When Did We Lose Harriet?

by Patricia Sprinkle

  I jumped up and ran across the backyard faster than I’d moved in years. “Joe Riddley? Is that you? Honey! I’m in the back!”

  I’d barely gotten through the gate and into the drive when I was swept up in an enormous bear hug. “I decided to come get you, Little Bit. Couldn’t wait any longer. Besides, I wanted to see how old Jake is bearing up under so much attention.”

  “How’d you get here so early?”

  “Gained an hour with the time change, and sprayed my right foot with some of that lead my wife uses when she drives. Come get me a Co-cola. I haven’t had a thing to eat or drink since breakfast, and these last fifty miles, my stomach’s thought my throat was cut.”

  As we headed into the kitchen, he added, “If you have any ideas about us sharing that little biddy double bed in Glenna’s guest room, you can think again. I robbed the till before I left. We’re going to the Marriott.”

  Joe Riddley and Jake were exchanging insults and I was sitting there thinking how fond I am of both of them, when the doorbell rang. Josheba stood there looking pretty as a picture in a yellow and white dress, but with her face practically washed away with tears. When I told her to come on in, she managed a watery smile, but her lower lip quivered. “I’m sorry to come right before lunch, Mac, but something has hap…hap…Oh, Mac! I’m so scared he’s dead!” She collapsed into my arms, sobbing.

  I helped her into the living room.

  “What on earth—?” Joe Riddley asked. Jake waved him to be quiet.

  “Come on in, honey,” I told her, “and wash your face. Then tell me all about it.”

  A splash of cold water and a few deep breaths, and Josheba felt as ready as she’d ever be to tell us what happened that morning.

  When she finished, her big dark eyes were pitiful. “I’ve lost the paper telling me where they took him, Mac, and even if I knew, I’m scared to death to call and find out he’s—he’s—” She couldn’t go on.

  “Let me find out for you, honey.” I called the police station and told them who I was and what I wanted, but they weren’t giving out information to a woman calling from who knew where, for who knew what.

  I was about to give them a piece of my mind when Joe Riddley took the phone. “This is Judge Joseph Yarbrough from Hopemore, Georgia, son. The woman you’ve been talking to is my wife. She needs that information, and she needs it quick.” He handed me back the receiver. Less than a minute later, I knew where Lewis was.

  I also knew that Josheba had touched Joe Riddley’s big heart. Otherwise, he’d never have pulled rank like that.

  My next call was scary, for I was almost as reluctant as Josheba to know if Lewis had died. The woman at the hospital information desk, however, said he was there and in critical condition. We comforted each other that he was still hanging on.

  “You come in here and get a little bite to eat, then you go right down there and be near him,” I told Josheba. “Give him every reason to live. You want me to come along?”

  She shook her head. “Not right now, Mac. But if—if—”

  “As soon as lunch is done here, Josheba, I’ll be there. Count on it.”

  While she nibbled on some cold chicken and potato salad, I asked gently, “Do you want to talk about Lewis, dear?”

  Josheba closed her eyes. “I wouldn’t know what to talk about.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “I don’t know, Mac,” she whispered. “I like talking to him, dancing with him, being with him—”

  “What on earth do you think love is, honey?” I cast a look back into the living room, where the two dearest and most ornery men on earth were arguing about who was going to win the Auburn-Georgia game next fall.

  “But I’m engaged to Morse! Besides, I don’t understand Lewis sometimes, Mac. Today, he took that bullet for Ricky. For Ricky! Worthless as he is. I can’t stand even the thought of that. How could somebody as fine as Lewis take a bullet for somebody like Ricky? And how would I know he wouldn’t do it again?”

  I shook my head. “You don’t. That’s who Lewis is, and what he believes in, and when you live with somebody, you also have to live with what they believe in. At some point you’ll have to decide whether you’d rather live with what Lewis believes in, or what Morse does. For now, though, get down to that hospital and give Lewis something to live for. I’m gonna be praying for you both.”

  I expected a protest, but she just nodded. “We need it, Mac. We really need it.”

  Once she left, I left the armchair quarterbacks to their discussion and went to my room. There, as I had promised, I prayed for Josheba and Lewis. I also prayed for Ricky, Dré, Biscuit, and even Z-dog.

  However, I couldn’t help remembering a prayer our older son said one night when he was ten: “Lord, you know I am grateful for many things, but this day is not one of them.”

  The phone rang in the silence like a fire alarm.

  I answered it in Glenna’s room, ready to explain to one of Jake’s friends that he was doing real well.

  The voice on the other end was hoarse, choked with fear. “It’s me, Ricky. Listen, I gotta talk to you. Can you meet me somewhere? I gotta talk to you bad.”

  “Can you come to my house?”

  He hesitated. Maybe he was remembering, as I was, that the last time he’d been there it had been very late and he had not been welcome. “Who else is there? Police?”

  “No, just my husband and my brother. But Ricky, if you’re planning any funny stuff—” I was about to tell him Joe Riddley was a magistrate, but he interrupted.

  “I ain’t gonna try nothin’!” he protested desperately. “Lady, you’re my only hope. You gotta help me. You just gotta.” He added a word that only terror could have wrung from him: “Please!”

  It took Ricky over an hour to get there. Meanwhile, Glenna came home and we ate dinner. Jake asked the blessing. As you can imagine, with all that was going on, that took awhile.

  During the meal, I filled the other three in on every single detail of what had been happening. I wound up, “I don’t know what Ricky wants, but I know he’s in big trouble. He’s been dealing drugs, I think, and I don’t know what he was planning with Z-dog and Biscuit, but I doubt it was legitimate. He’s also still out on bail for killing Myrna.” I held one palm to my cheek, suddenly worried. “Are we harboring a fugitive when he comes?”

  Joe Riddley shook his head. “Not unless his court date is past. But it sounds like this young man needs a good talking to.”

  Jake had taken a fork in the road way back in my story. “Kateisha’s been having toothaches?” he asked me. “How long?”

  “I don’t know, but it must be a good while. It was swollen and looked like it pained her a lot, but she said it would go away, that it always does.”

  He turned to Glenna. “Honey, think you could go by this next week and see if she and her mother would let our dentist take a look at her? You may have to promise her a new dress or something before she’ll go.”

  “A new CD,” I corrected him. “Have you ever seen Kateisha in a dress?”

  He poured himself another glass of tea. “No, but there’s always a first time. You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’, Joe Riddley? Talking with this Rick sounds like men’s work to me, not women’s work.”

  “I guess women’s work is washing the dishes?” I asked, miffed.

  “No, I thought women’s work was getting yourself down to that hospital to make sure Josheba and Lewis are all right.”

  “The only thing it is not,” Joe Riddley added with emphasis, “is getting any more involved in trying to find out how that little girl died. We’ll talk to Carter later—all four of us,” he added, knowing full well I was going to protest again, “to get him to stir his stumps on that, and you and I’ll stick around a couple of days to be sure he does. But you’ve done enough—” I expected him to say “meddling,” but he swallowed it and merely said, “already.”

  “Before anything else”—I reached over and rubbed his jaw, which was glea
ming silver in the sunlight—“I think you might want to shave.”

  He rubbed his cheek and grinned ruefully. “I left Georgia so early, I plumb forgot.”

  As I watched him head to the bathroom, it sure felt good to have all four of us together, helping each other out. I forgot to tell Josheba, but that’s what love’s about, too.

  I left for the hospital before Ricky got there and spent the afternoon sitting with Josheba. Surgeons had stitched Lewis together as best they could. Now everybody was sitting tight to see if he would come back from wherever his spirit had fled.

  When I got home, I didn’t get a full report about Ricky’s visit from the menfolk, of course. You know men—they never tell you everything you want to know. What I did learn was that Joe Riddley talked real straight to Ricky about what his chances were if he kept going like he’d been going, and suggested that he offer to turn state’s witness against the drug dealers he knew, in exchange for some kind of protection. Jake persuaded Ricky to let them call Carter, so Carter came over and talked to all of them, then took Ricky away.

  Jake’s hoping Ricky will wind up in the army. I hate to think our national safety might ever depend on Ricky Dodd, but Glenna insists, “We don’t know what God and a little discipline could do for that boy.”

  Glenna was troubled about one thing Ricky said, though. Joe Riddley asked him before he left if he knew anything at all about Harriet’s death. Ricky swore he didn’t—nor her mother’s, either—but said we ought to ask William. “That boy said William was paying Harriet not to tell that he had—oh, Clara, I can’t even say it. Not William, with his own niece!”

  We looked at one another soberly. “Harriet told Kateisha that William was paying her ten dollars a week not to tell Dee something,” I admitted.

  “Well, I don’t believe it,” Glenna said firmly. “I just don’t.”

  “There’s something else that’s been bothering me,” I told Glenna. “William said the other morning that he couldn’t have a peroxide blonde working for him, but Myrna had brown hair when she left Montgomery. I think he must have seen her pretty recently.”

  I could hardly stand the pain in Glenna’s eyes. It wasn’t going to get any better until all this was over.

  Thirty

  A kind man benefits himself, but a cruel man brings trouble on himself.

  Proverbs 11:17

  Josheba’s story continues…

  I went home from the hospital after the five o’clock visit just long enough to shower again and get a bite to eat. It would be my second shower of the day, but I felt like I needed to wash the hospital smell out of my pores. Then I planned to go over to the police station and sign my statement.

  When I got home, Morse’s red Grand Am was parked at my curb.

  “Where you been?” he greeted me, rising from the porch chair. “I come home from two weeks out of town, and you aren’t even here to welcome me.” He grabbed me and pulled me close.

  I pulled back. “Morse, we’ve got to talk.”

  “Talk nothing, sweet thing. I didn’t drive all day to talk.”

  “Well, we gotta talk anyway.” I spoke quickly, knowing I might never get up this much courage again. “While you were gone, I started thinking. I’m not sure we’re right for each other. I want—”

  His jaw dropped. “You’re that mad I missed your dance?” He swore. After two weeks of not hearing them, his obscenities poured over me like filth. I tried to recall. Had I ever heard Lewis utter a single one?

  You can’t spend your life comparing Morse to Lewis, a voice whispered in my brain.

  But I turned angrily away from Morse, “Don’t talk to me like that!”

  “Like what, baby? Now I can’t even talk? Man, you are mad! Come on, give me a kiss and say you missed me.”

  “I didn’t miss you,” I told him bluntly. “Not after a while. And I got someplace to go. Call me tomorrow.” I started for the door.

  He grabbed my arm. “Don’t you walk out on me, sister! Nobody walks out on Morse.” I tried to pull away, but his fingers pressed hard into my arm. “I said nobody walks out on Morse. Did you hear me?”

  I stood absolutely still. For the first time I was actually afraid of him. Physically afraid. “I heard you, Morse. I’m not going anywhere. Let go.”

  “I’ll let go when I feel like it, baby, and not one minute before. Now let’s get one thing straight—”

  I tensed. He’d never hit me, but I knew now it was only a matter of time. Then—

  “Hiya doin’, Josheba? Everything all right?” That was Miss Sadie, my next-door neighbor. She’s older than God and twice as nosy, and I have to admit that in the past, I’ve said some pretty nasty things about her butting into other people’s business. That Sunday afternoon, I could have kissed her.

  “Hiya, Miss Sadie!” While he was distracted, I gently pulled my arm away from Morse and took a couple of steps back. “You doin’ all right?”

  “I’m fine, thank you very much. That your young man?” She stood right on the edge of her yard and peered nearsightedly across my lawn. “I thought he was taller and thinner, somehow.”

  “Who’s she talking about?” Morse demanded. “Who’s taller and thinner?”

  “She’s half blind, Morse,” I pointed out quietly. “Now, look, I’ve got to go down to the police station and sign some papers. I witnessed a crime this morning, and a friend got hurt, so I’ve got to go by the hospital on my way back. Call me tomorrow, all right?” I hurried inside and dead bolted my door.

  Morse no doubt wanted to take me apart limb from limb, but with Miss Sadie perched on the grass like a little biddy nosy-bird, he decided to stomp to his car and roar away.

  “Thank you, God, for nosy old women,” I breathed. Looked like I sure was getting back in the praying habit.

  Thirty-One

  Plans fail for lack of counsel, but

  with many advisers they succeed.

  Proverbs 15:22

  Mac wraps it up…

  By Monday morning, there was again good news and bad news. The good news was, Jake was daily growing stronger, Ricky was maybe heading in some new directions, Z-dog was painfully recuperating under police guard and officially accused of stealing Jake’s car and using it in several burglaries, and Carter had agreed to talk with William Sykes about how he knew Myrna was a peroxide blonde if he hadn’t seen her for fifteen years.

  The bad news was, Lewis was still unconscious, and Carter still insisted that Harriet’s case was closed. Have you ever seen two English bulldogs eye to eye? Glenna said that was the picture she got when Joe Riddley tried to convince Carter to reopen Harriet’s case.

  It was now two weeks since I had come to Montgomery, and it looked like finding out how we lost Harriet could take forever—except Joe Riddley wanted to go home now. I asked him for one more day, so I could think things over and talk to everybody one more time.

  I decided to begin with Julie and Dee. I called to see if they were home, and Dee said Julie had spent the night with Rachel and they’d probably be around the pool all morning. A pool seemed like a nice place to start. I wouldn’t mind spending the morning in one, myself.

  Rachel’s mother came to the door with a portable phone to her ear. When I introduced myself as a friend of Dee looking for Julie, she immediately said, “Julie went somewhere this morning with some other girls, but Rachel’s out by the pool.” She waved her hand toward the gate in the back fence. “Do you mind if I don’t come with you? I’m on long distance.”

  Rachel was indeed by the pool, listening to rock music and improving her tan. Not that a tan would improve her much, poor dear. She was a large lumpy girl with small dark eyes too close together. Apparently Princess Julie preferred less attractive ladies-in-waiting.

  When I told Rachel I’d hoped to find Julie, she got a sulky look. “She’s gone shopping with some of the other cheerleaders.” Clearly Rachel had not been invited.

  “I’m sorry. I’m investigating Harriet Lawson’s death,
and I had a few questions to ask her.” I waited a minute, hoping she’d fall for the bait.

  Rachel tugged her bathing suit down over her large backside and swung around to sit up on her towel. “That was really awful, wasn’t it? I mean, you don’t think something like that could happen to anybody you know.”

  “You knew Harriet, too?” I sat in one of the white plastic chairs that circled the pool.

  Rachel brushed back a strand of long lank hair and said doubtfully, “Sort of. I mean, she was a year younger than us, and she hadn’t been at Julie’s long, but sometimes when we were listening to music, or going to the mall or something, she’d like, you know, be with us.”

  I nodded. “I understand. She wasn’t exactly a friend, but you knew her.”

  Rachel nodded earnestly.

  “Well, I’m trying to get a picture of the last day anybody saw Harriet. Tuesday, June fourth. Was Julie with you that day?”

  Rachel’s eyes flickered, then she lowered them and reached for a tube of sunscreen. Slowly she started rubbing it into her thick calves.

  “Was she?” I prodded.

  “That’s a long time ago,” Rachel muttered without looking up. “I don’t know if I can remember that far back.”

  “It was the first week school was out,” I prompted. “That first Tuesday.”

  Rachel shrugged. “I really can’t remember. We probably hung out together.”

  “Up at the lake,” I said, as if reminding her.

  “How’d you know?” she demanded. “Who saw us?”

  I’d been guessing, but I know guilt when I see it. “Never mind that. Were there boys with you?”

  Rachel jumped, then nodded reluctantly. “A couple. From school. Just friends, like.”

  “Did you go to Julie’s grandmother’s house?”

  “No.” Rachel sounded glad to change the subject. “We go up there all the time, but not that day. Have you been there?”