Walking Woman (Gratis Book 2)

by Jackson, Jay

  Mary Alice wheeled the stroller into the shop and parked it beside her chair. Ted sat up high in the stroller, and she left him there as she ate her food. Reading a People magazine left behind by a previous customer, Mary Alice smiled every few moments at Ted. This was her favorite time of day, in public but still feeling very intimate and alone with her child.

  Mary Alice and Ted, however, were not nearly as alone as she thought.

  For the fourth time that week, she ate in the same room as another who was also there at Shaky Nate’s. The first three times were at Le Café when she shared Ted with her friends. As they fussed over him, no one noticed that somebody else was taken with the child as well. This person was probably more taken with him than all of the Junior Leaguers combined.

  As he sat in the coffee shop, reading his father’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mister Brother kept peeking at the child. One thought raced through his head as he did so, making it almost impossible to pretend to read the sports section.

  I cannot wait to tell everyone. He’s about to come home. I’ve found Baby Brother.

  17.

  That Friday morning was hot. Jewel was sitting on the back porch, sweating in her recliner as she drank her first Coke of the day. A rerun of Gimme a Break! was just starting on the television. She sang along with Nell Carter as the theme song warbled from the speakers.

  Lawd, I need a break from this heat, yes Lawd, I do.

  She giggled at the thought of Nell singing about how every person needed a break from the heat, imagining her crooning from the corner of the porch. Then Jewel imagined Nell bumping the flowerpot in the corner with her rear and breaking it. She stopped laughing. For a full five minutes she was angry at Nell, wishing she would be more careful.

  Nell should have thought about all the time Claudia spent making the house beautiful, before she started shaking her butt.

  Soon enough, though, the events on the screen dissolved her anger. By the end of the program she loved Nell again.

  She is so kind to those little girls, and she loves them. My Claudia loves me, even better than Nell loves her babies. I still love Miss Nell. Lawdy!

  Jewel rose from her chair and went inside. She carefully put the Coke bottle into the trash and poured herself a tall plastic cup of water. Claudia made sure that she only drank two Cokes a day, and that she drank at least three glasses of water.

  “Remember three,” she would say, “just like the Holy Trinity. They’re good for your soul, and the water is good for your body.”

  She was drinking from her plastic cup, thinking about which Glen Campbell tape she was going to listen to. Then she heard a knock at the door. Jewel dropped the cup, water pouring over her sandals and the socks she wore with them. She didn’t notice.

  Slowly, she made her way to the door. She wouldn’t open it, but she could peek out the glass panes on the side to see who was knocking. If it was someone she knew she might open it, if they looked right to her. Whether they looked right or not was a day-to-day decision with Jewel. If they didn’t look right, or if she didn’t know them, she would go back to her chair and get her knife.

  Jewel peeked. She saw an empty front porch with nobody there. This wasn’t unusual, as Jewel sometimes heard things that no one else did. She started toward the old shelf to find the tape she would listen to. It consisted of the song “Wichita Lineman” copied over and over. She loved that song.

  Then she heard another knock. This one was louder, and coming from the direction of her bedroom. It was followed by several harsher raps against the bedroom window. Jewel froze, not sure what to do. She really needed to hear Glen, but something kept hitting the window, over and over again.

  Then it stopped.

  She stood in the middle of the living room, afraid to go in any direction. Her mind wouldn’t focus. All she could think was, Lawdy, I need a break. Gimme a break! After a few intolerable minutes, she turned toward her bedroom and moved to the hallway.

  She heard another noise at the front door. This noise wasn’t a rapping, though, or a knock. This time she heard a voice. This voice knew her by name.

  “You know who this is, Jewel. You know who this is coming for you. This house belongs to me. You can’t stay in this house, not for free, anyway!”

  The voice started near the front door and then moved. As she turned toward the door, another voice started from down the hallway. It was coming from outside her sister’s room.

  “We comin’ for you, Jewel. You been in our house and now it’s time to pay up! Don’t want no cash, but we’ll take your soul! Yep, your soul will do just fine!”

  Jewel had known this day would come, sooner or later. She first realized it when she was barely twelve. Jewel woke up one morning and heard voices she’d never heard before. They told her they would take her away, that they wanted to eat her and everything she loved. It was the devil and his demons. She knew it couldn’t be anybody else. Even when her daddy let the doctors take her to the hospital, she knew. Those doctors kept telling her that she needed to take some medicine, and that nobody was trying to hurt her. She took their medicine—Daddy wanted her to—but she never believed them. No doctor had the cure for that much evil. You can throw pills at the devil for days, but he’ll only eat your heart.

  Jewel ran back to the porch, got her knife from the chair, and went back to the living room. The devil might be here to take her, and maybe he brought the demons, but she wouldn’t just walk away with them. She knew too many of the good words in the Bible to use against them, and she had her knife. It was a big knife, just right for cutting out the heart of those who wanted hers. She wasn’t sure if the devil even had a heart, but she knew her knife could cut something, heart or not.

  “You leave me alone, devil! I rebuke you, and the Lawd rebukes you! We walk through this valley and have no fear of you, none of you. Leave me alone!” She tried to be brave, to remember her Bible lessons. Even so, her words sounded like thin pings as they came out of her mouth, not the roar from a lion of Judah. A roar doesn’t waver, doesn’t shake.

  Jewel was afraid.

  “We come for you, Jewel, yes we have! We gonna bathe you in fire tonight, all kinds of fire!” At that, she heard a loud hissing and saw smoke rising outside the windows on the back porch. It was black and thick. A demon’s laugh cut through it as it floated toward heaven.

  That was all Jewel could stand.

  She ran out of the house, through the front door, and up to Cap Jackson Road. She made sure not to look from side to side as she left. The sight of the devil’s horns and red eyes would scare her straight into her grave. She knew that. There would also be no looking back as she ran away. Lot’s wife looked over her shoulder when she shouldn’t have. Things turned out poorly for her. Jewel wouldn’t make that mistake. She ran with purpose, eyes straight forward, and with one thought in her head.

  I need a break! Gimme a break, Lawd. Help me find my Claudia. She’s the only one strong enough to beat the devil!

  She quickened her pace, accelerating her massive girth with each ponderous stride. In her hand, moving in time as she ran to find her sister, was the butcher knife. It glinted in the sun, a light to protect her from the demons chasing behind. If she listened, or was able to hear anything besides the thoughts exploding in her head, she would have noticed two demons laughing. Their cackles faded with each step she took away from home.

  Jewel didn’t know where Claudia was just then, but knew where she might be around lunchtime. So Jewel ran there.

  Soon enough, if her prayers were met, she would be in Gratis. There she would rest and find safety in the loving arms of her sister. Until then, her huge legs moved her forward, a knife at her side to cut any demon who tried to stop her.

  18.

  Delroy was dozing in his office a little before lunch that Friday. Earlier, he had met a client, Matty Reid, who was in jail for violating his probation. Matty was an old client with a propensity to smoke weed, whether he was on probation or not. At this
point, Delroy didn’t even bother to tell him why smoking while subject to random drug tests was a bad idea. That lecture was wasted on Matty, but he did have the common sense to know he shouldn’t go to court alone. If nothing else, the judge might knock a little off his sentence if Delroy said “please” enough. It had worked before.

  Delroy was dreaming about the first time he took Amy to Lake Sinclair. He wondered at the way she glowed in the starlight. They were about to eat dinner when he heard a voice coming from overhead.

  “Get up, Delroy. You have to wake up now. Something terrible is going on!” Amy faded, her eyes closing as his opened to end his nap. The voice over him, ending his dream date, was coming from Toots.

  “You have to wake up and go to the square right now Delroy! You have to get up now, now!” Toots shook his chair. He almost fell out from the force of her efforts. He stood up and backed away from her, trying to shake his head fully to consciousness.

  “Okay, Toots, what’s the problem? What’s so bad you have to throw me outta my chair? Did your paycheck bounce?”

  Toots cocked her head to the side, put her hands on her hips, and answered.

  “No, that was last month if memory serves me right, smart-ass. You need to go to the square right now. Jewel Peters is there—and the police are, too.”

  This was not the news Delroy wanted to greet him after such a good dream. He shook his head again, making sure he was awake and not still dreaming.

  “Delroy, you have to go now! Jewel is there with the police, and she’s got a knife. I’m afraid for her.”

  Toots loved all of God’s children, but she had a special place in her heart for the more delicate ones. Delroy noticed the tears welling up in her eyes.

  “Oh shit,” was all he could say. He ran out of the front door, barely touching the porch as he leaped out to the sidewalk. His shirt was still untucked as he cut through an alley that would take him to the square, almost running out of his loafers.

  This was as bad as any scenario he could imagine. Claudia kept Jewel out on Cap Jackson Road because she was safe there. She wasn’t a bad person, but she lived in a fog where fear controlled her actions. Those actions often took the form of violence.

  Mixing Jewel with police was another potential disaster. Three years before, a deputy sheriff found her wandering down the middle of Cap Jackson. Jewel wasn’t on her meds at the time, hiding her pills behind her tongue when Claudia gave them to her. She would spit them out after her sister went on her daily walks.

  This deputy, Kevin Brooks, was a local boy who decided to stay and work for Tommy Adcock at the sheriff’s office. The day he saw Jewel was his second day on the road. His first two years had been spent working at the jail.

  It was a good thing that Kevin was a local. He knew all about Jewel and her potential for violence. That didn’t stop her from swinging her knife at him when he got out of his cruiser to check on her. She drew blood, a slight trickle coming from his earlobe. It would have been much worse if he had approached her with less caution.

  Jewel was jailed, and spent the next six months in a state mental hospital. Delroy convinced the court that Claudia could care for and manage her with the proper meds. It helped that Kevin was an old friend of Kero’s. He asked the district attorney and superior court judge to let Jewel out. They did, but neither was happy about it.

  Delroy slowed as he ran out of the alley and onto the square. He almost fell over when he saw what was going on.

  Jewel was standing at the old war memorial statue, waving her knife and yelling for her sister. Over the growl of police cruiser engines and radio chatter you could hear her call. “I need Claudia! Stay away from me, devil and demons, or I’ll kill you in the name of the Lawd! Where is Claudia?” She caught her breath every few seconds, swinging the butcher knife with one hand as she braced herself against the statue with the other.

  Several local police and at least four deputy sheriffs were there. None of them had a gun drawn, but they all had hands on their holsters. Most knew what Jewel did to Deputy Brooks—and thought he was too easy on her. They wouldn’t make the same mistake. A knife was never as fast as a bullet.

  Delroy slowly approached a deputy he knew, Lieutenant George Patrick Rowe. He was an old client who used Delroy’s services when his mother needed a will.

  “Hey GP, what’s happening with Jewel?”

  “Delroy, seriously man, we don’t really need you around here right now. Miss Jewel came into town swinging a knife around, and we all know she ain’t afraid to use it. We’re just trying to make sure she doesn’t.”

  “Let me go up and talk to her. I’m friends with her. Give me a chance to help y’all.”

  GP looked at Delroy and frowned.

  “Delroy, I know you want to help, but if I say yes and she guts you, there goes my pension. I’ll have to work security at the Cowpens Trailer Park full time, and you know they ain’t got no 401(k) plan, and sure as hell no dental.” GP smiled at Delroy, his bridgework on display.

  “Well GP, just make sure you tell them I didn’t ask.” At that, Delroy started walking toward Jewel, his hands up and a smile on his face.

  “Get your ass back here!” One of the Gratis policemen yelled at Delroy. He ignored the officer and softly called to Jewel.

  “Miss Jewel? It’s me, Delroy. You want to come to my house and get a push-up ice cream?” She turned to face him, the knife waving wildly as she did so.

  “Stay away from me! You ain’t Claudia! The devil knows how to take many forms, Lawd knows. Stay away from me!” Delroy stopped in his tracks. He saw her eyes when she turned to face him. The Jewel he knew wasn’t there. Instead, he saw empty, black orbs, devoid of anything close to reason.

  He wanted to help her but couldn’t move. Delroy was afraid of her, and wished Kero was there. Unfortunately, Kero had picked the week to take a rare vacation with his wife and seven children on Tybee Island. They wouldn’t be back until Sunday.

  Delroy was about to move his legs again when he heard a voice yell. “Jewel, put that knife down!” He looked to Jewel’s left and saw Claudia about fifty feet behind her. She was pushing her carriage past two of the deputies. Jewel’s knife dropped to her side. She stepped away from the statue.

  Seeing her walk toward an armed suspect, Deputy Tim White stepped in front of Claudia and took her by the shoulders. He was new on the force and didn’t know either of the sisters.

  Jewel, seeing someone put hands on her sister, stopped momentarily.

  That demon is tryin’ to hurt Claudia, tryin’ to hold her up and eat her. Help me Lawd, we can’t let that happen. I fear no evil!

  Jewel raised the butcher knife. She ran toward her sister and the demon trying to take her.

  After three steps, shots rang out. Jewel fell in a heap, one bullet piercing her kneecap. Two more entered her right lung and abdomen. Her eyes, only moments before deep pools of ebony fear, were now closed.

  Claudia broke away from the deputy and ran to her sister, yelling, “Jewel! My Jewel!” This time nobody stopped her. She covered her sister with her own body. Whether she knew it or not, Jewel finally found the safe arms of the person she needed and loved the most.

  The various officers started calling emergency personnel and getting ready for what would happen next. A lot would happen, and questions would be asked. A local from a prominent family had been shot. They needed to be ready with the right answers.

  As for Claudia, she had no answers. All she had was a baby sister spilling blood on the ground. For years, Claudia had watched and watched, always trying to be ready for the bad things. Still, she wasn’t ready for this.

  The wail of sirens approached, and soon her baby sister would be with them and their doctors. Not knowing what else to do, and afraid of how short time may be, Claudia held her sister tightly. Witnesses would say she looked like a child, her head pressed against her sister’s bosom.

  They would also say she wept.

  19.

  “Dammit,
Delroy, you are about to get your ass thrown in my jail with your client!” Sheriff Tommy Adcock bellowed at Delroy the Sunday after Jewel’s shooting. “Don’t ever come into my office and tell me you’re gonna sue the county unless we drop charges against someone who went at a deputy with a knife!”

  Delroy had angered Tommy before, but never to this extent. It was bad enough that he had to do anything on a Sunday. Dealing with an attorney was almost enough to make him question his faith. The morning’s sermon at Center Hill Baptist resonated with him just then. The preacher had urged his congregants to always turn the other cheek.

  Oh, I’ll turn a cheek, and in the process I’ll bury my shoe about a foot deep in his ass!

  The two had a complicated relationship. Delroy made a living getting his clients out from under criminal cases. These cases were usually made by Tommy’s deputies and investigators. Delroy preened around like he was the voice of reason during trials, often making Tommy’s men appear unfair or sloppy. It didn’t matter that they only appeared that way due to Delroy’s ability to twist the truth. Jurors failed to see that. They let more than a few guilty men go after listening to Delroy. As far as Tommy was concerned, a law degree was no more than a license to lie and get paid for it.

  If that was the sum of their ties, Tommy would be content. He was a politician and could handle hating a person. His problem was Delroy’s sister-in-law, Anna. She was really an ex-sister in law, since Delroy’s brother was dead, but she was still his family. Her children, Meg and Peck, loved their uncle dearly. Unfortunately for Tommy, he loved Anna just as dearly. To make things work with her and the children, he had to pretend to like Delroy. For Tommy, that task was considerably more difficult than might be imagined.

  “Look, Tommy, I’m not planning on suing anybody. That’s the last thing I want to do. It’s my county, too. I don’t want them to raise taxes just because some of your men fired too soon. I just want to help Jewel.”