Murder in Magnolia
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Chapter 5: "The Woman"
But Becky Daily didn't give up on him.
At first, she remained in the tiny little town of Magnolia. But it became quickly apparent to her that she would never make a decent living there. Even if she did, it wouldn't be enough to provide her the financial resources to both survive and mount a successful fight to see Ethan go free.
After the trial, Becky had started saying quite publicly that it sure did seem odd how the only piece of evidence that would have backed up Ethan's story mysteriously disappeared.
She must have said it in front of the wrong person, because that Friday she was called into her boss's office in the middle of her shift. He told her that she was being laid off from her job at the hatchery.
Doc had told the man that she was developing carpal tunnel syndrome and her days were numbered. When she pointed out to her supervisor that she hadn't even been to see the physician! His reply was, "Sorry Becky, but if Doc says you don't work, you don't work!" As she was leaving, when she got to her car, she found that all four tires had been cut! It became obvious to her that someone was trying to run her off.
Two years before when her mother died, Becky had inherited what could laughably be referred to as 'the family farm'. It wasn't a real farm any more, only about fifty acres of land, and only about a third of that was cleared and fit for farming, the rest being wooded. But it was just too small to produce enough crops for anyone to live on any more and she realized it was time for her to leave Magnolia.
Becky thought about where she would go and there seemed only one logical choice, Columbus Georgia.
There she might find better employment with which to finance her fight for Ethan's freedom. It was the largest city in the state of Georgia by area, if not by population, and was located near one of the country's largest military bases, Fort Benning. It certainly didn't escape her mind that the move to Columbus provided the added bonus of putting her closer to Ethan as the state prison was conveniently located just at the edge of town.
She had a cousin, Joni, living in there who was working as a secretary for one of the local real estate brokers. Her cousin had had the good sense to get out of Magnolia two years earlier. Becky was pretty sure that Joni would put her up for a couple of weeks.
So Becky called her, just to make sure she would and then, sold what wood there was on the land to Georgia Wood and Logging for $10,000. A week later, after the company had cleared the land of all its timber, she sold it to one of the local farmers for about $700 an acre. She went out of her way to choose one of the few men who openly despised the Doc because she knew the farmer would never let the old bastard buy the land from him.
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