Part 18 (1/2)

Stricken by the troubled tone in his voice, I began to feel bad about my strident behavior. ”I'm not worried about what you charge, Adam. I'm worried about you. Is anything wrong?”

”No, ma'am, everything's fine.” He got up from the box he was sitting on and adjusted his tool belt. ”I just find that my work goes better if I study the Word off and on throughout the day.”

”Well,” I said, at a loss for a response. ”Well, good. I'll leave you to it.” And I left, feeling chastened even as a rather sharp observation flitted through my mind: better to have been studying my plans, considering the state of that room. Then felt worse for having thought it.

Chapter 36.

Adam was true to his word about bringing in help. Before the hour was past, another pickup drove in and a younger brother, Josh, as he introduced himself, hopped out to help finish the sunroom. He was about twice the size of Adam, a blond giant of a man, with an open and pleasant expression on his face. Up and down the stairs the two of them went, carrying out the table saw and odds and ends of leftover lumber, then bringing in the rest of the cabinets. With both of them working, we had a double dose of hammering, which I bore stoically because it meant that things were moving along. They gave me a full day's work with no stopping except for lunch, which had been brought from home, even though Lillian invited them to our table.

”Mr. Adam say thank you all the same,” Lillian said as she came back downstairs, ”but his mama fix meat loaf san'wiches an' they jus' stick with that.”

”Well, we tried,” I said, sitting down to a fruit salad. Just as I finished, the telephone rang.

I answered it and heard Hazel Marie say without taking a breath, ”The sheriff's coming, Miss Julia! The sheriff's coming!”

”I know, Hazel Marie, you told me yesterday.”

”No, I mean we know when he's coming and it's Friday, day after tomorrow, at nine o'clock, and I won't even be dressed!” She had to stop to catch her breath, then with a little more control, she said, ”Coleman just called and told us. And J.D. said that means it'll be an official interview, because Sheriff McAfee has gone through our sheriff to set it up. It won't be just a drop-in-and-visit kind of thing. Oh, Miss Julia, I am so worried I don't know what to do.”

I had to think a minute, half ashamed of myself for feeling relief that no one had officially notified me or Etta Mae. Maybe that meant we weren't wanted and wouldn't have our pictures tacked up on post office walls.

”Well, Hazel Marie,” I said, ”maybe it's better to know than to have it hanging over our heads. What does Mr. Pickens say?”

”Oh, you know him. He's not a bit worried or at least that's what he's telling me. But I am. He's not at all well, though he puts up a good front. They just can't make him go back up there. It could ruin him for life!”

”Surely it won't come to that. He seems better every time I see him.”

”But you haven't seen his scars. I was finally able to look and he's got four of them on his ... you-know.”

”But just think, Hazel Marie, how fortunate he is to have them there. You're the only one who'll ever see them.”

”Oh, I hope.”

After giving her a few more encouraging words, I hung up without asking what I wanted to know. And that was, had Etta Mae and I been included in the official interview that Sheriff McAfee had set up. I a.s.sured myself that she would have told me if we had been or if she had known. Or else Coleman would've called me.

Maybe he still would. Maybe he hadn't gotten around to it. And maybe I should've been more concerned about Mr. Pickens's predicament than about my own.

The day after tomorrow, I thought, and was finally able to draw some ease of mind from that. Only a few days afterward, Sam would be home and Sheriff McAfee would've been and gone by then.

Surely he was not coming to arrest Mr. Pickens-that was unthinkable. For one thing, if that'd been his intent, he would've had our sheriff do the honors. Wouldn't he? Hazel Marie had said interview, not intervene or interrogate or intercept. He only wants to talk, I a.s.sured myself.

And, I went on, thinking up one possibility after another, we were told he had other business to take care of on this trip-which could mean that he wasn't after Mr. Pickens specifically. Maybe he wanted to visit that niece of his and just tacked Mr. Pickens on to make the trip official and have his expenses reimbursed. I wouldn't put it past him.

But whatever his intentions were, I intended to warn Etta Mae as soon as she got home from work. Just to be on the safe side.

”Etta Mae?” I said, my call catching her, she told me, just as she walked in the door of her single-wide after a long day of caring for the sick and ailing. ”I hate to tell you this, but Hazel Marie called to say that Sheriff McAfee will be in town the day after tomorrow. He's set up an interview with Mr. Pickens, but I don't know if that's all he's planning. He may have a few other interviews in mind.”

”Yes, ma'am,” she said in a slightly subdued tone, ”I know.”

”You know? Did Hazel Marie call you, too?”

”No'm. He did.”

”He, who? Coleman? Mr. Pickens?”

”No, that sheriff.”

”Sheriff McAfee? Why, Etta Mae, why would he do that? He hasn't called me, and if anybody's at fault with what we did in his jurisdiction, I am. Besides, how did he find you?”

”I don't know. Maybe Coleman told him. He called on my cell right in the middle of me clipping Mr. Avery's toenails. Made me so nervous, I almost nipped his little toe. Anyway, I don't think he wants to interview me. At least, not the way he'll interview J.D.”

”Well, I don't understand why he'd want to talk to you and not to me. I was the instigator and I take full responsibility for everything we did. You're completely in the clear, Etta Mae, I want you to rest easy about that. So unless he wants to turn you against me, I can't see why he'd come after you.”

”I don't think that's what he has in mind,” she said. Then, as if unburdening herself, she went on in a rush. ”Actually, I think he's just interested in dinner and dancin'.”

That stopped me. ”A date? He asked you for a date?”

”That's pretty much what I figured. I hope you don't mind that I said yes.”

”Oh, well, of course not. It's entirely up to you who you see, but, Etta Mae, be careful. That man is sneaky. Remember how he sent us to that church, so he may have something more up his sleeve than dinner and dancing. And if it's a snake-I mean if he's a snake handler-you don't want to be involved with him.”

”Ugh, don't worry,” Etta Mae said. ”That's the first thing I'm going to ask him, and if he is, I'm not going anywhere with him. I would've asked him on the phone but I was so surprised to hear from him, I didn't think of it.”

”I think I'm surprised to hear he's a dancing man. Maybe that speaks well of him, because, I grant you, those snake handlers did a lot of prancing and dancing around, but they did it by themselves, not with each other. Where will you go? There's no place to dance around here unless you belong to the Cotillion.”

”Well, I don't belong to that,” she said with a laugh. ”Whatever it is. No, there's a steak house out on Highway 64 with a dance hall next to it. Ardis said he likes steak and he likes to line dance, so that'll be the best place to go.”

Ardis? One phone call had certainly gotten them off on a fast track. And steak and line dancing? She'd found out a lot about him even in the midst of cutting toenails, but she hadn't found out the most important thing: namely, his church affliation. That would've been my first question, but then, I hadn't been asked to dance.

”That sounds nice,” I said, which is about like saying an ugly baby looks interesting. ”Well, Etta Mae, I know he'll be in town Friday because that's when he'll interview Mr. Pickens. But do you have any idea when he'll actually get here? You know, so I'll know not to answer the phone.”

”Yes, ma'am, he's already here.”

”He is? You mean he's there?” I could just picture that tall denim-and-boot-clad vibrating man in Etta Mae's tiny single-wide. They wouldn't be able to move without touching each other.

Etta Mae laughed. ”Our date is tomorrow night, but he got in today. He's visiting that niece of his. So, no, he's not here yet.”

Thank goodness for that, I thought, then thought of something else. For several days I'd been wondering how to bring up the subject, and the only way I could come up with was just to jump in and do it.

”Well, I hope you have a good time, but, Etta Mae, even though I know it's none of my business, I have to ask you about something else.” I paused, hesitating to pry into her affairs or to criticize her in any way. But I cared about her, and knowing how easily led she was-just witness the numerous times I'd talked her into one escapade after another-I simply had to warn her. And as reluctant as I always am to interfere in the lives of others, a mental picture of those little stars running up the rim of her right ear gave me the impetus to press on. ”Have you ever met a woman named Agnes Whitman?”

”I don't think so. Why?”