Chapter Thirty

Betsy was a night owl like me. So I didn't anticipate a problem calling at such a late hour.

Her hello came after the second ring. "Betsy, it's Fay."

"Fay? Oh, Fay, what's wrong?"

"Nothing. How are you, kiddo?"

"I'm pregnant. Isn't that great news?"

"How pregnant?"

"Something is wrong."

"No. I just wanted you to do me a small favor. But in your condition-"

"I'm not disabled, Fay. I'm having a baby. So what do you need?"

For a brief second, I considered forgetting the whole thing .It wasn't right to impose on Betsy, on her new life, in a new town, with a new husband, and now a baby on the way. But in the next second, I remembered the very big favor I had done for her. Not only had I written a glowing recommendation letter for her, but I had called the publisher of the newspaper out there in Ohio where she wanted to go to work. I told him what a tremendous asset Betsy would be to his paper. I told him much more, too. Before I hung up, I was told the job was Betsy's.

"I need you to get me the low-down on a woman."

"Okay. Do you got a name for me?"

"Angel Adams. Or now, wait a minute. Angel Traditor." I waited until she spelled Traditor back to me to see if she wrote it down right. I told her I thought she spelled it correctly.

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

"Do you have a starting place for me?"

"She has a juvenile record. Sealed, of course. I need to know what her crime was."

"I'll give it a try. But with the record sealed-"

"Anything is better than what I have now."

"You got anything else I can use? You know, like a town or city."

"Portsmouth. Whatever she did, happened in Portsmouth."

I could hear Betsy frantically scribbling down notes. When the sound quit, I remembered something else. "Oh and Betsy, she had a step dad. Maybe it has something to do with him. But I don't know. And her mother passed away recently. But I don't know the cause of death."

Betsy promised to start digging for answers first thing in the morning. Then we spent the next hour or so on other subjects. She told me she loved her job. Her husband was great. The baby was due in October. She was planning a trip home in July or August and would let me know as soon as she knew which month.

Then I told her I was sort of on a leave-of-absence from the paper. She thought it was a riot when I told her I had taken on the duties of an on foot paper girl. When I explained my reasons behind it, she applauded. I got more applause when I told her I hadn't taken up my former bad habit of smoking. I didn't tell her that my urges for a cigarette continued to strike on a daily basis. Or that I still used food most times to quiet those urges.

When she asked about Alicia, I told her she was about to finish her freshman year at Penn State. I did not tell her she was eloping this very weekend with a stranger to me.

I was still not ready for sleep when the long distant telephone conversation finally ended.