Miss Julia Stirs Up Trouble: A Novel (17 page)

I’d barely hung up when I heard a commotion in the kitchen as Lloyd came in from school. I started to sit and wait for him to come to me, then decided it would be better if Lillian heard what had happened. That way I wouldn’t have to repeat it to her and take the chance that she’d figure it out from the way I told it. She’d hear all about it sooner or later, anyway.

Sure enough, when I got to the kitchen, Lloyd was hanging on the counter, talking away about his frightening experience of the night before.

“I tell you, Miss Lillian, whatever it was, it scared the daylights outta me!” Lloyd was saying. Then he swung around as I entered and started all over at the beginning.

“Miss Julia, you won’t believe what happened at James’s last night! He’ll tell you. He saw it, too. Just ask him. We both saw it, just rising up out of the dark, right there on the landing! If I’d stepped out one minute earlier, we’d of run into each other right there on the stairs. No telling what would’ve happened then!”

“Oh, my Jesus!” Lillian said, holding her hand over her heart. “What you reckon it was?”

“Well,” Lloyd said with a firm nod of his head, “
I
think it was a witch. Or maybe a tramp looking for a warm place to sleep. Or maybe somebody who thought Halloween came early this year.” He thought for a minute, then went on. “James didn’t know what to think at first, but after it was gone, he thought it could’ve been an escaped convict. He said he even saw some stripes, but I didn’t. So now he’s gotten leery about staying up there by himself. Except Uncle Vern has his bed, so he’s kinda stuck. I may have to stay with him and sleep on a pallet.”

“Let’s not make too many plans right now,” I said, trying to make light of whatever it was that he’d seen. “It sounds as if you’ve had enough excitement to last you awhile.”

“That’s right,” Lillian agreed, taking a plate of chocolate chip cookies to the table. “We all need a little snack to settle us down. Miss Julia, you want coffee or hot chocolate?”

“Coffee, but I’ll get it.” And I did, bringing a cup to the table for her as well as for myself. Lloyd had hot chocolate.

As we settled around the table, I knew it was time to put the question to Lloyd. I dreaded it, because the more we talked about his harrowing experience, the more likely it was that the truth about the witch would dawn on him. Not wanting to rush things, I stirred cream into my coffee, then opened my mouth to ask the question. Lillian beat me to it.

“What I want to know,” she said, both arms leaning on the table, “is what was you doin’ over at James’s at that time of night in the first place?”

“Exactly,” I seconded.

“Well,” he said, giving careful attention to spooning up a melted marshmallow. “Well, it’s like this. I had a hard time getting to sleep last night because of worrying about him. You know, if he needed anything or what if he fell again or, well, if he was warm enough. It was awfully cold last night, you know.”

I nodded. I knew.

“Anyway,” Lloyd went on,“I decided I better go over there and check on him. So I did, and he was fine, and I didn’t stay long, and when I started to leave, that’s when we saw it. Whatever or whoever it was. And that’s what I was doing over there.”

He stopped, as if he’d run down, and Lillian and I just sat there and looked at him.

“Well, you know,” Lloyd said, just a tiny bit defensively. “You know how it is when you get something on your mind. You just have to go see about it.”

Of course I knew how it was. Hadn’t I done the same thing more times than I could recall? But he wasn’t giving us a full account, and I knew that, too. For one thing, he hadn’t once looked me in the eye, or Lillian, either. In fact, throughout his explanation he’d looked everywhere but at us—a clear sign of something left unsaid. Lloyd was certainly not in the habit of telling stories, but I wasn’t convinced that we were getting anywhere near the whole one here.

Lloyd abruptly stood up, took his cup to the sink, and said, “I told James I’d bring him some snacks. And I want to make sure he’s all right, so I better run on.”

“Jus’ wait a minute,” Lillian said, rising from the table. “No need for you to go spendin’ money at the store. You can take him some snacks from here.” She went to the pantry and began filling a sack with crackers, bananas, chocolate chip cookies, hot cocoa mix, and potato chips. “Can you tote a quart of milk, too? I got one not even open yet.”

“Yes, ma’am, I can manage.” With his arms full, he left to succor James, seemingly his partner in something he was unwilling to reveal.

When the door closed behind him, I wondered whether I should leave well enough alone and change the subject—to something like, for instance, what we were having for supper. I couldn’t stand it, though, so I looked at Lillian. “What do you think?”

“I think they saw
somethin’,
but they’s no tellin’ what.”

“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the
reason
he was over there. Lillian, something’s going on with those two. They’re up to something and I want to know what it is.”

“They prob’bly thinkin’ up ways to get rid of Brother Vern, which if they did, it would be a blessin’ for everybody.”

“Well, that’s the truth, but Mildred is going to back him in setting up a soup kitchen—against my advice, I assure you. But if that goes through, I’ve urged her to insist that he live there, too. So that’ll get him out of the house and give Hazel Marie some breathing room.” I took my lip in my teeth, still unable to accept the explanation that Lloyd had given. “No, I think Lloyd and James are up to something else.”

“If it was me,” Lillian said with a shudder, “I wouldn’t be worryin’ myself ’bout what they up to. I’d be worryin’ more ’bout that
thing
they saw.”

“Oh, Lillian,” I said as dismissively as I could, “you heard that wind last night. It could’ve been a shadow or a half-broken branch hanging down. Neither of them got a good look at it, probably because they’d been cooking up something between them, and had their minds on that. I just want to know what it could be.”

“Miss Julia, it prob’bly no more than what Lloyd told us. He a good boy an’ he worries about James. You don’t have to look no further than what he say.”

“Well,” I said, rising, “maybe you’re right. I don’t like feeling that he’s being less than truthful anyway. I guess all that we can do is wait and see.”

Well, not exactly
all
that we could do, but she didn’t need to know that. I intended to keep my eyes open and my ears attuned to any more night missions and, if needed, to follow them wherever they led. I say,
witch!

Feeling edgy enough to jump out of my skin, I couldn’t settle down enough to copy the latest recipes into the recipe book. I had made it a practice to use the pages of a legal pad when recipes were first given to me, then to recopy them in a neat hand onto the blank pages of a very nice book, which would eventually go to Hazel Marie. I used a sharp number-two pencil for their final placement, and if you’ve ever spilled anything liquid on a recipe written in ink, you know why.

But after having to erase several mistakes, I decided to put recipes out of my mind and do something else. But what? I picked up the newspaper, opened it, and tried to read, but worrisome thoughts kept intruding. Would Lloyd eventually realize who had been on James’s landing? Should I just go ahead and confess—clear the air, so to speak, to make it easier for him to admit the real reason he had been there?

And what about Mr. Pickens? The sudden thought of him shook me to the core. I stiffened in my chair, thinking about that sharp, professionally trained mind investigating a possible breaking and entering, or looking for an escaped convict or even for a Halloween prankster. If he started digging into it, there was no telling what he’d come up with—the truth, most likely. The more I thought about it, the worse it got. Once he got on the trail, my goose would be cooked. Which was pretty much how it was already, for I knew there was no way he would leave the report of a prowler around his own house alone.

The newspaper shook in my hands as I pictured being grilled by Mr. Pickens. How long would I be able to hold out? Being basically a truthful person, not long. How embarrassing.

I bent my head toward the fold of the newspaper, my face already burning, and came face-to-face with a want ad in bold type:

FOR LEASE:

2000 sq. ft. building on North Main

Minimal kitchen facilities

Sm. partially furnished apt. on 2nd floor

CALL BILL AT 555–8804

Now, that’s what I would call good timing or saved by the bell or the Lord looking after me.

I called Bill, whoever he was, to arrange to see and inspect the building. He sounded as delighted to hear from me as I was to have found him, although I tempered my enthusiasm when he quoted the price.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” I said, and was about to tell him that I represented a nonprofit organization, but, remembering Brother Vern, thought better of it. “Or there’s no need for me to see it.”

“Oh,” Bill said, “we can come to terms—I’m sure of it. Tell you the truth, ma’am, I’m flat tired of that building settin’ empty. Vandals and so forth, you know, while property taxes and insurance keep on a-goin’. Tell you what—I’ll make you a good price the first year, then we’ll talk again after that.”

One year was about all Brother Vern was good for, so I asked, “When could I see it?”

“Right now?”

So off I took to meet Bill Whoever at the empty building on North Main, not all that far from the bus station if you didn’t mind walking a mile or so. Seeing that ad was as if it had been meant to be, if only the thing had a roof, a furnace, and no rats or termites. Driving along, I was exhilarated at the thought of getting Brother Vern out of Hazel Marie’s house and, hopefully at the same time, distracting Mr. Pickens from looking deeper into a possible garage-apartment invasion.

Maybe the building would need painting. Mr. Pickens could paint. He’d certainly be called on to help Brother Vern move and get him settled into his new place. There were all kinds of jobs I could think of that would keep Mr. Pickens too busy to be digging around in a cold case.

I pulled to the curb in front of 1022 North Main, which was so far north of downtown that it was almost out of town. Anybody coming in on a Greyhound bus would have a fair trek to get a handout, but there looked to be a goodly number of locals standing around that might welcome a bowl or two of soup.

I looked out the car window at the redbrick building, featuring a door to the side and a large display window, displaying nothing now but a thick layer of dust. A wire mesh fence separated it from a warehouse of some kind next door while an unpaved alley ran along the near side. Looking out the rear window, I noticed a used clothing store and, across the street on the far corner,
MIGUEL’S TACOS,
which must have been serving more than tacos from the number of customers going in and out.

When a short, wiry man in a puffy green parka opened the front door of 1022 North Main, I assumed it was time to inspect the building. He met me as I got out of the car, shook my hand, introduced himself as Bill Somebody, slurring the last name so that I didn’t catch it.

“Now, don’t pay no attention to the state of things,” Bill said as he ushered me into a small foyer with stairs running up the side. “The last folks I had in here was a dance studio, which I could’ve told ’em they wadn’t gonna make it, but they give it a good try. Now,” he went on, opening a door into an open space that ran the length of the building, “just look at this nice big room.”

I nodded without saying anything, but I could picture it filled with folding tables and chairs with men hunched over bowls and Brother Vern behind a podium, exhorting them from the Scriptures.

“Now, come on down here,” Bill said, walking toward the back and pointing out the bathroom as he went. He stopped in a doorway to a small galley kitchen that needed several packages of Brillo pads. “See here, you got your gas stove and your deep sink for washing up. And you got your back door right there with its own Dipsy Dumpster next to it. This place is just the ticket for what you got in mind.”

I didn’t recall telling him what I had in mind, but I may have. I took it all in and decided he was right. So far, it was just the ticket. It got even better when he showed me into a small office space, complete with a metal desk and a file cabinet, beside the kitchen. Brother Vern would love it.

“Could we see the apartment now?” I asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, motioning me out of the kitchen and back into the foyer to the stairs. “You’ll like this, though I ’spect you’re not the one gonna be living in it.”

“Indeed not,” I murmured and followed him up the steep stairs.

There were two rooms, one with a sprung sofa and the other with an iron bedstead, a small kitchen I could barely turn around in, and another bathroom, which could’ve used some rust remover. Although the main rooms were quite large as far as floor space was concerned, head room was another matter. The apartment had obviously once been an attic, so the only standing room was under the peak of the ceiling.

“See?” Bill said. “It’s real nice, clean as can be, except for the dust, which an empty building always gets. But you got your privacy up here, a good lock on the door, and everything you need for easy living. Cable hookup, too.”

Again, I made no comment one way or the other, knowing that the more interest I showed, the higher the rent. The car I’d driven up in had put me in the high-rent bracket already.

When we reached the foyer again, Bill couldn’t stand it. “Well, whatta you think? I can give you a good price on the lease and the first month is free. You can’t get no better’n that.”

“Well, Mr., uh, Bill,” I said, “I am merely an agent here, searching out rental properties for my principals. I will report back to them, and they’ll make the final decision. I’m reasonably sure that one or both of them will be in touch with you soon.”

“That being the case,” he said, reaching into his shirt pocket, “here’s my card. Take two, one for each of ’em. My cell’s on there, so they can reach me anytime. But you can look all over town, and you’re not gonna do any better than right here.”

We haggled just a little over the monthly payments, but I knew the place was ideal for Brother Vern’s soup kitchen and only went through the formality of rejecting the first quote he made.

Since I was already on the north side and needing a few cards from the Hallmark shop, I decided to go a little out of the way and stop at what answered for a mall in Abbotsville. Of course it was a mall because it was a large enclosed space with JCPenney anchoring one end and a locally owned department store the other, while smaller shops lined the wide hall, in spite of the fact that about a third of the shops were empty and another third had windows pasted over with close-out-sale signs.

As soon as I walked into the main entrance I was engulfed by the odor of popcorn (not unpleasant) and sizzling hot dogs (not pleasant). That was bad enough but not the worst thing about a mall visit, which I made only when I had to. What you really had to watch out for were the walkers—not the kind that Miss Mattie used but the two-footed kind from the various rest homes and retirement villages nearby. Those exercise-determined souls put on their walking shoes and running suits every day of the week and proceeded to the mall, where they strode around and around the interior, bent on strengthening aging muscles, bones, and joints. You had to watch out for them. They’d come at you in a pack, huffing and blowing, intent on making a certain number of laps before giving out. They wouldn’t veer from their appointed rounds, regardless of who was in their way. You had to step lively to avoid them, and if you wanted to enter a shop you had to wait until there was a break in the traffic, then pop between them and hope you’d get through before they ran you down.

I made it in, then out, of the Hallmark shop with a small bag of greeting cards, ranging from those that extended congratulations to those that offered condolences. Be prepared, I always say, for whatever occasion that might arise.

Escaping the walking army unscathed, I went out into the bright, cold air and hurried across the parking lot to my car. I was eager to get home and tell Mildred that her search for a soup kitchen location was over. Huddled in my coat, I looked neither to the right nor the left until I got to my car and, in the process of unlocking it, glanced across the lot. Beyond the lines of parked cars clustered near the mall entrances, a familiar-looking one was parked alone, nosed away from the others under a leafless tree on the far edge of the lot, a cloud of exhaust billowing out behind it.

I stopped and stared, wondering if I could be wrong. But no, there was only one low-slung black car with heavy-duty tires, a long antenna whip, and an Abbotsville High sticker in the back window. And only one such car with Mr. J. D. Pickens behind the wheel, his full head of black hair turned away from me and focused on a blond-headed woman—who most assuredly was not Hazel Marie—seated at his side.

I squinched up my eyes, wanting to be sure of what I was seeing, as my heart began to sink. I knew Mr. Pickens had a notable weakness for blond women, and although I couldn’t see her face, this one had hair like Dolly Parton. Whatever other attributes she had like Miss Parton, I couldn’t tell.

Standing there about to freeze, I recalled stories I’d heard about the mall parking lot being a meeting place for illicit lovers. Regardless, though, of what was right in front of my eyes, I found it hard to believe that Mr. Pickens would engage in something so public. I got in my car and sat, straining over the roofs of the two rows of parked cars between us to see what they were doing. At one point, Mr. Pickens turned his head away from the woman to look out the front windshield, giving me a clear profile view. Who could mistake those dark aviator glasses? He was firmly nailed, but who was the woman?

I had the urge to drive by and get a better look at her, but quickly discarded that idea for fear that Mr. Pickens would come after me.

So I stayed where I was and waited for whatever was going to happen. But they didn’t leave and the woman didn’t get out. As far as I could tell, there was no touching going on, but those two sure had something to talk about.

I kept sitting and watching, fearing that Mr. Pickens had reverted to his normal gallivanting ways even with a loving wife and a houseful of children waiting for him. Of course that had never deterred any other man who had cheating on his mind. Take it from me—I know.

I turned on the ignition to start the heater, knowing I couldn’t sit there much longer—I was low on gas—and knowing that sooner or later somebody would come along and tap on my window to see if I was all right. People can be so nosy sometimes.

Feeling sick to my stomach, I finally gave up and headed home with a heavy heart.

Trying to get that trysting picture out of my mind, I hurried inside to call Mildred. There was more reason than ever to get Brother Vern out of the Pickens house and put Hazel Marie back on track. I needed to get her to Velma’s and have her hair cut, colored, and set. She needed new clothes, maybe some with those low-cut necks that showed more than I ever wanted to see of areas that even television newswomen were inflicting on us. Without even hinting to Hazel Marie about the danger she was in, I would have to make sure that she was a worthy competitor to that big-headed blonde in Mr. Pickens’s car.

And as for the twins while all this was being done? Well, Granny Wiggins was going to be put to the baby-care test, which meant that I would have to be on the spot to supervise, else Hazel Marie wouldn’t leave the house. And if she refused to let the babies out of her sight, I’d just stow that huge twin stroller in my car and use it to walk those babies up and down the sidewalk in front of Velma’s for as long as it took to get Hazel Marie beautified again. Maybe Lillian would help.

With all those plans running through my mind, I got Mildred on the phone, described the building I’d found, and told her the price, expecting her to praise me for doing her job for her.

“Well, Julia, I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve been thinking over what you said about Mr. Puckett, and I may have been a bit hasty. There are so many good causes around and it seems as if every one of them wants my support. What do you think? Is this a worthwhile venture for me to sponsor?”

I had a great sinking feeling as Mildred appeared ready to renege on her promise to get Brother Vern out of Hazel Marie’s house and put him to ladling soup. “Mildred,” I said, feeling my way, knowing that the very wealthy can pinch pennies worse than people with empty pockets. “Mildred,” I said again, “I know I wasn’t enthusiastic at first, but now that I’ve realized the good that Brother Vern can do in helping his fellow man—and I assure you, he’s devoted himself to good works of some kind or another all his life—I am convinced that you wouldn’t go too far wrong in backing a soup kitchen in that area of town. It’s really needed, and remember, if it gets off the ground, I’m planning to contribute to it, as well. On second thought, though, I may be able to find a little startup money, too. Oh, and think of this: It’s only a one-year lease and the first month is free.”

“Really?” she asked, perking up at the thought of getting something for nothing. “In that case, I’ll do it. Give me the owner’s name and number. I’ll call him right now and take it before somebody gets in ahead of me.”

I gave her Bill’s name and number, as well as a caution. “Maybe you should talk to Brother Vern before you commit yourself, Mildred. The two of you need to go look at the place and make sure that Brother Vern likes the apartment. And you should make sure that he’ll handle everything that’ll be needed. I mean, like buying supplies, finding tables and chairs, and hiring some help. You don’t want to be over there washing dishes yourself.”

She laughed. “Oh, Julia, you’re so funny.”

I ignored that, because I was being serious. “One last thing, but it’s the most important. If Brother Vern doesn’t move out of Hazel Marie’s house, all bets are off. I won’t contribute one cent to his soup kitchen, even if it turns out to be the best one in the state and he gets an award from the governor.”