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.
Her phone rings. “Come on, Junior.” She answers, expecting
Michele, excited to share what she learned from Merritt. “Tell me something good.”
“Maggie?” The voice isn’t Michele’s. It’s younger. The accent isn’t Texan.
“You’ve got her.”
“You’d better not have my fiancé.”
Maggie’s brain doesn’t connect the dots for several seconds. Then the answer is there with a cymbal crash. Hank’s fiancée. “Sheila?”
“You know damn well it is.”
“Sorry. I didn’t—never mind.” Sheila won’t believe her, and it doesn’t matter. But Maggie isn’t going to cow to her. “Come again? What’s the matter?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. Where’s Hank?”
“I have no idea. I haven’t seen him or talked to him.”
Sheila is silent.
Maggie’s mind tortures her with an image of the tall blonde woman coming out of Hank’s hospital room in Wyoming. Her words had been a knife stab to Maggie’s heart. “Hank and I are getting married! My Hanky Panky’s going to be a daddy!” She imagines their future family dinners, the kids Sheila teaches, and her bright-eyed Sunday schoolers. Bile rises from Maggie’s stomach.
She pushes Sheila’s image away, but it’s replaced by another. Hank’s face. Weather beaten. Eyes twinkling. The dimples in his cheeks when he’d smiled at her from the back of his horse. A time jump jerks her back fifteen years. Hank in his chaps, jamming his hat on as he picks himself up out of the Cheyenne arena dirt and then hops onto the rails to avoid the horns of the angry bull he’d just ridden. The first meeting of their eyes, seconds later. Hank lifting his winner’s buckle. Hank across a table in Wheatland, Wyoming. Hank kissing her in the seat of a borrowed truck. Hank cradling her face in the Buffalo Lodge in Chugwater, whispering her to sleep. Then time leaps forward again, to last week. Hank bleeding in the Wyoming dirt, shot with his own rifle. Her own crazed race to save him.
She pushes the images away, but it’s too late. The pain is fresh, and she comes out of her reverie ready to fight. How dare Sheila treat her like this? Maggie hasn’t done anything wrong. Isn’t it bad enough Sheila stole the love of her life right out from under her by trapping the man?
Her voice is toxic. “If you’re having trouble hanging on to your man, that’s your problem, not mine.”
“If you—”
Then Maggie realizes this call has come in on her new phone number. “How did you get this number, anyway?”
“It’s not hard to look up the numbers he’s texting and calling on his account. His stupid password is the same to everything.”
Maggie knows that password. She used it for Wi-Fi at Piney Bottoms. Buffalo2002. The year they met, the name of the hotel where they spent their one night.
Sheila is still talking. “You called him today. And texted him.”
“I’m not Hank’s keeper. And I don’t answer to you.” Maggie ends the call. Her tank top is molded to her belly with sweat. Her chest is heaving. “Goddammit!” she screams.
A horn sounds from the direction of the house. Two taps. Honk-honk. Her phone rings with a call from Michele. She takes a deep breath. Rails against her rage and pain. Junior is here. It’s time to go take her life back.
Past time.
Twenty-Seven
“I’ve got something big to tell you about Gary,” Maggie whispers to Michele as they file into the house behind Junior. “It’s important.”
“Shh. After he leaves,” Michele replies, finger to lips. Then, louder, she says to Junior, “So tell us about the evidence issue at Gary’s.”
He keeps his eyes on his feet. “I’m here about the trespassing complaint. Nothing else.”
Michele rolls her eyes at Maggie, but Junior doesn’t say another word. The three of them congregate in Michele’s office. An hour drags by as they fill out and, at Junior’s insistence on “correcting errors,” re-fill out documents, scanning and sending them back and forth to the sheriff’s department and the county attorney.
Maggie finally snaps. “Daylight is wasting.”
“Evictions are tricky,” Junior explains.
“This is arresting a trespasser, actually, one who has done damage to the property.” Michele pulls a thumb drive out of the printer, where she has scanned some documents. Again. “Private home vacation rentals are less tricky than long-term rentals.”
“Maybe. But it’s still pretty emotional. People get nasty. Nasty people are dangerous.”
Maggie leans against the wall, arms crossed. “Admit it. Lee County doesn’t want to help. You guys and Fayette County have a boner for me. After I’ve lived here as a model citizen and property-tax payer for ten years. And grew up here as a member of St. Paul Lutheran. But suddenly you think I’m some crazed arsonist and killer.”
A smile quirks the side of Michele’s mouth. Both women watch Junior for his reaction.
His face goes red, like a beet cooking in a microwave, five seconds before it explodes all over the inside. “That has nothing to do with it.”
“Doesn’t it? Then why aren’t we at my house already? This isn’t complicated. I own that house, and you have the paperwork in front of you that proves she’s trespassing.”
Louise comes to stand by Maggie. Maggie reaches down automatically to pet her. The dog licks her hand.
“We need notice and an opportunity to vacate first.”
“Which we can do, quite nice-like, when we get to my house, even though I did it two days ago, yesterday, and today already. But we can’t do it from here.” Dumbass, she wants to add, but doesn’t.
Junior holds his hands up. “This is bigger than me, Maggie.”
“You expect me to believe you, yet you refuse to tell me why.”
Michele steps between them. “She has a valid point, Junior. It shouldn’t be bigger than you. It should be a simple matter of enforcing the rights of county residents. No matter who they are. Maggie hasn’t been proven guilty of anything. Whatever happened to presumed innocence? She has the full rights of any citizen in this county. No more, but certainly no less.” She lifts her phone. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to escalate this.”
Junior hitches up pants that have sagged low over his nonexistent butt, saved only by his bony hips. “What are you doing?”
“Calling Len,” Michele says, referring to the county attorney. She’s already pressed his number in her contacts and has the phone to her ear.
“No. Don’t call him.” Junior’s lips continue moving as he paces over to look out the window.
Maggie is pretty sure he’s praying.
Michele doesn’t end the call. She holds up a finger. “This is Michele Lopez Hanson.” Michele stops, listening. “No, I’m calling about something else. I have a Lee County deputy here with me, and I’d asked him to enforce a property owner’s rights to get a trespasser off her property. We’re having some trouble. May I speak to Len, please?” Again, she waits. “Len, Michele. I’ve got Junior here. I’m putting you on speaker.”
She doesn’t mention Maggie, but neither Maggie nor Junior interject the fact of her presence.
“Junior?” Len’s voice is country smart. His undergrad degree is courtesy of a Texas Tech football scholarship, but his law degree from Tech came from an academic full ride.
“Hello, sir.”
“What’s the problem with the property?”
“It’s not what, sir. It’s who. Maggie Killian.”
Papers shuffle, then there’s a clack-clack like they’ve been straightened into a neat stack on the surface of a desk. “She owns the property in question?”
“Yes, sir. Her house. Where the fire was yesterday.”
“And she has a trespasser?”
“A short-term vacation renter whose term is up. Maggie says she’s given the renter verbal notice to vacate repeatedly and that the renter has stayed past the term of the rental agreement and is refusing to go.”
“Michele, can’t Maggie work this out without law enforcement?”
Michele’s voice is h
uffy, with a trace of the Mexico she’s never lived in. “What about that explanation makes you think she hasn’t tried? The renter changed the locks today to keep Maggie out and told her she’s unilaterally decided to extend her stay. Believe me, the last thing Maggie wants to do is contact any area law enforcement for help right now, not with how she’s being treated by them. But we don’t have any choice, unless you’re suggesting she take the law into her own hands. Let me know if you’re prepared to deputize Maggie and waive the consequences.”
“Slow down. You have to understand, Michele. We’re in the middle of a homicide investigation here. Two of them. And arson.”
“Are you referring to the fire in Fayette County or the fire at Maggie’s store?”
“Both.”
“Last I checked, you don’t work for Fayette County.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m sure I don’t. When the fire marshal and Sheriff Boland were at my home this morning—and Junior—they didn’t call either incident arson or murder. But we can solve all of that by focusing our conversation on Lee County. Better yet, let’s keep it on trespassing.”
Maggie can’t hold it in any longer. “This is all such utter bullshit. I didn’t do anything. I have information that—”
Len growls, “Is that Maggie?”
The smile on Michele’s face makes it into her voice. “Surprise, Len.”
“Nice of you guys to tell me she was there.”
“You didn’t ask.” Michele winks at Maggie.
Junior lowers his face into his hands. “Well, um—”
Michele doesn’t yield the floor. “Let me make this simple for you, Len. There’s nothing in your playbook that says a citizen under investigation loses her property rights. Every minute you delay is a violation of her civil rights.”
Sick Puppy (Maggie #2) Page 17