by Ann B. Ross
I sat down and started making out a grocery list while Lillian took the frozen chicken out of the freezer, then began mumbling as she rummaged through the kitchen cabinets.
“Wonder she got flour,” Lillian said, talking mostly to herself. “She got to have salt an’ pepper. Miss Julia, what all she got in her kitchen? Do you know?”
“I wouldn’t count on her having everything you’ll need. Although surely James has the kitchen fairly well stocked with the basics.”
“Huh,” she mumbled, putting a jar of paprika on the counter. “Maybe. An’ maybe not.” She began bagging the odds and ends that she would take to Hazel Marie’s house. “If you got that list ready, I’ll go on to the store.”
“It’s ready except we need to think of something for dessert. What would be quick and easy to fix? You don’t have enough time to make anything fancy.”
Lillian studied it for a minute, then said, “I got a pound cake in the freezer. What about if I toast some slices, put ice cream on ’em an’ some chocolate syrup on top of that?”
“Perfect. This is all so last-minute that nobody could expect an elaborate meal. Besides, that sheriff should count himself lucky to get anything.” I jotted down ice cream and chocolate syrup, then handed the list to her. “Now, Lillian, I want you to make time to put your feet up and rest—you can’t work from sunup to sundown without a rest. And if you get over there and find you need something, call me. I’ll run to the store for you or bring it from here, whichever.”
After we loaded her car and she got off, I returned to the kitchen and heated up my fifth cup of coffee. I didn’t know what I’d do for the rest of the day, relegated as I was to the only room in the house where I wouldn’t be underfoot of the workmen. And without Lillian to talk to.
But at least my worries about Mr. Pickens’s fate had been eased. Sheriff Ardis McAfee surely would not have the gall to sit at his table, then arrest him. I decided that all my fretting over the sheriff’s intentions had been for naught and that I could enjoy my first worry-free day in some time. And I continued to feel that way until Hazel Marie called again.
Chapter 41
“Miss Julia!” Hazel Marie wailed. “You won’t believe what he’s done now!”
“What! Who! Mr. Pickens?”
“No, that sheriff!”
“Oh, my Lord, has he changed his mind?” That would teach me not to let my guard down—you can never tell what will happen when you stop worrying and begin thinking that all is well.
“No, that’s not it,” Hazel Marie said, as if she had to think it over. “I don’t think he changed his mind exactly. It was more like he just thought of it.”
“What, for goodness sake?”
“Well, see, he just called and, I give him credit, because he called me and not J.D. He asked if it’d be all right to bring his niece to supper tonight.”
“Oh,” I said, relief flooding through me. Although asking to bring an extra to a dinner party indicated a certain lapse of etiquette, it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. “Of course, upsetting a hostess’s table placement is something you and I would never do, Hazel Marie, but I guess we can understand. I got the feeling when he mentioned her to Etta Mae and me that she’d been out of touch with her family, so maybe he’s trying to remedy that. And, of course, he won’t be in town long—at least I hope he won’t—so I expect he wants to see as much of her as he can.”
“I guess so,” Hazel Marie agreed, “but I just got the table set and now I’ll have to rearrange everything. Thank goodness, Lloyd’s here and not playing tennis. He’s sweeping the front porch and the walk for me. But the babies are so fussy today, I had to give them to J.D. just to get anything done at all.”
“Were you able to reach Etta Mae? Is she coming?” I crossed my fingers, hoping she’d be there to keep Sheriff McAfee’s mind off enforcing the law.
“Oh, yes, and I’m so glad she is. She sounded thrilled to be asked. I tell you what, Miss Julia, I think she really likes him.”
That was one thing, then, that I didn’t have to worry about, but on the other hand, it opened up a whole new can of worms. Or snakes, as the case might be.
“And,” Hazel Marie went on, “Lillian is here, and I am just so grateful to her. And to you, too. Oh, my goodness, I’ve got to go. J.D.’s calling me. He has got to learn to change diapers.”
Well, I thought, smiling as I hung up the phone, lots of luck with that.
I spent the rest of the afternoon thinking up things for Adam and Josh to do, learning at the same time that the two of them were the handiest of men. Adam fretted that I was making work for them, feeling that he was taking ill-gotten gains just so he could honestly tell Agnes Whitman that he hadn’t finished at my house.
But it was the truth, because there were any number of things to be repaired, touched up with paint or cleaned out. My gutters, for instance. And a crack in the plaster in the hall. The longer I looked around the house, the more I found for them to do. In fact, I told Adam that if he wanted to fill his Saturday—in case Agnes called him again—the outside of the house could use a pressure washing.
As the morning neared eleven o’clock, there was a noticeable diminishment of noise around the house. I had quickly learned that workmen start their days so early that lunchtime for them is an hour before a normal person would eat. Some of them left to go to a local diner, but others—mainly the bricklayers—brought their own lunches. I glanced out the kitchen window and saw three of them sitting in the shade of the arbor, opening brown paper bags. Then I saw Adam and Josh walk over to a garden bench on the other side of the lawn and begin unwrapping sandwiches from their lunch boxes.
Interesting that they did not join the bricklayers, but I supposed that there was a hierarchy among working men.
So I thought I might as well eat, too, and looked in the refrigerator for sandwich makings. I’d just smoothed a layer of mayonnaise on two slices of bread when the front doorbell rang.
“Now what?” I wondered, and put away the mayonnaise before going to answer the door.
“Mrs. Murdoch,” Tucker Caldwell pronounced, as if I didn’t know who I was. “I’ve come to see how the work is progressing.”
I was so taken aback at what he’d added to his appearance that it took me a minute to respond. I stood there, holding the door open and staring at the dapperly dressed little man, bow tie and all, while focusing on the gold stud stuck below his lower lip, making a matched set with the two in his ear.
“All right,” I said, cleared my throat and stepped back. “Yes, come in. The men are taking a break for lunch, but several …” I had started to say, “are in the backyard,” but amended it to, “have gone out to eat.”
He nodded smartly, then marched past me and headed for the new library. I followed, noticing again his firm way of walking and his rigid posture—a man in control. Or trying to be.
Tucker stood in the middle of the library, looked around, touched a few seams in the paneling, then pursed his mouth. “I’ll speak to the foreman about a few things. Nothing for you to worry about. I’ll handle it. Now, Mrs. Murdoch,” he turned on me so swiftly that I stepped back. “We have to come to an understanding about Adam Waites. He was supposed to be through here two days ago, and I know that you have him doing odd jobs just to keep him on. He is holding up everything at Mrs. Whitman’s, and I tell you frankly that she is not a patient woman.”
By this time, I’d regained my composure and added a little outrage. “And just what does Mrs. Whitman’s lack of self-control have to do with me?”
He heaved a deep breath, as if exasperated beyond belief. “You are keeping him from an excellent job, one that will pay him well. He’s too timid to tell you he needs to get out of here and move on. You’ll have to do it. Tell him that she is expecting him today. This afternoon, in fact.”
My posture suddenly got as good as his. “I certainly will not. Adam is fully employed here for as long as he wants to be. And I’ll tell you another thing.”
I took one of those deep breaths. “I resent Agnes Whitman’s domineering attitude. Who is she, or you, to tell me what to do? I resent your interference in this matter, Mr. Caldwell. It’s none of your business. And here’s something else that neither you nor Agnes seems to have considered: maybe he doesn’t want to work for her. So while you’re transmitting orders from her to me, here’s one you can carry back to her: hire somebody else.”
“Well!” he said, drawing himself up as far as he could, which wasn’t far. “Well, I’m not sure you and I can work together under these circumstances.”
“You better be sure, and you better see that this work is done as it should be, or I will not hesitate to see my attorney. Now, Mr. Caldwell, you have had your mind more on Mrs. Whitman’s project than on mine from the start. If you are determined to put her work ahead of mine, just say so and I’ll sue your little pants off.”
“Oh, well,” he said, losing a good deal of the steam he’d started with. “We don’t want to go that far. Of course I’ll finish this job, and to your complete satisfaction. There’s no need to be thinking of lawsuits. I was, ah, just passing along Mrs. Whitman’s concern.”
“Well, stop passing it. Every time I turn around somebody is passing along something from Agnes Whitman and I’m tired of it. Tell her to get down off her high horse and stand in line like everybody else.”
He patted the air in a futile effort to calm me down. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Sometimes I let my passion run ahead of me. Agnes, I mean, Mrs. Whitman, is deeply concerned about Adam. As am I. She is helping him work through some spiritual matters. She’s a minister, you know, and she’s leading him into new ways of connecting with the spiritual world. Old ways, actually, but they’re new to him. It would be detrimental to his journey toward unification for you to interfere with his progress.” He leaned toward me, as if to pass along something in confidence. “He is a seeker, you know.”
“I figured!” I all but yelled. “Listen, you haven’t seen interference, now that I know what you’re really doing. And I’ll tell you this, Adam is not seeking anything. He’s already found it. And another thing,” I went on as I waved my hands in the air, “sticking studs all over your face is about the silliest thing I’ve ever seen in a professional man. Unstud them when you come back to my house. If you come back. And if I let you in.”
He could barely leave quickly enough, red faced and muttering apologies or arguments—I couldn’t tell which—as he hightailed it out the door.
So, I thought, as I shut the door behind him, I may have lost an architect along with my temper, but I wasn’t about to stand still for a lecture from a bossy little man who needed a little correction himself. Although my hands were still shaking from my outburst, I didn’t regret a word I’d said and went back to finish making a sandwich before the bread dried out.
Chapter 42
Poor Adam, I thought as I sliced roast beef for my sandwich, coming close to slicing my hand as well. No wonder he’d been moping around, what with that woman and Tucker Caldwell, too, undermining his childlike faith, which is exactly the kind we’re supposed to have.
I stopped with a lettuce leaf dripping in my hand as it came to me that there’d been a noticeable lack of singing around the house in the past few days. Those two must have really gotten to him. I sat down with my sandwich and a glass of tea, the words of an old hymn running through my mind: “Rescue the perishing … Lift up the fallen,” or something like that, and began wondering what I could say or do to counteract the pressure they were putting on him. At least, I reminded myself, Adam might be naive and unworldly, but so far he’d withstood having his chin pierced, unlike another I could name.
As the afternoon wore on toward the time to dress for Hazel Marie’s dinner party, I was still dithering over what to wear, mainly because I couldn’t get to anything without running into somebody in overalls. By that time, the sky had begun to darken, so much so that I went around turning on lamps. Then the wind picked up, scattering petals across the lawn as thunder rumbled in the distance. The brickmasons started covering the half-finished chimney with a tarp, then they gathered their things and piled—three and four at a time—into the cabs of their pickups. And off they went.
Adam and Josh had been tying up the wisteria vine on the arbor, and they hurried in, ready to leave, as well.
“Comin’ up a cloud,” Adam said, just as a streak of lightning seemed to hit nearby. We all flinched, then tried to pretend we hadn’t. Rain began pelting down as the wind blew it in sheets across Polk Street.
Adam handed me their hours and I sat at the desk to write the checks. “Wait till it slacks off,” I said. “You don’t want to go out in this.”
“I sure don’t,” Josh said, which may have been the only words I’d ever heard him say.
The lights in the house flickered on and off, and as I glanced out the window, I saw hail bouncing on the lawn and power lines swaying in the wind. Lightning continued to flash and crackle overhead. Josh and Adam sat gingerly on my Duncan Phyfe sofa, but only after I insisted they do so. I didn’t want them to be driving in such a storm, and, well, I didn’t want to be alone in the house.
We sat without speaking waiting out the storm, and gradually the hail stopped and the wind died down to the occasional gust. Rain continued to come down so heavily that I could hardly see the church across the street.
Just as the worst of the storm seemed to have moved past, the telephone rang. I looked at the set on the desk, not wanting to touch it for fear that lightning would strike a pole somewhere and run down the line to knock me off my chair. But it continued to ring, so I did, especially since Josh seemed to be wondering if I was deaf.
“Miss Julia!” Lillian yelled. “A tree jus’ fell on the house! It come right down on Mr. Sam’s house!”
I thought my heart had stopped. “Who’s hurt? Anybody hurt? The babies? Is Lloyd all right? Tell me, Lillian. How bad is it?”
“It’s bad,” she said, her breath coming in gasps. “That big ole tree in the backyard jus’ split in two, an’ half of it come crashin’ ’cross the corner of the house! Right there in the back. It sound like Judgment Day a-comin’!”
My Lord, that was the corner where Hazel Marie’s bedroom was, right where Mr. Pickens was laid up in bed.
“Call an ambulance, Lillian! Get some help. I’m coming over.”
“No’m, you don’t have to. Everybody all right, ’cept the back bedroom upstairs. Tree branches stickin’ through the roof an’ rain pourin’ in like sixty up there, an’ both babies cryin’ their eyes out, an’ Miss Hazel Marie runnin’ ’round lookin’ for pots an’ buckets, an’ Mr. Pickens, he crippin’ ’round givin’ orders, an’ …” She stopped to catch her breath.
“And Lloyd?” I asked, gripping the phone. “Where’s Lloyd?”
“He tryin’ to mop up water ’fore it come through the ceiling, but it doin’ it anyway.”
“And you, are you all right? Nobody’s hurt?”
“No’m, ’cept I almost burnt the last batch of chicken, an’ we got comp’ny comin’ pretty soon.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes. I’m bringing help.” Turning from the phone, I said, “Adam, Josh, we have a problem.”
We left in an international convoy—me in a German sedan, Adam in a Japanese pickup with a camper shell on the back, and Josh bringing up the rear in an American, partly made-in-Mexico pickup. Rain or water dripping from trees or maybe both was still falling, steam rose up from the wet streets, and the neighborhood looked ghostly in the murky light. I parked at the curb in front of Sam’s house, jumped out struggling with an umbrella, and waved to Adam to turn into the driveway. Josh followed him in, and both trucks pulled in toward the back.
I hurried around the house, looking up toward the back where it seemed a tree was growing out of the roof. Just as I reached Adam and Josh, who were out of their trucks surveying the damage, we heard the growling throb of a heavy motor.
I peeked around the e
dge of the house and saw another pickup—a big one—pull to the curb. Sheriff Ardis McAfee, dressed in his Sunday clothes—jeans, boots, white shirt with a string tie, and that black sports jacket—climbed out. He adjusted his hat, then walked around and opened the passenger door. A young woman in a green raincoat—the niece, I surmised—hopped out, and another young woman—Etta Mae in a low-cut dress—was lifted out by the sheriff. I saw the flash of her teeth as she smiled up at him. They headed for the front porch, and I turned back to Adam. I didn’t have time for greetings.
“What do you think, Adam?” I asked, wondering if we should call some kind of emergency workers, although I didn’t know who they would be.
“That’s a big ’un, all right,” he said. “Look, it split right in two.” He pointed at half the huge hemlock that was still standing. “It’ll have to come down, too, but you can do that later. Josh, get the ladders and all the rope you got. You got your chain saw?”
“Yep,” Josh said, and the two of them hopped up into their camper shells and began pulling out the tools they’d need.
Then everybody—Lillian holding one twin baby, Hazel Marie with the other one, Lloyd, Mr. Pickens leaning on a cane, Etta Mae, Sheriff McAfee, but not the niece—came pouring out of the back door and stood on the porch, watching.
The sheriff kept on coming, walking straight up to me with his hand out. “Ardis McAfee, Mrs. Murdoch,” he said. “Looks like we got a problem here.”
“It sure does.” I shook his hand, introduced him to Adam and Josh, then, lying through my teeth, said, “It’s nice to see you again, Sheriff.”
“Ardis.”
I nodded, then stepped back, hoping to avoid any further conversation lest he bring up some archaic penalty for impersonating a hospital employee.
The sheriff cocked his head this way and that, studying the lay of the land, or rather the lay of the tree. “Boys,” he said to the two brothers, “if you don’t mind a little help, we gonna need more rope than that. Hold on, I got some in my toolbox.” And off he took in a loping run to his truck, coming back with a thick coil of rope.
