Maggie Box Set

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  At the door to her home, Maggie knocks so hard it rattles glass in the side window. No one comes to the door. Her knuckles are smarting, so she pounds the door with her palm. When that doesn’t work, she stalks back to Bess and honks the horn, long and loud, over and over.

  Maggie has just given up on the horn and is returning to the door when Leslie finally steps onto the porch.

  “What do you want? I was sleeping.” Leslie crosses her arms over a perky chest. Boob job, Maggie realizes.

  “Our contract ended today. You were supposed to be out at eleven a.m.”

  “Sorry, but no. I emailed you about staying two more nights. You said yes. And I sent you the money for it.”

  Maggie scowls. That isn’t the same answer as earlier. “Two more nights? That’s news to me. And I didn’t receive any payment.”

  “Check your PayPal.”

  Maggie had turned off PayPal notifications long ago. She hates all the services that insist on emailing her if someone so much as farts in their app. She’ll have to look at it later. But she’s standing her ground now. “I need you to pack up and vacate my home.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “Let’s just call it a misunderstanding, as long as you leave.”

  “I’ll do no such thing.”

  “You’re a squatter.”

  “I’m a renter, and I’ll call 911 if you continue to threaten me.”

  “I haven’t threatened you.”

  “Are you calling me a liar again?”

  “I’ll be back. Don’t make me bring a locksmith.”

  The woman shuts Maggie’s own door in her face.

  Ten

  Maggie leaves the compound, her emotions in a jumble, Louise riding shotgun. She has no destination in mind. The wind through the windows blows her hair up and around her head and face. She holds it back with one hand and steers with the other. Moors & McCumber’s “Take Me Away” is just loud enough for her to hear it over the road noise. Her heart pounds along with the upright bass. The song is a perfect match for her confusion, tension, and grief.

  She cruises east on Highway 290. When she realizes she’s almost to Brenham, she decides to reverse her course. She doesn’t have any interest in heading into town. As she swings around into westbound traffic, she notices a long line in front of a small tan brick building. A black sign reads TRUTH. She’s heard of the place, a sort of mecca for worshipers at the altar of Texas barbecue.

  Truth. She rolls the word around in her mind. Truth. The truth is Maggie’s all kinds of screwed up. She accelerates, putting her mind on autopilot as Bess eats up the miles. She takes a left past Burton. The truck attacks the dips like a heavy car on a roller coaster. Six Flags Over Texas. The Runaway Mine Train ride. In middle school, she’d endured the heat and the lines to ride it seven times in a row on a class trip to the amusement park. She loved the sensation of jerking around corners, diving down descents, struggling up hills. Always taken by surprise by the unknown in front of her.

  She doesn’t love it so much now that it’s her life. She needs a destination. Enough of this floating. It’s killing her slowly.

  The smell of something charred fills her nostrils. Suddenly, she knows exactly where she’s headed, and she doesn’t have to change her course to get there.

  As she rounds a sharp curve, she comes upon parked vehicles lining the road on both sides, as far as her eyes can see. Brake lights flash, and she slows Bess. Her grief sharpens. All these people are here to rubberneck at the site of Gary’s death. In the distance, there’s a grayish mess where there used to be a house. A place where she spent countless hours with him. Working. Laughing. Talking. Not talking. Naked, clothed. Mostly happy. A refuge for them both. A place where they’d taken care of each other over the years, mostly in blessed seclusion. A friendship, she realizes.

  Now it’s gone. He’s gone. They’re gone.

  She’s close enough to see the crime scene tape, the county vehicles of the investigators, and the mass of bodies pushing up against the fence. Snapping pictures. Leaving balloons, stuffed animals, flowers, and other tributes hanging from the barbed wire at the edge of his property. As she passes, she sees grief-stricken, tear-streaked faces. Faces well-known to her in some cases. Neighbors. Customers. Friends. People who are part of the landscape of their community. Some trigger frissons of recognition she doesn’t have time to pin down. Others, she can’t place at all. Nonlocals. But Gary is a megastar. She wonders how far people have come to be here. Are they making a pilgrimage, creating a shrine to a fallen hero?

  Then a voluptuous woman with long wavy red hair turns and catches her eye. There’s no doubt Maggie knows her. Jenny. The hookup who’d taken her affair with Gary a little more seriously than he’d expected. The one who’d shown up at Maggie’s house to roust Gary from bed. Only Gary hadn’t cowed and begged Jenny’s forgiveness. He’d told her to get lost. That between her and Maggie there was no choice and never had been.

  Jenny had been humiliated. Now, she just looks enraged. It chills Maggie. The redhead flips Maggie off, and her lips stretch back over her teeth as she screams something at Maggie.

  Too late, Maggie realizes Bess sticks out like a sore thumb. People are leaning toward one another and heads are turning. Eyes are staring, fingers are pointing, more mouths are shouting. Maggie Killian, they’re saying. His lover, they’re saying. His killer, they’re speculating.

  Her breathing grows shallow. It was a mistake coming here. How could she have thought she’d find sanctuary and a balm for her emotions? She wants to pass the cars in front of her, get the hell out of Dodge, but traffic is gridlocked in both directions. She’s trapped. Watched.

  Icy pins prick her hands. She’s gripping the steering wheel too hard. She stretches them one at a time, keeping her gaze straight ahead on the bumper of the car in front of her, as she tries to wish herself home.

  Eleven

  Back at Michele’s, Maggie emails her to-do list to her laptop and adds to it:

  Find out about Gary’s service.

  Evict Leslie.

  Tell Michele about Tom.

  She’d decided against calling law enforcement about Tom on the way home. Michele would want to be with her when she makes that call. Or make it for her. And Maggie will wait for Michele.

  Now that she’s back with her phone, it’s time to change her phone number. She pauses with her finger on the number for T-Mobile. It feels so irrevocable. And Hank hasn’t called in more than twelve hours. Maybe it’s unnecessary? But if history teaches anything, she knows one of these days he will call, and she can’t guarantee she’ll have the strength to resist him when he does.

  Asleep at Maggie’s feet, Louise snores like a braying donkey.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  Maggie calls T-Mobile and orders the change. They try to talk her into driving to Austin for a new SIM card at a T-Mobile store, but she doesn’t have the time or patience. They promise it will arrive within a few days. She’ll just have to stay strong until then, if Hank even calls.

  With a storm in her chest, she returns to working on her list, detailing steps to take in the restoration of the Coop. Her fingers pound the keys like hail on a tin roof.

  “What’s into you?” Michele walks into her kitchen.

  “My life is in the shitter.”

  “Colorful, but not specific.”

  “We’ll just go with the big-ticket items.” Maggie ticks her forefinger. “Lee County is joining forces with Fayette County because of the common links between the vandalism at Flown the Coop and the fire at Gary’s.”

  “What common links?”

  “Me. And their earlier suspicions about Gary.”

  “I don’t get it. Have they even ruled out an accident at his place?”

  “I know, right?” Maggie pushes her laptop back. “They claim there’s email—only I didn’t write them and have never seen them—on Gary’s phone, between us, that makes it look like he dumped me
and I went to his house to threaten him.”

  “What?”

  “It’s nuts. And the texts between us confirming our plans? They’re not there.”

  “Did they Mirandize you?”

  “Negative. But Junior most definitely tried to surprise me into incriminating myself.”

  “I hope you told him you wouldn’t talk to him without a lawyer.”

  “You would have been proud of me. As soon as the bullshit started, I did. But I’d probably talked too long before then anyway, because I thought it was just about the Coop.”

  “I’ll call them. They’re only to communicate with you through me. Promise me.”

  “You already have so much on your plate.”

  “Please. You’re my best friend.”

  “You’re mine. And the best best friend ever. When you do call them, we’ve got something to offer. Gary’s manager, Tom Clarke, pulled me over about an hour ago. He was acting crazy, saying he went to see Gary last night but that he was long gone.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, Gary had called him in to fire him, but Tom says they never met.”

  “So Gary didn’t fire him?”

  “I’m not sure. I told Tom to call the cops. He said he was afraid they’d arrest him. For some reason he thought he should come to me. But when I wasn’t sympathetic, he changed his mind and left in a big hurry.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I have no idea. But I thought you’d want to tell law enforcement about it when you call.”

  “Thank you. Any more big-ticket items?”

  “Lots, but I’ll only bore you with one. My tenant is a Grade A bitch and a liar.”

  “Leslie? She’s been nothing but nice every time I’ve met her.”

  “Then she hates me for some unknown reason.”

  “She loves your place and the town. She wants to move here.”

  “Well, she practically is. She’s insisting she extended for two more nights and paid me for them.”

  “Did she not?”

  “My memory is that she was supposed to have left this morning.”

  “By memory you mean . . .”

  “The stuff you get from the thing between your ears.”

  “Right. Well, do you have a written contract?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s take a look.”

  Maggie scrolls through her email.

  “Do you not have it saved to your hard drive?”

  “I thought I did. I was looking for it before you came over here.”

  “What about your deleted items?”

  Maggie grimaces. “I had a lot of time on my hands in Wyoming. I cleaned out my inboxes, filed stuff, deleted things, and, um, I emptied the trash.”

  “And you’ve searched?”

  Maggie types Leslie in her search box and presses enter. Nothing comes up. She tries rent and gets random emails with parent, torrent, and even Trent Reznor, but no rental agreements. “Nothing. Not even the email where she asked for an extension and claims I told her she could stay.”

  “Mierda. You and your obsession for deleting.”

  “Now is not the time to cure me of my ills.”

  “Okay, so was she through Airbnb or HomeAway? Or what’s that other one?”

  “It doesn’t matter what it is. I did it through Craigslist.”

  “You what?”

  “I did a direct VRBO. I didn’t want to pay the fees to those online shysters.”

  “Oh, Maggie.”

  Maggie holds up her hand. “Did I not already tell you now is not the time?”

  Michele makes a zipping motion over her lips. “So you’ve got no contract other than your memory?”

  “We had a contract.”

  “Which, if you didn’t make her leave this morning, is extended and ratified.”

  “I have Leslie’s verbal assurance now that she’s moving out in two days.”

  “Verbal contracts are binding. If you accept it, you have a new contract. Otherwise, you’re stuck trying to prove up your old one, and force her out now. Which is next to impossible, practically speaking.”

  “This blows.”

  Michele’s eyes light up. “Change of subject. Let’s search for email between you and Gary. We can prove Junior was wrong. Or lying.”

  “They can’t lie to me, can they? That’s like entrapment.”

  “Sounds like, but isn’t.” Michele snorts. “Perfectly legal.”

  “It shouldn’t be.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir.”

  Maggie types Gary as her search, and a slew of emails appear, dating back for weeks. “This doesn’t make sense. We haven’t emailed each other.”

  Michele and Maggie scan them together. Maggie’s stomach turns over. They’re the emails Junior told her about.

  “I’ve never seen these before. And I deleted all my other email with him while I was in Wyoming. I would have deleted these, too. These are new. Even though some of them are before then. This doesn’t make sense.”

  “Girl, who have you pissed off?”

  This topic has come up more than once in the last week. “I seem to get that question a lot.”

  Twelve

  The doorbell chimes. Louise and Gertrude race toward the door, toenails sliding on the tile, barking crazily.

  Maggie shuts her laptop, thankful for the interruption. “You’re popular today. Me, Boyd, and now another guest.”

  “Introvert hell.” Michele heads for the door. “It’s probably Rashidi’s friends. Well, his and Katie’s. They’re staying for a few days.”

  “Who’s Katie?”

  “My law school roommate. I’ve told you about her. And Emily used to work with her.”

  “Right. I remember.”

  In the entryway, Michele greets a woman with an island lilt to her voice like Rashidi’s and a man with a Texas drawl.

  Maggie ponders feeling guilty that her goats are still boarding at Lumpy’s place. The former Texas Ranger lives next door to a property Michele inherited from Gidget and deeded over to Maggie. Lumpy’s a soft touch, and Maggie knows her babies are in good hands. Still, they probably think she’s deserted them. They deserve to be home, eating the treats she bought them.

  Her thoughts are interrupted when a man enters the great room. He’s blond and built. Shorter than Maggie normally goes for, but magnetic in a Top Gun sort of way. Michele follows him. Bringing up the rear is a black woman in spike-heeled sandals and a Lycra sundress appropriate for the heat but nothing else, trying not to fall over Louise and Gertrude. She’s eye-popping.

  And Maggie’s eyes do pop. Because she knows her. Ava Butler, her old nemesis and the annoyingly omnipresent voice on her radio. The one whose singles Maggie belted out at karaoke in Amarillo.

  “What the actual fuck?” Maggie hears someone say, then realizes it’s her.

  Ava’s male companion stops short, assessing Maggie with a professional once-over, like he’s deciding if she’s about to physically assault someone. Okay, fine, yeah, she wants to. Ava-fucking-Butler, here in Michele’s house?

  Ava looks away from the dogs tripping her up. She spies Maggie and hesitates for a beat, then bursts out laughing. Cackling, really. She bends over with her hands on her thighs and literally howls.

  Maggie pushes back from the kitchen table where she and Michele had been working. “It’s been a long time.”

  Ava straightens and wipes her eyes. “A long hard time for you, I hear, and I believe it, the way you look.”

  “Fuck you.” Maggie wants to put her sunglasses and jacket back on to hide the fire damage, but she’s not giving Ava the pleasure.

  “You wish.”

  Michele holds up both hands. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What’s going on here?”

  The man crosses his arms and a smile spreads over his face. “Shh, Michele, it’s just getting good. Let’s see where it goes.”

  Michele tries again. “I take it you know Ava and Collin?”

  Maggie
heads for the liquor cabinet and her bottle of Balcones. “FYI, I’m off Balcones, Michele. I drink Koltiska now.”

  “Duly noted. And off topic. Answer my question, since you’ve insulted my houseguest.”

  “Cussed her, too,” Collin adds.

  “You not helping, baby.” Ava slips into the island patois Maggie remembers well. It made her want to slap Ava back then in Waco. It makes her want to tackle her and put her in a choke hold now.

  Maggie pours a generous double. She holds it up in a mock toast toward Ava. “Ava and I met while doing musical theater in Waco. Back when she was just a backstabbing nobody.”

  Ava curtsies. “And you a wash-up coke-snorting has-been.”

  “Fuck you again.”

  “Wait,” Michele says. “I went to a musical theater in Waco, when I was there for my law school reunion. An actress was murdered and the show was called off after act one. And you guys”—she points at them—“you guys were in it! How did I not realize that until now? Maggie, I’ve known you for years and never placed you in that show.”

  “Is that supposed to be a bad thing?” Maggie drawls.

  Michele frowns. “That poor actress who died. So sad. Anyway, you were both incredible!”

  “So you were the one in attendance,” Maggie says.

  “Maggie too wasted to notice if the theater burn down, much less how many people in the audience,” Ava says, and snaps her wrist.

  Michele raises her hand with her palm facing the two women, like a teacher quieting kindergartners. “Enough of that. Maggie, if you’re pouring, does anyone else want one?”

  Collin lifts a finger. “Just like yours, Maggie. And I’m Collin, by the way. Ava’s baby daddy.”

  North of Dallas, his voice tells her. South of Oklahoma. “You poor, poor man.”

  “Lucky man, more like it,” Ava says.

  “I remember the lucky man you had when I knew you. That hot CSI actor. Really hot.”

  Ava switches out of her accent and suddenly sounds boringly Middle American. “The man’s a slut. He’d fuck a dog if that was all that was handy.”