After setting her place, I took my seat beside her and, for encouragement, patted her hand under the table. Then my eyes met Sam’s and I knew he was thinking the same as I: This was the first step, and Hazel Marie had made it. I smiled with satisfaction.
Lillian backed into the dining room, bearing a large casserole of chicken and rice. She almost dropped it when she saw Hazel Marie at the table.
“Well, law, I was ’bout to carry you up something,” she said to her. “You sure you feel like settin’ at the table? You can’t be too careful when you been sick as you been. Ain’t that right, Mr. Pickens?”
As I cringed in fear that Lillian would let something slip, Hazel Marie answered the question calmly. “I’m feeling fine, Lillian, thank you. Since
company
has just dropped in, I thought I should make the effort.”
As Lillian returned to the kitchen, Mr. Pickens angled his head to look past the centerpiece. “I’m sorry to hear you’ve been sick,” he said. “I hope it was nothing serious.”
Lloyd chimed in. “Oh, it was serious, all right. It took days for that doctor to find out what was wrong with her, and I liked to died with all the worryin’ I did.”
“Well, she looks fine now, doesn’t she?” Mr. Pickens said, wanting, I assumed, some warmth on that side of the table. “Better than fine, in fact.”
And she did. She had changed into off-white pants and a matching silk blouse with, I think, every piece of gold jewelry she owned.
“Looks can be deceiving,” Hazel Marie said coolly, taking the plate that Sam had filled for her. “I’ve often been surprised at what little character can be found behind them.”
“Have some green beans, Lloyd,” I quickly said. “Mr. Pickens, you need more tea. Sam, ring for Lillian, will you, please?” Lord, was Hazel Marie going to pick a fight right here at the table?
Mr. Pickens smiled to himself, then said, “You know, I’ve had just the opposite experience. The more beautiful someone is, the sweeter she is underneath.”
Hazel Marie delicately sniffed, then applied herself to her dinner. Lillian came in to refill our water and tea glasses, and Mr. Pickens and Sam raved to her about the casserole. It was good, but I was too tense to properly enjoy it.
Especially when Lillian leaned over Mr. Pickens and said, “Don’t she look good for somebody in her condition?”
My roll fell onto my lap and then to the floor. Lloyd jumped up and ducked under the table. “I’ll get it, Miss Julia. We don’t want anybody stepping on it.”
“Here, Julia,” Sam said, his mouth twitching, as he passed the basket of rolls to me. “Have another one, sweetheart. Lillian, we probably need a few more.”
She took the basket and left the room, for which I was mortally grateful.
“Sam,” I said, trying desperately for a change of subject, “Have you made any progress at the courthouse?”
“No, and it’s the strangest thing. Those files have to be there somewhere, but I’ve not found a one.”
I thought Mr. Pickens would take up where Sam left off and steer the conversation into safer channels—maybe tell us what, if anything, he’d found at the courthouse. Instead, he was too busy trying to catch Hazel Marie’s eye over or between stems of late summer roses and baby’s breath. Hazel Marie kept her eyes on her plate or on Lloyd or on Sam or me. As far as she was concerned, there was an empty place where Mr. Pickens sat.
“J.D.?” Lloyd said. “You remember saying you’d like to go to Boy Scout camp with me sometime? Well, my troop’s going to Camp Daniel Boone in a few weeks, just for the weekend, and I hope you can go. I think I can get maybe three or four badges in just a couple of days, first aid’s one of them and canoeing, too. Daniel Boone’s got a lake and everything. ’Course we’ll have to sleep in a tent, but you said you like camping out.”
Mr. Pickens trained those black eyes on Hazel Marie, who totally ignored the plea I saw aimed her way. Then he said, “I’d like to go with you, Lloyd, but you know how things come up. I might still be on Sam’s job, or somebody else will be needing help. And, uh, your mother may have different plans for you.”
“Oh,” Lloyd said, plainly disappointed.
“We’ll talk about it, Lloyd,” Hazel Marie said. Then continuing to ignore Mr. Pickens, she went on. “
Some
people make promises they can’t, or won’t, keep. The only thing you can do is just go on without them and do the best you can.”
Sam cleared his throat. “I think Lillian can bring dessert in now.”
“Yes,” I said, pushing back from the table, “and to move things along, I’ll pick up in here.” Anything, I thought, as I took Sam’s plate, to get out of the frosty air.
As Mr. Pickens prepared to eat and run, which is usually considered impolite but for which I was grateful that evening, he tried to corner Hazel Marie as she left the table. She was having none of it. She brushed past him as if he hadn’t practically knocked his chair over getting to his feet.
“Early day tomorrow, Lloyd,” she said. “Say good night to your guest and come on upstairs.” And out she went.
Looking, I thought, somewhat wistfully after her, Mr. Pickens shook Sam’s hand, thanked me for dinner and went out to the kitchen to praise Lillian. I followed him, listened for a minute to the foolishness he carried on with her, then walked out onto the back stoop as he took his leave.
“Mr. Pickens,” I said, “tell me the truth. Is there any hope of discovering who disrupted Sam’s book? He’s had his heart set on that for ever so long, and he’s worked so hard on it. I hate to think that it’s all been for nothing. So tell me, are you any closer to a solution than you were when you started?”
Mr. Pickens stopped, considered for a minute, then said, “I’ll find ’em. Might take a few days, but I’ve got a plan of action, now that I understand just what’s missing. It’s a matter of finding out why the information on those papers is so important, and who it’s important to.”
Well, that had been my thought all along, but I only said, “I just wanted you to know that Sam considers that unwritten book his life’s work. His retired life’s work, that is.”
“I know it,” he said, and started toward his car. Then he turned back. “I guess she’s really mad at me.”
“Why, Mr. Pickens,” I said with a smile, pleased that he was showing some concern. “How ever did you come to that conclusion?”
He grinned a bit weakly. “I don’t know why she should be. All I’ve done was what she said she wanted.”
I just shook my head at his thickness. “I would think, at your age and with your experience, you’d know better than to believe everything you hear. Follow your heart, Mr. Pickens. It might lead you to something quite surprising.”
At his nod, which I wasn’t sure indicated agreement, he turned away, thanking me again for dinner.
“But,” I called after him, “I wouldn’t leave it too long. In fact, if I were you, I’d get cracking. Things around here are in flux, Mr. Pickens. Here one day and gone the next.”
He waved without turning around and I went back inside, wondering if I’d had my last chance.
Chapter 21
But I hadn’t, as I was about to get a few more, thanks to Sam. He came home during the following morning to ask if I would accompany Mr. Pickens as he attempted to interview the key people who would no longer speak to Sam.
“Of course I will,” I told him. “But why me?”
“Because if I go, they’ll clam up. And Pickens doesn’t know the county. He’d be spending half his time looking for those folks when you could lead him right to them. You could save us a lot of time.”
“Well, I can try, but I’m not sure I know the back roads all that well. Do any of them live in town?”
Sam shook his head. “Not a one. They’re spread out all over the place. I could draw him a map, but a couple of them came to my house for their interviews. I’m not all that sure I’d know how to find them.”
“It’s the strangest thing, Sam. They were willing enough to talk to you then, weren’t they?”
“Yep, seemed to enjoy it, too. But, not now. I wish the newspaper hadn’t gotten hold of the break-in. Now, not a one I interviewed will have anything to do with me.”
“Well, I expect between Mr. Pickens and me, we can get something out of them. Don’t worry, Sam,” I said, secretly pleased to be wanted, “people like to talk, especially about themselves. We’ll manage fine.”
Sam handed me a list of the people whose interviews had been on the missing cassettes. “There’re five of them, but these two, Ted and Bob Tillman, are brothers, well, half-brothers, I think. There’re no records on Bob, but I got the feeling that whatever Ted did, Bob was involved. They live together, so you’ll be making only four visits. I listed Rafe Feldman, too, in the Morningside Rest Home, but you can forget about him. He’s out of it. But this one,” he went on, tapping the paper with his finger, “I know lives somewhere off the Delmont Highway.”
“I know that area fairly well,” I said, glancing down the list. “This won’t be so difficult. But, Sam, how will we know what to ask? We don’t know what you got out of them to begin with.”
“I’ve talked it over with Pickens and here’s what we decided. He’ll interview them, but not about their legal problems. See, all of them were involved in arrests, arraignments, and court appearances of some kind back in the sixties, which was what my interviews were about.”
As a name I knew jumped off the paper at me, I said, “
Cassie Wooten?
” I was shocked.
“She wasn’t a Wooten then,” Sam said, smiling. “Anyway, the reason you and Pickens will be talking to them is to see if they know who might’ve stolen the cassettes. You need to stay away from anything in their past, although it will certainly be on
their
minds. I want you to approach them like you’re concerned that the thief, whoever it is, will use the information in ways they wouldn’t like.”
“You mean, blackmail?”
“I wouldn’t put it quite that way, but you can imply it. But leave that to Pickens. All you need to do is direct him to where they live. And, we also think that you showing up with him will keep them from slamming the door in his face. Everybody knows who you are, Julia, so it’ll seem more like a social visit.”
“Well, I don’t know, because everybody also knows I’m married to you. I’m not sure how much help I’ll be, but I’m willing to try.”
“Just get Pickens inside, that’s all you have to do,” Sam said. “He’ll handle the rest.”
“I’m glad he knows how to handle something,” I said, putting the list in my pocketbook. “He’s certainly not doing so well with Hazel Marie.”
When Hazel Marie decided she needed to do something useful that afternoon after lunch, she went upstairs to straighten the linen closet—one of her favorite busy things to do. She was changing the scented shelf liners and rearranging the sheets and pillowcases in neat stacks. I was happy enough to let her do it, while I sat in the living room reading the newspaper in more detail than my early morning scan.
Hearing a car door slam, I looked out the window to see Emma Sue Ledbetter and LuAnne Conover coming up the walk. I threw the paper aside and hurried up the stairs.
“Hazel Marie,” I said, puffing just a little, “LuAnne and Emma Sue are on their way in. Do you want to see them or are you still in bed?”
The stack of sheets she was holding started sliding from her arms and her face went as pale as one of them. “I think I’m going to throw up.” I caught the sheets and put them on a shelf as she leaned against the wall for support.
“You don’t have to see them,” I told her. “I’ll tell them you’ve had a relapse or something.”
“No,” she said, straightening up, “no, I’ve got to do it sometime. It might as well be now. But, Miss Julia, don’t leave me alone with them. I don’t know if I can do it by myself.”
The doorbell rang downstairs and I heard Lillian’s scuffling footsteps as she went to answer it. “Buck up, Hazel Marie. You’ll do fine. If they put you on the spot, I’ll jump in. Why don’t you wait up here till I call you. They may not even expect you to come down.”
Well, that wasn’t the case, because Hazel Marie was the first thing Emma Sue asked about as soon as I went down and welcomed them.
“How is Hazel Marie?” she asked, settling herself on the sofa. “We do hope she’s well enough for a little visit. You know, it’s been almost two weeks since anybody’s laid eyes on her and we’re all so concerned.”
“We really are,” LuAnne said. “Why, Julia, just this past Sunday at church, old lady Evans told me she’d heard that Hazel Marie has some kind of wasting disease and wasn’t long for this world.”
“Oh, for goodness sakes,” I said with a wave of my hand. “The things that get around in this town. Hazel Marie is well on the road to recovery after a long bout with whatever-it-was. She’s still a little weak and shaky because she’d let herself get run down before it hit. And you know how that stuff lingers on. But, other than still needing a lot of rest, she’s fine.” I stood up. “Let me call her. I know she’d love to see you.”
After going up to get her, I let Hazel Marie lean against me as we walked downstairs and into the living room. “Pretend to be weak,” I whispered. “Then they won’t stay long.”
She nodded, plastered a smile on her face, and wobbled to a chair. “It’s so good to see you both,” she said.
Emma Sue ran to give her a hug, but not before asking if she was still contagious.
“Oh, Hazel Marie,” Emma Sue said, “you don’t know how I’ve prayed for you. Honey, you’ve been constantly in my prayers.”
Not to be outdone, LuAnne had to give her a hug, too. “You’re looking so good. Why, I wouldn’t know you’d even been sick if Julia hadn’t told me. Although it took her long enough to say anything. I had to hear it at the post office.”
Lillian brought in a tea tray and a plate of shortbread cookies. I busied myself serving each of them, as the conversation gradually veered away from Hazel Marie’s looks and condition. Which was a good thing, because they didn’t seem to notice how the cup jiggled in Hazel Marie’s saucer as she took it from me. I looked straight at her and gave her an encouraging nod.