by Ann B. Ross
Then I had another disquieting thought. If it came right down to it, Mr. Pickens had a reasonable defense if he needed one. He could disclaim any responsibility for his precipitous exit from the Mill Run hospital. He had not been mentally competent at the time and had therefore been incapable of formulating such a plan, much less carrying it out. Nobody knew that better than Etta Mae and me after what we’d gone through to get him out of there.
But Mr. Pickens wouldn’t shift responsibility. Would he? No, certainly not. He thought too much of himself to admit to any loss of his faculties. And he was too much of a gentleman to lay the blame at the feet of two women.
At least that’s what I told myself, for I also knew that you could never tell what Mr. Pickens was capable of doing.
Finally, as I took myself to bed, I was comforted by the thought that if we could get Sheriff McAfee in and out of town within the next few days without arresting anybody, Sam would be home and he’d know what to do about Adam and the strange hold that Agnes Whitman seemed to have on him.
Chapter 37
Early the next morning, I had another reason to want to leave town: too much was happening at one time. Tucker Caldwell showed up at seven o’clock, along with two crews of workmen—one for the exterior and one for the interior. Right behind them came a huge flatbed truck with some sort of crane on it that unloaded pallet after pallet of bricks that would eventually be my Williamsburg chimney.
And when the pallets had been unloaded and stacked in my yard, I realized my next call would be to a landscaper to resod and replant.
Tucker led his interior crew inside and straight back to the future library, which I, barely dressed, had barely vacated before they tromped in.
“Mrs. Murdoch,” Tucker said, “we have to get this furniture out of here. Where do you want it?”
“Oh, my word,” I said, pushing back my hair in agitation. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. Let me see, maybe out here in the hall? The mattress can go in the dining room against the table, and everything else, well, anywhere you can find space.”
When he pursed his mouth at my lack of preparation, I added, “I assumed you’d let me know ahead of time when you were coming.”
He ignored that, walked into the bedroom, and said, “The closets have to be emptied. They’re coming out first.”
Lillian, who’d just walked in, said, “We can do that, Miss Julia. Where you want all them clothes?”
“I don’t know,” I responded, feeling frazzled and it hardly seven-thirty in the morning. “Upstairs, I guess. In Hazel Marie’s closet.”
Then to add to the commotion, Adam Waites pushed through the front door with a ladder, along with Josh, laden with paint cans and brushes, right behind him. Adam nodded to me, but one glance at Tucker sent him scurrying up the stairs.
Which reminded me, so I followed Tucker down the hall. “Mr. Caldwell? Tucker? What about Adam? I thought you were going to have him do the library.”
“Just the finishing work,” he replied. “He’s booked solid for a while, and I figured you wouldn’t want to put this off until he’s free.”
“You figured right, because I don’t. But we did have an agreement with him, and I’m inclined to hold him to it. Besides, I don’t want to hurt his feelings by using someone else.”
“I’ve already spoken to him,” Tucker said, somewhat shortly. “And he’s fine with it. Besides, the men I brought are true craftsmen. You’ll just have to trust me on that because I know what I’m doing. Now the best thing you can do is get those closets emptied so we can get on with it.” Then, dashing over to two men who were lifting a chest to move it out, he yelled, “Wait a minute, wait a minute! Be careful with that. It’s eighteenth century.”
Well, I wasn’t sure it was, but it had come from Wesley Lloyd’s grandmother so it might’ve been. I was gratified, nonetheless, that Tucker was looking after my belongings.
Lillian was already going in and out with armfuls of clothes, both mine and Sam’s, taking them upstairs, and I began to do the same. By the time we were finished carrying out hanging clothes as well as plastic bags full of shoes and shoe boxes, weaving around and between the workmen who were moving out furniture, all I wanted to do was sit down and rest.
The kitchen, in fact, was the only undisturbed and restful room in the house. Well, Lloyd’s room stayed the same—I’d put it off-limits. But the rest of the house began to look as if a wrecking crew had been at it. Adam and Josh were painting in Hazel Marie’s room; her walk-in closet was filled with extra clothes; the sunroom was finished but not furnished; Sam’s boxes that had been moved from his house crowded the upstairs hall; and bedside tables, bed frame, lamps, chests of drawers, easy chairs, mattress and boxspring were taking up space in the living room, the dining room and the downstairs hall. Twice I’d tripped and almost fallen on the Oriental, rolled up and left in the hall.
“Why did I ever think of remodeling?” I asked Lillian as we collapsed at the kitchen table. We were just having our first cups of coffee that morning, which was another reason I was feeling tired and washed out.
“Don’t ast me,” she said, pushing the cream toward me. “But here’s something you better think about: where you gonna sleep tonight?”
“That is a question, isn’t it? And the answer is I’ll sleep in your room.” There was a small guest room behind Lloyd’s bedroom that I kept for her and Latisha on those nights when the weather was too bad for her to drive home. It had also come in handy after Hazel Marie’s twins had been born and we needed all the help in the house we could get—day and night.
“You gonna have a time gettin’ in there,” Lillian said. “ ’cause Mr. Sam’s desk an’ swivel chair an’ his big leather chair an’ some lamps already in it.”
“Oh, my goodness.” And almost put my head on the table in despair. “Well,” I went on, straightening up, “I’ll just climb over stuff till I reach the bed.”
“Maybe you an’ Lloyd better stay with Miss Hazel Marie. Least, till you can walk around in here. Look to me like if we ever go out the door, we won’t never get back in.”
“Yes, and I thought I could have it all done by the time Sam got back. That shows how little foresight I had, doesn’t it?” I stirred cream in my coffee, then tried a sip. “I’ll just make do here, at least until Sheriff McAfee leaves town. It seems the better part of discretion is for me to stay out of his sight, so I won’t be going to Hazel Marie’s.”
We looked at each other as an awful wrenching sound split the air. Then what sounded like sledge hammer blows followed it.
“Sound like they tearin’ down the house,” Lillian said.
“No, just demolishing the closets. At least I hope that’s all they’re doing.” I went over to the coffeepot to refill my cup. “You want a refill?”
“Yes’m, I guess another cup won’t hurt. But I don’t feel like cookin’ or eatin’ with what all’s goin’ on. They’s some muffins in the freezer I can put in the oven. You think that do you?”
“I’m not that hungry, either, so muffins will be fine. Lillian,” I went on as she opened the freezer, “did you get a good look at Tucker Caldwell?”
She glanced at me. “You mean that prissy little man tellin’ everybody what to do? I seen him but I didn’t look too hard.”
“I didn’t, either, but I kept trying to because I’m wondering how close he is to that Whitman woman. I know he’s in contact with her, because he’s designing some new building she wants. But something’s going on with him. When I first met him, he was as professional looking as a man of stunted growth can look—in fact, almost too much so. Overcompensating, probably. But the next time I saw him, he had an earring stuck in his ear and, believe me, that woman is big on earrings.”
“Lots of men do that these days. It don’t have to mean anything I know of.” She put four muffins in the oven, then came back to the table with butter and jelly.
“I know, but it seems unlike him. Or unlike the little I know about
him. Anyway, if he shows up with a tattoo or another earring or two, I’ll know that woman has her claws in him.”
“Nothin’ you can do about it, if she do. A grown man ought to know what he doin’.”
“But, Lillian, that’s just the thing. I’m not worried about him—he’s cocky enough to take care of himself. It’s Adam I’m concerned about. And, yes, I know he’s a grown man, too, but he’s an innocent and he doesn’t have a smidgen of worldly knowledge. It’s a fact that something’s bothering him, and I think Agnes Whitman is trying to wheedle him into that church of hers. Lillian,” I said, leaning over the table to put my hand on her arm, “I think his faith is being tested.”
“That happen to all of us, one time or another,” she said, nodding judiciously. “They’s not much anybody can do about it, neither.”
“I know, but I feel protective of him. If Agnes can sway a conceited little man like Tucker Caldwell, she could eat somebody like Adam alive.” I stopped and looked around as a crash of lumber resounded from the future library. “I hope they know what they’re doing. Are those muffins ready yet?”
They were, and while we ate, I continued to mull over the problem with Adam. I’d noticed how he’d hurried up the stairs as soon as he saw Tucker, neither speaking to him nor acknowledging him in any way. And of course they knew each other, having worked together in the past and, apparently, still doing so at the Whitman estate, so it was all the more strange that Adam had made the effort to avoid him.
And later in the morning when I’d walked upstairs to see how Adam and Josh were doing and to offer some refreshments, the door to Hazel Marie’s bedroom had been closed. That probably hadn’t meant anything—just an attempt to keep the noise level down so they could hear the Gospel music on their radio.
But it had meant something when after greeting me from the top of his ladder, Adam had asked, “Everybody about cleared out downstairs?”
“Oh, no, not everybody. The brickmasons are working outside and the inside crew is, well, I don’t know what they’re doing—I’m afraid to look. Getting ready to open the wall for the fireplace, I guess.” Then, realizing that Adam’s question might have had a more specific meaning, I said, “Tucker Caldwell’s back at his office, working on specifications. He said he’d be back at quitting time to see how far the crews had gotten.”
Adam nodded as if he’d received the answer he wanted. “We’ll be through with the first coat about midafternoon. We’ll let it dry overnight, then be back in the morning to put on the final coat.”
“Thank you, Adam. And you, too, Josh.” Josh looked up from where he was sprawled on the floor painting the baseboards and smiled bashfully at me. “I know you were supposed to be working somewhere else, so I doubly appreciate your getting this done for me.”
Adam dipped his brush into the paint can, then glanced down at me. “Just as soon put off that other work, but when a man gives his word, he has to hold to it.”
I agreed and left, thinking that he’d just told me that he was not all that eager to be working for Agnes Whitman again.
Chapter 38
“Miss Julia,” Lillian said as I entered the kitchen the next morning and closed the door behind me, “I know you thinkin’ ’bout asting that sheriff to dinner, but you might not ought to now. They’s a king-size mattress in the dining room, so nobody gonna be able to get to the table.”
“What a lovely thought, Lillian! It’s the perfect excuse for not extending hospitality, which I hadn’t wanted to do in the first place.” I rubbed my hands together, pleased to discover this unexpected benefit of remodeling. “In fact, I’d been wondering why on earth Tucker would start a job on a Thursday, only to leave the house in a mess over the weekend, but now I see it as a blessing in disguise. If I work it right, I might not have to see Sheriff McAfee at all.”
“Uh-huh, ’less he want to see you.”
“True, but I’m hoping for the best. Oh, did I tell you that he called Etta Mae for a date? He’s taking her out to eat and to a dance tonight, then interviewing Mr. Pickens sometime tomorrow.” I pulled out a chair and sat down. “Which means he could be leaving town tomorrow afternoon. I plan to make myself unavailable from now until then and hope I can avoid him altogether.”
Lillian laughed. “If he got Miss Etta Mae on his mind, I wouldn’t count on him leavin’ real soon. But I tell you one thing,” she went on, sitting down beside me, “if you don’t have a dinner party, we gonna be eatin’ chicken till doomsday. I went to the store on my way here an’ now we got enough to feed a army.”
“Just divide it up and put it in the freezer. We’ll eat on it as long as it lasts.”
When the phone rang, Mildred Allen was on the line. “I see you have workmen there, Julia. Why don’t you walk over and visit for a while?”
“Why, I’d love to, Mildred,” I said, as another crash resounded throughout the house. One good thing about Adam and Josh putting on the second coat in the upstairs bedroom—painting was a quiet occupation that wasn’t adding to the din. “I won’t stay long, though, because the carpet people could show up anytime. I’m afraid they’ll lay it in the wrong room if I don’t watch them.”
Feeling slightly guilty for leaving Lillian with the noise, I asked her to call me if the carpet men came. “Take it easy today, Lillian, put your feet up and read the paper. Nothing can get done anywhere in the house.”
Leaving the sounds of hammering, men’s voices, the tromp of feet going in and out the front door and their blaring radios relieved me considerably. I could even hear birds singing as I walked over to Mildred’s serene household, where she met me at the door.
Thanking her for the respite, I followed her out to the side porch, where a tray with a full pitcher of tea, tall glasses and a dish of fresh mint leaves waited for us.
“I declare, Mildred,” I said, accepting a glass from her, “I didn’t know what I was getting into when I had the bright idea of remodeling. So I better get it right, because I doubt I’ll ever do it again.”
“Sure you will,” she said. “The trick is to go somewhere, take a few weeks at the beach or go to New York and shop. When you come home, it’s all done.”
“You have more trust in your fellow man than I do. I’d probably come home to find the kitchen upstairs or out in the garage. I hate to complain, Mildred, but let me just tell you that I’ve had to watch both Tucker and Adam like a hawk. I don’t think either of them has his mind on his work. And furthermore, I think Agnes Whitman is the reason for it.”
“Well,” Mildred said, taking a sip of tea, then setting down her glass, “that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“What? Agnes?”
“Yes, she called me to complain about you.”
“Me? What have I done? I hardly know the woman. And why did she call you?”
“She knows we’re friends and, of course, she’s upset about how long you’re keeping Adam.”
“Why, Mildred, you’re the one who told me to keep him busy so she couldn’t get him. Besides, he has left me and gone to her at least one day and he’s worked for her after hours, as well.” I fumed for a minute or so, then said, “And if she’s upset with me, she should’ve called me. I think it’s tacky that she called you to complain about me.”
“I know,” Mildred said somewhat complacently, “and I don’t blame you. I told her she should talk to you directly. I didn’t want to be in the middle of it, but she insisted that I at least speak to you about it. So that’s what I’m doing and that’s the end of it as far as I’m concerned.” She patted her lips with a linen napkin, then said, “I told her, just as I told you, that possession is nine-tenths of the law, and there wasn’t much she could do about it.”
I could hardly speak, I was so disturbed. Don’t you just hate it when somebody has a complaint against you and sends the message secondhand? The more I thought about the whole thing, the more incensed I became.
“So what am I supposed to do?” I demanded. “Stand at atte
ntion and salute? I don’t think Adam wants to work for her, so her problem is with him, not me.” I paused. “Or you. I have enough on my plate these days without adding Agnes Whitman’s inability to keep help.”
“I know, Julia. I’m just passing it along.”
“Well, I wish you hadn’t.”
“I wouldn’t have,” Mildred said, looking directly at me, “except for the last thing she said.”
“What’d she say?”
“She said she was not accustomed to having her plans disrupted by either a menial worker or a small-town upstart.”
“Upstart! She called me an upstart? Why, I’ll have her know …” I couldn’t get enough breath to continue.
“Julia, it’s all right.” Mildred reached over and patted my clenched hand. “Don’t distress yourself. You have to consider the source. I wouldn’t have told you, but the more I thought about it, the more it sounded like a threat, so I thought you should know. But what can she do to you, other than keep Adam so busy you never get him back?”
“Well, that’s another thing—calling him a menial worker. There’s nothing wrong with working with your hands. In fact, there’s honor in it, and her saying that just shows how little respect she has for him or anybody else who works for her.” I took a deep breath. “I resent it for him, as well as for myself. I’m insulted and highly offended, especially since it comes from a tattooed woman who ought to be in a circus sideshow. Who is she to criticize or judge anybody?”
Mildred started laughing. “Well, she claims to be a minister, so I guess she’s doing what they all do.”
“Oh, Mildred, that’s not fair. They’re not all that way. Think of Poppy. But listen,” I said, leaning toward her, “there’s not a thing she can do to me—she ought to be worried about what I can do to her. Just wait till she wants to join the garden club or the book club or anything else in this town, then she’ll find out. But I am worried about what she can do to Adam. He’s already indicated that he doesn’t want to work for her anymore, but honorable man that he is, he feels obligated. Mildred, I tell you, something strange is going on out at her place and I think Adam is being drawn into it. Against his will, I might add.”
