Southern Ghost

by Carolyn Hart

  Suddenly she found computer sheets in her hand, instead of a cookie. Was that an omen? Perhaps so.

  "Here we are," she said briskly. " 'Julia Martin Tarrant. Age forty-eight. Born in Columbia, South Carolina. Father, Olin, a high-school chemistry teacher. Mother, Georgia, a pri­mary-school teacher. Two brothers, Edwin and Arthur, and one sister, Frances. Julia made very little impression on those around her throughout her school career. Her brothers were both excellent students and held various class offices. They were also successful athletes." " Annie paused.

  Max prodded. "And?"

  "What's the deal?" Annie said slowly.

  Her husband looked puzzled.

  She felt a rush of affection. Max of the three sisters and wacky mom had never encountered—and certainly never in­dulged in—the kind of sexism she sensed here. Annie waggled the printout. "Is this part of the old fifties syndrome? A woman's place is out of sight and out of mind? Or is this just Julia?" She resumed reading. " 'Frances was two years older than Julia. She died in 1960 (a drowning victim)." " Annie frowned. "Isn't that what happened to Julia and Milam's little girl?"

  Max nodded.

  "Isn't that—odd?" Annie asked.

  "Yes. But surely—" Max looked appalled.

  Annie had read enough Edgar Allan Poe to have an inkling of the dark depths in the human mind. But, as Max said, surely not. Julia was a drunk, but not a neurotic monster. Annie liked her. And felt sorry for her. The deaths of Julia's sister and daughter, both by drowning, had to be a hideous coincidence.

  Annie cleared her throat. " 'Julia had a C average. Her brothers both attended the university full-time and were out­standing students. Julia worked part-time, lived at home (her brothers lived in student housing), and was a part-time stu­dent, paying her own tuition. She met Milam Tarrant in a photography course in the art department when he was a ju­nior. They married after he was graduated.

  " 'The high school counselor, Mrs. Humphreys, said: "Julia Martin? Oh, yes, of course. Olin's daughter. So funny, I almostnever think about him having a daughter. The boys were so outstanding. Julia was a mousy little thing, always looked like she was scared of her shadow. I tried to encourage her to take part in class activities, but she always stood there tongue-tied and—why, I hate to say it—almost as if she were ad­dlebrained. But her mother was kind of a washout, too. No personality at all. Not like Olin. He is such a charming man. And a very good teacher." ' " Annie rattled the sheet. "I'd say Mrs. Humphreys likes to back winners. I'll bet she's a great counselor."

  Max took a last bite of the pear. "Doesn't anybody like Julia?"

  "Apparently not." Annie skimmed the rest of it. " 'Julia didn't have a circle of friends in high school . . . a loner . . . "She walked around like a little ghost," her En­glish teacher said. "I tried several times to strike a response. There was certainly trauma there. I was never sure why. Per­haps it was the death of her sister. Whatever it was, I was never able to break through, make a connection. I tried to talk to Olin about it once, but he refused to listen. He's one of these smile-all-the-time, you-can-do-it-if-you-try people. I'd say he was heavy into denial as far as Julia was concerned. But that's the way it is sometimes. He's a wonderful teacher. Loves kids." ' "

  Annie paused, skimmed some more, then stopped, her eye­brows lifted. "Oh ho, here's the word from Olin. ' "Julia? I'm sorry, we haven't seen much of my daughter and her husband in recent years. We've tried to keep in touch. We don't know what's wrong, but we're afraid Julia's drinking too much. We've urged her to go into treatment, but a person has to want to get better, and I'm afraid Julia doesn't care. We sur­vived the loss of our lovely girl. Why can't Julia face life?" Julia's mother, "I don't know, I'm sure. It's been such a long time. Julia won't talk to us when we call." ' "

  Annie made a face at the printout. No sympathy for Julia. Anywhere.

  Max grinned and tossed his pear core neatly into the waste­basket. "Found yourself an underdog?"

  "Don't you think Julia's likable?" Annie appealed.

  "Yes, I do," Max said soberly. "But we have to look at her closely. Remember the ring from the gasoline can on the car­pet of her car."

  "Even if she set fire to the museum, that doesn't mean she's a murderer," Annie defended.

  Max grinned again.

  "I am not a sap for underdogs," Annie said irritably.

  "Of course not. Now, let's see. What do we have on Char­lotte Tarrant?" Max poised his pen over his pad.

  Annie thumbed through the pile of printouts.

  "Here we go. 'Charlotte Walker Tarrant. Age forty-seven. Born in Greenville, South Carolina. Father, James, a bailiff. Mother, Lois, a secretary. Two sisters, Katie and Barbara. Lois Walker was from a fifth-generation family in Greenville, the Bakers. The family was wealthy but lost all of its properties in the Civil War. Lois was a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy and the Daughters of the American Revolution. Charlotte, an outstanding student, received a scholarship to the university. A history major, she specialized in the Ameri­can South. Always fascinated by family history. Pam Jergens, president of the high school pep club, said, "Charlotte was born old. She always had on white gloves, figuratively speak­ing. And she was so ladylike. God, that was a long time ago. What's Charlotte done, seceded from the Union again? Of course, you have to remember, I couldn't wait to get the hell out and see how the real world lived. I left twenty years ago and I've never regretted it for a minute." Zenia Phillips, a college sorority sister, said, "Boring. That sums up dear Char­lotte, boring as hell." Betty Blake, who cochaired the Chastain house-and-garden tours with Charlotte several years ago, de­scribed Charlotte as ". . . absolutely marvelous to work with. Organized, responsible, enthusiastic. I'll tell you, we had the best spring tours our year that anyone's ever done. Charlotte was certainly the best president the Chastain Historical Soci­ety has ever had, and she is as knowledgeable about family history as anyone in the state. It's a terrific asset for a commu­nity when someone like Charlotte will devote herself heart andsoul to preserving its heritage. I don't know what we would have done without Charlotte when they tried to get an excep­tion to the preservation code and raze the old MacDougal House to make way for a parking lot for some apartments. Can you believe it? They wanted to destroy a lovely Greek Revival home built in 1848! Charlotte fought like a tigress. She wouldn't give up. Why, I'd say she almost single-handedly won that battle. We owe her so much." Cordelia Prince, presi­dent of the PTA when Charlotte and Whitney's daughter was in grade school, snapped, "That woman's a poisonous reptile. I'll bet the average snake of my acquaintance is a better mother. Cold-blooded? She was too busy to be a homeroom mother, too busy to drive on field trips, too busy to chaperon a dance. And on what? Dead and gone people who didn't need a minute of her time while her daughter turned angry and hos­tile. I don't blame that child for running away. Who would stay home with a mother like that?" '

  "I knew I didn't like Charlotte," Annie said decisively. "Being a lousy parent doesn't equate to committing mur­der," Max cautioned.

  "I know," Annie said regretfully. "Besides, the woman's obviously scared to death."

  When Max didn't immediately comment, Annie raised an eyebrow.

  He looked at her with a gravity so foreign to his usual confident demeanor that she felt suddenly uneasy.

  "Annie, the hell of it is, I think Charlotte's damned smart to be scared. I'm scared, too, about that roundup at Tarrant House tomorrow afternoon. It's almost twenty-two years to the day when murder occurred, and, you can bet on it, the murderer will be there." He jammed a hand through his thick, unruly blond hair. "I wish to God we knew where that gun was!"

  2:30 P.M., SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1970

  Ch apter 18.

  Ross listened tensely to the news through the crackle of static on the car radio. The station faded in and out, but he heard enough. Campuses were closing across the country, in Califor­ nia, in Illinois. in Massachusetts. Witnesses were saying no one had fired at the National Guard. Witnes
ses were saying the students, walking to class, were gunned down for no reason. The Guard was claiming an attack. Students were march­ ing. . . . The station faded out. Ross turned the dial and Hank Thompson's mournful voice filled the car. Ross turned off the radio. He was almost home.

  He'd made the right decision. He squared his shoulders, gripped the wheel tighter.

  He could see his father's face, proud and arrogant. Always the Judge's somber eyes lighted for him.

  What would his father say?

  Annie gripped the door as the Maserati bumped down the deep-rutted, overgrowth-choked, dusty gray road. Cones from the slash pines crunched beneath the tires. Giant ferns glis­tened with dew beneath spreading live oaks. Holly and sharp-edged yucca, saw palmetto, and running oak flourished. Annie, for an instant, envisioned the land as it appeared to long-ago travelers: wild, untamed, inimical, with an almost overpowering fecundity.

  The road curved left.

  Max jammed on the brake at a flurry of movement in the foliage. Annie hung on tight. A blue-gray hawk zoomed across the road, swooping to pounce on a pinkish copperhead stretched in a sunny spot on a rotting log.

  It was the only time Annie had ever felt sorry for a snake.

  She wondered how much she would have loved the Low

  Country two hundred years ago. She wasn't altogether crazy

  about this present-day, off-the-beaten-path forest. She loved

  sassafras, sweet gum, and red bay trees, but nicely pruned and

  cut back, thank you. It was exciting to glimpse white-tailed deer, but the sudden thrashing in the undergrowth and the sight of bristly black hair and an ugly snout with razor-sharp tusks made her long for the confines of a well-kept clay tennis court.

  Annie hunched tensely in her seat. Any kind of horror could occur in the midst of these longleaf-pine flatwoods.

  "Do you think it's much farther?" She tried to sound ca­sual.

  Max, as always, wasn't deceived. "Don't worry, honey. As long as you don't step on a diamondback, you'll be okay."

  She did not consider his answer especially reassuring.

  "Oh, hell," Max swore, and the Maserati jolted to a stop.

  One of last winter's nor'easters had toppled a dead pine. Breaking as it fell, a portion of the trunk blocked the road. A huge limb had splintered the wooden bridge over the sluggish stream.

  Max glanced at the mileage counter he had punched when they left the blacktop. "It's about a half-mile farther. Look, Annie, you can stay here and—"

  She was already opening her door. "In for a penny," she announced stalwartly, wishing she had put on hiking boots and jeans and a long-sleeved cotton top instead of white flats, a pleated pink-rose cotton skirt, and a delicate white cotton blouse with a lacy embroidered collar. She had considered it a fetching outfit (and perfectly appropriate) this morning at the St. George Inn. It was little comfort that she would be as out of place slapping away resurrection ferns and skidding on pine hay as that briefly spotted bristly black-haired wild boar would be reclining on the chintz-covered chaise longue at the inn.

  Max retrieved a flashlight from the car pocket. They stepped out of the car into insect hell. The air was alive with whirring patches of no-see-urns. Mosquitos and biting flies attacked. Wasps buzzed angrily.

  Annie waved her arms and broke into a trot, then almost slid into water scummed with green duckweed when her shoe soles skimmed over the pine hay.

  Max caught her in time. "Be careful, Annie. Watch where you step. There will be plenty of snakes out."

  Annie repressed a shudder. She knew she should reverenc all God's creatures, but who could love a venomous pit vir

  She was glad she didn't have a video of their progress. Their careful, considered footfalls (rattlesnakes always have the right-of-way) were in stark contrast to the continued wild movements of their arms and hands as they tried to deflect the scores of starved or insanely bored insects.

  The horde of biting bugs pursued them as they hopped from one remnant of the bridge to another to cross the stream. The buzzing cloud whirled around them as they hurried through the now thinning stand of pines. They came out onto a huge expanse of grass, covered with the vivid shades of spring wildflowers, the brilliant yellow of Carolina jessamine, the maroon of purple trillium, the bright red of crossvine. They'd reached the savannah, and there before them was the Tarrant hunting lodge.

  Weathered wooden steps—the third sagged alarmingly—led up to a shallow porch. Although the paint had long ago peeled away, the square box building, well built, was still in good repair. As Max unlocked the front door, Annie did note a broken pane in the window on her left. She wondered how Miss Dora had obtained the keys. From Whitney? Yes, more than likely. She couldn't picture Milam here. She vainly swat­ted another mosquito and hurried inside as Max opened the door.

  Max turned on the flashlight.

  Annie followed the sweeping beam of light across the sin­gle room: a rough-hewn fireplace with an open hearth, scat­tered chairs, a pinewood table, a sink, cupboards on one wall, and dust. Dust on the floor, dust on every surface, cobwebs on the walls.

  A mournful, dreary, deserted room, musty and dank. How long had it been since human voices had sounded here?

  Max moved away, checking the windows and the back door.

  Annie stood near the chair next to the rock fireplace. For the first time, painful as an unexpected blow, she felt the reality of Ross Tarrant's death. She stood very still, staring at the darkish upholstery. That irregular, barely visible, long-dried stain

  What would he feel now, if he knew about his daughter and the desperate search for her?

  A man who lived and died that passionately would move heaven and earth to find his missing daughter.

  "Max," Annie said abruptly, urgently, "let's hurry."

  Enid Friendley studied them thoughtfully. Close-cropped, graying hair framed intelligent, wary eyes and a resolute mouth. She had an air of brisk confidence tinged with impa­tience. After a moment, she glanced at her plain gold watch. "I can give you twenty minutes."

  In the immaculate living room, she gestured for them to take the couch, upholstered in plain blue linen. Enid sat in a straight chair, her posture excellent. The modern light-oak furniture was as angular and spare as its owner. No curtains. Pale-lemon blinds were the only window covering. No knick­knacks broke the smooth expanse of the ocean-green, glass coffee table. The room was as cool and unrevealing as their hostess and her quietly tasteful but unremarkable black skirt and white, high-necked cotton blouse.

  Perceptive dark eyes watched Annie. "I've seen enough old furniture to last me a lifetime." Her tone was dry. "Where I grew up, we were lucky to have one real chair. Of course, the covering was ragged and the springs poked through. Cast off. Somebody hired my father to haul it away." Again, pointedly, she glanced at her watch.

  Annie didn't need to look at hers. It was almost ten. Time raced ahead. The hours had piled up since Courtney Kimball was last seen, three days ago. Annie leaned forward impatiently as Max quickly described their mission.

  Enid's face remained impassive. Even when Max mentionedthe bloody shirt she had brought to Lucy Jane so many years ago.

  ". . . so we're hoping you can help us, Mrs. Friendley. We need to know what you saw that day and what you know about the Tarrants. But to begin, did you—"

  Enid lifted a hand. She wore no rings, and her fingernails were trimmed short and unpainted. "Just a minute, Mr. Dar­ling. I'll talk about that day and the Tarrants. I don't have anything to say about anything that happened later." She paused.

  Annie looked at her, puzzled.

  But Max nodded in instant comprehension. "Certainly, al­though I'm confident at this point that no one would accuse you of acting as an accomplice after the fact. After all, you were merely an employee following the directives of your su­perior. You had no reason to suspect that a crime had been committed."

  The small, dark woman considered it, her suspicious eyes probing his face
.

  Annie had the feeling it could go either way. Enid Frien­dley would have no compunction about showing them the door. But perhaps she liked what she saw, or perhaps she, too, wanted to know the truth of that deadly Saturday. Whatever the reason, she finally nodded, grudgingly.

  "All right. What do you want to know?"

  "Have you seen or talked to Courtney Kimball?" Max didn't try to keep the eagerness from his voice.

  Annie ached for him. He still felt responsible because he hadn't reached his young client in time.

  "Wednesday afternoon," Enid said briskly.

  Annie tried not to get excited, but this was as close as they'd come to Courtney Kimball in three days of searching. Wednesday afternoon!

  "I was at work—we had two hundred chicken potpies due at the County Horticultural Building—that's out at the fair­grounds—by five o'clock. She insisted she had to talk to me. I told her straight out I was too busy. She didn't want to take no for an answer. You can tell she's always had her way." The

  resentment of a lifetime crackled in the words. "So I'm not surprised when you say she was Sybil and Ross's girl. It's in her blood." A meager smile curved her lips in reluctant trib­ute to the kind of personality that sweeps the world before it. "I couldn't help but kind of like her, bright, smart, brash—and pretty, very pretty. Yes, I can see Ross Tarrant in her face, now that I know. He was always the handsomest one. The best of the bunch. He saw me as a real person—talked to me about going to college and what a difference it could make in my life. I couldn't believe it when he killed himself. The only thing I could figure was that Sybil had thrown him over, and he took it too hard. Sybil's the kind of woman—and that was as true twenty years ago as today—who lives from her heart. That will hurt you pretty bad. She broke down at the funeral. I thought it was a guilty conscience. Anyway, that girl Court­ney's got Sybil's wild streak, I can tell you that. I saw it in her eyes. Not afraid of the devil himself." She pursed her lips. "Maybe she'd have been better off if she'd had the sense to be afraid."