Murder at Catfish Corner: A Maggie Morgan Mystery Read online

  “I don’t know, Daddy, but don’t worry about it.”

  “Don’t tell us not to worry,” Lena said in a raised voice. “You think somebody killed that woman and now you’ve been threatened, so don’t tell us not to worry.” Lena scooted the chair back from the table and left the kitchen, but not before pouring herself a fresh cup of coffee.

  Maggie waited a few minutes and said, “So, Daddy, can I borrow the car?”

  “I guess,” he said, “but I should cut a keen limb and stripe your legs. Maybe that would whip some sense into you.” Shaking his head, he said, “I don’t know how we raised a young’un that’s so smart and so stupid at the same time.”

  After breakfast, Maggie cleaned her house, gave Barnaby a bath, drove into Jasper, and spent the rest of the day with Luke. They watched a movie that evening, but Maggie didn’t make it through the opening credits before falling asleep. She awakened to the sound of her ringing cell phone and the sight of the words “The End” appearing on the TV.

  She answered the phone only to be greeted by Stella Martin screaming in her ear.

  “Why did you talk to Brother without me?” Stella demanded to know.

  Maggie sat upright on the couch and said, “I do not appreciate your attitude, Stella. Dennis has the right to speak to whomever he chooses. I also have a right to speak to whomever I choose.”

  “Brother is –”

  “An adult. But from the way you treat him, I don’t think you know that. I’m surprised you don’t go to work with him so you can monitor his daily conversations.”

  “There’s no call to be rude.”

  “You’re right, there’s not. You can call me back when you learn how to talk to people.” Maggie pressed end and tossed the phone onto the table.

  “Wow,” Luke said. “What’s gotten you all feisty and fired up?”

  “Specifically, Stella Martin. Generally, losing sleep makes me cranky.” Maggie moved a few inches toward Luke and relaxed in his arms. “I’m sorry I fell asleep. I’m afraid I’m not a good date tonight.”

  “You’re a good date any night.” Luke’s lips had found Maggie’s when her cell phone rang again. “You’d better get that. Stella might have learned how to talk to people.”

  Maggie picked up the phone and said, “Feeling better?”

  The voice on the other end of the line said, “Is this Maggie Morgan?”

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  “It’s Officer Tackett. I took your complaint last night.”

  Maggie closed her eyes and scrunched her face. “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

  “Hey, I’m just calling to let you know that we lucked out. We checked the camera on the ATM machine at the bank across from the newspaper officer. It shows who smashed your window.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Officer Tackett ushered Maggie and Luke into the Jasper Police Department.

  “Give me a sec and I’ll pull up the video,” he said as he logged onto a laptop.

  Luke leaned against a wall and said, “I have to say, I’m impressed with how quickly you moved on this case. How did you obtain the ATM video so fast?”

  “You can thank Seth, I mean Detective Heyward, for that.” Officer Tackett looked at Maggie. “You two must be good friends. Did you go to school together?”

  Maggie noticed Luke crossing his arms. “Something like that,” she said to the officer.

  “Well, here you go,” the young patrolman said. “We tried to get the license plate number off the car, but we couldn’t because of the angle of the camera. Watch it and let me know if you recognize this person.”

  Maggie peered at the screen, which showed a car stopping in front of the parking lot. A baseball bat-wielding figure bounced out of the car, smashed Maggie’s window, and tossed a piece of paper inside before dashing back to the parked car.

  Luke moved from the wall to Maggie’s side. “Do you know who that is?”

  “It could be anybody,” she answered.

  “So, it’s a no-go,” the officer asked.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Later that day, after Maggie had returned home, visited with her parents, and taken Barnaby for a walk, she made a phone call.

  “Hello, it’s Maggie Morgan. If you don’t want me to press charges against you for vandalizing my car, you’ll meet me tomorrow at five o’clock in the Jasper Sentinel parking lot. I think you know where that is.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The suffocating heat slapped Maggie in the face when she walked out of the air-conditioned Sentinel office and into the summer day. Although she knew to expect the drastic change in temperature, it always took her by surprise and made her wonder if people had grown too accustomed to climate control. Maybe we’d all be better off if we followed Boone Osborne’s example and eschewed air conditioning, she thought to herself as she walked toward Brandi Baker, who sat on the hood of a car with her feet dangling off its side.

  Brandi hopped off the car when she saw Maggie, rushed across the parking lot, and yelled in her face, “I don’t appreciate being threatened.”

  Except for scuffles with her younger brother, Maggie had never been involved in anything approaching a physical altercation. She wasn’t sure she could say the same for Brandi Baker, but Maggie was determined to not show the fear that crept up her stomach and into her chest. “I don’t appreciate people threatening me, either, or breaking my car window,” she said in a loud but measured tone.

  “Who said that was me?”

  “I do. Even if I hadn’t recognized you, Brandi, I saw a little kid in the front seat. Who takes their daughter along when they break a car window with a baseball bat?”

  Brandi clenched her fists and stepped closer to Maggie. “Don’t you dare bring Paradice into this.”

  “You brought her into this, Brandi. Now, are you going to calm down and talk to me, or am I going to swing by the police station and swear out a warrant for your arrest? Imagine what people will say about you and Paradice when they show that video on the news.”

  Brandi backed away and stood staring at Maggie for a few moments before stomping across the parking lot and flopping onto a curb. Maggie followed her and asked, “Did you kill Hazel Baker?”

  Brandi, who had been inspecting her hot pink flip flops, jerked her head upward. “No. Why would you say something crazy like that?”

  “Because you threatened me. Or are you denying that you smashed my window and left a note in my car?”

  “No, I did that. But not because I killed Hazel. Cause I didn’t kill her. I just wanted you to leave Earnest alone.”

  “Earnest? Why would you think I’m bothering him?”

  “I found a receipt from that diner you two had lunch at.”

  “The Dinner Bucket?”

  “I think that’s what it’s called. I’ve never eaten there. It don’t look like my kind of place, but Earnest talks about it all the time. He’s always talking about how ‘they’ would eat there when ‘they’ came to town. He never says who ‘they’ are, but I know he’s talking about him and Hazel. When I found that receipt, I saw red. I didn’t realize it was on a work day, so I bought his lie about going there with his brother. But I got to thinking about it and I looked at the calendar. He don’t work in Jasper and he’s too cheap to drive thirty miles out of his way just to eat soup beans, I don’t care how good they are. I kept at him until he told me the truth. That’s what I was warning you about. I guess you didn’t get the message.”

  “No, I didn’t.” Maggie wiped beads of sweat off her forehead. “How can I be so sure you’re telling the truth? How do I know you didn’t kill Hazel?”

  “Because I didn’t have no reason to kill her. She and that sister of hers said nasty things about me, but they ain’t really never done nothing real bad to me. At least nothing that would make me kill them.”

  “What about Earnest’s pension?”

  “What about it?”

  “Isn’t that a motive for mu
rder? Don’t you want that money for yourself?”

  “Well, yeah, I want to get it eventually, if we stay married that long, but who said I wanted Earnest to retire? I wouldn’t mind if he never quit working. If he does retire, he’ll just lay around the house all day in his UK shorts watching Andy Griffith and asking me to cook for him. If I had to put up with that all the time, I’d kill him.”

  Maggie studied Brandi’s sun-damaged face and severe features and accepted her as the prime suspect in the future murder of Earnest Baker. “If you feel this way about him, why did you marry him?”

  Brandi shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. He seemed like a nice man and a good provider. I never dreamed that Hazel was pulling in a lot more money than him. He barely makes enough for us to get by on and he’s such a tightwad. And lazy. My mammaw and pappaw raised me. My mammaw stayed home and kept the house and my pappaw worked. I’m used to a man working, but Earnest won’t even cut the grass. I ain’t cutting it, neither. I told him it wouldn’t look right for me to be out there pushing a lawn mower with him laying on the couch, busting his gut over something Barney said to Gomer. He started pouting and complaining about being down in his back, so I hired a boy from up the street to cut the grass and weed eat once a week. You’d have thought I went out and bought a Corvette. He started whining about the money, so I fired that boy and let the grass grow. That didn’t make him happy, neither, but he finally gave in and told me to get that boy to come back. He only did that because he didn’t want the neighbors talking about him for letting grass grow up to his knees.”

  Maggie wanted to keep the conversation focused on Hazel’s death, but Brandi didn’t give her a chance to speak. Continuing her rant, she said, “I didn’t know he was that lazy or such a big baby until after it was too late. Do you know what he tried to get me to do when we first got married?” When Maggie shook her head, Brandi said, “Iron his socks. I told him that I’m not ironing nothing. I don’t even have an iron or an ironing board. But even if I did get the urge to iron, I ain’t ironing something he puts his smelly feet in. And you know what he said to me? ‘Hazel ironed them for me,’” Brandi mimicked Earnest in a voice that reminded Maggie of Droopy, the cartoon dog. “I said, ‘I ain’t Hazel.’ All I hear about is the great Hazel Baker. How she was the best cook in the world and the hardest worker. He’s always comparing me to her. Suggesting I get a job to help out. I do help out. I do the laundry and I make sure he’s got something to eat when he gets home from work. He ain’t happy with that, neither. He said he couldn’t survive on chicken nuggets and frozen pizzas, but he changed his tune when I told him he could cook for his own self.”

  Maggie fanned herself with a notepad she kept in her purse. “It sounds like you and Earnest have some issues to work out.”

  “You ain’t telling me nothing I don’t already know. I’ve wished a thousand times that I’d been smarter, but Earnest had me fooled. If I had knowed who he really was, I’d have let Hazel keep him.” Brandi stared into the distance. “Sometimes, I think about throwing up my hands and leaving. But Paradice needs a daddy. That’s what attracted me to Earnest. I thought he’d take care of her and be a good father figure. I guess he is better than nothing.”

  “What about your ex-husband?”

  “What ex-husband?”

  “Paradice’s dad?”

  “Him? I might have been dumb enough to marry Earnest, but I wasn’t dumb enough to marry Paradice’s no-count daddy. He’s even lazier than Earnest, if you can believe that.” Brandi’s face turned hard. “Is that what Earnest told you? That I had an ex-husband? You can’t believe a word that comes out of his lying mouth. He’s ashamed of me. He never takes me around his family or asks me to go to church. Well, I take that back. I did go with him once, but he didn’t approve of the way I dressed. I was raised in the Old Regular Baptist Church –”

  Maggie considered Brandi’s tight, low-cut white tank top and skimpy shorts and asked, “You were?”

  “Yeah, my mammaw took me to church every week. And I know how to act. I know that it ain’t proper for a woman to go inside a church house in pants, so I wore a dress. And Earnest told me it was too short.” Brandi pulled a weed out of a crack in the parking lot. “You know, all those insults can hurt your feelings after a while.”

  “I guess so.” Having never been married, Maggie didn’t feel qualified to offer more than a generic comment. “Brandi, I still don’t understand why you warned me.” Maggie came to a disturbing conclusion. “Wait a minute. You don’t think I have designs on Earnest, do you?”

  “Designs? What the heck does that mean?”

  “You know, that I’m interested in him.”

  “You interested in Earnest? Why would I think something crazy like that? He might be after you, though. After he finally told me the truth about having lunch with you, he kept going on about how smart and pretty and nice you are. I said to him, ‘I notice she ain’t got no ring on her finger. If she’s so great, why ain’t she married?’”

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” Maggie said. “So, why did you want me to stay away from him?”

  Brandi turned her head toward the sun. “I know it don’t make sense. He’s afraid of his own shadow, but I think he killed Hazel. I’ve thought that from the day we found out she was dead.”

  Maggie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. If Stella had been present, she felt sure she would have jumped for joy and hugged Brandi. “Why do you think your husband killed his ex-wife?”

  “Well, he acted all shocked when we first heard about it. I really thought it bothered him and that made me mad. But he had been with her for a long time, and I started feeling sorry for him. I have a big heart, you know. I don’t like to see nobody hurting. That’s probably my biggest flaw.”

  Maggie looked down and chewed on her lip to keep from laughing. “Don’t let it bother you too much, Brandi. No one is perfect.”

  “Well, later that day, I heard him whistling and he was practically skipping through the house with a big smile plastered on his face. I couldn’t help but feel it had something to do with her dying. He’s always going on about how she stole those houses and half of his pension from him and how he’ll never get to retire.” Brandi’s eyes settled on Maggie. “That’s why I was so mad when you and that sister of Hazel’s showed up at the house. I can’t make the payments on the house and car. If he goes to jail, me and Paradice lose everything.”

  “But why would he kill her? You just said he speaks favorably of Hazel.”

  “So? I also said you can’t believe a word that comes out of his lying mouth. Earnest only cares about Earnest.”

  “Did you notice if he left the house that night?”

  Brandi shrugged. “He could have sneaked out of his room and then out of the house and I would have never known it.”

  “You mean you two don’t share a room?”

  “No, I ain’t about to listen to that snoring. I call him a lumberjack cause it sounds like he’s sawing logs. That’s the only way he’d do that much work, in his sleep.”

  “That’s the thing, Brandi. Do you really think this man, who won’t even mow his lawn, is capable of murder?” Maggie asked.

  “What does cutting grass have to do with killing somebody? And, yeah, I do think he could have done it. I think he was just pretending to be shocked when we heard about her dying. Just like he was pretending to be somebody else when we first met. He sure had me fooled then, but now I know not to trust him.”

  Sweat poured down Maggie’s face. “I can’t stand one more minute of this heat, Brandi. If you think of anything else, you give me a call.” Maggie stood and walked away from the curb before adding, “Do you want me to send you the bill for my car or do you want to settle up with me and keep the garage out of it?”

  Brandi rolled her eyes. “I was hoping you’d let that slide now that you and me are on speaking terms.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “Well, ain
’t that the story of my life. Nothing ever works out for me. I keep some money hidden from Earnest. You can send the bill to me and I’ll pay the garage in cash.” She sighed, “And I was going to use that money to buy Paradice a new iPad. She lost her old one.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Maggie wasn’t sure how a newsroom discussion about an early-morning robbery of cases of chicken tenders from a restaurant’s freezer had morphed into Joe proclaiming his disgust for chicken and dumplings, but she felt the need to quiz him on a position she considered irrational.

  “What do you have against chicken and dumplings?” she asked.

  “Nothing personally. I’m just not a fan of dough. Even if it is saturated with chicken fat, chicken and dumplings is still dough.”

  “Maybe you’ve never had good chicken and dumplings,” Maggie said. “The next time Mom makes them, I’ll set some aside for you.”

  The sports editor piped in, “If you bring a plate for Joe, you’d better not forget the rest of us.”

  “I don’t know if I can get her to make enough for everyone.” Maggie chewed on her lip. “What am I saying? I can make dumplings. I don’t have to wait on her. I can get a chicken off Kevin and ask Daddy to –”

  “Wait,” Joe held up his hands. “Is this Kevin Mullins, the former murder suspect and lifelong chicken farmer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Count me out,” Joe said.

  “Why? Kevin was cleared of that murder and he raises good chickens. He used to raise them with my brother. Have I ever told you about that?”

  “Yes, I remember hearing something about Kevin, your brother, and your dad building a chicken coop. And I’m sure Kevin raises the best chickens on Sugar Creek, but I’ll have no part in the murder of an innocent chicken,” Joe said as he walked to his office.

  “Maggie, you mean you’d actually kill a chicken?” Tyler asked.

  “Not by myself. Daddy will do the dirty work, but I’ll be there in case he needs help.”

  “Needs help with what?” the sports editor asked.