Now a hurricane party was a tempting thought and I told him I’d let him know.
After he left and before someone else could tie up my line, I picked up the phone to call Kidd even though he was probably already gone. And then I put it back down again, more than a little annoyed. After all, shouldn’t he be worried about me? The way Fran was lining up, Colleton County was just as likely to get hit as New Bern. Couldn’t he find a spare minute to see if I was okay?
No?
Then he could damn well wonder.
With all the distractions, I was halfway to Dobbs before I remembered Clara Freeman’s purse and Lashanda’s doll. No time to go back for them if I wanted to check past the hospital before going to court.
* * *
At Dobbs Memorial, it was only a few minutes past eight but the intensive care unit’s waiting room was jammed with Balm of Gilead members. A couple of Ralph Freeman’s colleagues from the middle school where he taught were there, along with some ministers from nearby churches. I greeted those I recognized and learned that Clara Freeman was in critical but stable condition. They had operated on her early this morning to relieve the pressure on her brain but it was too soon to make predictions, although Ralph was with the surgeon now.
Mingled with the hospital smells of antiseptics and floor wax were the appetizing aromas of hot coffee and fast-food breakfast meals—sausage biscuits from Hardee’s, Egg McMuffins, and Krispy Kreme doughnuts—nourishment for people who’d evidently been here since Mrs. Freeman was brought in last night.
Stan and his little sister were seated against the far wall and I went over to them.
“Stan, Lashanda, I’m so sorry about your mother.”
“Thank you, Miss Deborah,” the boy said.
Before he could say anything else, the large elderly man who sat beside him said, “Stanley, will you introduce this lady to me?”
It may have been couched as a request, but the tone sounded awfully like an order to me.
“Yes, sir. This is Judge Deborah Knott,” he said with touching formality. “Miss Deborah, this is my grandfather, the Reverend James McElroy Gaithers.”
“Judge?” He looked faintly disapproving. Because I was a judge? (“I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man.”) Or because I was white? (“He shall separate them one from another.”)
“Yes, sir,” I said. “District Court. And you’re Mrs. Freeman’s father?”
“I am.”
There are many preachers who prefer the Old Testament to the New and the Reverend James McElroy Gaithers was clearly one of them. For him, I was pretty sure that the dominant element of the Trinity would be God the stern father of retribution, not Jesus the forgiving son.
“You’re from Warrenton, I believe?”
He nodded magisterially.
“It’s a sad thing that brings you down here,” I commiserated. “I’m really sorry.”
“My daughter is in the hands of the Lord,” he said. “His will shall be done.”
At the old man’s words, Stan looked stricken and little Lashanda simply looked miserable. Was there no one to rescue the children from this Jeremiah and give them true comfort? Where was Clara Freeman’s good friend that Ralph had mentioned last night? Rosa Somebody? Surely she was somewhere in this crowd and with a hint dropped into her ear, maybe she would—
Stan’s face suddenly brightened at the sight of someone behind me and I turned to see Cyl DeGraffenried.
I had to hand it to her. For a woman who was falling apart the last time I saw her, she was in complete control now, poised and professional in a crisp hunter green linen suit with soft white silk blouse and matching low-heeled pumps. Her hair fell in artful perfection around her lovely face and pearls gleamed coolly at her throat and earlobes.
She spoke to Stan and Lashanda, was introduced to their grandfather, immediately sized up the situation and said to him in solicitous female tones, “I know you’ll want to speak privately with the doctor when he comes, so why don’t the Judge and I take your grandchildren out for some fresh air and breakfast?”
Both children immediately stood up as Cyl looked at me brightly. “Deborah?”
“Sure,” I said, trying not to look as taken aback as I actually was.
My court session was technically due to start at nine, but by the time most ADAs finish working out their plea bargains and stipulations, things seldom get moving much before nine-thirty or a quarter till ten, so we had more than an hour to give the children.
Reverend Gaithers started to object but Cyl blithely chose to misunderstand him. “No, no, you do not have to thank us. It’s no trouble at all. We haven’t had breakfast yet either, have we, Deborah?”
We made our getaway through the swinging doors and came face-to-face with Ralph Freeman and a doctor in surgical scrubs.
Ralph looked at us in confusion and Cyl seemed suddenly out of words herself.
“Daddy!” cried Lashanda and bounded into his arms.
“Is Mama going to be all right?” asked Stan.
“Dr. Potts thinks so,” Ralph said, swinging his daughter up to hug her as he nodded toward his companion.
Having only seen a man in a suit and tie when I was deciding on his divorce settlement, I hadn’t immediately recognized Dr. Jeremy Potts. He knew me though, and gave a sour tilt of the head.
“We were just coming in so Dr. Potts can explain to Clara’s father.” He kissed Lashanda and stood her back on her own feet. “Thanks, Deborah, for getting extra patrol cars out to look for her. Somebody said you helped pull her out?”
The children stared at me, wide-eyed.
“Not me, my brother Robert. His tractor. With a lot of help from the fire and rescue squads. I just did the heavy looking on.” I smiled down at Lashanda. “I saved your doll though. Oh, and your wife’s purse and keys,” I told Ralph. “I forgot to bring them in with me, but I’ll get them to you as soon as I can.”
“No hurry,” he said. “I’m afraid she’s not going to be driving any time soon.”
He was now under control enough to speak directly to Cyl. “Where are y’all off to?”
Stan spoke up. “Miss Cyl and Miss Deborah’s taking us out to breakfast.”
“If that’s okay with you?” Cyl managed to add. “We thought they could use a break from the waiting room.”
“That’s very kind of y’all.”
He looked at her as if he didn’t want to stop looking and my heart broke for them, but Dr. Potts cleared his throat and said, “Mr. Freeman?”
“Sorry, Doctor. I guess I’m holding you up.”
The two men went on into the waiting room and we drove over to the north end of Main Street in Cyl’s car. The air was thick with humidity and the sky was full of low gray clouds. There wasn’t much wind here on the ground, but overhead, those clouds scudded eerily past like frantic dirty sheep scattering before wolves we couldn’t yet see.
* * *
The Coffee Pot has a long counter where hungry folks in a hurry perch, a big round table with ashtrays for retirees who are more interested in gossip than food, and four non-smoking booths in back for those who want a little privacy.
We took a booth and Ava Dupree came straight over with a menu, her pale blue eyes bright with curiosity. My brother Herman’s electrical shop is right next door and we often meet here for coffee. Ava greeted Cyl by name, too, but she didn’t recognize the children and she’s not shy about asking personal questions.
“Freeman? Oh, yeah, your mama’s the one that went and run off the road into Possum Creek last night, ain’t she? I heard ’em talking about it first thing this morning. She’s gonna be okay, ain’t she?”
“We sure could use some orange juice here, Ava,” I said pointedly.
“And how about some blueberry pancakes, bacon, milk and coffee?” said Cyl. “That okay with y’all?”
Next to me, Stan nodded agreement and Lashanda, seated beside Cyl, smiled shyly. Blue barrettes in the shape of littl
e bluebirds were clipped to the ends of all her braids.
Stan knew Cyl because she’d given him a lift home from my Fourth of July pig-picking last month and from seeing her at the ball field, but she was a stranger to the little girl.
Not for long though.
“Somebody just lost a tooth,” Cyl said. “Was the Tooth Fairy good to you?”
“I thought she wasn’t,” the child replied, “’cause guess what? My tooth was still in the glass this morning when I woke up! But Stan said it was because too many people were in the house awake last night and maybe she got afraid.”
“Shandy!” An awkward, bony preadolescent, eleven-year-old Stan looked so exceedingly self-conscious that I could almost swear he was blushing, but his little sister was oblivious.
“And guess what? When I came back from brushing my teeth, my tooth was gone and guess what was in the water?”
She drew her hand out of her pocket and proudly showed us two shiny quarters.
“Hey, that’s really cool,” Cyl said, smiling at Stan. “She never left me more than a dime.”
“Inflation.” Stan grinned.
By the time our pancakes arrived, she had charmed them both. Stan told us about a school science project he was working on—how he’d been documenting Fran’s path from the time she was nothing more than a tropical depression off the coast of Africa till whatever happened in the next twenty-four hours. I learned things about hurricanes I’d never given much thought to before.
“They’re saying it’s going to be one of the really big ones!” He gestured so excitedly as he described the spiraling bands of storms around the eye that the plastic syrup dispenser went flying and he had to get up and chase it down.
Lashanda looked less than thrilled by the approaching storm and moved closer to Cyl till she was tucked up almost under Cyl’s arm. “I wish we could spend the night at your house.”
Cyl put her arm around the child and gave a little squeeze. “I wish you could, too, baby.”
“Shandy!” said her brother.
“Grandfather scares me.” A tear slid down her cheek. “And Mama’s not coming home tonight and if Daddy stays with her and we get tornadoes—”
Her lip quivered.
“What about your mother’s friend?” I asked. “Someone named Rosa?”
“Miss Rosa hasn’t come yet,” said Stan. “She must’ve worked last night ’cause we couldn’t get her on the phone either.”
Not much of a best friend, I thought, thinking how I’d react if something like this happened to Portland or Morgan or Dixie or two or three other close friends.
“And you just might have just a little more freedom to come and go when you like,” the preacher reminded me. “You don’t know what obstacles of job or children might be keeping her away.”
“Don’t worry,” Cyl told Lashanda. “Things will work out.”
She wet a napkin in a glass of water and gently wiped the little girl’s sticky lips.
* * *
When we delivered the children back to the ICU waiting room, Ralph immediately came over and thanked us again.
“How is Mrs. Freeman really?” Cyl asked when Stan and Lashanda spotted friends of their own age and moved away from us.
“Really?” Ralph shook his head, clearly weary from lack of sleep and a deep sadness. “Dr. Potts can’t say. She should have regained consciousness by now, but she hasn’t. There are broken ribs, bruised windpipe from the seat belt—thank God she was wearing it! Those things are relatively superficial. But the concussion . . . and of course, the longer she’s in a coma, the worse the prospects. Maybe by lunchtime we’ll know better.”
The mention of lunchtime made me look at my watch. Ten after nine.
I squeezed Ralph’s hand. “We have to go now, but we’ll be praying for her.”
“You’ll come back?”
“Yes,” said Cyl.
* * *
She was silent in the elevator down and as we walked out through the parking lot, I said, “You okay?”
“I’m holding it together.” She gave me an unhappy smile. “For the moment anyhow.”
“See you at the courthouse, then.” I headed for my car a few spaces past hers, then stopped short. “Oh, damn!”
“What?” asked Cyl.
“Somebody’s popped the lock on my trunk again.” I was totally exasperated. This was the second time in a year. “What the hell do they think I carry?”
“They take anything?” she asked, peering over my shoulder.
My briefcase was still there. So were my robe and the heavy locked toolbox where I stash wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers, extra windshield wipers and the registered .38 Daddy gave me when I told him I was going to keep on driving deserted roads at night and that I didn’t need a man to protect me. Things had been stirred and the roll of paper towels was tangled in my robe, but I couldn’t see that anything was missing.
I transferred robe and briefcase to the front seat and wired the trunk lid down. It irked me that I was going to have to spend my morning break filing another police complaint so I could prove to the insurance company that the damage really happened.
Court was disjointed that morning, complicated by a bunch of no-shows and motions to recalendar due to the weather. With Fran expected to come ashore tonight somewhere between Myrtle Beach and Wilmington, everyone seemed to have trouble concentrating and by the time I gave up and adjourned for the day at one p.m., the wind had picked up and it was raining hard again.
Frankly, I was getting more than a little tired of both the anticipation and the rain, too.
“Enough already!” I grumbled to Luther Parker, with whom I share a connecting bathroom. “Let’s just have a good blow and get it over with and get back to sunshine.”
“Hope it’s that easy,” he said.
Everything smelled musty and felt damp. I almost slipped off my shoes and wiggled my stockinged toes just to make sure they weren’t starting to grow little webs.
At the midmorning break, when I reported my jimmied trunk to the Dobbs town police, I’d cut through the Sheriff’s Department to gripe about it to Dwight, but his office was empty.
He was there at one-fifteen, though, munching a hamburger at his desk. I started through the door of his office singing my song of woe, then stopped when I saw Terry Wilson sitting at the other end of the desk with his own hamburger and drink can.
“What’s happened, Terry?” There’s only a short list of things to bring an SBI agent out during working hours. “Dwight? Somebody get killed?”
“Yeah. One of the maids out at the Orchid Motel,” Dwight said. “Lived in Cotton Grove. A neighbor found her around five this morning. Somebody sliced her up pretty bad last night. Knocked her around first, then cut off one of her fingers slick as a surgeon would. While she was still alive. Blood everywhere.”
I watched as Terry squirted a tinfoil packet of ketchup on his french fries. I guess you get anesthetized after a while.
“Is her death related to Lynn Bullock’s?”
“Be a right big coincidence if it isn’t,” said Terry, who’s as tolerant of my questions as Dwight.
“You get any hint of it when you interviewed her?” I asked Dwight.
“The thing is, we never did,” he admitted with a huge sigh of regret. “She got off work before the Bullock woman checked in and didn’t come back on duty till the next day, long after the killing took place. Didn’t seem to be any urgency about talking with her. Sloppy.”
“Don’t beat up on yourself,” said Terry, as I opened Dwight’s little refrigerator and helped myself to one of the cold drinks inside. “You and your people were all over that motel. If Rosa Edwards knew something about the murder, she should’ve—”
“Rosa Edwards?” I asked, popping the top of a Diet Pepsi. “That’s who got killed?”
“Yeah,” said Dwight. “You know her?”
I shook my head. “No, but Ralph Freeman said she was his wife’s closest friend here
.” I stared at them, struck by a sudden thought. “What if it’s nothing to do with Lynn Bullock? What if it’s about how Clara Freeman wound up in Possum Creek without leaving any skid marks on the pavement?”
Dwight reached for his Rolodex and started dialing. “Jimmy? You done anything yet with that Honda Civic Robert Knott pulled out of the creek last night? . . . Good. Don’t touch it. I’m sending a crew out to examine it.”
CHAPTER | 15
But when their hearts are really touched they drop everything and rush to the rescue of the afflicted.
Cyl stuck her head in my office as I was sliding my feet into a pair of sandals so old that it wouldn’t matter if they got soaked. I saw that she, too, had changed from those expensive dark green heels to scuffed black flats that had seen better days. Fran was still out in the Atlantic, just off the coast of Wilmington, but so huge that her leading edge was already spilling into the Triangle area. We were in for a night of high wind and heavy rain whether or not the hurricane actually came inland.
Cyl had heard about Rosa Edwards’s murder, but she hadn’t connected it to Clara Freeman until I told her of their friendship. Instantly, her thoughts flew to Stan and Lashanda. Their mother was in a coma, her closest friend had been brutally butchered and a big storm was on the way. Anything that touched Ralph Freeman was going to touch her but she did seem genuinely distressed for the children, who might have to stay alone with their stern-faced grandfather.
“I could take them to my grandmother’s, but she’s already gone to my uncle’s house in Durham.”
“I’m sure some kind family from the church will take them in,” I soothed.
I was anxious to head back to the farm, but Cyl asked if I’d go with her to the hospital and I couldn’t turn her down since it was only the second time she’d ever asked me for a favor.
* * *
The sky was dark as we drove in tandem to the hospital on the northwest side of Dobbs and the ICU waiting room was nearly empty except for the children, the Reverend James McElroy Gaithers, and a couple of church people who were clearly torn between a wish to comfort and an even more sincere wish to get home under shelter before the wind got too heavy.
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