Miss Julia to the Rescue (38 page)

Lying in bed later, unable to sleep for wondering what was happening at the Whitman place, it suddenly occurred to me to also wonder why I was so exercised about Adam Waites’s welfare. He was a nice young man, hardworking and dependable, but he was only a temporary employee. I’d had many of those over the years with never a thought of their personal lives or problems. They had come and gone and stayed out of my mind until I needed their particular expertise again.

What was it about Adam that so troubled my sleep? His apparent innocence about the ways of the world? Maybe, except he was a grown man and should be able to take care of himself. And if he could, why was I lying there with visions of circus women chasing him with needles and pins and plugs?

Nellie Cheyenne McAfee was one reason I was feeling so protective of him. She was the kind of woman that a man needed to build up to, not to have to tackle as his first experience. She’d be a handful for any man, even one who had a tolerance for bold women.

But here was a thought: maybe Adam wasn’t very bright, although if true, being backward certainly hadn’t prevented him from learning his trade.

“Oh, Sam,” I whispered, “I wish you were here.”

When the phone rang, it jerked me out of a deep sleep and for a second I was so disoriented I nearly knocked the lamp off the table.

“Yes? Hello?” My heart was thumping away for fear that something was wrong somewhere—was it Sam? Lloyd? The babies? Another tree across the house? When the phone rings at one-thirty in the morning, you can be fairly sure it is not a social call.

“Um, uh, Miz Murdoch?” It was a man’s voice, but not one I recognized.

“Who is this?” I demanded, still afraid of hearing bad news. “Who’s calling this time of night?”

“Uh, it’s me. You said, uh, I could call, so …” The words were slurred and mumbled, trailing off into moaning incoherence.

“
Adam
?” My hand tightened on the receiver. “Is that you, Adam?” It didn’t sound like him. It sounded like somebody in pain.

“Yesh, ma’am. M’truck’s gone.” More mumbling and a few gasping breaths ending with “… need to go home.”

“Speak up. I can’t understand you.”

“Hate to ask,” he said, fairly clearly, then fell to mumbling again, “… get home.”

“Where are you?” I said it loudly and forcefully, as if that would shake some information out of him.

“Agnesh’s.” There was a beep on the line, then a click, then nothing.

“Adam! Are you there? Speak to me.”

I heard a hum on the line, then his voice came through with one word: “dyin’.”

Good Lord! I sprang out of bed, still clutching the phone and calling to him. The line was dead or he was, one. Jerking open the drawer of the bedside table, I rummaged around for the phone book. I’d call Agnes Whitman and tell her… well, I didn’t know what I’d tell her. But she could start looking for Adam and get him some help. But there was no phone book, and no wonder, with the house as torn up as it was.

I dialed information and was told that the Whitman number was unlisted.

“
Unlisted!
But this is an emergency!” It did no good, for you can’t argue or plead with a robotic voice.

I began dressing, my mind running over possibilities, the first of which was who I could call for help. Adam’s father? No, or Adam would’ve called him instead of me. Mr. Pickens was out. He could barely get around his own house, much less run around the countryside looking for a dying man. I thought of calling Coleman or 911, but what could I tell them? That I’d gotten a strange phone call from a man who was either half dead or already there?

If his truck was gone, he could be stranded on the side of the road somewhere between Fairfields and his home. But no, Adam had said he was at Agnes’s, or that’s what it sounded like.

Then I thought of Sheriff McAfee. He’d know something of Agnes Whitman from his niece, and if I’d read him right, he’d not been all that enthusiastic about Nellie’s association with her. Which was ironic, considering his association with snakes. Talk about a pot calling a kettle black.

But if nothing else, Sheriff McAfee could start with Nellie—wake her if necessary—and track down Adam from the last time she’d seen him. I pulled on some low-heeled shoes, thinking I might have to walk all over creation to find him.

But where was the sheriff staying? A motel maybe, or perhaps an inn, of which there were any number in and around Abbotsville. Too many to call if Adam was in dire straits.

Etta Mae!
I should have thought of her first. She’d know where the sheriff was, or if she didn’t, she’d go with me. Because I was going, there being no way in the world I could ignore a cry for help.

She didn’t answer. I let it ring long enough to wake the dead if she’d been at home.
Cell phone!
I thought and hurried down the stairs to the kitchen, where the number was written on a pad, the rolled-up rug in the hall nearly tripping me on the way.

Picturing Adam lying in a ditch somewhere, breathing his last, I shouted, “Etta Mae!” when she answered her cell. “Where’s the sheriff?”

“What? Our sheriff or the other one?”

“The other one, McAfee. Ardis, where is he? How can I get in touch with him?”

“Well, uh, he’s right here. We’re in his truck on our way home. What’s going on?”

“Adam Waites just called and he’s either sick or hurt or something. He sounded near death, Etta Mae, and I need some help finding him.”

“Who’s Adam Waites?”

“You know! One of the men who climbed on the roof and ate supper with us and went off with that pitiful-looking girl to the Whitman place. And he’s still out there somewhere and she’s the sheriff’s niece so I figure he can get her to help us find him.” I took a deep breath and tried to state my case calmly. “I wouldn’t disturb him, Etta Mae, if I didn’t feel that he’s the most likely one to approach Nellie or Cheyenne or whoever she is and get some answers.” I took another breath as panic swept over me again. “She
may be the last person to see Adam alive. Will he do it, Etta Mae? Adam needs help!”

“Uh, well, wait just a minute.” The phone went silent, then I heard some muffled sounds of movement and whispering.

“Miss Julia? Ardis says we’ll swing by the Whitman place and he’ll talk to Nellie. Will that be all right?”

“Yes, yes, that’ll be perfect. But I’m going, too. I’ll either drive or go with you, whichever is easier.”

“We’re just leaving Asheville, so it’s easier for us to go directly to Fairfields. But you stay home, Miss Julia. Let Ardis handle it, he knows what to do.”

Well, so did I, which was to find Adam and get him home. So I didn’t agree or disagree, just urged her to hurry, hung up the phone, grabbed my pocketbook, and went stumbling out the back door in the dark. Then turned around and went back inside, thinking
cell phone
again. Lloyd had mine charging on the kitchen counter, bless his heart, so I stuffed it in my pocketbook and hurried outside to the car, congratulating myself for thinking of it.

Heat lightning flickered around as I got in the car, and thunder rumbled off in the distance. Typical summer weather, I reassured myself, and merely the back end of the line of thunderstorms that had come through earlier. Nonetheless, I turned on my heel and ran back to the house, snatching up the yellow slicker and hat that Lillian kept on a hook by the door.

Surely by this time, I had everything needed to conduct a search if that was what I had to do. I couldn’t understand why Adam hadn’t turned to the people at the Whitman place or why they had not come to his aid. Something had gone on, or was still going on, out there that made Adam seek aid from an outside source—namely, me. And that thought made my heart race and my hands tremble.

There were a few cars out and around on the streets as I drove through town, but as I gained the state highway that led to Fairfields they were few and far between. In fact, on long stretches, my car was the only one on the road. And as sprinkles of rain dotted
the windshield, a lonely feeling swept over me, but at least I was dry while Adam might be lying out with no shelter at all.

My eyes swept the sides of the road, looking for stranded pickups in case it had been taken, then abandoned. Adam had said he was at Agnes’s but, apparently, his truck wasn’t. Who could’ve taken it? Or had he left it somewhere that he couldn’t get to? Whatever had happened, it stood to reason that Agnes Whitman’s estate had to be the starting point in any kind of search.

Maybe I should’ve called his daddy instead of Ardis or instead of taking it on myself. It had crossed my mind earlier to do just that, but Adam could’ve called home just as easily as he’d called me. Yet he hadn’t. I’d surmised that the elder Mr. Waites was a hard man who might not understand the lure of a tattooed girl. So maybe Adam wanted somebody with a little more compassion for the weaknesses of the flesh. Like me, for instance, who’d once experienced a temptation on a green velvet love seat and lived to regret it.

Besides, far be it from me to interfere in family relationships. I’d find Adam, reassure him that whatever had gone on between him and Nellie would not mean eternal ruination, and send him home hardly worse for the wear.

My mind was running away with me as one speculation after another flitted in and out my brain.

Slowing as I reached the Fairfields community, I turned in and drove through the stone pillars that marked the entrance. Wondering how close Etta Mae and Ardis were, I drove carefully toward the Whitman place. There were no other cars on the street, no streetlights, and only a few security lights dotted here and there. One of the advertised features of this planned estate community was its rural atmosphere, and I could believe it. I could’ve been driving through abandoned countryside for all the human activity I could see.

But soon I began to see a glow above the trees as I approached the Whitman place—security lights on tall poles were scattered on the outskirts of the property. Either the power had come back
on, or Adam had fixed the generator, who knew which? But the house itself was shrouded in darkness. I turned into the drive and came to a stop. Closed and undoubtedly locked gates blocked my way.

I sat in the idling car, determining what my next step should be. In the glare of the headlights, I saw an intercom box set into one of the pillars that supported the gate. I could buzz myself in, I supposed. Or I could sit and wait for Ardis, who had a semilegitimate reason—his niece—for disturbing the sleep of Agnes and her strange staff.

I strained to see up the driveway between the trees, hoping for signs of activity that would perhaps mean that Adam was getting help. But the drive toward the house faded into darkness, the security lights having been set too far away.

I sat there for a few more minutes, hoping to see Ardis and Etta Mae pull in behind me. Then deciding that if there was a dying man on the property, I could never forgive myself for having dithered over the propriety of ringing a doorbell in the middle of the night.

I couldn’t stand it any longer. I got out of the car and buzzed the buzzer. And kept on buzzing it until finally a sleep-filled male voice answered.

“Who is it?” he growled.