The Secret of Magic

by Johnson, Deborah

  After the helter-skelter formalities of that first day, Mary Pickett must have decided Regina was fully capable of taking the rest of her meals in the cottage. Alone. When she got downstairs there was a napkin-covered silver tray waiting for her but no sign of Dinetta. She must have slipped in and gone. Regina felt a tiny stab of disappointment. She wanted to get Dinetta alone, talk to her. Maybe even fire her up. Certainly she would have asked about school, where it was and why she wasn’t in it. And she might even have hedged around and asked something about Peach Mottley, about the murder—not of Joe Howard but that older one. The one of Luther Mottley, the one that had never been solved. Was this part of Mary Pickett’s book true, too—like Peach had been and maybe Willie Willie—or was it made up? This last thought frightened Regina, made her catch her breath—that a story could end without having an ending. That something real could be turned into fiction and then just allowed to disappear.

  But her little talk with Dinetta wasn’t going to happen, at least not this morning. Regina lifted the napkin. There were eggs, grits, ham, biscuits, toast, bacon, two kinds of jam—one strawberry, one quince; each carefully denoted by Mary Pickett—a bowl of fruit ambrosia, milk thick as cream, cream thick as butter, coffee, tea, a small glass of orange juice. A whole day’s worth of food! A week’s worth! Regina ate the toast plain, drank the coffee black—her usual breakfast. Then she carried the rest out into the kitchen, put it away into an electrified and humming Frigidaire refrigerator.

  Back once again in the little parlor, she settled down to wait. And wait. Toward eleven, she got restless, thought of trying her luck again at Bed Duval’s but then decided against it. Mary Pickett might come over while she was gone, and if Regina wasn’t there . . . why, her chances of being able to talk with Anna Dale Buchanan might be . . . Gone with the Wind. And Regina knew she needed that interview, needed its direction. The clock was ticking and, so far, Anna Dale Buchanan was the only lead she had found.

  So Regina remained where she was, glum but determined, looking out through the lace curtains at Willie Willie’s window, straight over at the back veranda on Calhoun Place, busy as ever. She watched a parade walk up the steps, go in the screen door, come back out again. Laundry people and dry-cleaning people, the milk man, the egg man, a dressed-up woman carrying a potted flower plant (“Mary Pickett, you in there? Come on out, see what Betty’s girl sent me down from Memphis!”), a Negro toting in vegetables from a mule wagon that looked identical to Peach’s, or so Regina thought. But, of course, she was no expert. Nobody but the black man bothered to knock, and absolutely nobody paid the least bit of attention to the bell.

  And all the time with a key left right there in the lock, unused and maybe unusable. It winked at Regina, made her look over at the cottage door to notice for the first time that there wasn’t even a keyhole in it, much less a key. Had she ever slept in a room before, she wondered, without being able to be safely closed in?

  It wasn’t until about eleven that things quieted down. Regina, still at the window, busy now scratching notes into a Big Chief pad, was struck by the silence and looked out. Willie Willie was there. He and Mary Pickett were sitting on the steps, side by side, a newspaper between them. Dinetta, with a tea towel in her hand, hovered nearby, not really working. Even from a distance, Regina could see that. As she watched, Mary Pickett pointed something out on the page to Willie Willie, and he laughed and she laughed, and Dinetta giggled. Amazing to Regina that the three of them could be laughing together like that.

  Regina hadn’t seen Willie Willie since he’d dropped her off that first night, but she’d thought he’d come over—secretly, she’d thought this—if for no other reason than to see how she was making out with the case. But he hadn’t, and he wasn’t now. He was with Mary Pickett. Regina, touching the fragile, old lace at the window, moving it aside just a little, gazed over at them—and felt more alone than she ever had felt before in her life.

  • • •

  PROMPTLY AT ONE, Mary Pickett knocked at the cottage door. She was clearly herself again, her no-nonsense Miss Calhoun self. No “You-hoo! How you doing?” about her and certainly no more laughter. She had on a suit, hat, kid gloves, her sunglasses. Around her shoulders were draped two dead foxes, sewn together, with their heads still on them, as was the fashion, and with beady eyes that never let Regina out of their sight. Mary Pickett, all business now, carried a trim little crocodile purse.

  “Regina?” Rhyming it with vagina. “You ready?”

  Regina was ready. She’d been watching. She followed Mary Pickett out into the driveway, toward her museum piece of a car. Regina found she had to hurry to keep up. As it turned out, Mary Pickett had a surprisingly long stride.

  But she was no driver. Willie Willie had already told Regina this, and he’d been right. This fact became apparent even before Mary Pickett turned her key in the ignition. Made evident by the fact that she did not see the key, even though it had been left right there, plain as day, in the ignition.

  “Now, where in heaven’s name . . .” Mary Pickett looked everywhere but the right place. Regina was the one who pointed it out.

  She did this from the backseat of the Daimler, where Mary Pickett had placed her, isolated amid splendors of polished mahogany, plush gray velvet, a portable silver drinks caddy, a partially opened partition window. The whole thing struck Regina as highly luxurious. Not a New York kind of luxury, exactly—the car was too old for that, its glory a little age worn, the air inside it faintly clouded with dust—but still, in its way, rather charming.

  This pleasant realization remained with Regina for exactly two minutes, which was the time it took for Mary Pickett to turn the key in the ignition and lurch her car out into the street. Which was, thankfully, deserted. As were most of the others she went up or came down. Regina had already noticed how few cars there were on the roads of Revere, Mississippi. It was 1946, she’d thought, and still more wagons than automobiles out and about. Now, holding on to the safety strap for dear life, she was grateful for that.

  Not that Mary Pickett seemed to notice. She sailed serenely onward, screeching her tires around the corner onto Fifth Street, killing the engine altogether as she started up again from a stop sign on Main, Mary Pickett waving away at every living soul she passed. Animated again. Calling out, “Hey there, how you doing?” A few times adding, “What you know good?”

  Nice, thought Regina, folksy. But why would such a famous woman want to hide out here? The place she’d been born, yes—but what was the attraction?

  The street sign clanged red as they turned off Main Street. Mary Pickett stuck her arm straight out into the traffic. Regina took this to be the sign that she intended to turn left. But they had stopped right next to the stern brick façade of the Mississippi Commerce and Agriculture Bank. Jackson Blodgett’s bank. Regina, staring at it, banged her head against the window as Mary Pickett once again careened forward.

  “You hurt?” she called out. But she didn’t look back.

  Finally—or so it seemed to Regina—they stopped on a street that could have been . . . anywhere, Corona, Queens, or Flushing. At least anywhere in America where modest wood and stucco houses were separated from one another by reasonable lawns and well-maintained fences. A place straight out of Norman Rockwell, where tire swings hung from the low branches of elm trees and where baby blankets were scattered like yellow and blue and pink confetti on top of trimmed grass. The compact tidiness of this neighborhood, its ordinariness, came as a relief to Regina. Even though it was different from Manhattan, and way different from Harlem, The Saturday Evening Post had made places like this and the people who lived in them seem familiar, like you might know them. This comforting thought buoyed Regina, and she scrambled out of the backseat of the Daimler on a current of hope.

  “I guess I’m not much for driving,” said Mary Pickett, “like I told you. Willie Willie did all the driving for me and my daddy. That and a whole bunch
else.”

  Not that Regina was complaining, glad as she was to have arrived safely in one piece.

  “Did you know her? Miss Anna Dale, I mean, before she called you about what happened on the bus.”

  Mary Pickett had started up the sidewalk, but she turned back now, frowning sharply. “It’s Mrs. Buchanan. And the reason she’s Mrs. Buchanan is that I never even knew this woman existed until she showed up two weeks ago at my front door.”

  “That surprises me,” Regina said. “A town this small—you don’t know everybody in it?”

  Mary Pickett stretched up taller, bolstered by what appeared to be a healthy dose of civic pride. “Revere is home to twenty thousand souls. I don’t imagine you know twenty thousand people in New York City, do you, Regina?” Still rhyming it with vagina.

  Regina-Vagina shook her head no, she did not know twenty thousand people in New York City.

  This seemed to mollify Mary Pickett. “Then, as you might say, I rest my case. Actually, I’d never even heard tell of her, if you can imagine. She just called up over to my house one day and said she’d read about what happened to Joe Howard in the Times Commercial.”

  “Funny,” said Regina. “I don’t recall the Times Commercial mentioning his name, at least not in that clipping you sent.”

  “They didn’t. But Willie Willie had worked for her. That’s what she said, odd jobs now and then. He did that once in a while, after the cotton was in and we came back into town from Magnolia Forest. I guess Willie Willie must have brought Joe Howard with him. Anyway, Mrs. Buchanan knew who he was. She said she knew what had happened to him, too.”

  “But why didn’t she go to the sheriff? I mean, wouldn’t that be the first place you’d go?”

  “She did go to the sheriff,” said Mary Pickett, looking funny. “But I imagine she’ll tell you all about that herself.”

  With that, she reached into her purse and brought out a slip of white paper. She looked at it, took off her sunglasses, peered up again, her eyes searching street numbers. Finally, she pointed to a gate.

  “That’s it,” she said, “Two-twenty-five Fourth Avenue.”

  Fourth Avenue was a street that still smelled more of spring than autumn and, like Mary Pickett’s garden, was alive with flowers everywhere. Regina had always thought of fall flowers—when she thought of them at all—as without significant scent. Chrysanthemums, late daisies, geraniums, nothing perfumey about any of them, at least not the ones you got at a florist’s in New York. But even this late in October the scent of flowers filled the air, filled the street, filled the neighborhood here in Revere. Regina reached over to a prickly hedge and touched one, a small bright white thing, hoping Mary Pickett wouldn’t turn around to see her do it.

  What is this? Regina crushed the bloom gently in her fingers and then brought them quickly to her nose. Heaven.

  “Sweet olive,” Mary Pickett called out. She’d stopped. Looked back. “It grows wild here, like a weed. Comes from the forest.”

  She was standing in front of a morning glory—Regina didn’t have to ask about this; she recognized it from a lithograph she’d once seen in a book—trained around an arbor curved over the wicket. When Mary Pickett opened it, there was no squeak. She started off first, but by the time they got to the door itself, Regina had taken the lead. Excitement flooded her forward. Anna Dale Buchanan had been on that Bonnie Blue bus. She had seen Joe Howard. She knew, or could know, what exactly had happened to him.

  Regina peeled off her gloves. One fluttered from her hand, landed on the ground.

  “Nervous?” Mary Pickett asked, with a smug grin. “Nothing to be worried about with Mrs. Buchanan. She’s the one called you here.”

  Not me really who called you, but her. Because once she got in touch with me, came over, I had to send that letter to New York. There was no getting out of it. Willie Willie had seen her. He knew what she said. But, of course, Mary Pickett felt no need to re-mention that now.

  Instead, she pointed.

  The gold star in the front window of Anna Dale Buchanan’s bungalow was real, officially and appropriately fringed and sent to her by a grateful government.

  “I know you’ve got to ask your questions,” said Mary Pickett sternly. “But remember, this woman has suffered a loss.”

  Regina bristled. Southerners must think they’re the only ones been raised with good manners! But Mary Pickett didn’t seem to be paying her any more attention. She knocked once, softly. While they waited for the door to open, Regina looked around, expecting that things would be here like they had been for her at Calhoun Place. That there would be a tray laid out on the front porch, or maybe on the back, that had been made up specially and where they would all eat, very politely, because a colored person was here.

  Thinking all this as Anna Dale Buchanan swung open her door. She said, “Miss Calhoun. I am honored.” She held out a hand, and then she turned to Regina.

  “And you must be Miss Robichard.” The welcoming hand stretched out again. Regina took it. Then Mrs. Buchanan said, “Both of y’all, please do come in.”

  This was the first time Regina’d been called by her last name since she’d got to Revere, and definitely the first time a white person had placed a Miss before anything to do with her. She looked over at Mary Pickett. Her face had frozen into a careful, blank mask.

  Anna Dale was older than Regina had expected her to be, so old that it was hard to picture her as a soldier’s mother. The way her hair fluffed around her head, the simple black dress with its cream battenburg lace collar, the brooch of fresh violets pinned over her heart, laced up black brogues, all this made Mrs. Buchanan look as worn and comfortable as one of her horsehair sofas. Still, not the sort of woman Regina would ever have imagined offering her a seat in the living room, not in Revere, Mississippi. But that’s exactly what Mrs. Buchanan was doing.

  “Tea?” said Mrs. Buchanan. She’d already laid it out and made it look special. Crisp linens, polished silver, not a speck of tarnish or dust anywhere. Regina had an idea what all this meant. A Calhoun in the house! The walls practically sang it.

  “Yes, please,” said Regina and Mary Pickett together.

  Behind Mrs. Buchanan, on the white mantel, marched a row of studio photographs. Regina counted six of them, the telling of a life. They started with a gurgling, white-gowned baby and a serious-looking couple—older parents, perhaps, that’s how they looked, the father already bald. After that, one picture followed another. The baby grew into a child, then a boy and as his expression changed, his smile grew brighter. After the fourth photograph, the father disappeared, but the boy, now a young man, smiled on through his high school graduation right up to his Marine uniform and the end.

  Anna Dale said, “When you lose a son like that, it makes you start thinking. Things that seemed so important before, the way things just are, you find out maybe they’re not that way anymore. Or shouldn’t be.” Then, “Would either of you care for something to eat? I have a nice date cake in the pantry.”

  A polite no was on the tip of Regina’s tongue, but Mary Pickett spoke first.

  “Why, that’s mighty nice of you, Mrs. Buchanan, to offer. I do declare, just yesterday my friend Lucille Pendercross absolutely raved to me about your date cake, said it was the best she’d ever eaten. She told me she won one at the last Episcopal Women’s Bazaar and that her family was lucky there was any piece left for their supper. She’d liked it that much.”

  Regina’s brow furrowed. Hadn’t Mary Pickett said she’d never heard of Anna Dale until less than a month ago? But Mrs. Buchanan’s cheeks glowed a pleased pastel. “My goodness. Mrs. Pendercross said all that?”

  “Yes, indeed she did. Why, did you know . . .”

  After that, Mrs. Buchanan poured tea for them, sliced cake. And the cake was really good. A marvel. Meringue-topped, rich, fruit-and-walnut-filled.

  “Delicious,�
�� Regina said as she put her plate on the table, ready to get down to business.

  But Mary Pickett had already launched into a polite little story about the various notable cakes she remembered, who had made them, what was in them, where the recipe came from, and how much money at raffle each had brought in. Listening, Regina had to stop herself from fidgeting in her seat.

  What about Joe Howard? What about the murder?

  In the end, Anna Dale was the one to bring him up.

  She wiped her mouth with a tea napkin, looked straight over at Regina, and said, “I was on that bus with Joe Howard Wilson. I saw what happened.”

  Regina sat forward, reached into her purse for a pen, her notebook. Hoping she kept the amazement off her face. At last! Something!

  “On the bus with him?”

  Anna Dale nodded. She put her cup and saucer down onto a small round table, rattling them both.

  “You are certain it was Joe Howard Wilson you saw?” Regina asked, just to make sure.

  And of course Mrs. Buchanan was certain. Joe Howard had come over often with Willie Willie to help out with chores after her husband had died. Joe Howard had played with her boy, Butch.

  “My son hunted with him and with his daddy. They all did. Bed Duval. The others. Willie Willie knows Magnolia Forest backwards and forwards. With him leading them, the boys could find things—strange plants, Indian relics, Choctaw and Natchez—that nobody suspected even were there. Deer and boar, too. Once even a bear. Wild this and wild that. I can’t remember all the strange names Willie Willie gave to things. But Butch did. He remembered everything. He always said those days with Willie Willie out in the forest . . . Those days were some of the happiest in his life.” She stopped. Sighed. “So, yes, I knew Joe Howard when I saw him. When I got on there in Tuscaloosa, I knew right off it was him on that bus.”

  “Did you speak to him?”

  A quick glance at Mary Pickett. Regina thought, What am I missing here? Anna Dale said, “No, I didn’t do that. I wouldn’t have. It was a short trip, Tuscaloosa to Revere. He was sitting . . .” Mrs. Buchanan squirmed slightly in her seat, but then she lifted her chin, and now her eyes never left Regina’s as she continued, “Well . . . where he was sitting. In the colored section. I thought I’d be able to talk to him, ask after him and his people, once the bus got here.”