I said to the man, “Who are you?”
He said, “I’m her husband.” He pointed to Opal.
Then Opal said, “Wouldn’t you like some ice cream?” That sounded like a good idea and besides, I thought if we went to a public place, I could run if I had to. But they took me up the road to the Tastee Freeze, a drive-in, and I had to stay in the car. When the waitress came, I screamed that I was being kidnapped and to call the police. She laughed because she knew me. One time I had gone up there with Michael with a saucepan on my head and had told her that I was Johnny Appleseed. She just kept laughing, so I gave up. I ordered an orange crush and a banana split, but I wasn’t saying anything to those people. I had made a promise to Michael’s mother not to ever mention the names Ruby Bates or Claude Pistal out loud as long as I lived.
Opal said, “I wanted to meet the little girl my sister told me about. Ruby liked you a lot, and we hope you’d like to help us find her killer. We know it was Claude Pistal, and we’ve tried every way in the world to get a case against him, but Claude lies and says he never knew a Ruby Bates. Ruby had told me all about Claude, though I warned her against ruining her reputation by going with him, but Ruby just told me not to worry, the only person who had ever seen them together was a little girl named Daisy who lived on the beach and had been named after a vase of flowers. That was how I found you.”
Well, I hope everybody is satisfied they gave me such a stupid name! If they had named me something simple like Mary, this would have never happened.
Then the man started to talk and asked me to think about Ruby’s four little motherless children. He must have thought I was stupid. I said, “Mister, I am in the sixth grade and I can read obituaries, and she didn’t even have any children, so there.” That shut him up. I said, “You better take me home now.”
He tried a different story. “Don’t you feel bad about letting Ruby’s killer run loose when you could put him in jail where he belongs? How would you feel if it had been your momma and somebody knew the killer and wasn’t telling?”
He was beginning to get me with that mother stuff, so I just clamped my lips shut and looked out the window. I did feel bad, but not bad enough to get myself killed in case they didn’t arrest Claude in time.
Opal started to cry and said, “Please help me, Daisy. You are the only one who can.”
Then he started up again. “Daisy, I want you to think about this. If Opal and I found out about you seeing Claude and Ruby together, don’t you think eventually Claude Pistal’s going to remember you saw them together. Think what he might do to you.”
“You’re not going to tell him, are you?”
I could have choked myself. I still hadn’t admitted anything, but I should have kept my mouth shut. The man pretended like nothing had happened and just kept on talking. “Now, we don’t want to, Daisy, but the time will come when we might have to tell the police.” They kept talking to me like that for over an hour, but I never said another word except to order a hot fudge sundae with nuts.
They finally gave up and took me back to school in time to catch the school bus home.
Mrs. Underwood better check out who she lets take her students out of class. She should ask to see some identification. I was as sick as a dog on that bus. Mrs. Butts had to stop three times for me to throw up. When I got home, guess who was sitting there with Daddy? Opal and her husband, the very ones that had kidnapped me.
Daddy looked worried. The man said, “Daisy, I’m Mr. Kilgore from the FBI.” He had lied and told me that he was Opal’s husband! FBI men are not supposed to lie. On top of that, he had a tape recorder and was playing the tape of what we had been saying in the car that afternoon. They made me sit down and hear it.
“Listen to this, Mr. Harper. This is where we got her.”
He played the part where I asked if they were going to tell Claude Pistal on me. I sure do have a southern accent. He played some more of the tape, but all you could hear was them talking and me eating my banana split.
He said to Daddy, “This tape will hold up in court as evidence, Mr. Harper, because the child had no way of knowing Ruby had a sister named Opal unless she had talked to her because her name appeared in the obituaries as Mrs. Julian Wilson.”
Daddy looked at me. “Is this true?”
I didn’t know what to answer without incriminating myself. I said, “I want to talk to my lawyer,” which was the wrong thing to say because Daddy grabbed me and about shook my head off.
He said it was not funny and I better quit acting like a horse’s ass and tell him everything before he beat the living daylights out of me. Mad as he was, he might have killed me before Claude Pistal got a chance.
Mr. Kilgore told him to calm down, I was probably just scared. So I told them the whole story, but I never once said Ruby Bates’s or Claude Pistal’s name out loud. Only used “he and she” and they would say “Ruby” and “Claude Pistal” and I would nod my head yes. I wasn’t taking any chances of them fooling me and taping my voice again.
I told them all about when I was up at the Blue Gardenia Lounge waiting to get paid for taping Angel’s ears back and how he threatened me and how Harold Pistal had warned me not to tell my parents about Claude being so mean. Then I told Mr. Kilgore about the afternoon Claude brought Ruby up there to use the bathroom. It was when Momma and Daddy had gone fishing with Mr. and Mrs. Dot and caught all those rotten Spanish mackerel. When Mr. Kilgore asked for the exact date, Daddy called Mr. Dot on the phone to find out. Mr. Dot remembered, and also reminded Daddy that he still owed him money for half the rental on the boat. Ill bet Daddy was sorry he made that phone call.
After I finished my story, Mr. Kilgore admitted that taping my voice had been illegal. Tricked! But he did it for my own protection, Claude is dangerous and the FBI suspects him of a lot of murders all over the country, but they haven’t been able to pin anything on him until now. All I had to do was to sign a paper stating I had seen Ruby Bates and Claude Pistal together on the afternoon of September 21 and for us not to worry, that I would probably never be called to testify. That’s right, I’ll probably be dead.
My daddy must have read my mind because he said, “Now, wait a minute, how do I know my little girl will be protected?”
Mr. Kilgore said, “Mr. Harper, trust me. We know exactly where Claude Pistal is at this very minute.”
“Where is he?” I asked.
Mr. Kilgore answered, “I’m not at liberty to say, but don’t worry. I’ll be back tomorrow with legal papers for you to sign. Meanwhile, don’t discuss the case with anyone, not even Mrs. Romeo.”
Opal said she could never thank me enough for what I was doing, I had made her the happiest woman alive. Sure, I thought, she wasn’t the one that Claude Pistal was going to kill.
Daddy and Jimmy Snow sat up all night and didn’t sleep a wink and didn’t have one drink.
This morning before I went to school, Mr. Kilgore came back with that paper to sign. Before he left, he said, “Miss Harper, I just want you to know, I have cross-examined a lot of pretty tough customers, and you are the hardest nut I have ever had to crack. My hat’s off to you.”
I felt great until I started thinking on the bus that he said that just to make me feel good because it had only taken him one afternoon to make me spill my guts. I had sold out for a banana split and a hot fudge sundae and, on top of that, I hadn’t done page 57 on my arithmetic book.
It’s not that I don’t trust the FBI, but in case there is a slipup, I have written down the combination to my lock that goes to the box where I keep my private papers and put it in a Luden’s cough drop box and put it in a sock, and put that in a cigar box. I glued that shut with airplane glue and put it in a sack and buried it on the beach. I have given Michael the map of where I buried it. He is to go dig it up only if I am killed. There are two parts to the map. I made Daddy take me up to the colored quarters and I gave Peachy Wigham the other half. I told her under no circumstances is she to give it to Michael if I am living, and
she said she wouldn’t. She asked no questions. That’s why she’s so popular.
This is my farewell note just in case.
To Whom It May Concern:
If you are reading this, I am dead. Claude Pistal has killed me. Don’t think for one minute that I died from natural causes, no matter how good it may look. Trust me, he murdered me in cold blood.
I, Daisy Fay Harper, being of sound mind and in the sixth grade, do solemnly swear I saw Claude Pistal and Ruby Bates together on the afternoon of September 21 of this year, kissing, and that they did know each other. If you don’t believe me, ask her sister, Opal, who is known as Mrs. Julian Wilson, and Mr. Kilgore of the FBI.
Good-bye Mother and Daddy. I loved you well. You were wonderful to me when I was alive and I appreciate it very much. And, Daddy, don’t feel bad about not getting me that pony. I probably wouldn’t have taken care of it anyway. Try not to go to pieces.
Good-bye Michael Romeo, my trusted friend. Tell Mrs. Underwood a special good-bye for me and that she is the best teacher I ever had in my whole life.
Good-bye to Mrs. Dot and to Jimmy Snow and to everyone in the sixth grade except Kay Bob Benson and she knows why.
Good-bye to Peachy Wigham. Thanks for the maggots and to everyone else who liked me when I was alive, including Mr. Curtis Honeywell and his all-girl army.
Good-bye to my grandmothers and granddaddies and to one step-granddaddy and Aunt Bess and Sue Lovells and to Edna, who is married to a sailor in Pensacola.
Good-bye to Angel and your mother and daddy. I hope your ears get better. Mr. Pistal, I am sorry I am putting your brother in jail and probably in the electric chair, but fair is fair.
Oh, and good-bye to Hank Turner if they ever find you.
This is my last will and testament and I am sorry it is so small, but as you know, most of my stuff burned up. I leave my sweetheart pillow to my mother. I leave my clothes to Michael, even though he will probably not want to wear that one pair of girls’ blue jeans. If not, give them to Patsy Ruth Coggins.
I leave my cat, Felix, to my daddy.
And the last thing I have to say is that I am responsible for burning down the malt shop. I did it by mistake, so don’t try and take the insurance money away from Daddy. It wasn’t enough anyway.
Daisy Fay Harper
November 25, 1952
Daddy, Jimmy Snow and Billy Bundy went up to the Blue Gardenia Lounge today to tell Harold Pistal to get a message to his brother, Claude, that if he dares come within 100 miles of me, Daddy will kill him. And if Claude kills him, Jimmy Snow will kill Claude and if he kills both of them and Billy Bundy, there is a whole group of other people that will kill him. I don’t think Daddy has another group of people, but it made a good threat!
Harold said for Daddy to calm down. Nothing was going to happen to anybody. Claude is in South America for good and is never returning because some men in Detroit are mad at him. When Daddy got home, he called up Mr. Kilgore, and Mr. Kilgore said yes, Claude was in South America, and if he ever tried to come back, the FBI would pick him up so fast it would make his head swim. Daddy was happy as a clam over this news and so was I. I am too young to die.
I better write that little girl we adopted in Jr. Debutantes who lives in South America and tell her if she ever runs across a man named Claude Pistal not to talk to him because he is bad business.
November 26, 1952
When I got to school this morning, there was a substitute teacher. Mrs. Underwood was in the Magnolia Springs Clinic and had her appendix out Saturday morning. She would be back in two weeks. Here I had been so worried about myself while poor Mrs. Underwood was sick. We wrote her a get-well note. Mine was six pages long and I put a joke in it. When I was over at the Pig and Whistle Barbecue at lunch, I decided I had better go see her in person and make sure she was doing all right. I don’t trust that other teacher. She might be trying to take Mrs. Underwood’s job.
When I arrived at the clinic, the nurse said they didn’t allow any children visitors unless they had an adult with them. It took me forever to find an adult to take me in. Finally, this retarded man named Leroy that always hangs around the Big B Drugstore went with me, but I had to buy him an ice cream sandwich before he would do it.
I said to the nurse, “Here is my adult,” but the nurse looked up and said, “Leroy, you get out of here now and go on home.” I don’t know what was the matter with her. He was an adult, wasn’t he?
I finally went around the back and found another way in. I looked in all the rooms, and most of the people were old and asleep. I went by one room and there were four people standing outside the door. One was a preacher reading from the Bible. Whoever was in that room was dying. What if it was Mrs. Underwood? I ran up and down the halls, but I couldn’t find her. I was yelling, “Mrs. Underwood, Mrs. Underwood,” when that nurse caught hold of me, but as she was dragging me to the front door, I heard Mrs. Underwood’s voice coming out of a room way down at the other end of the hall.
She said, “Is that Daisy?” I got away from that nurse and ran to the room and there was Mrs. Underwood, sitting up in her bed with a beautiful blue lace bed jacket on. She wasn’t dying at all. Then, all of a sudden, that nurse was right on top of me and she was mad. I had woke up all her patients making such a racket.
Mrs. Underwood asked if I could please stay. That nurse wasn’t going to let me, but the other patients were all ringing their bells, so she said, “Oh, all right, but just five minutes.”
Mrs. Underwood looked surprised to see me. She said, “Daisy, what in the world are you doing out of school?” and I said I thought I’d better come up and see if she was really OK because I had a terrible time in the hospital once when they took my tonsils out. She said she was fine and for me not to worry about her. I told her we had all written her a get-well note and then, like a dummy, told her everything I had written in my note, including the joke. Now it won’t be a surprise when she gets it.
After I left, I realized that was the first time I’d seen Mrs. Underwood without her makeup on. She is a natural beauty, just like Doris Day.
November 28, 1952
Mrs. Dot took us to the Harwin County Fair. I had $15 and I knew I was going to win a terrific prize for Mrs. Underwood. We were all packed in that car like sardines. Angel Pistal had to sit on my lap. She is the boniest little girl I have ever met.
Amy Jo Snipes and her sisters were yacking away about what rides they were going on. Even Kay Bob Benson was excited because she forgot herself and asked me a question. She broke her silence from Halloween, but when I answered her and she realized what she had done, she looked at me and said, “Who are you?” and stuck her nose in the air.
When we got to the fairgrounds, the sky was all lit up, and Mrs. Dot had to park a mile away. It was freezing cold outside with a big brown ring around the moon. We went up to this huge archway that said “Welcome to the Harwin County Fair and Agriculture Show.” We had to wait forever for Mrs. Dot to buy our tickets and Michael was so excited that he bought a Kewpie doll on a stick from some man who was selling funny buttons and all kinds of stuff before he even got into the fair. They had the biggest Ferris wheel I have ever seen. Kay Bob Benson bought herself a white wooden baton with glitter pasted all over it. There was a caterpillar ride with a green and white canvas top on it that closed up when you rode it, and a loop-the-loop, and bumper cars that Michael couldn’t wait to ride on, and a huge merry-go-round, and every ride had a different tune playing on it.
Mrs. Dot made us all stay together and we had to visit the exhibition halls before we could go on any of the rides. I got me a corn dog and we went into this big barn, full of livestock stalls, with cows, and sheep and pigs, and some of them had ribbons on them, where they had won a prize. After them came a display of John Deere tractors and farm equipment that I didn’t care a thing in the world about. I never saw so many Future Farmers of America in my life. That place stunk to high heaven.
Then we went into this big bu
ilding that had squash that weighed twelve pounds and some real big ears of corn. They were selling fruit jars full of jams and jellies and pickles and little tiny corn, and a bunch of homemade clothes that came from the home economics departments all over the county. I wouldn’t be caught dead in those clothes. I buy all my things at Elwood’s Variety Store. A lot of churches had made quilts, but I prefer an electric blanket myself. We saw an art show by some school kids with some of the ugliest pictures you ever laid eyes on, and then we came to the essays. I looked for mine, but it wasn’t there. The winning essay was from somebody from Loxley and was entitled “When I Grow Up, I Want to Be a Good American.” Who doesn’t?
I was having a fit to get out of there and go ride the rides and play the games and win some prizes and so was Michael. Finally, when Mrs. Dot got to the garden club section, we had our chance. Her entry, “Marshland Magic,” had won a ribbon, but all it looked like to me was a stuffed duck sitting in some weeds. She was so busy carrying on and telling everyone that went by about her arrangement that Michael and I snuck away and ran back out to the midway. The first thing we did was to buy ourselves a hat that a woman sewed your name on right there, any color that you wanted. I got a black one with “Daisy Fay” written on it in pink thread. Michael got a red one, with purple thread. He has no taste at all.
We rode the bumper cars. Crazy Michael crashed into everyone. Some boys got so mad that when they bumped us back I hit my tooth on my candied apple and nearly knocked it out. One’s already chipped; I don’t need to lose another. We spun around about six times and I had to get out before I was sick. Michael wouldn’t leave. He said he was going to wait for a better car. I told him I would meet him at the Ferris wheel in thirty minutes, and went over to the booth where they have stuffed black and white cats you knock over with a baseball, three tries for a quarter. The prizes were watches and radios and a lamp with a hula girl. When you turned it on, the skirt moved up and down. I spent five dollars trying to win that lamp for Mrs. Underwood, but I never could knock more than two of those cats down at a time. Those balls were not heavy enough if you ask me because I am a real good aimer.