Little Black Girl Lost 3

Ethel Beauregard nervously sat in Parker Jamieson’s outer office. She was waiting to be called in for the urgent meeting they needed to have. A few hours after Morgan left the mansion, she’d had time to think, and she didn’t like the conclusions she’d drawn. She was in real trouble, and she hoped Jamieson, the family lawyer, could get her out of the mess she’d made. Demanding the Will be changed was the first mistake, and it was huge. She compounded the first mistake by allowing herself to be blackmailed by a Negro who was still in a position to extort money from her, and could quite possibly put her in prison for a very long time.

Full of regret now, she wished Katherine hadn’t called out to her from the top of the basement stairs. She wished she hadn’t hastily left Morgan all alone before she had a chance to see how much cash was actually in the safe. For forty-two years, someone other than her had been in charge of her life. When she lived with her parents, they made all her decisions for her; who her friends were, where she went to college, and who she’d marry. Her mother even chose her wedding date, her wedding dress, and arranged everything. Eric began making decisions for her the day after she recited her vows.

She had patiently waited until Katherine went to the store to get groceries before going back into the basement and reopening the safe. Morgan had taken all the cash it contained; only the gold coins remained. She assumed he was in too much of a hurry to take them. She’d phoned Morgan a hundred times it seemed, once an hour, beginning at eight that evening, but he never answered. She called at twelve midnight, and again at six that morning. She called one last time before leaving for Jamieson’s office, hoping she could talk some sense into Morgan and get him to give back the money she’d allowed him to take.

On her way to Jamieson’s office, she even stopped by Morgan’s house in Ashland Estates, something a woman in her position would never do, but no one answered the door. Eventually she left, believing Morgan and his wife had left New Orleans, perhaps even the state of Louisiana, which left her feeling completely vulnerable.

As she waited to be called into Jamieson’s office, she sat there, scared to death that the first two decisions she’d ever made on her own were going to land her in prison. She wished she’d been more proactive in her husband’s business affairs while he was alive. That way she’d know, or at least have some idea how much money Morgan took.

Her pride had been shaken to its core by the article in the Sentinel, but she still had a healthy amount left, even though her life was unraveling. If it ever got out that Nathaniel had actually left money, even a negligible amount, to his Negro grandchildren, the Beauregard name would lose much of the influence it wielded over the other blue-blood families. And of course, Charlene, the vice president of her social club would pounce on the opening like a fox in a henhouse. She had a plan, but she didn’t know if it would work well enough to silence her critics. Can Morgan be trusted to keep his word?

Even if Morgan could be trusted, her Negro niece was in the perfect position to have her credibility called into question if she was so inclined. Though Johnnie never threatened to tell the police what really happened on Thanksgiving Day, if she ever found out she was entitled to an inheritance and Ethel had tried to cheat her out of it, that bit of information would certainly motivate her to tell the police what really happened and why. If she told all, the jury might believe that Ethel planned to kill Eric all along, hoping to secure the entire Beauregard fortune for herself.

These were but a few problems on the horizon that Ethel didn’t want to contemplate, but her mind continued to conjure up scenario after scenario of what could befall her. She tried telling herself no jury in the country would believe the word of a Negro over hers; particularly one that should be grateful to be alive in the first place, but she found no lasting comfort in that line of thinking.

The secretary’s phone buzzed. She picked up the receiver, listened, and said, “Right away, Mr. Jamieson.” She looked at Ethel. “Mr. Jamieson will see you now, Mrs. Beauregard.”

“Hello, Ethel,” Jamieson said, standing behind his desk, his right arm extended. After taking her hand into his, he said, “Have a seat,” and gestured to one of the two chairs in front of his large desk. “Now, what was so urgent?”