“I’ve got a copy of the timeline I sketched out, but yes, it seems he bought all this property when he laid out the town. His first house sat right here on this very spot.”
“And then his sister Daisy and her daughter must’ve lived in it.”
Jake sipped his beer. “I bet she was living here from the beginning.”
“What makes you say that, Daddy?”
“Well, where else would she live? She was probably a young single woman when she came from Mississippi, and this was her brother’s house. It would’ve been the proper place for her to live.”
“I wonder if she stayed on when she married.”
Jake sipped his beer again. “I don’t know. The place was a burned-out shell when I was a little boy, and then some people built the Short Creek Bar. It had been closed down for a few years when Roger opened the Sit-n-Swill
around the time you were in high school, Nellie. Don’t you remember?”
“I remember you telling me you’d tan my backside if you ever caught me near the place with or without a boyfriend.”
“I would have, too. It was pretty rough right there at first.”
“Bradley told me Roger was rough, too.” Mike let his words hang, pending some sort of reaction.
Jake snorted. “Always looked to me like he had lace on his drawers.”
“Daddy, really.” Penelope tried not to smile as she remembered she’d said the same thing once. “Bradley mentioned he used to break up drinking parties out at the lake.”
“At Roger’s place? The house Millie and I bought?”
“That’s what he said.”
Mike nodded. “Well, it was a little worse for the wear, but we’re getting it fixed up. We still want an older home in town if we can find one.”
“Millie said your friend Marlo found one.”
“She did. I was kind of ticked off. We were here first.”
“I guess all’s fair in love and business,” Jake said, winking at Penelope.
“I guess. We’ll find something eventually. But I’d like to know more about this place. More about Jeremiah Bowden and his family.”
So would I, Penelope thought. And I know just the place to find out.
CHAPTER TWELVE
On Monday morning, Penelope signed in at the state archives in Little Rock and accepted the membership card with her personal number. “How can I help you get started today?” asked the young man who’d taken her information.
“I’m from Amaryllis, and I want to find out about the man who started the town—Jeremiah Bowden.”
“I’m familiar with the town but not the name. What time period are you looking at?”
“He came from Mississippi around 1880.”
“After the war. The Civil War, I mean.”
Penelope laughed. “In the South, when you say the war, everybody knows which one you’re talking about.”
“I guess they do. I’m from Tennessee myself. Well, let’s see what we can find.”
When Penelope left four hours later, she felt sure her tote bag weighed a pound for every one of the twenty-seven dollars that had gone into the copy machine. Jake followed her into the dining room and watched as she stripped the lace cloth from the long table and began to lay out her bounty. “I hit pay dirt, Daddy.”
“Looks like it. All that about old Jeremiah?”
“And his family, the town, and Jessie Ruth Collier.”
“Everybody knows about Jessie Ruth anyway. She came back here to live even before her husband died. Never figured that one out. You remember how the whole town shut down for her funeral ten years ago.”
“Yes. I met her several times at various functions around town. But we didn’t know everything about her. For example, did you know her husband was an art dealer in New York and Boston? He made regular trips to Europe, too.”
“I knew they got their money somewhere.”
“Here’s a copy of her obituary from the Democrat-Gazette. It was a bigger write-up than the one she got in the Bugle. And here’s her mother Daisy’s obituary, but it doesn’t mention a husband, only her daughter Jessie Ruth. Her married name was Ives, but there’s nothing about the husband. No marriage, no preceded in death by, nothing.”
“I don’t think I ever heard anything about him, other than the story he was no good. I guess he died sometime early on.”
“The nice young man who helped me at the archives said to check the courthouse for marriage, divorce, and death records. I’m going to do that tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“If Jeremiah Bowden or any of his family are still down in that basement tinkering with the boiler, I want to know why.”
Jake chuckled. “You’re a case, Nellie.”
****
Mary Lynn stopped by after lunch. “I can’t believe you found all this, Pen. I wonder why nobody ever wrote a history of Amaryllis?”
“Somebody can do it now, that’s for sure.”
“You’ve got a ton of stuff. Maybe we should organize it a little.”
“I was thinking the same thing. I’ve got packages of three-by-five index cards I use to register my guests.”
“How about some markers? We could color-code stuff.”
“I think I have some of those, too.”
“By the way, have you heard from Shana since Saturday?”
“No, but I suppose I ought to call her. She was pretty upset.”
“When I returned some books to the library this morning, she looked like death warmed over. Apparently she and Peter are on the outs.”
“She told him about Travis.”
“Too bad.”
“Well, she blessed had to, Mary Lynn. You said so yourself. He’d have heard the gossip if he started coming around here more often.”
“It’s died down.”
“It’s still here, trust me. No matter how squeaky clean she is from now on, Shana will always be the girl who shacked up with Travis Pembroke.”
“So it’s over between them?”
“She doesn’t know. He said he’d call her. I’ll go get the cards and the markers, and we’ll get started on this project.”
“I need something to do, that’s for sure. The boiler quit again this morning.”
“Just quit?”
“It came on right away, stayed on about fifteen minutes, rattled like it was being choked to death, and then quit.”
“Did you call Peter?”
“He can’t come until Thursday, and he didn’t believe me anyway.”
“Thursday is Shana’s half-day off. I wonder if that means anything.”
“Go get the cards, Pen.”
****
By five o’clock, they’d sorted, numbered, and summarized the pages, all two hundred fifty of them. “Can you buy groceries after paying for all these?” Mary Lynn asked.
“They gave me a break on the price per copy.”
“That was nice of them.”
“I think they just wanted me out of there before I used up all the toner in the machine.”
“Well, you found a treasure. When I tell Harry about all this, he’s going to want to see it.”
“I’ll stop at the variety store tomorrow and get some notebooks and dividers. Then I’m going to the courthouse to see what I can find there.”
“Like what?”
“Marriage and death records mainly. I’m curious about why Daisy Bowden Ives’s husband wasn’t mentioned in her obituary. And Jessie Ruth Collier’s obituary just says she was the daughter of Daisy Bowden Ives, sister of Jeremiah, who founded Amaryllis, Arkansas.”
“Odd.”
“I think so, too.”
“Maybe I’ll come with you tomorrow.”
“Be my guest.”
“Minnie Rene Taylor, the county clerk, was in the same class as Travis, I think.”
“I’ve met her.”
“I played bridge with her a few times before she ran for office. She’s a nice sort.”
“The young
man at the archives told me to make nice whenever I went researching in courthouses. He said county officials don’t appreciate people who get in their way.”
“I don’t blame them. We’ll make extra nice tomorrow.”
****
“We didn’t exactly come up empty,” Penelope said as she and Mary Lynn shared one rather dry peach kolache with their coffee after leaving the courthouse.
“I guess we didn’t! I can’t believe you agreed to take those boxes of old unfiled records.”
“They might come in handy sometime. They’re history anyway. And Minnie Rene knew a soft touch when she saw one.”
“They just didn’t keep too many records in the time period we’re interested in.”
“I guess I thought birth and death records had always been kept.”
“Minnie Rene said we couldn’t see the birth records even if they were there. That privacy thing. And she said some places have rules about who can see death certificates.”
“Daisy’s death certificate says enough—she was married, not widowed or divorced. So what happened to…” Penelope glanced at the marriage record again. “To Mr. Vincent Ives?” She pushed Jessie Ruth Collier’s death certificate across the table toward Mary Lynn. “And just for openers, why is the space for father’s name marked ‘unknown’?”
“Maybe she didn’t know he was her father?”
“Unlikely. You knew Jessie Ruth. She was nobody’s fool, even if she was ninety-three when she died.”
“So he wasn’t her father?”
“I don’t blessed know, Mary Lynn. Where would the graves registration for the cemetery be?”
“City Hall, I think. I’ll call Harry and ask.” She whipped out her cell phone. “You’re looking for Mr. Vincent Ives, I take it.”
“Bingo.”
Harry Hargrove transferred the call, and Mary Lynn handed Penelope the phone. It took under four minutes to learn that no one by the name of Ives, other than Daisy, was buried in the Amaryllis City Cemetery.
****
Penelope took her new Good Housekeeping to bed that night and had almost finished it when the phone rang. “It’s ten blessed thirty,” she said to Mary Lynn. “What won’t keep until morning?”
“There’s a moving van in front of the Barnes house down the street. People don’t move in at ten-thirty at night.”
“I heard the Dancers’ friend Marlo Howard was thinking about renting or buying that.”
“Fine, but why is she moving in the dark of night? She only came from Little Rock, didn’t she?”
“Call the PD if you’re worried about it.”
“I already did. Parnell’s on patrol tonight. He’s going to check things out.”
“Fine. Call me in the morning and let me know if he captured any desperados. I’ll mark their hanging day on my calendar.”
Mary Lynn slammed down the phone. Penelope had reached to turn off the lamp beside her bed when she heard the unmistakable sound of gravel against her window. Her heart hit her toes, and she was at the bottom of the stairs before it came back up.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sam barreled in as soon as she unlocked the back door. “Don’t turn on the light,” he said as she reached for the switch.
“On the run again, are we?”
“What’s going on in Amaryllis?”
“The boiler at the school exploded, but it didn’t really explode, now it’s out again. Shana told Peter about Travis, and now they’re on the outs. The fireplace at the Sit-n-Swill still doesn’t work, and I went to the archives in Little Rock and dug up as much dirt as I could find on the family that founded this town.”
Sam tucked her hair behind her ears. “You’re babbling, Nell. You tend to do that a lot.”
“You asked what’s going on in Amaryllis, and I’m telling you. Oh, and one more thing, Mary Lynn just called and said that someone is moving into the old Barnes place right now, at ten-thirty at night.”
She got the impression from the way he didn’t react that the last piece of information came as no surprise. “Marlo Howard?”
“I guess.”
Sam looked through the curtain over the door window, then put his hand on the knob. “How do I get there?”
“You don’t know? I thought you knew things.”
“Just tell me.”
“Take a right out of the driveway, left on Amaryllis Avenue down to Sandalwood. It’s the corner house. You’ll come up behind it.”
He was out the door before she could ask if he’d be back. On the off chance he would be, she took ham and cheese from the refrigerator and made some sandwiches. By the time she had them on a plate with some chips and a pickle slice, he’d reappeared. “I thought you might be hungry,” she said, holding out the plate.
“I don’t even remember the last time I ate. I also need a place to stay for a couple of nights.”
“The front room’s clean, and the things Daddy bought you last year are in the bottom drawer of the chiffonnier.”
“I have a bag in the car.”
“So where’s the car?”
“Stashed. Nobody will know I’m in the house.”
“I didn’t ask that. Take your plate upstairs. I don’t want to wake Daddy.”
At the top of the stairs, he paused. “Keep me company while I eat?”
“If you promise to behave yourself.”
He grinned. “No promises.”
She followed him into his room and watched him go through both sandwiches like a starving refugee. “You want more?”
“How about dessert?”
“There’s some Italian cream cake from Rose’s Bakery.”
“I wasn’t thinking of cake.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her.
“You promised.”
“I did not.” He set the plate aside and had her out of the chair and in his arms before she realized what was happening. “Sweet,” he said, burying his face in her hair.
“Sam, don’t.”
His lips on hers cut off further conversation, and she felt him moving her toward the bed.
“Sam, I’m not going to sleep with you.”
He laid her back and untied the sash on her robe. “I need you, Nell.”
“For what? Your own satisfaction?”
His hands tried to crawl inside the robe, but she pushed back.
I need you, too, Sam, but not for the right reasons. You’ve probably got a girl in every port, as they say, and I’m not going to be one of them. I’m going to get up right now and walk out of here. Instead, her arms crept up around his neck.
“That’s better,” he murmured. He was trying for the robe again when the shrill sound of his cell phone shattered the moment. “Damn!” He sat up and reached inside his jacket. “Yeah, what?”
Penelope rolled away from him, and got up from the bed. He caught her wrist but let go when she shook her head. Saved by the bell, she thought as she locked the door to her room. Her body ached with longing for what might have happened and didn’t.
In the morning, she found a slip of paper on the floor inside her door. Back tonight late. I’ve got a key.
“Key!” The word exploded out of her mouth. “How did he blessed get a key?” Later, when she looked for the spare on the hook by the back door, it wasn’t there.
****
She called Mary Lynn while she cooked breakfast. “So what happened last night?”
“Parnell said she said the van was late loading up.”
“Marlo said.”
“Right.”
“Did he believe her?”
“I asked him that, and he said he didn’t have any reason not to.”
“Oh.”
“But I’m not taking the usual loaf of banana bread down there yet.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll let you know.”
“Since you can’t work at the school without some heat, let’s go to the library and check on Shana. Maybe take her to lunch at the Garden Tea Room.�
��
“I’ll meet you at the library at noon.”
“By the way, what did Harry say when you told him about all the information I found?”
“He says he’s going to get somebody to write a town history, talk to the Town Council about getting it published, and plan an annual Founders Day Celebration.”
Penelope laughed. “I’ll just bet he did. Well, I like the idea. Maybe he’ll replace the Dog Days of Summer Celebration.”
“It would be nice. See you for lunch.”
****
Over lunch, Shana seemed resigned to her fate. “I’m going to stick it out this year in Amaryllis, but then I’m going somewhere else. Somewhere nobody knows me. The next time I meet someone, I won’t have to bare my soul.”
“No relationship can flourish with secrets lurking,” Mary Lynn said, tearing open the pink sweetener package and dumping it in her hot tea.
“Lurking?” Penelope echoed.
“That’s what secrets do,” Mary Lynn went on. “Hang around and haunt you.”
“You’re the one who said maybe Shana shouldn’t have told Peter anything.”
“You’re both so encouraging,” Shana said.
Penelope raised her eyebrows. “The boiler’s out again. Peter’s coming to look at it on Thursday.” She watched the shadows fall away from the younger woman’s eyes, then return.
“Why Thursday?”
“That’s when he said he could come,” Mary Lynn said. “You want to go out there instead of me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not going to beg.”
“We’ll all go,” Penelope said. “How’s that?”
“No, it would be too obvious.” Shana didn’t sound as positive as she had earlier.
“I went to the state archives the other day,” Penelope said after the waitress had taken their orders. “You need to come by and see what all I found. Mary Lynn helped me organize it.”
Mary Lynn added more sweetener to her tea. “It’s a work of art.”
“What did you find?”
“All the dirt on the Bowden family that founded this town.”
“You didn’t find dirt,” Mary Lynn said.
“No, but I found some interesting things. Like there’s no mention of Daisy Bowden Ives’ marriage to Vincent, and he isn’t even listed as Jessie Ruth Collier’s father on her death certificate.”
The Stubborn Schoolhouse Spirit (The Penelope Pembroke Cozy Mystery Series) Page 8
