The Screaming Lady, A JEZ Ghost Negotiator Mystery

Chapter Nine: ROSIE GOES DOWNTOWN

Rosie Blanchard was going downtown to check out the "cavern" under the road that everyone in town was talking about. She was not going to be left out of this juicy gossip. She had been having a time of it lately, with her knees making it difficult for her to walk long distances; shoot, to be honest, even short distances, thus she has been staying in the house more often than not.

Rosie used to love walking the grounds of her family homestead. It is the same homestead that all the Blanchard's have lived in and on over the years. It is a two-story colonnaded mansion that sits on what is now 25 acres. The original acreage was in the 100's; but has been sold off over the years as the Blanchard's have gotten out of the farming business and more into financial business interests. The 25 acres are planted with old growth pecan trees and are well-groomed. The grounds stay very cool and shaded during the summer and has beautiful walking trails.

Within the last 10 years, Rosie's joints have been deteriorating with arthritis. Her knees and ankles are affected the worst, but her hands, shoulders, and arms give her fits when it rains. She currently has to walk with a cane and cannot be on her feet too long, or her knees and ankles swell up larger than a cantaloupe. Days like that will put her in bed for a week.

Needless to say, Rosie does a lot of sitting, reading, embroidery, and other sedentary tasks. It upsets her that she is not as mobile and active as she used to be, but she is not willing to use the wheelchair that the doctor keeps insisting that she use. She is just not ready for that, yet.

On this particular day, her legs were aching, but she was not going to let that slow her down from going to see the "cavern" the road crew found under the road on North Main Street. It was the talk of the town and she had heard nothing but this cavern business from everyone she had spoken to.

As she was driven down town she noticed that Main Street was detoured, and her driver could not get close enough to park the car within reasonable walking distance, so she decided to tell her driver to drive up behind Remy's Diner and she would walk in through the backdoor. She was sure he would not mind, or would he?

Remy and Rosie had not spoken in many years, she used to take breakfast every morning at Remy's Diner, when she was a child, with her father. She loved the pancakes and Remy's daddy would always make a smiley face on the top pancake with whipped cream. Even into her adult years, Rosie and her father had breakfast at the Diner; she became friends with Remy when he took the Diner over in 2000 the year his father passed away. When Rosie's father passed away in 2004, Rosie stopped going to the Diner, she did not make a conscious decision to stop going, she just did, it just happened. It was a tradition for her and her father to go each morning and with him no longer here, she just did not feel it was appropriate to continue to go.

It just hit her, as she was sitting in her parked car, waiting for her driver to open her door, behind Remy's Diner, that she had not seen or talked to Remy in ten years. How could that many years pass so quickly? She wondered. She felt bad for not having reached out to Remy in the last ten years; Remy was a good friend and it was unforgivable to just stop coming downtown to visit with him.

As she sat in her car, looking at the back door, she wondered what she would say to Remy when she entered the kitchen. How bad she felt for being so distant and staying away so long; or that she had just been so busy keeping up the estate after her father's death? Rosie was sure there was no excuse that was good enough and that she just needed to walk in there and face Remy and apologize.

Rosie door opened, she grabbed the cane from the seat beside her and swung her feet out the door. With the help of her driver, she slowly stood up to ensure her balance and shut the door behind her. She walked gingerly up to the backdoor of Remy's Diner and opened it.