Miss Julia Rocks the Cradle (18 page)

The next morning dawned cold and windy with no sign of melting snow. That meant there’d be no school because the buses couldn’t run on icy roads. And still no power, which meant putting up with the generator racket and using appliances one at a time. We let Lloyd and Latisha sleep in, but the rest of us gathered in the kitchen, where Lillian produced a prodigious number of pancakes.

Sam had just come in from a slippery walk to Main Street to pick up a newspaper because ours had not been delivered. He’d stomped snow off his boots, then left them on the porch as he came in in his stocking feet.

“Interesting news, Julia,” he said, handing me the paper. “See what you make of it.”

I passed Mr. Pickens the syrup, noticing as I did that Etta Mae perked up at the mention of news. She’d done little more than yawn between bites of pancake ever since she’d come to the table.

At the top of the front page, I read BODY IDENTIFIED and quickly scanned the article to see if I’d known the person found in Miss Petty’s toolshed.

“Well, of all the teasing headlines!” I said, shaking the paper in frustration. “I’ve never seen the like.”

“What is it?” Mr. Pickens asked.

Sam laughed and shook his head. “The authorities know, but they aren’t telling.”

“Just listen to this,” I said as I skimmed the article for the pertinent sentences. “The body found Monday morning in the toolshed of a local teacher was formally identified yesterday, but the authorities aren’t releasing the name until the next of kin have been notified. The
Abbotsville Times
reporter was able to learn that the individual had been a real estate broker, entrepreneur, investment counselor, and community leader well known, he says, in local circles.” I looked at Sam. “Maybe Lloyd is right and we do know him. He sounds like somebody we ought to know.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah, it does, but the word will get around soon enough.” He grinned at me. “Maybe LuAnne will call and let you know.”

“Well, I hope she does. Because now I’ll worry with it all day, trying to figure out who it was. Whom do we know who’s both a real estate broker and an investment counselor? I’m not sure I knew those two lines of work went together.”

“Maybe he was one at one time,” Etta Mae said, “then switched to the other at another time.”

“Could be,” Mr. Pickens said. “Entrepreneur usually means somebody who dabbles in a lot of things. You can also figure he wasn’t a young man. If he’d done all that, I’d guess he was getting on up there.”

“Could be most anybody,” Sam said, pushing back his plate. “Every businessman, lawyer, or doctor pretty much has a finger or two in first one thing and another.”

I folded the newspaper and put it away. “I don’t know why they bother to print something when they don’t know the first thing about it, or can’t tell what they do know.”

“Mr. Pickens,” Lillian asked, her beatific smile still in place, “you want some more pancakes?”

“I couldn’t eat another one if my life depended on it,” he said. “Really, really good, Lillian. But now,” he said as Lloyd stumbled sleepily into the room, “I better get over to the hospital and see how my family—the
rest
of my family—is getting along.” He said the last with a wink at Lloyd. “You want to go with me?”

“Yes, sir, I do, but I’d just as soon not stay all day.”

“I’m not planning to stay all day either,” Mr. Pickens said. “As soon as the doctor comes in this morning, he’s going to let your mother come home.”

“This morning!” I said, surprised at such a short hospital stay. “Why, we better get ready for those babies.”

As I started to spring from my chair, Etta Mae put her hand on my arm. “It’ll probably be late morning before we can get them here. They have to wait till the doctor makes rounds.”

As Sam and Mr. Pickens left the kitchen to prepare for the day and Lloyd stood by the stove with Lillian, Etta Mae leaned closer. “I want to talk to Dr. Hargrove about the babies before they come home. They’re not nursing well, and I want to be sure he knows it.”

Confused by this information, I asked, “Won’t the nurses tell him?”

“I’m sure they will,” Etta Mae said. “But Hazel Marie will be depending on me, and I want Dr. Hargrove to know who I am if I have to call him in the middle of the night sometime.”

“Oh my goodness,” I said, overwhelmed with one more thing to worry about. “You think something’s wrong with them?”

“Oh no,” she quickly said, “they’re just small and they get tired before they’ve nursed long enough to get anything.”

Mr. Pickens walked back in time to hear Etta Mae’s last whispered comment.

Looking at him with concern, I asked, “Did you know about this?”

“That’s why we stayed so late last night,” he said, standing now by the table. “Hazel Marie was upset because she wants to nurse them, but they’re not cooperating. She’ll be okay with it if they have to be put on bottles, but she wants to keep trying for a while. Dr. Hargrove suggested leaving the babies in the hospital a few more days, but she didn’t want to come home without them.”

“I can’t blame her for that,” I said. “She’s had those babies with her for nine months, so she sure wouldn’t want to be without them now. I hope to goodness you’re not planning to take off anywhere, Mr. Pickens. We’re going to need all the help we can get.”

He flashed me a quick smile. “I know my duty.”

And a good thing too,
I thought to myself, although I wondered what had happened to that Raleigh job he’d had to drop before even starting.

Sam left with Mr. Pickens because he wanted a ride to his house so he could check on the heat and water pipes. Lloyd decided to stay home and play with Latisha while awaiting his mother’s arrival. Lillian and I went to Hazel Marie’s room and changed the sheets on the bed, plumping up pillows and turning the covers down invitingly.

“They sure send them home early these days, don’t they?” I commented while straightening a crooked lamp shade. Somebody, probably Mr. Pickens, was a restless sleeper.

“Yes’m, they sure do. An’ I know she feel bad ’bout them babies not nursing too good, but if her milk don’t come down, they need to get on bottles. They little enough already.”

“We’d better send Mr. Pickens to the drugstore for bottles and formula, just in case. We need to be prepared and have everything here.” I put an extra blanket across the foot of the bed, then switched to another subject of concern. “I hope James has Sam’s house in good working order this morning. If he doesn’t, Sam will be out there shoveling snow and no telling what could happen. Oh,” I said as we heard the phone ring, “I hope that’s not him now, saying he’s broken something.”

Hurrying into the living room, I picked up the phone to hear Mildred Allen’s voice.

“Julia? Why haven’t you let me know about Hazel Marie? I had to hear it from Emma Sue, who heard it from Pastor Ledbetter, who heard it from LuAnne, who called him in case he wanted to make a pastoral visit to the hospital.”

“I’m sorry, Mildred,” I said, easing into a chair for a long chat. “Things have been so hectic that I’ve not called anybody. I told LuAnne only because she called me. In fact, I was just getting ready to call you, but Hazel Marie will be coming home in a little while and we had to get her bed ready. Anyway,” I said, pulling my sweater a little closer, “how are you faring in this weather? I guess you heard that we had the babies here while the power was out.”

“I heard all about it, but I want to know every little detail from you. So let’s hear it.”

I told her, including all the details of that remarkable night and ending with the naming of the baby girls.

“Well,” Mildred said, “I’m glad to hear how it really was because according to Emma Sue, it was you who delivered the babies.” She sniffed. “That didn’t sound right to me.”

“It certainly wasn’t. All I did was warm blankets and pray a lot.”

“I’m glad to get that straight,” Mildred said. “But while I have you, let me tell you that Emma Sue may be planning another baby shower for Hazel Marie. I thought you’d want to know, but don’t tell her I told you.”

“Oh my,” I said, “I hope she won’t do that. One shower’s a gracious plenty, and LuAnne’s already done that. Besides, the babies need time to settle in, and I’m not sure Hazel Marie will be in a party mood until they do. Or the rest of us either.”

“I’ll try to talk her out of it. But I want you to know that I am proud of you for not giving a shower yourself. Things have just gone to pot around here with so many people giving showers for family members. I know for a fact that the only reason Emma Sue hasn’t already done something is because she kept expecting you to do it.”

“She ought to know better. Giving a shower for a family member just isn’t done. It’s the tackiest thing in the world to ask for gifts for one of your own.”

“That is the truth. Anyway, she can’t do anything until some of this snow melts. But on to something else—I wanted to ask if you’ve heard anything more about that body they found.”

“All I know,” I said, “is what was in the paper, which was next to nothing. To tell the truth, I’d about forgotten about it with all that’s going on here. What about you? Have you heard anything? ”

“No, but I know who it was.”

“You do? Who?”

“Well, think about it, Julia. You read the paper. Who do we know who was into real estate, then went into investment counseling ? Remember we wondered at the time whether he knew what he was doing? And who was it who used to live here until he was sent to prison but not for as long as we thought he should’ve been?”

I gasped. “You don’t mean . . .?”

“I certainly do. It has to be Richard Stroud. He’s the only one who fits everything the paper said, and you know they have those early releases these days. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Richard wasn’t out roaming around as free as a bird.”

“Oh my. I’d have to sit down if I weren’t already doing so. Mildred, do you really think it might be Richard? Oh poor Helen—I wonder if she knows.”

“I’m just wondering if I should call her, but I want to think about it for a while. I don’t know whether she’d be considered next of kin, because she divorced him. Though, who knows? The divorce might not be final and you know how closemouthed she is. And if it’s not final, she’s still his kin. But listen, Julia, don’t tell either LuAnne or Emma Sue yet. We need to be sure before it’s spread all over town. In fact, don’t mention it to anybody, although I’m just as sure it’s Richard Stroud as I can be. I mean, who else could it be?”

Hanging up the phone after we’d assured each other that we both had plenty of milk and bread and that our furnaces were working, I sat for a while gazing into the fire, thinking of first one distressing thing after another.
Richard Stroud!
Could it have been he? And if so, what had he been doing in Miss Petty’s toolshed? She wouldn’t have been someone he’d known in the ordinary course of events. For one thing, she was of a younger generation, maybe about Hazel Marie’s age. And before their passing, her parents had not been known for their social or community activities. In fact, I could recall her father only from seeing him occasionally in his hardware store, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever known her mother. Nor could I believe that the Strouds, the Allens, the Conovers, or any of my friends had been close to the Pettys. So how would Richard Stroud have come to know their daughter?

It was the strangest set of circumstances I’d ever heard, and I couldn’t make head nor tails of it. I knew Helen, at least as well as anybody knew Helen. She was the most capable woman in town, always organized and on top of whatever had been entrusted to her care. And we’d entrusted a lot to her. She either was or had been president or chairwoman or leader of any group she was part of. She was a small woman, neatly and classically dressed, hair, face, and nails perfectly groomed, warm without being effusive, and confident without arrogance.