Page 98 of A Rose of Steel
“You’re sounding crazy,” Boone said, I was sure he had no idea I’d figured out all of it. “I haven’t been up to anything.”
“You’ve been up to a lot,” Auntie Zanne said.
“Like what?” Mrs. Alvarez said. She certainly didn’t seem so bothered with me any more.
“Like scamming old people out of their savings in a Medicare scam,” Auntie Zanne said. She just wasn’t going to let me tell anything without her input.
“Medicare scam?” Boone bit down on his bottom lip, his eyes darting around the room.
Yeah, Boone, we got you...
“You moved from credit cards to Medicare, didn’t you?”
I wasn’t so sure about that, but Bumper had promised Chase a confession and that was the only motive I could think of as I was sure it was Boone who had killed him.
“Wait,” a voice came from the door. I turned to look and it was Chase.
“We didn’t ask you in here to interrupt,” Pogue said to Chase. “Keep it up and you’re going to have to leave.”
“No. I know about this,” Chase said, his words stumbling out. He looked to me pleadingly, seemingly asking for me to get him permission to speak. “He’s the one Bumper was going to tell me about.” He squinted his eyes and shook his head. “I-Isn’t that what you’re saying?”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s what I’m saying. Bumper had promised you he would get a confession for you from the guilty party. That was you, right, Boone?”
“He wasn’t going to make me tell anyone anything,” Boone said defiantly. “Who did he think he was? He wasn’t no angel.”
“Don’t talk about the dead,” Mrs. Alvarez said and came and stood next to Mrs. Hackett.
“Hold on.” Miriam Colter used her cane to push herself up from the chair. “Is Boone the one that called my house?”
“Possibly,” I said. “But if he isn’t, I’m almost sure he can tell you it was.”
“What does this have to do with murder, Romaine?” Pogue said.
“It’s the motive, Pogue,” I said, not taking my eyes off of Boone. “And it’s the reason that Bumper didn’t want Boone to be his best man.”
“I already told you... I told everyone,” Boone’s anger was starting to bare, “I wasn’t sure if I could get here.”
“You knew you could,” I said, “He didn’t want you because of the bad things you’d done. Hurting people and not wanting to fess up. And you were afraid if you didn’t confess, he would tell. So that’s when you came up with your plan.”
“What?” he said and hunched his shoulders. “What did I plan?”
“The murder.” I heard another collective gasp. “You killed Bumper because he was going to tell that you were part of that Medicare scheme that bilked money from seniors. You used their need to get help with their Medicare Part D plans. Telling them to send you money and they wouldn’t have to ever pay for prescriptions again.”
“Let me at him,” Miriam said, waving her cane. “He’ll need more than Medicare when I finish with him.”
“Somebody want to get her?” Pogue said.
“I’ve got her,” Delphine said, patting Mrs. Colter on the back. “C’mon now, let them take care of this.”
“What was my murderous plan?” Boone said. “Bet you can’t answer that. You know why? Because there wasn’t one.”
“Oh, yes it was, and I can answer that,” I said. “The first part of your plan was to trigger an asthma attack to make sure Bumper needed an inhaler. He hadn’t had an episode in a long time, since he moved to California.” I could see Mrs. Hackett nodding her head. “So you planned a trip to Louisiana. You knew taking Bumper to Lake Charles, one of the most humid places in the south, after he’d spent so much time in L.A. would trigger an asthma attack.”
“There’s a lot of humidity in Lake Charles?” Mrs. Hackett asked. Her face contorted, she was wringing her hands.
“It is,” I said.
“How would I know that?” Boone said.
