“Thank you.” Dickce took a sip of the tea and then another. “It’s delicious.” The tea was strong the way she liked it, and the sweetness was perfect.
“I’m glad you like it,” Mrs. Simpson said. “Now, what was I going to tell you? Oh, yes, about Coriander. Like I said, I don’t rightly know the details. We got a telegram telling us she was dead, and that was about it.”
“My goodness,” Dickce said. “That’s strange. Where was she when she died?”
“Over in Europe,” Mrs. Simpson replied. “I think it was in England. Now, I expect you’re wondering how she ended up there when she’d never been anywhere except here and Mississippi before.”
“Yes, I was wondering that,” Dickce said when it seemed that Mrs. Simpson required a response. “She must have left the employ of Mrs. Partridge.”
“She was planning to get married over there,” Mrs. Simpson said. “A couple months before she quit working for Miss Callie and left the country she sent me a letter, telling me she’d done fell in love with a man, and he wanted to marry her. She didn’t tell me who he was or even what his name was, but she promised she’d come home and bring him to meet me.”
“Did she?” Dickce asked.
“No, she never did. After that, the next I heard was that telegram telling me she was dead.”
Dickce found this story odd. There was something about it that simply didn’t sound legitimate. She would have to tread carefully because she didn’t want to upset Mrs. Simpson.
“When exactly did all this happen?” Dickce wondered if Coriander had left Ashton Hall after Callie disappeared, or before. She couldn’t remember Callie ever telling them that her housemaid had left her.
“It was forty years ago,” Mrs. Simpson said. “Would you like to see the telegram? It’s got the exact date on it.”
“If you wouldn’t mind, if it’s not too painful,” Dickce said, “I would like to see it.”
Mrs. Simpson raised herself slowly from her chair. “You stay right there, sweet boy,” she said to Peanut before she stepped past him. The Labradoodle obeyed.
Dickce sensed that any offer of assistance would be rebuffed, but she was ready in case Mrs. Simpson should falter. She gave Peanut a stern look, hoping he would be still until Mrs. Simpson was back in her chair.
Mrs. Simpson moved slowly to a desk that stood against the wall and opened the top drawer. She shuffled papers for a moment, then turned with a single piece of paper in her hand. She brought it to Dickce and resumed her seat. Peanut promptly laid his head on her knee, and Mrs. Simpson patted it.
Dickce stared down at the rumpled piece of paper. The message was brief. And brutal, she decided. Regret to inform you that Coriander Simpson was killed in an accident in London. Burial to take place here. Sincere condolences. H. Wachtel
The name puzzled Dickce. She couldn’t recall any people with that name in Athena, though there must have been someone. Where else would Coriander have met him?
She looked at the date. June fifteenth. The same year that both Hadley and Callie disappeared from Athena.
Dickce returned the telegram to Mrs. Simpson. “Did you ever hear from this H. Wachtel again?”
Mrs. Simpson shook her head. “Not another word.” She sighed. “I couldn’t even bring my baby home to bury. She’s over there, and I don’t even know where.”
Dickce felt the woman’s grief, and for a moment she couldn’t speak. Finally she found her voice again. “Thank you for sharing this with me, Mrs. Simpson. I can only imagine how painful this is for you, and you have my deepest sympathies.”
Mrs. Simpson smiled briefly. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“I can tell you that your daughter must have left Athena around the same time that Callie Partridge did, but other than that, I don’t know anything. I’ve never heard of the person who sent the telegram.” Dickce shook her head. “I know there’s no comfort in that, but if I find out anything more, I will come back and tell you.”
“Thank you,” Mrs. Simpson said.
“Here’s your tea, Great-granny,” Monique said. The child’s quiet approach and sudden words startled Dickce, and she barely missed knocking over her own glass.
Mrs. Simpson accepted the glass and drank. Dickce decided she had taken enough of her hostess’s time. She finished her own tea and handed the glass to the hovering child. She thanked her again and rose.
“Mrs. Simpson, I appreciate your time, but I’d better get back on the road for home.” She pulled one of her calling cards from her purse and handed it to her hostess. “If there’s ever anything I can do for you, please call.”
Mrs. Simpson thanked her and held out her hand for Dickce to shake. “I hope you can find out what happened to Miss Callie,” Mrs. Simpson said. “She was always good to my daughter.”
“I’ll let you know, I promise.” Dickce held out her hand toward Peanut. “Come on, boy, time to go home.”
Peanut whined and looked up at Mrs. Simpson. She rubbed his head twice more and told him he was a sweet boy. Then he seemed satisfied and ready to go with Dickce.
Monique showed them to the door. She gave Peanut a quick hug and a pat on the head, and he returned her gestures with a couple of licks to her face. She giggled, and Dickce said good-bye.
Peanut jumped into the backseat, where Endora greeted him with several loud meows and a swipe at his head. Peanut barked at her, and that seemed to satisfy the cat. Once Peanut and Dickce were both settled, Benjy started the car and backed carefully out of the driveway. Dickce looked back to see Monique still on the porch, waving at them. She waved back until they were out of sight.
As Benjy navigated their way back to the highway, Dickce shared with him the details of her visit with Coriander Simpson’s mother. She concluded by saying, “There’s something fishy about that story and that telegram.”
“I think you’re right,” Benjy said. “You can’t remember anybody named Wachtel from Athena, you said.”
“No, I can’t,” Dickce replied. “But the name is oddly familiar for some reason. I must know it in some other context.” She shook her head. “Right now I can’t recall it. Hopefully it will come to me later.”
Benjy chuckled. “I usually remember things in the shower, for some reason.”
Dickce smiled. “Maybe I should take a shower when I get home and see if it helps.”
They were silent until they reached the highway south. “I can’t wait to tell An’gel about all this.” Dickce checked her watch. “It’s only a quarter to four. I wonder if she’s still talking to Hadley.” She fished out her cell phone and speed-dialed her sister. She listened briefly, then said, “Give me a call when you get this message, Sister.” She laid the phone on the seat beside her.
“I’m thinking about the timing of Coriander’s departure,” Benjy said. “She obviously left Athena not long after Hadley Partridge. If we accept the fact that the remains that we found belong to Mrs. Partridge, then Coriander probably left before Mrs. Partridge died. Does that sound reasonable?”
Dickce thought this over for a moment. “It seems reasonable, but we really can’t be sure when Coriander left. She might even have left before Hadley. We know she was dead by the fifteenth of June, two weeks after he says he left. She had to have a few days to get to London somehow, and she could have gone straight to Memphis with this Mr. Wachtel and boarded a plane for England.”
“True,” Benjy said. “Too bad we don’t know where Mrs. Turnipseed is, or we could ask her when Coriander left.”
“I only hope we get the chance to talk to her,” Dickce said. “For all we know she could be lying dead in a ditch somewhere.”
CHAPTER 26
An’gel had always prided herself on her reflexes, that hers were like those of a much younger woman. They served her well a split-second after she felt the impact of another car and her own vehicle began to skid on th
e wet road. She kept control of the car and managed to avoid going into the ditch. She didn’t try to look behind her to see the car that hit her. Instead, the second her car was mostly under control again, she floored the accelerator and aimed for the driveway to Riverhill.
If the car tried to follow her up the driveway, An’gel would have to come up with a plan to keep from getting hit again. She prayed that the other driver would think twice about following her any farther.
Seconds later An’gel reached the entrance to the driveway. She slowed just enough to enable her to turn in, then jammed the accelerator again and sped toward the house. Now she glanced into the rearview mirror. With great relief she saw that the road behind her was clear. She kept up her speed, however, until she reached the house. She slowed as she pulled around to the back and put the car into park. She sat there a moment, the motor still running, and craned her neck around to make sure the other car hadn’t followed her after all.
She didn’t see anything. She sat in the car a few seconds longer, then she opened the door, grabbed her purse, and ran to the back door, forgetting her umbrella. She jerked the door open and stumbled inside. With shaky hands she shut the door and locked it. She pushed her soggy hair back from her face.
“Lord have mercy, Miss An’gel, whatever is going on? You look like the devil himself is after you.” Clementine’s eyes fairly popped out of their sockets, or so it seemed to An’gel. “And look at you, dripping wet.”
“I’m okay,” An’gel said, her breath still ragged. “Need to sit down though.” She made her way shakily to one of the chairs around the kitchen table and dropped into it.
“You need a nip of something,” Clementine said. “I’ll get you some whisky. And a towel.”
An’gel nodded weakly. She concentrated on getting her breathing and her heart rate back to normal. As soon as she did, she was going to call Kanesha Berry and report the attack. She wondered briefly why the attacker hadn’t followed her off the highway, but she was grateful he hadn’t, whatever the reason.
Clementine quickly returned with both a large towel, which she wrapped around An’gel’s shoulders, and a healthy tot of whisky. An’gel downed the whisky in one gulp and felt the warmth begin to spread. She pulled the towel more tightly around her.
“I must look a mess,” she said with a weak smile. “Thank you, Clementine.”
“You surely do,” Clementine said. “What on earth is going on?”
An’gel gave the housekeeper a brief explanation. “Now I need to call Kanesha and tell her about this. It’s too late to find the lunatic, but she needs to know what happened.”
“Soon as you’re done with that, you need to get right on upstairs and out of those wet clothes.” Clementine shook her head. “Can’t have you coming down with a cold.”
“No, certainly not.” An’gel smiled briefly. She retrieved her cell phone from her purse and speed-dialed Kanesha’s cell. The call went to voice mail, and An’gel left a terse but coherent message about her ordeal before she went to change.
Twenty minutes later she was back downstairs, dressed in dry clothing, her hair restored to its usual state, and grateful to find that Clementine had fresh coffee waiting.
“Who do you think was trying to run you off the road?” Clementine asked.
“I’m not sure,” An’gel said. “It has to be somebody who was at Ashton Hall this afternoon, since it happened right after we all left. Barbie Gross and Lottie MacLeod were together in Lottie’s car, and Reba Dalrymple was with her son Martin. I didn’t really get a look at the car that hit me, though, so it could have been either pair.”
“Why would any of them want to run you off the road?” Clementine shook her head. “Don’t make no sense to me.”
“To me either,” An’gel said. “It has to have something to do with what happened at Ashton Hall forty years ago. That’s all I know at the moment. We’ve got to figure this out.”
Her cell phone rang, and she saw that Kanesha was returning her call.
“How are you, Miss An’gel? Were you hurt at all?” Kanesha sounded angry, An’gel thought.
“I was a bit shaky for a while afterwards,” An’gel said. “I feel fine now, though I might be sore tomorrow.”
“I’m thankful you’re okay,” Kanesha said. “Did you get a look at the car that hit you?”
“No, I didn’t. It all happened too fast, and all I could think about was getting away from whoever it was.” An’gel shuddered. For a moment she felt the terror she had experienced right after her car got hit.
“Tell me again where you were before this and what led up to the attack.”
An’gel gave the deputy a summary of her visit to Ashton Hall and explained who else was there. “They all left ahead of me,” she concluded. “So one of the cars could have been waiting for me to get on the highway. It was raining, and I didn’t see anyone, but there are a couple of side roads nearby where they could have been waiting.”
“I’ve already sent someone to investigate,” Kanesha said. “With the rain, though, I’m not sure they’ll be able to find anything. How badly was your car damaged?”
“I don’t know,” An’gel said. “I haven’t looked at it yet. To be honest, I haven’t really thought about it until now.”
“Leave it as it is for now,” Kanesha said. “There’ll be someone there a little later on to have a look at it. In the meantime we’re going to be checking with Mrs. MacLeod and Mrs. Dalrymple to see if they have any damage to their cars.”
“Then we’ll finally know who’s behind all this crazy behavior.” An’gel felt relieved. This might soon be over, and then they would know who was responsible for Sarinda’s death and Arliss’s accident.
“That’s what I’m hoping,” Kanesha said. “Then maybe we can find out why. I have to go now, Miss An’gel. You take care of yourself, and I’ll be back in touch soon.”
“Thank you,” An’gel said. “I’m really looking forward to hearing that this is all over.” She said good-bye and ended the call. She set the phone down on the table. As she did so, she suddenly felt exhausted. The ordeal had taken a toll, and she realized she needed to rest.
“I think I’m going to stretch out on the sofa in the study for a little while,” she told Clementine. “At least until Dickce and Benjy get home from Memphis.”
“That’s a good idea,” Clementine said. “I’ll let you know when they’re back.”
An’gel thanked her and headed for the study. She retrieved a blanket from a cabinet and then stretched out on the sofa. She covered herself with the blanket, got her head comfortably situated on a pillow, and moments later was sound asleep.
“I thought we’d never make it through all that rain,” Dickce said as Benjy turned off the highway onto the driveway at Riverhill. “You drove us safely through, and I’m thankful for that.”
Benjy smiled briefly. “I am, too. I’m ready to be out of the car, though, I can tell you that. It feels like we’ve been on the road all day.”
“I know. Thank goodness the rain finally stopped,” Dickce said. “Peanut and Endora are restless, too. I can’t wait to tell An’gel what we found out in Memphis.” She frowned. “I wonder why she didn’t call me back, though. Surely she’s not still at Ashton Hall with Hadley. I hope nothing’s wrong.”
They drove around the house and approached the garage. Dickce spotted their car where An’gel had left it. She gasped. “Oh my Lord, look at that. The car’s been hit. I hope An’gel is all right.”
The moment Benjy had his car stationary in the garage, Dickce was out and headed for the house. “I’ve got to find out about Sister,” she said.
She left Benjy to deal with Peanut and Endora, and she hurried to the kitchen. She found Clementine inside preparing their dinner.
“Clementine, where’s An’gel? Is she okay?” Dickce said. “What happened to the car?”<
br />
“She’s okay,” Clementine said. “She’s taking a little nap in the study.” She explained what happened, and then repeated it moments later when Benjy came in with the animals. Peanut and Endora made a beeline for Clementine and greeted her like they hadn’t seen her in months. The housekeeper spoke quietly to them and gave each a few rubs on the head.
“Thank the Lord she wasn’t hurt.” Dickce collapsed into the chair Benjy hastily pulled out for her. Clementine handed her a cup of coffee, and Dickce took it gratefully.
“Somebody from the sheriff’s department was here a little while ago,” Clementine said. “He looked at the car and took pictures of the damage. I didn’t wake Miss An’gel, though. She needs to rest.”
Dickce shuddered. “I’m sure she does. How terrified she must have been, though. She could have ended up in the hospital like poor Arliss McGonigal. Surely the police or the sheriff’s department can find the car that caused these accidents pretty soon.”
“I surely hope so,” Clementine said. “How was the trip to Memphis? Did y’all find out anything?”
“We found the Simpson house,” Benjy said. “Coriander’s mother still lives there.”
“I talked with her,” Dickce said after a sip of coffee. She shared the news of Coriander’s death with Clementine.
“That poor girl, killed like that on her honeymoon.” Clementine closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, she asked, “Who did you say she married?”
“A man named Wachtel,” Dickce replied. “I can’t recall anyone by that name from Athena, though the name sounds familiar for some reason.”
“No folks I know of by that name,” Clementine said. “Must’ve been somebody here just a short time, I reckon.”
“Maybe so,” Dickce replied.
“I’m going to look up the name,” Benjy said. “It’s too bad we don’t have the first name, instead of only an initial. Having a whole first name would make it easier. Still, I might be able to find something.”
Digging Up the Dirt Page 18
