Regarding Anna by Florence Osmund Read Free Book Online Page A

and focused on the two of them.
    “We’re going to have a baby.”
    Mrs. Miller began to wail—whether in delight or horror, I didn’t know. Mr. Miller tried to calm her down. Then Beth began to cry, and her husband appeared like he was about to faint. The dog went crazy—apparently, he didn’t like to hear people crying. Beth’s father yelled at the dog. The dog got scared and bolted out of the room, almost taking a potted dieffenbachia with him. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do, so I just sat there...like the fifth wheel that I was.
    It took a while for everyone to calm down. By the end of the day, it still wasn’t clear to me how Beth’s parents truly felt about the baby—I knew they weren’t crazy about Beth’s husband. But I was happy for her, even if it did feel like it diminished our “best friends” status a little more. After all, it was natural for people to go on with their lives I kept telling myself.
    * * *
    Thanksgiving Day came and went, and I was left having to face the rest of the holiday weekend alone. I would have jumped in my car and gone somewhere, done something, but money was too tight. I would have visited a relative if I’d had one. Would have reorganized my only closet, but then what would I do seven minutes later when that was done?
    On Saturday, I took the “L” downtown to watch the Christmas parade, something I’d never done as a child, even though Christmas had been my mother’s favorite holiday. We would start decorating the house weeks in advance. She’d always insisted on having a live Christmas tree, which my father grudgingly brought home at the last minute when they were cheaper. I hated when the Christmas season was over—that was when Mom always seemed the saddest.
    The train was crowded, and I had to stand the whole way to Jackson Street. I went with the crowd—I had no other choice—toward State Street. I had heard on the radio that they expected more than 500,000 people downtown watching the parade. I believed it because at least half that many had stepped on my toes trying to get a good viewing spot.
    The parade lasted two hours, about an hour longer than the younger children’s attention spans. I recognized a few people—Mayor Daley of course, Ray Rayner and Bob Bell from Bozo’s Circus, radio DJ Jerry G. Bishop, and Hugh Hefner. I wasn’t sure why Hugh Hefner would be in a Christmas parade, but there he was. I rode home on another crammed “L” car and somehow made it through the rest of the weekend.
    I spent the following week working on my cases. I was unexpectedly busy: besides the Green Teen and Shady Lane cases and several skip traces, I was hired to conduct an asset check for someone who thought he might be the beneficiary of a large inheritance, and I had to pick up three subpoenas at the courthouse for process serving. Though I’d resolved to put my own case on hold until after the first of the year, I at least had Flora hot on the trail of Anna’s death certificate.
    Flora called me the week before Christmas but not to talk about Anna.
    “Erma called me,” she said.
    “From Detroit?”
    “Yes. She said she needed money to come home.”
    “She called you and not her mom?”
    “She sounded scared. Maybe she was afraid to face Louise.”
    “So what did you do?”
    “Nothing. She hung up before I could do anything.”
    “Do you know why she hung up?”
    “All she said was, ‘Forget it. I have to go.’ Louise and I are thinking about going there.”
    “Well, I’m having no luck trying to find her with phone calls. Do be careful if you go.”
    It occurred to me that maybe it should have my place to go to Detroit as soon as I had heard Erma had gone there. The more I thought about it, the more I knew that was what I should have done, and now I felt bad about it.
    * * *
    I was in the back room of my office in search of another box of file folders when something on the evidence table caught my eye. I was very organized and had