was to do) in between monologues, and Mrs. Jepperson was bedridden and didn’t have much occasion to litter the house. Her family visited every day, either her daughter, her son, their spouses, or any of the eight grandchildren. There were great-grandchildren, too, maybe three or four.
After I’d written a brief list of needed supplies and stuck it to the refrigerator (the granddaughter would pick it up and take it to the store) I perched on the edge of Laquanda’s chair set close to the bed. She’d carefully angled it so she could see the front door, the television, and Mrs. Jepperson, all in a single sweeping glance.
I’d thought Mrs. Jepperson was still asleep, but after a minute she opened her eyes. Narrowed by drooping, wrinkled lids, her eyes were dark brown and cloudy, and since her eyebrows and eyelashes were almost invisible she looked like some old reptile in the sun.
“She’s really not so bad,” Mrs. Jepperson told me, in a dry, rustling voice that increased her resemblance to a reptile. “She just talks to keep her spirits up. Her job is so boring.” And the old woman gave a faint smile that had the traces of a formidable charm lingering around the edges.
I couldn’t think of any response.
Mrs. Jepperson looked at me with greater attention.
“You’re the housecleaner,” she said, as if she’d just slapped a label on my forehead.
“Yes.”
“Your name is…?”
“Lily Bard.”
“Are you married, Lily?” Mrs. Jepperson seemed to feel obliged to be social.
“No.”
My employer seemed to ponder that. “I was married for forty-five years,” she said after a pause.
“A long time.”
“Yep. I couldn’t stand him for the last thirty-five of them.”
I made a strangled noise that was actually an attempt to stifle a snort of laughter.
“You all right, young woman?”
“Yes ma’am. I’m fine.”
“My children and grandchildren hate me talking like this,” Mrs. Jepperson said in her leisurely way. Her narrow brown eyes coasted my way to give me a close examination. “But that’s the luxury of outliving your husband. You get to talk about him all you want.”
“I never thought of that.”
“Here I am, talking,” she said undeniably. “He had an eye for other women. I’m not saying he ever actually did anything about it, but he looked aplenty. He liked stupid women.”
“Then he made a mistake.”
She laughed herself, after a second of thinking that through. Even her laughter had a dry and rustling sound. “Yes, he did,” she said, still amused. “He did right well in the lumber business, left me enough to last out my lifetime without me having to go teach school or do some other fool thing I wasn’t meant to do. ‘Course, I had to run the business after he died. But I already knew a lot, and I learned more right smart.”
“I guess you know who owns all the land hereabouts, since you were in lumber.” It occurred to me I had a valuable source of information right here in front of me.
She looked at me, a little surprised. “I did. I used to.”
“You know Birdie Rossiter, widow of M. T. Rossiter?”
“Audie Rossiter’s daughter-in-law?”
“Right. Know where she lives?”
“Audie gave them that land. They built right off of Farm Hill Road.”
“That’s right.”
“What about it?”
“There’s a few acres of woods right outside the city limits sign, just south of the road.”
“Hasn’t been built on yet?” Mrs. Jepperson said. “That’s a surprise. Less than half a mile past the city limits, yes?”
I nodded. Then, afraid she couldn’t make that out, I said, “Yes.”
“You want to know who that belongs to?”
“Yes, ma’am. If you know.”
“You could go the county clerk’s office, look it up.”
“It’s easier to ask you.”
“Hmm.” She looked at me, thinking. “I believe that land belongs to the Prader family,” she said finally. “Least, it did up until maybe five years ago.”
“You were working up till then?” I figured Mrs. Jepperson was in her late eighties.
“Didn’t have nothing else to do. I’d make those men I hired ride me around. Let ‘em know I was checking on what they were doing. You can believe I kept them on their toes. They need to keep on earning money for those worthless great-grandchildren of mine.” She smiled, and if I needed another clue that she didn’t really think her great-grandchildren were worthless, I got it then.
“Joe C Prader owns that land?”
“Sure does, if I remember correctly. He lets his family and friends hunt on it. Joe C’s even older’n me, so he may not have any friends left. He didn’t have a whole lot to start with.”
Mrs. Jepperson fell asleep without any warning. It was so alarming that I checked her breathing, but she was fine as far as I could tell. Laquanda came in soon afterward and checked on the old lady too. She’d dropped her daughter off at home with instructions to take some Emetrol and ginger ale and go to bed.
“She okay while I was gone?” Laquanda asked.
“Fine. We had a conversation,” I reported.
“You? And Miz Jepperson? I wish I coulda heard that,” Laquanda said skeptically. “This lady knows everything, and I mean everything, about Shakespeare. At least about the white folks, and a lot of the blacks, too. But she doesn’t share it, no sir. She keeps her mouth shut.”
I shrugged and gathered my things together. If I’d asked her about old scandals and personalities, I wouldn’t have gotten the same cooperation I’d gotten in asking about land. Land was business. People weren’t.
When I got back to my house to eat lunch, I had a message on my answering machine from Becca. She’d thought of a couple of bills that would come due while she was gone, and wanted to leave checks with me to cover them. After I’d eaten a tuna sandwich, brushed my teeth, and checked my makeup, I still had thirty minutes until my next appointment, so I decided to oblige.
There was a pickup truck backed in toward the rear door of the apartment building. It was half-full of boxes. Separated from Lacey or not, Jerrell was helping to empty the apartment. He wasn’t anywhere in sight, so I assumed he was up in Deedra’s place.
Anthony answered Becca’s door. He looked as though he’d just stepped out of the shower and pulled on his clothes.
“Becca here?” I asked.
“Sure, come on in. Pretty day, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“She’ll be right out. She’s in the shower. We’ve been running,” he explained.
I finally sat down to wait when a moment or two didn’t produce Becca. I thought I heard the bathroom door open at one point, but if she’d peeked out she’d gone right back in. Becca was a high-maintenance woman. Her brother kept up his end of the small-talk convention with considerable determination, but I was glad when Becca showed and we could both give up. Anthony didn’t seem to want to talk about anything but his experiences with the prisoners he counseled. He was on the verge of sounding obsessed, I thought.
Becca emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a robe. Even fresh from the shower, she was groomed.
“Lily,” she said, surprised to see me. “When did you get here?”
“About ten minutes ago,” I said.
“You should have called me,” Becca told Anthony, punching him in the shoulder. “I could have hurried.”
I waited for her to work her way around to the reason she’d wanted me to come over. She had arranged for the bank to send me a check for the building maintenance, and she assured me the checks would keep arriving until she returned to town and rescinded the order. She’d arranged for the utilities to be paid by automatic withdrawal, and
