by Judy Nickles
Just before ten, Penelope got out and toweled herself off. “I want to catch the late news,” she called to Shana. “You can stay longer if you want to.”
“Not a chance.” Shana swam to the edge of the pool, effortlessly transitioning from the water. “With my luck, I’d end up in some gigolo’s room.”
“I don’t think so. Anyway, that’s not luck, it’s choice.”
“And I don’t make very good ones.”
The late news proved as unenlightening as that at six o’clock. Penelope transferred George from beneath her underwear to the bed under the extra pillow before she turned out the light.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
(Tuesday)
Penelope and Shana took advantage of free offerings in the breakfast room before going outside to wait for the trolley. Then Penelope realized she hadn’t returned George to the drawer. “I’ll give some poor girl in housekeeping a heart attack if she finds that,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
She was sure the errand didn’t consume five minutes, but when she got back, she found Shana sitting on the curb, shaking. “It was him,” she said. “Sam or whoever he is.”
“Here?”
“He drove by in a car right after you left to go upstairs.”
“Are you sure it was him?”
“It was him all right. He grinned at me and waved.”
“Do I want to know what you did?”
Shana blushed. “No. It wasn’t very nice.”
“I’m sure. Well, look, it stands to reason he’d check to make sure we followed his directions, don’t you think?”
“I suppose.”
“Maybe he’ll call tonight and tell us we can go home.”
Shana gave Penelope a look of pure disgust. “Sure he will.”
“Oh, get up, and don’t let this spoil our day. I’m going to spend some money and enjoy the fact it’s not coming out of my bank account. I’ll take you to a place where they sell handmade jewelry you can’t resist.”
Shana brightened noticeably. “I love jewelry.” She got to her feet just as the green trolley bus coasted to a stop in front of the hotel. “Let’s do it.”
****
Penelope caught herself looking for Sam as she and Shana walked the steep streets of the town, stopping to browse the many shops along the way. They were having ice cream at an outdoor café when she did see a familiar face—but it wasn’t Sam’s. She nudged Shana’s foot under the table. “Look at that man,” she stage-whispered. “The one across the street in the yellow golf shirt.” It was the other man who’d stayed at the B&B, the one who’d gotten away from the police on the Oklahoma border.
She watched Shana’s eyes search the crowd and finally focus, and the twitch of her shoulders told Penelope she recognized him, too. “You’ve seen him before, too, haven’t you?”
Shana nodded. “At Pembroke Point, a few nights before the fire.”
“How many?” Penelope pressed her.
“I’m not sure. Maybe…maybe it was Thursday night.”
Penelope sat back in her chair, trying to keep an eye on the man without exposing her full face. “Keep your head turned away,” she said. “He and another guy spent Thursday night at the B&B. Gave me the wrong names, of course. And the next night, one of them was picked up in Ft. Smith, but they didn’t get this one.”
“What do you suppose he’s doing here? Looking for us?”
“I hope not. Finish your ice cream, and let’s go.”
“All of a sudden it tastes like cardboard.”
The two women went the opposite direction and ducked into a boutique. When Penelope didn’t see the man any longer, she tugged at Shana’s arm. “All clear.” Outside she said, “Tell me about him.”
“There’s nothing to tell. He was there, that’s all.”
“Alone?”
“Once or twice.”
“Was he the one with Roger on the night of the fire?”
“Maybe. I didn’t get a good look at the other man in the car.”
“But it could’ve been him,” Penelope persisted.
“It could have. You don’t think he’s looking for us, do you?”
“You’ve asked me that before. Maybe Sam’s here looking for him.”
“Or he’s looking for Sam. I’m not convinced Sam’s the good guy.”
“I want to believe he is, but I wouldn’t stake my life on it. I think he’s got some legit connections. How else would he get us new drivers’ licenses with our pictures and hand us a thousand bucks to play with?”
“I don’t think he gave it to us to play with.” Shana nodded at the trolley bus which had just stopped. “Let’s go on up the road to that haunted hotel.”
“Haven’t you seen enough ghosts for one day?”
Shana’s mouth twisted. “Not dead ones, and they’re a lot safer.”
****
Chief Harley Malone appeared on the ten o’clock news out of Little Rock. He made a brief statement saying there were no new developments in the fire but one of the bodies had been tentatively identified as Travis Pembroke. He declined to comment on whether or not the DEA or the FBI were involved in the investigation.
“Of course, they are,” Penelope said, turning off the television. “And they haven’t identified Travis Pembroke.”
“Why are you so sure?” Shana asked.
“His ring for one thing.”
“You keep going back to that. Maybe somebody realized it was missing and tossed one into the gin as a clue.”
“I’ve thought of that, but it doesn’t make sense.”
“Why not? Who else do you know who wears a UA ring?”
“I told you I wasn’t going to tell you his name. But if I ever get the pieces of the puzzle put together, I might.”
Shana switched off the light. “Thanks—I think.”
Penelope closed her eyes and tried not to think about Roger Sitton, the man who had worn the unearned ring for thirty years. He’d dropped out mid-way through his junior year, but somehow he’d acquired a ring anyway. I thought I knew him, but I didn’t even know Travis after living with him all those years. Was Roger wearing the ring that night there was trouble at the Sit-n-Swill? Would I have even noticed it?
Shana’s voice came out of the darkness. “Don’t you think it’s odd Chief Malone didn’t mention us? You anyway. Everyone probably thinks I’m the other body, but it’s got to be obvious by now that you and your father just sort of disappeared overnight.”
“They’re keeping a lid on things,” Penelope said.
“News reporters don’t do that.”
“Sometimes they do if they’re convinced it’s a matter of life and death. And Sam seems to think it is.”
Shana turned over. “Is it really, or is he just trying to scare us enough to stay out of the way?”
Penelope stared into the darkness. “Shana, there’s no reason you shouldn’t go home. I can pay for your plane ticket in cash, and nobody would ever know.”
“Sam would find out.”
“Let him. At least you’d be safe.”
Shana’s silence told Penelope she was considering the offer. Then, “No, I’m sticking.”
“Why? You could be home with your family and out of this whole blessed mess.”
“Not if whoever might be looking for me knows where I come from. I don’t want to put my family in danger. And I don’t like leaving you alone either.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“I owe myself something. I made a bad decision, moving in with Travis like that, and I more or less lost my self-respect. Maybe I can get some of it back if I hang around and see this thing through with you.”
“You’ve got my respect, if it makes you feel any better.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Pembroke. Coming from you, it means a lot.”
****
(Wednesday)
They kept to their room most of the next day, leaving only for breakfast and later at five to swim and enjoy H
appy Hour at the pool. Just before dark, Penelope managed to maneuver the car through the streets to the Crescent Hotel and find a parking space. Inside, they bought tickets for the Ghost Tour.
Penelope only half-listened to the guide as they began their tour. Her eyes darted into shadowy corners and doorways, wondering if Sam—or the other man—would jump out at them. I’m more spooked than I thought, and not by ghosts.
At the end of the tour, they went to the top floor and had a sandwich at the Baker Bistro, named for the self-styled doctor who bilked people out of thousands of dollars with his promises of a cancer cure. Later they ended up in rocking chairs on the back veranda. “So what did you think?” Shana asked.
“I thought it was fascinating. I love history.”
“Did you see anything?”
“No.”
“Neither did I.”
“Did you want to?”
Shana sighed. “It might have been fun.”
“I could sit here all night,” Penelope said. “This is as relaxed as I’ve been for two weeks.”
“It’s nice.”
Penelope leaned her head back. “It sure is.”
Just before eleven, as they were leaving by the front door, Penelope grabbed Shana’s arm when she saw a familiar figure crossing the parking lot toward them.
“Quick, in the car,” Penelope hissed in Shana’s ear.
“What?” At that moment, Shana saw Travis Pembroke, too. “Oh, good night!”
The women ducked behind a pillar and waited for Travis to pass them, but he didn’t come up the front steps. After a minute, Penelope shoved Shana down the steps. “Run,” she said.
In the car, with the doors locked, the two sat for a few minutes catching their breath and trying to reconcile seeing the walking dead. “I guess we saw our ghost after all,” Shana said in a shaky voice.
“Not funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny. Was it really him, or are we seeing things?”
“Both of us? I don’t think so.” Penelope started the car and drove out of the parking lot. “Watch to see nobody follows us back to the hotel.”
“Do you think he’s staying at the Crescent?”
“Either that or meeting someone there. He’s blessed not going on the next ghost tour.”
“They’re over for the night.”
“I didn’t mean that literally.” Penelope drove slowly on the narrow, almost empty streets. “I don’t think he saw us.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“Hope we run into Sam again, I guess. Of course, he might know Travis is here. He might’ve put us here to keep an eye on all three of us at the same time.”
Shana shivered. “Fattening the Christmas geese for the kill. Or, killing three birds with one stone.”
“Or something.”
They stopped for soft drinks from the machine at the end of the corridor. Penelope put the deadbolt lock and the chain in place as soon as they were inside the room and shoved a chair against the door. “At least it’s not an outside room with a plate glass window,” she observed. “Bang, bang.”
Shana got her nightshirt from the drawer. “I’m glad now you brought George.”
“So am I.” Penelope changed into her pajamas and slipped the gun under her pillow. When Shana came out of the bathroom, they sat cross-legged in the middle of their beds, drinking soda and trying to make sense out of their situation.
“Is there anything at all you haven’t mentioned?” Penelope asked. “Something you didn’t think was important, but I might make some sense out of it?”
Shana frowned. “I’ve tried to think, but Travis always made sure I was out of the way when someone came to the house. I never overheard a single conversation.” She sighed. “Sherlock Holmes I’m not.”
An electric shock went through Penelope. “Holmes! That’s it!”
“What are you talking about?”
“The name Holmes. My mother-in-law was Eleanor Holmes from Montgomery, Alabama.”
“So?”
“She had a younger brother, also named Travis. He came to see her once or twice, and I remember thinking how much he looked like Travis—or how much Travis looked like him.”
“I’m not following you.”
“It was like looking at Travis thirty years down the road, and I remember saying something like that to Mrs. Pembroke once. She said, ‘I hope the resemblance stops on the surface’, and when I asked her what she meant by that, she told me to let it go.”
“So the Holmes weren’t upstanding people?”
“They had money, I know that much. Cotton money. She said the family’s plantation was so isolated it didn’t suffer the destruction a lot of places did during the Civil War.”
“I still don’t know where this is going.”
“Well, what she said bothered me, so I asked Travis about his uncle. He said his uncle was growing more than cotton on the family land, and his mother knew it. Then he clammed up and wouldn’t say any more.”
“Marijuana is a plant. Heroin comes from the poppy flower. And cocaine comes from the coca shrub, but I think that’s grown in South America and Asia and a few other place.”
“How do you know so much about where drugs come from?”
“I did a research paper on them when I was in college. And, no, I never got any information from experience.” Shana bit her lip. “Although I knew people who did.”
“All right, say Travis Holmes was a supplier, and Travis knew it. Then what?”
“He tried to get his nephew to grow, too?”
“Could be. That was at least twenty years ago, though. I wonder if the man’s still alive.”
“You could check the Social Security death records.”
“How?”
“They’re online for genealogists.” Shana reached for the notepad with the hotel’s logo and scribbled something. “You might have to pay a month’s subscription, but you can get a look at them.”
“There’s a business center downstairs.” Penelope jumped up and reached for her jeans.
“It’s almost midnight!”
“So there won’t be anybody around,” Penelope said. “Keep your cell phone on. I’ll call if I get into trouble.” Penelope paused when her hand on the door. “When Mrs. Pembroke died, the year before I left Travis, her brother showed up for the funeral, and he and Travis got into it over something. I’d forgotten about that until just now.”
“Was he married? Children?”
“Married, I think, but no children.”
“So Travis didn’t have any cousins.”
“Not on his mother’s side. Maybe not on his father’s side either. If he did, I never met them.”
“So.”
“So I see the dots, but I have no idea how to connect them. If Travis Holmes is still alive, he’s got to be in his eighties at least, too old to be running drugs.”
“But not too old to be the brains behind the operation.”
Penelope squinted at the younger woman. “You have a suspicious mind. But so do the police. Surely they’d have come up with anything pointing to Travis’s uncle.”
“Maybe they’ve got tunnel vision. I mean, they go by the book. Things happen this way or that.”
“And we just follow the tunnel to the end.”
“Right.”
“Then I’m off. Lock the door behind me.”
“Take your credit card in case you have to pay for the information.”
Penelope scooped her wallet out of her purse. “At least I won’t be paying the bill when it comes in.”
****
She found three Travis Holmes in the Social Security Death Index but only one from Montgomery, Alabama. Date of death, one year earlier. She searched for newspapers in Montgomery and came up with one. There was a small fee to view the archived obituaries, but she typed in the creditcard numbers without hesitation and wasn’t disappointed with the two-column write-up.
Travis Colley Holmes, long-time
local attorney, and cotton producer, died Thursday at the age of 82.
Penelope skimmed to the list of survivors, which were all but nonexistent.
Mr. Holmes is survived by a nephew, Travis Pembroke of Amaryllis, Arkansas.
She copied and pasted the obituary into a word document and hit print. The machine whirred and spit out a single sheet of paper. Typing the name into the search box got half a dozen hits.
Holmes and Harrow, attorneys at law.
Travis Holmes retires at age 79.
Drug investigation targets long-time attorney Travis Holmes
Coroner rules Holmes death ‘natural’, denies inquest.
Travis Holmes’ estate contested by son.
Penelope blinked. Son? No son had been listed in the obituary. Could it mean Travis Pembroke? He didn’t need his uncle’s money, but he might have wanted to keep the land in the family. She scrolled down.
Alabama attorney’s will upheld on appeal; claimant gets nothing.
It took her half an hour to copy, paste, and print the six articles. Upstairs, she spread out the pages and began to read aloud while Shana took notes. By two o’clock in the morning, a dark picture had begun to emerge.
Travis Holmes, a prominent attorney and successful cotton-grower, had retired three years before his death. He’d been investigated—and ultimately indicted—for growing marijuana on his land. Worse, evidence pointed to the fact that he’d packaged and sold it to dealers. His partner and a bevy of other lawyers had formulated enough reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors to secure an acquittal.
But then, when his trouble seemed to be at an end, he died suddenly in his sleep. His doctor swore he’d been in good health only two weeks before his death and recommended an autopsy followed by an inquest. Before that could happen, the body had been cremated and the ashes scattered at Holmes Bend, the plantation that had been in the family for over one hundred fifty years. The papers at the funeral home bore the signature of his former law partner and executor of the estate—who promptly denied signing anything.
