Murder at Catfish Corner: A Maggie Morgan Mystery

by Michelle Goff

  “That it, indeed, was a drowning. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What I just said. I think my explanation was pretty straightforward.”

  “Don’t get sassy with me, Tyler. Tell me everything you learned from the police.”

  Tyler flipped open his notepad and recited in a monotone. “The state police ruled Hazel Baker’s death an accidental drowning. She had a wound on her head that was created when her head struck a rock. They surmise that the impact knocked her out and she rolled into the lake and drowned. There was also evidence that she slipped.”

  “What time did this happen?”

  “Sometime after dark. The neighbor who found the body said he sat on his front porch listening to gospel music and stringing beans until dark, at which time he went into his house, got ready for bed, and retired for the night. Neither he nor other neighbors reported hearing or seeing anything strange and the scene showed no trace of a struggle.”

  “What about the pay lake customers?”

  “It was closed that day. The owner was out of town.”

  Maggie tilted her head. “It gets dark about nine. So, sometime between then and, what, six the next morning, Hazel Baker decided to go for a walk inside a fenced-in lake?”

  “A lake?” Tyler asked. “It looks like a glorified pond to me. And why is eastern Kentucky so fascinated by these so-called pay lakes? For an area that’s ravaged by poverty, people don’t seem to have a problem throwing their money away for the privilege of fishing on private land when they could just as easily sit on one of the ample creek banks that cover the landscape.”

  “Pay lakes are not indigenous to eastern Kentucky and people pay to fish there because they’re filled with fish. You don’t get that kind of a guarantee from a creek, but if you don’t like how we run things around here, you’re welcome to leave.” Joe delivered his directive as he walked by Tyler’s desk and without mentioning his name or making eye contact.

  For his part, Tyler let the suggestion pass and said, “But, yeah, your scenario sounds about right to me, Maggie.”

  But it didn’t sound right to Maggie. As she carried out her daily routine in the following days, her mind wandered from her tasks at hand. She would be walking on the treadmill, watching a favorite Investigation Discovery program, or folding laundry and she’d ask herself, “Why was a woman Hazel Baker’s age walking alone after dark? Or was this routine for her? Did she walk inside the fence and around the lake for protection?”

  Nearly two weeks after Hazel’s death, Maggie finally met someone who attempted to answer her questions. As Maggie stressed to come up with a lead for a story featuring a five-year-old jump rope champion, a woman suddenly appeared at her desk and said, “I’m Stella Martin. Hazel Baker was my sister and I know who killed her.”

  Chapter Four

  Maggie looked around the newsroom. Seeing only the summer intern and the sports writers, she said, “You must want to talk to one of the news reporters. They’re out right now and so is the editor, but if you don’t care to wait –”

  “Are you Maggie Morgan?” Stella asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’m here to talk to you.”

  “Me?” Maggie asked. Although Stella’s face appeared rounder than Hazel’s, her brown hair was styled in the same bob as her sister’s and she had the same engaging smile. She seemed like someone Maggie might enjoy spending time with, but Maggie couldn’t imagine why Stella had sought her out. “Why would you want to talk to me?”

  “My friend, Sylvia Johnson, tells me you solved the murder of the store owner who was killed on Sugar Creek last fall. I want you to help me prove who killed my sister.”

  The mention of Sylvie Johnson, an older Sugar Creek resident who had helped Maggie piece together the clues on the Mac Honaker murder, surprised Maggie. She was anxious to understand the connection between Sylvie, who knew everything about everyone on Sugar Creek, and Hazel Baker’s sister, who lived on the other side of Geneva County. “Let’s go to the break room,” Maggie suggested.

  Once there, Maggie asked, “How do you know Sylvie?”

  “I was looking for a seamstress to sew my daughter’s wedding dress and Sylvia was recommended to me. She did not disappoint. After that, Hazel and I relied on Sylvia for all our sewing and tailoring needs. She is such a delightful person. You can depend on Sylvia to produce superior work and to tell you the truth.”

  “She is direct,” said Maggie, who reflected on Stella’s pronunciation of Sylvie’s name. It was customary in eastern Kentucky to change names ending in “a” so they sound like they end in “e” or “y.” Stella became Stellie. Sylvia became Sylvie. Yet, Stella Martin had somehow failed to adopt that custom. Of course, now that Maggie thought about it, she realized that most people called her mother Lena instead of Lennie or Leannie. She made a mental note to ask her mom about that. “Stella, I think Sylvie might have given you the wrong idea. Yes, I pointed the police in the right direction, but I’m not a professional investigator. I worked that case, so to speak, to clear the name of my brother’s friend.”

  “I want you to do the same thing for me.”

  Maggie raised her eyebrows and said, “I thought Hazel’s death was ruled an accidental drowning. Has the official report been amended? Are they now considering it a murder? Are you a suspect?”

  “Heavens, no. She could be a pain and she had a mean streak in her a mile wide, but I loved my sister. And, no, the official report has not been amended.” Stella brushed Maggie’s arm with her hand. “Let me ask you something. Do you have a sister?”

  “No, I have one brother.”

  Stella smiled softly and said, “Then I feel sorry for you. There’s nothing like the bond between sisters. No one knows you like a sister. It can’t be the same as a brotherly bond or a brother-sister bond because men aren’t as intuitive as women are. Hazel and I could carry on conversations without ever speaking a word. One look said it all. Tomorrow will make two weeks. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve picked up the phone during that time to give her a call. Just this morning, I ran across a recipe for burritos – Hazel loved Mexican food and she could make a crispy chimichanga that would change your life – and I thought to myself, ‘I’ll send this to Hazel. Maybe we’ll have another Mexican fiesta this weekend.’ But I’ll never send her anything else and we’ll never share another meal. At least not in this lifetime.”

  Stella’s monologue made Maggie think of her younger brother, Mark. He lived in Indianapolis with his wife and two little boys and Maggie saw him only a few times a year, but they spoke on the phone frequently and texted and chatted nearly every day. She didn’t want to imagine a time when she wouldn’t be able to talk to him.

  Stella brought Maggie out of her reverie. “My sister’s death was no accident. Anyone with deductive reasoning should be able to recognize that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Stella shot her a look that immediately make Maggie feel like the eight-year-old version of herself who had told her third-grade teacher that her daddy said it rained frogs.

  “To the best of my knowledge,” Stella said, “Hazel had never before opted to take a stroll by that pay lake in the daytime, let alone on a humid summer night. She was terrified of snakes and hated insects. Snakes can crawl by you during the day, but at least you can see them. They’re not so easy to spot in the dark and gnats and mosquitoes are worse at night as well. So, why did she decide to go for a walk in dark blue workout clothes, mind you, at night and expose herself to things that bite?”

  Maggie agreed with Stella. It made little sense to go for a walk at night in dark attire, but even sensible people were known to behave foolishly. “Was she able to walk from her property onto her neighbor’s or did she have to take the main road to get to the lake?”

  “She had to walk on the road for a while. There’s a privacy fence around her property and a chain-link fence around her neighbor’s, but it doesn’
t directly butt up to the road. There’s a line of grass between the fence and the road and I guarantee you she would have avoided the grass.”

  Maggie shivered. “Snakes. And chiggers. I don’t know which one’s worse. A snake bite can kill you, but a chigger bite can make you scratch yourself raw. They’re like ninjas. You don’t even know they’re sucking the life out of you until a couple days later when you develop an intense itch and a blister and usually in a most embarrassing part of your body.” She shivered again. “I hate them.”

  “I can tell.” Stella said. “Back to Hazel, she walked at least four miles every morning on the treadmill. She didn’t need the exercise.” Stella held both hands, palms up, in the air. “And if she did suddenly have an urge to go for a walk, why would she trespass onto private property? There’s a walking track not two miles from her house. She would have driven there if she had wanted to take a walk in the wee hours of the night. Or morning, depending on,” Stella’s voice trailed off, “the time of death.”

  “You do make some compelling arguments.”

  Stella wagged the forefinger of her right hand. “There’s more to this. She left that house for some reason and I want you to find out why. Don’t worry about expenses, I’ll pay you for your time.”

  Now it was Maggie’s turn to hold up her hands. “Wait, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.”

  “No, we’re not. Did you know that Hazel retired not three months ago? We work our whole lives to get to a comfortable place where we can finally spend our days doing whatever we want without adhering to a schedule or waking up to a beeping alarm clock. Hazel didn’t plan to travel the world or train for a marathon. But she had plans. We were going to go on a Caribbean cruise and then spend two weeks visiting our cousins in Florida. Hazel worked for that. Did you know she was a nurse? She spent forty years caring for patients in Doc Griffith’s clinic. Now it was time to take care of herself. But she won’t get to do that. And, this might sound selfish, but I’m angry that somebody took her away from me.”

  “I know you can’t substitute one person for another, but you have other family,” Maggie said. “They can help you get through this.”

  “They are helping, but like I said, there’s nothing like that sisterly bond. Growing up, we didn’t have much. Only Hazel knew the humiliation I felt when our mother sent me to school with a patchwork pair of pants she had fashioned from Hazel’s ragged hand-me-downs. Only Hazel knew because she felt the same humiliation. Now, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I loved my childhood. It was wonderful. We had enough love for two or three houses, but not enough money for one. Hazel and I talked about that and about how far we’d come. About how we were grateful that we could turn the thermostat up a few degrees in the winter and down in the summer without worrying about how we were going to pay the electric bill. No one will ever understand me the way she did. Not my dearly departed husband. Not my daughter. Not my brother. No one.”

  Why does this keep happening? Maggie thought to herself. And why can’t I just say no?

  Instead, she said, “Earlier, you said you know who killed your sister.”

  “There’s no doubt in my mind that her ex-husband killed her. He took up with a floozy half his age a few years ago and threw Hazel away like she was an old pair of shoes he had gotten tired of wearing. But he couldn’t get rid of her that easy. He had to share his pension with her. And, believe me, that’s something he did not want to do.”

  “Did you share your theory with the police?”

  “Of course,” Stella answered with a huff. “And they told me I needed to accept that an accident had caused her death. They spouted all sorts of nonsense about how we don’t want to accept that a random accident could take away a person we love. I found their attitude offensive. I am not a child. I am a fifty-eight-year-old woman who’s buried both her parents and her husband. I’ve suffered loss and I’ve dealt with that loss. But this is more than loss. Somebody killed my sister. Somebody took her away from me. Now,” Stella leaned across the table and clasped her hand around Maggie’s, “are you going to help me find her killer?”

  Chapter Five

  Maggie met Stella the following morning at Hazel’s house on Sassafras. Although Maggie liked the home, a ranch with a gray brick exterior, an eerie feeling came over her as soon as she entered the front door. Maggie didn’t know what had prompted Hazel to leave her house the night she died, but she supposed Hazel hadn’t intended for it to be the last time she walked out the door. She noticed an umbrella in its stand and a rain slicker on a coat rack, both items waiting in vain for their owner to use them in the next downpour. They were two everyday household objects, just a fraction of the material possessions, not to mention the loved ones, Hazel had left behind, and the sight of them made Maggie sad. They also made her feel like she was invading Hazel’s privacy.

  “Hazel and Earnest, that was her ex-husband, saved up and built this house in the ’90s,” Stella explained. “Hazel’s only demands were vaulted ceilings and a large kitchen. Come on in here and I’ll show you the kitchen.”

  “Wow, look at all that counter space,” Maggie said when she entered the room. “I live in my grandparents’ old home. It’s where my dad grew up. I love it, but if I could change one thing, I’d add more counter space. You can never have enough.”

  “Especially if you love cooking as much as Hazel did. Look how clean this house is. Other than cleaning out the refrigerator, I haven’t touched a thing. Hazel kept a tidy house. So do I. We learned that from our mother. She taught us to take care of what we have even when we didn’t have much.”

  Maggie looked around the kitchen. Nothing seemed out of place. A few papers and receipts lay on the kitchen nook beside a laptop and a bookmarked copy of University of Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari’s latest book, but she wouldn’t characterize that as clutter.

  Stella picked up the book. “I asked her what she hoped to get out of reading a book about coaching, but what can I say? She loved the Cats and she loved their coach. She even decorated her bedroom in Wildcat blue. Let me show you.”

  Maggie followed Stella into Hazel’s bedroom, which indeed served as a shrine to the Wildcats. Framed prints of the basketball court and the program’s winning teams adorned the walls and a UK spread, sheets, and pillows decorated the rumpled bed. Maggie thought the pink pajamas thrown over a chair, which had been upholstered in repeating images of the team’s logo, seemed out of place in this blue-and-white mecca.

  “Let’s walk over to the lake,” Stella suggested.

  Maggie hesitated. “Did Hazel make her bed every day?”

  “Of course, she did,” Stella snapped. “I told you that she kept a tidy house.”

  “So, why isn’t her bed made?”

  “I, well, I don’t know.” Stella stared at the bed as if she hoped it would answer Maggie.

  “And look at the pajamas. It’s like she just tossed them onto the chair.”

  Stella shook her head. “That’s not Hazel. The only time she didn’t make her bed was when she was sick and, even then, she wouldn’t sleep in an unmade bed. She’d sleep on the couch. And she always put her pajamas under her pillow every morning when she dressed. Our mother taught us to do that. I still do that, too. She would not have thrown them on the chair like that and left them there all day. No. That’s not Hazel.”

  Maggie’s eyes wandered to the nightstand. “May I check the alarm clock?”

  “Sure, you can do anything you think will help you.”

  Maggie walked to the nightstand, picked up the clock, and smiled. “Of course, her alarm clock would have a big blue UK in the middle of its face.”

  “You better believe it,” Stella said.

  Maggie examined the clock. “The third hand is on two. Would she have set her alarm for two in the afternoon?”

  “I can’t think of any reason why she would do that.” Stella opened her hands as she looked around the room before letting them drop to her sides. “But I can�
�t think of a reason why she would have done any of this.”

  “Maybe she was taking a nap and wanted to wake by two.”

  “If she napped during the daytime, it was on the couch.”

  “Then it looks like she set the clock for two in the morning, went to bed, got up at two, dressed, and left the house.” This time, it was Maggie’s turn to look to the bed for answers. “The only question is, ‘Why?’”

  Once Maggie and Stella passed the privacy fence on Hazel’s property, they walked along the side of the road to avoid the ankle-length grass and weeds protruding from under the chain-link fence that separated the road from the pay lake.

  “I see what you meant about the grass,” Maggie said to Stella. “If I had a choice between the grass and the road’s edge, I’d choose the road even if it was at night.”

  As they made their way, a few cars sped by them.

  “At that time of night, there probably wasn’t much or any traffic,” Maggie noted. “Still, wearing dark clothes wasn’t the smartest idea.” As soon as the words left her mouth, Maggie wanted to slap her own face. “Not that I’m implying Hazel wasn’t smart. I’m sure she was very intelligent.”

  Stella looked back at Maggie and grinned. “She was as sharp as a tack, but you’re right. That wasn’t her smartest move.”

  When they reached the pay lake’s unlocked fence, a lanky man who Maggie guessed to be in his mid-forties approached them.

  “Good morning, Earl David,” Stella said.

  “Morning, Miss Martin. I’ve been meaning to call you. I was awful sorry that Hazel passed, but I couldn’t get to the services.”

  “Thank you, and I understand. People have their own lives. We can’t expect the world to quit spinning when our own lives get turned upside down.” Stella nodded her head toward Maggie. “Earl David, I want you to meet my friend, Maggie Morgan.”