by Dan Walsh
Mamie took a bite of some fresh cinnamon-raisin bread Etta Mae had brought over. “Oh my, this is good. Almost good enough to make me forget all my troubles.”
“I knew you’d like it,” Etta Mae said. “You know what happens when I bring it to church, folks gobble it up in the first fifteen minutes.”
“We might just be doing that here.” Mamie dunked a corner in her coffee. “So what’s this surprise about? And why did it upset you at first?”
“For the next two days, I won’t even be working at the Schaeffer house.”
“Where will you be?”
“In Lake Helen, of all places.”
“Lake Helen? What you gonna do in Lake Helen?”
“Same thing I do here in DeLand every day. Except I’ll be doing it at her sister’s place.”
“Will Mrs. Schaeffer be there? She going there for a visit?”
“No,” Etta Mae said. “It’ll just be me. Me and Mrs. Schaeffer’s sister. I forget her name now. Wrote it down somewhere.”
“So who’s going to clean the house here in DeLand the next two days?”
“Nobody, I guess. Not Mrs. Schaeffer, anyway. Been working for her nearly twenty years. Never seen her lift a finger. Don’t expect she’ll start now. I’ll probably just come home to a mess and have to work all the harder the days after that.” Etta pulled the plate of cinnamon bread closer. “I’m gonna cut me another slice. You want some?”
“I better not.”
“And why not?”
Mamie thought a moment. She didn’t know why. Just seemed like the right thing to say. “All right then, cut me one too.”
“She told me life hadn’t gone so well for her sister, which surprised me. She never tells me anything personal. Said her sister couldn’t afford to hire any help with her place in Lake Helen. You believe that?”
“Guess life hasn’t gone so well for you and me, neither.” Mamie Lee laughed. “I can’t afford any help.”
“I heard that,” Etta Mae said. “She went on to say, her sister twisted her ankle yesterday and can’t do anything for herself ’round the house. Guess her ankle all swelled up. Can’t even get the clothes down off the line.”
“That’s painful,” Mamie said. “Done the same thing to my ankle when I was younger.”
“Here’s the thing,” Etta Mae continued, “the buses don’t go that far back in some of those places in Lake Helen. So I’ll be doing a lot more walking over the next few days.” She looked down at the plate. “You know what that means, don’t you?”
Mamie followed her eyes. “I think I do. You’re going to eat some more cinnamon bread.”
Etta Mae smiled. “That’s right. And I’m gonna use real butter instead of this here margarine. That is, if you got any?”
“I got a little bit. You’re welcome to it.” Mamie Lee got up and opened the refrigerator.
“I didn’t tell you the best part,” Etta Mae said. “Mrs. Schaeffer said she’s gonna give me an extra twenty dollars this week for my trouble, more if I’ll work on Saturday. Guess I can walk a few extra blocks for that.”
Mamie closed the fridge, set the butter on the table. “Why, Etta Mae, you’re gonna be rich. You keep that up, pretty soon you won’t want to hang around me anymore.”
It was time for bed. Colt stood in front of the dresser he shared with Timmy. Another reminder Timmy was gone.
He was looking at his hand-painted monster models, remembering the arguments they created when he’d asked for them at Christmas last year. It was all he wanted. The level of detail on these models was amazing. It took forever to paint them, especially the Phantom of the Opera. That was part of the problem. They were so realistic, they scared Timmy to death. His mom had said he needed to ask for something else for Christmas as soon as she saw them in the Sears catalog. “Your brother will never get to sleep with those things in your room.”
His dad had intervened, saying it wasn’t fair to punish Colt just because he was older. He thought of a compromise that Timmy and Mom would be able to accept. Colt wouldn’t build or paint them when Timmy was around, and when they were finished he had to set them on top of the dresser and push them all the way back against the wall. Timmy was too short to see anything up that high.
His mom had given in, and Colt got all three for Christmas. He had so much fun making them over the next few months. Seeing them now reminded him how much he hated all the hassles that came with being stuck in a bedroom with a brother so much younger.
He turned and looked at the bedroom and, for a few moments, imagined what it would be like to have the room all to himself. How much easier and simpler. He’d had a taste of that the last four days. No little brother rules to follow. No little kid toys cluttering up everything. It actually might be kind of nice—
Wait, what was he thinking? How could he be so selfish? Timmy was out there somewhere, all alone. No family. No Mom and Dad. Who knew how that strange man was treating him?
Colt turned and faced the dresser again. He grabbed his Frankenstein model and threw it against the wall. Then rushed over to his bed, sat down, and cried.
47
After Etta Mae had made that long walk the next morning from where the bus dropped her off in Lake Helen to where Mrs. Schaeffer’s sister lived, she was starting to think an extra twenty dollars wasn’t near enough to make up the difference. Thankfully, since it was October, it was at least pleasant outside.
All the houses she had walked past were of a modest size. She doubted anyone back here could afford to hire help with the housekeeping. That could mean the white folk were a little nicer and a little easier to be around. Of course, she had suffered plenty of verbal abuse from poor rednecks in her day.
She also liked how pretty the lake looked in the morning. Had a nice mist rising from it, big beautiful birds with long necks and long legs walked around in the shallows. She imagined it would be a good lake for fishing, since everything was so quiet. That was something she didn’t get to do much anymore. But she sure enjoyed it as a little girl, cane fishing with her daddy.
Well, she was standing by the screen door now. Should she knock or open it and walk through the screened porch and knock on the main door? She stood there a moment, then remembered Mrs. Adams lived alone, and she had a hurt foot. Wouldn’t do to make her have to come out here and let Etta Mae in. And Mrs. Schaeffer said she’d be expecting her.
She walked up the two steps, through the porch to the main door. That was when she saw the note:
Etta Mae, the door is unlocked. You can come on in when you get here.
Josephine
“Josephine,” Etta Mae read aloud. That must be Mrs. Adams’s first name. Josephine Adams. Is that what she expected Etta Mae to call her? She opened the door, stuck her head inside. “Mrs. Adams? You in here? It’s me, Etta Mae. Your sister sent me.”
“I’m back here, Etta Mae. Back here in the dining room. You can come on back.”
Etta Mae walked in the rest of the way, closed the door behind her. Wasn’t a big living room, nothing like Mrs. Schaeffer’s. Maybe just a tad bigger than her own. She headed back through the doorway on the right, which led right into the dining room. There sat Mrs. Adams in a dining room chair facing the window, a leg propped up on another chair, resting on a pillow, the ankle all wrapped up in Ace bandages.
That wasn’t too odd. The odder thing was the big set of binoculars sitting on her lap.
Working the phones. Wasn’t exactly the cutting-edge kind of work Vic had imagined after twenty years in the FBI. But they were shorthanded, and a little boy’s life could be at stake. The first problem would be resolved soon enough, either by the world ending in a nuclear showdown or . . . this crisis blowing over and guys with a lot less seniority doing this kind of work for him again.
This Friday morning, things with Russia seemed to be heating up. When Vic had gotten into the office, Mr. Foster, the special agent in charge of the Orlando office, wasn’t in. Rumor was, he was waiting in a long l
ine at the confessional in his church. The other rumor was that he hadn’t been to confession in over ten years.
“Foster might be in that dark little box a good while,” Nate had said.
Vic looked over at Nate, who looked like he had a telephone receiver growing out of his left ear. This plan had seemed like a good idea when Nate had suggested it. And it still might provide the break in the case they were looking for. But already Vic was starting to doubt it.
A secretary was feeding them the phone numbers of the major hospitals in Florida’s biggest cities. Then she’d go through a list of midsized cities, then work through the small towns. They were looking for the names of little boys around Timmy’s age who had died over the last year. Vic had just finished calling all the hospitals in the Miami area. They had only turned up four names.
That was a good thing, in a sense. Only four little boys had died last year in a city as big as that. He didn’t know why, but he expected the number to be much higher. Put that together with big cities like Tampa and Jacksonville, add in the midsize and smaller towns, and they might only have about twenty-five to thirty cases to check out. But really, they only needed one of these leads to pan out.
Just one.
He picked up the phone to call the law enforcement officers in Miami nearest to these hospitals to give them the four names and addresses. The first was in Miami Beach.
“Hello, Miami Beach Police Department, how may I direct your call?” It was a man’s voice.
“Hi, this is Special Agent Victor Hammond of the FBI calling.”
“The FBI? What can we do for you, Agent . . . Hammer did you say?”
“Hammond.”
“Right. Why is the FBI calling us this morning? Got some Cuban spies you want us to pick up?”
“Nothing that elaborate. But we could use your help on a kidnapping case we’re working on.”
“Kidnapping? Okay, what do you need?”
“It’s a pretty simple thing, really. Just need someone to drive by a house on Lenox Avenue, verify that there’s no little boy living there around five or six years old.”
“Did you say check to see if a little boy is not living there?”
“Yeah, I know that sounds odd. But we’re working on the idea that the kidnapper might have taken the boy to replace a son that died last year.”
“I get you. If we find a little boy living there when there’s not supposed to be one . . .”
“You got it.”
“And what do you want us to do if we find one?”
“Call me back right away. You could do a little more, if you can. I know things are really hopping down there with all the military activity.”
“You ain’t kidding. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Back on Monday, I wired you a picture of the little boy we’re looking for. His name is Timmy Harrison. If you find a little boy living at this house, maybe you can have an officer ask to see him and compare him to the picture. But make sure they know they need to be extremely careful. We don’t know if this guy is armed. If he won’t let you see the boy, just keep somebody watching the house while you get a warrant, to be sure the guy doesn’t run.”
“Okay, I wrote this all down. To be clear, you don’t think this is the likely suspect?”
“Not right now. We’re still at the needle-in-a-haystack stage. In fact, I still got over a dozen calls to make all over Florida today. I really appreciate your help on this.”
“No problem,” the police officer said. “I’ve got a son that age myself.”
As Vic hung up the phone, he looked over at Nate, who was just doing the same. Nate made what looked like a check mark on a sheet of paper.
He looked at Vic and shook his head no.
48
“Sorry I’m a little late,” Etta Mae said. “Didn’t figure the walk right, how long it took to get here from where the bus dropped me off.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Mrs. Adams said. “I’m not the punctual sister. I just appreciate you coming here to give me a hand. Like a fool, I hurt my foot out there in the backyard hanging laundry. Tripped over a big tree root. Not like I didn’t know it was there. Lived in this house long enough, and that tree’s been here longer than me.”
Etta Mae stepped a little closer. “You been to see a doctor for that?” Looking at the way those bandages were wrapped, she was pretty sure she knew the answer.
“No, no need. Lived long enough to know the difference between a break and a sprain. Just a bad sprain, is all. But my laundry’s been out there on the line going on two days.” She lifted up that set of binoculars and used it to look out the window.
What in the world? How far away was that clothesline? Etta Mae wondered.
Still looking through those binoculars, Mrs. Adams said, “Guess that’s where you better start then.”
“The laundry basket nearby, Mrs. Adams?” Etta Mae asked.
“Should be right out there. Might have to brush it off a little. When I fell, I grabbed onto it on my way down. Wound up sitting on it till I got my bearings. But please, do me a favor. Call me Josephine. And may I call you Etta Mae?”
“You certainly may.” That was gonna take some getting used to, she thought. Calling this white woman by her first name. Barely three minutes in the door, and she was already beginning to like her. She noticed when Josephine talked about the laundry basket she was looking toward the backyard, not the side yard where she was aiming those binoculars.
So what was she looking at? “I’ll get right on it then,” Etta Mae said, heading toward the kitchen and the back door. “Want me to rewash them?”
“Shouldn’t have to,” Josephine said. “Hasn’t rained since I put them on the line. Just shake them out real good before you fold them, in case any leaves or dirt fell on them. Might have to rewash any that the birds pooped on.”
Etta Mae smiled. “I will.”
“Now my sister’s going to pay you for coming over here, right? She told me she would.”
Etta Mae stopped walking. “She is. Even a little more than usual.”
“I’m glad. Mabel’s always tried to look after me. I’m her younger sister. Of course, you wouldn’t know it to look at me. She’s got more years, but I’ve got more miles, if you know what I mean.”
Etta Mae did, and she had assumed Josephine was the older of the two. She was more surprised to find Mrs. Schaeffer’s first name was Mabel. Been working for the woman all these years and never knew that. Fact is, she knew more about Josephine these past five minutes than she’d learned about her big sister, Mabel, all that time.
Mabel. Mrs. Schaeffer sure didn’t look like no Mabel. “I’ll just get on that laundry then.”
Josephine put those binoculars back up to her face. “And I’ll just sit here on guard duty.”
Etta Mae shook her head in bewilderment as she walked outside. There was the clothesline tied up between two trees, the laundry basket still upside down. She walked over to it then turned, trying to imagine what Josephine was looking at. Seemed like she must be spying on her neighbor across the way. That was the only thing in that direction.
The lake was behind them. The dirt street out in front.
She picked up the overturned basket, then looked again at the neighbor’s house. It was just about the same size as Josephine’s, painted an ugly shade of green instead of white. There was an old pickup truck parked out front. She didn’t see any people or pets. No livestock of any sort. Nothing worth looking at, really. Let alone staring at all day through a pair of binoculars. She’d just have to come out and ask Josephine what she was up to. She’d never think of doing the same with Mrs. Schaeffer, butting into her personal business. But Josephine seemed like she might not even mind.
Etta Mae got the laundry off the line, then carried it back into the house. Since Josephine lived alone, they were obviously all her clothes. “You want me to put these away for you?”
“That would be a great help,” Josephine said. �
��Guess I better explain where they go.”
“That’s okay. You just do . . . whatever it is you’re doing there. I’m sure I can figure it out.”
Josephine brought her binoculars down to her lap. “Guess this looks a little strange, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe a little,” Etta Mae said, smiling. Maybe a lot, she thought.
“I’ve been feeling like Jimmy Stewart these past couple of days, you know, in that Alfred Hitchcock movie. What was it called, Rear Window?”
Etta Mae liked Jimmy Stewart, but she guessed she hadn’t seen that one. Must’ve showed on her face, because Josephine went on to explain.
“Remember, he was a photographer who broke his leg. Lived in an apartment surrounded by a bunch of other apartments, with a courtyard down below. Didn’t have anything to do all day but stare out the window at all the other tenants with a set of binoculars, like these. Tried to figure out their life stories. His girlfriend was that beautiful blonde actress Grace Kelly. You know, the one who married a prince. As he looked out the window, Jimmy Stewart was sure he saw a husband murdering his wife and burying her body in that courtyard. Remember?”
Wasn’t ringing any bells for Etta Mae. Sounded like a good one, though. She liked murder mysteries. Throw in Jimmy Stewart and she was sure she’d like it. “Too bad I missed that one,” she said.
Josephine put the binoculars back up to her face and said, “Well, I feel like him. Only, I don’t think I’m watching a murder taking place. Least I hope I’m not. But I got this crazy redneck neighbor lives next door. Meanest, most unfriendly man I ever met. I’ve been trying to reach out to him for years, just trying to be a good neighbor, see if I can invite him to my church. There’s a man who needs to be in church in the worst way.”
“So what’s he doing, or what do you think he’s doing, that makes you want to watch him with binoculars?”
“That’s just it,” Josephine said. “He might not be doing anything wrong. But he’s been acting stranger than usual this past week. And his little boy is back, after being gone for months. Gone where, I have no idea. I thought maybe he had been living with his mother. Tried to ask August about that; that’s my neighbor’s name. And he about bit my head off. Thought if he had a broom, he’d have liked to smack me with it.”