Armadillos & Old Lace Read Online Free PDF

me.”
    “I know they were murdered.”
    Great, I thought. The whole thing is coming down like some gothic novel. Pat Knox is Joan of Arc. Pat Knox is Cassandra warning the warriors of Troy. Pat Knox is Martha Mitchell reporting that Secret Service agents had kidnapped her and shot her in the butt with a hypodermic needle. Who listens to these people? No one. Not until a little B&E job at Watergate brings down a presidency. Not until the Trojan Horse is taken into the gates of the city. Not until we all can hear the voices that once were only in Joan’s head.
    “I believe you,” I said.
    The judge sighed deeply. “But there’s more,” she said. “When I was a child I witnessed sexual molestation occurring for a period of several years within the family next door. I’m almost psychic about any aura of sexual violence in the air.”
    I sipped my coffee and waited.
    “I know this sounds crazy,” she said. “But I also believe they were raped.”
    “Pat,” I said, “the sheriff is very well liked around here and by all accounts very efficient. In fact, as you know, she just solved a triple murder case recently. Maybe she is investigating and just chooses not to tell you.” I could understand why the sheriff might not take the judge to her bosom, so to speak.
    “I hope to hell you’re right,” she said, “ ’cause I’m damn near worried sick about this.”
    “Remember what Mark Twain said: ‘I’ve had many troubles in my life, but most of them never happened.’ ”
    The judge did not look convinced. She picked up her briefcase and stood up, indicating that our little luncheon was over.
    “Tell that to Nigger Jim,” she said.

CHAPTER 8

    The following night, ten little girls stood outside the green trailer in the moonlight. It was pushing Cinderella time. They were all in their pajamas and many of them had brought cameras. They were hoping to get a picture of Dilly. He was there, too. Dilly was my pet armadillo.
    There are those who say armadillos do not make good animal companions, but they have obviously never known the joys of tickling one behind its ears or hearing it knocking on their trailer door in the early hours of the morning for a midnight snack of milk, bacon grease, and cat food. There was a note of sadness in my heart as I brought the cat food out to Dilly amidst the throng of giggling, awestruck members of the Bluebonnets. I had a lot of cat food, I reflected, for a man without a cat.
    The Bluebonnets and Dilly, however, were oblivious to my own personal sorrows. Dilly was enjoying himself immensely, and quite frequently, rising to the occasion on his two hind claws. Whenever this happened, the flash of paparazzi cameras fairly lasered the darkness of the surrounding cedar trees.
    There was something rather poignant, almost spiritual, about the little scene. For armadillos, as practically every Texan knows, are the very shyest of creatures, who, ironically, have been fated to coinhabit a state populated with the very loudest, brashest of human beings. Nevertheless, they’ve been here since the time of the dinosaurs, and they’re not about to let a silly race of people 86 them out this late in the game.
    For those who are not intimately familiar with the armadillo, it is a small, armored creature about the size of. . . well, a cat. Its shell, as John D. MacDonald once observed, is often made into baskets and sold by the roadside. MacDonald also expressed a wish that somewhere in the universe there existed a planet inhabited by sentient armadillos who carved out humans and sold them as baskets by the roadside.
    “Can armadillos hurt you?” asked Marisa.
    “No,” I said. “Only people can.”
    “Is Dilly going to have a baby?” asked Michelle.
    “No, Dilly is a boy. And armadillos never have just one baby; they always have a litter of four. And the four are always either all boys or all girls.” I was quite an armadillologist.
    “Can we pat Dilly?” asked Alene.
    “Of course,”