Chapter thirty one
On the evening of the day that the chief had come calling on Rick, John came to Rick and his mother and said he would like to go back to school. He’d already talked to his counselor and had been told that there was no objection from the school. His coach was chomping at the bit to get him back and because of the income generated by football, the dean was also anxious to see him back. His thought was that he had only missed a little over a week and felt that he could easily catch up but that if he waited much longer he would miss a whole semester. Neither Rick nor Sarah had any objection. Rick did say that he thought it would be best to avoid the detectives if possible.
Later in bed, Sarah told Rick that she had heard John talking on the phone with a girl and surmised that this may have more to do with his rush to return than did academics. She also said she had the impression that the girl was Molly. Rick wasn’t nuts about that, but figured the boy was old enough to make his own decisions. Rick said he would talk to John in the morning.
The next morning while Rick was talking with John, although she had a million things to do, Sarah baked a cake. When Henrietta answered the door, Sarah was surprised to see that the whole side of her face was black and blue and that she had stitches over her right eye. Her eye was bloodshot and she had a bandage covering her left temple. Sarah blurted out, “Did he do that to you? Oh, I’m sorry. I’m Sarah. It was our house he was holed up in.”
“Is that cake for me?”
“Yes it is.”
“Then come right in.”
“I don’t want to intrude I just wanted to stop and say how sorry I am that this happened.”
“Nonsense come on in. I have some iced tea and we can have a piece of that cake. It looks lovely. My, you are a beauty. I was good looking too, when I was young, but not like you. You look like model. Are you in the movies?”
“Good grief no, I’m just a house wife and I bet you were much better looking than me at my age.”
“You would lose that bet. Would you rather have coffee with your cake?”
“I think I would, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Oh goodness no. No trouble at all.”
When the coffee was ready, Henrietta cut two big pieces of cake. They sat at the kitchen table, ate cake and chatted about the robbery. Sarah said, “You must be the center of attention with your friends and neighbors, what with all the excitement.”
“Henrietta giggled, put her hand over her mouth and said, “All they want to know is if he had a cute butt and how big his wachee was.”
Sarah’s eyes widened.
“Huh?”
Henrietta explained about him walking around the house naked.
“That must have been a fright.”
“It was, but it sure gives me something to talk about at our card games.” She giggled.
“I think his wachee is going to grow to a size he’d be proud of before I’m done.”
They both got a laugh from that.
Henrietta said that she was surprised that she slept through all the shooting and such.
“I’m usually a light sleeper. I can’t imagine how I managed to sleep though that commotion. (Henrietta was loath to admit that her hearing was going, especially to a stranger.) I got up and unlocked the doors as always. I used to never lock the doors but now I lock them at night. You can bet that after this I will leave them locked all the time.”
“I don’t think they were locked when I got here Henrietta?”
Henrietta looked a little sheepish, “Sometimes I forget.”
Henrietta stood at the counter while preparing the coffee maker she continued; After I unlocked the door the next thing I knew I was tied to a chair and there was a naked man sitting at my kitchen table eating breakfast. I’ll tell you it took a while to make sense of that. If my face hadn’t hurt so much I would have thought I was dreaming.”
“Why did he hit you?”
“I have no idea. I don’t remember being hit. I just woke up and there he was. That was a shocker, I’ll tell you. Then, after he left, I managed to tip the chair over and knock myself out. So I guess he is not directly responsible for all my bruises.”
“What a nightmare. How on earth did you get loose? I assume he didn’t untie you?”
Henrietta went back through the whole story again with a few embellishments. She left out the part about falling asleep while waiting for the police. They had two cups of coffee and a large piece of cake each. Henrietta complained that she wouldn’t be able to sleep because of the coffee, but raved about the cake.
When Sarah was ready to leave, Henrietta asked her to come back again. Sarah promised that she would and that she would have her over to her house. She asked Henrietta if she like boating.
“I haven’t been on a boat since my husband died. We used to go fishing quite a bit. Now I just fish off the dock out back, but in answer to your question I love boating.”
“Good, I promise to take you out boating soon. You can bring a pole, or you can use one of ours. We have plenty.”
When Sarah got home, she told Rick about her tea with Henrietta.
“That must have been quite an ordeal for her. Is she doing okay?”
“I’m sure it was, but now that it’s over I think she is rather enjoying the notoriety.”
Rick got a good chuckle out of Henrietta’s friends wanting to know about the size of Sean’s penis. He said, “I can’t imagine what she thought, when she came to with a buck naked Indian sitting at her kitchen table.”
I can’t imagine. She told me that up until then, she had never seen an adult male naked other than her husband.
After another chuckle about that Sarah said, “Rick I don’t think Henrietta is very well off and I was thinking that maybe we could help her get another car.”
“Sarah, I’m not quite sure how to put this. You have a big heart and I love that about you, but you can’t save the world. You seem to want to take on the troubles of everyone we meet. Besides it might embarrass her if you even suggest such a thing.”
“I suppose you’re right, but I still think I’ll give it some thought. There might be a way to do it without her knowing it was us.”
Rick looked to heaven and rolled his eyes but he was already thinking about how they might pull it off.