no, looking at each other like guilty teenagers.

  Maggie closes the cabinet. What’s going on with them? She inserts a Rainforest Blend pod into the Keurig and starts it. “You’ve been dying to talk for days, Mom. Whatever it is, spill it.”

  Charlotte claps a hand over her mouth. Behind it, her lips curve into a huge smile. The light catches something sparkly on her hand.

  “Hold it right there.” Maggie comes around the counter and takes her mother’s wrist. She holds the left hand in front of her and examines the ring finger. The light catcher is a diamond. A big one on a slim gold band. “You got engaged?” She looks to Edward for confirmation.

  He takes a deep breath, and his eyes shine like the diamond. “Tell her, Charlotte.”

  Charlotte places both hands on Maggie’s cheeks. “We got married, honey.”

  Maggie’s eyes widen. She’s so surprised, she doesn’t even smile. “You don’t let any grass grow, do you?” The two have only been dating a few months.

  Edward dips his head slowly, then raises it. “Not when I’m lucky enough to have a woman like your mother.”

  Maggie finally chuckles. “Congratulations.”

  Charlotte draws Maggie into another hug. “You’re not mad we did it without you?”

  “Of course not. It’s your life, not mine. I just want you to be happy. When did you do it?”

  Edward says, “Last weekend. We’ve been on a little honeymoon in Austin.”

  Charlotte pulls back, still hanging on to Maggie by the elbows. “I feel guilty we didn’t have a church wedding.”

  “I think God will forgive you, Mom.”

  “So we’re having a short ceremony and reception at St. Paul tonight. Just punch and cookies after, with our family and friends. Will you be there?”

  Maggie contains the groan that threatens to escape. She wonders how many friends Catholic Edward really has in the Wend community and Lutheran congregation. But Michele’s mother was a Methodist. He’s probably used to being the odd man out. “Sure, Mom. Whatever you want.”

  “I’m so glad. And your nice Wendish renter will still be here, so she’s coming, too.”

  “Leslie?”

  “Yes. Leslie. What a sweetheart. She loves our church. She’s been coming to the ladies home Bible study this week. Did you know the same reporter that’s been bothering me about you interviewed her? Anyway, she even sang with the choir Sunday. She has a beautiful voice. Not as pretty as yours, but the best we have in that group. She used to sing professionally, you know.”

  Maggie’s jaw drops. “Wow.”

  “She said you’ve accepted her offer on your house. She makes such a lovely addition to the community, and she’s been yearning for a Wendish home for years.”

  “What?”

  “A Wendish home. She grew up outside the community. But—”

  “No. The part about me accepting her offer.”

  “Oh. She said she’s buying your house.”

  “She most certainly is not.”

  Charlotte sits on a barstool, her body slumping a little. “But I don’t understand. She said you’re moving into Gidget’s and—”

  Maggie pushes her hair back with both hands. “I have long-term renters at Gidget’s. Good renters. Leslie is a short-term vacation renter. My house is not for sale. Did you not think I would tell you about something as important as I’m moving?”

  Charlotte sniffs. “Well, you hadn’t told me you were traveling to Wyoming.”

  “That was for one week. To go to an estate sale.” She omits the part about trying to reunite with Hank since it’s beside the point now anyway. “Which is way different than moving.”

  “Maybe to you it is. But I’m your mother.”

  Maggie sighs, but it comes out more like a growl. “You must have misunderstood her.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “She’s probably looking at buying someone else’s house.”

  “I guess.”

  Edward steps between them. He smiles. “Can I get one of those coffees after all?”

  Something moves in the backyard and Maggie glances out the bay window. She can’t see the goat pen from inside the house so it’s not them. Normally the only things out there are oak and pine trees and an occasional deer. This time is different. A white-as-a-corpse woman is standing on the patio, nose almost to the glass, a fat French braid holding the hair off her face. Maggie is pretty sure she’s seen her before. Or maybe she just looks like the woman from her dream earlier?

  She smiles at Edward. “After I find out what that woman in the backyard wants.”

  Edward and Charlotte both look out the window.

  “What woman, honey?” Charlotte asks.

  Maggie’s eyes seek out the spot where the braided woman was a moment before. Now the backyard and woods beyond it are empty. “Huh. That’s weird. She’s gone now.”

  The front door bangs open. Maggie takes a few quick steps in that direction, worried it could be the strange woman she’d just seen, now barging into the house. Fi
rst a male voice floats in, then a female one. The door closes. Ava and Collin appear, arms wrapped around each other, cheeks flushed. Not the woman from the backyard.

  Collin straightens and releases Ava. “Well. Hello.”

  Maggie says, “Collin, Ava, may I introduce you to my mother and Michele’s father. Charlotte and Edward Lopez. They’re newlyweds. Collin and Ava are friends and houseguests of Michele’s.”

  The two couples exchange greetings. Collin and Ava congratulate Edward and Charlotte.

  Ava slips her arm back around Collin. “We’re just, um, going to change clothes.”

  They giggle their way upstairs and shut their bedroom door.

  Charlotte and Edward exchange a glance, then burst out laughing. Maggie shakes her head and groans.

  Sixteen

  With Omaha and Nebraska’s plight resolved, Maggie and Louise make it back to Flown the Coop by noon, careful to avoid crossing paths with Leslie. Maggie’s barely unlocked the door when her phone rings. Caller ID tells her it’s someone with her insurance company. She stuffs her keys in her bag and sets down her laptop, a sandwich, and a thermos of ice water, then answers.

  “Maggie Killian speaking.”

  A voice so deep it’s almost inaudible comes on the line. “Maggie, this is Franklin Best. I’m the adjuster on your claim. I’m in your area, and I thought I’d see if you’re available for me to come by and get your statement.”

  Barry White. Johnny Cash. Elvis. Maggie tries to picture him. “On a Sunday? Well, feel free. I’m at the shop this afternoon.”

  Louise chases a mouse out the front door.

  “Perfect. Half an hour?”

  “Half an hour.”

  They end the call. The heat is oppressive. Maggie doesn’t want to turn on the air conditioner because of the broken windows, but she finds an intact fan and sets it up, leaving the front door open for circulation. She pulls her thick hair into a ponytail off her sweaty neck. She tries to secure it with a rubber band from the counter, but it breaks.

  “Shit.” She drops her hair.

  Louise pads back into the store and flops down in front of the fan.

  “Where have you been?”

  Her tail thumps, but she doesn’t answer.

  Maggie shuffles the soundtrack from O Brother, Where Art Thou? on her phone, since the iPad that doubled as her cash register and stereo system didn’t survive the attack on the store. When that’s successful, she digs into the web orders. Running back and forth between the piles of damaged merchandise and the laptop at the counter, she checks availability and drafts emails apologizing for the delay, or in some cases, the impossibility of fulfillment. She’s pleased to see that several of the Wyoming items she posted while stranded in the Cowboy State have already attracted buyers.

  Hank’s face flashes in her mind, and for a moment her heart free-falls. Why hasn’t he called or texted? She’d thought she didn’t want to hear from him anymore. Now that she’s initiated the phone number change, she’s not so sure. Be careful what you wish for, right?

  With a mental shake, she refocuses on the web orders. She’ll replace the sold items with new inventory tonight. She’s selective about what she posts, since inventory can change so quickly. But to keep people interested at all price points, she likes to rotate a constantly changing variety of products. Frankly, she sells a lot of T-shirts, socks, and locally sourced merchandise. That’s a blessing today. She stores most of them in the barn except for a few display items, and nothing in the barn was damaged.

  When she’s through the order backlog, she starts fulfillment, order by order, then adds the tracking information to each of the draft emails before sending them. She’s only finished half the packages when a voice deep enough to rattle glass—if there was any left—resounds in the silence between the ending of “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow” and “Down to the River to Pray.”

  “Maggie?”

  The inside of her store is dark from the boarded-up windows, and because Maggie hadn’t turned on the lights when she came in. A man in the doorway is backlit by the sun. It isn’t Barry, Johnny, or Elvis. More Rick Astley, circa 1987, with a red pompadour that doesn’t quite go with his indigo jeans and company golf-style shirt.

  Louise rushes the door, growling, but a beat slower than her normal protective self.

  “Louise, come.”

  The dog ignores her command. That much is normal, anyway.

  “She’s friendly. Sorry. I’m over here on your left.” Maggie waves after she sees his eyes track her voice.

  He moves, light as a dancer across a stage set, through the stacks and wreckage. “In the flesh. Wow. So nice to meet you.” He holds his hand out the last ten feet as he approaches, grabs hers, and gives it a hyperactive shake.

  “You’ll forgive me if I’m not as enthusiastic, given the circumstances. Coming back to this mess was a real downer.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Is it okay for me to start cleaning up and fixing things?”

  “I’ve got what I need, picture-wise. Usually our insureds check with law enforcement too, but, if they’re a go, you’re a go.”

  Maggie doesn’t give two shits what Junior and crowd want after they’ve insulted her with insinuation and suspicion. They hadn’t told her not to, and that’s good enough for her. “Great. I’ll get the contractors in ASAP, then.”

  “Your friend Michele already got quotes for us.”

  Maggie pats a stack of papers she’d found on the checkout counter that doubles as the shop desk and storage cabinet. “Got ’em.”

  Franklin clears his throat. He picks up a chipped corbel and examines it, or pretends to. “I expected you to be more burned than you look.”

  “What?”

  “I heard about the fire at Gary Fuller’s. And how you tried to save him.”

  “My dog did more than me.” Maggie nods at Louise.

  “There was a picture with the article online, so I would have recognized you anywhere.”

  “Picture of me? What article?”

  He stretches taller and puts down the corbel. “People.com. Lead story. The picture was of you singing in a bar in Amarillo.”

  “Oh. My.” She hasn’t led People.com in many years, and she doesn’t want to now. Especially when no one had even contacted her before they ran the story. But she needs to read the article. Even if it hurts, she needs to know what law enforcement and the rest of the world are being fed about her.

  “It even mentioned the break-in here, and a bunch of stuff about your trouble in Wyoming. The upcoming movie about you, too. Mostly it was about the fire at Gary Fuller’s, though. And, um, history stuff. It was great.” He bounces on his toes, then frowns. “Other than they called you a black widow. That seemed a little extreme.”

  Exactly what she’d thought of herself as, so Maggie can’t fault them much. She remains silent.

  Franklin’s frown grows stricken as the silence stretches. Finally he blurts out, “On the way here I heard some of your songs on the radio.”

  “The oldies station?”

  “No, it was a Houston country station. They played a whole set of yours and Gary Fuller’s music. They talked about your ties to Houston. Like your birth parents, Boyd Herrington, and the gallery your mother owned there. And the movie, of course.”

  “How . . . nice.” Maybe it would have been better to get her record rights instead of this shop. Nah. She’s done with all of that. “Well, as you can see, I’m fine.” She holds up her arms. “Just some minor burns.” She drops the sunglasses she’s wearing to hide her singed lashes and brows down her nose. “And my eyelashes and eyebrows sacrificed themselves like they were supposed to.”

  Franklin pulls out his phone and rotates it several times in one hand. He holds the phone up. “Could we, I mean, would you mind if we were in a picture together? One without your sunglasses?”

  Thinking it better to replace speculation with truth, Maggie beckons him with her fingers. “One. And I’m fin
e with you posting it, but not selling it. Got me?”

  “Absolutely.” He snaps a picture, and then shows it to her. “Is this okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “Is it true that after you quit your band they got in a crash and everyone died?” He rushes to add, “That’s what it said online. It’s so sad.”

  His words are a blow to the solar plexus. She knows she wasn’t responsible for the wreck. Highway patrol blamed it on a deer who leaped in front of them on the Wyoming interstate. But if she hadn’t run off, if the band hadn’t chased after her and Hank, if Davo hadn’t been so upset when he got behind the wheel, then maybe he would have reacted faster. Kept the van on the road. Not rolled it into a ravine.

  She’d reached out to all their families. Sent flowers. Found out the record label had settled with all of them. Her brain knows it wasn’t her fault. Her heart just never believed it. At least that’s what her counselor had told her in rehab.

  “One person survived.” Celinda Simone. The only other woman in the band.

  “Do you still keep in touch?”

  Maggie had never spoken to Celinda again. She’d tried, after reading she’d had something like a dozen surgeries, but couldn’t reach her. Maggie steps back, hugging herself. His questions are intrusive and painful. “Franklin, if you don’t mind, I don’t like talking about that part of my life.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s fine.” Maggie sighs.

  “I’ve been going on. I’ll stop. It was just surreal. I was pinching myself that I was on my way here to meet you.”

  “It’s okay. Let’s just get my statement done.”

  Franklin appears contrite, and he works fast. The statement takes ten minutes, with no surprises.

  Afterward, he clears his throat, looking reluctant to leave. “Obviously we can’t pay out until law enforcement is done and we get a copy of their report. Just in case of the unlikely event of insured involvement.”

  Has Junior put a bug in his ear? Maggie rolls her eyes, but with her face turned away from him. “I understand.”