Read Online Miss Julia to the Rescue by Ann B. Ross - Free Book Online

leaving home to go on duty. I told him what I’d learned and that I was going to Hazel Marie’s right away.
    “Can you meet us there, Coleman?” I asked. “I think your being there will give her some reassurance. We can decide on our next step.”
    “I’ve got to go to roll call, then I’ll come over.”

    Lord, I thought as I began dressing, Hazel Marie will climb the walls. She was already worried enough, a condition plain to see the night before. However much the babies and Latisha held our attention during and after supper, the unsaid concern had been present in her eyes.
    Hearing Lillian come in downstairs, I quickly dressed, although my shaking hands fumbled with the buttons and I almost walked out in my bedroom slippers.
    “What you doin’ up so early?” Lillian asked before I could speak.
    “Problems, Lillian.” Then, seeing Latisha coloring in a
Princess Coloring
Book
at the table, I said, “Good morning, Latisha. Would you like to go into the living room and do your coloring on the coffee table?”
    “No, ma’am,” she said, pressing down with an orange crayon. “I’m fine right here where Great-Granny can make me some breakfast.”
    “Oh, well, all right. Lillian, let me show you something in the dining room.”
    I walked out with Lillian behind me, then I turned and said, “Mr. Pickens is in a hospital somewhere in West Virginia, except they’re calling him John Doe, so we don’t know if it’s him or not. But I think it is, because the highway patrolman told Coleman aprivate investigator was in that hospital. So how many of those could there be? Anyway, Lillian,” I said, my voice catching in my throat as I clasped her arm, “anyway, I talked to the operator and she let it slip that Mr. Doe, who just
has
to be Mr. Pickens, is in the hospital with a gunshot wound.”
    “Oh, Law,” Lillian said, her hand going to her throat. “What we gonna do?”
    “First thing is to go over and tell Hazel Marie. I want you to go with me because we can’t keep this from her any longer. Lloyd spent the night with her, so he’ll be there. He and Latisha can entertain the babies while we talk it over and decide what to do.”
    “Yes, ma’am, let’s us go now.” She started back into the kitchen, then stopped. “What about everybody’s breakfast?”
    “We’ll let James worry about that. I’ll need your help with Hazel Marie.”
    We herded Latisha and all her crayons out to the car, while trying to answer her questions without really answering them. She was happy enough to go, settling down in the backseat, especially after we told her that we needed her to babysit for a little while.
    “I can do that,” she said in her sharp, piercing voice, completely confident in her ability. “I can take care of them babies jus’ like they my very own.”
    Lillian rolled her eyes. “Don’t be thinkin’ nothin’ like that. You got a long road ahead of you ’fore you havin’ any babies.”
    Latisha’s little legs stuck out over the seat as she rummaged through her pink backpack, making sure that all her necessities were in it. “That’s why I’m doin’ all my practicin’ on Miss Hazel Marie’s babies, so I be ready when the time come.”
    “Have mercy,” Lillian mumbled.
    I quickly drove the four blocks to Sam’s old house, parked at the curb and climbed out. Latisha dashed up the sidewalk and onto the porch.
    “You jus’ wait a minute, young lady,” Lillian called. “Don’t go ringing that bell. Them babies might still be asleep.”
    “No’m, they wide awake. I hear ’em bawlin’ in there.”
    And sure enough, so could we as Lillian and I approached the door.
    “Oh, Lillian,” I said, “I dread this.”
    “I do, too, but it got to be done.” Lillian rang the doorbell and, thank goodness, Lloyd came to the door.
    “Uh-oh,” he said as soon as he saw us. “Bad news?”
    “Not good,” I said, “but maybe not terrible, either. At least as far as we know. Your mother