Hump's First Case by Ralph Dennis

Author:Ralph Dennis [Dennis, Ralph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781941298831
Published: 2019-05-09T04:00:00+00:00

Emily Parker James

Beloved Wife of Wallace

1929–1970

I filled a styrofoam cup at the pot in the church kitchen and joined them at a table in the dining room. It was filled with long trestle tables and I guess this was where they had those church suppers. I’d expected to find a sugar bowl on the table. There wasn’t one. I sipped the coffee straight.

“You were hard to find, Buddy.”

“That was what Billie Joe said. Almost exactly.”

The coffee was harsh and mean. “When was that, Mr. James?”

“The night she left Rosemary at the hotel.”

“Carl Culp was with her?”

“Sure,” he said. “He set up the meeting.”

“Then you saw the ad in the newspaper?”

“Not exactly,” he said. “A friend who still lives in Atlanta saw the item in the personals and sent it to me.”

He was talking to me but looking at Rosemary. There was a jerky, foolish grin on his face. “And you contacted Carl Culp?”

“No, I had Fred … Fred Thompson … he’s a lawyer … answer the ad. Fred passed the word back to me that my daughter, Billie Joe, wanted to see me. Of course, I wanted to see her too and we arranged the meeting that night.” He shook his head slowly. “I think I believed you’d be with her, Rosemary.”

“I would have if she’d asked me,” Rosemary said.

“After I talked to her, I realized why she hadn’t asked you. You see, she wanted to meet me so that she could decide whether she wanted to come and live with me.”

“I don’t believe that, Buddy.”

“Believe it or not, it’s true. She said she felt like she was in prison and she wanted out of it. She had nothing but angry things to say about your husband, Charles.”

“And about me?”

“She wasn’t that harsh about you. She said she thought you’d sold yourself for security and it hadn’t made you happy.”

It was edging toward soap opera. Another few minutes and they’d be crying together and comforting each other. I changed the direction of it. “The night you met her she was with Carl Culp?”

He nodded. “Fred Thompson was with me. Fred said there were some legal aspects to this and I’d better protect myself. I didn’t agree with him but I was glad for his company. I was, I guess, afraid to meet her for the first time.”

“And at that meeting …?”

“We talked. She said she wanted to go home with me. Fred didn’t think that was wise. He and Billie Joe had a heck of an argument about it. I remember Billie Joe said she was eighteen and she was grown and she could live anywhere she wanted to.”

Another sip of the coffee. “And that convinced Fred?”

“Not really, but he agreed it might be okay if I called Rosemary and told her that Billie Joe was with me.”

“But you didn’t call,” Rosemary said.

“She wouldn’t let me. She talked me out of it. As soon as we got to the farm I wanted to call you. She said if I made that call, she’d leave and I’d never hear from her again.

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