“But you eventually reunited?”
“Yeah. We spend time together, but we’ll never live together again. Not as long as Scootie has her way. Of course,” he grinned, “she might get sent up the river for stealing those pocketbooks. I never heard the beat in all my life.”
“Why didn’t you go to the police after Jennifer died?”
“Delphene asked me to wait. She made me promise I wouldn’t say anything unless it was necessary. From where I stand, it’s necessary.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
When Maggie arrived home, she took Barnaby for a walk, ate leftover chicken for dinner, turned off her phone, and stretched out on the couch. She laid down with the intention of catching a quick nap and then watching some TV before going to bed. By half past six she had fallen into a deep slumber. She was still snoozing on the couch four hours later when a loud, repetitive noise woke her. Raising her head off the pillow, she staggered off the couch toward the noise, which was coming from the vicinity of her front door. When she opened the door, she saw her dad standing on her porch.
Still groggy from sleep, she widened her eyes and asked, “Why are you banging on my door?”
“Cause you wouldn’t answer your phone. Me and Mother thought there may have been a gas leak.”
“You have a key. Why didn’t you let yourself in?”
“Your screen door was locked.”
“Oh, I guess I accidentally locked it.”
At the sound of Lena’s voice piercing the night air, Robert stepped off the porch, turned toward his house, and yelled, “She’s okay. What? I think she was sleeping. No. I was fixing to. Huh? Well, let me talk to her first. I will.” To Maggie, Robert said, “I’ll bet we’ve called you forty-eleven times.”
“I turned off the phone so I could get some sleep. Why did you call me? Why did you come over here? Is something wrong?”
“Well, we don’t know for sure if something’s wrong, but they took Edie to the hospital.”
Suddenly awake, Maggie asked, “What’s wrong? Is it the baby?”
“They ain’t exactly sure what’s going on, but they said she was having pains.”
“Pains or contractions?”
“You’d have to ask your mother. She talked to Edie’s mom.”
“I should go to the hospital.”
“If you want to go, I can run you over there.”
“I can drive myself, Daddy.”
“No, you just woke up and you’re too upset. You’re apt to drive too fast. We don’t know what’s going on, but even if something is wrong, you have to stay cool.”
Maggie smiled. “Okay, Daddy, that’s what you’re in charge of tonight. Keeping me cool.”
Maggie nearly lost her cool when she saw Edie lying in an emergency room bed, hooked to a fetal heart monitor. Approaching the bed, she clasped Edie’s outstretched hand. “How are you doing?”
Although Edie said she was fine, the intensity with which she gripped Maggie’s hand and the worry that lined her eyes told Maggie otherwise. “I didn’t expect you to come here tonight, but I’m glad you’re here.”
“Where else would I be?” Glancing at Ben, who held Edie’s other hand, Maggie said, “You doing okay?”
“Yeah, but I’ll be doing a lot better once they give me good news about my girls.”
Edie turned her head toward the monitor and Maggie’s eyes instinctively followed. “So, your mom said something about contractions.”
“We’re hoping they’re just those fake contractions. They can start around thirty weeks, and I’m at thirty-two weeks,” Edie said.
“That’s probably all it is,” Ben said, “but we’ll know more once the doctor gets here.”
“Do you want me to go out so your mom can come in here?” Maggie asked.
“Absolutely not. She’s been on the verge of tears all evening.”
Maggie stayed by Edie’s side until the doctor came in to examine her. Kissing Edie on the forehead, she left the room and joined her parents and Edie’s mom in the waiting room. Having jumped into the deep end of the crying pool, Edie’s mom was no longer on the verge of tears.
As Lena offered words of encouragement, Maggie made eye contact with Robert. She had never known him to be comfortable with women’s emotions, and his look of unease made Maggie chuckle. Her good spirits lasted mere moments. They disappeared as soon as she heard Lena and Edie’s mom complaining about how much being pregnant had changed since they had their babies.
“I don’t understand all this talk about measuring pregnancies in weeks,” Lena said. “I was pregnant for nine months. Now, they say a pregnancy lasts forty weeks. You know women nowadays are pregnant for the same amount of time we were. A lot has changed over the years, but that hasn’t.”
“Of course it hasn’t changed, Mom,” Maggie said. “Forty weeks is, more or less, nine months.”
“I can multiply, Maggie,” Lena countered. “There are four weeks in a month. Nine times four is thirty-six.”
“Yeah, and twelve times four is forty-eight, but there are fifty-two weeks in a year. You’re not accounting for the extra days in a month.” Maggie closed her eyes and counted to ten. She couldn’t believe she was arguing with her mom about the number of weeks in a year while Edie lay in an ER bed. Standing, she said, “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Maggie walked out of the waiting room and was heading toward the all-night cafeteria to grab a snack when she saw Seth standing against a wall.
“Maggie.” Crossing the corridor, he said, “What are you doing here? Is everything okay? Is it Robert? Or Lena?”
“No, it’s Edie. She’s having contractions.”
“She’s not ready to deliver, is she?”
“I hope not. She still has eight weeks to go.”
“What are they saying?”
“Nothing much. The doctor is in there now. Why are you here?”
Rolling his eyes, he said, “My suspect was having chest pains.”
“Don’t make fun. It could be serious.”
“Or it could have something to do with his imminent arrest. Why are you out here in the hall?”
“I needed to get away. I was arguing with Mom about how many weeks are in a year.” Waving away his quizzical look, she said, “I wasn’t really mad at Mom. Well, I was mad at her, but I was mad at myself, too.”
“Why?”
“Because I think this is my fault.”
“What’s your fault? Edie’s contractions? I don’t know much about having babies, but I don’t think that’s possible.”
“I was thinking last week that my life is going to change soon. I’m not jealous of the baby. It’s not that. I know the baby will take up most of Edie’s time, and that’s how it should be. But when we met to plan her baby shower and I saw all those kids running around, kids who belonged to her friends, I realized that we’re going to have less in common. I’m not going to be able to offer recommendations on the best diaper or when to start potty-training or any of that other stuff that she’ll be able to talk about with her mom friends.”
“Maggie, do you remember how you used to tease me for wearing my lucky socks on UK’s game days?”
“What does this have to do with Edie’s baby?”
“Just listen to me for a minute. Do you remember telling me that my socks didn’t dictate the outcome of a basketball game? That I didn’t dictate the outcome of a basketball game?”
“I know you’re trying to make a point. But remember that I also told you it would have been different if they had won every game they played on days you wore the socks. Obviously they didn’t win all those games, though, or they would have never lost.”
“That’s right. Because I always wore – always wear – those socks on game day.”
“You still have those ratty socks?”
“Yes, I do, Maggie, but that’s not the point. You were trying to show me that I don’t control the world. Neither do you. Good or bad, what’s going on with Edie has nothi
ng to do with anything you may have thought. And it’s only normal for you to feel a little apprehensive right now. But you have no need to worry. You and Edie are like sisters and nothing is going to change that.”
“People change the way they feel about each other all the time.”
“No, they don’t.”
She stared into his green eyes, struggling to think of a suitable response, until he looked away and said, “Hey, Luke.”
Maggie jolted her head to the right and saw Luke standing a few feet away. “Edie and the baby are going to be all right,” he said.
“They are?” Maggie exclaimed. “That’s great.”
“Ben came out and told us. I forget what they’re called, but basically, she was having false contractions.”
“That’s wonderful news,” Seth said. Giving Maggie his full attention, he added, “You’ll probably want to get back in there to see her and I need to check on my suspect.”
As Seth walked away, Maggie said, “Hey, it looks like Delphene Fugate might have had an alibi after all. You should expect a visit from her husband in the next few days.”
“How do you know? Never mind. I don’t want to know.” In a softer voice, he added, “Take it easy and don’t be so hard on yourself.”
With Seth disappearing down the corridor, Maggie said to Luke, “I didn’t know you were here.”
“Ben called me.”
“It’s not what it looked like, with me and Seth.”
“It’s okay if it was, Maggie. Honestly, I thought you two would have gotten back together by now.”
“Luke, the issues between you and me were never about Seth.”
“Maggie, I’m not upset. I just don’t know what you’re waiting on. Maybe you wouldn’t be waiting if you could have seen the way you two were looking at each other just now.”
Refusing to acknowledge Luke’s advice, she said, “Thanks for coming to get me. Let’s go see Edie.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Maggie spent the next few days checking on Edie and catching up on sleep and work. In spite of Edie’s assurances that she and the baby were fine, Maggie continued to fret over their well-being. She was so consumed by worry and regret that she didn’t have time to revisit her chance meeting with Seth and the subsequent conversation with Luke.
At least she didn’t until she woke too early one morning with Luke’s words and Seth’s face playing on a loop in her mind. Although she had done nothing wrong, the incident had left her feeling ashamed. Checking the clock, she realized her alarm wouldn’t start beeping for a couple more hours. Using a technique a martial arts enthusiast had once recommended, she tried to will herself back to sleep. Starting with her toes, she said, “Toes relax.” Moving on to her feet, she said, “Feet relax.” By the time she suggested that her mind relax, she was so keyed up that she threw off the covers and got out of bed.
She had been too preoccupied in the previous days to devote much thought to the Jennifer Wagner murder investigation. In fact, she had hardly thought of it at all. She had heard, through Tyler, that even though Delphene’s husband had come forth, she was still considered a person of interest. Since, by her own admission, Delphene had gotten out of bed and left her husband’s house without waking him, he could not back up her claim that she hadn’t left his house until early morning. According to the police, she could have left the night before, giving her enough time to kill Jennifer. Now that she knew the reason behind Delphene’s misrepresentation of the truth, Maggie felt even more strongly that Jennifer had not died at her hands. Of course, she couldn’t understand why Delphene had allowed her fear of upsetting Scootie’s nervous stomach to render her a murder suspect. Then again, she had to concede that love frequently resulted in irrational behavior.
She poured herself a tall glass of orange juice, sat at her kitchen table, and as a reminder of the case’s highlights, set about creating a timeline of events, starting with Jennifer’s marriage to Jeff and concluding with Scootie’s arrest for selling Jennifer’s handbags. Listing the entries, she said, “Jennifer spends too much money, she and Jeff divorce, she meets and marries Mel, she gets under Didi’s skin, she tries to shape Blake in her own image, Mel dies, Jennifer gets depressed, starts affair with Todd, she participates in mysterious Skype sessions that upset her, she –”
She was still sitting at her kitchen table a half hour later, staring at the timeline, when her alarm started beeping.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Late that afternoon, Maggie sat in Phil Wainwright’s office with two copies of the timeline in her lap.
“I was hoping you could help me with something,” she said.
“I’m here to help,” Phil said. “Fire away.”
“I had some personal issues to deal with last week –”
“Oh, I hope everything is okay.”
“It is. My best friend had a health scare, but she’s doing better. But, my concern for her occupied most of my time and my thoughts. So that meant I didn’t give much, well any, thought to Jennifer’s murder for the better part of a week. The reason I’m telling you this is that I made this timeline,” Maggie handed one of the copies to Phil, “to refresh my memory.”
She watched as Phil’s eyes skimmed the paper. “This looks really thorough. So, what do you need from me?”
Regarding her copy of the timeline, Maggie said, “If you look about a third of the way down the paper, you’ll see an entry about Jennifer and a mysterious video chat.”
“Yes, I see that.”
“Blake said that whatever happened during that chat shook up Jennifer. She recalled Jennifer coming into her room and sitting on her bed. Jennifer told her to always remember that you never know another person.”
Phil said, “All right.”
“The next entry refers to the reception that celebrated your promotion. My cousin Chris –”
“That’s right. I just recently learned that our basketball coach is your cousin.”
“Chris said Jennifer had made a this-is-your-life sort of slideshow for you. He said she had included years of information about you. That got me to thinking. She probably researched your entire life. And all this occurred around the same time as that video chat. Do you see where I’m going?”
Placing the timeline on his desk, Phil said, “Actually, no, I do not.”
Maggie wasn’t sure where she was going, either. She had contacted Phil with nothing more to go on than a hunch. A hunch that hadn’t formed into anything solid. Still, she continued, “I think she learned something unsettling about you. All this happened right before she supposedly started dating a man she met online. If you’ll look at the timeline, you’ll see that the entry about this mystery man follows the entry about your reception and slideshow. Traci said you were visibly distressed when you heard about this man, whose name was Bob Smith. She chalked it up to jealousy, but you’ve insisted you didn’t have romantic feelings for Jennifer. That makes me wonder why this bothered you so much.”
“Because I was concerned for her safety. I told the police about her online boyfriend.”
“So?”
“If I had, well, I’m not sure what you’re implying, but if there’s more to this, why would I have told the police about this man?”
“Because you knew she wasn’t actually dating him. Besides, you didn’t tell the police his name. You told me you didn’t remember it. Traci remembered the name only because it was so ordinary sounding. She didn’t believe he was real.”
When Phil didn’t respond, Maggie continued, “But he is real and he’s somehow tied to you, tied to your past. Listen, I’m still not sure how all this connects to you. But I believe Jennifer learned something about you. And I think if the police go digging around your past, they’ll find this Bob Smith character and learn the same thing Jennifer did. So, why don’t you just tell me?”
Chuckling, Phil said, “You know, there’s a poem about not going out with a bang, but with a whimper. When I imagined how things would en
d for me, I imagined a SWAT team knocking down my door and dragging me out of my house, past my neighbors, past my friends. I never imagined it would end so quietly, but I imagine the noise will come later.”
“I’m not following you, Phil.”
He sighed. “Chris is right. I did become emotional at the reception. I had no idea Jennifer was looking into my past. As I watched the slides pass before my eyes and listened to Jennifer’s narration, I knew what that could mean for me. When she didn’t say anything, when she didn’t come to me with accusations, I thought maybe I was worrying for nothing. Although I thanked her for putting together the slideshow, I didn’t dare ask her any questions. And the matter died.”
Tilting his head to one side, he said, “At least I thought it had died. Then came the night at dinner when she casually mentioned she had met a retired educator online. A man named Bob Smith. I wasn’t sure what she knew, but I knew she knew something.”
“What did she know?”
“That I’m not Phil Wainwright.”
“Oh. What? How?”
“I have to warn you,” Phil said. “It’s a long story.”
“I have the time.”
“Okay, well, this story spans decades and starts when I was a dead-end kid living in rural Vermont. Well, I was no longer a kid. I was in my twenties. But I was aimless and lost. And getting by via petty crimes. One day, as I was casing an upscale neighborhood, I noticed a weeks’ worth of newspapers in the driveway of a house. I returned a few days later and saw more newspapers in the driveway and a lawn that was in danger of becoming overrun with weeds. Thinking the homeowner was on vacation, I went back after dark and broke into the house. I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say it didn’t take my nose long to find the real Phil Wainwright. I left the house with a few valuables I could easily sell and some money. Although I was living a life of crime, I was not a heartless man. I’m still not a heartless man. So, I considered phoning the police with an anonymous tip that a man was dead in that house. I was afraid, though. I was afraid that somehow my good deed would not go unpunished. Besides, when I was rifling through the house, I had discovered that he was an educator. I figured he had to have family and friends who would miss him. They’d worry about him. They’d try to contact him. They’d find him.
Murder at Moonshiner Days Page 15