by Ann B. Ross
“When will you be home?” I asked.
“Maybe this weekend,” she said. “We have so much to do, getting settled and all, that we can’t stay away too long. But J.D. wants me to have a good long rest, so I’ll let you know when we’ll be there.”
“That’s fine, but consider this while you’re resting: what about my asking Etta Mae to help us when the babies come?”
“Oh, I’d love it! But I don’t see how she can. She already has a job.”
“Not anymore, she doesn’t. We’ll tell you all about it when you get home. But in the meantime, think how nice it’ll be to have her here around the clock while you recover and those babies are up half the night.” I smiled to myself at the thought. “You can tell Mr. Pickens that I have his welfare in mind.”
I hung up, thinking, So far, so good. It certainly sounded as if their marriage had started off well, and I could only hope that it would continue in the same manner. It is such a toss-up, you know, as to how two people will get along. You never know, when you marry somebody, just what you’re going to get. You might think you’re getting one thing and end up with something entirely different.
Etta Mae and Binkie came in a little later, both of them looking pleased with themselves. And, I was happy to note, Etta Mae in particular seemed to have gained a renewed sense of confidence that things were working out for her. It’s amazing what a good lawyer can do for you.
“I think I might be out of the woods, Miss Julia,” she said, bouncing as she sat on the sofa. “You should’ve seen Binkie. Almost every time Lieutenant Peavey asked me a question, she’d say, ‘Don’t answer that.’ But Binkie,” she said, turning to her attorney, “there were some I wanted to answer. I wanted to tell them exactly what happened.”
Binkie smiled. “It wouldn’t have helped. They’d just bounce more questions off whatever you said. We gave them your schedule and the time line you made out for everything you did last Thursday, and that’s all they need to know.” Then Binkie laughed. “Miss Julia, you should’ve seen what they did. The lieutenant sat across from us, but he had a young deputy standing behind Etta Mae, and he kept leaning over, sniffing around her. He must’ve been selected for his sense of smell, but he reminded me of a dog in heat. Oh,” she said, giggling, “sorry for the crudeness, but I almost laughed in their faces.”
“My goodness,” I said at the picture her words brought to mind. “Well, I guess we did a good thing by getting you descented, Etta Mae. And if I were you, I’d put Miss Shania Twain back in her box and keep her there until this mess is settled.”
“Oh, I will,” Etta Mae said. “It comes in a beautiful pink box. The bottle, I mean. Not the perfume.”
Sam came in then and Lloyd wandered downstairs, so we had to recount our day’s activities for them. Sam and Binkie had a quiet conference together, discussing legal angles for Etta Mae’s continued freedom of movement. Sam seemed pleased with the outcome of the latest interview she’d had, and so was I, because she wasn’t in jail.
Etta Mae had sat quietly while her case was being discussed, her head swiveling from one to the other of us as we spoke. Then, in a lull, she said, “I just thought of something. Miss Julia, didn’t you say that Mrs. Delacorte told you that she heard the person who attacked her rummaging around on her vanity table? I mean, while she was lying on the floor after being knocked out?”
“Yes, she did,” I said, nodding. “And went on to say that that’s when the woman—and she was sure it was a woman—was looking for her gold bracelet.”
“I thought that’s what she told you,” Etta Mae said, frowning, “and it doesn’t make sense. Because she was already complaining about her bracelet being gone when I was making her bed. And that was when I first got there.”
“You sure about that, Etta Mae?” Binkie asked.
“As sure as I’m sitting here. Mrs. Delacorte all but accused me of taking it, but I didn’t let it bother me. I just laughed it off, because she was forever misplacing things and accusing me or Evelyn—you know, her sitter—or the trashman or a neighbor of stealing them. Then in a few days, she’d find whatever she’d lost. She never apologized to any of us, though. So I figured the bracelet was just more of the same and didn’t give it much thought.” She sighed. “I sure wish I had now.”
I sat straight up, struck with a new possibility. “What about that, Binkie? Could we be dealing with two crimes and two separate perpetrators?”
“Either that,” Sam chimed in, “or we’re dealing with a confused victim who doesn’t remember what happened or when. She’s conflating two separate events that may have nothing to do with each other.”
“Binkie,” I said, “tell Lieutenant Peavey.”
She nodded. “Don’t worry, I will. And by the way, he confirmed that the attack did take place between the time Etta Mae said she left and the time that the sitter got there. It was the sitter who found her on the floor and called nine-one-one. The call was registered at twelve-fourteen p.m., and the first responders got there at twelve-twenty-six. They reported no signs of illegal entry or of a struggle. The dishwasher was running in the kitchen, along with a television that had the sound turned down. In other words, everything in the house seemed normal, except for the victim. They noted that she was conscious, but somewhat incoherent.”
“I think she’s still incoherent,” I said, “or more likely, knowing her, she’s told one story and can’t or won’t back down. But Binkie, that surely lets Etta Mae off the hook, doesn’t it? She got here for the luncheon that day about fifteen or twenty minutes past twelve. They ought to see that she couldn’t have attacked Francie and been here at the same time.”
“Well, the problem is,” Binkie said, glancing at Etta Mae, “we don’t know how long Mrs. Delacorte lay there alone. Etta Mae tells me that she left about eleven o’clock, so if the sitter didn’t get there until after twelve, that leaves a full hour that we can’t account for. And Etta Mae can’t prove she left at eleven.”
“Well, on the other hand,” I said, with some asperity, “can this Evelyn person prove she’d just gotten there when she called nine-one-one?”
“Actually, no,” Binkie said, “but she does have a grocery receipt that proves she bought something from Ingles at eleven-twenty-eight.”
“That leaves her plenty of time to get to Francie’s house and hit her over the head,” I said, eager to put somebody besides Etta Mae in the line of fire. “After all, how long does something like that take? I just hope they’re questioning her, too.”
“They are,” Binkie said. “According to her statement, she drove straight from Ingles to the house, which only took her five or ten minutes; went in the back door to the kitchen; put up the groceries; then started the dishwasher, which she’d forgotten to do earlier. Then she went in to check on Mrs. Delacorte. That’s when she found her on the floor.”
“Yes,” I said, “but that fiddling around in the kitchen could’ve taken fifteen minutes or more, depending on how efficient she is.”
“She’s not efficient,” Etta Mae said. “She kinda shuffles along on her own time.”
Binkie winced. “That could put the attack closer to the time you left, Etta Mae, rather than near the time Evelyn got there. Except one of the deputies noted that the dishwasher was just ending the wash cycle when he got there, so that pretty much confirms her story.”
“I just wish,” Etta Mae said softly, “that I’d waited till she got there; then none of it would’ve happened. But I stayed a half hour longer than I usually do. My time with Mrs. Delacorte is supposed to be from eight-thirty to ten-thirty, Mondays and Thursdays, and Lurline gets really upset if we stay longer than we’re supposed to. Her clients are on contract, so she can’t charge them for overtime. And, Miss Julia, I was so anxious to get to your party that I was on pins and needles, ’cause I had to run home, take a shower and change clothes, then drive from Delmont to be here on time. And even then, I was late.”
“It’s perfectly all right, Etta Mae,” I
assured her. “You were hardly late at all, and I still think that Lieutenant Peavey would do better to concentrate on that Evelyn rather than you.”
“Yes’m, except Evelyn’s been with Mrs. Delacorte for years and I haven’t. She even moved up here with her from Florida, and Mrs. Delacorte bought a house for her. And she’s pretty old and kinda frail, and ought not even to be driving, so I don’t think he figures she’d be up for attacking anybody.”
“Well,” I mumbled, half to myself, “you never can tell what old people can do. They can fool you sometimes.”
When Lillian announced dinner, we urged Binkie to stay but she had to get home to her own family. Etta Mae walked her to the door, thanking her profusely and hugging her, and Binkie assured her that she would push for more information on Mrs. Delacorte come the morning.
As we walked into the dining room, Sam asked how I was feeling. “You’ve had a busy day, Julia. You shouldn’t have done so much.”
“I felt fine all day, but I will admit to being a little tired now,” I told him, and it was the truth. I had hardly any appetite and wanted only to crawl into bed, which I did as soon as Etta Mae agreed to remain with us a while longer. Actually, I was glad she was staying, because Lillian’s portentous warning seemed to be coming true. My pretense of being sick might well have laid the groundwork for a true illness.
Chapter 21
As it turned out, all I’d needed was a good night’s sleep, which I got, and I arose the following morning ready to face the world again. The first thing on my agenda was to think up something for Etta Mae to do. With no job to go to and a patient who required no care, namely me, she needed to be kept busy so she wouldn’t fall victim to despair.
Of course, when Hazel Marie came home, Etta Mae would have her hands full. But the interim had to be filled with enough tasks and chores so that Etta Mae would feel she was serving a real need. I didn’t want her to think she was a charity case.
I needn’t have worried. By the time I got downstairs, she and Lillian had the morning mapped out. The two of them were going to go to Etta Mae’s trailer and clean it from top to bottom after the ravages it had suffered at the hands of the Delmont deputies. They even seemed to be looking forward to it, although Etta Mae was a little awkward about accepting Lillian’s help.
“What am I supposed to do?” she whispered to me when Lillian stepped out of the kitchen. “I’ve never had a cleaning lady before.”
“And you don’t have one now,” I said. “Listen, Etta Mae, she’s offered to help because she likes you and wants to help. The two of you are friends, and you’ll both pitch in and have that place clean in no time.”
“But do I pay her?”
“No, you’d offend her if you offer. Just accept her help the way you’d accept mine or that of any other friend. Now just go on and have a good time. Lillian,” I said, as she came back into the kitchen, “take whatever cleaning supplies you want with you.”
“Yes’m, I’m planning to.”
“One thing’s for sure, Lillian,” Etta Mae said, “we won’t need any silver polish.”
We laughed at that, and I was pleased that Etta Mae seemed more comfortable with the thought of Lillian’s help. And even though I knew Lillian would not have accepted any payment, just as I had told Etta Mae, I planned to add a little to her weekly check, simply because I appreciated her good heart.
As they started out the door, loaded down with cleansers and dusters and first one thing and another, Etta Mae turned back. “Oh, Miss Julia, I forgot to invite you. Would you like to go with us?”
Lillian started laughing—either because of Etta Mae’s issuing a formal invitation or because the idea of my cleaning a house was so unlikely. For whatever reason, though, I assured Etta Mae that cleaning her trailer was one invitation that I had to regretfully refuse.
It was pleasant having the house entirely to myself for a change, although I soon grew tired of my own company. With no one to talk to, thoughts of Francie Pitts and her false accusations against Etta Mae filled my head. The woman had to be wrong. Etta Mae would never injure a living soul, much less her own patient. She was a feisty little thing, there was no doubt about that, but in all the tight spots we’d been in together I’d never gotten a hint that she could turn violent.
Still, I couldn’t help but recall her flushed face, tousled hair, trembling hands and gasping breath as she arrived at my house last Thursday for that fateful luncheon. Those symptoms could have been the aftereffects of a loss of temper and control that had led her to bash Francie’s head in. I had to admit that whenever I’d been around Francie, I’d often felt the urge to slap her face. So given Francie’s usual regal ways, I could hardly blame Etta Mae if she had hauled off and let her have it.
But, of course, I didn’t mean that. I was prone to let my thoughts run away with me. Etta Mae did not do it. She had left Francie in good health at eleven o’clock, just as she said she had. Either somebody else came in between that time and the time the sitter got there or the sitter got there early and did the job herself. That was the more likely story. Anybody who’d worked for Francie for years could easily have reached the end of her rope last Thursday and decided to shut her up, even for a little while. I didn’t care how feeble this Evelyn was supposed to be—anybody could walk up behind a person and have the strength to bring a weapon crashing down. And that brought something else to mind—where was the weapon? And what was the weapon?
I started to the phone to call Binkie, having realized that the nature of the weapon could possibly lead to the wielder of it. The doorbell stopped me, so I turned around and opened the door to Emma Sue Ledbetter, Pastor Ledbetter’s meek and long-suffering wife.
“Why, Emma Sue, what a nice surprise,” I said. “Come in. I’m glad to see you.”
“Oh, Julia,” she said, following me into the living room as I indicated the sofa. “I apologize for barging in on you like this, but you’re the only one I know who’ll understand. I know you will,” she went on, taking a handful of Kleenex from her tote bag, “because you didn’t go either.”
“What are we talking about, Emma Sue?”
“That blasted marriage enrichment program!” Emma Sue practically spat the words out, taking me aback because she ordinarily had nothing but good to say about everything and everybody. “I know you were sick, and so was I, but we can’t keep getting sick every Monday night, can we?”
“Well,” I said, playing for time, as I realized that Emma Sue may have seen right through me. “I guess we can’t. But I really was sick, Emma Sue.” And that was the dead-level truth, for I recalled with a shudder the cold trembling down my back and the clutch of nausea in my throat when Dr. Fowler’s name jumped out at me from the church bulletin Sunday morning.
“Oh, I was, too,” she said, nodding with conviction. “Sick to my soul. Body, too. But Julia, I don’t want to go to those sessions even though I guess I’m over whatever I had. But I came to ask if you’re going to the next one.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, “I figure that because I’ve missed the introductory session, it wouldn’t be fair to the group to come in later on.”
“You might be able to get away with that,” she said, with a despairing sigh, “but I can’t. Larry says that because he’s the pastor, he has to be there, and because I’m his wife, I have to be, too.” She sniffed, then gave up on that and blew her nose. “We both have to be there. ‘How will it look,’ he said, ‘if we don’t support a church program?’ And I said, ‘Well, how will it look if we do?’ Everybody will think our marriage is in trouble, Julia, and besides, I’m already supporting every program and activity in that church, and I simply cannot take on another one. Especially one like that. It’ll tear me up, Julia, knowing that everybody in the congregation will be worried about the state of our marriage. Pastors and their wives have to be so careful, you know, not to give offense or stir up trouble.” Emma Sue stifled a sob. “But Larry doesn’t see it that way. He’s convinced that
Dr. Fowler can make a good thing even better, and we ought to take advantage of it, while at the same time set an example for everybody else.
“And I’ll tell you something else,” she went on before I could get a word out, “but you can’t tell anybody, Julia, not even Sam, because I know you tell him everything. Promise me you won’t.”
“I promise I won’t,” I said.
She really started crying then, pitifully, with tears streaming down her face. “I think Larry’s unhappy with me. I think he’s come to the age where he’s wondering if there’s not something better. Men do that, you know. All the books say so, even the Christian marriage manuals. So I think Larry wants us to go to Dr. Fowler’s sessions so I’ll learn how to be a better wife. And I’ll tell you the truth, Julia, I’m not perfect, but I’m doing the best I can already.”
“Of course you are, Emma Sue,” I said. “Nobody could do better. And you shouldn’t be made to feel guilty if you don’t want to spend your Monday evenings in the company of that so-called expert on marriage. What’re his credentials, anyway? Anybody can hang out a shingle, you know, and just because he has a PhD doesn’t mean he knows how to kindle anybody’s embers.”
I stopped then, remembering with burning shame that he’d once kindled mine. But that was an aberration on my part, one I had to live with but never repeat.
“Yes,” Emma Sue said, wiping her face with a fierce swipe of the wad of Kleenex, “and you don’t know the half of it.” She leaned toward me and whispered, “He’s not even married himself, and never even been married. So what does he know? Doodley-squat, that’s what.”
“Really!” I was surprised, though I guess I shouldn’t have been, considering his actions in the bridal parlor. “I didn’t know that. I just assumed that he’d had some practical experience on the subject.”