by Ginny Gold
“Well, honey, I didn’t have a whole lot of time yesterday,” her mother continues calmly.
“Where are you?” Maggie asks more gently.
“Where we all go when we die. But your father and I have gotten stuck because our work isn’t finished. Oops, gotta go.” The phone goes dead, which is hard to notice since it’s not connected to any wires but Maggie can feel her mother’s presence disappear.
“Well, where is she?” Clem asks, blocking the door to the phone booth.
“Stuck,” Maggie answers, pointing to the door and Clem backs out.
“Stuck?”
“She said their work wasn’t finished yet so they’re stuck. Then she had to go.”
Clem walks toward her office and Maggie sits in the same chair where she’s left her handbag. She takes out her tablet and looks at everything she’s written down in the last twenty four hours.
Though Leah Scott was never high on the suspect list, Aurora Holt seemed like she might have had a motive worthy of murder. Now Maggie can cross both of them off the list. Today was a waste of time. One day in the two weeks she’s given herself to solve this case is gone and Maggie has nothing to show for it.
“You ready to go?” Clem asks, coming out of her office a few minutes later with her coat on.
Maggie slips her tablet back into her bag, stands and puts the bag over her shoulder. “My car is just outside. Do you need a ride to yours?”
“Nope. I park around the block at the town offices. They let the business owners on this block use their parking spots. I’ll meet you at home.”
Maggie follows Clem out the back door and walks around front to her car. It’s not quite six yet and she doesn’t want to spend the whole evening alone with Clem but she isn’t sure how to avoid that. She wants to call Garth and ask him to look some things up for her. But that will have to wait until tomorrow morning. He has his own cases to work on and she can’t depend on their usual resources when this isn’t an official case for their office.
Maggie arrives at Clem’s house first and lets herself inside. The dogs immediately leap up in search of attention. Suzie noses her way in front of Oscar and Maggie obligingly pats each of them on their heads.
They follow at her heels to her bedroom where Maggie has to carefully and quickly open the door and get inside before the dogs follow her and terrorize Opal. Maggie finds her cat stretched out in the last sliver of spring sunshine on the bed.
“I see you’ve decided to make this place your home,” Maggie says. Opal rolls onto her back at the sound of her voice and Maggie scratches her stomach. Opal only tolerates this affection for a few moments before her claws are out and she swats Maggie’s hand away.
Maggie leaves her cat alone and puts her bag next to the bed. She knows that she’ll spend hours on her tablet later looking into any new angle related to her parents’ death. For now, though, she heads into the kitchen to start making dinner.
The kitchen has always been Maggie’s domain. Growing up, she and her mother would make dinner together while Clem and her father played board games in front of the fire in the winter and out on the back patio in the summer. Maggie is just putting a pan of marinated vegetables in the preheated oven when Clem walks in.
The dogs go crazy once again but Clem’s reaction is the opposite of Maggie’s. Clem drops her bag right next to the door and gets down on her knees, accepting dog kisses on her face and cooing to Suzie and Oscar. “I know you missed me. I missed you too,” Maggie hears her say and laughs. She thinks, once again, how different they turned out.
Clem finally makes her way to the kitchen and helps herself to a beer. She holds a second one in Maggie’s direction and Maggie nods, accepting the gesture. “What’s for dinner?”
“Roasted vegetable Panini,” Maggie answers, taking the beer and tasting it.
There’s a long pause before Clem gently says, “You seemed really frustrated on the phone.” She doesn’t ask a direct question but Maggie knows she really wants to know about possible new suspects.
“Yeah. I spent all day talking to Leah and Aurora and now I find out that it was all a waste of time.” Maggie cuts four slices of freshly baked bread she bought at the store earlier and starts slicing enough cheese to cover each piece.
“Well, do you have any other leads?”
Maggie shakes her head. “I’m starting from zero again. Anyone you can think of who would have wanted them dead?”
Clem sits at the table, never offering to help with dinner but Maggie would have declined away. They each sip their beer in silence.
Clem shakes her head and shrugs. “I can’t think of anyone.”
CHAPTER 10
That night, Maggie gives up on sleeping and pulls out her book. She hasn’t made the leap to ebooks because she loves the smell of the pages of paperbacks. She turns on her bedside light, pats Opal who is curled up next to hear, and opens to page one of her new book.
When she wakes up in the morning, the light is still on and the book is face down on her stomach. She feels completely refreshed and ready to find the next suspect. After a healthy dose of coffee with Ginger Rae, Winona and Erline, of course.
Maggie showers and dresses quickly and then goes outside to find a thin dusting of snow. It’s nearly the middle of May and she’s forgotten that spring barely exists in Silver Springs. It can snow any month of the year, though July and August snowfall is almost nonexistent, so she shouldn’t be surprised. The summer weather she was enjoying in Denver before she left on Sunday is just a figment of her imagination now.
She goes back inside for another layer and notices the dogs have already left the house for a day on the town.
When Maggie walks into The Coffee Bean, the three women are already on the same tan couch where she found them yesterday, and they even have an extra cup of coffee waiting for her.
“We thought you might come back today,” Ginger Rae nearly shouts. Maggie notices a few other customers turn in their direction and she gives them a shy smile. She sits in the middle again and picks up the offered cup of coffee.
The warm bitterness goes straight to her bones and she can feel the wintery chill melting away.
“So, how did it go yesterday? Did you talk to Aurora?” Erline asks.
Maggie leans back into the couch and crosses her legs. “I did talk to her. She certainly didn’t get along with my mom. But it turns out she can’t be guilty.” Maggie wishes she had chosen her words more carefully. No one but Clem knows about the phone calls from her mom and she still doesn’t want to share that information.
“Oh?” Ginger Rae asks.
“She had an alibi,” Maggie answers without offering any other details.
“Hmm,” the three women all murmur in unison. Maggie almost laughs. They could all be one person with their mannerisms complementing each other perfectly.
“Anyone else you can think of who might have had access to their house the night they were killed? Or who would have wanted them dead for any reason?” Maggie asks, hoping that they’ll only give male names. She doesn’t want to tell them that’s all she’s looking for now because she doesn’t have a good reason why.
The women talk among themselves for several minutes, bouncing names and ideas around that Maggie can’t follow. None of the names are familiar and she starts questioning whether she’ll be successful when she doesn’t know much about Silver Springs anymore.
“Your mom had an admirer,” Winona finally says, pulling Maggie back into the conversation.
“He was almost a stalker,” Erline adds, her eyes growing wide with excitement.
“Almost a stalker? Like he would have been if she was still alive?” Maggie asks.
All three women shrug. “Almost, because she could never prove that he was stalking her but he would show up in unlikely places.”
“Who was he? Is he still around?”
“Oh yes. He’s still around alright. He won’t be going anywhere,” Winona says but doesn’t give Maggie a
name.
“Where can I find him?” Maggie is growing anxious to know who he is.
“Drew Kent. He works across the street at High Mountain Brewery,” Ginger Rae says slowly, like she doesn’t want to tell Maggie.
Maggie gets up to leave, chugging the rest of her coffee. “You’ll come with us to Bingo tonight, right? Seven o’clock,” Erline calls after her.
Maggie waves and calls over her shoulder, “I’ll be there,” as she runs out the door and across the street.
Much to Maggie’s dismay, the brewery is not open at eight thirty in the morning on a Tuesday. The sign tells her that it will open at eleven. She was on such a high to get another new name that she didn’t even think about the possibility of it being closed.
Instead of interrogating Drew, Maggie walks back to her car and drives back to Clem’s house. She’ll use some other means of getting information for the time being.
Maggie sets up in the kitchen. She has her tablet with a keyboard and mouse. She connects a recording device to her phone. She likes to be able to listen to all of her conversations a second time to check for anything she might have missed.
Her first call is to Trista Voss. She’s known her for about two years, ever since Maggie contacted her from an add Trista had placed in the newspaper. The ad offered information technology assistance on a contract basis while she worked toward her masters in the field. Initially, that was how Maggie and Garth used her help—they needed some surveillance set up and she was the perfect fit for them.
But over time, that help turned into under the table cash jobs that had no real written contracts and no way to trace the flow of money. Maggie knows it’s always a risk to hire Trista for another hacking job, but sometimes that’s the only way to find the truth.
Maggie places the call from her disposable phone to the phone she and Garth bought for Trista. They know to cover their bases and be extra careful. Everyone’s jobs, reputations and freedom from imprisonment are on the line each time they work together.
“Maggie? I thought you were on vacation. I didn’t expect to hear from you until June at the earliest,” Trista’s cheery voice says through the phone.
Maggie chuckles. That was the white lie she told Trista last week when they wrapped up her last cases. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Don’t tell me you’re working on your vacation.”
“Well, it’s not really a vacation.” Maggie pauses to let that sink in. She doesn’t want to tell Trista that Garth doesn’t even know much about this yet so she doesn’t say anything at all.
“What can I do for you?” Trista asks. Maggie loves her eagerness, but with the amount of money they pay her, it would be hard not to be excited about a new job prospect.
“I’m working on a case in Silver Springs. Off the books.” Keeping that bit of information quiet turns out to be impossible. “It’s a closed case. And I think the police botched it.” She leaves out the details about her parents being murdered and how she found out about it. “I need the files.”
Trista pauses and Maggie knows there are plenty of questions swirling in her head. Maggie could go and try to work with Detective Daniel Stevens, but that’s the last thing she wants to do. She knows from past experience that stepping on toes of local law enforcement and accusing them of mishandling an investigation isn’t always well received. And this case would probably be no different given her past relationship with him.
“Silver Springs? I thought you didn’t ski.”
“I don’t.” After a pause Maggie adds, “It’s personal.”
“Okay. Got it. What’s the name on the case?”
“Eleanor and Charles Boothe.”
The silence on the other end lets Maggie know that Trista has put all of the pieces in place.
CHAPTER 11
Opal rolls over on the bed, stretches her back and flexes her claws. Without a territory to defend, like in Denver, life has become much more leisurely. It’s been hours since Maggie came back to and starting working in the kitchen and Opal can’t wait any longer to go outside.
She slips through the open bathroom window and lands on the wet grass. She can tell from the muted smells that it snowed last night but the sun has melted everything.
As soon as her feet touch down, Opal hears movement in the tree next to the house. She knows either Luna or Misty is on high alert to keep her in their sights.
Opal doesn’t have a plan on where to go, she just needs to get out of the bedroom. There are scents to follow and mice to catch. She starts sniffing around and picks up Suzie and Oscar’s trails leading away from home. She starts following the trail and Luna comes up alongside her.
“Where are you going?” Luna asks, her voice even younger than it sounded yesterday.
“Out,” Opal offers without further explanation since she doesn’t have a plan.
“I see that. This is where the dogs always go.”
Opal remains quiet and she can feel Luna’s nervous energy beside her. Finally she asks, “What was that all about yesterday?”
Luna’s whiskers start twitching and her nose rises into the air. Opal follows her lead and sniffs the air. She catches Suzie’s scent first, coming back toward them.
“Quick. Over here,” Luna whispers urgently and climbs the nearest evergreen tree. Opal happily follows. She desperately wants an answer to her question.
Luna and Opal remain completely silent and still as Suzie and Oscar come ever closer. As they pass the tree, Oscar’s head turns in the cats’ direction but he doesn’t alert Suzie. Instead, she continues talking. It’s clear that she’s superior to Oscar.
“Barney said we have to check under all the beds. That’s what he heard Winona say. In a box under a bed. That’s where he thinks it’s hidden” They’re out of earshot almost immediately and Suzie’s whispering doesn’t reach high into the tree anymore.
“What was yesterday all about?” Opal asks again, not caring what Suzie is talking about. She’s probably looking for a bone she lost ages ago and can’t get her nose to find it. Opal doesn’t think much of dogs.
“We have to get back to the house. Come with me,” Luna says and leads the way down the tree, between houses and back to the basement where all eleven other cats are waiting.
“It’s too dangerous to bring her here every day,” Jester hisses as soon as Luna and Opal crawl through the open window hidden behind the board.
Luna cowers and answers cautiously, “I didn’t have a choice. I was following her and we heard Suzie pass with information.”
Opal thinks these cats have all lost it. Information about a lost bone? Why would they care?
Jester climbs atop the lone chair again and all of the cats congregate in front of him. Opal remains by Luna’s side for what little protection the small cat can offer her. From what, she isn’t sure.
“This better be good,” Jester says when he has everyone’s attention. “Luna, please share this information.”
Luna’s voice is the most confident Opal has heard it as she begins speaking. “Opal and I were in a tree on the path—”
“The information,” Jester interrupts with a growl.
“Right, right.” Luna’s voice is quiet and hesitant again and Opal feels a little bad for her. “Suzie was telling Oscar that they have to look under all the beds. That Barney heard Winona say it’s probably in a box there.”
“And we’re sure she was talking about the Unmentionable?” Jester asks, his eyes growing wide with fear or excitement, Opal can’t tell.
“Barney is always on the up and up,” Luna says, defending herself.
“Did they know you were there? Could she have been leading you astray? No pun intended.” Jester chuckles despite himself.
“They made no indication that they were aware of our presence.”
“Opal? Can you confirm that?” Jester asks, making Opal shake in her fur.
“Um . . . I saw Oscar look in our direction. Maybe he knew?” Her voice is just as unsure
as Luna’s and she doesn’t like that Jester has that power over her.
“You didn’t tell me that,” Luna whispers.
“I didn’t know it was important,” Opal shoots back with a meow.
“It sounds like there’s a fifty percent chance that we’re being played. Opal, it’s your job to check under the beds and make sure Suzie and Oscar find nothing,” Jester roughly instructs.
“But . . . I don’t have access to the whole house.”
“There’s a dog door out front. You can use that as an entrance.” Jester is very matter of fact about this information like Opal should have already figured out how to get inside.
“And what am I looking for?” she asks quietly, so quietly she isn’t sure Jester hears her.
He pauses and stares her down. “We’re not sure. But we have to find it or the dogs will give it to the humans.”
CHAPTER 12
Maggie’s next call is to Garth. She’s promised to keep him in the loop of her time in Silver Springs even though he’s not working this case. Until now, he only knew her parents were dead.
He answers his phone before the first ring even finishes. “Maggie, hey. I thought I’d hear from you yesterday. How’s it going?”
Maggie is relieved to hear his voice. She’s worked beside him for so long that being in Silver Springs while he’s in Denver feels like a piece of herself is missing. She wonders if she’s floundering on this case so far because she’s working alone and hasn’t bounced anything off of Garth.
“Oh, it’s going. How about Denver? I miss it already. Everything is so . . . slow here. And small. I know Denver isn’t a big city, but when you drive through Silver Springs and blink, you’ll miss the whole place.”
Garth chuckles. “I can imagine. It’s great for one thing—skiing.” Garth is more athletic than Maggie and spends nearly every weekend of every winter in the mountains, skiing.
“You’re telling me. You should be the one living here for two weeks.”