Miss Julia Rocks The Cradle Part 23

That would be fine with me-I'd heard it all before and I could catnap without missing a thing. The only reason I was there that morning was to be with Sam, anyway.

So when the pastor announced that his text was from the book of First Samuel, specifically King Saul's consultation with the witch of Endor, I wondered what had set him off. It never took much-reading or hearing of spiritualism, Ouija boards, children dressed as ghosts and goblins on Halloween, even Halloween itself. But this time it had been an article in the Asheville paper about a coven of witches dancing around a tree.

I began to nod off as he droned on about Saul's fear of the Philistine host and how the Lord's help was no longer forthcoming. Going to the witch of Endor, Saul begged her to call on the deceased prophet, Samuel, to give him military advice.

"And when," Pastor Ledbetter went on, "against her better judgment, she called forth Samuel out of the earth, Samuel said to Saul, *Why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up?'"

That woke me up. Had I disquieted Richard in the toolshed? Heaven knows I hadn't meant to.

But no, in the light of day and sitting in church, I could discount to some extent what I'd seen and heard the night before. I mean, I didn't believe in ghosts, yet here was my own pastor speaking of them as if they were actual beings. He didn't say that the shade of Samuel was imaginary or that Saul was mentally ill or that the witch of Endor used a magic trick. He was saying that the ghost of Samuel was real and reachable.

For the rest of the sermon my eyebrows stayed up as far as they would go. It was the only way I could keep my eyes open as I waited to hear what could be done once a dead person was disquieted.

Not much, as Saul learned. I comforted myself by recalling that, unlike Saul, I'd visited no witch and done no calling forth. If there'd been any disquieting of Richard's rest, it'd been done by Helen, not me.

With that rea.s.suring thought, I dozed off during the collection, only to be startled awake when the pastor announced the closing hymn. I came to enough to catch Sam and Lloyd grinning at each other.

"Tired, honey?" Sam whispered.

I nodded as we stood. "Babies cried half the night," I murmured, and hoped he believed me.

After filing out of the church as slowly as I could manage so everyone who'd heard James's grocery aisle news could see that Sam and I were together, I asked him to have Sunday dinner with us.

"I can't, sweetheart," Sam said. "Pickens is coming over to discuss moving arrangements-he's still not comfortable about taking over my house. So man to man, I'm going to convince him that it's the best plan for all of us. And," he went on, smiling, "James has been cooking all morning."

James, again!

So Lloyd and I left the church, my mood lighthearted because Sam was making plans to return to the head of my table, where he belonged.

As we waited for pa.s.sing traffic before crossing the street, what I saw parked in front of my house made me want to turn around and go back. Maybe I could tell Lloyd that I needed a private word with Pastor Ledbetter or that I'd left something in the pew or that I had to ask LuAnne about the Cirle meeting. But we were too close and I wasn't quick enough to come up with a single valid excuse to avoid what was waiting for me.

Chapter 46.

"Wonder what that patrol car's doing at our house," Lloyd said.

"Probably looking for Sam," I said, as dismissively as I could. "They may have arrested an old client of his. Latisha's waiting for you, so you run along and I'll see what he wants." By this time a vaguely familiar deputy had crawled out of his car and was waiting for us on the sidewalk. "Watch the traffic, Lloyd," I went on, "and tell Lillian I'll be there in a few minutes."

Lloyd scampered across the street, gave a friendly wave to the deputy as he went by, and disappeared into the house. I walked sedately up to the officer, keeping a serene but slightly questioning expression on my face, as if willing, but not necessarily eager, to help our local law enforcement personnel.

"Mrs. Murdoch? " he asked, seemingly hesitant to question me. In the daylight, I saw how young he was and how unsure he was in dealing with influential and law-abiding citizens.

"Yes?" I observed him coolly, noting his name tag-Deputy Will Powers-and met his eyes as if I had nothing to hide.

"I'm, uh, well, I was on duty last night and I picked up a woman, a lady, who seemed to be lost and, well, a good bit confused. She told me she was visiting you and directed me here, although I wanted to take her to be checked out at the emergency room. She looked pretty messed up. Well, not really messed up, ma'am, I mean, more like she'd had a rough time." He stopped and I waited, giving him no help at all. "Well, anyway, I got to worrying about her, thinking I might shoulda taken her to the hospital anyway. And, uh, I just wanted to make sure she's all right."

"How very thoughtful of you, Deputy Powers," I said in a distant manner. "I'll be sure to commend you to Lieutenant Peavey. Your concern is well placed. We'd noticed a real deterioration of my friend's cognitive functions since her visit last year, so we put her on a bus home this morning. Her daughter is, as we speak, making arrangements for full-time care."

"Then that's a relief," Deputy Powers said. "I sure didn't want to miss something on my first week of patrol duty. But, Mrs. Murdoch, I don't want to offend you or anything, but up close, the two of you could be sisters. Not," he hastily added, his face suddenly tinged with red, "that you look anything like she did last night, but I mean, up close. Kinda."

I permitted a condescending smile to tighten my mouth. "She was once a beautiful woman, so I'll take that as a compliment. Now, they're waiting Sunday dinner for me, so I must go in. Thank you again, Deputy, for your commitment to duty."

I offered my hand in a queenly manner and he hesitantly shook it. Then I turned and walked toward the house without glancing back, but listening as he got into his car and drove away. Gaining the living room, I closed the front door and leaned against it, drained from withstanding his dutiful follow-up on a possibly vagrant woman.

If that close call hadn't taught me the value of good grooming, nothing would.

After we'd finished lunch, which we called dinner on Sundays, I longed for a good long nap. I stayed awake, though, because I half expected Sam to show up with Mr. Pickens after they'd concluded their negotiations as to who was going to live where. It was a settled fact that Lloyd's inheritance could buy almost any house that Hazel Marie and Mr. Pickens wanted, on the grounds that the child needed a place to live. But Mr. Pickens was the last person on earth who would accept such a handout. Yet he was also about the last person on earth who could afford the kind of house Hazel Marie would want. I'd done my job of instructing her in the finer things of life almost too well. Not that she was demanding the best, not that at all. In fact, I think she'd live in a tent if Mr. Pickens was in it with her, but with a family of five, a little more than a tarpaulin was clearly called for.

Sam's solution was for them to move into his house, although the problem of financing their stay remained. Could Mr. Pickens buy it with no help from Lloyd's estate, which he wouldn't accept anyway? Would they rent it? Rent to own? Or as Sam had suggested, live rent-free and take care of it?

There was no easy answer, considering Mr. Pickens's commendable yet obstinate determination to take care of his own family, as well as his lack of funds. I didn't care how they worked it out, for I had already decided to suggest that Lloyd remain with me until Hazel Marie felt comfortable managing a house and those twin babies on her own. Which, if my luck held, would be about the time Lloyd went off to college.

As it turned out, both Sam and Mr. Pickens lingered and lingered as the afternoon wore on. So I helped feed the babies, feeling almost like an old hand at it by now. As I held a bottle and rocked one of them, unsure who it was, I almost nodded off until I began to wonder what was delaying the men.

Of course! What would be more natural than that Sam would ask Mr. Pickens's opinion about the prowler they'd had the night before? I could just picture the two of them, with James adding his two cents, reconstructing the crime. But, I rea.s.sured myself, I'd worn gloves, leaving no fingerprints, indeed leaving nothing but an overturned tin can and a million screws scattered across the garage floor.

And footprints! I realized. Footprints in the muddy ground around the garage, across the yard, and into the Masons' yard, and if Mr. Pickens was bound and determined to stay on the trail, across the street and on and on right straight to a certain toolshed.

"This baby's asleep, Hazel Marie," I said, too edgy to keep sitting there. "Shall I put her down?"

Etta Mae stopped folding baby garments and walked over. "I'll take her. I need to put her in her little Sunday outfit."

Hazel Marie put the one she was holding on her shoulder and patted its back. "Thanks, Miss Julia, for helping out. We're trying to straighten up in here before people start dropping in. Binkie called and asked to come by to see the babies, and LuAnne wants to come, and no telling who else. And I don't know what I'm going to wear. I can't get into anything."

"Give it time," Etta Mae said. "You'll lose that baby weight soon enough. You already are, it looks to me. Just put on something loose and you'll look fine."

"Well," Hazel Marie said, "I had to wear safety-pinned skirts early on, so I guess I can do it again. Oh, and Miss Julia, Helen Stroud called too. She wants to come by, and I'm so glad. I haven't seen her in ages."

"Me either," I mumbled, although it hadn't been all that long since I'd seen more of Helen than I'd wanted to.

"Oh, and something else," Hazel Marie said, "we ought to be thinking about christening these babies pretty soon, don't you think? I don't know what the right age is to do it, though I've seen Pastor Ledbetter christen toddlers and on up. I don't want to wait that long. I want my little girls christened as soon as possible. I think I'll sleep better when they are."

Etta Mae laughed. "You'll sleep better when they stop waking up every two hours. But I know what you mean. I like the idea of christening infants, although the church I grew up in didn't believe in it. You had to be old enough to know what you were doing, and we got baptized in a river instead of sprinkled on the head."

"Christening, baptizing," I said, "I'm not sure I know the difference, if there is any. Although I don't think you'd christen an adult. That'd surely be a baptism. Let's talk to Pastor Ledbetter, Hazel Marie, and see what he says."

"Yes, I thought I would." Hazel Marie gazed off at the ceiling for a while-a sure sign of some deep thinking. "You know how the pastor, after he christens a baby, always carries it up and down the aisle so everybody in the church can see it? I just worry that if he tries to carry two, he might let one slip."

"I don't think he'd do that, Hazel Marie," I said, wondering about the things she came up with to worry about. "You know he'd be careful. Or he might ask one of the G.o.dparents to carry one, or maybe both G.o.dparents could each carry a baby while he stayed out of it. And on that subject, have you decided whom you'll ask to be G.o.dparents?"

"No'm," she said, sighing and lowering her eyes, "I haven't. There're so many people I'd like to ask, I just can't decide."

"Well, let me put your mind at ease about one thing. You shouldn't ask Sam or me, and our feelings won't be hurt if you don't. You should ask somebody young, somebody who'll be around as these babies grow up and, of course, somebody who'll watch over their spiritual growth if you and Mr. Pickens aren't around to do it. So if we're on your list, you can scratch us off. Besides," I went on with a satisfied smile, "I figure Sam and I are already Lloyd's G.o.dparents, or as good as, even though we're slightly beyond the ideal age limit."

Hazel Marie's eyes suddenly filled up as if a spring had broken loose somewhere, and before I knew it, she was in full weeping mode.

"Oh, Hazel Marie, what is it? " I asked, immediately concerned that I'd said something to hurt her. Either that or she still had hormones close to the surface. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No'm," she sobbed, her hands over her face. "Not that. It's all my fault because I didn't want him dunked in that filthy river and I've never done anything about it, and he's already half grown."

Etta Mae and I looked at each other, trying to understand what she was talking about.

"Who, Hazel Marie?" I asked. "And what haven't you done?"

She took her hands down and looked up at us, her face red and blotched from crying. "Lloyd, my precious Lloyd. I've never had him baptized, or christened, and I'll probably go to h.e.l.l for it too."

"My goodness," I said, sinking down on the side of the bed, the wind suddenly taken out of my sails. "Well, Hazel Marie, I'm just as much at fault as you, and maybe more, because I just a.s.sumed . . ." I stood up, patted her shoulder, and said, "Stop crying now. We'll take care of it. n.o.body's going to h.e.l.l in this house-not if I have anything to do with it."

Chapter 47.

As Hazel Marie dried her tears and began to dress for our Sunday afternoon visitors, I left her to it and went to the living room to think over what could be done. Maybe we could have Lloyd christened at the same time the babies were, or if the rites were the same, we could baptize all three at once. Thank goodness we Presbyterians believe in baptism by anointing-or sprinkling, as some call it-which can be done on infants without fear of damage. If we'd belonged to a church that believed in total immersion-or dunking, as some less-than-pious folks called it-we'd have drowning to worry about. In that case, we'd be forced to wait until the babies were old enough to hold their breath.

Sitting there thinking it over, I felt done in by my own slackness in not seeing to Lloyd's eternal welfare before this. To have a.s.sumed that he had had the benefit of baptism in or out of the cradle was to have a.s.sumed more than I should have. Hazel Marie had been a single mother, and a kept woman at that, so it made perfect sense that she would've been less than eager to stand before a congregation and present her misbegotten infant for the sacrament of baptism.

There was only one thing to do. Well, two things. The first was to make arrangements with Pastor Ledbetter to have Lloyd baptized as soon as possible, although I knew it couldn't be right away. The pastor would require Lloyd to attend a catechism cla.s.s and then pa.s.s an oral test concerning his beliefs and understanding of the faith-all of which would take time. The second thing to do was to cover the gap between then and now, and I intended to take care of that.

With that decided, I turned to the other matters that were crowding my mind. Walking into the kitchen, I found Lillian alone at last as she finished cleaning up from dinner.

"Lillian, I want to tell you something, but you have to keep it quiet. I have at last found out what Richard was doing in Miss Petty's toolshed and it will be the talk of the town as soon as I can tell it. The problem is, I can't tell it without admitting how I discovered it, and how I discovered it doesn't make me look very good."

"Then," she said, "if I was you, I wouldn't tell it."

"Well, but I have to, at least to Sam, so he'll know that none of it had anything to do with me. Once he hears what I saw last night, he'll understand that."

"Last night!" She put the last pan in the dishwasher and looked at me in amazement. "You mean to stand there an' tell me you went out to that toolshed again? By yourself?"

"I didn't intend to, Lillian. I just ended up there to keep from getting picked up by a deputy, and you were right to be afraid of it. That place is haunted. You won't believe this, but I actually saw Richard Stroud's ghost. And I am still a bundle of nerves, because you know I don't believe in ghosts. But I saw the thing and I ran right through it as if nothing were there."

"Oh, Law," Lillian said, her eyes wide. "What you do then?"

"Well, I got picked up by a deputy after all and was glad of it. The only problem with that was he thought I was deranged and out wandering around because I was lost, and I had to pretend to be my friend who really was senile."

She squinched up her eyes at me. "What?"

"It doesn't matter," I said, waving my hand. "What does matter is this: Richard was spying on either Helen or Thurlow-I haven't figured out which one yet. Could've been both, I guess, and found out that they're seeing each other-and I mean seeing each other-and it shocked him so bad that he had a heart attack. Can you believe that?"

She shook her head. "No'm."

"Well, me either, except I saw them with my own eyes. Eye, I mean, through that knothole and through Thurlow's kitchen window. And there's no mistake-they are an item. And Sam needs to know that, but how can I tell him without admitting I was looking for Helen's car in his garage? Which means that I was the one who was his prowler. You know, the one that James called the deputies about."

Her frown got deeper as a look of concern swept over her face. "You feelin' all right, Miss Julia?"

"I'm feeling fine, Lillian, better than fine since I learned what's really going on." I turned as the front doorbell rang. "That's our company. The first of it, anyway. Lillian, if you'll put out some pound cake slices and fill the coffee urn-oh, and maybe put a pot of spiced tea on the dining room table-we'll let everybody help themselves. Then I want you to go upstairs and stretch out on the bed and rest. Or just go on home whenever Latisha will let you."

She rolled her eyes. "That might be never. She think she got to watch them babies."

By the time I got to the living room, Etta Mae had already welcomed LuAnne in and was taking her coat, If Etta Mae hadn't caught the coat, I think LuAnne would've let it fall to the floor, she was so thrilled to see the babies. And they were a sight to see: both babies were dressed in long pink dresses and little white socks with lace on them; they wore pink ribbons in their hair. Hazel Marie sat in a wing chair, holding them and smiling proudly as if she were holding an audience.

A fire was burning brightly in the fireplace, all the lamps were on, and someone had picked up the Sunday papers. The room was beautiful, but Hazel Marie and her lapful made it even more so.

LuAnne went into raptures, talking a mile a minute and exclaiming over the wonders of twin babies. Of course she wanted to hold one, so as soon as she arranged herself on the sofa, Etta Mae handed one to her. Hazel Marie watched every move, eager enough to show off her offspring but not all that happy about having them pa.s.sed around.

I sat beside LuAnne, guiding her hand behind the baby's head, hoping that my proximity would ease Hazel Marie's fears. Though she might have appreciated my help, LuAnne didn't.

"You don't have to show me, Julia," she said. "I know how to hold a baby. I had two of my own, you know."

Before I could respond, the doorbell rang again and Etta Mae answered it. She ushered in Helen Stroud, looking as neat and tidy and composed as she always did. We all greeted her, although it was all I could do to reconcile her present appearance with what I'd seen the night before. Her cla.s.sic suit and sensible heels just did not compute with that filmy red negligee. As she oohed and aahed over the baby in Hazel Marie's lap, I kept seeing her in Thurlow's arms and wondering again what she saw in him.

"Could I hold her?" Helen asked, as she sat in a chair next to Hazel Marie. "Just for a minute?"

Etta Mae handed the baby to Helen and arranged it in her lap. A glow came over Helen's face as she looked down at the baby. Like me, Helen had never had children, but unlike me, she'd never had anyone like Lloyd to fill that empty s.p.a.ce. Unless it was now filled by Thurlow, who certainly needed better raising than he'd had.

With her arms empty, Hazel Marie sat back in her chair, her eyes going from one child to the other, always watchful.

"Here, Hazel Marie," Etta Mae said, putting a cup and a dessert plate on the table beside her. "Have some tea and cake. Oops, there's the doorbell again."

And in came Binkie and Coleman, Coleman holding little Gracie. All three were smiling and talking, as Gracie squirmed to be put down. I stood to greet them, as Binkie threw her arms around Etta Mae, then hurried to Hazel Marie to do the same.

As pleased as she was to see them, Hazel Marie became even more alert, concerned, I knew, about Gracie having a cold or some other infectious disease. But Gracie wasn't interested in the babies. As soon as she saw Lloyd, she toddled straight to him, everybody else, including her parents, forgotten.

"Come on, Gracie," Lloyd said, "want to go play in Mama's room?"

And down the hall they went, Lloyd leading the way, Gracie following, and Latisha right behind her, trying to pick her up.

Binkie sat on the other side of LuAnne on the sofa, and LuAnne reluctantly gave the baby to her. Then they both began to examine the baby's little feet and hands, exclaiming over the tiny gold bracelet that Hazel Marie had put on the baby's arm.

"Which one is this, Hazel Marie?" LuAnne asked.

"That's Lily Mae and Helen has Julie."

"I don't know how you tell them apart," LuAnne said. "They look just alike."

Hazel Marie just smiled, content in a mother's knowledge of her own babies.