Little Girl Lost 6: The Return of Johnnie Wise (37 page)

It was eight o’clock when she thanked her host for the tasty victuals and gracious conversation and left. Gloria wanted her to stay longer, but she explained that she still had some work to do, for which she had already been paid a tidy sum. She sat down at her dining table again, determined to learn how to use the typewriter efficiently, but first, she had to learn how to put the paper in straight. She didn’t want her first client to think she was sloppy, which would seriously undermine her credibility. It was 8:21 by the time she got the paper in straight enough to at least practice again. But there was no way she was going to give Hank a portfolio that was less than perfect. After all, his word would be the conduit for more clients. She, therefore, knew that her first portfolio would have to be spectacular. And it would be, no matter how long it took.

She started typing the words from an article in the Wall Street Journal again, trying to get a feel for the machine and how it worked. For a few minutes, she thought she had gotten the hang of it. She had even gotten into a rhythm and her speed had increased, too. But when she looked at what she typed, it still looked like Hebrew. Nevertheless, she continued typing, hoping it would get better as she went along. By the time she had gotten to the end of one sheet, it was after nine. Gloria said that she didn’t go to bed until well after eleven, so she decided to go down to the lobby and get some help. Otherwise, she would be up all night, and the portfolio still wouldn’t look professional. She put the typewriter and the paper back into the case, closed it, and was about to leave her room when the desire for another Orange Slice came to mind. She went into her bedroom, which was in the adjacent room. She saw the Brach’s candy on the nightstand. She grabbed two of them and put one in her mouth. As she went back into the kitchenette area of her room, she realized she would have to offer Gloria something for helping learn how to use the typewriter.

At first she was going to offer her some money to type up the information for her, but she knew that if she did that, Gloria would have access to the information free of charge. She could then consult her own broker with the information she had provided. She decided to go ahead and offer to pay her even though she didn’t think Gloria would take it. If she didn’t, she would offer her a discount and perhaps then she could take her on as a client. But if that didn’t work, she would have to tell Hank she would need another day to get his portfolio together.

She realized she could take the typewriter to work the next day, and then go to the local library and ask the librarian to help learn to use it. If she hadn’t promised Hank she would have something for him tomorrow, she wouldn’t bother asking for Gloria’s help. She wanted Gloria as a client. And she wanted her to pay the same amount that Hank had paid. It was only fair as far as she was concerned; especially if Lucille had to pay that amount, too. Nevertheless, she admired Gloria’s persistence in that she wanted a better deal than Johnnie was offering, and she had kept at it. Now her persistency was about to pay off. She picked up the typewriter case. She opened the door to leave, and to her complete and utter surprise, Earl was standing there.

Chapter 69

“
No I haven’t been sleeping with him.”

T
he last time Johnnie had seen Earl Shamus was on Christmas Eve, about a month ago, before she was arrested for the murder of Sharon Trudeau. He had come to confront her about her relationships with Martin Winters and Lucas Matthews. She had answered her door, thinking it was her best friend, Sadie Lane and her children, coming over to celebrate the holiday. She had let him in, and he had reminded her of all the things he had done for her. Things had changed quickly and dramatically, she realized as her first lover, the man who had paid her mother one thousand dollars to deflower her was now standing in her doorway again.

She took a few steps backward, wondering how he had found her, scared to death of what he was going to do to her. After all, she had given him a huge piece of her mind, confessing that she had used him to get the home she owned and all the furniture in it. She had even confessed to sleeping with Martin Winters, his best friend—their stockbroker. At that time, she had all the money she would ever need. Now, however, she was pretty much broke with few options. She was about to start her own investment firm, but it took months, and most of the time, years to see substantial growth in stocks. And so, she was again at his mercy. Being at the mercy of a rich man she had belittled, a man she had taken completely apart with a truth so penetrating that all he could do was stand there and cry made her feel completely vulnerable and totally defenseless. She was certain he was there to repay her for what she had both done and said to him. She swallowed hard as she stared at him like a deer caught in headlights.

“Can I come in, Johnnie?” Earl asked politely and waited until she answered.

Nervously, she said, “Um, um, um, sure, I guess you can. Yeah. Come on in.”

Earl walked into the room and closed the door. He was carrying what looked like a doctor’s medical bag and a newspaper. They stood in the middle of the room, looking into each other eyes, nervous and unsure of what to say and what was going to happen next. After a few seconds, Earl said, “Can I sit down?”

“I guess so, yeah.”

He walked over to the dining table and sat down. He put the newspaper on the table and the bag on the floor. He then gestured for her to sit down as well. Johnnie placed the typewriter case on the floor and sat opposite Earl, wondering what he wanted and where this was going. A measure of fear was mounting because she didn’t know what to expect. His wife was dead, and she thought that he might blame her for Meredith’s death. She probably hadn’t been buried yet, and he was there, in her hotel room for only God knew what.

“So, how did you find me, Earl?”

“Tony Hatcher.”

She leaned back and folded her arms, ready to defend herself. “The detective your wife hired to follow you around and bug my house?”

“You mean my deceased wife, Meredith? Yes,
that
detective. The same private detective that your attorneys tricked into confessing that he had bugged your home, the home
I
paid for.”

“How long has he been following me?”

“Hatcher’s been on your tail since you left Ashland Estates. He’s been reporting all your comings and goings back to me. For example, I know that your car won’t be fixed for another three weeks or so. I also know that you’ve been hired by the owners of a colored restaurant. Lucille’s is it? I’m told Hank was an Army cook. I hear the food’s pretty good there, but you seem to like the food at The Flamingo Den a lot better. I’ll have to try the chili and grilled cheese and a few bones of barbecue before I head back to New Orleans to bury Meredith. I’ll probably wash it all down with some of their ice cold lemonade.”

Johnnie’s eyes bulged when she realized that he knew just about everything she had done since she left New Orleans. She was about to say something, but he started talking again.

“Apparently, you’ve lost the two hundred and fifty thousand your friend, Bubbles, got from Sharon Trudeau the night he killed her.” He paused for effect, knowing she was terrified of what he was going to reveal next, but also what he could possibly do with the information he was freely divulging. “It has come to my attention that you’ve come into a little money . . . a five thousand dollar check, most of which you deposited in the local bank here in Jackson. Prior to going to the bank, you went over to Woolworth’s, where you caused so much of a commotion with Gloria Schumacher’s sister-in-law that the store manager had to get involved.”

She closed her eyes for a second or two, taking in all that he was saying, trying to maintain the façade of control she wanted him to think she had. But deep down, she was losing it, thinking that Tony Hatcher had probably been in her room while she was at work, going through her things, looking at her lingerie and other unmentionables. She exhaled softly and said, “What do you want, Earl?”

Trying to restrain the glee he was feeling, watching her squirm, knowing she wanted him to say whatever he had to say and leave, a burgeoning smile broke forth. He knew she wanted to know what he was going to do with the information he had gotten from Tony Hatcher; information that implicated her in the murder even though she wasn’t in Fort Lauderdale when Sharon Trudeau was killed. An aggressive prosecutor just might want to charge her with accessory to murder. The prosecutor could easily make a case against her if the tapes of her conversations with Sadie, Bubbles, Napoleon, and Lucas ever surfaced.

“I’m getting to that,” he said coolly, enjoying every minute of the suspense he built.

“And what’s in that bag?”

A sinister smile emerged. “I’m getting to that, too. Now . . . I’ve come a long way to say what I have to say. I would appreciate it if you would let me finish. Unlike you, I won’t be rude to you the way you were rude to me Christmas morning.” He paused and watched her eyes, looking for the memory of that day and what she had said to him to surface. When he was sure she was reliving what happened, he continued in a smooth, deliberate cadence. He had been thinking about what he was going to say to her for the last two days. He had even practiced his delivery, his strategic pauses, rehearsing every line as if he was going to be in a Broadway play. When he thought the moment was right for another revelation, he said, “I also know about your friend, one Paul Masterson, a native of Houston, Texas, or so he says.”

“Paul
is
from Houston, Earl. He wouldn’t lie to me about a thing like that. He has no reason to.”

“Is that what you call him? Paul?” He locked eyes with her. “Have you been sleeping with him, too?”

The first thing that came to her mind was,
That’s none of your business
, but that’s not what she said. She knew Earl had the upper hand for the moment, and she didn’t dare talk to him the way she had on Christmas morning. She quickly realized that he had all of his deceased wife’s money at his disposal, and it was considerable, almost limitless. She believed the best thing to do was answer his question, find out why he was there, and then send him back to New Orleans. “No, I haven’t been sleeping with him.”

He leaned forward and looked deeper into her eyes. “But you do like him enough to sleep with him, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “Does that bother you, Earl? Does it bother you that I could be interested in someone other than you? Does it bother you still that I slept with your friend Martin, and you had no idea I had? Or, does it bother you that I had a boyfriend that I completely adored?”

Looking into her eyes, smiling broadly, he said, “Let’s not forget the likes of Napoleon Bentley and the baby you maliciously killed the night that Sharon Trudeau was murdered.”

Chapter 70

“
We’ll get to the bag in a minute.”

S
tunned that Earl knew about her relationship with Napoleon and that she had aborted the child sired by him, she looked away, trying to quickly calculate what all of this could mean for her, wondering if he was there to blackmail her or what? Abortion was against the law, and she could go to jail over that alone, not to mention that Sharon Trudeau’s murder hadn’t yet been solved. She said, “I’ve been acquitted of Sharon’s murder. And even though I’m a Negro, they can’t try me for her murder again. My lawyer says that’s double jeopardy, which means I can’t be tried for the same crime twice.”

“Yes, but were you tried for Sharon’s murder. You weren’t tried for the bellhop’s murder, were you?” He watched her intensely. Her diaphragm was no longer moving. She wasn’t breathing, which let him know that no matter how calm she looked, she was terrified, and that’s exactly where he wanted her. He wanted her to be scared and alone, and she was. He knew that when people were scared, they couldn’t think straight, and they couldn’t remember specific details. That’s why he didn’t call her. He wanted to surprise her and shake her up so that she would do exactly what he wanted her to do. And Jackson, Mississippi was the perfect place to confront her with the facts he had. That way anybody that could help her was too far away to do anything to save her. Armed with the knowledge he had acquired, he was her one and only savior. He thought that if he played his cards right, he would be her only savior for years to come.

He watched her searching the deep recesses of her mind, trying to remember if she had been tried for both murders or not. That was the beauty of the surprise attack. The enemy thought he was safe and slept soundly; much like Johnnie had done the last couple days. She thought all her fears had been laid to rest the moment Ethel Beauregard blew her brains out. Still watching her, he was hoping she couldn’t remember if she had been tried for the bellhop’s murder. The bellhop’s name was never mentioned in the papers. He realized that the bellhop’s death was being treated as if it were an afterthought, as if he didn’t exist, like he was a Negro or any other minority or animal as far as the papers were concerned because Sharon was the target.

Sharon was the story because she was a blond bombshell, kinda like Marilyn Monroe. Her beauty gave men who hadn’t known she was alive a reason to care that she was dead, how she was killed, and why. Her beauty gave women a reason to care about her and even identify with her because Sharon had made it in a man’s world. Secretly, many women loved that she had the guts to steal so much money and had almost gotten away with such a high profile crime. What made the story even more sensational was that women were not known to be criminals or to even think like criminals. Nor were they the targets of assassination plots.