by Ann B. Ross
Etta Mae put her hand on his and squeezed it. His was one more voice in her favor.
“Well,” Sam said, “the first thing we need to know is exactly when the alleged attack occurred. Then if you can account for your whereabouts at that time, Etta Mae, you’re off the hook.” Sam stopped and studied a minute. “Since they have you in their crosshairs, I’m assuming the attack took place between the time you say you left and the time her sitter got there. But we don’t know that. If it occurred later in the afternoon and the sitter wasn’t there for one reason or another, you’ll have to be able to prove where you were.”
“Well, I was here from a little after twelve till, I guess, about two o’clock, don’t you think, Miss Julia?” I nodded, trying to remember when the luncheon had been over. “Then,” Etta Mae went on, “I stopped at Ingles on my way home to pick up something for supper. I don’t know if I can prove it or not, but I didn’t get home till a little after three. And, oh! I called Lurline—she’s the owner of the Handy Home Helpers—to see if she wanted me to make a visit to anybody that late in the day. She didn’t, thank goodness, so I just stayed home and paid bills and watched the news and fi xed supper and I guess that’s all.”
“I expect this Lurline can confirm your phone call,” Sam said. “I don’t suppose you kept the grocery receipt, did you? It would have the date and your checkout time on it.”
She shook her head. “I always throw those things out.” She turned to me, her eyes misting up. “You don’t keep yours, do you, Miss Julia, just in case you need an alibi?”
I shook my head.
“Okay,” Sam said, as he filled in a time line on his yellow legal pad. “So you had no contact with anybody after about three-thirty?”
Etta Mae shook her head.
Sam put down his pen and sat back in his chair. “Then let’s hope that’s not when the attack happened. Now, you said they told you that the woman’s in the hospital. Do you know if she’s badly injured?”
“No, sir, they wouldn’t tell me a thing.”
Lloyd and I had been listening to the back and forth, taking it all in and hoping that the attack had taken place in the middle of the day when Etta Mae had been sitting at my table—an airtight alibi if I’d ever heard one.
Then Sam brought up something else. “One other thing, Etta Mae. What is the woman’s mental condition?”
Etta Mae frowned. “Well, she’s pretty sharp. I mean, she knows what she wants and how to get it, if that’s what you mean. She’s not suffering from any kind of dementia or anything. She just has gout in her big toe. The left one.”
“Okay, that’s important. Because if she’s claiming that the attack took place during the morning, while you were there, then we have a real problem. Your word against hers.”
“But she was fine when I left!” Etta Mae cried, then buried her face in her hands. “Oh, Lord, what if she swears I did it while we were alone together? How am I going to prove I didn’t? Everybody’ll believe her and not me.”
“I won’t, Etta Mae,” Lloyd said.
“Nor me, either,” I chimed in.
Sam patted her shoulder. “Let’s wait till we hear her story. Binkie will find out the relevant time and the nature of the attack. Then we’ll know where you stand and what we’re up against.”
Etta Mae looked so lost and scared that Lloyd was moved to say, “You probably need to stop thinking about it, Etta Mae. Why don’t you come up to my room and watch the football game with me?”
As she followed him out of the kitchen, Sam turned to me. “Now, Mrs. Murdoch, I want to know what you were doing running around town when you’re supposed to be sick.”
Chapter 12
“I expect I’ll pay for it tomorrow. In fact,” I said, leaning my head on my hand and sighing pitifully, “I think I’m beginning to already. But, Sam, I couldn’t not go. That poor girl had no one to turn to, and she needed help. The least I could do was rise from my sickbed and go to her aid. But now,” I went on, getting unsteadily to my feet, “I think I’d better get back in it.”
Sam quickly came around the table and took my arm. “I’m worried about you,” he said with a concern that shamed me. “I wish you’d let me call the doctor.”
“I’ll be all right. Really, I will. I just need to sleep it off. Besides, I’d hate to disturb the doctor on a Sunday evening.” Hated to disturb him anytime, if you want to know the truth. The last thing I wanted to do was see Dr. Hargrove, who took every opportunity he could get to do a complete examination. Why, I’d gone in one time with a sore throat and ended up in stirrups, would you believe? With that kind of meticulous attention to a minor complaint, it wouldn’t take him long to learn that there wasn’t one thing wrong with me.
As Sam and I walked toward the stairs, his steadying arm around me, I said, “Why don’t you take Lloyd and Etta Mae out for supper? I’ll be fine by myself.”
“Nope, I’m not leaving you alone again. No telling what you’d be up to. Don’t worry about supper. I’ll fix my famous pancakes.”
I managed a weak laugh. “That’s fine then. But I don’t think I can face butter and syrup.” Actually, though, pancakes with melted butter, warm maple syrup and sausage links would’ve hit the spot, but depriving myself of pancakes was just another sacrifice I’d have to make because of my foolish behavior in the bridal parlor.
The sacrifice became even sharper a little later on when I was lying in bed listening to the three of them laughing and talking in the kitchen. I could hear Lloyd’s delighted giggles and Etta Mae’s voice teasing him and Sam’s deeper one as he flipped and served pancakes. They were having fun while I was upstairs alone, feeling sorry for myself. And I had another twenty-four hours to endure just so I could get out of being enriched.
There was only one thing for it: Dr. Fred Fowler had to go. So what could I do to get rid of him? I put my mind to the problem, trying to ignore the happy sounds from downstairs. It seemed that Dr. Fowler was here for six weeks at least, and longer if there was enough interest for a second round of enrichment sessions.
What if a rumor about some dark and devious misdeeds started floating around town?
I turned over in bed, briefly mortified at the thought. I wasn’t the kind of person to deliberately ruin someone’s reputation. Yet the man was dangerous. Just think of all the widows in the church, I reminded myself, lonely and needy widows, just as I had once been. Why, he would have a field day if he took a mind to woo one, or several, of them. Think of the damage he would do!
The more I thought about it, the more I began to realize that I had a duty to warn people of his propensities toward mature women. Maybe I wouldn’t be starting a baseless rumor. I could be helping to avert a multitude of personal tragedies. Maybe I would be preventing some other desperate woman from suffering years later because of one little misstep, as I was now doing.
“Miss Julia?” Etta Mae whispered as she tiptoed into the room.
She scared me half to death, for I hadn’t heard the creak of that stair tread because she was so light on her feet. Thank goodness I was in the bed and not up walking around the room.
She leaned over me, concern on her face. “Do you feel like eating something? I brought you some broth and toast.”
I sat up in bed, thanking her and looking skeptically at the tray she set on my lap. Clear broth, dry toast and a cold drink—just what a sick person needed.
“Thank you, Etta Mae,” I said. “I’ll try to eat a little. Are you settled in all right? There’re fresh towels in your bathroom, but if you need anything else, just let Sam know.”
“Oh, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me. I don’t want to be any trouble. But can I do anything for you? I can call Lurline and tell her I’m nursing you and can’t come in tomorrow.”
“No, don’t do that, though I thank you for the offer. Lillian will be here, and Sam’s in and out all day. You don’t need to disrupt your schedule for me.”
“Well, I’d be glad to do it. But I
do have to see Binkie tomorrow. I just hope she has time for me.”
“She’ll make time, Etta Mae. And I think, if I were you, I’d sit down tonight and write down everything you did last Thursday, and the times you did them.”
“That’s what I’m going to do while my mind’s halfway clear. I’ll tell you, Miss Julia, when those deputies were leaning over me, breathing down my neck and asking one question after another, I couldn’t think straight. But Mr. Sam’s going to help me remember, hour by hour, everything I did the whole day long.”
“Well, good,” I said, but with a pang of envy—or was it jealousy?—at the thought of those two working alone together.
“Yes, and Lloyd wants to help, too.”
“Even better,” I said.
Urging me to call her during the night if I needed anything, she started to leave but turned back. “Oh, I wanted to tell you, I’ll be up and gone early tomorrow. I have a client way past Delmont who wants me there by seven every Monday morning. I won’t disturb you before I go, so I’ll just thank you now for everything, especially for getting me out of jail.”
“You weren’t exactly in jail, Etta Mae, but I’m glad you felt you could call on me. Now, I do want to hear what Binkie says, so come by when you finish with her. And remember that the invitation to stay here as long as you want is still open.”
She flashed her brilliant smile and left me to wallow in a lonely bed of my own making.
Etta Mae did, indeed, leave early the following morning, just as everybody but me was stirring. I heard Lillian come in downstairs while Sam was shaving, but I stayed where I was.
“You feeling better?” Sam asked as he came back into the room, buttoning his shirt.
“Not really. I was up and down most of the night with an upset stomach.”
“I’m sorry, honey. Why didn’t you wake me? I didn’t hear a thing.”
Well, of course, he wouldn’t, because I’d slept like a log. “I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“You can disturb me anytime you want,” that sweet man said. “Now, listen, if you’re not any better today, I want you to call Dr. Hargrove. And if you don’t, I will.”
“I will. I promise. I can’t take much more of this.” Actually, it was the bed itself I’d had enough of, but surely I could manage twelve more hours of it—just long enough for Dr. Fred Fowler to start enriching, then I was going to have a miraculous recovery.
Sam and Lloyd had barely gotten out the door downstairs—one on the way to school and the other to the office at his house—when I heard Lillian climbing the stairs. There was more than one creaky tread under her.
“What you doin’ in that bed?” she demanded as soon as she appeared in the room. “What’s the matter with you? You not s’posed to be sick.”
This was Lillian’s way of expressing concern, and if she’d been kind and solicitous, I’d have felt I was on my deathbed.
“Just an upset stomach, Lillian. It’s made me feel a little weak and trembly. I think if I stay in bed today, I’ll get over it faster.”
“Well, you do look a little peaked. You feel like gettin’ up an’ lettin’ me change the sheets?”
“That would be lovely.” The thought of getting out of that bed even for a few minutes made me throw back the covers and swing my feet to the floor. I had to remind myself to slow down and sway a little when I stood up.
I felt guilty when she took my arm and led me to one of Hazel Marie’s pink velvet chairs beside the front window. She tucked an afghan around me, then proceeded to strip the bed for a change of linens. I could hardly meet her eyes, I felt so bad about what I was doing—though not quite bad enough to stop doing it.
“Miss Julia,” Lillian said as she snapped a sheet over the bed, “Mr. Sam, he tell me ’bout Miss Etta Mae an’ her troubles, an’ I been frettin’ over it ever since. How anybody could think that little woman could hurt anybody is beyond me. You reckon them police gonna come back an’ get her again?”
“They certainly shouldn’t,” I said. “She’s as innocent as the day is long, and I’d like to know whether that patient of hers has actually accused her or not. I’m hoping they took her in simply because she’d been to the woman’s house and they’re questioning everybody who’d been there. It beats all I’ve ever heard, though, Lillian, that somebody would walk into a person’s home, steal a bracelet, then try to kill the owner. Be sure all the doors are locked. I wouldn’t want it to happen here.”
“Law, me neither.”
When I was back in bed, propped up against a pile of pillows, and Lillian had gone downstairs to fix a bowl of oatmeal for me, I wondered what I could do to pass the time. I was supposed to be too sick to want to read anything, much less do any handwork, so the day stretched out interminably before me.
When the phone rang, I snatched it up, hoping for some time-passing word from anybody.
“Miss Julia?” Etta Mae’s trembly voice said. “I just thought I’d call and let you know that if you need any nursing care, I’m available.”
“Why, I thought you had a full schedule of patients.”
“No’m, not any longer. I just got fired.”
“Fired! Etta Mae, what happened?”
“Well,” she said, then stopped to blow her nose. “Lurline said she couldn’t have somebody with a cloud over her head working for her. Her clients wouldn’t stand for it. They’d all be afraid I’d do the same thing to them.”
“But you haven’t done anything to anybody! What do they have to be afraid of? I hope you told that Lurline woman that you’re innocent and she has no right to fire you.”
“Oh, she knows it. She’s just worried about appearances and about losing clients. I expect she’s right. They’ll all be afraid of me because I’m practically a jailbird.”
“Now you just stop that kind of talk right now,” I said. “You are certainly not a jailbird. You and everybody else that was in that woman’s house last Thursday have to be questioned. It’s a perfectly normal thing for the investigators to do and doesn’t at all imply guilt. And you need to stop thinking that way.” I drew in a deep breath. “Now listen, Etta Mae, I don’t think your employer has any right to fire you under these circumstances. You might discuss it with Binkie. I expect she can get your job back for you under a fair hiring act or something. Have you seen her yet?”
“No’m. I have an appointment at one o’clock, but Miss Julia, I don’t think Binkie can do anything about Lurline. Lurline never pays any attention to anything the government comes out with. She says they don’t know what she has to put up with and if they don’t bother her, she won’t bother them.”
“Well, they just might bother her if she’s fired you without cause. But look, Etta Mae, you go on and see Binkie, then I want you to come back here. I want to know everything she says and I want you to be sure to tell her about losing your job. I’m going to look for you this afternoon, and you come prepared to stay here with us.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’ll come by, but I guess I better not stay over. I thank you anyway, but I ought to go on home and try to think of somebody who might hire me. I need the work.”
“I know you do,” I said, and I did. I already employed her to manage the Hillandale Trailer Park, but her only remuneration for that was a rent-free space for her single-wide. “So I’m hiring you to look after me until Hazel Marie needs you.” I heaved a sign. “I’m not well, you know, and I could use your expertise. So you just pack your suitcase and plan to do some twenty-four-hour nursing care.”
“Really? You really mean it?”
“Yes, I really do. This has happened just at the opportune time, when I’m laid low and you need a job. I’ll look for you this afternoon.”
With that settled, I hung up the phone, lay back on the pillows and wondered what I had done. I hadn’t planned on being sick much past eight o’clock that night—just long enough for the marriage enrichment session to start without me. But with a live-in private-duty nurse on her way, I was going
to have to think of something that would keep me sick enough to need her, but not sick enough to keep me in bed the livelong day. Maybe walking pneumonia would do it.
Chapter 13
With Lillian’s encouragement—she said it would make me feel better—I got up later in the morning and took a bath. It helped fill the time, but after I got into a fresh gown and bed jacket, there was nothing for it but to crawl back in bed and stare at the four walls. Whoever said that resting in bed was good for you had never spent much time in one. All it gave me was restless legs syndrome.
A little after two o’clock, Etta Mae Wiggins came by after her appointment with Binkie. I was relieved to see her, not only to find out what Binkie had had to say, but to have something to think about other than the long afternoon stretching out before me.
“What’d she say?” I asked as soon as Etta Mae walked into the room. “Pull a chair up close, Etta Mae; I want to hear everything you talked about and everything Binkie told you.”
“Well,” she said, clasping her hands in her lap to keep them from trembling. Her face was deathly pale, maybe because her makeup had faded. “Well,” she said again, “I told her what all had happened, and she was surprised. She said she usually hears things like that around town before a client comes in, but in this case she’d not heard a word. Anyway, all she could do was tell me to call her if the deputies pick me up again. And not to say anything until she gets there.”
“That’s all?” I couldn’t believe that Binkie had had no more to say on the subject. Why, it was no more than what I’d told Etta Mae.
“No’m. Binkie’s going to find out exactly what the client has said; who she’s accused, if anybody; and just what line of investigation the deputies are working on. Oh, and what Mrs. Delacorte’s condition is—how badly injured she is and so on.”