Free Miss Julia Rocks the Cradle by Ann B. Ross Page A

head.” I stopped and pressed a Kleenex to my nose. “And he made me promise to appear in court next month, but, Lillian, I had my fingers crossed.” I looked up at her as the anger surged through me again. “Because I am not going to court! I’m not the one who committed check fraud. Somebody else is committing it on me. But nobody would listen to me, and now I have a criminal record, and I’m probably going to jail, and I’ll never in my life live it down.”
    “Come on,” Lillian said, urging me along. “I’m gonna set you by the fire and bring you some spiced tea and let you calm yo’self down. Nobody gonna be puttin’ you in jail—I don’t care what kinda record you got.” With an arm around my shoulders, Lillian walked me to the living room. “How you get outta there, anyway, without Mr. Sam or Miss Binkie?”
    “If it hadn’t been for Lieutenant Peavey, I’d probably still be there, rotting away in a cell somewhere.” I collapsed in the wing chair beside the fireplace, so overcome with misery that I wanted to curl up in a closet somewhere. “He spoke up for me, and, Lillian, it just humbled me because I don’t even like him.”
    “Yessum, he something, that man. Now I got to get on to the store and pick up Latisha, so you jus’ put yo’ head back and rest awhile. This get straightened out—see if it don’t.” She put a throw over my lap and left me to come to terms with my new criminal status. I immediately went to sleep, which as I later learned from Mr. Pickens, was a sure sign of a guilty conscience.

    “ Miss Julia! Miss Julia! ” Lloyd’s voice resounded throughout the house as the back door slammed closed with a crash. “Guess what I heard!”
    Determined to keep my legal problems to myself, I sprang from my chair to quiet him, meeting him as he burst through the swinging door into the dining room. “Shh, Lloyd. Your mother’s resting.”
    He hunched his shoulders and squinched up his face in an attempt to undo his boisterous entrance. “Oh, sorry,” he whispered, as he slipped off his heavy coat. Static electricity crackled through his hair as he pulled off his knit cap.
    “Come on in by the fire,” I said. “You’re about half frozen.”
    He tiptoed behind me to the chairs beside the fire, but didn’t take a seat. He hung on my chair, his eyes big with the latest news.
    “Now what did you hear?” I asked, smiling at him.
    “You’ll never guess,” he said, leaning forward and trying to hold his voice down, “but that body they found was somebody who used to live here. It’s all over school, but nobody knows who it was.”
    “Somebody who used to live here?” I repeated. “That could cover a lot of ground, Lloyd. People come and go all the time. I’m not sure that’s much help.”
    “Yes’m, but everybody’s saying it was somebody who was real rich. That oughta narrow it down. I bet we could figure it out if we give it a little thought.” He pulled a footstool closer and sat beside me. “You probably even knew him, Miss Julia. It could be anybody who had a lot of money and used to live here but doesn’t anymore. I can’t come up with a soul, but I bet you could if you put your mind to it.”
    I gazed down at the avid look on his face and, still stung by Thurlow’s accusation, recognized the danger the boy was in. And recognized, also, the part that I, all unwittingly, may have played in whetting his interest in rumors, hearsay, and—I admit it—gossip.
    “Lloyd,” I said, wondering how I could best phrase my warning, “it’s perfectly natural—and commendable—to be interested in the things that happen in our neighborhood. We all are, but we mustn’t let ourselves get carried away. We have to put this unfortunate occurrence in the proper perspective. Moderation is what we should aim for.”
    “Yes’m, I understand and I’m moderating as best I can. But, Miss Julia, it’s not every day that a dead body turns up in your own teacher’s