I remembered a car like Peggy O'Connor's on Water Tower Road the day I was forced to jump from my bike, and, according to Gert, a visitor fitting her description had been nosing around Minerva Academy the day the framed alma mater came up missing. "There's something peculiar about that woman," I said.
"What can she do over the telephone?" Gatlin said, and held out her hand for the number.
I stood and watched while my cousin made the connection. What if Peggy O'Connor was behind Otto's murder and all the rest? What if she was outside right now, looking in the window, waiting for just the right moment to strike again? "She's probably gone to church," I said.
But Gatlin waved me quiet. I listened while my cousin introduced herself in her "sorority rush" voice, then explained why she was calling.
Her expression changed from tea party polite to an icy pre-attack calmness. "I don't think you understand, Mrs. O'Connor. We have an urgent situation here, and we're appealing to you for help…."
Gatlin shook her head at me. The "urgent situation" didn't look hopeful. "I can understand why your grandmother didn't want to talk about the quilt, but it's only a bed covering—it isn't cursed! That was a long time ago, and now we need to put those secrets to rest…." Gatlin's voice could cut stone.
"I'm sorry you feel that way, but we know from Mamie Estes that Flora was the last one to have it. Can't you at least tell us where it is?"
When Gatlin held the phone away from her and stared at it as if it might explode in her hand, I knew our last hope had hung up. "Still cranky from Halloween," Gatlin said. "Broomstick splinters up her ass."
I giggled, although our predicament wasn't a bit funny. Gatlin always could make me laugh at the most inappropriate times, like when old Mr. Scruggs used to get up to lead the singing at Sunday night church services, and Gatlin would grab her neck and cross her eyes. Poor Mr. Scruggs had a prominent Adam's apple and his eyes were a little off focus. Vesta got to where she finally quit making us go.
We were still laughing a few minutes later when David came in with the sandwiches, the two girls trailing behind him. He shoved books aside on the table for our lunch and pulled up a chair for Mildred.
"I'm hungry. Let's eat!" Faye grabbed for the food as her dad unfolded the sack and handed out the sandwiches, tucking a paper napkin in his younger daughter's dress. Gatlin poured milk and coffee from thermoses she'd brought from home.
"I'd like to contribute to the meal," Mildred said, "but I'm afraid my cupboard is bare. I haven't had a chance to go to the store yet."
"We'll have to take care of that," I told her. "If you'll make up a list, we'll go right after lunch."
Mildred nodded agreeably. She didn't know, of course, that my offer came with strings attached. I had a question for Mildred Parsons I didn't think she could dodge.
Lizzie dipped a french fry in ketchup. "Did they find the person who tried to hurt you, Minda?"
"Not yet, honey, but I'm sure they'll find them soon," I said, wishing I could believe it.
"Hurt you? Why? When did this happen?" Mildred had started to take a bite of her sandwich and now held it in midair. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine except for a few bumps on the head," I assured her. "Tell you about it later."
"I wish they'd hurry and lock up the maniac who's doing this," my cousin said later as she dropped me off to get my car. "I'm afraid to turn my back on you!"
"Sounds like it was the same person who tried to flip me over the cliff," I said. "And Hugh Talbot was after something that day I found him checking out the window on the back porch." I reminded her about the man's suspicious visit.
Gatlin pulled beside my car in the driveway of the Nut House and looked around as if she expected somebody to jump out at us from behind the nandina bush. "Do you think Hugh might've killed Otto?"
"The police don't seem to think so. He's over at the academy almost every day, but he swears he wasn't there the night Otto was killed."
"How about Wordy Gerty?" Gatlin turned to me, eyebrows raised.
"Come on, Gatlin—Wordy Gerty? She was at that Movies ‘n’ Munchies thing at the church. Even Mildred remembers seeing her there. Besides, how could the woman try to run herself down? Even Gert couldn't manage that."
"Could've been Hugh…" Gatlin drummed on the steering wheel. "I'm sure it has something to do with that old school."
But Hugh had stepped in to save me from a nasty free fall. Hadn't he? And I didn't really think he'd try to run over his sister, no matter how badly she got on his nerves.
"It could've been just about anybody," I said, digging my car keys from my purse. "I think I'm going to live in a closet—one with thick walls and no windows. You can slip food under the door."
"We're going to find that quilt, Minda," Gatlin said. "If that O'Connor woman thinks I've given up, she needs a refresher course in Bitching 101. I'm holding Vesta in reserve."
"God help her," I said. "But don't send Vesta in just yet. First give me a chance with Mildred."
"What would Mildred know?"
"More than you think," I said. A lot more than you think
Chapter Twenty-One
I waited until we had finished grocery shopping to throw my firecracker into the furnace. Mildred sat in the passenger seat while I piled her groceries into the trunk.
"Don't let me forget to set aside some of those canned goods for the church cornucopia," she said when I slid in beside her. "They're supposed to collect them for the care center sometime this week."
I said I wouldn't.
"And when are you going to tell me about those 'bumps on your head,' as you describe them? What happened, Arminda? Why was someone trying to harm you?"
"In a minute," I said. "First tell me about your visit to Brookbend. Did you have a nice time with your relatives there?" I glanced at her as we waited to turn out of the parking lot.
"It was all right. Watch that truck, Arminda! Some people don't seem to know how to use a signal."
"Tell me about your mother, Mildred. What was she like?"
"My mother?" Mildred opened her black leather purse— the only one I'd ever seen her carry—then snapped it shut again. "Well… she was just… my mother," she said. "Why do you ask?"
"I've never heard you say much about her. What was her name?"
She turned and looked at me, shifting the purse on her lap. "Ann. Her name was Ann."
I felt her eyes on me as I maneuvered into the left lane of traffic. The Presbyterians were already returning from lunch at the Dine Rite Cafeteria a few miles down the road. The Methodists would be next, and finally, the Baptists.
"I know who she was, Mildred." I smiled. " Cousin Mildred. Is that why you made that mysterious trip to Brookbend?"
For a minute I thought she hadn't heard me, or if she had, she was going to deny it.
"I wish you hadn't found that out, Arminda. I'm afraid it could be a dangerous thing to know. There's something dreadful going on here, and I don't want anything happening to you—although it sounds as though my warning might be a bit too late."
In a rare gesture of affection, Mildred put a hand on my arm and, I think, came close to patting it.
"You have a point there," I said, and told her about the two attempts on my life.
"Great mercy's sakes alive!" This was as close as Mildred ever came to cursing, and she did it with a flair Sarah Bern hardt might've envied. "Could Gatlin place the voice of the person who phoned? The one who pretended to be her neighbor?"
"Not really. Said she sounded like she had a cold. Or it might've even been a man."
"How did you know—about my mother, I mean?" Mildred spoke in little more than a whisper.
"I saw her picture yesterday in an old yearbook at the academy, and it reminded me of a photograph I'd seen of you taken when you were younger."
"Where on earth did you find that?"
"Came across it when Vesta and I were looking through your things—"
"You and Vesta went through
my belongings? Why?"
"We needed to know what you packed when you left for your destination unknown so we'd have some idea of how long you planned to be gone." Irritation edged my voice, and I didn't try to sugarcoat it. "We were worried about you, Mildred. We didn't know where you were."
"I'm sorry about that." Mildred stared down at her lap and looked solemn—and more or less remorseful.
"So, are you going to tell me now?" I glanced at her. "About your mother, Annie Rose. Where did she go when she left here, and why did she let everybody think she drowned?"
My passenger studied about that for a minute. "Gatlin will probably be at the bookshop for a good while yet. Why don't we go back to the home place where we can talk? These groceries should be all right for a while in the trunk, don't you think? And I'll tell you what I know."
"Fine. But first I think I have something that might belong to you," I said.
A welcoming lamp burned in the back hallway of the house on Phinizy Street, and the kitchen had a faint, spicy smell that made me think of happier times.
Sniffing, Mildred followed her nose to the apple-shaped cookie jar on the counter and lifted the lid.
"Why, Minda, I didn't know you had the recipe. These were always your favorites. Remember? Your mother made them every Christmas."
"Elf krispies!" I bit into a thin, nut-filled cookie, zippy with cloves and allspice. "Mom said this is what Mrs. Claus made for Santa's elves," I said, filling the kettle for tea.
Mildred smiled as she helped herself to another. "You know, I expect she still does," she said.
I left her waiting for the kettle to boil while I hurried upstairs for the pin I'd found in the bathroom stall at Minerva Academy. It was fastened just where I'd left it weeks before on the inside of a hideous orange toboggan cap Gatlin had once given me during her (thankfully) brief knitting stage.
"Where did you find this?" Mildred asked when I placed it on the table in front of her. She turned the pin in her fingers and examined the initials on the back. "I was afraid it was gone forever!"
I told her how I had found the star-flower pin on the floor of the women's restroom and had put it in my pocket, then forgotten it during the grim events that followed. "It wasn't until Gatlin and I discovered the minutes from what must have been a meeting of the Mystic Six that I remembered it," I told her. "The emblem on the paper was the same as that on the pin, and it's on the alma mater, too—the one my great-grandmother stitched that was hanging at the academy."
Mildred frowned and shook her head. "The Mystic Six?"
"It was a club—a secret society, I think, and there were six members. Your mother, Annie Rose, was one, and so was her sister, Lucy. The others were Mamie Trammell Estes—who, by the way, is the only one still living; Pluma Griffin; Irene Bradshaw's mother, Pauline; and Flora Dennis."
Mildred nodded. "I remember Pauline. She came here once just before Lucy died. And Flora…"
Mildred stood and reached for the kettle. "There are several kinds of tea bags. I didn't know what you wanted—"
"What about Flora?" I snatched a tea bag from the closest box and took the kettle from her.
"She and Lucy corresponded—seemed to be close friends. I wrote to her when Lucy died."
I sensed there was more, but Mildred wasn't going to share it. Not yet, anyway. "Then you know about the quilt?"
I watched her face, waiting for her answer. Earlier she had claimed she'd never heard of it.
Mildred sighed. "Lucy kept an old quilt in a trunk, but I didn't know of its significance until I hung it out to air once. She demanded I take it down. Something amiss there, I thought, but of course I didn't know what! I only saw it two other times: once when it arrived in the mail, and again when she asked me to box it up and send it to somebody else."
"Do you remember who it was?"
"I wouldn't if you hadn't mentioned her, but I believe her name was Mamie… Yes, I'm almost sure of it."
"The members of the Mystic Six made that quilt," I told her, "and passed it from one to the other. Mamie Estes said it was Annie Rose's quilt, but I think they made it after she died—I mean, left, and it's looking more and more like it has something to do with Otto's murder."
"Yes, I'm afraid you're right." Mildred tucked the little pin inside a zippered pocket in her purse. "Arminda, promise me, please, that you won't say anything about finding this pin to anybody else. Otto must have had it with him when he died.
Why, I don't know, but apparently someone wants it badly enough to kill."
I didn't tell her that Gatlin already knew. Why double the worry? "What will you do with it?" I asked. "It isn't safe to keep it around—especially after what happened to you earlier."
Mildred made a face, remembering, no doubt, her trip to the emergency room. "Don't worry. I'll put it in a safe place. No one will think to look there." She took a sip of tea and held the cup in both hands. "I don't want to let it get away from me again. It belonged to my mother, you know."
"Have you always known that Annie Rose was your mother?" I asked. "The pin has her initials, A. W., on the back."
But Mildred shook her head. "I've suspected, of course, and over a period of years, my suspicions became even stronger, but I was told my mother's maiden name was Waters—Ann Waters—and that she was raised somewhere near Greenville. I had to go back to Brookbend to find the truth." Her voice quivered. "If I had only gone sooner, perhaps Otto would still be alive."
"How could your mother's true identity have anything to do with Otto's being murdered?" I asked.
"I think Otto found out something that somebody wanted to remain a secret," Mildred said. "And he let it be known to the wrong person."
She turned and looked at me, and her smile made me want to cry. "I loved that boy as though he were my own—still do, but Otto had a way of twisting things about to suit his own needs. He may very well have brought about his own death."
"How do you mean? Do you think he was blackmailing somebody?"
Mildred stood and turned on the burner under the kettle. This was to be a multi-cup discussion, and if the situation hadn't been so serious, I would've smiled. "I don't like that word," she said, "but yes, I think he might have been.
"You asked why my mother left the way she did, and I think I know. She let everyone think she had drowned in the Saluda because she was pregnant. With me."
"But that's a terrible thing to do! Can you imagine the grief and pain that caused her family? And to never see them again—"
"Arminda, this was 1916. My mother wasn't married. Things like that weren't accepted then. I suppose she felt if she returned and they learned the truth, it would dishonor her family."
"So she left her shawl beside the river and made her way somehow or other almost two hundred miles away to Brookbend?"
Mildred jumped up to turn off the steaming kettle and poured water into our cups. I stayed seated and let her do this, knowing the small, everyday tasks were probably helping her deal with the struggle of sharing her story—a story that had obviously shaken her. Now she smiled. "She even took the name of the place where she was supposed to have drowned," she said. "My mother told me her maiden name was Ann Waters. She must have taken a bit of amusement from that!
"My father—or the man I always thought was my father— raised me as his own. His first wife had died in childbirth, and his own mother was getting along in years and in poor health. Mama came to live with them as sort of a housekeeper and caregiver to the little boy, Jake, who was about three at the time. And the two of them married—Ben Parsons and my mother—not long after she came there to live."
"But how did you come to stay in Angel Heights? And with your own aunt, Lucy? Didn't you have any idea who she was?"
Mildred shrugged. "I was told all my relatives were dead and that Lucy was an old school friend of Mama's. You see, when I was growing up, my mother would let her name slip from time to time."
"What do you mean?" I stood and brought the cookie jar to
the table. Tea was fine, but for this I needed nourishment.
"She'd say things like, 'Lucy had a coat just like that!' Or 'Lucy and I used to play this game….' And of course, I wanted to know who Lucy was."
"What did she say?" I asked.
"Told me she was a close friend and that they'd gone to school together. Eventually, stories about Lucy and the things they did back in Greenville became a familiar part of my life. It was only when she was close to death that Mama mentioned Angel Heights."
Absently, Mildred ran a finger along the rim of her cup. "She was delirious some of the time, talked about Lucy a lot. And somebody named Augusta. I never did find out who she was. Anyway, I asked her if she wanted me to contact Lucy, thinking of how wonderful it would be if she could only see her again. 'Lucy who?' I asked, because she'd never mentioned her last name… and Mama said Westbrook because of course she didn't know her married name.
"But as ill as she was, my mother was still conscious of what she considered proper morals," Mildred said. "I asked her if Lucy still lived in Greenville, and she looked at me so funny—like she'd never heard of such a thing—and said, 'Not Greenville! Angel Heights.'
" 'Wouldn't you like to see her again? Do you want me to try and find her?' I asked, and my mother became so agitated I thought she would bolt right out of bed. And her eyes, Arminda… her eyes looked almost wild! And she talked—well, she said crazy things. It nearly frightened me to death."
Shadow of an Angle Page 18
