Digging Up the Dirt

by Miranda James

  “No.” Hadley frowned. “That’s why I find it so strange that she apparently disappeared so soon after I left. When was the last time either of you saw or spoke to her?”

  “We’ve been racking our brains trying to remember,” Dickce said. “I think the last time we saw her was a few days before you left.”

  “There was a party that Friday, June seventh,” An’gel said. “Wedding reception at the country club. Hamish and Callie were invited, but they didn’t show. None of us thought much about it at the time, because Hamish had done that before. The following week they didn’t turn up for another function—a Chamber of Commerce dinner—and I called to check on them at that point. The housekeeper merely said that Mr. and Mrs. Partridge had suddenly left on an extended vacation and weren’t expected back for at least six weeks.”

  “We didn’t realize until later that Callie had actually disappeared not long after you left,” Dickce said. “That story about an extended vacation was a lie, of course, but by then people thought they knew what happened and left Hamish alone.”

  “What about the housekeeper? The one you called Mrs. Danvers.” Benjy looked at Dickce. “She has a weird name that I can’t remember. If she’s still around, couldn’t you talk to her?”

  “Excellent point.” Dickce smiled fondly at Benjy.

  “She retired when my brother died,” Hadley said. “She was local, so I suppose she might still be in the area. I will see if I can locate her.”

  “Perhaps you had better leave that to us,” An’gel said. “If she didn’t like you, as you told us this morning, I think Dickce and I would have better luck getting her to talk.”

  “You’re right.” Hadley grimaced. “She would probably slam the door in my face if she saw me standing there. Even after all these years.”

  “We’ll start asking around tomorrow,” Dickce said. “I’m sure we can track her down pretty quickly.”

  “And if we can’t,” An’gel said, “I’m sure Kanesha can.”

  Hadley frowned. “That’s the deputy, right?”

  “Yes,” An’gel said.

  “How well do you know her?” Hadley asked. “She seemed competent, but I found her intimidating.”

  “We’ve known her all her life,” Dickce said. “She is competent, and she can be intimidating. She has to be, in her position. I don’t know if there’s another woman in the whole state who is a chief deputy, let alone an African American woman.”

  “I see what you mean,” Hadley said. “I didn’t think about that. After living abroad for so long, I’m having to readjust to some of the attitudes here.”

  “Backward attitudes, you mean,” An’gel said. “Unfortunately there are still many people here whose minds are stuck in the 1950s when it comes to race and gender.”

  “If you think Kanesha is intimidating, wait until you meet her mother.” Dickce chuckled. “Azalea Berry is the most formidable woman I’ve ever known.”

  “She’s housekeeper for a friend of ours,” An’gel said. “Charlie Harris. We’ll have to introduce you to both of them, and to Charlie’s cat, Diesel.” She smiled fondly. “He is the dearest thing on four legs.”

  “He’s a Maine Coon,” Dickce said. “And he’s the biggest house cat you’ll ever see. But he’s sweet and really smart.”

  “I really have to meet this paragon.” Hadley smiled. “But what about your two four-legged friends? Where are they tonight?”

  “They’re in my apartment,” Benjy said. “Over what used to be the stables.”

  “I’d love to see them again,” Hadley said. “I owe the cat—Endora, isn’t that her name?—a treat of some kind for finding Callie’s ring.”

  “Yes, Endora,” Benjy said. “And Peanut is the dog. He’s a Labradoodle.”

  “How about coffee?” An’gel asked. “We have one of Clementine’s carrot cakes for dessert, if anyone’s interested.”

  Benjy’s face lit up. “I am. I love carrot cake.”

  Hadley groaned. “After all I’ve eaten already, I shouldn’t. But I could never pass up carrot cake.”

  An’gel smiled as she stood. “Then Dickce and I will clear the plates away, and we’ll be back in a few minutes with the coffee and carrot cake.”

  Both Benjy and Hadley offered to assist with the clearing away, but the sisters declined. They quickly gathered the plates and took them to the kitchen. Clementine had set the timer on the coffeemaker, and the coffee was ready. Dickce prepared the beverage while An’gel sliced the cake and placed the servings on a tray. They were soon back in the dining room, where they found the men discussing the adoption of shelter animals.

  “Mr. Partridge is thinking about adopting a dog,” Benjy told them.

  “I really wish you would call me Hadley,” Hadley said. “I don’t feel like Mr. Partridge.”

  Benjy laughed. “All right then. Hadley.”

  “That’s better,” Hadley said as he accepted his coffee and cake. “This looks wonderful.”

  They chatted about what kind of dog Hadley wanted, but after a few minutes, An’gel steered the conversation back to the topic uppermost in her mind. “I think that we are all making the assumption that if the remains we found are truly Callie’s, then it must have been Hamish who put her there. Correct?”

  Hadley appeared startled at the abrupt shift in subject. He laid down his fork and gazed at An’gel. “Though I hate to think of my brother as a murderer,” he said, “I think you’re right. I am hoping against hope that those remains aren’t Callie, though.”

  “I think we have to work under the assumption that they are,” An’gel said. “I would love to believe that Callie is alive somewhere, happy and flourishing, but it simply isn’t realistic.”

  Hadley sighed. “I know you’re right. Finding the ring is evidence enough, I suppose.”

  “Did you have to turn it over to Kanesha?” Dickce asked.

  “Yes,” Hadley said. “I will get it back eventually, but I hated to let go of it.” Suddenly he pushed back his chair and stood. “This was a wonderful meal, but it’s been rather a long day.”

  An’gel rose. “Yes, it has, and the conversation hasn’t been particularly cheerful. We’ve enjoyed having you here. Let me show you out.” Dickce and Benjy stood also.

  “Thank you for being so understanding.” Hadley came to her and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. Then he went around her to do the same for Dickce. He extended his hand to Benjy, and they shook.

  An’gel escorted Hadley to the front door. Hadley turned to her and said, “Thank you again,” before he walked through the door and into the night.

  An’gel closed the door behind him and stood there for a moment, thinking about the evening. She looked up to see Dickce and Benjy walking toward her.

  “I’m sorry if we upset him,” Dickce said.

  “Yes, but it couldn’t be helped,” An’gel replied. “We have to talk about these things. We can’t simply ignore Callie’s death.”

  “No, of course not,” Dickce said. “Poor Hadley. I feel so bad for him.”

  “He seems like a nice guy,” Benjy said. “There’s one thing I’ve been thinking about, though.” He paused.

  “Go ahead,” An’gel said. “Say what’s on your mind.”

  “Okay.” Benjy frowned. “I was thinking about that phone call. The one he told us about. What if he was making that up?”

  CHAPTER 13

  An’gel nodded. “You’re right, Benjy. I’ve been thinking about that myself. We also have only his word that he was not in love with Callie, that he thought of her only as a friend, and not a lover.”

  “If he’s not telling the truth in either case, I’m wondering why he would be lying,” Benjy said.

  “To shift the blame completely to his brother, for one thing.” Dickce frowned. “It’s a little drafty here by the door. Let’s go back to the
dining room and finish clearing the table. We can discuss Hadley while we do that.”

  An’gel and Benjy followed her. When they reached the dining room, An’gel said, “We need to track down Mrs. Turnipseed. Even though she’ll be biased against Hadley, according to him, she still might be able to tell us something.”

  “Especially about the last few days before Callie disappeared.” Dickce paused in stacking dessert plates on the tray. “I just thought of something. Wasn’t there another woman who worked for them? A housemaid, I seem to remember. Now, what was her name?”

  “You’re right, there was a woman,” An’gel said. “I can’t remember her name at the moment, but I do remember that Callie was fond of her and thought she was a good worker. We’ll have to ask Clementine tomorrow if she can think of the woman’s name if it doesn’t come to one of us before then.”

  “My memory simply isn’t what it was.” Dickce sighed. “I used to be able to remember people’s names and their faces.”

  “We both did,” An’gel said. “No use complaining about it now. Let’s get all this to the kitchen and be done with it.”

  They carried everything to the kitchen and set the dishes and cutlery in the sink. Benjy bade them good night.

  “I need to let Peanut out for one last run before bedtime,” he said. “See you in the morning.” He gave them each a quick peck on the cheek before he left through the back door.

  “He’s such a sweet boy,” Dickce said as she filled the sink with hot water to soak the dishes. “I worry about him, though. He needs friends his own age. Right now all he has is the two of us, Clementine, Peanut, and Endora.”

  “I think he’s doing fine,” An’gel said. “He needs time to adjust after everything that’s happened to him in recent months. Once he starts classes at Athena in the spring, he’ll start to make friends.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.” Dickce turned off the tap and wiped her hands on a dish towel. “That’s done. I’m ready to call it a night and get ready for bed. I hope I don’t have nightmares about what we found today.”

  “That was gruesome,” An’gel said as she followed Dickce out of the kitchen. She left one light burning in the hall before they climbed the stairs to their respective bedrooms on the second floor. “Try to think about other, more pleasant, things before you go to sleep. That usually works for me. Good night.”

  “I’ll try, but I don’t know whether it will work. Good night.” Dickce stepped into her room and shut the door.

  An’gel forced her thoughts away from the subject of Callie Partridge while she prepared for bed. Once she was done, instead of climbing into bed, she went to the armchair by the window where she liked to read and turned on the lamp. She didn’t feel ready for sleep, and reading often calmed her thoughts and helped her drift off more easily.

  Charlie Harris had recommended that she try a series that featured a Scottish noblewoman in post–World War I Scotland. She was halfway through After the Armistice Ball, the first book by Catriona McPherson, and enjoying it thoroughly. Within moments of picking it up she found herself once more immersed in the story.

  By the time An’gel turned the last page, the clock read 11:14. An’gel yawned and set the book aside. She would have to thank Charlie for his recommendation and find more books by the author. Right now, though, she was ready to climb into bed. She soon fell asleep and slept soundly until her alarm went off at seven.

  At breakfast forty-five minutes later she eyed Dickce with concern. “You obviously didn’t rest well, Sister. Did you get any sleep at all?”

  Dickce yawned before she answered. “I tossed and turned a good bit of the night. I couldn’t go to sleep for the longest time, and when I did I had nightmares about bodies rising out of graves and coming after me.”

  “I’m sorry you didn’t sleep well.” Benjy frowned. “Maybe you should go back to bed.”

  “Heavens, do I look that bad?” Dickce smiled. “I may take a nap sometime today, but for now, I’m awake. This coffee ought to perk me up.”

  “Clementine’s coffee is strong enough to do the trick,” Benjy said. “One cup is enough to do me for the rest of the day.” He nodded at his empty cup before he picked up his glass of orange juice.

  “We’ve been drinking it for years,” Dickce said. “Takes me at least three cups to get completely awake on days like this.”

  “If you drink three cups of that coffee, you’ll be running around the house like a hamster on its wheel,” An’gel said. “I’d advise you to have one at the most and in a little while, go back upstairs and lie down for an hour or two.”

  “Thank you, Sister,” Dickce said. “But I’ll follow my own prescription if you don’t mind.” She picked up her cup and drained it, then got up to go to the sideboard to refill it from the carafe there.

  An’gel frowned but didn’t otherwise respond. She knew how Dickce was when she got in one of these moods. She decided to concentrate instead on finishing her meal. She was eager to start the search for Hamish Partridge’s faithful housekeeper, Mrs. Turnipseed, and the housemaid whose name she had finally remembered this morning while she was in the shower.

  The housemaid had such a distinctive name, An’gel was surprised she hadn’t remembered it last night. Coriander Simpson. Surely a woman with a name like that wouldn’t be hard to trace. An’gel hoped she was still living. She thought the woman was in her late twenties—early thirties at most—during the time she worked at Ashton Hall.

  Mrs. Turnipseed had to be around somewhere, she reasoned, if Hamish Partridge had left her a pension in his will. If all else failed, she could contact Hamish’s lawyer to find out whether the firm had any contact information for the housekeeper. That would mean asking Hadley the name of the firm. She was pretty sure it hadn’t been Pendergrast and Harris, the firm now run by Alexandra Pendergrast and Sean Harris, Charlie’s son. Hamish had detested Alexandra’s father, Q. C. Pendergrast, founder of the firm. The loathing had been mutual.

  But first, she realized, she needed to talk to Kanesha Berry. She wanted to propose her scheme to meet with the women to the deputy before she went ahead with it. An’gel didn’t want to compromise Kanesha’s investigation, but from what she remembered of Mrs. Turnipseed and certain of her attitudes, she thought she stood a better chance of getting information from her than the deputy did. The housemaid might be a different matter, but An’gel still thought it couldn’t hurt for her to talk to Coriander Simpson first.

  An’gel shared her plan with Dickce and Benjy. When she finished, she asked, “What do you two think?”

  “I think you definitely should talk to Deputy Berry first,” Benjy said when Dickce didn’t respond right away. “She doesn’t seem like the type of person who would like other people doing her job for her.”

  Dickce chuckled. “No, she surely is not that type.”

  “What will you do if she tells you she doesn’t want you to talk to these women?” Benjy asked.

  An’gel frowned. “I would comply with her wishes in that case. I’m not going to rush in like one of those snoopy old ladies in a mystery novel and have Kanesha angry with me. I do believe, though, she will welcome my—our—help in this instance.”

  “Especially with that Turnipseed woman.” Dickce sniffed. “I’ve recalled a few things about her, and I don’t think she would respond well to Kanesha. I remember Callie telling us one time she had to speak to Mrs. Turnipseed about how badly she treated the housemaid.”

  “What do you mean?” Benjy asked. “I think I can guess.”

  “Mrs. Turnipseed had pretty outdated ideas about race and the way other people should be treated.” An’gel grimaced. “I have no time for those attitudes, and if I do talk to her, I imagine it will be difficult not to tell her exactly what I think about that.”

  “Knowing you, you’ll go all Julia Sugarbaker on her.” Dickce giggled.

  Benjy laughe
d, too. “I know what that means.”

  An’gel did not share their amusement. “If I do talk to Mrs. Turnipseed, I had obviously better do it on my own.”

  “Oh, come on, Sister, don’t get huffy.” Dickce grimaced at An’gel. “You know how you can be when you get angry over stuff like that.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” An’gel said after a moment’s reflection. “I do sometimes get caught up in the moment.”

  The doorbell rang. An’gel frowned. “It’s pretty early for anyone to come calling. Is either of you expecting someone?”

  “Not I,” Dickce said.

  “Me either.” Benjy pushed his chair back. “I’ll go see who it is, and then I probably need to rescue Clementine from looking after Peanut and Endora.”

  “Thank you, Benjy,” the sisters said in near unison.

  “It might be Kanesha,” Dickce said. “Or do you suppose it could be Hadley?” She brightened.

  “Kanesha, perhaps,” An’gel said. “But I can’t see Hadley ringing our doorbell at eight fifteen in the morning.”

  An’gel heard two feminine voices in the hallway as their unexpected guests approached. She and Dickce rose from their chairs.

  Benjy ushered in Barbie Gross and Lottie MacLeod. Both women appeared excited.

  “Morning, girls,” Barbie said. “Sorry to burst in on you like this.” She glanced at the table. “But I see you’ve been having breakfast, so you can handle the news.”

  “What news?” An’gel said, trying not to sound annoyed or impatient.

  “We had to tell you in person.” Lottie’s voice dropped to a hoarse whisper as she continued. “Sarinda’s ghost is haunting her house.”

  CHAPTER 14

  “That is about the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” An’gel frowned and shook her head. “Even coming from the two of you, and I’ve heard plenty of ridiculous things from you before.”