An Angel to Die For

by Mignon F. Ballard

  “Ms. Cress, I’m calling about little Joey,” I began. “Joey Dobson. His moth—”

  “What’s wrong?” Augusta asked.

  “She hung up. Wouldn’t even let me finish. She just hung up!”

  “I expect you startled her, calling out of the blue like that. She didn’t know who you were, what you wanted.”

  “If she’d given me half a minute, I would’ve told her. She has no right to keep that baby from us!”

  Augusta remained serene. “You mentioned a name?”

  I nodded. “Ola. Ola Cress. Who do you suppose she is?”

  “I don’t know. Housekeeper. Baby-sitter. Maybe a relative of the Gaineses.” She smiled. “Tell you what, let’s go thaw some of that vegetable soup I saw in the freezer. You’ll think better with something in your stomach. Let things settle a bit and we’ll try her again.” She shrugged. “Maybe she thought you were selling magazines.”

  But when I tried to call her after lunch, Ola Cress either wasn’t at home or she didn’t answer the phone. “I’ll just have to go there,” I told Augusta.

  “We’ll just have to go there,” she said. “And what about your mother? Aren’t you going to mention this to her?”

  “Of course I am, but I don’t think she could stand the emotional stress if we don’t find Joey right away.” From the way Ola Cress had reacted, I was afraid of some kind of snag, and it was about all I could do to keep my own feelings under control. But then I had Augusta. “I’ll tell her as soon as I know something for sure.”

  I smiled, imagining Mom’s response to hearing the news. If you could capture hope in a bottle, she would have enough to last a lifetime. Maggie was my mother’s baby who came along when I was almost six. Her pictures lined the walls: Maggie in her pink tutu for her first ballet recital; her flag uniform in the junior high band; her high school cheerleading outfit. The blue china tea set that had belonged to my sister sat on a tray on the dining-room sideboard. The tiny red chair Dad had made for her doll, Miss Mary Priscilla, named for Maggie’s first Sunday school teacher, waited in the hall upstairs. Maggie had taken Miss Mary Priscilla with her when she left.

  I was going to phone the sheriff’s office and let them know I would be out of town for a few days when I remembered I hadn’t yet told them about the man Suzie saw.

  “I was just going to call you,” Deputy Weber said. “We picked up a vagrant near your place this morning and put him on a bus to Atlanta, which is where he claimed he was headed. Don’t see how he could be the one who killed that woman we found or tampered with your uncle’s grave. No record, and he says he got here yesterday from North Carolina. Story checks out.”

  “Did he have a beard and earflaps?” I asked.

  The deputy laughed. “I’d say he looked kind of scruffy. Hadn’t shaved in a while, if that’s what you mean. I didn’t notice his hat.”

  “What about Jasper?”

  “We haven’t turned up anything there either, but he’ll surface. Jasper always does. Just lock up tight when you leave, and we’ll be out to look around as often as we can.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve learned anything more about the dead woman?” I asked. “Or my uncle Faris?”

  “Still no lead on the woman, but we’re working on it. One will lead to the other. I’m sure of it.

  “Oh, and don’t be alarmed if you see a truck backing up to your barn. We’ll store that casket down at the county barn until . . . well, until we know what’s going on.”

  I was ready to leave that very day for Ruby, Tennessee, which turned out to be the area of Ola Cress’s phone listing. According to the map, Ruby was less than fifty miles from Athens, where Maggie was killed, and if we left right away, we should be there by dark. But Augusta convinced me I needed a good night’s sleep and a fresh start in the morning.

  And how did she expect me to sleep, I wanted to know, with the wicked things going on in our backyard and the prospect of finding my sister’s baby on my mind? But I packed a small bag at Augusta’s urging (You never know how long you’ll be gone, and the weather is so unpredictable this time of year!), and tumbled into bed.

  The phone rang before my head even warmed the pillow.

  “Prentice? Hey, you weren’t asleep, were you? Don’t know how you can with all that going on over there.” My cousin Be-trice paused for a snuffling breath. She has chronic adenoid problems. “Have they found out who that body is yet? You must be a nervous wreck! Why would anybody want to dump the poor soul there?”

  I told her that as far as I knew, the woman’s identity was still a mystery, but I hoped the police would know something soon.

  “Is it true that somebody made off with Uncle Faris? I heard they sacrificed a goat or something, smeared blood everywhere!”

  Our uncle’s grave was empty, I said, but as far as I knew there had been no animal sacrifice. She sounded disappointed.

  “I’m going to have to be out of town for a couple of days,” I said. “Would you mind feeding the cat?”

  I knew my cousin would pounce on an excuse to see what was going on, and I’d found out long ago the best time for Be-trice to visit was when I wasn’t around.

  That night I dreamed I heard a baby crying and the sadness of it pulled at my heart. I wandered about in the dark following the sound, only when I thought I was getting closer, the crying stopped. When I opened my eyes, my face was wet. It was morning. The morning of the day I hoped to meet my nephew.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The image of little Joey traveled in front of me as we drove to Tennessee that morning. Of course it was only the Joey I imagined. Would he have long lashes like his mother’s? Her dark, sparkling eyes? He looked blond in the photograph—like his grand-daddy and me. Maggie had our mother’s rich brown hair.

  Augusta sat up front with me and sang—not always on key, but somehow it didn’t matter. She liked the old ones best, she said, songs from as far back as the twenties and thirties. I learned the words to “Side by Side,” a Depression song, and some silly thing from the forties about little lambs eating ivy. Her favorite, of course, was “My Blue Heaven.”

  The singing helped to keep my mind off what we might find—or not find when we got there. What if Sonny’s family had reached Joey first? In spite of the cheery songs, a dark thought slipped in, and I couldn’t help but think of a frightened toddler crying for a mother that never came. A tear slipped down my face.

  “None of that,” Augusta said. “The time for crying is past. Tears won’t help your sister or her little boy now.”

  “What tears?” I blinked away a shimmery haze. She was right, although I hated like the dickens to admit it. “What if Sonny’s relatives have Joey?” I said. “I don’t even know where they live.”

  “It might be a good idea to find out.” Augusta leaned back in her seat and shook loose her hair. Today she wore a gauzy dress of turquoise and lilac with a scarf long enough to circle the state. She fingered the necklace as she spoke, and it shimmered like fiery opals. “You might check with the police in the town where the accident happened.”

  I frowned. “But if we tell them about Joey, they might not let us see him. Sonny’s people could have legal custody.” The thought turned my insides to mush.

  Augusta’s eyes were closed and she was so quiet I thought she’d gone to sleep. “What about the people at the funeral home there? Do you remember which one it was?”

  “Clark and Clark.” I would never forget it. I had to deal with them over the phone to have Maggie’s body shipped home. “Ruby’s on the other side of Athens; it wouldn’t be out of the way.” I looked at the clock on the dashboard. “Shouldn’t take too long if we hurry.” I glanced at my seraphic passenger. “What do we do about lunch?”

  “I’m rather fond of barbecue. With pickles. And some of that wonderful stew. Brunswick stew I think it’s called.”

  “I thought angels only ate ambrosia,” I said.

  She closed her eyes and smiled. “Only those who haven’t
tasted Brunswick stew.”

  We saw a likely looking spot on the other side of Chattanooga and I ordered our lunch from the drive-through. Augusta gave it her blessing, proclaiming the sweetened tea close to her own.

  It was midafternoon by the time we reached Athens, and I stopped at a gas station to look up the address of the funeral home. Fortunately, it wasn’t far away.

  “What should I say?” I asked Augusta as we pulled into the parking lot a few minutes later.

  “You could start with the truth.” Her tranquil gaze gentled me. “Don’t worry; you’ll be fine.”

  And I knew I would.

  The junior partner of Clark and Clark looked to be about seventy and walked with a cane. If his father was around, I didn’t want to meet him.

  Yes, of course he remembered speaking with me, he said after we were seated in a small hushed room that smelled heavily of carnations. “Such a tragedy about your sister, a young life cut short.”

  I let him finish his spiel. “I’m trying to locate my sister’s husband’s family, the Gaineses,” I said. “To tell the truth, I didn’t know Maggie was married until the accident. I’m afraid she wasn’t much for keeping in touch,” I added, seeing his long face grow longer, and maybe I was mistaken, but I thought I detected a slight expression of distaste at the mention of the family’s name.

  “Yes, I remember the family,” he said. “The young man’s father came for his body. There were several brothers as well, I believe.”

  “Do you know where I can find them?”

  “Not right offhand, but I can look them up.”

  I trailed after him into an adjoining room where he seemed to move in slow motion as he switched on a computer, then hesitated before punching a few keys. “Right. Here it is: Pershing Gaines, lives over in Sleepy Creek. That’s about thirty miles the other side of Knoxville.”

  Sleepy Creek. That sounded peaceful enough, I thought. He wrote something on a card and gave it to me. It was a business card promoting the funeral home and on the back was an address, 278 Wildwater Road.

  “Do you remember if the family had a child with them?” I asked. “A small boy?”

  The man switched off his computer and stood slowly, bracing himself against the desk. “A child? I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “No, I’m certain of it. I would’ve remembered that.”

  I was so relieved to hear the Gaineses didn’t have Joey with them, I thanked the man at least three times on my way out.

  “Ma’am?” Mr. Clark spoke as I reached the door. “I’d tread lightly with those folks if I were you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “From the way the young man’s father talked when they were here, I think they blame your sister for their son’s death. The autopsy showed he had drugs in his system.”

  “Drugs? Why blame Maggie for that? Sonny Gaines was driving. He certainly had no business behind the wheel of a car—he didn’t even try to stop! We’re the ones who should be upset.”

  “I wouldn’t call them upset,” Mr. Clark, Jr., said. “I’d call them foamin’ at the mouth mad.”

  I caught Augusta sneaking a peek at herself in the car mirror as I started back to the parking lot. With a quick little tweak here and a pat there, she repaired whatever she imagined was wrong with her image and seemed pleased with the result. I told her what Mr. Clark had said as she adjusted her scarf.

  “I must say, you don’t seem worried,” I said as we drove away.

  “Being worried won’t do us any good. Being prepared will.”

  “You sound like a Boy Scout,” I said.

  “I once filled in as Juliette Low’s angel for a brief period a few years back,” Augusta said. “Founded the Girl Scouts, you know. About wore me out, that lady did! Crossing foot bridges and driving like a wild woman. I can assure you I was relieved when that assignment was over.” Augusta took a deep breath. “As for the Gaineses’ ill will, forewarned is forearmed, that rascal Cervantes said.”

  “You read Cervantes?” All I could remember was Don Quixote.

  “Read him? I knew him. Only fleetingly, mind you. Too adventurous to remain in one place long.”

  “I wish all I had to fight were windmills,” I said. The Gaines gang didn’t sound like anyone I’d like to have in my neighborhood, much less in my family. How in the world did Maggie let herself get mixed up with somebody like that? And I found myself getting annoyed with my dead sister all over again.

  Augusta leaned forward and looked at me. “Scowling doesn’t become you, Prentice.” She examined the passing landscape of grazing cattle before speaking again. “I assume you worked things out with your young man?”

  “Huh?”

  “That night you spent at your aunt’s. He telephoned, left a message.”

  I groaned. In all the excitement of learning about Joey, I hadn’t had time to check the answering machine. “I don’t suppose you heard what he said?”

  “I couldn’t very well avoid it since I was right there in the room. Seems he wants to talk rather urgently and begs you to please get in touch.”

  “I haven’t talked to Rob since early October,” I said. “Guess he’ll keep a little longer.”

  About ten miles outside of Ruby I began rehearsing what I would say to Ola Cress. I had even brought pictures of my sister and myself together to prove our relationship, but what good would they do if I couldn’t find her, or if she wouldn’t give me a chance to speak? Anxieties, along with the slaw and barbecue I’d had for lunch, played leapfrog in my stomach, until finally I stopped at the edge of town just to get some air.

  “Breathe deeply and think blue,” Augusta said as I stood beside the car.

  “Blue?”

  “It’s a tranquil color. Restful. Just close your eyes and relax. You’ll see.”

  I pictured a summer sky with white clouds drifting, a sapphire lake dotted with swans. And maybe it was the blue, or maybe the barbecue made friends with the slaw, but I felt much better when I got back behind the wheel again. A few miles down the road I stopped at a convenience store with a telephone out front and looked up Ola Cress’s address. Thank goodness she was listed!

  The woman behind the counter directed me to Cinnamon Street, which was about four or five blocks to the right after you passed the post office. It was a little after four o’clock, and if Ola Cress worked during the day, chances were she might not be at home. Fine, I thought. That would give me an opportunity to look around.

  Ruby wasn’t a big town, but the streets were clean, the buildings seemed to be well taken care of, and it had been there a long time. The rambling frame houses would be almost hidden from the street when the oaks came into leaf. Had my sister lived in this town? If so, I hoped she had found comfort here.

  At the corner, one little girl pushed another in a rope swing. Farther down the street, a group of young boys, who looked to be about Cub Scout age, tussled on the lawn of the Methodist Church. Several older men clustered in front of the downtown bank. I could hear their laughter as I stopped for the light. A young mother passed by pushing her baby in a stroller, and my heart did a double flip because she looked a little like Maggie. But she wasn’t Maggie. Maggie was dead, and I was going to find her little boy and bring him home where he belonged.

  I turned right at the post office and passed an elementary school of worn red brick, a row of shops: florist, cleaners, bakery, then drove through a residential area of smaller homes set close to the street. “There’s Cinnamon,” Augusta said, pointing to a street sign, and we turned and made our way slowly up the narrow winding road looking for the number of the house where I hoped to find my sister’s child.

  Number 106 Cinnamon Street was a duplex on a slight hill surrounded by bushy shrubbery that would soon come into flower: quince, forsythia, lilac. I recognized them because we had some in our yard at Smokerise. Maggie should have felt at home here.

  The house seemed to have been a one-family residence, converted to house two families. I parked
the car out front and climbed the five steps to a broken cement walk that led to the porch. I couldn’t see a light in any of the windows, and it didn’t look as if anyone was at home. On the porch a metal glider sat against the wall, and two folded aluminum lawn chairs rested on top of it waiting out the season. Letters fanned out from the mailbox by the door, and I brazenly read the front of an envelope. It was addressed to Ola Cress.

  I knocked at the door, but no one answered. I didn’t expect them to. After waiting for what I thought was a reasonable length of time, I wandered around the outside of the house looking for any sign of Joey. The other duplex didn’t seem to be occupied, and the shades were drawn on Ola’s side. A big yellow cat rubbed against my legs as I skirted the back porch. A stack of terra-cotta pots leaned against the steps waiting for spring, and a plant that looked like oregano tumbled from a circle of stones nearby.

  Okay, so Ola Cress had a cat and cooked with herbs. But was she kind to children? I ducked under the bare limbs of a dogwood tree and started back to the car. That was when I saw the blue canvas baby swing at the far end of the back porch, and in the seat, my sister’s beloved rag doll, Miss Mary Priscilla.

  CHAPTER SIX

  They’re not at home right now. Can I help you?” Ola Cress’s neighbor from across the street stood on the sidewalk, arms crossed. At a guess, I’d say she weighed over two hundred pounds, and that’s being polite. I wasn’t going to tangle with her.

  I offered my hand and a smile. “I’m Prentice Dobson. Ola doesn’t know me, but she was a friend of my sister’s, and I’ve been trying to find her. Do you know where they went?” She had said they, hadn’t she? Which must mean Ola didn’t live alone.

  “Went to visit her brother, I think. Somewhere near Chattanooga.” Her little brown eyes locked in on me and she wrapped her bright pink sweater around her and shuffled her feet. I saw that she wore slippers that used to be white and used to be fuzzy.

  “Do you know when they’ll be back?” I said.