“The room is fine, Ms. Carmichael, the bed is actually really cozy and the pillows must be down. Is that right?” Blanche questioned, trying to keep the conversation going.
“Why yes they are. Not many guests mention that, so nice of you to notice. I’ve always tried to provide only the very best you know. What would you like this morning? Got some grits a cookin’ if you like or there’s fresh fruit and yogurt on the table.”
“I’ll be fine with the fruit, thank you.”
A handful of guests were huddled around the table each with a newspaper in hand and talking back and forth, apparently about a particular article that had caught their attention.
“Can you imagine waking up like that?” Mrs. Muir said, sipping her coffee and pointing to a picture and article on the front page of the Valdosta Daily Times.
”She must have crapped herself,” ‘Mr. Wonder’ eloquently pronounced. “Really must have been an eye opener for sure,” he continued.
“What’s going on?” Blanche questioned.
“You haven’t heard?” Mrs. Muir inquired.
“No, what’s up?”
“Well, you won’t believe this but the headline this morning is about some nut job that snuck into this ladies house,” pointing at the cover picture, “put on her undergarments while she was asleep then took a picture of himself and left it on the pillow next to her. Is that creepy or what? Just gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
“Now Mrs. Muir, don’t go scaring Ms. Delaney, after all she’s single as well,” cautioned Caroline.
“Guy must have balls of steel,” concluded ‘Clueless’, “He’s just asking to get caught leaving behind a picture and all. Bet the police have him by the end of the day.”
“You certainly have more confidence in the constabulary than most of the locals,” Caroline asserted.
Blanche took a seat and pulled a copy of the Times within range for her inspection. Sure enough, there on the cover was a picture of Mrs. Thelma Riddle of Valdosta, GA holding a picture of some guy with his face obscured, wearing a pair of her panties and bra, standing in a bedroom with a sleeping Thelma in the background. He’d obviously not used a flash in an attempt not to awaken the slumbering woman but the quality was good enough to make out what was going on. Between bites of fruit and gulps of juice Blanche read the police report describing the scene upon their arrival in the early morning hours.
They had been called, responding to a hysterical woman’s 911 report of a home invasion on Cat Creek Road. Two squad cars had arrived at approximately 5:30 a.m. to find Mrs. Riddle on the front step, shotgun lying loosely across her lap, head in her hands apparently sobbing. The officers led Mrs. Riddle to one of their units, assured her of her safety, and then entered the premises. They found nothing out of the ordinary, no indication of a break and enter. Locks all appeared to be intact, windows all closed with no breakage and no sign of forced entry.
Once the scene was secure they interviewed Thelma who reported, “I always have to get up about four or five o’clock to go pee but this morning when I went back to bed there was this picture on my pillow.”
The officers reported that she was still shaking from the ordeal and would be staying with friends for the next few days. The paper went on to detail that nothing in the home appeared to be tampered with other than a few of her drawers and clothing. How the perpetrator managed to gain entrance to the home was still under investigation but they believed a door may have been left unlocked. No further information was available at the time the paper was published.
The small talk continued another 15 minutes before the guests got up to begin their day.
Caroline hurried into the room. “Listen ya’ll,” she said, in her best Southern accent. “We’ll be welcoming a young couple later today celebrating their wedding and spending a few days of their honeymoon with us. I’d sure appreciate it if ya’ll would be extra nice to them while they’re here.”
Blanche tossed in a cheerful, “Sure,” as she sidestepped ‘Clueless’, controlling the urge to plant an elbow in his ribs; then skipped up the stairs to brush her teeth, grab her umbrella and head to the bus stop.
Tonight would be her first late shift and she wanted to get a few things done before having to check in at the library by noon.
Over the past couple days she’d spent her spare time looking through the paper and online at condo listings hoping to find something small, affordable and now more than ever, safe! Blanche was quite pleased with the modest nest egg resting in her Georgia Trust Bank Account. Not enough for anything extravagant by any means but nonetheless would hold her over in an emergency or make a nice little down payment on a small home or condo. The idea of a condo was appealing, no maintenance, no yard to mow and neighbors close by. From prior experience Blanche had learned that having neighbors nearby could be a double-edged sword. There’s always the jerk with the music too loud, the parties too often, the shirts unbuttoned to the navel with the gold chains and beer gut.
Blanche had often thought to herself when confronted with these brutes, “Are there really women out there that find you attractive, and if there are then God help us.”
Her last residence in Arizona had been a condo unlike any other she’d lived in before. The people were respectful, hard working, quiet and for the most part stayed to themselves, but were always pleasant when opportunities for interaction arose. On the other hand, she had lived in units where everyone knew or wanted to know everyone else’s business with a peeping tom thrown in for good measure. The last thing she wanted to do here in Valdosta was buy something before knowing all the facts. Like she’d heard a hundred times, location, location, location and being new to town she needed some help.
On this particular morning she had made an appointment with Beverly Davis of Southern States Realty. Her ad had been prominently displayed along with many others in the local paper but there was something about her smile that prompted Blanche to phone her. A five-minute conversation left Blanche with the following observations; Beverly was Southern, through and through, with a thick accent and an immediate distrust of Yankees. She was quite pleased to see that her latest client was from the West and not a Northerner. The realtor was anything but soft spoken, their conversation could have been heard at least one county over and Ms. Davis’ laugh began at her toes and worked up volume as it traveled upward. Blanche was pleased to discover that Beverly was a seasoned professional, appeared to know the area well and had the time to show her the town.
The meeting was scheduled at 10:00 a.m. with the office located not far from the library. Blanche arrived a few minutes early to make a positive impression and sat in the waiting room while the receptionist called Ms. Davis.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass if Harvey says that property line is wrong or not, we had a surveyor out there last week to confirm that he’s squatin’ on my client’s property and he better get his act together or we’ll move our litigation forward!” A woman’s voice echoed down the narrow hallway promptly followed by a phone being slammed down on a cradle.
“What is it?” again from the back room as the receptionist made contact with the unmistakable Beverly in the rear office.
“Your ten o'clock is here.”
Then a more subdued voice, “I’ll be right out.'
A moment later a woman who appeared to be in her late forties, short and thick, came walking briskly down the hallway, black curly locks swaying from side to side and the distinct sound of nylon on nylon with each advancing step.
“Well I’ll be, lookie here, you must be Ms. Delaney all the way from Arizona,” she said, extending her warm little hand, taking Blanche’s in a wrestler’s grip and pumping it up and down. “If you aren’t the prettiest little thing I’ve seen in some time. Men back home must be havin’ fits, losin’ one of the good en’s.”
It didn’t take Blanche long to recognize that the picture from the paper must have been at least 15 years and 50 lbs ago but she couldn’t help but like Beverly.
Ms. Beverly Davis, formerly Mrs. Beverly Davis Newton Marshall, had married her high school sweetheart, then 18, resulting in two children now grown and on their own, both living in Atlanta or “Hotlanta” as they liked to tell her. A few years back, in an effort to reduce and simplify her life, she had dropped the Newton and Marshall from her name and went back to her maiden name, Davis. Beverly had never been much of the motherly type, and really not much of the ‘loving wife type’ either. Thus her first marriage ended in a mutual parting of the way with no money, assets or property to dispute. Both sides were quite sure they didn’t want exclusive custody so joint custody was easily negotiated and the next 13 years were spent bouncing the kids back and forth a few weeks at a time.
Beverly had tried her hand at marriage a second time a few years back. Married a wealthy landowner from
