Murder at Catfish Corner: A Maggie Morgan Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page B

plain grilled chicken sandwich, small fries, and a cup of water –
Maggie chose a table and waited on Stella, who stopped to chat with everyone in
the restaurant. When Stella finally joined her, Maggie said, “It’s a shame
Sassafras isn’t incorporated as a town.”
    “Why’s that?”
Stella asked.
    “Because you
could run for mayor and win in a landslide. You know everyone.”
    Stella laughed.
“I taught at Sassafras High School for more years than I care to admit. If you
weren’t my student, then you were my student’s parents, grandparents, or
children.”
    When Stella bit
into a footlong hot dog with chili, mustard, and slaw, Maggie couldn’t help but
feel envious.
    “Mmm,” Stella rolled
her eyes as she chewed the hot dog. “You should have tried one of these. I know
hot dogs are bad for you and I don’t even want to guess what kind of
ingredients are in a hot dog wiener, but this is my weakness. About once a
month, I indulge.” Stella took another bite and groaned.
    “I’m trying to
behave,” Maggie said.
    Stella wiped her
mouth and said, “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Earl David, but Hazel
called the pay lake an eyesore and Earl David’s customers riff-raff. I told her
that I might come up here one day and spend a peaceful day fishing beside that
beautiful lake. She didn’t complain much after that.”
    “How long has
the lake been there?”
    “Five years or
so. He opened it around the time Hazel’s husband left her. That was not a good
time for my sister. How do you think it’s going so far?”
    “It’s hard to
say. We’ll know more after we talk to everyone else.”
    “Let me ask you
something. Why did you ask Earl David about the height of the fence?”
    “Partly, because
I was curious. Maybe I watch too much Investigation Discovery, but I would
expect people to do what I suggested to Earl David – hop over that fence and
cast a line. More important, I wanted to learn if that was a problem. If people
were hanging out at night, then maybe Hazel saw or heard something.” Maggie
chomped on a fry. “But that doesn’t seem to be the case.”
    “Of course not,
because Earnest killed her.”
    “We need to keep
an open mind.”
    “That’s your job
and you’re doing really well. Why, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to ask about
the fence or whether it was locked and I didn’t think anything about her
pajamas being out of place and the unmade bed didn’t sound an alarm, either.”
    “You would have
eventually put everything together,” Maggie said. “Besides, you are grieving.
You can’t be expected to notice everything.”
    “We’ll head over
to our old homeplace next and talk to Hazel’s renter,” Stella wrinkled her nose
as if she had just caught a whiff of tainted meat, “Fallon.”
    “Oh, what was
she renting?”
    “Our mother’s
house. Hazel inherited it. At first, she rented it to a friend of the family
and, after that, to our cousin’s son, but for the past couple years, Fallon has
been living there. I’m sure she’s a nice girl and at least she works and tries
to provide for her little boy. It’s not her fault the little boy’s daddy can’t
stay employed long enough to pay child support for more than a month or two at
a time. But, my goodness, the thought of that girl sitting at my mother’s table
and sleeping in my mother’s bed was hard to take. It wasn’t as bad when a
friend or someone in the family lived there. Of course, I know Fallon’s family,
so perhaps that’s colored my opinion of her. I taught most of the family in
school. Her mother named her after a character from that show, Dynasty ,
if that tells you anything. Then Fallon turned around and named her little boy
after one of those vampires in those silly little books.” Stella wiped her
mouth with a napkin. “But what can you do?”
    Maggie, who had
named her dog after a character in her favorite British mystery series, did not
intend to debate the merits of selecting