Murder at Catfish Corner: A Maggie Morgan Mystery (2 page)

Chapter Three

By the time
Maggie made it to the
Jasper Sentinel
, where she had worked for fourteen
years, first as a feature writer and later as the lifestyle editor, the
authorities had released the name of the woman found floating in the lake. Her
name, Hazel Baker, meant nothing to Maggie and, unfortunately, the police
shared no other information about her or her demise. Maggie hoped to learn more
about Hazel later. In the meantime, she would have to make due with Hazel’s
obituary, which she found waiting for her in the fax machine. When she reached
her desk, she checked her email and found a message from the funeral home that
contained Hazel’s photo.

Maggie lowered
her head and asked the newsroom, which except for her remained empty on this
early Monday morning, “Why, oh, why? If they can add a photo attachment, why
can’t they send the typed obituary?”

Maggie clicked
on Hazel’s photo and studied the woman smiling back at her. According to her
obit, Hazel was sixty-two, but Maggie thought she looked younger in the
picture, which was dated in the lower right-hand corner for the previous year.
She attributed Hazel’s hale appearance to her welcoming smile, the vibrant blue
sweater she wore, her captivating blue eyes, and her blonde hair, which was
styled in a choppy bob. Maggie instinctively put her hand up to her brown hair
and wondered if she should opt for a new style the next time she visited the hairdresser.
She had sported a pixie cut since college. It was easy to fix and she thought
it suited her. Yet, sometimes, she allowed herself a moment to imagine herself
with long, luxurious-looking curls or even a pageboy cut. Maggie also admired Hazel’s
yellow paisley scarf, which reminded her of her short-lived experiment with
scarves. No matter how she tied them, Maggie had felt they made her look like
Fred from
Scooby-Doo
. Just like the fantasies of stylish haircuts, the
fascination with scarves had also eventually faded and she had returned to her
reliable clothing choices.

When she turned
her attention back to the obit, she learned Hazel was a retired nurse who
enjoyed cooking, traveling with her sister, and cheering on the University of
Kentucky men’s basketball team. Maggie glanced at the photo again and said to
herself, “I do believe the shade of that sweater is Wildcat blue.”

“Are you talking
to yourself, Maggie?”

Maggie looked up
to find her editor and mentor, Joe, standing beside her desk.

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, at least you’re
guaranteed to have a lively conversation.”

“Indeed. Hey,
the funeral home faxed the obit and emailed a photo for Hazel Baker.”

Joe stood over
Maggie’s shoulder and examined the picture of Hazel. “She was an attractive
older woman. Listen to me, calling her older. Sometimes, I forget I’m in my fifties.”

“Mid-fifties at
that.”

“Better than late-fifties. Anyway, I called Tyler at home and told him to
stop at the state police post on his way to the office. We should know
something when he gets here.”

Maggie left the
office to interview the subject of her Garden of the Week feature and missed
Tyler’s return from the state police post. She caught up with him that
afternoon, but before she could ask him about Hazel Baker, a wasp buzzed around
her head.

“How did that
wasper get in here?” she asked as she rolled up a newspaper to use as a weapon.

“What did you
just say?” Tyler asked.

“I asked how
this wasper –”

“That’s it,” Tyler
said. “What is a wasper?”

“Now, Tyler, everybody
knows what a wasper is.”

“No, I’m afraid
I have never heard of such a thing.”

Maggie slammed
the newspaper down on her desk, producing a noise that attracted the attention
of the entire newsroom. “Well, it’s this thing I just killed.”

“That is, or
was, a wasp,” Tyler said. “Repeat after me, w-a-s-p. Wasp.”

In the past,
Tyler’s attitude in regards to the eating habits, vocabulary, place names, and,
in general, customs and traditions of eastern Kentucky would have upset Maggie.
But Tyler seemed to have developed something akin to respect for her after the
Mac Honaker murder investigation. He still made no secret of his contempt for
his adopted home and told anybody who would listen that he planned to move as
soon as he found another job. And although his smugness continued to antagonize
Joe, a transplant who had lived in the area for more than thirty years, and annoy
everyone else in the office, Maggie now found the young reporter amusing.

“Oh, Tyler, I’ve
been saying wasper for years. It was probably my first word.” Maggie tossed the
makeshift flyswatter into the trash can. “What did you find out about Hazel
Baker’s death?”

“That it,
indeed, was a drowning. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“What do you
mean?”

“What I just
said. I think my explanation was pretty straightforward.”

“Don’t get sassy
with me, Tyler. Tell me everything you learned from the police.”

Tyler flipped
open his notepad and recited in a monotone. “The state police ruled Hazel
Baker’s death an accidental drowning. She had a wound on her head that was created
when her head struck a rock. They surmise that the impact knocked her out and
she rolled into the lake and drowned. There was also evidence that she slipped.”

“What time did
this happen?”

“Sometime after
dark. The neighbor who found the body said he sat on his front porch listening
to gospel music and stringing beans until dark, at which time he went into his
house, got ready for bed, and retired for the night. Neither he nor other
neighbors reported hearing or seeing anything strange and the scene showed no
trace of a struggle.”

“What about the
pay lake customers?”

“It was closed
that day. The owner was out of town.”

Maggie tilted
her head. “It gets dark about nine. So, sometime between then and, what, six
the next morning, Hazel Baker decided to go for a walk inside a fenced-in lake?”

“A lake?” Tyler
asked. “It looks like a glorified pond to me. And why is eastern Kentucky so
fascinated by these so-called pay lakes? For an area that’s ravaged by poverty,
people don’t seem to have a problem throwing their money away for the privilege
of fishing on private land when they could just as easily sit on one of the
ample creek banks that cover the landscape.”

“Pay lakes are
not indigenous to eastern Kentucky and people pay to fish there because they’re
filled with fish. You don’t get that kind of a guarantee from a creek, but if
you don’t like how we run things around here, you’re welcome to leave.” Joe
delivered his directive as he walked by Tyler’s desk and without mentioning his
name or making eye contact.

For his part,
Tyler let the suggestion pass and said, “But, yeah, your scenario sounds about
right to me, Maggie.”

But it didn’t
sound right to Maggie. As she carried out her daily routine in the following
days, her mind wandered from her tasks at hand. She would be walking on the
treadmill, watching a favorite Investigation Discovery program, or folding
laundry and she’d ask herself, “Why was a woman Hazel Baker’s age walking alone
after dark? Or was this routine for her? Did she walk inside the fence and
around the lake for protection?”

Nearly two weeks
after Hazel’s death, Maggie finally met someone who attempted to answer her
questions. As Maggie stressed to come up with a lead for a story featuring a five-year-old
jump rope champion, a woman suddenly appeared at her desk and said, “I’m Stella
Martin. Hazel Baker was my sister and I know who killed her.”

Chapter Four

Maggie looked
around the newsroom. Seeing only the summer intern and the sports writers, she said,
“You must want to talk to one of the news reporters. They’re out right now and
so is the editor, but if you don’t care to wait –”

“Are you Maggie
Morgan?” Stella asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I’m here
to talk to you.”

“Me?” Maggie
asked. Although Stella’s face appeared rounder than Hazel’s, her brown hair was
styled in the same bob as her sister’s and she had the same engaging smile. She
seemed like someone Maggie might enjoy spending time with, but Maggie couldn’t
imagine why Stella had sought her out. “Why would you want to talk to me?”

“My friend,
Sylvia Johnson, tells me you solved the murder of the store owner who was
killed on Sugar Creek last fall. I want you to help me prove who killed my
sister.”

The mention of
Sylvie Johnson, an older Sugar Creek resident who had helped Maggie piece
together the clues on the Mac Honaker murder, surprised Maggie. She was anxious
to understand the connection between Sylvie, who knew everything about everyone
on Sugar Creek, and Hazel Baker’s sister, who lived on the other side of Geneva
County. “Let’s go to the break room,” Maggie suggested.

Once there,
Maggie asked, “How do you know Sylvie?”

“I was looking
for a seamstress to sew my daughter’s wedding dress and Sylvia was recommended
to me. She did not disappoint. After that, Hazel and I relied on Sylvia for all
our sewing and tailoring needs. She is such a delightful person. You can depend
on Sylvia to produce superior work and to tell you the truth.”

“She is direct,”
said Maggie, who reflected on Stella’s pronunciation of Sylvie’s name. It was
customary in eastern Kentucky to change names ending in “a” so they sound like
they end in “e” or “y.” Stella became Stellie. Sylvia became Sylvie. Yet,
Stella Martin had somehow failed to adopt that custom. Of course, now that
Maggie thought about it, she realized that most people called her mother Lena
instead of Lennie or Leannie. She made a mental note to ask her mom about that.
“Stella, I think Sylvie might have given you the wrong idea. Yes, I pointed the
police in the right direction, but I’m not a professional investigator. I
worked that case, so to speak, to clear the name of my brother’s friend.”

“I want you to
do the same thing for me.”

Maggie raised
her eyebrows and said, “I thought Hazel’s death was ruled an accidental
drowning. Has the official report been amended? Are they now considering it a
murder? Are you a suspect?”

“Heavens, no.
She could be a pain and she had a mean streak in her a mile wide, but I loved
my sister. And, no, the official report has not been amended.” Stella brushed
Maggie’s arm with her hand. “Let me ask you something. Do you have a sister?”

“No, I have one
brother.”

Stella smiled
softly and said, “Then I feel sorry for you. There’s nothing like the bond
between sisters. No one knows you like a sister. It can’t be the same as a
brotherly bond or a brother-sister bond because men aren’t as intuitive as
women are. Hazel and I could carry on conversations without ever speaking a
word. One look said it all. Tomorrow will make two weeks. I can’t tell you how
many times I’ve picked up the phone during that time to give her a call. Just
this morning, I ran across a recipe for burritos – Hazel loved Mexican food and
she could make a crispy chimichanga that would change your life – and I thought
to myself, ‘I’ll send this to Hazel. Maybe we’ll have another Mexican fiesta
this weekend.’ But I’ll never send her anything else and we’ll never share
another meal. At least not in this lifetime.”

Stella’s
monologue made Maggie think of her younger brother, Mark. He lived in
Indianapolis with his wife and two little boys and Maggie saw him only a few
times a year, but they spoke on the phone frequently and texted and chatted
nearly every day. She didn’t want to imagine a time when she wouldn’t be able
to talk to him.

Stella brought
Maggie out of her reverie. “My sister’s death was no accident. Anyone with
deductive reasoning should be able to recognize that.”

“What do you
mean?”

Stella shot her
a look that immediately make Maggie feel like the eight-year-old version of
herself who had told her third-grade teacher that her daddy said it rained
frogs.

“To the best of
my knowledge,” Stella said, “Hazel had never before opted to take a stroll by
that pay lake in the daytime, let alone on a humid summer night. She was
terrified of snakes and hated insects. Snakes can crawl by you during the day,
but at least you can see them. They’re not so easy to spot in the dark and
gnats and mosquitoes are worse at night as well. So, why did she decide to go
for a walk in dark blue workout clothes, mind you, at night and expose herself
to things that bite?”

Maggie agreed
with Stella. It made little sense to go for a walk at night in dark attire, but
even sensible people were known to behave foolishly. “Was she able to walk from
her property onto her neighbor’s or did she have to take the main road to get
to the lake?”

“She had to walk
on the road for a while. There’s a privacy fence around her property and a
chain-link fence around her neighbor’s, but it doesn’t directly butt up to the
road. There’s a line of grass between the fence and the road and I guarantee
you she would have avoided the grass.”

Maggie shivered.
“Snakes. And chiggers. I don’t know which one’s worse. A snake bite can kill
you, but a chigger bite can make you scratch yourself raw. They’re like ninjas.
You don’t even know they’re sucking the life out of you until a couple days
later when you develop an intense itch and a blister and usually in a most
embarrassing part of your body.” She shivered again. “I hate them.”

“I can tell.”
Stella said. “Back to Hazel, she walked at least four miles every morning on
the treadmill. She didn’t need the exercise.” Stella held both hands, palms up,
in the air. “And if she did suddenly have an urge to go for a walk, why would
she trespass onto private property? There’s a walking track not two miles from
her house. She would have driven there if she had wanted to take a walk in the
wee hours of the night. Or morning, depending on,” Stella’s voice trailed off,
“the time of death.”

“You do make
some compelling arguments.”

Stella wagged
the forefinger of her right hand. “There’s more to this. She left that house
for some reason and I want you to find out why. Don’t worry about expenses, I’ll
pay you for your time.”

Now it was
Maggie’s turn to hold up her hands. “Wait, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.”

“No, we’re not.
Did you know that Hazel retired not three months ago? We work our whole lives
to get to a comfortable place where we can finally spend our days doing
whatever we want without adhering to a schedule or waking up to a beeping alarm
clock. Hazel didn’t plan to travel the world or train for a marathon. But she
had plans. We were going to go on a Caribbean cruise and then spend two weeks
visiting our cousins in Florida. Hazel worked for that. Did you know she was a
nurse? She spent forty years caring for patients in Doc Griffith’s clinic. Now
it was time to take care of herself. But she won’t get to do that. And, this
might sound selfish, but I’m angry that somebody took her away from me.”

“I know you
can’t substitute one person for another, but you have other family,” Maggie said.
“They can help you get through this.”

“They are
helping, but like I said, there’s nothing like that sisterly bond. Growing up,
we didn’t have much. Only Hazel knew the humiliation I felt when our mother
sent me to school with a patchwork pair of pants she had fashioned from Hazel’s
ragged hand-me-downs. Only Hazel knew because she felt the same humiliation. Now,
I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I loved my childhood. It was wonderful.
We had enough love for two or three houses, but not enough money for one. Hazel
and I talked about that and about how far we’d come. About how we were grateful
that we could turn the thermostat up a few degrees in the winter and down in
the summer without worrying about how we were going to pay the electric bill.
No one will ever understand me the way she did. Not my dearly departed husband.
Not my daughter. Not my brother. No one.”

Why does this
keep happening? Maggie thought to herself. And why can’t I just say no?

Instead, she said,
“Earlier, you said you know who killed your sister.”

“There’s no
doubt in my mind that her ex-husband killed her. He took up with a floozy half
his age a few years ago and threw Hazel away like she was an old pair of shoes
he had gotten tired of wearing. But he couldn’t get rid of her that easy. He had
to share his pension with her. And, believe me, that’s something he did not
want to do.”

“Did you share your
theory with the police?”

“Of course,”
Stella answered with a huff. “And they told me I needed to accept that an
accident had caused her death. They spouted all sorts of nonsense about how we
don’t want to accept that a random accident could take away a person we love. I
found their attitude offensive. I am not a child. I am a fifty-eight-year-old
woman who’s buried both her parents and her husband. I’ve suffered loss and
I’ve dealt with that loss. But this is more than loss. Somebody killed my
sister. Somebody took her away from me. Now,” Stella leaned across the table
and clasped her hand around Maggie’s, “are you going to help me find her
killer?”