50% Off Murder (Good Buy Girls) (18 page)

“As scintillating as discussing my wardrobe is, I have bigger news,” Maggie said. She then told Ginger all about her conversation with Claire.

“Oh, wow,” Ginger said. “This certainly fits in with what I’ve found out about Templeton so far.”

“What do you know?”

“His venture capital company is really just a giant shark swallowing up any guppies stupid enough to invest with him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay, you know how the country is in an economic bust, partly because people used their houses for ATMs and took out home equity loans at high interest rates, and then found when their home values tanked that they now owed more than their homes were worth?”

“Yeah,” Maggie said. She felt her tightwad insides pinch at the thought.

“Well, Templeton’s venture capital company pretty much did that with all of the small businesses they financed. If I’m reading the financials right, he loaned money, waited for the company to fail, and then swooped in and bought them out.”

“So, he was like the black death of financing,” Maggie said.

“He was definitely a parasite,” Ginger agreed. “And of
course his real profit came when he unloaded the dead business onto a new buyer.”

“Well, that would certainly give someone a motive to kill him,” Maggie said.

“Agreed. So, what next?” Ginger asked.

“I have to go in to work,” Maggie said. “But then I want to meet with Max and see how this new information will affect getting Claire out of jail.”

“It might not help her,” Ginger said, chewing her lip.

“Why, because she committed a crime as a youth?”

“No, because she fled a crime scene before,” Ginger sighed. “She may be perceived as a flight risk.”

“I didn’t think of that.”

“What can I do to help?” Ginger asked.

“For starters, would you mind dropping me off at work?” Maggie asked. “I can hoof it back to get my car later. I’m afraid Summer is going to camp out next to it.”

“Not a problem,” Ginger said. “I’m going to go back to the office and see what I can find out about the young entrepreneur’s group, as in who invested with Templeton and how much.”

“You can do that?” Maggie asked.

“I have some sources.” Ginger put the car in drive and pulled out onto the main road.

Maggie gave Ginger an impressed look.

“I had no idea accountants were so well connected.”

“We know where the bodies are buried—financially speaking.” Ginger took two right turns and pulled into the long driveway in front of Spring Gardens.

“Thanks, Ginger,” Maggie said as she opened her door. “You’re a lifesaver, and I do mean that literally.”

“That’s what I’m here for.” Ginger said. “But repayment with some blackberry cobbler would not be refused.”

Maggie laughed. “How did you know Josh and I spent yesterday picking blackberries off my bushes?”

“I saw him with Sandy at the park, and his fingers were still purple.”

“Excellent. Recon at my house at seven?” Maggie said. “And I’ll let you bring the vanilla ice cream.”

With a wave, Ginger headed back out of the lot, and Maggie hurried into the entrance she used for Dr. Franklin’s office.

“Well, look what the wind blew in,” Cheryl Kincaid said. Cheryl was Dr. Franklin’s longtime nurse practitioner and had become a good friend of Maggie’s over the years. “So, do you have a hot lunch date or what?”

“No, I’m just behind on laundry,” Maggie said. Man, she wished she’d never worn this dress today. It all seemed so stupid, since she’d never even seen Sam.

“Well, you’d better stay in your office or you’re going to give my older male patients heart attacks,” Dr. Franklin said as he stepped out of the exam room with a chart in his hand.

“Oh, aren’t you sweet,” Maggie said.

Dr. Franklin was tall and thin, with a thick thatch of white hair on his head. Maggie had learned years ago that she could mark the time of day by his hair. In the morning he always started with a head of properly pomaded and sculpted hair but, by the time lunch rolled around, his hair would escape its chemical bonds and would have less of an Elvis and more of an Einstein thing going. By the end of the day, it was full-on mad scientist.

His wife, Alice, had tried every beauty product available
on his hair, but nothing could tame Dr. Franklin’s crazy mane for long. Maggie knew she had managed to arrive on time today, as not a hair was yet out of place.

“Unless, of course, we need Maggie to restart a heart,” Cheryl teased. “In that dress, she might be able to pull it off.”

Cheryl was short and stocky, played in the town softball league and was known for her love of beer, brats and brawn. She and Tim Kelly, who owned the local tavern, had been a couple for years, but they had never married and didn’t live together. Cheryl said it was because they liked their space, and this relationship worked out fine for both of them. Maggie couldn’t fault it. They seemed happy.

“Thank you both,” Maggie said. She was feeling embarrassed and longed to duck into her office. “Would you look at the time? I’ll just get to work then. I want to see if we’ve heard back from Mr. Stevenson’s insurance company. They’re being awfully evasive about covering his heart medication.”

“Coffee is hot if you need it,” Cheryl called after her.

Maggie’s office was in the back of Dr. Franklin’s suite of rooms. Nestled between the bathroom and the exterior wall, she was happy to have a window that overlooked the grounds, even if the occasional flushing noise made her bladder spasm.

She turned on her computer and waited for it to boot up while she went through her voice mail. She had several messages from insurance companies that she had to return, as well as some from patients. She didn’t love doing the billing for Dr. Franklin; in fact, sometimes she was sure her brain was turning into tapioca dealing with all of the insurance companies and their ridiculous parameters for care.
But still, she knew she was making a difference for Dr. Franklin’s patients and for Dr. Franklin and Cheryl, because no one got paid until Maggie got the money in.

On particularly bad days, she envisioned herself storming the offices of the insurance companies, swinging a baseball bat and threatening to smash some skulls until she left with what they owed Dr. Franklin. But that was only on particularly bad days.

She turned her radio on low to NPR and listened to the news while she worked her way through the files in front of her. She had been billing for Dr. Franklin for so long, she knew which companies she had to call, who she had to send letters to and who she needed to turn over to collections. She didn’t enjoy doing that, but sometimes even she needed to call in the heavies.

“Knock knock.”

Maggie turned to her door to find Dr. Franklin standing there. His hair was mussed, indicating that they were about halfway through the workday.

“What’s up, Doc?” she asked with a smile. He shook his head. How many years had she been teasing him with that one? Too many to count, and yet he always smiled.

“Do you have a minute, Maggie?”

“For the boss? Always.”

“I wanted to talk to you about Claire Freemont,” he said.

Maggie waved him into her little office, and he sat in the only other available chair. She reached over and switched off the radio right in the middle of the local weather forecast. They were predicting thunderstorms. Not a big surprise in southern Virginia in August.

“I take it you’ve heard,” Maggie said.

Dr. Franklin was well into his sixties, and his face was lined with wrinkles. Most were laugh lines, but Maggie knew the deeper creases came from worry, worry about patients he couldn’t cure or patients who wouldn’t follow the treatments he prescribed.

Claire was one of his patients—as were all the GBGs, since they were referred by Maggie—and Maggie knew Dr. Franklin well enough to realize that Claire’s situation would concern him greatly.

“I went to see her this morning,” Maggie said. “She’s bored, but otherwise, I think she’s holding up very well.”

Dr. Franklin nodded. “Good, that’s good. She’s had a—very difficult life.”

Maggie tilted her head and studied him. Had Claire told him about Baltimore?

Dr. Franklin’s eyes were a pale blue, and he watched Maggie as if he was waiting for her to put it together without him having to break any patient confidentiality.

Yep, she had told him.

“Things were difficult for her,” Maggie said. “But she made several good choices, and I’m hoping that will weigh in her favor when Max tries to get her bail set.”

“Ah, the young Mr. Button,” Dr. Franklin said. “How is he holding up under the strain of his first big case?”

“Well enough to boss me around,” Maggie said. “And his mentor, a defense attorney in Richmond, is helping him with the case.”

Dr. Franklin nodded. “Excellent. I heard Judge Pearson is presiding. He’s very fair-minded. Max should do well with him.”

“I’ll be there to help, too,” Maggie said.

Dr. Franklin looked alarmed.

“What?” Maggie asked.

“Won’t Sheriff Collins be there?”

“Probably,” she said. “I suppose he may be called upon to testify. Why?”

“Do you think it’s wise for you to be in the same room with him?”

Maggie shrugged and avoided his kind gaze. Dr. Franklin always had the ability to make her feel as if she were still a teenager. She had begun working for him when she was seventeen, part-time and after school; it had worked well with her schedule.

When things had ended between her and Sam, she had tried to pretend nothing was wrong. She worked through her tears, learned her new job and never said a word to anyone. Then one night when they were closing the office, Dr. Franklin invited Maggie to take a walk with him.

They had strolled around the town green, not talking until he finally said, “Maggie, I’m a doctor, but I don’t need my stethoscope to diagnose a broken heart. Are you all right?”

Maggie had been fine…well, she’d been doing a fine job of faking it until Dr. Franklin gazed at her with those worry lines creasing his forehead. Then she had fallen apart.

They had ended up sitting in the gazebo in the middle of the town green while Maggie cried her eyes out into his handkerchief. He had
tsk
ed in all the right places as she recounted the story, but he had never offered her any advice or told her she’d been a fool. He’d let her cry it all out, and then he invited her to dinner with him and his wife, Alice.

Maggie had always liked Dr. Franklin before, but from
that day forward she loved him like the father she’d never had, the uncle she wished she’d had and the grandpa who had died too young for her to know him.

“So much time has passed since that teenage heartbreak,” Maggie said. “I married Charlie, a wonderful man, gave birth to our beautiful daughter and had to bury my dear Charlie entirely too soon. That was
real
heartbreak. I’m a different person now. I really think I’m over Sam, and I can handle being in a courtroom with him.”

“So, the outfit is for…?”

“I may be over him, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want him to notice that the years have been good to me,” she said.

Dr. Franklin gave her a dubious look. Then he gave her a slow smile that took in her outfit. “So, did you see him at the station today?”

“No, he was out on a call,” she said. She gave a frustrated sigh.

“Shall I call in a crime and get him over here?” he asked. “It’d be a shame for him to miss out on your…er…need to do laundry.”

Maggie smiled. “I think calling in a false report
is
a crime, and I already have my hands full visiting Claire, but thanks for offering.”

“I know it’s cold comfort,” Dr. Franklin said. “But I’d bet my last tongue depressor that he regrets what happened all those years ago.”

“Eh.” Maggie waved a hand as if she didn’t care. But there was a treacherous part of her that really hoped Dr. Franklin was right.

“Well, as long as you’re all right.” Dr. Franklin rose from his seat, and the sound of flushing could be heard from the
bathroom next door. He checked his watch. “Marshall Pinter, right on schedule. Excuse me, Maggie.”

“Of course.” She nodded.

“And if you find that you’re not as ‘eh’ as you think, I hope you know you can talk to me,” he said.

“Thank you, Dr. Franklin, I really appreciate that,” she said.

The door closed softly behind him, and Maggie sagged back in her chair. What was she doing? She glanced down at her dress. She was flirting with disaster, that’s what she was doing. Really, trying to make Sam notice her, and for what? He had left her once and never looked back; surely, twenty-four years and one outfit were not going to make him change his mind. She shook her head.

“I’m an idiot,” she muttered. Then she turned up her radio and got back to work.

At mid-afternoon, Maggie walked back to her car. It wasn’t a long walk, but the afternoon had a pre-storm stickiness to it that seemed to rise up from the cement sidewalk in waves. Cicadas hummed as if in a dither over the possible change in the weather, and Maggie wondered if they were warning one another to take cover or if they were looking forward to a good soaking.