Murder at Catfish Corner: A Maggie Morgan Mystery Page 3

  Earl David winked and said, “Well, it must be my lucky day. When I got up, I didn’t expect that two lovely ladies such as yourselves would stop by to see me on this fine morning.”

  “Now, you stop that flirting, Earl David. I’m always happy to see you, but this is not a personal call. It’s business. Maggie and I want to talk to you this morning because I disagree with the police. I believe there’s more to Hazel’s death and Maggie here has offered to help me get to the truth.”

  Stella’s declaration seemed to surprise Earl David, who lit a cigarette and asked, “What do you mean by ‘more to her death?’”

  “I believe she was murdered.”

  “Murdered?” Earl David inhaled his own secondhand smoke and began coughing.

  “Are you okay?” Maggie asked him. “Do we need to get you some water?”

  Earl David waved her off, dropped the still smoldering cigarette to the ground, and crushed it with his muddy boots. When he quit coughing, he said, “Murder? That’s an awful big word, Miss Martin.”

  “I believe it’s the truth. I have my suspicions, so I need your help. Would you answer some questions for Maggie?”

  “Questions about what?”

  Stella deferred to Maggie, who said, “Just about that morning. I understand you were here.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve already talked to the police. I don’t see how this can –”

  Stella touched Earl David’s arm. “Please, do it for me.” Stella addressed Maggie. “I was Earl David’s homeroom teacher in high school. He didn’t want to take my typing classes, but I convinced him that typing was a necessary skill.” Stella returned her attention to Earl David. “I was right, wasn’t I? You told me that only girls and nerds needed to know how to type, but I told you there would come a time when everybody would need that skill. And I was right, wasn’t I? Why, if you hadn’t learned to type, you wouldn’t be able to send emails to your business associates.”

  “Yeah, you were right and I sure appreciate all the advice you gave me back then.” He pushed his hands into the pockets of his well-worn jeans and said, “Go ahead. I’ll answer your questions.”

  “Is there some place we can sit down?” Maggie asked. “I’ll need to take notes.”

  “Sure, we can go to the office,” Earl David said as he began walking to a small storage building. “I keep a table and chair out here when I’m opened, but you can’t leave nothing out that ain’t nailed down. That’s why I don’t provide chairs for my customers. They would tear them up or haul them off. They wouldn’t mean to, that’s just how people are. They don’t think about what they’re doing.” Earl David opened the door to his office. “Ladies first.”

  The building was larger on the inside than Maggie imagined it would be. A microwave sat on a small refrigerator in one corner, a couch dominated one wall, and a laptop lay on a table surrounded by four chairs. Earl David picked up the laptop and placed it on boxes of bleach resting on a hand cart, making room for himself and the ladies. Once they had settled around the table and accepted Earl David’s offer of water, Maggie turned on her tape recorder, opened her notepad, and started asking questions.

  “You mentioned that people would steal your table and chairs, so why isn’t there a lock on the fence?”

  “I’ve never had no lock on the gate. That fence ain’t that high, so I reckon a lock won’t keep nobody out. They’d just jump over.” When Maggie made a notation in her pad, Earl David said, “Why’d you ask that?”

  “I was wondering if the fence had been locked the night Hazel drowned and, if so, how she got inside.” Maggie held up her notepad for him to see. “That’s all. But, you know, I am curious. Why don’t you have a taller fence? What’s to keep anxious fishermen from hopping over that fence in the middle of the night and casting a line into the water?”

  “I guess I just ain’t never thought about it. We’ve never had no sort of trouble before. And if somebody needs a catfish bad enough to steal it, I reckon he needs it more than I do.”

  “Earl David,” Maggie pronounced the name as if it were one word, “how much traffic passes by here at night? I know it’s not an interstate highway, but it is a two-lane road and I’m sure you get more traffic than we do up the head of my holler.”

  Earl David frowned. “Let me think about that. I live up a holler about a mile down the road now, but I growed up here and some nights I stay for a little while after everybody leaves. You know, cleaning up. And I’d have to say the traffic varies. It always has. There will be stretches where it’s one car after another for a couple minutes and then you might go twenty minutes before you see another one.” When Maggie made more notations, Earl David said, “Why’d you ask that?”

  “Earl David,” Stella scolded, “would you please quit interrupting Maggie and allow her to ask her questions?”

  Earl David nodded, took a drink of water, and sat back as Maggie continued her questioning. “Why was the pay lake closed that night?” she asked.

  “I went to Lexington to see my boy. He lives down there. It was my grandbaby’s birthday.”

  “How is that precious little girl, Earl David?” Stella asked.

  For the next few minutes, Maggie reviewed her notes while Earl David bragged on his granddaughter. When he attempted to list the toddler’s accomplishments and food preferences for the fourth time, Maggie stopped him by asking, “Do you have any employees?”

  “Not to speak of. Well, that’s not a nice thing to say. My cousin helps me out and there’s a boy that lives up the road from me who works weekends and nights sometimes. He’s been working this summer, but I didn’t know if I could trust him to run things by himself, and my cousin was on vacation. I hated awful bad to close for the day and lose out on business, but I wasn’t about to miss my baby’s birthday.”

  “When did you get back home?”

  “Gosh, I don’t remember what time I got back, but it was early that morning. I stopped at home for a little while and then I came down here. The ambulance and the police hadn’t been here long when I drove up. Uncle Boone said –”

  “Uncle Boone?” Maggie exclaimed. “As in Boone Osborne?”

  “Yeah, you know him?”

  “No, well, yeah. My daddy bought a sow from him once and I came with him to pick it up. I thought he lived somewhere around here. So, what did he tell you?”

  “Just that he had found her not twenty minutes before I got here.”

  “Did you notice anything out of the ordinary that morning?” Maggie asked. “Was anything out of place?”

  Earl David chuckled. “There’s not an awful lot that can get out of place as long as the fish stay in the water and the water stays in the ground.”

  Maggie allowed herself a moment to appreciate Earl David’s logic before steeling herself for the next question. She dreaded asking it, but she had learned while investigating Mac Honaker’s death that when she had a difficult question to ask, it was better to blurt it out. Without the benefit of segue, she asked Earl David, “How did you and Hazel get along?”

  Earl David fidgeted with his empty water bottle and said, “We got along pretty good.”

  “I noticed a privacy fence separating her property from yours.”

  “She installed that fence a number of years ago,” Stella said. “I’ll be honest, she said she didn’t like looking at the pay lake, but I don’t recall her ever mentioning specific problems with you, Earl David.”

  “I didn’t have not one problem with Hazel and I can understand why somebody wouldn’t want a pay lake practically in their front yard.”

  “I wouldn’t want one in my yard, I’ll tell you that,” Stella said, laughing. “But, like I told Hazel, I live in a subdivision and our deeds specifically prohibit us from operating businesses. There are no such regulations or zoning laws on your basic county property.”

  “No,” Maggie agreed, “people like Earl David and I can do almost whatever we want on our basic county properties.” From the corner of her eye, M
aggie could see Stella glaring at her. “Earl David, if there’s anything else you can think of, just give Stella a call and she’ll let me know.”

  Earl David nodded his agreement and Maggie and Stella headed next door to talk to Boone.

  When Maggie introduced herself as Robert Morgan’s daughter, Boone’s eyes widened.

  “Robert Morgan. I reckon I ain’t seen him in fifteen year.”

  “Well, I know it’s been about twenty-five years since we came here to buy a sow from you.”

  “I remember, I remember,” Boone said as he lowered himself onto his front porch swing. “You was just a little brown-haired girl then.” The old man grinned. “Why, it don’t look like much has changed. You’re still a little brown-haired girl, but taller now. Back then, for every step Robert walked, you had to take three to keep up with him.”

  Maggie smiled at the recollection and took a seat in a rocking chair. “That sounds like me, and I’m still taking three steps for every one that he takes. He’s not slowed down one bit.”

  “Let’s see, about ten years or so after he bought that sow, I went over to Sugar Creek to buy a couple goats off a feller and then I drove up Caldonia Road and bought some eggs off of Robert. Well, actually it was off his son, I guess that would be your brother, and that boy they tried to pen that murder on last year.”

  “Your memory amazes me, Mr. Osborne. I could never remember all that.”

  “No,” Stella, who had joined Boone in the swing, said. “She couldn’t even remember where you lived. You’d think a writer would be more cognizant of her surroundings.”

  Although Maggie wanted to correct Stella and remind her she never said she couldn’t remember where Boone lived, she didn’t want to seem petty in front of Boone, so she let Stella’s insult pass. “Mr. Osborne –”

  “If you don’t want me to call your daddy, you’d better call me by my name.”

  “In that case, Boone, what can you tell me about the morning you found Hazel’s body?”

  “Well, there ain’t much to tell. I was fixing to go to my garden and I saw something over there in Earl David’s lake.” Boone pointed in the direction of Catfish Corner. “I walked over there and when I got closer, I saw somebody floating in it. I come back here to the house and called 9-1-1.”

  “Did you hear any strange noises the night before or in the early morning of the day you found her?”

  “No, but I run a fan at night. I never took a liking to an air conditioner, but it gets stuffy at night so I run the fan. It keeps me cool but I guess you could say it blocks out the noise. That’s good if you’re talking about dogs howling or motors revving on those derned ole four-wheelers and motorcycles, but it ain’t so good when something like this happens. I keep thinking that if it hadn’t been for that fan, I might have heard her calling for help and been able to get to her before she passed.”

  Stella touched Boone’s elbow. “You are such a dear man, but don’t you spend one more second blaming yourself.”

  “I know that what’s meant to be will be, but the good Lord gave me a mind and a man can still wonder,” Boone said.

  “That’s understandable, but you let me do the wondering. You talking to Maggie will be a tremendous help.”

  Boone nodded and Maggie asked, “What about the evening before? According to the police, you were on your porch.”

  “I was, I was, and it was just another evening. I come out here after supper and strung beans until dark. How’s Robert’s beans?”

  “They’re doing really good.”

  “How are his tomatoes? Mine have took the blight.”

  “They’re growing so fast that he has to stake them every few days. If I had known I’d be seeing you today, I would have brought you some of them.”

  “Maybe next time.”

  Maggie looked in the direction of Hazel’s property. “Did you see much of Hazel?”

  “I did not. But I knew she liked beans, so I gave her a mess that day.”

  Stella patted Boone’s elbow again. “I found those beans in her refrigerator. I strung them a couple days after her funeral. You can’t buy better beans. I ought to have known they came from your garden. And, if I had known, I would have thanked you before now.”

  “That’s all right. I reckon you had more important things on your mind than thanking me. She offered to pay me, but I don’t think it’s right to make money off your neighbors and family. Unless you need it, of course. But I’m making it all right, I guess, and as long as I’m blessed with a good garden, I’ll share.”

  Maggie asked him a few more questions and told him to call if he thought of anything else.

  “I will, I will,” Boone said. “Now, you tell that Daddy of yours I was asking about him. Why, I might take a notion one of these days to go see him.”

  Maggie and Stella stopped at the local dairy bar for lunch. In spite of Maggie’s protestations, Stella insisted on paying. “You’ve come all the way here to Sassafras and given up your Saturday. It’s the least I can do.”

  After receiving her order – a plain grilled chicken sandwich, small fries, and a cup of water – Maggie chose a table and waited on Stella, who stopped to chat with everyone in the restaurant. When Stella finally joined her, Maggie said, “It’s a shame Sassafras isn’t incorporated as a town.”

  “Why’s that?” Stella asked.

  “Because you could run for mayor and win in a landslide. You know everyone.”

  Stella laughed. “I taught at Sassafras High School for more years than I care to admit. If you weren’t my student, then you were my student’s parents, grandparents, or children.”

  When Stella bit into a footlong hot dog with chili, mustard, and slaw, Maggie couldn’t help but feel envious.

  “Mmm,” Stella rolled her eyes as she chewed the hot dog. “You should have tried one of these. I know hot dogs are bad for you and I don’t even want to guess what kind of ingredients are in a hot dog wiener, but this is my weakness. About once a month, I indulge.” Stella took another bite and groaned.

  “I’m trying to behave,” Maggie said.

  Stella wiped her mouth and said, “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Earl David, but Hazel called the pay lake an eyesore and Earl David’s customers riff-raff. I told her that I might come up here one day and spend a peaceful day fishing beside that beautiful lake. She didn’t complain much after that.”

  “How long has the lake been there?”

  “Five years or so. He opened it around the time Hazel’s husband left her. That was not a good time for my sister. How do you think it’s going so far?”

  “It’s hard to say. We’ll know more after we talk to everyone else.”

  “Let me ask you something. Why did you ask Earl David about the height of the fence?”

  “Partly, because I was curious. Maybe I watch too much Investigation Discovery, but I would expect people to do what I suggested to Earl David – hop over that fence and cast a line. More important, I wanted to learn if that was a problem. If people were hanging out at night, then maybe Hazel saw or heard something.” Maggie chomped on a fry. “But that doesn’t seem to be the case.”

  “Of course not, because Earnest killed her.”

  “We need to keep an open mind.”

  “That’s your job and you’re doing really well. Why, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to ask about the fence or whether it was locked and I didn’t think anything about her pajamas being out of place and the unmade bed didn’t sound an alarm, either.”

  “You would have eventually put everything together,” Maggie said. “Besides, you are grieving. You can’t be expected to notice everything.”

  “We’ll head over to our old homeplace next and talk to Hazel’s renter,” Stella wrinkled her nose as if she had just caught a whiff of tainted meat, “Fallon.”

  “Oh, what was she renting?”

  “Our mother’s house. Hazel inherited it. At first, she rented it to a friend of the family and, after that, to ou
r cousin’s son, but for the past couple years, Fallon has been living there. I’m sure she’s a nice girl and at least she works and tries to provide for her little boy. It’s not her fault the little boy’s daddy can’t stay employed long enough to pay child support for more than a month or two at a time. But, my goodness, the thought of that girl sitting at my mother’s table and sleeping in my mother’s bed was hard to take. It wasn’t as bad when a friend or someone in the family lived there. Of course, I know Fallon’s family, so perhaps that’s colored my opinion of her. I taught most of the family in school. Her mother named her after a character from that show, Dynasty, if that tells you anything. Then Fallon turned around and named her little boy after one of those vampires in those silly little books.” Stella wiped her mouth with a napkin. “But what can you do?”

  Maggie, who had named her dog after a character in her favorite British mystery series, did not intend to debate the merits of selecting popular culture names for offspring or pets. Instead, she asked, “You said something about talking to your brother?”

  “Yes, Brother. That’s Dennis. He lives in a mobile home a mile or so down the road from the house. Since he lives closer to the house than Hazel did, he took care of the maintenance and upkeep for her. After we talk to him, I thought we could head over to Vanessa Griffith’s clinic.”

  “Is that the doctor Hazel worked for?”

  “Yes. Well, she worked for her for the past three years. Hazel spent the majority of her career working for Vanessa’s dad, whom everyone called Doc. He could have opened a practice in Jasper or anywhere else for that matter, but he came home to Sassafras. You know we’re a little isolated from the rest of the county here in Sassafras.”

  “But it’s hardly the only eastern Kentucky community that I’d classify as isolated. Heck, it’s not the only community in Geneva County I’d classify as isolated.”

  “That may be true, but I’m looking at it from a pair of old Sassafras eyes. When we need to see the doctor, it’s not simply a matter of a five-minute drive downtown or over the hill. At least it wasn’t until Doc Griffith opened the clinic. I was a little girl then, but I’ve heard people talk about the difference that clinic and Doc Griffith made for the community. He cared for his family, friends, and neighbors here in Sassafras for nearly fifty years. For thirty-seven years, Hazel worked alongside him. Hazel earned a good salary, but she could have made even more money elsewhere, but just like Doc Griffith, she wanted to help her people.”