Maggie threw on a clean T-shirt and jean shorts. She ran out the front door of the shotgun and past Gran’, who was chatting with the Butlers and Carrie and Lachlan Ryker. “Gran’, have they hauled away the garbage yet?” she called to her.
“No, dear. Late as usual. Someone really should complain to—”
Maggie didn’t stop to hear the rest of the sentence. She just ran, ignoring the glances that the Butlers exchanged with the Rykers. She reached the back of the Crozat property, where unsightly items like the B and B’s dumpsters were housed, and noticed a log cut from the stump of an old cypress tree. It took all her strength to push it next to the dumpsters, but she managed to maneuver it into place. She then climbed on it, threw one leg over the edge of a dumpster, and jumped in. Fortunately, the Crozats composted as much solid waste as possible, but given the effect of Louisiana’s humidity on garbage, the dumpster still smelled wretched. For once, it didn’t bother Maggie, which she credited to her olfactory glands having been beaten down by the stench of the Georgia boys’ room.
Raccoons had gotten into the trash. Bags were ripped open and stuff was strewn about. Maggie hoped that even given the wide debris field, garbage was still generally grouped together. She wandered through the dumpster until she found an item that narrowed her search. She planted herself in the northwest corner of the dumpster, pawed through god-knows-what, and finally found the crumpled sheet of paper that she was looking for.
“Yes,” she cried out triumphantly. “I was right.”
“Uh, are you okay?”
A male voice startled her. She looked to see Shane Butler and Lachlan Ryker staring at her with odd expressions.
“I . . . I accidentally threw out something I needed, but I just found it.”
“Oh,” Shane said. “That’s good. Need any help getting out of there?”
“No thanks. I’m fine.” Maggie willed them to leave. She desperately needed to get in touch with Bo and didn’t want any guests around when she made the call.
For a moment, there was an awkward standoff. Then Lachlan shrugged. “Right then. No worries.”
The two men walked off, much too slowly for her taste. She took out her cell phone, but it rang before she could call Bo and alert him to the evidence she’d dug out of the dumpster. The screen flashed “Gaynell.” Maggie answered the call with a quick “Hey.”
“I have info for you,” Gaynell said. “About Pi Pi Iota. I think I know why the Georgia boys are at Crozat.” Gaynell filled her in and by the time she reached the end of her story, Maggie was furious.
“Those creeps. I’m booting them out right now. Look, Gaynell, do me a favor. I think I know who killed Beverly Clabber. Call Bo and tell him this.”
Maggie shared her theory. When she was done, Gaynell was silent for a minute. “It’s so hard to believe that anyone would be that demented,” she finally said. “But I guess it does make a very sick kind of sense. I’ll call Bo, but be careful, Maggie. This is dangerous stuff.”
“Don’t worry. I’m never without my gris-gris bag.” Maggie patted the waist of her jeans, where she thought she had pinned the protection bag Lia had made for her. It was gone. “Great. It must have fallen off somewhere in here. I don’t have time to look for it now. I promise I won’t do anything until Bo gets here. I have to go.”
“Maggie—” Gaynell said, but Maggie ended the call. She climbed out of the dumpster, hopped to the ground, and took off for the Georgia boys’ room. The boys were packing and the door was wide open. She ran in and slammed the door behind her.
“Jesus,” Georgia One said. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”
“Two words,” Maggie said through clenched teeth. “Southern Glory.”
Georgia One’s face relaxed into a smile. “Aw, dang, you found out. We wanted to surprise y’all.”
“I’m chapter president, so I get to tell her,” Georgia Three said. He then adopted the voice of a documentary narrator. “Every year, the Beta Chapter of Pi Pi Iota hosts a celebration of our beloved Deep South’s glorious history. We rent out a plantation and assume the ranks of Confederate soldiers, from officers on down. We stay in tents on the property and our dates stay in the plantation’s housing. We rent uniforms and wear them the entire time and on a Saturday night host the Robert E. Lee Memorial Ball, where our dates get to wear the kind of ball gowns ladies wore back then.”
“At the ball, we pretend that the Confederate Army won the War of Northern Aggression,” Georgia Three threw in. “It’s totes awesome.”
“We’ve spent a lot of time this summer checking out different plantations. And congratulations. We’ve chosen Crozat as this year’s location for our Southern Glory Weekend.”
Maggie was so filled with anger that for a moment, she couldn’t speak. She felt like she might explode and hoped she was too young to stroke out. “Get. Out.”
“Huh?” Georgia Three looked confused.
“Get out now or I swear to God, I will have the police run you out of here. And don’t ever come back to Crozat.”
“Hey, if we leave, we take our business with us,” Georgia One said, insulted. “And after what’s gone on here, you guys should be thanking us for even still thinking about renting this place.”
“Yeah,” Georgia Two chimed in. “You’re lucky we think a place where there’s been murders is cool.”
Maggie’s face twitched as she tried to calm down. “Let me try to explain this to you,” she said working to keep her tone even, despite the rage she felt. “Obviously we celebrate aspects of our Southern heritage here in Pelican, and especially here at Crozat. But there are many aspects of our history that we’re not proud of. There’s a saying, ‘To forget is to condone.’ We can’t acknowledge the good without paying homage to the bad—something your incredibly superficial event ignores. So we would never sanction it, no less let it happen on our property. Have I made myself clear?”
“I think she’s on her period,” Georgia Three whispered none too quietly to his cohorts.
Maggie had had it. “If you’re not gone in five minutes, I will find rabid dogs and sic them on you,” she screamed at the boys. She flung open the door and slammed it shut behind her. As she marched back to the shotgun, she saw the Butlers’ car pull out of the driveway. The Rykers were loading up their SUV. Then Maggie noticed Angela and Suzy carrying suitcases to the Cuties’ minivan. She ran up to them.
“You’re leaving too?”
“We have to,” Angela said. “We’d booked a return flight for tonight and it’s really expensive to change.”
“We’re on fixed incomes,” Suzy explained.
“We were going to stay here for Jan, but she wants us to get back to New York and post positive updates about our trip on our website. We need to do some damage control about Debbie and her plans and her murder.”
“Well,” Maggie said, trying to sound nonchalant, “we’ll miss you.”
She bid them good-bye, and then as she walked away, pulled out her cell and texted Bo one word: “HURRY!”
Maggie hastened into the shotgun, eager to update Gran’ on her theory, as well as the morning’s events. The living room was empty. “Gran’?” she called out as she went into the kitchen and got a glass of water. Her throat was scratchy from yelling at the Georgia boys, and the water soothed it. She heard muffled sounds coming from Gran’s room, and ran in. But the bedroom was also empty. “Gran’?” she called again.
“Help!” came Gran’s voice. Maggie traced it to the closet.
“What the—” She ran to the closet and pulled on the doorknob. “It’s locked.”
“I know. I was puttering around, minding my own business when someone threw a pillowcase over my head. They made me get the key to this door, then shoved me in here and locked it.”
“Was it a man or a woman?”
“I couldn’t tell. The voice was very low and rough. It could have been a man, or a woman disguising her voice.”