She claimed she knows how to use the thing. Apparently she is now married to a drunk who has started beating up on her and her daughter, and she’s running for help. She stole my hamper of groceries, too, but I was happy enough to donate them to a worthy cause.”
Sergeant Pierce sat back in his chair and sighed. “I know all this stuff has upset you, Miss Araminta, but there’s not a thing I can do about it now, except call it in to headquarters. I will check with Mr. Patel over at the motel and with Carl to see what they can tell me about the two perps.”
“That’s really all I can expect you to do, especially since the woman is the only person who’s stolen anything.” Araminta smiled. “I am a realist, you know; after all, I used to be an insurance agent. Anyway, I am going to see that Bill and Fido have a good dinner tonight after all their troubles. My neighbor, Mack, has even agreed to bathe them.”
Pierce rose. “I’ll just leave you here to catch your breath and get on over to the motel, then,” he told her, “and check out your information so I can get it called in.”
***
Sergeant Pierce went first to the Lazy Eight, where Mr. Patel looked at him dourly. “So, Miss Araminta called on the law. Well, I’m glad enough. The two ladies have left, so I will just bill a couple of hours to this dodgy credit card. What else can I tell you?”
“Well, you might give me a good description; Araminta always forgets that,” Pierce replied easily. “As I understand it, you never saw the women’s vehicle.”
“No, it was over at the neighborhood auto shop,” Mr. Patel confirmed. Then he described the two women’s clothing and their frightened demeanor, plus any bruises he could see. “I know the signs of domestic violence,” he added. “Apparently we have it everywhere. American women always try to run.”
“Well, thanks for your help,” Pierce responded, heading out the door. As the local law enforcement authority, the sergeant had a motel passkey, which he used to examine room 102. There was nothing in it except Miss Araminta’s empty trolley/hamper, he discovered, retrieving the item for its owner.
***
Fortunately, Carl was finishing a phone call in the office when Pierce arrived at his door. “I know what you’re here about,” the mechanic said placidly. “Miss Araminta is at it again, now she knows two domestic violence victims are loose in town.”
Pierce took off his cap and wiped his forehead. “You think they’re running from some man?” he asked.
“That’s what it looks like.” Carl sat back in his ancient desk chair. “They buzzed in here early on a tow truck with an old Dodge Dart that was acting up on them – both of them white as ghosts. Anyway, the lady practically begged me to fix whatever was wrong with the Dodge – offered me thirty dollars, all she had. Of course, I agreed. I’d have given back the money, but she was doing such a good job of pretending she was solvent that I didn’t have the heart to. Then Miss Araminta came barreling in afterward, and I sent her over to the motel where they were staying. That church of hers really does have a safe house for battered women.”
“I know,” Pierce responded. “Now what can you tell me about the car? You said it was an old Dodge Dart – what year, and what county? I wouldn’t have expected you to take down the license plate.”
“You can bet I didn’t,” Carl replied. “And I’m only giving you straight information about the car because those two ladies obviously need help. It was a 2000 Dodge Dart that had been used pretty hard – Rutherford County plates. There was a smell of liquor in the passenger compartment, but I didn’t see any bottles.”
“Good enough, Carl.” Pierce put his notebook away. “I’ll get on the blower and see if we can get some help for these two little ladies.
***
Back at the grocery, Miss Araminta bought vegetables and stock to make a nice, filling soup, and then added some fresh, soft rolls to her wobbling grocery cart, because one never knew what kind of shape a beggar’s teeth would be in. When she had paid for her purchases, she went outside and put her hand on Bill’s shoulder.
“Bill, I want you and Fido to come with me,” she said, bending over him. “My neighbor, Mack, has offered to give you both a good bath, and I’ll provide a nice supper for all three of you. I’ve talked to Sergeant Pierce about your robbery. He agrees with me that the woman who robbed you probably needs his help. I’ll tell you all about it after we’ve eaten.”
“Sure thing, Miss Araminta.” Bill, pleased by this extra attention, reached for Fido’s leash. The dog stood up and watched carefully while his owner used a white cane to stand. Araminta had already noticed that Bill was not crippled; his only problem seemed to be the total, irreversible blindness.
Soon the whole group was on Mack’s little front porch, and Mack was helping Bill into his condo like an old friend. It was because the man was so genuinely kind-hearted and helpful that Mack’s neighbors put up with his occasional loud parties. Miss Araminta, relieved this part of her plan had worked out, walked on to her own front door and pulled the groceries in after her.
Once in the orderly kitchen, Araminta got out her crock pot and began peeling and slicing vegetables. She had heard that fresh foods were the most nourishing for people who lived like Bill did, and she had bought the most recommended brand of chicken broth. The rolls she could pop into the oven at the last minute.
While the crock pot performed its work quietly, Miss Araminta went into her living room and picked up the plastic loom she was using to double-knit a towel. She loved making flat objects that people could use for just about anything, because that meant she didn’t have to count stitches or bother with a pattern. Even making a hat with a peg loom involved counting rows, and sometimes Araminta would get involved in her audiobook and forget to do even that.
When Mack finally brought Bill and Fido over, both looked like changed beings. Mack had not only bathed and clipped Fido, he had even wiped the dog’s collar with a soapy rag and shined his dog tags.
Bill himself looked considerably better, since Mack had apparently taken some time barbering him while he ran the beggar’s clothes through his washer and drier. Miss Araminta almost didn’t recognize Bill. Why, the man was young! No wonder the loss of his vision had put him into such a deep depression.
Soon they were all at Miss Araminta’s dinette table, quietly enjoying the homemade soup and soft rolls. Mack ate quite as well as Bill and Fido did. Araminta knew her record-producer neighbor often lived on takeout from fast food restaurants. She was glad to see Mack relax and talk as if all the people at her table were old friends.
Araminta waited until everyone had almost finished eating before she shared her news. She turned to the blind man. “The woman who robbed you, Bill, is called Ellen Gleaves, and she has a teenaged daughter who has been beaten. We believe she and the girl are running from her current husband. She said she is looking for her former husband, whom she called Liam.””
Bill’s blinded eyes teared up. “Then that was my Ellen’s perfume I smelled this morning. Liam was my name when I could still see. ‘Bill’ is just another nickname for William, and I figured that’s all the name a homeless blind man would need. The minute I realized I was permanently blinded, I knew I had to let Ellen go and give her another chance at living. She’d just given birth to little Emily then. That was fourteen years ago, and I just left the county as soon as I got Fido here. Ellen must have taken back her maiden name. I guess she kept it when she married my drunk of a boss.”
“Man, that’s really stark.” Mack leaned across the table, horrified. “You just left your wife and baby girl?”
“Oh, no.” Bill shook his head. “I made my intention clear from the very beginning. I simply refused to let Ellen come near me once I woke up in the hospital and knew I’d never get any better. I had to yell at her,” he remembered, “and I sure hated that, but she couldn’t support me and little Emily, too. I knew the lawyers she’d hired for me would make sure all my disability money would go to her and the baby.”
Araminta just stared, trying to imagine that depth of hopelessness. “Bill, if there’s one thing I’ve learned helping battered wives,” she admonished, “it’s that a woman can face worse things than a blind husband. Your Ellen and Emily are now running away from a drunk. My church has all the resources to help them out, once we find them, but it’s going to be a long haul getting all that done.”
“I think they’d like to have you back to go through that process with them,” Mack told Bill seriously. “Look, my own stepfather was a drunk, and I know how much time Mom spent wishing Dad hadn’t died in Vietnam. She used to sit and look at Dad’s picture and cry.”
Seeing the blind man’s reaction to this speech, Araminta got up and went to stand behind Bill, rubbing his shoulders and murmuring soft words.
Mack also stood up, rounded the table, and took one of Bill’s hands in his own. “Now I’ve just gone and put my foot in it; I’m sorry. My tongue will get to wagging sometime. You need to consider what I said, though. I think somebody up there is giving you a second chance.” He patted Araminta’s shoulder apologetically and left.
Araminta had begun thinking fast even as she continued a soothing hum that calmed most people. “Bill,” she began, “that accident you had, was it at work?”
“Jaimeson’s Saw Mill,” Bill answered hoarsely. It was almost as though the memories had clogged his throat. “That’s why the county legal aid got involved and got me a good settlement. They said it never would have happened if Jaimeson’s had obeyed the law and provided us all with safety goggles. We were way back in the country, and we mill hands didn’t know such things as safety goggles and laws about using them existed.”
“I was wondering about that.” Araminta pulled one of the dinette chairs close to Bill on the side Fido wasn’t guarding. “You see, I was an insurance agent before I retired, so I know all about handling industrial accidents. I’ve even kept up with professional sources that aren’t available to the public. Once I get you settled down with some soothing music, I’m going to get on my computer and get all the information I can. You and I are going to see Sergeant Pierce about this situation in the morning.”
Bill turned his head to face her, something he seldom did. “I’d purely love that, Miss Araminta. I know nobody can help me see again, but I’ll even take some charity if it will let me help my Ellen and poor little Emily.”
Chapter 4
Miss Araminta, who had not been an insurance agent for nothing, asked Bill a few pointed questions about his workplace and how the accident that had blinded him had happened. Then she guided him down onto the sofa – with Fido’s help – and covered him with a blanket. She put the CD player on the end table beside his head, put on a disc of soft, Irish folk music, and set the player to repeat until it was turned off.
Araminta didn’t perform this last service solely for Bill; she herself would need some soothing as she searched her computer for details on what had happened at Jaimeson’s Saw Mill on that fateful day in 2001. The agency she had once been part of had relied on Araminta to wiggle out accident details from various computer and local resources.
Even in retirement, she still subscribed to some of her professional sources, and now she would make use of them all. She had also retained a few strategic email addresses of insurance company adjusters who were her personal friends.
After a couple of hours, Araminta turned off the computer and picked up her crochet hook and a ball of yarn. Crocheting was what she did these days instead of swearing to work off her outrage.
Liam Jenkins, the blind man on her couch, had at the age of 23 been a foreman at Jaimeson’s Saw Mill. That meant he was now just 37. Like most Southern rural males, he had remained happily ignorant of all the efforts of Northern unions to make workplaces safer. Miss Araminta , of course, had known all about these activities and supported the Occupational Safety and Health Act, though she knew it would be generally ignored. Liam had been a careful and conscientious foreman, within his educational limits, and he had proved to be a strong contrast to his boss, Mike Jaimeson, a privileged man who always played county politics and enjoyed more than an occasional ‘nip’ with the boys.
The saw mill workers, left without guidance, had simply tied bandanas over their mouths and noses and considered themselves protected. Liam had been standing behind a trimmer saw, yelling at some new employees to slow the speed of its operation, when the wheel had hit a knot in the wood and sprayed big splinters up into his eyes.
The one redeeming feature of the accident had been that Liam’s wife had, before her pregnancy, worked for the county legal aid society, and she went to her former employers for help. Shocked by the horror of the accident, these plucky agency lawyers had bucked the powers that be and won their case; it even made the regional news. The matter had finally been settled with disability payments for Liam – but he had disappeared, so the money went to help his wife raise their infant daughter.
What really angered Miss Araminta now was the fact that Mike Jaimeson had somehow sweet-talked the abandoned Ellen into getting a legal divorce and marrying him instead. It seemed the mill owner had just divorced the wife who had been his bookkeeper all those years. The no-good what-not (the worst words Miss Araminta would allow herself to think) had even shelled out money for a fancy wedding to impress his new bride. Later, Miss Araminta would find out why Jaimeson had shed his first wife, but she had learned enough for one night. She sent out some more inquiries and then went to bed.
The next morning, Miss Araminta explained all she had learned to Bill while he was enjoying a nice bowl of cream of wheat. (Fido had more dog food.) Bill was horrified.
“This is worse than I ever dreamed about,” he told her, shocked out of his apathy. “I’ll be glad to go with you to Sergeant Pierce to see if we can get the law to right this situation.”
***
Sergeant Pierce immediately hated the whole imbroglio Miss Araminta and Bill presented to him. “I’ll put all this information into my daily reports to headquarters,” he told them, “and, of course, I’ll call the police in Rutherford County – for whatever good that will do.” He leaned forward in his chair and spoke clearly, hoping Bill would understand.
“You see, law enforcement is a dull tool,” Pierce explained. “Every policeman sees a whole lot of law breaking – and some just plain bad behavior that still isn’t against the law – that nobody wants to prosecute. There are some people it just costs a county or a state too much money to go after, no matter what they do. Your pal who owns the saw mill is probably a major employer in his little town, and the powers that be over there will collude to help him. Nobody wants to inconvenience an owner who’s the biggest employer in the area.”
“What he’s saying, Bill,” Miss Araminta explained with a sigh, “is that, if the Metro police do manage to find your Ellen and Emily, they’ll just turn them over to my church’s safe house and make us do all the legal heavy lifting of getting restraining orders, divorces, etc. that will keep them safe. I hope I’ve shaken some insurance trees that will investigate whether or not Jaimeson has fraudulently appropriated your money. A charge like that could bring any man down, especially if the case goes to the federal courts.”
“You mean we could make Jaimeson what the guys call ‘radioactive,’” Bill responded with a savage grin. Then he explained himself. “There are a few of us homeless folks who know big words and listen to the radio when we can,” he told them. “Some of these guys even own one of those cheap, itty-bitty radios.”
“Becoming radioactive is what I’m hoping will happen,” Araminta replied. “Personally, I don’t believe Mike Jaimeson got close to a ready source of money for any reason except to snaffle it. Right now we’re just talking to Sergeant Pierce here because someday this COULD become a police matter.”
“That’s right, Bill,” Pierce confirmed. “I’ve outlined about all I can do right now, but you can bet I’ll be spreading the news around – at least to the guys here at the station
. The more people you have who realize there might be a problem, the more likely you’ll be to get it solved.”
***
Sergeant Tom Staples of the Rutherford County Police was almost as mad as his Nashville counterpart had been when he heard the news. Mike Jaimeson was a big man in the county, and the son of a big man in the county, but, frankly, Staples was getting a little bit tired of having to deal with him.
After making a few phone calls, Staples finally found the mill owner in his own office. “You find anything out about my wife and stepdaughter?” Jaimeson had already reported their absence earlier that morning. His face was flushed from liquor, but he was sober enough to do business.
The sergeant carefully closed the door behind him, and then came to sit in the client’s chair in front of the big desk. “They’ve been sighted in Nashville,” he replied, “but they seem to have gotten loose again. The police had no reason to hold them, you understand.” Staples wondered how much of this explanation Jaimeson really understood in his current state. “The potential problem for you is that the police have also identified Liam Jenkins, and they know exactly what happened to him at this saw mill.”
Jaimeson snorted. “That’s why I went and married his ex-wife, to keep her under control,” he responded. “Now I suppose we’re in for more problems. Has the happy couple gotten together yet?”
So Jaimeson still has a little sense, Staples reflected, even if he is as cold as a snake. A prominent employer could do just about anything he wanted to in most Tennessee counties, but there also came a time when even the most crooked or careless leader couldn’t protect him anymore.
“Not as yet,” the sergeant said, “but Liam has accidentally gotten himself a powerful protector. It might be a good idea for you to plead there was a little misunderstanding and make some soothing noises at Ellen and her kid. Get them calmed down one way or another, and nobody will have a reason to dig any further.”