“If he gets out.”
Caroline stared at her. “When he gets out. Morgan is in prison unjustly. We keep at it until we find a better lawyer, get an appeal and a new trial. A fair trial. But not in Rome,” she said bitterly.
Becky laid her hand over Caroline’s. “You make it sound so simple.”
“There’s no other way. First thing is to find an attorney.”
“I’ve already made some inquiries,” Becky said. “There are several lawyers in Atlanta I want to see. But, Mama, we need new evidence, stronger evidence, for an appeal. I want to talk with the tellers, with Mrs. Herron and Betty Holmes, and the younger teller. I want to talk with the bank manager, and the witness who saw Morgan’s car leave the bank.” She sighed. “I mean to talk with Natalie Hooper, though I don’t look forward to facing that piece of trash.”
Caroline gave Becky a long look. “That’s not the way to go.” She rose to cut the shortcake and lathered on whipped cream. “Let the lawyer do that. You could compromise the case.”
Watching her mother, Becky thought about that. She watched Sammie, too. Though the child made quick work of her dessert she was too quiet, hurting so bad inside, missing her daddy.
Still, though, after the good meal Sammie seemed steadier. Her color brightened; she seemed more alive, less subdued than when they’d left the jail. “Can I go outside and play?”
Becky and Caroline looked at each other. “In the front yard,” Becky said. “Stay in front of the big window where we can see you.”
Sammie nodded. She walked quietly through the house and out the front door, not running as she normally would. Becky and Caroline moved into the living room to sit on the couch looking out the bay window, watching her.
“The new attorney should talk to the witnesses,” Caroline repeated. “Particularly Falon’s girlfriend, his key witness. What if Falon found out you’d questioned her? Don’t you think he’d make trouble?”
“Mama, I . . . tried to speak to her yesterday, in the parking lot after the sentencing. He probably knows that. She was still nervous, even more upset than she showed on the witness stand. I thought if I could get her to say something incriminating . . .”
Watching her mother, Becky wilted. “I guess that was foolish. I approached her as she was getting in her car. She scowled and turned away, said she couldn’t talk to me. But,” she said, her hand on Caroline’s, “it gave me satisfaction that she was so shaky. I . . . hoped to scare her, make her think about what she’d done.”
“Leave her alone, Becky. That’s your attorney’s job.” Caroline was quiet for a moment, then her look softened. “When you’re the most determined, the most set on something, I see your father in you.”
Becky grinned. “You don’t see yourself?”
Caroline laughed.
“I didn’t understand until I got older,” Becky said, “how hard it was for you, raising us alone.”
“We did it together,” Caroline said, “the four of us. It was our life and it’s been a good one. It’s still a good life,” she said. “We’ll get through this hard part, this isn’t forever.”
Becky hoped it wasn’t forever, hoped her mother was right. “No one could have had a better childhood,” she said, “or a closer, stronger family.”
Watching Sammie out the window, where she was petting the neighbors’ collie, Becky smiled as Sammie tried to push the dog into the bushes as if in some new game. When he wouldn’t go, and Sammie herself crept in beneath the shrubs, a chill touched Becky.
Rising, she moved quickly to the window. Sammie was out of sight. A sleek black convertible came slowly down the street, the top up. As Falon’s Ford coupe eased to a crawl they raced for the front door. As they crossed the glassed porch, Falon was in the yard. Behind him the driver’s door stood open, they could hear the engine running. They lost sight of him beyond the porch blinds. When they burst out to the walk the car door slammed and the car sped away.
The yard was empty. They couldn’t see Sammie, and couldn’t see if she was in the car. Becky parted the bushes, peering in, but saw only shadows. The dog had disappeared, too. She screamed for Sammie, then ran, chasing the car, ran until she heard Caroline shout.
“She’s here—she’s all right.”
Becky turned, saw Caroline kneeling, hugging Sammie. The dog was there, too, pressing against them. Becky knelt beside them, holding Sammie close, the dog licking their faces. Picking Sammie up, Becky carried her in the house like a very small child. They locked the door, and as Caroline checked the back door, Becky sat at the table holding Sammie. “What did he say? What did he do, what did he say to you?”
“He came to the bushes and looked in. We were down at the end. When Brownie growled, Falon backed away. But he kept looking.” She shivered against Becky. “He told me to come out. Brownie growled again and he turned away. I heard his door slam, heard him drive away.”
Caroline had picked up the phone to call the police. At Becky’s look she put the receiver down.
“What good,” Becky said, “after the way we were treated in court? The Rome cops don’t like us. They’ll write it up as grandstanding, trying to get attention. Who knows what the report would say?” She stared over Sammie’s head at Caroline. Could Falon have come in retaliation because she’d talked to Natalie? She should have left the woman alone. She cuddled Sammie, kissing her, terrified for her.
Caroline sat down at the table. “I think you can’t stay in Rome. You’ll have to get out, move where he won’t find you.”
“Where, Mama? I can’t afford to rent somewhere. And my work, my bookkeeping accounts are all here.”
Caroline’s look was conflicted. “There’s my sister, Anne. I doubt many people know where she is or even know I have a sister. I never talk about her, she never comes to see us.”
“I couldn’t go there. I haven’t seen her since I was in high school. She wouldn’t want me and Sammie, she doesn’t even like children.” The only time they heard from Anne was an occasional phone call, a familiar duty in which she’d ask after everyone’s health but didn’t seem to really care. She would send a stiff little card at Christmas, cool and impersonal.
Caroline and Anne, even when they were young children, had been at odds, Anne an austere and withdrawn little girl, disdaining the small pleasures that brought joy to Caroline and her friends. She didn’t care to climb trees, play ball, compose and act out complicated stage plays with wildly fancy costumes. Aloof and judgmental, Anne had seemed caught in her own solemn world. As if, Caroline said, Anne had never been a child, not in the normal sense. Over the years, after Becky’s father died, their family had visited Anne twice in Atlanta. They weren’t comfortable in her big, elegant home, with her formal ways. She had never come up to Rome, though Caroline had invited her many times.
Anne had left Rome very young to work as a secretary in Atlanta. She had married young, and some years later was divorced. She had remained in Atlanta in her Morningside home, comfortable with the money her philandering husband had settled on her. Becky thought that asking to move in with Anne, begging to be taken in like a charity case, was not something she could handle.
But she had to get away from Falon, she had to get Sammie away.
“I’ll call her,” Caroline said. “Let me see what I can do.”
“Mama, she won’t want us. She certainly won’t want a little girl in the house. And to know she’d be harboring a convict’s family . . . No, I don’t want to go there.”
“We have to try. Sammie can’t stay here, it’s too dangerous.” She put her hand over Becky’s. “Only a few people in town would remember Anne. I doubt they’d know where she went or that she married and later divorced. I doubt anyone would know what her name is now.”
Becky wasn’t so sure. In a small town, everyone knew your business. And this small town had turned vicious; people might dredge up anything they could find.