Later, after the police had come and taken pictures of the accident site and filled out the report, she looked up and saw her car being towed away and realized, too late, that her raft, her glue, and her weights were still in the trunk.
A few minutes later, Brenda answered the phone at home.
“Brenda, it’s Maggie… listen, are you busy?”
“No, why?”
“I need a ride. Could you possibly come and pick me up and take me home?”
“Sure, where are you?”
“I’m at the Sweet Home Alabama Goat Farm.”
“A goat farm? What are you doing at a goat farm?”
“Well, I wasn’t at a goat farm; I just wound up here.”
“How?”
“A mattress truck hit me.”
“A truck! You were hit by a truck? Oh, dear Jesus in heaven!” Brenda screamed down the hall, “Robbie, Maggie’s been hit by a truck!”
Maggie heard Robbie’s voice in the background. “What?”
“She’s been hit by a truck.” Suddenly, Robbie was on the phone. “Maggie, are you all right?”
“Yes. I just had a little car accident… but I’m all right.”
“Have you been checked out?”
“Yes. The paramedics were here, and they said I was fine; no broken bones, but my car was wrecked. Could you and Brenda come get me and take me home?”
“Of course, where are you?”
“I’m out on the old highway, right past the old Silver Slipper Supper Club, at the Sweet Home Alabama Goat Farm on the right.”
“Is there a sign or something?”
“Well… not anymore. But you’ll see a lot of men out on the road, working on a fence.”
“Okay, we’ll be right there.”
After she hung up, Robbie was out the door in less than twenty seconds, with Brenda running to catch up to her. Robbie wasn’t an emergency room nurse for nothing.
Maggie sat on the front porch, waiting for them, with Marian and Maggie’s new best friend, Leroy the goat. From the time she had landed in their yard, Leroy had followed her everywhere.
“I swear,” Marian said, “Leroy has just fallen in love with you. He won’t stop pestering you for one second; he’s never done that before.” It was really very sweet, and Maggie guessed she should be flattered, but she had never been this close to a goat in her life, and she had no earthly idea how to pet a goat. Still, she reached out and patted it on the head, trying to be nice.
Maggie and Marian sat and looked out across the pasture and watched as Gary, with a bunch of neighbors, tried to put up a makeshift fence so the goats wouldn’t wander out on the road and get hit. “I’m so sorry about this,” Maggie said. “Believe me, this is the last thing in the world I wanted to have happen today.”
“Oh, don’t you worry,” Marian said. “It wasn’t your fault; I’m just glad you’re alive. Just thank your lucky stars. This could have been your last day on earth.”
A few minutes later, Maggie had a long-distance conversation with Jo Anna, Marian’s mother, which started out by Marian saying, “Momma, you will never guess who just wound up in our yard today.” To Jo Anna’s credit, she hadn’t guessed. About forty-five minutes later, after Maggie and Marian had exchanged information and addresses, Robbie and Brenda arrived to pick Maggie up. As they drove home, Brenda, who was driving, looked at Maggie in the rearview mirror and said, “I’m not even going to ask you what you were doing driving around out in the sticks all by yourself.”
After a moment of silence, Brenda said, “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“What were you doing?”
Robbie said, “Now, Brenda, that’s none of your business.”
“Well, I guess it is… she’s my business partner, and I guess I have a right to know why she was way out here.”
Maggie sighed. “Oh, Brenda. If I told you, you’d never believe it.”
“Try me.”
“I was just driving around in the country, that’s all.”
Brenda was horrified. “Why? There are snakes down here and everything!”
Snakes? My God, Brenda was right. Maggie hadn’t thought about that. Oh, Lord. That’s all she needed. To go to all this trouble to do it right and then get snakebitten by a big old water moccasin on her way down to the river. By the time they found her, she would probably be all swollen up and bloated, and they always photographed the body, and no telling where that photo would wind up.
ON MONDAY, BRENDA took Maggie over to the car leasing company to fill out all the papers about the accident. The owner had been very fond of Hazel and immediately gave Maggie a new car to drive. Then Maggie drove over to the auto body shop, where her old car was. They had to open the trunk with a crowbar so she could get all her things out and transfer them to the new car. What a perfect mess. This was going to mean yet another delay. She was not only the victim of an accident, she was also a key witness, and she had to be available to give a statement. Also, she had to make sure the leasing company was fully reimbursed for the car and that the poor Conways got their insurance company to pay for a new fence and a new sign. Having dealt with insurance companies in the past, she knew what a hard battle that could be. But as soon as that was cleared up, she would go on with her plans, as soon as possible. Every extra day she stayed was just adding up more debt. Being a woman in the business world was expensive. Just the sheer maintenance alone was costing her a lot of money. Hair, nails, makeup, cold cream, dry cleaning and laundry, not to mention food and gas for the car.
When Maggie finally arrived back home, she saw that Miss Pitcock the librarian had faxed her yet another document regarding the Crocker siblings. Oh dear. A few weeks ago Maggie had called and thanked her profusely for helping her with her research, saying that she had all the information she needed, so there was no reason to go forward. But evidently once Miss Pitcock got started, she could not be stopped. And today she had faxed Maggie something that had thoroughly confused her.
Miss Pitcock had somehow managed to obtain a photocopy of Edward Crocker’s will, dated January 11, 1935, and after pages of instructions dealing with numerous foundations and charities, Edward had specified that in the event of his death, the business and Crestview were to be willed to the Dalton family. But he had left the entire bulk of his fortune (including Edwina’s house in London) to Lettie Ross, his childhood nurse. There was not even a mention of an Edwina Crocker in the entire will! And who was Lettie Ross? If the woman in London who had passed herself off as Edwina Crocker had been his mistress or even a distant relative, then why had Edward not left her a dime in his will? It didn’t make any sense. Oh, well, it was obvious that detective work was not as simple as Nancy Drew would have you think.