by Ann B. Ross
“I guess if you put it that way . . .”
“What other way is there to put it? I’ll let you know if I hear anything else, because I’ll bet you anything there is something else. Thurlow’s been without a woman for years and years, and you know that’s not normal.” LuAnne stopped momentarily, then clarified her statement. “Of course he’s not normal anyway, but still. Maybe the reason he’s been single so long is because Miss Petty’s been on call next door.”
“LuAnne! That’s really jumping to conclusions and I just don’t believe it. Oh, I wouldn’t put it past him, but her? No, that’s too much risk for a schoolteacher, well, for any woman who values her reputation. Nobody gets by with anything in this town, and you know it.”
After we hung up, I thought of a dozen things I should’ve said to distract her from pursuing the ins and outs of Thurlow’s personal life. To say nothing of pursuing whatever personal life Miss Petty had. But then I realized that there was no way LuAnne could do any pursuing at all, not without doing a stakeout with night-vision binoculars, which in the present weather conditions I doubted she’d be inclined to do.
So I leaned back in the chair, gazed at the fire, and congratulated myself that I was keeping the vow I’d made to Sam to stay out of other people’s business. Besides, I had enough unsettled business of my own to keep me fully occupied.
But then I had to stop and rethink the whole situation. Did, or would, Miss Petty’s escapade last night affect Lloyd?
Ridiculous, I told myself. The woman had had no lights or heat and, frankly, I myself would not have hesitated to bang on Thurlow’s door last night—if he’d lived next door—to get Hazel Marie into a warm place.
And LuAnne’s implication that Miss Petty had been the reason that Thurlow was able to go so long without a woman in his life just tore me up. The idea, in the first place, that a man has to have a woman was one that I just could not accept. Thurlow was no teenager with raging hormones. He’d lived his whole life without a wife; why in the world would he suddenly feel a ravenous need for a substitute? Of course, as LuAnne said, Thurlow wasn’t what you’d ordinarily call normal, so who knew what he’d feel? But Miss Petty was half his age and I couldn’t imagine that she could do no better than to take up with a man who rarely washed, shaved, or changed his clothes.
No, I was going to stay out of it. It was none of my business, unless proof positive of Miss Petty’s living a double life happened to emerge. Then I’d rethink my stance.
But one last thought occupied my mind as I heard Sam drive up, bringing Lillian, Latisha, and Lloyd home. There was no reason in the world why a person could not live, and live well, without a member of the opposite gender. There is such a thing as self-control, you know, although in my opinion, it’s in remarkably short supply. I myself had had every intention of living alone after Wesley Lloyd Springer passed on. In fact, the single life had seemed devoutly to be desired after living so long with him, and I’d looked forward to it. That was, of course, before Sam came along and changed my mind and my life.
Chapter 18
Hearing car doors and back doors slam, along with the rush of feet and the gabble of voices, I hurried to the kitchen, where Lillian, Latisha, Lloyd, and Sam were coming in. The first thing I noticed was Lillian’s beatific smile, as she completely ignored the fact that Latisha was bouncing around her in a frenzy of excitement.
“Tell her, Great-Granny,” Latisha was saying. “Tell her what they gonna do!”
Then I noticed the big smiles coming from Sam and Lloyd. Something was up, and I hoped I’d be as happy about it as they seemed to be. “Tell me what?” I asked.
Latisha bounced over to me. “They done named them babies, an’ one of ’em is named for Great-Granny!”
“Why, my goodness,” I said as I looked for confirmation from Lillian. Her face told me all I needed to know. “What an honor, Lillian! And well deserved, I must say.”
“Well,” Sam said, “the honors just keep on coming because the other one is named for you.”
“Oh,” I said, my hand going to my throat in dismay. If that was true, then that child would be Little Julia and I would be Big Julia for the rest of my life. I didn’t want to be Big Julia, but how could I refuse? “That is an honor,” I managed to say, although it was one I could have easily done without.
Lloyd had his coat off by this time, and in his excitement he’d let it drop to the floor. “Let me tell the rest of it,” he said. “You’re gonna love it, Miss Julia, ’cause J.D. made everything come out right. For a long time, Mama kept saying that she should’ve had triplets so she could use everybody’s name, but J.D. said if that was the case, she should’ve had quadruplets ’cause he wanted to name one of ’em for her. But after a while, he came up with the solution and she’s real happy about it.”
Oh my word, I thought, she’s used Britney and Lindsay after all. But I said, “I can’t wait to hear.”
“You’re gonna love it,” Lloyd said again. “See, here’s what they decided. The first one is named Julia Marie for you and Mama, and the other one’s named Lillian Mae for Lillian and Etta Mae. They got everybody in, just like they wanted to, ’cause J.D. said it took all four of you to get my sisters here.”
“I’m overcome,” I said, sinking into a chair. All I could think of was how I’d wanted those babies to have good old-fashioned names, but this was too much of a good thing.
“Yes,” Lloyd went on, “and they’re going to call them Julie and Lily Mae, you know, to keep from mixing everybody up.”
Julie! I thought with even more dismay—the name that was the bane of my existence because so many people misread or misspelled my name and had to be corrected. Well, I thought, I’d have to get over that in a hurry. And I would, for having a little namesake, even though she’d be called by an aberration, was indeed an honor. At least there’d be no Big and Little Julias, and for that I was more than thankful.
By the time the evening meal was over and Sam and I had retired to our room, I was about ready to jump out of my skin. Not only was fatigue making me jittery, it’d been all I could do to keep from shouting, “They arrested me! Help me! Help me!” and disrupting everybody at the dinner table.
But, finally, I could cut loose as Sam closed the door to the hall and said, “Now, sweetheart, what did you want to talk about?”
“I was arrested yesterday,” I said, as if it had been the most normal occurrence in the world. Unable to meet his eyes, I looked around Hazel Marie’s pink room, which she’d been unable to use since she’d been ordered not to climb the stairs.
“What?”
“Two deputies came to the house, Sam,” I said, as my composure broke. “And took me in for questioning. For bouncing checks, of all things! And they fingerprinted me and took my picture and made me appear before a magistrate!”
“Julia, honey,” Sam said as he put his hands on my shoulders, “that wasn’t exactly an arrest, but you don’t need to be bouncing checks. If you need more money, Binkie can make it available. Just tell her what you want.”
“But they weren’t mine! I didn’t write a single one of them. Just look, Sam,” I said, waving my household checkbook, “the figures are absolutely accurate, because I reconcile this thing every month when the statement comes in. And how anybody could make copies of my checks, I don’t know.”
“Let me see,” he said, taking it from me. “You haven’t gotten this month’s statement yet, have you?”
“No, but I’ve gone over every check I’ve written, double-checked my figures with a calculator, and I know I’m right. It’s the bank that’s messed up everything and they won’t admit it. And, Sam, Bitsy said I’d written a check for thirty-five hundred dollars—to cash, if you please—and that was what wiped me out. And you know I did no such thing. I mean, I could’ve if I’d needed it, but I haven’t needed it.”
“All right. Let’s think this through. How many checks have bounced? ”
“One to Ingles, one to something called Sav-Mor, and o
ne to Jiffy Lube, and no telling how many more will come bouncing in.”
“What did your signature look like?”
“I didn’t see it. Everything’s on that computer, and Bitsy wouldn’t show it to me. Oh me, I should’ve gone right to the grocery store and looked at that one, but he’s run it back through by now, which means it’ll bounce again!”
“Don’t get upset, honey. It’s obvious that somebody’s forged your signature.”
“That’s what I think! But how did they get any checks to forge? They couldn’t use counter checks, could they? They had to have mine.”
Sam looked up from the checkbook and gazed off in the distance. “How long was this checkbook lying out there in the car?”
“Let me think,” I said, thinking back. “At least three days, maybe four—ever since I stopped for gas last week. That’s the only time I dumped everything out looking for my Texaco card. But, Sam, it stayed in the car, right where you found it. It hadn’t been stolen, so we still don’t know how somebody could have gotten any of my checks.”
“Hm,” Sam said, looking through the checkbook again. He noted the last check I’d written for the electric bill and saw that it was correctly entered in the register. Then he riffled through the remaining checks. “Here’s your problem, sweetheart.”
“Where? ”
“Right here in the middle of the book. Looks like five checks are missing, right where you wouldn’t notice.”
“Wouldn’t notice till they bounced! They just tore them out of the middle? Who would do such a thing? And when? ” Then, with a sudden jolt to my system, I knew. “It had to’ve been at night! Oh, Sam, somebody’s been sneaking around our house at night.”
“Sure looks like it. And I’m wondering if it had anything to do with that body they found.”
“Oh, don’t say that! I’m in enough trouble with the law as it is.”
“Okay, I’ll go down early tomorrow and talk to somebody at the bank . . .”
“Not Bitsy. Find somebody who can do something besides tap a computer.”
“Okay,” he said, “then I’ll talk to Lieutenant Peavey and . . .”
“Be nice to him, Sam. If it hadn’t been for him, you’d be visiting me in jail.”
“Anyway,” Sam said with a grin, “I’ll get it straightened out tomorrow.”
I put my head against his chest. “You don’t know how relieved I am. Nobody would listen to me, but you always do.”
He hugged me, then looked down. “Something we need to think about, though. We know where four of those checks went, but there are five missing from your checkbook. One is still outstanding.”
I dropped my head back against his chest. “I guess that means there’ll be deputies on my porch again. This is a nightmare, Sam.”
He hugged me tighter. “No, you’re going to have sweet dreams tonight. Your personal lawyer’s on the job now.”
Chapter 19
Knowing that I was now in good hands, I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow and would’ve slept the night through if I hadn’t heard Mr. Pickens and Etta Mae come in around eleven that night. I vaguely thought of rising to ask how Hazel Marie was doing, but all I did was turn over and go back to sleep, making up for what had been lost the night before.
The next morning dawned cold and windy with no sign of melting snow. That meant there’d be no school because the buses couldn’t run on icy roads. And still no power, which meant putting up with the generator racket and using appliances one at a time. We let Lloyd and Latisha sleep in, but the rest of us gathered in the kitchen, where Lillian produced a prodigious number of pancakes.
Sam had just come in from a slippery walk to Main Street to pick up a newspaper because ours had not been delivered. He’d stomped snow off his boots, then left them on the porch as he came in in his stocking feet.
“Interesting news, Julia,” he said, handing me the paper. “See what you make of it.”
I passed Mr. Pickens the syrup, noticing as I did that Etta Mae perked up at the mention of news. She’d done little more than yawn between bites of pancake ever since she’d come to the table.
At the top of the front page, I read BODY IDENTIFIED and quickly scanned the article to see if I’d known the person found in Miss Petty’s toolshed.
“Well, of all the teasing headlines!” I said, shaking the paper in frustration. “I’ve never seen the like.”
“What is it?” Mr. Pickens asked.
Sam laughed and shook his head. “The authorities know, but they aren’t telling.”
“Just listen to this,” I said as I skimmed the article for the pertinent sentences. “The body found Monday morning in the toolshed of a local teacher was formally identified yesterday, but the authorities aren’t releasing the name until the next of kin have been notified. The Abbotsville Times reporter was able to learn that the individual had been a real estate broker, entrepreneur, investment counselor, and community leader well known, he says, in local circles.” I looked at Sam. “Maybe Lloyd is right and we do know him. He sounds like somebody we ought to know.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah, it does, but the word will get around soon enough.” He grinned at me. “Maybe LuAnne will call and let you know.”
“Well, I hope she does. Because now I’ll worry with it all day, trying to figure out who it was. Whom do we know who’s both a real estate broker and an investment counselor? I’m not sure I knew those two lines of work went together.”
“Maybe he was one at one time,” Etta Mae said, “then switched to the other at another time.”
“Could be,” Mr. Pickens said. “Entrepreneur usually means somebody who dabbles in a lot of things. You can also figure he wasn’t a young man. If he’d done all that, I’d guess he was getting on up there.”
“Could be most anybody,” Sam said, pushing back his plate. “Every businessman, lawyer, or doctor pretty much has a finger or two in first one thing and another.”
I folded the newspaper and put it away. “I don’t know why they bother to print something when they don’t know the first thing about it, or can’t tell what they do know.”
“Mr. Pickens,” Lillian asked, her beatific smile still in place, “you want some more pancakes?”
“I couldn’t eat another one if my life depended on it,” he said. “Really, really good, Lillian. But now,” he said as Lloyd stumbled sleepily into the room, “I better get over to the hospital and see how my family—the rest of my family—is getting along.” He said the last with a wink at Lloyd. “You want to go with me?”
“Yes, sir, I do, but I’d just as soon not stay all day.”
“I’m not planning to stay all day either,” Mr. Pickens said. “As soon as the doctor comes in this morning, he’s going to let your mother come home.”
“This morning!” I said, surprised at such a short hospital stay. “Why, we better get ready for those babies.”
As I started to spring from my chair, Etta Mae put her hand on my arm. “It’ll probably be late morning before we can get them here. They have to wait till the doctor makes rounds.”
As Sam and Mr. Pickens left the kitchen to prepare for the day and Lloyd stood by the stove with Lillian, Etta Mae leaned closer. “I want to talk to Dr. Hargrove about the babies before they come home. They’re not nursing well, and I want to be sure he knows it.”
Confused by this information, I asked, “Won’t the nurses tell him?”
“I’m sure they will,” Etta Mae said. “But Hazel Marie will be depending on me, and I want Dr. Hargrove to know who I am if I have to call him in the middle of the night sometime.”
“Oh my goodness,” I said, overwhelmed with one more thing to worry about. “You think something’s wrong with them?”
“Oh no,” she quickly said, “they’re just small and they get tired before they’ve nursed long enough to get anything.”
Mr. Pickens walked back in time to hear Etta Mae’s last whispered comment.
Looking at him wi
th concern, I asked, “Did you know about this?”
“That’s why we stayed so late last night,” he said, standing now by the table. “Hazel Marie was upset because she wants to nurse them, but they’re not cooperating. She’ll be okay with it if they have to be put on bottles, but she wants to keep trying for a while. Dr. Hargrove suggested leaving the babies in the hospital a few more days, but she didn’t want to come home without them.”
“I can’t blame her for that,” I said. “She’s had those babies with her for nine months, so she sure wouldn’t want to be without them now. I hope to goodness you’re not planning to take off anywhere, Mr. Pickens. We’re going to need all the help we can get.”
He flashed me a quick smile. “I know my duty.”
And a good thing too, I thought to myself, although I wondered what had happened to that Raleigh job he’d had to drop before even starting.
Chapter 20
Sam left with Mr. Pickens because he wanted a ride to his house so he could check on the heat and water pipes. Lloyd decided to stay home and play with Latisha while awaiting his mother’s arrival. Lillian and I went to Hazel Marie’s room and changed the sheets on the bed, plumping up pillows and turning the covers down invitingly.
“They sure send them home early these days, don’t they?” I commented while straightening a crooked lamp shade. Somebody, probably Mr. Pickens, was a restless sleeper.
“Yes’m, they sure do. An’ I know she feel bad ’bout them babies not nursing too good, but if her milk don’t come down, they need to get on bottles. They little enough already.”
“We’d better send Mr. Pickens to the drugstore for bottles and formula, just in case. We need to be prepared and have everything here.” I put an extra blanket across the foot of the bed, then switched to another subject of concern. “I hope James has Sam’s house in good working order this morning. If he doesn’t, Sam will be out there shoveling snow and no telling what could happen. Oh,” I said as we heard the phone ring, “I hope that’s not him now, saying he’s broken something.”
