Murder on Calf Lick Fork Read online

  “I want to talk to you,” she had hissed to Maggie. “In private.”

  It was early and the press crew hadn’t started their work day, so Maggie asked Gina to follow her to the back of the building. When they arrived there, Gina launched into a verbal assault of Maggie, stopping only when Maggie turned the tables on her.

  “It’s your fault they were even looking for the cell phone,” Gina answered. “Jay’s gone and he’s not coming back. If you’d just left this alone, I wouldn’t have been dragged into this mess. Now everybody’s going to know my business. My husband is going to know I saw someone else. My boss is going to know I messed around with a student.”

  Maggie’s head jerked. “I thought you didn’t care who knew about you and Jay? Isn’t that what you told Sydney? Didn’t you encourage her to tell your boss? Didn’t you make it clear to me that what happened between you and Jay was none of your husband’s business? And how do you know Jay’s not coming back? How could you possibly know that – unless you killed him?”

  Without answering any of Maggie’s questions, Gina slid down the wall and sat on the floor. Maggie didn’t consider relaxing on the ink-stained press room floor to be a good idea, but chose to keep her opinion to herself. Although she had many questions for Gina, she decided to give her a moment to pull herself together. She had been running scenarios through her mind since Gentry had called and told her the cell phone had been located in Gina’s possession. Even an enlightening conversation with Jay’s mom, Belinda, hadn’t completely cleared up matters.

  “Gentry’s too embarrassed to tell you this,” Belinda had said during a phone conversation the previous evening, “but Jay was seeing this Gina person on the side.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Maggie had admitted. “I hadn’t gotten around to sharing that with you all.”

  “Oh, well.” Belinda had paused to light a cigarette. “Is there anything else about Jay you’re not telling us?”

  “No. Well, I don’t want you to get your hopes up, but Jay intimated to one of his friends in Indiana that he’d like to start over again some place where no one knew him.”

  “See, I told you, he’s still out there. And don’t worry about getting my hopes up. Hope is the only thing that gets me through the day and night. Is there anything else?”

  “No, you know everything else I know. So, why did Gina have Jay’s cell phone?”

  “She said she swiped it the morning he went missing to erase some dirty pictures he had taken of her. Gentry’s so disappointed in Jay. Irmajene has been dead for going on eleven years, but Gentry’s still faithful to her, so I guess his reaction is to be expected. Not that I’m proud of Jay’s actions, but I know how the world works.”

  “Gentry said the police haven’t arrested Gina, so I guess they don’t consider her a suspect.”

  “I consider her a suspect,” Belinda had said.

  So did Maggie. As far as anybody knew, Gina was the last person to see Jay. “Why didn’t you tell me you had met Jay the morning he disappeared?” she asked Gina in the pressroom.

  “You’re not the police. I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  Although Maggie didn’t appreciate Gina’s attitude, she couldn’t argue with the truth. “Do you realize this makes you look guilty?”

  “I didn’t do anything to Jay. The last time I saw him, he was walking to his truck. As I told the police, I don’t know if he made it to his truck because I got out of there before he could notice his cell phone was gone.”

  “Why did you keep his phone?” Maggie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Gina said. “It certainly wasn’t my best move. When I got to work that morning, I sat in the parking garage and deleted the pictures. It was stupid of me to even let him take them, but I don’t know, I guess he appealed to my vanity and made me feel young. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn’t want those photos out there. I didn’t want them showing up on a website. I didn’t want him showing them to his friends. I have kids and a husband and parents, you know.” Gina tapped the back of her head against the wall. “This is a nightmare. If the police keep investigating me, everybody’s going to know. This will make my granny cry and my husband furious.”

  Maggie cleared her throat, “So, about the cell phone …”

  “Don’t you care that this could ruin my life?”

  “I don’t like to see people in pain, so I feel bad for what you’re going through. But I don’t feel guilty. What’s happening is a result of your actions, not mine.”

  Gina opened her mouth, but quickly closed it. A few seconds later, she said, “I knew Jay would figure out his phone was gone and that I had it. I expected him to show up any time and demand it back. But he didn’t show up that day or the next. And then I started hearing people talking here and there about him. And then a few days later that crazy Sydney started posting about him on Facebook, saying things like, ‘My baby’s missing!’”

  “You and Sydney are still Facebook friends?”

  “Can you believe she didn’t unfriend me? I don’t care enough about her to go to the effort of unfriending her, but she hates me. Anyway, Jay didn’t come back and the phone stayed in my purse. I didn’t think about it until the other day when the police showed up. My little boy had found it, turned it on, and charged it. I don’t know why I didn’t get rid of it. Oh, if I had my life to live over.”

  Maggie wondered if dumping the phone was the only life choice Gina would change, but realized it wouldn’t be a good idea to pursue that line of questioning. “Gina, did Jay say anything about Sydney stalking him?”

  “Ha,” Gina laughed. “He didn’t use the word ‘stalking,’ but he said she was showing up everywhere and calling him at home, at work, and on his cell.” Gina stared off as if she were trying to make a decision. “It was none of my business, but I did check his phone and he wasn’t lying. She called him over one hundred times in one day. The police will see that, too, when they check his phone.”

  She’s trying to deflect attention to Sydney, Maggie thought to herself. But is she wanting to take the spotlight off herself or her husband?

  “I gather your husband doesn’t know about your trip to the police station?”

  “No, he doesn’t. I’m so grateful that we were at my mom’s house when my little boy decided to charge that phone. But if this keeps up, my husband’s going to find out.”

  “Maybe he already knows.”

  “Will you please get it through your head? He has no clue about me and Jay.” Gina’s eyes drifted from Maggie’s face to the floor. After staring at the floor for a few seconds, she raised her eyes and said. “There’s something else I didn’t tell you the first time we talked. I didn’t tell the police, either, because I don’t want the same thing that’s happening to me to happen to another woman.”

  “Gina, you’re not making sense.”

  “I’m trying to tell you that I trust you more than I trust the police. I trust you to keep this quiet while you look into it.”

  “Look into what?”

  “Jay was fooling around with another woman. She was married. Her name is Carrie.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Maggie agonized over how to approach Carrie with Gina’s accusation.

  “How do I handle this situation?” she asked Barnaby as he enjoyed a dental treat and she finished the last of the pre-Christmas nut puffs. “I can’t very well waltz into the funeral home and say, ‘Hey, Carrie, how’s it going? By the way, remember me mentioning that Jay had another woman? Well, she tells me he was sneaking around with you, too. What do you have to say about that?’”

  She slapped her hands together until the powdered sugar disappeared into the air. “I have to navigate my way very carefully. So far, I’ve always contacted Steve when I wanted to talk to them. Carrie might get suspicious if I call her out of the blue.”

  Maggie stared at the clear lights on the Christmas tree for exactly seventeen minutes before exclaiming to a drowsy Barnaby,
“That’s it. That’s what I’ll do.”

  “And this is our Nutcracker room.” Maggie followed Carrie down two steps that led from the kitchen into the living room, which had been transformed into a shrine to the toy soldiers from the holiday ballet. They were everywhere. Figurines of various sizes lined the mantle, two soldiers Maggie estimated to be three feet tall guarded each side of the fireplace, smaller ornaments decorated end tables, and Nutcracker-inspired Disney figures looked down on Maggie from their perch on a shelf. Everywhere her eyes fell, she saw the soldier, whose beady eyes and broken, horizontal smile had always freaked her out. She would have preferred to return to the cuddly teddy bear ornaments that hung from the tree in the baby’s room.

  “So, what inspired,” Maggie swept her hand across the room, “this.”

  “I’ve been collecting Nutcrackers ever since I performed the ballet when I was a teenager.”

  “Oh, were you that little girl who dances around in her nightgown?” Maggie asked.

  “No, I was not Clara.” Carrie emphasized the last word. “I tried out for the lead, but I was relegated to a role as one of the many snowflakes. I had a blast, though. I miss ballet. I miss a lot about that time of my life.”

  After their first meeting in the funeral home, when Maggie had realized she and Carrie had attended the same school, Maggie had located her old yearbooks and searched for pictures of Carrie. She was not disappointed. There were photos of Carrie hanging out with her friends at lunch, holding hands with a boyfriend at a pep rally, and solving a math problem at the head of the class. Each yearbook showed Carrie in a different dress suit, but presenting the same open smile, for the four years she participated in the homecoming court. She was named homecoming queen, prom queen, and class president her senior year and was also voted prettiest and best dressed by her graduating class. When Maggie had been in elementary school and junior high, she had admired girls like Carrie for their sophistication and style. It was only after her ascent to high school that Maggie realized the homecoming attendants and prettiest girls were just that – girls. She wondered if, two decades earlier, Carrie had imagined a life for herself that included a funeral director for a husband and an affair with a boy young enough to be her son.

  Maggie came back to the present just in time to hear Carrie say, “When my son was younger, he loved helping me decorate, but once he reached a certain age, I think all of it embarrassed him. Now, he doesn’t care. I’m not sure he notices any of it.”

  Maggie surveyed the room crammed with toy soldiers, thought back to the trees, wreaths, and garland that dominated every room in the house, and doubted the veracity of that comment.

  “But I have Steve’s support. Ever since our first Christmas together, Steve has encouraged my enthusiasm for decorating. Oh, he jokes about it, like at the parade, but he loves it. And now we have Mira.” Carrie shook her head. “In a few years, she’ll be big enough to help her momma transform the house into our very own holiday village.”

  While snapping photos of the Nutcrackers, Maggie asked in a tone she hoped sounded casual, “Carrie, do you remember me asking you and Steve at the parade if you knew that Jay had a girlfriend on the side?”

  Carrie cocked her head to the side and said, “Mmm, yeah, well, I had forgotten about that. But Steve told me last night that she had been arrested for stealing Jay’s cell phone.”

  “That’s not exactly what happened. She was in possession of his phone, but she wasn’t arrested. How did Steve hear about that?”

  “Gentry told him. We’ve had no luck replacing Jay. We’ve gone through three workers since he left. To be honest, no one meets Steve’s expectations. He called Gentry to see if he knew of anyone. That’s when Gentry told Steve about this,” Carrie’s hands fluttered in the air, “other woman.”

  “About this other woman,” Maggie paused, “Carrie, she stopped by to see me the other day and, well, she told me Jay had yet another other woman on the side.” Gripping the camera to steady her shaking hands, Maggie looked into Carrie’s eyes and said, “She said it was you.”

  Maggie expected hysterics. She expected Carrie to pitch a fit of hissy similar to the tantrum Gina had thrown in the Sentinel’s pressroom. Yet, Carrie merely exhaled loudly and asked, “Have you mentioned this to anyone else?”

  “Of course not.” Maggie caught a glimpse of a maniacal Nutcracker smiling at her. An image of Carrie grabbing one of the toy soldiers and bashing in her head flashed through her mind. “But just so you know, I always let someone know where I am.”

  Rearranging a poinsettia that sat directly under a lithograph of the Nutcracker, Carrie abruptly said, “You can’t possibly think I would hurt you. Or Jay.”

  “I don’t know what to think. Before the other day, I never imagined you would have had an affair with Jay.”

  Carrie’s shoulders slumped and she crossed the room and took a seat on the couch. She pulled the Nutcracker throw draped across the back of couch around her shoulders. Maggie joined her on the sofa, but not before picking up a decorative pillow and turning it over so that the toy soldier cross-stitched across it lay face down.

  “Steve is so good to me,” Carrie began. “He’s always treated me like a princess. My first husband was abusive, so I realize how lucky I am to have Steve. He made me feel loved and safe and I was so content here with him. I didn’t even think twice about working at a funeral home. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world, to work alongside my husband. It made me proud.”

  She picked up the pillow Maggie had moved and traced her fingers along its woven texture. “I’m telling you this because I need you to understand that it’s not like I went looking for an affair. When I met Jay, he didn’t even register to me. He was some kid who did odd jobs for us. But then he started showing up everywhere. And then Steve started sending him over here to help around the house. He was a hard worker and ambitious and nice. And flirty. At first, I dismissed it. I mean, he’s my son’s age. I had all but quit thinking of myself as desirable to other men. Those days were behind me. But, one day last fall, he came over to paint the guest room and I made lunch for him. We sat in the kitchen nook and ate and chatted. I can’t even tell you what we talked about, though. After he helped me put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher,” Carrie’s voice trembled, “he brushed my cheek with the back of his hand. That’s the day it started. In this house. In Steve’s house.”

  “When did it stop?”

  Carrie shook her head. “When Jay left. The guilt was so overwhelming. Every time I was with him, I swore to myself that it would be the last time. But I couldn’t stop. He made me feel so young. He made me feel like I did before I eloped with the wrong boy at nineteen.”

  As Carrie continued to route the effects that one decision had on her entire life, Maggie did the math in her head. “How old is the baby? How old is Mira?”

  Carrie’s eyes glistened with tears. “Have you seen those trashy shows on TV where some dumb woman has several men take paternity tests to determine which one’s the father of her child? I’ve never understood that. I can actually understand the women who don’t know they’re pregnant until one day they cough and a baby pops out. If you don’t know you’re pregnant, then you have no idea why your body is changing and you don’t understand why you’re gaining weight and experiencing a different kind of pain than any you’ve ever felt. But I don’t understand how any woman doesn’t know who fathered her child.”

  Maggie wanted to make sure she wasn’t misunderstanding Carrie. “So, Mira is –”

  “Jay’s.”

  “Did he know?”

  “He didn’t even know I was pregnant. I wasn’t showing, so I delayed telling him. I didn’t tell Steve until I had to. I asked him if we could keep it just between us, you know, because of my age. I told him I was afraid I’d jinx the pregnancy if we told anybody during the first trimester. We were just getting around to telling our closest friends and family when Jay left.”

  “Carrie, you’re a s
mart woman, you have to realize how suspicious this sounds, for you and for Steve.”

  “Why?”

  Maggie did a double take. “Why? You find out you’re pregnant by Jay and then he disappears. Come on? Since you didn’t tell him about the pregnancy, it sounds to me like you were afraid he’d make a fuss about even the possibility of being Mira’s dad.”

  “I was, but,” she paused, “Steve and I live a nice life, but I didn’t have the kind of money to pay Jay to keep his mouth shut.”

  Carrie’s comment surprised Maggie, but she couldn’t be sure if Carrie had convinced herself that Jay had simply walked away or if she was faking for her sake. “What about Steve?”

  Carrie shrugged the throw from her shoulders. “Steve had no idea I was seeing Jay so he had no reason to want him gone. There’s not a day that goes by that he doesn’t sigh and talk about how much he misses Jay. And he worships the baby. You know, he wanted to name her Miracle because she was his little miracle baby.” She laughed. “I talked him into shortening it to Mira. He’s been over the moon about her since the moment I told him I was pregnant.” With a sudden movement, she grasped Maggie’s hand. “This would destroy him. You have to promise me you won’t say anything to him or to anybody. Nobody can ever know about this.”

  “Carrie, would you please let go of my hand? You’re making my fingers hurt.”

  Carrie released Maggie’s hand and mumbled an apology.

  Flexing her hand, Maggie said, “I can’t promise you that I’ll keep your secret. Besides, I’m not the only person who knows about you and Jay. Gina could very easily connect the dots to your identity. I’m surprised she hasn’t already figured it out. Then again, maybe she’s not that familiar with the owners of local funeral homes.”

  “I’m familiar with her. As soon as Steve told me her name and where she works, I went to the college’s website and searched until I found her in the directory. I’ve looked her up on Facebook. She’s not ugly. She is a little chubby, though. She didn’t look at all like Jay’s type.”