Murder Is No Accident

by A. H. Gabhart

  “People grieve in different ways.” He didn’t know why he was taking up for a man he didn’t even know.

  “True,” Aunt Lindy said. “And some seem to have more than their share of trouble. Lana Waverly said Bradley’s second wife also came to a tragic end some years ago. An overdose of pills. Lana said she knew the second wife well. That she could never agree with the coroner’s finding of suicide.” Aunt Lindy looked up at Michael. “I doubt Bradley Carlson ever got her vote.”

  “Do you think she came to Hidden Springs to find out more about him? To try to connect the deaths of Audrey and the other wife?”

  “Why would she wait so long if that was her intent?” Aunt Lindy frowned. “That would seem very strange, don’t you think?”

  “Very.” Michael agreed with her, but the fact was, people did strange things all the time.

  A nurse pushed open the door and rolled Reece’s bed back into the room. Reece looked ready to be swallowed up by the sheets and blankets draped around him. When had he gotten so frail? But perhaps it was only the hospital that was siphoning away his strength. He needed his fishing pole and lucky hat. Then he’d look right. But his mouth still drooped. As much as Michael hated it, as much as Reece hated it, the man was right where he needed to be.

  While the ER doctor thought Reece would recover from the initial stroke little worse for the wear, they couldn’t be sure another stroke might not follow on the heels of the first. Prevention was the best treatment, and that called for more tests and observation.

  “They just need to let me go fishing.” At least Reece did seem to have his words back. “But appears like I’ll have to let them poke and prod some more. Time they get through, I’ll feel like a poor fish reeled in and flopping around in the bottom of the boat.”

  “Maybe it won’t be that bad.” Michael patted his arm.

  “Probably worse.” Reece looked miserable. “Guess you will have to call Alex after all. She’d give me heck if nobody told her.”

  “I’d be the one in trouble. Not you.”

  “True enough.” Reece almost smiled. “So call her, but tell her not to come. Once they add a few pills to the handful I already take, all will be well.”

  “Nonsense.” Aunt Lindy joined Michael by the bed. “She needs to be here.”

  “Now, Malinda. Alexandria is busy.”

  “If she’s too busy to come see about you when you’re in the hospital, she’s way too busy.” Aunt Lindy didn’t give an inch. “Besides, she hasn’t been home for weeks.”

  “This isn’t her home,” Reece said. “Washington is.”

  “That’s something that needs to change.” Aunt Lindy glared at Michael.

  “Don’t look at me like that.” Michael held up his hands in defense. “I’d drive the old truck up there and help her move anytime, but you know Alex. She does what she wants.” And he was pretty sure moving to Hidden Springs wasn’t on her to-do list anytime soon.

  Reece did manage a smile this time, but only one corner of his mouth turned up. “That’s our Alexandria.”

  Aunt Lindy didn’t smile or let her glare waver. “Have you ever asked her?”

  Michael was relieved when a nurse bustled in to take Aunt Lindy’s attention away from him so he didn’t have to answer her. He hadn’t asked Alex. At least not straight out. He was too afraid of hearing that final no.

  After Reece was settled in a room, Aunt Lindy reluctantly agreed to leave. On the elevator down to the exit, she said, “It’s sad. People like Reece and me. With so little family.”

  “You have family. Me. Right here if you need anything.”

  “I know.” She reached over and touched his arm. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, but at the same time, I don’t want to be a burden on you.”

  Michael scowled at her. “Where’s all this coming from?”

  “I don’t know. Seeing Reece looking so alone in that bed when we left.” She stared at the elevator doors as they descended to the first floor. “Thinking about Geraldine with nobody to see to her arrangements.”

  “I talked to her son.” Michael had finally reached him on the phone and broken the sad news. “He’s flying up here tomorrow.”

  “But he’s not married. No children. Geraldine didn’t get to enjoy any grandchildren.” Aunt Lindy sounded sad.

  They bounced to a stop on the bottom floor and the elevator doors slid open. “She never seemed like the grandmotherly type anyway.”

  “People might say that about me too, and while I can’t be a grandmother, I would dearly love to be a great-aunt.” Aunt Lindy didn’t look up at him as she stepped out of the elevator.

  Her words found an answering yearning inside him. “I guess I haven’t held up my end of the bargain on that.”

  “Oh, don’t pay attention to me. I’m simply feeling maudlin for some reason. You’ll have those children someday when you and Alexandria come to your senses.”

  Michael didn’t say anything as he tried to imagine Alex a mother and couldn’t. He had a hard enough time picturing her in a wedding dress. Perhaps it was time they both stared reality in the face and admitted it would never work. Agree to move on. Both of them find people better suited to the life they wanted to live. Her in the high-powered political world and him here in the small-town world of Hidden Springs. No sooner did that thought surface in his mind than he pushed it away. Not yet. Maybe someday, but not yet.

  He’d called her while the nurses settled Reece in his room. Got her voice mail, as usual. Left a short, to-the-point message, while he wondered if she was having dinner with that better someone.

  Aunt Lindy walked ahead of him out the front entrance. “But her biological clock is ticking. She’s almost thirty.”

  Michael laughed. “Good thing she’s not here to hear you say that.”

  “I assume she knows how old she is.” Aunt Lindy used her no-nonsense tone. “But as far as that goes, I suppose all our clocks are ticking. None of us knows how much more time we have on this good earth. Just like poor Geraldine today and Audrey years ago.”

  “Come on, Aunt Lindy. You’re going to live to be a hundred and five.” He leaned down to get a better look at her face in the glow of the parking lot lights. “Hank Leland will be coming to take your picture to put in the paper if he’s still around.”

  “Hmph. The way that man eats, he’ll never make it another forty-three years.” Hank wasn’t Aunt Lindy’s favorite person. He was too ready to publish less-than-favorable stories about Hidden Springs in his newspaper.

  “Maybe he’ll change his ways.”

  “When pigs fly.”

  Michael laughed again as he opened the patrol car door for Aunt Lindy. But that’s how he sometimes felt about his and Alex’s chances. When pigs fly. But tonight he’d talk to her. Hear her voice, and if she came home to see about Reece, he’d see her. He couldn’t give up on those flying pigs yet.

  9

  Have you asked? Aunt Lindy’s question stayed with Michael. Alex knew he loved her. She had to know. But he wasn’t sure he’d ever told her straight out in so many words. Three words, to be exact. I love you.

  Michael stared down at the container of mealy worms as if he’d never seen fish bait. The morning sun was warm on his shoulders. The lake water shimmered with promise. Fish lurked below the surface, but his mind was up in the air. With Alex. Who was flying to Eagleton. Now. Right now.

  He had talked to her last night, but only long enough to share the necessary information. What happened. Which hospital. What the doctors said. No “I love you” from either of them. No “will you marry me” from him. No time for that. Alex was anxious to get off the phone to call the hospital and then schedule her flight. She had things to arrange. None of the arrangements included Michael.

  “Do you need me to pick you up at the airport?” Michael had asked.

  “No, I’ll get a rental car.”

  That was the trouble. She didn’t need help. She didn’t need him.

  “Mi
chael, did you find the bait?” Karen Allison walked up from the dock. Her dark blonde hair was yanked back in a ponytail and she had on blue jeans with a hole in one of the knees. She never worried much about how she looked. “The kids are ready to start drowning some worms.”

  She was smiling. Karen was always smiling. She said everybody who knew Jesus should be smiling. Karen was the pastor of the local Presbyterian church. For a while, the two of them had played at dating. Long enough that some of the local people thought they might be headed for the altar. But they had always been more friends than a romantic couple. Then after he and Alex danced closer to not just admitting their feelings for one another but doing something about it, he and Karen decided to forget dating and stick to being friends. Karen was all wrapped up in her church and he was all wrapped up in Alex.

  Karen just wanted him to keep helping with her youth group. Something he was glad to do. Most days. But this day he wanted to be at the airport waiting for Alex’s plane to touch down.

  He’d talked to Reece that morning. Early. He sounded good. Resigned to more doctor prodding. Aunt Lindy had brought him the newspaper. She was sitting by his bed grading papers. Michael had no reason to cancel on this fishing outing Karen had arranged weeks ago. Not with Reece well cared for at the hospital and no emergencies at the sheriff’s office.

  While he still had questions about Geraldine Harper’s death, the search for answers could wait until after the kids went fishing. So could talking to Lana Waverly to find out why she was curious about Audrey Carlson’s death. No emergency there either. Not for something that happened so long ago.

  Actually, his questions would have to wait even longer, because he planned to head to the Eagleton Hospital as soon as the kids caught a few fish. Chief Sibley, the town’s police chief, and Buck Garrett, the state policeman for the Keane County area, could handle things.

  It wasn’t like he couldn’t be found. His radio, clipped to his belt, chattered now and again to let him know he was in range. Sometimes he thought it might be good to be out of range. Out of reach. He fingered the power button on his radio, but he didn’t push it. It was his job to be there. To be found.

  Karen took the container of bait from him. “I hope you bought plenty. These guys are planning on catching every fish in the lake.” She headed back toward his dock where some of the kids were checking the hooks and sinkers on their lines while others looked as if they’d never seen a fishing pole.

  One of the boys grabbed a mealy worm and dangled it in front of a girl, who shrieked on cue. Karen’s laugh carried up from the dock. She didn’t put up with any foolishness, but she let the kids be kids.

  Ten kids had come in the big van Karen talked the church elders into buying. Aunt Lindy claimed that was practically a miracle, but Karen had a way about her. Everything she did was wrapped in such caring and love that people wanted to help her.

  Michael liked working with the kids. Sometimes he thought that might be his purpose in life Aunt Lindy kept saying he needed to find. She didn’t think that purpose was keeping the peace in Hidden Springs. She didn’t think being a youth leader was it either, but the kids were enough for Michael.

  He might not be able to keep every kid off the road to trouble, but he wanted to. His gaze went to Anthony Blake down on the dock with one of the girls.

  The two of them had gone some rounds together, but now Anthony was like a little brother. Showed up to bed down on his couch at least once a week. Sometimes to go fishing with Michael. Sometimes just to take a hike with Jasper. The dog had taken to the kid from the first, when Anthony was a very troubled teen. Now if Anthony was around, Jasper was generally not far away. Just like now. Jasper sat right behind Anthony, his tail sweeping across the grass.

  The girl with Anthony was new to the group. Maggie Greene. She was a couple of years younger than Anthony, but the boy looked more than a little besotted. She was a pretty girl. Straight brown hair in a long ponytail. Hazel eyes with dark lashes. She didn’t wear the latest trendy fashions or have a cell phone in her hand all the time like some of the other girls. Maggie appeared to be more comfortable hanging on the fringes of a group.

  Michael knew about that. He’d felt that way often enough in high school while he was recovering after the wreck that almost crippled him. It had been a long time before he was able to walk without a limp. Anthony knew about staying apart from the crowd too. He’d had more than his share of struggles. Probably would have plenty more. But for now he was off Trouble Road and checking out scholarships, since he would graduate in the spring.

  Anthony saw Michael looking at him and waved him down to the dock. A smile lit up his face.

  “This girl has never been fishing. Can you believe that?” Anthony pointed at Maggie. His smile got even brighter.

  “Don’t let him poke you about that, Maggie. He didn’t know how to bait a hook a couple of years ago.” Michael grinned at Maggie, but she flashed her eyes away from him.

  She had been laughing and talking to Anthony, but she seemed almost afraid to look at Michael. Maybe she was simply feeling shy, but she hadn’t acted shy with Michael at their Sunday meeting last week. He’d sat down beside her and she told him about her classes at school. She had actually seemed more comfortable talking to him than to the other kids that night. But today things were different.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Anthony said. “I’m an expert with worms. Catching them. Squishing them on hooks.”

  Maggie kept her eyes down.

  “I get the feeling the girl don’t like worms.” Anthony spoke in a stage whisper.

  She giggled and looked up at Anthony. “I’ll have you know I used to make pets of worms. It’s just the squishing them on hooks that doesn’t sound so good.”

  “Anthony,” Karen yelled over at them. “Help! Billy’s got his line all tangled up and I’m hopeless with it.”

  “Pastor Karen calls.” Anthony let out an exaggerated sigh. “My expertise is needed everywhere. But I’ll be back to help you bait that hook so you can catch the biggest fish of all.”

  After Anthony ran off to help Karen, Maggie peeked up at Michael and then back at the ground.

  “Glad you were able to come today, Maggie.”

  “Yeah, well, Pastor Karen said we’d be back early enough if my mother needed me to help her clean.” She ran her hand up and down the fishing pole, avoiding the hook. Her gaze went everywhere but toward Michael.

  When the girl said “clean,” Michael made the connection. Sonny said Mary Greene had a key to clean Miss Fonda’s house. That was Maggie’s mother.

  “That’s right. Your mother cleans for people, doesn’t she?”

  “She has a few places, but she works out at the Fast Serve too. She says I’m too young to get a job there, but I’ve been helping her dust and stuff forever.” She pushed out the words all in a bunch, as though she thought she had to explain everything.

  People had a way of doing that when they were nervous. Something was obviously bothering the girl. Sunday she had been easy with him. Today she wished he would disappear.

  “Your mother’s right. Better to concentrate on school if you can.”

  “I’ll probably get a job next summer. We can use the money. My father got laid off.”

  “It’s tough right now with the economy.” Empty words.

  “Yeah.” Maggie looked out at the lake.

  The girl probably didn’t care that much about the state of the nation’s economy. The economy in her family was what mattered to her. Last he’d heard, Curt Greene was drinking too much. Some men didn’t deal well with unemployment.

  “Your mother cleans the Chandler house, doesn’t she?”

  Her gaze shot back to him and then slashed away as if he’d said something startling. After a second or two, she nodded.

  “Then that must be where you learned to dust.” Michael tried to keep his voice light. “Miss Fonda has a lot of keepsakes. Must take a while to clean that house.”

  �
�Yes.” Again her answer was short. She stared toward where Anthony was working to free Billy’s line from a bush.

  “Do you know when your mother cleaned there last?”

  Maggie shook her head. “I’m not sure. It’s been a few weeks.” She looked back toward Michael but kept her eyes on his shirt buttons.

  Michael was searching for a way to put her at ease, but she spoke first in a voice so low he could barely hear what she said. “It’s bad what happened to Mrs. Harper, isn’t it? You don’t think about anybody dying from falling down steps. Even steps like those.”

  “Accidents happen.”

  “Yeah.” She ran her hand up and down the fishing pole again. This time she forgot to watch for the hook and jabbed her finger. “Ouch.” She dropped the pole and stared at the drop of blood on her finger. “Guess I’d better go see if Pastor Karen has something I can put on this.” She put her finger in her mouth and moved past Michael.

  From the look of relief on her face as she took off toward Karen, Michael suspected she’d jabbed her finger on purpose.

  Could be he’d found the person who had been using the tower room. And the one who had called 911. Young. Scared. Both of them fit Maggie Greene. More telling, he didn’t think Karen had mentioned that Geraldine had fallen down stairs that morning when she asked the kids to remember to pray for Geraldine’s family.

  10

  Maggie’s heart pounded as she walked away from Michael. She shouldn’t have come. She knew Michael would be here. She knew he was a policeman. But she didn’t think about him being the one to get the 911 call. If he did, he might recognize her voice. He might know she was there.

  She was in so much trouble. Breaking into somebody’s house was against the law. She hadn’t actually broken in, but she had gone into the house with nobody there to say it was okay. Trespassing was a crime too. She’d seen “Trespassers will be prosecuted” signs. None at Miss Fonda’s house, but that didn’t matter. She had still been a trespasser.

  They might send her to juvenile detention or something. Some girl at the high school had gone to a place like that last year. Nobody had seen her since.