He didn’t tell Sara, but he would’ve done anything she wanted to do in that moment. Just like when they first met, he was putty in her hands.
Sara grabbed her purse and the two walked out of the bar and down the street to the pharmacy, hand in hand. That was something they hadn’t done in ages. And it sure felt right.
Chapter 18
“What if he is just relaxing at her house while she’s at work?” Leroy asked. “Is there a law against it?”
“No, there’s no law against it. But there should be because it isn’t right,” Maude said.
“Why not? If she’s not there, there isn’t anything bad going on, is there? So why isn’t it right?”
“It just isn’t,” Maude said, raising her voice.
“Now let’s calm down,” Frank intervened. He put the palms of his hands flat on the top of the soda counter. “There’s got to be a logical explanation for this. We just have to think.”
The four of them fell silent as they each thought of any possible reason for Bob Greeley to be over at Claire Murphy’s house while she was at work. If in fact she was at work. Miriam still believed that Claire was home and that she and Bob were having an affair. She could tell, could feel it in her bones and in the pit of her stomach.
After several minutes of being lost in thought, Frank came up with a great reason. He clapped his hands together, creating a sudden, loud sound that drew all the eyes in the room to him. “I’ve got it,” he said with a smile. “Claire probably hired him to do some work around her place. That explains it.”
“Oh yeah. That would explain it,” Maude said, trailing off as she pondered whether the theory held any weight.
Leroy nodded. “Very possible. Bob is a pretty handy fella to have around. He’s a whiz at fixing cars.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s handy to have around the house,” Miriam snapped. Everyone looked at her, but she fixed her stare on Leroy. “You didn’t see that house. It’s a shack! If he was so handy to have around, why doesn’t he fix things at his own house? Why does he neglect his house to fix something at some other woman’s place?”
Leroy shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she’s paying him. Maybe he can’t afford to fix his own house, so he’s making extra money. He gets paid to do some work at someone else’s house so he can afford to do some work on his own. It’s simple.”
“It’s not simple,” Miriam insisted. She walked over and plopped down in a booth near the front windows. “He’s been over there too many times. I never see any tools. Never hear the sounds of work taking place. He isn’t doing any work. There’s something else going on.”
“But what?” Maude asked as the bell chimed above the door.
The group looked over to see Emma Andrews walk into the store.
“Hello, Emma. How are you today?” Frank asked happily as he made his way across the room to the pharmacy counter.
“I’m doing pretty good.”
“Heard you had a headache.”
“I did. I took the last of my Anacin though. I had to come for some more.”
Frank told her the amount without even entering any numbers into the register. He sold so much of it to her, he had the amount memorized. As she retrieved the money from her purse, Frank came around the counter and grabbed a tin of Anacin off the shelf for her. When he got back to the register, she had the money laid out on the counter.
“Thanks, Frank. I think I’m going to sit in here and have a Coke if you all don’t mind some company,” she said glancing across the room to where Maude, Leroy, and Miriam sat in silence.
“We don’t mind at all, Emma. You come right on over here and have a seat.” Maude patted the stool next to her. “I’ll buy your Coke.”
“Thank you, Maude.”
Emma took her purse and her Anacin over to the soda counter and sat on the stool next to Maude. She put the Anacin in her purse and set the purse on the counter just as Frank placed a Coke on the counter in front of her.
“Here you go.”
“Thanks, Frank. Oh, this looks good. Nice and cold. The fan in my kitchen stopped working earlier, so I thought when I came for my Anacin, I’d just sit in here and drink a soda and cool off for a while.”
“Well good thing you got here when you did.”
“Why’s that?” Emma asked before taking a drink.
“Power’s out.”
“Is that so?” Emma thought for a second. “I wonder if that’s why my fan stopped working.”
“Could be. Won’t be long until it’s as hot in here as it is out there,” Frank said. The worry in his voice was obvious and understandable. Without power, there was no refrigeration, meaning he’d lose a lot of his merchandise in the heat. Particularly the ice cream.
“How’s Ollie and Gerald coming along with the church?” Maude asked.
Seeing that his part in the conversation was done for the moment, Frank carried a roll of tape and a stepping stool to the front door. Once on the stool, he pulled a piece of tape off the roll and stretched it across the clapper of the bell above the door, securing it tightly to one side to keep it from sounding whenever the door was opened. He didn’t want his bell to be the reason Emma’s headache came back. He would take the tape off after she left, but for as long as she was in the store, he would leave it. It was something he often did when she was there for any length of time.
“They’re almost finished. Gerald said it was a good thing because there’s a storm coming. It must be getting close. The clouds are gathering over Hoxton way.”
From across the room, Frank said, “Maybe the storm has already hit Hoxton. That’s probably why we don’t have any power.”
“Could be,” Leroy agreed. “Seems like every time Hoxton gets a storm, we lose power.”
“So did you talk to Ollie before you came to town?” Maude asked.
“I did.”
“Did he eat lunch?”
“He said they went home to check on Andrew when they stopped for lunch. He didn’t say what they had though. I hope it was enough to last until dinner.” She took another drink of soda, swirled it around in her mouth before swallowing it.
“How is Andrew? Did he say?”
“He said he was feeling better. He was making a card for the Murphy girl.” Emma took another drink of soda, enjoying the sweet, syrupy taste as it swished in her mouth.
“What Murphy girl?” Maude asked. She shot a glance to Miriam, then Frank, and then Leroy.
“This girl in his class. Andrew said the kids at school make fun of her. She hasn’t lived here very long, and you know how children can be to the new kid. They can be downright cruel. I’m sure they’ll stop soon. Your sweet son is making her a card to cheer her up. That’s so very thoughtful of him. Ollie said he drew a picture of her on the front of the card. She’s holding a handful of her favorite candy. Lemon lollipops.”
“Did you say lemon lollipops?” asked Frank as he took his place behind the soda counter once more.
Emma nodded. “Yes. Why?” She looked around at the faces of her friends, wondering why they looked so worried.
“Frank, didn’t you say Bob Greeley comes in once a week and buys lemon lollipops?” asked Miriam as she popped up from her seat.
Frank nodded.
“How long has he been doing that?”
Frank pushed the glasses up his nose and thought. “I don’t know. A few weeks, I suppose.”
Maude clasped one of her thick hands over her mouth and closed her eyes. She held her breath and prayed she was wrong. Prayed they all were.
Leroy turned on his stool to face Miriam, who stood beside the booth with her hands clasped around her throat. “What are you saying?” he asked.
Miriam glared at him. “What do you mean what am I saying? Don’t you see?”
Leroy thought for a few seconds, and then shook his head. “No. I don’t reckon I do.”
Miriam stepped away from the booth. As she drew closer to Leroy, her hands took on a mind of their ow
n, flailing around as she spoke excitedly. “Bob Greeley comes in here and buys lemon lollipops once a week. Is that right, Frank?”
Everyone looked from Miriam to Frank and watched as he nodded. They then turned their attention back to Miriam.
“He goes over to Claire Murphy’s house. Who at Claire’s house likes lemon lollipops?”
“The girl,” Leroy said slowly and carefully, still not making the connection.
“Exactly.”
Leroy shook his head. “So what are you saying?”
“For Pete’s sake, Leroy!”
“What she’s saying is Bob Greeley buys the girl’s favorite candy, and then he takes it to her,” Maude said, trying to clear things up for him.
“So? Is there a law against that?”
“Oh you and your laws,” Miriam said snidely, waving her thick hand at him.
“Well I just don’t see what the problem is.”
“The problem is this,” Miriam said matter-of-factly. “A grown man, who is married, shouldn’t be going to another woman’s house. Ever. He shouldn’t be buying candy for her daughter. And he certainly shouldn’t be with the woman’s daughter alone, while she’s at work.” She waited for her words to sink in on Leroy, watching his face as it contorted from confusion to comprehension, and then to horror.
“Are you saying that he’s over there, right now, alone with the girl?”
Miriam nodded, though she didn’t want to. Part of her thought that if she didn’t say it, didn’t acknowledge it in any way, then it wasn’t true. But the evidence was there.
“And you think…what? That he’s…with this girl? Romantically speaking?”
“I don’t want to think that.”
“But you do?”
Miriam swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “I do.” When she saw Leroy shake his head, she quickly added, “Well you have to admit that it certainly looks that way.”
“What looks what way?” Henry Miller asked.
The group turned their attention to Henry and Sara, who entered the pharmacy undetected without the sound of the bell to announce their arrival.
Frank noticed, as did everyone else, that Henry clutched Sara’s hand in his. He also noticed that the couple looked like they used to, back before Sara took to the bottle. Frank relaxed at the sight of them. Maybe this meant she wouldn’t flirt with him when she came in now. Maybe she wouldn’t say and wear and do the things that made Frank so uncomfortable. He hoped he was right, and he hoped it stayed that way.
“We were just talking about the Murphy girl,” said Emma. She was still confused as to what was happening, but from what she’d gathered so far from the conversation, it was bad.
“Claire?” asked Sara.
“No. Her daughter,” said Miriam.
“Sue.”
“You know her?” Maude asked.
“Yes. She was in the market one day with Claire. She’s a pretty girl. Why are you all talking about her?”
An exchange of uneasy glances bounced across the room.
Reluctantly, Miriam said, “It looks like something’s going on between her and Bob Greeley.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Frank said. When Miriam shot him an icy stare, he added, “But it does look that way.”
Miriam tried not to be angry with Frank. She tried to ignore the fact that he was acting just like Bruce. He was still trying to see the other side of the story. But in this case, Miriam didn’t see another side. All signs pointed to Bob Greeley being a pervert. It made her furious enough when she thought he was having an affair with another woman, but to think he was messing with a child? Her stomach turned.
“Oh my god,” Sara said.
“Is this true?” Henry asked, his attention focused to Leroy.
Leroy looked at Henry briefly before looking away. He stood and walked to the far side of the room, past the end of the soda counter, where he leaned against the wall and folded his arms across his chest. Shaking his head, he said, “I don’t know. It doesn’t look right though. I’ll say that.”
“No, it doesn’t. And it’s not right for him to buy candy for her and go to see her when her mother is at work over in another town. It’s just not right.” Miriam said as she fell back down into the booth. She put her head in her hands and squeezed her eyes closed to avoid crying.
“How old is this girl?” Frank asked Sara.
“Twelve? Thirteen maybe.”
“That’s right,” added Emma. “She’s in Andrew’s class at school, so that has to be right.”
“Where’s her father?” Frank asked.
Sara shook her head. “I don’t know. I think he left. It’s just the two of them.”
Everyone looked to everyone else, hoping for another explanation, praying that they were wrong. Everyone hated to think the thoughts that were running through their heads, but how could they not? The evidence spoke for itself in this case, leaving them little else to consider.
As the reality of the situation sank in on them, no one said a word. The room remained silent, the air heavy.
Chapter 19
“We did it,” Gerald said. “We got it done before supper. And more importantly, before the storm hits. Though looking at the sky, I’d say we barely made it.”
Ollie stood beside Gerald in front of the church with his hands in his pockets, admiring their work. “Not bad for a couple of old fellas, huh?”
Gerald laughed. “No. Not bad at all.” He slapped Ollie on the back and said, “We better go in the house and get washed up. Then I’ll take you to town for that cool air and ice cream I promised you.”
“Sounds good to me.”
As the two men walked across the road, the wind began to blow. It was a gentle breeze, but it wasn’t welcome. The hot air carried with it loose dirt, some of which found its way into Ollie’s eyes. Once inside the house, he rubbed the grit away until it no longer felt like he was blinking over sandpaper.
“Seems like the power’s out,” Gerald said as he flipped the light switch up and down with no results. “Guess we could go on into town. Maybe get washed up there.” He looked at his hands, splattered with white paint and sticky with sweat and dirt.
“We can do that,” Ollie agreed. By this time, he was eager to be in the cool air and get his hands on that ice cream. It’s all he’d been thinking about since Gerald had promised it to him, and it’s what had pushed him to work harder and faster, which resulted in him being even hotter than he already was. He didn’t know if he’d ever been this hot in his life. It felt like his sweat was sweating.
The men got in Gerald’s car and drove into town. Along the way, the smell of hot rain came in through the open windows.
“It’s getting close,” Gerald said.
“Sure is.” Ollie inhaled deeply through his nose. “I love that smell.”
“So do I. I hope it rains for days. A nice, steady rain.”
Ollie agreed and they rode the rest of the way in silence.
When they pulled alongside Emma’s car at the pharmacy, Gerald said, “Boy. They’re sure keeping old Frank busy today, aren’t they?”
“They sure are. Of course Maude alone could keep Frank busy scooping ice cream.”
As the wind picked up outside, the two men walked into the pharmacy laughing.
Inside the store, the cheerful sound of their guffaws broke through the silence of the store, seeming much louder than it actually was. Their laughter felt wrong, somehow out of place. Their jovial mood wasn’t well received in the solemn soda shop. It felt like laughing at a funeral. The men exchanged a glance before looking back at the group of people who sat with long faces, each seemingly more sad than the last.
“What’s going on?” Gerald asked as he and Ollie walked across the store.
Miriam said, “It seems that we have a child molester among us.”
Gerald was on his way to sit next to Emma, but froze in his tracks at Miriam’s words. “What do you mean?” He looked into the face
of each person in the pharmacy, lingering on those of the men.
“It’s none of us,” Maude said quickly. “It isn’t anyone in here.”
“Oh.” Gerald nodded, though he was still confused as to what was going on.
“I thought Bob Greeley was having an affair with Claire Murphy,” Miriam said softly. “But it appears that what he’s actually doing is having an affair with her daughter.”
“Her daughter?” Gerald asked.
Miriam nodded.
“Isn’t…” Gerald turned to Ollie, confused. “Isn’t the Murphy girl the one your son is making the card for?”
Ollie nodded, speechless. He took in this information as it was given to him and tried to process it, though it was difficult to grasp.
“She’s only a child. How in the world can a grown man have an affair with—” Gerald stopped midsentence. He didn’t need to finish the question. He already knew the answer, and if he’d thought about it for a second, he’d have known it sooner.
Miriam had called Bob Greeley a molester. The girl was underage, just a child. You couldn’t have an affair with a child. With a child, it was rape. Molestation. Wrong. Evil.
“Oh my god,” said Ollie. He rushed over to Maude’s side and put a hand on her shoulder, trying to imagine why anyone would want to harm a child.
Gerald closed his eyes and said a prayer. Everyone knew what he was doing. It was clear in the way he bowed his head and the way his lips moved without a sound. No one spoke until he was finished. When he opened his eyes, he asked Miriam, “Are you sure?”
“He’s over there right now,” Miriam said. “I’ve seen him over there many times before.”
“But that doesn’t mean that anything bad is going on. He could be—”
Miriam cut him off. “We’ve been over this. Claire is at work over in Hoxton today. She won’t be home until late tonight. But Bob is there, alone with that girl. He buys her candy and goes to see her while her mother is at work in another town. There is nothing else that could be going on.”
Leroy added, “I thought maybe he was doing some work over there, but she says she never sees or hears anything that would suggest he was working.” He pointed at Miriam, who nodded.
The Day Bob Greeley Died Page 10
