Miss Julia Renews Her Vows (11 page)

She turned to me, a smile lighting up her face. “I just love to look at them. Did you see the Winter Queen Barbie? That may be my favorite. But I’m saving now to get the Empress of the Golden Blossom Barbie. It’s new and so beautiful, and I can get it with four easy payments, though I guess they won’t be so easy now.”

“Don’t worry about that now, Etta Mae. But I’m glad to know that you have a hobby. Collecting is fun, isn’t it?” I said, wondering what my hobby was. Collecting young women in distress, it looked like.

After packing a few items of clothing, Etta Mae locked her trailer and we went to our cars. Saying that she’d need to be at work early the next morning, she followed me in her little red car. I’d had to offer no other reasons for her to leave, maybe because she feared to sleep alone in a place that still bore the trace of strange footsteps and the reek of unknown men.

She was thrilled with the sunroom when I took her upstairs at my house and explained that it was where Deputy Bates, now Sergeant Bates, had lived before marrying Binkie. She looked around, somewhat in awe, although to my mind it was a simply furnished room with lots of windows.

“It’s just like a motel room,” she said, and I had to stop myself from remonstrating with her. A motel room, I realized, was the height of luxury to her, and therefore the comparison was a compliment to me.

Hearing Sam and Lloyd come in downstairs, I urged her to go down with me. “Sam needs to hear what’s happened. Though he’s not practicing law anymore, he hasn’t forgotten anything. He can give you some good advice.”

She was hesitant about seeing him. “What will he think about me being here? He might not like it.”

I laughed. “Sam will love having you here. Now come on and let’s go see him.”

Of course, Sam was surprised and pleased to see her. He had always had a soft spot for Etta Mae Wiggins, so much so that at one time I had feared for my own place in his heart. But I had learned that in spite of her free and easy manner and her laughing and flirty ways, Etta Mae was essentially of high moral character. Right then, though, she was subdued and overwhelmed with the troubles that she was facing.

Lloyd was delighted to see her, rattling on about Mr. Pickens and his mother, about the wedding and their honeymoon, about the field trials they’d just seen and, in general, talking a blue streak, all of which seemed to put her more at ease.

I started a pot of coffee, sliced a pound cake that Lillian had left and had us all around the table for a legal counseling session.

“I didn’t do it, Mr. Sam,” she said, after we’d recounted the afternoon’s events, including her interview by the deputies, her attempts to find Binkie, my driving her home and the state of her trailer when we got there. “I didn’t take that bracelet—I’ve never even seen it—and I certainly didn’t physically attack her.” Then, with a nervous giggle, she said, “Though I’ve felt like killing her a few times. She’s so awful.”

“Well,” Sam said with a smile, “I don’t believe I’d admit that to Lieutenant Peavey.”

“Oh!” Etta Mae said, jerking upright in her chair. “I may’ve already done it. Before you told me not to say anything, Miss Julia. But I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s, you know, just something you say when somebody’s so hard to get along with. You reckon they’ll think I really did try to kill her?”

“I doubt it,” Sam said soothingly. “But you should be careful from now on, at least until we learn more.”

“Like what, Mr. Sam?” Lloyd asked. “What else do we need to know except that she didn’t do it? I don’t see how anybody could think she did.”

Etta Mae put her hand on his and squeezed it. His was one more voice in her favor.

“Well,” Sam said, “the first thing we need to know is exactly when the alleged attack occurred. Then if you can account for your whereabouts at that time, Etta Mae, you’re off the hook.” Sam stopped and studied a minute. “Since they have you in their crosshairs, I’m assuming the attack took place between the time you say you left and the time her sitter got there. But we don’t know that. If it occurred later in the afternoon and the sitter wasn’t there for one reason or another, you’ll have to be able to prove where you were.”

“Well, I was here from a little after twelve till, I guess, about two o’clock, don’t you think, Miss Julia?” I nodded, trying to remember when the luncheon had been over. “Then,” Etta Mae went on, “I stopped at Ingles on my way home to pick up something for supper. I don’t know if I can prove it or not, but I didn’t get home till a little after three. And, oh! I called Lurline—she’s the owner of the Handy Home Helpers—to see if she wanted me to make a visit to anybody that late in the day. She didn’t, thank goodness, so I just stayed home and paid bills and watched the news and fi xed supper and I guess that’s all.”

“I expect this Lurline can confirm your phone call,” Sam said. “I don’t suppose you kept the grocery receipt, did you? It would have the date and your checkout time on it.”

She shook her head. “I always throw those things out.” She turned to me, her eyes misting up. “You don’t keep yours, do you, Miss Julia, just in case you need an alibi?”

I shook my head.

“Okay,” Sam said, as he filled in a time line on his yellow legal pad. “So you had no contact with anybody after about three-thirty?”

Etta Mae shook her head.

Sam put down his pen and sat back in his chair. “Then let’s hope that’s not when the attack happened. Now, you said they told you that the woman’s in the hospital. Do you know if she’s badly injured?”

“No, sir, they wouldn’t tell me a thing.”

Lloyd and I had been listening to the back and forth, taking it all in and hoping that the attack had taken place in the middle of the day when Etta Mae had been sitting at my table—an airtight alibi if I’d ever heard one.

Then Sam brought up something else. “One other thing, Etta Mae. What is the woman’s mental condition?”

Etta Mae frowned. “Well, she’s pretty sharp. I mean, she knows what she wants and how to get it, if that’s what you mean. She’s not suffering from any kind of dementia or anything. She just has gout in her big toe. The left one.”

“Okay, that’s important. Because if she’s claiming that the attack took place during the morning,
while
you were there, then we have a real problem. Your word against hers.”

“But she was fine when I left!” Etta Mae cried, then buried her face in her hands. “Oh, Lord, what if she swears I did it while we were alone together? How am I going to prove I didn’t? Everybody’ll believe her and not me.”

“I won’t, Etta Mae,” Lloyd said.

“Nor me, either,” I chimed in.

Sam patted her shoulder. “Let’s wait till we hear her story. Binkie will find out the relevant time and the nature of the attack. Then we’ll know where you stand and what we’re up against.”

Etta Mae looked so lost and scared that Lloyd was moved to say, “You probably need to stop thinking about it, Etta Mae. Why don’t you come up to my room and watch the football game with me?”

As she followed him out of the kitchen, Sam turned to me. “Now, Mrs. Murdoch, I want to know what you were doing running around town when you’re supposed to be sick.”

“I expect I’ll pay for it tomorrow. In fact,” I said, leaning my head on my hand and sighing pitifully, “I think I’m beginning to already. But, Sam, I couldn’t
not
go. That poor girl had no one to turn to, and she needed help. The least I could do was rise from my sickbed and go to her aid. But now,” I went on, getting unsteadily to my feet, “I think I’d better get back in it.”

Sam quickly came around the table and took my arm. “I’m worried about you,” he said with a concern that shamed me. “I wish you’d let me call the doctor.”

“I’ll be all right. Really, I will. I just need to sleep it off. Besides, I’d hate to disturb the doctor on a Sunday evening.” Hated to disturb him anytime, if you want to know the truth. The last thing I wanted to do was see Dr. Hargrove, who took every opportunity he could get to do a complete examination. Why, I’d gone in one time with a sore throat and ended up in stirrups, would you believe? With that kind of meticulous attention to a minor complaint, it wouldn’t take him long to learn that there wasn’t one thing wrong with me.

As Sam and I walked toward the stairs, his steadying arm around me, I said, “Why don’t you take Lloyd and Etta Mae out for supper? I’ll be fine by myself.”

“Nope, I’m not leaving you alone again. No telling what you’d be up to. Don’t worry about supper. I’ll fix my famous pancakes.”

I managed a weak laugh. “That’s fine then. But I don’t think I can face butter and syrup.” Actually, though, pancakes with melted butter, warm maple syrup and sausage links would’ve hit the spot, but depriving myself of pancakes was just another sacrifice I’d have to make because of my foolish behavior in the bridal parlor.

The sacrifice became even sharper a little later on when I was lying in bed listening to the three of them laughing and talking in the kitchen. I could hear Lloyd’s delighted giggles and Etta Mae’s voice teasing him and Sam’s deeper one as he flipped and served pancakes. They were having fun while I was upstairs alone, feeling sorry for myself. And I had another twenty-four hours to endure just so I could get out of being enriched.

There was only one thing for it: Dr. Fred Fowler had to go. So what could I do to get rid of him? I put my mind to the problem, trying to ignore the happy sounds from downstairs. It seemed that Dr. Fowler was here for six weeks at least, and longer if there was enough interest for a second round of enrichment sessions.

What if a rumor about some dark and devious misdeeds started floating around town?

I turned over in bed, briefly mortified at the thought. I wasn’t the kind of person to deliberately ruin someone’s reputation. Yet the man was dangerous. Just think of all the widows in the church, I reminded myself, lonely and needy widows, just as I had once been. Why, he would have a field day if he took a mind to woo one, or several, of them. Think of the damage he would do!

The more I thought about it, the more I began to realize that I had a duty to warn people of his propensities toward mature women. Maybe I wouldn’t be starting a baseless rumor. I could be helping to avert a multitude of personal tragedies. Maybe I would be preventing some other desperate woman from suffering years later because of one little misstep, as I was now doing.

“Miss Julia?” Etta Mae whispered as she tiptoed into the room.

She scared me half to death, for I hadn’t heard the creak of that stair tread because she was so light on her feet. Thank goodness I was in the bed and not up walking around the room.

She leaned over me, concern on her face. “Do you feel like eating something? I brought you some broth and toast.”

I sat up in bed, thanking her and looking skeptically at the tray she set on my lap. Clear broth, dry toast and a cold drink—just what a sick person needed.

“Thank you, Etta Mae,” I said. “I’ll try to eat a little. Are you settled in all right? There’re fresh towels in your bathroom, but if you need anything else, just let Sam know.”

“Oh, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me. I don’t want to be any trouble. But can I do anything for you? I can call Lurline and tell her I’m nursing you and can’t come in tomorrow.”

“No, don’t do that, though I thank you for the offer. Lillian will be here, and Sam’s in and out all day. You don’t need to disrupt your schedule for me.”

“Well, I’d be glad to do it. But I do have to see Binkie tomorrow. I just hope she has time for me.”

“She’ll make time, Etta Mae. And I think, if I were you, I’d sit down tonight and write down everything you did last Thursday, and the times you did them.”

“That’s what I’m going to do while my mind’s halfway clear. I’ll tell you, Miss Julia, when those deputies were leaning over me, breathing down my neck and asking one question after another, I couldn’t think straight. But Mr. Sam’s going to help me remember, hour by hour, everything I did the whole day long.”