Spare Change (Wyattsville #1)(67)

Searching for Hopeful

Olivia, fairly certain she had not seen the last of the two police officers, set about finding a way to deal with the situation. First she telephoned Clara, a woman with no legal expertise whatsoever, but an uncanny knack for finding a way around even the most difficult problems. Unfortunately, this time Clara could think of nothing other than removing Olivia’s name from the mailbox and having the other residents swear she’d moved off and taken Ethan Allen with her. Although Olivia generally praised Clara’s ingenuity, this time she simply shook her head. “That’s not much of a solution,” she sighed, then called Fred McGinty. He thought perhaps Olivia should marry him and the two of them adopt Ethan Allen but Olivia told him right off that such an idea was ridiculous.

“Ridiculous?” he said, “I beg to differ! You think those policemen are gonna come looking for an Ethan Allen McGinty?”

“I’d sooner stick with Clara’s plan,” Olivia answered then she hung up and went on to calling a long list of other people. After she’d telephoned most everyone at Wyattsville Arms and several of her friends back in Richmond, and still did not have one valid suggestion for dealing with the situation, Olivia hit upon another thought. She dialed the information operator and said, “I’m looking for the number of the Main Street Motel in Hopeful, Georgia.”

Once she had the number, Olivia dialed and waited as the telephone rang—four…five…six times—it seemed an eternity; finally, a voice answered, “Sorry for being so slow,” the woman said, “I was tending to business in the johnny.”

“Canasta? Canasta Jones?”

“Yes ma’am,” the woman answered.

Olivia gave an audible sigh of relief, “It’s me,” she said, “Olivia Doyle!”

“I know you?”

“Of course you know me. I was there last fall, stayed over a week. Remember?”

“Not right off the top of my head.”

“My husband died. I was carrying him in an urn. Remember? I came in crying and feeling downright miserable, you fixed that wonderful okra soup, remember that? When I left, you packed up some of those happiness seeds for me to take…”

“Well land sakes alive! Course I remember you, sugar. Sometimes this forgetful old thinker of mine just goes on the fritz. How you doing?”

“Thanks to you, I’m getting along just fine. That okra soup of yours really did the trick. I was about ready to give up on living, when…”

Canasta began chuckling, “Okra soup don’t do nothing but warm your insides,” she said, “you got to feeling better ‘cause you decided to get on with the business of living. Only thing what helped you, sugar, was the having of a friend’s ear to listen.”

“Oh dear,” Olivia sighed.

“Oh dear?”

“I was hoping to get some more of those seeds, but…”

“I thought you said you was doing fine; a person doing fine don’t need to lean on such foolishness.”

“They weren’t for me exactly. I was figuring to feed them to this detective, so he’d see the truth of things and stop chasing after poor little Ethan Allen.”

“Whoa there,” Canasta said, “You done lost me.”

“It’s a long story,” Olivia sighed sorrowfully. She launched into the full explanation of how Ethan Allen had witnessed the murder of his mama and daddy and then traveled halfway across the state in search of his grandpa Charlie—the same Charlie she’d brought home in an urn. “That poor child has certainly gone through enough; and now, he’s being badgered by the police!”

Listening intently, Canasta said, “How come the police is bothering an unfortunate little fella like him?”

“Because he saw the whole thing and knows the truth of what happened.”

“If he knows, why don’t he tell?” she asked.

“Because,” Olivia said, “the person responsible for the murder is the policeman’s daddy!”

“Well, if that don’t beat all!” Canasta gasped. “Sugar, you and that boy are truly in one sorry state! A situation such as this ain’t nothing okra soup can fix.”

“Oh,” Olivia sighed, her voice sliding downhill. “I was hoping…”

“Hoping? Hoping ain’t gonna get you nowhere. You got to take action. You got to get to telling the truth to somebody who’ll do something about it.”

“Such as?”

Canasta thought a long while before she spoke. “When a murder’s been committed, you got to tell a police officer. There just ain’t no getting around it. That said, I surely wouldn’t have it be the fella whose daddy did the killing. He might well be on the up and up, but with family blood thick between them, I sure wouldn’t chance it. No indeed,” she sighed, “you got to find yourself a well-intended, God-fearing, honest policeman.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Look in their eyes. The truth of a person’s soul is in their eyes.”

“Truth of their soul? How am I supposed to recognize a thing like that? It doesn’t exactly stand out on a person’s face—like freckles or bushy brows.”

“The truth’s a sight more recognizable than folks might think. Fix yourself in place for a bit and study a man’s eyes, you’ll catch hold of what I mean. A man who’s honest and got a well-intentioned heart—he’s got the light of God inside his head. You look deep in his eyes, and guaranteed you’ll see a shiny little speck sent down from heaven. Sugar, a man like that, believe me, he’s one you wanna trust.”