Southern Greed (14 page)

I laughed, “It’s not up to me when to have the baby, Ro
nnie.  It’s up to God or nature or whatever.
”

“I don’t think I would ever want to have a baby anyway,” He said.

I laughed and he said, “
Hold on, I think I hear a boat.”

I followed him in the opposite direction along the beach and we came to a small cove and there was a boat pulling in.  I saw Eugene jump off the deck and onto the dock and tie a rope to one of the posts.  Ronnie ran up to the boat and said, “I rescued her dad.  I saved Kathy.”

Eugene looked at me, “Are you all right?”

I nodded and then broke down and cried.  He jumped off the dock and opened his arms to me and held me while I cried for all the losses I had had but had been too afraid to cry about.  I cried for my grandmother, for my fake of a marriage, for the loss of my mama that I had grown up with and found out she was a fake too.

Ronnie handed me what looked like a dish towel to wipe my eyes on when I was calmed down.

CHAPTER 3
1

Eugene and Ronnie lived in a small house off one of the town squares in Savannah.
  It was a wooden house with a small patio off the back.  There were two bedrooms and two baths and then
one large room that served as a living room, dining room, and kitchen.

“I’m sorry, it’s not what you’re used to, but it’s the best I can do,” Eugene said after showing me around.

I laughed, “Are you kidding?  The house I grew up in was not much better than a shack.  Then I had a small apartment when I left home.  I’m not used to
living in a mansion
.
 
I just appreciate what you’re doing for me.  Thank you.”

“No problem,” He said.  He
turned to Ronnie, “Well, little buddy, looks like you’re going to be bunking in
with me for awhile.  Is that oka
y with you?”

“I’d rather bunk in with Kathy.”

Eugene winked at me, “I think Kathy needs more room than I do, since she’s going to have baby.  Right now I think both of you need to take a nap since you’ve been up all night.”

I woke up at around three and heard country western music, “Blue eyes crying in the rain…”

I found both of them on the patio.  Eugene was playing a guitar and singing.  He had a beautiful voice and I had always like that song.  Ronnie was swinging on a swing made of rope tied to an old tire and hanging from an oak tree in the tiny backyard.

Neither one of them saw me, as
I watched from inside the screen door.  Eugene was wearing only a pair of bellbottom jeans.  His bare foot was tapping in time with the music.  Every now and then
Ronnie would join in but he was tone deaf. 
He sounded like a frog.  It was adorable.

I stared at Eugen
e
’s bare back
and shoulders.  There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him.  He looked like one long muscle.  I had been so blinded by the beauty of Adam I hadn’t noticed how
handsome Eugene was.  His sandy hair was wet and combed straight back.  He looked like he had just gotten out of the shower.

“Don’t stop,” I said to Eugene as I stepped out onto the patio.  But he stopped playing anyway.

“Did I wake you up?” He asked.

“No, I woke up and then I heard
you singing.  You sing so good
I thought the radio was on.”

“Hey, Kathy,” Ronnie yelled as he pumped making the swing go higher.

Eugene la
ughed, “I think he’s trying to i
mpress you,” He said and I waved at Ronnie.

Eugene got up and put his guitar in the case, “I have something to show you,” He said opening the screen door for me.  He walked over toward the couch and picked up a newspaper off the coffee table, “You made the front page,” He said to me,
and
handed me the paper.

The headlines jumped out at me: PREGNANT WOMAN MISSING.

The words blurred before my eyes and he took the paper from me. “I’m sorry,” He said. 
“
Here, sit down.  You don’t need to read it.

“The only reason I showed it to you is because the police will probably come here eventually.  How do you want to handle this?”

“What do you think I should do?”

“If I were you, I would call the sheriff’s department and have them arrested for kidnapping and trespassing.  You were held prisoner there, right?”

“Yes I was.  I’m going down right now.”

“Don’t you think you should eat first?  When was the last time you ate?”

“Uh, supper last night.”

“I have some macaroni and cheese I made for supper last night. 
It’s
Ronnie’s favorite.  I could
heat
some up in the oven.  It’s not much but it
could tide you over until supper tonight.”

“I love macaroni and cheese.  That would be just right.”

After I ate, Eugene gave me directions to the police station.  It was only two blocks from his house.  He offered to go with me but I said I wanted to do this myself.

I was only a half block from the police stations when Adam’s car pulled up along the curb beside me, “Get in the car
, Kathy,” He
screamed.

I ran and as I got in front of the police station, Detective Phillips came out of the front door and started down the steps.  I fell.  I fell onto my belly and I screamed in pain and at the same time I heard Adam’s car take off I heard Detective Phillips’ feet running toward me.

He reached down to help me up and I felt something wet come out of me and trickle down my leg
s
.  I was so
embarrassed becaus
e I thought I had wet myself.  H
e yelled over his shoulder at someone else who was coming down the steps to call an ambulance.

The ambulance
screamed to a stop in seconds and I was put onto a stretcher and taken to the hospital

I hadn’t wet myself, my water had broken and I was in labor.  I gave birth to a bab
y girl at 5:32 the next morning, six pounds and eight ounces.
  She was beautiful
.

They had taken her away to let me sleep and brought her back for me to nurse after my nap.  I was admiring her while I watched her nurse when Eugene came in.

“How are you?” He asked and without waiting for my reply he continued, “When you didn’t come back, I left Ronnie with our neighbor and went to the police station.  They told me what had happened.

He came closer and looked at the baby and smiled, “I remember when Ronnie was born.  It was the happiest day of my life.  She’s beautiful, but with a mother like you, she would be.”

I looked at him in surprise and he smiled again, “One of the things that contribute to your beauty is that you don’t even know you are beautiful.”

“Eugene, Adam tried to get me to get into his car.  If Detective Phillips hadn’t come out when he did, I would have been a prisoner again.  I would have had the baby in the mansion and that awful dirty Spanish woman would have delivered her.  They would have probably killed me after I gave birth,” I shuttered.

“Don’t worry,” He said, “They went out there to arrest them but they had all cleared out.  You don’t have to worry about them anymore.  Detective Phillips said they have warrants out for all of their arrests.”

I kissed the baby on the cheek and then put her on my shoulder and patted her back trying to burp her.

“Let me do that,” Eugene surprised me by saying.  “I’m very good at it and I love tiny people.”

I handed her over and he started pacing the room while he patted her back.

“I think I’ll name her
Jeannie
.  What do you think?”

He laughed, “Sounds kind of like my name.”

“That’s the whole idea.  You’ve been such a good friend to me.  I don’t know how to thank you.”

Jeannie
burped loudly just at that exact moment and we both laughed.  “She agrees,” I said.

CHAPTER 3
2

The doctor announced both mommy and baby in good health and I was free to leave the hospital.  Eugene came to pick me up.

“I hope the baby can sleep with you for awhile.  How do you feel about me going out to the mansion and getting a baby crib from the attic?  I saw it there once when Miss Gracie sent me up there for some old albums.”

“Why don’t we, all three of us, move back out there now that everyone else has gone.  There’s a lot more room.”

He drove a few blocks before answering and I thought he had forgotten the question
.  He finally pulled over and turned to me, “Are you sure, Kathy?  I mean, you’ve had some really bad memories there.”

I was sure and I told
him
so, “I’ve also had some good memories there.  I spent some wonderful times with my grandmother and with you and Ronnie. 
We may as well use it.  I’ll need you to help me re-staff it, of course.

“You can finish your book there and you can keep the royalties for yourself.  I sure don’t need them.  Ronnie knows where the treasures are and I plan to donate them to the museum.

“I thought I would use the quarters that were my grandmother’s and I want to get a carpenter in to help me build an art studio in part on the ballroom that hasn’t been used up with grandma’s living quarters.

“I think Adam was right about one thing.  The mansion would make a great resort.  I could hire a manager or you could manage it if you want to.  I would like to see if we can find Mrs. Hildebrandt.  She was an excellent cook.  That’s important to have.  You want the guests to have good food.”

I glanced over and he was laughing so hard he was shaking, “Boy, you’ve
been thinking a lot about this, haven’t you?
”

“Well, I’ve had plenty of time to think about it.  I was bored out of my mind laying there waiting for them to bring my baby to me.”

CHAPTER 3
3

We moved ahead with my plans.  Eugene and Ronnie moved into the mansion with me and I had an art studio built right off my suite.  I turned Nurse Rachael’s room into another closet.

Ronnie wanted to live in the gold suite because of the secret tunnel and I told them to redo it however they wanted.  Ronnie showed me where the treasures were.  I laughed.  Adam and Mrs. Dover would never have found them.

They were in a small opening halfway down the stairs leading out to sea.  You had to push a button in the wall that no one would ever notice and the door slid back and there they
were.  I was surprised there were
so many treasures.

Ronnie had to cr
awl into the space to pull most of them out.  They were packed
back in there for several feet.  Most of the jewelry was heavy with large stones like rubies, diamonds, topaz, and emeralds embedded into heavy metal.

The swords had jewel handles and the goblets were so heavy I couldn’t imagine trying to drink out of them. 
We loaded up Eugene’s car and hauled them to the museum.

I spent money on the mansion like it was going out of style.  I had always had to budget my money before and it was fun to buy new linens for the beds, new towels, etc.  Ronnie went with me
on some of these shopping sprees and we had a blast picking out colors for the different suites.

It was his idea to name
all the suites differen
t pirate names and so we had a Black B
eard suite, a long John Silver
suite etc.

I had tried to find Mrs. Hildebrandt and couldn’
t, but one day when
Eugene,
Ronnie and I were in Atlanta, we stopped for lunch at a small restaurant just outside of town on our way out.  As soon as we sat down, she ran out of the kitchen and hugged me.

I hired her on the s
pot and took her back to Tybee I
sland with us.
  I told her to hire whoever she needed to help in the kitchen and it didn’t take her any time at all to have the kitchen in perfect working order.  She thanked me over and over and she seemed so happy.

Eugene helped me find people to maintain the yard, the gardens, and the pool and spas.  He suggested we also
put in an outdoor pool saying that some people might want to get some sun instead of just swim.  It made sense and I put him in charge of that.

Hiring the staff was easy until I started trying to find a manager for the whole place.  I didn’t want to be the manager, I wanted to study fashion designing.

One night during supper I asked Eugene, “Who can we get to manage this whole place?  I don’t want to just put an ad in the paper.  I want someone I can trust.”