1 Murder on Sugar Creek (13 page)

Chapter Twenty

Although Maggie’s photo had been
appearing alongside her column for years, it always startled her when strangers
approached her at the grocery store or doctor’s office. Sometimes, they
referred to her only as “the girl that writes for the paper.” Other times, they
knew her name and remembered tidbits from past columns including her phobia of ventriloquists
and her fascination with retaining walls. Yet, her status as a minor celebrity
never made her feel apprehensive. That is, it didn’t until she walked into the
Jasper library for her meeting with the phantom emailer.

As Maggie entered the building and
approached the front desk, she couldn’t help but feel that everyone was staring
at her. She recognized the folly of her thoughts. As far as she knew, only one
of the dozen or so people milling about the shelves of books or employing the
bank of computers anticipated her arrival. But she had no way of identifying
that one person. Could it be the heavy-set man flipping through a magazine or
maybe the bespectacled woman slumping in a chair?

I can’t stand here all day, Maggie
said to herself, I have to keep moving or I’ll attract attention. That’s when
she saw her. Maggie didn’t know who she had been expecting to find, but it
wasn’t the wild-haired woman who locked eyes with her from the corner of the
room. Maggie didn’t like to be rude, even in thought, but the lady’s hair
reminded her of the wig Edie had worn with her witch costume at Halloween. The
black, platinum, and ash-colored ringlets grew out of the woman’s head like
roots from a tree. Maggie wondered if the hair felt heavy and longed to touch
it.

“Hi, I’m Maggie,” she said when she
reached the table. She took the woman’s slight nod as an invitation to sit and
pulled out a chair. “Thanks for meeting me.” Never the kind of reporter who met
unnamed sources for classified information that would break an investigative
report, Maggie felt unsure about whether to dispense with pleasantries or to
cut to the chase. She chose the latter. “You worked with Mac?”

“Yeah, at the nursing home. I was –
am – the administrative assistant for the maintenance department.”

“What’s your name?”

“Is that necessary? I told you, I
don’t want this in the paper.”

“It won’t be. I just like to know
who I’m talking to.”

The lady buried her head in her
hands. “I guess it’s okay. You know where I work and what I look like. I’m
Jenny.”

Between the clanking sound the
metal bangles Jenny wore around her wrists produced when she rested her hands
on the table and her lavish head of hair, Maggie decided Jenny was well past
worrying about anonymity.

“So, Jenny, was Mac your boss?”

“Yeah. And, you know, as much as I
don’t like him, I have to admit that he was a good boss. Believe me, I’ve had
worse. When I started working at the nursing home, I was a young single mother
of two little girls. Mac never got upset when I had to miss work because they
were sick or because daycare fell through. Even now, I appreciate that. Most
bosses give lip service to ‘family first,’ but Mac practiced what he preached.”

“But there had to be a problem or
you wouldn’t have contacted me.”

Jenny laid her head on the table
and put her hands around the back of her neck. “Ahh,” she said as she pulled
herself together. “Mac was not a good person. I’ve tried not to linger on this.
I thought I had gotten past it. After all, it’s been years. But then he was
killed and you wrote those stories about him and it all came back. He wasn’t
the person you made him out to be in the paper. He was a liar and a thief.”

Jenny’s information didn’t exactly
qualify as breaking news to Maggie. “How so?” she asked.

“He had a few schemes going. I
guess you know that the company we work for, well, in Mac’s case, the company
he worked for, is based in Jasper, but they operate nursing homes across the
region.” When Maggie nodded, Jenny continued, “Each of those nursing homes had
one pop machine and one snack machine that we owned and operated. Mac skimmed
the money from those machines.”

Well, Maggie thought, at least he
branched out of the embezzlement tree. “How?”

“It was actually pretty easy to
do,” Jenny said. “Mac’s bosses didn’t know how much money should have been in
those machines at any given time. He emptied the machines, kept so much for
himself, and deposited the rest. He cleaned out the machines about once a month.
It’s a guess, but I’ll say he took home around a hundred and fifty dollars each
time. That’s eighteen hundred dollars a year and I know he did this for at
least four years.”

“How do you know this?”

“Get this.” When Jenny placed her
hands face down on the table, more clanking ensued. “The change is heavy, so he
always took a helper. One day, all of the guys were busy, so I helped him. I’m
good with numbers and I counted the sacks. When we got to the bank, there was
one missing. I thought it might be a fluke or an accident, so I started
volunteering to go with him. And it was the same thing, every time.” Jenny held
up her clanking hands, “Easy money and it can’t be traced.”

“But how?” Maggie asked. “It should
have been easy to figure out how much money the vending machines were supposed
to yield.”

“I’m sure it would have been easy,
but nobody was watching. Mac stocked the machines, too. He did provide the finance
office with receipts, but no one multiplied and divided and figured out how
much money we were supposed to get from the machines. As long as there was a profit,
they didn’t look too close.”

“I almost don’t want to ask this
question, but you said he had more than one scheme?”

“Yeah. He also charged the nursing
home more for everything from painting a room to installing a door than it
actually costs. And, sometimes, he charged them a few hundred bucks for moving
a couple desks from one office building to another.”

“This doesn’t make sense,” Maggie
said. “He was in charge of the maintenance department, so I don’t understand how
he could charge them for work his department did.”

Jenny scratched her head with her
clanging hand. “Things have changed now, but at that time, maintenance had more
work than they could handle. Mac convinced them it would cost more money to
hire a couple guys than it would to use a contractor. And since Mac was so
‘honest,’” Jenny used air quotes to emphasize the word, “they believed him.”

Maggie knew where this was heading.
“And this contractor?”

“He was in on it. They split the
pot. Had to.”

Although she already knew the
answer, Maggie asked, “Who was the contractor?”

“What was his name?” Jenny snapped
her fingers in an effort to jog her memory. “It was an animal name.”

“Bug?”

“Yeah, that’s it. He was the guy
you interviewed. He was Mac’s cousin.”

“How much do you think they
skimmed?”

“Gosh, this is just a guess, but
I’d say at least ten grand a year.”

“Each?” Maggie didn’t realize how
loudly she had spoken until the heavy-set man quit flipping through a magazine
and stared at her. “Each?” she repeated in her inside voice.

“Yeah.”

“Does that include the vending
machine money?”

“No. That was straight-up Mac. This
Bug person probably didn’t even know that was going on. And Mac also bought
materials wholesale from a company in exchange for adding them to the nursing
home’s vendor list. I can’t prove it, but I think that’s how he floored his
store. He probably picked up some shelves and freezers free or at drastically
reduced prices along the way, too.”

Despite everything Maggie had
already learned about Mac’s character, she couldn’t believe her ears. “And he
and Bug kept this, uh, scheme, going on for four years?”

“At least. That’s how long I worked
for Mac, but he had been there for two years when I started.”

“And nobody noticed anything?”

“I don’t know about the higher-ups,
but I think the guys in maintenance noticed something. I never talked about it
to anyone, though. I knew it was wrong, but I had two kids to support. I’ve
always felt bad about it, but no one at the nursing home can find out I so much
as suspected anything. I’ve been there for a long time and I make a pretty good
salary for around here. My girls will be in college soon and, now, I have even
more to lose than I did then.”

One aspect of the story troubled
Maggie. “If Mac had such a good thing going, why walk away?”

“He saw the end coming when the nursing
home advertised for a purchasing clerk. He left before the position was filled.
Oh, and he left a few months after his dad died, so he used that cover story
about buying the property and building the store with his ‘inheritance.’” Once
again, Jenny used air quotes for accentuation.

“Did Bug’s company continue
contracting with the nursing home after Mac left?”

“Oh, no, they cut that out.
Everything runs more efficiently now.”

“Did Mac know you suspected him?”

“I don’t think so. Mac was one of
those people who thought he was smarter than everyone. He wouldn’t have dreamed
that somebody was onto him.” Jenny re-arranged her bangles and checked her
watch. “I have to get back to work. It was nice to talk to you. You’re much
prettier in person. The picture in the paper doesn’t do you justice.”

Maggie blushed at the compliment
and stood and shook Jenny’s hand. “Thanks for talking to me. I know it couldn’t
have been easy.”

Jenny nodded and walked away. She had
no more clanked out of Maggie’s earshot before Maggie’s cell phone rang. When
she saw Seth’s name and number pop up on the ID, she said, “Great,” and pressed
accept.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hey. You at lunch?”

“No, well, yeah.” Maggie made her
way out of the library and toward her car.

Seth laughed. “Which is it?”

“I am at lunch, but I’m not eating.
I had an appointment, so I’ll just eat at my desk. What’s going on?”

“I had a hunch about the Honaker
case, so I did some digging around.”

Maggie unlocked her car door and
scrambled inside. The gray November day had succeeded in making her cold and
she couldn’t wait to return to the office and heat up leftover chili. “Is this
about Kevin’s mystery weed eaters?”

“No, it’s about the security
cameras in the store.”

Maggie turned the key in the car’s
ignition and cranked up the heat. “Oh. What was the hunch?”

“I remembered hearing about the attempted
robberies at the store and I thought I might see a familiar face on the
security cameras.”

“But the cameras didn’t work.”

“Actually, they did.”

“No way.”

“You know my buddy who works for
the security company? You know, he installed your security system?”

“Yeah,” Maggie buckled her seat
belt.

“Well, I talked to him and, sure
enough, he installed and maintained Mac’s system as well. He said Mac upgraded to
a digital system about a year or so ago. Everything went straight to Mac’s
computer. After each of the attempted break-ins, he went over there and performed
a routine maintenance checkup, just to make sure everything was working right.
Mac showed him the surveillance videos.”

“So, who tried to break into his
store?”

“I don’t know, but it looked like the
same couple of guys each time. They were wearing dark clothes and those
facemasks that hunters wear.”

Maggie put the car in reverse. “At
least you tried.”

“There’s more. Mac also had cameras
inside the store.”

“No one mentioned that.”

“Maybe they didn’t know. They were
hidden inside lights.”

“That Mac,” Maggie said as she
looked over her shoulder to check for oncoming traffic. “He was such a sneak.”

Seth chuckled. “One of the cameras
was located over the cash register. Several months back, well before the
attempted robberies, Mac contacted my buddy. He was having trouble pulling up
the feed on his computer. My buddy went over there and walked him through it.
And guess who he saw swiping money out of the register?”

“Kevin?”

“No, but I think it’s interesting
that he was your first guess. It was a younger boy wearing a Duke cap.”

“Corey!” In her excitement, Maggie
lifted her foot off the brake pedal and rolled down a slope and onto the
street. Screeching tires alerted her to potential danger and she immediately
switched gears and pulled into the parking space.

“What’s going on there? Where are
you? Are you okay?” Seth asked.

“I’m fine. It’s nothing.” She took
a moment to compose herself before asking, “How did he remember something like
that? It’s been months.”

“Are you serious? This is Kentucky. Of course, he’s going to remember a perp wearing a Duke cap. Who is this Corey
person anyway?”

“He’s Dottie’s grandson.”

“Hmm. That’s interesting.”

“Do you think he could have been one
of the attempted robbers?”

“It’s hard to say, but if he was
stealing in broad daylight, I don’t know why he would go to the trouble of
trying to break in at night.”

Thoughts ran through Maggie’s mind
like mice through a maze.

“This looks good for Kevin,” she
said.

“Not necessarily. Don’t forget
those mystery weed eaters.”

“I haven’t. But there’s something
else. If the cameras were working, then they could have captured Mac’s killer.
Why hasn’t anyone checked them?”

“They did check them. They weren’t
working.”

“Why would he suddenly turn them
off?”

“I don’t know, but just sit tight
and let me see what else I can find out. I mean it, Maggie. Don’t make me
regret helping you.”

Maggie had no plans to sit tight.
Once she had time to process the information she had gleaned from Seth and
Jenny, she knew what she had to do.

Chapter Twenty-One

Maggie returned to Dottie’s house
bearing a gift, a pink notepad decorated with strawberries.

“I found this at the thrift store and
thought of you.” When Maggie spotted the notepad, she bought it with plans to
give it to Dottie as a Christmas present. For the past three days, she had been
reminding herself to get it out of the car and take it inside her house. After
her impromptu decision to visit Dottie, she felt grateful for her poor memory.
She also questioned her own sanity for buying a gift for a woman she now
suspected of murder.

Dottie held the notepad to her
chest. “That is so thoughtful. Like I told you that first day, it means so much
when someone cares enough to remember you. Come on into the kitchen. I’m making
fried apple pies.”

“Do you need some help?”

“No, but you can keep me company.”

Maggie stood at the end of the
countertop and watched Dottie flatten canned biscuit dough with a rolling pin.
“Dottie, I was wondering if I could ask you a question.”

“Shoot.” Dottie spooned cooked
apple filling into the dough, folded one side of the dough over the other, and
pressed the edge of the pie with a floury fork.

“It’s about the security cameras at
Mac’s store.”

Dottie dropped the pie into a kettle
of popping grease. “I told you everything I know about those cameras.”

“Well, this is about the cameras
inside the store.”

Dottie’s jaw tightened.

“Do you know anything about those
cameras? Do you know anything about somebody stealing money from the cash
register?”

Dottie let a canned biscuit fall to
the countertop. “How do you know?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does. Who else knows?”
When Maggie answered by chewing the inside of her mouth and biting her lip,
Dottie said, “Oh, my God.” She started crying and used the stove as support.

“Here,” Maggie motioned for her to
move away from the stove. “You’re going to get burned. Let me take care of the
pies.”

Maggie didn’t expect Dottie to
volunteer the information. She figured she’d have to coax the story out of her,
but as soon as she collapsed into a chair, Dottie began talking. “Mac knowed
there was some money missing.”

“Did you know about the cameras?”

“Not the ones in the store and I
wasn’t sure about the ones outside. He said they didn’t work, but I never put
much stock in that. That never made no sense to me. Why go to all that trouble
and expense to install them if you wasn’t going to use them?”

“Did you know about the missing
money?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t much at first, so
I figured one of us had counted wrong. After it went on for a while, I reckon Mac
thought I was stealing, so he looked at those videos on the computer. That’s
when he saw my Corey taking the money. If he had just come to me about it
then.”

Maggie stopped rolling the biscuit.
“You mean he waited?”

Dottie’s eyes watered. “He waited
months. He waited until Corey had stole enough to make it a felony. That’s when
he told me. He accused me of being in on it. I promised him I’d pay him back,
and I did. Every penny. But that wasn’t enough for him.”

Maggie used tongs to extract a deep
brown pie from the grease. She placed it on a platter lined with paper towels. With
her chore accomplished, she pulled out the chair beside Dottie’s. “What did Mac
do?”

“He threatened to fire me and to
press charges against Corey. He had all the evidence.” Maggie handed Dottie a
tissue. “I know Corey wouldn’t have served time. He had never been in trouble
before. Well, he had never been arrested before. But I couldn’t bear the
thought of him getting arrested and fingerprinted and thrown into jail even if
it was just for a few hours or, heaven forbid, the whole night. People don’t
remember that you’re released. They just remember that you were arrested.”

“That’s true,” Maggie agreed.

“That boy ain’t had it easy. My
daughter was no mother to him. She was too worried about running around and
having a good time. Even before we got custody, he spent most of his time here.
He’s been through so much. I couldn’t let him have no record. That would follow
him around forever. Wouldn’t nobody hire him after that.”

“What happened? What did Mac do to
you?”

“I reckon you call it blackmail.”

“Mac blackmailed you?” Maggie figured
Dottie, in her agitated state, had chosen the wrong word. “How could Mac have
blackmailed you?”

“Oh, Lord, I knowed it was wrong,
but I was protecting Corey. That don’t make it right, though.” Dottie ran a
hand through her hair, leaving white flakes of flour among the orange
highlights and silver strands. “He made me take part in that lottery racket.”

With that news, Maggie felt more
confused than ever. “A lottery racket?”

“Ever since he opened the store,
Mac had been, well, stealing lottery winnings from his customers.”

“How the –”

“It wasn’t everybody, but he had
figured out who he could scam even before I started working for him. Some of
those people came in there every day and scratched off dozens of tickets. And
they didn’t have the sense to figure out if they was winners. They’d show the
tickets to Mac and let him scan that little code. They counted on him to be
honest. Sometimes, he paid out. Other times, he lied and told them it was a
dud. I seen him steal as little as two dollars from some poor fool who probably
didn’t have the money to buy a can of Viennie. I also seen him steal thousands
of dollars. I got the impression that, to Mac, it wasn’t about the money as
much as it was about getting one over on somebody.”

Maggie popped her neck. “I guess I
can understand the small amounts, but thousands of dollars? How did he get by
with that? Didn’t he attract attention?”

“Don’t you remember seeing in the
paper where he won, let me see, I think it was five thousand once and ten
thousand another time? The same thing with Bug. I ain’t sure about the amounts,
but they was big sums of money.” Dottie sniffed. “Bug won even bigger once. I
think it was twenty- or twenty-five thousand.”

“You’re kidding,” Maggie exclaimed.
“I don’t remember seeing any of that.”

“You mean you don’t read your own
paper?”

“No, it’s just … I can’t remember every
little thing from every little story and advertisement.”

“Not even about people on Sugar
Creek?”

Dottie seemed as disappointed in
Maggie’s obliviousness to goings-on in her community as had Lena and Sylvie. “How
did this scam work?”

“Sort of like the other one, but I
don’t think Mac ever outright stole a big amount. I reckon he thought that
would be too dangerous. Anyway, some poor fool would win big and Mac would
convince him to take a cash payout.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Maggie
argued. “If Mac paid out, then how did he make any money?”

“He only gave them half or less.”

Maggie rubbed her temples. Her head
was starting to hurt. “Why would anybody agree to that?”

“Cause they didn’t know no better. Usually,
Mac told them the government would take at least half in taxes. Now, there was
one feller who didn’t want his wife to know about his winnings and another who
was afraid it would cut into his disability check and food stamps. If I’ve
learned one thing in this life, it’s that people are ignorant. Some of them
should walk around with a sign that says, ‘Take advantage of me.’” Dottie blew
her nose. “But I can’t blame them. It ain’t their fault they was so trusting. But
say somebody won a thousand dollars. Mac gave them half that, five hundred
dollars. You reckon taxes will take something like a third, so after he cashed
in the ticket, he walked away with about two hundred bucks.”

“And that’s two hundred bucks he
didn’t earn,” Maggie said to herself as much as to Dottie. “No one ever
wondered why he and Bug won that much money in the lottery?”

“Oh, yeah, they wondered. In fact,
people around Sugar Creek began to suspect something fishy was going on, so his
lottery sales slacked off. Or more customers only bought their tickets from me.
You see where I’m going?”

“He blackmailed you to make a few
hundred dollars? That’s –”

“Crazy? Oh, I don’t know what it
is. But I felt so bad telling those poor old ignorant fools that their tickets was
duds. I tried to tell myself that they didn’t have no reason to waste their
money on gambling anyway, but two wrongs don’t make a right. Lucky for me, I
only had a couple big winners. I didn’t take that first person’s money. I just
couldn’t make myself do it. I had forgot about that security camera behind the
register, but Mac hadn’t. He watched it and told me I had to run the racket on
the next one. Oh, how I prayed nobody would hit it big. But somebody did and as
much as I hated doing it, I talked her into taking the payout. I knowed Mac
kept money in the safe. He came down and opened it, but he made me give her the
money. I paid her two thousand in cash for a five thousand dollar winner. I
know that woman. She has three young’uns.”

“And Bug knew about this?”

“Mac split the money with him.”
Dottie untied her apron. “You want a pie? You did help make them.”

“I guess I can take one or two.”

“Want something to drink?”

“Water will do.”

Maggie took a bite of pie and said,
“This is delicious. You used just the right amount of apple pie spice and
cinnamon. And the apples are not too runny, either. Too much water will ruin
your pies.” She accepted a glass of water from Dottie. “Thank you. Dottie, why
weren’t the security cameras working the day Mac was killed?”

“That’s puzzled me,” Dottie said.
“When I said they didn’t work, I was repeating what Mac told everybody, but I
didn’t believe it. I figured they’d check the tapes, see they was working, and
identify Mac’s killer. But that ain’t happened. You mean to tell me they wasn’t
working?”

Not wanting to reveal too much,
Maggie said, “That appears to be the case. I have one more question. Do you
think Corey tried to break into the store?”

“Lord, no. I asked him, though. I
felt I had to cause, by that time, I had talked to him about stealing from the
register. He said it wasn’t him. And I do believe him. Besides, Mac knowed who
those boys was. That’s how I figured out the outside cameras worked. Oh, Mac
sneaked around, but I knowed what was going on. After somebody tried to break
into the store the first time, the man from the security company came to the
store and he and Mac was back in the office for a long time.” She shook her
head. “A few days after the second attempt, a boy that lives up the road and
his buddy came in to buy cigarettes. They was riding four-wheelers and had
masks pulled up over their heads. Mac asked them if they had broke into any
stores recently. They turned white as ghosts and Mac laughed. I ain’t no fool.
I put two and two together. Mac recognized their masks and maybe their
four-wheelers from the cameras. I just wished I had put two and two together
sooner when it came to Mac.”

“Do you think those boys could have
come back that morning and killed Mac?”

“No. That Mullins boy killed him.”

“Why are you so sure?”

Dottie
crinkled her eyes. “Who else could it have been?”

Maggie took a chance Bug would be
home and continued up Sugar Creek to see him. When she reached his porch, she
knocked on the door and rang the doorbell, but he didn’t answer. Just as she
turned to leave, she saw him walking across the road from his mother’s house.

“Hey, there, I didn’t expect to see
you darkening my door,” he said to her.

“I hope it’s not a problem.”

“Not a problem at all.” Bug pulled
a set of keys from his pocket and opened the door. “Come on in.”

Once inside the house, a sense of
foreboding overwhelmed Maggie. What if Bug was the killer? she asked herself.
She had come to his house without telling anyone her plans or whereabouts. She
speculated that he could kill her, bury her on his property, and push her car
into the river and no one would be the wiser.

“Well,” Bug nodded to the couch,
“sit down.” When Maggie complied, he added, “What can I do for you?”

She didn’t know how to begin. It
had been difficult enough to question Dottie about her grandson’s criminal
activity, but she didn’t know how to go about asking Bug to explain his
money-making scams. She rubbed her hands together.

“Are you cold? I like to keep it on
the chilly side myself, but I don’t mind turning up the heat for you.”

“No, no, I’m fine.” Maggie took a
deep breath and vomited the words. “I know about the lottery tickets.”

Bug blinked several times. “What do
you mean?”

“I know how you and Mac cheated,”
she reconsidered her choice of words, but continued, “yeah, cheated some
customers out of their lottery winnings.”

“Now, hold on, little lady. I don’t
appreciate you coming into my house and calling me a cheater and a thief. I
never stole nothing in my life.”

“I also know about how you and Mac
overcharged the nursing home and split the money. That’s how he was able to
finance his store, right? With money and supplies from the nursing home scam.
And maybe he still had some of the money he stole from his insurance clients
and the shoe store. That’s why he didn’t inherit anything from his dad, because
his dad paid restitution to those companies to keep Mac out of trouble.”

Maggie’s fears evaporated when Bug
fell back onto his recliner and let loose a loud painful sob. He cried for so
long and with such intensity that Maggie feared for his health.

“You need to calm down, Mr. Damron.
You’re going to make yourself sick.” She considered going to his side, but bent
to the words of caution that rang in her head. “Do you need a tissue? Or some
water?”

Bug picked up a blue handkerchief
that lay on the TV tray beside his recliner and blew his nose. “I’ll be okay.”
After some time, he spoke again. “I reckon Dottie told you about the lottery
tickets, but I can’t imagine why. I can’t imagine how you found out about the nursing
home. As far as I know, me and Mac was the only two who knew about that and
only one of us is still breathing.”