Miss Julia Inherits a Mess (15 page)

“Why? What did I do?” LuAnne said, a look of innocent surprise spreading across her face.

“You told the pastor about Mattie's bequest to the church, that's what, and now he's already spending it.”

“I did not!” She was indignant at the idea. Then she reconsidered. “I might've
mentioned
it, but I didn't actually
tell
him.”

We had to stop then, because a straggler had just finished signing the visitors' book and was holding out a hand to be shaken. I took it, spoke through a mouth so tight with anger that I could barely get out a word of greeting, much less of consolation, and passed him on to LuAnne.

When he walked on over to the casket, I spun back to her. “There won't be many more visitors, so I'm leaving. You can handle it from now on.” And I turned to go.

“But, Julia, you can't leave. We have fifteen more minutes to go, and what am I going to do with all these flowers?”

“The funeral home will take them to the church. Or,” I said, unable to restrain myself, “you can get the pastor to help you since the two of you are so close.”

And I walked off to look for Sam and get myself home before I said something I'd regret. I was feeling hemmed in and hounded, because every time I turned around, some new problem cropped up. Now the pastor would be breathing down my neck, to say
nothing of the board of deacons, with air-conditioning on their minds, as well as Mr. Andrew F-for-whatever Cobb.

And on top of that, as Sam and I walked out of the Good Shepherd Funeral Home, we saw that very same Andrew F. Cobb drive out of the parking area in an ancient, low-riding, mud-splattered Cadillac.

“That's . . .” I started to say.

“Yes, I met him,” Sam said. “Probably needs that big car to pull his trailer. He told me—quite proudly, I thought—that it's a sixteen-foot, one-axle Airstream Sport aluminum trailer with all the comforts of home.”

“Huh,” I said, “I'd rather take my comforts of home
at
home. Remember that, Sam, if you ever decide to go RVing.”

He laughed. “His little trailer hardly qualifies as an RV. But, you know, we might think about renting a large, roomy one sometime and taking a cross-country trip. You'd enjoy that, wouldn't you?”

“Maybe so, if you'd drop me off at a four-star hotel every night.”

Sam laughed again, his good humor making me sorry for being in such a bad mood. But after dealing with LuAnne, Pastor Ledbetter, Mr. Cobb, and standing on my feet for two hours, I was in no mood to think of anything but how ill used I'd been. I took his arm and pressed it close.

_______

Poor Sam. He had to listen to my moaning and groaning—which occasionally passed over into ranting and raving—all the way home. I didn't stop as we prepared for bed or when we got into bed. In fact, my complaining kept him awake for so long that I was up, dressed, and in the kitchen before he rolled out the next morning.

You might've thought that I would be the one needing sleep, but I was still so on edge that it was all I could do to sit still, much less sleep late. So I was up long before Lillian arrived, had made
a breakfast of toast and coffee, and had gone to the library to start again on Mattie's papers. That insurance policy that I'd come across the day before had stuck in my mind so I searched it out, hoping it would prove the answer to the pressing question of
Where would the money come from?

It wasn't, however, the answer to anything. I had put the policy in the stack that was to go to Mr. Sitton as something that he should handle, but I needn't have bothered. How I'd missed the large red stamped letters across the front of it, I didn't know. But I understood what
CANCELED
meant.

I leaned my head back against the chair, breathing out in disbelief. Why would anyone hold on to a canceled insurance policy? I put it back into Mr. Sitton's stack—if Mattie had been unable to throw it away, then I couldn't, either.

Which reminded me that I'd intended to ask Mr. Sitton if that strange scribbling I'd found was important enough to keep. But when he'd given me the news of a possible Cobb relative in town, I'd not given it another thought. I'd stuck it, still in its ziplock bag, into my purse so I'd have it with me the next time I saw him.

Hearing Sam come into the kitchen, I went back to going through the unsorted papers, but I could hear him talking to Lillian. Having left the library door open, I could hear their words wafting easily from the kitchen, across the hall, and into the quiet room where I was working.

“Julia already eaten?” Sam asked.

“Yessir, she eat 'fore I get here, an' now she in there doin' something with all that stuff of Miss Mattie's.”

“I'll take her a fresh cup of coffee. Probably needs one right about now.”

Lillian lowered her voice, but I could still hear her. “Yessir, but I'd be tippy-toed about it if I was you. She on the warpath this mornin'.”

Sam laughed, and I had to smile. That was it, I decided. I was not going to have everybody on edge and tippy-toeing around because of my own ill humor. If Mattie didn't have enough funds to go around, it had nothing to do with me. I would do the best I
could with what she had, but I would not keep distressing anybody else about it.

Then I perked up again when Lillian said, “Mr. Sam? I hate botherin' you 'bout this, but the Reverend Abernathy, he might could use a little bit of help. He havin' a real hard time with Mr. Robert Mobley.”

“Mobley?” Sam asked. “I thought he died awhile back.”

“Yessir, he did, but, bad as he was when he livin', he worse now he dead.”

Sam and Lillian moved over to the kitchen table, and I could no longer make out what they were saying. But I made a mental note to sit down with Lillian and listen to what seemed to be an ongoing problem for her and for the reverend.

_______

“Julia?” Sam said as he came into the library bearing a cup of coffee. He set it on a coaster for me, then said, “Honey, you don't need to do all this right away. Take your time, and don't let it get to you.”

“I'm not. I've just decided that it took Mattie fifty years to accumulate all this, so I can't be expected to sort it out in a few days. But, Sam, I meant to ask you last night—have you given any more thought to those letters and numbers I showed you? I'd like to start throwing some of this stuff away, but here I am holding on to mere scraps of paper.”

“I don't know, honey. It could be a formula of some kind.”

“You mean, like a chemical formula? I can't imagine why Mattie would have something like that.”

“Well, you could show it to a pharmacist, or maybe to a hairdresser. Don't they mix different shades to get the right color when they dye somebody's hair?”

“I wouldn't know about that,” I said, and changed the subject. “Have you had any more thoughts about Mattie's long-lost nephew or whatever he is?”

Sam drew up a chair beside me. “Not many. He was pleasant
enough, but not particularly forthcoming. All he had to say for himself was that he'd been on the road a number of years—seeing the country, he said. We talked a little about writing nonfiction and the research it required. He said he gets a lot of ideas from following the picking season.”

“Picking what? Apples? Beans?”

“That, too. But mostly guitar.”

“Oh, my,” I said with a lift of my eyebrows. “He's a drifter, isn't he?”

“Pretty much,” Sam agreed. “Other than that, I didn't learn much more than what you'd already told me.”

That was disappointing, for if anyone could elicit information, it was Sam. He was so friendly, so open, and so interested in people that he was usually told more than he wanted to know.

After a little more speculation about Andrew Cobb, Sam left me to my sorting. So I was still going through envelopes and sorting old receipts and warranties when the doorbell rang a few minutes before ten.
That will be Etta Mae
, I thought, just as I picked up an envelope stamped on the front with the words
YOU ARE
A WINNER
!!
Wouldn't that be nice, I said to myself, but gave little credence to it. Still, with a little thump of hope, I put it aside to look at later and stood to welcome Etta Mae.

She came in with a big smile, but there was a little less bounce than usual in the blond curls on her head, so I assumed the advice she was seeking was of some import. I welcomed her and motioned to the sofa in front of the fireplace, which held a summer arrangement of magnolia leaves instead of a fire.

“How are you, Etta Mae?” I said, as Lillian waited at the door to see if we wanted refreshments. “Would you like a cold drink? Coffee?”

“No, ma'am, I'm fine. Well, not fine, but thank you anyway.” Etta Mae Wiggins was a pretty young woman, and small except in the places that seemed to count with a certain segment of the population. She also had a somewhat checkered background, bless her heart, that included divorcing two husbands and
burying a third. You'd be hard pressed to count the third one, though, since he went to his eternal reward on the same night that he was expecting his marital reward. None of that bothered me. She was my close friend.

Needless to say, however, Etta Mae's reputation around the county had suffered some slings and arrows, but no one dared say a word against her in my presence. I will admit, however, that I, too, had at one time disapproved of her, but that had been before circumstances had thrown us together time after time. I simply didn't know what I would have done without her when I chased jewel thieves down through Florida, or the time I was forced to climb the town's courthouse dome to rescue the statue of Lady Justice, or when Mr. J. D. Pickens, PI, had to be bodily removed from a hospital in the wilds of West Virginia. She had proven to be a trusted and willing—though not always an eager—companion when called upon.

She now sat on the edge of the leather sofa, her hands clasped in her lap, looking about half miserable. Her nurse's outfit, consisting of a blue pullover tunic and baggy pants over thick-soled running shoes, revealed that she was on duty and between patients. Etta Mae was a licensed practical nurse who worked for the Handy Home Helpers, a for-profit semimedical business that made home visits to the elderly, the shut-ins, and the invalid.

“Etta Mae,” I said, leaning toward her, “what's wrong, honey? You look worried about something.”

“Yes'm, I am, and I hope you can tell me what I ought to do. See, Miss Julia, I've got this patient—Irene Cassidy?” Etta Mae glanced up to see if I recognized the name—I didn't.

“Anyway, she was a Webber before she married, but he's been dead a long time. You probably know some Webbers, there's a lot of 'em out in the county. So anyway, I've been looking after Miss Irene every week for, oh, I guess a couple of years now. She's the sweetest thing in the world, and I just love her, but she told me the other day that she's leaving me something in her will.”

“Why, Etta Mae, that's wonderful. Obviously she thinks a lot of you.”

“Yes'm, I guess, but it's keeping me awake at night, worrying about it. I've tried to talk her out of it, told her that I appreciate it, but that I wish she wouldn't.”

“I don't understand,” I said. “Most people would be thrilled to be remembered in somebody's will.” I could think of any number of them just panting over Mattie's will.

“But, Miss Julia,” Etta Mae said in a plaintive way, “you know what people will say. They'll say I took advantage of a poor, old, sick woman, playing on her loneliness, and wheedling things from her, even though I'd never do that. I don't even want whatever it is because of all the talk I'd have to put up with afterward. I could lose my job if it got around that I was taking advantage of old and sick people.”

“I can see that it could be a concern, but I was always taught that when somebody wants to give you something, you should say thank you and take it. Because they wouldn't give it if they didn't want you to have it.” I watched as she took her lower lip in her teeth and considered the advice. It didn't seem to have helped, so I went on. “And I'll tell you something else, Etta Mae. A lot of people are bad to make promises that they don't keep—they may mean to, but they never get around to doing it. So you may have nothing to worry about.”

“That's true,” she said, nodding, “and that's what I thought when she first mentioned it. But this week, she had her lawyer come to her house, and she told me again after he left. I'm afraid she means it.”

“She could change her mind. You know, after she thinks about it for a while, and after she gets well from whatever is wrong with her. The world will look different then.”

Etta Mae shook her head. “She won't get well. She's a fragile diabetic and . . .”