1 Murder on Sugar Creek (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Maggie watched Carla jump over a
culvert and disappear around the mobile home.

“I hadn’t noticed it before, but
she’s got manly shoulders. And she’s tiny and has no curves or hips. With her
hair tucked under that ball cap, she looks like a boy from behind,” Maggie said
to herself. “Oh, my God. It’s her. It has to be her. I don’t know why or how,
but it’s her.”

She checked her cell phone, but
before it even came to life, she knew she would not have service up the hollow.
“Of all days to be stuck behind a trailer.” With her heart and mind racing, she
rested her head on the steering wheel and closed her eyes. “I’m going to count
to one hundred and then look up.”

She had made it to fifty-eight when
the horn sounded. Looking up, she saw a man in a blue pickup through her
rearview mirror. More important, she saw the moving truck moseying down the
road through her front window.

“Good,” Maggie said. “As long as I
don’t get behind a chatty Kathy who stops in the road to converse with a
neighbor strolling through his yard, this will work out for me.”

The moving truck encountered a few
more tight spots, but at the end of the hollow, the truck turned right and Maggie
turned left. As she motored down Sugar Creek, she checked her phone. “Please,
please, please give me at least two bars.” She kept one eye on the road and one
eye on the phone. When two bars popped up, she dialed Seth’s number. “Please,
please, please pick up.”

He did. Maggie interrupted his
greeting.

“Seth, are you at work?”

“Yes.”

“Can you find out what kind of car
Carla Honaker drives?”

“Why?”

“Because I think she killed Mac.”

“Maggie.”

“Could you just do this for me?”

Seth sighed. “It will take a few minutes.
Hold on.”  

Maggie had almost reached the
Honaker residence when Seth returned to the phone. “It’s a silver Ford
Explorer.”

She thought back to the night
Barnaby went missing and Lena’s assertion that she had seen an unfamiliar
vehicle – a gray Jeep – on the hollow. Maggie knew her mother described all
silver vehicles as gray and all SUVs as Jeeps. “She did it.”

“Maggie, what are you talking about
and where are you?”

“I’m pulling into the Honaker
driveway.”

“Get out of there and go home.”

Maggie turned off her phone, tossed
it in the passenger seat, and rifled through her purse. When she located her
digital recorder, she made sure it had adequate battery life and said, “I’m
glad I keep you for backup.”

Assuming Carla had already arrived
home, Maggie exited her vehicle and approached the house. She had taken ten
steps when she heard footsteps behind her.

“Excuse me,” Carla said as Maggie
turned.

“Hi, Carla.” Maggie flashed a broad
smile and prayed Carla wouldn’t detect her nervousness. “I saw you running on
Little Elm Fork. You have more courage than I do. You’re not going to find me
running at all. I hear it’s murder on your joints and cartilage. But, if I did
run, I’d do it on the safety of a track or in town.” Maggie was well aware she
was rambling, but she couldn’t stop talking. “What do you do on a one-lane road
when you meet a car?”

“I run out of the way.” Carla let
her backpack fall to the ground. “Do you mind me asking what you’re doing
here?”

Maggie half-turned so she could see
the house while she spoke to Carla. “I’ve always admired your house,” she said.
“So much, in fact, that I had never noticed the garage on the side. From the
road, it looks like another room.”

Carla took a drink from her water
bottle. “That was the intent, but thank you.”

Maggie turned so she would have a clear
view of Carla. “You’ve been on my mind a lot lately. I’ve been wondering how you’ve
been.”

“I’ve been well.”

“How’s business?”

“Good.”

Maggie nodded. “You know, I got
stuck behind that trailer, so I expected you to already be home. But what’s odd
is that I didn’t see you on main Sugar Creek and I got here before you. I’ve
lived here most of my life and I can’t wrap my brain around that. Unless
there’s some sort of long way home I don’t know about.”

“It’s a relatively nice day, so I
took a short hike.”

“Oh, you hike? In the hills? By
yourself? You are a courageous soul. I’d be afraid of encountering a bear or a
snake or a marauder.”

Carla tilted her water bottle in
the direction of the backpack. “I keep water, energy bars, a small first aid
kit, and a gun in there. I’m prepared in the event of an attack or an
emergency.”

“Is it the same gun you used to
kill him?” Maggie hadn’t been prepared to confront Carla with what she believed
to be the truth, but she didn’t regret giving voice to her suspicions.

Carla didn’t flinch. “Killed who?”

“Mac.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking
about.”

“Is that so?” With her back turned
to the road, Carla couldn’t see a state police cruiser approaching the driveway.
Maggie could and she wanted Carla to implicate herself before the trooper
intervened. “You had the perfect cover. You jog and hike around these parts, so
if anybody saw you creeping around the store that day, they’d think you’d run
down the road to see your husband. If they didn’t see you, then you could run
in and kill him without drawing suspicion to yourself.”

“And why would I do that?”

“Money issues. Your catering
business is not doing as well as you’d like everyone to believe. With Mac out
of the way, you can raise capital by selling the store and this place. I
imagine you’ll be cashing in a sizable life insurance policy, too.”

Carla sucked the water bottle dry
and sloshed the water around her mouth. “Your friend, Kevin Mullins, killed my
husband for a couple hundred bucks.”

“Who said Kevin was my friend?”

Before Carla could respond, the
cruiser pulled into the driveway. Carla jumped at the sound of his car door
slamming.

“Good afternoon, ladies,” the
trooper said. “Miss Morgan, do you mind stepping over here with me?”

“You want to talk to me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Okay, but you should watch her,”
Maggie pointed at Carla. “She has a gun in that backpack and she apparently
knows how to use it.”

Maggie’s advice to the officer
wiped the smirk off Carla’s face.

“She’s going to stay right where I
can see her,” he said. When he and Maggie reached the end of the driveway, he
asked, “What’s this about?”

“Carla killed her husband, Mac
Honaker.”

“Ma’am, I’m here as a courtesy to
Detective Heyward, but please, do not waste my time.”

Maggie looked over her shoulder at
Carla before sharing the evidence with the trooper.

“Let me see if I get this
straight,” he said. “You think she killed her husband because she’s wearing her
hair under a ball cap, because she runs and hikes, because she has boyish shoulders
but no hips, and because she drives a silver SUV? Oh, and I almost forgot,
because she kidnapped your dog, but brought him back.”

Maggie did not appreciate the
officer’s tone. “Listen, I know what I’m talking about. You can’t let her go.”

“You’re right. I’m taking her in and
I’m taking you in, too.”

“What? You can’t go around arresting
people for no reason.”

“That’s what you want me to do with
her. And I’m not arresting anybody. I’m going to take both of you to post where
we can sort this out.”

Carla did not react well to the
news.

“You’re interrupting my afternoon
on the word of this lunatic? Is it because she used to date a Jasper police
detective?”

“How do you know about that?” When
Carla didn’t answer, Maggie said. “You seem to know a lot about me.”

“I need both of you to keep quiet,”
the trooper said. “As soon as my backup gets here, I’ll take you,” he pointed
at Maggie, “and he’ll take you, Mrs. Honaker. Until then, not another word from
either of you.”

The ladies heeded the officer’s
warning. The other trooper arrived a few minutes later and, after the officers
chatted, they asked the women to take a seat in the backs of their respective
cruisers. As she walked past Maggie, Carla leaned in and asked, “How’s your
dog? Does he miss me?”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Maggie tried to plead her case in
the cruiser, but the trooper cut her off.

“Miss Morgan, could you please be
quiet? We’ll have plenty enough time to discuss the matter at post.”

Maggie fell back onto the seat and
considered her situation. How did it come to me riding in the back of a surly
trooper’s cruiser? she asked herself. All I wanted to do was help Kevin by
proving he didn’t kill Mac. And I did. But nobody will listen to me.

“I just have one question.” The
trooper didn’t speak or look at her through his rearview mirror. Maggie took
that as an invitation to continue. “Why didn’t you even ask to search her
backpack? Sure, you would have needed a warrant if she had said no, but it
wouldn’t have hurt to ask. Of course, she could have volunteered to open the
backpack as soon as I mentioned her having a gun. An innocent person would have
handed the backpack to you and said, ‘Be my guest.’ But she didn’t. So, she has
to have the murder weapon in there. If it was any other gun, she would have
said, “No, I don’t mind you looking at it.’ But she didn’t. And that speaks
volumes.”

“Miss Morgan, I’m going to ask you
one more time to sit back and shut up.”

Maggie
reluctantly obeyed his commands. Once she settled down, she had to admit that
speeding past the other traffic in the back of a police cruiser had its
advantages.

As Maggie walked up to the conveyor
belt, the officer ordered, “If you have anything in your pockets, place them in
the tray.”

She inserted her hands into each
pocket of her pea coat with no expectation of finding anything. When her right
hand touched metal, her eyes widened. She pulled the digital recorder out of
her pocket all the while hoping her expression did not betray the cool demeanor
she wanted to project.

After Maggie walked through the
security checkpoint, the officer handed her belongings to her, escorted her to
an interview room, and asked her to take a seat. Without saying another word,
he left the room. Maggie wished he had allowed her to retrieve her phone from
her car. She needed to call Luke and explain why she had missed their lunch
date. She also wanted to call her parents, but before she could become too consumed
by guilt, a plain clothes police officer, who Maggie immediately determined to
be a detective, and the trooper who had escorted her to post entered the room.

“Can I get you something to drink?”
the detective asked.

“No, thank you. Here,” she held out
the recorder to him, “I recorded my conversation with Carla. At the end, she
says something about my dog.” When the trooper rolled his eyes, Maggie said to
him, “You told me I could talk once we got here. Well, we’re here and I’m
talking.”

She pressed play. At first, all she
heard was static silence, which made her doubt the success of the operation. Suddenly,
Carla’s voice asked, “Excuse me?”

Maggie fiddled with the recorder.
“She mentions my dog at the end. I’ll fast-forward to that part.”

“No,” the detective
said. “You’ll place the recorder on the table and we’ll listen to the entire
conversation.” When the recording ended, he took out a notebook and said, “Tell
me everything, from the beginning.”

Maggie tried to ignore her hunger
pangs. Although the detective had asked the eye-rolling trooper to bring her a
snack from the vending machine, she had declined the offer. She reasoned she
wouldn’t be there much longer and planned to join Luke as soon as the detective
released her. But as the afternoon lapsed into evening, Maggie decided to take
them up on the offer of a snack as soon as somebody checked on her again. She hadn’t
eaten since breakfast, it was almost eight in the evening, and she had been
alone in the room for hours with only her imagination to distract her from her
hunger and her self-doubt. The detective had shown no emotion as she shared her
story. At one point, she had almost slipped up and told him about Dottie’s
grandson, Corey, as well as Mac’s money-making schemes with Bug. She knew
police officers were trained to sniff out deceptions the way Barnaby sniffed
out the scent of other dogs, but she hoped he would attribute her stumbling
over words to nerves.

She was debating on whether to knock
on the door and ask for a snack when the door opened. A detective entered the
room, but he was not the one she was expecting to see.

“Seth, what are you doing here?”

He pulled a chair up next to hers.
“I came over here as soon as my shift ended so I could check on you. I talked
to my buddy a couple times, but I wanted to see you for myself.”

“If your buddy is the one who drove
me to post, you need to talk to him about his attitude.”

“How about we focus on your
attitude or, rather, your actions? Maggie, do you realize how foolish you
behaved today? Do you realize how dangerous it was to confront Carla on your
own?”

“If you believe Carla is dangerous,
does that mean you believe me?”

Seth nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

“Do they believe me?”

“They’re leaning in that direction.
They’re waiting on a warrant so they can search her house.”

“Have they arrested her?”

“No, they’re waiting for more
evidence.”

“A lack of evidence didn’t stop
them from arresting Kevin.”

“Maggie, calm down. I know you’ve
had a stressful day, but you need to relax and let them do their jobs.” Seth
shook his head. “I feel like we’ve had this conversation before. Back when all
this started, I advised you to have a little patience and believe in the
system. You wouldn’t listen then, but I hope you’ll listen now.”

“I can’t make that promise,” Maggie
said. “What’s Carla saying?”

“That you’re a nut job. I’m not so
sure she’s wrong.”

“Hey, I got to the truth when no
one else could. Right?”

“Apparently.” Maggie’s growling
stomach attracted Seth’s attention. “What’s that noise?”

“It’s my stomach.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Yeah. I haven’t eaten in hours.”

Seth stood up. “Let me see if we
can get you out of here, so you can silence those rumblings.”

Seth left the room and, moments
later, the door opened again.

“Miss Morgan,” the state police
detective said, “you’re free to leave. Before you go, I want to remind you that
this case is still under investigation.”

Maggie nodded.

“And, one more
thing,” he said. “In the future, could you refrain from conducting your own
investigations? Let the professionals do their jobs.”

When Maggie and Seth reached the
fast-food restaurant, Maggie ordered a double cheeseburger, a large order of
fries, and chicken bites. “Why are you laughing?” she asked Seth.

“I was just thinking that your
appetite hasn’t changed. That’s another thing I always appreciated about you.
You could pack the food in.”

“That’s catching up with me,” she
complained. “And this police work hasn’t helped. Now I know why cops are usually
overweight and out of shape.” Maggie remembered Seth’s concerns about his
weight gain and added, “Present company excluded.”

“That’s okay,” Seth chuckled and
patted his stomach. “I’m finally getting rid of a little bit of this. I think
it’s the stress from worrying about you.”

They arrived at the Honaker
residence to find two detectives conducting a search of the premises.

“I guess they got their warrant,”
Seth said. “Hey, you’re shivering.”

“It’s cold and I’m tired.”

“Are you sure that’s all?”

“Yeah,” she fibbed. “Thanks for
everything you did for me today. You went above and beyond.”

“Nah, just
doing my job.”

Before Maggie could make it inside
her house, she heard the phone ringing. She ignored the shrill sounds, placed
her food on the table, and took Barnaby outside. They made their way back
inside to find Robert pounding on the front door.

“Where have you been all day? Your
mother tried to call that cellar phone a dozen times.”

Even after a long day spent pursuing
a killer, Maggie laughed at her dad’s mispronunciation of cellular. “I’m sorry,
Daddy. I figured you were worried, but I couldn’t call you. I didn’t have my
cell phone.”

“We’ve been imagining everything.”

“I’m sorry to have worried you, but
I’m fine. Please, go home and let me enjoy my dinner. I haven’t eaten since
breakfast.”

“Well, all right, but as soon as
you eat, you get your rear end to the house.”

Maggie opened
her mouth, but just as quickly closed it. “Barnaby and I will be right over.”

Maggie spent a restless night at
her parents’ house and returned to her home the following morning. When she
walked into the living room, she noticed the answering machine light flashing.

“One message,” she said to Barnaby.
“Wonder who called us last night?”

She pressed play and heard Seth’s
voice saying, “You were right. She confessed.”