by E. Joan Sims
“Exactly what did she do for this man, besides kidnapping Paisley—before he found her out, that is,” asked Mother.
“For one thing, she told Newton that poor Wanda Blake, the only person who had seen him in the vicinity of the trailer park the night of Fatty’s murder, was hiding in my upstairs apartment.”
“But I honestly don’t think she knew he meant to kill the Blake woman, Mr. Raleigh,” interjected Andy. “The journal is somewhat vague on that point, but I believe she was stunned when she found out Wanda was dead. Until then, she had been playing a character in a movie where the blood was made of ketchup.”
“Well, she certainly didn’t hesitate to whack me a good one when she had the chance!”
“Like I said before, Paisley, she hated you. And by that time, she was too caught up in Newton’s affairs to back out. In the diary she refers to ‘my beautiful Frankie’s wicked, wicked ways.’ She might also have realized, after he killed Wanda, that she’d better be careful if she wanted to escape the same fate.”
“I still believe she couldn’t have been corrupted if she had been a fine upstanding citizen in the first place. She must have known he was keeping Clementina and the other girls prisoner. Does she mention that in the journal?”
“Like I said before, Paisley, she saw herself as Newton’s ‘gun moll.’ She even knew he was taking the young women to the trailer park and forcing them to prostitute themselves to the migrant workers.”
“Oh, my dear Lord,” breathed Mother. “Those poor children.”
Cassie got up from her seat by Horatio and snuggled next to me on the sofa. “Is that how they got pregnant?” she asked.
Andy had turned a bright and interesting shade of red. Horatio rescued him by answering my daughter’s forthright question.
“Precisely, my dear. And that’s where some of the babies he put out for adoption came from. The others he flew in from Mexico in his own plane.”
“That’s right,” said Andy as he took on a more normal skin tone. “He still had some contacts he could trust in the interior. Ruby Dawn even went with him once. She thought it was going to be a wonderful romantic holiday, but Newton only needed her to help him with the infants. She was more than a little miffed when she found out.”
Andy paused to take a bite of his dessert before he continued. “I think Paisley’s right about Ruby Dawn’s character. According to her diary, our Miss Coleman was angrier about not having her Mexican holiday than she was about Newton’s smuggling babies into the United States in order to sell them to the highest bidder.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
I told Cassie about her gift from Miss Lolly later that night after Horatio and Andy had left and we were alone.
“But, why me?” she asked.
“Lots of reasons, honey. The main one being, she’s very fond of you.” I smoothed the long, dark, hair back from her face. “I can understand that,” I added. “It would be hard not to love you.”
“Wow! A whole house. But what do I do with it? It’s too big to live in all by myself, and you and Gran would never leave the farm. I guess I could sell it and make sure Miss Lolly goes to a nice place.”
“I don’t know, Cassie. She was pretty adamant about making the state pay for what she calls ‘her wrongful incarceration.’”
“Well, it is, isn’t it? She really didn’t do anything wrong.”
I raised my eyebrows on that one.
“Well, maybe just a little wrong,” admitted Cassie with a grin. “Any more biscuits left?” she asked, as she unfolded her long legs and stood up to stretch. “This sudden wealth has given me an appetite.”
Cassie didn’t say another word about Miss Lolly’s gift. I knew that sooner or later she would come to the same decision that I had about what was the right and proper thing to do.
The next afternoon I put on some new jeans, a silk shirt, and the linen jacket I save for best, and went to see Judge Hershey in his chambers at the courthouse.
The place was a mess. Cardboard boxes half full of books covered almost all the floor space, leaving me only a narrow path to the chair in front of his big mahogany desk.
When I asked as politely as I could what was going on, he smiled—a sad but determined smile—and explained in his own roundabout way.
“You know, Paisley, your father was a great friend to me. When he came to Rowan Springs after the war and settled down in our quiet little town to teach high school, we questioned his motives. He was somewhat famous, you know—a war correspondent, a hero—a man whose stories and photographs had appeared in Life magazine. What, we wondered, could a small town like ours have to offer such an icon. You see, we were still too young to know that peace and quiet and good neighbors were such precious commodities.”
“At first, I was jealous. He was dashing—handsome, with a supremely confident air. What I didn’t know was that the unseen—the hidden aspects of your father—were far more admirable.” The old man looked at me intently. I was shocked to see the tears in his eyes. “His courage and honesty dwarfed that of other men,” he admitted hoarsely.
He cleared his throat and stared at the high ceiling for a moment. The courthouse was old, built in the nineteen thirties, and I wondered briefly what the heating bill was.
When the Judge had recovered himself, he continued. “I was a teenager back then—somewhat of a rapscallion, always in trouble, barely staying ahead of the law. John Sterling cornered me one day after class. I had behaved badly that morning, but he hadn’t said a word in front of the other students, waiting instead until we were alone. ‘James, my boy,’ he said, ‘It’s like this: nothing is gray. It’s either black or white, good or bad, strong or weak. Which are you? And don’t disappoint me with the wrong answer.’ From that moment on, I was as good as I could be for him.”
I laughed softly. “I know exactly what you mean.”
“I’m quite sure you do,” he chuckled, as he stood and walked over to the tall windows where he could look down on Main Street.
“He was a pretty good sailor, your dad. He used to say, ‘Stay on course, Jimmy, stay on course.’ I know as sure as I’m standing here what he would say to me if he were here—if he knew about all of this mess.”
“What’s that, sir?” I had a catch in my voice, too.
“He would say, ‘James, my boy, this thing, this terrible thing, happened on your watch. You are as responsible as the evil man who caused it.’”
“Oh, no!” I protested. “But you’re not!”
He turned around to face me, his tall, lean, body silhouetted against the bright afternoon sunlight. “But I am, Paisley. It did happen on my watch, and there are no gray areas. Your father was right. It’s time for me to step down and make way for someone who is younger—more alert. Alert enough to keep a weather eye, and keep the ship on a straight course.”
He came back to his desk, and sat down in the big leather chair where he had made so many decisions that had changed other people’s lives. His face was a blur through my tears. I knew he would never reverse the sentence he had passed on himself. My father would have been proud of him. I told him so.
“Don’t worry about me, Paisley, girl” he said with a kindly smile. “I’ll be fine.”
I believed him.
Two weeks later Billy came out and tilled the soil for my new moon garden. The other one had been nice, but this one was going to be fantastic. I selected a quiet corner of the yard off the east wing. The remaining trees on that side of the house were not tall— dogwoods and wisteria, mostly—and the moon would have no trouble seeking out the white blossoms and my silver gazing ball.
Mother wanted to give me something to celebrate the groundbreaking. She tried to talk me into one of those concrete children—a goose girl, or a strange little boy with a weird frozen smile holding a bunny. I told her “nothing doing.” They always reminded me of those terrible pictures of people incinerated into ashes in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
“For goodness sake’s, P
aisley!” was her only response. But she had a charming little white wrought iron bench delivered by two o’clock that afternoon.
I sat on my new bench with a pencil, some graph paper, and a ruler, and tried my best to make an organized drawing of my garden.
After an agonizing hour of thinking and thinking, I threw down the pencil and paper, whistled for Aggie, and hopped in Watson for a trip to the local nursery.
Just like my dad, Tony Piccolini came to Rowan Springs after the war. He worked in the tobacco fields until he had saved enough money to go back to Italy and marry his childhood sweetheart. He and Rosa returned and built the nursery and a wonderful life that included six children. Their eldest daughter’s son had taken over the day-to-day operation of the nursery from his grandfather a year ago.
Xavier Piccolino Martin had devoted his young life to the propagation of antique plants. Roses were his specialty. I wanted some for my garden.
“Exactly which ones?” he asked with a huge grin. “They’re my pride and joy, you know.” He was short and darkly handsome, with a big handlebar mustache and wavy black hair. His wife, Sylvia—blond and blue-eyed—worked by his side, keeping an eye on their three children who played in a nearby sand pile.
“Don’t get him started on those silly roses,” Sylvia said with a smile. “Sometimes I think he loves them more than me!”
“Foolish woman!” Xavier grabbed his wife and placed a big noisy kiss on her blushing cheek. “Follow me, Paisley. You can tell me which ones call to your heart.”
I followed him back into the greenhouse listening to him explain about the marvelous attributes of “his bambini” as we walked.
“So?” he asked, pointing proudly to the marvelous collection of bushes and blossoms. “Which one can you not live without?”
“I don’t know, Xavier! Now, I’m really confused. I tried to plan it out, but that’s not my thing. I’m too impulsive, too disorganized. All I know is that I want everything to be white and smell great.”
He didn’t hesitate. “You must have a climber. I suggest a Sombreuil which has large, very fragrant double blooms with creamy white blossoms, or a Cherokee—single pure white flowers. And then an Iceberg, and a Madame Joseph Schwartz for background.”
I left with considerably more than that.
Billy helped me set up the trellises and plant the climbers before he left for his wife’s birthday dinner. I worked on alone into the evening.
Mother brought my dinner out on a tray, and afterwards I turned on the outside lights so I could finish. Bruce Hawkins found me covered with dirt—and happy as a hog in mud as I planted the last rose bush.
“Wow! This is really something.”
“Wait until everything blooms in the moonlight. It’s like magic!”
I pointed to my new bench, and Bruce sat down. I turned a bucket upside down and perched. “What can I do you fer?”
Bruce smiled. “Farming is good for the vocabulary as well as for the soul, I see.”
We laughed at his joke, and I got up awkwardly on stiff knees to pour him some sweet iced tea from the tray Mother brought. “I’m not so sure about the body,” I admitted ruefully. “I’ll find out for sure tomorrow, I’m afraid.”
“I hope you’ll be well enough to attend the ceremony. Tomorrow’s going to be a big day,” he announced with a satisfied grin.
I plopped back down, almost knocking over the bucket. “It worked?”
“Like a charm!”
“Tell me all about it!”
“Judge Hershey cleared Miss Lolly of all the charges, including social security fraud. She had received only one check for Hannah and hadn’t even cashed it, so she’s okay with the government. And he declared her to be competent and mentally capable of making any and all decisions regarding her self and others.”
“Hooray and hallelujah,” I sang triumphantly.
“She’s signing the adoption papers in Hershey’s chambers at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. It’s the Judge’s last official act. Miss Lolly’s going to be a mother times four.”
“And a grandmother times one—don’t forget the baby,” I laughed.
“How could I? The baby’s new name is Hannah Maria Parsons.”
“And my baby? What did she decide? I haven’t seen her all day.” I pointed at the mess of empty plant flats and fertilizer sacks.
“That’s a wonderful young woman, you raised,” observed Bruce.
“Sometimes I think she raised me!”
“She asked me to set up a trust fund with the revenue from the baseball memorabilia we found when we emptied out old Papa Parsons’ closet. There’s enough money to take care of the operating expenses for the Parsons House for Visiting Workers for the next twenty years.”
“My gosh! All those old pieces of cardboard were really worth that much?”
Bruce threw back his head and laughed. “Just ask my nephew how much he wants for his Mark McGuire baseball card. Some of those ‘pieces of cardboard’ were seventy years old—they’re priceless. Not to mention the autographed baseballs from Shoeless Joe Jackson and Babe Ruth. Old man Parsons was quite a fan, and he had more than enough money at one time to indulge himself in his favorite pastime.”
“Thank God!”
“You’re right, Paisley. That old house would have been nothing but a problem for Cassie without the money to renovate. And I must say, I’m very impressed that a person so young has such a fine head on her shoulders. She knew exactly what she wanted to do with the house and the money. I followed her wishes to the letter. Miss Lolly will take up residence again in a special apartment set aside for her. She’ll be the titular head of the enterprise—with Cassie doing the work behind the scenes until she trains Clementina and the other girls in bookkeeping and purchasing supplies. All the migrant workers will register with the county when they arrive, at which time they will be referred to the Parsons House. They will be eligible to room and board for a very nominal fee—really just enough to cover laundry costs—as long as they have a job in the county. Clementina and the other girls will do the cooking and housekeeping for their own keep and have a nice little salary as well.”
“Sounds great!”
“And Hershey has ordered the trailer park cleared. He’s donating the land to the county for a park. He plans to build a pavilion under those big beautiful cedars—says he used to picnic out there years ago.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“You haven’t heard what he’s going to call it,” added Bruce with a twinkle in his eye.
“What?”
“The John Sterling Memorial Park.”
It was perfect. Even the intrepid Leonard Paisley couldn’t have written a better ending.
