Break and Enter (7 page)

“This is Ernest Rodgers,” Ernest said. “I worked as a lawyer in Atlanta when I was fresh out of law school. One of my best friends in those days was a young man who clerked for your grandfather. My old friend is now a judge in the Atlanta suburbs.”

“You’re talking about Judge William Hampton, aren’t you?” Charles said.

“The same. Anyhow, through William, I met your grandfather several times, and greatly admired him. Because of that, I’ve followed your career for a number of years. You have one hell of a track record.”

“Thank you,” Charles said. “How do you think we should proceed with this private adoption?”

The two of them launched into the realm of legal matters, and I was left behind very quickly. Finally, I realized their conversation was ending when I heard Ernest say, “That’s exactly what we’ll do, then.”

“Okay,” Charles said. “If you can schedule the hearing for a Friday or a Monday, I can take a three-day weekend and stay at our place up there.”

Mike and I thanked Charles for his help, and the call ended. Ernest actually rubbed his hands together and said, somewhat gleefully, “This is going to be fun.”

“Fun?” I parroted.

“Going into court with the biggest gun in town is always fun, especially when something goes wrong, and something nearly always goes wrong.”

“We’ll leave that in your capable hands,” I said. “Lucinda Hawkins, a friend of ours, is taking us to see Robbie’s grandmother on Friday, and we’ll need to have papers for her to sign. It’s our understanding that she isn’t well enough to come into town.”

“Give me her name and address,” Ernest said, “and my secretary will have documents ready for you to pick up by the end of the day on Thursday.”

We had come prepared for that, and I handed him a printout containing all the particulars—our names and addresses, Robbie’s name, etcetera.

“That was interesting,” Mike said as we walked back to where the truck was parked.

“I didn’t like the part about things going wrong.”

“Like the man said, ‘We’re going into court with the biggest gun in town.’”

“I certainly hope it doesn’t turn into a shoot-out,” I said. “How are we fixed for salt-rising bread?”

“We could probably use a couple of loaves.”

“Then let’s go down the street to the bakery.”

Robbie was discharged the morning after his surgery, and we took him back to the cabin. We now knew that his full name was Robin Andrew Ward, and that he would be six in mid-July. While he was recovering, we had several long conversations with him, during the course of one of which we told him that his father was dead. We had half-expected him to say “good,” but he didn’t show much of a reaction at all to the news.

Two female deputies had come to the cabin to question him about his mother’s death. They had gotten enough of the story from him to satisfy the sheriff, but when they dug too deeply, it sent him on a crying jag that lasted most of the rest of the day. He woke up screaming with nightmares for the next couple of nights.

It probably didn’t help matters that we took him by his house in the middle of all the upset, but it had to be dealt with. We found a couple of pictures of his mother and several of his favorite toys. We promised to bring him back again when we could, so he could select some more items, and then went back to the cabin.

Lucinda, bless her heart, took Friday morning off so that she could lead us to the home of Clara Pickens, Robbie’s maternal grandmother. We followed Lucinda’s truck up the mountain; then she turned off onto a side road we had yet to explore and drove another mile before pulling up in front of a small house that was situated very close to the road. We parked behind her, took Robbie by the hand, and went to the door.

Lucinda’s knock was answered by a middle-aged woman who we had been told was the grandmother’s caregiver. She greeted Lucinda warmly, and Lucinda introduced us. We were led inside to a small bedroom, where the grandmother was seated in a recliner, wrapped up in a quilt. She appeared to be terribly frail and looked many years older than her true age.

“Robbie,” she said, holding out her arms.

Robbie went over to her and accepted a hug. “Hi, Granny,” he said. “These are my new friends, George and Mike.”

We shook the old lady’s hand, and she scrutinized us carefully. “Lucinda tells me that one of you is a policeman,” she said.

“That would be me,” I said.

“Isn’t that dangerous?”

“I’m a captain,” I said, “and nowadays I sit behind a desk on the sixth floor of the sheriff’s office. I spend most of my day filling out paperwork and sending other people out on the street ‘in harm’s way’.”

“That’s good,” she said. “Robbie doesn’t need any more departures in his life. He’ll have mine to deal with soon enough.”

“It’s my intention,” I said, “to be around as long as he needs me, and Mike feels the same way.”

Mike nodded his head.

“Lucinda says you have a nice house,” she said. “What about school and church?”

“We plan to enroll Robbie in a private school run by the Episcopal Church,” Mike said.

“Are you Episcopalian, then?” she said.

“Yes, Ma’am,” I said.

“I dated a young minister many years ago,” she said. “He was an Episcopal priest, and a good man. Unfortunately, I let him get away.” She smiled at the remembrance and seemed to be lost in thought for a long moment.

“I can promise you this, Mrs. Pickens,” I said. “If Mike and I adopt Robbie, you’ll see him often. We spend two weeks here every June, another week in October, and at least one weekend a month at other times. We’ll bring him to see you every time we’re in the area.”

“That’s good enough for me,” she said. “Lucinda visits me often, and over the past couple of years, she’s told me a lot about all the good things you’ve done for her boys.”

“They’re great boys,” Mike said, “and we’ve enjoyed having them work for us from time to time.”

We visited for a while longer, but it was clear that the woman was getting tired, so we obtained the necessary signatures on the adoption papers, and Lucinda and the caregiver witnessed them. Robbie gave his granny a hug, said goodbye, and we left.

Outside the house, we thanked Lucinda profusely and drove straight into town to deliver the signed documents to the lawyer’s office. I dropped Mike off there and circled the block until he appeared at the curb, and then I picked him up.

“Anybody want to go to McDonald’s?” Mike said.

“Me,” said a small voice from the back seat.

“Okay,” I said. “McDonald’s it is.”

We had stopped by Walmart earlier and acquired a pair of shorts for Robbie that could serve as a bathing suit. Back at the cabin, we sat in lawn chairs and watched him play in the creek until his legs started to get cold. We took him back up to the cabin and let him have a hot shower in our bathroom, after which we all took a nap. An hour or so after we awakened, Doc Jenkins stopped by to give Robbie a final post-surgery checkup.

“It’s looking good,” he said. “I don’t think I need to see him again unless some sort of problem develops.”

We left Robbie in the great room playing with his toys and walked out on the deck with the doc.

“How’s he doing otherwise?” Doc said.

“That’s a good question,” I said. “He seems to open up a little more each day, but he’s still terribly quiet and withdrawn at times.”

“When the female deputies questioned him about his mother’s death the other day,” Mike said, “he talked about it, but only superficially. When they tried to pry a little more deeply, it set him off on a crying jag that lasted the rest of the day, off and on.”

“And now he has nightmares that wake him up once in a while,” I said.

“Once you get him settled down in Florida,” Doc said, “you might want to take him to a good child psychologist.”

“That’s on our list of things to do,” I said.

He said goodbye and headed for the stairs, having refused further payment for his services. That evening, we fixed a dinner that catered to Robbie’s likes, including macaroni and cheese, and over the course of the meal, we asked him a few careful questions, leading up to the main one, which I finally uttered.

“Robbie,” I said, “how would you like to come to Florida and live with Mike and me?”

“Okay,” he said.

“Good,” Mike said, “because we’d like it too.”

“Would my name still be Robbie Ward?” he said.

“If that’s what you want,” I said, “but we’d sort of like it if you took our names, and we called you Robbie Foster-Martin.”

“That’s a long name,” he said.

“It’s called a hyphenated name,” I said.

He tried to pronounce hyphenated and failed, so I took a sheet of paper and a pencil and wrote the word for him. We had learned, to our surprise, that he had been in some sort of kindergarten program in Maggie Valley for a couple of years, could count to one hundred, and knew his alphabet. His reading skills were on a par with the rest of his knowledge, from which I realized that Lucinda was right—his mother had been tutoring him at home.

“Something just hit me,” I said.

“What?”

“We need to look into the disposition of his parents’ estate, if any.”

“Why don’t you call Ernest and have him do that?” Mike said. “At the very least, we might be able to acquire their house. We could rent it out on Robbie’s behalf.”

“Hold that thought,” I said. I went back to the bedroom to make the call, feeling that it wasn’t best to talk about some things in front of the boy. I managed to get through to Ernest, and he said that it wouldn’t be a problem for us to probate the estate once we became Robbie’s parents and guardians.

I had an inspiration and went from the bedroom up to the loft, where I got online and checked movie listings in Asheville. By a stroke of luck, the latest Disney animated feature was playing at a multiplex, and more importantly, I knew where the multiplex was located.

•
6 •

B
ACK
in the kitchen, I told Mike I had set the wheels in motion with Ernest, and then I said to Robbie, “Robbie, have you ever been to the movies?”

“No, Sir.”

“Would you like to go to a movie tomorrow morning?”

“Sure,” he said. “One of the kids at the kindergarten last year talked about going to the movies.”

“Okay,” I said, “that’s what we’ll do.”

That’s just about the longest sentence he’s uttered yet.

The Saturday matinee at the movies in Asheville was a huge success. We had Cokes and popcorn and, in a theater full of kids, watched the animated feature. Afterward, we drove around Asheville, casually driving by our rental properties and eyeballing them, and without exception, they were looking good. Two young men from Waynesville, Donnie and Joe, were in charge of lawn and shrub maintenance now that the twins were in Florida for the summer.

When we arrived at the McDonald’s at Biltmore Village to have our usual, Robbie was still talking about the movie—evidently, it was the most exciting thing he’d ever done. On the way back to the cabin, he fell asleep and once again had to be carried upstairs. Mike and I spent a playful half-hour in bed and then took a nap ourselves until I was awakened by the telephone. It was Sarah calling to let us know that they had arrived.

“Come have dinner with us this evening,” she said. “I’m dying to show you our place.”

“Sure, Sarah,” I said, “but you need to know that there will be three of us.”

“Three?”

“We have an almost-six-year-old staying with us.” I brought her up to date on Robbie’s story.

“I think that’s wonderful, and I can’t wait to meet him. See you at seven?”

“We’ll be there, and we’ll bring some toys so Robbie can amuse himself.”

“George Martin,” she said, with that tone, “as you very well know, I have several grandchildren, including one in that age range.”

“So?”

“The point is that there is a huge toy chest in this cabin with enough stuff in it to amuse any child between three and twelve—I brought it here from our old vacation house at the lake.”

“Point taken. See you at seven.”

“Did you get enough of that from my end of the conversation?” I said to Mike.

“The Bridges have arrived, and Sarah wants to show off their place,” he said, “and we’re invited to dinner at what time?”

“Seven.”

“No problem. Can I go back to sleep now?”

“If you like. I’m wide awake, so I’ll go up to the loft for a bit.”

“Whatever,” he said, and he settled back down on his pillow.

I pulled on some clothes, went to the bathroom, checked on Robbie, who still appeared to be out cold, and went up to the loft. I got online and checked my e-mail (nothing was happening at the office that needed my input, which was good news), and decided on impulse to visit the local county web site. After some searching, I located the tax record for the property owned by Robbie’s parents and printed it. Then I went to the public record indexes, found the deed and the mortgage to the property, and printed both of them.

My yellow pad of sketches for the new master suite at our house was on the desk beside the computer, and that sparked another thought. I hadn’t been able to do much more with the sketches because I didn’t remember the exact dimensions of the house or, for that matter, the garage. I went to the Duval County Property Appraiser’s website, found our assessment, and printed out the sketch that all such assessments contained—the external dimensions of the house and garage were right there for the asking. Armed with that information, I found Mike’s old pad of graph paper and settled down to work. I kept at it steadily until I heard footsteps on the stairs. I looked in the direction of the sound and saw Robbie at the head of the stairs.

“Hi,” I said. “Have a nice nap?”

“Yes, Sir,” he said, rubbing his eyes.

“Want something to drink?”

“Sure.”

“Lemonade okay?”

“Yes, Sir.”

We went down to the kitchen. Before I got glasses out, I said, “Why don’t you go wake Mike up? He’s been sleeping long enough.”

“Okay.”

He disappeared for a couple of minutes, and when he was back in the kitchen, he said, “He wouldn’t wake up.”