Miss Julia Renews Her Vows (16 page)

But Lillian kept murmuring half under her breath—just loud enough for me to hear her grumbling on about “messin’ with Mr. Sam’s head” and “anybody what play like they sick likely get bad sick, they don’t watch out.”

I went on eating as if I hadn’t had a meal in days, which was a fact. After a while, I put my napkin by my plate, poured a final cup of coffee and mentally thanked the Lord for the good health I enjoyed.

Then, unable to ignore Lillian’s running commentary any longer, I said, “Lillian, what would you have me do? You want me to admit to Sam that Dr. Fowler and I had a . . . what? A
tryst
in the bridal parlor of the church? Don’t you know that would embarrass me to death? And make Sam think I couldn’t be trusted alone with a man?”

“All I know,” she said, “is Mr. Sam a decent man an’ he don’t need to be tole no stories. An’ what you gonna do if that Dr. Fowler tell him ’fore you do?”

Well, of course, that had been my concern all along, and Lillian had put her finger on it. “I was kinda hoping that Dr. Fowler wouldn’t find out who Sam is, and if he didn’t see us together, he wouldn’t. I’m trying to stay out of his sight, Lillian. But I want you to know that I’ve considered long and hard about telling Sam everything that happened. You know, just laying it all out for him and telling him the whole truth. And I may still do it, because I can’t help but think that if Sam heard
my
side of it, he wouldn’t believe a word out of that man’s mouth.”

“That’s what you oughta do,” Lillian said, “so why don’t you do it?”

“Because I’m embarrassed! And you would be, too, if it’d happened to you.” I closed my eyes as the horror of that day—the details of which not even Lillian knew—returned in full force, that day when I’d completely misconstrued Dr. Fowler’s advances and Pastor Ledbetter had walked in on us and that redheaded pseudo-Romeo had called me a
nymphomaniac.
Can you believe it?
Me,
the most respectable and upright of women. It hardly bore thinking of, much less admitting to my darling Sam and seeing the love-light dim in his eyes.

With effort, I put those images out of my mind and stood up. “Etta Mae, let’s go see if I can get in to visit Francie. I’m anxious to hear what she has to say.”

Etta Mae had her eyes downcast, studying the tabletop, and I realized that she’d been uncommonly quiet during the last several minutes. She managed a smile and said, “I guess I won’t go. I’d better get on home and start looking for work.”

“Why, you have work. Right here, looking after me.”

“No’m, if you’re not sick, you don’t need me.”

I sat back down and reached over to put my hand on her arm. “Etta Mae, I do need you. Didn’t you hear what I said? I have to keep on feeling under the weather so Sam won’t know I’m just avoiding Dr. Fowler.”

She glanced up at me. “I thought you’d decided to come clean.”

“Not quite yet,” I said, “and Lillian, you see the problem, don’t you? We need to keep Etta Mae here, and the only reason she’ll stay is if she has a job. So I have to keep on needing her, but don’t worry—I’m going to start feeling better a little bit every day.”

Lillian grunted, but because she liked Etta Mae and wanted to help her, she didn’t give me an argument.

“That’s decided, then,” I said. “Etta Mae, you’re still on the payroll, so run get ready. I need you to drive me to the hospital. I intend to tackle whatever story Francie’s telling, but all that bed rest has left me too weak to be driving.”

She hesitated, then grinned at me. On her way out of the kitchen, she said, “We’ve been through too much together to give up on you now. I’m game if you are.”

She’d barely gotten upstairs when the telephone rang. Motioning to Lillian that I’d get it, I picked up the receiver and answered.

“Mrs. Murdoch?” an authoritative voice asked. “Lieutenant Peavey here. I’m trying to locate Miss Wiggins. She was told not to leave the county, but she’s not at the trailer park. Have you heard from her?”

My heart started pounding and my eyes fluttered. I looked around the room, trying to come up with an answer. “Um, well, not recently, Lieutenant.” Which was the truth, depending on how one defined
recently.

To keep him from asking more pointed questions, I went on talking. “I do know that she lost her job, thanks to you and your unwarranted suspicions, so she may be out trying to find another one. And may I ask why you are looking for her again?”

“A few more questions have come up.”

“Then I suggest that you speak with her attorney. Binkie Enloe Bates can take care of them for you. And I’m sure she’ll bring Miss Wiggins in if she deems it advisable. Call her, Lieutenant, that’s my advice.”

Grunting in agreement, Lieutenant Peavey hung up, and I whirled around to stare at Lillian. “That lieutenant’s after Etta Mae again. What should we do, Lillian?”

“Call Miss Binkie,” she said without hesitation.

“Of course, that’s what I’ll do.” And I did so right then.

“Binkie?” I said, as soon as the receptionist put me through, which was right away as she normally did whenever I called. “Lieutenant Peavey’s looking for Etta Mae. What should we do?”

“Is she with you?” Binkie asked.

I looked around the room. “Not at the moment, exactly.”

“Will you see her anytime soon?” Binkie knew how to put me on the spot.

“Well, I might. What should I tell her, if I do?”

“Tell her to come directly to my office. I’ll call the lieutenant when she gets here and let him know she’s available. If he wants her to come in, I’ll accompany her and be right beside her during any interrogation.”

“Good, I’ll pass that along when I see her. But Binkie, you’ve got to find out what’s going on. Why do they want to question her again? What has that woman told them? Who else are they questioning? It’s not just Etta Mae they’re looking at, is it?”

“I can’t answer your questions, Miss Julia, because I haven’t been able to interview the victim. But Etta Mae does need to come in. I don’t want them thinking she’s left town and have every law enforcement officer in the state looking for her. That wouldn’t do her any good.”

As soon as I hung up, I went to the foot of the stairs and yelled for Etta Mae to hurry and come down.

“You have to get to Binkie’s office right away, Etta Mae,” I said as soon as she appeared. “The deputies are looking for you, and it sounds as if they’ve already been to your trailer.”

“Oh, Lord,” she wailed. “They’re going to arrest me, I know they are! What am I going to do!”

“Now, hold on, Etta Mae. Binkie’s going with you to talk to them, and she’ll tell you what to say. Or not say, however it turns out. Come on now, or they’ll put one of those bulletins out on you.”

“Oh, my goodness,” she said, trembling from head to foot. “I didn’t hurt that woman, Miss Julia. I didn’t do anything to her. How can she say I hit her and choked her and stole her bangle bracelet?”

“I don’t know, but I intend to find out. Let’s go. I’ll drop you at Binkie’s office on my way to the hospital.”

“But you’re too weak to drive.”

“I’m getting stronger by the minute and, believe me, I am going to get some answers before this day is over.”

Before we got out the door, I’d had another thought. “Lillian, turn off the stove and come with us. Depending on what happens, I may need some help.”

I didn’t have to ask twice, for Lillian was always ready to be a part of whatever was going on, although she could never refrain from constantly warning about the dire consequences of whatever it was. And right away, even before she’d got in the backseat of the car, she started cautioning me against driving too fast, telling me that she could drive and to pull over if I began to feel dizzy.

I just nodded and proceeded on, pulling up in front of Binkie’s office. “Now, Etta Mae, you just put yourself in Binkie’s hands. She’ll take care of you, and you go on back to the house when you’re through. We’ll meet you there and maybe I’ll have something to report on the alleged victim. Lillian, give Etta Mae your house keys, please.”

“I probably won’t need ’em,” Etta Mae said, holding her hands between her knees. “I’ll probably be in jail.”

“You better not be,” I said, putting my hand on her trembling shoulder. “They have no reason to incarcerate you, and I want you to go in there with a positive attitude. Answer their questions the way Binkie tells you to, and hold your head up high. You mustn’t act guilty, Etta Mae, because you’re not.”

“
I
know I’m not, but they don’t.” A shudder ran across her shoulders. “Nothing ever works out for me, and this probably won’t, either.”

Lillian unsnapped her seat belt and scooted up to the edge of the backseat. She put both arms around Etta Mae and said, “They put you in jail, an’ me an’ Miss Julia come down there an’ get you out. We don’t care how much bail money it take, do we, Miss Julia?”

“You can count on it,” I said, although Lillian was being awfully free with my checkbook. “You won’t spend one night in jail, I promise you. Now you go on in and just remember, you have Binkie and Lillian and me, plus Sam and Lloyd, on your side.”

We sat, with the car idling, for a few minutes, watching as Etta Mae went into Binkie’s office. “Lord, Lillian,” I said, “that poor girl is just whipped. She’s expecting the worst, and that’s often what we get when we do. I wish I could give her some self-confidence. That would do more to put Lieutenant Peavey off his game than anything else.”

“No’m, what put him off would be findin’ out who conked that lady on the head, an’ look to me like whoever got that bangling bracelet be the one what done it.”

“You’re absolutely right. Let’s go see what we can get out of Francie Pitts.”

We almost didn’t get in to see her. I’d stopped by the hospital gift shop and purchased a small, barely blooming plant, then, with Lillian in tow, went to the reception desk. We were told that there was no patient by the name of Mrs. Pitts, which at first set me back on my heels.

“Oh, I mean Mrs. Delacorte,” I said, correcting myself. “I forgot that she’d remarried.”

“We do have a Mrs. Fran Delacorte in Room 302,” the gray-haired pink lady said, “but she can’t have visitors.”

I’d expected that, so I smiled and said, “I know she can’t. We’ll just leave this plant with the nurses.”

The pink lady turned her attention to another visitor, who was drumming his fingers on the counter, so I grabbed Lillian’s arm and said, “Come on, Lillian, before she tells us to leave it here.”

When we stepped off the elevator on the third floor, I looked down the hall and saw not one soul, not even at the nurses’ desk. What good fortune for us that so many patients were needing care and attention.

“Hurry, Lillian,” I said. “Help me look for Room 302.”

“That lady downstairs say no visitors,” Lillian said.

“That lady downstairs,” I replied, striding down the hall, “is a volunteer and has no authority whatsoever.”

Room 302 turned out to be only a couple of doors from the elevator, so our luck was holding. Ignoring the NO VISITORS sign, I tapped on the door and opened it, sailing past the straight chair in the hall, where magazines had been left on the seat.

“Francie?” I called softly, tiptoeing toward the bed, where a lumpy body lay with one foot uncovered and elevated on a pillow. Another pillow was rolled up under her neck to keep her bandaged head upright. An ebony walking cane, elaborately decorated with gilt swirls, was hooked over the drawer pull of the bedside table, indicating to me that she wasn’t completely bedridden. “Francie,” I whispered, “it’s Julia Springer, now Murdoch. Remember?”

She turned to look at me, and I declare, I wouldn’t have recognized her if I hadn’t known it was her. The orange hair that had been her distinguishing mark had turned rusty with gray, and tufts of it stood out around the large bandage on the back of her head. Her eyes looked swollen and, in fact, her whole face could’ve used some help. She had certainly let herself go, but then, not wanting to be unfair, I reminded myself that she had endured a terrifying assault and couldn’t be expected to make appointments at the beauty parlor.

“Of course I remember you,” she said, glaring at me. “My mind’s still working, no thanks to that doctor who flies in and out before I know it, and the nurses are just as bad. You wouldn’t believe what I have to put up with.”

“Aren’t they treating you well? I’ve always thought the nurses here were quite professional.”

She groaned and shifted in the bed. “I’m not talking about just the nurses. I had to demand,
demand,
mind you, police protection in case that crazy woman tries to get at me again. So now I have someone right outside my door to watch out for me. It’s a comfort when nothing else is.”

I didn’t mention that her police protection had apparently taken a coffee break. Or perhaps a bathroom break. But while she was talking, I took the opportunity to peer closely at her neck. There was not one bruise or any discoloration that I could see from the alleged attempted strangulation.