Jubilee's Journey

by Bette Lee Crosby

  “In case you don’t remember,” Olivia said, “we weren’t the ones who stopped Scooter Cobb; it was Ethan Allen.”

  “Oh, right,” Clara mumbled and gulped down a large swallow of okra-flavored coffee.

  Fred glared at Clara with a look that indicated she should’ve kept her mouth shut. “What about that policeman friend of yours?” he asked Olivia.

  “Jack Mahoney?” she replied. “I called and asked if he’d help us.”

  “Well?” Clara grumped, “what did he say?”

  “At first he said finding Anita was out of his jurisdiction.”

  “So he’s not gonna help?” Fred asked.

  “No, he’s agreed to look into it.” Olivia gave a mischievous smile. “But I had to tell a little white lie to get him to do it.”

  “Little white lie?” Clara repeated.

  “Yes.” Olivia nodded. “I told him I was pretty sure Anita came from over that way, because she and her sister used to go swimming in Chesapeake Bay.”

  Clara doubled over laughing. “And you think he believed you?”

  “Why wouldn’t he?”

  “Nobody swims in that part of Chesapeake Bay. It’s good for fishing but too rocky and deep for swimming.”

  “Oh.” Olivia’s face fell, and her shoulders dropped into a downward slump.

  When there was nothing more to be said, Fred and George left. Clara stayed and shared the remainder of the okra coffee. Once Olivia had drained the last of it, her heart felt emptier than the pot. Thinking that another homeless child had been dropped on her doorstep, she gave a long soulful sigh and said, “Where’s hope when I need it?”

  “It’s probably right where you left it,” Clara replied.

  “Right where I left it?”

  “Unh-huh.” Clara nodded. “Hope don’t leave. People just forget it’s there.”

  Olivia leaned into Clara’s words.

  “A while back you went around hoping for this, that, and the other thing. ‘I hope I find happiness,’ you’d say, ‘I hope I find love.’ Then Ethan Allen showed up and you said, ‘I hope I can find this boy a home.’ After that you got to loving him and said, ‘I hope I can keep this boy safe.’”

  Olivia smiled at the truth of Clara’s words.

  “Hope didn’t leave.” Clara drained the last of her coffee. “You just ran out of excuses for using it.”

  “That’s not true,” Olivia argued. “I still hope for certain things.”

  “No, you don’t,” Clara said. “You just say you’re hoping for something. Saying, ‘I hope it don’t rain’ ain’t really hoping; it’s wishful thinking.” Clara pushed back from the table. “Think about it. When’s the last time you really and truly used your whole heart to hope for something?”

  Olivia sat there for a long minute thinking, and she had to admit Clara was right. All this time she thought she was hoping for different things—a birthday cake, a telephone call, a new dress—but the truth was they were small things, and she’d done little more than sprinkle a bit of hope over them the way you’d sprinkle salt on a potato. When she cored into herself she had to admit the last time she’d used every last drop of hope she could muster up was when she hoped Detective Mahoney would believe she was the one who shot Scooter Cobb.

  “You’re right.” She smiled at Clara. “I haven’t been using all my hope.” She reached across the table and clasped her hand over Clara’s. “You’re a life raft.”

  “Life raft?” Clara repeated quizzically. “I may have put on a few pounds, but—”

  Olivia laughed. “No, you’re my life raft, the thing that keeps me afloat when I start to believe this time I’m going under.”

  “Well, good,” Clara said. “Now stay afloat, because little Jubilee Jones is gonna need a whole lot of hoping if we’re to find her aunt.”

  “Jones!” Olivia slapped her hand to her head. “Why didn’t I see this before?”

  She bolted from the chair and into the family room where Ethan Allen and Jubilee were now watching television. Ignoring the fact that the girl was as fair as a white rose and Canasta as black as a piece of ebony, she asked, “Jubilee, is it possible that you know a woman named Canasta Jones?”

  Jubilee looked up and shrugged. “I don’t think I know no Canasta, but I suppose it’s possible.”

  Convinced the similarity of names was a sure sign, Olivia’s hope took flight and fluttered its wings in a way that made her heart race. Suddenly she knew they would find Anita, and Jubilee Jones would have her forever home.

  But of course Olivia was always prone to over-exaggerated expectations.

  Olivia

  I know you’re thinking it’s a preposterous idea, Jubilee being connected to Canasta, especially given the difference in age and race, but it’s not as preposterous as you might think. Bloodlines aren’t the only thing tying people together. Look at Ethan Allen and me.

  The thinking part of my head understands they can’t possibly be blood relatives, but the feeling part of my heart knows it’s no coincidence. Jubilee and Canasta both being Joneses is exactly the same as finding spare change in my pocket. It’s a sure sign that everything is going to work out just the way God intended. A person shouldn’t rationalize their blessings; you just accept them for what they are and be glad you’ve got them.

  For a while I was worried sick we’d never find Jubilee’s aunt and I’d have to turn the poor girl over to the child welfare people. Now I feel totally different. I know for certain we’ll not only find Anita, but that she’ll love Jubilee just as much as I do Ethan Allen.

  Paul, unfortunately, I’m not so certain about. I’ve searched my soul trying to decide whether or not I think the boy could do such a thing, but it’s impossible to come up with an answer. One part of me argues that if he’s the boy shot in an attempted robbery, he must be guilty. But once that answer is settled in my brain, my heart reminds me he’s Jubilee’s brother. He’s a boy born of the same parents, a boy who cared enough to try to make a home for his baby sister. I know the decision of guilty or not isn’t mine to make, but if I knew one way or the other maybe I could prepare Jubilee for what lies ahead.

  Times like this I look back on Charlie’s death and realize how foolish such thinking is. We can plan ahead until we’re blue in the face, but regardless of what we do events will happen as they will. The truth is we don’t have a bean of say in the matter.

  Following A Trail of Breadcrumbs

  Monday morning Jack Mahoney checked in at the station house. It was a quiet day with little more than a handful of paperwork that needed to be done. “I’ve got some personal stuff to take care of,” he told Griffin, then took off.

  His first stop was the county clerk’s office. The gal at the front desk was talking on the telephone and making no move to end the conversation.

  “You gotta be kidding,” she said into the phone. She looked up but continued talking. “Well, if I was her, I would have given him the boot.”

  Mahoney flashed his badge and said, “Archives?”

  She waggled her finger toward a long hallway, put her hand over the mouthpiece, and whispered, “Third door on the right.”

  Mahoney nodded and disappeared down the hall. Olivia Doyle hadn’t given him much to go on; actually it was more like nothing. No hard facts, just lots of maybes mixed in with a few possibilities. What he needed was one fact—one spot that he could point to and say Anita Walker-Jones was here. From that single spot he could move backward or forward through her life and chances were good he’d find her. But until he located that spot, Anita Walker-Jones didn’t exist.

  For nearly three hours Mahoney went from one records division to the next. School Registrations, Property Records, Voter Registration— one by one they produced nothing. The clerks were pleasant enough; they smiled and sympathized, but mostly they said the recordkeeping thirty-plus years ago wasn’t what it should have been. Shortly after one o’clock Jack left the building with exactly what he’d come in with: nothing. After a
quick stop at Hamburger Heaven, he returned to the station and tried calling Frances Margaret Jones.

  On the fourth ring, a man answered.

  “Good afternoon,” Mahoney said. “I’d like to speak with Frances Margaret Jones.”

  “Yeah, I bet you would.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re the one she’s been running around with, ain’t ya?”

  “I’m Detective Mahoney from the Northampton County Police Department.”

  “Don’t give me that load of crap! Frances is a married woman! She’s got no business—”

  Mahoney was momentarily taken aback. “This isn’t a personal call. I’m trying to find a woman who—”

  “Take that trash elsewhere,” the man snarled. “Frances ain’t for sale no more. She’s locked in the bedroom and ain’t coming out ‘til she’s sworn to behave.” With that the man slammed the phone down.

  Griffin, who was sitting across the desk and could hear the shouting, said, “Sounds like you’ve been sticking your finger in somebody else’s pie.”

  Mahoney rolled his eyes. “Funny, real funny.”

  “So who’s your telephone friend?”

  “My guess is he’s her husband.” Mahoney chuckled. “I was just following up a lead.”

  “On what?”

  “Favor for a friend,” Mahoney said. “Remember the Doyle case?”

  “Everybody remembers that one.”

  “Well, the kid’s grandma asked me to help her find somebody called Anita Walker or maybe Jones.”

  “Oh, so that’s Aunt Anita.” Griffin laughed. “And Frances, who ain’t for sale anymore, she knows this Anita?”

  Mahoney shrugged. “It’s worth checking.” From the Northampton Station, it took about three hours to get to Wyattsville. “Feel like taking a ferry ride?”

  Griffin grinned and grabbed his jacket.

  Frances Margaret’s husband had started drinking early that morning, and by the time they arrived he was in a worse than ugly mood. When Griffin and Mahoney rang the bell the door banged open like a hurricane coming through. The man standing in the open door was wearing polka dot boxer shorts and a tee shirt soaked through with sweat.

  “What the hell do you want?” he screamed.

  “Take it easy, buddy,” Griffin said and flashed his badge. “We’re just looking to ask a few questions.”

  Mister Boxer Shorts narrowed his eyes. “If this is about Fran—”

  “It’s not about Frances Margaret,” Mahoney cut in. “But we think she might have some information that will help find the person we’re looking for.”

  “Margaret? She say her name was Frances Margaret? Margaret my ass!” A spray of spittle flew from the man’s mouth and landed on his chin. “Myrtle; she’s a Myrtle!” He swiped the back of his hand across his chin and finished, “A low-life-tramp-with-no-morals Myrtle!”

  Griffin grinned. “I know what you mean, buddy,” he said. “I used to be married to one just like her.”

  Boxer Shorts gave a sorrowful nod. “Hell, ain’t it?”

  “Sure is,” Griffin replied. “If you want I could have a talk with her, maybe explain how carrying on this way could get her in trouble with the law.”

  “She ain’t listening to me; what makes you think she’ll listen to you?”

  “She’ll listen.” Griffin made it sound like a threat rather than a promise.

  “I guess it’s worth a try,” Boxer Shorts said. He stepped back, motioned them in, then said he’d get Myrtle.

  Once Boxer Shorts was beyond hearing range, Mahoney turned to Griffin. “Where’d you get that story?”

  “It just came to me,” Griffin said and grinned again. “Anyway, I figured he’s never gonna meet Sarah, so what’s the harm?”

  They heard footsteps in the hall and stopped talking. The woman who Boxer Shorts led into the room was as angry and puffed up as a wet hen.

  “I’m Frances Margaret,” she said. “What do you want?”

  Boxer Shorts flared up. “You ain’t a Margaret! You was Francine Myrtle when I married you, and you’re still Francine Myrtle!”

  “Blockhead!” she yelled back. “Forty-seven times I told you I changed it. You ain’t never gonna learn, are you?”

  Before things could get any worse, Griffin pulled Boxer Shorts aside and gave Mahoney room to talk to Frances-whoever-she was.

  “I believe you spoke with Missus Doyle last week,” he began.

  “You mean Olivia? Yeah, I talked to her. She said something about a reunion party for telephone company people.”

  “You ain’t going to no party!” Boxer Shorts yelled from across the room.

  “Try and stop me!” she yelled back.

  “Can we step outside for a moment?” Mahoney asked.

  She nodded and followed him out the door.

  Standing on the front stoop, Mahoney said, “I’m looking for a woman named Anita Walker or possibly Jones. I understand you know someone who’s related.”

  “Knew,” Frances-whatever corrected. “Not know. I knew Bartholomew Jones and his missus twenty years ago. They used to rent the upstairs flat in my sister’s house.”

  “Where was that?”

  “Norfolk. But, like I told you, that was twenty years ago. I ain’t spoken to Bertha for more than ten, and it was way before we quit talking.”

  “Bertha’s your sister?”

  Frances gave a disgusted nod. “Yeah, I guess you could call her that.”

  “This Bartholomew. Was his wife’s name Anita?”

  Frances laughed. “Shoot, no. Bartholomew’s missus was Ruthie. She was a sweetie, but this other one that used to come visit, she had a temper on her, woo-wee!”

  “The one who came to visit, was her name Anita?”

  “I’m thinking it was but can’t swear to it.”

  “You think Bertha might know?”

  “You’re asking me what’s in Bertha’s head?” Frances gave a cynical snort. “If I knew what was in that woman’s head, I’d’ve quit talking to her long before I did. She’s pure ugly, so I gotta guess there ain’t nothing but ugly in her head!”

  Seeing that this was going nowhere, Mahoney asked, “Can you give me an address or telephone number where I can get hold of Bertha?”

  “Men!” Frances muttered and rolled her eyes. “Didn’t you hear me say I ain’t talked to her in ten years? I ain’t even got a guess as to where she is now.”

  “Can you give me the last address you had for her?”

  “I suppose,” Frances said and pulled a piece of wadded paper from her pocket. “Here. If you talk to Bertha, tell her I said holding grudges ain’t gonna do nobody no good.”

  Mahoney thanked her, then called Griffin and said it was time to get going.

  It was nearly six o’clock in the morning when Hector Gomez got home from the hospital. For three hours he’d stood there chatting with Nancy waiting for her to drop some little tidbit she’d gotten from the kid but got nothing. She’d gone in and out of his room a half-dozen times and each time Hector waited, thinking she’d come back with a name. Nothing. Now he had a serious case of indigestion from all the coffee he’d consumed and needed a cold glass of milk. He pulled the car into the garage and came through the kitchen door.

  Hector knew it was going to be a bad day when he opened the refrigerator door and saw an empty shelf where the milk was supposed to be.

  “Gloria!” he screamed. “Where’s the damn milk?” Although he phrased it as a question, he knew the answer.

  “We’re all out!” his wife hollered back. She snapped on the hairdryer so any further conversation was impossible.

  Hector Gomez was a man who needed seven hours sleep. Six hours at a minimum. He’d gotten two, and it was already wearing on him. He eyed the clock. Ten minutes past six—plenty of time for a short nap. A half-hour maybe. A quick shower, and he’d be ready to go by seven. Hector stretched out on the sofa and closed his eyes.

  The next thing he knew the clock wa
s striking twelve. He sat up in a panic.

  “Damn!” he shouted and hurtled himself off the sofa. His right knee came down hard on the wrought iron coffee table, and before he could scramble to his feet an egg-sized lump swelled up on his leg.

  When Gomez walked into the station house, he thought he was smack in the middle of the worst day a man can have. Then he spotted Detective Mahoney across the room.

  “What the hell?”

  If there was one thing Hector Gomez didn’t need, it was a smart-mouth detective from Northampton sticking his nose in on a sure thing. If it hadn’t been for Mahoney, he would have had a conviction on the Doyle case. To this day, he believed one of them guilty of murder—either the grandmother or the kid—but once Mahoney got involved it became a bleeding heart issue.

  “Not this time,” Hector grumbled as he crossed the room.

  When he stopped at the Wyattsville station Mahoney planned to ask about the kid involved in the Klaussner shooting. He didn’t feel there was a solid connection between the kid and the missing aunt, but there was enough to warrant a few questions. He barely had a foot through the door when he saw a pissed-off Gomez coming toward him. Remembering the outcome of the Doyle case, Mahoney knew this was going to be a confrontational situation unless he did something. He stuck his hand out

  “Hey, Gomez, how’s it going?”

  Hector eyed him suspiciously. “Okay, I guess. And you?”

  “Real good.” Mahoney nodded. “Real good.”

  In no mood for small talk, Hector asked, “So what brings you over here?”

  “Search for a missing person. Run-of-the-mill stuff, nothing exciting.”

  “You’re not working the Klaussner robbery?”

  “Nah, that’s one you’re gonna have to handle on your own.”

  Still suspicious, Gomez asked, “This missing person you’re looking for wouldn’t be a teenage boy, would it?”

  “Nope. A woman, probably mid-forties.”

  Gomez breathed a sigh of relief. There was a sense of satisfaction in knowing he’d bested Mahoney on this one, and Hector couldn’t help but brag. “I’ve got the lead on the Klaussner job. Right now it’s attempted murder, but if Klaussner dies—”