The Angel and the Jabberwocky Murders

by Mignon F. Ballard

  “You mean Kemper? Shoot, he won’t tell us a thing! Acts like such a big shot, you’d think he was Double-O-Seven or something!” She sighed. “So if she mentions it, just pretend it’s business as usual, okay?”

  “We’ll see,” I told her, waving as I drove away.

  “But it isn’t, is it?”

  I jumped as a voice spoke beside me. Augusta!

  “I wish you’d quit doing that,” I said, frowning. “One of these days you’re going to make me drive straight into a tree! Isn’t what?”

  “Isn’t business as usual—not when a young woman disappears.”

  “You’ve heard something, haven’t you? Tell me.”

  “Only that the girl wasn’t well liked and didn’t seem to have any close friends. No one seems to know very much about her—or, sadly, to care.”

  “I know she’s made enemies,” I said, “but I can’t imagine anybody taking it to that extreme.”

  “The police were there today asking questions, looking around the campus.” Augusta’s face clouded. “I hope they’re not too late.”

  I had several calls on my answering machine when I got home. The first was from Ben Maxwell confirming dinner plans for Saturday. Ben and I became friends when I met him last year at Bellawood, where he was restoring antique furniture for the plantation. My husband, Charlie, had died in an accident three years before, and the idea of seeing someone else took some getting used to after having been married for thirty years to the man I thought would be my one and only love. As for Ben and me, we’re still in the “circling” stage of our relationship, but the circles are getting smaller.

  Jo Nell and Idonia had both left messages to please let them know if I’d heard any more about the missing girl, and my next-door neighbor Nettie McGinnis had called to ask if I’d seen her niece that day. The last message was from Weigelia: “Lucy, what’s going on over at Sarah Bedford? Is Celeste all right? I’ve near ’bout worried myself half to death over that young’un. How about giving me a call when you got a minute?”

  She sounded desperate, so I phoned her first, but her line was busy, so I returned Nettie’s call.

  “Do a favor for me, will you, please, Lucy Nan?” My neighbor spoke slowly and plainly, so I knew she must be wearing her teeth. “I don’t want Leslie to think I’m butting in, but I don’t like what I’m hearing about this girl who seems to have just up and vanished. Would you look her up sometime tomorrow—when you get a chance, of course? I’ve baked some of those snickerdoodle cookies she used to like, and I thought maybe you might take them to her for me.”

  “Of course I will, and try not to worry, Nettie. I’m sure Leslie’s fine, and from what I’ve heard about D. C. Hunter, she might have just decided Sarah Bedford wasn’t for her.”

  “The cookies are cooling now, and as soon as I can get them boxed up, I’ll bring them over.”

  I was about to tell Nettie I would be glad to come by for the cookies myself when my doorbell rang.

  Weigelia Jones stood on my porch, looking kind of like a wilted hydrangea in her baggy blue sweater and flower-splashed dress.

  “Now how did I know it would be you?” I said, ushering her inside. “Come in and have some coffee.” Augusta usually keeps a pot on, and there was a plate of fresh brownies on the table, although I don’t know when she’d had time to make them.

  Weigelia plopped her ample self on one kitchen chair, her large purple purse on another, and helped herself. “Did you see Celeste? She’s okay, isn’t she? She told me she’s taking your class.”

  “Not only is she all right, but I’m delivering her dirty laundry, which you’ll find in the trunk of my car along with some of her summer clothes.”

  “And what’s all this about a girl disappearing over there? It sure don’t sound good to me.”

  “Celeste is fine,” I told her. “She doesn’t even know this girl well. Nobody seems to. Heck, Weigelia, you probably know more than I do. I know you hear everything that goes on in Stone’s Throw—and don’t tell me different! The police were over there asking questions a good part of the day. Didn’t your cousin tell you anything?”

  “Kemper says Chief Harris don’t want any of that stuff to get out, so he ain’t talkin’ much,” she muttered. “Bossy, thick-headed thing probably don’t know enough to talk about!”

  As much as Weigelia bad-mouthed her cousin Kemper, I knew she was proud of him, so I just let that pass. Besides, in my book, Chief Harris is a Jackass with a capital J. but I didn’t share my opinion with Weigelia, and I could tell by her expression she wasn’t sharing everything with me, either. “You’ve heard something, though, haven’t you? What is it? Tell me.”

  It was like prying up chewing gum, but she finally gave in. “Kemper says somebody on that girl’s—what’s her name, B.C.? Sounds like a headache powder.”

  “D.C.,” I said.

  “Anyway, somebody on D.C.’s hall thought she heard her door slam Saturday morning. Woke her up, she said. Then it sounded like somebody was crying.”

  “Where was her roommate?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “That’s all I know, and I ain’t supposed to know that. I reckon she wasn’t there that night.” Weigelia pushed aside her coffee mug and frowned. “Wasn’t some girl killed there not too long ago? Found her body in the Old Lake?”

  “Four years ago, to be exact. Girl from somewhere in Florida, but I don’t see how the two can be related. Besides, D. C. Hunter isn’t dead…at least we hope she isn’t.”

  “You will keep an eye out, though, won’t you?” she said on her way out. “The good Lord ain’t seen fit to give me and Roy no babies, and Celeste, she’s my only little sister—but that girl—she ain’t tellin’ me nothin’!”

  I put my arm around her as I walked her to the door. “Try not to worry. If anything has happened to this girl, they’ll have to beef up campus security big-time and be on the lookout for strangers.”

  Weigelia turned to look at me from underneath her squashy violet hat. “And how do they know it’s a stranger?” she said.

  Chapter Three

  The pale thin girl with shoulder-length brown hair sat alone in the college cafeteria, a book propped in front of her. Her lunch tray, I noticed, was pushed to the side and contained a bowl of chicken noodle soup with skim on top, some broken crackers, and a pear with a few bites out of it. She didn’t look up as I approached.

  I had come early to deliver cookies to my neighbor’s niece. Leslie Monroe had been having some emotional problems, Nettie said. Something to do with her father’s remarriage, and she had been concerned about her even before the D. C. Hunter dilemma.

  “I come bearing gifts,” I said and put the box of cookies on the table in front of her. “Snickerdoodles. Your aunt sent them.” From the looks of her, she could use them.

  Her smile was sudden and sweet and I noticed that she had the kind of plain, no-frills good looks that would last, if only she weren’t so skinny.

  “Oh, great! My favorites. Thanks.” Leslie moved a stack of books from the chair beside her and offered me a seat. “Two major tests tomorrow,” she explained.

  “I honestly didn’t recognize you when I saw you on campus the other day,” I admitted. “You’ve changed quite a bit since you used to visit next door.”

  Leslie groaned. “And I’ll bet Aunt Nettie sent you to check up on me. Dad’s already called like three times this week.”

  “Not so. I happen to be working here with a class this quarter—Hands-on History. I’m only an errand girl, although I would accept a commission.” I gazed longingly at the cookies until she finally caught on and offered me some.

  “Oh, I’ve heard of your class. Wish I could take it, but they didn’t offer it to freshmen.” Leslie glanced at the cookies but didn’t take one. I started on my second.

  “I’ve been smelling these all the way over here,” I said, dusting crumbs from my hands. “Had to get them to you right away or there might not have been any left.”

&
nbsp; “Please thank Aunt Nettie for me…and tell her I’m still present and accounted for.”

  I promised her I would. “I don’t suppose they’ve heard any more about the missing girl?” I refused another cookie, feeling extremely self-righteous.

  “No, but the police have been here like all morning. It’s pretty grim around here.” Leslie pointed to a man with a scraggly-looking beard toying with his lunch at a table in the corner. He frowned at whatever he was reading in a folded newspaper. “Some people think she’s been seeing Dr. Hornsby like outside of class—if you know what I mean.”

  “Why? Has anybody seen them together?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t think so, but you know how rumors get started. She’s in his lit class—sort of an unofficial assistant, I guess. Helps grade papers and stuff. I’ve seen them together a couple of times in the library. He’s writing a book, you know, and I heard it’s already been accepted. Anyway, you could tell she like had the hots for him just from the way she acted.”

  The mysterious Dr. Hornsby slathered butter on a square of cornbread and chewed slowly, washing it down with coffee, apparently unaware of our attention.

  “A little old for her, isn’t he?” I said. “Must be close to forty.”

  “Has a flock of kids, too. Four, I think. Wife’s kinda weird. Won’t wear makeup and gets all her clothes like from the Salvation Army—at least that’s what I’ve heard. She’s not real friendly. We don’t see her around much.”

  I glanced again at the professor as he shoved aside a half-eaten dish of pudding. His tie was crooked, his eyes red-rimmed, and his beard was long overdue for a trim. Who knows what he might look like on a good day, but this wasn’t one of them.

  “Somebody said they thought they heard D.C. come back to her room early Saturday,” I said.

  Leslie slammed her book shut. “Yeah, she was there—for a while, anyway. I just try to stay out of her way. Had to play basketball with her in PE last week and she told me I moved like a slug.”

  On my way out of the cafeteria I looked around for my son, Roger, who teaches in the History Department there, but I wasn’t surprised not to see him. When he’s not raiding my refrigerator at lunchtime he’s usually indulging in a cheeseburger or a Reuben sandwich over at As You Like It, a nearby sandwich shop catering to the student body and faculty alike. Roger’s wife, Jessica—bless her heart—chose my son to love—which, in itself, makes her okay in my book—and together they have given me six-year-old Teddy, the future catcher for the Atlanta Braves; but to Jessica, consuming meat and sweets is in the same category as running with scissors.

  If something had happened to D. C. Hunter, I thought on my way to class, there wouldn’t be a run on the florists here in town, and from the discussion I overheard before class that day, it seemed that even her roommate wasn’t sure how long she’d been missing.

  “Sally left D.C. brushing her teeth when she went to breakfast last Friday,” one girl said, “but she never showed up for any of her classes.”

  “Didn’t make it to rehearsals, either,” another reminded us. “I hear the director’s already replaced her with the understudy.” She spoke softly and looked around as if one of the others might be next to disappear.

  A classmate nodded solemnly. “They’ve tried calling her cell phone but can’t get through. She must’ve turned it off.”

  “Or somebody did,” Paula Shoemaker said. “A girl on her hall said she thought she heard D.C. crying in her room sometime early Saturday morning, but I don’t know if anybody actually saw her.”

  “Where was Sally all this time?” I asked. “Wouldn’t she hear her come in?”

  But D.C.’s roommate, I was told, had bunked in with friends on the first floor Friday night.

  “Sally said she found a damp towel in their bathroom later that Saturday,” Celeste said, “but she isn’t sure it wasn’t there the day before.”

  “And what about her mail?” The girl they called “Troll” plopped her books on the table. Her name, I learned, was Joanette, but she happened to have the distinction of living in the room under the stairs in Emma P. Harris Hall. “Sally’s been collecting it from the school post office since Friday. It’s on her way to class, so she usually picks it up for both of them. Somebody said it’s still sitting there on D.C.’s desk—hasn’t even been opened.”

  “I don’t know why I let you talk me into this,” Ellis said later, picking beggar lice from her mud-streaked jeans. “Augusta’s had firsthand experience with natural dyes, and she’s been around a lot longer than I have. Why me?”

  “She’ll turn up sooner or later,” I said, “but it makes it a little awkward when we’re the only ones who can see her. Besides,” I reminded her, “Papa Zeke taught you all about things like this. Remember how he used to whittle us whistles out of slippery elm, and those little water wheels we put in the creek?” Back in our Scouting days, Ellis’s granddaddy had taught us how to identify all kinds of wildlife and once made pink lemonade from sumac berries—not the poison kind, of course.

  The girls in my class were on a field trip after class that day to gather the materials we would later use for dyes, and I glanced warily at the sky as I walked. The day had begun brisk and sunny, but now the blue was almost obliterated by a gray watercolor sky, and it seemed to be getting darker by the minute.

  The wine-red roots and berries of the pokeweed that sprouted tall in scraggly undergrowth dyed up anywhere from red to purple, and the outside hulls of black walnuts from a tree at the far end of the back campus produced shades of black and brown. We collected the pokeweed first, pulling the plants from the ground with a few forceful tugs. I wanted to keep the roots and berries separate to see if it would make a difference in color, and each student had brought along bags for that purpose.

  Ellis stopped to dig up a couple of tiny red cedars that dotted the field around us. The roots were supposed to dye up purple, and several of the girls were collecting the flowers of goldenrod for a particular shade of yellow.

  “I see the professor is keeping her distance,” Ellis whispered as Joy Ellen Harper and some of the others plunged ahead of us through broom sedge and brambles to the remote part of the campus that had once been a popular recreation spot.

  “At least she had the good sense to wear boots,” I said, extracting my sneaker-clad foot from a clump of muddy goo. Joy Ellen seemed resigned to my being assigned to her, but I got the distinct impression that she wasn’t happy about joining us today. Well, she had insisted on coming along!

  “Wasn’t the old stable somewhere about here?” Ellis asked, and I nodded, although I barely remembered the building. The trails were long overgrown, and only a faint circle remained of the riding ring where industrious joggers sometimes ran. The Old Lake, once a favorite swimming place, had been drained since the death of that student several years before.

  “Something tells me we’d better make it quick.” Celeste, who trudged along beside us, glanced up as the first drops fell. We had spread out over several acres to gather as much and as quickly as we could. A couple of girls collected handfuls of acorns from a gnarled red oak at the edge of the field, while a little farther away three of their classmates knelt to scoop up fallen black walnuts and throw them into bags. The three of us hurried to join them, staining our fingernails yellowish-brown from the hard green hulls. The acrid smell was almost suffocating. A red spatter of pokeberry juice stained the front of my shirt, and my hands looked as if I’d dipped them in blood.

  “This is enough. We’d better start back,” I said as water plopped on my face and trickled under my collar. A loud clap of thunder seemed to shake the ground and I called to the others to hurry back to the main campus and shelter. Through a scattering of pine saplings I glimpsed Joy Ellen’s red-and-black-checkered jacket and heard her call out. She shouted again, and this time I detected what I thought was a little more than concern in her voice.

  “You go with the others,” I told Ellis, who wasn’t the least incl
ined to argue. “I’ll see what Joy Ellen’s yelling about.”

  Great, I thought, as a dripping pine branch slung water in my face and thistles tore into my ankles, all we need now is to lose another girl!

  Joy Ellen stood herding a group of students in front of her at the rim of what used to be the Old Lake and I could hardly see her for the rain. Sloshing through terra-cotta puddles, I called out to her. “Is this everybody?” I didn’t want to leave any students behind, especially if the college had a killer-in-residence.

  “All but two.” Joy Ellen rubbed a wet sleeve across her forehead and still managed to look neat. “Paula and Miriam went over there on the other side of the lake bed for broom straw—said you told them it’s supposed to make a yellow dye.”

  My fault, of course. I nodded, wishing I had left the broom sedge for another day.

  Joy Ellen squinted into the distance, shielding her eyes from the rain. “I guess they’re all right. Must’ve taken shelter somewhere, but I don’t want to go off and leave them.”

  Like I would. “Then let’s go find them,” I said, and sending the others back to main campus, the two of us started around the mounded edge of the Old Lake bed.

  And then we heard the screams.

  They weren’t “Hurry, we’re getting soaked and I’m afraid of lightning” screams but were as cold and basic as fear itself. The horrible high-pitched shrieking went straight to the nerve like a nightmare dentist’s drill, and it didn’t stop.

  The horror of that sound gripped my middle with a very real pain that worked its way to my chest, then my throat, until it rode my breath out in a groan. I found myself running without even realizing it and Joy Ellen sprinted along beside me, her fingers digging into my arm. We saw the old shed before we saw the girls. A sturdy square building of gray stone, it sat entwined in a network of vines behind a screen of cedars. One of the double doors stood open, and a few feet away Paula Shoemaker crouched and vomited in the tall grass. Beside her, Miriam Platt grasped her knees and cried, rocking back and forth in the mud.