Our young lawyer, bless his city-born heart, was turning out to be a real go-getter. He called
Jackie the following afternoon with big news: He had persuaded a Collier County judge to sign a
stop-work order on Darryl’s project until a hearing could be held. The only downside was that the
judge wanted the hearing to take place the following Wednesday, which did not give us much time,
Jackie said. Time for what? I wondered to myself. I’d left Mississippi during the last week of August.
It was now early November. From my way of thinking, the sooner this whole thing was over, the
better. But there were several details that Mr. Yonce needed to nail down. Jackie explained it to us
over tea sandwiches pr epared by Mrs. Bailey White. “He said he has to hire a genealogist to verify
that Dolores—er, Bunny—is in fact a descendant of the general,” she said. “He knows a professional
who could do the work pronto.” “What if there are other descendants?” Plain Jane asked. “Good
question!” Jackie said. “Actually, even if there are others it only takes one descendant to st ep forward
and file a stop-work order and have a chance to prove that Darryl is not the owner of the property. If
there are other descendants, well, they can sort out what they want to do—or not do —with the
property later. It’s not relevant now.” “Jackie, you are starting to sound like a lawyer,” Plain Jane
teased. “Well, I talked to Mr. Yonce on the phone for an hour, and he was pretty good about
explaining things to me. You know, I always wanted to be a lawyer. I mean, if I had a profession,
that’s what I—” “What else did he say?” I interrupted. “Oh,” Jackie said, flustered. “Let’s see. There
is a copy of the deed at the bank in Pensacola. The fact that Dolores—uh, Bunny—has the original
deed is very important. Possession is nine-tenths of the law.”
“There’s something I’m wondering about,” I said. Even I could hear the anxiety in my voice. “I
hate to say this, but even if the genealogist shows that Bunny Ann Mc Intyre is a direct descendant of
the general, how do we know for sure that she is, in fact, the real Bunny Ann Mc Intyre?” “I thought of
that, too,” Plain Jane said, speaking quickly. “She says she’s Bunny Ann Mc Intyre but she’s been
using the name Dolores Simpson for a long time. Darryl’s lawyers could claim she’s not the real
Bunny. We need some additional proof. Do we have it?” We all started talking at once, just like in our
old book club days. “Girls, girls, one at a time!” Mrs. Bailey White said. “Dora, you first.” “Well,
when I took Mr. Yonce to meet with her, he asked if she’d ever had a driver’s license or a Social
Security card and she said no. He also asked if she had a copy of her birth certificate other than the
one we’ve all seen already—the one written up by a midwife. Again—no.” “What about a family
Bible?” Mrs. Bailey White asked. “Yes,” I said, “she said there was one and her name was written in
it, but she doesn’t know where it is now.” “Excuse me, could I get a word in edgewise here?” Jackie
asked crossly. She pushed a dangling lock of hair out of her eyes. “I already talked to Mr. Yonce about
all this!” “And what did he say?” Plain Jane said. “He said this was all fine and good, but that it would
be very helpful if we could prove she’d ever used the name Bunny Ann Mc Intyre.” “How are we
going to do that?” Mrs. Bailey White said, dejected. “Well, ideally, if we had some sort of
identification from her younger days, especially if there was a photograph or, even better, fingerprints.
Mr. Yonce said she could be fingerprinted again today and if it were a match, then there would be no
question.” “Good Lord,” Mrs. Bailey White said. “We better hope she was arrested somewhere along
the line.” Jackie smiled in a wry sort of way. “Funny,” she said, “that’s exactly what our lawyer said.”
“Maybe it’s time we checked in with Robbie-Lee,” Plain Jane said. “He might know.” “I wonder how
he’s doing way up thar in New York City,” Mrs. Bailey White said, making it sound as if he were on a
dangerous expedition to the
North Pole. “I mean, I wonder if he’s got himself any friends.” “He sounds pretty good in his
letters,” I said. “Yes, but do you think he has a special friend?” Jackie asked hopefully. Robbie-Lee
was what my mama’s generation called “a doll”—handsome, charming, debonair, and absolutely
useless in the romance d epartment. He wasn’t interested in women in the Biblical sense, but he was
kind and respectful, and awfully fun to have around. “I have no idea,” I said. “I just hope he isn’t
lonely.”
• • •
THAT EVENING, WITH OUR BLESSINGS, Jackie began trying to reach Robbie- Lee by
tel ephone. I wish we had included him sooner. After all, this whole mess concerned his mother. But
now our lawyer, Mr. Yonce, said it couldn’t wait. Jackie had some trouble reaching Robbie-Lee. The
long-distance operator said there was no tel ephone at the address of the apartment where he
lived—not too surprising, since having a phone was expensive and Robbie-Lee was pinching pennies.
Jackie finally called the Booth Theatre on Broadway where Robbie-Lee worked as an usher and, after
persuading one of the box-office ladies that this was a family emergency, a message was left for
Robbie-Lee to call her collect on his break. He called back within an hour, Jackie said, and was
completely frantic. Jackie explained what was going on, as rapidly as she could. He was relieved, she
told us, that nothing terrible had happened to his mother—he was sure that’s why Jackie had
called—but he was furious about Darryl’s plans, the first he’d heard of them. When Jackie told him
about the deed, she couldn’t judge his reaction. If he was surprised, it wasn’t obvious. Then she told
him the court date—just one week away—and asked if there was any chance he could come. “By the
way,” she asked before they got off the phone, “would you happen to know if, well, if your mother has
ever been arrested? It would take too long to explain right now but it would help us prove her case.”
There was a long pause, Jackie said, and then he r eplied, “Yes, I think she was. A long time ago,
before I was born. When she was working as a, um,
dancer in Tampa.” Then he added, “Listen, Jackie, I have to get back to work now.” She said it
was hard to tell if that were really true.