#1 Birth of The Lady FBI Page 4
As soon as she hung up Sarah called Barbara. “Hi, Barbara, Sarah here. Have you read the paper this morning?” she asked her.
“No, I just finished getting Lyle out of the house and the cat fed. I was about to make the bed when the phone rang. Why, is there a big sale going on? You know I said I wasn’t going to any more sales this month, so don’t even bother to tell me about it. I mean it this time, Sarah. I don’t care who’s having it or if it’s eighty percent off, or if they’re giving you a free lunch at noon and drinks while you’re shopping. I’M NOT GOING,” Barbara said all this without stopping except to take short breaths.
Barbara always swore she wasn’t going shopping with Sarah and Ruth because she never failed to come home with things she didn’t need, then she would end up taking half of the stuff back. She was sure when customer service saw her coming, they wanted to hide under the return counter. Barbara feared they were going to put her on a “no returns” list.
“This is not about shopping. Just listen for a minute. OK?” Sarah interrupted her before she could continue.
“Well,” Sarah said, “you know I belong to the summer walking group with Olivia, Becky, and Clair Ann.”
“Yeah, the one I’d love to belong to if you didn’t want to leave so early in the morning. I never will understand why you think you have to leave at the crack of dawn to walk. Once you retire you’re supposed to sleep in before doing all that walking around. Didn’t anyone ever tell you what retirement was all about? I worked all of my life so that I could sleep in, and now you think I’m not only going to get up early, but go out to some woods and walk up and down a mountain. Girlfriend, you are talking to the wrong woman,” Barbara informed Sarah.
Once again before she could go on talking about the hiking club, Sarah jumped in. “I didn’t make the rules,” she protested. “They were made long before I joined and far be it from me to try to change them.”
“OK, OK, but I’m still not going to get up and walk with you that early in the morning, and anyway, what’s all this got to do with the sale you were talking about? I’m not going to that either, I already told you” Barbara confirmed.
“No, that’s not what this is about,” Sarah replied beginning to get exasperated. “I mean it. There is no sale in the paper. That’s not what I called about, and I know you don’t want to walk with us.”
“Then what is in the paper that you’re calling me about, and why are we talking about the hiking club?” asked Barbara.
Sometimes talking to Barbara could get a bit confusing. A person could even forget why she was calling her. Maybe that was why Lyle never worried about telling her anything when she questioned him. He didn’t think she would ever remember what he told her. If she did, she would not repeat it as he told her. And no, before you ask, she is not a blonde.
The fact is Barbara had been one of the best legal secretaries ever to work at the courthouse in Shreveport. She had been there five years when Lyle came into her life. Lyle met her when he had to be in the capital about a case he was working on twenty one years earlier. To this day he says that he hit a doubleheader on that one. He won the case, and he found Barbara all in the same week.
“OK, let me start over,” Sarah said. “In the paper this morning there was a story about a woman’s body being found out at Jefferson Pool. The reason I was talking about the hiking group is, we were out there yesterday and we left just before the body was discovered. It’s on the front page of the paper this morning. That’s why I wanted to know if you had seen the paper. Now, does that clear it up?”
She finally caught on. You could almost have seen her grinning as she said, “Oh, I’ll have to find out what happened from Lyle.”
“BINGO,” popped into Sarah’s mind. “Barbara, do you know or I should say did you know Maggie Robertson?” Sarah asked.
“Yes, but not real personally. I met her several times before she went to work for a private company. Once at a retirement party we were attending. Another time in the luncheon room at the office building where Lyle works. One day when Terry and I were there she came in alone. She seemed so nice I invited her to sit with us, and she did. I remember that day in particular because later, while we were having our coffee, we saw this guy and she recognized him from one of the offices upstairs. He was passing our table. Maggie said Hi to him and introduced us. She said they had gone to school together. He didn’t look like he was very happy to see her. When I mentioned the fact to her, Maggie said that she had noticed it too. There was something about him in the back of her mind that she couldn’t remember, but she was sure it would come to her eventually. She said that it had been bugging her since the first time she had seen him after being transferred to that office.”
Barbara thought for a moment and then said, “Maybe that’s why he was so curt with her, almost to the point of being rude. Especially, after she introduced me as the sheriff’s wife. Although for the life of her Maggie just couldn’t think what it could be. She did say that he seemed to be avoiding her when she would bump into him in the building.”
“Did you see her again after that day?” Sarah asked.
“Yeah, I think the next time I saw her was in Miss Dora’s Tea Room,” Barbara answered.
Barbara was so quiet for a moment Sarah thought they had lost the connection, but then Barbara said, “Yes, she sat with a friend and me again and had lunch with us when we invited her, but I was trying to remember when it was I saw her in the doctor’s office.”
“What doctor?” Sarah asked.
“Dr. Thomas. It must have been in August because I had just gone in for a blood test and was just leaving when she came out into the reception area,” Barbara replied. “She looked really upset so I asked, ‘Maggie is there anything wrong?’”
She said, “No, that’s OK.” Then she started out the door.
I asked, “Are you sure? I can walk you to your car if you need me to. She had this look on her face. You know, a kind of —what am I going to do now look. I thought she should have someone with her, but she said, “No,” and left the office.
“That’s the last time I saw her, but I did see that guy Dick Potter again,” Barbara said.
“Dick Potter? Is that the guy she went to school with?” Sarah asked her.
“Yes, the one in the cafeteria.” Barbara said.
“Well, I ran into him again in the cafeteria. I said “Hi” and smiled. He said, “Hi” but he didn’t really know who I was. He had that polite smile that says, I know I’ve met you, but so I told him Maggie had introduced us, and I was Barbara St. John. Boy, the smile left his face, and he said he had to get back to his office. He was out of there in a flash. He put down his tray even though he hadn’t gotten anything to eat and left. I thought it was funny at the time, but I really hadn’t thought of it again until now that you asked about Maggie.” Barbara explained.
She laughed, and said, that she knew she had worn deodorant that morning and had brushed her teeth.
Sarah laughed with her, but kept the name Dick Potter in the back of her mind.
There might be more to this guy that might take some looking into.
The next morning there was a short piece in the paper saying the police had interviewed
Maggie’s boss, Mr. Neal Harris.
Mr. Harris was quoted as saying, “Miss Robertson has only been employed here
a short time after being transferred from Shreveport. She had worked for the Department of information before she arrived in town. She then worked for the Cloridam Company.
He said she had only been there a few months, but seemed to get along well with all of
the other employees. During the time at Cloridam she had not acted in any way worried. He had not noticed anything in her actions to indicate she was frightened.
Miss Robertson got along well with all of her coworkers, and none of them had anything to add that could be of any help.
Sarah wonder
ed why anyone would kill Maggie Robertson. The answer would take more investigation