Too Late for Angels

by Mignon F. Ballard

  “Who’s responsible for these children?” the man demanded, running a large hand through his hair. Ben Maxwell’s hair was thick and reddish-brown with streaks of gray, Lucy noticed, and curls of wood shavings were caught in his beard. He set aside the plane he had been using on what looked like a walnut secretary Lucy could only dream of owning and looked for all the world like a Highlander ready for a fray. “Would you please get them out before somebody gets hurt? Get them out now!”

  The rest of the children, frightened by his loud voice, now joined in the tearful chorus. “I’m sorry,” their teacher said, trying to comfort her flock while herding them toward the door. “I’m afraid the puppies got away from them, and—”

  “We’re doing the best we can,” Lucy told him, wading through shavings to reach two sniffling five-year-olds. “Your yelling at them doesn’t help.”

  “My eye and Betty Martin! There are sharp tools about. You wouldn’t want to see them hurt, would you?” The man bent and scooped up a squirming puppy which he practically shoved at Lucy. He was tall, she noticed, maybe a little taller even than her Charlie had been, and his eyes were a blue so intense they seemed to burn…but she wasn’t here to think about his eyes.

  “I don’t know what Betty Martin—whoever she is—has to do with it, but we’ll get out of your way as soon as we can.” Lucy cradled the puppy in one arm while calming the small boy in the Braves shirt with the other. She wanted desperately to kick this impatient grouch in the shins, but since she was supposed to be a chaperone, that might be frowned upon. Lucy almost smiled. Maybe one of the children would do it. Teddy, she saw, was still crawling along the wood-littered floor after the dog with big feet. She opened her mouth to call to him when the puppy he was pursuing turned and trotted sedately out the door, followed by the others. Augusta smiled and waved to her from the dooryard, then turned and led her tail-wagging charges through the gate.

  “Well, I’ll be—” For a minute Ben Maxwell was speechless, as were the rest of them. “I’ve never seen anything like that!”

  The children, suddenly silent, filed after them, leaving the tall bearded man in the plaid shirt standing dumbfounded and alone.

  Teddy didn’t have to ask twice to go to his favorite place for lunch. Lucy, whose nerves were wearing thin from their experience at Bellawood, was only too glad to indulge her grandson in a grilled cheese sandwich (on whole wheat, of course) with ice cream to follow at Benny Jack’s diner. Jessica would flip when she found out as she suspected Benny Jack bribed the sanitation inspector in order to get a passing rating, but as far as Lucy knew, nobody had died from eating at Benny Jack’s yet. She only wished he served wine, as she could do with a glass about now. Sitting in the small dark booth at the back of the diner, Lucy taught Teddy how to blow the paper from his drinking straw and send it sailing across the table, and then the two of them played ticktacktoe on a paper napkin until it was time to go.

  “That man acted funny, didn’t he, Mama Lucy?” Teddy asked as Lucy drove him home.

  “What man, honey?”

  “That man at Bellawood. The one who was following us around.”

  “You mean Mr. Goodwin, the man who showed us through the house?”

  “Yeah. He was there while we were picking cotton, and you know when we were playing with the puppies and all? Well, I saw him watching us out the window. What you reckon he wanted, Mama Lucy?”

  “Maybe he was just interested,” Lucy said. Or maybe he wanted to tell us something. She’d like to find out what it was—but first, she was going to put her feet up and relax.

  Thank goodness Jessica wasn’t in the mood to chat after her visit with the dentist. She didn’t even ask what they had for lunch, so Lucy escaped quickly after seeing Teddy inside. The day had turned cooler by mid-afternoon and she wondered if Augusta had laid a fire in the sitting room fireplace. A cup of tea would be nice with some of those lemon ginger cookies Augusta had made the day before.

  But as soon as she saw the angel’s face, Lucy knew something was rotten—and it wasn’t in Denmark!

  Lucy tossed her jacket on a chair. “What’s wrong, Augusta? You look like you’ve seen a ghost…but then in your job, you must be used to that.”

  Augusta didn’t smile. In fact, she seemed to have abandoned her usual serene demeanor. “Just come and see,” she said, beckoning Lucy into the living room. “I shouldn’t have gone with you! Something told me to stay here. I’m afraid someone has been here while we were gone and torn the place apart. It looks as if they were searching for something.”

  “I’ll say!” Lucy stood in the doorway staring at the disarray: sofa cushions pulled to the floor, drawers left open; even a corner of the carpet was folded back as if someone had looked under it.

  “We should get out of here and call the police right now!” Lucy said, after the realization hit her. “Whoever did this might still be inside.”

  “No one’s here. I’ve looked.” The angel’s face was flushed as she sank onto a chair. “I imagine they were here much earlier—probably soon after we left for Bellawood. I came here straight from the bus and found it like this.” Augusta fingered her necklace, now a glitter of silver and midnight blue, and pulled her shawl closer about her. “If only I had been here!” she said.

  “What could you have done?” Lucy hurried to check the drawers in the dining room buffet. Thank goodness the silver seemed to be all there.

  “But I would have known who’s responsible.” Augusta followed her into the kitchen, where cooking utensils littered the floor. Open cabinet doors revealed dishes that had been disturbed, and the broken pieces of a saucer were scattered on the countertop. The pattern had strawberries on it and was one of the few dishes remaining of a set Lucy had purchased a piece at a time from the A&P when she and Charlie were first married. She remembered how excited she had been each time she was able to bring home a new piece, and the sight of it lying shattered there by some unknown intruder’s hands made her want to cry. Yet another reminder of her years with Charlie was gone from her life.

  The shoes! Lucy remembered Florence’s clay-covered shoes she had hurriedly stored in the hall closet. What if someone had been looking for the shoes? Her heart raced as she jerked open the door. The paper-wrapped shoes were still there!

  They found the upstairs much the same, with closets open and clothes left in jumbles on the floor. Even the beds were stripped, and in the bathrooms the contents of jars had been emptied into the sink.

  “What on earth were they looking for? Whatever it is, it must be something important.” Lucy found it hard to breathe. She leaned against the doorframe in the room that had been Roger’s. “I wonder if they found it.”

  “Whatever it is, it was something small if they were looking for it in a jar of hand cream,” Augusta said. “Did you look to see if all your jewelry is accounted for?”

  Lucy rushed downstairs to see. All her jewelry included her engagement diamond, a small sapphire ring that had belonged to her mother, a pair of pearl earrings Charlie had given her on their twentieth anniversary, and a gold locket she’d inherited from Mimmer. She still wore her engagement and wedding rings and the rest were in the small brown velvet box in her underwear drawer, although it was obvious someone had searched through her lingerie.

  Lucy’s face burned. The fact that a stranger had gone through her undergarments angered her even more than the knowledge that they had ransacked her house. She picked up the phone to call the police. If she could get her hands on whoever did this, they would be the ones who would need protection!

  Ed Tillman looked about him with his hands on his hips while his partner, Sheila Eastwood, checked the downstairs area. “And you say this is the second time this has happened?” he said. “Why didn’t you call us earlier?”

  “It was hardly noticeable the first time,” Lucy said, trying to avoid incriminating The Thursdays. “A lot of people were in the house that day, and I just thought somebody was being curious. Besides, nothing was
taken.”

  He frowned. “Who do you mean by a lot of people?”

  “Well…my book club…you know, The Thursdays. But none of them would do a thing like that. The back door was unlocked and we were in the front of the house all afternoon. It could’ve been anybody.”

  “I thought I told you to keep your doors locked.” He sighed. “Miss Lucy Nan, be honest with me. Was your house locked while you were gone today?”

  She nodded. “Of course. After what’s been happening around here? Are you kidding?”

  “Then how did this person get in? Any signs of breaking and entering?”

  “Not that I could see.” Lucy grabbed a kitchen chair for support. “Oh, Lordy, Ed! I just had the most horrible thought! What if somebody has a key?”

  “I think I’ve found how they got in,” Sheila said, coming back into the room. “Your downstairs bathroom window was open and the screen is unlatched. Whoever was in here just climbed in your window.”

  “The one off my bedroom?” Lucy felt as if she’d swallowed an ice cube and it stuck there in her throat. How long had that window been open?

  “We’ll try to get some prints, of course,” Ed said, “but I doubt if anything will turn up. Do you have any idea what they were looking for?”

  She shook her head. “Not a clue, but it has to have something to do with Florence Calhoun’s being here. Maybe somebody thinks she left something valuable behind.”

  “Did she have anything like that with her when she came?” Sheila asked.

  “Just the things you saw that were in her purse. I didn’t notice anything else except those rings she wore, and I’m almost sure they were fake. She certainly didn’t leave them here.”

  “But she could’ve had something else? Something on her person?” Ed said.

  “Well, yes, I guess she could’ve. I didn’t search the woman, Ed.”

  “You can rest assured we’ll check this house from top to bottom to be sure everything’s locked up tight. And I wish you’d do me a favor and ask somebody to stay with you tonight. Or, better still, why not spend the night with Roger and Jessica? I’d feel better if someone were with you—for tonight, anyway.” Ed Tillman sat across from her at the kitchen table just as he had many times as a boy. “I want you to promise you’ll be more careful and let me know immediately if you notice anything even faintly suspicious. Whoever entered your house today knew exactly when you’d be away. I think they planned it ahead of time.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “But who?” Ellis said. “Who knew you were going to Bellawood with Teddy’s class this morning?”

  “Who didn’t?” Lucy had finally put away the last baking pan and refolded the clothes in her dresser drawers, but she still had a long way to go in straightening the disorder in her household. It was eight o’clock at night and Ed Tillman and his crew had just left after finding no fingerprints that didn’t belong there and very little evidence except for a smudged footprint in the soil beneath her bathroom window.

  Ellis had phoned earlier while Ed and Sheila were checking windows to make sure the house was secure. “Do you have a few minutes to talk? I have something to tell you,” she began.

  “Likewise,” Lucy said, and told her what had happened. “In fact, I was going to ask you if you’d mind staying over tonight. Ed seems to think I need a chaperone.”

  “Why don’t you come here? Bennett’s out of town. We can stay up late and raise hell.”

  “It looks like I’ll be up late anyway, and the hell-raising’s already been done. You should see this mess, Ellis! It’s going to take hours to put everything away—even with Augusta’s help.”

  “I’ll pick up a pizza,” Ellis said. “Does Augusta like pepperoni?”

  Augusta did, it seemed, as she put away three pieces and washed them down with a glass of red wine.

  “Do you have any idea what this person was looking for?” Ellis asked as the three of them relaxed later in front of the sitting room fire.

  “It must be something they think Florence—if it was Florence—left here,” Lucy said. “I can’t imagine what it might’ve been.”

  Augusta drew her needlework from the large tapestry bag she carried and began weaving the threads with quicksilver fingers. “She wasn’t wearing her rings when they found her,” she said. “Do you think she might have hidden them here?”

  “Surely you don’t believe they were real?” Lucy shook her head. “Those stones were huge, Augusta—gaudy as anything you’d ever see in a dime store. They didn’t suit her at all. I’m talking tacky here. And even if they were genuine, what was Florence doing with them? I didn’t get the idea they had that kind of money.”

  Ellis stood to warm herself by the fire. “I just assumed that whoever killed her took the jewelry.”

  “They might have. We just don’t know.” Augusta smoothed out her handiwork, a pastoral scene in rich colors of emerald, gold and azure, and tucked it back inside her bag. And we still don’t know if they found what they were looking for today.”

  “Where else would they look?” Lucy said. “Seems to me they didn’t miss a thing.”

  “What about the attic?” Ellis asked.

  “I keep that door locked,” Lucy said. “I don’t like Teddy going up there. The stairs are steep and it’s cold and dirty.” She yawned, stretching. “Relax! It’s okay. Ed and Sheila have already looked up there. It hasn’t been disturbed.” She wiggled her toes toward the fire. “This has been a day and a half! For a while I thought it would never end!”

  Suddenly Lucy sat forward. “Oh my gosh, I almost forgot! The casserole! I haven’t made the vegetable casserole for Calpernia’s funeral tomorrow. There was a message on my answering machine from Claudia Pharr about bringing enough for ten!”

  “She got me, too,” Ellis said. “Told me several others were bringing dessert, so I made that green bean thing—the one with the onion rings on top.” She frowned. “Do you think people are tired of my funeral cake?”

  Lucy rose to her feet—which ached; in fact just about every bone in her body seemed to have aged about ten years. “If I hurry, I can throw together that marinated bean salad,” she began. “But that’s not really a casserole. Besides, you said you were bringing green beans—”

  Augusta put a hand on her arm. “There’s something all ready in the refrigerator,” she said. “I could see you were running short of time, so I doubled that squash recipe of your grandmother’s—the one with cheese and eggs. I believe it turned out quite well. I hope you won’t mind, Lucy Nan.”

  “Mind? Are you kidding?” Lucy threw her arms around Augusta, who flushed. “You really are an angel!”

  “Well, of course,” Augusta said, then turned to Ellis. “I believe Lucy said you had some news to share?”

  Ellis nodded, turning to warm her other side. “Right. In all the excitement, I almost forgot. Guess who came to see me this afternoon?”

  “Let me see…I’ll bet it was Mel Gibson!” Lucy said.

  “Oh, him? He was here yesterday. Guess again.”

  “Okay. Mickey Mouse? The Great Pumpkin? Ellis Saxon, you know I hate it when you want me to guess!” Lucy tossed a pillow at Ellis and missed. “Will you please just get to the point?”

  “Boyd Henry Goodwin.” Ellis announced the name and waited, as if she expected applause. “Called and asked if it would be all right if he came by for a minute, so of course I said yes—only he didn’t stay just a minute. Lordy, I thought the man would never leave!”

  “What did he want?” Augusta asked.

  “I think he wanted to get something off his chest,” Ellis said. “He told me he saw poor little Florence the day she disappeared. She bought a snow cone from him.”

  “Surely he told that to the police!” Lucy said.

  “But he didn’t. Boyd Henry said he wasn’t supposed to be selling snow cones that day. His mother thought he was having a violin lesson over at the college, but Boyd Henry was trying to earn enough money so he could go
to Columbia on a class trip, so he skipped his lesson that day.” Ellis sat on the arm of Augusta’s chair and sighed. “Poor Boyd Henry! Not only was he disobeying his mother, but Florence wasn’t allowed to eat snow cones. Her mother wouldn’t give her a nickel to buy one, but a lady in a green dress did.”

  “Lady in a green—you mean the woman who kidnapped Florence?” Lucy remembered how evasive Boyd Henry had been at Bellawood that morning. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to talk about the day little Florence disappeared.

  “Probably,” Ellis continued. “Boyd Henry remembers seeing her get out of a car and approach Florence. They spoke for a minute or two, then the woman got back into the car. A man was driving, he said.”

  Augusta didn’t seem surprised. “What then?” she wanted to know. “Did they drive away?”

  Ellis shrugged. “Boyd Henry didn’t remember. He said he didn’t think too much about it because Florence was such a pretty little girl, people were always making a fuss over her. And the woman seemed nice—although he admits he didn’t get a good look at her or the man.”

  “So he didn’t actually see them take her.” Augusta fingered her necklace.

  “He said he thought they had driven away by the time Florence started home,” Ellis said. “Boyd Henry decided to take his cart to the other end of town where there were a lot of children. He says he didn’t think any more about it until later that afternoon when he learned Florence had turned up missing.”

  Augusta was silent for a minute. “If the child wasn’t supposed to have the snow cone, she would probably eat it before going back home. The couple could have circled the block and waited for her.”

  “And she never saw her family again.” Lucy felt an ache in her throat for the unsuspecting child. “I can’t believe Boyd Henry’s been holding that back all this time! I tried to speak with him at Bellawood this morning, but he acted peculiar—like he didn’t want to discuss it. Now I know why, but I wonder why he came to you?”