Maggie Box Set

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  “He’s got an alibi. And there’s no physical evidence to tie him to the damage.”

  “Good.” She stops, bracing her hands on the bridge railing for a moment to look up Clear Creek. No little boy fishing today. She walks on.

  “But there’s nothing we can tie to anyone else either. Tons of fingerprints, of course.”

  “Touching the merchandise is encouraged.”

  He sighs. “I wish you had security cameras. And an alarm system.”

  “I’ll install them when I get back. Did you hear I have a new competitor down the road that’s bragging about putting me out of business?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Rickey Sayles. He tried to buy the place from me. I said no.”

  “You have reason to think he’d do this?”

  Reaching the Tahoe, she leans against the warm metal. “Hell, I don’t know. Doesn’t sound too friendly, though.”

  “Got it. I’ll follow up.” She’ll enjoy Junior hassling him. Serves him right for bad-mouthing her. “Michele’s been out to the store with the insurance adjuster.”

  “Good.”

  “Also, your employee said he doesn’t think things were stolen.”

  The vandals were obviously assholes of very little taste. “Thanks, Junior.”

  “One more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “We need a statement from your rental guest. Leslie. She didn’t answer the door. I, uh, peeked in the windows and didn’t see her. Michele went in. Her stuff was there, but she wasn’t. If you’ll send me her information, I can follow up with her.”

  “As soon as I’m back to my laptop.”

  When she ends the call, Maggie pauses with her hand on the door handle of the Tahoe. She looks at the signage on the building directly in front of her. It reads LAW OFFICE in gold gilt letters flaking at the edges. Why not?

  She enters onto a narrow wooden stairway. At the top, she passes black-and-white photographs depicting Buffalo at the turn of the previous century. Horses hitched in front of a new-looking Occidental. Cattle plodding down a muddy main street. Cowboys sporting waxed moustaches with twisted ends. Beyond the pictures, she finds a door with a glass window warped with age. Maggie puts her nose as close as she can get to the glass without touching it. Through the ripples, she makes out a very short, very pregnant woman squeezing sideways to get behind a reception desk.

  Maggie opens the door.

  The woman tucks bobbed red hair behind mouse-like ears. The hair swings back to her chin. “Good afternoon. Do you have a meeting with John?”

  “I’m hoping to.”

  “Grab yourself a coffee or tea. I’ll see if he’s available. Your name?”

  “Maggie Killian.” Maggie sets up a cup and a hazelnut cream pod, and starts the Keurig. She’s starting to drag. Too much Koltiska last night. The beginning of a song.

  “Oh,” the redhead says in an all-caps tone.

  Maggie keeps her hand on the coffee cup but cuts her eyes to the woman. “Are you Rocky’s wife?” She thinks hard. Her thinker works better on more sleep and less liquor. “Um, Jaycee?”

  “Ye-es,” she says in two syllables.

  Maggie smiles like that’s the best news she’s heard all day. “He talks about you. So nice to meet you.”

  “You’re . . .”

  Maggie waits her out. The one that slept with Chet? The last one to see him before the murder? The whore of Babylon? Take your pick.

  The woman opens her mouth wide like she’s trying to gobble a tennis ball, then snaps it shut. Whatever she was going to say, she thinks better of it. “I’ll check with John.” She waddles out of sight.

  Maggie adds three creamers and as many sugars, stirs, and drinks the coffee in a few quick gulps.

  Jaycee reappears. “He can see you for a few minutes. But one of his daughters has a volleyball game. If this will take longer than that, I’ll need to schedule you for a better time.”

  Maggie throws her coffee cup in the trash. “Perfect.”

  “This way, then.”

  She follows Jaycee down the short hall. The shorter woman backs past the doorway, but her pregnant belly still extends into the entrance to the attorney’s office. Maggie sidles through, bumping into it.

  “So sorry.”

  “No problem. It seems to always get in the way.”

  The man in the office speaks. “That’ll get worse for eighteen years before it gets better.”

  She giggles. “John Fortney, Maggie Killian. Let me know if I can get either of you anything.”

  The man who stands to greet her is even shorter than his pregnant receptionist and half her weight. “Ms. Killian. Please. Have a seat.”

  Jaycee retreats.

  Maggie steps into an office tricked out like a railroad museum. A heavy black metal signal light hangs from the ceiling, its red, yellow, and green lenses dark. Sepia photos chronicle progress across the plains, interspersed with crossing placards and Union Pacific memorabilia. An antique surveyor’s transit is displayed on his desk.

  She gestures around her. “I’m in the business of old stuff. Yours is amazing.”

  “Thanks. My great-great-grandfather came out here to work on the railroad west. Never left. You’re not from around here, though. Am I right?”

  “Texas.”

  “And local gossip links you to a deceased client of mine. Is that why you’re here?”

  “Does a girl have no secrets?”

  “Not in Buffalo, Wyoming. I’m not sure what I can tell you, but I’ll help if I can.”

  Maggie reads her audience. Wedding ring. Family man. Like her late father had been. “As you know, Chet was determined to win custody of his daughter.”

  The lawyer tents his hands and flutters his fingers on the underside of his chin. “Go on.”

  “He was concerned about her. I want to see if there’s anything else I can do for her. It’s what Chet would have wanted.”

  His eyes drill into hers, searching for the hidden truth.

  Maggie holds hers steady.

  “Awful fast.”

  “What?”

  “Your relationship.”

  She looks askance at him. “Haven’t you ever been in love?”

  “No offense, Ms. Killian. You’re a looker. But that doesn’t jive with the Chet I know.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “Talking about his daughter, for one.”

  “I can’t speak to the old Chet. But the one I knew proposed the day after we met.” It feels good to tell the truth. She smiles. “And he loved his daughter.”

  “If he’s even the father. We’ll know in a few days.”

  Maggie admires his photos some more while she deliberates. “If he’s the father, would that make the girl his heir?”

  “It would.”

  “Because he didn’t have a will.”

  “Look, if you’re trying to lay claim to his ranch, you’re out of luck. His mother’s alive, even if this girl doesn’t turn out to be his.”

  “I don’t want his things. I just want to see Chet’s wishes carried out. Frankly, his mother has already moved into the ranch house and is driving his truck. She has no idea she may be losing a ranch and gaining a granddaughter.”

  He spins in his chair and carefully extracts a file folder like a Pick-Up Stick from a credenza stacked eight inches deep with crisscrossing files and papers. He opens it, flips pages, snaps it shut, drops it on his desk, wiggles another out.

  After checking it, he tosses it across the desk to her. “Chet wasn’t going to win any custody case. I told him as much. Lisa had called the cops one too many times on him, with the black eyes and broken ribs to get everyone’s attention. Chet claims she was blaming him for things another man did, some bartender, but he couldn’t prove it.”

  “Chet would never.” Would he? He sure hadn’t hit back when Lisa slapped him in the parking lot of the Bison Inn.

  “He’s won his share of bar fights.”

  “But hit
a woman?”

  “Can’t say. This is all I know.” He taps the papers in front of her.

  She takes her time examining them. It’s a stack of photos of Lisa in hospital gowns. Her hairstyles change over the years, but the damage to her face is much the same over time. Black-and-blue bruising around her eyes. Blood below her nose. Busted lips. Whoever did this to her should pay.

  She shudders. “Thank you for showing them to me, John. You’re right. Lisa’s wouldn’t have let him have custody of their daughter without a fight.”

  The attorney pulls the folder away from her. “Who said anything about Lisa being the mother?”

  Thirty-Two

  Maggie is jacked, like finding-a-missing-Andy-Warhol-painting-in-a-falling-down-shed jacked. Like a-sold-out-concert-with-two-standing-ovations jacked. She runs down the stairs, her bag bouncing against her hip. She’s just blown open Chet’s life and unearthed multiple viable suspects without breaking a sweat. Beth Ann, to get the ranch. Lisa, because of the abuse. God knows who, about the money. And the mystery mama, over custody. While John-the-attorney refused to tell Maggie her identity, the police could subpoena his records. Maggie shouldn’t have to do all the work.

  She needs to call Lacey.

  But as she passes the Century Club she remembers Darrell’s advice: talk to Chet’s crewmates. She’d Googled them earlier. Their headquarters are two hours south in Casper, but she entered the number in her phone. She mulls it over. She’s on a roll. Without more, Lacey might write off her tips. It’s four o’clock, and the Crazy Woman Exploration may close at five.

  In the bright afternoon sunlight, she turns toward the creek. She presses the number and holds the phone to her ear.

  A gravelly male voice says, “Crazy Woman.”

  Maggie flinches. Crazy Woman is ubiquitous in the area because of Crazy Woman Canyon, the natural wonder and local lore immortalized in Jeremiah Johnson. No one knows for sure who the crazy woman was or how the canyon got its name, but every time she hears the words, Maggie takes it as an accusation.

  “I’m trying to locate someone who worked with Chet Moore.” Maggie starts walking up the street along the creek, in the direction of the mountains.

  “Chet?”

  “Yes. He—”

  “Died. Yeah, we know. A shame. Good worker. We hated to lose him.”

  “Yes, me, too.”

  “No, I mean, we hated losing him when he quit. A couple of months ago.”

  A path from the street juts toward the cottonwood-tree-lined creek. Maggie veers onto the trail, her heart thrumming. Chet had quit his job months ago. No one she’d met mentioned it. Maybe none of them know. Somehow it feels important. The morning before she’d jettisoned him at the Bison Inn, he’d said he was coming into big money. She’d chalked it up to braggadocio. But what if it was true? She tried to remember his exact words. He hadn’t said he had already come into money, which he could have truthfully claimed since he’d cashed in on the mortgage proceeds. He said he was about to come into it.

  “Oh yes, that. Such a shame.”

  “So what do you want with his crew?”

  “I, um, was seeing Chet.”

  “Like a girlfriend.”

  “Like that.”

  “Must have been new.”

  Maggie crosses a bridge and rejoins the path on the opposite side, then follows its curves. “Yes. Everything happened . . . so fast. And now I need closure. He loved the guys he worked with. I thought if I talked to a few of them it would . . . help.”

  “Why not—he and Brendan were good buddies.” He rattles off a number. “Got it?”

  Maggie stops in deep shade. The cottonwoods along the creek are as tall as the old lodge pole pines near the Wagon Box Inn in Story. “Hold on.” She types the number in a text to herself then hits send. “Got it. Thank you.”

  “He’s off shift now. If he’s sober, you’ll probably be able to reach him.” He hangs up.

  Maggie smacks her phone in her palm, one, two, three times. The plot is thickening, better than an old episode of The Rockford Files. And she should know, since she rode sofa-shotgun with her dad for every episode. Even if Maggie wasn’t a suspect, even if she wasn’t worried about whether Hank was involved, this shit was impossible to resist.

  She presses the number.

  When Brendan answers, she hears clanking glasses and bottles, and someone shouting, “Another round for me and my friends,” then, “Hello?”

  Maggie heads back toward downtown, walking and talking again, going through the same spiel. Introducing herself, claiming she was Chet’s fiancée. Getting a read on Brendan.

  Halfway through, he interrupts her. “Wait, I know you.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Chet texted me a picture of you.” Ice clinks against glass. “That dickhead hadn’t returned my calls for six weeks but he texted me a naked picture of the woman he wants to marry. You gotta love him.”

  “Did you say naked?”

  “And then you almost ran off the road and killed yourself yesterday.”

  “Oh. You do know me.”

  “May I say Chet has—had—damn good taste.”

  “Do me a favor. Delete it.”

  “Um, yeah, sure.”

  Maggie sighs. She knows he’s saving it.

  “Dammit. Why’d he have to go and die? There was nobody as much fun as Chet.” Brendan’s voice cracks.

  “I know. And he missed hanging out with you. He told me he was planning on calling.”

  “We had elk permits for bow season. We were gonna get our bulls together.”

  “That’s what he said. I just wish I understood why he would have quit such a good job. Especially when he loved working with you.”

  Brendan clears his throat. “’Scuse me? He hated this job. Only did it so he could get a mortgage on his place and pay child support—you do know about Phoebe? Shit. I hope I didn’t spill the beans.”

  Phoebe. Yes! She pumps her fist in the air like she’s marking the beat for a backing band. “Oh yes. All about Phoebe.”

  Maggie hears sounds behind her. Footsteps, maybe? She scans in a three-sixty but sees nothing. The sun sinks early and thoroughly here on the east side of the mountains, and she realizes it’s not nearly as light out as it was when she started her walk. She speeds up.

  “It was a big secret, but I kept it. He was crazy about that kid.” Brendan’s voice thickens. “Of course, finding out so long after the fact, I told him he couldn’t be so sure she was his, but he just dove right in anyway.”

  “He adored her.” Maggie crosses her fingers as she launches into a whopper. “I always figured that’s why he was hoping to come into big money. So he would have something for her.” Again, there’s a noise behind her. She stops to get a better fix on it. The noise stops, too. She grabs the pepper spray from her purse and walks even faster.

  “Exactly. I offered to go in on it with him, but he said he couldn’t drag me into something so risky. Plus he wanted it all for Phoebe.”

  “He said it was a big surprise. Wouldn’t tell me what it was until it was a sure thing.”

  “That’s Chet for you. Cagey SOB. Heart of fuckin’ gold.”

  “Now that he’s gone, I wish I knew. So I could be proud of him for it.”

  “It’ll be public knowledge soon enough, with Phoebe the better for it. Just got the news the day after he died.”

  “And what was it?”

  “He drilled on his ranch.”

  “Drilled. For oil.”

  “Oil. Gas. Whatever he could find.”

  “And?” The sound behind her now seems like a buffalo stampede to her ears. She doesn’t bother to look back. She just takes off running, phone to her ear, pepper spray in hand, and bag whapping her hip.

  Brendan chuckles. “Little Phoebe won’t be rich, but it will keep the ranch in the family for a long, long time.”

  Thirty-Three

  After the call, Maggie stops in the parking lot by t
he baseball field. She has a stitch in her side after her sprint, so she walks in circles with her hands behind her neck, elbows up. When the cramp subsides, she shoves her phone in her bag, then picks up the pepper spray she’d dropped in the street. Moving in a slow circle, she makes sure that whatever was following her stayed down by the creek. Satisfied, she puts the spray away.

  She has signal—a miracle—and asks Siri for the number for the Buffalo Police Department. It’s a few minutes until five. She has a brief moment where she wonders if Michele will be mad at her for calling. This is an exception. She’s calling about other people, not herself.

  “Buffalo PD.” The man sounds annoyed.

  “Detective Lacey, please.”

  Without another word, he transfers her to Lacey’s voicemail.

  “Detective Lacey, this is Maggie Killian. I ran into Lisa Whitefeather and her brothers at the Century Club. And Chet’s mother at Reride. Between the two of them and a few friends, I learned that Lisa has filed multiple battery charges against Chet. Seems like motive for her and her brothers, if you ask me. I also heard Chet quit his job a while back and put a mortgage on his ranch. Turns out he recently found out he has a daughter named Phoebe and was trying to get custody from the baby mama, who can’t be too happy. This isn’t going to be good news to his mother, either, who thinks she’s getting his ranch. But she won’t, because he died without a will, and it will go to his daughter. I could go on. Anyway, my point is that this town is full of suspects who had a motive to kill Chet. I hope you’re investigating them, because I sure as hell had nothing to do with it.”

  She ends the call, feeling like a badass.

  Her adrenaline surge ebbing, her mind returns to Hank. She wants desperately for Lacey to crack the case, to name a killer. Then she’ll ask Hank where he was Thursday night and about the blood on his clothes Friday. He’ll be appalled she was worried about it and tell her some story fitting for a former bull rider who spent years living in truck beds and trailers in rodeo arena parking lots. She’ll laugh at him and her fears.

  And then she’ll be off to Texas and wash her hands of her temporary imprisonment in the wilds of Wyoming, Hank Sibley, and his ridiculous girlfriend.