Miss Julia To The Rescue Part 14

"Who from?"

"Agnes Whitman. You know, the woman I told you about? She said that now that she's moved back to the area she wants to renew old acquaintances. Of course I hardly know her-just know of her and even at that, mostly about her escapades. She was just a child when daddy was doing business with her father. But they were all financial deals, so she was too young to be involved. I saw just enough of her to know she was spoiled rotten, but that's another story. Anyway, she tracked me down some way and invited me to a garden party she's giving."

"That sounds nice."

"I'm glad you think so because she wants me to give her a list of my friends so she can invite them, too."

"Well, how strange. Doesn't she have friends of her own?"

"She's been too busy to meet anybody," Mildred said. "At least that's what she told me. She said she's been heavily involved in getting her house built and the gardens designed and installed. Now, apparently, she's ready to show them off. I'm putting you on the list, Julia."

"Oh, well, I don't know..."

"If I have to go, you do, too," Mildred said. "Besides, I've heard that her house is palatial and the grounds out of this world. It'll be something to do, and a garden party will be different from the usual."

"You know what that'll mean, don't you? Even if we don't care for her, we'll have to invite her to something we're having."

"Oh, tell me about it," Mildred said in her world-weary way. "But that's the chance you take. Come on, help me with a list. Who else can we rope in?"

So I did, but carefully did not commit myself to attending a garden party given by a complete unknown. We decided on about a dozen women who were always invited to our social events, LuAnne Conover being one and Marlene Hargrove and Pastor Poppy Peterson being two others.

"What about Helen?" I asked.

"Helen Stroud? I think, yes, let's do. She's been out of circulation long enough. But, Julia, if she really does marry Thurlow Jones, what's that going to do to her standing?"

"Improve it, I'd think. Financially speaking, at least. And from what I've heard, she's well on her way to improving him."

"Okay, I'll put her down," Mildred said. "I've missed seeing her anyway. But too bad Emma Sue won't be here. She'd love it."

"She'll be back in a little over a week. When is the Whitman woman having this thing anyway?"

"Day after tomorrow."

"My word, Mildred. What's she doing waiting until the last minute to invite people? I don't want to go to something that's just been thrown together."

"Oh, I don't think it's that," Mildred said. "She apologized, but said she's having some more landscaping and building done soon and wanted us to come before the grounds are torn up. She's decided to build a guesthouse that will be a replica of the main house-smaller, of course, which may or may not turn out to be tacky. I told you about it when I told you that Adam Waites will build it. Anyway, it doesn't surprise me that she's suddenly decided to give a party and invite people she doesn't know. She's a little different-the normal rules don't apply. So it should be interesting if nothing else. You'll go, won't you?"

"I don't know, Mildred. I'm not fond of garden parties. When you walk on gra.s.s, your heels sink down in the dirt. The last garden party I went to was after several days of rain. My heel got stuck and I walked right out of my shoe. Yet you can't get all dressed up and then wear flats, either."

"I know what you mean, but I want you to go. Besides, you need something to keep you occupied while Sam's gone."

I'd been fairly well occupied already, but Mildred knew nothing of that and I didn't tell her. I distracted her by letting her know that Adam Waites and Tucker Caldwell were working on my house and thanked her again for her recommendations.

"Even more reason for you to go to the party," Mildred said. "I understand that Adam did most of the finis.h.i.+ng work out there, so you'll see what he's capable of. And I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Tucker is her architect. He's well-known throughout the state and beyond. You can't miss this chance, Julia."

Then something Mildred had said earlier came back to me. "Wait a minute, Mildred. You said the Whitman woman is having this party in such a hurry because her yard will soon be torn up and Adam will be doing the work. Something's out of kilter here because he's working for me and will be for several more weeks. I have him committed to finis.h.i.+ng the upstairs, and Tucker Caldwell has him lined up for the new downstairs library."

Mildred laughed. "Looks like he'll be whipsawed between the two of you then. But possession is nine-tenths of the law, and you've got him. Just keep him busy and don't give him any free days-she'll s.n.a.t.c.h him up and no telling when you'll get him back."

"Oh, my," I murmured. I'd already realized that all the remodeling I was planning would not be completed by the time Sam returned home. But the thought of everything coming to a complete standstill while Adam worked for Agnes Whitman was most disconcerting. Why, the house could be in a state of disarray the whole summer long. Maybe I should go to the garden party and at least meet the compet.i.tor for Adam's services. And maybe drop a hint or two that she should rearrange her work schedule to coincide with the completion of my projects.

"All right," I said, "I'll go. What time should we be there and how do I get to her house?"

"Four o'clock and I can pick you up."

"No. Thanks anyway. I may need to leave before you. So much is going on here, you know." I didn't go into exactly what was going on at my house, but for all I knew a certain sheriff would be in town by then. And if that were the case, I might not be available for any kind of party-garden or otherwise.

Mildred gave me directions to the gated community out in Fairfields, which was some ten miles or so from Abbotsville. "Just go past the gatehouse and stay on the main road until you see another set of gates on the right." Mildred t.i.ttered. "You might say the house is gated within the gates. But you can't miss it, Julia. They say it's enormous-the largest and most outstanding house in the county, bar none."

After hanging up, I stood there wis.h.i.+ng I hadn't agreed to go. In the past few days, I'd about met my quota of people who were a little different and had little stomach for meeting any more of the same. And I couldn't help but wonder: if Agnes Whitman's house was so magnificent, why was she having an outdoor party?

Chapter 27.

The day of the Whitman woman's party arrived with a cloudless sky, high temperatures and heavy humidity. By early afternoon the thermometer registered well into the nineties, and all I wanted to do was stay in my air-conditioned home and drink iced tea with lemon.

And that sense of impending doom I've spoken of? It was heavier than ever. There'd been no word from Sheriff McAfee, and even Coleman was at a loss as to what the sheriff's intentions were.

"I'm thinking," Coleman had said to Mr. Pickens, "that maybe I'll call him. At least let him know you're here and available if needed."

The three of us-Coleman, Hazel Marie and I-had gathered around Mr. Pickens's bed the day before to discuss the problem. Even though Mr. Pickens had a pale and peaked cast to his face, his looks were considerably improved by a shave that had been administered by James-a procedure undergone only by a man of courage. Mr. Pickens was propped up in bed with several pillows behind his back while he sat gingerly on one of Hazel Marie's best eiderdown pillows-a position that indicated to me that he was well along in the healing process. At least he could look us directly in the face now instead of out from under his arm while he lay on his stomach. And I'm happy to report that his mind had cleared considerably. After being told a half-dozen times how he'd gotten home, he'd begun to exhibit some well-deserved appreciation toward his liberators. He'd sent both Etta Mae and me huge bouquets of roses with thank-you notes scribbled in his own handwriting. Mine read: Can't begin to thank you for the risks you took on my behalf. You can work in my kitchen anytime you want. Which just goes to show that he was pretty much back to normal.

"Hold off awhile, if you can," Mr. Pickens said, responding to Coleman. "You've not had an official request for information, have you? No BOLOs or APBs?"

"Nope," Coleman said, shaking his head as I worked out Be On the Lookout and All Points Bulletin. "Nothing about you at all. In fact, the only contact I've had with the Mill Run sheriff was when I was trying to get information out of him about you."

Mr. Pickens squirmed a little to ease one of his four sore places. "I'd like to wait before stirring the pot until I get copies of my licenses, credit cards, and so forth. I sent some faxes to Raleigh this morning-with the help of my wife." He smiled at Hazel Marie as she leaned across the bed to take his hand. "Right now I'm still as stripped of identification as I was when they found me."

"We know who you are," I said, "but our word, apparently, means nothing to Sheriff McAfee. Etta Mae and I both told him your ident.i.ty, but he kept saying he had to wait for official confirmation. But how would he get that when he wouldn't let anybody see you?"

"Fingerprints," Mr. Pickens said. "He probably ran them through the federal identification system, then contacted Raleigh. It wouldn't surprise me to find that he's sitting up there now with copies of everything I had in my pockets, including the two-for-one coupon from McDonald's."

Mr. Pickens turned to Coleman. "If he calls, go ahead and tell him whatever he wants to know. I've got nothing to hide. But I'd rather have my identification in hand before reaching out to him."

Coleman nodded. "Suits me."

"Well, none of it suits me," I chimed in. "I'd like to know just exactly what you were doing to get yourself in such trouble. And just who took your original identification and who shot you and, well, how you got in that situation in the first place. A situation, I remind you, that exposed several of us to a great deal of peril in order to get you extricated."

Those black eyes of his gave me a long look, then he said, "It's not a story I'm proud of, but it started out as a simple missing person's case." He grimaced, then s.h.i.+fted his position again.

"Oh, J.D.," Hazel Marie said, "if you need to rest, you can tell us about it another time."

Before I could enter a protest, Mr. Pickens said, "I'm all right, honey. It started with my client, a Mrs. Hanson, in Winston-Salem, who hired me to find her son who'd been missing a little over six months. The local cops had investigated and sent out bulletins, but she felt they'd given up on it. And they had because, come to find out, this wasn't the first time the boy had gone missing and not the first time he'd been in trouble with the law. He'd been arrested at least once on a marijuana charge and several times for vandalism and joyriding. Mrs. Hanson blamed it all on his getting mixed up with the wrong crowd." Mr. Pickens stopped and seemed to gather his thoughts. "I keep saying 'boy,' but he's twenty-two or -three, so with no evidence of foul play, the cops treated him like an adult who was free to come and go as he pleased. And also, come to find out, I was the third PI she'd hired. The others, she claimed, had just taken her money and done nothing. But I had something they hadn't had: a ransom note that the mother had just received. It demanded twenty-five thousand dollars for his safe return, and a picture of the kid dated a couple of days before it came was sent along with it.

"Well, the mother was beside herself, but she wouldn't call the cops in again. 'They won't do anything,' she said, and told me she'd pay me the twenty-five thousand if I'd bring him back to her. Well," Mr. Pickens said somewhat wryly, "that was a pretty good incentive, although I would've done it for my usual fee. See, the picture gave me an idea of how I could find him. Part of a sign on an old store was in the background, and the note itself gave me a starting point. That and the picture told me I wasn't dealing with the sharpest knife in the drawer."

"Why, J.D.?" Hazel Marie asked. "What was in the note?"

"Well, first off, it was written on the back of a gas receipt from a station in Beckley, West Virginia."

"Why, we went right through there!" I said.

"You sure did, and that's where I headed. I put out some feelers and began looking around from there."

Coleman grinned and shook his head. "Sounds like he'd been picked up by some real dummies."

"That's not the half of it. I figured from the first that this Harold Hanson hadn't been abducted. He was part of it. Who else would send a picture of a kidnap victim standing out in front of a store sign and eating a popsicle?"

"My word," I murmured.

"Well," Mr. Pickens went on, "it took me awhile, but I finally found where the picture had been taken. I'd spread out my search from Beckley, going through some of the surrounding towns. Anyway, I was tooling along a state highway outside of Mill Run and saw it. Drove right past it, then it hit me. I turned around and there it was."

Hazel Marie was holding one of his hands in both of hers, sitting on the side of the bed, entranced with the story of her husband's expertise. "Oh, J.D., you are so smart. How in the world did you recognize it?"

He smiled at her. "Well, in the picture, it looked to be a sign across the top of an open structure of some kind, but all the picture caught was cept sunday in big letters."

"Oh, my goodness," I said. "It was except sunday, wasn't it? luther's flea market open daily except sunday. Etta Mae and I saw the same thing. Mr. Pickens, it's just remarkable that you would recognize the place from that little bit in the picture."

He shrugged to show it was all in a day's work. "It was right on the side of the road, so I could hardly miss it. Then, well, I won't go into how I narrowed it down, but I spent some time in bars and roadhouses, and picked up a few leads."

"We didn't see any bars or roadhouses," I said, "and we drove around the town a lot."

Mr. Pickens gave me a quick grin. "They're there, all right. You have to have a nose for 'em. Anyway, I got a line on a sorry group that was trying to buy, lease, borrow or steal a couple of delivery trucks to move some merchandise, which, from the way they were going about it, I figured was stolen." Mr. Pickens grimaced at the recollection, looking a little abashed. "I never found out exactly what they had or where they'd gotten it-probably broke into a warehouse somewhere. But they had whatever it was stashed in this old, run-down barn back in the mountains because the truck they'd carted it in on had given out. I followed a couple of them back from a bar one night and spent a miserable few hours in the bush watching them. I was just waiting till sunrise to find my way out and report to the sheriff, but they found me first. One of 'em came out to relieve himself and came right toward me. I couldn't move because he'd know I was there, so I stayed still and he stumbled over me. I ran and he shot. Shot wild because it was still dark, but he got me. Why they didn't track me down-because I was down-I don't know. Probably scared them as much as it did me. The next thing I knew, I was in the hospital without a thing to my name. Not even my name. I lost a couple of days somewhere in there before somebody found me."

"Oh, J.D.," Hazel Marie cried-literally, because tears were welling up in her eyes. "I don't know what I would've done if they hadn't found you. Why, you could still be lying out there on the cold ground to this day!"

"Yeah," Coleman said, "but you know, they must've tracked you down, because somebody searched you. Probably scared them even more when they saw your license, so they just took off."

"That's what I figure, too," Mr. Pickens said. "But I sure don't come out of it looking too good. The doc said I probably hit my head falling after I got shot. Some hunters found me in a gully, and I guess I was lucky not to get shot again."

"Don't you worry about it, Mr. Pickens," I said, trying to put his mind at ease. "I think you did Sheriff McAfee a favor, because right before we left Mill Run the other night, Etta Mae saw a bunch of ATF men at the sheriff's office getting ready to go on a raid. So, see, you did a good deed in spite of getting shot."

"ATF, huh?" Mr. Pickens got a thoughtful look on his face. "That could mean a lot of things. So, Coleman, maybe it'd be worth going ahead and making a call to the sheriff. I'd sure like to know if they picked up the Hanson kid."

I couldn't blame him if it was that twenty-five thousand dollars that troubled his mind. The man deserved some compensation for the pain and suffering he'd endured. And the embarra.s.sment of not only getting shot, but of where he'd gotten shot. It wasn't as if he'd be able to show off his scars.

Chapter 28.

As that previous day's conversation ran through my mind, I stood before my closet trying to decide what to wear to a garden party I didn't want to attend. I wished Hazel Marie were going with me, but she wasn't ready to leave either the babies with a babysitter or Mr. Pickens with James. I knew she wouldn't when Mildred put her on the list, but she'd been pleased to get an invitation-hand delivered by a chauffeur, mind you, because the Whitman woman had waited too late to post them.

I decided on a voile frock-a flower print-because of the heat and a pair of white Naturalizer pumps because of their wide heels, which I hoped would keep me aboveground. Some of the younger women would wear sundresses, I was sure, because it was so warm, but when you reach a certain age and your skin reaches a certain level of wrinkled sag, you put aside anything that lacks adequate coverage.

Then, on a whim, I took down several hatboxes that were high on a shelf. Why not? I asked myself. It had been so long since I'd worn a hat, but what better reason to wear one than an outdoor party on the hottest day of the year? I lifted the lids of several boxes and wondered why I hadn't gotten rid of all the hats that I no longer wore. There was a time, I mused, when I would never have darkened the door of a church without obeying Paul's admonition to cover my head. He'd not said anything about covering anything else, but I'd considered both hats and gloves essential to being appropriately dressed. I couldn't recall when those two essentials had faded from use, but they had and now it was the odd woman who wore either or both to church.

But why not gloves along with a hat for the garden party? I rummaged through a drawer until I found my short kid gloves wrapped in tissue paper. They were a little stiff from being unused for so long, but with some smoothing over my hands and fingers they looked quite nice, and I hoped the Whitman woman appreciated my efforts.

As for a hat, I of course decided on a wide-brimmed one, quite suitable for such a party, even as I hoped there'd be an awning or a tent or a pergola or some form of shade. A large tree would do, if nothing else.

I declare, though, the hammering and sawing that Adam Waites was doing upstairs was enough to give me a headache and make me more willing to leave the house in spite of not wanting to go. But the cabinets and bookshelves in the sunroom were coming along and the room was beginning to look like a working office. I hoped Sam would be pleased with it, even though if we had an overnight guest we'd have to set up a cot in a corner.

No, I realized as my spirits dropped, overnight guests could use Lloyd's room because he'd soon be gone. Thinking of what it would be like when he was no longer with us put a damper on the whole day, as if a cloud had suddenly covered the sun. I sat down to let the lonely feeling pa.s.s, reminding myself of my blessings even though the long list didn't quite compensate for the loss of one item on it.

The trick was to stay busy, I reminded myself, and the following day would be full of decorating decisions. Something to look forward to, if I could. I would be meeting with an interior designer-not the one who'd helped Hazel Marie with her pink room, but a more conservative one in Asheville. Paint color for the upstairs bedroom along with fabrics for curtains, bedcovers and chairs had to be selected and ordered. Oh, and carpet for that room and the sunroom. Then I needed to decide on furnis.h.i.+ngs for the new English library that would take the place of the downstairs bedroom, where I was now sitting.

A lot to do, especially with little heart to do it. Still, I owed it to Sam to make the house as suitable and comfortable for the two of us as I could. The two of us! That thought brought tears to my eyes as I realized that I was suffering from a favorite topic of the women's magazines Hazel Marie loved: empty-nest syndrome.

And with that, I sprang from the chair, determined not to be a victim of every popular psychological or medical problem that came along. And why did it need a special name in the first place? Couldn't you simply miss someone without having a medical label stuck on it? A plain, simple word like "heartache" would come closer to describing what I felt at the thought of losing that boy. Then I reminded myself that I had lived for forty-something years in an empty nest with Wesley Lloyd Springer and didn't know I was missing anything. Well, yes I did. I just didn't know what I was missing. Now I knew, and its name was Lloyd.

The drive to Fairfields was an easy one, although it was my first trip there since it had been built up, it being somewhat off the beaten path. I'd heard about the fine estates in the area and when I turned into the gated area, I was not disappointed. Not disappointed, but somewhat rattled because of another reason that kept me from fully appreciating the large homes and s.p.a.cious lawns. I'd forgotten how carefully a large-hat-wearing woman has to maneuver herself when moving about. For instance, when I'd attempted to get into the car, the hat's wide brim had struck the door frame, unsettling the whole thing and messing up my hair. It had taken almost ten minutes of sitting in a blistering hot car to readjust both hat and hair, and because I was using the small mirror on the back of the visor, I wasn't sure how well I'd done it. Then when I'd slipped on my sungla.s.ses, the hat canted to one side and I had to do more adjusting. Added to that, I found that the hat was so wide that every time I moved my head to check for traffic, the brim grazed the headrest, knocking the hat off kilter again. So I drove the whole way hunched over the wheel to keep that blasted hat in place. I was in no mood for a party by the time I arrived.

But the Whitman estate was a sight to behold. Mildred had been right-I couldn't miss it. I turned off the main road of the community and drove through an open wrought-iron gate onto a straight, tree-lined avenue, with lawn on one side and a rail-fence-enclosed horse pasture on the other. The drive proceeded a quarter of a mile to the chateauesque mansion at the end of it, although the closer I got, the less Frenchified it looked. In fact, it was a mishmash of different colored stones and stucco with a lot of Gothic windows, one huge Palladian window over the double doors and a slender tower at the far end. A huge fountain spurting water like a geyser stood in the middle of the front court. I thought to myself that if Tucker Caldwell had designed this monstrosity, I would unemploy him forthwith.

I slowed and stopped beside a young man who waited at the paved courtyard. He wore black trousers and a long-sleeved white s.h.i.+rt b.u.t.toned all the way up to a black string tie. Almost blinded by the sun's glare, I lowered my window and asked where I should park.

"I'll park it for you, ma'am," he said, opening my door as I wondered how large a party this was to be if it required valet services.

As I stepped out of the car, bending way over so I wouldn't sc.r.a.pe off my hat, I got a closer look at the young man. My smile froze on my face as I smothered a gasp. That poor misguided boy was absolutely studded with rings and bolts and safety pins, and I don't mean just his ears. I mean all over his face from eyebrows to nose to bottom lip to his tongue. And creeping up from his s.h.i.+rt collar, tattooed swirls wound around his neck all the way up to his chin.

It's rude to stare no matter how bizarre someone looks, so I tore my eyes away from the sight that must have had his mother in tears, thanked him and proceeded to the walkway beside the house that he pointed out to me. It was a lovely walk under a wisteria-covered pergola that led to an extensive lawn at the back of the house.

From the corner of the house, I could see a gathering of women across an expanse of gra.s.s near what appeared to be a caba.n.a.like structure beside a pool. I stood for a moment to take in the back of the house, which looked much better than the front. From this aspect, the house formed a shallow U, which allowed for an open terrace bounded by a stone bal.u.s.trade. A few wide stone steps opened onto a broad walkway that bisected the lawn and led to the pool area. Miniature boxwood hedges lined the parterres on each side of the walkway, making a lovely vista. I stood for a minute, taking it all in.

Off in the distance, beyond the pool, two horses grazed in a white-fenced paddock next to a barn. To my right was a garage with four bays, all occupied by vehicles of one kind or another. Farther away, almost hidden in a copse of trees and laurels, I noticed the roof and a side of a large rustic building, the purpose of which I had no idea. Gazing at the lawn, the fields, and all the outbuildings, I was entranced with the beauty and extent of the Whitman compound.

"That way, ma'am," a young woman said, pointing toward the pool.

She had walked up behind me and it was just as well I hadn't seen her coming-I might've run for the car. If I'd kept my eyes on her fresh and comely face, I would've been all right. But who could miss the rest of her? At first, I thought she was wearing a long-sleeved tie-dyed unders.h.i.+rt beneath the short sleeves of her gray uniform, and I wondered how she could stand it in the heat.

When I realized that what I thought were long sleeves was instead a mult.i.tude of black, yellow and red tattooed designs completely covering her arms and neck, I audibly gasped. Shocked and embarra.s.sed, I murmured my thanks and hurried on my way, wondering why in the world someone would do that to herself. Didn't she know she'd have those things for the rest of her life? And wasn't she aware of what would happen when her skin began to sag, a condition I was more than familiar with? A rising sun on a young shoulder would be setting on an elderly elbow.

Maybe, I thought as I walked toward the party, the maid and valet were a couple. Maybe they'd gotten in with the wrong crowd when they were younger and hadn't known any better than to have themselves inked over. Maybe they were now settled into stable jobs and regretted their misspent youths.

Then again, maybe they'd been in the navy.