heard in the next town down the road. “And we have meat. I bought a ham.”
“Oh, hi there, Pam!” Aunt Dicey says.
Sarge shakes her head. “She doesn’t have her hearing aid in.” She hustles me toward the car. “You’d better get out of here while you can. She’ll tie you up until midnight, and I know that’s not what you came here for. Listen, I’ll do what I can about LaJuna, but her mama and I aren’t each other’s favorite people. She ruined my cousin’s life. I’ve caught Tiffany over here more than once, looking to mooch food or money from Aunt Dicey. Told her if she shows up again, things’ll get ugly. Tiff needs to pay her own bills, stop skipping out on work to hang with that loser ex-boyfriend of hers down in New Orleans, which, if I had to guess, is where she’s at right now. Taking the baby for a visit with his daddy. LaJuna’s probably stuck there, looking after the rest of the kids and trying to get her mama to go back to work before she gets fired.”
I have a sudden and crushing picture of LaJuna’s life. No wonder she’s bossy with adults. She’s parenting one.
Sarge angles an appraising look my way when we get to the car. “You need to know that it’s not LaJuna’s fault. Kid’s stuck at the bottom of a well and has to drag four people up the rope with her. Multiply that by a half dozen different batches of kinfolk, and you’ll see why some days, I just want to get in the car and drive. But man, I loved my granny and she loved her baby sister, Dicey…well…I don’t know. We’ll see.”
“I get it.” The problems here are deeply rooted. If the way of things was easy to change, people would’ve done it already. “Like throwing starfish back into the ocean.”
“Huh?”
“It’s just a story I had on the bulletin board of my old office. Perspective, sort of. I’ll xerox a copy for you if I ever find it again.”
Sarge leans over to peer through the Bug’s window. “What’s all that?” She’s studying the library questionables I’ve stacked in the backseat in hopes of showing them to Nathan at the farmers market tomorrow morning—a few valuable old books I’m worried about, along with the plantation ledger and the family Bible with the burial records in it.
I consider trying to obfuscate, but what good would it do? Sarge is looking right at the ledger that bears the Gossett name. “I wanted to make sure I got a chance to study these more closely…while I could. Coach Davis roped me into handling gate duty tonight at the football stadium. There’s some kind of a fundraiser concert for the athletics department and I guess they were desperate for workers. Anyway, I thought I could do some reading in between, or after.”
“You’ve been in the judge’s house? That’s where you got all this?” She slaps the car’s hood. “Oh Lord.” Her head falls back and the straw hat slips off, drifting soundlessly to the driveway. “Oh Lord,” she says again. “Did LaJuna let you in there?”
“Nathan gave me a key,” I blurt, but I can feel the steam building next to me. Sarge is like a pressure cooker, about to blow.
“Put that stuff back where you got it.”
“I’m looking for books for my classroom. Nathan said to take whatever I could use, but I don’t think he has any idea what’s in that house. The library closets are full. Half of the bookshelves are double stacked. Behind the first row of new books, there are old books, rare books. Things like those.” I nod toward the seat.
“This is the project with LaJuna?” Sarge demands. “I don’t care if she messes around in the gardens over there, but I told her to stay out of that house.”
“She showed up the first day.” I can feel my relationship with LaJuna potentially being shredded. First I invade her secret place, now I’m getting her in trouble with her aunt. “She knows a lot about the place. Its history. The stories. She spent quite a bit of time with the judge while she