by Carolyn Hart
Annie riffled through several more stories and found nothing that changed the import of the initial report.
She returned the photographs and clippings to the file and picked up The Tarrant Family History and Guide to the Tarrant Museum, both cream-colored pamphlets with crimson printing. A yellow tab on the outside of the history carried an inscription in Max's handwriting: Received from Courtney Kimball.
Annie looked through the Guide to the Tarrant Museum. She was startled when she realized the museum was housed in former slave quarters toward the back of the Tarrant grounds. Wow, this was Family and History in capital letters, although it was clear, despite the obviously biased introduction by Mrs. Whitney Tarrant, its founder, that the museum housed some interesting and valuable collections, including playbills from early traveling shows. The Orphan or the Unhappy Marriage was presented in 1735, shortly after its initial production in Charleston. In 1754, a traveling troupe put on A Bold Stroke for a Wife, The Mock Doctor, and Cato. The museum housed the personal letters of Hope Tarrant, who spent her life opposing slavery and was one of the earliest to speak out in South Carolina, along with Angelina and Sarah Grimke. Copies of many of the various Chastain newspapers from 1761 to 1815 were featured. (Three had belonged to Tarrants, of course.)
Annie put down the guide reluctantly. A hodgepodge, yes, but such an interesting mйlange from the past.
The Tarrant Family History was also written by Mrs. Whitney Tarrant. Was she perhaps a trifle obsessive? Annie skimmed the introduction: . . . distinguished family from the outset of Mortimer Tarrant's arrival . . . the author's aim is to provide ensuing generations with a record of bravery, devotion to duty, and honor . . . gallantry both in war and peace . . . exemplary conduct which can ever serve as a shield in good times and bad. . . .
The introduction was signed by Mrs. Whitney Tarrant and dated September 14, 1987. In parentheses following the date,
it read: Marking the two hundred and fifty-second year of the Tarrant Family in Chastain, South Carolina.
Annie raised a blond brow. My, aren't we proud of ourselves! But she turned to the first page and dutifully began to read.
"Chief's not in." Sergeant Matthews's pale eyes returned to the papers on his desk.
Max leaned on the doorjamb and drawled, "No doubt he is leading a posse in search of wrongdoers even as we speak."
The sergeant looked up, blinked once, then ostentatiously began to straighten the papers before him.
"Any trace of Courtney?" The drawl was gone.
Matthews ignored him.
Max crossed the brief space to the desk in two strides, leaned over, and knocked sharply. The papers quivered.
Sergeant Matthews's head jerked up, and his pink cheeks deepened to tomato. "You want to go back to jail?"
"Jail?" Max exclaimed. "Jail? In law school, I must have missed the section where it's against the law to undertake polite intercourse with the properly constituted authorities of a municipality."
As always, the magic reference worked. Max almost felt a moment of shame and wondered anew at the undeserved deference paid—even if grudgingly—to anyone possessing a law degree.
"The chief'll be in around ten."
"That's all right. You can help me." Max's tone was brisk. "What progress has been made in the search for Courtney Kimball?" At Matthews's look of dogged resistance, Max continued crisply. "I want everything that's part of the public record."
He knew damned well the sergeant wasn't certain what constituted a public record.
Max didn't enlighten him.When Annie closed the cream-colored pamphlet, she knew with certainty that Mrs. Whitney Tarrant was not going to be a bosom chum. Annie was willing to bet that Charlotte Tarrant was extremely serious, extremely humorless, and quite boring. The Tarrant Family History resounded with grandiloquence: the Tarrants were not only a leading Family, but they always "enjoyed prominence in Society even among their own kind." Of course, in Texas, Annie's place of origin, it mattered most how a man conducted himself today, not where he came from or who his family was. In fact, it was still not considered mannerly to ask where people came from, a harkening back to the days of the Old West when a man might not be exactly eager to reveal his past. Now, as then, it was the present that counted.
However, there were glimpses of the past that not even Charlotte's labored prose could trivialize.
The heartbreak when five daughters—Anna, Abigail, Ruth, Margaret, and Victoria—were lost to yellow fever in 1747.
The loss of a younger son, Edward, his wife, Emily, and their three children in a storm at sea when he was taking them to safety in Philadelphia as the Revolution began.
With her husband, Miles, gone from Chastain to serve in Sumter's army, his wife, Mary, sallied forth to oversee the outlying plantations. Mary managed a bit of work for the Revolution as well, smuggling papers or food, information or boots, whatever the moment required. Her devotion to her infant nation was repaid with grief: Miles perished in a British prison camp just two weeks before the end of the war.
But happier days were to come. The land overflowed with plenty when Tarrant rice was sold in every market at home and abroad and wealth poured in. Oh, the dances and the convivial dinners when nothing was too grand for guests. These survivors of war and deprivation embodied in their lives the ideals for which they had fought. Of first importance was a man's honor.
The code of chivalry was understood:
A man's word was his bond.
A woman's name was never uttered except with respect. A promise, whether wise or foolish, must be kept.
A man must always be prepared to fight for his name, his
state, or his love.
Tarrant men died in duels in 1812, 1835, and 1852. Michael Evan Tarrant was seventeen years, three months, and two days of age when he bled to death "near the great oak on the bluff above the harbour after meeting in combat in an open field." Another, Roderick Henry, shot his own gun into the air, refusing, he said as he lay dying, to permit another man to make him into a murderer.
Tarrants had survived or been felled by warfare and pestilence. Then came fire. Tarrant House, the first structure on the present grounds, burned to the ground in 1832. All were rescued from the inferno except Catherine, the mistress of the house, a victim of paralysis. Catherine was tragically trapped in her bedroom on the second floor.
A daughter, Elizabeth, defied her family and eloped with a young man from Beaufort. Her father wanted her to marry an older widowed planter. The breach between Elizabeth and her family was never healed.
South Carolina on December 20, 1860, was the first of eleven states to secede from the Union.
Four Tarrant sons perished in The War Between the States: Philip, twenty-five, at Fort Beauregard in one of the earliest engagements; Samuel, twenty-two, who drowned trying to run the blockade; and William, nineteen, of yellow fever at Manassas. The second son, Robert, twenty-four, was a graduate of West Point, who served in the Union Army. During the third year of the War, he made his way through the lines to come home as he'd heard his sister Grace was ill with typhoid. His father, Henry, home with a wound suffered at Chancellorsville, met him at the door and refused him entrance. They struggled. Robert was stronger and he pushed his way past to go upstairs to his sister's sickroom. There was a gunshot. Robert fell on the stairway landing, mortally wounded. A dark stain marks the top step, and no manner of scrubbing has ever been able to remove it. During the long war years, the womenof Tarrant House cut up curtains to make clothes, tore down the copper gutters, which were melted and used for torpedoes, took in sick and injured soldiers and nursed them back to health or buried them. But one by one came the news of the deaths of the sons of the house. Henry Tarrant did not recover from his wound, though some believed he died of a broken heart. His widow, Emma, and their remaining son, Thomas, by guile and wile, despite the loss of all the outlying plantations, somehow managed each year to pay the taxes and so were able to
hold onto Tarrant House.
Quiet years followed after the War. Then in 1895, Nathaniel Tarrant wed a wealthy young woman from Detroit. One son, Peter, was disowned in 1920, his name never spoken. It was said that he ended his short life in Paris, a painter. He was Augustus Tarrant's older brother. Augustus had three sisters. Two, Sophie and Catherine, were lost in the great flu epidemic of 1918. His other sister, Abigail, scandalized the family by going to work for a newspaper. She married a foreign correspondent in 1933 and for almost a decade letters with exotic stamps arrived at Tarrant House erratically. She was killed in the bombardment of Singapore in 1942.
Annie felt awash with tragedy. Certainly, the death of Ross Tarrant in a gunshot accident and the Judge's demise were part of a long chain of bloodshed and sorrow.
And why had any of this mattered to Courtney Kimball in the Year of Our Lord Nineteen Ninety-Two?
The wooden front porch was painted white. A green wooden swing hung at one end. Wicker chairs were interspersed with potted ferns. The white paint of the frame house glistened and had almost certainly been recently applied. Although converted now from a private residence, the St. George Inn was an excellent example of the typical Chastain house: freestanding on a large lot among magnificent oaks, a two-story, frame construction on a brick foundation. Wide porches across the front extended around the sides, and huge bay windows rose from floor ro ceiling.
Beyond the screen door, the front door was open wide, as it had probably stood in good weather for two hundred and fifty years, to take full advantage of the prevailing southeasterly breezes.
Max poked the doorbell beside a smaller sign with the insouciant dragon.
"Come in," a woman's deep voice ordered.
Max obeyed, stepping into the dimness of a wide hall floored in gleaming heart pine. The wallpaper, green, dark brown, and rose, pictured Greek ruins amid trees that looked vaguely like eucalyptus.
Through a door to the right, a remarkably large woman rose from behind a delicate Chippendale desk. Smiling, she walked toward Max. "I'm Caroline Gentry. Welcome to the St. George Inn. How may I help you?"
Her voice was a rich contralto. It matched her size—almost six feet—and bulk. She had large, expressive brown eyes in a heart-shaped face and dark-brown hair in a tidy coronet braid. Garbed in some kind of loose-flowing black dress, she stood as straight as a statue.
Max introduced himself. "I'd like to rent a room for myself and my wife for several days, if you have a vacancy."
But Mrs. Gentry was staring at him, her eyes suspicious. "I saw you," she said abruptly. "Last night. When the police came to my garage apartment."
He met her gaze directly. "That's right. I came here to look for Ms. Kimball. She is a client of mine—and she didn't show up for an appointment."
"In the paper this morning, it said she'd disappeared. So why do you want to come here? Why do you want to stay at my inn?" She folded her arms across her solid midriff.
"Because I don't intend to leave Chastain until I've found her." Max's eyes never wavered. "I don't care how long it takes. And here's where she was staying. Maybe I can learn something from that, from you."
"I don't know anything about her. I'd never seen her before in my life until she came here Monday." Her deep voice was angry."Did she tell you anything—"
"I showed her the apartment. That's the only time I ever talked to her. If I'd had any idea she was going to get in trouble, I'd never have let her in. This kind of publicity can ruin an inn. I've already had three cancellations since the paper came out this morning. A wedding party."
"Mrs. Gentry, the sooner we find Ms. Kimball, the better off you'll be. Give me one of those cancellations."
It hung in the balance, but finally, grudgingly, she nodded.
Max had one more question as he filled out the registration. "Do you know why Ms. Kimball came here? Why she picked this place to stay?"
Her dark eyes were unreadable, but the moment stretched until Max knew there was an answer. He waited, scarcely daring to breathe.
She picked up the registration slip, then said abruptly, "She said Miss Dora told her to come here. Miss Dora's—"
Max nodded, completed the sentence. "Miss Dora Brevard."
He and Annie first met Dora Brevard when Annie put together the mystery program for Chastain's annual houseand-garden tours one spring.
Miss Dora, who knew everything there was to know about Chastain. Max felt a stirring of hope.
By the time Annie finished reading the monograph (also authored by Charlotte Tarrant) on the history of Tarrant House, she had a good understanding of how to make tabby for foundations (a combination of oyster shells, sand, and a lime obtained through the burning of oyster shells), the popularity of Corinthian capitals, and the reason for the ever-present pineapple motif (pineapples indicated prosperity and hospitality). As far as she could tell, the important point about Tarrant House was that it had stood in all its Greek Revival glory on that lot since 1840, and was one of the few homes in Chastain still in the hands of the original family.
But, shades of Laurel, if she could be permitted that phrase,
Tarrant House did have a very interesting background in ghosts.
Background in ghosts? Of ghosts?
Annie was unsure how to say it.
Laurel would know.
The telephone rang.
Startled, Annie knocked over her almost—but not quite empty—Styrofoam cup.
The phone continued to ring as she bolted to the bath and grabbed up a face towel to mop up the coffee, saving The Tarrant Family History from desecration.
Another peal of the phone. Was Max once again being permitted a single call?
"Hello." She tried to sound in command, ready for anything.
"Dear Annie."
God, it was Laurel. Which was almost spooky. Except surely there was an obvious and rational explanation. Laurel must have called Barb, Max's secretary, to track them down. However, Annie would have remarked upon the coincidence of Laurel calling at the precise moment Annie was thinking of her, but Laurel's words riveted her attention.
"You are feeling beleaguered! That is evident from the strain in your voice. My dearest, I have called to offer my services and I shall come. Even though it will require an ambulance. I cannot—"
"Ambulance! Laurel, where are you? What's wrong? What's happened?" Annie moved the file away from the damp spot on the desk.
"A minor contretemps." For once, the throaty voice lacked its usual йlan, verging indeed upon embarrassment. "I am in Charleston, surely one of the loveliest cities of the world and filled with the most hospitable, charming people, most of whom are quite sophisticated about the specters in their midst, such as dear young Dr. Ladd at the house in Church Street and the rattling wheels of Ruth Simmons's coach on Tradd Street. I am confident that all true Charlestonianswould agree that it is permissible to resort to deceit when obdurate personalities thwart reasonable goals."
"Laurel"—Annie said it gently but firmly—"in words of one syllable, what happened?"
Shorn of elaborate circumlocution, Laurel's recital boiled down to trespassing late at night upon posted property, entering a condemned building, tumbling down ramshackle stairs, and severely spraining not one, but both ankles. "I quite fail to understand the exceedingly unpleasant response of the property owners, who have refused to cooperate with psychical researchers despite the fact that a most delightful and energetic ghost is reputed to have lived there. At least, we are almost certain this is the right house. The story goes that a little girl, Lavinia, came there to live with two old aunts after her parents died. Lavinia enjoyed the third floor—I was on the third floor when I fell—such a long way down—and one day as the poor child ran up the steps, she was surprised to hear running steps beside her. Well, the long and the short of it is, though she never saw anyone, Lavinia realized the steps belonged to a ghost, whom she called Pinky. Now, Lavinia and Pinky had such fun together. They
danced and ran and skipped. But, as happens to us all, Lavinia grew up—and she met a young man in whom she was very interested. Of course, the first thing she did was to tell Pinky—and I'm sorry to report that Pinky was most jealous, and now instead of dancing feet there were ugly stamps. Temper, you see. And he rapped angrily on the walls and tossed objects about." (Obviously, despite the name, Pinky was a boy ghost.) "But Lavinia was in love. Finally, when Pinky's temper didn't improve, Lavinia told him to go away and never come back.
"Silence. No more companionable footsteps. Pinky was gone. Lavinia—such a kindhearted girl—tried to coax him back, promising they would always be friends, even though she dearly loved Kenneth and they were going to marry. But Pinky didn't return.
"It was a lovely wedding in the front parlor. That night she and Kenneth came upstairs to her room for their honeymoon. That was the custom then. When they were ready for bed,
Kenneth turned down the oil wick and all of a sudden there were great raps and stamping and clothes flew about. Kenneth jumped out of bed, turned up the wick, and looked about in astonishment. Pinky yanked on Kenneth's nightshirt. It was then that Lavinia explained to her bridegroom about her ghost. Kenneth was as aggravated as could be. Lavinia tried to persuade Pinky to be a good ghost and, finally, she laughed and said they'd just have to put up with it, that's all they could do. And so, they began their new life together. The three of them."
"Three," Annie said ominously, "is a hell of a crowd." "Oh, I rather thought Lavinia was a dear—making room in her life for everyone."
Annie wasn't going to pursue this conversation. As far as she was concerned, conjugal frolics definitely were limited to two. She almost said so, then decided to get to the heart of the matter.
"Both ankles?"
"I am prostrate. However, nothing shall keep me from Max's side when he is in need. As soon as I talked to Barb this morning—my dear, she's having such fun at Death on Demand, playing with Agatha and reading—my duty was clear. I shall order an ambulance immediately and come to Chastain." Rustlings of an uncertain nature sounded on the telephone line. "So difficult to keep one's papers in order when confined to bed. But now I have paper and pen. Where are you in Chastain?"
