She was halfway into a left turn, although realizing it would be slow going up Ephraim Street because of the crowds, when a whistle shrilled. Jamming on her brakes, she poked her head out of the window.
The uniformed policeman had patches of sweat under his armpits, and he looked like he hadn’t smiled in a millenium or so, the frown lines were so deeply engraved on either side of this mouth.
“Closed for the crafts fair. No left turn. NO LEFT TURN, LADY!” The whistle scalded the air.
“I’ve got to get to the Society parking lot. I’m already late—”
He held a hand behind his ear, then chopped a fist to her right. “Right turn, lady. RIGHT TURN.”
She tried again, yelling like a trader in the closing five.
Swiping sweat from his forehead, he lunged to the car. “Lady, no exceptions. The street’s closed.”
“I’ve got to get to the Prichard House. I’m in charge of the murder.”
“No need to get ugly,” he yelled back. “I didn’t make the street plans. You turn right, or you go to jail.”
Twenty-eight minutes later, after a circuitous route that rivaled the complexity of a maze, Annie wedged the Volvo between a yellow Winnebago (Wisconsin plates) plastered with stickers—Yellowstone’s for the Bears, Take Me Back to Texas, My Heart Belongs to San Francisco, and Chattanooga Choo-Choo Me Home—and a black Toyota pickup that smelled strongly of chicken manure.
She unlocked the trunk and looked at the boxes, none of them small, then sighed, and hefted the first one. It was awkward to carry, and she could scarcely see over it. She was rounding the corner when her knees came up hard against a metal obstacle, and she fell heavily forward.
“Here now, Papa, the lady’s fallen,” a soft country voice called out.
A large calloused hand reached down and lifted her as easily as setting a broom upright, but a hoarse voice howled angrily: “My placards. Don’t let those fools stomp on my placards. Clumsy idiots.”
And Annie was clambering around on her hands and knees trying to scoop up the mystery sheets which had tumbled from the box. Then she realized she was eye-to-eye with an enraged Miss Dora, equally vigorously pursuing the contents of her upended wagon, which had brought Annie down.
It sorted out in a moment, two friendly Georgians forming a blockade against the crowd. Soon Annie’s box was full and Miss Dora’s wagon and her placards restored.
Miss Dora gave Annie a venomous glare, then hunkered down and resumed pounding on the placard-adorned stake at the corner of Lafayette and Ephraim streets.
Annie read the message, written in a fine Spencerian script on white posterboard and covered with a protective sheet of Saran wrap:
“Here stood the waggon yards from 1802 to 1825. Cotton was unloaded here and sold for shipment abroad. Due east of this site rose the shops which served the planters, offering clothing for slaves, shoes, harnesses, groceries, satin, laces, and India china.”
In the background, pounding continued on the grandstand, holiday banter rose in a Niagara-like roar, and vendors shouted.
Annie rubbed her bruised knees, sighed, picked up her box, and set out for the Prichard mansion.
It was not an auspicious beginning.
Where the hell were the tables? With her luck, they’d been sucked into the crafts fair booths, never to surface again, or perhaps to reappear laden with tinware, log cabins made of matchsticks, or pictures painted-by-the-number of iron-gray Traveller with his black mane and tail. But she had to have tables—
“Miss Laurance.”
Annie pivoted. Corinne stood at the top of the marble steps to Prichard House. She wore a sky blue satin-finish wool gabardine that emphasized her youthful figure and the satisfied expression of a chatelaine who’s caught the maid snitching a bonbon.
“You certainly took your time getting here this morning. I’ve been watching for you, and I must say, you’re very late.”
The box of mimeographed Mystery Nights instructions weighed at least twenty-five pounds. Annie had lugged it from the parking lot, survived her encounter with Miss Dora, and maneuvered through tourists clotted like Devonshire cream on the sidewalks. Her once crisp mid-calf navy skirt and cotton cambric blouse with a deep frilled shawl collar clung limply to her aching body.
She glared up at Corinne. “Why the hell didn’t anybody tell me this place would be like Atlantic City when the casinos opened?”
Corinne stiffened haughtily. “Obviously, Miss Laurance, you lack the necessary experience to take part in a House and Garden week. I want to make it clear that I will certainly urge the Board to withhold full payment of your fee if the Mystery Nights are inadequately produced.”
Annie’s eyes slitted like Agatha’s on the approach of a blue jay. “Mrs. Webster, if anything turns out to be inadequate, it won’t be the Mystery Nights,” and she turned on her heel.
At three o’clock that afternoon, Annie wondered if her brave words could be fulfilled. Clutching a box of clues and a croquet mallet, she stood indecisively on her left foot, and tried to read her smudged list.
Tents.
Chairs. Tables. Platform.
Speaker’s stand.
Audio equipment.
Death on Demand display.
Crime Scene materials.
The candy-striped tents were in place, three of them: black-and-white, red-and-white, and green-and-yellow. A large poster was affixed to the main entrance of each: POLICE HEADQUARTERS (black-and-white), SUSPECT INTERROGATIONS (red-and-white), and DETECTION TEAMS CONFERENCE AREA (green-and-yellow).
Where the hell were the tables? She’d called three times, and they had yet to arrive. The long conference tables were to be set up in the headquarters tent to hold clues and copies of the suspects’ statements, and the round tables capable of seating ten in the other tents.
If there were six of her, it might all come off on schedule. As it was, she felt a frantic urge to race into the Society building to check on the audio equipment and an equally frantic urge to hotfoot it in the opposite direction down the shell path to the pond and strew clues. This inability to decide where to leap next accounted for her storklike wobble on one foot. Fortunately, she did have help. Max had arrived late, of course, held up by the traffic, but he was busy now talking to Harry Wells, the police chief, who had agreed to serve as technical advisor, and Edith Ferrier, obviously in her element, was crisply ordering about the extremely slow-moving minions from the rental company that was providing the tents, chairs, and platform, but that had, as yet, failed to come up with the tables. Meanwhile, Society members fanned out up and down Ephraim Street, making last-minute checks on contents of the rooms to be shown in the three houses. Every so often, Edith introduced Annie to another docent, and she’d now perfected a response to “Isn’t it scary to plan a murder?”
As she tried to decide which direction to spring, Annie heard Edith’s high, rather humorless voice admonishing a catering employee to be careful in firing the butane-fueled steam ovens which would be used to roast the oysters. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Corinne making yet another foray. Annie turned to look down the path toward the gazebo. It would be better for her blood pressure if she didn’t tangle with Corinne again today.
Then she spotted one of Miss Dora’s placards. It was better than Kilroy Was Here, and it gave her an excuse to keep her back to Corinne. She crossed several feet of lawn to read it.
“The earliest home at this site was erected by Morris Prichard in 1746 for his bride, Elizabeth. It was a two-story frame structure built on a stuccoed brick foundation with a hipped roof and a small portico facing the river. It was lost in the Great Fire of 1831. Old Chastainians claim that a grieving spirit, Abigail McNeil Prichard, may sometimes be glimpsed crossing the lawn at dusk in early spring, searching for her husband, Donald, who was killed by the British at the Battle of Fort Balfour, April 13, 1781. The present Greek Revival house was built in 1834 by Abigail’s grandson, Nathaniel.”
Annie looked
across the freshly mown lawn, much of it hidden now by the colorful tents, and she wondered what Abigail’s ghost would think of the brightly striped tents, the fluttering groups of women in pastel dresses, and the harried caterers frantically shoving together the last of the serving tables. Tables. That reminded her—she swung around and wished she hadn’t.
Corinne stood beside Edith, one hand on the younger woman’s arm, the other gesturing at the serving tables arranged on the drive east of the tents.
“I thought we’d included the she crab soup in the menu.”
“The Women of Old Chastain are serving the soup and shrimp salad sandwiches this week in their booth.”
“Oh.” The monosyllable hung like a block of ice between them. “I suppose it’s difficult to decide to whom you owe your loyalty, Edith, when you are active in so many organizations. But I do believe you should have remembered that the Chastain Historical Preservation Society is the oldest and most important society in Chastain—and we should, of course, during the Tour Week be offering the best low country food at our buffet.” Corinne lifted her shoulders in a delicate shrug. “However, it’s too late to make any improvements in the menu now, so I—”
“The menu doesn’t need any improvement.” Edith’s deep-set green eyes burned in her sallow face. She looked like a Picasso pastiche animated by hatred: arms akimbo, sunken cheeks touched with fire, black-and-white silk dress, a half-dozen gold bracelets.
Annie held her breath, almost expecting the woman to explode, like a tangle of wire and steel blown apart by dynamite.
Edith’s tight, controlled voice rattled off the foods. “We have okra, shrimp, and crab gumbo, oyster pie, shrimp pilau, stuffed flounder, roast oysters, corn on the cob, black-eyed peas with bacon, orange halves stuffed with sweet potato, cheese soufflé with oyster sauce, hush puppies, cheese popovers, lemon chess pie, sweet potato pie, and Carolina trifle.”
Even Corinne looked impressed. “Well, that sounds very good.” Her cherry red lips formed a patronizing smile. “Edith, you certainly do have a talent for organizing kitchen work. I do hope that you will continue to be willing to exercise your abilities for the good of the Society. I know it was a disappointment when you weren’t named to the slate for president, but I’m sure that you will continue to find your natural level.” Then she looked past Edith and raised her hand to wave. “Jessica, wait a moment, I want to talk to you.”
As she hurried away, Edith remained by the last serving table, staring after Corinne, her face rigid with fury. Annie tucked the croquet mallet under her arm and moved closer, reaching out to touch her arm.
“Hey, don’t let her get to you. She’s just a bitch.”
Edith slowly turned, and Annie was disturbed to see the glitter of tears in her eyes.
“Someday someone is going to kill that woman.” She lifted her hands, pressed her palms against her burning cheeks. “Sometimes I wonder why I don’t just leave, just say to hell with it all, but Paul and I were so happy here.” She tried to smile, but her lips were trembling. “My husband. He died last year, and ever since I’ve spent every minute with my organizations. But I’ve always loved it, you know, loved the history and the wonderful old houses and the people, since we first came here when Paul was stationed at Parris Island. Corinne’s not typical, thank God. She never lets you forget it if you aren’t a native, and she manages to make so many people miserable. Like me. I guess they’ve told you how she screwed me out of being president of the Society. And it shouldn’t matter a damn—but it does. There are so many things that need to be done—”
A soft voice interrupted. “Edith, I know how hard you’re working. I brought some lemonade for you and Annie.”
Gail Prichard held out a silver salver holding two frosted glass goblets with sprigs of mint poking over the rims, and her gentle eyes offered amends.
Edith smoothed back her curly hair and managed a smile. She had the worn look common to so many redheads in late middle age, and Gail’s shiny youthfulness and sleek auburn hair emphasized the contrast. “Thank you, dear. You’re very thoughtful.”
“It looks marvelous. Let me put my stuff down.” The clues could wait for a few minutes. Annie hurried over to the Police Headquarters tent and tucked the mallet and the box of clues behind a folded card table she intended to use for the Death on Demand display. Then, with a grateful smile, she took the goblet. “Thanks for thinking of us.”
“I was watching from the verandah. Is everything coming along all right?” Gail’s glance at Edith was uneasy.
“Oh, just fine,” Annie said quickly. “Except the tables haven’t come. I’m going to call again in a minute. The lights aren’t working, and I can’t get the audio hooked up yet—” She clapped a hand to her forehead. “My God. I forgot to pick up Resuscitation Rhoda! Edith, is the Red Cross closed? Can we get in?”
“She’s sitting in the back seat of my car. Let me know when you’re ready, and I’ll go get her. I’m parked behind the Inn,” and she waved her hand generally northward.
Annie nearly collapsed with relief. “Oh, thank goodness. Lord, what else do you suppose I’ve forgotten?” She dug in her skirt pocket, searching for her list, then panicked, checking her watch again.
“Relax,” Edith admonished. “Believe me, I’ve put on a hundred of these kinds of things. Miraculously, they always come off.”
Gail nodded in agreement. “Everything will work out. What you both need is to take a break for a little while. Edith, why don’t you show Annie through the Prichard House? She’ll be too busy tonight to go through on a tour.”
Annie didn’t miss the byplay, the obvious flash of reluctance in Edith’s eyes, Gail’s attempt to reassure Edith that she was indeed welcome. Or the tacit admission when she added quickly, “Corinne’s gone over to the Museum. Something more about Tim’s paintings.”
Annie was worried over losing the time, still concerned about the audio, the tables, and clue strewing, but refusal would thwart Gail’s attempt at an apology.
They started in the kitchen of the Prichard House, returning their empty lemonade goblets and meeting Chloe, the cook, who had provided the refreshment. “Of course, this isn’t the original kitchen,” Edith explained. “As you know, kitchens were separate from the main houses to avoid fires, but this was added to the Prichard House in 1880. The blue Delft earthenware has been in the family since it was bought by a new bride on a trip to Europe in 1817.”
As they emerged into the central hallway, Annie realized this was the way Gail had come the day she arrived to scout out the terrain for the Mystery Nights. She recognized the French Empire card table with the dolphin feet and the Chippendale mirror topped by the gilt eagle. Once again the wide double doors on either side of the hall were open. Annie glanced uneasily up at the curving staircase. Today it was empty. Presumably, Corinne was wreaking havoc at the Museum.
Edith led the way into the big drawing room, giving a rapid-fire commentary. “Look at the overmantel with the short pilasters and broken pediment above. Those are original to the house. Note the stucco reliefs of classic figures. And, of course, the decoration in this room is glorious, the dentil cornices and the ornamental plasterwork on the ceiling.”
Her deep-set green eyes sparkled as she pointed out the English Regency chairs and an eighteenth-century portrait of Abigail Prichard, who entertained the English general quartered in her house during the Revolution while sending information to Marion’s troops by an overseer of one of her plantations.
Looking up at the smooth, young face in the portrait, Annie imagined her listening with grave courtesy to the general, while her heart churned with worry for her absent husband.
In the dining room, Edith pointed out the silk damask curtains, gold-and-cream patterned Aubusson rug, Hepplewhite sideboard, and reddish-brown mahogany dining table and chairs. “Notice that wonderful Chippendale mirror hanging between the windows.”
At the front door, they thanked Gail for the visit, and Edith led the way out.
Midway down the marble steps, she paused to gesture at the massive octagonal columns. “Pure Greek revival, of course, and what outlanders always envision when you talk about a Southern plantation house. Actually, not many of the Low Country plantations look like Tara, although that style is common in the South. We’re fortunate to have houses of three very distinct types here that have survived to today, and part of the very great charm of Chastain is that the old homes are freestanding on large lots. Many of them are counterparts of true plantation homes. A few, in fact, were boxed up and moved to town by planters trying to escape the bad air. That’s what they attributed malaria to, of course. Bad air from rotting vegetation.”
It was obvious that Edith adored her adopted home. Annie was impressed by her fund of knowledge and enthusiasm for her topic, even when the house she was describing in such admiring terms belonged to a woman she obviously loathed.
“How long have you lived in Chastain?”
The sparkle dimmed in her companion’s eyes. “We came to stay about six years ago, but we had lived here several times over the last twenty-five years when Paul was stationed at Parris Island. He was career military. A lot of military people retire here. We were from Indiana originally. Paul loved to fish and hunt, and I guess there’s no better place in the world for that.” The emptiness in her eyes echoed her grief. “And now that he’s gone … I don’t have anywhere else to go. No family.” She tried to smile. “Most people here are very gracious and welcoming. But the natives, even the nice ones, always know who belongs and who doesn’t. It reminds me of an anecdote by Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel in her book about Charleston. She is talking about a man whom everyone in town liked and admired very much. Then she comments that he was a stranger among them for eighteen years.”
Carolyn G. Hart Page 31
