Миранда Джеймс - Six Cats A Slayin'

“Tommy, you can come and see the kittens whenever you like,” I said.

“Anytime?” he asked.

“Well, not at three o’clock in the morning,” I said in a solemn tone. He giggled at that. “I’ll wait until four,” he said. I had to smile. Smart boy.

I opened the door for him. I expected him to run out, but he stood looking up at me.

“What is it?” I asked.

Suddenly he threw himself against me and hugged me hard. I patted his head, trying to swallow the sudden lump in my throat. Tommy turned me loose and ran out the door.

I shut the door and realized that Diesel was watching me. He meowed as if asking me a question. I stroked his head. “I don’t know yet what I’m going to say to his stepfather,” I told the cat, “but one way or another I’m going to talk to that man and tell him what I think of him for the way he’s treating that poor little boy.”

THIRTY-TWO

I returned home from my visit with Alex feeling encouraged about her progress and the eventual outcome. Her face had lost that sunken look, and her skin had taken on a healthier-looking tone. She was still depressed and prone to self-recrimination, but there were signs of improvement. Before I left, Sean brought Rosie in to her mother, and Alex immediately reached for her baby. After a few minutes, I left the three of them together, saying a silent prayer of thanks.

When I neared my driveway, I spotted Melba’s car parked in front of the house. I remembered she had gone to visit an elderly lady in the nursing home, Ida Norwood. No, that didn’t sound right. Was it Ima? I asked myself as I pulled into the garage. Yes, that was it. Ima Jean Norwood .

Diesel met me at the door, chirping happily, no doubt informing me that his buddy Melba was here. I glanced toward the table to see Melba sipping from a mug. She was frowning when she looked across the room at me. Her face cleared, and she smiled. “I’m glad you’re back. Tell me, how is Alex?”

“Doing much better, I’m happy to say.”

Azalea came into the kitchen. “She’s doing better?” she inquired.

“Yes, thankfully.” I shared some of the details with them.

“Surely the worst is over now,” Melba said.

“I think so,” I said, “but we have to pray that she doesn’t have a relapse. This is not something a woman recovers from in a day or two. It will take time.”

Azalea said, “I’ll be praying for her, and if she needs me for anything, I’ll be glad to do it.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I know how much she will appreciate that. If you have time to visit her, I think she would love to see you.”

“I’ll be sure to go,” Azalea said. “Would you like coffee? I made plenty.”

“Yes, thank you.” I could have served myself, but Azalea bustled toward the coffeemaker. I pulled out my chair from the table and took up my usual position.

While I stirred my coffee, I looked at Melba. Moments before, she had seemed happy about Alex, but now her frown had returned. “What’s the problem?” I said. “Didn’t you get any useful information from your visit with Mrs. Norwood?”

“I’m not sure,” Melba said. “It’s a strange story, and I’m not sure it makes much sense or has anything to do with what happened a few days ago.” She lapsed into silence again.

“I won’t know that until you tell me,” I said to prompt her.

Melba sighed. “Okay, but let me tell it my way, and don’t interrupt me.”

“All right,” I said. “Please proceed.”

“Now, like I told you before, Mrs. Norwood was friends with Billy Albritton’s mother. She lived on a small farm near theirs. This was around seventy years ago. They were all hardscrabble kind of folks, not a whole lot of money. Billy’s daddy and his daddy had to do a lot of hunting to keep food on the table, because there were so many of them. Billy’s dad, Jack, had twelve brothers and sisters, and he was one of the oldest. Jack had brothers and sisters the same age as his oldest kids, Billy and his sister.” She paused for coffee and stared unseeingly in my direction.

I waited patiently for her to continue, not wanting to break her concentration.

“Where they lived was pretty far out in the county. No such thing as indoor plumbing, even at that time, when everybody in town had it. Mrs. Norwood said the day her family moved into a house with an indoor toilet she sat in the bathroom for two hours just marveling at it. The point I’m getting at is, they were poor. A lot of mouths to feed, and not always enough to go around. Billy’s mom kept having kids, and a couple of them died not long after they were born.

“When Billy was about eight—did I tell you Billy was the oldest? I meant to. Well, Jack Albritton went out hunting one day with one of the little ones, a boy going on four years old. When Jack got back that evening, he didn’t have the boy with him. Claimed he lost sight of the boy in the woods, and even though he searched and called for him for hours, he never found him.” She shivered suddenly. “In those days there were still bears and panthers in the woods. I remember my mama telling me how they would hear the panthers scream at night, and she and her sister would get under the bed and hide.” Her hands were shaking a little as she grasped her mug and brought it to her mouth.

“Sounds pretty terrifying,” I said.

Melba nodded. “Jack’s daddy said a bear or a panther must have gotten the boy, but they never found any trace of him. Wasn’t long, though, before Jack came home with a new rifle and some new clothes for himself and his wife. The kids got new things, too. Jack claimed he’d done something to help a man with money, and the man was so grateful that he gave Jack a big reward. I guess they had no choice but to believe him, because he swore up and down it was true.

“The family didn’t move to Athena until some years later, around when Billy was ready to start high school. Billy’s mama wanted him to have an education so he could do better than she and his daddy had done. His daddy got a job as a mechanic, plus a timber company bought their land. The Norwoods’ land, too.

“This would have been about six years after the little boy disappeared. Mrs. Norwood said one day when she was shopping, she came across a woman and a boy about nine or ten—he was a little on the small side, she said. Anyway, the boy looked kind of familiar, Mrs. Norwood thought, but she couldn’t place him right off. She didn’t know the woman’s name, although she found out later on. Turned out it was Mrs. Halbert.”

Melba must have noticed my perplexed expression. I had no idea who Mrs. Halbert was.

“She was Deirdre Thompson’s mama,” Melba said. “Deirdre was a Halbert.”

“Okay.” I had an idea where this rambling tale was leading, but I had a piece of the puzzle Melba didn’t. I waited for her to continue and finish the story.

“Everybody knows that Mr. and Mrs. Halbert had only one biological child, and that was Deirdre. But about six years before Mrs. Norwood saw Mrs. Halbert with this boy, they came back from a trip—or so they said—and had a boy with them. Claimed he was the son of friends of theirs who’d died suddenly. The Halberts had adopted him. Named him Ronnie.”

I didn’t remember Ronnie Halbert at all, but I knew Melba would enlighten me.

“Mrs. Norwood saw Mrs. Halbert and Ronnie a couple times more, and it finally hit her why he looked familiar. She thought he looked a little like Mrs. Albritton, Billy’s mama. Billy and his sister took after Jack in looks.”

I finally couldn’t resist a question. “Did Mrs. Norwood talk to Mrs. Albritton about this?”

“She couldn’t,” Melba said. “Mrs. Albritton had died about a year before that, not long after Jack had moved him and his kids to Athena, along with his parents and some of his youngest brothers and sisters.