Authors: Etienne
“How’s it going?” I said.
“Finest kind. Everything is under control.”
Tuesday afternoon we met with the assistant head of the school and filled out the necessary paperwork. She examined the paperwork carefully and assured us that Robbie, who was waiting in a reception area under the watchful eyes of a secretary, would be accepted.
“Do you offer a discount if we write a check for a full year’s tuition right now?” I said.
“You bet we do, Captain Martin,” she said, and she told me the amount.
I wrote a check, handed it to her, and she said, “Very good. You gave me all of the background on this young man when we spoke on the telephone yesterday, so I don’t think we need to go into it again, and I’ve given you the handouts concerning uniforms and other things you’ll need to know.”
“I wish we could give you more in the way of reports from his previous schooling.”
“What you’ve given me is more than we get from some folks.”
“Then we’ll see you when school opens.”
In the car, I said, “That was simple.”
“Money talks.”
“Such a cynic.”
“It’s twoo, it’s twoo.”
Since it was already late afternoon, we went downtown to my building. Robbie gaped in awe at the high-rise office buildings, which wasn’t surprising, considering his background and his experience with skyscrapers being limited to television. I parked in my usual spot, and we walked into the building holding Robbie’s hands. We went up to my floor, and I knocked on Janet’s door, startling her. She looked up from her paperwork, smiled, and said, “This must be Robbie.”
“Robbie,” I said, “this is Lieutenant Sanchez, one of my helpers.”
We chatted with Janet for a few minutes and made the rounds of the other offices. From there we went to the top floor, having determined that the sheriff was in. His secretary gushed over Robbie for a couple of minutes before ushering us into his office, where the sheriff stood up and came around his desk to greet us.
“This is the sheriff of Duval County,” I said to Robbie.
“The sheriff?” Robbie parroted.
“That’s right, young man,” the sheriff said.
“Do you have a gun and a badge like on television?” Robbie said.
“I sure do, but I don’t get to wear them very often. For that matter, George has a gun and a badge too.”
“Yes, Sir,” Robbie said, “they’re locked up, but he showed them to me and told me that I was never ever to touch his gun.”
“We won’t keep you,” I said. “As you know, I took the afternoon off to get Robbie enrolled in school, and everyone wanted to meet him.”
“Were you able to get him in St. Mark’s okay?”
“We got lucky. They had two openings in first grade.”
“We also want to thank you,” Mike said, “for the character reference you gave George.”
“I heard about what happened at the hearing,” the sheriff said. “Henry mentioned it when I talked to him yesterday.”
“It was an interesting morning,” I said. “It isn’t every day you see a judge being threatened with removal from the bench.”
“Henry says your Atlanta friend is one of the top-tier attorneys up there.”
“So we understand,” I said. “He’s certainly the guy you want in your corner when the chips are down.”
The sheriff was looking closely at Robbie. “He looks a bit like you, George,” he said. “Are you sure you weren’t sowing some wild oats up in those hills six years ago more or less?”
“No, Sir. If I had, I think I’d remember it.”
“No doubt.”
We settled down into a routine, and Robbie seemed to adjust to it fairly quickly. July third arrived, and we drove to the airport around noon on Friday. The Fourth fell on a Saturday, and I was able to take an extended weekend for the trip. The twins and their new boyfriends agreed to stay at the house for the weekend to take care of Thor, and Robbie was beside himself with excitement at the prospect of flying in an airplane for the first time in his life. We touched down at the general aviation airport in Marietta after an extremely smooth flight through very clear skies, and Philip was waiting for us inside the airport office.
“Charles sends his apologies,” Philip said. “He was in court earlier and the case ran a lot longer than expected. I expect he’ll arrive at the house about the same time we do.”
Mike dealt with the general aviation people regarding the care of the plane, and then Philip led us to a gleaming BMW.
“Nice wheels,” I said.
“Thanks. This car isn’t as sexy as your truck, but it serves its purpose.”
He drove us down I-75 to an exit marked West Pace’s Ferry Road, then through a number of streets before pulling up in front of a pair of wrought-iron gates. Set well back from the street was a humongous house, and when Mike spotted it, he said, “Holy crap, it’s Tara.”
“Babe,” I said, “it’s more like Twelve Oaks. Tara wouldn’t even rate as an outbuilding next to this place. It’s amazing.”
“It’s home,” Philip said as he pushed buttons on a keypad to open the gate. He pulled up in front of the house and stopped. We had just taken our bags out of the car when a Jaguar sedan pulled up and Charles emerged from the driver’s seat.
“Sorry I wasn’t able to get to the airport,” he said.
“No problem,” I said. “Philip has things well in hand.”
“This is an amazing house,” Mike said.
“Wait until you see the inside,” Philip said.
They led us through the front door into a grand foyer and up a flight of stairs. I saw hallways stretching in both directions and what appeared to be a study linking them. “Your rooms are this way,” Charles said. We followed him down the hall, and he stopped at the open door of a small bedroom.
“This will serve Robbie, I think,” Charles said, “and your room is next door.”
He took us into a large, comfortably furnished bedroom and showed us the bathroom that connected Robbie’s room with ours. “Come on down to the study at the head of the stairs when you get settled,” he said, “and we’ll take you downstairs to meet the rest of the family.”
“Come on, Robbie,” I said, “let’s check out your room.”
We went into what would be his room, and I put his bag on a small stool. “Why don’t you take Andy out and put him on your pillow so he can get used to the room?” I said.
“Okay,” he said, and he followed my suggestion.
When Andy was settled to Robbie’s satisfaction, we went to the room Mike and I were to share, and Mike and I each took a quick shower and changed into more comfortable clothing while Robbie sat on the bed waiting for us. When we felt presentable, we took Robbie by the hand and followed the hallway back to the study Charles had mentioned. He and Philip had changed into more casual clothes as well and were sitting in the study waiting.
“This is a nice room,” I said. “It looks so comfortable.”
“That it is,” Charles said. “We’ll show you around upstairs later. Right now, Gran is waiting to meet you.”
He led us back downstairs to the foyer and through a double door. “We’ll take a quick detour through this part of the house and catch up with Gran in the sunroom,” Charles said. “This is the library.”
It was a magnificent room, paneled in warm woods with bookshelves built in and a huge fireplace. There was a large portrait of a man in middle age hanging above the fireplace. Philip saw me looking at it and said, “That’s Charles’s grandfather, Judge Barnett.”
Charles then led us through a sitting room, and we emerged in what he called the sunroom, which was a large paneled room that appeared to run across the entire back of the house. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over a flower garden. An elderly lady and a much younger woman were sitting on a small sofa at one end of the room, and we walked up to where they sat. An Irish Setter was curled up on the floor beside them.
Both women stood, the older one with the aid of a cane, as we entered the room. Charles’s grandmother was unusually tall for a woman of her generation, very slim and quite elegant. The younger woman was an extremely attractive redhead whom I judged to be somewhere close to Mike and me in age.
“Thor,” Robbie said, and he ran to the dog.
“That’s not Thor, Robbie,” Charles said. “His name is Lance. He looks like Thor because he’s the same kind of dog, and he likes little boys, so feel free to pet him.”
Robbie was already on the floor doing just that.
“Gran,” Charles said, “meet George Martin and Mike Foster, and this young man is Robbie.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Barnett,” I said. “Your home is magnificent.”
I shook hands with her, and Mike did the same.
“Thank you,” she said. “It’s been my home since I came here as a bride a very long time ago.”
“George and Mike,” Charles said, “this is Lydia Brannon. I believe she’s been exchanging e-mails with you.”
“That she has,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”
We finished the formalities, and Charles said, “Robbie, this nice lady is going to come to the house tomorrow morning and stay with you while George and Mike go run in a race with Philip and me, but she wanted to come meet you this afternoon.”
“That I did,” Lydia said. “Would you like to take a walk with me through the garden?”
“Okay,” Robbie said. “Can Lance come with us?”
“Sure,” she said. “Come, Lance, let’s go for a walk.” She took Robbie by the hand and led him to a door at the far end of the room, with Lance on their heels. We watched them walk through the garden and then turned our attention to our hosts.
“Please have a seat, boys,” Mrs. Barnett said, “and tell me about that adorable child. My grandson has given me a rather abbreviated version of the story, but I’m guessing that he left out a great deal.”
Mike and I took turns telling the story, starting with our arrival at the cabin.
“How’s he doing in Jacksonville?” Charles said.
“He seems to be adjusting well,” I said, “but I think he’s a little too quiet and withdrawn. On the other hand, I have absolutely no experience with little boys, so I could be wrong.”
“By the time you fly home on Sunday,” Charles said, “Lydia will have a full report for you. She’s one of the best child psychologists around.”
“In one of her e-mails,” I said, “she gave me a couple of names in Jacksonville.”
“Did you get him enrolled in school?” Philip said.
“Yes,” I said. “He’s been accepted at St. Mark’s Episcopal Day School, so that’s one problem out of the way.”
“Well, I think both of you are to be commended,” Mrs. Barnett said. “You didn’t have to take that child in.”
“That’s true,” I said, “but there was an invisible sign hanging around his neck that said ‘keep me’, if that makes sense.”
“It makes perfect sense to me,” she said.
“That and the way he clung to you when you tried to leave him in the guest bedroom,” Mike said. “When the doctor was examining him, he wouldn’t let go of George’s hand for anything.”
“Was he ill?” Mrs. Barnett said.
“Not ill,” I said, “but when we washed all the dirt and grime off him, we noticed he had some sort of infection in his groin area.”
“That country doctor got so mad when he examined Robbie,” Mike said. “He said something along the lines of ‘Dumb hillbillies, they won’t have their boy babies circumcised because they think it’s Jewish, but they’re too stupid to teach them how to clean themselves properly.’”
“In a word,” I said, “his foreskin was too tight and so badly infected that he had to go to the hospital a couple of days later to be circumcised. It was just one more trauma on top of everything else he’d been through.”
I looked out at the garden, and saw that Lydia and Robbie were still walking around, trailed by Lance.
“Charles literally saved the day when the good judge was replaced with a bigoted one,” I said.
“You should have seen him put that country judge in his place,” Mike said. “It was quite a performance.”
“He didn’t even raise his voice,” I said. “Instead, he sort of lowered it and got very intense. After he saw how things were and what he was dealing with, he made the words ‘Your Honor’ sound like an epithet.”
“I can imagine,” she said. “His grandfather was like that. I observed him in court more than once before he was appointed to the bench.”
“Would you guys like something to drink?” Philip said.
“If you mean alcohol,” I said, “it’s a bit early for us, but iced tea would be good.”
“That’s what I had in mind,” he said. “And here comes Mrs. Goodman, right on cue.”
Philip introduced us to Mrs. Goodman, the cook, who set a tray on a small table. The tray contained a pitcher of tea, a bucket of ice, and several glasses, and she proceeded to pour tea for all of us.
“Charles,” I said, “didn’t you tell us that you and Philip have six little boys? I think it was mentioned at the restaurant when we were celebrating Robbie’s adoption.”
“That we do.”
“This house is awfully quiet for one containing that many children.”
He laughed and said, “This time of day, they’re up in what used to be the attic. We converted it into a playroom, and it’s extremely well insulated. Their nanny will bring them down later.”
“How long have you been a policeman, George?” Mrs. Barnett said.
“A little over twelve years,” I said. “I started working in the Sheriff’s Office while I was still in college, under an apprenticeship program they offered.”
“So you’re with the Sheriff’s Office, instead of the Jacksonville Police Department?”
“Since the City of Jacksonville and Duval County formed a consolidated government in the late sixties, that’s all there is. There is no Jacksonville Police Department, as such. The words ‘policeman’ and ‘deputy sheriff’ are pretty much interchangeable.”
“I think I may have heard that many years ago,” she said, “but I had forgotten the details.”
“Do you have a huge hierarchy?” Philip said.
“Not really. The sheriff is the head of the department, and there are three chiefs under him that actually run things. You met my boss, Chief Bridges, at the hearing. Each chief has a number of captains who report to him, and we captains each have three or four lieutenants under us, and so on.”
“George is the youngest captain the Sheriff’s Office has ever had,” Mike said, “and before that, he was the youngest lieutenant.”