Miss Julia Stands Her Ground (8 page)

“Just keep on stating them. I want to hear it all.” I didn't, of course, but I wanted to know what we had to deal with.

“Well, I know there was a certain man that kept showing up and turning Hazel Marie's head, both before and after she hooked up with Mr. Springer. And I have every reason to believe that that boy of hers was conceived in a motel somewhere, completely unbeknownst to the man who was supportin' her. And,” he went on, gathering the strength of outrage as he did, “it just frosts me good for her to fool that good man, then lie to you and profit the way she's done from it.”

“What would you have us do?” Sam asked benignly. I glanced at him, wondering if he was feeling the same turmoil that I was.

“Why, brother, make her face up to her lies! You can't let things go on like they are. She's takin' your good wife here for a ride! And I hate to see it.” He bowed his head and shook it, as if in sorrow. “I purely hate to see you good folk done in by the likes of her. That kid of hers is nothin' but a by-blow, and here he's in line for Mr. Springer's estate that he don't have no claim to at all.”

Sam and I let the silence grow after that outburst. Then I pulled myself up to the edge of the sofa and said, “All that may be, Mr. Puckett, but I have two questions. Where is your proof? And, what is your interest in the matter?”

“Ma'am, my interest is in settin' the record straight. As a minister of the Gospel, I can't stand by and let her get away with it. Why, I can't even imagine the torment I'll feel when you pass on
and I have to watch her and the boy come into all that wealth, when they don't deserve nothing but the wrath of God, because the wages of sin is death, not high and mighty livin'.”

Envy, I thought, just pure envy. As hard as he'd tried, he hadn't been able to get his hands on Wesley Lloyd's estate, so the thought of his own kin having it handed to them on a platter was more than he could stand.

I stood up, indicating that I'd heard all I cared to hear. “Thank you for sharing your opinions with us. When you can produce unassailable evidence of your claims, we'll speak again. Until that time, I'll thank you to keep this matter to yourself. Unproven allegations bandied about town can bring down the wrath of the legal system, as I'm sure you know. But for now, I've heard all I want to hear, so I'll bid you good day.” And I left the room, my head held high and my temper barely in check, to seek the peace of Sam's old bedroom. I paced around the room, waiting for Sam to get rid of Brother Vern and come to me.

“Julia?” Sam opened the door and came in. “You all right?”

“No, I'm not all right. That man is evil, Sam, that's all there is to it. You noticed, didn't you, that he gave not one iota of proof. Just unjustified accusations, all to bring Hazel Marie down and punish her. It was all I could do to keep from smacking him out of that chair.”

“I know, Julia.” Sam put his arms around me. “But you stayed calm and didn't let him know he'd gotten to you. That may be his aim in all this, to shake your faith in Hazel Marie. I think he just can't stand for her to do well, while he's not and has little hope of doing any better.”

“You may be right.” I leaned my head against his chest, then looked up at him. “Did he say anything after I left?”

“Just that the man he claims is Lloyd's father is a fine Christian now, with a family, and he'd hoped he wouldn't have to bring him out in the open.” Sam patted my back and leaned his head against mine. “Somebody specific, Julia.”

I could've cried, even though I didn't believe a word out of Brother Vern's mouth. All the same, though, he seemed determined to push this thing to its limit, destroying any and every body in his path.

“He could get somebody to lie for him,” I said, trying to think of all the possibilities. “If that happened, it'd be a stranger's word against Hazel Marie's. I'd still believe her, but we'd be right back where we are now—not having enough evidence to put a stop to Brother Vern.”

“That's right.” Sam nodded, then breathed out. “You know what we may have to do?”

“Yes,” I sighed. “Get out the shovels and prove him wrong.”

It wasn't long after our meeting with Brother Vern that I began to notice little niggles of doubt running around in my mind. I tried not to dwell on them, but they were there, rearing their ugly heads when I least expected them.

I retired to our bedroom one afternoon a few days later, having told Lillian and Hazel Marie that I wanted to plan my annual December tea. Actually, it didn't need much planning, since I generally had the same people and did the same thing year after year, but one must make lists when it comes to formal entertaining, and that's what I was trying to do.

I wasn't getting very far because, try as I might, I couldn't keep my mind on the task. Finally, I put down my pen and got up from the desk. Taking a seat in the armchair by the window, I forced myself to face the fearful possibility that Brother Vern knew whereof he spoke, and could back up his claims with depositions, sworn statements, and worst of all, the public unveiling of a participant in the deed that had produced Little Lloyd.

So I allowed myself to wonder how I would feel if Little Lloyd was disproved as Wesley Lloyd's natural son and rightful heir. I thought about that for a few minutes, and had a great sense of relief to realize that it wouldn't change my feelings for him all that much. Maybe not at all. I recalled, with a shiver, the revulsion I'd
felt toward that wretched child when he first showed up at my house. It had been all I could do to tolerate an ever-present reminder of Wesley Lloyd's carnal knowledge of his mother.

Of course, I'd risen above all that by this time, but my heart lightened as I realized that I might appreciate the boy even more if he had no connection whatever to the old goat. After all, he'd never been kin to me to begin with. What was between the child and me had nothing to do with whose blood ran in his veins.

I sighed, though, thinking that the blood in his veins could have a lot to do with where his share of Wesley Lloyd's estate ended up. Lord, if Pastor Ledbetter got wind of this, he'd start putting in his two cents worth as to where that money should go. He was still convinced that Wesley Lloyd had intended to include the church in his will.

He hadn't, though. And, worse than that, he hadn't included
me
in his will, and I'd put up with more from him than the church ever had. Well, I thought, as I leaned back in the chair, it hadn't mattered a hill of beans what my wandering husband had intended. What had mattered was that Little Lloyd and I had gotten what we deserved.

Except now, if Brother Vern could prove that the boy was not Wesley Lloyd's son, would some judge decide that when Wesley Lloyd wrote his last will and testament, he was a victim of fraud, making his wishes null and void? Would Little Lloyd's inheritance be taken away from him? And who would get it?

And what about Hazel Marie? I thought I could live with Little Lloyd being a stranger's son on his father's side, but I couldn't come to grips with the idea of Hazel Marie as a liar with malice aforethought. I could never in this world accept that she deliberately set out to deceive Wesley Lloyd and, in turn, Sam, Binkie, and me. Nor could I accept that she could live with me on a day-by-day basis and keep up the deception.

For one thing, she wasn't that smart—in a manipulative sense, I mean. You could always count on Hazel Marie speaking before
she thought and leaping before she looked. It was impossible for me to picture her with narrowed eyes and grim determination setting out on a lifetime of lies, as she would've had to've done when she first learned she'd been put in the family way by somebody.

So there, Brother Vern.

Then another thought came suddenly unbidden: Could it be that she hadn't
known
who the child's father was? Maybe she'd honestly thought Wesley Lloyd was the one responsible.

Lord, I couldn't imagine being in such a fix. One man was more than enough for me, and the idea of two or three at a time was unthinkable. And I couldn't think it of Hazel Marie.

Oh, I could understand—just barely—that an untrained and uneducated young woman could take up with anyone who would put a roof over her head. The little that Hazel Marie had told me about her family painted a dismal picture of a girl growing up unloved and unwanted, dropped off and left with one relative after another. That's a prescription for promiscuity if ever I heard one. Young women with that kind of background end up looking for love in all the wrong places. . . .

I think a wise man said that one time. I could find it in my heart to overlook the indiscretions of her youth, even if they were carnal in nature. So if Brother Vern thought he could bring her down in my estimation by recounting all her sins, he could think again. I knew how she'd lived her life since coming under my influence, and that's what counted with me—her dalliance, if that's what it was, with Mr. Pickens notwithstanding.

I breathed some easier after facing all the possible repercussions of Brother Vern's claims, and realizing that I could handle them all with some semblance of serenity. Well, except for a few things. I couldn't handle the besmirchment of Little Lloyd's paternity, because that would follow him all his life. Bad enough that he had to live with the taint of illegitimacy, even worse if he never knew for sure who his father was, which would surely
change his view of his mother. And I couldn't handle somebody else getting the child's estate, if it came to that.

I came out of my chair with a renewed determination to fight Vernon Puckett to a standstill. Pacing around the room, I decided that he had to be brought down before he brought us down. And the only way to do that was to prove beyond question that the child was the pure and unadulterated result of Wesley Lloyd Springer's procreative episodes.

Well, not exactly unadulterated, but you know what I mean. Besides, the child looked just like him. Nobody, not even Brother Vern could get around that.

 

Sam tapped on the door, then stuck his head in. “You resting, Julia?”

“How could I rest with all this turmoil going on? No, I'm trying to figure out how we can put a stop to Brother Vern.”

Sam came in and sat on the side of the bed. “Julia, you're going to worry yourself sick. Come sit down, and let me explain a few things to you.”

I did, although it was always a wonder to me that people would choose to sit on a bed when there were two perfectly good chairs for the taking. “I wish you would,” I said.

“First off, Binkie and I went through the file again to look at Wesley Lloyd's handwritten will. The way he wrote it was: ‘I name my only son, Wesley Lloyd Junior Puckett'—with Springer in parentheses—'heir and beneficiary of all my wordly goods.' That says to me that, sick as he was at the time, he foresaw some difficulty. He didn't just write ‘my son.' He named the child, claimed him as son and heir, and specifically added his own surname, even though the boy was born out of wedlock. And another thing, Julia. We looked at Lloyd's birth certificate, and Hazel Marie gave him both names, Puckett and Springer. And she named the father, Wesley Lloyd Springer. It's written there, big as life, and no one's ever questioned it.”

“Well, it's being questioned now. And what worries me is that it might not matter what Hazel Marie and Wesley Lloyd wrote down. Anybody can write whatever they want to. The question is: Will it hold up in a court of law?”

“It's not going to come to that, and if it does, a judge would rely on the intent of the testator. And we can prove by these documents that Wesley Lloyd's intent was clear—to leave his estate to this particular child.”

“Yes, but Brother Vern claims that if Wesley Lloyd hadn't been deceived, he wouldn't have left the boy a red cent. That's the whole point, right there. According to him, Wesley Lloyd only
thought
Little Lloyd was his son. And if he can prove to the satisfaction of a court that what Wesley Lloyd thought was wrong, where does that leave us?”

“Back to proving that the boy
is
his son. Listen, Julia, before Puckett pulls some man out of his hat who's willing to swear that he was with Hazel Marie around the time of the boy's conception, we need to do something. I don't want either her or the boy to have to be faced with this.”

“That's what I've been saying. But what do we do?”

“I want you to think carefully.” Sam took my hand in both of his. “Is there anything of Wesley Lloyd's that you've saved? An old hairbrush, a shirt that hasn't been washed, anything at all that we could try to get DNA from?”

“An unwashed shirt is the last thing I would've kept.” A washed one either, I could've added.

“I'm reaching, Julia, trying to think of anything that might have epithelial cells on it. They'd probably be too old to test, anyway, so forget about that. What I'm saying, though, is that we want to try everything we can before resorting to exhumation. That would be hard to keep from the whole town, including Hazel Marie and Lloyd.”

“Oh, Lord, yes, it would, and we don't want that if we can help it. Let me think, Sam.” I rubbed the side of my face, thinking
back to the shame and fury that had overwhelmed me when I'd learned of my deceased husband's folly. I'd marched up to our bedroom, fired with determination to rid myself of everything that had belonged to Wesley Lloyd. Rummaging through the clothes hanging in the closets and stacked in the dresser drawers, I'd flung everything he owned into the middle of the floor. Shirts, three-piece suits, shoes, raincoat, overcoat, umbrellas, you name it, it went onto the pile. I remembered cleaning out the medicine cabinet, throwing out Wesley Lloyd's toothbrush, shaving implements, comb, hairbrush, clothes brush, lint remover, shoe polish, his Listerine, his Metamucil, his half-used box of Tuck's—everything that he'd even touched. I'd raked it all into the wastebasket. I'd cleaned out the drawers of the table on his side of the bed, throwing away a full box of Kleenex, the glass he'd kept his partial in, his clock, the gold pocket watch and chain that had been his father's, tiepins, and cuff links. Even his Bible and his Sunday School lesson book, giving them a particularly vicious spin since he'd read them so piously while living so wickedly. I'd even thrown away his eyeglasses, including his extra pair, doubly angered by the funeral director's asking if I wanted to bury him with his glasses on or off. I ask you, what was he going to look at?

Downstairs, I'd started another pile, emptying his desk of pens, papers, calendar, and everything else that Binkie hadn't needed for probate. Things I didn't even know what they were, I threw on the pile. If they were his, they went.

Then I'd walked out. “Lillian,” I remembered saying as I passed her in the hall, “if there's anything you or anyone you know can use, take it. Whatever's left, burn. I don't want to lay eyes on any of it ever again.”

“Yessum,” she'd said, her eyes wide as she stepped back from my passing. She'd never seen me in such a state, since up to then I'd always been of a meek and submissive nature.

That cleaning episode had been a turning point for me. Getting
rid of anything that reminded me of Wesley Lloyd had given me a sense of power and control that I'd never had before, and it had made me the woman I am today. Of course, I'd kept the most obvious reminders of his transgressions—namely, Hazel Marie and Little Lloyd—but I'd had my reasons. Everything else I could do without and never miss.

Except now I'd've given an eyetooth for a single strand of hair from Wesley Lloyd Springer's head.