1 Murder on Sugar Creek

by Michelle Goff

  Maggie’s mood shifted from on edge to edgy. “That’s none of your business and I don’t appreciate getting a lecture from you, especially on a sidewalk in the middle of town.”

  Seth held up his hands. “Point taken and, like I said, I know it won’t do any good to try and convince you to drop this. You’re going to do what you’re going to do. So, if that’s the case, I’ll help you.”

  Maggie narrowed her eyes. “What’s the catch?”

  “No catch, but I’ll help you on my terms.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that I talked to a buddy of mine with the state police and he shared some information you might find interesting.”

  “Well? What is it?”

  “You remember how your pal, Kevin, said he got the money to pay Ray Short?”

  “Yeah. He sold stolen weed eaters.”

  Seth made a clicking sound with his mouth. “That’s the thing. Kevin can’t remember exactly where he stole them from or who he sold them to. That kind of makes you wonder – where did Kevin get that money?”

  When Maggie and Luke reached the sub shop, she ordered a cold cut with tomatoes and mayonnaise, but she didn’t feel like eating.

  “You okay?” Luke asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Did Detective Heyward say something to upset you? Was it about Barnaby?”

  “No, well, not exactly.”

  Luke set his cup on the table. “Maggie, maybe this is out of line, but I’m going to go for it. Do you and Detective Heyward have a history?”

  Maggie had zoned out to a world of stolen weed eaters and alibis, but Luke’s question brought her back to the present. “Why would you ask that?”

  “I noticed a, I don’t know, familiarity between you two. I know I have no right to ask,” Luke shrugged, “but I’m asking anyway.”

  Maggie moved a crumb of bread around her plate. “Yeah, we dated for a few years. I didn’t think I needed to tell you the names of everyone I’ve dated.”

  “You don’t and I feel like a jerk for asking. And I’m not jealous, just curious.”

  “It’s been over for years.”

  “What happened? I mean, if you want to talk about it.”

  “We were pretty serious.” She rubbed the crumb between her fingers until particles of dough materialized on the plate. “Actually, we were pretty serious from the beginning. Anyway, we had actually gotten engaged, but we couldn’t agree on kids. I don’t want them and having children was important to him. We couldn’t get past it, so we broke up and moved on. He got married –”

  “He’s married?”

  “Yeah. He met her a few months after we broke up and they were married like that,” Maggie said with a snap of her fingers. “We’ve remained on friendly terms. I see him here and there. I hope that’s not a problem for you.”

  “It’s not. I just noticed the –”

  “Familiarity?”

  “Familiarity, and thought it would be unfair if I didn’t ask. Not quite a lie by omission, but close.”

  Imagine that, Maggie thought, a lie by omission.

  Chapter Eighteen

  By the end of her work day, Maggie hadn’t received an answer in response to her email. That’s probably a junk email account, she said to herself, and I should have known better than to think I’d get a response. She turned off her computer, walked to her car, and headed toward Sugar Creek. But when she reached the mouth of Caldonia Road, she didn’t make the turn. Instead, she continued toward Little Elm Fork.

  Kevin and his dad lived about a mile up the hollow in a log cabin that had blackened with age. When Kevin was a boy, his mother had run off to Ohio with a much younger man, leaving Kevin’s dad to raise their two sons by himself. A man known for his dedication to hard work and clean living, Randy Mullins had watched both his sons turn to drugs and, as a result, a life of crime. He didn’t uphold his boys, but he didn’t turn his back on them, either. He and a barking beagle greeted Maggie at the front door of the cabin.

  “Well, hello, there,” Maggie bent down and presented her hand to the dog. As the beagle sniffed her hand, Maggie lifted her eyes toward Randy. “I figured you’d be like Daddy and not allow a dog in the house.”

  Randy motioned for her to come inside. “I did feel that way until a few years ago. But both boys was gone. Actually, they was both in jail at the time, and it got so lonely.” Randy patted his leg to get the dog’s attention. “This little feller keeps me company.”

  Maggie had never given Randy Mullins much thought, but as he bent over to pick up the dog, Maggie considered him as a man and not as Kevin’s dad or the guy who traded livestock with Robert. His T-shirt strained to confine the paunch of his belly. When he smiled at the dog, Maggie noticed a couple missing teeth on one side of his mouth and a chew of tobacco on the other. Still, he wasn’t a bad looking guy and, although she felt no attraction to him, when she factored in that he owned his house and made a decent living as a dozer operator, she decided he would be a catch for the right kind of woman.

  “Do you want something to eat or drink? I’m making kraut and wieners for supper.”

  And he can cook, she thought. “No, thank you. I was wondering if Kevin was around.”

  “Yeah, he went out to bring in some wood for the stove. It’s supposed to get cold tonight. They said it might freeze.”

  Maggie shivered. “I’ll have to bring out the flannel sheets.” She heard a noise and saw Kevin carrying a pile of wood through the back door and across the kitchen.

  “You have company,” Randy said to his son.

  “Hey, Kevin,” Maggie said.

  Kevin piled the wood up beside the stove without acknowledging Maggie.

  “I’m going to check on the food,” Randy said. “There’s nothing worse than burnt kraut. Good to see you, Maggie. Tell Robert I said howdy.”

  “Will do.”

  Randy carried his beagle into the kitchen, leaving Maggie and Kevin alone in the living room.

  “How have you been, Kevin?”

  “About the same. Mark called the other day.”

  “Really? He didn’t mention it.”

  “Well, he called. I thought that was mighty nice of him.” Kevin plopped onto the sofa. “We ain’t seen each other in a couple years or even talked, but he thought enough to check on me.”

  “He’s a good guy. Actually, he’s the best, and I’m not saying that just because he’s my brother.”

  They fell into an uncomfortable silence with Maggie standing in the middle of the room and Kevin staring at the stove. When she could no longer take the stillness, Maggie cleared her throat and asked, “Kevin, where did you get the money you gave Ray Short?”

  “Not that again.” Kevin threw up his hands.

  “Yeah, that again. Kevin, I know you said you sold some weed eaters that you had stolen, but there’s no evidence of you stealing weed eaters or selling them.”

  Kevin stopped shaking his head and looked at Maggie. “Who told you that?”

  “I, I, uh, I can’t reveal my sources,” Maggie stuttered, “Is it true?”

  “Listen,” Kevin spoke in clipped tones. “I can’t remember exactly where I took those weed eaters from or who I sold them to. I was high. By the way, I’m clean now. I ain’t touched nothing since this started. I need to keep my head.”

  Maggie had noticed a difference in Kevin the moment she saw him in the kitchen. He no longer seemed to be in a fog and he had gained some much-needed weight. “Good for you, Kevin. It’s important that you maintain your sobriety. Keeping a clear mind will help you remember details like where you got the weed eaters. It’s as simple as this, if you can’t prove how you got that money, it’s going to look bad for you. They’ll assume you stole it from Mac Honaker right after you killed him.”

  “I ain’t lying.”

  But Maggie couldn’t shake the feeling that Kevin was lying. She also couldn’t help but notice that he hadn’t asked her to have a seat.

&
nbsp; When Maggie’s eyes flew open at two o’clock the next morning, thoughts of her lunchtime conversation with Luke and the previous evening at the Mullins cabin swirled in her mind. She knew it would be useless to try and sleep, so she got out of bed and stepped over Barnaby, who had grown accustomed to sleeping in her room. Her movements awakened the dog, but other than momentarily raising his head, he showed no interest in her early morning activity and soon fell back to sleep. Maggie walked to the kitchen, poured herself a glass of milk, and huddled underneath the blanket she kept on the couch.

  With only the light from the hallway as illumination, she admitted an embarrassing truth to herself – it bothered her that Kevin hadn’t offered her a chair. Maggie was not a stickler for etiquette and wasn’t offended on behalf of Miss Manners. If not for the lengths she had taken to prove Kevin’s innocence, she doubted she would have noticed his incivility. Although Kevin didn’t know the scope of her investigation, he had a general idea. If nothing else, he knew she had talked to three of the people who knew Mac best. Yet, when she showed up to his house, he pouted and lied to her.

  And what about that lie? She conceded that Kevin could have obtained the money irrespective of Mac. But why remain so secretive? If he had gotten the money through illegal means, then why lie? After all, he had no problem admitting to stealing those invisible weed eaters.

  Maggie downed the last of the milk and also admitted a harsh truth to herself – she was beginning to think Kevin had killed Mac. Her search for the truth had produced nothing but gossip. So what if Mac had embezzled money from employers? His father had made restitution to the wronged parties. So what if his wife had misrepresented the success of her company? No one wants to admit failure. So what if Bug and Dottie couldn’t agree on the use of security cameras? People forget or misremember. So what if Rhonda had never forgiven Mac for cheating on her? If she was that upset, she wouldn’t have waited thirty years to exact her revenge.

  As for Luke, she had convinced herself that she hadn’t shared details of her sleuthing with him for the same reason she had kept the truth from her parents – she didn’t want to cause unnecessary worry. Now, she doubted herself. She liked Luke and viewed him as someone with whom she could develop a long-term relationship. He had supported her the night of Barnaby’s disappearance and had expressed concern for her well-being. Still, they hadn’t been dating for long and it’s not as if he would develop a peptic ulcer if he knew what she was up to.

  Maggie looked at the clock. It was almost three. She rinsed her glass in the kitchen sink and returned to bed. As she drifted back to sleep, she admitted one more truth to herself – Kevin had means, motive, and opportunity.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Maggie arrived at work the next day sleepy and in no mood for Tyler’s insults. When one of the advertising sales ladies asked for directions to a locale out in the county, Maggie said, “I don’t care to help you. What’s the address?”

  Before she could answer, Tyler snorted and said to the salesperson, “She said she didn’t care to help you, so I would ask somebody else.”

  Maggie eyed Tyler. “It’s an expression of speech. You might say, ‘I don’t mind to help you,’ while around here, we say, ‘I don’t care to help you.’”

  “It’s not the same. I don’t care means –”

  Maggie cut off Tyler and again asked the advertising rep, “What’s the address?”

  “It’s 1081 Dry Lick Road.”

  “Then it’s a little more than a mile up Dry Lick,” Maggie said.

  “Really? That’s what those numbers mean?” she asked.

  “Yeah, our addresses are based on a mapping system.”

  Before the sales rep could respond, Tyler once more insinuated himself into the conversation. “I highly doubt that.”

  Maggie swiveled her chair around so she could face Tyler. “That’s exactly what those numbers mean. Watch your odometer some time.”

  Tyler snickered. “I don’t need to watch anything. No one around here is smart enough to have come up with such a clever mapping system.”

  “I didn’t say we invented the system, Tyler, but we use it. We didn’t invent electricity, either, but look around.” Maggie extended her arms, “There are lights everywhere. Don’t you ever get tired of putting us down? And don’t you realize how rude it is to constantly tell everyone that they’re stupid and uncouth? You’re the one who’s uncivilized, Tyler, because civil people realize it’s rude to go to someone’s house and insult the curtains. And that’s what you do. You’ve come to our home and insulted everything we do or say.” After speaking her mind, Maggie turned in the chair and said to the sales lady, “Just watch your odometer and you’ll know when you’ve driven a mile. Then, you’ll need to check for the house numbers, which will be displayed on the house or on the mail box. They have to display them.” She indulged in one more glance at Tyler, “It’s the law. We have those, too.”

  Tyler ran his hands across his reddening face and continued to look at Maggie, who turned her attention to formatting a news release. Before she could become engrossed in her work, she received two emails. One, from someone in the composing department, read, “Good job. Somebody needed to put the jerk in his place.” The other read, “Yes, I worked with Mac.”

  Maggie repeatedly read the five words and wrestled with an internal demon. Less than twelve hours earlier, she had admitted that the investigation was going nowhere and acknowledged Kevin’s probable guilt. Now, she faced a possible lead. She took a walk around the press room to clear her head, but with little success. Three other co-workers stopped her and extended congratulations on giving Tyler a piece of her mind. Maggie accepted their words with a half-smile. When she returned to her desk, she again read the email.

  “I have to do this,” she mumbled. “I’ve come this far.”

  She clicked on reply, wrote, “Would you be willing to meet me?” and hit send.

  After enjoying lunch at the Chinese restaurant with Luke, Maggie returned to the office in a better mood. Although she hadn’t come to terms with her conscious decision to exclude him from the reality of her investigation, she also acknowledged that seeing him generated an excitement in her that she hadn’t felt in quite some time. Described by some as too picky when it came to men, Maggie knew what she liked and she liked Luke. As she walked into the newsroom, Joe beckoned for her to come to his office. He could not conceal his happiness.

  “I heard about your verbal beat down of Tyler.”

  Maggie slumped against the door. “It was not a beat down. Believe me, it doesn’t even compare to your melee with him from a couple weeks ago, so I don’t know why everyone’s making a big deal.”

  “Perhaps because it came from a nice person such as yourself and because, unlike me, you retained your composure. Or so I’ve been told.”

  “It won’t do any good. I’m sure he’ll be making fun of our place names or our obesity rates or our vernacular by deadline. Heck, maybe he’ll treat us to a trifecta of scorn.”

  Joe agreed with her prediction and Maggie went to her desk. After unlocking her computer, she instinctively checked her email and found three new messages including one that read, “I’ll meet you, but off the record. Nothing I say can make its way into the newspaper.”

  Maggie couldn’t believe the mystery messenger had responded so quickly. Hoping the person was still online, Maggie composed another message. “When can you meet me?”

  She hadn’t allowed herself to hope this would lead to anything, but now she felt the optimism developing in her chest. She couldn’t focus on her work. She could do nothing but watch her email for updates. After wasting minutes staring at the screen, she began typing a letter to the editor for Joe. All things considered, Maggie found the letter to be well-written and lucid. But it had been typed in all caps on an old typewriter with a missing letter O. Or maybe, she thought to herself, the author doesn’t know the difference between zero and O. Just as she finished the letter, a message popped u
p in the lower right-hand corner of her screen. Before she could click on it, Tyler appeared at her desk.

  “Maggie, I want to thank you for educating me on the county’s mapping system.”

  “What?” a disbelieving Maggie asked.

  “You know, earlier, when we were talking about directions. I wanted to thank you. Now, maybe I won’t get lost so often.”

  “Oh, uh, you’re welcome, Tyler. Any time.”

  “As the saying goes, we learn something every day.”

  Tyler took his seat and Maggie wondered if he planned to thank her for educating him on his rudeness. But as soon as she read the message, Tyler disappeared from her thoughts. “I’ll meet you tomorrow in the Jasper library at noon. I know what you look like. I’ll find you.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Although Maggie’s photo had been appearing alongside her column for years, it always startled her when strangers approached her at the grocery store or doctor’s office. Sometimes, they referred to her only as “the girl that writes for the paper.” Other times, they knew her name and remembered tidbits from past columns including her phobia of ventriloquists and her fascination with retaining walls. Yet, her status as a minor celebrity never made her feel apprehensive. That is, it didn’t until she walked into the Jasper library for her meeting with the phantom emailer.

  As Maggie entered the building and approached the front desk, she couldn’t help but feel that everyone was staring at her. She recognized the folly of her thoughts. As far as she knew, only one of the dozen or so people milling about the shelves of books or employing the bank of computers anticipated her arrival. But she had no way of identifying that one person. Could it be the heavy-set man flipping through a magazine or maybe the bespectacled woman slumping in a chair?

  I can’t stand here all day, Maggie said to herself, I have to keep moving or I’ll attract attention. That’s when she saw her. Maggie didn’t know who she had been expecting to find, but it wasn’t the wild-haired woman who locked eyes with her from the corner of the room. Maggie didn’t like to be rude, even in thought, but the lady’s hair reminded her of the wig Edie had worn with her witch costume at Halloween. The black, platinum, and ash-colored ringlets grew out of the woman’s head like roots from a tree. Maggie wondered if the hair felt heavy and longed to touch it.