Read Online Murder at Catfish Corner: A Maggie Morgan Mystery by Michelle Goff - Free Book Online Page B

Boone wouldn’t remind her of the
reason for his visit. If everything went right, she planned to ask him what he
had remembered while helping him to his truck. And only then would she fulfill
her promise to Sylvie and tell her parents that she was looking into the
circumstances surrounding Hazel Baker’s death. As so often happens, events did
not transpire as Maggie had hoped.
    “Oh,” Boone said
as he crumbled a biscuit into his plate of food. “I didn’t get to finish
telling you about that night.”
    “What night?”
Lena asked.
    “The night Hazel
Baker died,” Boone said.
    “That’s right,”
Robert said. “I remember reading in the paper that you were the one that found
her.”
    “I did, I did. It
was not an experience I like to think about, but there was something I didn’t think
to tell Maggie that day she came to my house.”
    Lena stared at Maggie.
“You went to his house?”
    “Later, Mom,
later.” Maggie asked Boone, “What did you want to tell me?”
    “I remembered
that I saw something that night when I got up to make water.” Boone moved in
his chair so that he faced Robert. “I take those fluid pills for my heart and
they make me go to the bathroom a lot.” Addressing Maggie, he said, “When I got
up that night, I saw headlights over at Hazel’s. Then a car pulled out of her
place. I thought that was kindly odd. She don’t get much company and it was
late. But I figured that maybe somebody got lost and pulled off and turned
around in her driveway. It could be that or,” Boone turned over his hand, “it
could be something else.”
    Maggie looked at
the bespectacled octogenarian and asked, “Do you always wear your glasses?”
    “Maggie!”
    “I just want to
make sure, Mom.”
    “It’s all right.
I ain’t no spring chicken. I understand, I understand. Those police asked me
the same thing the morning they came to the house. They didn’t think I should
have been able to see something floating in the lake from my porch.” Boone
again spoke to Robert. “I was afraid they aimed to blame me. Me living right
beside her and all. But, I’m here to tell you, I saw her and I saw a car at her
place that night. I can see real good with my glasses and I put them on that
night when I got up to make water. Something I ate went down wrong and I chewed
on a Tums before I went back to bed. I put on my glasses when I was getting the
Tums. I wanted to make sure I didn’t take the wrong pill. The good Lord knows I
have more medicine bottles in my cabinet than they have at the drugstore. And
when I was taking that Tums, I saw car lights over at Hazel’s.”
    “Are you sure
this wasn’t a dream?”
    “Maggie,” Lena
pressed her thumb into her forefinger, “I’m this close to sending you to your
room.”
    “No, it wasn’t
something I dreamt,” Boone answered. “And I wasn’t confused by sleep, neither.
I was chewing a cherry-flavored Tums when I saw the lights.”
    “Do you know
what time this happened?” Maggie asked.
    “No, I did not
look at the clock, but I wish I had.”
    “Well, you had
no idea this information might be important.” Maggie paused. “Earl David’s
property sits between your house and Hazel’s. Are you sure you didn’t see a car
turning at the pay lake? Or maybe it was a reflection from the road? Or –”
    “Maggie,” Lena
scolded. “He’s not on the witness stand and you’re not Matlock.”
    “I understand
why she’s asking these questions,” Boone said, “but I know what I saw that
night. First, I saw the headlights and, when the car turned out of the driveway
and started driving away, I saw the taillights. And I know it was at Hazel’s.
The lights wasn’t close enough to be at Earl David’s.”
    Maggie
envisioned the events Boone explained as he and Robert compared and contrasted
the flavors of Levi Garrett and Beech Nut chewing tobacco. After supper, they
saw Boone off. Before the old man had even backed out of their driveway, Lena
said to