Miss Julia Rocks the Cradle (27 page)

Waking in the gray light of dawn, I found one arm and one leg hanging off the side of the bed as I clung to the edge of the mattress. Whatever resolution Sam had come to, he certainly had missed me. He was a deadweight against my back and had crept closer and closer to me during the night until he’d almost pushed me out of the bed. Being periously close to tumbling to the floor, happiness nonetheless flooded my soul. He was home! He could have the whole bed if he wanted it—I didn’t care.

Grabbing the corner of the nightstand, I pushed back to give myself room to turn over. “Sam, honey, move over. I need some room.”

Sam sighed deeply but he didn’t budge. I pushed harder, trying with one foot on the floor to get some leverage. Finally I was able to flip over, wrapping my arm around Sam and holding on to keep from falling off the narrow strip of bed.

Sam suddenly stirred, then sat up in bed, turning so that he was staring directly into my eyes. Then his tongue slid out and he licked my face.

“Thurlow!” I said through gritted teeth as I stood in the kitchen, gripping the telephone so hard my knuckles had turned white. Ronnie, the big sneak, was dancing around Lillian as she prepared breakfast. “Come get your dog!”

“Is that where he is? What’s he doing over there?”

“Don’t ask me, but it’s a pretty come-off when people let their dogs wander all over creation and wake people up and disturb a whole household and eat them out of house and home.”

I hadn’t told a soul where Ronnie’s wandering had taken him during the night, and I certainly hadn’t said who I’d thought he was. I’d never hear the end of it if I had. And I was still so low and blue at discovering it wasn’t Sam in my bed that I wasn’t in the mood to be laughed at for having thought it was.

Saying that he’d be right over, Thurlow hung up and I turned to Lillian. “Does that dog need to go out? I don’t want him ruining my rugs.”

“Big as he is, he ruin more than rugs, he take a mind to. But I already let him out, hopin’ he’d go home. Then here he come, jumpin’ on the door an’ whinin’ like he freezin’ to death. He been under my feet ever since.
Move,
dog!” She gave Ronnie a shove with her hip as he gazed from his great height at the eggs she was scrambling.

Thurlow appeared at our door within minutes, coming in and greeting Ronnie affectionately. “You been a good boy? Huh, have you, have you?” he said, petting him up, then turning to me. “I hope he’s behaved himself.”

“He’s been fine,” I said, although I nearly choked getting the words out. I would never in my life get over the shock of finding a Great Dane in my bed. I must admit, though, that other than taking up the whole bed, Ronnie had been a perfect gentleman.

After explaining that Ronnie had awakened us in the middle of the night, demanding admittance, Lillian and I glanced at each other, waiting to see if Thurlow believed us. Seemingly, he did, for he told Ronnie he’d have to do his business early from now on because he wasn’t getting out at night again.

Although I wasn’t yet ready to visit with Thurlow, I invited him to have breakfast with us and he accepted. Actually, I thought later that he’d been hoping to be asked. Lillian had to scramble more eggs and, when the biscuits ran out, put bread in the toaster. The man ate as if he were starved. I was just as glad that Mr. Pickens and Sam weren’t with us—somebody would’ve had to make a grocery run.

Hazel Marie and Etta Mae came to the table, each with a baby in her arms, and a fussy baby, at that. They squirmed and cried, and Lillian pronounced
colic
again, while Thurlow cast glowering eyes at the two little noisemakers. The ruction didn’t curb his appetite, however, or if it did, I’d hate to see him eat in peace. Latisha and Lloyd, preparing for school, only added to the uproar, while Thurlow heaved exasperated sighs at the goings-on. But not one word or one disparaging glance did he aim toward Ronnie, who was in everybody’s way as he lumbered around, hoping for a handout. I could’ve slapped his face—Thurlow’s I mean, not Ronnie’s, although having a dog as big as a horse in your kitchen can unsettle the most genteel of us.

But while I had Thurlow, I decided to save myself a trip to his house, which I had not been looking forward to, and subject him to an interview. Pursuant to that, I suggested that he and I take our coffee to the living room. He thought that was a fine idea, especially because Latisha was making known her unhappiness with the lunch Lillian had packed for her.

Thurlow took a seat on my sofa and I sat on one of the wing chairs by the fireplace. Before I could even begin to guide the conversation, Ronnie pushed through the swinging door in the dining room and bounded over to Thurlow. Pushing himself between his master and the coffee table, tail thumping against everything he passed, he collapsed on Thurlow’s feet. As the coffee table teetered, I had to spring forward to rescue my Steuben swan before it fell.

“Good dog,” Thurlow said, ignoring the near tragedy.

With Ronnie finally settled, I wracked my brain for a subtle way to broach the uppermost subject on my mind. After thinking up and discarding several roundabout feelers, I couldn’t for the life of me think of a subtle way, so I just came out with it.

“So, Thurlow, what do you think Richard Stroud was doing in that toolshed?”

“Dying. Or haven’t you heard?”

“Oh for goodness sakes,” I said, exasperated with him, “that’s not what I mean. I’m sure he didn’t
go
there to die, and that’s what interests me: What was he doing there all by himself in the first place?”

“Maybe he wasn’t by himself. Have you thought of that?”

“Who would’ve been with him? Nobody killed him. He died of natural causes, or haven’t you heard?”

That impish, almost malevolent, glint glittered in Thurlow’s eyes, and with a smirk he said, “Stroud wasn’t a young man, and any unusual exertion in an older man can bring on a heart attack. So,” he went on as if he’d figured it all out, “it stands to reason that whoever was with him hightailed it out of there when he keeled over. Let that be a lesson to you: as old as Murdoch is, don’t be making too many demands on him.”

It took me a minute to understand what he was talking about, then I really could’ve slapped his face. I felt my own face redden, as I gripped the arms of my chair, infuriated that he would make such a personal remark. “I’ll tell Sam that you’re worried about him,” I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate it, seeing that you’re such an expert, as old as you are.”

His smirk grew into a grin, pleased that he’d gotten to me. “Yep, that’s why I know a man has to pace himself. But you’re right. Stroud was in that toolshed for a reason, and although I don’t want to start any false rumors, think whose toolshed it was. Maybe that’s who was with him.”

“
Miss Petty?
Why in the world would she meet him in a cold, dark toolshed when she has an entire house to entertain in? That’s ridiculous, Thurlow.”

“Well, I’m just saying. Don’t ask me what a frivolous woman would do. You’d know better’n me.”

That just tore me up, and I fumed for a few seconds, trying to think of a comeback that would settle him good. Then I realized how neatly he kept getting to me, distracting me from any sensible discussion. And with that realization, I knew that was exactly what Thurlow intended to do: put me on the defensive and put me off anything of substance. Still, I longed to turn the tables on him and tell him that I knew what Richard Stroud had been doing, and it hadn’t been having a tryst in a toolshed.

But with effort, I managed to keep my own counsel because I didn’t yet know why Richard had sat on two bags full of fertilizer gazing at the back of Thurlow’s house through a knothole on a cold night that ended up being his last night on earth. And if Thurlow knew the why of it, I knew that as contrary as he was, he would not enlighten me.

Then it struck me as plain as day: there was no
if
about it. Thurlow knew.

So maybe I’d been wrong about Thurlow’s having too much sense to get embroiled in Richard’s moneymaking schemes. If the two of them had been involved, and it turned out that Richard had been caught, whereas Thurlow hadn’t, how would Richard feel? Richard had suffered considerable public shame—his arrest, trial, and conviction had been in the newspapers for weeks—and he’d spent time in jail, while Thurlow stayed as free as a bird. I could just picture Richard steaming and stewing behind bars, then as soon as he was released, coming back to settle a few scores. I could imagine Richard watching Thurlow’s house, knowing Thurlow to be as guilty as he was and plotting some kind of revenge.

Of course, a toolshed was a poor place to be plotting anything, but what did I know?

“Well,” Thurlow said, slapping his hands on his thighs, preparing, I hoped, to leave. “Be that as it may, me and Ronnie better get on home. ’Preciate you looking out for him, although I can’t figure out why he ended up here. He’s never left the yard before.” He stared at me as he got to his feet. “I hope nobody
enticed
him. I wouldn’t like that a-tall, no sir, I wouldn’t.”

I rose to see him out, carefully avoiding his eyes in case he could see my uneasiness. “I can’t imagine anyone enticing a dog that size. But to be on the safe side, if I were you, I’d keep him inside from now on.” In case, I thought but didn’t say, another visit to the toolshed was required.

After seeing Thurlow and Ronnie out, I stood by the door and watched as they walked away, Thurlow in his worn coat and baggy pants, and Ronnie shambling along beside him. Two old men, I thought, who, if you didn’t know better, could arouse pity in a tender heart.

But I knew better and hurried to the kitchen to tell Lillian what I’d figured out and to discuss with her the significance of a particular knothole. In fact, I’d tell her everything except whom I’d slept with the night before.

“We need to talk,” I whispered, sidling up to Lillian as she loaded the dishwasher. “Come to the living room, so the girls won’t walk in on us.”

“I be there in a minute,” she said, but she didn’t sound all that eager to do it. “I got to get this done first.”

I waited in the living room, pacing a little as various thoughts and plans flitted through my mind.

Finally Lillian came in drying her hands on a dish towel. “What we got to talk about?”

“Well, first I want to thank you for your quick thinking last night when they asked what we were doing outside. What you said was perfect and nobody questioned it.”

She just grunted because she was as staunchly against the telling of stories as I was, but also like me, she understood that you don’t have to tell all you know when the circumstances are such that the better part of discretion is to say as little as possible.

“But listen, Lillian, I found out what Richard Stroud was doing in the toolshed, which was what we wanted to do and therefore worth everything we went through. There were two bags full of fertilizer on top of each other that made a seat, like a chair, and they were placed right in front of a knothole. And when I sat down and looked through that hole, I could see right down on Thurlow’s backyard and the back of his house. That’s what I was doing when I saw his lights come on and the door open to let Ronnie out. So you see?”

“No’m.”

“Why, Lillian, it’s plain as day. Richard was watching Thurlow. Miss Petty didn’t have a thing to do with it, although Thurlow’s been implying all along that she did.”

“That what Mr. Thurlow say?”

“He didn’t say anything this morning, because I didn’t tell him I’d figured it out. There’s only one reason Richard would’ve been spying on Thurlow, and I’m just as sure as I’m standing here that Thurlow was in on Richard’s fradulent investment schemes. But somebody outsmarted somebody and Richard ended up in jail for it. And you know as well as I do that a lot of money was never accounted for, and I think Richard thought that Thurlow has it. And Richard must’ve needed money or he wouldn’t have stolen checks from me.” I waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. “So what do you think?”