Miss Julia to the Rescue (5 page)

After he banged out the back door, an almost empty backpack dangling from his shoulder, I sighed. “That’s what I was afraid of. He’s going to pack up and leave without a backward look.”

“Don’t be too sure about that,” Lillian said as she cleared the table. “He’s not gone yet, an’ I ’spect you can come up with a few excuses for him to stay on. If you put yo’ mind to it like you usually do.”

“I guess I could,” I said, agreeing because I’d already thought of a few. “But it wouldn’t be right. Oh, Lillian, I’m just so torn up over this. He needs a mother and a father, and he has both just four blocks away, yet I hate to see him go.”

“I know you do. But jus’ think, a little while back you didn’t have nobody. Now you got four chil’ren, if you count Latisha, who you might as well ’cause she think she b’long here, too. An’ even better, you don’t have ’em all underfoot all day long. I say, count yo’ blessin’s ’cause you got a lot of ’em.”

So that’s what I tried to do for the rest of the morning in between going in and out of Lloyd’s room to look at all the stuff that would soon be gone and to enjoy the boy smell that permeated the room.

I thought of calling around to see if anybody wanted to go to lunch, but I didn’t have the heart for it. I thought of working on that needlepoint canvas, but I couldn’t sit still long enough.

The fact of the matter was that I dawdled all morning, becoming sadder and sadder at the realization that all my days from henceforth would be just like this one: empty of things to do and with nothing to look forward to at the end of each school day.

At just about the end of that particular school day, the telephone
rang. Thinking it would be Lloyd calling to say that he’d be on the tennis court until suppertime, I answered it.

There was a lot of static on the line, and my first thought was that Sam was calling from miles above the ocean or, with a heart-stopping chill, that someone was calling about a disaster of some kind.

So it took me a second or two to concentrate on a vaguely familiar voice. “Miss Julia?”

“Yes?” I heard more voices in the background, low and constant, like a radio that needed to be turned down.

“Sam…?” the voice said.

“I can’t understand you. You sound like you’re in a barrel. Who do you want to speak to?”

More static. “… need to speak to Sam.”

“He’s not here. He’s on his way to the Holy Land. I can have him call you when he gets back, but it’ll be awhile. Who is this, anyway?” I waited, listening to what sounded like rushing wind or maybe falling water. Then it hit me. “
Mr.
Pickens
? Is that you? Are you all right? Where are you?”

I heard “Sam” again and maybe “Coleman,” but I couldn’t be sure, although I was holding the receiver so close that it was hurting my ear. Then, as clear as a bell, I heard another voice, heavier and harsher, say, “He can’t talk no more.” And the connection was broken.

“What in the world?” I said, then hung up the phone and stood there trying to make sense of the strange call.

Hearing Lloyd come into the kitchen, I wandered out to see him, still thinking over what more and more seemed to have been a call from Mr. Pickens wanting some kind of help from Sam. Which was strange to begin with, because Mr. Pickens knew Sam was off walking where Jesus walked, at least he should’ve known because that was all we’d talked about for weeks. And, yes, Mr. Pickens himself had left on a case—who knows whose footsteps
he
was walking in— a week or so before Sam flew off, so maybe he’d gotten the dates mixed up. But it was an unusual circumstance, to say the least, for him to need help from anybody at any time and the more worrisome because of it.

“That was strange,” I said as I pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen where Lloyd stood by the counter, eating a banana while watching Lillian smear peanut butter on graham crackers.

“What was?” Lloyd asked.

“That phone call I just got. I think it was Mr. Pickens, but the connection was so bad I could only pick up a few words. He was calling for Sam, I think.”

“J.D. called?” Lloyd asked, the banana stopped halfway to his mouth. “Mama was expecting him home three days ago, but she’s not heard from him. What did he want?”

“Well, that’s the thing. I couldn’t get much out of him. There was too much interference on the line. I heard him say ‘Sam’ and maybe ‘Coleman,’ but I’m not sure about that.”

“Where he at?” Lillian asked.

“I don’t know. He didn’t say, and the odd thing about it was that somebody else—a different voice—broke in and said, “He can’t talk no more,” which was mighty poor grammar, and hung up. I feel as if I should be doing something, but I don’t know what.”

“Call him back,” Lillian said.

“I can’t. He didn’t tell me where he was.”

Lloyd’s eyes had gotten bigger as we talked, then he seemed to shake himself and put his mind to work. “Anybody else call since he did?”

“No. I just hung up a minute ago.”

“Then do the Return Call thing. You can make the last call reconnect. It might even clear the line.”

“You do it, Lloyd. I might mess it up.”

“Okay,” he said, laying aside his half-eaten banana and going to the phone book under the kitchen phone. “I better look up the directions to be sure.”

Then he turned back to me. “You reckon something’s wrong? I know Mama’s worried ’cause she hasn’t heard from him.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I said, although the more I thought of how weak and far away Mr. Pickens’s voice had sounded, the more disturbed I became. If it even had been Mr. Pickens, though who else would’ve been calling for both Sam and Coleman? “Hurry and do that Return thing before somebody else calls.”

He found the instructions in the phone book and carefully picked up the phone and punched in a few numbers. I leaned in close to try to hear who would answer.

Lloyd said, “It’s ringing,” then he jumped back and said, “Wup. Wrong number,” and hung up.

“Who was it?” I asked. “Who answered? Lloyd, are you all right?” The child’s face was as white as a sheet.

“They said … a man said—I think he said—‘Deputy something or another,’ of some kind of county sheriff’s department. Then he said, ‘Who’s calling?’ real sharp, like. It scared me, and now,” Lloyd said, his face looking even more stricken, “I broke the connection and I don’t know if we can get ’em back.”

“Think real hard and see if you can remember what he said. Think which county he mentioned. What did it sound like?”

“Sounded like Carl or Carroll or something like that. I’m real sorry, Miss Julia. I don’t know why I hung up so fast. It just surprised me so bad I didn’t know what to do.”

“It’s all right,” I said, patting his shoulder. “At least we now know that Mr. Pickens is in good hands. He’d have to be if he’s with a sheriff’s deputy.”

“I don’t know, Miss Julia,” Lloyd said, a frown of worry on his forehead. “I don’t like the sound of it. Not any of it. First off, why would J.D. be calling Mr. Sam? And why hasn’t he called back if he needs help? And why would a deputy have his phone and be answering it?” Lloyd snapped his fingers. “And it
was
J.D.’s phone—his cell phone. Let’s call it back. You do it this time, Miss Julia.”

Lloyd took his own cell phone out of his backpack, accessed his list of numbers and pressed Send. “Here,” he said, thrusting the phone at me, “it’s ringing.”

I held the phone and listened to the ringing, hoping to hear Mr. Pickens’s voice. I heard a voice, all right, but it wasn’t saying what I wanted to hear. “Voice mail,” I whispered. Then, “Mr. Pickens? This is Julia Murdoch. We’re worried about you. Please call me back as soon as you can.”

Lillian, who’d been watching and listening to all this, said, “What we do now?”

“Let me think a minute,” I said and proceeded to do so. “Lloyd, where was Mr. Pickens going when he left? And when did he leave exactly?”

“Around the first of last week, I think. Yes’m, that was it ’cause, remember? I spent every night this whole past weekend with Mama, and I’m pretty sure she said he’d be back Tuesday. And here it is Friday, and he hasn’t called or anything to let her know when he’ll be home. I think she was a little upset about it, said something about him having to remember he wasn’t exactly free as a bird any longer.”

“Well, I don’t want to upset her any more than she already is. But we need to know where that phone call came from. You think your mother knows where he was going? Who he was working for or anything?”

Mr. Pickens could’ve been almost anywhere, well, anywhere in the country. I didn’t think he was licensed as a private investigator in foreign lands, although who knew? For all I knew, his license could be limited to our own state and he’d strayed off the reservation. So to speak. Still, I couldn’t believe that he would
take off for parts unknown without letting his wife know. So, no, he was most likely somewhere in the southeast, most likely in the state, on some kind of case that he’d been hired to look into.

“I could ask her,” Lloyd said. “He always tells her where he’s going, but lots of times he ends up somewhere else. You know, he follows the case wherever it leads.”

Lillian said, “I don’t think y’all ought to worry that little woman ’fore you have to. He might already called her, too, lettin’ her know where he at an’ when he be home.”

“That’s true,” I said, nodding my head, “and let’s hope he has. Or,” I went on, “he was trying to reach Sam because he didn’t want to upset her. I mean if he’s in trouble. And with a deputy answering his phone, I can’t help but think something has happened. Maybe he’s been hurt or injured or something.”

“Well, what do we do? What can we do?” Lloyd was walking back and forth, wringing his hands.

“Two things,” I said, trying to sound decisive and in control. “I think it’s likely that he’s somewhere in the state, so, Lloyd, you run up to your computer and see if you can find the names of all the North Carolina counties. Maybe you’ll recognize the one you heard. And while you do that, I’ll try to find Coleman and see if he’s had a call. At least I think Mr. Pickens mentioned ‘Coleman,’ although he might have been saying the county he’s in, because both start with a hard
C
.”

“Don’t stay on the telephone too long,” Lillian said. “He might call back.”

“Oh, my goodness, you’re right. Lloyd, let me use your cell phone.”

Lillian said, “He might call on that one, too.”

Lloyd was on his way out of the room, but he turned back. “Use yours, Miss Julia.”

“I can’t. Which will teach me to keep the thing charged. Well, that’s out, so I guess I’ll have to take a chance and use this one. I won’t stay on it long.” Hoping that I wasn’t giving Mr. Pickens a busy signal if he called back, I went to the kitchen phone and dialed the Sheriff’s Department.

When the dispatcher answered, I said, “I need to speak to Sergeant Coleman Bates, please, on a matter of some urgency.”

Somewhat surprised that I wasn’t given a runaround, as they were prone to do on the nonemergency line, I waited only a few seconds until Coleman answered.

“Coleman, this is Julia Murdoch. Have you heard from Mr. Pickens?”

“What?” he said. “No. Should I have?”

“Well, we just hoped you had. See, Coleman, he called here, wanting to speak to Sam, but Sam’s gone, as you well know, and won’t be back for two weeks. Then Mr. Pickens mentioned you, or I think he did—the connection was so bad, I can’t be sure—but anyway, he got cut off and when we did the Return thing, we got a sheriff’s deputy but we don’t know where he was, and when I called Mr. Pickens’s cell phone, all I got was his voice mail. And now we don’t know what to do.”

“Sheriff’s deputy, huh? You think he’s in trouble?”

“That’s all I can think, but we don’t want to worry Hazel Marie with it until we know for sure, so I was hoping that he’d called you and you’d had a better connection. Lloyd’s looking up North Carolina counties to see if he recognizes the county name, which he did hear but didn’t quite catch.”

“Uh, Miss Julia,” Coleman said, “I’m not completely following you. Why don’t I drop by on my way home. I’ll be off duty in a few minutes.”

“That’s exactly what I wanted to hear, because I want to get off this line in case he tries to call back. You come right on, Coleman. We’ll be waiting.”

And I hung up fast. “There. The line’s clear now. Maybe Mr. Pickens will call back.”

“Let’s hope,” Lillian said.