Murder at Catfish Corner: A Maggie Morgan Mystery (6 page)

Chapter Nine

By the time
Maggie, Robert, and Boone reached the porch, Lena had come outside to join
them.

“Boone, you ought
to stay and eat with us,” Robert said. “Maggie went to the chicken house and
got our supper.”

“I’ve been
putting up kraut all day and when I can, I don’t cook,” Lena explained. “I try
not to make a habit of eating out, but sometimes it’s easier.”

“Especially when
she’s buying,” Robert said, grinning at his daughter.

“I don’t know,”
Boone objected. “I’m already walking off with a half a bushel of tomatoes. I
can’t take your supper.”

“There’s enough
chicken in this bucket to feed all four of us,” Maggie said. “We have sides,
too. KFC’s mashed potatoes are really good, especially if you douse them in
gravy.”

“Well, in that case,” Boone said.

Maggie removed
the skin from a fried chicken breast, praying Boone wouldn’t remind her of the
reason for his visit. If everything went right, she planned to ask him what he
had remembered while helping him to his truck. And only then would she fulfill
her promise to Sylvie and tell her parents that she was looking into the
circumstances surrounding Hazel Baker’s death. As so often happens, events did
not transpire as Maggie had hoped.

“Oh,” Boone said
as he crumbled a biscuit into his plate of food. “I didn’t get to finish
telling you about that night.”

“What night?”
Lena asked.

“The night Hazel
Baker died,” Boone said.

“That’s right,”
Robert said. “I remember reading in the paper that you were the one that found
her.”

“I did, I did. It
was not an experience I like to think about, but there was something I didn’t think
to tell Maggie that day she came to my house.”

Lena stared at Maggie.
“You went to his house?”

“Later, Mom,
later.” Maggie asked Boone, “What did you want to tell me?”

“I remembered
that I saw something that night when I got up to make water.” Boone moved in
his chair so that he faced Robert. “I take those fluid pills for my heart and
they make me go to the bathroom a lot.” Addressing Maggie, he said, “When I got
up that night, I saw headlights over at Hazel’s. Then a car pulled out of her
place. I thought that was kindly odd. She don’t get much company and it was
late. But I figured that maybe somebody got lost and pulled off and turned
around in her driveway. It could be that or,” Boone turned over his hand, “it
could be something else.”

Maggie looked at
the bespectacled octogenarian and asked, “Do you always wear your glasses?”

“Maggie!”

“I just want to
make sure, Mom.”

“It’s all right.
I ain’t no spring chicken. I understand, I understand. Those police asked me
the same thing the morning they came to the house. They didn’t think I should
have been able to see something floating in the lake from my porch.” Boone
again spoke to Robert. “I was afraid they aimed to blame me. Me living right
beside her and all. But, I’m here to tell you, I saw her and I saw a car at her
place that night. I can see real good with my glasses and I put them on that
night when I got up to make water. Something I ate went down wrong and I chewed
on a Tums before I went back to bed. I put on my glasses when I was getting the
Tums. I wanted to make sure I didn’t take the wrong pill. The good Lord knows I
have more medicine bottles in my cabinet than they have at the drugstore. And
when I was taking that Tums, I saw car lights over at Hazel’s.”

“Are you sure
this wasn’t a dream?”

“Maggie,” Lena
pressed her thumb into her forefinger, “I’m this close to sending you to your
room.”

“No, it wasn’t
something I dreamt,” Boone answered. “And I wasn’t confused by sleep, neither.
I was chewing a cherry-flavored Tums when I saw the lights.”

“Do you know
what time this happened?” Maggie asked.

“No, I did not
look at the clock, but I wish I had.”

“Well, you had
no idea this information might be important.” Maggie paused. “Earl David’s
property sits between your house and Hazel’s. Are you sure you didn’t see a car
turning at the pay lake? Or maybe it was a reflection from the road? Or –”

“Maggie,” Lena
scolded. “He’s not on the witness stand and you’re not Matlock.”

“I understand
why she’s asking these questions,” Boone said, “but I know what I saw that
night. First, I saw the headlights and, when the car turned out of the driveway
and started driving away, I saw the taillights. And I know it was at Hazel’s.
The lights wasn’t close enough to be at Earl David’s.”

Maggie
envisioned the events Boone explained as he and Robert compared and contrasted
the flavors of Levi Garrett and Beech Nut chewing tobacco. After supper, they
saw Boone off. Before the old man had even backed out of their driveway, Lena
said to Maggie, “Now is later.”

Maggie provided
her parents with a timeline of her activities from the day Stella contacted her
to her conversation with Sylvie Johnson. When Maggie finished, Lena threw up
her hands and walked out of the room. Robert shook his head and asked, “Didn’t
you learn your lesson last time?”

She didn’t have
time to ponder lessons learned. When she arrived at her house, a light flashing
on the telephone alerted her to a message. She pressed play and heard an
unfamiliar voice saying, “Hi, I found your name in the book. I need to talk to
you. This is Earnest Baker.”

Chapter Ten

Maggie met
Earnest a few days later in Jasper at the Dinner Bucket Diner. Before they
ordered, she asked him, “How did you know my name?”

“When Stella
called you Maggie that rang a bell, but I didn’t realize why until I was
looking through the paper and saw your picture. I read your articles all the
time. I loved the one about how you finally realized Dick Button the ice skater
was not the same person as Dick Butkus the football player. Hazel loved ice
skating. That’s the only reason I know who Dick Button is.” Earnest chuckled.
“She loved football, too, and, actually, that’s the only reason I know who Dick
Butkus is. Except for basketball and NASCAR, I don’t care for sports, but Hazel
would watch any kind of televised sporting event. I always thought she had to
be the only woman in the world who liked ice skating and football, but now that
I’ve met you, I guess I was wrong about that.”

Maggie thanked
him for his compliment and Earnest stared at her as if he expected her to say
something else. She couldn’t think of anything to add and was grateful when the
waitress stopped for their orders. Maggie had planned to deviate from her usual
Dinner Bucket fare of pork chops and potato salad and go with a garden salad, but
when Earnest asked for soup beans, cornbread, and salmon patties, she changed
her mind.

“Can I have soup
beans, cornbread, and fried potatoes?” she asked the agreeable waitress.

“I love soup
beans,” Earnest said as the waitress walked away. “But bless Brandi’s heart,
she can’t get the hang of cooking them.”

Maggie had no
interest in hearing about Brandi’s lacking culinary skills, so she said, “On
the message, you said you needed to talk to me. About what?”

“I wanted to
talk to you for a couple reasons. I wanted to apologize for Brandi’s behavior
and mine for that matter. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that
you were an innocent bystander who was dragged into this by Stella.”

“Apology
accepted.”

“The second
thing is that I couldn’t help but think about what Stella said. I know she
thinks I killed Hazel. Let me make one thing clear, I didn’t have anything to
do with her death. I don’t believe anybody killed her. I think her drowning was
an accident. Stella needs to accept that and move on. But I’ve known the family
for as long as I can remember. I was with Hazel for years and we were a second
set of parents to Stella’s daughter. So, if I can do anything to help bring the
family peace, I’ll do it.”

Before Maggie
could ask another question, Earnest said, “I’m doing this even though I don’t
have to.”

Maggie once more
got the feeling he wanted her to offer additional comment. Instead, she asked, “How
would you characterize your divorce? Was it friendly? Contentious?”

“I thought it
went as smoothly as a divorce could. I didn’t fight Hazel. I gave her
everything she wanted.”

“Including part
of your pension?”

“Yes. She said
she had earned it and I couldn’t disagree with her.”

“Stella says you
didn’t want to share the pension.”

“No, that’s a
lie, that’s a lie,” Earnest shook his head so fast and so forcefully that
Maggie suspected he was hurting himself. “That is a lie.”

The waitress
brought their meals and Maggie noticed Earnest’s hands trembling as he brought
a spoonful of beans to his mouth. When he started eating a salmon patty, Maggie
noticed that he nibbled on his food in a manner that reminded her of a cartoon
mouse. Suddenly, Earnest put his silverware on his plate and said, “It wasn’t
Hazel’s fault I fell in love with Brandi, so I saw no reason to hurt her more
than I already had. Not that I ever planned to hurt her. I thought we’d grow
old together, retire, buy an RV, and drive cross country. That was our plan. To
pack up and hit the road. But when I met Brandi, things changed. That’s when I
realized Hazel wasn’t my soul mate. Brandi was.”

If our soul
mates can be thirty-some years younger than us, thought Maggie, then maybe my recently-potty-trained
soul mate is waking from his nap and getting ready to ride his Big Wheel.
Wonder how we’ll meet? She put that out of her mind and asked, “I understand
Brandi was your housekeeper?”

Earnest, who had
resumed imitating a ravenous vermin, nodded and said, “She stopped by to clean
our house once a week. Bless her heart, the poor thing, she was struggling. Her
ex-husband, they were married at the time, wouldn’t work. They couldn’t afford
daycare, so she cleaned house. That way, she could keep Paradice with her while
she worked. As it so happens, I had hurt my back and was off work for a few
weeks. We got to talking and fell in love.”

Maggie tried to
imagine a romance budding between a well-past middle-age man laid up with a
hurt back and a fiery young house cleaner, and in full view of a child.

“I guess it’s
true what they say about love blossoming when we least expect it,” Maggie said.
“When did you last talk to Hazel?”

“I’d go months
without seeing or talking to her.”

That’s not what
I asked, Maggie thought to herself. To Earnest, she said, “Do you remember the
last time you saw her?”

Earnest kept his
eyes on the salmon patty he had harpooned with a fork. “I ran into her at the
post office a week or two or maybe even three before she died. I bet I hadn’t
seen Hazel or even talked to her a handful of times since the divorce. That’s
what I don’t understand about Stella. It’s not like me and Hazel were fighting.
You don’t just up and kill somebody you haven’t talked to in months.” Earnest
picked up his cup of diet soda with both hands and took a drink. “Of course,
Stella talked to her every day.”

“I don’t understand
what you’re trying to say.”

Earnest turned
his head downward and said out of one side of his mouth, “Stella wasn’t happy
when their mommy left her house to Hazel. She thought she should have left it
to Dennis. But their mommy knew he couldn’t take care of a house and she knew
Hazel would take care of the house and Dennis.”

“Dennis lived
with their mother?”

“Yes.”

“So, why doesn’t
he live in that house now?”

“Me and Hazel had
to pay the taxes and insurance on that house and we thought it was only right
for Dennis to pay rent. Stella wouldn’t have it. She found that old trailer
down the holler that belonged to one of their cousins and talked them into renting
it out to Dennis. But I did feel bad when he had to leave the house, so I mentioned
to Hazel that we should get him to take care of it for us. You know, I could
have come in on that house, but I let Hazel have it free and clear. It was her
mommy’s house and she was raised in it. I wouldn’t make a claim on it. That
wouldn’t have been right.”

Maggie struggled
to pay attention to Earnest, but a little voice in her head that repeated “this
man is unbelievable” kept distracting her. She wanted to ask Earnest if they
paid Dennis for the privilege of performing maintenance work on a house he had
lived in his entire life before being evicted by his sister and if Earnest had
heard himself proclaim not two minutes earlier that Dennis couldn’t take care
of the house. She decided to steer clear of insinuating herself into family
drama and said, “Let me see if I have this straight. Are you suggesting that
Stella harbored resentment for years over Dennis’ housing situation and decided
to finally exact her revenge early one morning beside a pay lake?”

“No, I’m just
pointing out that Stella had about as good of a reason to kill Hazel as I did.”

Maggie stared at
him, thinking to herself, he doesn’t realize he just admitted that he had
motive to murder Hazel. After he left, Maggie remained in the booth and looked
over her notes. She had documented how his hands shook during her and Stella’s
surprise visit to his house and made note of how they trembled during lunch. She
wondered if it was due to a medical condition and wrote a reminder to ask
Stella about that as well as what she considered his self-satisfied demeanor
and his accusations against Stella. Just as she closed her notepad, Seth slid
into the booth across from her.

“Was that a
working lunch?” he asked.

“That’s none of
your business. And where did you come from?”

Seth gestured to
the back of the diner. “I’ve been here the whole time. I figured a crack
investigator such as yourself would have seen me.”

He has me there,
Maggie thought to herself.

“How’s the
investigation coming along? You need some help?”

“No, I do not.”

A crooked smile,
the feature that had first attracted Maggie to Seth, appeared on his face. “I
know you can do this. If there’s something to find, you can find it. Heck,
you’ve done it before. But you’ve already been accused of trespassing. If you
don’t stop this now, what else is going to happen?”