“Okay, I’ll double-check that. But if it’s zoned either C-4 or RCT—residential commercial transitional—we may have a battle on our hands. Now, you implied that the church may be supporting this group?”
“Not the church, as far as I know, but I’d bet money on the pastor. He and Madge Taylor, who most definitely is the spearhead, are as thick as thieves, so I expect he’ll present it to the session any day now, if he hasn’t already.”
“So there’s been nothing in the bulletin?” Binkie and Coleman were members of the church, but they rarely showed up for the services.
“Not a thing,” I answered. “Which goes to show that the pastor has learned his lesson. He’ll try to get the session’s backing before telling the congregation—just another instance of the underhanded way they’re going about this. He’ll want to present a fait accompli, so that the project will be too far along to stop by the time everybody finds out about it.”
“Well, here’s something you can do. Or Hazel Marie can. Make a list of all who live in the area. Using the Cochran house as the center, get the owners’ names of all the houses within a cicle of, say, about four or five blocks in diameter. It’s unlikely that there’re any homeowners’ contracts—as would be the case in a planned community—which would regulate what goes on there, but we’ll need to check that, too.”
“I know a few who live nearby already,” I said, perking up at the thought of additional help in sending Madge Taylor elsewhere. “Thurlow Jones’s house would almost certainly be within five blocks of the Cochran house. And Dr. Monroe’s, too. You know him, don’t you? He’s that foot doctor. A podiatrist I think he’s called.”
“Umm,” Binkie said, tapping a pencil on her desk. “Not good. Doesn’t he have an office in his house? That could mean it’s zoned MIC—medical institutional cultural—sort of a mixed-use designation. Unless he was grandfathered in.”
My spirits dropped at that. “Could that nonprofit group claim that they come under a medical designation, too?”
“It depends on how they’ve described themselves to qualify as a nonprofit. Don’t worry, I’ll be looking into that.”
“Well, but, listen, Binkie, I’ve heard that Dr. Monroe is all but retired. Maybe we can talk him into full retirement, and urge him to convert his office back into a living room, or whatever it was meant to be.”
Binkie smiled. “Every little thing could help. The first thing is to find out who’s bought the Cochran house. I’ll get started on that and let you know what I find out. In the meantime, get Hazel Marie busy making that list, and you might contact some church members to see how they feel.” She paused, pushed back a few curls that had fallen over her forehead, and said, “Did I understand you to say that the session will support this nonprofit?”
“No, I don’t know it for sure. I only know that Pastor Rucker supported Madge’s last wild idea, and he was mightily disappointed when it didn’t pan out. But they made a mistake by not going to the session first, so they won’t make it a second time. Binkie, I tell you that the two of them are do-gooders of the first order. They’re so intent on doing good to some that they can’t see that they’re doing harm to others.”
—
“This was harder than I thought,” I said to Hazel Marie. We were talking on the phone that afternoon, after dividing up the surrounding blocks between us. I had been on the telephone all morning and most of the afternoon. “For one thing,” I continued, “a lot of people have given up their landline phones and use only cell phones now. And cell phones aren’t listed in the phone book.”
“I know,” she said. “And my phone book must be five years old—they don’t seem to hand them out like they used to. We may have to go out and knock on doors.”
“I’d like to avoid that if we can. But how many people were you able to contact?”
“Nine. And none of them want a group home in our midst. In fact, Helen Stroud was outraged at the idea. You know how hard she’s worked on that house of Thurlow’s, and she told me that she’d already begun thinking about urging the neighbors to join in a neighborhood beautification effort. And, Miss Julia, you know that teenage boys aren’t interested in beautifying anything, except maybe some old cars jacked up in the yard.”
Helen Stroud was a divorcée who had made a rapid descent down the social scale when her husband was incarcerated for fraud and embezzlement. After living a year or so hand to mouth, she had entered into an agreement to look after Thurlow Jones, the stingiest, most aggravating man alive, when he fell off his roof and banged himself up. Helen was being handsomely rewarded for taking care of him when nobody else would.
“I know, Hazel Marie,” I said, soothingly. “I’m so glad you talked to Helen—she’ll be a great help. And the more interest we get from the neighbors, the better. I could almost wish that we lived closer to the Cochran house so I couldn’t be accused of meddling in somebody else’s business.”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. Your house is well within the five blocks that Binkie said would be affected.”
I almost missed the chair when I had to sit down.
Chapter 5
Of course it was. I knew that, yet it simply had not registered that a group home full of risky teenagers would impinge on my own property. And Mildred Allen’s as well. Her grand house on beautifully landscaped grounds was next door to mine. She most certainly would not welcome anything that lessened the value of her place.
To make myself feel better by having a companion in my anxiety, I called Mildred and told her what might soon be located in our midst.
“I
