Miss Julia Delivers the Goods (40 page)

Practically on my hands and knees and ignoring the ache in my back, I slid from the safety of the car to the foot of the huge, old boxwoods that lined the porch. I envied Sam those beautiful boxwoods, planted there when his house was built, long before mine had been.

But even though boxwoods were important for curb appeal as well as for hiding among as I was doing in this case, I had to keep my mind on the business at hand until Lloyd could get back with Sam.

Gritting my teeth to work up the courage, I scrambled across the brick walkway that led to the center of the porch to the boxwoods on the other side. Then I had to sit down on the grass for a minute to get my breath back. What in the world was I doing, sneaking around in the dark on the trail of a house breaker?

Slowly I sat up and lifted my head above the bushes so I could scan the porch. As soundless as he was, he could’ve come back over the banister and be looking down at me. Trembling at the thought, I peered into the shadows and almost fell into the boxwoods.

A tiny light suddenly flared in the window of Sam’s study. Not the overhead light, not a lamp, but a flame. Oh, Lord,
fire!
He was in the house, lighting a fire! I turned and scurried toward the far side of the house, intent on running to the back bedroom and getting Hazel Marie and Mr. Pickens out.

Just as I turned the corner of the porch, my feet flew out from under me as something came out of the bushes, scratching my arm, hitting me on the head and putting me flat on the ground. Scrambling to untangle myself, I came as near to consigning James to eternal torment as I’d ever come. He’d left a long-tined rake leaning half-hidden on a boxwood, and I determined then and there to teach him a lesson he wouldn’t forget about putting things back where they belonged.

On the other hand, I thought as I pulled myself together, when defenseless, one weapon is as good as another. Snatching up the rake with both hands, I clutched it, tines pointed forward and held high, running now past the porch toward the back bedroom. With fire in the house and in my eyes, I no longer cared about seeing or being seen. I had to get Hazel Marie and Mr. Pickens out of the house and, if it took breaking another window, why, I had just the implement for it.

Just as I came abreast of the second side window of Sam’s study, two legs popped over the sill right beside me. Stopped in my tracks, I watched as more of the dark figure slid out of the window until it dangled by its hands from the sill.

I didn’t hesitate. I slammed the rake against head, back, legs, whatever I could hit. The figure dropped from the window to the ground and curled up in a ball, trying to fend off the blows.

“Mr. Pickens!” I shrieked, whacking at the scrambling figure as hard as a garden rake would let me. “Hazel Marie! Get up! Get out! Fire! Help! Help!”

Screaming my head off, I aimed the rake at the face and head of the figure as it regained its feet. Using the rake to push and shove it against the house to hold it there until somebody came to help me, I was almost pulled off my feet. The figure had grabbed the handle and was using it to sling me back and forth. I tried to pull my weapon away, but the criminal held on tight, screaming as loud as I was.

With a mighty effort, I whipped my end of the rake around and toppled the figure to the ground, loosening his grip on it. I pulled on the rake to cock it for another blow, but it wouldn’t come. It was stuck in something, and as the figure regained his feet, I frantically jerked and pulled, eliciting unearthly shrieks from my opponent. Then Mr. Pickens flashed by me, coming out of nowhere, and took him down. Then Sam was there, clasping his arms around me and pulling me from the fray. At the same time, headlights rounded the corner and tires squealed as squad cars and a fire engine pulled to the curb. A swarm of deputies spread out across the lawn and headed toward us.

Sam held me back, while Mr. Pickens struggled with the squirming figure on the ground. Lloyd bounced up and down, yelling, “We’re here! We’re here! Don’t worry, Miss Julia, we’re here!”

“Julia!” Sam cried. “What in the world?”

“Fire, Sam!” I gasped, holding on to him. “Fire in the house. Get Hazel Marie.”

“She’s out,” Mr. Pickens yelled, as he snatched the dark-clad figure upright, then clasped his arms tightly around him, while ducking under the rake that swung around from the figure’s head like it had a life of its own.

Sam pulled me farther back and told me to stay put. Then he ran for the porch, yelling for the firemen as they uncoiled a hose. A deputy offered his arm as I leaned over, trying to stop the trembling that rippled through me from one end to the other. I could hear the firemen dousing the flames inside, as a little whiff of smoke eddied out the open window.

“Miss Julia,” Mr. Pickens said, as he pushed the stumbling captive toward the front yard, “I have never in my life seen anybody captured with a leaf rake before. This thing is so tangled up in her hair, we might never get it out.”

“Yes, ma’am, it’s a her.”

 

 

 

“Do you mean to tell me,” I said, as we all sat around the kitchen table a couple of hours later, still up long after our bedtime, “that you weren’t even
in
the house?”

“No’m,” Hazel Marie said, looking somewhat confused from all that had happened, which she was only just hearing about. “We walked around for a good while, just talking, then J.D. walked me home. We’d just gotten here when Lloyd came running in, all out of breath and yelling about somebody breaking into Sam’s house. I didn’t know what to think.”

Lloyd grinned. “You shoulda seen Mr. Sam come out of that bed when I woke him up. And J.D., why, we couldn’t keep up with him.”

“What I don’t understand,” I said, looking from one to the other, “is why didn’t we meet you on our way over?”

Mr. Pickens leaned toward Hazel Marie and gave her an intimate smile. “We took the long way.”

She flounced her head away from him and stuck her nose up in the air. “Lot of good that did.”

“Oh, I think it worked out okay,” he said, sliding an arm across the back of her chair. She immediately sat upright so she wouldn’t touch him, and my heart sank. What was she thinking? If she was still holding him off, what in the world would it take to bring her to her senses?

I looked from one to the other, trying to determine just what they’d concluded. Mr. Pickens seemed quite pleased with himself, and if he were the only one I had to go on, I’d have rested easy, convinced that all was well between them. Hazel Marie, on the other hand, was still acting standoffish, refusing to meet his eyes or mine, and giving every indication that she was not happy with whatever had been decided. If anything.

“Pickens,” Sam said, as he offered the coffeepot, “tell us again what the deputies got out of Roberta Baine. It’s still hard to believe.”

“Well, as you know,” Mr. Pickens started, holding out his cup to Sam, “I went to the station with them. For one thing, to manage the rake that was still tangled in her hair.” He laughed. “We almost couldn’t get her in the squad car, finally had to roll down the window and let the handle stick out. Anyway,” he went on with a disbelieving head shake, “seems that what she was doing was protecting her father. That’s about all they could get out of her. Sam, she thinks you’re bent on ruining Judge Baine’s reputation and good name, and all she had in her head was destroying everything about him in your house and at the courthouse.”

We frowned at each other, wondering how she’d come up with such an idea. Anybody who knew Sam would know that he would never knowingly damage anybody. He’d just let the facts speak for themselves. But maybe that was exactly what Roberta Baine was afraid of.

Lloyd suddenly threw back his head and laughed. “No, J.D. That wasn’t all she had in her head. She still had that rake in it.”

“Yeah, well, you’re right. They finally had to call in a matron to cut it out of her hair.”

“She sounds crazy,” Hazel Marie said.

“Not too crazy, though, Mama,” Lloyd said. “One of the firemen told me that what she’d done was pile Mr. Sam’s papers on his desk and light a candle in the middle of them. And she had one of the drapes stuck under the papers so it would catch fire, too. That way, she’d have plenty of time to get away before the candle burned down. I think that shows she was pretty smart.”

“Yep,” Mr. Pickens agreed. “It does. But the big question is still motivation.”

“What’s going to become of her?” I asked.

“They have her at the hospital now, up on the psychiatric ward. I expect she’ll get a full workup later today. We may learn more by then.”

“It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever heard,” I said, still dissatisfied by what we’d learned so far. “Why would she go to such extremes as breaking into a house, destroying records wherever she went, and then trying to set Sam’s house on fire? I don’t understand it. What was she trying to keep secret?”

“We may never know, Julia,” Sam said, putting his hand on mine.

 

 

 

 

But we did come to know, for it was Cassie Wooten who came ringing my doorbell later in the morning. Since we’d been up way into the wee hours and our nerves were so frayed by the night’s activities, we’d all slept late, and on a Sunday morning, too. But missing church once in a blue moon probably wouldn’t be held against us in the circumstances. Besides, I might’ve slept through the sermon if we’d made the effort. As it was, I hadn’t even had a chance to question Hazel Marie about her future since she was still in bed, and now here I was, having to entertain a visitor.

I answered the door, surprised to see a distraught Cassie on my doorstep. “Why, Cassie, do come in.”

“I can’t,” she said, even as she walked in. “I’m sorry to bother you again, but I had to know if it’s true what I’ve heard. Has Roberta Baine been arrested?”

“Yes, she was caught trying to burn down Sam’s house last night.”

“Oh-h-h,” Cassie moaned, wringing her hands. “That’s so awful. It’s just terrible, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Why, you don’t have to do anything. She’s under the care of a psychiatrist even as we speak, and frankly, as far as I’m concerned, that’s the best place for her.”

“You don’t understand,” Cassie said, half under her breath, although there was no one else around to hear her. “I have to do something, even though William will have a fit.”

I certainly didn’t understand, but just then Sam walked out, unaware that we had a guest.

“Why, Mrs. Wooten,” he said, welcoming her with a smile. “Nice to see you again. Come in and have a seat.”

“Oh, Mr. Murdoch,” she said, burying her face in her hands and beginning to sob. “I’m so sorry for everything. So very sorry. I didn’t know she’d go this far. Somebody could’ve been hurt or even killed. It’s just awful.”

Her shoulders shook as she turned away from us, crying pitiably. Sam tried to comfort her, assuring her that no one had been hurt, that his house was intact, and that he was sure Roberta Baine was now in good hands.

I wasn’t quite so sympathetic. As Cassie accepted Sam’s proffered handkerchief, I stood back and asked, “Why are you so concerned about her, Cassie?”

She slid the handkerchief down her face, looking up at me with brimming eyes and said, “She’s my sister.”

Well, in spite of my previous rampant speculations on the subject, that statement shocked the daylights out of me and, from the looks of him, from Sam as well. We got Cassie situated on the sofa, even though she continued to protest that William would be worried. Sam drew up a chair in front of her.

“Now, Cassie,” he said in a gentler tone than I would’ve used, “tell me about your sister. It’s going to come out sooner or later anyway, and since I’ve been on the receiving end of all the damage, I think I deserve to know.”

“Are you going to write about it?” she asked in a voice that would’ve rent a more tender heart than mine.

“It depends,” Sam said. “But I won’t mislead you, if it’s public record, I probably will.”

“William won’t like it,” she said, tears pouring from her eyes. “He really won’t.”

I could stand it no longer. “What William likes and what he doesn’t amounts to about a hill of beans, Cassie. We’re talking breaking and entering, theft of public records, attempted arson, and assault and battery on me. If you know anything that will clear this up, now’s the time to tell it and let William take care of himself.”

Sam put a hand on mine to hush me, but I saw him hide a smile. “We’ll do whatever we can to help Roberta and you,” he reassured her.

So then it came out. To say that Judge Baine had liked the ladies, as Judge Anders intimated, was putting it mildly. Not only was he Roberta’s father, but Ilona Weaver’s, Rosemary Sullins’s, Teddy Tillman’s and Rafe Felder’s. Oh, and Cassie Wooten’s, too. The man had plowed fields all over the county because every one of them had different mothers. I couldn’t begin to imagine how busy he’d been.

“Roberta,” Cassie said, sniffling and gulping, “has always been so protective of him. She was furious when she learned we were included in the trust he set up. He didn’t leave us much, but enough to confirm what she didn’t want to believe. None of us knew he was our father until then, and it’s still hard to take in. He’d never had anything to do with us, and we hardly even know each other.”

“What about Sheriff Hamilton?” I asked. “How does he fit in?”

Cassie looked up, frowning. “Who?”

“You know, the judge and the sheriff and a couple hundred acres at River Bend.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” she said, looking confused.

“Never mind,” Sam reassured her. “It’s not important.”

By this time, if Sam’s handkerchief had been a Kleenex, it would’ve been in shreds, the way Cassie was pulling and kneading it. Swiping it again across her face, she went on. “So when you,” she glanced at Sam, “came along and interviewed us, well, I hated the thought of all my sins being published. But, see, all I was thinking about was myself. I didn’t realize that you might put two and two together and come up with the judge. But William did. He was just beside himself when he found out what you were doing. He, oh, I hate for you to know this, but he told Roberta about your book and how, if you looked closely enough, you’d figure out that it was the judge who kept us out of jail, even though we didn’t know it at the time. And, well, Roberta just went crazy. She was still unhappy that her father had acknowledged us, and she was determined to keep us from ruining his name. She threatened us. Told us we’d better not to tell anybody, that she’d deny it to her dying day, and she’d take us to court for defamation and slander and all sorts of things if she had to. She said her father wasn’t in his right mind when he set up the trust, and she’d do whatever it took to keep his reputation pure and unstained.” Cassie trembled as the words poured out. “I believed her, too. That’s why I couldn’t let you interview me again. None of us could. We were afraid of her.”