Miss Julia Lays Down the Law (19 page)

I screamed. Shock, like an electric charge, zipped through my system and I went stiff as a board, my hands locking onto the steering wheel.
Kidnapping! Carjacking! Robbery! Assault and battery! Murder!
Or worse.

I slammed on the brakes, screeching to a stop in the middle of the street, snatched up my pocketbook, and flailed away at whoever was behind me.

“Whoa,” Lamar Owens yelled, cringing from the onslaught. “Hold on, it’s me! It’s me!”

“Oh,
Lord,
” I moaned, sagging over the steering wheel, as limp as a rag with relief. “Lord, Lamar, you took ten years off my life, and I don’t have that many to lose. Where have you
been
?”

“Back here on the floorboard.”

“What!” I said, turning to stare at him. “You’ve been in my car all this time? While I was looking for you and worrying about you, you were on the floorboard all along?”

“Well, no’m, not all along. I hightailed it when that siren went off and all the lights come on, and I didn’t stop till I got to the highway. Uh, ma’am?” Lamar pointed at the street in front of us. “You gonna hit something.”

It helps when one brakes a car to then put the gear into park, which I quickly did. On second thought, I reengaged the gear and pulled the car out of the middle of the street and parked on the side. I was in no condition to be driving, anyway.

My nerves still twanging away, I turned back to Lamar and, patting my chest, said, “I’m still hyperventilating from you creeping up on me like that.” Then, catching my breath, I demanded, “So what else did you do? How did you get here from there?”

“Well, I started walkin’ when I got to the highway—didn’t wanta look like I was runnin’ away from something. An’ you won’t believe the luck! A deputy on patrol stopped an’ picked me up. Took me right to the McDonald’s on the MLK an’ give me some money for a hamburger an’ a milkshake. Some of them deputies is good boys.”

“Oh, Lord,” I groaned, realizing that I was calling on Him an inordinate number of times, but I was in great need of His help. “Lamar, didn’t it occur to you that the deputy might put two and two together with you so close to the house with all the alarms going off?”

“Well, I thought about it, ’cause his radio was about to send him right back where I come from, but then it changed its mind and sent him to the MLK to check on a drunk driver. When we got to McDonald’s, he about throwed me outta the car, he was in such a hurry. So he didn’t think nothin’ of it.”

I blew out my breath and tried to slow my heart rate. “So how’d you get in my car? And weren’t you concerned about me? I mean, Lamar, you just
left
me!”

“Yes’m, an’ I feel kinda bad about that. But, see, I figgered they was no use both us gettin’ caught. An’ you had a better chance of talkin’ your way out of it if I wadn’t around. I mean, some of them boys is bad about lookin’ up my record.”

“I see what you mean,” I said tiredly. What else could I say? “All right, you’ve explained that. Now explain how and when you got in my car.”

“Well, I was pretty much stuck at the McDonald’s, an’ I’d already thought about spending the night at the mission ’cause it’s gettin’ cold at night. You noticed how cold it’s gettin’ at night? Downright freezin’.”

“No. I mean yes, of course I have. But that’s beside the point. I want to know how and why you got from McDonald’s to the back floorboard of my car.”

“Oh, well, yes, ma’am. I set out to walk to the mission, which to get there you have to take the MLK, so I was goin’ along there an’ the cars was whizzing past an’ I was about to freeze, ’cause, see, I lost my scarf somewheres an’ my ears was about to fall off. So when I seen your car parked right where I had to pass by, I just said to myself, ‘Lamar, there’s a warm place just a-settin’ there.’ An’ I crawled in while you was talkin’ to Sergeant Bates. I mean, I guess that’s what you was doin’. I didn’t try to listen in or nothin’.”

“They Lord,” I mumbled, giving up, because it all made a warped kind of sense the way he told it. “Well, I’m glad you’re all right, and I’m glad neither of us is in jail.”

“Oh, it ain’t so bad. They treat you pretty good.”

I rolled my eyes without dissent, conceding the point to one more experienced than I in such matters. Starting the car and pulling carefully out into the street, I had a brief, crazed impulse to invite him to stay the night at my house. I quickly suppressed it, even though I was not looking forward to facing my empty house alone. Besides, how would it look?

“I’m going to take you to the mission, Lamar. I expect you’ve had enough walking for one night.”

“Yes, ma’am, I sure have. I’ll be glad to crawl in bed after all we done tonight.”

“That reminds me,” I said, glancing in the rearview mirror. “I hope, Lamar, that you’ll keep everything we’ve done to yourself. Nobody, and I mean
nobody,
needs to know that we were anywhere within miles of that house. If it got out, we could be in trouble the likes of which neither of us has ever seen. You understand?”

“Uh-huh. I mean, no’m, I won’t tell nobody.”

“Actually,” I went on, then stopped. I wanted to impress on him the importance of keeping our activities secret, but recognizing how unlikely that was, I decided to give him the right way to tell it. “Actually,” I said again, “we didn’t do anything wrong—we didn’t damage anything and we didn’t interfere with a crime scene. We were just seeing if it was possible to access the house the back way. Right?”

“Yes’m, that’s what we did and we could.”

I glanced again in the rearview mirror and, to test him, asked, “Could what?”

“Assess the house.”

“No, Lamar, no! Not as
sess
the house, but
acc
ess it—to get to it. We were seeing if anyone could
get to it
from the back way.”

“Yes, ma’am, an’ they could.”

“That’s right.” I blew out my breath, realizing how close I’d come to letting him tell a roomful of deputies that we’d been casing the Clayborn house with intent to break, enter, and commit mayhem. That could put us
under
the jail, because I had little doubt that he would eventually tell somebody something. I just hoped he’d be able to hold off until the true criminal had been tried and convicted, and what Lamar might say no longer mattered.

A red light stopped me, even though there were no other cars in sight. But I obey the rules, traffic or no traffic. I was so tired I could hardly see straight and was happy to wait the minute or so for a green light. Lamar sat in silence behind me, seemingly content to be in a warm place without feeling the need to talk. I heard him yawn, his jaws creaking with the effort.

Then it hit me.

“
Lamar!
Oh, my goodness, Lamar!”

“What? What?”

“
Where
did you lose that scarf?”

“Um, well, I don’t know. I guess if I did, it wouldn’t be lost.”

Well, that made sense, but it didn’t help.

“Think back,” I urged. “When was the last time you remember having it? Where were you? What were you doing?”

“Lemme think a minute. I prob’ly can come up with it in a minute. Uh, ma’am? Light’s green.”

I pulled to the side of the street again and parked. At this rate, I’d never get home.

“Let me help you remember, Lamar. You had it on when we left my house. I saw you wrap it around your head.”

“Yes’m, my ears get cold.”

“Okay, when did you . . . Oh, I remember! You unwrapped it when we parked in the fire lane. It was right before we got out of the car. Did you leave it in here?” I brushed my hand across the front seat where he’d been sitting, then felt around the floorboard.

“No’m, I ’member having it after that. It got hung up on a bush one time when we was goin’ down that hill. It mighta got outta kilter then, ’cause I ’member stumblin’ on the long end when I went down them steps.”

“Okay, what did you do with it when you stumbled? Did you wrap it back around your neck?”

“Yes’m, I kinda think I did. I wouldna left it, I know that.”

So then I asked the question whose answer I feared to hear. “When the deputy picked you up on the highway, did you still have it?”

There was a long silence from the backseat. “No’m, I guess I didn’t ’cause my ears was about to freeze off.”

Oh, me
. I leaned my head against the steering wheel, feeling another testy interview with Detective Ellis coming on.

Then I sat up, stiffening my spine and accepting my fate. “That means, Lamar, that you lost it at the house or when you went back up the hill or on the access road when you were running to the highway. And, that being the case, I can tell you exactly where it is now.”

“Where?” Lamar asked eagerly. “I sure do need it.”

“You won’t get it anytime soon. The deputies would’ve searched every inch of that place after the alarms went off. So if you lost it anywhere around there, you can bet they have it. And they’ll be looking for the owner.”

Another long silence ensued as he processed that information. Then he said, “That don’t sound too good.”

Well, no, it didn’t.

“How long had you had the scarf, Lamar?” I asked, wondering if the distinctive plaid design and filthy condition would immediately identify its owner, especially since its owner made frequent use of the sheriff’s department’s taxi service.

“I ain’t had it a whole year yet!” he said, suddenly realizing, it seemed, the value of what he’d lost. “Best thing I ever found at the mission, and now it’s gone. I don’t know what I’m gonna wrap up in, an’ it’s gettin’ on to wintertime when I’ll need it worser’n I do now.”

“We’ll find you something else. Don’t worry about it.” What was done was done, I thought with a despairing sigh, and I had to accept it. Our fate, in the form of a recycled Burberry scarf, was now in the hands of the sheriff’s forensic evidence team.

I edged the car back into the street and drove to the mission on Railroad Avenue. “Here we are,” I said, drawing up near the door. A single light burned over the door, indicating, I hoped, that beds were still available. I turned toward the backseat. “Look, Lamar, I’d never encourage anyone to tell an untruth, so if anybody asks, you must answer. But keep in mind that you don’t have to add anything extra.”

He opened the door, put one foot out of the car, and turned to me. “Yes, ma’am, but don’t you worry. Them boys don’t half believe anything I say, anyway.”

“Well then, thank you for all your help tonight. I couldn’t have done it without you.” Although by that time, I was wishing I had.

By the time I got home, I was no longer concerned about entering an empty house. I was too tired to care. If anybody was waiting to get me, they could just have me.

That thought didn’t keep me from turning on lights as I went through each room, looking behind the sofa and into the hall closet—the pantry, too—and making sure all the doors were locked. Trudging up the stairs, I firmly put out of my mind all the possible future ramifications of the night’s activities. There was nothing I could do to forestall any of them. All I wanted was a bath and a bed.

And when I’d gotten both, I lay in bed, all but asleep with only two questions running through my mind—could fingerprints be detected on Scottish wool, and how in the world was I going to get through a whole day in Roberta’s company?

Maybe Sam would be home early and save me. If he left Raleigh about sunup, he’d be home by noon or so. That would give me a good excuse to forgo Mr. Darcy, but it wouldn’t help Coleman. He’d have to put up with Roberta’s visits all afternoon.

Then I began thinking, as I turned over in bed, about the matter of fingerprints on Lamar’s scarf. I wasn’t concerned about Lamar’s prints—obviously they’d be on it. But mine would be, too. I’d picked up the dirty thing with an eye to putting it in the washing machine and had refrained only after reading the label.

It occurred to me that if I’d ignored the cleaning instructions and washed it anyway, I wouldn’t be worried about fingerprints now. Of course, Lamar might’ve ended up with a Burberry handkerchief instead of a scarf, but his loss could’ve been rectified by the purchase of a hat with earflaps.

Then with a sudden eye-opening thought, it came to me that cloth might not be the ideal conveyer of print evidence. I mean, imprints of fingertips might not adhere to cloth as they would to more solid surfaces, so the investigators would have nothing to work with. But what did I know? Still, it was something to be devoutly wished, and I fell asleep with that hopeful thought.

 • • • 

I woke that Sunday morning so stiff and sore I could barely crawl out of bed. Hunched over and shambling along, I made it to the shower stall and stood under a hot spray until things loosened up enough to return me to a semblance of normality. Then I took two aspirins.

And all along, a cloud of dread hovered over my head.
I don’t want to do it. How can I get out of it? Think of a good excuse
not to do it
. Maybe I could get sick.

I sighed, giving in to the inevitable, as I finished dressing and headed for the telephone to put my plan of giving Coleman a full day’s peace into action.

“Roberta?” I said when she answered. “It’s Julia. I hope I’m not calling too early, but I wondered if you’d like to have breakfast with me. We could go on to church together afterward.”

“Oooh, that sounds delightful,” Roberta said with an eagerness that put me to shame. “But, you know, I was going to take some banana nut bread to Coleman this morning. I’d hate for him to miss that.”

“I expect Binkie and little Gracie are taking care of his breakfast, don’t you think?”

“I guess so, but I am so torn. I’d love to have breakfast with you, Julia, but I don’t want him to go without.”

“I promise you, he won’t.”

“Well, if we do it, what about Sunday school?”

I declare, I didn’t think it would be so hard to do something nice.

“I say we bypass it. I want to have enough time for you to give me the background of
Pride and Prejudice
so I can appreciate it as it deserves.”

“Oh, Julia, that’s exactly what I was thinking. You are such a perceptive reader and I know how you love good literature. That decides it, I would love to share breakfast and that most wonderful eighteenth century with you!”

Telling her that I would pick her up and that we’d go to the country club grill, I hung up, feeling virtuous after working so hard to do a good deed for Coleman’s benefit. And, come to think of it, for Roberta’s benefit, too—she didn’t need to be displaying such a juvenile infatuation so publicly. I mean, she was a
librarian,
for goodness sakes.

Still, I dreaded being tied up all day for I had counted on being able to corner Pastor Ledbetter after church—the only time and place it looked as if I’d be able to catch him. So it wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate Roberta’s company, it was just that I wasn’t looking forward to being in it all day.

After having a quick cup of coffee, I prepared to leave the house. I didn’t fear missing a call from Sam—he’d know I’d be at church—but it would’ve been comforting to know that he was on his way home. Especially when I walked out to the car and felt the damp cold from dark, low-hanging clouds. Abbotsville might not be in the direct path of the oncoming storm, but we might well be on the sidelines of it.

 • • • 

Roberta started talking as soon as she got in the car, and she talked through her scanty breakfast of oatmeal and fruit and continued talking until we got out of the car in the church parking lot. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about comedies of manners, making good marriages, and the perils of having too many daughters in the eighteenth century.

Entering the church a minute or two late, I quickly settled into my usual pew with Roberta attached to my side. With a quick glance around, I determined that the Pickens family, including Lloyd, had not made it to church. Maybe the weather was too raw for the little girls with their bad colds, or maybe they were enjoying a leisurely breakfast. I caught sight of LuAnne sitting across the aisle—she was almost hidden beside Leonard, who would make about three of her. And Callie and some of her brood of children were near the front, but I didn’t see Emma Sue. Her usual place was in the second row of pews next to the aisle on the far side. That way she could be seen by the congregation to be in attendance, as well as being conveniently positioned to offer smiles, frowns, and nods as called for by the various points made by the pastor.

But what I was really interested in was who was going to occupy the pulpit that morning. Somebody was waiting, for I could see black-robe-clad knees jutting out from the chair behind the podium. Who those knees belonged to was the question.

Finally, after the assistant pastor, Rob Timmons, read the Scripture passages and drew attention to the notices in the bulletin and led us in two hymns and the responsive reading, those knees stood up and I was at last able to set my eyes on Pastor Ledbetter.

I squinched them up and glared at him, thinking to myself,
You won’t get away from me this time
. Not once,
not once
,
though, throughout the entire sermon did he look at my side of the sanctuary. His gaze swept the far side of the congregation and the middle of it, then back again—just as an orator should do to keep the attention of his listeners—but it was as if the side where I sat were blocked from his view.

I didn’t care. I understood it. He couldn’t meet my eyes, but I kept them fixed on him. He knew he was in for it, and I intended to set him straight before he could get away from me again.

I was so wrapped up in what I aimed to say to him that I almost missed what he was saying to us—something I often did, as my mind tended to wander during the hour of the Sunday morning service. You won’t believe what the man preached on. As soon as his words began to penetrate, I almost got up and walked out.

Taking his text from several verses in the Book of Proverbs, the pastor warned us of the dire consequences of letting our tongues run loose. “He that refraineth his lips is wise,” he began, then went on for twenty minutes or so on the perils of talking too much, talking out of school, and telling everything one knows, risking disbelief in one’s listeners because they get tired of hearing you go on and on, and risking the loss of one’s witness as well, because people avoid gossipy chatterboxes like the plague.

And finally, he summed up by citing another proverb. “Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise; and he that shuteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding,” he intoned, and made particular note that the word
man
actually meant “person,” man
or
woman. With that, he darted a quick glance in my direction, and if I hadn’t already figured out to whom he was addressing his sermon about not telling everything one knows, I would’ve caught on then.

I was infuriated, absolutely beside myself, squirming in the pew to keep from springing to my feet and making a public spectacle of myself. Even Roberta, whose mind wanders worse than mine, looked concerned and, whispering, asked if I needed to go to the bathroom.

Even a fool,
he’d said,
appears wise when he—or she—keeps
his—or her—mouth shut
. That was what he thought of me, a fool who would be deemed wise only if I kept silent. As far as I was concerned, he’d stopped preaching and gone to meddling. He had just made it personal, calling my character and my intellect into question.

“Roberta,” I whispered as we stood for the closing hymn, “I want to ask the pastor about Emma Sue, but there’s no sense in you waiting around here. Why don’t you run on over to my house and wait for me there? Then we’ll go on to your house.” I handed the door keys to her. “Just make yourself at home.”

She nodded and whispered back, “Okay, I need to go to the bathroom anyway.”

So I impatiently bided my time during the final prayer, the doxology, and the recessional. Then, dodging and sidling between others as they rose from the pews and congregated in the aisles, I edged my way down the central aisle and out into the narthex, where I intended to plant myself behind Pastor Ledbetter until he’d shaken the hand of every parishioner who was lining up to get out the door. I would wait till the last one was gone, then I’d have it out with him. He wouldn’t escape me this time.

But he already had. Instead of Pastor Ledbetter shaking hands with church members swarming at the door, it was Rob Timmons, smiling and accepting compliments on the way he’d moved the service along by making short work of announcements, hymns, and the benediction, keeping it all within the allotted hour and fifteen minutes and not a minute longer. Presbyterians are known to appreciate timeliness.