Contemporary Women's Fiction: Agnes Hopper Shakes Up Sweetbriar (Humorous Women's Fiction) (22 page)

A strong chemical odor floated through the building almost to the
point of being visible. I rushed down the hall to my room. As I opened the door, I could tell Elmer had been everywhere, and I was afraid to take a deep breath. I shoved open a window and sucked the warm air into my lungs. But the outside air was tainted too. I slammed the window shut. He was now spraying around the foundation.

“Charlie, this place is going to be the death of me. I’ve got to get out of here.”

I tried to hurry. With my pants off, I took the little camphor bottle from my purse and doctored my knees. Then I grabbed a pair of purple pedal-pushers I’d bought from the sale table at His House Thrift Shop. Matched my nails perfectly.

Now the pink-and-white top wouldn’t do. I yanked a shirt off its hanger, a Hawaiian print Charlie used to slip on in the evenings after bathing with Lifebuoy. The very shirt I’d been wearing the day of the fire. It smelled a little smoky now, even after many washings, but I refused to throw it out. Big, airy, and splashed with yellow flowers, it somehow comforted me.

Next, I gathered socks and tennis shoes, my gardening hat worn soft with age, and my old stand-by red purse. Finally, I was ready to go out the door when I stopped.

“Oh, shoot a monkey, Charlie, I’m about to forget the very reason for this trip.”

I raised the bedspread to reach for Alice’s box. It wasn’t in the spot where I’d left it. I got down on all fours, grimacing when my knees met the carpet, and stuck my head under the bed.

The Copton’s Department Store box was gone.

I
rushed into the hall just as the dolly whizzed by, nearly running over my toes.

“Hi ya, Red,” William yelled. “Wanna ride?”

With long strides, he guided the empty cart, clanging and banging from one side of the hall to the other, weaving like a drunken fool. Then he spotted Miss Johnson coming from the big house. He straightened up and walked stiff as a wind-up toy into Alice’s room.

The director stopped at her mother’s door and watched as I ran barefoot toward her. I turned into room number seven without giving her so much as a passing glance. William looked up from loading a box of sweaters. They were going to old Mrs. Swanson, who always complained about freezing and went around wearing thin sleeveless dresses all the time.

“You decide to come help me, Red? Think I could get me a regular job here? Most fun I’ve had since I drove a taxi through the streets of New Orleans.”

“Did you see anyone take a big pink box from my room?”

“Sure didn’t. Took it myself.”

“You did what?” I was so flabbergasted I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

William eased his load down flat and walked over to me. He bent over, hands on his knees, so we were eye to eye. “Rule number seven,
No articles are to rest on the floor of closets or under beds. If any are found, said articles will be taken to the storage room, where they will be tagged and stored.”

“Well, I never—”

“Hold on, Red, there’s more.” He stood as straight as a soldier delivering a message to the troops. “Exterminator told Miss Johnson about your room and two others. Mr. Harris was busy fixing a leaky pipe, so she told me to take care of it. And when the boss lady says to take care of it, that’s what I do. Just following orders. What’s in that old box anyway?”

After I explained that Alice had asked me to deliver the box’s contents to someone, and I was on my way to do just that when I discovered it was gone, William fished a big brass key out of his shirt pocket.

“Say no more. If this is something between you and Miss Alice, it should stay that way. Now, Red, as long as Miss Johnson doesn’t suddenly make her presence known—like she does more often than suits me—and ask for her key back, we’ve got it made. I’ll drop these sweaters off to Mrs. Swanson and meet you out back of the house by the old chimney.” He stuck his cigar behind his ear and studied me. “You might want to get some shoes on those little feet first.”

Beside the stone chimney covered with creeping fig, were stone steps blackened and worn with age. As we went down to an old weathered door no one had bothered to paint in many a year, I felt like Nancy Drew investigating a murder. William fiddled with the key until the lock clicked, but the old door was stubborn, finally giving way as it scraped against the concrete floor.

“Humph,” I said. “Needs the bottom shaved off.”

William groped in the dark basement until he pulled a cord, exposing a dim light that swung back and forth, casting shadows into darkness. The storage room wasn’t a room at all, but a corner of the basement with wooden shelves near the ancient oil furnace still used to heat the main house. I thought about the blacksnake and hoped if it were here, we wouldn’t disturb it.

William lifted the box and placed it at my feet. “Go to it, Red. Let me know when you’re finished.”

Alone in the damp, musty basement, I shook each little garment and folded it best I could into my Begley’s shopping bag. It wasn’t long before I realized the envelope and the money were not to be found as I gathered the lock of hair, the tiny ring, and the bracelet scattered across the bottom of the box. After I carefully placed those three items inside my purse, I stooped down and searched the floor. Not there.

I called for William. “Did you happen to see an envelope anywhere?”

“Sure didn’t. What was in it?”

“Five hundred dollars.”

William whistled. “Who do you think took it, Red?”

I looked at him with raised eyebrows.

“Ahh. My thoughts exactly. What are you planning to do about it?”

“Don’t know. Suspicion isn’t the same as facts. There’s a powerful lot of things about this place that just don’t set right. Haven’t you noticed?”

“Sure I have, but if this place shut down, where would I go? My son don’t want me, and who’s to say I wouldn’t end up in a worse place than this?”

He placed the empty box back where it had been. “Are you certain you want to do battle with that woman? If she wins, where does that leave you? Let sleeping dogs lie, if you ask me.”

He told me to start moving toward the door before he pulled the cord. Maybe Lil was right about this man being a true gentleman, but he sure didn’t have much backbone for such a big man.

Outside, I took a deep breath of fresh air, but the old door resisted William’s efforts to lock it, so we couldn’t leave. He grumbled and fussed and tried to hand me his cigar.

I stepped back. “Yuck.” I shook my head, set my bag down, and said, “Let me try.”

He shrugged and stuck his chewed-up cigar back in his mouth. “Go to it, Red.”

Like the front door hardware on my little farmhouse, everything had to be lined up just right. After a couple of tries, we heard a solid click.

I turned to William. “Something just occurred to me. Don’t you go around and empty the trash cans every day?”

“Gives me something to do.”

“Perfect. When you pick up the one in Miss Johnson’s office, look for a small yellow envelope with
$500.00
printed on the bottom left corner. If you find it, save it.”

“Sure, Red, whatever you say, but don’t tell her I was the one who brought you down here. Or that I was the reason you discovered that money was gone.”

“Just give me the envelope if you find it. I have a plan.”

He shook his head and grinned. “I’m sure you do, Red. I’m sure you do.”

At the top of the steps behind us, a woman’s voice startled us. “What’s going on? Is there something I need to know?”

Her two favorite questions I’d heard more often than I cared to lately. There stood Pearl, holding her infernal clippers and a bag of rose dust. William sputtered as if we’d been caught breaking and entering, and she was about to make a citizen’s arrest.

I knew she realized something was not quite what it ought to be, but I also knew she was only puzzled and wanted any answer that would assure her everything was okay.

“William,” I said firmly, “let me handle this.”

“Go ahead. You’re on.” He folded his arms across his barrel of a chest, leaned against the door and waited.

I climbed the stone steps and looked up into my friend’s worried face.

“Well, you see, Pearl, there
is
something here you need to know about. We’ve been noticing how this tiny little vine is about to take over the whole place. It’s sending runners everywhere. Mr. Statton and I checked the furnace room, but it hasn’t gone in there yet. What do you think can be done?”

Pearl’s concern transferred from us to the creeping fig. She laid her bag of poison on a stepping-stone and descended the steps as William turned and edged past her. She studied the vine that hung in great clumps. “I should have noticed. You need a little trim to make you more respectable.”

We left Pearl with her clippers snipping away.

William knocked on the back door of the beauty shop, and Shirley let him in. Lil was probably still there gathering gossip. She would be thrilled to see him.

I slipped inside the door nearest my room. Since I no longer had the money Alice had saved all these years, I decided to retrieve my own money from my bottom drawer of tabloids.

“Isn’t God amazing?” I said to Charlie. “The exact amount I need is right where I can get to it. No telling how long it’ll be before I get Alice’s money back, and I have to deliver it to that young mother, Juanita, before Smiley and I go to the hospital. I know, Charlie. I don’t have to explain anything. You would do the same. That Miss Johnson is the lowest of the low.”

Back outside with a shopping bag of baby clothes and money in my purse, I headed toward the boxwood and, beyond it, the empty weeded
lot—my usual escape from Sweetbriar Manor these days. I could’ve gone out the front door and down the steps leading to the street, but with my luck, Prissy would be standing on the porch writing the exterminator a check instead of tending to her mother. I’d have to stop and say good morning or something. Then she’d ask why I was running down the hall after Mr. Statton like a barefooted wild woman just a short while ago, and what were we up to anyway? And I’d have to give an answer.

Besides, slipping through an opening in the hedge seemed more natural. It never crossed my mind I’d forgotten to sign out again.

William stuck his head out the beauty shop door and yelled, “Hey! Hey, Red. Wait.” He sounded like a farmer hollering across a field.

“My stars, Charlie, that man’s got the loudest mouth I ever did hear in all my born days.”

Motioning with my hands, I said, “Shhh … hold it down.”

I ran over to William to see what he wanted. As always, he was the conscientious one. He pointed his cigar at me and said, “Bet you haven’t signed out. Rule number—”

“Don’t have time. Can’t you do that for me?”

“Well, I don’t know …”

As I hurried toward the hedge again, he had another question. “But where are you going? Have to put a destination, you know. And who you supposed to be going with?”

Now he was really testing my patience. “Make something up. I’m going on a mission. A mission. Say whatever you like. Makes no difference.”

Before I disappeared behind the thick greenery, I looked back and saw William scratching his nearly bald head. Then I heard his loud voice yet again. “What did you say?”