Spare Change (29 page)

“No,” Olivia answered
hesitantly. “I’ve had intentions of…”

“Well, no wonder you got all
these troubles. Land sakes, Sugar, if you ain’t on speaking terms with the
Lord, what right you got to ask Him to help out?”

Olivia could see the merit
in such thinking. It was the same as having a neighbor who snubs you, walks by
week after week pretending you don’t exist, acts like you’re a person they have
no cause to bother with; then one day they knock on your door looking to borrow
a shaker of salt. She’d never intended to snub God, in fact, she’d said a
number of prayers in the past two days—most were requests for Him to send help.
She was by no means Godless, it was simply that she’d been so wound up in the
everyday problems of her life, she’d been too busy to pay Him a call. “I
suppose you’re right,” she answered solemnly, “I’ve no right to expect an
answer to my prayers, when…”

  “I never said, He
wouldn’t
help out; but I’m fairly certain that church-going people get shuffled to the
front of the line when He’s passing out favors.”

“Well then, I’m just plain
out of luck.”

“No you ain’t,” Canasta
said. “But quick as you can, get yourself to services and sit right up front,
in the first pew. When the choir gets to singing you and that boy sing out loud
as you can, so the Lord’s certain to take notice.”

“You really think such a
thing would work?”

“Sugar, I’d swear to it.”

“Let’s see,” Olivia mumbled,
thinking out loud, “there’s a Methodist Church on the corner, and a block down
there’s a Baptist, then over on Grant Street, a Catholic Church…they’re all
reasonably close by; which one do you think He’s more likely to listen to?”

Canasta laughed out loud. “It don’t make a bean of
difference,” she finally said, “the Lord listens in all those places. They’re
just different slices of the same pie.”

F
ortunately, the next three days were rather
uneventful. Ethan rode his new bicycle back and forth to school; then came home
and ran errands for the neighbors. At night he did his homework with no argument
and then worked on piecing the Baltimore Orioles jigsaw puzzle back together.
Olivia kept a close eye on him at all times.  She had his arrival home from
school timed to the minute and usually found some reason or another to be
standing in the lobby or outside on the walkway to greet him. Wherever he
went—whether it was the store, the playground, or circling the block on his
bike—she stood at the window and watched. A fistful of fear had taken hold of
her heart—it was the fear of Cobb grabbing the boy if she lost sight of him for
even a moment.

 On Sunday morning, she woke
Ethan early. “You’ve got to dress for church,” she said and handed him the
brand new suit she’d bought. Olivia was already dressed with white gloves and a
yellow felt hat.

“But,” Ethan moaned, rubbing
sleep from his eyes, “I ain’t had no breakfast.”

“We’ll go to the Pancake
Palace, after we’ve finished praying,” she answered.

Taking no chances, Olivia
first took him to the eight o’clock mass at the Catholic Church, where, because
they were a bit late, they had to sit five rows back. With so much being said
in Latin, and not knowing exactly when to kneel, stand or sit, she lost track
of what was happening a few times, but once the hymnal was opened, not only the
Lord God but also half of Wyattsville could hear her voice. Afterwards they
went to the ten o’clock service at the Baptist church, where they were able to
get a seat smack in the center of the first pew. Lastly, they hurried over to
the Methodist Church, and although they arrived just moments before the eleven
o’clock service started, they were able to sit right up front. Olivia sang
louder than any other member of the congregation and Ethan, with a look of pure
pleasure on his face, matched her note for note. By the time they arrived at
the Pancake Palace, they’d worked up such an appetite that both of them ordered
the fat boy special—ten pancakes, stacked alongside a pile of sausages, ham and
bacon.

“You sure you want the
special
?”
the waitress asked Ethan, “…it’s an awful lot of food for a little fella like
you.”

“I’m sure, ma’am,” he
answered, “I been singing
real loud!
”

That afternoon Olivia felt
somewhat less worried about Ethan and permitted him to take Dog over to the
park, which was a full five blocks away. When started out the door, she warned
him, “Don’t stay longer than an hour and be real careful.” Later that
afternoon, he was also permitted to ride his bicycle over to Liggett’s Drug
Store so he could fetch a bottle of cough medicine for Walter Krause.

By Monday morning a relative
peacefulness had settled over the Doyle household. Olivia, feeling considerably
less threatened, now that she had the Lord on her side, hummed
What a Friend
We Have in Jesus
as the milk cascaded over Ethan Allen’s cereal. As she
spread peanut butter on bread she switched over to
Onward Christian Soldiers
and as she wrapped the sandwiches and put them in his lunchbox she finished up
with a chorus of
Bringing in the Sheaves.
 

“You sure you ain’t
overdoing it?” Ethan asked.

“There’s no such thing as
overdoing your service to the Lord,” she answered, then kissed his cheek and
sent him off to school. As soon as he was out the door, Olivia began work on
the project she was planning as a surprise for the boy. One by one, she carted
the dining room chairs down to the basement storage room, then she turned the
dining room table on its side and unscrewed the legs. Seeing how it was too
large for one person to lift, she simply shoved it against the living room wall
and continued on.  She was halfway through giving the walls a coat of royal
blue paint, when the doorbell rang. If she hadn’t been preoccupied with fixing
a bedroom of his own for Ethan Allen, she might have been more on guard; she
probably would have pressed her eye to the peek hole, seen who it was, then
refused to open the door. But, with figuring the Lord had already taken care of
the problem, and having a head filled with thoughts of what color bedspread to
buy the boy, she flung the door wide open without a moment’s hesitation.

“Good morning,” Mahoney said
with a smile.

“You?” Olivia gasped in
astonishment. “What are
you
doing
here
?”  She glanced over at the
wall clock—twelve-fifteen; luckily she had three hours till Ethan was due home.
Before Mahoney had time to answer her question, Olivia said, “He’s not here.
Your obnoxious friend frightened the child into running away. God only knows
what…”

“Cobb? I can see why the boy
would be frightened by him; I’m glad to say he’s not working this case anymore.
Anyway, what’s this about Ethan Allen running off?”

With her guard now on full
alert, Olivia answered, “Don’t even think about asking where he went, because I
assure you I don’t know.”

“Actually, I was hoping to
maybe have a word with you.”

Olivia would have preferred
not to; she would have preferred to go back to her painting, or better still to
have never even answered the door—but she knew if she refused the detective
would get suspicious. If he got the impression that she was hiding Ethan Allen,
he’d keep coming back and eventually he’d find what he was looking for so it
was probably better to deal with the issue now. After a few moments of
hesitation, she stepped to the side and said, “Okay, you can come in. But,” she
added, “I’m in the middle of redecorating, so you’ll have to make it quick.”

“I apologize, for the way
Officer Cobb acted last time we were here,” Mahoney said as he followed her
into the living room. “Given the way he acted, I don’t blame you for slamming
the door in our faces. A man who behaves like Cobb has it coming.”

“Isn’t that the God-honest
truth,” Olivia added. She motioned toward the sofa and suggested Mahoney have a
seat; then she sat in the club chair on the far side of the room. “Ethan Allen
was scared to death of the man,” she said, “and I know that’s the reason the
boy ran off.” Olivia wanted to act weepy to add a measure of conviction to her
story but, with being so concerned about time, the most she could manage was
fidgety.

“The poor kid—off on his own
again,” Mahoney shook his head in a way that seemed sincere, “with all he’s
been through…I was rather hoping he’d settle in and stay here with you. Anybody
can tell you’re the sort of grandma who’d watch out for the boy and see that
he’s taken care of.”

“How could he stay here,
with you policemen hounding him?”

“Me?” Mahoney registered a
look of surprise. “Not me. I had no intention of questioning him. If the lad
doesn’t want to tell what happened that night, then so be it.” Mahoney had made
detective long before most patrolmen, simply because he put people at ease and
threw them off guard so they’d willingly tell things no one else could beat out
of them.

“Oh sure,
that’s
what
you say, but Officer Cobb—”

“He won’t be coming around,
he’s off the case.”

“Altogether?”

Mahoney nodded. “He’s on
report. The captain—”

“Excuse my manners,” Olivia
interrupted, “I’ve forgotten to ask if you might like a cup of coffee or a cold
glass of tea?”

“Umm, coffee sounds real
good.”

When Olivia returned from
the kitchen with two cups of coffee she sat on the sofa alongside Mahoney. From
across the room she’d thought she’d seen a speck of sparkle shinning in his
right eye and wanted to check it out. She focused on that right eye and leaned
forward into his face, “So,” she said, her nose barely inches from his, “if
you’re not looking to question Ethan Allen, why
did
you come here?”

“Primarily to apologize; but,
I also wanted to let you and Ethan know that I’m gonna continue working the
case. I’ll do whatever I can do to find the person responsible for the murder
of his mama and daddy.”

“That’s it? You didn’t come
to arrest the boy, take him back for questioning?”

“I’d never do such a thing!”
Mahoney said with an air of indignation.

Olivia leaned in a hair
closer and became almost certain, there was indeed a sparkle in his right eye.
“Never?” she asked.

“Of course not.” With Olivia
leaning into his face as she was, Jack Mahoney had to ask, “Is something
wrong?”

“No,” she answered, moving
back. “I was just wondering if you go to church?”

“Yes.  My whole family does.
We belong to the Methodist Church in Back Bay.”

Now she was certain, the
light was there. “What if,” she asked giving him one last test, “the child told
you that he saw the murder and the person responsible for the killing was your daddy—what
then? Would you believe Ethan Allen or jump to the conclusion he was lying?”

Mahoney chuckled, “My folks
passed on a good number of years ago, but regardless of who the boy said was to
blame for the killing, I’d be duty bound to investigate the matter. I’m sworn
to uphold the law and there’s no allowance for friends or family.”

“Of course,” Olivia sighed,
“I was speaking of a purely hypothetical situation, because as I’ve already
told you, the boy’s gone. But,” she added, “
if
he were to come back and
if
he decided to talk to you…”

“I’ll leave you my telephone
number,” Mahoney said, “then if he does come back and wants to help find the
killer, you can give me a call.”

“You’re not coming back
unless I call?”

“No reason to,” Mahoney
said; then he thanked Olivia for her time and left.

Olivia smiled, without a
smidgen of doubt she knew, he had the light.

W
hen Ethan returned home from school, Olivia said,
“I’ve got two surprises for you.” First she led him into what that morning had
been the dining room and was now a bedroom, “This is your room,” she said
proudly. “I had planned on having it finished by the time you got home, but I
had a bit of an interruption this afternoon.” She then told him about her
conversation with Mahoney. “He’s a well-intentioned, church-going Christian,”
she said, “and I’m certain he’d do right by us. He’s definitely got the light.”

“I don’t know,” Ethan Allen
sighed, a look of worry tugging at the corners of his mouth, “…suppose he says
one thing and does another?  Suppose it’s just a trick?”

“I believe he’s a man who
can be trusted, but
you’ll
have to be the one to decide whether or not
you want to tell him the truth of what happened.”

 “Why me?”

“Because,” Olivia answered,
“the truth belongs to you. It’s yours to hide away in your head, or let loose
so he can arrest the man responsible for your daddy’s death.”

“But…he said he wasn’t
coming back if we didn’t call him. Couldn’t we just—”

“Sure, we
could
hide
out here and say nothing; but then Detective Mahoney might never find out
Scooter Cobb was the one who killed your daddy. Figuring he could get away with
murder any old time he wanted to, Scooter might kill some other child’s mama or
daddy, and after that who knows where it would stop.”