Miss Julia Meets Her Match (21 page)

I switched off the engine and the headlights as Lillian crawled back in. “Law, it dark out here,” she said.

“Maybe we’ll see better in a few minutes,” I said, as I hit the automatic door lock.

The locks thunked and Lillian levitated off the seat. “Oh, Jesus!” she shrieked.

“Lillian, I’m just locking the doors.”

“Well, let me know ’fore you do it again,” she said. “It nearly scare me to death.”

After that, we sat in silence, while I worried that we were in the wrong place. Mr. Pickens could be waiting for us in some other pull-off a mile down the road. I knew what he’d be mumbling if we didn’t show up, and I certainly didn’t want to hear it. He might even worry about us, although that’d be a stretch for him.

The sounds of the night filtered into the closed car—the swish of tires on the road as the occasional car passed, rustles in the bushes that could’ve been the wind or something more sinister, the tick of the motor as it cooled.

“I don’t like this,” Lillian whispered. “It feel like something lookin’ at us. No tellin’ what be out there in them woods.”

“I know,” I whispered back, “and if Mr. Pickens doesn’t come soon, we’re going home.”

“My mama,” Lillian whispered, a tremble in her voice, “she say the wampus-cat, he walk back an’ forth in the woods, lookin’ for folks.”

A chill shivered its way down my back, as I thought of some strange animal, its tail swishing as it slithered through the trees on its way to the car.

As the silence settled back around us, I began to feel more and more vexed with Mr. Pickens. There’d been no need to put us in this awkward situation. What if some teenage lovers showed up and we embarrassed them to death? Or they, us?

Lillian suddenly screamed bloody murder, almost stopping my heart. She shrieked again, pointing to the windshield with a wildly waving finger. “He lookin’ at us!”

There, right in front of me, a man’s face peered through the windshield. I thought I’d die on the spot.

Then he knocked once on the window, and I regained my senses. I unlocked the doors and Mr. Pickens slid into the back seat.

“Law!” Lillian cried, her voice two octaves higher than normal. “We thought you the bogey-man.”

He grinned. “Scare you?”

“If you ever do that to me again,” I told him, trying to catch my breath, “you’ll be running for your life. And for the rest of your life, too.”

Mr. Pickens didn’t look half his usual suave self. The brief glimpse I’d had of him, when the interior lights came on before he closed the door, revealed a plaid shirt, a beat-up leather jacket, and an unshaven face. The last named did not at all complement his black mustache that could’ve used a trim, but went well with his need of a haircut. There was also a noticeable lack of his normal use of an aromatic eau de cologne.

“What’s going on, Mr. Pickens?” I asked, unbuckling my seat belt so I could turn sideways in the seat. “What’ve you found out?”

“First, how’re Hazel Marie and Lloyd?” he asked, perturbing me for his delay in getting to the heart of the matter.

“They’re fine. And, I remind you, it’s for their welfare that you and I are engaged in this stealthy business, so get on with it. I don’t know why we had to come all the way out here to meet you, anyway. You could’ve said everything you have to say on the phone.”

“The telephone’s off-limits,” Mr. Pickens said. “Dooley says he wants the theme park to be revealed in all its glory, without any leaks beforehand.”

“Well, my word,” I said.

Lillian chimed in, “Miss Hazel Marie, she not too happy with you right now.”

“It can’t be helped, Lillian,” I said. “She’ll thank us for this later on. Now, Mr. Pickens, let’s hear it.”

“Right. Okay, I’ve not found out much, and I’m not sure there’s much to be found out. Except Dooley runs a pretty tight ship. He’s hired a few outsiders, like me, to help him construct what he calls the stopping places. The stable, a village square, the pool of whatever, and so on. Every one of us had to sign a statement of faith. Damndest thing I ever saw, too.”

“I guess you signed it, since they hired you.”

“Yeah, and lied through my teeth about most of it.”

Lillian intervened. “You ought not be lying to the Lord, Mr. Pickens. He don’t like it.”

He reached over the seat and patted Lillian’s shoulder. “I figured Dooley wasn’t exactly the Lord, Lillian, so I don’t think I’m in any danger. You’ll pray for me, won’t you?”

“Yessir,” Lillian said solemnly, “I always do.”

“Still,” I said, “I’m not sure it was a good idea. I certainly don’t want to be the cause of your spiritual downfall, Mr. Pickens. I mean, telling a story about spiritual things, well, you could suffer for it.”

“Had to do it, or not get hired. Besides, I had my fingers crossed.” His white teeth flashed in the darkness. “Anyway, this Monique Mooney is Dooley’s woman. They share one of the trailers they’re all living in. And,” he said, somewhat ruefully, “the locals he’s hired, including me, have to stay until everything’s completed. That’s part of our contract, and the reason I’ve been out of touch. We’re all bunked in a trailer, too.”

“Why, whatever for? Why can’t you go home at night?” I asked.

“Too much time wasted going and coming, Dooley says. He wants us on the property all the time, mainly, I think, because he’s hellbent on saving our souls. In spite of the fact that we all signed that statement where we swore our souls’re already in good shape.”

“Well, I say,” I murmured. Then, “Will you be able to find out anything about the Mooney woman? I tell you, Mr. Pickens, we need to know what her purpose is, and whether she’s encouraging talk about something that may or may not be true. I mean, either way, you’d think she’d be hiding her head in shame.”

“I sho’ would,” Lillian said.

Mr. Pickens shifted uneasily in his seat. “I’ve not seen much of her, to tell the truth. Dooley keeps the men and women separate, even when we’re eating or attending one of his never-ending prayer meetings. He says we have to keep our minds on higher things, and carnal thoughts will distract us.”

“Under any other circumstances,” I told him, “I’d say that was advice you should take to heart. But, right now, Mr. Pickens, you’ve got to get close to that woman.”

“Never thought I’d hear that from you,” he said, never losing an opportunity to misconstrue something I said. “But it won’t be easy. While we’re doing construction, the women stay in the trailers, making robes and sandals and such for the actors. And they’re all actors. I think Monique’s the Samaritan woman and Mary Magdalene, which sounds like typecasting to me, but they didn’t ask me.”

“Well, listen to this,” I said, and went on to tell him about Curtis Maxwell and his financial interest in the theme park, as well as in our local elections. “So they have plenty of money and some political clout backing them up,” I concluded. “And that Maxwell man has now got the church involved. It’s an absolute mess, Mr. Pickens, and it all started when Mr. Dooley brought that crew to town.”

Mr. Pickens grunted, then remained silent while he thought over my disclosure.

“So you see what we’re up against,” I went on. “And I need to know if you’re willing to stay on a while longer. Anything you find out, Mr. Pickens, and I mean anything, might be helpful in running these people out of town—or at least discrediting them—before they take over completely.”

“Yeah, well, you may have reason to want them gone. Dooley handles the money and he seems to have plenty of it. That’s not sitting well with the rest of them. Anyway, I’ll stay on a few more days. They’re about to work us to death, though. But it’s all that praying and testifying that’s getting to me. We have a prayer meeting at the crack of dawn, one when we break for lunch, and another long-winded one after supper. And the food’s not that good, either. I’m about sick of all this holy-roller stuff.”

“Holy-roller?” I said, immediately perking up. “Are they speaking in tongues and shrieking and carrying on?” I would love to be able to tell Pastor Ledbetter that he was mixed up with a bunch of jabbering prophets who scream and faint and make short legs grow longer and operate on people without benefit of knives or anesthesia. He wouldn’t put up with that for a minute.

“No,” Mr. Pickens said, “at least, I’ve not seen anything so far, but there’s a lot of ‘Praise Gods’ and ‘Help me, Jesuses’ going on. But then, I’ve not been to church in so long, that may be standard fare now.”

“It sound pretty usual to me,” Lillian said.

“Not for Presbyterians,” I said. “Pastor Ledbetter’s a dyed-in-the-wool mainline Presbyterian, and he wouldn’t get mixed up in such as that if his life depended on it. Why, one time an old man got carried away and yelled out ‘Amen’ right in the middle of a sermon, and the pastor had to have a long talk with him. He didn’t open his mouth in church after that, and died soon afterward.”

“Interesting,” Mr. Pickens said, although he didn’t say it with a great deal of sincerity. “I figure I can put up with being prayed over a little while longer. I’ve been trying to get close to one of the younger women . . .”

“Mr. Pickens,” I said, with as much sternness I could muster, “that is not what you’re here for. You need to settle yourself down, and not be cocking your eye at everything in a skirt. It seems to me that you could restrain yourself long enough to complete your mission.”

“Oh, don’t get yourself in an uproar,” he said, so dismissively that I could’ve smacked him. “I’m trying to get close to somebody who knows Monique and who’ll talk to me about her.”

“Oh. Well, if that’s the case,” I said, “all right. But you just mind youself and remember who’s waiting for you at home.”

He laughed. “Gotta go,” he said, as he opened the door, “But don’t worry about me forgetting Hazel Marie. I know a good thing when I see it.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Before you go, I want to ask you something.” I stopped, wishing that I didn’t have to reveal the matter that had troubled me from the minute I’d first heard of Monique Mooney. I closed my eyes and asked, “What does she look like?”

“Like somebody who’s had a hard row to hoe,” Mr. Pickens said. “Probably a good-looking woman when she was young, if you like dyed black hair and lots of makeup. Sorta theatrical-looking, which goes with what she’s doing, I guess.”

“Nothing to write home about, then?” I asked with a sense of relief that she was nothing like Hazel Marie. Or, I suddenly thought, me.

“Well,” Mr. Pickens said with a grin, as he put one foot out of the car, “I’d write home about her figure. Nothing wrong with that.”

“You have a job to do,” I said with some asperity. “So you just keep your eyes to yourself while you’re doing it.”

He laughed, then slid back into the car, pulling the door closed. “One thing you could think about, Miss Julia. I’d gathered, even before you told me about Maxwell, that these people had a sponsor of some sort. That’s how they’ve gotten this far. He’s kept them on a pretty tight leash, though, and they’re not too happy about it. They may’ve been promised more than they’re getting.”

“That is curious, Mr. Pickens,” I said, thoughtfully. “Curtis Maxwell’s been busy making a name for himself in town, talking this place up and drawing attention to himself in any number of ways. Not all of them to his credit, I must say.” Then I veered off that subject, not wanting to go into the graphic details of Mr. Maxwell’s behavior. “He tells us that the Lord gave him a mission to get this theme park off the ground, and he’s dedicated to doing just that. He wants our help, of course.”

“Huh,” Mr. Pickens said. “From what I’ve seen, he needs a little more dedication. I was up on a ladder yesterday, nailing shingles on a roof, when Monique came flying out of a building where some of the women were sewing. She threw up her hands and said, ‘I can’t work with nothing, and I’m tired of trying. ’ And she went to her trailer. So what I’m thinking,” Mr. Pickens went on, as he pulled himself close to the front seat, “is this. Why don’t you pay her off? If she’s fed up out here, she might be willing to move on if she had something to move on with. You wouldn’t care about the theme park if she left, would you?”

“I wouldn’t give it two thoughts if that woman was gone. But, Mr. Pickens, that’s like paying blackmail. Only with the payer suggesting it instead of the payee. And what if she keeps coming back for more?”

“That could be a problem,” he agreed. “But if you let me handle it, she won’t be back. I guarantee it.”

Lillian and I both turned to look at Mr. Pickens, wondering if he meant what we thought he did.

“I’ll have to think about it,” I finally said. “I’d do most anything to see the last of that woman before Little Lloyd hears about her. But, Mr. Pickens, I’m leery of starting a payoff that might never end. And of getting you in trouble, if you have to enforce that guarantee you spoke of.”

“Let me worry about that,” he said, and got out of the car. “I’ll be in touch.” And without another word, he closed the door without slamming it and disappeared in the darkness.

“Wait!” I pushed open my door, almost blinding myself as I stumbled out into the dark, litter-covered ground. “Mr. Pickens, come back here.”

“What?”

Lord, he was standing right beside me. I gasped, trying to still my pounding heart. “Don’t do that!” I patted my chest, finally got my breath, and said, “I’ve thought about it, and I’ll do it. Find out if she’s open to a one-time, lump sum charitable donation to help her get started somewhere else. Make sure she knows it’s a one-time thing, offered out of the goodness of my heart to help the downtrodden. In no way is it to be construed as a bribe or as blackmail.” There, I thought, that’ll solve my problem and clear my conscience, too.

I think he nodded. “Okay. It’s probably your best bet, at least to get rid of her right away. I’ll find out how much it’ll cost you and make the arrangements.”