by Nancy Bell
“Don’t you dare faint, Hen.” Alice LaRue took her by the arm and shoved her down on the sofa. “Put your head between your legs.”
Mary Ann nodded and watched the door as two men dressed in khaki and wearing badges came into the lobby. They both had pistols in black holsters attached to their belts. One was tall and shaped like a gorilla. He had broad shoulders, tiny hips, and arms that reached almost to his knees, and when he walked his head and shoulders got there before the rest of him. He had hair growing out of his ears. The other was the spitting image of Barney Fife from the old Andy Griffith Show.
The big man went straight to Miss Mary Ann and leaned over to talk to her. After a few minutes, he straightened up and faced the rest of us. “Folks, why don’t you all take a seat, and we’ll see if we can get to the bottom of this. Miz Lester, you reckon you could scoot over and let Miss Alice and Emily sit between you and Lawyer Fitzgerald? That’s good.” He looked at the rest of us. “Let’s see, now. I don’t believe I’ve met all you folks. Why don’t we just take turns and introduce ourselves so as I can see where I’m going here.” He moved to the center of the circle while the other man sat in a straight chair and took a tape recorder out of a bag he had been carrying. He turned it on and balanced it on his knees. “Now then.” The sheriff took a pair of old-timey wire-rim glasses out of his pocket and put them on. “I’m Sheriff Roswell Dugger, and this here’s my deputy, Elmore Wiggs. Now then, when I point to you, go ahead and state your name and where you’re from. You, sir?” He looked at Mr. Thripp.
“I’m Norman Thripp from over in Job’s Crossing, and this is my wife, Mathilda. We never saw this young woman before in our lives. We’re just here for …”
The sheriff interrupted him. “What say we just get names and addresses first? I’ll ask questions later.” Mr. Thripp gave his address and the sheriff turned to Butch, who I was glad to see was wearing plain jeans and a tee shirt that said GOD BLESS JOHN WAYNE on the front. I hoped the sheriff didn’t notice the daisies printed on his sox.
Butch crossed one leg over the other and put his hands on his knees. He spoke in a deep voice I hardly recognized as Butch. “Theodore P. Hickley, 204 Pecan Street, Job’s Crossing, Texas.”
Rosebud put his hand to his mouth, but not before I saw the smile he was trying to hide. The sheriff skipped over Rosebud and looked at Biggie, who sat up as tall as she could considering that she’s only four foot eleven, and answered, “Fiona Wooten Weatherford, 206 Elm Street, Job’s Crossing, Texas.”
“Weatherford,” the sheriff said. “Seems to me like I’ve heard that name before—connected to Job’s Crossing, too.”
“She’s always solving murders,” I piped up. Rosebud pinched me. “Ow!”
“They call you Biggie?”
“Yes,” Biggie said.
“Well, ma’am. I have heard about you, and I’d be mighty grateful if you’d just let us handle this here little matter.”
Biggie smiled her sweetest smile. “Why, of course, Sheriff. I wouldn’t think of interfering in your investigation. My goodness, we’re just here to study the methods of your excellent historical society.”
The sheriff nodded and began questioning each person in the room starting with Brian.
I was glad that the doctor, who had come earlier to examine Annabeth’s body, had given him a sedative to calm him down. I could still hear his screams when they told him about the murder. Brian’s voice was flat as he told the sheriff about how he and Annabeth had come home from the dance around one o’clock. He had been hungry, so they had gone into the kitchen and raided the icebox, making cold chicken sandwiches and drinking tea. After they finished, he walked Annabeth to her room and then went to his own room and went to sleep. “I conked out right away,” he said, his voice breaking. “I wish I hadn’t drunk so much beer at the dance—I might have heard something.” He put his head down and started sobbing like a baby.
The sheriff turned to Miss Mary Ann. “How about you, ma’am?”
Miss Mary Ann looked at Brian with tears in her eyes. She shook herself and turned to the sheriff. “Oh, lordy, I don’t know if I can remember. Everything’s happened so fast.” She dabbed at her eyes with the Kleenex she was holding. “It’s all just so terrible. Let me think a minute. Um … well, Annabeth and Brian helped me with the dinner dishes for a little while, but I could see they were wanting to get out to the dance, so I sent them on off. After I finished the kitchen, I went into my room to watch my shows on TV.” She got up and went over to where Brian was sitting. She put her hand on his shoulder, but he shook her off.
“Which room is yours?” The sheriff held up his hand. “Hold it a minute. Looks like Wiggs here’s run out of tape.” While the deputy replaced the tape in his recorder, the sheriff walked over to the coffee urn on the desk and filled a mug with coffee, and when he did, I noticed that he was holding his side like it hurt. “Anybody else?” His face was pale as he turned to face the room. Everybody shook their heads.
After the deputy had the tape running again, Miss Mary Ann continued. “It’s a suite, really, a bedroom and a little sitting room. It’s that door there.” She pointed to a door just past the bar. “It’s the only sleeping quarters on the first floor. All the guest rooms are upstairs.”
“So, you’re watching TV in your room. Hear anything?”
“Well, yes. You see, just as Eyewitness News out of Shreveport was starting, the bell on the door tinkled, and I went out to the lobby to see who had come in. It was Mr. Masters, here.” She pointed to the man in the suit. “He was supposed to check in before six, but he had car trouble.”
Mr. Lew Masters nodded. “That’s right, Sheriff. It was just shortly after ten. I was tired, so I went right up to my room and went to bed.”
“Did you know the young lady, the deceased?”
“Well, yes.” Mr. Masters got up to pour himself a mug of coffee, and returned to his place by the table. “You see, this hotel is on my regular route. I try to call on all the funeral directors in the northeast Texas area at least twice a year, and I make it a point to be in Quincy by nightfall because Miss Mary Ann takes such good care of me.” He smiled at Miss Mary Ann, who blushed.
“Well,” the sheriff said, looking at the historical society members, “I assume you folks don’t know much, seeing as how you got here just before we did. Does anyone have anything to add? Anything you might know about the deceased?”
Brian spoke up. “Her name is Annabeth. Stop calling her the deceased!”
The sheriff ignored him. “Well?”
“She’s part of that Baugh family that lives out on the lake.” Hen Lester looked like she smelled something nasty.
“She was absolutely beautiful,” Alice LaRue said, “and a nice girl. Shame on you, Hen.”
Lucas Fitzgerald nodded, but didn’t say anything. Emily LaRue stared out the window.
The sheriff turned to me, rubbing his hands together. “Wellsir, I reckon it’s time to question our little star player. I understand you saw her first, sonny.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, what can you tell me?”
“She was in the fountain. The fishes were eating her blood.” I felt the sweet roll I’d eaten for breakfast coming back up. I swallowed hard and continued. “That’s all I know.”
“Hear anything during the night?”
I told him I thought I’d heard something in the next room.
The sheriff nodded and turned to Rosebud. “How ’bout you?”
Rosebud told the sheriff about how I’d woke him up and how we’d come downstairs and borrowed a flashlight to look around.
“They wasn’t nothing to see,” Rosebud said. “Courtyard was empty. We looked around a little bit then came on back up and went to bed.”
“And that was what time?”
Rosebud looked at me. “Twelve-thirty,” I said.
“Go on,” the sheriff said.
“That’s about it,” Rosebud said. “Around six, I heard my boy s
creamin’ like the hounds of hell were after him.”
The sheriff nodded and motioned the deputy to turn off his recorder. “Okay, that about does it. I’m taping off the courtyard as a crime scene and, until we finish with the investigation, I’ll have to ask you all to stay out of there—and not to leave town.”
“For how long?” Lew Masters asked. “I’ve got my calls to make.”
“No more than a few days, I expect. I don’t reckon your clients are going anywhere.” The sheriff chuckled at his own joke and started for the door, then turned and faced the room. “You folks just go on about your business. Try and forget about this murder.” He looked at Biggie, who smiled sweetly back at him. “All right, then. I’ll be in touch if I have any further questions.”
“Sheriff,” Biggie said. “Aren’t you going to question each of us separately? It’s my understanding that that is the proper procedure.”
“Later,” the sheriff said. “Right now, I don’t feel so hot. Must have been something I ate.” He turned and walked out the door, leaning to the right and holding on to his side.
6
After the sheriff left, Miss Mary Ann and Brian got up and went back toward the kitchen. The rest of us stayed in the lobby talking until Miss Mary Ann came and announced lunch was ready. We all trooped into the big dining room. Brian was setting water glasses on one long table in the middle of the room. An antique sideboard stood against the wall and was covered with platters of deli sandwiches, big bowls of chips, and a tray loaded with several kinds of pickles, black and green olives, and jalapeño peppers stuffed with cream cheese. Another tray held soft drinks of every kind you could think of. On a small table nearby, slices of peach, cherry, and apple pie rested on little plates.
Miss Mary Ann, wearing a pink dress with a white ruffled collar, stood in front of the table and held her hands up. “I apologize for the makeshift meal, but I’m lost without Annabeth.” She sighed and pushed a silver curl behind her ear. “Never mind, I’ll think of something. In the meantime, the people at the Copper Pot deli were kind enough to provide this meal for us.”
I saw Biggie whisper something in Rosebud’s ear. He nodded.
I helped myself to a tuna salad sandwich on sun-flower-seed bread with chips, black olives, which I can’t get enough of, and a large orange soda. Normally, I would have had a Big Red, but I believe seeing all that blood has about killed my appetite for my favorite soda. Maybe I’ll get over it. I hope so, because I used to love Big Reds just about better than anything.
Mr. Fitzgerald patted me on the back and hung his cane over the back of his chair before he took a seat at the table. “How are you holding up, youngun?”
“Okay, I guess.” I didn’t much want to talk about last night, but was pretty sure I was going to have to.
“Bet you were pretty scared. Huh?” Alice, who was sitting next to me, smelled like lawn mower fuel. She popped a chip in her mouth before taking a big bite out of her corned beef on pumpernickel.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Did you hear anything during the night?” Mr. Fitzgerald wasn’t going to give up.
“Only the ghost.”
I was busy eating my sandwich, so it took a few seconds for me to realize that everyone in the room had stopped talking and were staring at me. “What?” I said.
“J.R., you didn’t say anything about any ghost,” Biggie said.
“No’m.”
Alice picked up her fork, then put it down again. She put her big old elbows on the table and leaned toward me. “Tell me all about it, boy,” she said. “The last person to see old Lucy was …”
“Abraham Tilley,” Lucas put in. “Back in, let me see, nineteen-oh-one, I believe it was.”
“Well, now isn’t that a coincidence,” Hen Lester said from across the table. “Wasn’t that the night Maudelle Baugh was killed? And wasn’t she helping out in the kitchen, just like this girl was?”
“My soul.” Biggie popped a chip in her mouth. “Now, isn’t that a coincidence?” She looked around at the shocked expressions on everybody’s faces. “Well, surely you don’t think there’s any connection? Besides, there’s no such thing as ghosts.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. If Biggie said there were no ghosts, I believed her. Biggie’s never wrong. Still, I knew Willie Mae would never lie, and she said she did believe. I felt the lump crawl back into my throat. When it came to the spirit world, I had to go with Willie Mae. After all, she was an expert on those things, being a voodoo lady and all.
“How did Maudelle Baugh get killed?” Butch squirmed around in his chair to face Lucas.
Miss Mary Ann had been sitting at the end of the table with Lew Masters. Suddenly, she stood up and faced the room. “She was shot in the back with a Colt .45,” she said. “They never found who did it. Anybody want coffee?” Several of the adults nodded, so she got up and served coffee all around.
“You’re wrong,” Lucas said. “Her husband did it. Maudelle was going to leave him for a railroad man. My papa used to tell about the incident. It happened shortly before I came into this world.”
“Are you sure that was Abraham Tilley?” Hen Lester asked. “I thought he was the abolitionist.”
“The abolitionist was Hosiah Tilley.” Alice drained her Diet Coke. “He was Abraham’s granddaddy, I think. That right, Lucas?”
“You had an abolitionist here in Quincy?” Biggie laid down her sandwich and looked at Alice. “I would have thought a person with those views would have been ridden out of town on a rail.”
“Not so.” Lucas pulled a cigar out of his pocket and sniffed it. He noticed Hen Lester glaring at him. “Don’t worry, Hen. I’m not going to light it,” he said and turned back to Biggie. “During the years before the Civil War, we had all kinds of people with divergent views living in this town. Quite cosmopolitan, actually, what with the river travel, and all.” He sniffed his cigar and put it in his mouth. “Hosiah Tilley owned this very hotel and the livery stable that used to be next door.”
“He helped runaway slaves,” Alice LaRue said. “Emily, honey, get me a piece of that apple pie.” Emily LaRue jumped up and got the pie off the long table. She set a clean fork and a fresh paper napkin next to it in front of Alice before sitting down and continuing to eat her sandwich. When she ate, she took little, bitty bites, pecking at her food like a chicken.
“How’d he do that?” I asked, interested in spite of myself.
“He would hide them in a secret place here in the hotel until dark, then provide them with a twenty-dollar gold piece, a good horse, and a map.” Lucas took a sip of his coffee.
“My lord, how did that help them?” Biggie asked. “Texas was a slave state. They would have been hunted down and brought back.”
“Some were,” Lucas said, “but the map he gave them was to show them the way to the Indian Territory, which was no more than fifty miles from here. On a good horse, a man could make it there before sunrise. Then he could disappear into the wilderness. Many of the runaway slaves ended up merging with the Indian tribes, others found their way into Missouri or Kansas where some became cowboys, some joined the Union Army.”
“Hosiah Tilley was not a gentleman,” Hen Lester said.
“He met his wife in a saloon over in Shreveport, is what I heard,” Miss Mary Ann put in. “She was common.”
“Where in the hotel did he hide the slaves?” Biggie wondered.
“Nobody knows,” Lucas said. “The law searched the place over and over again, but never found a single black soul.”
“And he never, ever wore a coat and tie, even at his papa’s funeral,” Hen Lester continued. “And they say his children ran the streets like little savages.”
“Still, he was a good man,” Alice said, popping a piece of pie in her mouth. “Now, let’s let the boy tell us about the ghost.”
I told them about hearing sounds in the next room and about how I thought it was someone crying, so I went to check it out.
“Was it a woman�
��or a child?” Hen Lester wanted to know.
“I don’t know, a woman, I guess,” I said. “Anyway, when I went in there, I couldn’t see anything. Then it went away.”
“Well, don’t worry, son,” Alice said. “Old Lucy’s been walking these halls for over a hundred years, and she hasn’t hurt anybody yet.”
“Idabel and Cloyd Johnson were the social leaders in town back in Lucy’s day,” Hen Lester said. “They were the first to entertain her and her husband—a costume party, I believe it was …”
“No, it was the Hawkeses,” Lucas corrected her, “and it was a garden party.”
After that, the conversation got really boring. They kept on talking about how it used to be in Quincy—and they told it just like it had happened yesterday. If you ask me, these people were weird. They discussed things that had happened fifty or a hundred years ago as if they were current events. I finished my sandwich, ate a piece of cherry pie, then I asked to be excused. When Biggie nodded, I left the table and went out into the lobby where I found Brian sprawled across one of the sofas holding a copy of Texas Monthly, but he wasn’t reading it; he was staring into space. I saw a tear roll down his cheek.
He looked so depressed, I thought I’d cheer him up, so I asked if he liked fishing.
“What? Oh, yeah, sort of. I used to anyway.”
“Where do you go?”
“Caddo Lake, mostly. They’ve got catfish as big as an alligator under some of those cypress logs.”
“Man! You ever catch one?”
Brian swung his legs around and sat up to face me. “No, but I saw one once. Annabeth’s uncle caught it. They had him tied to a tree limb. He was as tall as a man with a head as big as a dinner plate.”
Seeing as how I’m serious about my fishing, I wanted to know more. “Golly, what’d they catch him on?”
“Oh, you can’t catch those babies on a hook. You’ve got to dynamite the log. That stuns the fish and you can shoot him in the head with a .410.”
“Did they cook him and eat him?”
“I guess,” Brian said. “I wouldn’t eat it, though. Catfish are bottom feeders. The meat mostly tastes like mud unless they’re farm-raised. Those bayou folks eat them though. They’ll eat anything.” Brian was beginning to look depressed again. I guess he was thinking about Annabeth being bayou folks herself. Suddenly, Brian swung his head around. There stood Emily Faye, just inside the door listening to us talk. “Why don’t you just get lost?” he said.
