Miss Julia Rocks the Cradle (9 page)

Sticking my head into the kitchen where Lillian was, I said, “I’m going over to Mildred’s for a few minutes.”

“You better bundle up then,” she said.

After buttoning my coat and placing a screen in front of the fire, I sailed out the front door, intent on enlisting Mildred’s aid in curtailing Thurlow. I almost ran right into two deputies, one of whom had a finger pointed to ring the doorbell.

“Why, good afternoon,” I said, quickly regaining my composure as I looked up at the two markedly similiar deputies. Both were big men, made even more so by the padded jackets they wore. Both had blond crewcuts and both wore solemn expressions on their wind-reddened faces. “What can I do for you? Is anything wrong?”

“Julia S. Murdoch?” one of them asked.

“Yes.” I nodded, then with a gasp asked, “Has there been an accident?” Visions of Sam lying broken on the side of a highway flashed through my mind. “Or Lloyd? Has something happened to him?”

The taller by maybe an inch edged forward and with a stern look said, “We have no information on any accidents, ma’am. We’re here to escort you to the station.”

He took my arm as politely as Sam would’ve done and urged me down the steps. It was then that I saw the patrol car parked at the curb, with doors open and motor running, wasting gas as they wasted my time.

“Well, wait,” I protested, as I was gently propelled to the car. “What’s this about? Why do I have to go to the station? I need to call my husband, my lawyer, somebody. Just wait a minute now.”

“Ma’am, we’d like you to come down for questioning. You can make a call when we get there.”

“
Questioning?
What about?” I almost stumbled and would have without his firm hand on my arm. Looking over my shoulder at the house, I tried to call Lillian, but could only manage to pitifully whisper her name.

Stunned and confused, I quickly found myself in the backseat of an official car that had a reinforced mesh screen between me and my abductors and no handles on any of the doors.

Reviving somewhat as the driver made a screeching U-turn on Polk Street, I leaned up and knocked on the screen. “Young man,” I called, “I can answer your questions in the privacy of my home, so stop this car this instant. I want you to call Sergeant Coleman Bates right now. Or Lieutenant Peavey, either one. They’ll tell you you’re making a mistake.”

I could’ve been talking to the wind for all the notice they took. They didn’t even have the courtesy to give me a glance, which proved how ill bred and poorly raised they’d been. Defeated, I slumped back in the corner of the seat, which was rank with sweat and other unsavory odors, hoping with all my heart that no one would see me being taken in like a common criminal.

I stormed back into the house and stomped through the rooms until I found Lillian cleaning the downstairs powder room. Fuming and outraged, I recounted to her an experience that no person of my standing should ever have to endure.

“And would you believe,” I ranted, torn between shame and mind-ripping anger, “they questioned me about checks I didn’t write, showed me what appeared to be my signature but wasn’t, and wouldn’t listen to a word I said. And they
fingerprinted me
! Then they took my picture, Lillian, and I’ll probably be tacked up on every post office wall in the country. Oh,” I said, my knees wobbling as I leaned against the vanity cabinet, “I have never in my life been so humiliated. It was that bank that turned me in, and believe me, they’re going to be sorry.”

“Now jus’ calm yo’self down,” Lillian said, taking my arm and guiding me out of the powder room. “Jus’ wait till Miss Binkie get ahold of ’em. They know not to mess with you then.”

“Binkie’s in court,” I said, wringing my hands and trying not to cry. “And Sam’s gone and Coleman was unavailable, whatever that means. They took me to
detention,
Lillian, as if I were in grammar school! They made me stand in front of a magistrate and I
knew
him. I could’ve gone through the floor, because he just looked at me over his glasses and shook his head.” I stopped and pressed a Kleenex to my nose. “And he made me promise to appear in court next month, but, Lillian, I had my fingers crossed.” I looked up at her as the anger surged through me again. “Because I am not going to court! I’m not the one who committed check fraud. Somebody else is committing it on
me.
But nobody would listen to me, and now I have a criminal record, and I’m probably going to jail, and I’ll never in my life live it down.”

“Come on,” Lillian said, urging me along. “I’m gonna set you by the fire and bring you some spiced tea and let you calm yo’self down. Nobody gonna be puttin’ you in jail—I don’t care what kinda record you got.” With an arm around my shoulders, Lillian walked me to the living room. “How you get outta there, anyway, without Mr. Sam or Miss Binkie?”

“If it hadn’t been for Lieutenant Peavey, I’d probably still be there, rotting away in a cell somewhere.” I collapsed in the wing chair beside the fireplace, so overcome with misery that I wanted to curl up in a closet somewhere. “He spoke up for me, and, Lillian, it just humbled me because I don’t even
like
him.”

“Yessum, he something, that man. Now I got to get on to the store and pick up Latisha, so you jus’ put yo’ head back and rest awhile. This get straightened out—see if it don’t.” She put a throw over my lap and left me to come to terms with my new criminal status. I immediately went to sleep, which as I later learned from Mr. Pickens, was a sure sign of a guilty conscience.

“
Miss Julia! Miss Julia!
” Lloyd’s voice resounded throughout the house as the back door slammed closed with a crash. “Guess what I heard!”

Determined to keep my legal problems to myself, I sprang from my chair to quiet him, meeting him as he burst through the swinging door into the dining room. “Shh, Lloyd. Your mother’s resting.”

He hunched his shoulders and squinched up his face in an attempt to undo his boisterous entrance. “Oh, sorry,” he whispered, as he slipped off his heavy coat. Static electricity crackled through his hair as he pulled off his knit cap.

“Come on in by the fire,” I said. “You’re about half frozen.”

He tiptoed behind me to the chairs beside the fire, but didn’t take a seat. He hung on my chair, his eyes big with the latest news.

“Now what did you hear?” I asked, smiling at him.

“You’ll never guess,” he said, leaning forward and trying to hold his voice down, “but that body they found was somebody who used to live here. It’s all over school, but nobody knows who it was.”

“Somebody who used to live here?” I repeated. “That could cover a lot of ground, Lloyd. People come and go all the time. I’m not sure that’s much help.”

“Yes’m, but everybody’s saying it was somebody who was real
rich.
That oughta narrow it down. I bet we could figure it out if we give it a little thought.” He pulled a footstool closer and sat beside me. “You probably even knew him, Miss Julia. It could be anybody who had a lot of money and used to live here but doesn’t anymore. I can’t come up with a soul, but I bet you could if you put your mind to it.”

I gazed down at the avid look on his face and, still stung by Thurlow’s accusation, recognized the danger the boy was in. And recognized, also, the part that I, all unwittingly, may have played in whetting his interest in rumors, hearsay, and—I admit it—gossip.

“Lloyd,” I said, wondering how I could best phrase my warning, “it’s perfectly natural—and commendable—to be interested in the things that happen in our neighborhood. We all are, but we mustn’t let ourselves get carried away. We have to put this unfortunate occurrence in the proper perspective. Moderation is what we should aim for.”

“Yes’m, I understand and I’m moderating as best I can. But, Miss Julia, it’s not every day that a dead body turns up in your own teacher’s backyard. I can’t help but wonder who it was and how it got there.”

“Well, yes, I suppose so. But you do have to be careful how you express that wonder. You can be interested but not obsessed, and it’s all right to listen but it’s not all right to pass along what you hear.”

“Oh,” he said, frowning and leaning back. “You mean I can’t tell you or Mama or Lillian or Mr. Sam, or even J.D., what I hear?”

“No, no. I wouldn’t go that far. Of course it’s perfectly all right to tell us anything you want to. I’m just saying that we all have to be careful about becoming known as gossips. As long as we keep it in the family, we’re all right.”

“That’s what I’m doing, ’cause I haven’t told another living soul, not even at school.”

“Well, good,” I said, pleased that the boy was able to take correction with such ease.

“Yes’m,” he went on earnestly, “and I wasn’t even going to say anything to Miss Petty because I thought it might upset her, even if I just said, ‘I’m sorry for your troubles.’ But I didn’t get the chance to not say anything because she wasn’t there. We had a substitute like I thought we would.”

“Oh dear,” I said, thinking of that lonely woman who was now the focus of so much talk. “I hope she has friends to help her through this time. It must be so unsettling for her. I take it she lives alone, but she must have friends among the other teachers. Most likely they’ll gather around for support. I expect she has a special friend, maybe one from school, don’t you think?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Beats me. I just see her during fourth period and sometimes at lunch, but that’s all I know. Why? You think she has a boyfriend or something?”

“Goodness, I don’t know. I’m just concerned about her well-being, living alone as she does and all this happening so close by. Your mother, though, speaks quite highly of her after their meeting at Parents’ Night.”

“I can try to find out if you want me to. I bet Joyce McIntyre would know. She hears everything when she gets sent to the principal’s office.”

“They’re not likely to speak of a teacher’s boyfriend in the principal’s office, so I doubt your friend would know anything.”

“You’d be surprised, Miss Julia. Joyce knows lots of things, or pretends she does, one.”

“Well, don’t ask her. That’s the way rumors get started. Someone asks a simple question out of real concern for another person, and next thing you know, it becomes a statement of fact. No, Lloyd,” I said, speaking to myself as much as to him, “let’s not ask any questions or volunteer any information we might have. In that way, we won’t be responsible for starting something that might not be true. Just let little Miss Joyce McIntyre alone.”

He nodded gravely in agreement. “I know what you mean. You should’ve heard what she said about Mr. Dement one time, and I know that wasn’t true. But a lot of kids still believe he cuts his grass in his boxers.”

Hearing a car turn into the driveway, I said, “That must be Lillian. Run help her bring in the groceries, Lloyd, and I’ll be there in a minute to help put them away.”

He immediately stood up, ready to go. “Can I tell her about him being rich and how he used to live here? She might know who it was.”

“Yes, you can tell her.” I stood too and reached for the poker to shift the logs on the fire. But what I really needed was a minute or two to think. For one thing, my nerves were still frayed from my run-in with the Abbot County Sheriff’s Department, and they’d stay that way until I could prove I was a victim, not a perpetrator.

And now, after cautioning Lloyd about how easily a person could start a rumor, sometimes by throwing out only a suggestion that quickly became accepted as settled fact, it occurred to me that I might have become a victim again in a different case.

I thought back to my conversation with Thurlow Jones. His professed reason for calling was concern for what people were saying about Miss Petty. But what if his real purpose was to plant the image in my mind of her having questionable visitors? And if so, he’d certainly succeeded because I had immediately asked Lloyd about her friends.