Miss Julia Rocks the Cradle (20 page)

Lord, the crying was constant, and I was as bad off as Latisha about getting to sleep. Finally, a little after midnight, I slipped out of bed, put on a robe, and went downstairs.

It was bedlam in the bedroom, and I quickly stepped back out and went to the kitchen to fix a cup of tea. Just as I sat down at the table, Mr. Pickens came stumbling out. His hair was a tangled mess, his eyes red with dark circles underneath, and his face unshaved. He was in an undershirt with his pants zipped but his belt unbuckled.

He dropped into a chair across from me. “I didn’t know it’d be like this,” he said, running a hand down his face. “What in the world can we do?”

“You’re asking the wrong person, Mr. Pickens, but Lillian thinks they’re hungry.”

“I know they are,” he said, slumping in the chair as if he’d completely run down. “And Hazel Marie is beside herself because they won’t nurse like they should. And I,” he said with a sigh and a glance at me, “am obligated to go back to Raleigh and finish that job. I was going to do it while Etta Mae was still here, but . . .”

I stared at him for a full minute, guessing that he was asking my permission to go. “It would be easy enough to go, Mr. Pickens, and leave everything with Hazel Marie. A lot of men would, but I thought better of you than that.” I am not above using a dose of guilt when it’s called for.

Before he could answer, Lillian came stalking into the kitchen. “I don’t care what anybody say, I’m fixin’ them babies a bottle. They hungry an’ that’s all there is to it.”

“Good!” I said, standing up. “I’ll help you.” Then, turning to Mr. Pickens, I said, “Mr. Pickens, take some responsibility and go in there and tell Hazel Marie that those babies are on formula as of now. That’s what she wants you to do. She doesn’t want to make that decision because, I expect, she’d feel like a failure. You just tell her that you’re the daddy, and you’re the one who’s making the decison. She’ll thank you for it.”

Eventually, I thought, and after she cries for a while, which I didn’t mention.

“Maybe I should,” he said, but he didn’t jump up to do it.

“No maybe about it,” Lillian said, as she put together a bottle. “You better get on in there ’cause nobody gonna go hungry while I’m around.”

I had never seen Lillian so determined and outspoken about anything, but I was thankful for it. She knew more about babies than anybody else in the house, so armed with her authority, Mr. Pickens got a second wind and headed for the bedroom armed with two warm bottles, with Lillian following him.

Within minutes, peace reigned throughout the house. On my way back upstairs, I glanced into the bedroom. Hazel Marie was sound asleep in the bed, Mr. Pickens was snoring away in the rocking chair, while Lillian and Etta Mae nodded over the two avidly sucking babies. I went to bed.

There was a steady stream of visitors over the next few days, all arriving with gifts and a desire to see the babies. Hazel Marie vacillated between pride in showing them off and worry about the germs they were being exposed to.

Lillian walked around with an air of justified competence now that she’d been proved right about what the babies needed. So when any question of child care came up, we deferred to her—not excluding her judgment concerning the type and frequency of infant excretory functions. It was a fact that as soon as the babies began to get adequate nourishment, they settled down to a fairly regular routine and the household gradually adjusted to it. Even Hazel Marie’s spirits improved, in spite of her perceived failure, for she was up every morning, dressed and made up and waiting to show off the babies whenever the doorbell rang.

Mr. Pickens took longer to recover, unaccustomed as he was to getting up several times every night to hold a baby and a bottle. Lillian pointed out to Hazel Marie that bottle-fed babies got more of their daddies’ attention because, she said, “The daddies don’t have nothin’ to do when the mamas is the onliest ones can feed ’em.”

Etta Mae made herself useful in all kinds of ways: rocking babies, changing babies, feeding babies, and helping Lillian in the kitchen. I feared she would wear herself out, but since now the babies only woke up two or three times a night for a feeding, Mr. Pickens told her to go ahead and sleep up in the sunroom, and for the time being, he’d handle the night shift.

So that was beginning to work out until the day Mr. Pickens came in with a fold-up cot and put it in his and Hazel Marie’s room. “For Etta Mae,” he said when I wondered if Hazel Marie had taken over the bed. “I want her sleeping down here while I’m in Raleigh finishing what I started.”

Said like that, it didn’t occur to me to argue, although I gave him one of my cold silent looks that Lloyd said could stop a train in its tracks, although I don’t know why he’d know because I’d never aimed one at him. The look didn’t stop Mr. Pickens either, for he had taken on a new air of authority ever since he’d laid down the law as to how those babies were to be fed. He was taking the role of fatherhood seriously, and as long as he didn’t take matters too far, I was pleased to see it.

“Julia,” Sam said, as he came into the house. “Get your coat. We need to go downtown.” There wasn’t a hint of a smile of greeting on his face or in his eyes. In fact, he was as serious as I’d ever seen him.

“Why? ”

“I’ll tell you in the car. Let’s go.”

Seated in the car beside him, I kept glancing his way but he was intent on driving. “Well?” I finally asked.

“Lieutenant Peavey wants to talk to you.”

“
Again?
He’s already talked to me, and you said he was satisfied that I didn’t bounce those checks.”

“I get the feeling that he’s not so sure now.” Sam still hadn’t looked me full in the eye, concentrating as he was on driving.

“Well, what’s changed his mind? Talk to me, Sam. What’s going on?” By this time, I was clutching my pocketbook with one hand and the armrest with the other.

Sam pulled into a parking place beside the sheriff ’s office and turned off the ignition. He sighed and finally looked at me. “I don’t know. The lieutenant called me a while ago while I was working at my house. Said something’s come up and he wanted to know how much contact you’ve had over the past few weeks with Richard Stroud.”

“
Richard Stroud!
” I almost screeched the name. “I’ve had
no
contact with him. The man’s been in prison, as Lieutenant Peavey ought to know because he put him there. And as far as I know, he’s still there, except . . .” I slumped back against the front seat of the car, recalling Mildred’s guess as to the identity of the body in the toolshed. “They have a positive identification, don’t they?”

Sam rested his hands on the steering wheel, gazing out the windshield between them as if the brick wall of the sheriff ’s office was a thing of intense interest. “How long have you known?”

“Known what?”

“That it was Stroud.”

“I
haven’t
known! It was Mildred who made a wild guess, which I have not repeated except to you, because I didn’t know for sure and I didn’t want to spread gossip. Besides, I’ve had my mind on a few other things here lately, if you haven’t noticed, and simply have not had time for useless speculation.” I turned sideways on the seat and glared at him. “Now look, Sam, if you have something to say, just say it.”

“They found that fifth check of yours, folded up and stuck way down in the watch pocket of his pants. It’s made out to Stroud and signed by you, but without an amount filled in. It all looks like your handwriting, Julia.”

“Well, it
wasn’t
! I’ve
never
written a check to him. I haven’t laid eyes on that man since the day he was arrested, and it flies all over me that you think I have.”

Sam hadn’t looked at me for some little while, but at that moment, he did, his deep blue eyes filled with a ton of hurt. “What about the little matter of a check for a hundred thousand dollars you gave him
before
he was arrested?”

“Oh. Well.” I took a turn of looking at the sheriff ’s brick wall. “There is that. But I didn’t want you to know about it.”

“They found his records from back when he put himself up as an investment counselor, and there was your name.” Sam’s face was drawn and he looked tired, and the longer we talked, the sadder he looked. “Didn’t you trust me, Julia? Or Binkie?”

“Of course I trusted you. I trusted both of you, and I still do. But let me explain, Sam. Please, let me explain because it’s not as bad as it sounds. What happened was that a long-term certificate of deposit matured, one that Wesley Lloyd had in an out-of-town bank that nobody, including me, knew about. When the maturity notice came to the house, I intended to give it to Binkie and tell you about it. But, Sam, it was like found money because Richard had been pushing me to transfer the whole estate from Binkie to him, something I wasn’t about to do. But because I admired Helen and wanted to help a friend, I
invested
that money with him. That’s all that happened, and it happened years ago and I’d long since given up hope of seeing any of it again. And,” I added, searching in my pocketbook for a Kleenex to wipe my eyes, “I didn’t want you to know how foolish I’d been.”

“He had it down as a payment.”

“A
payment
! For
what
?” My eyes suddenly dried up as I stared at him with disbelief. “Why in the world would you ask such a thing? What would I be paying him
for
? I barely knew the man. I did it for
Helen’s
sake, and for no other reason.”

“Okay,” he said, but there was no warmth in it.

“If you don’t believe me, Sam, what do you believe?”

“I don’t know, Julia. He had it down as payment for services rendered, and it just looks strange that he was getting money from you both before and after he was in prison . . .”

“He
stole
that money from me—both times. You yourself showed me how somebody—and it had to have been Richard—had ripped out those checks from my checkbook. He was a
crook,
Sam, and I got taken in like a lot of others did.” I reached out and touched his arm. “I’m telling you the truth, which, I admit, I should’ve done long ago. But believe me, I did not pay him for any kind of services rendered. I invested with him, thinking I’d learned enough to manage a little money on my own, and I got burned. Binkie put it down as a loss on our tax returns and I thought you’d ask about it, but you never did so I thought . . . Well, I don’t know what I thought.”

“We better go in,” he said, opening the car door.

“Sam, wait,” I said, reaching for him again. “Please. I don’t want to go in there with you like this. I need you to understand and not be hurt. I didn’t mean to hurt you—I wouldn’t hurt you for the world. Just . . . let’s just wait a few more minutes.”

“He’s waiting for us.” Sam walked around the car and opened my door. I climbed out, hoping that that gesture of courtesy portended a change of attitude. It hadn’t, for he took my arm without a word and walked with me to see Lieutenant Peavey.