Tuesday, 7:12 a.m.
The old-fashioned black telephone rang as Maggie’s hand touched the guesthouse doorknob.
She picked it up before the second ring.
“Maggie! Come on up to the house. Evelyn’s made us breakfast.” Dallas Monroe’s voice boomed. “Just follow the path from the back door.”
He hung up before she could reply.
She wouldn’t have declined anyway. She had things to get straight with Monroe. Besides, she was hungry.
The path started as a narrow passageway between thickets of what Carson had identified as rhododendron bushes. Branches met overhead, creating a dim, moist tube. Just short of the main house, one side opened to a large oval of lawn bordered by beds with green shoots poking through the soil and climbing over the dried husks of last year’s plants.
“Come in, come in,” Monroe called. He held a door open in a one-story frame addition to the three-story brick house.
The warm scent of eggs and bacon wrapped around Maggie. She sucked it in with an unconscious inhalation.
“Wonderful, isn’t it?” He smiled widely as his hand at her back urged her into a long, narrow kitchen spattered with sunlight. “If you thought dinner was good, wait until you taste Evelyn’s breakfast.”
Maggie had briefly met Evelyn DuPree, a black woman with gray working its way from her hairline to the crown of her head, the night before. Now, she smiled, said hello, and gave Maggie the once-over in two seconds flat, before returning her attention to a pan of scrambled eggs. “Sit down. Dallas, get the girl juice and coffee.”
He waved Maggie to a seat at a table by the windows and quickly complied. He settled into his chair and Evelyn delivered plates with portions of eggs already on them, one in each hand and the third balanced against her forearm.
“Evelyn, my love, will you marry me?” Monroe breathed in, his eyes almost closed.
“No.”
“You wound me to the heart.”
“Remember you only eat like this every two weeks or you won’t have any heart at all.”
He faced Maggie with an air of pointedly ignoring Evelyn’s comment. “How do you like my little guesthouse, my dear?”
“It’s fine.” Evelyn’s forehead wrinkled at the curt word. Maggie added, “It’s lovely. Thank you for letting me stay there.”
“Not at all, not at all. Delighted.”
“There is one thing, Mo — Dallas. I’d like to have all the keys in my possession while I’m here.”
Her host emitted a gust of laughter. “My dear, you might as well ask me to give Sisyphus a hand with rollin’ that rock up the hill in hell — it’s as useless a task.”
Evelyn smiled. “He hands keys out like candy on Halloween. About all anybody has to do is show up and say Trick or Treat.”
“How many keys?”
Monroe lifted his hands. “I have no idea. I don’t recall askin’ for any of them back.”
Evelyn considered. “Scott, of course, and Rick Wade, and Eugene Tagner for a couple nights, and the sheriff. Before that, we had Ed Smith and Abner — one of the deputies — and of course J.D. You’d think Dallas was running Bedhurst’s version of Boys Town.”
“You know they’re all here for your cookin’ when it comes down to it, Evelyn, and you love havin’ guests.”
“At least this time it’s a woman,” Evelyn grumbled, but with a hint of a smile. “She’s bound to be better about bringing the garbage up to the bins, keeping the raccoons from rampaging.”
Maggie brought the conversation back on topic. “Carson stayed here?”
“After the trial,” Evelyn supplied, as Monroe ate. “Until he got his place in the woods squared away. Worked on it hard, but what with studying law and all, it took nearly two years.”
So, Carson had a key to the guesthouse, among a cast of thousands.
That misplaced tube of cleanser. Had she been forgetful? Or was there another explanation?
“You mind drivin’ this mornin’, Maggie? My car’s in for a tune-up.”
She jerked her attention back to Dallas. “Driving where?”
“Here and there. Talkin’ to folks who knew our victim well. That’s what J.D. and I are tacklin’ first thing. Figured you’d surely want to come along.”
“All those interviews were already done, besides the trial files will be delivered today.”
“Ah, Pan Wade’s case, yes. But people are out there.” He swept his arm in a gesture she remembered from the courtroom. “Files stay put, never changin’, but people don’t. Longer we wait, the more time for them to forget somethin’ about Laurel or remember somethin’ that never was.”
“About Laurel?” So his mind was also on comparing and contrasting the two murders, though, clearly he’d be searching for differences to put Carson in the clear. That was okay. She could make this work to her advantage. Still, no reason to make it too easy. No reason at all. “We’re supposed to get the sheriff up to date on Pan Wade’s murder. He doesn’t need his investigation duplicated.”
“How’re we to tell him if the cases are connected if we don’t know a thing about this murder? We gotta gather facts.”
She was being pushed. Any doubt was erased by the bright, curious way he watched her.
She didn’t like being pushed. Even when it was in the direction she wanted to go. Besides, it set a bad precedent to fall over at the first push.
“When will Scott have copies of the official transcript? If those are ready, we should—”
“Won’t be a while yet. Give the boy a chance.”
The first batch of material from Nancy wouldn’t arrive via messenger until later in the day. Besides, she wasn’t about to let Carson and Monroe go off on their own.
She paused, as if her mind weren’t made up. “All right. On the condition we start with the witness from Carson’s trial who heard Carson and Pan arguing — Teddie Barrett.”
“Hah! I showed on cross-examination he heard nothing of the kind.”
“You took advantage of him, confused him, and—”
“Stop!” Evelyn commanded. “Leave that behavior in the courtroom, it’s not fit for the breakfast table. Now, Dallas, you tell this girl straight out that poor boy died four years ago.” To Maggie she said, “He was riding his bike out Falls Road like he liked to, and somebody must’ve hit him, knocked him and his bike right off the bridge and down I don’t know how far, poor soul.”
“Hit and run? He was killed in a hit and run?”
“That’s right. Hit and run accident. Though how they can call it an accident I don’t know when somebody’s so evil he doesn’t stop to help, especially a soul as harmless as Teddie Barrett.”