Free Jacob's Ladder by Jackie Lynn

“And there was poor Miss Stokely, plump as a pea, dressed up in a long white gown with tiny white pearls, the thin veil covering her shame, standing in a church filled with geraniums.” Ms. Lou Ellen folded her hands and gently placed them on the table. “That in itself was reason to leave her.”
    â€œBecause she was plump?” Rose asked, not following.
    â€œFor heaven’s sake, no, because of the plants,” the older woman replied. “Who ever heard of geraniums as a wedding flower? That marriage was doomed the moment she decided to use her houseplants as decoration.”
    â€œWell, that would explain her surly behavior.” Rose smiled and drank the last of her tea. “So, back to the story,” she continued. “I tried to find some more books but didn’t see any, and then I returned to the table. That’s when I discovered that the pages were turned in the book I had been reading, that my pen was in a different place, and that the bracelet was gone.”
    â€œHow long had you been absent from your belongings?” Ms. Lou Ellen asked.
    â€œTen or fifteen minutes at the most,” Rose replied.
    There was a pause as Ms. Lou Ellen considered what her friend had told her.
    â€œMaybe it slipped through your fingers the first time. Maybe you just thought it was gone.” She added some more water to her tea.
    â€œIt was gone,” Rose said confidently.
    â€œRose dear, haven’t you ever searched for something over and over, around every inch of your house, and then come across it right where you were sure you had already looked?”
    Rose leaned back against her chair. She stared up at the ceiling. “Yes,” she said hesitantly, “of course.” She sat up and faced her friend.
    â€œWell, maybe that’s all it was,” Ms. Lou Ellen said reassuringly.
    Rose considered the idea but didn’t seem to believe it.
    â€œOr, it could be something else.” Ms. Lou Ellen drummed her fingers on the table. She waited a minute and then resumed speaking. “Maybe it was your guilt washing over you for stealing the evidence from the crime scene.” She began to explore her newest assessment. Rose listened, though she bore a puzzled look on her face.
    â€œMaybe since you had just returned from Sheriff Montgomery, knowing that you had engaged in deceit and the looting of a dead man, and then, having sat down to read those ghastly accounts of our atrocities against the native peoples, you aligned yourself with the evil forces at work in the world from the beginning of time and it suddenly created the illusion in your mind of having been offended yourself.” She seemed pleased with her emerging analysis of what had happened to her friend.
    â€œOr perhaps you were so enveloped in your state of monkey business that your fingers became sensory-dysfunctional, paralyzed, if you will, unable to decipher the shape and feel of the pilfered piece of evidence that remains in your possession.”
    Ms. Lou Ellen pounded a fist on the table, startling both Rose and the dog. She was a lawyer at the judge’s desk, now making her case with great fervor.
    â€œYou could not recognize the thick silver band because your soul had been compromised by your actions. And even on a deeper level, you were subconsciously cloaked from the consequence of your thievery because you did not want to touch the substantiation of your connection to the immoral deeds of our ancestors who arrived on the shores of this fair land and proceeded to steal from and lie to those who had already discovered America.”
    She stopped and then ended with a great depth of emotion. “The earliest settlers, the Indians.”
    The older woman, having finished her speech, clasped her hands together in front of her chest, leaned back against her chair, closed her eyes, and exhaled a long, noisy breath. She had wrapped her closing argument and was now basking in the light