Murder at Catfish Corner: A Maggie Morgan Mystery (5 page)

“What is she
going to do?” Dr. Griffith’s focus remained on Maggie.

“She’s going to
ask you a few questions,” Stella said.

“I know you’re
grieving, Stella, and I’d like to help, but I have no idea what happened to
Hazel and, frankly, I don’t understand why you’re here. I hadn’t seen or talked
to her since her retirement party and that was months ago.”

Now it was time
for Stella to fix her gaze on Dr. Griffith. “Vanessa, you must be mistaken.
Hazel told me on the Thursday before her death that she had stopped by here.”

Dr. Griffith hit
her forehead with the palm of her hand, “That did slip my mind.”

“That’s why
we’re here,” Stella said. “We’re talking to people who had contact with her in
those final days.”

“I don’t know
how I could possibly help.”

“You never
know,” Maggie said. “It could be the least little thing. Do you remember what
you talked about that day?”

Dr. Griffith stared
past Maggie and Stella. “We made small talk. We talked about the humidity. It
was a beautiful sunny day but you could see the humidity hanging in the air. I’m
sure I complained about how it makes my hair frizzy.” She pulled strands of her
curly hair as evidence.

“That’s all you
talked about?” Maggie asked. “The weather?”

“I think so. I’m
sure she asked about a few of her favorite patients, but that was just about
it.”

“Did she say why
she had come by?”

“Just to see how
we were doing. She chatted with the new nurse and the receptionist, too.”

“How did she
seem?”

“Seem?” Dr. Griffith
repeated the word as the trace of a smile formed on her face. “Like Hazel.”

Stella laughed
and said to Maggie, “I love my sister, but she was high strung. But that kind
of attitude served her well in her job. Wouldn’t you agree, Vanessa?”

“She certainly
ran a tight ship.”

“I’d say so,”
Stella agreed. “She kept this clinic running for four decades. Doc Griffith
credited her with keeping the doors open.”

“Wait a second,”
Maggie said. “I thought Hazel was a nurse.”

“She was,”
Stella answered. “She was Doc Griffith’s nurse and his office manager.”

“Talk about
multitasking,” Maggie said.

“If that’s all,
I really need to get back to my patients.” Dr. Griffith stood. “Stella, you let
me know if you need anything. Maggie, it was nice meeting you.”

Back in the car,
Maggie said, “Do you think it’s odd that she forgot about seeing Hazel days
before her death?”

“Yes, I do,”
Stella said, “but I wouldn’t put too much stock in that. Vanessa is busy with
the clinic and she and her husband adopted twins a year ago and they’re
building a new house. Like I told Earl David, people have their own lives. Well,
here we are. This is where Earnest lives with his mistress.”

“I thought they
were married,” Maggie said.

“They are. He
even adopted her bratty little girl.” Stella leaned toward Maggie and said in a
tone that suggested a conspiracy, “Guess what Brandi named that kid?”

“I have no
idea.”

“Paradise. As if
that’s not bad enough, she spelled it P-A-R-A-D-I-C-E. I don’t know if the
misspelling was intentional or if she thinks that’s how the word is spelled.”

Stella smirked
and unbuckled her seat belt. Before Maggie and Stella exited the car, a man stumbled
out of the house.

“Hello,
Earnest,” Stella said as she closed her car door. “How are you doing today?”

“Now, Stella,” Earnest
said while repeatedly shaking his head, “I don’t want trouble. I told you I
didn’t want to talk to you.”

“Earnest, I’ve
known you since I was five years old and, well, you couldn’t have been more
than eleven.” Stella looked over her shoulder at Maggie. “Earnest rode the same
school bus as Hazel, Dennis, and me. Earnest became the patrol boy when he was
still in grade school. Do you remember that, Earnest?”

“Of course, I
remember, Stella. I was the youngest patrol boy in the school’s history.”

Maggie noticed
Earnest’s trembling hands.

“Do you remember
how I used to go on dates with you and Hazel?” Stella turned to Maggie. “Our
mother wouldn’t let us go on dates without a chaperone. I was younger than
Hazel, but I was her chaperone. What do you think about that?”

Unsure if Stella
had posed a rhetorical question, Maggie stuttered, “That’s certainly something.”

“Well, Earnest,
we go back a long way and I would like to think you’d extend the courtesy to
talk to my friend, Maggie, and me about Hazel.”

“I don’t have
anything to say about Hazel. She was a good woman and I’m sorry she’s dead, but
that’s all I have to say.”

“Are you sure
about that?” Stella said.

“What are you
trying to say?” Earnest asked in a breaking voice. “I know what you’re after. I
know you’ve been going around telling people I killed Hazel.”

Just then, the
front door flew open and a woman who looked young enough to be Earnest’s daughter
raced down the driveway with a little girl on her heels.

“If you don’t
get off my property, I’m calling the police,” the woman shrieked. “You’re
trespassing.”

“Let me handle
this, Brandi,” Earnest reasoned. “You take Paradice and go back inside.”

Brandi broke
free of Earnest’s grip and said, “I ain’t going nowheres until these old cows
get off my property.”

Although Maggie
didn’t appreciate Brandi referring to her as an aged bovine, she couldn’t argue
with the trespassing charge. “Stella, I think we should leave,” Maggie said.

Stella held her
hands up in front of her chest. “Okay, we’ll leave. You’d think that a person
with nothing to hide would want to share his story with everyone, but maybe
that’s just me.”

“He don’t have
no story,” Brandi yelled in Stella’s face. “He didn’t have nothing to do with
your dried-up old sister dying. The old hag slipped and fell when she was off somewheres
she shouldn’t have been. Just like you’re somewheres now you shouldn’t be.
Maybe you’ll slip and fall, too.”

Maggie flinched,
but Stella held firm. She didn’t move until Earnest and the girl physically pulled
Brandi away from her. When Stella reached the car, she pointed her forefinger
at Earnest and said, “I will find out what happened to Hazel. And that’s a
promise.”

After they
backed out of the driveway, Stella said to Maggie, “Earnest and Hazel were
married for thirty-five years. He threw all that away to take up with that loud
piece of trash. The only thing that gave Hazel solace was knowing he’d be
saddled with that obnoxious and odious woman and her spoiled daughter for the
rest of his life.” Stella fell silent and, after driving for several minutes, asked,
“So, what do you think? Can you prove Earnest killed my sister?”

Maggie, who had
been reading the back of the Tylenol bottle to determine if she could take two
more pills for what had developed into a full-blown headache, said, “I’m not
too sure anyone killed your sister.”

“Now, Maggie,
don’t let that floozy intimidate you. I taught her in school. Well, at least I
did before she dropped out. I know where she came from. I know where Earnest
came from, too. You’re smarter than both of them put together.”

“Maybe so, but
that doesn’t mean the police are wrong. It could have been an accident.”

Stella snorted.
“Common sense will tell you that something or someone lured Hazel out of her
house that night.”

“Even if that’s
true, it doesn’t mean Earnest killed her.”

“Yes, it does,”
Stella said. “Who else had a reason to murder Hazel?”

Chapter Seven

Maggie enjoyed
dinner and a movie that evening with Luke, her best friend, Edie, and Edie’s
husband, Ben. When she and Luke returned to her house, he asked her about
vacation plans.

“I don’t know,”
she said. “I haven’t given it much thought.”

“Don’t you think
you should? It’s fast approaching.”

Maggie tried to
envision herself relaxing on a beach or exploring the charms of a major
American city, but her mind kept returning to the strange day she had spent in
Sassafras with Stella.

She wasn’t in a
better state of mind the next morning. Even the
Dateline
she had
recorded couldn’t hold her attention. After twenty minutes, she gave up and
concentrated on the mystery surrounding Hazel’s death.

She couldn’t argue
with Stella. There didn’t seem to be any reason for Hazel to get out of bed,
dress in dark clothing, and take a walk around a lake in the dead of night,
especially since she avoided that lake during the day. Then again, she had to
admit that people behave irrationally and unexpectedly all the time.

She also had to
admit that, with the exception of Boone Osborne, everyone she had encountered
in Sassafras seemed off. Although she conceded that Earnest and Brandi had every
right to request she and Stella vacate their property, Brandi had come across
as a lunatic who couldn’t control her temper and Earnest as a frightened old
man.

And she hadn’t failed
to notice how Earl David and Fallon had played with their respective plastic
bottles while answering simple questions. But their behavior was overshadowed
by Dennis’ weird demeanor.

“If it hadn’t
been for him constantly turning in that chair, I would have thought he was on
the verge of catatonia,” Maggie said to Barnaby. “And who forgets his last
conversation with his dead sister? For that matter, who forgets their last conversation
with a former employee? A conversation that occurred less than forty-eight hours
before that former employee’s lifeless body was found? But that’s what Dr. Griffith
claims.” Although Barnaby showed no indication he wanted to hear about the
Sassafras saga, Maggie continued her monologue. “And what’s with Stella? She’s also
a little – unusual.”

Before Maggie
could continue airing her concerns to an uninterested Barnaby, the phone rang.
Expecting it to be Luke or her parents, she answered without checking the ID
and was surprised to hear her ex-fiancé, Seth, say hello.

“Oh, hi, Seth,”
she answered. “This is a surprise.” After Maggie had broken their engagement
some years back, Seth had started dating another woman who he subsequently married.
He and Maggie had remained on friendly terms, but rarely saw each other until
Maggie began looking into Mac Honaker’s murder. Although the murder occurred in
the county and fell outside the town’s jurisdiction, Seth, a Jasper police
detective, had offered advice, assistance, and admonishment to Maggie. Only
after Maggie had identified the murderer did she learn that Seth and his wife had
divorced. She hadn’t seen him since that day in the Dinner Bucket Diner when
he’d dropped that bombshell on her.

“How are you
doing, Maggie?” he asked.

“I’m well. You?”

“Can’t complain
on a beautiful day like this. I might get outside and soak up some sunshine.
Heck, I might even go fishing later. Can you recommend a place? I’ve been
craving catfish.”

Maggie gritted
her teeth and closed her eyes. “If you have something to ask me, just ask.”

“In that case, I
will. Why are you nosing around Sassafras? Why are you and Hazel Baker’s sister
harassing people?”

“In the first
place, it’s my business and no one else’s if I want to nose around Sassafras.
In the second place, Stella and I didn’t harass anyone.”

“That’s not what
Brandi Baker said.”

“Brandi Baker also
called me an old cow, so what does she know?”

Maggie heard
Seth laughing. “When you put it that way, I can’t disagree.”

“What’s this
about, Seth? How do you even know I was in Sassafras yesterday? Were you
following me?”

“No, but that
might not be such a bad idea. Brandi Baker called the state police and
complained about you and Stella Martin. She wanted to press charges for
trespassing, but the trooper talked her out of it.”

“Let me guess,
it was my old friend, Trooper Surly, who called you and told on me.”

“That’s pretty
much what happened, but instead of giving him grief, you should be thanking him
for keeping you out of jail.”

“I’ll send him a
card.”

“Listen, Maggie,
why don’t you cut the attitude and leave this alone?”

“Why don’t you
cut the attitude, Seth? You’re the one calling me. Besides, Stella Martin
thinks her sister was killed, and I’m beginning to think she’s right.”

“Maggie, do not
–”

Maggie hung up
the phone before he could finish his sentence.

“Oh, but I will
do,” she said to Barnaby. “And I know just who I need to talk to.”

Chapter Eight

“I brought you
some cucumbers out of Daddy’s garden,” Maggie said, presenting the bag of
gourds to Sylvie Johnson.

“Thank you,”
Sylvie said. “There’s nothing better on a hot summer day than cucumber slices
in cool salt water. When I used to keep a garden, cucumbers was my favorite
thing to raise, but it just don’t make sense for me to plant a garden anymore.
Between the time I spent working in it and the money I spent on seeds and
plants and fertilizer, the way I figured it, I was coming out in the hole. I
get my produce from that roadside market out on the four-lane. I don’t buy a
whole big lot. Just enough for me to eat on and then I freeze some of it.
That’s what I’ve been doing today. Putting up tomatoes. I’ve been so busy that
I didn’t have time to bake a cake or cobbler for you. I do have cantaloupe,
though. I sliced it just this morning.”

“Cantaloupe
sounds good.”

Sylvie put two
slices of cantaloupe on a saucer for Maggie and said, “Well, there’s no need to
stand here all day. Let’s go to the living room and sit down.”

Maggie sat on
the sofa and Sylvie took her spot in her recliner. She picked up a scrap of
cloth that had formerly served as a yellow-and-white checkered shirt, a pair of
scissors, and a pattern fashioned from cardboard and sandpaper, and started
cutting quilt pieces.

“What are you
working on?” Maggie asked her.

“A double
wedding ring quilt.”

“For anyone in
particular?”

“For a couple of
dummies that don’t have no more sense than to get married. The girl’s mommy is
getting me to make it. That cantaloupe good?”

“Yes, it is,”
Maggie answered, “and it matches the color of your house dress.”

“Is that what
you come here for? To compliment my dress?”

“No.” Maggie
wiped the cantaloupe juice from her mouth, set the saucer on the coffee table,
and made a mental note to swing by that market off the four-lane. “I met one of
your friends. Stella Martin.”

Sylvie frowned.
“I don’t know if I’d call me and Stellie friends. I sew for her. I’ve made quilts
and clothes for her. I’ve hemmed her clothes. But I ain’t never spent a Sunday
afternoon at her house, so I wouldn’t call her a friend.”

Maggie smiled at
Sylvie’s definition of a friend. “Stella considers you a friend. What do you
think of her?”

Sylvie lifted
her eyes from the material. “Why do you want to know?”

Maggie sighed.
“Her sister, Hazel Baker, died. I think you knew her, too.”

“I did.”

“Stella thinks
the police are wrong. She thinks Hazel was murdered.”

“What’s this got
to do with you?”

“She wants my
help. She said you told her about me.”

“I might have
mentioned that it was you and not the police that figured out who shot Mac, but
I thought that was common knowledge. I didn’t know it would be news to Stellie,
but she does live all the way over there in Sassyfras so maybe the news was slow
getting to her.” Sylvie pursed her lips. “But I most certainly did not write
you a letter of recommendation.”

“I didn’t say
you did.” Maggie closed her eyes and counted to ten. “Let’s start over. What
can you tell me about Hazel and Stella?”

“I ain’t telling
you nothing. Your mommy is still mad at me for helping you last time.” Sylvie
snorted. “I bet you ain’t even told her that you’re at it again.”

“I haven’t,”
Maggie admitted, “because I haven’t made up my mind. Well, not completely. I
did spend a day in Sassafras with Stella and I did talk to Hazel’s neighbors,
her tenant, the brother –”

“You mean
Dennis? Hazel and Stellie’s brother? What did you think of that weirdo?”

Maggie laughed.
“He does come across as an odd duck.”

“That’s because
he is an odd duck.” Sylvie stopped cutting and pointed the scissors toward
Maggie. “I’ll talk to you on one condition. You have to tell your mommy what
you’re up to. I won’t have Lena placing any blame on me. Not this time.”

“Agreed.”

“What do you
want to know?” Sylvie asked.

“Let’s start
with how you met them.”

“I used to make
alterations for that fancy dress shop in Jasper. Your mommy helped me
sometimes. You know all about that. I got a good deal of work from that shop. That’s
how I met Stellie. She wanted somebody to sew a handmade wedding dress for that
girl of hers, and the lady that run the store recommended me to her. She must
have been pleased with my work cause her and Hazel started coming all the way
over here from Sassyfras to get me to make dresses and blouses and even a few
pairs of pants for them. They said it reminded them of the clothes their mommy
made them. You’d think they wouldn’t have waited until they was, well, I guess
you’d call them middle-aged, to start wearing homemade clothes again. And if they
wanted homemade clothes that bad, you’d think they would have learned to sew
themselves. But what am I saying? Your mommy is one of the best seamstresses
that’s ever lived in Genevie County and you never learned to sew, neither.”

“About how long
ago was this?”

“I didn’t mark
it on my calendar, so I can’t give you the exact date, but Hazel was still
married to that Earnest feller.”

“What was Hazel
like?”

“She was a
little hateful, if you ask me. She was never rude to me. But she just had a
hateful turn. She was always complaining about something or another.”

“Like what?”

“Like that lake.
She said those people who came there to fish used the bathroom on her
property.”

Maggie pictured
Hazel’s property and asked, “In her yard? In broad daylight?”

“I don’t know. It
didn’t make no sense to me, but from what she said, there was a little shed at
the lake and they would stand behind it and use the bathroom in the direction
of her property. I ain’t never been there so I can’t say if it was possible or
not.”

“I have been
there and I don’t know if it’s possible. A privacy fence stands between the
properties.”

Sylvie nodded. “She
carried on about it so much that Stellie told her to get her one of those fences,
but that didn’t satisfy her. She said they was still doing it. Then, she
started going on about how they threw their pop bottles and tater chip bags
over her fence. Stellie told her to tell that guy that owned the lake and he’d
pick up the trash. As far as I know, Hazel never said nothing to him. She just
wanted something to go on about.”

“What did she
have to say about Earnest and his new bride?”

“If I repeated
the words she used, my mommy would raise from the grave and wash my mouth out
with lye soap. But I can understand where Hazel was coming from. If you count dating,
then she and Earnest was together for over forty years. She was not expecting
him to leave her. That came as a shock to her.” Sylvie smirked. “Did they tell
you how Earnest met that girl?”

“No.” Maggie
leaned forward. “How?”

“She cleaned for
them. She cleaned for Stellie, too. Hazel didn’t even know they had been
carrying on until he up and left her. She let him go, but not without getting
part of his pension and clear deeds for their house and her mommy’s house. Now,
I don’t know if this is true, but they told me he tried to take the house he
and Hazel lived in. They said that young girl he left her for was already making
her plans to redecorate. They said she had ordered new kitchen cabinets and picked
out a room for her little girl. If that’s the truth, then she underestimated
Hazel. She wasn’t one to roll over for nobody.”

Although Maggie
did not condone Earnest’s decision to leave his wife of thirty-five years for a
woman half his age, she had to wonder if Hazel had demonstrated an aggressive
attitude during their marriage and if that had played a role in the dissolution
of their relationship. “Did you ever see Hazel around Earnest?”

Sylvie nodded.
“Hazel dragged him here once and insisted I pull out dozens of my quilts to
show him. You could tell he had about as much interest in my handiwork as I
have in one of those races they show on the TV. It never made no sense to me
why grown men would chase each other around a circle or why anybody would waste
their time watching them. Don’t people have nothing better to do?”

“To each his
own,” Maggie said. “So, how did Hazel treat Earnest?”

“I don’t know
what went on behind closed doors, but she treated him real good in front of me.
Hazel was what they call plainspoken, but she was real nice to him and Stellie.
And, Lord, she loved Stellie’s girl. That was her baby.”

“What about
Dennis? How did he and Hazel interact?”

Sylvie adjusted
her glasses and said, “You could tell he got all over her nerves. And I can
understand why, but she was downright mean to him. They brought him over here
when Stellie’s girl had a fitting for her dress. I had made a pot of spaghetti
and meatballs and offered some to them. Dennis said, ‘Yes, I’ll take a bowl,’
but Hazel told him he couldn’t have none. So he didn’t. And then there was Stellie.
If I had give him a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs, she would have probably
fed him. That’s his problem right there. He ain’t never had to be a man. That
girl of Stellie’s was the only one of them who didn’t treat him like a baby.”
Sylvie looked up from her work. “And you know, he acted almost normal around
her. He actually laughed and smiled when she was around. He didn’t sit there
moving back and forth with his arms across his chest. Stellie told me Hazel had
him tested once. She had in mind to get him signed up on his disability, but
they said they was nothing wrong with him. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to
say that, but some people are just weird. That don’t mean they got a condition.”

Maggie
considered Sylvie’s declaration. If people could get their disability based on
weird behavior, she thought to herself, then I might qualify to draw a check
due to my morbid curiosity for murder mysteries. “Did the sisters get along
well?” she asked Sylvie.

“They did. When
Hazel was carrying on about something, Stellie would listen until her patience
wore out. Then, she’d come around with a smart remark that would shut Hazel up.
Like the time Hazel was complaining about how that old doctor’s daughter made
changes around the office. Stellie smiled and suggested that maybe they could
bring back the old doctor as one of those sombies.”

“Sombies?”

“Like on the TV.
They’re dead but they walk around like us and eat people. I think it’s
disgusting and don’t know why they allow such as that on the TV.” Sylvie shook
her head. “There ain’t been nothing good on since they took
Magnum
off.”

Maggie giggled. “What
do you think of Stella?”

“I like her all
right. Why?”

“She’s just … I
don’t know. She’s nice to me, but it’s like she went out of her way to put me down
in front of Boone Osborne. What’s strange is that she also talks me up and acts
like I’m an investigator on the level of, well, Magnum. And she talked about
Hazel’s renter like a dog, but played with her little boy. Not that I think she
should have been rude to the little boy. It’s just, I don’t know, hard to
define.”

Sylvie said, “If
I thought as little as they do for that girl, I wouldn’t let her inside my mommy’s
house, let alone live in it. But that was Hazel’s doing. I reckon Stellie told
you about that.”

“She did.”
Maggie continued trying to find the right words to explain Stella’s actions and
behavior. “She also has this way of manipulating people to get them to do what
she wants. She did that with Earl David, the guy who owns the pay lake, and she
tried it on Earnest.”

“I know what
you’re talking about. She tried that with me, too. She had some big shindig to
go to and waited until two weeks before the thing to ask me to make her a
dress. And it prom season. I told her I had too many alterations to do. She
started this whole song and dance about how good I was and I said, ‘Stellie, me
being good ain’t going to get these dresses let out and hemmed for those
girls.’ She didn’t try that tack with me again.” Sylvie finished cutting the
yellow scraps and rifled through her basket until she produced solid lilac
material. “She’s not one hundred percent fake, but she can turn it on and off. At
least you knew what you was getting with Hazel.”

“Exactly,”
Maggie said excitedly. “Well, I guess. I didn’t know Hazel, but I see what you
mean about Stella.”

“But Stellie
does have a good personality, I’ll give her that, and she ain’t ashamed of
where she come from. But I think she talks about how poor she was so she can
tell you how good she has it now. And she and Hazel put their mommy on a
pedestal. Now, I didn’t know the woman, so maybe she was as good and perfect as
they make her out to be, but they carry on about her too much for my taste. Other
than that, I don’t really have a problem with Stellie. I take that back. The
way she calls that weirdo Dennis, ‘Brother,’ gets on my nerves.” Sylvie pursed
her lips. “It’s just as bad as that ole ‘Bubby’ and ‘Sissy’ routine. Say their
names and get on with it.”

Smiling, Maggie
said, “So, Sylvie, you knew Hazel. What do you make of the way she died?”

“It does seem strange. I don’t go traipsing over to the neighbor’s in the
middle of the night. But we don’t know what goes on in other people’s minds. Who
knows why they do what they do?”

When Maggie
pulled into her driveway, she spotted someone in the garden with her dad. As
soon as she got out of her car, Robert waved and yelled at her, “Come over
here. You have a visitor.”

Maggie didn’t
place the bibbed-overall-wearing man standing beside her dad until he walked
out of the garden with Robert. “Hey, Boone,” she said when she recognized him.
“You said you might take a notion and come over here one day to see Daddy. I
guess that day’s today.

“It is, it is,”
Boone said. “And I came to see you, too. I need to tell you that I remembered
something about the night Hazel Baker died.”