Miss Julia to the Rescue

by Ann B. Ross

“Well, that’s certainly true. I’m not sure I’ll get any more out of him, but I’d like to know his plans. I’d like to know if I’m going to have to put up with him going back and forth between that woman’s job and mine. Sam will be back before we know it and I expect to have that sunroom finished by the time he gets here. I mean it’s not as if Adam has to build those cabinets himself. We’re using ready-made ones and all he has to do is nail up the framework and install them. How hard can that be?”

  “You better eat some breakfast ’fore you go up there all grouchy an’ light in on him.” She put a plate of eggs and bacon on the table and pointed to my chair. I sat.

  All through breakfast, I could hear the sound of hammering from upstairs and, I tell you, it was music to my ears. The longer Adam hammered, the calmer I became. I was even able to linger with Lillian as we prepared a grocery list for the weekend.

  “We may have a guest, Lillian,” I said, “and if we do, we’ll need to have the Pickens family and maybe Etta Mae, unless it’ll put her in jeopardy. But I’m not about to entertain that sheriff by myself.” I sighed, then looked on the bright side. “But with the house so torn up, I won’t have to offer him a room. He can stay in a motel, for all I care.”

  “I ’spect he plannin’ to do that anyway.”

  “Well, he should! The idea of coming down here ready to interrogate and perhaps arrest somebody and expect us to provide him with room and board. It’s beyond thinking of.”

  “Yes’m, an’ you don’t need to. An’ if he act up like you think he might, I wouldn’t even ast him to supper.”

  “You’re right,” I said, tearing the list off the pad I’d been writing on. “But get a large roast, just in case. No, wait,” I said, striking through several items, “let’s have chicken, fried chicken, and if he wonders what it really is, he can just wonder.”

  We rose from the table and began taking plates and dishes to the counter by the sink. I looked out the window at the beautiful day, noting how green everything was—the boxwoods in the back were covered with bright new growth and the ornamental fruit trees were in full bloom.

  “Listen,” I said, turning to Lillian. “Do you hear that?”

  “No’m, I don’t hear nothin’.”

  “That’s just it! It’s too quiet.” I raised my eyes to the ceiling. “What’s Adam doing—or not doing—up there?”

  “Maybe he doin’ something that don’t need hammerin’. Or maybe he takin’ a rest.”

  “He better not be taking a rest,” I said, slinging down a dish towel. “He hasn’t worked long enough to need one.”

  I hurried upstairs, taking no care to approach the sunroom quietly. I wanted him to know I was on the way, hoping he would bestir himself and get back to work. It was not my desire to catch him loafing on the job. I didn’t want to have to upbraid him, so with that in mind I walked firmly up the stairs and down the hall, weaving my way through the boxes stacked along the way. I even tapped on the sunroom door before opening it, giving him every opportunity to be up and doing and busily working.

  But did he take that opportunity? No, he did not. When I walked into the lumber- and sawdust-covered room, I found him sitting on a boxed cabinet reading a book.

  He looked up at me, making no effort to hide what he was doing or to appear busy. “Good morning, Mrs. Murdoch, and the Lord’s blessings on you.”

  “And on you,” I replied, slightly stunned that he seemed not the least embarrassed at being caught flat-footed without a hammer in his hand. “Adam,” I went on, “Mr. Murdoch will be home in a few days and he’ll be most unhappy if this room isn’t finished. It was bad enough that you didn’t come to work yesterday, and even worse that you’re here now but not getting anything done. Remember that I’m paying you by the hour to work, not to read.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said with a sigh. And carefully closing the book which I now saw was a Bible, he laid it aside. “My brother’s coming to help me catch up, but I just felt the need to turn to God’s word for a few minutes. I won’t charge you for the time it took.”

  Stricken by the troubled tone in his voice, I began to feel bad about my strident behavior. “I’m not worried about what you charge, Adam. I’m worried about you. Is anything wrong?”

  “No, ma’am, everything’s fine.” He got up from the box he was sitting on and adjusted his tool belt. “I just find that my work goes better if I study the Word off and on throughout the day.”

  “Well,” I said, at a loss for a response. “Well, good. I’ll leave you to it.” And I left, feeling chastened even as a rather sharp observation flitted through my mind: better to have been studying my plans, considering the state of that room. Then felt worse for having thought it.

  Chapter 36

  Adam was true to his word about bringing in help. Before the hour was past, another pickup drove in and a younger brother, Josh, as he introduced himself, hopped out to help finish the sunroom. He was about twice the size of Adam, a blond giant of a man, with an open and pleasant expression on his face. Up and down the stairs the two of them went, carrying out the table saw and odds and ends of leftover lumber, then bringing in the rest of the cabinets. With both of them working, we had a double dose of hammering, which I bore stoically because it meant that things were moving along. They gave me a full day’s work with no stopping except for lunch, which had been brought from home, even though Lillian invited them to our table.

  “Mr. Adam say thank you all the same,” Lillian said as she came back downstairs, “but his mama fix meat loaf san’wiches an’ they jus’ stick with that.”

  “Well, we tried,” I said, sitting down to a fruit salad. Just as I finished, the telephone rang.

  I answered it and heard Hazel Marie say without taking a breath, “The sheriff’s coming, Miss Julia! The sheriff’s coming!”

  “I know, Hazel Marie, you told me yesterday.”

  “No, I mean we know when he’s coming and it’s Friday, day after tomorrow, at nine o’clock, and I won’t even be dressed!” She had to stop to catch her breath, then with a little more control, she said, “Coleman just called and told us. And J.D. said that means it’ll be an official interview, because Sheriff McAfee has gone through our sheriff to set it up. It won’t be just a drop-in-and-visit kind of thing. Oh, Miss Julia, I am so worried I don’t know what to do.”

  I had to think a minute, half ashamed of myself for feeling relief that no one had officially notified me or Etta Mae. Maybe that meant we weren’t wanted and wouldn’t have our pictures tacked up on post office walls.

  “Well, Hazel Marie,” I said, “maybe it’s better to know than to have it hanging over our heads. What does Mr. Pickens say?”

  “Oh, you know him. He’s not a bit worried or at least that’s what he’s telling me. But I am. He’s not at all well, though he puts up a good front. They just can’t make him go back up there. It could ruin him for life!”

  “Surely it won’t come to that. He seems better every time I see him.”

  “But you haven’t seen his scars. I was finally able to look and he’s got four of them on his … you-know.”

  “But just think, Hazel Marie, how fortunate he is to have them there. You’re the only one who’ll ever see them.”

  “Oh, I hope.”

  After giving her a few more encouraging words, I hung up without asking what I wanted to know. And that was, had Etta Mae and I been included in the official interview that Sheriff McAfee had set up. I assured myself that she would have told me if we had been or if she had known. Or else Coleman would’ve called me.

  Maybe he still would. Maybe he hadn’t gotten around to it. And maybe I should’ve been more concerned about Mr. Pickens’s predicament than about my own.

  The day after tomorrow, I thought, and was finally able to draw some ease of mind from that. Only a few days afterward, Sam would be home and Sheriff McAfee would’ve been and gone by then.

  Surely he was not coming to arrest Mr. Pickens—that was unthinkabl
e. For one thing, if that’d been his intent, he would’ve had our sheriff do the honors. Wouldn’t he? Hazel Marie had said interview, not intervene or interrogate or intercept. He only wants to talk, I assured myself.

  And, I went on, thinking up one possibility after another, we were told he had other business to take care of on this trip—which could mean that he wasn’t after Mr. Pickens specifically. Maybe he wanted to visit that niece of his and just tacked Mr. Pickens on to make the trip official and have his expenses reimbursed. I wouldn’t put it past him.

  But whatever his intentions were, I intended to warn Etta Mae as soon as she got home from work. Just to be on the safe side.

  “Etta Mae?” I said, my call catching her, she told me, just as she walked in the door of her single-wide after a long day of caring for the sick and ailing. “I hate to tell you this, but Hazel Marie called to say that Sheriff McAfee will be in town the day after tomorrow. He’s set up an interview with Mr. Pickens, but I don’t know if that’s all he’s planning. He may have a few other interviews in mind.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said in a slightly subdued tone, “I know.”

  “You know? Did Hazel Marie call you, too?”

  “No’m. He did.”

  “He, who? Coleman? Mr. Pickens?”

  “No, that sheriff.”

  “Sheriff McAfee? Why, Etta Mae, why would he do that? He hasn’t called me, and if anybody’s at fault with what we did in his jurisdiction, I am. Besides, how did he find you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Coleman told him. He called on my cell right in the middle of me clipping Mr. Avery’s toenails. Made me so nervous, I almost nipped his little toe. Anyway, I don’t think he wants to interview me. At least, not the way he’ll interview J.D.”

  “Well, I don’t understand why he’d want to talk to you and not to me. I was the instigator and I take full responsibility for everything we did. You’re completely in the clear, Etta Mae, I want you to rest easy about that. So unless he wants to turn you against me, I can’t see why he’d come after you.”

  “I don’t think that’s what he has in mind,” she said. Then, as if unburdening herself, she went on in a rush. “Actually, I think he’s just interested in dinner and dancin’.”

  That stopped me. “A date? He asked you for a date?”

  “That’s pretty much what I figured. I hope you don’t mind that I said yes.”

  “Oh, well, of course not. It’s entirely up to you who you see, but, Etta Mae, be careful. That man is sneaky. Remember how he sent us to that church, so he may have something more up his sleeve than dinner and dancing. And if it’s a snake—I mean if he’s a snake handler—you don’t want to be involved with him.”

  “Ugh, don’t worry,” Etta Mae said. “That’s the first thing I’m going to ask him, and if he is, I’m not going anywhere with him. I would’ve asked him on the phone but I was so surprised to hear from him, I didn’t think of it.”

  “I think I’m surprised to hear he’s a dancing man. Maybe that speaks well of him, because, I grant you, those snake handlers did a lot of prancing and dancing around, but they did it by themselves, not with each other. Where will you go? There’s no place to dance around here unless you belong to the Cotillion.”

  “Well, I don’t belong to that,” she said with a laugh. “Whatever it is. No, there’s a steak house out on Highway 64 with a dance hall next to it. Ardis said he likes steak and he likes to line dance, so that’ll be the best place to go.”

  Ardis? One phone call had certainly gotten them off on a fast track. And steak and line dancing? She’d found out a lot about him even in the midst of cutting toenails, but she hadn’t found out the most important thing: namely, his church affliation. That would’ve been my first question, but then, I hadn’t been asked to dance.

  “That sounds nice,” I said, which is about like saying an ugly baby looks interesting. “Well, Etta Mae, I know he’ll be in town Friday because that’s when he’ll interview Mr. Pickens. But do you have any idea when he’ll actually get here? You know, so I’ll know not to answer the phone.”

  “Yes, ma’am, he’s already here.”

  “He is? You mean he’s there?” I could just picture that tall denim-and-boot-clad vibrating man in Etta Mae’s tiny single-wide. They wouldn’t be able to move without touching each other.

  Etta Mae laughed. “Our date is tomorrow night, but he got in today. He’s visiting that niece of his. So, no, he’s not here yet.”

  Thank goodness for that, I thought, then thought of something else. For several days I’d been wondering how to bring up the subject, and the only way I could come up with was just to jump in and do it.

  “Well, I hope you have a good time, but, Etta Mae, even though I know it’s none of my business, I have to ask you about something else.” I paused, hesitating to pry into her affairs or to criticize her in any way. But I cared about her, and knowing how easily led she was—just witness the numerous times I’d talked her into one escapade after another—I simply had to warn her. And as reluctant as I always am to interfere in the lives of others, a mental picture of those little stars running up the rim of her right ear gave me the impetus to press on. “Have you ever met a woman named Agnes Whitman?”

  “I don’t think so. Why?”

  “No reason,” I said, attempting to back off. But Etta Mae was naive in many ways—again, witness her willingness to go out with a man who’d already proved to be tricky and underhanded. So, deciding to issue a warning whether or not it was heeded, I went on. “Well, yes, there is, and your mention of Sheriff McAfee’s niece reminded me. Remember he told us she lives in Fairfields? Well, so does this woman and she is somebody to stay away from in case you’re ever invited to her church. Don’t go, Etta Mae, because if you think handling snakes is bad, you won’t believe what those people do.”

  “Worse than snakes?”

  “Well, when you get right down to it, I don’t know if it’s worse, but it’s certainly just as bad. Etta Mae, they cut, pierce and tattoo themselves from one end to the other. And it’s all in the name of getting the body in touch with the soul. Or something of the sort.”

  “Phoo, Miss Julia, I wouldn’t get mixed up in something like that. I’m Baptist to the bone.”

  “Good,” I said, relieved. “But I don’t want you to think I’m singling you out, Etta Mae. I’m warning everybody I know to stay away from those people. They seem nice enough, but they might run a metal rod through your nose before you turned around good.” I didn’t mention puncturing a line of holes up the side of an ear because I didn’t want to get personal. He who has ears to hear, as they say, let him hear.

  I was reassured, though, that she’d had no contact with the Church of Body Modification, which meant that all those little stars were purely for decorative, not religious, purposes, which is a matter of taste, not faith.

  As soon as I’d hung up, Adam and his brother made their last trip downstairs, both of them smiling and looking pleased with themselves. The odor of fresh paint followed them down.

  “All through, Mrs. Murdoch,” Adam said. “Me and Josh got it finished.”

  “Wonderful,” I said, heading for my checkbook. “It just goes to show what can be done when you keep your mind on what you’re doing. I can’t thank you enough.”

  Adam handed me a stapled stack of receipts, along with his bill. “You didn’t tell me what you wanted done about the floor, so we just swept and mopped it.”

  “That’s fine. The carpet people are supposed to be here tomorrow, which was another reason for wanting the room finished. Now, Adam,” I said as I handed him a check, “that bedroom upstairs needs the woodwork painted. I hope to have the paperhangers in here soon, so we need to get that done right away. Here’s the name and number of the paint you’ll need.”

  His face fell as he hesitantly accepted the paint sample. “Well, I sorta promised another lady I’d give her a couple of days.”

  “That’s fine,” I said again. “G
ive her a couple of days when you finish here. You knew I had two rooms to be done, and it won’t take long to paint the crown molding and baseboards. You can send Josh to her while you do that.”

  “Oh, no, ma’am,” he said, his eyes widening in alarm. “Josh can’t go out there. He, well, he’s just learning. I can’t send him by hisself. But don’t worry, I’ll put her off and get that room done tomorrow. Josh’ll work here with me.”

  I glanced at Josh, who grinned and blushed, apparently unaware of his brother’s concern. But I knew of it, or thought I did. Adam had just made it apparent that he wouldn’t send his brother to Agnes Whitman’s house alone—and I was sure that she was the lady he’d promised to help. Was he afraid that Josh would be influenced by those strange body manipulators? And it suddenly followed, it seemed to me, that Adam’s troubled mind was because he himself had come under their influence.

  Something ought to be done about that, but I didn’t know what. I did, however, intend to give it some thought.

  I was on edge the rest of the evening, disturbed by my sudden realization of the source of the spiritual crisis Adam seemed to be undergoing, wondering what could be done to help him and wondering also if Sheriff McAfee had checked into a local motel or was staying with his niece, if he’d called Mr. Pickens to confirm their meeting, if he’d called Etta Mae again and, most especially, if he intended to apprehend and arrest anybody.

  I knew that was unlikely, given the fact that as far as I knew, Mr. Pickens wasn’t worried about being shanghaied back to West Virginia. Actually, I figured Mr. Pickens was fairly safe, at least until Sheriff McAfee had squired Etta Mae around a bit. But when you’re anxious about something, your mind flies off in all directions and almost anything seems possible.

  Twice I went to the phone to call Hazel Marie to reassure myself, but thought better of it both times. No need to add to her anxiety just to relieve mine. Once, I picked up the phone to call Etta Mae, then put it down again. What was there to say? I wished for Sam, then was glad he wasn’t involved. I dreaded having to tell him what I’d done in rescuing Mr. Pickens and, by doing so, putting the man in jeopardy with Sheriff McAfee.