Prologue

Jay Harris leaned against a tree and admired the mountains across the road. Growing up in the flatlands of Indiana, Jay had never understood why his parents had chosen to leave eastern Kentucky’s beautiful and rugged mountains. As a boy, he had looked forward to visiting his parents’ families, which gave him the chance to explore the area’s hilly terrain. Sure, it got a little bleak during winter, but after a spring rain and warming temperatures, the trees turned green before his eyes. One minute, they stood stark against a gray sky. In the next minute, they exploded with green buds. Oh, Jay knew it didn’t happen that quickly, but it seemed like that to him. And although he would never admit it to anyone, the display of nature took his breath and brought tears to his eyes.

Jay had struggled after his dad’s sudden death. He had lost his footing and it wasn’t until he and his mom traveled south for a stay with his grandparents that he began to feel better about life and about himself. He mentioned to his pappaw Harris that he wanted to stay in Kentucky, and the old man had helped him find a job and offered him a room in his little house. Jay had accepted his offer and, before too long, he had talked himself into a second job. He didn’t plan to remain at either job or with his pappaw forever, but the jobs put gas in his truck and food in his mouth and funded his tuition at the local community college. The room gave him the opportunity to get to know his pappaw better and provided a connection to his late father. He liked living in the house where his dad had grown up. He liked knowing that his dad had sat in those same old creaky kitchen chairs when he was his age.

Jay breathed in the fresh spring air and smiled. His friends back home questioned his sanity for moving to what they described as the sticks, but Jay didn’t care what they said. He had found a home in these mountains and it’s where he planned to spend the rest of his life. He was so lost in planning his future that he never heard the footsteps approaching him from behind.

Chapter One

By Maggie Morgan’s count, twenty-two inflatable Christmas decorations swayed in the yard beside Sylvie Johnson’s house. Maggie didn’t like inflatables. Their oversized eyes and too wide smiles reminded her of comic book villains. As unnerving as they seemed when inflated, she considered them downright creepy when deflated and lying on the ground like melted witches. Still, she appreciated the homeowners’ dedication to decorating. Most people might consider a dozen cartoon characters excessive, but not Sylvie’s neighbors. They had apparently examined the twenty-one inflatables crowding their lawn, shaken their heads, and said, “It needs more.”

Maggie stepped onto Sylvie’s porch, but before she had a chance to knock, Sylvie opened the front door, wearing a gray sweater and orange house dress over her short, plump frame. “Ooh,” Maggie shivered as she walked into Sylvie’s cozy home. “I can’t believe it’s already this cold, and it’s just early December.”

“This is the kind of cold weather we got when I was growing up. You ask your mommy and daddy about it. They can tell you as good as I can.” Sylvie shuffled across the floor in blue booties, collapsed into her chair, and picked up a pair of slacks and a seam cutter. “That weatherman on channel 3 is calling for snow. They don’t no more know what’s going to happen than I do and I usually don’t put much stock in what they say. But he’s fairly dependable. I allow he’s right more than he’s wrong.”

“I think the weather people are in cahoots with the stores. You watch, every time they predict snow, people swarm to the stores. I bet the TV stations are getting kickbacks on all the milk, bread, and cigarettes people buy in anticipation of a snowstorm that never comes.”

Maggie giggled and waited for the usually verbose older woman to offer comment, but Sylvie worked in silence. Maggie also waited for Sylvie to offer her something to eat, but that wasn’t forthcoming, either.

“I see you’re ready for Christmas,” Maggie said in an attempt to make small talk.

“Huh?”

“You’ve put up a Christmas tree.” The existence of the small tree sitting atop a closed sewing machine cabinet surprised Maggie. She figured Sylvie would be much too practical to waste time and resources on something as ornate as a three foot tall Christmas tree.

“That’s the doings of my niece and her girl. They insist I have a tree every year. So, I said, ‘Fine, if you want me to have a tree, you’re responsible for it.’” Sylvie pursed her lips. “I think all this decorating is just a bunch of nonsense. I believe in living and let live, but every time I look out my window and see all those bouncy, plastic thingamajigs in my niece’s yard, I have to stop myself from going over there with my pin cushion and introducing them to Mr. Sharp. That would put an end to those funny-looking things flapping in the wind.”

Maggie smiled. That was the Sylvie she knew. “So, what did you want to talk to me about?”

“I made your mommy and daddy a fruitcake. I want you to give it to them. And I made a tree skirt for you.” Sylvie nodded toward the couch where Maggie sat. “It’s on the cushion beside you.”

Maggie spread the cross-stitched tree skirt in front of her. “Oh my, Sylvie. It’s got a brown dog on it. This is beautiful. The dog even looks like it could be a Labrador. It looks like it could be my Barnaby.” She picked up the tree skirt and hugged it to her chest. “I love it and I’ll put it under my tree as soon as I get home.”

“When I saw it in the catalog, I thought you might like it. I ordered it on clearance last year after Christmas and finished it back in the summer. I can’t remember if it was you or your mommy that told me you had a brown dog.” Sylvie glanced up from her work and regarded Maggie as if it were the first time she had seen her. “Why are you so gussied up? You don’t even look like yourself.”

It was true. Maggie had allowed an advertising representative at the Jasper Sentinel, where Maggie worked as the lifestyle editor and feature writer, to talk her into attending a makeover party earlier that afternoon. Maggie, who usually wore a minimal amount of eye liner and lipstick, had received a makeover that transformed her into a poster child for the cosmetics company that sponsored the party. The blush the licensed cosmetologist had applied made Maggie’s creamy skin itch and the eye shadow felt heavy around her dark brown eyes. The makeup also made her feel self-conscious and Sylvie’s declaration only deepened those feelings. She decided that upon returning to her car, she’d remove as much makeup as possible with the paper napkins she collected from restaurants and stored in her center console. Maggie instinctively tugged on her pixie-cut brown hair in an unsuccessful attempt to cover her face. When that didn’t work, she muttered, “It was a favor for a friend from work.”

“Speaking of favors,” Sylvie laid the seam cutter on the arm of her chair and said, “there’s another reason I asked you to come by, but I don’t know if I should even mention it.” She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “You remember hearing about that boy that went missing from over on Calf Lick back in the spring?”

Maggie remembered all too well the day Joe, her editor at the Sentinel, asked her to proofread a story about a young man’s disappearance. Although she had grown up in an area with place names that referenced animals and random adjectives, Calf Lick Fork had always held special interest to her. She attributed this fascination to her mom, Lena’s, advice to her to lick her calf whenever she made a mistake. Maggie had never determined if Lena meant for her to lick a young bovine or the back of her own leg and she had never asked for clarification. She had always wondered if the person who christened Calf Lick Fork had also been a proponent of making do-overs as difficult as possible.

“I remember,” Maggie said. “As far as I know, he still hasn’t shown up.”

“No, he hasn’t.”

“How do you know about this, Sylvie?”

“Because I’ve talked to his pappaw, Gentry Harris. I worked with Gentry’s late wife at the dry cleaner’s.”

“I didn’t know you worked at an actual job.” Maggie squeezed her eyes shut. “That didn’t come out right. I meant that I didn’t know you had done anything but make alterations and sew and quilt. Oh, that didn’t come out right, either.”

Sylvie frowned and brushed a lock of gray hair that had fallen from the loose bun on her head. “You know I ain’t sensitive about what people say to me. Besides, I know you didn’t mean nothing by what you said. But I worked there before your time, so you wouldn’t have knowed about it.”

“What did you do there?”

“Alterations. I worked there when I was married to that no-count husband of mine. I knowed he wasn’t about to go out and find a job, so I did. Gentry’s wife, Irmyjean, run one of the machines. She died a long time ago, but I’ve stayed in touch with Gentry. They just had the one boy and he lived in Indiana. Well, he did before he dropped dead of a heart attack. Him and his boy had come back from a ball game and he died right there on the porch before he could get inside the house. The key was still in the lock. Him and his wife just had one boy, too. He moved down here to live with Gentry after his daddy died. He’s the one that’s disappeared. And that’s what I want to talk to you about.”

Sylvie ran her hands over the slacks lying in her lap. “I don’t feel right asking you to help, but I saw Gentry at Save-a-Lot the other day. I said to him, ‘Gentry, are you ready for ole Santie Claus?’ He had been smiling, but when I asked him that, his face, well, it sort of fell and he told me the only thing he wanted from Santie Claus was to find out what happened to that boy. That hit me right in the heart. Gentry was the baby of his family and all his brothers and sisters have done died. He has some nieces and nephews and cousins, but most of the family moved away from here, just like Gentry’s boy did. Gentry ain’t really got nobody else in this world. All he has is that boy. And, well, he’s been missing for months now. Ain’t no telling what happened to him.”

“Where do I come in, Sylvie?”

“That’s just it. You snooped around and found out who killed Mac Honaker and then you were the one that figured out what happened to Hazel Baker, so I thought you might be able to help Gentry. But I don’t know if I have a right to ask.”

“Why not?”

“Cause when you came around asking me about Mac and Hazel, I didn’t think you had no business to be doing so. Why, you’re just a little girl. It ain’t like you’re a professional.”

“I’m not a little girl, Sylvie. I’m thirty-five years old.”

“Well, that still don’t make you no professional and if your mommy knowed I was discussing this with you, she’d tear into me so plain that a fly wouldn’t light on me.”

“Don’t worry about Mom. She’ll be fine. Besides, it’s too cold for flies.” Maggie chewed the inside of her lip. “What do you want me to do, Sylvie?”

“Well, I want you to study on it before you make up your mind.”

Sylvie returned her attention to ripping out the seams in the pants and Maggie looked at the little Christmas tree. Every year, she devoted a series of photo spreads to the county’s most outlandish decorations and covered Jasper’s tree-decorating contest. Her fellow Geneva County residents’ efforts to out-Griswold one another amused her and the classy and expensively-decorated trees amazed her. But she preferred the discount ornaments clinging to Sylvie’s tree to the more elaborate and elegant displays she featured in the newspaper. “I like your tree, Sylvie.”

“Thank you.” Sylvie sighed. “If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell nobody?”

Always appreciative of a secret, Maggie leaned toward Sylvie. “Sure. You can trust me.”

“I think it’s silly the way everybody acts at Christmas. They just go overboard. It’s like they forget they have to live the rest of the year, too. But sometimes, I’ll turn off the lights in here and just stare at the lights on the tree. It makes me feel all warm inside to watch them blink.”

Maggie watched the lights twinkle and asked, “Does Gentry Harris live at Calf Lick?”

Sylvie nodded.

“How about you and I drive over there tomorrow and talk to him?” Maggie suggested.

“Now, no, I told you to study on it for a while.”

“I can’t make up my mind without first hearing what he has to say. Besides, just because I talk to him doesn’t mean I’ll help him.”

Even as she said the words, Maggie didn’t believe them.

Chapter Two

As soon as Maggie hopped in Sylvie’s old pickup truck, she regretted her decision to catch a ride to Calf Lick with her. She was accustomed to growing impatient with the slow driving of older generations, but as Sylvie whipped around Sugar Creek’s curvy roads, Maggie would have welcomed a meandering drive with her parents. To make matters worse, Sylvie drove a stick shift. Maggie didn’t care that people trumpeted the advantages of driving vehicles with gas-friendlier manual transmissions. She had considered them deathtraps ever since her dad had tried to teach her to drive his stick shift pickup. While she had waited for the car in front of her to pull off the road, Maggie had allowed the truck to roll backward on a hill, almost hitting another vehicle in the process. If that hadn’t been enough to scare her off stick shifts forever, she finalized her decision when the pickup stalled in a busy intersection. Sometimes, at night, she could still hear her dad’s raised voice as well as the honking horns articulating their disapproval.

Thankfully, Sylvie had no such issues with driving a stick. She turned the truck out of Sugar Creek and zipped onto a narrow road that served as a shortcut to Calf Lick. Although Maggie had driven this route in emergencies, she usually preferred to take the long way whenever she needed to visit the northern part of Geneva County. Sylvie motored up the winding road as if a mountain were not staring at her through the driver’s side window and as if a fifty-foot drop off the road did not tease her from the passenger side. Maggie looked out the window at the houses packed into the valley below. Just as with most communities in eastern Kentucky, the houses represented various levels of household income. A camper or a decaying mobile home leaned next door to a two-story brick home or an expansive ranch. Maggie had to admit there were some fine homes in this neighborhood, which she had long-since dubbed the land that time forgot, but she had decided long ago that she wouldn’t move here if someone gave her a clear deed to the most expensive piece of land and the grandest home. The houses on the side of the hill stood on wooden stilts while the homes in the valley sat in and around the road’s ample curves. She had fallen into a reverie in which she wondered if the community’s inhabitants recognized its deficiencies when the truck started moving backward. She had a flashback to the day she drove her dad’s stick shift and imagined that Sylvie had somehow allowed the truck to roll. She forced her eyes from the landscape below to the road where she saw an SUV barreling toward them. As Sylvie backed the truck around a curve and into a wide spot in the road that Maggie estimated to be the size of a railroad tie, Maggie feared the truck would careen down the mountain. But Sylvie smoothly navigated the truck all the while explaining why she had never bought into the latch-hook fad to which so many of her friends in the needlework community had fallen prey.

When they finally descended the mountain and took a left-hand turn, Maggie sighed with relief. A few minutes later, the pickup pulled into a graveled driveway. Sylvie parked and the two women exited the truck. As they approached a small house painted robin’s egg blue, a man dressed in a green flannel shirt and a pair of patched jeans opened the front door and asked, “It cold enough for you, Sylvie?”

“It is mighty chilly, but I’ve survived worse.” Sylvie stepped inside the house with Maggie on her heels. “Gentry, this here is Maggie. She’s the girl I told you about.” Sylvie looked back at Maggie. “I done told him about you solving those other crimes.”

Gentry extended his hand to Maggie. “I sure appreciate this. Can I get you all something to drink?”

“I’ll take a cup of coffee if you’ve got some handy.” Sylvie produced a chunk of fruitcake wrapped in cellophane from her coat pocket and handed it to Gentry. “Here’s some fruitcake for you. I didn’t bring you much. I allow you ain’t even supposed to have any.” Turning to Maggie, she explained, “He has the sugar diabetes real bad.”

“I thank you, Sylvie,” Gentry said. “Maggie, how do you take your coffee?”

“She don’t drink coffee,” Sylvie said, following Gentry into the kitchen and leaving Maggie alone.

Maggie unbuttoned her coat and looked around the front room. She hesitated on what to call it. Gentry’s bed stood in a corner opposite a wringer washing machine. The sight of the appliance brought back memories for Maggie. She remembered helping her mom wash clothes in the back yard on the hottest and driest summer days. Lena said a wringer washer saved on water. So, a few times each summer, she and Maggie rolled it out of the can house, filled tubs with water, and did the laundry. Maggie was responsible for making sure the wash landed in the tub of rinse water and did not fall onto the ground. Standing in Gentry’s house, Maggie could feel the stiff laundry as it came through the machine’s rollers. The clothesline that extended the length of Gentry’s room reminded her of the chore that followed washing and she remembered burying her head in warm, dry sheets as she pulled them off the line.

Gentry and Sylvie’s return interrupted her remembrances. Taking the only chair in the room, Sylvie said, “You’re still on your first legs, Maggie, so I reckon you can stand better than I can.”

“She don’t need to stand,” Gentry said. “Let me get a chair out of the kitchen for you.”

Gentry brought two old, creaky wooden table chairs from the kitchen, giving one to Maggie and keeping the other for himself.

“It sure is warm in here, Gentry,” Sylvie said.

Gentry motioned to a gas stove. “Jay helped me buy that last winter. The stove I had was wore out, but I couldn’t afford to buy a new one. I used one of those kerosene heaters, but it made my eyes water and I kept a headache.” Gentry nodded to the heater. “That’s made a big difference in here.”

“We had a heater like that when I was growing up,” Maggie said. “I would stand in front of it and let my back get warm and then I’d turn around and get my front warm.” She gestured toward the bed. “Do you pretty much stay in this room?”

“I moved in here to keep the heat in one place. That worked out real good when Jay moved in with me. He stayed in my old room.” He said to Sylvie, “It was mine and Irmyjean’s room.”

“Wasn’t it cold in there for him?” Maggie asked.

“Nah. He moved down here at the right time of the year, just as it was starting to be spring. He saved up his money and we got the stove the next fall before it got too cold. After that, we both stayed warm and we didn’t have to worry about them old kerosene heaters.” Gentry frowned. “There was no getting used to that smell, not for me.”

Opening her notepad, Maggie asked, “What can you tell me about Jay?”

“Well, he was my boy, Gentry Junior’s, son. You know, when I heard that he was going to be a boy and that they aimed to name him Gentry the third, I was so excited. Another generation would carry my name. We’d called my boy Junior, so I’d figured they’d call the baby Gentry, like me, and maybe Gen for short.” He shook his head. “I was so disappointed when they give him the nickname Jay.”

“That never made sense to me, neither.” Sylvie took a sip of coffee. “Gentry don’t even start with the letter J.”

Maggie agreed that they had a point and asked Gentry, “How long had Jay lived with you?”

Gentry crooked his head, which gave Maggie a better view of the shock of white hair that stood on his head like a rooster’s comb. “Well, like I said earlier, he moved up here one spring and he disappeared the next May, so a little more than a year.”

“How did it come about that he moved from Indiana to here?”

Gentry grinned. “He always liked visiting me. I’d take him out in the hills. Why, I’m the one that taught him how to hunt. My boy never took to hunting and fishing, but Jay did. He loved it. But, you know how things go. After Junior died, Jay got in a little trouble. He was running around with the wrong crowd and they talked him into stealing some stuff. It wasn’t right and I ain’t upholding him, but like his mommy says, he was struggling. It was hard enough that he lost his daddy, but he watched Junior die. That sort of thing can stay with a young’un.”

“It can stay with an adult, too,” Sylvie interjected. “There ain’t forgetting some things.”

“No, there ain’t,” Gentry said. “It certainly stayed with Jay. He wasn’t raised to stealing. He knowed right from wrong. His mommy says he was angry and acting out. Now, I done told you, I ain’t upholding him, but I think she’s right. He’s just lucky he didn’t have to do no time for that stealing, but he was on probation for a little while. After he got off that probation, he and his mommy come down for a visit and he asked me if he could stay. That was music to my ears. If you had handed me a million dollars, I wouldn’t have been happier.”

“I’ll bet you loved having him here,” Maggie said.

“I did. But I had rules. And I told him that if he was going to live under my roof, he was going to follow those rules. First thing’s first, he had to get a job.” Gentry leaned forward in his chair and held up two fingers. “Well, let me tell you something. He didn’t get just one job, he got two. I got him a job at the funeral home. I had worked there for years –”

“Let me stop you, Gentry,” Sylvie said. “Maggie, there ain’t nobody with a better hand to lay off a grave than Gentry Harris.” 

“Now, Sylvie, you’re going to give me the big head,” Gentry cautioned.

Downing the last of her coffee, Sylvie said, “It ain’t bragging if it’s true.”

Maggie bit the insides of her lips to keep from laughing. “Which funeral home was this?”

“Valley. He cut grass and ginned around for them.”

Maggie wrote Valley View Funeral Home in her notepad and asked, “You said he had another job?”

“He worked for that meat packing house that Curtis Moore runs.”

Maggie nodded her head in recognition. Until recently, her dad and uncle had taken their butchering business to Curtis Moore. “Did you help him get that job, too?”

“No, siree, I did not. He got that one all on his own. Steve, that’s his boss at the funeral home, had killed a deer and took it to Curtis to dress. Steve sent Jay to pick it up and Jay heard Curtis saying that he needed help. I had taught Jay what I knew about butchering, so he asked Curtis right then and there if he would give him the job.” Gentry smiled. “That’s Jay. He’s a go-getter.”

“So, he worked two jobs –”

“And he went to school. That was another one of my rules.” Gentry sat his coffee cup on the gas stove. “Let me tell you something. I never made much money and I didn’t pay much into Social Security, so I don’t draw much. I’m retired now and, it’s true, I still help dig a grave here or there if a family can’t afford the funeral home’s price and if my back will hold out. I don’t make much from it. I never did and that’s what I told Jay. I told him he needed to go to school and learn a trade so he could make sure he was taken care of when he got my age.”

“You did the right thing,” Sylvie said. “These young’uns today don’t think about tomorrow. They think they’ll be young forever.”

Gentry nodded. “He was going to make an electrician. He was going to make something of himself.”

Maggie paused before asking, “Could you tell me what happened to him?”

Gentry shrugged. “That’s just it. I don’t know. He left for work one day and never come back. And that wasn’t like him, neither. I told you I had rules and that was another one of them. He had to be home every night by midnight.”

Sylvie shook her head. “There ain’t nothing good happening after midnight.”

“No, siree, there is not. I told him there wasn’t nothing he could do after midnight that he couldn’t do before.”

Try as she might, Maggie couldn’t suppress a smile. “Did he ever break curfew?”

“Once, right after he moved in. He didn’t think I’d be sitting up and waiting on him, but I showed him. I let him know how I felt and that I wasn’t going to stand for it. He was on time after that. I know cause I waited up for him every night.”

 “Sylvie tells me you went to the police when he didn’t come home.”

“What good that did,” Gentry huffed. “Steve went with me to talk to them, but they said Jay was an adult and free to come and go as he pleased. They said there wasn’t a law against walking away from your life and starting over. I tried to tell them he wouldn’t have just up and left. He was studying for those … what do you call them?”

“Finals?”

Gentry snapped his fingers. “That’s it. Why would a boy leave before he took those tests?”

Gentry’s pronunciation of tests – testiz – sounded to Maggie’s ears just like the way her dad said the word. Once again, despite her best efforts, she couldn’t keep from smiling. “Did the police offer any advice?”

“They said Jay might have been in some trouble. They had to bring up that stuff in Indiana. They said he might have stole something and lit out or been running from enemies.”

“Enemies?” Sylvie asked. “It sounds like they made that boy out to be one of them there mobsters from New York City. He was just a young’un. He hadn’t been on this earth long enough to make enemies.”

“That’s what I tried to tell them, Sylvie. I let them know he wouldn’t have just up and left, neither. I know that like I know my own name.”

Maggie flipped her notepad against her knee. “Did he have credit cards or debit cards? Bank accounts?”

“He had a bank account and one of them credit cards.” Leaning toward Sylvie, Gentry said, “He got it against my advice, but you can only tell them so much.”

“I wouldn’t have one of them cards if you give it to me,” Sylvie said.

“I never had one, neither,” Gentry said. “I don’t even know how they work. But like this feller I used to work with the name of Waylon would say, ‘Let Pete take care of Pete’s fence.’”

“Waylon?” Maggie asked. “As in Jennings?”

Gentry nodded and launched into a monologue. Maggie heard him describe Waylon as a person you could trust with your life before receding in her mind to a cemetery where Gentry worked alongside a scruffy-looking bearded man whose cowboy hat rested on top of ragged, shoulder-length hair. In her version of history, this man pulled out a guitar every day at lunch and serenaded his co-workers. She was conducting a mental debate with herself in order to determine her favorite Waylon Jennings song when she heard Sylvie say, “Don’t you have nothing else to ask Gentry?”

Embarrassed to be caught daydreaming on the job, Maggie shuffled through her notes and asked, “Did the police check the activity on Jay’s card and accounts?”

“They did. He hadn’t used that card and his money was still in the bank. I said, ‘Right there proves he didn’t just walk away.’ They checked and said there was just a couple hundred dollars in the bank.” Gentry held up his hands. “They said it didn’t matter none cause that wasn’t much money.”

“Well, if that don’t beat a hen a-rooting,” Sylvie declared. “You hadn’t told me that, Gentry. Lord, I’ve lived too long if a couple hundred dollars don’t matter no more.”

Gentry shook his head. “It don’t make no sense to me.”

“Did he have a car?” Maggie asked.

“He drove Junior’s truck. His mommy let him have it. It’s gone, too. The police seem to think that means he left on his own, but somebody could have stole it from him. They could have hurt him for his truck.”

Maggie studied the sad old man sitting in the small room and understood why Sylvie felt sorry for him. “Gentry, what do you think happened to Jay?”

Gentry sniffled and wiped his nose with a handkerchief he produced from the pocket of his jeans. “I don’t know. I hope the police are right. It would make me madder than a wet hen if he left without telling me where he was going, but I hope he’s okay.” Gentry looked inside his empty coffee cup. “Hoping ain’t the same thing as knowing, though.”

Chapter Three

After Sylvie dropped her home, Maggie spent a few minutes with her dog before walking the short distance to her parents’ house. It was almost dark and her mom had already turned on the outside Christmas lights. For nearly two decades, Maggie’s parents had draped the eaves of their home with clear icicle lights. Maggie liked the clean look of the white lights, but when her parents announced that most of the lights had quit working and that they would need to replace them, she had talked them into purchasing multi-colored opaque lights. As she stood in the yard staring at the house, she felt pleased with her decision. The big bulbs reminded her of the outside lights that had decorated the house’s exterior during her childhood. She remained transfixed by the blinking lights, which evoked memories of Christmases past, until her dad, Robert, stuck his head out the front door and asked, “Why are you standing there like a dummy? Did you forget the way into the house?”

Maggie knew better than to offer an explanation, so she marched onto the porch and into the house. “Do I smell homemade soup simmering?” she asked as she slipped out of her coat.

“Yeah, we just sat down to eat,” her mom called from the kitchen. “Come and get it while it’s hot.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Maggie murmured. Joining her parents in the kitchen, she placed the fruitcake on the countertop and helped herself to a bowl of soup, a peanut butter sandwich, and a glass of milk. While crumbling crackers into the vegetable soup, she said, “I brought dessert.”

“I hope it ain’t no more of those brownies you made last week.” Robert puckered his mouth and shook his head. “They didn’t taste right.”

Maggie chased a bite of her sandwich with milk and said, “I explained that, Daddy. Instead of sugar, I put applesauce in the brownies because it’s supposed to be healthier.”

“Healthier don’t make it taste better,” Robert said, “I don’t know why you’d think we’d want to eat applesauce in our brownies. Applesauce is something you feed babies or old people or put on your biscuits for breakfast. It don’t belong in desserts.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about me ruining today’s dessert,” Maggie said. “I’ve brought a fruitcake from Sylvie Johnson’s.”

Lena turned her neck until she spotted the fruitcake on the counter. As she reached behind her and retrieved it, she asked, “Where did you see Sylvie at?”

“I went to her house. She gave me the loveliest tree skirt. It has a brown dog on it. You’ll have to come over and see it under my Christmas tree. It looks stunning.”

“I hope you don’t let that dog waller all over it or it won’t look stunning for long.” Handing a slice of cake to Maggie, Lena asked, “What business did you have at Sylvie’s house?”

Maggie thanked her mom for the cake and said, “I didn’t know I needed to be conducting specific business in order to visit a friend. But, anyway, I went to Sylvie’s house yesterday because she asked me to stop by. I’m sorry that I didn’t get a chance to bring the fruitcake to you before now, but I’ve been busy. In fact, this afternoon Sylvie picked me up and we took a little trip over to Calf Lick.”

Robert furrowed his bushy eyebrows. “I didn’t see Sylvie’s truck at your house.”

“Neither did I,” Lena agreed.

Having resided up the head of Caldonia Road for most of her life, Maggie understood the intricacies of hollow, pronounced locally as holler, living. Supposing the presence of Sylvie’s truck had caused a stir among the hollow’s other inhabitants, most of whom were her aunts, uncles, and cousins, she said, “I figured somebody would have called up here asking about the strange vehicle on the holler.”

“There was a call on the I.D. when we got home from the feed store,” Lena said. “But I didn’t have the chance to check it. I had to finish the soup.”

Robert pointed at Lena. “I bet Sylvie picked Maggie up while we were gone.”

“What about when she brought her home?” Lena asked. “Why didn’t we see her then?”

Between bites of cake, Robert said, “That must have been when we were in the bathroom looking for the Epperson’s salts.”

Maggie grinned at her dad’s mispronunciation and considered asking which of her parents needed Epson salts and for what reason, but decided against doing so for fear it would trigger an argument or a lengthy discussion about digestive processes. “I’m choosy about fruitcake,” she said, “but this is good.”

“Sylvie makes the best fruitcake around. Everybody knows that,” Lena said. “Now, what’s going on with you and her? Why did you two drive over to Calf Lick?”

“We went to Calf Lick to see her friend, Gentry Harris. It was his grandson who disappeared back in the spring. You probably remember that. It was all over the news.”

“I can’t speak for your daddy, but I read about it in the paper. Sylvie told me about it, too.”

“Well, to make a long story short, Sylvie and Gentry want me to look into the boy’s disappearance.”

After Maggie said her piece, she waited for the inevitable scolding from her well-meaning parents who had lectured her during the pursuit of Mac Honaker’s killer and the investigation into Hazel Baker’s death. But they didn’t caution her against snooping or advise her of potential dangers. Instead, they lavished praise on Sylvie’s fruitcake and played a game of what ingredient do I taste?

“Did you hear me? I said –”

“We ain’t deaf. We heard you,” Robert said. “And I reckon you’ll decide to help that man try to find his grandson.”

“I was leaning in that direction,” Maggie said.

“From what Sylvie says, somebody needs to help him,” Lena said. “That poor man. He’s lost his only child and, from the looks of it, his only grandchild, too. I don’t know how he can lay his head down at night without knowing what’s happened to that boy. I wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink.”

Although Maggie felt grateful for her parents’ accommodating attitude, she couldn’t believe her ears. “Just so we’re clear, you guys are okay with me doing this?”

“Why wouldn’t we be okay with it? You’ve already solved two murders. You must know what you’re doing,” Lena said. “Besides, we should help people when we can.”

“Do you agree with her, Daddy? Do you think we should help people when we can?” When Robert nodded, Maggie said, “So I guess that means you won’t mind going to Curtis Moore’s meat shop with me one day next week?”

Maggie interpreted Robert’s sigh as a defeated yes.

Chapter Four

With the chore of explaining her intentions to her parents accomplished, Maggie focused on rationalizing her decision to her boyfriend, Luke. Maggie had started dating Luke during her investigation into Mac Honaker’s murder a year earlier. She had withheld her activities from him, a mistake she did not duplicate when she began looking into Hazel Baker’s death. Nevertheless, her extracurricular activities had once again strained their relationship due to the involvement of Maggie’s ex-fiancé, Seth, in the case. A resulting argument had centered on Luke’s assertion that Seth encouraged Maggie’s sleuthing to maintain a presence in her life. Occurring on the eve of their summer vacation to the Grand Canyon, the disagreement had nearly ruined their trip. The couple had experienced a stressful day traveling and another seeing the sights before Luke’s fall from a burro relieved the tensions. He limped away with only minor scrapes and bruises and into Maggie’s arms.

Maggie nestled in his arms as they watched George Bailey race through the snowy streets of Bedford Falls in It’s a Wonderful Life. Luke’s admission to never having seen the holiday classic had offended Maggie and she rectified the situation after enjoying soup and fruitcake with her parents. The movie’s ending always made Maggie cry and, although she tried to stop the tears from forming in her eyes, this time was no exception.

“Hey,” Luke said, “what’s wrong? Why are you upset?”

“I’m not upset.” Maggie blew her nose. “This movie’s message is just so beautiful that it makes me cry. Ah, what am I saying? Christmas in general makes me nostalgic and emotional. Despite the cold, this evening I stood in my parents’ yard staring at the Christmas lights until Daddy hollered at me to come in. And the sight of the icicles on Mom’s tree always turns me into a puddle.”

“Icicles? You mean your mom puts ice on her Christmas tree? How does that work? Does she have to wait for snow to melt or does she somehow make her own icicles?”

“No, Luke, my mom does not put ice on her tree. That would be stupid. Besides, it wouldn’t even work. The icicles would start melting as soon as you brought them inside the house. You know what I’m talking about. You’ve seen icicles. They’re little strips of aluminum. It’s so pretty to see the lights reflect off them. I’d put them on my tree, but I can’t tempt Barnaby. I’m afraid he would try to eat them.”

“Those aren’t called icicles. They’re tinsel.”

“You folks from central Kentucky can call it tinsel and those of us in the eastern part of the state will call them icicles.”

“That sounds like a deal to me.” Luke kissed the top of her head. “What did you do today?”

“Well, I had vegetable soup for supper at my parents’ house.”

“Your mom’s homemade vegetable soup?”

“Is there any other?”

“Your supper sounds better than the can of spaghetti and meatballs I warmed in the microwave.”

“Oh, that sounds good, too, but the soup was delicious.”

“I’ve never had your mom’s vegetable soup, but I’m sure she made it with those garden vegetables she canned this summer.”

“Yep. She used corn and peas and potatoes and thinly-sliced onions and tomato juice, all from the garden. And don’t forget the meat.”

“She puts meat in her soup?”

“Hamburger meat from a home-raised beef.”

Luke frowned. “A warm bowl of soup would have hit the spot on a cold day like today.”

“It’s going to be cold tomorrow, too,” Maggie turned so she was facing Luke, “so you should check your fridge.”

Luke’s blue eyes sparkled in the dim light of his living room. “Did you sneak some soup into my fridge?”

“Perhaps.” Maggie accepted a kiss from him. “I brought a bowl for you and one for me, too.”

“One for you?” Luke asked. “You don’t eat this late in the evening.”

“No, but I have to eat something for lunch tomorrow.” She watched at the realization spread across his face. “It had already started snowing when I left the house. For all we know, there could be a skiff of snow on the roads. It would be foolish and dangerous for me to try to make it back to Sugar Creek tonight.”

“I agree. I can’t let you put yourself in danger.”

They shared a laugh and embraced and Maggie laid her head on his shoulder. She cherished the moment before taking a deep breath and sharing the details of her visits to Sylvie’s and Gentry’s. “So, I’ve decided to do a little digging around and see if I can find out what happened to Jay.” When Luke didn’t respond, Maggie lifted her head and asked, “What do you think?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“In that case, I think you should find a less stressful and dangerous hobby.”

“Wow.” Maggie sat forward and moved inches away from Luke. “Don’t hold back.”

“You asked for my opinion, and I’m not going to pretend to like this.”

“I appreciate your honesty, but I’d also like your support.”

Luke clasped her hand and brought it to his lips. “You have my support and I’ll help if I can. But please don’t shut me out and please don’t go running to Seth.”

Maggie jerked her hand away from him. “Now I understand where this is coming from. It’s all about Seth.”

“Look at it from my perspective. Everything is fine between us until he insinuates himself into one of your investigations.”

Maggie massaged her forehead and thought back to that summer day on the sidewalk when Seth confirmed to her that Luke’s suspicions of him might be based in reality. “Well, don’t worry about it. I’m not going to contact Seth.”

“And if he contacts you?”

“I’ll politely decline his assistance. Besides, Seth is a Jasper city detective and Jay Harris was a college student who lived in the county. What connection could they possibly have?”

Chapter Five

Unease washed over Maggie when the receptionist directed her to a chapel in the Valley View Funeral Home. Maggie had assumed she would meet with Steve Fletcher in his office. She also assumed the chapel would be ready for a viewing and she didn’t want to talk to Steve with an occupied casket hovering in the background. But her worries evaporated as soon as she eased into the chapel. No artificial flowers assaulted her senses and, most important, no casket commanded her attention.

She selected a cushioned seat about one-third of the way into the room and produced a notepad, a pen, and a recorder from her purse. As she waited for Steve, she took in her surroundings. If not for Biblical paintings looking down from the walls, the chapel could have been mistaken for the area in a municipal building in which public forums are held.

Despite the generic decorations, Maggie knew the purpose of this chapel and of this building. She knew they held memories of overwhelming grief and final goodbyes. She acknowledged that society needed people such as funeral directors, homicide detectives, and hospice nurses. She also recognized her own fascination with true crime. Still, she hoped she never became immune to death and suffering.

Steve Fletcher walked through the door, saving Maggie from further introspection. She made a move to stand, but he motioned for her to remain sitting and took a chair beside hers. Extending his hand, he said, “I’ve spoken with you many times over the phone and through email, but I think this is the first time we’ve met. I’m glad I’m finally getting to talk to you in person.”

“It’s good to finally put a face to your name, too,” Maggie said. “And I’d like to thank you for always submitting the funeral home’s obituaries via email. You wouldn’t believe the number of funeral homes near and far that have yet to embrace technology.”

“I’m afraid you’re thanking the wrong person. Our receptionist and my wife, Carrie, take care of that. If it wasn’t for them, you’d be forced to decipher my poor handwriting. You know, there were times back in the old days when I had to call your predecessor and read the obituaries to her. After she typed them up, she’d read them back to me.”

“I remember life in the dark ages and that’s why I’m grateful for the convenience provided by computers and the Internet,” Maggie said before adding, “and DVRs.”

“And cell phones. Don’t forget cell phones.” Steve’s smiling face quickly turned solemn. “On the phone, you said you wanted to talk about Jay. I understand Gentry has asked you to look into his disappearance.”

“That’s right.” Maggie opened her notepad. “Gentry suggested I start with you. How long had Jay been working for you?”

Maggie studied Steve. Earlier, when he had walked into the chapel wearing a dark blue suit and with his thinning light-colored hair combed over, he had met her stereotype of a quiet, humorless funeral director. But sitting there talking with much animation about Jay, with one arm draped over the back of his chair and the other holding a University of Kentucky tumbler, Maggie decided he could be mistaken for a salesman or a lawyer.

“I’d have to consult my records to give you his start date,” Steve said, “but it wasn’t too long after he moved down here. Ours is a family business. My granddad started it and he passed it down through my mother to me. Gentry worked for us back when we hand-dug graves. And let me tell you, Gentry was, well is, the best.”

“That’s what I’ve heard,” Maggie said.

“When we moved to machinery, we kept him on as a laborer. He picked up odd jobs here and there and dug graves on his own time, but it didn’t interfere with his work.” Steve laughed. “I guess I’m making a short story long, but it’s just that, for as long as I can remember, Gentry has been associated with Valley View Funeral Home. So, when he asked us to give Jay a chance, we felt obliged to do so.”

“How would you describe Jay’s work ethic?”

“In a word – excellent.” Steve took a drink from his tumbler and said, “Where are my manners? Would you like something to drink?”

“If it’s not too much trouble, I’ll take some water.”

“No trouble at all. I’ll be right back.” It seemed to Maggie that Steve had no more left than he returned. “Carrie’s going to bring you some water,” he said. Settling back into a chair, he asked himself, “What was I saying? Oh, yeah, Jay. He was a wonderful employee. I shouldn’t have had misgivings, him being Gentry’s grandson, but …” He sighed. “I know this is going to make me sound like an old geezer, but the younger generation doesn’t have the same get-up-and-go that we have. Not that I’m lumping you in with my age range.” Maggie waved off Steve’s concern and he continued, “Trust me, I know. I have three sons. Two are not much older than Jay and the other one’s a little younger. They’re good boys, but I guess they’re just spoiled. It’s a good thing the older two are smart because they’d never survive working manual labor. And the younger one’s thumbs are going to fall off it he doesn’t quit texting and playing video games.” Steve laughed at his own joke before falling silent. “But Jay was different. He was a good worker and he seemed to appreciate everything Gentry did for him. He was taking advantage of all the opportunities that had come his way. I guess you could describe him as ambitious.”

“According to Gentry, Jay left for work one day, but never made it home. Did he come to work the day he disappeared?”

“No, and I thought that was odd. He never missed a day’s work. And it was busy that week. We had a couple funerals. It wasn’t like Jay to blow off work, so I decided he must have told me he needed the day off and then I had forgotten it.” Steve grinned. “I told you I was an old geezer. Well, we old geezers have trouble remembering.” Steve’s grin faded. “When Gentry called the next day, I knew something was wrong. I felt really guilty for not contacting Gentry the minute Jay was late for work. Maybe that would have made all the difference.”

“How did Jay get along with his co-workers?”

“If anybody had a problem with him, I didn’t know about it. He was a friendly, outgoing boy and he was always willing to jump in and help.”

Maggie heard movement behind her and turned to see a woman with a baby in her arms and a bottle of water dangling from her hand.

Steve beamed. “There are my girls.” He held his hands out to take the baby while his wife handed the water to Maggie. “Like I told you, my boys are grown. Heck, one of them is engaged. I’m an old man –”

“You’re not that old,” his wife said, shaking her head.

“I’m older than you and a card-carrying member of AARP,” Steve said before whispering to Maggie, “she’s my second wife.” In a louder voice, he added, “I thought I was going to have to wait on grandchildren to get a girl. I never counted on getting a little miracle at my age.”

“That just goes to show that you never know what turns your life will take.” Turning her attention from her husband to Maggie, Steve’s wife said, “I’m Carrie, by the way. I hope he’s not talking your ear off.”

“She says I talk too much,” Steve said.

“That’s because you do talk too much,” Carrie said.

Maggie, who had been staring at Carrie, said, “You look so familiar to me, but I can’t place you.”

“I think we went to the same school,” Carrie said. “I recognize your name.”

Maggie’s mind traveled back twenty-odd years to a school building that always smelled of fresh paint. Her memory finally conjured up a photo of a teenage and dark-haired Carrie, smiling and waving atop a convertible and looking resplendent in a plum-colored suit and black hat. Her hair was blonde now and Maggie speculated she had gone lighter to cover up gray. She had put on a few pounds, too, and laugh lines and crow’s feet creased the face that had radiated youth all those years ago. “Oh, yeah,” Maggie said. “You were the homecoming queen when I was –”

“In junior high,” Carrie said. “That’s right. I’m a forty-year-old new mom. Crazy, right?”

Maggie, who couldn’t imagine having a child at any age, said, “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”

“Neither would I,” Steve agreed. Nuzzling his face in the baby’s neck, he said, “She’s a beautiful blessing.”

“Yes, she is,” Carrie said.

The couple shared a silent, tender moment before Carrie said, “I used the word crazy only because I have a teenage son from my first marriage and Steve has two sons from his first marriage who are in their twenties. We had raised our kids. They’re grown and now they have a much younger baby sister. I repeat, a much younger baby sister. It’s crazy.”

“Does this look crazy to you?” Steve turned the baby in his arms so Maggie could see her. “Do you want to hold her?”

Maggie did not want to hold Steve and Carrie’s daughter or any baby for that matter. Although she always complimented parents on their beautiful bundles of joy, she had been born without the gene that compelled other women to dote on stranger’s infants. She made exceptions for some babies, toddlers, and children, including her nephews, but for the most part, she preferred dogs. “She looks so peaceful in your arms,” she said to Steve. “I wouldn’t want to disturb her.”

“Then I guess Daddy will keep her,” Steve cooed to the baby.

Maggie cleared her throat and said to Carrie, “In case Steve didn’t tell you, I’m here to find out more about Jay Harris. What can you tell me about him?”

 Carrie echoed her husband’s assessment of Jay’s work ethic and personality and added, “I didn’t know Jay as well as Steve did, but I cannot imagine why anyone would want to hurt him. He was nice and he never caused any problems. I’m more inclined to think he left.”

“‘More inclined?’ What does that mean?”

“She’s directing that at me.” Steve rocked the yawning baby in his arms. “I don’t want to think that any harm came to Jay, but I don’t think he would have walked out on Gentry or intentionally hurt his mother by disappearing without a word.”

“Is that why you went to the police with Gentry?” Maggie asked.

“Yes. I hoped it would provide him with some answers, with some closure. I’ll do anything I can to help Gentry.”

Maggie looked to Carrie. “If Jay did take off, where do you think he would have gone?”

Carrie’s eyes widened. “My conversations with Jay primarily involved telling him where to move furniture and place flowers. We weren’t exactly friends.”

“Did Jay seem troubled around the time of his disappearance? Was he having problems with anyone?” Maggie asked the couple.

Carrie shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“I wouldn’t have any idea about that, either.” Steve brushed the baby’s cheek and said, “He seemed to really enjoy living here. He appreciated the natural beauty of the area. Most young people, well, most people in general, don’t even seem to notice they’re living amongst such beauty. But that was something else that set Jay apart from kids his age. He was a thinker. I guess it came from losing Junior, but he had empathy for the families we served.” Steve made a clicking sound with his tongue. “He had a good home life with Gentry, he was going to school, and I know he liked his job. He had a good life in front of him. It doesn’t seem right.”

“When you say he liked his job, I assume you’re talking about his job here. What about his other job? Gentry said Jay worked at Curtis Moore’s butcher shop.”

Steve quit rocking the baby and directed a confused look toward Maggie. “Oh, I guess Jay hadn’t told Gentry, but Curtis fired him a week or so before he went missing.”

Chapter Six

Maggie had grown up around animals. In addition to a succession of family dogs and an occasional stray cat that made its home in the head of Caldonia Road, hogs wallowed in pens, chickens crowded coops, cattle grazed on the hill, and a horse stood in a stall. Although Maggie made friends with every animal that spent significant time on the Morgan family property, she accepted that the hog that rooted around on Monday could become breakfast by Sunday. She was as accustomed to that fact as she was to the reality that once animals entered a shed on the upper end of the property, they would never return. She had also consumed her share of squirrel and rabbit and remembered with fondness the chilly autumn mornings she had waited on the porch for her dad to return from a hunting excursion in the hills. Even without closing her eyes, she could see him walking down the road with his game attached to an oversized safety pin he had fastened to his pants.

Maggie the dog owner and animal lover had no problem reconciling these aspects of her life. She lived under no illusions concerning where her food originated. Still, the raw meat she fashioned into cooked meals represented the only contact she wanted with butchered animals. Although she needed to talk to Curtis Moore, she did not want to visit his meat packing shop on her own. No matter what confronted her at Curtis’ shop, she knew she would handle it better with her dad by her side.

Curtis Moore came to the door with a blood-stained white apron tied around his immense belly. “I didn’t expect to see you at my door,” he said to Robert. “Last time I talked to your brother, he informed me that my services were no longer needed. He said you all were taking your business to an outfit on Sugar Creek.”

“We did,” Robert said. “That boy that married our sister’s girl started cutting meat.”

“Is that right?” Curtis scratched his back against the door jamb. “What kind of job does he do? He do a better job than me?”

Although Robert Morgan was an easy-going man who rarely lost his temper, Maggie recognized a flicker of anger in his eyes. “Now, Curtis, you can’t blame us for giving our business to family. But I didn’t come here to talk about that. I brought my daughter.” Robert nodded at Maggie. “She wants to talk to you.”

For the first time since her and Robert’s arrival, Curtis eyed Maggie. “You the one that works for the paper? What you want with me? I don’t need no advertising.”

“This isn’t about the paper, and I don’t work in advertising. I’m a writer. A feature writer. I don’t cover hard news.” Maggie feared she was on the verge of rambling, but Curtis hadn’t taken his beady little eyes off her and his height and girth intimidated her.

“Then what do you want?” he asked in a gruff voice.

Maggie pulled her notepad out of her coat pocket and, despite the cold air that chilled her fingers, removed her gloves. “I was hoping we could chat a little about Jay Harris.”

“Jay? Why him?”

“His granddaddy wants Maggie to find him,” Robert explained.

“Why’d he send you to me?” Curtis put his arms across his chest and leaned against the door frame.

“Because Jay worked for you. Could you tell me a little bit about Jay? Was he having personal problems –”

“How would I know anything about his personal life? The boy worked his shift and went home. We didn’t talk about his personal problems. What kind of question is that?”

Maggie felt her face reddening. “Did you and Jay get along?”

“He worked for me. If we hadn’t of got along, he wouldn’t have been working for me.”

“Was he working for you when he disappeared?” she asked.

Curtis turned his head and spat tobacco juice onto the ground. “No, he quit not long before that.”

“Oh,” Maggie scribbled in her notepad. “I was under the impression you fired him.”

“Well,” Curtis scratched the stubble of gray on his chin, “you was under the wrong impression.”

“Why did he quit?” Maggie asked.

Curtis grinned at Robert. “You know how it is with these kids. They want a job until they get one. He said Steve was giving him all the work he could handle and that he needed time for school.” Curtis shrugged his shoulders. “I told him he could go whenever he wanted to. There wasn’t nothing holding him here.”

Maggie shook her hands in an attempt to get her blood pumping. But as numb as her fingers felt, she preferred the cold to whatever lay behind the closed doors of Curtis’ shop. “Do you have any idea what could have happened to Jay?”

“I bet he went back to Indiana.” Curtis smirked. “I guess nobody ain’t thought to look down there for him.”

“Actually, they have, but thanks for the tip,” Maggie said. Feeling she would receive nothing helpful from Curtis, she added, “Daddy, I’m ready when you are.”

Once they were safely inside Robert’s pickup truck and driving away from the butcher shop, Maggie turned up the heater and asked, “Daddy, do you like that man?”

“Not particularly. It ain’t none of his business what we do with our hogs and beef. I don’t know why anybody has to be that hateful.”

“Me, either.” Maggie placed her hands on a vent. “This is the first time I met the man, but I took an immediate dislike to him. And something he said doesn’t add up. He complained about Jay’s work ethic and said he quit his job, but Steve and Carrie Fletcher spoke highly of Jay, and Steve said Curtis fired him.”

“That seems like a weird thing to lie about.” Robert turned a vent away from his face. “As long as that boy’s been gone, none of that should matter now.”

“I know, Daddy, and I intend to find out exactly why it still matters.”

Chapter Seven

Maggie sat in the break room, eating a microwaveable pizza and flipping through an outdated magazine a co-worker had donated to the miscellaneous reading material strewn about the tables. She paid no attention to the celebrity features that dominated the magazine. Instead, her mind focused on the Jay Harris investigation. From what little she had learned about Jay, he didn’t seem like the type of person to abandon his family without so much as a goodbye note. But maybe the stress of holding down a job and attending school had become too much for the young man. Maybe he had decided to start somewhere new with fewer demands. Or maybe his demons had resurfaced and he had slipped into the life of crime that had tempted him in Indiana.

Other than contradictory statements from Steve and Curtis, she hadn’t heard anything during her interviews that sounded suspicious. She planned to speak to Jay’s girlfriend and mom soon, and she hoped they would clear up those contradictions. She was still thinking about Jay when Tyler, a young reporter, charged into the break room.

Closing the magazine, Maggie said, “Hey, you’re just the person I wanted to see.”

Tyler retrieved his lunch from the refrigerator and glared at Maggie. “I feel I must warn you, I’m not in a very good mood.”

“What’s new? You’re always riled up about something.” Indeed, it always appeared to Maggie that Tyler seemed perpetually upset. Of course, Tyler, who had moved to Jasper a year and a half ago, blamed all his problems, whether large or small or real or imagined, on eastern Kentucky. At first, his attitude had bothered Maggie, but after she had demonstrated her mystery-solving acumen, Tyler had developed an acknowledged respect for her. Although he continued to irk everyone else in the office, Maggie’s attitude toward him had softened. Knowing how much he desperately wanted to escape what he referred to as “hillbilly hell,” she had helped him tweak his resume and had written letters of recommendation for him. He had applied for jobs at several media outlets, yet he remained at the Jasper Sentinel.

“If I’m always in a bad mood, it’s because I’m surrounded by imbeciles.” Tyler punched numbers on the microwave before adding, “Present company excluded.”

“Of course,” Maggie said. “What’s your complaint du jour?”

“The county school system is letting out early because of a little snow.”

“A little? Tyler, we’re expecting up to three inches.”

“Three inches of snow is nothing. If only people had the sense to know how to drive on snow then this place wouldn’t suffer a state of emergency every time a snow cloud appeared in the sky.”

“Why do you care if they let out school? You don’t have kids. You don’t have to worry about daycare.”

“I pay taxes.” The microwave beeped and Tyler removed his food, which Maggie’s sense of smell immediately recognized as fish.

“I pay taxes, too, and I don’t want those kids on snowy roads. You need to get out in the county more, Tyler. Maybe then you’d understand what three inches of snow can do to one of these holler roads or, even worse, up a hill that’s not maintained because it’s not a county or state road. Let me ask you something, if you go off the road in your hometown in Ohio, what’s the worst that could happen?”

Tyler pulled out a chair at a nearby table and sighed. “I’d end up in somebody’s yard.”

“Exactly, but if you go off the road here, you’ll probably end up in the creek or over a hill.” Needing to escape the smell of fish, Maggie picked up her lunch bag, made a mental note not to use the microwave for a few days, and started to leave the room.

“Is that what you wanted to talk to me about? Snowy holler roads?” Tyler asked.

Tyler’s tirade had temporarily chased Jay Harris from Maggie’s mind. “What? Oh, that. Do you remember the stories you wrote back in the spring about Jay Harris, the boy from Calf Lick Fork who went missing?”

“I do.”

 Maggie stepped into the hallway and covered her nose with her fingers. “I know I could look up the stories, but you’d save me some time if you remember the name of the trooper who investigated Jay’s disappearance.”

Chewing the fish, he said, “It wasn’t a trooper. Since Jay Harris worked in town, his grandpa and boss went to the Jasper Police Department for help. They talked to your buddy.”

“My buddy?”

“Yeah, Detective Seth Heyward. He’s the officer of record.”

Chapter Eight

Maggie reflected on the nail polish worn by Jay Harris’ girlfriend, Sydney. Keeping with the current style, the young woman had painted the nails of her ring fingers a different color than her other fingernails. When Maggie had first encountered this trend on the hands of a co-worker in the advertising department, she had concluded that her colleague either craved attention or wanted to stand out in the crowd. But when she spotted dissimilar polish on the nails of more and more women, she had consulted her best friend, Edie, who explained that the color on the ring fingers represented the accent color. Maggie didn’t see the point in using her fingernails to convey her artistic impressions and continued to paint her nails only one color. But at least most of the fingernail artists she encountered employed two separate palettes. That was not the case for Sydney. Eight of her fingernails featured bright orange polish and the other two a slightly less bright orange. To Maggie’s eyes, the colors lived too close to each other on the color wheel and defeated the purpose of the accent color.

Although she could have stared at Sydney’s nails for hours, Maggie turned her concentration to the reason for her visit. “How long had you and Jay been dating?” she asked.

“We celebrated our ten-month anniversary a couple weeks before he …” Sydney’s voice trailed off.

“What can you tell me about Jay? What was he like?”

Sydney smiled. “He was a lot of fun, but he was also kind of serious. He spent a lot of time working and studying. He was going to make something of himself.”

“Was it a serious relationship?”

“Yeah. Well, we hadn’t discussed marriage or anything like that. That would have been years away. When we met, I was working as a CNA –”

“That’s a certified nursing assistant?”

Sydney nodded. “I had earned my certification and gotten a job in a nursing home. That’s what I was doing when we started dating. I didn’t even think about coming back to school, but Jay talked me into it. He told me I was smart enough and good enough to become a real nurse. He gave me the confidence I needed and I’m glad I listened to him. I’m in my second year now. It’s not been easy, but it’s worth all the work and effort.” Sydney paused and added, “You know, this is where me and Jay met. Right here in this room.”

Maggie followed Sydney’s eyes around the community college cafeteria. Sydney’s gaze settled on a table in the middle of the dining hall. “I had come here to have lunch with one of my friends. She was taking summer classes. She texted me after I got here and told me she had ditched me to go out with a guy. Some friend, right? I decided that as long as I was here, I might as well eat. I was sitting over there eating a cheeseburger when Jay stopped at the table and asked if he could sit with me. He said he hated to bother me, but there were no other empty seats.” Sydney giggled. “It was after the lunch rush and there were maybe three other people in here. He could have sat anywhere he wanted, but he wanted to sit with me.” Sydney picked at her multi-colored nails. “That’s why I wanted to meet you here. It reminds me of Jay.”

Maggie waited a few seconds before asking, “Sydney, was there anything going on in his life that was worrying him? Can you think of any reason why he would have left or why anyone would have hurt him?”

“No, Jay was a really nice guy. I mean, he wasn’t perfect and, to be honest, sometimes we argued because I felt like he was spending too much time working or studying or hanging out with his pappaw. Now when I think back to that, I see how selfish I was. Most girls would love to have a boyfriend as ambitious as Jay. He would have made a good husband for some lucky girl and a good provider for her children.”

As she listened to Sydney, it occurred to Maggie that she had never sized up a boyfriend or potential beau in regards to his earning potential. “What can you tell me about Jay’s jobs?” she asked. “Did he get along with his bosses?”

“He loved working at the funeral home. At first, I thought that was kind of creepy, but the owner treated him good and he liked the work. He said Curtis, that’s the guy from the butcher shop, was hateful, but Jay seemed to like that work, too.” Sydney wrinkled her nose. “I don’t even like watching my granny cut up chicken, so I can’t imagine why Jay liked having his hands in raw meat, but he said he didn’t think about it. He said the same thing about working at the funeral home. He said when they were covering up a grave, he didn’t let himself think about what that actually meant. He told himself that he was helping a grieving family. Without him and the funeral home, they’d be alone with their grief. They wouldn’t know how to handle the practical matters that come with death. I thought that was a really deep thing to say, but Jay was a thinker. He saw things differently than most people did.”

Maggie tapped her pen on her notepad. “Did Jay say anything about quitting his job at the butcher shop? Or anything about Curtis Moore firing him?”

Sydney stared at Maggie. After several beats of silence, she said, “No. Jay didn’t say anything about that. What would make you ask something like that?”

“Because he was no longer working for Curtis and I’ve heard two versions of what happened. I was hoping you could provide some clarification.” Sydney bit her lips and stared at the table, prompting Maggie to record the girl’s reaction in her notepad. In a soft voice, Maggie asked Sydney, “Did Jay ever say anything about leaving Kentucky?”

Looking up from the table, Sydney said, “Absolutely not, he loved it here. He planned to stay here forever. He had even tried to talk his mom into moving down here.”

Maggie placed her notepad on the table. “Sydney, what do you think happened to Jay?”

Sydney shook her head. “I don’t like to think about it, but it can’t be good. The cops are wrong. He wouldn’t have up and left us.” She scratched flecks of orange polish from her nails and added, “He wouldn’t have.”

Maggie listened with growing discomfort as Belinda Harris sang her praises from the other end of the phone.

“When the police wouldn’t help us, me and Gentry talked about hiring a private detective, but we don’t have that kind of money. And then one night he calls and says a private detective had come to his door. He says you’re really good. He says you’ve solved two murders. That won’t be the case here, though. Jay’s still alive.”

“Why do you think that?” Maggie asked.

“I’m his mother. I would know if he was gone.”

Maggie had many other questions for her, but before she could go on, she felt she had to clear up something. “Belinda, I don’t know what Gentry told you, but I’m not actually a private detective. I only started doing this to help out my brother’s friend and –”

“Have you solved two crimes that the police couldn’t?”

“Well,” Maggie hesitated, “yeah.”

“Then I don’t care what you actually are. I just want you to find my son.”

“Okay, in that case, what can you tell me about Jay’s decision to move down here?”

“After Junebug, that’s what I called my husband on account of him being Gentry Junior, died, Jay got so quiet. I’m more of an emotional person. Everybody knows exactly how I feel, and I wanted Jay to talk to me. I wanted him to tell me how he felt. One day I asked him and he turned his head real quick and looked me straight in the eyes and said, ‘Mom, I watched Dad die. How do you think that makes me feel?’ That’s all I could get out of him. After that, he pretty much quit talking to me and he started breaking his curfew and skipping classes. I knew he was hurting, so I didn’t discipline him. And, you know, I was a mess, too. Me and Junebug had been together since high school. I always told him I’d follow him anywhere. That’s easy to say when you think you’ll be on Calf Lick your whole life. But one day he came home and told me he had lost his job. His cousin had gotten him a job in a factory and we were moving to Indiana. Jay was just a baby then. Me and Junebug had talked about how we wanted Jay to grow up like we had on Calf Lick. That morning, I had my life planned out in Kentucky. That evening, I was packing to move to Indiana.”

Belinda took a break from talking and Maggie heard her light up a cigarette. When she resumed talking, she said, “I quit smoking when Jay was a baby. He had asthma. But after Junebug died, and I mean the very night he died, I walked into a store and bought a carton. I didn’t start with a pack.”

“I guess you’ve earned those cigarettes,” Maggie said. “And you quit once, you can quit again.”

“That’s exactly right,” Belinda agreed.

“You were telling me about Jay’s reaction to his father’s death.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t watching Jay as close as I should and he got in with the wrong crowd. I think he was just in too much pain. I know that sounds like I’m making excuses for him and maybe I am. But he had never been in trouble before Junebug died. He was at such an impressionable age and I wasn’t doing him much good. I walked around in a fog. Nothing was real to me.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Maggie said. “And I’m sorry you felt you couldn’t be there for Jay. What kind of trouble did he get into?”

“He and a couple other boys broke into a garage and stole tools from a man Jay worked for.”

“Oh,” Maggie said. “What kind of work did Jay do for this man?”

“Mowed grass, cut weeds, washed cars. You know, the kind of work teenage boys do for older people with a little money. Jay got mad at him over some money Jay said he owed him. At first, the man denied owing him money, but after the trouble was over, he admitted that he hadn’t paid Jay for the last bit of work Jay did. He said he wasn’t pleased with it. I’m not condoning what Jay did, though. If he had come to me, we could have gone to the man and worked something out, but you know how stupid teenage boys can be. He’s lucky he didn’t do time, but in the end, those boys only stole a couple hundred dollars’ worth of tools, so it was only a misdemeanor. When his probation was over, he told me he wanted to move to Kentucky. It was like the reverse of the conversation I had with Junebug all those years ago. It really shook me up, but once I cleared my mind, I realized it was the best thing for him. It wasn’t the best thing for me, though. Even though I talked to him nearly every day, I missed that boy almost as much as I missed Junebug.”

“Why do you think he wanted to move?”

“He wanted a change. He needed a change. He was really embarrassed by what he did. You know, stealing from that old man. He even worked for free for him to pay for the tools he had stole. I was really proud of him for that, but he said that man was somebody’s pappaw and didn’t deserve what they had done to him. He said he wouldn’t want anybody to do that to his pappaws. Jay’s grandparents, that would be Gentry and my folks, just dote on him. You know how grandparents are.”

“Yeah, if my nephews burned down the house, my parents would tell them that was okay, Mommaw and Poppaw could build another one.”

Belinda laughed. “Do you have any kids?”

“No, just the two nephews by my brother, Mark, and his wife. They live in Indianapolis.”

“Really. Well, how about that?” Belinda exhaled smoke and said, “I’ll move back to Kentucky one of these days, but for now, I’m torn. Junebug is gone, but he’s buried here, so I don’t want to leave. But my family is there in Kentucky. And that’s where Jay wants to be.”

“Belinda, you said earlier that you believe Jay is alive. Why do you think he left without contacting you or anyone else in the family?”

“I believe he saw something that scared him and he lit out of there. He’s waiting for it to die down and then he’ll come back. And if you can find out what he saw, he’ll come back to us even sooner.”

“I’ll do my best.” Maggie reviewed the notes she had made before the interview to ensure she had covered everything. “Gentry said Jay didn’t mention any specific friends he had made in Kentucky. Did he talk to you about his friends?”

“No, I know he hung out sometimes with boys from school, but Jay didn’t have a lot of free time. He was usually working or studying.”

“That’s what his girlfriend said.”

“What girlfriend?”

“Sydney.”

Maggie heard Belinda exhale smoke and say, “She wasn’t his girlfriend. Jay broke up with her about a week before he left.”

Chapter Nine

Belinda’s news that Jay had broken up with Sydney surprised Maggie to such an extent that she forgot to ask her about Jay’s job with Curtis. Luckily, Maggie had secured the names and phone numbers of Jay’s friends in Indiana before Belinda’s news blindsided her. The request had not been fulfilled, however, without some resistance from Belinda.

After Maggie had jotted down the contact information for two of Jay’s friends, she had asked Belinda, “Were either of these boys involved with the robbery?”

“No,” Belinda had answered. “Jay hadn’t stayed in touch with those boys. He dropped them as soon as he realized they were bad news.”

Instead of suggesting that Belinda might not have known everything about her son’s life, Maggie had asked, “How about you give me their names and contact information and I’ll call them anyway?”

“Well, I can only give you the name and number for one of them. The other one is in jail.”

Maggie called each of the three young men on Belinda’s list. For the most part, they offered more of the same information Maggie had already learned – Jay’s dad’s death affected him much more than he admitted, he loved living in eastern Kentucky with his pappaw, and he was serious about work and college, but not about Sydney. In fact, one of his buddies didn’t know he had a girlfriend. The others knew of Sydney’s existence, but couldn’t recall her name. As far as all of them knew, he hadn’t gotten into any trouble since the business in Indiana and they all agreed that incident represented out of character behavior from Jay. They couldn’t imagine him replicating such conduct in Kentucky. Then again, they said Jay primarily talked about how happy his new home had made him, a boast at least one friend found hard to believe.

Sensing a clue, Maggie asked, “Did he say something that made you doubt him? Did you have reason to believe he wasn’t as happy as he let on?”

“It’s not anything Jay said,” the young man explained. “But I’ve been to eastern Kentucky. I’ve seen how they live down there.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah. I spent a couple weeks helping repair homes for poor people in a community a couple hours from where Jay lived. It was sad.”

“Hmm.” Maggie wanted to ask him why he hadn’t stayed home and helped poor people in his own community, but she resisted her dark impulses and wrapped up the conversation.

The next boy improved her spirits when he admitted he had considered following Jay to the Kentucky hills. “My family’s originally from somewhere around there,” he said, “and they’re always talking about how the jobs are leaving, but that can’t be so. Jay has two jobs. He told me to come on down there and he’d help me find work.”

He didn’t share anything beneficial to the case and, as Maggie dialed the last number on the list, she wasn’t expecting much from buddy number three, either. At first, he met her low expectations by admitting that his conversations with Jay usually centered on pickup trucks and their fantasy football league. Then, he said, “The last time I talked to him, he seemed upset.”

“When was this?” Maggie asked.

“A few days or maybe a week before his mom called looking for him.”

“What made you think Jay was upset? Was it the way he sounded? Or maybe something he said?”

“Both. He said, ‘Do you ever wish you could start over?’ I told him he had already done that. And he said, ‘No, I mean start over where nobody knows you.’”

“Did you tell Jay’s mom about this?”

“No. I didn’t know if I should. I couldn’t make my mind up on what would be worse for her – if something bad had happened to Jay or if he had just split.”

Chapter Ten

Maggie pondered the possibility that Jay had simply walked away from his life, speculated on the reality of Jay’s relationship with Sydney, and brooded over the quagmire created by Seth’s official involvement with the case at dinner with Edie, Edie’s husband, Ben, and Luke. Just as she had done since learning that Seth was the investigating detective, Maggie worked her brain for a solution to this problem that did not involve breaking her promise to Luke, yet did provide her with answers to her growing list of questions relating to the official investigation. She had just taken another bite of chicken when Edie asked her, “Where are you tonight because you’re certainly not in my dining room?”

“Yeah, you’re deep in thought,” Ben agreed.

Maggie couldn’t share her true thoughts, so she evoked Edie’s reliance on theme meals and fell back on a familiar explanation. “You’ve stumped me again, Edie. Try as I might, I cannot figure out what gingerbread cookies have to do with this scrumptious chicken.”

Edie beamed from across the table. “That’s ginger chicken you’re eating, Pumpkin. If you would expand your palette to include food not grown or raised up a holler, you’d be able to identify a variety of herbs and spices.”

Maggie took Edie’s teasing in stride and, after they finished the main course, Edie produced a platter of miniature gingerbread snaps. “Some people,” Edie looked at Ben, “have complained about soft gingerbread cookies, so I’ve tried this new recipe to satisfy them. And true to their name, you can snap them like a twig.” To demonstrate, Edie broke a cookie into two pieces, feeding one part to Ben and the other to herself.

 “Yummy,” Maggie said, crunching a cookie. She wouldn’t admit it to Edie, but she agreed with Ben. There were few sweets Maggie wouldn’t consume, but she considered finishing an entire soft, regular-sized gingerbread cookie to be an arduous task. Edie loved gingerbread cookies, though, and every year at Christmas she baked and decorated several batches. She always gave Maggie a tin that contained iced gingerbread cookies on the inside and featured dancing and/or smiling gingerbread men on the outside. Maggie was enjoying her third cookie and wondering how many of those tins occupied space in her kitchen cabinets when Ben said, “Luke says you’re on the case again.”

“Yeah, what about that?” Edie said. “Why haven’t you mentioned anything to me?”

Maggie looked to Luke, who said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was a secret.”

“It’s not,” Maggie said. “Edie, I just hadn’t gotten around to telling you. It’s no big deal. And there’s really nothing to tell. From all appearances, it looks like Jay Harris fell off the face of the earth one day. He left for work one morning and hasn’t been seen since.”

Edie clasped Maggie’s hand, “If anybody can find him, you can. You’re our little super sleuth.”

Maggie pushed away the platter of cookies and said, “If I don’t refrain, I won’t be anybody’s little anything.”

While the quartet engaged in a lively discussion about which board game to play, Edie’s phone rang. She checked the ID and said, “It’s my mom,” before answering the call and walking into the den. She returned minutes later carrying the anniversary edition of Trivial Pursuit and wearing a solemn expression.

“Something wrong?” Luke asked.

“Mom just saw on Facebook that people are asking for prayers for the Heyward family.” Edie clutched the box to her chest. “Seth’s mom died.”

Chapter Eleven

Maggie scanned the cafeteria’s menu for a reasonably-healthy offering. She had planned to order a salad, but the wilting lettuce and shriveled tomatoes on the salad bar changed those plans. She could have chosen a ham or grilled chicken sandwich, but she had eaten half a ham and cheese sub for lunch yesterday and chicken for dinner at Edie’s. She sighed and said, “I’ll take a water and a burger.” As she opened her purse in preparation of paying for her meal, she added, “Make that a cheeseburger with ketchup and pickles. I’d like some fries, too.”

Once she paid for and received her lunch, Maggie found a table and waited for Sydney, who had seemed all too eager to meet with her again. But instead of mentally prepping herself on how to approach Sydney about her breakup with Jay, Maggie thought about Seth’s mom.

Although Jasper was far from a metropolis, since childhood Maggie had recognized the differences between living within the city limits and living in the county. The seat of Geneva County, Jasper also served as the region’s financial, shopping, and healthcare center. For the most part, people who lived in Jasper considered any community more than five minutes from town remote. Maggie had never understood their superior attitudes. She knew that outsiders such as Tyler didn’t make a distinction between those who lived in hollows and those who lived in subdivisions. They viewed the entire region as backward and all its residents as hicks.

But many of her fellow Geneva County residents did make a distinction. Maggie had been ridiculed by both town and county folk due to her family’s embrace of such traditional customs as gardening, canning, and keeping livestock. When Maggie talked at school and among friends about her parents rendering lard and canning sausage, she had been greeted with confused looks and requests for explanations. She assumed city dwellers would react with more pronounced histrionics and that often proved to be the case. So when Maggie started dating Seth, she thought he was exaggerating when he told her about his old-fashioned parents. She had grown up believing Jasper meant newer and, by eastern Kentucky standards, sophisticated. Those attitudes carried with her into her twenties and she couldn’t reconcile that a Jasper police detective who had lived in town his entire life had experienced a childhood similar to hers.

Those preconceived notions disappeared when she met Seth’s parents, members of the Old Regular Baptist church. They had made their home in Jasper, up a little hollow that provided them enough space to grow a vegetable garden but not enough to raise livestock. Maggie was surprised by how much the two sets of parents had in common. Their dads had seasonal conversations. From October to March, they debated the individual merits of the University of Kentucky men’s basketball players. From April to September, they sat outside whittling and talking about green beans and corn. Every now and then, they’d discuss the bygone days they had spent mining coal underground, plowing with a horse or mule instead of a tractor, or cutting grass with a reap hook, all of which usually provoked Seth to whisper to Maggie, “They’re mixing it up today.”

For their moms, most conversations centered on cooking and canning. Much to Lena’s disappointment, Seth’s mom didn’t quilt and when she admitted to not really liking to sew, either, Lena had frowned at Maggie and said, “Sounds like someone else I know.”

As she sat in the cafeteria finishing her fries, Maggie could still see Seth’s mom in that moment, with her hair pulled in a tight bun and with a requisite denim skirt reaching her ankles. Offering Maggie an encouraging smile, she had said, “The good Lord blessed us all with different talents. Your talent is in writing, Maggie.”

Maggie couldn’t remember the last time she had seen that sweet woman. It was after she had broken her engagement to Seth. She was sure of that, but she couldn’t remember where they had met or what they had talked about. Why didn’t I reach out to her? Maggie asked herself. Seth told me last year that she was sick. Why didn’t I call her?

Sydney’s appearance at the table prevented Maggie from chastising herself further. When Sydney plopped into the chair across from her, Maggie stole a peek at her fingernails, eight of which looked like they had been painted the color of the red-violet Crayon. The other two reminded Maggie of the violet-red Crayon.

“Thanks for coming to talk to me again,” Maggie said.

“No problem. I’ll do anything I can do to help find my Jay.”

Maggie cleared her throat. “Sydney, I spoke to Jay’s mom, Belinda.”

Sydney laced the fingers of her hands together and laid them on the front of her oversized University of Kentucky hoodie. “How is she?”

“As good as can be expected, I guess. Anyway, she told me something interesting about you and Jay. She told me Jay had broken up with you.”

Maggie noticed Sydney squeezing her hands together. Her red-violet and violet-red nails dug into her skin. “That’s what he told her? That he broke up with me? Well, it’s not true. I broke up with him.”

“Regardless of who broke up with whom, why didn’t you tell me you were no longer together? You just said you’d do anything to help find your Jay, but you kept something very important from me.”

“Our breakup has nothing to do with Jay’s disappearance.” When Maggie raised her eyebrows, Sydney said, “It doesn’t.”

“Then why hide the truth?”

Sydney relaxed her fingers. “Because it’s so embarrassing.”

“I know you’re young, Sydney, but in a few years, you’ll realize that your boyfriend breaking up with you isn’t always the worst thing in the world.”

Sydney pulled her hands apart and slapped the table with them. “That’s not it. You’re not listening. I told you, I broke up with him. And it’s embarrassing because why I broke up with him. I caught him with someone else.”

“Oh,” Maggie said. “I didn’t see that coming.”

“Neither did I. It was my dumb luck that I saw them together that day. They were in the parking garage. The parking garage in the middle of the day. How trashy.”

“Stop.” Maggie held up her hand. “When you say ‘together’ and in the ‘parking garage in the middle of the day,’ what do you mean?”

“Exactly what you think I mean.”

Maggie’s mind returned to various parking garages she had utilized during her life. She scrunched her face in disgust when she considered the activities that might have occurred in the parking spots next to her car.

“I know.” Sydney pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her head and squeezed together the strings until she resembled a baby swaddled in a blanket. “Right? I mean, get a room.”

“Yeah, I think there should be an age limit for rendezvousing in public. Doing so in the daylight is just wrong no matter your age. Nobody needs to be subjected to that.”

“Tell me about it. I still remember it like it happened this morning. I had a test that day and when I drove from the top level of the garage, I was going over the test in my mind. You know, to figure out how I did. And that’s when I saw his truck pulled into a parking spot in the corner. And then I saw her. I stopped in the middle of the garage and confronted them. I broke up with him right then and there. It’s bad enough that he cheated, but why did he have to do it with an old, fat married woman?”

Maggie, who had been visualizing the events as described to her, suddenly imagined Jay enjoying an afternoon assignation in public with a morbidly obese woman her mother’s age. “How old?”

“Oh, at least thirty-four, thirty-five.”

“Well,” Maggie laughed, “that is old-er.”

“Believe me, it gets even worse.”

“Worse than fat and old and married?” Maggie asked.

“Uh-huh. I know her. She works here at the college. She’s a secretary. I did my work study in that office last year.”

That’s convenient for me, Maggie thought. After learning in which department the other woman, who Sydney named as Gina worked, she said, “Sydney, if there’s anything else you haven’t told me, now is the time to do so.”

“There’s nothing else. I saw him with that old fattie, I broke up with him, and I heard a few days later that he had disappeared. Hey, don’t look at me like that. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You have to admit that it sounds a little suspicious.”

Sydney shook her head. “No, I don’t. I’m telling the truth, I didn’t see Jay after that day in the garage. I didn’t talk to him, either.” She blinked and opened a quivering mouth. “Can you believe that he didn’t even call to apologize or to try to talk me into coming back to him?”

With the minutes on her lunch ticking away, Maggie didn’t have the time to act as Sydney’s cheerleader. If she wanted to track down Gina, she needed to get a move on. “Sydney, I’m going to ask you one more time, is there anything else you’re not telling me? Was there anything else going on in Jay’s life?”

Sydney looked at her nail polish in a manner that suggested Maggie’s presence no longer held her interest. Maggie collected her belongings and was in the process of standing when Sydney shifted in her chair and said, “This is probably nothing, but he did complain about one of the customers at the butcher shop. I remember it because he told me about it the night before I caught him with Gina. I don’t remember if he said why he was upset, though. I really wasn’t paying attention. I was worrying about the test I took the next day. The one I told you about.” Sydney pulled the strings to the hoodie until they would no longer move. “I guess that was the last real conversation we had, and I can’t even remember all of it.”

Maggie remained in that awkward purgatory between standing and sitting. “About this man at the butcher shop, do you remember a name?”

Sydney nodded. “It was initials.”

“You mean like J.R.?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think that was it. I don’t remember what they were, though. I just remember the guy didn’t have a name. He had initials.”

As she made her way to Gina’s office, it occurred to Maggie that Gina might be out to lunch. She couldn’t very well leave a message explaining why she needed to talk to her, but she couldn’t wait for her, either. She had an interview across the county with a woman who had framed more than one hundred jigsaw puzzles and she would need to leave campus within fifteen minutes to make her appointment. By the time she approached the office, she hadn’t made a contingency plan, but fortunately, she didn’t need one. Gina stood beside a filing cabinet, wearing a name tag and bearing a wry smile.

“Hey, there,” Gina said, “can I help you?”

With Sydney’s description fresh in her mind, Maggie quickly sized up Gina. Although she carried more weight than the super skinny Sydney, who Maggie feared would snap into two pieces if she bent over, Maggie thought it absurd to characterize Gina as fat. A little chubby? Maybe. But not fat. She blamed Sydney’s reference to Gina, who did indeed look to be in her mid-thirties, as old on the folly of youth.

After Maggie introduced herself, Gina told her she recognized her photo from the Sentinel and added, “I’m sorry. The dean is out of the office this afternoon. How about you make an – ”

“I’m not here to see the dean. May I sit down? Thank you. I’m here to talk to you.”

“Me? Why would a reporter want to talk to me?”

Since she didn’t have time for niceties, Maggie cut to the chase. “I’m not here on newspaper business. This is about Jay Harris. His grandpa has asked me to help find him.”

Gina, who had relaxed into the chair behind her desk, smiled. “You’ve talked to Sydney. I can only imagine what she told you.”

“Well, what can you tell me? About Jay?”

“Not much. It was just, you know, physical.”

“How did you meet?”

“Here, in the office. He would come in and talk to Sydney. That’s how I got to know him. He was a friendly guy and, when he came to see Sydney, he’d talk to me and the dean, too. Then, he started texting me. He got my number from Sydney’s phone. My husband had just left me and I appreciated the attention, especially from a younger boy.” Gina picked up a blue folder from her desk and immediately set it down. “You know, I went to school here. I was a work study in this very office. When I graduated, I took a part-time job in another department, but transferred here as soon as this job came open. I have spent half my life with this institution. The students stay the same age, but I keep getting older.”

Maggie included Gina’s philosophy in her notes so she could appreciate it when she had more time. “How long were you and Jay, um, uh …”

Gina giggled. It was an open, childish laugh that gave Maggie a glimpse of the outgoing personality that had most likely attracted Jay to an older woman. “Almost three months. It started at Valentine’s Day. I remember because Jay told me Happy Valentine’s Day in the first text he sent me. It ended when he, I don’t know, I guess you could say it ended when he disappeared.”

“What about your husband?”

“What about him?” When Gina spoke, Maggie detected an edge to her voice.

“Did he know about you and Jay?”

“It’s none of his business.”

Maggie stared at Gina. “He might think differently.”

“Look, we had split up because he took up with my cousin, who happened to live next door. He moved in with her and I had to see them together every day. My kids had to see them together every day. She even brought him to family get-togethers. He has no room to talk when it comes to messing around with other people. I only took him back for the kids and because he literally crawled on his knees and begged for my forgiveness.”

Maggie had a hard time imaging a grown man crawling and wondered if this represented one of those cases when the speaker misused the word literally. “You didn’t answer my question. Did he know about you and Jay?”

“No.”

“How can you be so sure? How do you know he didn’t catch you together? If Sydney saw you, other people could have.”

Gina giggled, which turned into full-throttle laughter and then a coughing fit. As Gina gulped water, Maggie checked the time. She didn’t want to spend the remaining minutes of her lunch watching someone drink water. “What’s so funny?”

“Sydney threw such a tantrum that day in the parking garage.” Gina coughed and added, “She threatened to expose us. That’s the word she used. Expose. She told Jay she’d tell everyone he was with an old fattie and told me she’d tell my husband and my boss. We told her to go ahead and do it. Jay didn’t want her going to his pappaw, but otherwise, he didn’t care. Neither did I. Like I said, my husband has no room to judge and I’m not a professor. There’s no rule against me seeing a student. And the semester was almost over, so it’s not like Sydney and I would have to see each other much. But she came storming in here the next morning, demanding to talk to the dean. Get this straight, I did not care what she said, but I did point out to her that it might not look too good for her if people found out her boyfriend had hooked up with, in her words, an old fattie like me. So, of course, she didn’t say a word to anybody. As far as I know, you’re the only person she’s told. And she certainly doesn’t want anybody to learn the truth now. She’s having too much fun playing the role of Jay’s widow.”

Maggie wasn’t sure she believed Gina didn’t care if Sydney revealed her affair with Jay, but she admired the way she had played on Sydney’s youthful vanity. “You used the word ‘widow.’ Does that mean you think Jay is dead?”

Gina picked up the blue folder again and just as quickly put it down. “I don’t know. Jay and I weren’t close, but when somebody you know just vanishes, it affects you. You can’t help but think about it. I’ve thought of everything. I’ve imagined that he was kidnapped or killed by some crazy drifter who wanted his truck or that he was out in the hills and fell down an abandoned mining shaft. I know his pappaw says he went to work that day, but who knows where he went? Sometimes I think he just got in his truck and kept driving.”

“Is there anything about his life that makes you think he wanted to leave? Or that he was marked by somebody? Did he talk about enemies or worries or a man with initials? Or –”

Gina interrupted Maggie. “You can stop with the questions because I can’t answer them. Except for the small talk we made when he visited Sydney, Jay and I didn’t exactly talk much.”

Chapter Twelve

“Where was this preacher ordained?” Edie whispered into Maggie’s ear.

Edie had been harassing Maggie with such questions since the moment the services for Seth’s mom had started. If she didn’t quit, Maggie feared Lena would pinch both of them. That’s the punishment her mom had doled out when Maggie misbehaved in church as a child and Maggie knew she wouldn’t hesitate to dispense the same discipline today. She had already shot stern looks toward Maggie and Edie, but no matter how many times Maggie shushed her friend, she kept firing the questions.

“Preachers at this church aren’t ordained,” she answered in a whisper of her own. “One day, the spirit hits them and they start preaching.”

Edie tilted her head and rolled her eyes toward Maggie. “If that’s the case, I wish he’d lose the spirit. He said he wouldn’t take much of our time, but he’s been carrying on for fifteen minutes. I don’t know why he needs to yell or why he holds one of his ears and makes that little hiccup sound. And what is he saying anyway?”

“He’s saying, ‘My brother today,’” Maggie explained.

“Why is he saying that? Is it a message to his brother?” Edie scanned the congregation for the preacher’s potential brother. “Is his brother here?”

“I don’t know.”

“How much longer is he going to keep doing this?”

“For as long as he feels the spirit.” Maggie could feel Lena’s eyes boring into the side of her head. “Just be quiet and be patient. They’ll sing him down in a little while.”

Sure enough, within minutes, a baritone slowly started lining “Just One Rose Will Do.” When the congregation joined in, Edie whispered, “Remind me again, why do they say the words before they sing?”

“It’s called lining. It’s a custom. I imagine it either started because the church couldn’t afford enough hymnals for everyone or because not everyone could read.”

That explanation seemed to please Edie, who craned her head to look around the little church house. “I know this isn’t a fancy church, but if they can afford ceiling fans, they can afford hymnals. And don’t tell me they’re all illiterate. There’s no longer a reason for this lining. If they cut that out, they could sing more songs or shorten the services.”

“You’re as bad as Tyler,” Maggie chastised her friend. “He said people in eastern Kentucky are obsessed with death, so I spent twenty minutes explaining to him why we hold two evenings of church services as well as a funeral.”

“Why do we do that?” Edie asked.

Before Maggie could answer, Lena leaned over her daughter, causing her to flinch and cover her legs and arms with her coat. “If you girls don’t hush,” Lena said, “I’m going to take you to the bathroom and have a talk with you.”

Maggie didn’t need to spell out the seriousness of the threat to Edie, who nodded at Lena and stayed silent for the remainder of the services. But as soon as the closing prayer concluded, Edie resumed her chatter. “I know it’s been a few years so my memory could have faded, but the preaching seemed a little different from when your grandparents died.”

“It was. Mommaw and Poppaw were Primitive Baptists. This was an Old Regular Baptist service.”

“What’s the difference?”

As far as Maggie was concerned, theology class was over, so she said, “Ask a preacher.”

Maggie had spoken to Seth’s dad and sisters before services began, but hadn’t gotten the chance to offer her condolences to Seth. She had planned to seek him out after church, but a crowd surrounded him as soon as services ended. She decided to sit and wait until the crowd thinned, but changed her mind when Robert, who sat on the other side of Lena, suggested they go to the kitchen for coffee and snacks.

When she walked into the dining room, Maggie expected to be overwhelmed by fluorescent lighting, loud voices, and cigarette smoke. Her eyes adjusted to the bright lights and her ears to the sounds of voices bouncing off the block walls, but there was no smoke to be smelled. That’s right, she thought to herself, even church dining rooms have gone smoke-free. They made their way to the kitchen where Maggie decided on a bottled water and a slice of angel food cake while Edie and Robert opted for sandwiches. When they found a table in the dining room that yielded four seats together, Edie asked Lena why she hadn’t selected anything to eat.

“I don’t eat after people unless I know who made the food,” Lena said. “What if they didn’t wash their hands before cooking? What if they allow cats and dogs on their countertops?”

“Well, you’re drinking coffee and, for all you know, a cat lover with dirty hands could have brewed that pot.”

Knowing Edie’s attempt at logic would only make matters worse, Maggie kicked her friend from under the table. Edie met her eyes, mouthed “Gotcha,” and devoured her sandwich.

“I don’t know if the person who made this combination sandwich washed her hands or has cats,” Robert mused, “but it sure is good. Ain’t it, Edie?”

“It sure is,” Edie agreed. “It’s about the best funeral sandwich I’ve ever had. Why didn’t you get one, Maggie?”

Maggie had never cared for the sandwich spread, a combination of bologna, lunchmeat, cheese, pickles, and mayonnaise that, depending on the speaker, was known as combination, baloney salad, or funeral salad. Although Maggie had known Edie for years, it surprised her to see her friend enjoying the sandwich. Remembering that Edie, a non-practicing Methodist, had once declared that all Baptists were the same, Maggie said, “Where have you encountered combination? Don’t tell me they serve it at Methodist funerals.”

“Don’t be such a snob, Maggie. Every denomination eats funeral salad. It’s about the only thing we all have in common.”

The mention of denominations apparently re-ignited Edie’s curiosity and as her friend quizzed Robert and Lena on the tenets of the Old Regular and Primitive Baptist faiths, Maggie’s mind wandered to her conversations with Sydney and Gina. She had asked around about Sydney’s mysterious initialed man but, without knowing at least one of the letters that comprised his name, her search had proven fruitless. She considered the possibility of returning to the butcher shop and asking Curtis Moore about him, but didn’t want to do so until she had more to go on. Besides, she was beginning to doubt the existence of this man with initials for a name. It all seemed too convenient for Maggie. It was as if Sydney had invented him on the spur of the moment to deflect suspicion from herself. Maggie had watched enough programs on Investigation Discovery to know that women as young and as tiny as Sydney were capable of murder. The same thoughts crossed her mind in regards to Gina. Sydney said Jay hadn’t tried to win her back, but what if he had planned to do so? Gina could be playing down their relationship. She could have developed feelings for him. If he intended to toss her aside for the younger woman, she could have snapped and killed him. Then again, what if Maggie’s original accusation toward Gina were true? Her husband could have learned of his wife’s affair with Jay and gotten rid of his romantic rival. Maggie didn’t know how to handle that situation, though. Gina said her husband knew about her extracurricular activities, but if that were a lie, Maggie didn’t want to be the one to break the news of his wife’s infidelity to him.

Maggie suddenly saw Edie’s well-manicured hand wave in front of her face. “Hello, Maggie, is anyone in there?” As so often happened when caught lost in her own world, Maggie’s face flushed. “You’re missing a fascinating story,” Edie said. “Your mom just told us that when she was a young girl, she attended a funeral on a porch. A porch. Can you imagine that? I know they used to have some services at homes, but I never imagined having one on a porch. What time of year was it, Lena?”

“It was a lovely spring day. When the preachers took a break, you could hear the birds chirping.”

“I’ll bet that was so peaceful. I’m going to tell Ben I want birds at my funeral,” Edie said. She paused, squinted her eyes in thought, and asked Lena, “Did they take the coffin in at night or did they sit up with him outside?”

Sitting up with the dead brought Maggie back to the reason they were at the church. While Lena searched her memory for the answer to Edie’s question, Maggie suggested they return to the chapel and talk to Seth.

They found him chatting with two old-timers who Maggie supposed were not-so-distant relatives. When one of them noticed Maggie and the others standing nearby, they wrapped up their conversation, shaking Robert’s hand as they went by. Edie and Lena walked to Seth and hugged him and Robert shook his hand, but when it came Maggie’s turn to approach him, she kept her hands to her side and he put his in his pockets.

“I’m so sorry about this,” Maggie said to Seth. “She was a wonderful woman. What happened? I know she had been sick last year, but I didn’t know it was this bad.”

Maggie, her parents, and Edie listened as Seth shared how his mother’s deteriorating health had led to her eventual death. They offered words of support and he walked with them to view a collage of photos of his mother. He explained the story behind every picture and, when he reached the final photo, Maggie realized Robert, Lena, and Edie had wandered away. But she stood frozen in the spot, reflecting on the woman who could have been her mother-in-law.

“I’m sorry, Seth. I should have visited or called her.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, Maggie. She wouldn’t have wanted you to do that. Besides, who’s to say I’d go see Lena if she got sick.”

Maggie looked directly into Seth’s green eyes, reddened with grief and lack of sleep. “You would. I know you would.”

Seth popped his neck. “So, what’s going on with you?” His crooked grin emerged on his weary face. “You investigating anything?”

Maggie bit the inside of her lip. She had promised Luke she wouldn’t seek Seth’s help, but that was before she had learned of Seth’s involvement in the investigation into Jay’s disappearance. She knew breaking her promise would constitute lying and she was unsure of the appropriateness of discussing such matters at a funeral service, but Seth was standing in front of her. She couldn’t pass up this opportunity.

“Actually, I am. It’s sort of one of your cases.”

Seth’s tired eyes widened. “Really? Which one?”

“Jay Harris. The guy who went missing from Calf Lick Fork last spring. Do you remember him?”

Seth nodded. “I felt bad for his pappaw, but there was no evidence of foul play. You keep up with true crime shows. You know how it is. If there’s no sign of a struggle or blood or no mysterious circumstances surrounding the disappearance, we have no indication a crime was committed.”

“I know,” she agreed. “Adults have the right to leave their lives and make new ones. But I feel bad for his pappaw, too, and I don’t have a chief of police looking over my shoulder or other crimes to solve. I can focus on this one.”

“That’s true.”

“Gentry Harris said you ran a check on Jay’s credit cards.”

Seth chuckled. “Actually, it was a debit card.” He lowered his head and said in a conspiratorial tone, “Don’t tell the chief this, but I run a check on his card every week. I check to see if the truck has shown up, too.”

“So, does this mean you think Jay didn’t leave on his own accord?”

“Eh, I wouldn’t say that. But it just takes a few minutes of my time every week and, you know, if there’s a chance something happened to him, I should follow due diligence. Besides, there’s something about this case that’s bothered me from the beginning.”

“What’s that?”

“His cell phone. You know how people are nowadays,” he smiled, “especially the younger generation. When my oldest niece shows me something on her phone, she won’t let go of it. She won’t even let me hold the phone with her standing right there. I’ve joked that she has incriminating evidence on there that she doesn’t want me to see, but I think it’s just their mindset.” He accepted a hug from an older woman walking past him before continuing, “But there’s been no activity on Jay’s cell phone since the day he vanished.”

“You mean you can check something like that?”

“Yeah, we usually have to have a warrant, but Jay’s cell phone was in his mom’s name, so she gave us permission. It’s complicated, but basically we use this software that tricks the phones into using the software as a tower. Unfortunately, the Jasper Police Department’s puny budget doesn’t allow us to purchase the software, so we borrow it from the state police when we need to find a cell phone. But here’s the rub – the phones have to be on. Nothing has shown up with Jay’s phone, so either the battery is dead or the phone isn’t on.”

“Do you look for his phone every week, too?”

Seth shook his head. “I only check it when the software is available.”

“He could have chucked his old phone in the river and gotten a new phone. Maybe he got one of those phones that can’t be traced.”

“That’s probably what happened. If you’re going to make a new life where nobody knows your name, then you’re going to get rid of anything that ties you to your old life.”

“But that’s the issue right there. Why would Jay Harris want a new life?”

“I guess you know about the trouble in Indiana? That could have been exactly what his mom and pappaw said it was. The actions of a foolish boy who was floundering after the death of his dad. But I made some calls to Indiana and the police up there seem to think that wasn’t an isolated incident. Not long after he left Indiana, one of his buddies was busted for a string of burglaries. If he ran with the wrong crowd up there, maybe he did the same down here.”

“No offense, Seth, but law enforcement has been known to forever pigeonhole people who make one mistake. Besides, according to his pappaw and girlfriend, Jay didn’t really have friends down here. And, yes, one of his buddies in Indiana is serving time, but I spoke to three other friends, including two who have never been in trouble and were not part of the wrong crowd you referenced.”

“Point taken. So, you’ve talked to those closest to him? What have you learned from them?”

Maggie gave Seth a rundown on her conversations with Gentry, Belinda, Sydney, Gina, Steve, Carrie, Curtis, and the Indiana boys. When she finished, Seth said, “Wow. I’m losing my touch. I didn’t know about the second girlfriend or that he was no longer working at the butcher shop. I must be asking the wrong questions.”

“Or maybe that badge intimidates people.”

“Now you’re just trying to cheer me up.” Seth rubbed his eyes. “What’s your take on everything you’ve learned?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe Kentucky was Jay’s new life or maybe he was serious when he told his friend he’d like another do-over. Or it could be that he was venting. After all, if the timeline is right, he had just lost one of his jobs and his girlfriend had just caught him with another woman.”

“That would certainly add some stress to your life.”

“Then there’s Sydney. I can almost chalk up her failure to share the truth about her relationship with Jay to embarrassment. But she also told me about this mysterious customer at the butcher shop with initials for a name who was supposedly giving Jay trouble.” Maggie shook her head. “As Daddy would say, that sounds like a made-up tale.”

“I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss that. I’m sure you read Tyler’s story last winter about the burglary of an elderly couple. Two kids who are actually adults and old enough to know better talked their way into the couple’s house, scuffled with the old man, tied up him and his wife, and rummaged through the house. I think they ended up taking some Avon-type jewelry, a VCR, a few whatnots, thirty-seven dollars in cash, and some blood pressure pills. You can say one thing for eastern Kentucky, we produce some of the dumbest criminals in the country. Anyway, we tracked these criminal masterminds to their hideout next door by the tracks they made in the snow.”

“I remember that,” Maggie said. “Although Joe and I didn’t find the robbery and assault of the elderly couple amusing, we did share a laugh as we speculated on the criminals’ combined IQ. I can’t remember their names. Does one of the robbers go by initials?”

“Yeah, G.L. Murphy, but I’m thinking about his brother, W.L. Murphy. He doesn’t have much of a record, but he’s just as stupid as his brother and he was arrested for poaching back in the spring after he tried to take the deer to Curtis Moore’s meat shop.”

Sydney’s words echoed in Maggie’s mind. “A guy with initials was giving Jay trouble at the butcher shop,” she said. “And now I find out that guy was a poacher. What do you know about that? It looks like Sydney might have told the truth after all.”

Chapter Thirteen

During Maggie’s search for Mac Honaker’s killer, her dog, Barnaby, had been temporarily kidnapped. In the course of her investigation into Hazel Baker’s death, Maggie’s car had been vandalized. In spite of these incidents, Maggie’s brief experience as an amateur sleuth had produced only a few moments of terror. But Mac’s murder had transpired in her Sugar Creek community and familiarity had provided a sense of comfort. Although Hazel had lived and died across the county in Sassafras and out of Maggie’s comfort zone, Maggie had relied on Hazel’s sister for introductions to the community. Maggie liked to think she was brave enough to make initial contact with a potential murderer all by herself. But she had spent too much time absorbing too many accounts of true crime to behave so recklessly. Her dad had accompanied her to Curtis Moore’s butcher shop and, today, she had asked Sylvie Johnson to go with her to W.L. Murphy’s. As she maneuvered her car up the winding road that led to W.L.’s house, she was happy Sylvie sat chattering in her passenger seat.

When Maggie reached the address for W.L. Murphy that Tyler had found in the police report for the poaching incident, she stopped the car. Chickens ran loose in a yard littered with rusty appliances and vehicles, including two tireless cars on cinder blocks and a Chevy truck that looked to Maggie like her dad’s old blue stick shift. Except that this truck had a maroon hood, one green door, one white door, and a red bed and tailgate.

Maggie and Sylvie’s arrival caught the attention of a dog teetered to the hitch of the mobile home that sat on the property. After glancing toward Maggie’s car, the dog must have decided the visitors weren’t worth the effort. He stood up and walked underneath the trailer, which contained no underpinning but featured black garbage bags duct-taped to one end of the mobile home and a string of blinking Christmas lights drooping from the roof.

“This beats all I ever seen,” Sylvie said. “They don’t have the gumption to clean this place up, but they found the time to decorate for Santie Claus.”

“I just hope he has shoes and teeth and doesn’t come to the door carrying a shotgun, or else he’ll embody every eastern Kentucky stereotype I can think of.”

Maggie’s words were still hanging in the air when the front door opened and a sprite of a man stepped onto the front porch. “You girls lost?” he yelled from the doorway.

“Girl,” Sylvie huffed as she lumbered out of the car. “I ain’t been a girl in so long I forgot what it felt like.”

 “I’m sorry, Granny,” the man said, “but you looked like a little girl sitting in that car.”

“I ain’t nobody’s granny, neither,” Sylvie snapped. When she reached the bottom of the porch steps, she looked toward the car and said to Maggie, “Are you coming in or do you aim to sit in the car all day?”

Before Maggie could respond, Sylvie marched up the steps, wobbled across the porch, brushed by the man, and entered the trailer. Maggie grabbed her bag, made sure to lock the car, and approached the trailer. Walking up the cinderblock steps that led to the porch, she spied a pine cone, a brick, and a knife lying on the porch. She recognized a rust-colored smear on the knife and hoped it was not blood. When she reached the front door, she held out her hand to the welcoming young man and said, “I’m Maggie Morgan. I –”

“Come on in,” he said. “There’s no need to stand out here and talk in the cold.”

Maggie followed him inside where she found Sylvie standing in the middle of a room cluttered with piles of clothes, food, dirty dishes, small appliances, mechanical parts, and tools.

“Son,” Sylvie said, “ain’t nobody never taught you to put things away when you’re done using them? And to wash things when they’re dirty? These clothes belong in the washing machine.”

He gestured toward the pile of clothes. “Them clothes are clean.”

“Clean?” Sylvie exclaimed. “Then where are the dirty ones?” When he made no move to answer, she said, “Well, if you ain’t going to answer that question, at least tell me this much, why do you have black garbage bags taped to your trailer?”

“Oh, it ain’t my trailer,” he explained. “I just rent off this guy. He’s the one put up the garbage bags. Before I moved in, a bad storm come through here and a tree fell on that end. He couldn’t afford to fix it, so he put up those bags. I don’t use that part of the trailer much, so I don’t even notice.”

“I declare,” Sylvie said. “I hope you ain’t paying too much to live in this dump.”

“So, uh, like I was saying, I’m Maggie Morgan and this is my friend, Sylvie Johnson.”

The man nodded toward her and Sylvie. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m W.L. Murphy.” Clearing books and magazines from the couch, he added, “You all would be more comfortable if you set down.”

“I’m staying right where I’m standing,” Sylvie said. “I’d be afraid of catching something off that couch.”

W.L. had been in the process of sitting, but stopped at Sylvie’s words and stood straight up. His small stature surprised Maggie. He was shorter than her five-foot-six-inch frame and just as trim.

“What church are you all with?” W.L. suddenly asked.

“Huh?” Sylvie offered by way of an answer.

“I figure you all stopped by today to talk me into going to church,” he said.

“Why’s it our business if you go to church?” Sylvie asked. “I might try to talk you into cleaning up this junk, but what goes on between you and the Lord is between you and the Lord. We’re here to talk to you about Jay Harris. You knowed him, didn’t you?”

W.L. slowly sank onto the sofa. “Jay Harris. Let me think about that. No, I don’t know nobody name of Jay Harris.”

“Is that so?” Sylvie asked.

Realizing she was close to losing any semblance of control of the interview, Maggie said, “W.L. Now, what does that stand for?” On the drive to the house, she had imagined all sorts of possibilities for the initials before deciding on, or rather hoping for, Waldorf Leopold.

“Wayne Lee,” he answered.

“Oh,” Maggie said. “Well, W.L., Jay Harris worked at the butcher shop for Curtis Moore. He disappeared back in the spring. You might have heard something about that.”

W.L. shook his head. “Nope, I ain’t heard a thing about that.”

Sylvie snorted. Maggie said, “Jay’s pappaw is really worried about him and he asked me to ask around and see if I could find him.”

“It’s really nice of you to help him,” W.L. said.

“It’s no problem,” Maggie said. “So, are you a customer at the butcher shop? Did you take deer to Curtis?”

W.L. shrugged. “Maybe.”

Sylvie snorted again.

“Well, the thing is, W.L., somebody told me you were a customer of Curtis Moore’s and that you and Jay Harris had some sort of trouble.”

W.L. shrugged again. “You can’t believe everything you hear.” He picked up one of the books he had placed on the floor when clearing off the couch. “This is a book on how to work on appliances. I’m learning myself how to fix them. I took a toaster apart and am putting it back together. That’s what all those parts are to. A toaster.”

“That’s nice, W.L. It’s good to have ambition and a goal to work toward. Now, about Jay Harris.”

W.L. slapped the book on his leg. “I’ve been sitting here thinking about it and I can’t place a Jay Harris.”

Maggie gritted her teeth and said, “W.L., what can you tell me about your arrest for poaching earlier this year?”

W.L. leaned down and picked up spare electronic parts. “I’m going to fix this toaster up real good and give it to my mom for Christmas.”

“You give that toaster to her and you might as well call the fire department,” Sylvie cautioned. “Son, if she uses that, she’ll burn down the house.”

Maggie emitted a defeated sigh. “It looks like you’ve got a lot of work to do, so Sylvie and I will get out of here and leave you to it.” She tore a piece of paper from her notepad and wrote down her name and number. “Keep this. If you think of anything that might help us find Jay, give me a call.”

Rifling through her crocheted bag, Sylvie produced a card and handed it to W.L. “You call me if you need any advice about cleaning and putting away clothes.”

W.L. sprang to his feet and accepted Maggie’s paper and Sylvie’s card. As he shoved the papers into the pocket of his jeans, Maggie saw the scrip containing her information flitter to the floor. He bent over and picked it up. “It sure was nice meeting you ladies today. You all come back any time you want.” Looking at Sylvie, he said, “Next time, I’ll make sure the place is a little cleaner.”

When they reached the car, Maggie asked, “You have business cards?”

“Yeah, that niece of mine had them made up. I think it was a waste of her money, but she said I need to advertise. I’ve had them for nigh-on a year, and that’s the first one I’ve give out. That boy seemed as good a person as anybody to give one to,” Sylvie said. “That friend of yours wasn’t joking. That boy really is stupid and he’s the worst liar I ever seen. But he ain’t as big as a handful of minutes. Surely he couldn’t have hurt Jay. Jay had half a foot and, Lord, I’d say at least fifty pounds on that boy.”

“W.L. was strong enough to drag a deer out of the hills, so I imagine he’d be strong enough to overpower somebody Jay’s size.” Maggie started the car. “Sylvie, are you up to visiting the butcher shop? I’m interested in knowing what Curtis Moore has to say about W.L. Murphy.”

Chapter Fourteen

Maggie and Sylvie pulled up to Curtis Moore’s butcher shop as he was packing a box of meat into a customer’s pickup truck. Maggie waited until the truck drove off before exiting her car. As soon as Curtis saw her, he said, “Unless you’ve got a beef or deer in the trunk of that car, you ain’t welcome here.”

Before Maggie could justify her existence to Curtis, she heard Sylvie say from behind her, “Does your mommy know she raised a son as rude as you? My mommy taught me that if neighbors come to your door, as long as they ain’t pointing a gun at you, you invite them in and offer them something to eat.” Reaching Maggie’s side, Sylvie added, “We ain’t pointing no guns at you, so there’s no call to be rude.”

“My mom ain’t got nothing to do with this.” Directing his head toward Maggie, Curtis said, “I ain’t got nothing to say to her.”

“Well, that’s too bad cause she has something to say to you.” Sylvie elbowed Maggie and said, “Go on. Ask him. I can’t stay out in this cold for too long.”

Maggie expected Curtis to offer further resistance. But he simply crossed his arms in front of his chest, relaxed his shoulders, and leaned against the front of his shop. She wondered if Sylvie had anything to do with his subtle shift in attitude. “Curtis, Sylvie and I just came from W.L. Murphy’s.”

“So?”

“So, was,” Maggie paused, “is W.L. one of your customers?”

Spitting tobacco juice on the ground, Curtis said, “I’ve cut meat for him before.”

“I guess your mommy never taught you not to spit in the company of women, neither, did she?” Sylvie admonished Curtis. “Don’t you have a spit cup?”

Curtis disappeared into his shop only to return moments later with a Styrofoam cup reeking of tobacco juice.

“So, uh, Curtis, I’ve heard that some sort of trouble occurred between W.L. and Jay Harris.”

Curtis held the spit cup to his mouth and spat ever-so-lightly into it. “Not to my knowledge.”

“What about W.L.’s arrest for poaching? What can you tell me about that?”

Curtis wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his flannel jacket and said, “If you want to know about that, you should ask W.L.”

“Oh, I did, but I’d like to hear your version of events.”

“My version. I don’t have no version.” Curtis spat into the cup again and stared at Maggie. “What did W.L. tell you anyway?”

She couldn’t tell Curtis the truth, that W.L. hadn’t acknowledged the poaching accusation. But she couldn’t lie to him, either. “Let’s just say it wasn’t what he said. It’s what he didn’t say.”

Curtis flung the spit cup to the ground and cursed. Maggie expected Sylvie to dispense another lecture on fine manners and etiquette, but she remained silent. Squishing the spit cup and its contents with his bloody work boot, Curtis said, “W.L. and Jay didn’t exactly have words. You don’t have words with somebody as stupid as W.L. But he showed up with a doe last spring –”

“Out of deer season?” Maggie asked.

Curtis nodded. “Before I even had the chance to tell W.L. that I don’t cut deer out of season, especially a doe, Jay jumped all over it. He started going on about how the game warden would shut us down if he caught us cutting a deer without tags. I looked at him and said, ‘Us?’ That went all over me.” Raising his voice, Curtis repeatedly stabbed his chest with a forefinger and said, “This is my shop. It wasn’t Jay’s. It wasn’t his place to tell W.L. nothing. That’s why I fired him and I didn’t wait for W.L. to leave, neither. I kicked Jay out of here before I even told W.L. to hit the road and take that doe with him.”

“But when I was here earlier with Daddy, you said –”

“What did you expect me to say?” Curtis demanded. “That I fired Jay a week before he took off? I know how things work.” He picked up the discarded and splintered spit cup and attempted to deposit his wad of tobacco into it. When he didn’t succeed, he flung the cup and tobacco into the creek. Maggie heard Sylvie sigh at her side. “I wasn’t about to give them a reason to think I did something to him.”

Maggie narrowed her eyes and considered what Curtis was saying. She didn’t have a chance to put words to her thoughts, though. Sylvie beat her to it. “Now, that don’t make no sense,” Sylvie said. “If you fired him, why would anybody accuse you of hurting him? He should have been the one mad at you. He’s the one that lost his job. No, that don’t sound right. There must be something you ain’t telling us.”

Maggie heard Curtis’ heavy breathing and saw his expansive chest draw in breath and release it. “Curtis,” she said, “how did the authorities find out about the poaching? Did Jay report W.L.?”

He shook his head, but said, “Probably. I don’t know. I never saw Jay again after the day I fired him. But the next day, the game warden stopped by and made a surprise inspection of the shop. So, you figure it out.” Curtis wiped his mouth again and said, “I gotta get back to work.”

Curtis didn’t make an effort to move until Maggie and Sylvie had almost reached the car. As he opened the door to his shop, Sylvie hollered to him, “Hey, do you think that little ole W.L. could have hurt Jay?”

Curtis grinned. “W.L.’s stronger than he looks, but he’s too stupid to hurt anybody.”

Sylvie nodded, climbed into the car, and ordered Maggie to crank up the heat. “I’m an old woman, Maggie. I can’t take the cold like I used to.”

“I’m sorry, Sylvie.”

“There ain’t no call to apologize. I followed my own mind. I knowed it was cold, but I wasn’t about to leave you alone with him. Something ain’t adding up with his story. For all we know, he could be a cold-blooded killer.”

Chapter Fifteen

The day after visiting W.L. Murphy and Curtis Moore, Maggie spirited away with Luke for a three-day weekend of shopping in Lexington. The mini-vacation afforded Maggie the opportunity to hang out with Luke’s family, to take a break from the Jay Harris investigation, and to spend quality time with Luke. She had feared he’d have a less than favorable reaction to learning she had chatted with Seth about the case. But when she told him, he sighed and said, “Okay.”

After a weekend Maggie considered splendid, they made their way back along the roadway that connected central Kentucky to the eastern part of the state. A wave of happiness suddenly swept over her. Wanting to share the blissful feeling, she turned her gaze upon Luke, but was troubled by the scowl on his face.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I hate this drive,” he answered. “It’s the thing I hate most about living in Jasper. It’s so boring. It’s just lines of trees for as far as you can see.”

Although Luke wasn’t the first person Maggie had heard complain of boring drives, she had never understood the expression. What did people expect or want from a drive? Neon road signs? Bears dancing along the side of the road? Squirrels racing among the trees? She’d settle for an expansion of the road from two lanes to four or, at the very least, more passing lanes. But she was in too good of a mood to voice her qualms with complaining drivers. Instead, she put her hand on Luke’s and said, “This weekend was great for me.”

“Good. You needed to get away from all the demands you place on yourself.”

Letting go of his hand, she asked, “What does that mean?”

Shrugging, Luke said, “I’ve noticed a difference in you since you started looking for that boy.”

With her blissful mood evaporating faster than water in a hot skillet, Maggie asked, “How so? And, by the way, his name is Jay.”

Luke took his eyes off the road and glanced at her. “Maggie, please don’t make a big deal out of this.”

“I’m not making a big deal. But I want to hear more about these differences you’ve noticed.”

“I guess we’re going to do this.” Luke paused, but when Maggie didn’t respond, he continued, “First of all, you haven’t been eating very healthy. You’ve been eating more sweets and fattier foods.”

“I spent a weekend in Lexington. Of course I’m going to take advantage of the vaster and more varied selection of restaurants.”

“I wasn’t talking about this weekend. I was talking about your eating habits of late. And if you ask me, you should have lived it up more this weekend, but you more or less settled for salads and grilled chicken and fish. When you did give in to temptation, you utilized portion control.”

“When did you start watching what I eat?”

“I’m not watching, but I can’t help but notice. It’s right in front of me.”

As the hills flew past them, Maggie reviewed her food choices. She had gained weight during the Mac Honaker and Hazel Baker investigations and, over the weekend, she had noticed that her clothes were less roomy than before. She recalled the smothered chicken and chocolate cheesecake she had inhaled the evening after she talked to W.L. and Curtis and realized Luke wasn’t entirely wrong.

“Okay, maybe I eat too much and too poorly when I’m on a case. I’ll give you that.”

“Hey, I’m not judging,” Luke said. “I’m sure you noticed that pound of mac and cheese I put away.”

Maggie smiled. “It wasn’t a pound and it was your mom’s cooking. We’re allowed to indulge when our moms make our favorite comfort foods.”

She settled back into her seat and peered at the gray sky. She loved late fall and winter afternoons. Although most people complained of the stark landscape during this time of year, she found it comforting. But a question forming in the back of her mind prevented her from enjoying the scenery.

Turning to Luke, she asked, “Earlier, when I asked you about the differences you’ve noticed, you said, ‘first of all’ and mentioned the food. Is there a second or third or fourth of all?”

Groaning, Luke said, “You’re quieter.”

“I agree. There’s a lot on my mind.”

“And, in general, you act out of the ordinary.”

“I do?”

“Yeah, come on, we’ve been through this before.”

“Oh, I understand now.” She pivoted her head until she faced the passenger side window.

“Maggie. Talk to me.”

Looking back to Luke, she said, “This is about Seth, isn’t it?”

“It’s not just about Seth, but I can’t ignore the fact that, once again, you’ve gone to him for help.”

“That’s not the way it happened.”

“Maggie, I’m in the car with you. There’s no need to yell.”

Lowering her voice, Maggie said, “I did not go to him for help. He’s the detective, the only detective I might add, who looked into Jay’s disappearance. I didn’t know that when I promised you I wouldn’t ask him for help. I didn’t know Seth’s mom would die, either. I had no plans to talk to him, but the situation presented itself and, yes, I took advantage of it. Maybe it was bad form to ask him what he remembered about Jay during his mom’s services, but I don’t think she would mind. She wasn’t a petty person.”

“Are you suggesting I’m a petty person?”

“No,” Maggie closed her eyes and leaned her head against the car seat. “That wasn’t directed at you. I’m just trying to explain this to you. I called you that night when I got home from the church house and told you I had talked to Seth.”

“I appreciate your honesty, but that doesn’t mean I like it.”

Opening her eyes, she turned to face him. “Why? Why do you have such a problem with Seth? We were over years before I met you.”

“Because I’ve seen the way he looks at you. It’s obvious. He’s not over you. And, if I’m honest with myself, there’s something else that bothers me. I want to be everything to you, but I can’t be that as long as he’s hanging around in the background, helping you solve cases.”

Maggie didn’t know how to respond. She appreciated Luke’s desire to be the man she turned to for support, but reality dictated that he couldn’t help her solve crimes in the same way Seth could. She couldn’t share this truth with him and looked to the bleak sky for comfort. Finding none, she blinked away the tears forming in her eyes.

Chapter Sixteen

In spite of the chilly temperature, as soon as Maggie arrived home from her weekend in Lexington, she took Barnaby for a walk. She then visited with her parents before making the short trek back to her house where she struggled to chase the conversation with Luke from her thoughts. She tried reading and watching TV, but her mind remained in the car with Luke.

“Oh, Barnaby,” she said while petting her most trustworthy companion, “I don’t want to hurt Luke’s feelings, but these cases are important to me. What am I going to do?”

Maggie interpreted his answer, a heavy pant, as an indication that she needed to get back to work. So, she grabbed her notepad and the phone. Seconds after dialing, she heard Gentry Harris say, “Yello.”

Maggie smiled and said, “Hey, Gentry, this is Maggie Morgan. I was wondering if you had a few minutes to talk.”

“I do.” Maggie listened as the volume on the TV decreased. “I was just sitting here watching some TV. You know, I hadn’t had no TV in years until Jay come to live with me. I guess you could say I’ve got used to it again. I have it on all the time now. I think I just like the noise. Have you found out anything about Jay?”

“I’m following a couple leads.”

“Sylvie told me you all went around to see Curtis Moore and another feller. She said Curtis was kindly hateful. I sure am sorry about that. I don’t want you to put yourself in no dangerous situations. Next time you need to see somebody like that, you let me know and I’ll go with you.”

“It’s nice of you to offer, but it wasn’t too bad. I had Sylvie with me. She’s like a guard dog.”

Gentry chuckled. “I reckon she is. She don’t take no attitude, that’s for sure.”

“Gentry, if you’ve talked to Sylvie, then I guess she told you about W.L. Murphy poaching that deer.”

“She did. That boy ought to know you can’t go around killing deer out of season, especially a doe. But Sylvie did say he was kindly slow.”

That’s one way of describing him, Maggie thought. “Did Jay say anything about W.L. and the deer? Did he say anything at all about any trouble with W.L. or Curtis?”

“No. I thought he was still working for Curtis and I never heard of this W.L. feller until Sylvie spoke his name. I can’t imagine why Jay didn’t tell me Curtis had fired him. I hate to think of him keeping things from me.”

Her conversation with Gina flashed through Maggie’s mind and she thought to herself, I doubt that’s the only thing he kept from you. “Gentry, did you know Jay had broken up with his girlfriend, Sydney?”

“Not until Belinda told me the other day.” He fell silent for several seconds. “Belinda suspects he didn’t tell neither of us about losing his job because he didn’t want to disappoint us. She says he only told her about breaking up with that little girl because she asked him about her. She says that little girl didn’t mean nothing to him and that’s why he didn’t tell me. She thinks it didn’t even cross his mind to tell me. I’d say she’s probably right, but from the way that little girl acted, I never dreamed they weren’t together.”

“The way she acted? What do you mean by that?” Maggie asked.

“Well, she called here looking for him and one day she drove up. I was sitting over there at my table, eating a fried egg and Treet sandwich for breakfast, and I looked out and saw her in my driveway. I stuck my head out and hollered at her to come in, but she backed out of the driveway and drove off. I thought that was kindly odd. She didn’t even wave.”

“When did this happen, Gentry?”

“That’s just the thing. It was the day Jay went missing.”

Chapter Seventeen

Maggie, Luke, Edie, and Ben stood on the sidewalk, waving to Santa Claus and his elves as their float motored down Main Street, signaling the end of the Jasper Christmas parade. When Santa passed them, Edie said, “Let’s go see if we can score some more free cider from tourism’s booth.”

“All things considered, it’s not that cold, Edie,” Maggie said.

“I don’t know what things you’re considering, but I’m considering my frozen toes and fingers, which I’m dangerously close to losing to hypothermia.”

Maggie and Luke exchanged glances and rolled their eyes in unison. Neither had addressed the emotional conversation they had shared in the car, and Maggie recognized that a forced friendliness had settled between them. Still, when Santa threw candy into the festive crowd, Luke had jostled among parade-goers to retrieve a handful of sweets for Maggie. She had thanked him with a kiss on the cheek and a squeeze of his shoulder.

As they made their way toward tourism’s booth, Maggie spotted Steve and Carrie Fletcher in the crowd. “Hey,” she said to her companions, “I see somebody I know. I’ll meet you in front of tourism in a bit.”

Maggie crossed the street and power walked to catch up to the Fletchers. When they appeared to be headed for the parking garage, she called their names. They turned their heads toward her voice and smiled when they saw her. As she approached them, Steve offered an apology. “I’m sorry for not returning your call. We had an opening and a closing today and this one,” he motioned his head toward Carrie, “didn’t come to work today. She decided this morning that our house needed one more Christmas tree.”

“One more?” Maggie asked. “How many do you have?”

Carrie blushed. “As of this afternoon, four.”

“Oh,” Maggie said. “Trimming one tree wears me out. I can’t imagine decorating four.”

“She decorates the entire house,” Steve explained while wiping his eyes and sniffling. “She creates our own winter wonderland.”

“Are you getting a cold?” Maggie asked Steve.

Steve and Carrie both laughed. “No,” Steve said, shaking his head. “Parades make me cry. They always have. You can imagine how embarrassing that was when I marched in parades with my high school band.”

“What can I say?” Carrie wrapped her arms around Steve’s waist. “I married a softie.”

Steve blew his nose, embraced his wife, and said to Maggie, “I listened to your message, but I don’t know anybody named W.L.”

“Neither do I,” Carrie said. “Sorry.”

“You think he might be wrapped up in Jay’s disappearance?” Steve asked.

Maggie related how W.L. Murphy poaching a deer had resulted in Jay losing his job.

“Jay told me Curtis had lost his temper and fired him. Knowing Curtis, that didn’t surprise me at all. I’ve taken deer to other butchers, but there’s not one around who’s as clean or as good or as honest as Curtis. You don’t have to worry about him contaminating the meat or stealing a steak here or there from you. But,” Steve shrugged, “he’s not a people person, that’s for sure.”

Maggie felt her cell phone vibrating in her coat pocket. Deciding it was probably Edie calling to remind her it was cold, she chose not to answer. “What about his girlfriend, Sydney? Did Jay mention any problems with her?”

Steve shook his head, but Carrie said, “Around the time he disappeared, she started showing up at the funeral home. And, around that same time, some girl called and asked for him several times. He was there one time when she called, but he wouldn’t go to the phone. He told the receptionist to tell her he had nothing to say to her.”

“I didn’t know about this,” Steve said. “Why didn’t you mention it?”

“I didn’t think it meant anything,” Carrie answered her husband. Addressing Maggie, she said, “Maybe I should have said something about the calls the day you came to the funeral home, but, well, like I said, I don’t think any harm came to Jay. I wasn’t thinking about anything that happened out of the ordinary. I didn’t even remember that she had come around until just then when you asked about her.”

“Is there anything else you can remember?” Maggie asked.

“Well, one day, I saw her sitting in the parking lot. When I started walking toward the car, Sydney, that’s her name right? She drove off.”

“What about other girls?” Recognizing confusion on their faces, Maggie explained, “I’ve learned Jay was seeing another woman. Out of respect for her, I won’t reveal her identity, but did he say anything about her?”

Steve laughed. “Jay? A ladies’ man? Can you believe that, Carrie? Who would have thought of that?”

Before Maggie could probe the Fletchers for more information, her phone vibrated again. Frowning, she pulled it from her pocket and answered, “Give me a minute, Edie.”

“Edie? Who in Sam Hill is Edie?” a voice bellowed.

“Sylvie? Is that you? Why are you calling me? Is something wrong?”

“I’d say something’s wrong. I’m at the hospital and you’ll never guess why I’m here.”

Chapter Eighteen

Maggie heard Sylvie before she saw her.

“What I’m doing is knitting. What you’re talking about is crocheting,” Sylvie said to a plump woman sitting across from her in the ER waiting room.

“What’s the difference?” the woman asked.

Rushing to Sylvie’s side, Maggie interrupted the needlepoint lesson. “Sylvie,” she said, “how did you end up in the ER with W.L. Murphy?”

“I ain’t exactly in the ER with him.”

Closing her eyes and counting to ten, Maggie settled in a seat beside Sylvie and asked, “What happened?”

“Like I told you on the phone, he was attacked. They wouldn’t tell me nothing, me not being family, but I heard them people over there,” Sylvie nodded her head toward the front desk, “talking and they said something about a head wound.” Finally noticing Luke, Sylvie abandoned her knitting, adjusted her glasses, and said, “I don’t think I’ve laid eyes on you before.”

“Sylvie, this is my boyfriend, Luke.”

“It’s an honor to meet you, Mrs. Johnson. Maggie’s told me wonderful things about you.”

Sylvie returned to her knitting. “Then I reckon she’s told you there’s no call in trying to sweeten me up.”

Luke chuckled, but Maggie didn’t react to Sylvie’s sassiness. “Why did the authorities call you?” she asked.

“Huh. Because he didn’t have any identification on him. All they found on him was that card I give him. It was in his pants. I allow he’s worn that same pair of jeans ever since that day you and me went to his trailer.” Sylvie shook her head. “He probably ain’t even washed them. He probably throws them in that pile of clothes on his floor every night when he takes them off. Then he picks them out of that pile every day and puts them on again.”

“But you still haven’t explained why you’re here,” Maggie said.

“Why do you think I’m here?” Although Sylvie’s voice rose, she never took her eyes off her knitting. “I was sitting in my warm house watching Wheel of Fortune when I got the call. I left Pat and Vanna in the middle of a puzzle cause I thought that’s what you did when the police called you and told you they’d found your phone number in the jeans of some unidentified man that took a hit to his noggin. Now, does that explain clear enough why I’m here?” When Maggie didn’t answer, Sylvie added, “I guess I could ask you the same thing. Why are you here?”

Taking the reprimand in silence, Maggie watched as the woman who had been so interested in Sylvie’s needlework rose from her chair and crossed the lobby.

“Has his family shown up?” Luke asked.

“I reckon his brother’s back there with him now,” Sylvie answered.

“How is he?” Maggie asked.

“They won’t tell me,” Sylvie said.

As the minutes ticked by, Maggie reflected on the turn of events and Sylvie entertained Luke. “That girl that was talking to me about knitting is here because she thinks she’s expecting a baby,” Sylvie whispered. “She’s been to the doctor twice and he’s told her twice that there ain’t no baby in her belly. They’ve checked her blood and run those pregnancy tests on her, but she says she can feel the baby move. If you ask me, she’s just fat and off her rocker, but she wants them to run one of them ulcersounds on her.”

Sylvie’s story succeeded in taking Maggie’s mind off W.L. Both she and Luke were stealing discreet looks at the woman in question when the doors to the ER flew open. Sylvie didn’t need to reveal the identity of the young man who lurched through those doors. He was as small as W.L. and displayed the same bewildered look. Maggie stood up and approached him. “Hi, are you W.L.’s brother?” she asked. When he nodded, she said, “I’m his, uh, friend, Maggie. Sylvie called me. How is W.L.?”

“It was scary there for a bit. When I saw him laying there bloody and with his eyes open, I thought he was dead.” He blinked a few times and said, “He’s going to be okay. They said he has a … Well, I can’t remember what it’s called, but football players get it.”

“A concussion?”

He nodded. “A concussion. I didn’t know real people could get those. Dubya Ell don’t remember nothing that happened. One minute, he was on his way to the store. The next, he was waking up in the ambulance. Hey, I got to go call our mom. They’re putting him in the ICU tonight for, uh,” he looked at the floor and drummed his fingers on his legs, “now, what did they call that?”

“Observation?” Maggie suggested.

He turned his eyes upward and said, “Observation. I think that’s it.”

Maggie had a hard time imagining this diminutive young man breaking and entering an elderly couple’s home and bringing bodily harm to them. W.L. must have another brother, she said to herself. “Are you G.L.?”

He took off his baseball cap and slapped it against his leg. “That’s my name.”

Just as she had done with W.L., Maggie speculated to herself as to what G.L.’s initials meant. Although she hoped for something spectacular like Gustavo Lancelot, she suspected reality would be much more ordinary. As G.L. walked off, Maggie called to him, “Hey, what does G.L. stand for?”

Walking backward out the ER entrance, he said, “Gary Lee.”

“They must really like the name Lee,” Sylvie said.

“Why do you say that?” Luke asked.

“Because his name is Gary Lee and the one laying in the ER’s name is Wayne Lee.” Shaking her head, Sylvie said, “I don’t know what’s worse. Giving your young’uns the same name or calling them after letters in the alphabet.”

When Sylvie confessed to having trouble driving after dark, Luke offered to drive her pickup truck to her house. “Maggie can drive you home in my car and then I’ll take her home.”

Although Sylvie initially resisted Luke’s idea, she eventually said, “I don’t want to put nobody out, but I don’t want to wreck and kill myself, neither, so I reckon it will be okay.”

As they drove toward Sugar Creek, Sylvie speculated out loud, “If I was a betting woman – and I ain’t – my money would be on that ole hateful Curtis hurting little ole W.L.”

“That’s a possibility,” Maggie agreed. “But there are other suspects, too. In fact, Sydney first mentioned W.L. to me and I asked Gina if she knew a man with initials who had trouble with Jay. And, within the last couple days, I’ve also mentioned him to Steve and Carrie and Gentry, for that matter.”

“Gentry,” Sylvie all but yelled. “If you have any notion of him hurting that boy, you can get rid of it right now.”

“We have to explore all the possibilities. What if I said something that led Gentry to believe W.L. had hurt Jay? He could have attacked him out of revenge.”

“Don’t tell me you believe Gentry Harris would hurt somebody. I know I don’t believe it.”

“Now, Sylvie,” Maggie teased. “If you’re going to be a detective, you can’t allow your personal feelings to dictate the investigation.”

“Who said I was a detective?”

“Speaking of you and Gentry, you seem fond of him.”

“That I am.”

“You’re both single. You’ve both lost your spouses.”

“You stop right there. Don’t you compare my no-count husband with Irmyjean. She was a good, hard-working woman. And I know what you’re trying to say and you can nip it in the bud.”

“Sylvie, what would be wrong with you and Gentry dating?”

“What would be right with it? What do you expect us to do? Hold hands and go to the movies? Me and Gentry are friends like me and your mommy are friends. The only difference is one’s a man and one’s a woman. If your daddy was dead, would you expect me to date your mommy?”

“When you put it that way, no.”

“That’s the only way I know how to put it.”

“I consider you a friend, Sylvie, and I just want you to be happy.”

“And you think me going steady with Gentry is going to make me happy? Listen, Maggie, I’ve lived by myself for nigh on forty years and I’m here to tell you I was more lonesome when I was married to my no-count husband than I’ve been in those forty years.”

Maggie pondered on Sylvie’s point of view until the older woman said, “So, I guess you have two mysteries to solve now. Finding Jay and figuring out who walloped little ole W.L. in the head.”

Chapter Nineteen

Maggie rocked back and forth on her heels as she waited for Tyler to finish briefing Joe on the status of a county government story he was writing. As soon as Tyler turned to leave Joe’s office, Maggie rushed in and asked him, “Have you called the police today?” Giving Tyler no time to answer, she added, “Did they say anything about finding a man last night with a head wound and no identification?”

“Why, good morning to you, too, Maggie,” Joe said. “How was your interview with the man who’s celebrating his twenty-fifth anniversary as a volunteer bell ringer?”

Maggie frowned and slumped against the door to Joe’s office. “Actually, it was disappointing. I expected him to share more observations about how giving during the holiday season has changed over the decades, but he wasn’t much of a talker. When he did talk, it was mainly about how his knees hurt. He has arthritis.”

“I’m sorry about that. His arthritis and his taciturn nature.”

“He also complained about having a cold head. He had left his toboggan at home and was worried that heat was leaving his body through the top of his head. So, Tyler, have you heard anything about –” Maggie paused when she saw the bewilderment plastered across Tyler’s face. “What’s wrong with you?”

“This man puts a sled on his head?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Tyler,” Maggie said. “He wears a toboggan.” When Tyler failed to comprehend, Maggie said, “You know, a knit cap.”

“A toboggan is a sled, Maggie. Only a bunch of backward, isolated hillbillies would confuse a sled for headwear.” Tyler smirked. “I can’t wait to tell my friends and family back home that the hicks around here wear toboggans on their heads.”

“Actually, we call them boggans for short,” Maggie said. “Don’t forget to tell them that.”

Maggie heard a thump and turned to see that Joe had pulled a dictionary from the shelf above his desk. Opening it, he hastily turned the pages until he found what he was looking for. “Toboggan,” he said in a clipped voice. “Noun. Definition one: a sled. Definition two: a stocking cap.” He closed the book with a flourish, eyed Tyler, and said, “Don’t forget to tell your friends and family that. Or is the author of the dictionary also a hick and a backward, isolated hillbilly?”

With the two men trading death stares, Maggie said, “So, Tyler, did the police say anything about –”

“A man with a head wound but no identification?” Tyler flipped open his notepad. “Yesterday evening at approximately six-thirty, a customer exiting the Zippy Market heard moans and found a man later identified as Wayne Lee Murphy lying face up in the parking lot. The customer called 9-1-1, and an ambulance rushed him, Mr. Murphy, not the customer, to the hospital where he was held for observation. I called Mr. Murphy’s mom and she confirmed that he had suffered a concussion. He’s still in the hospital, but they expect him to be released later today.”

“Do the police know who assaulted him? Was W.L. able to tell them anything about the attack?”

“W.L.?” Joe and Tyler asked in unison.

“Yeah, that’s what he’s called.”

Tyler turned the pages of his notepad. “He’s not from Sugar Creek? So, how do you know him?”

“I know lots of people, Tyler. Well, could he tell them anything?”

“Not much,” Tyler answered.

Remembering the role that security cameras had played in her two previous cases, Maggie asked, “Does the Zippy Market have a camera?”

“Yes, but it’s inside the store,” Tyler said.

“There’s something I don’t understand,” Maggie thought aloud. “The first responders didn’t find identification on him. That’s why they called Sylvie.”

“Sylvie?” Joe and Tyler asked in unison.

“Yeah, Sylvie. But why didn’t they check the registration in his truck?”

“It’s not like they found him with a leg hanging out his truck, Maggie,” Tyler said. “He was in the middle of a parking lot. Thank goodness that even law enforcement in a hole in the wall in eastern Kentucky respects civil liberties and doesn’t go around searching vehicles without a warrant.”

“Shouldn’t you jump off your high horse and write your story, Tyler?” Joe said.

Tyler clenched his jaw and ducked out of the office.

Maggie and Joe traded eye rolls. “Can you believe him?” Joe asked. “I’m not from here, either. And I’ll admit, it took me some time to understand the customs. But anybody with common sense realizes every region has their own vocabulary.”

“Yeah, while passing through eastern Pennsylvania once, I stopped at a sub shop and the guy behind the counter asked me what I wanted on my grinder. He was not amused when I told him I wanted a sub, not a food processor.” As she related the story, Maggie inched her way out of Joe’s office. More than twenty years her senior, Joe had served as her mentor and advisor during her entire tenure at the Sentinel. He was also her friend and she didn’t look forward to hearing his opinion of her latest sleuthing mission. Her attempt to escape without suffering through an interrogation was thwarted when Joe said, “You didn’t answer Tyler’s question. How do you know Wayne Lee Murphy’s nickname?”

Maggie sighed and plopped down in the nearest chair. “Remember that guy from Calf Lick who went missing last spring?”

Joe closed his eyes. Opening them, he said, “You’re looking into his disappearance, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

He covered his cheeks with his hands. “Don’t worry, I won’t lecture you. However, I want to remind you to be careful. And although I hope it goes without saying, you have my support.”

Standing up, Maggie said, “Good. In that case, can I take an early lunch?”

“You’re going to the hospital to see Wayne Lee Murphy, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. But, first, I have to make a stop.”

If W.L. was surprised to see Maggie walk into his hospital room, he didn’t act like it. He continued eating his lunch and treated Maggie as if she had returned after a brief visit to the restroom.

“People always talk bad about hospital food, but this is pretty good,” he said. “This is the best vegetable soup I’ve ever had.”

Maggie placed her purse and a plastic shopping bag on the floor. “That chicken salad sandwich looks good, too. Is that butterscotch pudding?”

“Sure is. You want some?”

“No, thank you.” Maggie scooted a chair closer to the bed and sat down. “I was sorry to hear about you being in the hospital.”

“It’s not your fault.”

I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Maggie thought. She waited for W.L. to ask how she knew about his attack, but when no question was forthcoming, she said, “Are you okay? Are you in any pain?”

“I have a headache and it hurts where I got hit and I ended up cutting my face somehow, but it’s not too bad. Look,” turning his head, he said. “I don’t even have a Band-Aid back there.”

“What happened, W.L.?”

Chewing a bite of sandwich, W.L. shrugged. “I stopped at the Zippy Market to get some pork rinds and that’s all she wrote. I don’t even remember getting out of the truck.”

“Did you have your wallet with you? Could this have been a robbery?”

“I was going to the store, so I guess I had my billfold.” He laughed. “If they thought they was going to get money from me, well, the joke’s on them.”

“Do you have any idea who could have done this?”

W.L. finished the sandwich and moved on to the pudding. “I don’t have no enemies, if that’s what you’re wondering. The police asked me that, too.”

“You don’t think this could have anything to do with the poached deer you took to Curtis Moore’s butcher shop or with Jay Harris?”

W.L. spooned the last of the pudding from the cup and washed it down with milk. “I don’t mean to be rude, but the doctors said I’m not supposed to be concentrating or making decisions.”

“Oh, okay.” Maggie picked up the shopping bag and put it on her lap. “I brought something for you.”

W.L. exhibited an even more startled expression than usual. “You bought me a present for getting knocked in the head?”

Maggie smiled. “Not exactly.” She pulled a box from the bag. “It’s actually for your mom.”

“Is that one of them fancy toasters?”

“Yes, it’s a toaster oven. I figured your injury would prevent you from fixing that toaster for her.”

His face lost its coloring and, for a moment, Maggie feared W.L. would start crying. “I don’t … I can’t let you do that. You don’t even know my mom. You shouldn’t be buying her Christmas presents.”

“It’s no trouble,” she said. Maggie didn’t tell him that guilt had prompted the purchase or that she feared her sleuthing had brought attention to him and caused his attack. She returned the toaster oven to the bag and set it by his bed. Standing, she said, “Remember, this is a Christmas present, so if she comes by, don’t let her see it.”

“Oh, she ain’t coming here. I reckon my brother’s going to pick me up after while.”

“You take care of yourself, W.L.”

Maggie had reached the door when W.L. said, “Thank you.”

When she turned to say, “You’re welcome,” she thought he looked like the saddest little boy she’d ever seen.

Chapter Twenty

Maggie rolled the cookie dough into perfectly round balls and placed them on a baking sheet. Although she enjoyed baking, this particular chore wasn’t her favorite part of the endeavor. It left her fingers sticky and covered with dough. She dared not voice her complaints, though. It was she who had convinced Lena to bake a practice batch of the cookies.

“I think we should make sure we haven’t lost our touch,” she had said to Lena a few days earlier.

Unmoved, Lena had responded, “You’ve waited almost a year for a nut puff, it won’t kill you to wait a couple more weeks.”

Changing tactics, Maggie had said, “Everybody loves the cookies, but Daddy and I eat so many of them that we never have enough to share. If we make an extra batch, I could take some to work and we could give some to Sylvie. She does give us fruitcake every year. It seems only right to return the favor. And, let me see, we could give some to Aunt –”

“Okay, okay,” Lena had relented. “We’ll make a batch this weekend.”

After finishing their customary Saturday morning breakfast, Robert washed dishes and the women made the cookies, a modified version of Danish or Russian wedding cookies, with walnuts instead of pecans, that Maggie and her family called nut puffs. As Maggie washed her hands and switched from rolling dough to rolling the freshly-baked cookies in powdered sugar, a memory of Seth standing in that kitchen and sampling a nut puff flashed into her mind.

“Mmm,” he had moaned as he made one cookie after another disappear.

The sound of Andy Williams crooning “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” brought her back to the present. Maggie knew Seth and his family wouldn’t enjoy a wonderful time this Christmas season. Seth would never again dig into his mom’s fruit salad or receive a thoughtful Christmas card from her that included a handwritten note expressing pride in her only son. While I’m anticipating all the joy the holiday brings, Maggie thought to herself, they’re trying to make it through the day and looking forward to the turn of the calendar from December to January.

“Maggie!”

Maggie jumped. “Gosh, Daddy, you didn’t have to holler at me.”

“I reckon I did. Your mother has been trying to get your attention. She even wadded up a paper towel and threw it at you. It landed smack in the middle of the bowl of powdered sugar, but you kept rolling that one cookie over and over.”

Maggie finally noticed the paper towel, which had grazed her hand, as well as a nut puff covered in an avalanche of powdered sugar. “Did you want something, Mom?”

“Yeah, I wanted to know why you were rolling that cookie to death, but you were off in la-la land.”

“You were thinking about those boys, the one that’s gone and the one that was attacked the other night, weren’t you?” Robert said. “Do you think one person is after both of them? Do you think it could be one of those killers like Al Bundy?”

Maggie smiled at Robert’s malapropism. She could always count on her daddy to pull her out of her doldrums. “No, Daddy, I don’t think it’s a serial killer. However, W.L.’s assault could be linked to Jay’s disappearance. Or W.L. could have been the victim of a robbery. His wallet is missing.”

“From what Sylvie says, that boy doesn’t have anything anybody would want,” Lena said. “She said she’d tackle cleaning that trailer of his if she was twenty years younger.”

“It was messy and cluttered,” Maggie said. “But it’s not our place to tell people how to live.”

Lena turned her big brown eyes toward the ceiling. “Well, see if it’s your place to check on those cookies in the oven.”

Maggie pulled the baking sheet from the oven and used an egg turner to lift a cookie. “It’s not brown enough. I’ll put it back in the oven for a minute.”

“Don’t let them burn.” Robert made a face. “You eat something burned and the taste stays in your mouth all day. It ruins the next thing you eat.” Making another face, he said, “I don’t like burned food.”

“I don’t want to ruin your supper, Daddy, so I’ll watch the clock,” Maggie said. And she did. Exactly one minute later, she again checked the cookies, which had baked to a golden satisfaction. Returning to the chore of rolling cookies in powdered sugar, she asked, “Daddy, would you describe Curtis Moore as honest?”

Robert munched on a cookie and wrinkled his forehead. “I don’t rightly know. I’ve never studied on it before. He has the illest tone of any man around. I know that much.”

“Sylvie sure had him cowed,” Maggie said. “It was refreshing to see somebody stand up to a bully like Curtis. But I don’t know if I can trust what he’s telling me. Heck, I know he’s already lied to me. But Steve Fletcher said you could count on him not to steal from his customers.”

“That’s true,” Robert said. “But that would be more like thieving, and thieving and lying ain’t the same thing.”

Lena disagreed with Robert’s distinction between stealing and lying. As they launched into a loud debate on the matter, Maggie realized she could no longer resist. She bit into one of the soft, warm cookies and let it all but crumble in her mouth. She considered the first nut puff of the year to be the best nut puff of the year. Then again, she also thought the cookies only got better as they aged. Maybe the last nut puff of the year was actually the best. She deliberated the matter internally as she helped finish baking cookies. Later, after she and her parents had cleaned the kitchen and cheered the University of Kentucky’s men’s basketball team to victory and as darkness descended over the mountains, she prepared for her departure, filling two old Cool Whip bowls full of nut puffs – one for Luke and one for Seth.

Chapter Twenty-One

Seth’s appearance at his dad’s front door left Maggie unable to speak or move.

“Hey, Maggie,” Seth said. “I didn’t expect to see you standing there.” When Maggie didn’t answer, he asked, “Are you okay? You look dazed. Should I ask you to walk a straight line and recite the alphabet?”

“Huh?”

“It was a joke, you know, about a sobriety test.” Seth shrugged and moved aside. “Come on in.”

Maggie hesitated. She had brought the nut puffs to the elder Mr. Heyward’s house with the intention of checking on him and asking him to pass along the cookies to Seth. But Seth’s presence nullified those plans. Not knowing what to do, she remained on the porch.

Seth leaned over the threshold. “In all seriousness, Maggie, are you ill?”

“I didn’t know you’d be here.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I understand.”

No, you don’t, Maggie thought as she stepped into the house and brushed by him. As he closed the door and followed her into the living room, she asked, “How is your dad?”

Motioning for Maggie to take a seat, Seth said, “He’s doing as good as can be expected. He’s at my aunt and uncle’s right now. He asked me to go with him, but I needed some time alone.”

“Oh, I won’t stay long.” Maggie handed him the container of cookies. “Mom and I made these yesterday.”

When Seth saw the Cool Whip bowl, he smiled and said, “What is that? Hillbilly Tupperware?”

“Mom has dozens of those bowls. Every time you open one of her kitchen cabinets, they fall out and hit you on the head. It’s not safe, so I figured we should do something with them. Besides, when you bring food in a Cool Whip bowl, the recipient doesn’t have to worry about returning it.” She didn’t share with him that she’d decided against packing the cookies into one of the gingerbread men tins she had received from Edie. She didn’t think he needed a reminder of happier holiday times.

Lifting the bowl’s lid, Seth said, “I appreciate the practicality.” When his eyes settled on the cookies, he winced.

It was not the reaction Maggie had expected. “Do you no longer like nut puffs? Or have you developed an allergy to nuts? Are you going to break out in hives just from touching the bowl or smelling the cookies?”

“It’s all right, Maggie, I’m not allergic to nuts.” Seth selected a cookie, bit into it, and moaned. “Just as good as I remember.” After he finished that cookie, he started on another one. “If I hadn’t been here, would you have just left them with Dad?”

“Well, yeah, but I would have asked him to share them with you.”

“Dad’s a generous man, but I’m not sure I’d trust him to share a bowl of cookies. By the time I would have heard about them, there would have been nothing left but crumbs and a little powdered sugar.” Polishing off the nut puff, he said, “I guess it’s a good thing I’m staying with him for a while.”

“You’re probably good company for each other, and I’d say he is lonesome.”

Seth placed the lid on the bowl. “That’s true, but it’s more than that. Dad has never spent a night by himself. When Mom was in the hospital having us, he stayed with Mammaw and Pappaw. When she was sick and in the hospital, he spent every night with her. We couldn’t get him to come home.”

Seth held the bowl in both hands and squeezed the sides with his fingers. “I’m also staying here for practical purposes. Mom took care of the banking and paid all the bills. We’re having to teach him how to write checks and keep a checkbook. And cook. Yesterday morning, we made biscuits and gravy. They weren’t as good as Mom’s, but they were edible. Dad’s still a hard worker and he’s always made repairs around the house, but he can’t take care of himself. My sisters have their families, so I’m staying with him until he can fend for himself.” He sighed. “I guess this just proves you shouldn’t be too dependent on anyone.”

A solemn silence enveloped the room. Maggie had decided to leave when Seth said, “I heard about W.L. Murphy’s assault.” Maggie sat back on the couch and, with little prodding from Seth, shared her knowledge of the crime, the details of her visits to the ER and W.L.’s hospital room, and her fear that her snooping had led to the attack.

“You can’t blame yourself,” Seth said. “This could be an unrelated crime.”

“I know, but it would be one heck of a coincidence. Besides, when Sylvie and I talked to W.L. at his trailer, we couldn’t help but feel that he was holding back and not telling us the entire story.”

“Sylvie? The seamstress from Sugar Creek who bought insurance from Mac Honaker and sewed for Hazel Baker? Why were the two of you at W.L.’s trailer? Never mind. I don’t want to know the details. So, do you think W.L. had something to do with Jay Harris’ disappearance?”

“It could just be that he saw or heard something. Even though I know about the poaching, it’s hard for me to imagine W.L. involved in any criminal activity. He seems so …”

“Slow?”

Maggie nodded. “Do you think it’s an act?”

“I barely know him. I only met him once. He came with their aunt to bail G.L. out of jail. I spoke to them briefly and W.L. seems genuine. By appearances, he doesn’t seem like the type of person who could be violent. But –”

“Neither does his brother.”

Seth chuckled. “Do you know the whole family?”

“Just the brothers. I met G.L. at the ER. He seems just as,” Maggie sighed, “slow as W.L., but you said he broke into a house and knocked around an elderly couple.”

“That’s right. You can be slow and dangerous.”

“If W.L. was attacked because he’s kept something about Jay’s disappearance to himself, then I guess it can also be dangerous to be slow.”

Maggie and Luke snuggled on his living room sofa, watching his favorite Christmas movie, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Although Maggie had seen the movie several times, experiencing it with Luke was almost like watching it for the first time. He started grinning as soon as the movie started. Before every pivotal scene, he said, “Watch this. Watch what happens here.”

At the movie’s end, Luke switched the TV to a football game and said, “I think Christmas Vacation has a lot in common with It’s a Wonderful Life.” When Maggie tilted her head and narrowed her eyes, he explained, “Both movies are about men who go out of their way to make sure their families are happy.”

“That’s so sweet.” Maggie smiled, put her hands on his face and kissed him.

As he held her, Luke whispered, “No, you’re the sweet one for sitting through a movie you’ve seen countless times and bringing me cookies.” At the mention of the nut puffs, Maggie’s muscles tensed. “What’s wrong?” Luke asked.

Maggie pulled away from him and said, “Yeah, about those cookies … I dropped off a bowl at Seth’s dad’s house. And Seth was there.”

Luke slipped his arm from behind Maggie’s shoulders and sat forward on the couch with his hands together and his eyes fixed on the TV. The couple sat inches apart from each other without speaking as the sounds of the football game filled the room. When Maggie could no longer endure Luke’s silence, she said, “Just say whatever you’re thinking.”

Without taking his eyes off the TV, he asked, “Was his dad there?”

“Actually, he wasn’t, but I didn’t know that until I got there. I didn’t even know Seth would be there. I had no idea he was staying with his dad.”

When Luke looked at Maggie, she noticed he was no longer grinning. “Does that make it okay?”

“It’s just a bowl of cookies, Luke. I hoped to bring some holiday spirit to them.”

“And why is that up to you? Why do you need to make things better for them?”

“I don’t need to, but I wanted to. Listen, I’ve never experienced a loss of that magnitude, but I realize the grief must be unbearable. Except that they have to bear it. There’s no alternative. And I’m sure the holidays are only making it worse. So, if some cookies can make it better for them and give them a moment or two of joy, then what’s the harm?”

“What’s the harm? He’s your recently-divorced ex-fiancé. You know, going to the church services was one thing. From what you said, you were close to his mom. So, I understood that. But this, I don’t understand. If you had wanted to bring them a moment of holiday joy, you should have asked your dad to drop off the cookies. You’re insinuating yourself into the lives of Seth and his family and, frankly, I’m getting tired of it. You need to make a choice, Maggie. Me or Seth.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Luke’s ultimatum left Maggie shaken. Usually a sound sleeper, she tossed and turned at night and spent her days in a sleep-deprived state. Although she and Luke still spoke on the phone, their conversations contained only cursory comments and questions about their daily activities and their dogs. Maggie tried to unload her worries on Edie, but her friend seemed distracted and anxious, so Maggie decided to suffer in silence for the time being and focus on finalizing Christmas preparations and finding Jay. Wrapping presents and reviewing her case notes failed to serve as distractions. Indeed, every time she tried to concentrate on the case, her mind drifted to thoughts of Luke and her ill-fated decision to share cookies with the Heyward family. After two days, she decided to quit moping and do something constructive, so she asked Tyler to retrieve the police reports pertaining to W.L.’s assault and his arrest for poaching.

Tyler was all too happy to fulfill Maggie’s request. She suspected his cooperation had less to do with wanting to help her and more to do with wanting to annoy Joe, who was on record stating his unease with Maggie’s sleuthing. When Tyler returned from the courthouse, he walked to her desk and said in a booming voice, “Here are those police reports you wanted. I hope they help you solve the case. Let me know if I can be of further assistance.”

Maggie expressed her thanks and instinctively stole a look into Joe’s office and saw his steely gaze trained on Tyler. Five hours later, Maggie sat in her living room with Barnaby at her side and the police reports in her lap as a pop star crooned Christmas songs to her from the TV. While scratching Barnaby’s head with one hand, she leafed through W.L.’s arrest report. She had hoped it would include the name of the person who reported the crime, but the caller had remained anonymous.

“I wonder how W.L. paid the fine?” Maggie thought aloud. “From the looks of his trailer, he doesn’t have much disposable income.”

The report contained nothing Maggie could connect to Jay’s disappearance or W.L.’s attack, so she set it aside and opened the second report. She had just started reading when the phone rang. Hoping it was Luke, she picked up on the first ring without checking the I.D. and said “Hello” in a tone that merged cheerfulness with anxiety.

“Yello, is this Maggie? Maggie Morgan?”

“Yes.”

“This is Gentry Harris. The police just called me. I thought you’d want to know that they found Jay’s cell phone.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Maggie absorbed the barrage of complaints from Gina without offering so much as a rebuttal. That is, she did until Gina stomped her foot and said, “All of this is your fault.”

“My fault?” Maggie snapped. “How is it my fault that you’ve had Jay’s cell phone for seven months? How is it my fault that your kid found that phone and played with it?”

The two women faced off in the Sentinel’s pressroom. Gina’s unexpected appearance at the office had delighted Maggie, who hadn’t allowed herself to hope that Gina would seek her out. But Gina’s stormy countenance quickly informed Maggie that she had not come by to exchange secret Santa presents.

“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 smart 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.”

Maggie didn’t care to listen to Carrie’s catty comments. But before she could change the subject, Carrie said, “The night at the parade, when you told me about her, it was like you had kicked me right in the chest. If your phone hadn’t rung and if you’d stayed there with us, I don’t know how I would have managed to answer your questions. But Steve lost interest in Jay’s love life as soon as you said you had to meet a friend at the ER. He said, ‘That Maggie has such an exciting life. When she’s not writing for the newspaper or solving crimes, she’s rushing to the hospital under mysterious circumstances.’ I couldn’t help it. Although I felt saddened by Jay’s betrayal, Steve made me laugh.”

Maggie found it preposterous that Carrie characterized Jay’s relationship with Gina as betrayal, but she didn’t think it was her place to point out the irony of the situation. “You told me before that you had no way of knowing anything about Jay’s personal life. Now that I know differently, is there anything you can tell me that might help us find him? Did he ever mention wanting to get away so he could start over again? Did he ever talk about fearing for his life or worrying that somebody might want to hurt him?”

Carrie shook her head. “I’ll be honest with you. Even if I knew something, I’m not sure I would tell you. I had developed feelings for Jay. It wasn’t just physical for me. I cared for him and I miss him, but Jay leaving is the best thing that could have happened to me. I feel bad for Gentry and Jay’s mom. I really do. But I hope he never comes back.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Maggie scrolled through Sydney’s Facebook page, counting the selfies.

“She changes her profile picture every other day, Barnaby, and that is not an exaggeration. How did I fail to notice her self-absorption before now?”

Although Sydney had sent Maggie a friend request the afternoon they met, Maggie hadn’t spent much time creeping on her. For that matter, she also hadn’t examined in detail the pages of Gina and Carrie, both of whom had also friended her.

“How could I have been so remiss?” she chastised herself. “Who knows what I’ve missed?”

As she continued searching Sydney’s past posts, she quickly realized she had missed more selfies as well as daily updates on the girl’s makeup and accessories, not to mention pep talks Sydney had given herself.

“U can do this Gurl!!!!!” read one. “U own this test!!!!!”

“I don’t know if she had anything to do with Jay’s disappearance, but she should be arrested for misusing exclamation marks,” Maggie said aloud.

During her examination of Sydney’s page, Maggie also was forced to admit that Gina had been truthful on at least one account – Sydney seemed to revel in her position as the missing man’s girlfriend. Post after post either pleaded for his return or expressed her despair.

“Please come back to us, Gentry Harris III.”

“Missing my baby today.”

“I am so empty and alone without you.”

And every post featured comments from friends who expressed their sympathy and offered words of encouragement.

“Let’s see what she was up to back in early May,” Maggie said to Barnaby, who had moseyed over and rested his chin on the arm of Maggie’s rocking chair.

Maggie labored through months of Sydney’s pouty selfies and excitable posts until she finally made her way back to spring. When Maggie located a flurry of posts in which Sydney wailed against friends who stab you in the back and people who break your trust, she said, “This must have been after she found Jay with Gina.” Such posting continued for a week. When a friend would ask Sydney for the cause of her cynicism, she’d either leave the question unanswered or comment, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I know her type. She’s one of those people who say just enough to pique your interest and then plead ignorance or discretion. She revels in creating her own drama,” Maggie said.

In the early morning on the day Jay disappeared, the nature of Sydney’s posts changed. She didn’t share a new profile picture or lament the behavior of so-called friends. Instead, she shared an unspoken prayer request.

Although Maggie’s Facebook friends frequently posted silent prayer requests, she didn’t fulfill such appeals. The way she saw it, if you wanted her prayers, you’d better reveal a little more information. Oh, she might send up a generic prayer asking that God provide comfort and guidance for people she hardly knew such as the arthritic bell ringer with the cold head or for strangers like the woman from the ER who had convinced herself she was pregnant. But from her way of thinking, an unspoken prayer request comprised too many possibilities. What if it requested that harm come to someone?  Every time her cousin the respiratory technician posted such a request – and she did so with increasing frequency – Maggie remembered that the woman had wished cancer upon a very specific part of her ex-husband’s body and hoped that her boss fell victim to a fatal heart attack. Taking no chances, Maggie refused to participate in enigmatic appeals for prayers. She also declined to pray for people to complete ordinary tasks at work and home. She reckoned God had more important things to worry about than if her cousin the basketball coach finished copying playbooks for his assistants and if the Sentinel’s bookkeeper cleaned out her closets.

More surprising than Sydney’s unspoken prayer request was what occurred next on her Facebook timeline – silence. For the next three days, Sydney, who by Maggie’s calculation hadn’t gone more than seven hours without posting, didn’t share random and boring details of her life.

But not long after friends started mentioning Jay’s disappearance on her page, Sydney roared back to life and started accepting expressions of sympathy and goodwill.

“What do you make of that?” Maggie asked Barnaby, who had tired of reading over her shoulder and had settled onto the floor.

Maggie perused more of Sydney’s self-absorbed comments and viewed many more photos of her attempting to look serious and/or sensual for the camera before losing interest and checking out Gina’s page.

Although Gina didn’t post nearly as often as Sydney – then again, Maggie speculated that few people posted as often as Sydney – she did make at least one appearance every day. Her posts primarily featured photos of her children at home, at play, and at various school functions and sporting events. She also relied heavily on memes to convey her love for chocolate and coffee.

“Wonder what memes she shared in May?” Maggie asked.

Gina’s springtime posts were not out of the ordinary – pictures of her children playing baseball, memes of harried-looking cats demanding caffeine, and meditations on motherhood. But, a few days after Gentry reported Jay missing, Gina posted a family photo of her and her kids camping with her husband. The husband made more appearances in her subsequent pictures and posts.

“It appears that their reconciliation coincided with Jay’s exit. Interesting. Let’s see what Carrie was up to back in the spring.”

Carrie posted much less frequently than Sydney and Gina, but she did share a daily message of inspiration as well as links to home decorating websites and, of course, obituaries. She also served as the administrator on a page representing her high school graduating class. A quick review of her history showed that she announced her pregnancy in the second week of May.

“Wow,” Maggie said. “The three ladies in Jay’s life behaved curiously around the time he vanished. Sydney took a break from compulsively posting on Facebook. Gina reunited with her husband. I assume this occurred after he literally crawled on his hands and knees, begging for forgiveness. Carrie, whom I presume no longer worried about jinxing her pregnancy, decided it was a good time to tell everyone she was expecting a baby. Could all this be coincidental?” Staring at the laptop, she asked, “Too bad Jay didn’t have a Facebook page. But with two jobs and three girlfriends, I guess he didn’t have time for social media. I don’t understand people, Barnaby. Maintaining one relationship is exhausting. I can’t imagine juggling three men.”

Next, Maggie went to Belinda Harris’ page. As she had done numerous times since agreeing to look for Jay, she examined the photos Belinda had shared of him on her timeline. This time, she studied the pictures for evidence of his animal magnetism. She considered him attractive enough, but she wasn’t attracted to him. When she looked at him, she saw a kid. A kid of average height who had kept his sandy-colored hair closely cropped since childhood. A kid with different colored eyes, one hazel and one gray. A kid who hugged his mom and posed for pictures with his hand resting on his pappaw’s shoulder. Without having met Jay, Maggie decided he had used his shy smile and attentive gaze to woo Gina, whose husband’s infidelity had left her vulnerable and starving for attention, and Carrie, who had wanted to recapture her youth.

Fixating on a photo of Jay sitting on Santa’s lap with his parents in the background suddenly made Maggie feel sad. “At that point in her life, Belinda probably imagined a future for herself and her son that didn’t involve her husband’s early death and Jay’s early departure from her life.” In a softer voice, Maggie added, “She has a granddaughter she doesn’t know about. No matter how this ends, I have to tell her about Mira. She deserves to know her.”

In an effort to improve her mood, Maggie typed W.L. Murphy’s name in the search bar. She had no luck finding him, but she did locate his brother, G.L., and clicked through dozens of photos of him where he appeared to be inebriated as well as more misspelled posts than she cared to count.

“Ant u cumin hear, cuz?”

“We iz gonna partee tonite!”

“DubL iz in the er. I ant never gonna foregiv miself if he diez.”

Maggie read the last post four times before laying aside the laptop and reaching for the police report that detailed W.L.’s attack. She searched through it until she found what she was looking for. Closing the file, she said, “Oh, no.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Maggie sat in W.L.’s driveway and tried to summon the courage to exit her car. Her attempt to find someone to accompany her to his trailer had proven unsuccessful. She had first asked Luke, hoping to mend their fractured relationship by sharing the sleuthing side of her life with him.

“I’m heading home for Christmas tomorrow,” he had told her the evening before at her house.

“Oh,” she had said. “When did you decide this?”

“Last week. I have some days coming to me, so I thought I’d take them now.”

They had exchanged presents and filled the evening discussing basketball and their respective presents. Yet, Maggie couldn’t help but speculate on the reason he had waited until the eve of his departure before telling her he was leaving town.

She didn’t have the luxury of fixating on Luke’s leaving. She needed to talk to W.L. and she didn’t want to do so alone. She had called Sylvie, but when she asked if the older woman had plans for the following day, Maggie learned she had a commitment to attend a Christmas luncheon.

“It’s at the fancy dress shop I do alterations for,” Sylvie had explained. “The owners have it catered by one of those fancy restaurants in town. I’ve never stepped foot inside of it. I reckon it would be too pricey for my liking. If you ask me, most of the food ain’t that good anyway, except for the spinach dip. That’s the most delicious dip I’ve ever tasted. If you ain’t never tried it, you should.”

“I think I know the restaurant you’re talking about. You’re right. The prices are kind of steep, but they do serve some good spinach dip.”

“Now, what’s this all about?” Sylvie had asked. “You don’t call up somebody and ask them about their plans unless you got a reason.”

“I was going to ask you to visit W.L. again, but it’s not a big deal.”

“Are you sure? I don’t have to go to that ole party. I can get one of the girls to save me some dip.”

“You go to that party and eat spinach dip until you founder on it, Sylvie. I’ll be fine.”

When Maggie hung up the phone, she realized she had two problems – she still didn’t have an escort to W.L.’s and she was craving spinach dip. She had then called Robert, who told her of his plans to help Lena ready the house for the arrival of Mark and his family. After that, she had considered taking up Gentry Harris on his invitation to accompany her to interviews, but decided against doing so. She didn’t want his presence to influence W.L.

That’s why Maggie sat alone in W.L.’s driveway. At least she did until he stuck his head out the front door, smiled, and motioned for her to come inside. Telling herself she had nothing to fear from a man the same size of her who suffered from symptoms of a concussion, she headed for the trailer. As she climbed the porch steps, she noticed that the rusty – or bloody? – knife occupied the same position as before, but the pine cone had been kicked or blown off the porch. She didn’t see the brick.

 The inside of the trailer looked remarkably different than it had on Maggie’s first visit. Clothes, food, dirty dishes, small appliances, mechanical parts, and tools no longer cluttered the now-tidy front room, and a broom and dust pan leaned against a wall.

“Wow, W.L., you’ve really been cleaning up in here. I hope you haven’t overdone it.”

“Nah. My aunt done that for me. She come in and threw everything in two piles – one to keep and one to throw away. She boxed up just about everything she decided to keep and packed it over to her house. I’ve been staying with her most of the time. She’s been looking out for me and taking care of me. I’m going to move in with her full time.”

Maggie wanted to know why he wasn’t moving in with his mother, but remembered that she hadn’t visited W.L. in the ER or in his hospital room, and decided to keep that question to herself. She did ask if he planned to take the chickens and dog to his aunt’s.

“Those ain’t mine. They belong to the guy that owns the trailer. I feed them for him, so he knocks a couple dollars off my rent.” W.L. peered out the front window. “The dog don’t have no personality, but I’m gonna miss those chickens.”

Although Maggie had spent her entire life around chickens, she had never speculated on their particular charms. Smiling, she asked, “When are you moving?”

“I have to be out by the end of the month. He’s got somebody moving in the first of the year.”

“Oh,” Maggie reflected on the black garbage bags taped to the trailer and asked, “he’s found another tenant that fast?”

“Yes, ma’am. You’re lucky you caught me here today,” W.L. continued. “I still can’t drive, and my aunt dropped me off so I could get some more of my clothes. She’s fixing to pick me up after she gets off work.” W.L. motioned to the couch, “Well, sit down.” When Maggie joined him on the sofa, he asked, “Where’s the old lady?”

“She’s at a Christmas party. I’ll give her your regards.”

“You know, I keep thinking, if it hadn’t been for her card, they might never have figured out who I was.”

Although roughly seventy thousand people lived in Geneva County, with the way news spread, Maggie believed the police would have identified W.L. in short order, with or without Sylvie’s card. She didn’t contradict W.L., though. She simply nodded and asked, “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I still have headaches and I can’t be around a lot of light or watch too much TV, but like my aunt says, it could have been worse. Hey, she’s wrapped that toaster for my mom. I’m gonna give it to her on Christmas Eve when she comes over to my aunt’s house.”

“What about your brother? Will G.L. celebrate Christmas with you?”

“As far as I know.”

“You know, I saw him that night in the ER. And he said something that’s bothered me.”

“What’s that?”

“That when he saw you lying there bleeding with your eyes open, he thought you were dead. I thought it was odd that he was worried about your eyes being opened. If I visited somebody in the hospital and their eyes weren’t open, that’s when I would worry. But he wasn’t talking about when he saw you in the hospital, was he?” Maggie searched W.L.’s eyes, which looked more vacant than usual. “Are you following me?”

“No.”

Maggie decided to try a different approach. “I also looked at your brother’s Facebook page. On the night of your attack, he posted that he would never forgive himself if you died. I couldn’t understand why he would blame himself, so I looked at the police report again. You were found lying face up. But that can’t be the position in which you fell. You had to have fallen on your face. That’s how you got those fresh cuts and scratches on your face. So, unless G.L. saw you lying in that parking lot, how did he see your eyes opened and face bloodied?”

W.L. stretched out his legs and rested one foot on the other. “I felt bad for not telling you the truth. You’ve been so nice to me, visiting me in the hospital and buying that toaster for my mom. But I didn’t want to get in trouble. That’s what started all this. Me and G.L. trying to stay out of trouble.”

“Did G.L. have something to do with you getting hit in the head?”

“He sure did. He’s the one that hit me.”

“What?” Maggie didn’t know what answer she had anticipated, but it wasn’t the one she received. “Why on earth would he do something like that?”

“Cause I asked him to.”

Maggie wasn’t sure she had heard W.L. correctly. “You asked G.L. to hit you in the back of the head?”

“I sure did.”

“And why did you do this?”

“After you and the old lady came by, I started thinking that I might get blamed for whatever happened to Jay. You know, on account of me killing that deer. I thought on it real hard and remembered this movie where a man kills his wife and then stabs himself. You know, to throw the police off the track. I knew I needed to do something like that. I needed to throw you and the police off the track. I didn’t want to get stabbed. I figured that would hurt too much. And G.L. don’t like blood. The sight of it makes him sick. So, I asked him to hit me in the back of the head with a hammer. He was afraid that would make me bleed, so he found a brick that was laying around here somewhere and wrapped it in a towel. That G.L., he’s always been smart.”

Stunned, Maggie said, “Your brother hit you in the head with a brick?”

“Yeah. He hit me too hard, though. He was only supposed to hit me a little bit, just enough. And then I was going to go inside the store holding my head and complaining that somebody attacked me.”

Maggie wondered what constituted hitting someone “just enough” with a brick. But she had to hand it to G.L. The hit itself hadn’t made his brother bleed. She could feel a headache forming, so she rubbed the area between her eyes.

“You feeling okay, Maggie?” W.L. asked. “You look a little peekid.”

Maggie smiled at the use of one of her dad’s favorite words. “W.L., why don’t we start at the beginning?”

“What’s the beginning?”

“The poaching.”

W.L. nodded his head. “Well, I ain’t had steady work since the car wash closed.”

Wondering where this was going, Maggie asked, “Which car wash?”

“The one off the four-lane.”

Maggie knew the car wash he was talking about. On occasion, if the rain came down for days on end or if the winter salt clung to her car, she’d run her car through one of those automatic car washes. But she had never used the one W.L. had worked at. She considered it too expensive.

“It was a real good job. I washed and dried cars all day and didn’t have to work on days like Thanksgiving or Christmas or when it rained or snowed. And just about everybody gave me a real good tip. But they closed down cause of … now, let me think about it. What was the word they used? It was real long. Mis, mis –”

“Mismanagement?” Maggie said.

“That was it,” he slapped his knee. “They closed it down cause of the owner’s mismanagement. At least that’s what I heard. There was talk that somebody else was going to open it back up, but that ain’t happened yet.”

He paused and Maggie nodded, thinking he would pick up the story. When he didn’t, she said, “So, what does this have to do with poaching?”

“I didn’t have no job and Mom said all the deer meat was gone. The freezer was empty. I didn’t see no point in spending money I didn’t have on food with all those deers jumping around, so I shot one of them. I still don’t understand what I done wrong.”

“No one explained it to you?” When W.L. shook his head, Maggie said, “The reason you can’t shoot deer all year long is so they can breed. If they didn’t have a chance to add to the herd, soon there would be no deer jumping around. That’s why you can only kill doe for a few weeks a year. They have the babies.”

He said, “Hmm,” crooked his head, and stared at the blank wall in front of him. Although Maggie hated to make him concentrate, she enjoyed seeing an expression of understanding cover his face, “That makes sense.”

“What happened when you took the deer to Curtis?”

“I messed up big time there, but I didn’t know Jay would throw a fit. I never had no problem taking deer to Curtis before. I’d take them to him and give him some steaks and he wouldn’t charge me too much.”

“These other deer you took to Curtis, were they killed during season?”

“Some of them, but I ain’t never had no license, so I guess it don’t matter.”

“Really?” Maggie leaned forward. “You mean Curtis took the deer knowing you didn’t have a license?”

“He had to know. I never had no ticket to show him.”

Curtis Moore, you’re such a liar, Maggie thought. “I guess Jay didn’t know about your arrangement with Curtis.”

“I guess not. He threw his fit and told me to take my illegal deer and get out of there. Curtis followed me outside and he said to me, ‘I told you not to bring no deer around here if Jay was here.’ And I said, ‘You ain’t never told me that.’ And he said, ‘It must have been your idiot brother I told.’ That went all over me, him talking about G.L. like that, but I didn’t say nothing back to Curtis on account of him having such a bad temper and being so big. He could squash me like a bug. So, I turned around and come home. I tried to dress the deer myself, but I couldn’t figure out what to do. And the next day, before I could figure out what to do with it, the game warden showed up. That was all she wrote for me.”

“Do you think Jay reported you?”

“At first, I did. I heard about Curtis firing him the day I was there and that the game warden went to Curtis’ shop. It just made sense to me. Jay was trying to get revenge on Curtis, that’s what’s I thought. But Jay never reported us. I know that for a fact.”

Literally sitting on the edge of the couch, Maggie asked, “How can you be so sure?”

“Cause G.L. turned us in.”

“Uh, what, um, how …,” try as she might, Maggie could not form a complete sentence.

“G.L. got himself arrested last winter. Him and one of his buddies broke in on an old man and woman. I still can’t believe he’d do something like that. It just ain’t right, hurting old people. G.L. said he got sick to his stomach when his buddy hit the old man and made him bleed, and I told him it was good enough for him. You know, he told me he got sick the night he hit me, too. When he hit me with that brick, he didn’t expect me to fall on the ground. But I did and he turned me around and that’s when he saw that blood on my face. He run away and puked in a ditch.”

W.L. quit speaking and stared at Maggie, who said, “So, why did he report you to the game warden?”

“Oh, when Curtis turned me away, I called G.L. and asked him to help with the deer. He got to thinking that he could use that to get himself out of trouble. His lawyer had told him the judge would go easier on him if he told them about other crimes.” W.L. shook his head. “It didn’t do him no good, though. They told him they wanted to know about stealing crimes, not poaching crimes. He ended up taking one of those deals and pulled a couple months in jail. He’s still on probation. So, all it did was get me in trouble with the law, too. And you wouldn’t believe the fine I paid.”

Maggie couldn’t imagine any scenario that involved Mark braining her with a brick or ratting her out to the police in hopes of cutting a better deal for himself. What’s more, although she was sure it had nothing to do with the case, she couldn’t keep from asking, “How did you pay the fine?”

“My aunt paid it for me. She used the money she was saving up to buy a washer and dryer. She got the dryer fixed but the washer done give out on her. She’s hauling her dirty clothes to the laundry mat. I’ve been helping her. I figure it’s the least I can do. That’s one of the reasons I was trying to teach myself how to fix stuff. I thought I could fix her washer, but I had to stop studying cause I can’t concentrate right now. I didn’t tell you about her washer the first time you come here. I’m sorry about keeping that from you, too.” W.L. uncrossed his feet, sat up, and rested his elbows on his knees. “I guess you understand everything now.”

 “No. No, I do not,” Maggie answered. “I fail to see how any of this ends with your brother bashing in your skull with a brick.”

W.L. frowned. “I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, Maggie. You seem like a smart lady, but it’s clear as day. He felt bad for turning me in and wanted to make it up to me. I told you, I was afraid the law would blame me. They’d think I hurt Jay to get revenge on him for calling the game warden on me.”

Maggie finally grasped the logic of the brothers Murphys’ plan. She couldn’t decide if it was so stupid it was brilliant or so brilliant it was stupid. “Ah, I see. You wanted to make everyone believe you were also a victim.”

“That’s the absolute truth. Besides, I have to protect myself and my brother. The police don’t know that I know Jay didn’t report me. And Curtis don’t know that, neither. If I tell the truth, then Curtis will come after G.L.”

“How can you be so sure about that?” Maggie asked.

“Cause he already got rid of Jay.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Just as she had done the day with Sylvie, Maggie followed up a visit at W.L.’s with a stop at Curtis Moore’s butcher shop. She wished Sylvie were with her today. Curtis would have intimidated her if she passed by him at the store. The thought of accusing him of breaking the law by dressing poached deer and suggesting that he may have caused harm to Jay downright frightened her. Be that as it may, she summoned the courage to get out of the car and knock on the door to the shop.

She had just identified the hair band song that vibrated on the other side of the door as “Pour Some Sugar on Me” when Curtis opened the door.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“Just to, uh, ask you a few questions,” Maggie stammered.

“I’ve already wasted enough time on you.” Looking past Maggie, he asked, “Where’s the old lady?”

“She couldn’t make it today, but she sends her love.”

Maggie saw the edges of Curtis’ mouth turn slightly upward into a smile. He recovered quickly and resumed scowling. “I’m busy. I’m taking off for Christmas. I need to get this place cleaned so I can get home. My girl’s bringing my grandbabies to the house.”

Curtis turned and walked away. He didn’t slam the door in her face, which Maggie interpreted as an invitation to come inside. She stepped into the shop, imagining Curtis drinking his morning coffee out of a mug that proclaimed “World’s Greatest Grandpa.” She cleared her throat and said, “I can talk to you while you work.”

He threw a glance her way from across his shoulder. “You can talk all you want. That don’t mean I’ll talk back.”

The idea of confronting Curtis wasn’t the only reason Maggie hadn’t looked forward to entering the butcher shop. She had conjured up visions of meat hanging from hooks and bloody knives covering shelves. Hooks did hang from the ceiling and knives lay on the shelves. But there was no blood to be seen. Instead of raw meat, the smell of bleach and other cleaning solutions overwhelmed her.

“This shop is as clean as my mom’s kitchen,” she said to Curtis, who scrubbed a grinder with a soapy sponge. When he failed to respond, she decided to cut to the chase. “So, I’ve heard the deer W.L. Murphy brought here back in the spring wasn’t the first poached deer you had accepted.”

Without pausing from his cleaning or looking at her, Curtis said, “I didn’t accept W.L.’s deer.”

Semantics, you win again, Maggie thought. “What about other poached deer W.L. or other customers brought here? Did you dress them?”

Curtis dropped the grinder into the sink, which produced a thud that made Maggie jump. He grabbed a rag and wiped off his hands before addressing her. “What’s this about?”

“What do you think this is about? Jay Harris. Did you do something to punish him for turning you in to the game warden?”

“Like I told you the last time you was here, I didn’t have nothing to do with Jay taking off.”

“Yeah, you also told me you didn’t take illegal deer, either, and now I know that’s not the truth. Why should I believe anything you say? Why should the police believe you?”

Curtis’ hard eyes settled on Maggie before darting back and forth over the shop. He tossed the rag onto a shelf and crossed his arms over his massive chest. “I didn’t hurt Jay. If I had seen him out, I might have. But I didn’t see him, so,” he shrugged, “nothing happened. Besides, the more I thought about it, the more I thought that Jay didn’t have nothing on me. He didn’t know nothing. The only thing he could tell the law was that I turned W.L. away. But I still figured we’d settle up someday. I guess somebody beat me to it.”

“When I was here with Daddy, you said you thought Jay had gone back to Indiana. So, are you saying you don’t believe that?”

“I don’t know where he is or what happened to him, but I do know that boy was headed for trouble.”

“How so?”

“He was keeping time with at least three girls.”

“Did he tell you this?”

“Didn’t have to. They texted and called all the time. He had a different ring tone for every one of them. I didn’t know their names, but from the way he talked to her, I think at least one of them was married.”

“Did you talk to him about this?”

“Nope.” Curtis uncrossed his arms, put them to his side, and grasped the edge of the sink. “I take that back. One time, I said to him, ‘Boy, you’re playing with fire.’ He laughed and said, ‘I like it hot.’”

With “Wanted Dead or Alive,” blaring in her ears, Maggie stood in the middle of the shop and organized Curtis’ revelations in her mind. Before she could ask another question, he said, “Instead of wasting your time on me, you should talk to his girlfriends, especially that one.”

“Which one?” Maggie asked.

“The one that showed up here one morning looking for Jay.” Curtis half-turned toward the sink before stopping. “You know, come to think about it, she showed up here a day or two before the police come around asking me about Jay.”

Maggie mustered a great deal of self-control to keep from rolling her eyes. “That seems awfully convenient. Did you tell the police about this?”

Scowling, Curtis said, “I don’t know if told them or not. But she was here. She was a little thing. I heard a car drive up and looked out to see her sitting out there. We’re in the head of nowhere, and I don’t get too many people just dropping by. I walked out there and asked her what she wanted. She said she was looking for Jay. I told her he didn’t work here no more. She seemed kinda surprised by that, but she nodded and drove off.” Just as Maggie was about to ask him to guess this alleged female’s age, he added, “She kept her hands on the steering wheel and I’ll never forget her nail polish. I don’t usually notice stuff like that, but I’ve had that on my mind. Why would a girl wear two different colors of nail polish? And I don’t know much about that stuff, but they both looked like purple to me.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The community college had closed for the semester, so Maggie met Sydney in a fast-food restaurant that specialized in Italian fare.

“I was so happy when you called,” Sydney said.

“Really?”

“You got me out of helping my mom. By the time I get home, the fudge will be cooled and ready to cut, the dishes will be washed, and the living room will be dusted.” Sydney stirred her soda with a straw. “You said you had something to tell me about Jay.”

“Yeah, about that.” Maggie consumed half a meatball, took a second to savor the taste, and said, “The first thing I want to do is thank you for the tip about the guy with initials. That was a big help.”

“It was?” Sydney abandoned the slice of pizza she had been picking at and sat up straight in her chair. “Did you find him? Did he hurt my Jay?”

“I did find him, but I don’t think he had anything to do with Jay’s disappearance.” Or maybe I’m fooling myself, Maggie thought. Maybe I’m overlooking him because I feel sorry for him. And because he used the word peaked.

Sydney picked a pepperoni from the pizza. As she placed it in her mouth, Maggie noticed that her fingernails were not painted. “Not that I don’t appreciate the chance to get out of baking and cleaning,” Sydney said, “but what’s this about then?”

“Well, it’s about Jay – and you.”

“Me and Jay? About our relationship?”

“Not exactly. It’s more about what happened after you broke up with him.” Maggie scooted what was left of her bowl of spaghetti out of the way. “Sydney, several people have described your actions following the breakup as stalking.”

Sydney picked up another pepperoni and crumpled it in her hands. “Who’s saying these things about me?”

“A lot of people. Gina, Jay’s co-workers at the funeral home, Curtis at the butcher shop, Jay’s pappaw. He said you came to his house looking for Jay the day he disappeared. And I’ve seen all your Facebook posts about Jay.”

“So I talk about Jay on Facebook. Is that a crime? He was my boyfriend. I know he,” she whispered, “cheated on me with that fattie Gina, but things were never settled between us. We never got,” she paused, “closure.”

“I know that, and the way you’re feeling is understandable. It’s a tough lesson to learn, but you’ll realize as you get older that we rarely have a chance to say goodbye. Closure is more of a myth than a reality.”

“Is that why you wanted to talk to me today? To tell me something I could hear on Dr. Phil?”

Maggie tried to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. She tried to make concessions for bad attitudes and bad moods. She knew nobody ever really understood the internal and external demons others faced. But she had to admit to herself that Sydney tap danced all over her nerves. She took a moment to enjoy another bite of spaghetti and to compose herself before continuing. “Okay, Sydney, let’s go back to May. I reviewed your Facebook history. You’re on there quite often. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but in the days after Jay went missing, you didn’t post anything.”

“Oh, I guess that’s a crime, too,” Sydney screeched so loudly that she aroused the attention of a family of four in a booth across the restaurant.

“No, it’s not a crime, but considering your posting history, it’s something of interest. Especially when you factor in your unspoken prayer request.”

“Oh, my God.” This time, Sydney’s shrieks grabbed the attention of more than the family of four. Everyone in the restaurant, including the employees behind the counter, twisted their heads to get a better look at the agitated young woman with wild eyes. “I just wanted to know why he didn’t try to get me back. That’s all. That’s what I asked God in my prayers. That’s why I called Jay. That’s why I went to his house and his work.”

“Sydney,” Maggie said in a soothing voice, “please calm down. It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay.” Sydney grabbed the barely-eaten pizza and flung it onto the floor. “Everybody’s going to know now. Everybody’s going to know.”

Still screaming, Sydney flipped over the food tray, causing Maggie to jump to avoid the soda spilling over the table, and ran from the restaurant. Everyone stared at her until she got in her car, slammed the door shut, and motored out of the parking lot. Then, the restaurant patrons and workers turned their attention to Maggie, who wrapped napkins around three breadsticks and left without making eye contact with anyone.

Maggie had started her mini-Christmas vacation that day and regretted spending part of her first day off work harassing Sydney. She also regretted forgetting Edie’s poinsettia at the Sentinel office. Although Maggie loved her job, she didn’t love darkening the doors when she wasn’t working, especially on the eve of Christmas Eve. She said her hellos to co-workers rushing to meet the holiday deadlines and walked to the newsroom. As she retrieved the flower from her desk, Joe and Seth walked out of Joe’s office.

“I didn’t expect to see you today,” Joe said.

“I left Edie’s poinsettia here,” she explained. Looking to Seth, she said, “A lady I featured in the paper a few years ago gives me a poinsettia every Christmas. In the spirit of the holidays, my grouchy editor relaxes his policy against accepting gifts.”

“And you give the flower to Edie because its leaves are poisonous for dogs. Right?” Seth asked.

“Right,” Maggie answered.

Joe’s phone rang, so he shook hands with Seth and scrambled to his office.

“How are you all doing?” Maggie asked Seth.

“I volunteered to work the holidays, if that tells you anything. Joe said you had taken a few days off. He said Mark was home.”

“Yeah, well, he and the family should arrive on Caldonia Road by supper. I’m going to swing by Edie’s for a few minutes and then drop off some spinach dip at Sylvie’s before heading home.”

“Have you had a good first day of vacation?”

Maggie sighed. “Not exactly.” She placed the flower on her desk and gave Seth an abbreviated version of her lunch with the hysterical Sydney.

“She really threw the pizza on the floor?” he asked. “It should be against the law to waste pizza.”

“You should have seen her. It’s like something possessed her body. I don’t mean that literally, of course, but she snapped.”

“Hmm. What made you talk to her today?”

Maggie traced her meetings with Curtis and W.L. in reverse, omitting any admission of guilt from the two men, and revealed Jay’s role as a ladies’ man. “When you interviewed Curtis, did he say anything about Sydney coming by the butcher shop?”

“No, he did not. I did speak to Sydney briefly. I didn’t catch up with her until a few days after Mr. Harris filed the missing persons report, though. If I had known about all these other women, I would have tracked them down, too.”

“He had three women, two jobs, and one major. Just thinking about all that wears me out.”

Seth scratched his head. “Energy is wasted on the youth. So, one of the women is married to Jay’s boss, one assaulted a perfectly fine pizza, and the other one had hung onto Jay’s cell phone since the morning he went missing.”

“That would be Gina,” Maggie said. “Is she under investigation?”

“Not until we can prove foul play. Although it appears that she was the last person to see him, there’s still no evidence that any harm came to him.”

“W.L. thinks Curtis hurt Jay.”

“Speaking of W.L., I talked to the state police trooper who’s investigating his attack. They don’t have any suspects.”

Maggie felt the guilt rise in her throat, but she wasn’t about to tell a police officer that W.L. had filed a false report. She wondered if that made her an accessory after the fact.

 “You go on home, get ready for Mark and his boys, and take a few days off from the case. It should be quiet at the office for the next few days. I’ll see what I can find out.”

As Seth walked away, Maggie said, “Hey, I know it’s hard, but try to find some joy this holiday.”

Seth’s crooked grin, the attribute that had first attracted her to him, looked more poignant than Maggie could remember it looking before. She picked up the poinsettia and made two strides toward the door before Joe called her name.

Walking out of his office, he asked, “Are you leaving without wishing me Merry Christmas?”

“Technically, yes, but I told you Merry Christmas yesterday when I gave you a tin of cookies.”

He patted his stomach. “Now I remember.” He sat on the edge of Tyler’s desk and adopted an expression Maggie had long-since nicknamed Serious Joe. “As your boss, your personal life is none of my business. But as your friend, I thought you should know that Seth made sure you weren’t working today before he’d agree to stop in.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t tell you that to hurt you. But I can’t help but wonder why he’s avoiding you. I mean, you two seemed okay out here chatting about your case.”

“We were.” Maggie couldn’t find the words to explain the situation to Joe when she couldn’t explain it to herself. “Hey, I’ve got to get this over to Edie’s so I can be home in time to greet the nephews.”

Joe nodded. “I understand.”

Maggie reached the door before turning and saying, “Merry Christmas, Joe.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Maggie loved the sound of snow crunching under her boots.

“This is the first white Christmas we’ve had in at least a decade,” she said to Mark as they made their way up Caldonia Road. They had accompanied their parents and Mark’s wife and sons to Robert’s brother’s house for Christmas breakfast. For some reason Maggie now questioned, she and Mark had forgone the warm ride home for a chilly stroll up the hollow.

“We get white Christmases nearly every year in Indiana,” Mark said.

“Quit bragging.” Mark pulled the toboggan down to cover his ears and Maggie smiled at the memory of Joe schooling Tyler on the word’s dual definition.

“I’m happy to see a smile on your face.”

“Huh?”

“You’ve seemed down since you called your boyfriend last night. Is everything okay?”

No, Maggie thought, it’s not. She had called Luke the previous evening, but he had cut short the phone call with the explanation that he and his family were in the middle of exchanging gifts. He had told Maggie he would call her back later that evening, but later never came. She had swallowed her pride and called to wish him Merry Christmas that morning, but Luke cut short that phone call with the explanation that he and his family were in the middle of breakfast.

Pausing on the bridge in front of her house, Maggie said, “It’s complicated,” before outlining the highlights and lowlights of the past few weeks with Luke.

“It doesn’t sound that complicated to me,” Mark said. “He’s jealous of Seth, and I can see where he’s coming from.”

“Hey, whose side are you on?”

“Yours. I’m always on your side. But that doesn’t mean I don’t relate to Luke. He doesn’t want you hanging out with your ex-fiancé, the guy you didn’t marry only because you disagreed on whether to have children. The guy who’s suddenly back in your life now that he’s divorced.”

“That’s not exactly how it happened.”

Mark wiped his nose with his gloved hands. “It’s close enough. But I also can relate to you. From what you’re telling me, it sounds like Luke also has an issue with your sleuthing.”

“See, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell him. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken those cookies to Seth’s dad’s house –”

“Maybe?”

“Okay, I shouldn’t have taken those cookies to Seth’s dad, but this isn’t all about Seth. Luke says I act differently when I’m on a case, but so does he.”

“You should respect his feelings, but he should also respect this part of your life.”

“You make it sound so easy, but like I said, it’s complicated,” Maggie said.

Mark put his arm around his sister’s shoulder. “Your nose is redder than Rudolph’s. Let’s go to the house and warm up over hot chocolate and cookies. Then we’ll take the boys for a ride on that sled dad made for them.”

Maggie laughed. “You mean a toboggan?”

“Yeah,” Mark said, “they’ll wear their boggans.”

Chapter Thirty

Although Maggie considered herself an upbeat person, by the time Christmas morning ambled into Christmas afternoon, melancholia took hold of her. The holiday gloom had first descended upon her during her teens and had made an appearance every year since. She understood the rationale for her blue mood. Christmas represented the most active, stressful, and demanding time of her year, but also her most hopeful. In spite of her age, she retained her childish expectations of the holiday. She couldn’t help but feel let down once the torn wrapping paper had been cleared from the floor and the last present had been retrieved from under the tree.

By the day after Christmas, she could no longer stand the sight of her tree and began taking it down. As she removed the decorations and boxed them until next year, she suddenly became aware of tears forming in her eyes. Instead of fighting her emotions, she sat down and cried until she had her fill. With the tears flowing, she realized this year’s post-holidays blues had hit her especially hard and she reviewed the reasons why. Saying goodbye to Mark and the boys that morning and failing to give Gentry Harris the only thing he wanted for Christmas had left her feeling especially out of sorts. And the situation with Luke only added to her gloomy mood.

Drawn to the unfamiliar sounds of his master sobbing, Barnaby roused from his mid-morning nap and announced his presence at Maggie’s side.

“Oh, Barnaby,” Maggie smiled through her tears and reached for a tissue. “It’s okay. I’m just suffering from a bad case of post-holiday blues this year. I promise. It will get better.”

To prove her point, Maggie shuffled to the kitchen for a glass of leftover punch and a piece of peanut butter fudge. She located a marathon of Southern Fried Homicide on Investigation Discovery and returned to her task. She had removed only one ornament from the tree when her phone rang.

“Hey, Maggie, it’s Seth. I won’t keep you long, but I wanted to tell you what I found out about a couple of your suspects.”

Turning down the volume on the TV with the remote, she said, “Which suspects?”

“Sydney and Curtis. There was a reason Sydney disappeared from Facebook. It’s the same reason I had trouble locating her in the days after Mr. Harris reported Jay missing. Sydney was admitted to the hospital for a seventy-two-hour psych evaluation the last day Jay was seen.”

The guilt Maggie had felt for pushing Sydney to the point of flipping a tray and tossing pizza on the floor suddenly compounded. “Why?”

“The report says her mom called 9-1-1 claiming that her daughter was acting out of control and out of the ordinary. The responding police officer and a doctor determined her to be a danger to herself and others and recommended the psych eval.” When Maggie didn’t respond, Seth said, “Maggie? Are you there?”

“Yeah, I’m here.” The image of Sydney running out of the restaurant played on a continuous loop in Maggie’s memory.

“When I talked to her back in May, I attributed her quiet demeanor, that’s how I described it in my notes, to the fact that her boyfriend had vanished. That was the same explanation I came up with for her mom’s nervousness.”

“That’s a reasonable conclusion. How were you to know she had just been released from the hospital?”

“I should have done more work on this. I should have listened to my gut. Maybe I can forgive myself for not picking up on the behavior of Sydney and her mom, but there’s no excuse for not performing background checks on everyone in Jay’s life, Curtis included.”

“Why? What did you find out about him?”

“Curtis lived in West Virginia for a few years. He spent most of them in the state penitentiary for beating a man unconscious.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Seth threatened Maggie with obstruction of justice if she contacted Sydney or Curtis.

“Let me talk to the chief when he gets back from vacation and I’ll go from there,” Seth told her. “In the meantime, you sit tight. And unless you want to call Robert to post your bond, you will not so much as send Sydney a Facebook message or ask Curtis Moore for an estimate on a pack of pork chops. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Seth. Besides, I would have to call someone else to post my bail. Daddy has always said that if I get myself into jail, I can get myself out.”

“We both know that’s all talk. Robert Morgan wouldn’t let his little girl spend one hour behind bars. I’d better go. I have bad guys to chase.”

“Hey, about not contacting Sydney and Curtis –”

“Maggie.”

“Just listen to me. I’ll adhere to your wishes if you promise me you’ll quit beating yourself up over not delving deeper into Jay’s disappearance. You told me at your mom’s services that Gentry and Belinda couldn’t think of anyone who would hurt Jay. And Belinda didn’t mention to you that Jay and Sydney had broken up. And Steve didn’t mention to you that Jay no longer worked for Curtis, and Curtis didn’t tell you that, either. And nobody told you Sydney had been stalking Jay.”

“That’s right. But don’t forget that you were able to get that information from them.” Maggie heard him sigh. “Thanks for trying to cheer me up. You’re a good person, Maggie Morgan.”

Maggie met Luke at his townhouse the following day. After they summarized their holidays, an uncomfortable silence formed around them. Maggie entertained Luke’s dog until the golden retriever grew tired and wandered over to the front door and collapsed into a nap.

“We’ve bored him,” Maggie said. When Luke offered no comment, she said, “How long are we going to go on like this?”

“Like what?”

“Oh, come on. We barely speak to each other. It’s been this way –”

“Since the night I told you to make your choice.”

“There’s no choice to be made, Luke. I’m with you. And it’s unfair to blame all this on Seth. Things have actually been tense between us since I told you I was looking for Jay.”

“Yeah, because of Seth.”

“Is that why you dissected my eating habits? Because of Seth?”

Luke turned his neck until it popped. “I won’t pretend that I like this sleuthing you do. I think it’s dangerous and I don’t understand why you take other people’s problems on.”

“Because I want to help people. And I don’t want to brag, but I think I’m pretty good at it. But regardless of why I do this, you either respect this side of me or you don’t.”

“I guess I don’t,” Luke all but whispered.

Maggie bit the inside of her mouth in a futile attempt to control her emotions. With her voice cracking, she said, “I’m willing to work on this relationship, but I’m not going to go on like this. I’m not going to drift into unhappiness with my eyes open.”

“I don’t want that, either.”

“So,” she asked, “what do we do?”

Maggie drove to Walmart, parked her car, and cried until her head hurt. She cried so much that she emptied her car’s center console of napkins. As she used the last one to blow her nose, a woman she’d never before seen tapped on her car window. Maggie turned the car’s ignition and pressed the power window button.

“You okay, honey?” asked the middle-aged woman, whose dark blue sweatshirt featured two deer set against a snowy mountain landscape.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“I was just wondering because I seen you sitting there crying when I went inside and you was still sitting there when I come out. I didn’t say nothing. I figured it was none of my business. But after I loaded my groceries in the car and put the buggy away, you was still here. I knew I had to say something. You sitting out here in the cold all by yourself crying.” When the woman shook her head, her disc-shaped metallic earrings slapped the sides of her chin and her long hair, which was as white as the mountains on her sweatshirt. Maggie wondered if the earrings and sweatshirt had been Christmas presents. “Why, I knowed I had to check on you,” the woman said.

The stranger’s altruism touched Maggie to such an extent that she had to stop herself from jumping out of the car and hugging her. “I’ve had a bad day, but it was so kind of you to check on me.”

“Are you going to be okay to drive? If you need to call somebody, you can use my cell phone.”

“I’m fine, I promise.”

“Well, you take care.”

As the woman walked away, Maggie called, “I hope you have a wonderful new year.”

Before getting into her car, the woman said, “You, too, honey.”

Maggie started her car and followed the woman out of the parking lot, waving to the good Samaritan at the intersection. When she turned onto the highway, she directed the car to Edie’s. Thinking Luke might have shared the news of their breakup with Ben, she half-expected Edie and Ben to greet her at the door with solemn faces. Instead, Ben welcomed her with a hearty hug.

“Babe,” he yelled into the house. “Maggie’s here.”

Before Maggie could accept Ben’s offer of a snack, Edie practically bounced into the room. She, too, gave Maggie a hearty hug. She then took her by the hand and pulled her to the sofa. Ben joined them, sitting on the other side of Edie. The couple repeatedly looked at Maggie and then at each other. Maggie began to worry this was their way of consoling her when Ben said, “Go ahead, tell her.”

Edie beamed. “Maggie, Ben and I are having a baby.”

Edie and Ben giggled as Maggie sat in stunned silence.

“Well, what do you think?” Ben asked.

“I, uh, well, I don’t know what to think. I didn’t even know you were trying.”

“Oh, we try every day.”

“Hush,” Edie chastised Ben. “We didn’t tell anybody. I know it’s not like me to keep a secret, but I wouldn’t haven’t been able to stand the scrutiny. Everyone constantly asking me if I were pregnant would have been too stressful.” She clutched Maggie’s hand. “I know you wouldn’t have been like that, but Ben and I made a pact to keep it between us.”

“We’ve known for a while,” Ben said, “but we wanted to enjoy it a little longer before letting the world in on our secret.”

With her hand still clutching Maggie’s, Edie said, “I hope you’re not upset.”

“Not at all.” Maggie enveloped Edie and then Ben into hugs. “I am so happy for you.”

“And don’t worry, I know you’re really not into kids, so I’ll never ask you to come to birthday parties or babysit.”

“I make exceptions for my nephews, and I’ll make an exception for your little one. If it’s okay with you, I’d like for the baby to call me Antie Maggie.”

“I’ll have it no other way,” Edie said. As Edie drew Maggie into another hug, Maggie accepted the reality that she could not dampen her friend’s day by announcing the news of her breakup.

Upon arriving home, Maggie changed into her pajamas, picked up her e-reader, and began reading a mystery Mark had given her for Christmas. After reading the first page five times, she gave up, drowned her sorrows in cocoa, and replayed her last conversation with Luke. She had started doubting herself before she had backed out of his driveway. Now, alone in her house, except for Barnaby, of course, the misgivings weighed on her chest like lead.

“Maybe I acted in haste. Maybe I shouldn’t have used such decisive language. Maybe everything would have improved if I had given it time.”

She was still questioning herself an hour later. At that point, she realized no good would come out of the internal mind games she played. “Let’s do something productive,” she said to Barnaby, who sat licking his paws.

After talking to Seth, Maggie had decided to compile her notes on the investigation into a report for him. She thought it might help him proceed with the case. As she transcribed her initial conversation with Steve and Carrie, she fixated on his comments about Mira.

“Mira. What makes that baby any more of a miracle than Edie’s baby?” she speculated. “Unless Carrie underwent in-vitro or had her tubes untied or –”

Maggie put her hand to her mouth. Once again that day, she had been stunned into silence.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Maggie waited for Steve in the same chapel where she had first met him and Carrie. When she had called him that morning and asked if she could stop by, he hadn’t asked what she wanted to discuss and she hadn’t volunteered information. After creeping on Facebook, where she had seen that Carrie had a luncheon date scheduled with two friends from high school, she had set the time for her meeting with Steve to coincide with Carrie’s early afternoon appointment. She was making sure, for the third time, that her recorder was on when Steve appeared in the doorway. He loped down the aisle and pulled out a chair adjacent to hers.

“It sure was a surprise to hear from you, but I’m glad you called.” He added with a smile, “I needed to call you anyway.”

“Me?” Maggie couldn’t imagine why he would need to talk to her. “Why?”

“To thank you for recommending W.L. to Carrie.”

After her last visit to W.L.’s, Maggie had called Carrie to inquire about Jay’s old job. When Carrie told her Steve still hadn’t found a suitable replacement, Maggie had asked Carrie to put forth W.L. as a potential candidate for the job. Carrie agreed without hesitation. It was only later that Maggie realized Carrie most likely considered the suggestion a veiled form of blackmail.

“So, he’s doing well?” Maggie tried to keep the disbelief from sneaking into her voice.

“Yes, he is.” Steve frowned and shook his head back and forth as if he were deciding on what to say. “It takes him a couple times to catch on, but he’s a hard worker and he’ll do anything we ask him to do. I hired him the day before Christmas Eve. He worked a few hours and then I pulled him aside and told him I’d need him to work the following two days. You know what he said? ‘What time do I need to be here?’ He didn’t complain at all about having to work during the holiday.”

 “Yeah, I guess your line of business doesn’t guarantee automatic holidays.”

Steve brought his hands together and displayed a solemn expression she recognized as his funeral director face. “No, unfortunately, death does not take a holiday.”

Maggie thought of Seth and his family as well as Gentry and Belinda and shuddered.

“Are you okay, Maggie?”

“Do you ever get used to it? The death?”

“I know how this is going to sound, but I grew up in a funeral home. Literally. We lived on the second floor. We now use that area for offices and storage space, but it was my home. My family’s home. So, this was as natural and as normal to me as growing up on a farm or in the suburbs is to other people. It was the family business and I feel blessed to have received the same calling as previous generations of my family. I hope that doesn’t sound morbid, but somebody has to provide bereavement services. Somebody has to console the grieving families.” Steve paused. “But some services are harder to officiate than others. Friends, family members, children. Children,” he repeated, “that’s never easy.”

“I would imagine that it makes you think of your children.” Before he had a chance to respond, Maggie said, “I just found out that my best friend is expecting a baby.”

“Well, good for her. That baby will change her life – for the better. It’s almost like my life had no purpose before my kids were born.”

Maggie nodded. “She’s thirty-four. She says she’s lucky she didn’t wait a few months or she’d have to submit to additional testing.”

Steve smiled. “That’s due to the mother’s advanced maternal age. Carrie had to go through all that.”

“Did you all undergo invitro-fertilization or –”

“Nope. Nothing like that.”

“Oh, I thought that’s why you called Mira your miracle baby. I assumed you had undergone treatments or maybe Carrie had her tubes untied or you had a vasectomy reversed.”

Her eyes locked with Steve’s. Until that moment, she had kept trying to convince herself that her suspicions were unfounded and that this seemingly good man had not ended Jay Harris’ life. But his trembling lips and twitching eyes revealed the truth to her.

“How did you know about Jay and Carrie?” she asked. “How did you know the baby was his?”

Steve inhaled sharply and breathed the words, “Mira is not Jay’s baby. She’s my daughter in every way that matters.”

“But she is Jay’s biological daughter, isn’t she? And you killed Jay, didn’t you?”

“How did you figure it out? I guess it doesn’t matter. I always knew somebody would find out. I didn’t think it would be you, though. I thought you seemed too trusting of people. I underestimated you.”

Steve’s opinion of her mattered little to Maggie. She asked him again, “How did you know about Carrie and Jay’s affair?”

He turned his head away from Maggie and took some time before speaking. “I didn’t know for sure. Carrie and Jay rarely interacted. When they were around each other, they were polite, but he seemed to regard her as nothing more than the boss’ wife. And I know Carrie. I love her, but she’s the type of person who’s not present in a conversation or a situation unless it involves her or something she cares about. That’s why I knew she’d work out well here at the funeral home. After we married, I had no reservations about asking her to come on board. She’s not a bad person, but she doesn’t feel other people’s pain. She doesn’t concern herself with other people, either. So, if I had thought about her and Jay, I would have decided that when he was around, she quit thinking about him before his shadow cleared the room.”

“What changed?”

“I was a foolish man. I sent a young, good-looking boy over to the house to perform chores I didn’t have the time to do and that Carrie’s son wouldn’t do. Last year, I asked Jay to help her decorate the house for Christmas. When I went home that night, they were drinking cider and draping garland around the bannisters. They weren’t really talking. She gave him orders, but otherwise, didn’t seem to notice him. But she kept touching her hair and giggling nervously. This job has taught me a lot about human nature and body language. That night, I knew they had been carrying on like I knew my own name. I don’t know how long it had been going on by that point. I just know that I put it out of my mind. I refused to acknowledge what I knew to be true. It wasn’t until later that I accepted the truth. It wasn’t until she told me she was pregnant.”

“Did you know immediately that Mira wasn’t your –,” Maggie corrected herself, “was Jay’s biological baby?”

“I think so, but again, I wouldn’t admit it, not even to myself. Besides, I had an answer. I thought my surgeon had messed up the vasectomy. I don’t want people around here to know my business, so all my doctors are in Lexington. I made an appointment with the doctor who had performed the surgery and asked him to check things out. He did. He hadn’t messed up my surgery and that confirmed what I had feared for months. Carrie had been seeing Jay.”

“When I talked to Carrie, she was adamant that you didn’t suspect her of cheating with Jay. But if you’ve had a vasectomy, then she should have known that you knew you couldn’t have fathered Mira.” Steve raised one eyebrow, prompting Maggie to say, “Carrie didn’t know about the vasectomy, did she?”

“No. When we got together, she said she didn’t want more children, so I didn’t see any need to tell her.”

“Weren’t you afraid she’d find out?”

“From who? The only people who know about it are my doctor and his staff and my ex-wife. Even if the doctor wasn’t in Lexington, he’s bound by confidentiality. And my ex-wife is an alcoholic and drug addict who can’t keep her days straight. Even if she hasn’t forgotten about the surgery, nobody would believe anything she said.”

“So, after your doctor’s appointment, you knew it was Jay?” When Steve nodded, Maggie said, “Why didn’t you confront him? Why didn’t you confront Carrie?”

“I couldn’t. I was afraid that if everything came out in the open, she’d leave me.”

“For a boy half –”

“For a boy half her age? That’s okay. You can say it. And if he’s half her age, what about me? I’m more than thirty years older than Jay.”

“Surely you couldn’t have thought she would leave you for him. Where were they going to live? With his pappaw?”

“Maybe she would have stayed with me, but what about Jay? What if he had wanted visitation?”

“So, you killed him to keep him from his child?”

“It’s not like I planned it. When I asked Jay to meet me at that family cemetery that morning, I didn’t have any notion of hurting a hair on his head. I asked him to go up there with me to center up a footstone. I don’t know if we had set it wrong or if the ground had caused it to move. But I was determined to make everything right for that nice old widow. When she called me to tell me it wasn’t centered, she apologized for complaining. You can’t blow off people like her. You can’t blow off the bereaved.”

Maggie cleared her throat. “So, about Jay …”

“As I walked up the hill, I saw him resting against a tree. He looked so young, so carefree. Just the sight of him acting like he didn’t have a care in the world made me sick to my stomach. Thinking of how he had ruined everything made me nauseous.” Steve removed his wire rim glasses and cleaned them with the hem of his jacket. Returning his glasses to the bridge of his nose, he said, “My first marriage was a disaster. My wife drank herself into a stupor every day and when that wasn’t enough, she added pills to the mix. I tried to keep it together for our boys, but one day I realized they’d be better off without her. And they were. After I divorced her, I concentrated on work and my boys. I rarely dated and never considered remarrying.” He smiled. “And then I met Carrie. She was my salvation. When I think back to all the battles I had with my ex-wife and when I hear other men complaining about their wives, I laugh. Carrie and I rarely disagree. Yes, I express my displeasure with her lazy son and she and my mother do not get along, but we work alongside each other and then go home together. I spend just about every day with her and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Steve touched Maggie’s arm and said, “You know, when I think of my life with Carrie, I sing that song by Alabama. You know the one I’m talking about?” When Maggie shook her head, Steve said, “She’s close enough to perfect for me. My life was close to perfect. At least it was until Jay came along. When I saw him standing on that hill, it all became so clear to me. He was a reminder of Carrie’s infidelity. He was a reminder that the baby wasn’t my biological child. With him out of the picture, we could continue on and welcome a new addition to our close-enough-to-perfect lives. It would be as if the affair had never occurred. And, you know, that’s exactly what happened. These last few months with Carrie and Mira have been the most wonderful time of my life.”

Maggie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You killed him because his existence was inconvenient for you?”

“No, it was, well, it was like this – when I picked up that branch, I was thinking about how everything could go back to the way it should have been if he would just go away. And I wanted to protect my family. If he had made a claim on the baby, everything would have gotten so messy. I didn’t want Carrie to have to go through that. I didn’t want all that stress in our lives.”

You didn’t want to accept reality, Maggie thought. “What did you do with him? His family has a right to know where he is.”

“You’re right. They do. That has laid on my heart.” When Steve said, “It really has,” Maggie realized the skepticism she felt in her head also must be splashed across her face. “As soon as it was over and I realized what I had done, I fell onto the ground and cried. I hadn’t cried since my dad died fourteen years earlier. I kept thinking about Gentry. I knew his heart would be broken. I pulled out my cell phone to dial 9-1-1. I knew I needed to confess and face the consequences. But I didn’t have service. That gave me some time to think. Jay was past helping and Gentry’s heart would be broken no matter what course I took. I interpreted the lack of cell service as a sign that I needed to think things through before making a move.”

“You didn’t interpret it as a sign that we have spotty service here in the hills?”

“You don’t understand. It’s not that I felt God was sending me the message that he condoned what I had done. That’s not what I meant. It just gave me a chance to think. So, I sat there and thought about it and then I dragged Jay farther up the mountain and hid him under some brush. Then, I drove his truck even farther up the mountain. That cemetery is on a hill up the head of a holler. You can’t access it by car. You need a four-wheel drive or an ATV. It’s that remote. You can’t see it from the road, either. Even if you could, it’s rare that a car drives up there, so I wasn’t too worried about anybody spotting the truck or finding him. Still, it was an anxiety-filled day. I had an appointment with a family that had just lost their mother. After helping them arrange the services, I told Carrie that my mom’s neighbor needed her creek cleaned out. That gave me an excuse to load the backhoe on our flatbed without Carrie or anybody else asking too many questions. It’s like I told you, Carrie and my mom don’t get along, so I knew she’d never ask my mom about her neighbor’s creek.”

“That was really convenient for you, and it’s a good thing you’re a funeral director and have access to heavy machinery.”

This time, Steve didn’t comment on Maggie’s sarcasm. “It had started raining by the time I got back to the cemetery. I unloaded the backhoe and drove it up the mountain until I found an appropriate place. It was between two oak trees. All things considered, there are worse places to spend eternity. It’s really a pretty area. I don’t know if I dug out six feet, but I came close. Then, I hiked back to the cemetery on foot, dragged Jay to his truck, and drove him up the hill to his final resting spot. After I put the dirt back in the grave, I found some brush to cover it up. I couldn’t take the risk that people joyriding up there on their four-wheelers or hunters looking for game would question all that fresh dirt.” He shook his head. “I won’t lie to you, as I stood there taking it all in, I felt relief. I thought I had covered my bases. Then I turned around, saw his truck, and I realized I had to do something with it.”

“What did you do?”

“I loaded the backhoe on the flatbed and sat in Jay’s truck and thought. By this time, the rain was coming down in sheets and it was getting dark. I thought about digging a hole big enough and pushing the truck into it and burying it, but there’s no way I could have found enough brush to cover that much fresh dirt. There’s a good chance somebody would have gotten suspicious. I rested my head on the dashboard until it came to me. There was this guy who used to work for me named Waylon –”

Maggie gasped. “Gentry mentioned him.”

“Really?” Steve said. “What did he say?”

“I don’t know,” Maggie admitted. “I wasn’t really paying attention. I was more interested in his name, but there was something about him and a guy named Pete.”

Steve smiled. “Waylon was a good worker and a good guy. He moved to Virginia about a decade ago and bought a salvage yard. I knew that if I could get the truck to Waylon, he’d junk it and never ask questions because that’s the kind of man he is. When the other fellows would be gossiping or speculating on how somebody or another could afford to drive an expensive car or build a new deck onto their houses, Waylon would say, ‘Pete takes care of his own fence.’ One day, I asked him what he meant by that and he said, ‘Pete takes care of what’s his and I take care of what’s mine. Ain’t none of my business what Pete does with his.’”

Maggie resisted the urge to ask if Pete were a real person. “Is that what happened? Did he take the truck without asking questions?”

“He did. I drove it over there that night. I called him before I left and he met me at his junkyard. He didn’t ask why I was practically giving him a truck.” For the first time in several minutes, Steve looked at Maggie. “I felt I had to charge him a nominal amount for the truck. Waylon keeps to himself, but even he might question a free vehicle. I thought it was blood money, though, and I donated it anonymously to Gentry’s church.” Steve cast his eyes downward. “Anyway, Waylon drove me back to Geneva County that night. Actually, by that time, it was probably early morning. He let me out about a mile from that cemetery. I walked up there, got the flatbed, and drove home. I showered and slipped into bed beside Carrie, but I couldn’t sleep.”

“Didn’t you worry that Waylon would take an interest in Pete’s business or that he would keep the truck for himself?”

“Sometimes. Well, not about him keeping the truck. I knew he would keep his word and junk it. But the worry would hit me at odd times. I’d be helping a family pick a verse to include on the obituary cards or brushing my teeth and I’d think, ‘Waylon.’ I imagined all sorts of scenarios where he’d run into Gentry or one of the other guys who’d tell him about Jay. They’d mention the truck and Waylon would immediately put the pieces together. But it didn’t eat at me. I knew Waylon would keep to himself.”

“So, you felt as if you were home free?”

“Oh, no, not at all. The guilt would wake me in the night or stab at me when I talked to Gentry. I almost told him that day when he called and asked if I’d seen Jay. And one day,” Steve bent his head, “it wasn’t long before you first came here, I called him out of the blue with the intention of telling him. But,” he shrugged, “I didn’t. As much as I love Carrie and my sons and my mother, I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Mira. I love that baby. I loved her before she was born. I love her enough to kill for her.”

Before Maggie could digest that twisted observation, Steve said, “Let me ask you something. How did you know about Carrie and Jay?”

“I thought you said it didn’t matter.”

“No, I said it didn’t matter how you figured out I had killed Jay. I know you don’t owe me anything, but I’d like to know how you found out about the affair.”

“His second girlfriend told me Jay had another lady friend, a married woman named Carrie.”

Steve made a tsking sound with his mouth. “Jay had two other women besides Carrie. You’d think that would have been enough for him. But he just had to go too far. He just had to have Carrie, too. I’m not saying what I did was right or excusing myself, but if he had left her alone, he’d still be alive.”

“If he had left her alone,” Maggie said, closing her notepad, “there would be no Mira.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Gentry and Belinda Harris had been gushing over Maggie’s investigative skills since she joined them in the Dinner Bucket Diner thirty minutes prior.

“The police could learn something from you.”

Belinda agreed with her father-in-law. “Yeah, she did what they couldn’t – or wouldn’t – do.”

Maggie had spotted Seth sitting in a booth with other Jasper City Police officers as soon as she had walked into the restaurant. Gentry and Belinda didn’t use inside voices, and Maggie was sure the officers heard them. She hoped Seth wasn’t taking their complaints to heart.

“I’m just glad I could help you find out what happened to Jay,” Maggie said.

“You did more than that,” Belinda said, “you found Jay’s daughter.”

Maggie debated on whether to ask Belinda if she had approached Carrie about Mira. Belinda, who must have read the hesitation on Maggie’s face, said, “I called Carrie when I got to Gentry’s and told her I’d be in Kentucky for a few days. I told her I wanted to see my granddaughter while I was here. She said it wasn’t a good time for her. I said, ‘I know. Your husband was just arrested for killing my son and throwing him in a hole like he was a dead possum he found in his yard. But that’s not my problem. How does tomorrow afternoon work for you?’”

“That’s where we’re going after this,” Gentry said. “Over to Steve’s.” As he said the name, Gentry winced. “I never would have imagined Steve would have had anything to do with this. Back in the summer, after all this happened with Jay, he had one of the boys at the funeral home bring a load of gravel to the house. They filled in my driveway.”

“That was the actions of a guilty man,” Belinda said.

“I know, but he seemed to like Jay. Of course,” he sighed, “I can’t say I approve of Jay sworping and running around with married women. But he did not deserve to die for it. I also can’t believe that Waylon was messed up in this.”

“I guess he’ll ask a few questions the next time somebody shows up with a truck to junk.” Belinda balled her hands into fists. “When I think about how hard Junebug worked for that truck ... It was the only new vehicle he ever owned and he never missed a payment on it. That’s just another beautiful part of my life that Steve ruined. And the way he lied to you for all those months, Gentry. I don’t know how people live with themselves,”

“People can convince themselves of anything,” Maggie said. “I think the worst lies are the ones we tell to ourselves.”

Belinda and Gentry considered Maggie’s words a moment before Belinda said, “Gentry, we’d better get going. I can’t wait to get my hands on that baby.”

Standing, Gentry said to Maggie, “We sure thank you, little lady. Now, don’t you make a stranger of yourself. You and Sylvie better come over for supper one night. I make pretty good chili, if I do say so myself.”

Maggie promised Gentry she’d take him up on that offer and said her goodbyes. As she collected her purse and pulled on her coat, she imagined dinner conversation between Gentry and Sylvie and smiled. She was in the process of creating dialogue for them when she noticed Seth standing by the table.

“Hey,” she said. “I’m sorry if my dining companions said anything out of the way.”

“They didn’t say anything I haven’t said to myself.”

“You have a lot of cases and –”

Seth held up his hand. “The entire department is viewing this as a,” he smiled, “teachable moment. Besides, I’m just happy somebody solved this. No matter what the Harrises think of me, I’m glad you’ve given them some answers.”

“Me, too.”

“I wasn’t eavesdropping, but I heard they’re visiting the baby. Carrie Fletcher doesn’t want to let them see her. But, get this, Steve told her it’s the right thing to do.”

“How do you know this?”

He grinned. “Guards eavesdrop on conversations between inmates and their visitors. As long as they’re not privileged conversations, of course.”

“Of course,” Maggie agreed. “I heard Carrie was standing by Steve. Maybe she thinks it’s romantic that he killed his much younger rival for her affections.”

“She’s standing by him for now. Her legs might get tired after he serves a few years in prison.”

Maggie laughed. “I also heard she’s running the funeral home.”

“For now. That’s another thing. She wanted to fire W.L. Murphy, but Steve told her to keep him.”

Good, Maggie thought.

“You know, I’ve been wondering how W.L. got that job. I can’t find the connection between him and the funeral home. You have any ideas?”

Maggie knew he was teasing her, but she refused to take the credit for helping W.L. get the job. “You’ll have to solve that mystery on your own, Detective Heyward.”

“Speaking of W.L., before you followed the clues and fingered Steve, I had this wild theory that Curtis Moore had killed Jay and attacked W.L. I interviewed W.L. and ran my theory by him, but he said his brother brained him.”

“Oh.” Maggie hoped her face didn’t look as hot as it felt.

“Yeah, he had some crazy story about G.L. turning him in for poaching and how G.L. had hit him in the head to make up for it. Then he quit talking and I asked, ‘Is that all?’ He said, ‘Yeah. It all makes sense, don’t it?’ It didn’t, but he refused to press charges, so I called it good and moved on.”

What a relief, Maggie thought.

“So,” Seth shoved his hands into his coat pockets. “I talked to Edie the other day. She shared her good news. At first, she said she was afraid to tell me. She thought it would make me sad. But that’s the best news I’ve heard in months. She also told me your news. I’m sorry, Maggie.”

She hunched her shoulders and held them in that position a few seconds before letting them fall. “It’s just one of those things.”

“I know you’re hurting, but give it some time. Then, if you decide you want to talk, you’ll know where to find me.”

Other Books by Michelle Goff

Murder on Sugar Creek

Murder at Catfish Corner