Jubilee's Journey (The Wyattsville Series) (11 page)

“Can I have more?” Jubilee asked and pushed her empty bowl toward Olivia.

“Of course you can.” Olivia filled the bowl a second time, handed it to Jubilee, and then went back to her questions. Hoping for even a scrap of information she asked, “Did Paul say anything about where you were going when he came back?”

Jubilee nodded proudly. “He said we was gonna get a nice place to stay and good food.”

“Did he say what the name of that nice place was?”

“Unh-unh. He just said if he got money from the job, it wouldn’t matter none if we didn’t find Aunt Anita.”

“Were you going to return home?”

Jubilee thought back on the cabin they’d left behind. “No. We can’t live there no more. The mine man said so.”

“The mine man?”

Jubilee nodded. “He said only people what work in the mine can have houses, and ‘cause Paul promised Daddy he wouldn’t work in the mine we had to give back the house.”

When Olivia asked how old her brother was, Jubilee wrinkled her nose and gave a shrug. “Sixteen, I think.”

After almost an hour, two bowls of stew, a dish of ice cream, a slice of lemon pound cake, and three cookies, Olivia had learned almost nothing. The girl came from a place where people didn’t have telephones, her last name was Jones, her brother had brown hair, and they had come to Wyattsville looking for an aunt who might or might not be named Anita Walker.

When Olivia was satisfied she had gotten all the girl knew, she settled the kids in front of the television with a bowl of popcorn. Disappearing back into the kitchen, she began calling all of the Walkers listed in the Wyattsville telephone directory. There were one hundred and forty-seven, thirteen with the initial A, and not one with the name Anita. When the twenty-eighth Walker slammed the receiver down and said it was too damn late to be bothering people about such nonsense she abandoned the project, at least for the remainder of the evening.

Olivia wondered whether she should call the Wyattsville Police Station when she noticed Jubilee asleep on the sofa. If she notified the police and they couldn’t find the missing brother or the questionable aunt, the poor child would be carted off to a foster home or—worse yet—an orphanage. Olivia shuddered at the thought.

Remembering how Ethan Allen had come into her life because he’d gone in search of his grandfather, she could understand why Paul was trying to find their Aunt Anita. “Family is family,” she said with a sigh. Convinced there was an Aunt Anita and the only challenge would be finding her, Olivia decided not to call the authorities. If worse came to worst and she became desperate, there was one person she could trust. She hadn’t spoken with Jack Mahoney in almost six months, but she knew he’d be there and he’d answer the call.

Olivia removed Jubilee’s shoes, carried her into the bedroom, and tucked her into Charlie’s side of the bed. She placed the sleepy little head on a fluffy pillow that hadn’t been used for two years.

When Olivia returned to the living room, her eyes were watery. “That poor child…” she murmured.

Ethan Allen, who’d been focused on watching a television show, looked up. “You ain’t even heard the worst yet.”

“The worst?”

“Yeah. You know that robbed place I was at? Well, that’s where Jubie said her brother was supposed to be working.”

“Klaussner’s Grocery Store?” Olivia gasped.

Ethan Allen nodded.

“Dear God,” Olivia said. “You don’t suppose her brother was involved in that.”

“I ain’t supposing nothin’—I figured you was gonna take charge of that.”

Olivia shooed Ethan Allen off to bed and changed the channel on the television. Maybe there’d be something on the news.

There was.

Ethan Allen

I
didn’t want to tell Grandma this on account of she’s a worrier. Mama never worried about nothin’, but Grandma, she worries about everything. The sorry truth is I didn’t see no live people come out of that grocery store. Far as I could tell, they was all dead.

With him needing money, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Paul was the one robbing Mister Klaussner. Jubie said he was gonna do a job, and that’s what crooks call it when they’re gonna rob a place. Maybe her brother ain’t really a crook, but when you got no place to go and nothin’ to eat you gotta do something—even if it’s something you ain’t none too proud of doing.

Whatever he did, I can say for sure Jubie’s got nothin’ to do with it. I know what feeling scared looks like, and Jubie was honest-to-God scared. Not the kind of guilty-scared you get from doing something you ain’t supposed to do, but the kind of scared that’s ‘cause you’re all alone and you got nobody to turn to.

I ain’t no do-gooder like Grandma, but I sure felt bad for Jubie. I think it’s ‘cause she’s so little. She said she was seven, but I’m thinking more like five. If she’s really seven, then for sure she’s the runt of the litter.

Late News

O
livia sat glued to the television as she listened to reports of the robbery. According to Martha Tillinger who was being interviewed on the ten o’clock news, two men had walked into Klaussner’s grocery store in broad daylight, brandished a gun, and started shooting. At that point Martha, who had been on the far side of the store selecting a box of crackers to go with her homemade onion dip, ducked behind a large display of cereal boxes and rolled herself into a ball.

“I couldn’t see what was happening, but I know the sound of gunfire when I hear it,” she told the reporter. Martha then went on to render the opinion that it would have been far wiser for Sid to just hand over the money instead of trying to shoot it out with two armed bandits.

The reporter nodded solemnly, then turned back to the camera for a close up. “Sidney Klaussner was shot twice in the chest, and his condition is listed as critical. One of the alleged assailants suffered a head wound and is now in surgery.”

“Thanks for that update, Ken,” the blond anchorwoman at the KWNB news desk said. Then she said they had very few details at this time, and although detectives acknowledged that one of the alleged assailants had escaped, the name of the second young man had not yet been released. “Join us at seven o’clock tomorrow morning when we’ll have more details on this event that has rocked our peaceful little community.”

Olivia continued to watch as the weatherman came on and explained that a cold front was headed their way. After the weather there was a long shot of the news desk, some jovial banter, and then it was over. A voice said to stay tuned for Jerry Lester’s “Broadway Open House.”

There was not one word about Paul Jones or a missing child. 

“Oh, dear,” Olivia said. She snapped off the television and sat silently in the chair. It made no sense. Why would these kids have come to Wyattsville, unless…

The more she mulled it over, the more sense it made. Paul had obviously contacted the aunt and said they were coming. Maybe he sent a letter or a postcard. Reasoning that a seven-year-old child quite possibly did not understand the specifics, she began to imagine the aunt frantic with worry. 

The bitter taste of memories about the night Ethan Allen disappeared swelled in Olivia’s throat. He’d been gone just a few hours when a search party set out looking for him. People cared. Even though they’d known Ethan Allen only a short while, they cared. In a room so silent you could hear the whisper of wind, Olivia sat and listened. She hoped to hear a voice calling for the girl, but there was nothing. Twice she thought she’d heard the sound of sobbing, but both times it was simply the choke of a motor car miles away.

The clock chimed midnight. Olivia got up and tiptoed into the bedroom to check on the girl. Jubilee was sound asleep, her tiny fingers curled into a fist and a thumb stuck in her mouth. Her dark hair lay scattered across the pillow, in need of a trim perhaps, but clean. Olivia returned to the living room and sat in the same chair, the silk chair that stood where Charlie’s club chair once sat.