Hark! The Herald Angel Screamed: An Augusta Goodnight Mystery (with Heavenly Recipes)

by Mignon F. Ballard

  “Did Opal ask the woman about it?” Terrance said.

  “Yes, of course,” I said, “but she was told that the locket in the photograph had been in the Tansey family for years and that it was probably one of several.”

  “Not so!” Terrance rose abruptly and walked to the window where he stood looking out at the playground where empty swings swayed eerily in the wind. “We were told our grandfather had that locket made especially for our grandmother for their wedding day with the date of their marriage inscribed on the inside.” He turned and looked at us. “The woman was obviously lying, but why? Her daughter came by the locket honestly. It’s not as if she stole it.”

  I didn’t have an answer for that because it puzzled me as much as it did him.

  “But that same night somebody did steal the locket from Idonia,” Ellis said, and told him how our friend’s punch had been doctored during the open house at Bellawood.

  When Terrance spoke it came as a growl deep in his throat. “And a few days later my sister accidentally fell from the church balcony. And what, may I ask, are the police doing about this? I assume they’ve questioned these people—these Tanseys.”

  I replied that they had and I thought the police probably had a suspect in mind.

  Apparently tiring of the view from the window, Terrance began to walk, making a circuit of the sofa, three chairs, and a table holding the ugly glass lamp Opal Henshaw herself had donated a few years before. I had to look away to keep from getting dizzy.

  “It looks like an open-and-shut case to me,” he said. “This family holds my nephew responsible for their daughter’s death, and he ends up dying under suspicious circumstances on the property where the Tanseys live. When Opal identifies the locket as the one worn by our grandmother, they deny any connection to their daughter’s marriage to Dexter. Seems to me they didn’t want anybody else to know about it either—especially the police.”

  “But they know now,” I said.

  “And what about this Melrose you spoke of? Has anyone asked him how he came by the locket?”

  Jo Nell spoke up. “Guess they would if they could find him,” she said.

  “Oh, Lordy! I thought we’d never get away from there!” Ellis wailed as we finally left the church. “First Nathan and now Terrance! Maybe between the two of them, they’ll track down whoever’s responsible for all this.”

  More power to them, I thought, circling the cemetery where Terrance had gone to inspect his sister’s grave, now heaped with the fresh flowers she had considered a frivolous expense.

  “Where are you going?” Ellis looked at her watch. “The day’s almost gone and I need to run by the store.”

  “Thought maybe I might see Al Evans here but I guess he’s gone on back to the funeral home,” I said. “Ellis, I wonder if he knows where Melrose is.”

  “Why would he?”

  “Well, think about it. If Al’s cousin Melrose had anything to do with what happened to Opal, it wouldn’t do a whole lot for his professional image.”

  Ellis dug in her handbag for a notebook and pen. “Maybe not, but I don’t know how you could prove it. Could we stop by the market? I need to pick up oranges and coconut for the ambrosia.”

  So much for that notion, I thought. Idonia had been gone over twenty-four hours and all Ellis could think about was her Christmas menu. Yet I knew I needed to do the same. Julie would soon be home for the holidays and she would expect all her favorite goodies.

  I was making out a grocery list in my mind when Ellis interrupted my thoughts. “Do you still have a key to the Green Cottage?” she asked.

  “You mean the house where the Tanseys live? I think there’s one in that box of things that belonged to Mimmer, but surely you’re not suggesting—”

  Ellis shrugged. “How else are we going to look for the locket?” she said.

  I felt the same sensation in my stomach I remembered from the summer we were ten and she assured me it really wasn’t that far to jump from the pear tree to the garage roof. I had to wear a cast on my ankle until September and missed out on swimming the rest of vacation.

  “And how do you plan to make the Tanseys disappear?” I asked.

  “Tomorrow’s Sunday, isn’t it? And I happen to know the congregation at Preacher Dave’s church is having their Christmas program tomorrow night.”

  “What do we do about Jeremiah?” I asked. “He might not be the church-going type.”

  She shrugged. “I guess we’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  And maybe it was my imagination, but I could swear I felt a pain in my ankle.

  “I’m not going unless Augusta comes, too,” I told Ellis as we loaded groceries into my car.

  She wedged the last bag in the trunk and slammed the lid. “She isn’t going to like it—poking about in somebody’s house when they’re not there. You know how straitlaced Augusta can be.”

  “However, I sometimes make exceptions,” Augusta said from the backseat. “Did you remember to get cranberries? I thought I’d make that salad Julie likes so much.”

  re you serious?” I asked Augusta as the three of us drove the few blocks to drop off Ellis and her groceries. Searching someone’s home without permission is frowned upon in most earthly tribunals, so I could only imagine how it would go over in even higher courts.

  “I can’t think of any other way,” Augusta said, speaking in a matter-of-fact manner. I glanced at Ellis, who chewed her bottom lip, a sure sign she was reasoning we might have jumped in over our heads. I thought of my two children and six-year-old grandson coming to visit me in the penitentiary and almost ran a red light at the corner. It surprised me that Ellis and I seemed more concerned about our planned illegal venture than our virtuous guardian angel.

  “Of course, there’s no need for the two of you to be involved at all,” Augusta continued. “I could go there tonight—or even sooner. I see no reason to wait.”

  I pulled into Ellis’s driveway and threw on the brakes. “Now, just hold your heavenly horses!” I said. “I’m the only one who’s ever been in that house, and I know the layout. Besides, whose idea was this, anyway?”

  “I do believe it was mine,” Ellis reminded me. “And I agree with Augusta, the sooner we find out about that locket, the better. We haven’t heard from Idonia since day before yesterday, and for all we know she could be locked up there somewhere, or even worse—”

  I didn’t want to hear the “even worse” part. “But how do we know the Tanseys aren’t there? What if one of them walks in?”

  “I’ve thought about that,” Ellis said. “It would seem reasonable for you to have a key since your relatives own the property, and you could always give some excuse or other like … “

  I waited. “Like what?”

  “Like—uh—well … measuring for new countertops or something,” she said. “Maybe the sink drips or the toilet runs. Can’t you just make up something?”

  “I’d rather not,” I said.

  “And you shouldn’t have to,” Augusta assured me. “Not when you have me to do your recon—reconnais—preliminary survey of the area.”

  I smiled. “I’d hate to be the one to lead you into a life of crime, Augusta.”

  This time the angel didn’t smile back. Her words were solemn and her voice, sad. “You must be aware there is someone in this town who holds human life in little regard. This person has killed twice, and I don’t believe they would hesitate to do it again. If I have to make this choice to prevent another such loss, then so be it.”

  “Hooray, Augusta!” Ellis applauded. “Just give me time to put away my groceries.”

  Although it was only six o’clock, it was dark when we started out a short time later, which wasn’t surprising since the day before, I remembered, had been the shortest day of the year. At Augusta’s urging we stopped at a fast-food drive-in for milkshakes, although nobody seemed to be hungry but her.

  “Your body needs fuel to go on,” she reminded us.


  The plan was for Augusta to find out if any of the Tanseys were at home. If not, using my grandmother’s key, Ellis and I would enter and search for the locket we were almost certain was somewhere inside the house while the angel kept watch.

  This time, Ellis drove and I sat in the passenger seat beside her holding an untouched milkshake in my lap. Augusta had ordered fries with her strawberry shake and sat in the backseat dipping each one in ketchup as she ate. Although I enjoy junk food as much as anybody, the greasy smell of the fries was causing a small uprising in my stomach.

  “I don’t see how you can sit back there and eat like we don’t have a care in the world,” I told her. “Aren’t you even the least bit nervous?”

  Augusta finished the last fry and dabbed her lips daintily with a paper napkin. “Think blue, Lucy Nan,” she reminded me. “Take a deep breath, close your eyes, and think of a calm and beautiful place—a summer sky, a peaceful lake, a gentle stream.”

  Well, I tried, I really did, but all I felt was a tornado forming somewhere in my middle, and the closer we got to Willowbrook, the more I hoped we would find the Tanseys at home.

  We didn’t. The yellow-painted cottage sat bordered by huge oaks at the end of a lonely road, and the only thing that stirred on our approach was a gray squirrel scurrying across the grass in search of something to eat. The garage that housed the family’s two vehicles was empty.

  Ellis brought the car to a stop and parked boldly out front as if we had a right to be there. “Maybe you should go to the door and knock—just in case,” she said, turning to me.

  But holding up her hand, Augusta signaled for us to stay and silently slipped from the car. We watched as she walked up to the front door, hesitating for only a second before she disappeared inside—at least I assumed she was inside, although the front door never opened to admit her.

  What would we do if any of the Tanseys drove up just then? What would we say? A hundred explanations came to mind but none was believable. I might be able to lie convincingly to Preacher Dave or Louella, I thought, but what could I say to Jeremiah?

  The cottage, the yard, the car where we waited was shrouded in darkness now and I felt the bleakness of it creep into my head and inch its way down. I was afraid of Jeremiah Tansey.

  “I guess they’ve all gone to church to rehearse for tomorrow’s program,” Ellis said, looking over her shoulder. “I hope it takes a long time.” She shivered. “Why is Augusta taking so long in there?”

  As if in answer, the angel suddenly slid into place in the backseat. “There’s no one there now,” she said, “but I wouldn’t take too long if I were you. And it might be wise to move the car somewhere out of sight. Is there anywhere nearby where we could conceal it?”

  “You mean so we could make a quick getaway?” I said. For some reason I wanted to giggle.

  “What about that old shed just down the road? We could walk from there,” Ellis suggested.

  Or run, I thought, thinking more of the return trip. Mimmer had said the shed had once been used to weigh and store cotton, back when the fields were planted with cash crops, but now the sagging building contained only rusting pieces of outdated farm machinery and extra salt blocks for the cattle.

  I watched for lights approaching the whole time Ellis turned back onto the road and drove the few yards to park behind the shed. In warmer weather weeds surrounding it would be so high it would be difficult to walk, but now dry grass only whispered under our feet. Ellis used a flashlight to find the narrow pathway through a thicket of trees and underbrush to the back of the Tanseys’ cottage. Preacher Dave and others before him often used it as a shortcut to the shed and the cattle gate to the pasture across the road.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea where to start looking once we get inside,” Ellis said as we made our way through the sparse woods Indian style. The moon was obscured by clouds, which was an advantage in a way because it gave us the cover of darkness, but it was difficult to see where we were going. I walked behind Augusta, keeping my eyes on the golden gleam of her hair.

  “I suppose it depends on who took the locket as to where they might hide it,” Augusta said. “Or, if they believe no one will come looking for it, they might not hide it at all.”

  I hoped we would be that lucky. A glance at my watch told me it was almost seven o’clock already and I didn’t want to spend any more time in that house than necessary.

  With Augusta stationed out front to alert us if anyone approached, Ellis and I let ourselves in the back door and stepped into a small laundry room that opened onto the kitchen. I felt like the guilty intruder I was and resisted the impulse to turn and run, but I knew Ellis would never let me forget it. “Okay, I’ll take Jeremiah’s room and you search his parents’,” I said, feigning bravery.

  “Be sure to leave everything the way you found it,” she warned me, knowing some of my more careless habits. “We don’t want them to even suspect we were here.”

  I had brought a container of Augusta’s homemade candy—divinity, of course—and hurried to slip it among the packages under the family’s small artificial tree just in case we were caught. If we were lucky, however, the Tanseys would never know who brought it.

  The cottage was built in the Cape Cod manner with a half story upstairs, which I assumed to be Jeremiah’s, and as it turned out, I was right. The enclosed back stairway off the kitchen led to a long, narrow room with two dormer windows facing the front of the house. At least, I thought, from here I would be able to see the lights of an approaching car.

  Jeremiah, it seemed, lived a rather Spartan lifestyle if it could be judged by the furnishings in his room, which contained a single bed, dresser, small table, and straight chair. On the wall across from his bed, shelves held a large television set with all the electronic attachments including a DVD, CD player, and speakers. But from the looks of my surroundings, I didn’t think he spent much time there, and who could blame him? A computer sat on the table next to the bed and I was tempted to turn it on to learn if there was anything of interest there, but I’m just now getting accustomed to the one I use at Bellawood, and I didn’t want to take a chance on messing with this one.

  I didn’t dare turn on a light so I used a flashlight to look through Jeremiah’s dresser drawers which I found to be surprisingly neat. I don’t even pretend to know a lot about current fashions for men, but I recognized some expensive brand-name clothing in Jeremiah Tansey’s closet. For someone who worked as an unskilled laborer for a fencing company in nearby Rock Hill, he seemed to spend more on his wardrobe than my professor son, Roger. But being single and living at home, I reasoned, why shouldn’t he?

  Downstairs I could hear Ellis moving quietly about and when I was sure the locket couldn’t possibly be in Jeremiah’s room, I took one more look around, closed the door behind me, and went downstairs to help.

  A glance out the living room window showed Augusta still keeping watch out front, wrapped to the teeth in her cape, and hugging herself for warmth, and I reminded myself to hurry as I knew she hated being cold.

  “I found a box with a few earrings and a necklace or two in there but not much else,” Ellis said, stepping from the couple’s room. “I hope Santa Claus brings Louella a gift certificate for some decent clothes for Christmas. The contents of that woman’s closet is just plain dismal.”

  “Sounds like she could take some pointers from Jeremiah,” I said, and told her what I’d observed upstairs. Of course I knew I’d be the very last person appointed to snoop for the fashion police, I told myself as the annoying virtuous part of me waggled a finger, but I couldn’t help what I saw.

  It took the two of us several minutes to examine the contents of the curio cabinet in the dining room, being careful not to drop the souvenir cups, plates, and doodads from various vacation spots. I didn’t dare to touch the lovely hand-painted cake plate that was displayed on the top shelf or the dainty china teapot beside it. Besides, it was obvious the locket wasn’t here.

  “Wha
t now?” I asked after a search of the buffet drawers proved disappointing. “Guess there’s nothing left but the kitchen.”

  Ellis frowned. “Isn’t there a small room on the other side of it?”

  “You mean the pantry?”

  “No, behind that,” she said. “Looks like it’s been added on.”

  “Oh, right! I forgot about that. One of the former tenants built it for his mother, but lately, I think it’s just been used for storage.”

  “Sounds like a likely spot to hide a locket.” Ellis pushed open the swinging door from the dining room and hurried through the kitchen, stopping abruptly at the closed door of the added room. “Damn! It’s locked!” She tried the knob again, shaking it. “Well, this should tell us something. Now we’ll never know if it’s in here or not.”

  “Of course we will. We might not be able to get inside,” I reminded her, “but I know somebody who can.”

  Augusta was so happy to be invited in out of the cold, she practically rushed inside in a blur and didn’t even hesitate to debate the issue when Ellis told her we wanted her to let us into a locked room.

  Ellis snatched up the jacket she had cast aside earlier. “I’ll keep watch until it’s open,” she said, hurrying toward the front of the house. “Just try to hurry, please!”

  But that last admonition proved unnecessary because Augusta had the locked door open before Ellis had crossed the room.

  “Dear God!” I sighed, looking past her. And Augusta, who dislikes hearing anyone take the Lord’s name in vain, barely made a face.

  “What is it?” Ellis rushed to see and stood fixed in the doorway, her fingers fastened onto my shoulder. The small area in front of us contained the furnishings of a young girl’s room, including a large rag doll in a rocking chair and an open book on the bed. In the narrow closet we found a limited array of clothing appropriate for a teenaged girl, and just about every space on the wall was covered with photographs of Dinah Tansey throughout most of the stages of her brief life.