"I can't imagine," Vesta said, "but I think I do know who thought of the laburnum tea. It must've been Lucy, my mother. She always liked botany, plants, things like that. Did you know she majored in biology in college?"
I helped the two older women fold the quilt and put it away until they decided what to do with it. I didn't think it would be going on display at Minerva Academy.
And since both Vesta and I were curious to read Flora Dennis's letter to Lucy, the three of us drove to Mildred's. Instead of coming in the back way through Mildred's apartment, I parked in front of the bookshop, where we heard sounds of hammering from inside.
Gatlin met us at the door with a wide grin. The place was a mess, and dust and debris were everywhere. "Mind where you step," she said, "R. T.'s doing his thing." She paused to introduce us to the tall man banging on the wall with a sledgehammer, and I finally got to meet Maureen Foster's husband.
"Minda's the one who recommended you," she told him. "Now I guess I'll have to be nice to her."
"So when can I expect lunch?" I asked, stepping over a pile of plaster.
"R. T. says May—April if things go right. Of course we'll have to have a new roof, but he gave me a fair price." Gatlin gave me a shove and grabbed the others by an arm. "Come in the back office where we can breathe. It's awfully dusty in here."
I had noticed that R. T. wore a mask to screen out the dust. "Actually, we were headed for Mildred's," I said. "Just wanted to see what was going on."
"So has everybody else. I think you're the third group to drop by this morning. Hugh was here earlier and Irene Bradshaw just left—came to tell me Sylvie Smith's out of intensive care now."
"That's wonderful!" I said. "Is she out of her coma? Can she remember anything?"
"They say she's come around, but didn't get a chance to look at the person who hit her. When she's a little stronger, Minda, you should pay her a visit. Bet she'd be glad to see you. If it hadn't been for you, Sylvie might not be around."
"It was just luck," I said. It wasn't, but how could I explain a bossy angel?
While we were talking, Mildred had slipped through the connecting door to her small apartment, and now she reappeared with a look on her face that scared even me.
"It's gone," Mildred announced, doling dagger looks equally among us.
"What's gone?" Gatlin asked.
"My zebra. Otto's zebra. It's where I keep…Oh never mind! But I need it. There are things in there, important things."
Vesta frowned. "The letter?"
"Yes, the letter. Why would anybody take that old stuffed zebra?" Mildred wailed. "It doesn't mean a thing to anyone but me."
"Oh, dear. I'm afraid it does to Faye." Gatlin clutched my hand—for support, I guess. "She was here with me before school this morning; I had to let R. T. in, and she needed to use the bathroom—you know how Faye is, and they had cut off the water in the bookshop, so I let her use yours.
"I saw her playing with the zebra as we were getting ready to leave for school. She said Tigger needed a playmate, but I told her to put it back."
Gatlin smiled. Mildred didn't. "Mildred, honestly, I'm so sorry. I thought she'd put it back where it belonged."
"Maybe she misplaced it," Vesta said. "Let's look around and see if we can find it. I expect Faye just dropped it somewhere."
But the old stuffed animal containing Flora Dennis's condemning letter wasn't in Mildred's tiny apartment.
"She must have taken it to school with her," Gatlin said, now close to tears. "I was in a hurry and didn't pay close attention, just assumed it was Tigger."
"It's all right," Mildred said, although I could tell by her face it wasn't. "I'm sure it will be fine with Faye at school, and you can drop it off when you pick her up from kindergarten after lunch."
But a few minutes before Gatlin planned to leave to collect her daughter, the school called to tell her Faye had disappeared from the playground.
Chapter Twenty-Five
She was here, and then she wasn't," the young teacher said, her voice trembling. "We were on the playground for only about fifteen minutes because we planned to rehearse our Thanksgiving skit before being dismissed for the day. Faye and Cindy Emerson were playing pilgrim over by that big oak tree. Had some kind of stuffed animal with them." She took out a tissue and blew her nose. "They insisted on wearing their pilgrim hats outside."
Not Faye, no! Please, not Faye! I felt cold inside and empty, like I had when Jarvis died, but falling apart wouldn't help Faye or any one else. Since Gatlin was in no condition to drive, I had insisted on taking her to school, and Mildred wouldn't be left behind. My grandmother had left earlier to pick up groceries for Thanksgiving dinner.
Dave, who had arrived a few minutes after we did, turned from the window that overlooked the playground in the principal's office, where we gathered. "Did Cindy notice where she went? Did Faye say anything?" His face was like stone except for a slight twitch under one eye. Gatlin was trying hard not to cry, and she clung to her husband's arm as if it might keep her from toppling over.
"Cindy said she saw Faye speak to a man," Mrs. Grimes, the principal, told us, but she didn't think she went with him. Soon after that the children were called in from play, and Faye wasn't among them. Her coat is gone, and we couldn't find the stuffed animal, either, so she must have taken them with her."
"What man?" Gatlin asked, her voice growing louder with each word. "What did he look like? What was he doing here?"
"We're looking into that right now, checking volunteer records." Mrs. Grimes spoke with an "in charge" voice. "I'm sure Faye's just playing somewhere, hiding probably. You know how children are at this age. We'll find her soon. Try not to worry."
"Not worry? A five-year-old is missing, and we're not supposed to worry?" Mildred, in her twenty-year-old coat and smushed hat with a pink feather on it, stepped up to face the principal. "If she's not on the grounds, then she's outside them. Possibly with some strange man. How did you let this happen?"
"We're searching the grounds right now," Mrs. Grimes said, "and the buildings, inside and out. If she's here, we'll find her."
"And if she's not?" Dave reached for the phone. "I'm calling the police."
The young teacher, whose first name, I think, was Nancy, put a hand on his. "We've already called them."
Gatlin looked at me. "Do you think it's about that zebra? She took it after I told her not to, and now she's run off somewhere, afraid she'll be punished."
"Maybe she felt sick and went home," I said. It wasn't far, only a few blocks, and Faye could have walked it easily. Had done so, in fact, with her mother. "Did she feel all right this morning?"
"Faye wouldn't do that," Gatlin said. "She knows I'll come for her if she's sick, and she was fine this morning as far as I know."
"I'll check the house again," Dave said. "I went by there first, and she wasn't there."
"I'll go with you," Gatlin said. "No, stay here. One of us should be here…in case she turns up." Her husband gave her a brief kiss on the forehead.
"Call," she said, and he nodded, leaving. Gatlin went to the window. "I'm going to check the grounds, and if she's not there, I'm turning this building upside down."
"I'll help," I said. "No, please!" Mrs. Grimes stood. "I assure you we've searched the place thoroughly. The police should be here any minute, and I'm certain they'll conduct one as well. Faye's morning kindergarten class has been dismissed for the day, and I can't have you disrupting the others."
"I don't care what you want or don't want!" Gatlin said, her voice breaking. "I want my child back. I want my baby!
I have to do something!" And she threw herself on my shoulder and sobbed.
"Mrs. Grimes?" A slender, rather colorless young woman crept in with a note in her hand, and the principal introduced her as Betty Ann Harris, an assistant in the media center. "Our volunteers are all accounted for, and none of them were on the playground when the little girl wandered away…"
Wandered away? But
I suppose I hoped the woman was right, that Faye did wander away on her own.
"…but one of the fourth-grade girls said she saw a child talking to that man who helps with the newsletter," she continued. "You know, the one who prints it all out for us once it's put together."
"You mean Hugh Talbot? My goodness, is it already time for another issue?" Mrs. Grimes turned to us. "He's been such a help to organize our little newsletter. No one else seems to have time for it. They're going to republish some of his grandfather's animal stories, he tells me, and I hear one of the children's networks is interested. They're timeless, those little tales."
"Where did she see them?" Gatlin asked. "And when?" "I believe it was during their playtime," Betty Ann Harris said.
"You believe? Well, for goodness' sakes, let's get the child in here and find out. Who is she, and who's her teacher?"
Mrs. Grimes conferred with her secretary, and the little girl was promptly summoned, but she didn't remember seeing Faye leaving with the man in the brown overcoat.
"If she didn't leave with him, where did she go?" I asked her, trying to sound calmer that I was.
"I don't know, but I think she ran away. I was looking out the window, sharpening my pencil, you know, and the teacher said I'd been there long enough and to come and sit down."
Mrs. Grimes picked up the phone. "I'll call Mr. Talbot at his office, see if he can help." But after what seemed like a century, she shrugged and hung up. "Nobody answers. I expect he's at the academy."
I could almost feel Mildred's bright eyes boring into me, and I turned to find her trying her best to give me some kind of silent message while inching toward the door.
"Why don't Mildred and I see if Mr. Talbot's at the academy, then look around while we're there?" I suggested to Gatlin. "I know it's hard for you, but I think you should stay right here so we'll know where to find you." I know she was thinking of what had happened to me at Minerva Academy, and worse, what had happened to Otto. I remembered the smothering smell of the dusty drapes over my head, the helplessness of being pulled along the floor. Surely no one would do something like that to a child!
I felt the tears on her cheek as I gave her a hug, but managed to hold in my own until we were outside.
"Stop that. We don't have time for tears," Mildred said. "We have to find this child, and I'll be willing to bet Hugh or his sister is behind it."
She sounded so much like Augusta, she might have been taking lessons. Still, I snuffled, imagining my small cousin shivering under a hedge somewhere or curled beneath a bush—hiding. From whom? At least she'd been wearing a coat, and this was one of our milder days, weatherwise. But if anything happened to Faye, I didn't think we'd be able to bear it.
The police pulled into the parking lot as Mildred and I started to drive away. The chief's nephew, Rusty Echols, was behind the wheel, and I waved them down and told them where we were going.
"After your last experience over there, I'm surprised you'd even consider going back to that place," he said. "You just sit tight until we've checked out the school, and we'll see if anything's going on at the academy."
"I don't have time to sit tight. My little cousin is missing, and she was last seen talking to Hugh Talbot. If I were you, I'd get on the radio and tell your uncle or somebody to meet me there," I said. And I didn't give him a chance to answer.
"What makes you so sure it's Hugh or Gert?" I asked Mildred, hoping I was far enough away from the police car that they couldn't tell how fast I was driving.
"Hugh was at the bookshop this morning, remember? Gatlin said he'd dropped by earlier. Hoping nobody would be there, no doubt, so he could get his hands on my zebra! What a shock it must've been for the old fool to see Faye walking off with it."
"But we don't know for sure that Faye did walk off with it," I reminded her. "And how would Hugh Talbot know you hide things there?"
The words were barely out of my mouth before I remembered who told the secret of Mildred's hiding place. My grandmother and I had talked about it in the kitchen only the day before. And Gertrude Whitmire had been there!
"Oh, dear," I said. "I'm afraid Gertrude might have heard us whispering in the other room when she dropped by yesterday morning."
"Whispering about what?"
"The would-be burglary at the bookshop, and that you hide things in the zebra," I said. "Of course, Vesta didn't know what was in it."
"So I suppose Gert passed the information along to Hugh." Mildred made a funny noise in her throat and dug in her purse for a hankie. "I can't believe they'd hurt that child, Minda. I just can't let myself believe that. They would be my niece and nephew, you know, if what I suppose is true, but I'll be darned if I claim them!"
I almost ran off the road. Mildred Parsons said darn!
"Minda, I'm sure it must have been Gert who slipped something into my drink the night I got so sick after that meeting," she said.
"I thought you said she wasn't there."
"Well, she wasn't at the meeting, and to tell you the truth, I'd forgotten she was even there because she just ran in for just a minute—orhobbled in, rather. Janice had taken her a casserole when she hurt her ankle so bad, and Gert dropped by to return the dish. Came in the kitchen door and must've left the same way, I guess, because nobody saw her but Janice and me, and I wouldn't have noticed her, either, if I hadn't had to use the bathroom. That's down the hall from the kitchen, you know."
"But how would she know which cup was yours?"
"Oh, the rest of them were having that punch Janice makes. I don't ever drink that stuff. Too sweet. Everybody knows I just take coffee straight and black."
"So the drinks must have already been poured, and Gert— orsomebody—just put the stuff in yours."
Mildred shook her head. "Now is that any way to treat a relative?"
Holley Hall looked almost festive with shocks of cornstalks by the steps and pumpkins on the porch. We arrived to find Hugh Talbot fastening a decoration of dried gourds and Indian corn on the front door.
He turned when he heard us approaching. "Does this look all right? Gert was supposed to take care of all this, but she's run out on me."
"Gatlin's little girl is missing," I said. "Faye. She's only five, and I understand you were talking to her on the school playground this morning."
"Is that who that was? Yes, I did speak briefly to a little girl as I was leaving. And she's missing, you say?" He opened the door and motioned for Mildred and me to come inside. "Do they have any idea where she might've gone?"
"No. That's why we're here. We thought she might have said something to you," I said.
"Did you notice anything, anything that might give us an idea where to look for her," Mildred said. "You can imagine how frantic her parents are—we all are. Was she holding anything when you saw her, a toy or something?"
Hugh Talbot shook his head and wouldn't meet our gaze. "Not that I remember."
"Are you sure?" Mildred jammed her face right into his, pink feather quivering atop her hat. "Her friends say she was playing with a stuffed animal, one I believe you had some interest in, Hugh Talbot. Now Faye's disappeared, and so has the zebra."
"What's this all about?" Hugh took a few steps back. "I can assure you I don't have any interest in a child's teddy bear. My goodness, why—"
"Not teddy bear, a zebra!" I said, flanking his other side. "We don't have time for games, Mr. Talbot. A five-year-old is missing. If you have any idea where she might be, you've got to tell us now! "
"We know about your grandfather and his extracurricular activities," Mildred said. "We've seen the quilt, and we know all about the fire, so if you're trying to protect your grandfather's reputation, you're a bit too late."
"Quilt? What quilt?" He seemed genuinely confused.
"Never mind the quilt," I said. "I'm sure you must have suspected that Annie Rose Westbrook, my relative who was supposed to have drowned in the Saluda, was pregnant with your grandfather's child. He forced himself on her as he did o
thers, but Annie didn't die. She went away, married and had her baby …."
Hugh took another step sideways, his eye on the door. I blocked him.
"How on earth could you know any of this is true?" he said.
"Because I'm that baby," Mildred told him. "My mother was Annie Rose Westbrook, a student here at the academy, and a member of the Mystic Six. I have her pin."
Hugh Talbot tried to laugh. "That doesn't mean a thing. The girl probably wasn't wearing it when she…Well, what does it matter now, anyway? This happened years ago."
"Oh, but she was wearing it," Mildred said, holding the pin in the palm of her hand. "This pin belonged to my mother. It has her initials on the back. She always kept it in a box in her dresser drawer, but I didn't know what it was until lately. Lucy had one just like it, and so did the other members."
"I really don't give a damn about your mother's pin, or any of the rest of this! Can't you see that?" The man's face turned red, and sweat broke out on his forehead, even though it was cold in Holley Hall. "What my grandfather did was his business. I couldn't care less."
"Then why were you so interested in the stuffed zebra Faye was playing with?" I asked.
"I didn't care about—I only asked her where she got it. But it seemed to frighten her, and she ran away. I didn't hurt the child, didn't mean to scare her. Look, I really don't know where she is, but if you're concealing something important in that toy, you might want to call the police. I'm afraid the little girl could be in danger."
Shadow of an Angle Page 22
