Miss Julia to the Rescue (30 page)

After hanging up, I sat for a while, longing for Sam, while at the same time hoping we could satisfy Sheriff McAfee and see the last of him before Sam got home. I never like disturbing my husband’s peace of mind.

I was slow getting up the following morning, having been troubled by dreams of courtrooms and jail cells half the night. As I went through my routine ablutions, I took special care in my clothing choices because I might have to face Sheriff McAfee sometime during the day. I wanted him to be aware that he was not dealing with a run-of-the-mill Saturday night barfly—the kind I assumed a sheriff usually dealt with—but rather with a dignified woman of a certain standing who was not without friends in high places.

So I took care in my selection, even though I was unsure that he would notice. Or if he did, that it would even matter to him. I declare, I still hadn’t figured out Sheriff McAfee. He gave the appearance of being a laconic backwoodsman with little on his mind but getting through the day. At the same time, he wasn’t above skirting the law, at least to my mind, by isolating Mr. Pickens in a hospital room and preventing access to him by his loved ones. And all the time he was cutting his eyes at Etta Mae, he was also making sure that we knew he was a church-going man.

Which brought up another matter: Was he a snake handler or not? Had he deliberately sent us to that church with following signs, knowing full well what we’d run into? Had that been his idea of a joke? Or had it really been his church and he’d been prevented from attending by another call at the last minute?

As I said, I couldn’t figure him out, yet today might be the very day he showed up in Abbotsville and we would all have to answer to him. If, that is, he had jurisdiction in this county. Or even in
this state.
That
was something to look into, so I’d be on firm legal ground if I needed to take the Fifth Amendment.

As I opened the bedroom door to go to the kitchen, I realized that I’d been hearing the murmur of people talking as well as doors opening and closing. Lloyd and Lillian, I thought, and hurried out to remind Lloyd to put on suntan lotion every time he stepped out on a tennis court. The poor little thing had Wesley Lloyd Springer’s fair complexion and would burn to a crisp if he wasn’t careful.

“Good morning, Lillian,” I said as I walked into the kitchen and looked around. “Where’s Lloyd? I thought I heard him.”

“No’m, he already gone. They playin’ early ’fore the sun get too high. Coffee’s ready.” She pointed at the pot and I headed for it. “Who you heard was Mr. Adam, which I know you glad to hear is upstairs workin’.”

“Oh, thank the Lord,” I said with heartfelt gratitude. “Did he say what he’s been doing?”

“No’m, when I say, ‘Good mornin’,’ he say, ‘Praise the Lord, it is a good mornin’.’ He don’t ever have much to say for hisself.”

“Well, that’s certainly true. I’m not sure I’ll get any more out of him, but I’d like to know his plans. I’d like to know if I’m going to have to put up with him going back and forth between that woman’s job and mine. Sam will be back before we know it and I expect to have that sunroom finished by the time he gets here. I mean it’s not as if Adam has to build those cabinets himself. We’re using ready-made ones and all he has to do is nail up the framework and install them. How hard can that be?”

“You better eat some breakfast ’fore you go up there all grouchy an’ light in on him.” She put a plate of eggs and bacon on the table and pointed to my chair. I sat.

All through breakfast, I could hear the sound of hammering from upstairs and, I tell you, it was music to my ears. The longer Adam hammered, the calmer I became. I was even able to linger with Lillian as we prepared a grocery list for the weekend.

“We may have a guest, Lillian,” I said, “and if we do, we’ll need
to have the Pickens family and maybe Etta Mae, unless it’ll put her in jeopardy. But I’m not about to entertain that sheriff by myself.” I sighed, then looked on the bright side. “But with the house so torn up, I won’t have to offer him a room. He can stay in a motel, for all I care.”

“I ’spect he plannin’ to do that anyway.”

“Well, he should! The idea of coming down here ready to interrogate and perhaps arrest somebody and expect us to provide him with room and board. It’s beyond thinking of.”

“Yes’m, an’ you don’t need to. An’ if he act up like you think he might, I wouldn’t even ast him to supper.”

“You’re right,” I said, tearing the list off the pad I’d been writing on. “But get a large roast, just in case. No, wait,” I said, striking through several items, “let’s have chicken, fried chicken, and if he wonders what it really is, he can just wonder.”

We rose from the table and began taking plates and dishes to the counter by the sink. I looked out the window at the beautiful day, noting how green everything was—the boxwoods in the back were covered with bright new growth and the ornamental fruit trees were in full bloom.

“Listen,” I said, turning to Lillian. “Do you hear that?”

“No’m, I don’t hear nothin’.”

“That’s just it! It’s too quiet.” I raised my eyes to the ceiling. “What’s Adam doing—or not doing—up there?”

“Maybe he doin’ something that don’t need hammerin’. Or maybe he takin’ a rest.”

“He better not be taking a rest,” I said, slinging down a dish towel. “He hasn’t worked long enough to need one.”

I hurried upstairs, taking no care to approach the sunroom quietly. I wanted him to know I was on the way, hoping he would bestir himself and get back to work. It was not my desire to catch him loafing on the job. I didn’t want to have to upbraid him, so with that in mind I walked firmly up the stairs and down the hall,
weaving my way through the boxes stacked along the way. I even tapped on the sunroom door before opening it, giving him every opportunity to be up and doing and busily working.

But did he take that opportunity? No, he did not. When I walked into the lumber- and sawdust-covered room, I found him sitting on a boxed cabinet reading a book.

He looked up at me, making no effort to hide what he was doing or to appear busy. “Good morning, Mrs. Murdoch, and the Lord’s blessings on you.”

“And on you,” I replied, slightly stunned that he seemed not the least embarrassed at being caught flat-footed without a hammer in his hand. “Adam,” I went on, “Mr. Murdoch will be home in a few days and he’ll be most unhappy if this room isn’t finished. It was bad enough that you didn’t come to work yesterday, and even worse that you’re here now but not getting anything done. Remember that I’m paying you by the hour to work, not to read.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a sigh. And carefully closing the book which I now saw was a Bible, he laid it aside. “My brother’s coming to help me catch up, but I just felt the need to turn to God’s word for a few minutes. I won’t charge you for the time it took.”

Stricken by the troubled tone in his voice, I began to feel bad about my strident behavior. “I’m not worried about what you charge, Adam. I’m worried about you. Is anything wrong?”

“No, ma’am, everything’s fine.” He got up from the box he was sitting on and adjusted his tool belt. “I just find that my work goes better if I study the Word off and on throughout the day.”

“Well,” I said, at a loss for a response. “Well, good. I’ll leave you to it.” And I left, feeling chastened even as a rather sharp observation flitted through my mind:
better to have been studying my plans, considering the state of that room.
Then felt worse for having thought it.

Adam was true to his word about bringing in help. Before the hour was past, another pickup drove in and a younger brother, Josh, as he introduced himself, hopped out to help finish the sunroom. He was about twice the size of Adam, a blond giant of a man, with an open and pleasant expression on his face. Up and down the stairs the two of them went, carrying out the table saw and odds and ends of leftover lumber, then bringing in the rest of the cabinets. With both of them working, we had a double dose of hammering, which I bore stoically because it meant that things were moving along. They gave me a full day’s work with no stopping except for lunch, which had been brought from home, even though Lillian invited them to our table.

“Mr. Adam say thank you all the same,” Lillian said as she came back downstairs, “but his mama fix meat loaf san’wiches an’ they jus’ stick with that.”

“Well, we tried,” I said, sitting down to a fruit salad. Just as I finished, the telephone rang.

I answered it and heard Hazel Marie say without taking a breath, “The sheriff’s coming, Miss Julia! The sheriff’s coming!”

“I know, Hazel Marie, you told me yesterday.”

“No, I mean we know when he’s coming and it’s Friday, day after tomorrow, at nine o’clock, and I won’t even be dressed!” She had to stop to catch her breath, then with a little more control, she said, “Coleman just called and told us. And J.D. said that means
it’ll be an official interview, because Sheriff McAfee has gone through our sheriff to set it up. It won’t be just a drop-in-and-visit kind of thing. Oh, Miss Julia, I am so worried I don’t know what to do.”

I had to think a minute, half ashamed of myself for feeling relief that no one had officially notified me or Etta Mae. Maybe that meant we weren’t wanted and wouldn’t have our pictures tacked up on post office walls.

“Well, Hazel Marie,” I said, “maybe it’s better to know than to have it hanging over our heads. What does Mr. Pickens say?”

“Oh, you know him. He’s not a bit worried or at least that’s what he’s telling me. But I am. He’s not at all well, though he puts up a good front. They just
can’t
make him go back up there. It could ruin him for life!”

“Surely it won’t come to that. He seems better every time I see him.”

“But you haven’t seen his
scars
. I was finally able to look and he’s got
four
of them on his … you-know.”

“But just think, Hazel Marie, how fortunate he is to have them there. You’re the only one who’ll ever see them.”

“Oh, I
hope
.”

After giving her a few more encouraging words, I hung up without asking what I wanted to know. And that was, had Etta Mae and I been included in the official interview that Sheriff McAfee had set up. I assured myself that she would have told me if we had been or if she had known. Or else Coleman would’ve called me.

Maybe he still would. Maybe he hadn’t gotten around to it. And maybe I should’ve been more concerned about Mr. Pickens’s predicament than about my own.

The day after tomorrow
, I thought, and was finally able to draw some ease of mind from that. Only a few days afterward, Sam would be home and Sheriff McAfee would’ve been and gone by then.

Surely he was not coming to arrest Mr. Pickens—that was
unthinkable. For one thing, if that’d been his intent, he would’ve had our sheriff do the honors. Wouldn’t he? Hazel Marie had said
interview
, not intervene or interrogate or intercept. He only wants to talk, I assured myself.

And, I went on, thinking up one possibility after another, we were told he had other business to take care of on this trip—which could mean that he wasn’t after Mr. Pickens specifically. Maybe he wanted to visit that niece of his and just tacked Mr. Pickens on to make the trip official and have his expenses reimbursed. I wouldn’t put it past him.