The Angel Whispered Danger

by Mignon F. Ballard

  Amos settled himself on the rug in front of the door and promptly went to sleep, and I wandered around the empty house picking up paper cups and napkins that had been overlooked when we collected our after-supper litter. My aunt Leona would be sacked out by now in the bedroom at the end of the upstairs hall—too far away to hear me yell if the flashlight-bearing prowler in blue decided to return. And I knew she slept with earplugs because we’d all heard her complain of Uncle Lum’s snoring. The old house creaked for no good reason except that it was night, and that’s what old houses usually do then. At least, that’s what I told myself. I looked at the clock on the mantel. Marge and company had been gone over half an hour. Surely Grady and my uncles would be home soon.

  There was nothing of interest on Uncle Ernest’s bookshelves. (No surprise there!) And if I turned on the television, I might not be able to hear if anyone was trying to force his way inside. It occurred to me that maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea, and I was checking the newspaper for the schedule when I heard the cat meowing from the kitchen.

  Poor Dagwood! In the frenzy of the day, I doubted if anyone had thought to feed him. I was on my way to remedy that and had one hand on the swinging door when I heard the whir of the can opener and realized somebody had gotten there before me!

  Uncle Ernest had a key, of course, but Amos hadn’t barked and I hadn’t heard anyone drive up. I stopped where I was and tried to ease the door shut before whoever was in there saw me. It squeaked, of course. Too late now.

  “Aren’t you coming in? I thought I’d put on a pot of coffee—or tea, if you prefer.” Augusta stood at the sink; the wreath of daisies, still fresh, in her hair, and it made me sad to see them. My bridesmaids had carried Shasta daisies, and Ned used to remember anniversaries with an arrangement of the sunshiny flowers.

  “Such an efficient little machine,” Augusta said, nodding toward the electric can opener. “Zips open a tin in no time.”

  The open “tin” she referred to sat on the countertop and so did the cat. Penelope perched beside it dangling long legs while she stroked Dagwood’s gingery back.

  “You nearly scared me to death!” I said. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever considered letting a person know when to expect you?”

  “We thought you might be lonely, and perhaps even a bit apprehensive after the afternoon’s shocking misfortune.” Augusta filled my uncle’s dented metal pot with water and measured in coffee. She seemed to know where everything was kept.

  “Ella! She’s not—”

  “Still unconscious, and that’s probably for the best.” Her eyes grew sad. “Ella’s been terribly injured, Kate, but I don’t believe she’s suffering.”

  “Do you think she was pushed?” I watched her face as she answered.

  “I’m afraid I do.” Augusta took mugs from the cabinet and set them on the kitchen table, then pulled out two chairs, indicating that I was to sit. Her face grew troubled and I noticed that the necklace she wore, although it still sparkled, had turned from a dazzling purple to kind of a grayish blue.

  “There’s something you’re not telling me,” I said, and Augusta didn’t deny it.

  “I wanted to be certain first. Kathryn, I think your friend Ella was led to believe her cat was down in that ravine.”

  Dagwood, as if realizing he was being discussed, finished his food, and settled in Penelope’s lap to wash his paws. Penelope laughed, sounding faintly like distant wind chimes.

  “How do you know he wasn’t?” I asked.

  “Oh, the cat was down there all right, but he was inside a box.” Augusta rose to turn down the flame under the pot. Then she spoke softly to her charge. “Penelope, do wash out that tin please. It has a most dreadful odor.”

  “A box? What kind of box?” I asked.

  “A corrugated box, such as the kind you use for storing or shipping.” Augusta poured steaming coffee into mugs. It had a rich chocolate smell, although I hadn’t noticed her adding other flavoring. “Just think about it, Kathryn. If someone wanted to use a cat’s crying to lure Ella to the edge of a dangerous precipice, there is no way they could get the animal to stay in one place.” She smiled. “Cats have minds of their own, you know.”

  I nodded, remembering how Josie used to try and dress her kitten in doll’s clothing and wheel it around in a tiny carriage.

  “But how do you know it was in a box?” I asked, taking a swallow of the chocolate-laced brew.

  Augusta sipped before speaking. “When Penelope and I found the cat in the meadow just before you heard Ella crying, the poor animal was frightened to death. Something had upset it, and later when you told me Ella had been looking for her pet, I started to think about it. I know enough about cats to realize it wouldn’t have stayed in one place long—unless it was being held against its will . . . but how?”

  “So you think somebody deliberately took Ella’s cat from her rooms? But how can you be sure about the box?” I asked, refreshing my cup and Augusta’s.

  “Because we went back and found it there—or at least Penelope did. It was concealed in a small hollow beneath the ledge and hidden by dense vines. It was obvious that the flaps had been sealed with some kind of heavy tape, and one end was shredded where the cat had clawed its way out,” Augusta said.

  Penelope eyed longingly some leftover chocolate chip cookies Marge had left behind, and Augusta lifted an elegant brow at me. “Do you mind if she—”

  “Oh, please help yourself,” I said. “And there’s cold milk in the refrigerator.”

  “No more than two, Penelope . . . oh, all right, three. But wash your hands first.” Augusta gave me the kind of “weary mother” glance I’ve often exchanged with other parents. I guess being responsible for another person can be wearing—even on an angel.

  “Is the box still there? What did you do with it?” I asked.

  Dagwood curled around Augusta’s feet as she sipped her coffee and she leaned down now and then to stroke him. “Don’t worry, it’s in a safe place.”

  “In the attic,” Penelope said, seeming rather proud of herself. “We put some old papers and notebooks in there and hid it in the back.”

  “Good thinking!” I told her, and Penelope smiled so big she almost forgot to finish her last cookie.

  “That must have been what the blue ghost with the flashlight was looking for!” I said.

  “Blue ghost?” Augusta looked puzzled.

  “A man dressed in blue. The children think it’s a ghost.”

  “I’m afraid he was real enough,” Augusta said. “Probably waited until dark to go back and retrieve the box—only it wasn’t there.”

  “I’m surprised somebody didn’t see it earlier when they came to take Ella to the hospital,” I said. “I guess we were so worried about getting her there, we didn’t do much looking around.”

  Augusta whisked our empty mugs to the sink to wash. “And why would you?” she asked over her shoulder. “At the time, no one took what Ella said to heart. After all, why would anyone want to cause her harm?”

  I shook my head. “And what’s worse, it had to have been somebody here. Surely even Uncle Ernest would’ve noticed a stranger making off with poor Ella’s cat.”

  Augusta didn’t answer right away. I suppose she must have been thinking the same thing.

  “Just who was here today?” she asked finally.

  “Well . . . you’ve heard me mention Marge and her family; Josie’s staying with them. Marge’s mother is my aunt Jane, but they live in Alabama and couldn’t be here because her dad just had hernia surgery. And then there’s Deedee, who’s married to Parker Driscoll, and their daughter, Cynthia.”

  Augusta reached in her bag for a hankie, which she presented to Penelope, who was licking chocolate from her fingers, then nodded in my direction, apparently impatient for me to get on with it. “And?” she said.

  “Uncle Lum, Aunt Leona and their son, Grady . . .” I counted on my fingers. “Then Uncle Ernest, of course, and Ma Maggie and Violet . . . I th
ink that’s all . . . no, wait! I forgot Belinda, only she didn’t show up until this afternoon.”

  And then I had to explain to Augusta about Belinda Donahue and her connection to the family. “Violet says she and Ella didn’t get along,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean she shoved her over a ledge, and Uncle Ernest didn’t mention her being here earlier.” Which didn’t mean a thing, I thought. My uncle isn’t the chatty type.

  “Burdette phoned the sheriff’s department after he and Parker chased the trespasser all the way to Remeth Cemetery,” I told her, “and they promised to come out and look around, but I doubt if they’ll find anything now.”

  Augusta peered at her reflection in the kitchen window and tweaked a strand of straying hair, then flushed when she saw me watching. I don’t know why. If I had hair like Augusta’s, I’d carry a mirror in front of me.

  She turned quickly from the window and came to stand beside my chair. “I think it would be a good idea tomorrow,” she said, “if you told these policemen about the box.”

  But I almost forgot about that the next morning when members of the Belle Fleurs Garden Club turned up a skeleton in old Remeth churchyard. One that wasn’t supposed to be there.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  We heard it first from Burdette. Leona and Lum hadn’t come downstairs yet, and Uncle Ernest had already left for the hospital. Grady and I had finished our cereal and were on our second cup of coffee when we heard somebody hollering outside. I jumped up, recognizing the voice at once. My cousin Burdette’s accustomed to projecting into the far corners of the sanctuary—with or without a microphone. Something had happened to Josie, or to Marge or one of the boys!

  By the time I reached the door, Burdette was already halfway up the front steps and his round face was as colorless as a slice of white bread. “Cell phone’s dead,” he said, charging past me. “Gotta use the phone.”

  I stepped aside, too terrified to do anything but stammer, “W-what’s wrong?” Following him, I tugged at his elbow. “Burdette, is somebody hurt? Is Josie all right? Tell me! What’s going on?”

  Burdette mopped his brow with a crumpled red bandanna and shook his head. “No, Josie’s fine, Kate. Everybody’s okay . . .” He stopped to catch his breath. “It’s just that we found—Well, we were trying to dig up this old wisteria vine in the churchyard over there, and we pulled up a skeleton with it!”

  “Dear God!” I said, wishing I had skipped that second cup of coffee. “Can’t you just shove it back in and cover it up?”

  “You found a what?” I turned to find Grady standing in the kitchen doorway.

  “A skeleton.” Burdette punched in the emergency numbers and told the dispatcher what he’d just shared with Grady and me.

  “Yes, ma’am, I know we can expect to find skeletons in a cemetery,” he said, “but this one was buried in a shallow grave with no marker, and it appears to have been wrapped in some sort of tarp . . . tarp, yes . . . one of those plastic covers you use to keep out the rain.”

  I could see that Burdette, although usually calm, was beginning to lose his cool because his face was getting flushed. “No, ma’am, I don’t know how long it’s been there, but I suggest you get in touch with the people from forensics who might be able to find out . . . the police. Right. Whoever this person was didn’t wrap up in that tarp and climb in by himself. Or maybe it was herself. That’s another thing they’ll have to find out.”

  I glanced at Grady and the two of us couldn’t help but smile at our cousin, who was usually the model of composure. Burdette’s shirt and face were wet from perspiration, so I went to the kitchen for ice water while he gave the woman directions on how to reach Remeth churchyard.

  “Good Lord, what a shock! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” Burdette said. “I guess I’d better get back over there before the police come. I left Parker and three or four others who had volunteered to help clear the old place off, and they’re as curious as I am to find out what this is all about.”

  “Sounds like it’s all about murder to me,” I said. “Why else would somebody dump a body in an abandoned graveyard?”

  “Where did you find it?” Grady asked.

  Burdette drained his second glass of water. “Over by that far corner, sort of away from the rest. There aren’t any graves around there, so you can imagine what a jolt it was to dig up a skull!”

  “You can send the police over here when they’re finished with you,” I told him as he started to leave. “I have something to show them, too.”

  I told them about the box that had held Ella’s cat, only I had to lie and say I’d picked it up in the woods the day before but hadn’t noticed the claw marks until last night when I went to throw it out.

  “Why didn’t you say something sooner?” Grady wanted to know. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this morning.”

  “It might not mean a thing,” I said. “I didn’t want to cause a panic.”

  Burdette stuffed the bandanna into his pocket. “You’ll have to admit it makes sense, though. If somebody wanted to draw Ella to the edge of that ravine, that would’ve been the way to do it.”

  “Well, this is turning out to be one fine reunion, isn’t it?” Uncle Ernest said over our lunch of bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches—or lettuce and tomato sandwiches in Aunt Leona’s case. My uncle had returned from the hospital about an hour before to tell us that Ella’s condition was unchanged. The housekeeper remained in intensive care and the nurse had assured him they would call if Ella’s condition worsened. No one, including Uncle Ernest, seemed to think it would improve. “They only let me in to see her for a few minutes,” he told us, “and she didn’t even know I was there.”

  “Can you think of anybody who would want Ella out of the way?” Lum asked him, and Uncle Ernest shook his head. “Strangest thing I ever heard,” he said. “I just can’t believe anybody would do such a thing.”

  Uncle Ernest turned to me, “Kate, are you sure a cat was in that box?”

  “You saw it,” I said. “How else could it have been shredded from the inside?” Only a few minutes before, the police had left with the cardboard box after questioning all of us about the activities at Bramblewood during the past few days. They seemed especially interested in Ella Stegall’s background.

  “I never really knew much about poor Ella,” Grady admitted. “She was just always here.”

  My uncle raised a bristly brow. “Beg pardon?”

  “I said, Ella was just always here,” Grady told him.

  “Be forty-one years come October,” Uncle Ernest said. “Came from somewhere in Virginia, she said. Had a brother there. As far as I know, he was her only kin.” He paced the living room, pulling out the contents of drawers, turning vases upside down, and I knew he was looking for his pipe. Uncle Ernest never smoked his pipe unless he was upset about something.

  “It’s on the mantel,” I told him, pointing the way. “Behind that picture of Nana.” (Nana was the name we used for our Great-grandmother Templeton.)

  “She hides it, you know—Ella does. Says she can’t stand the smell.” My uncle tapped his pipe to empty the bowl, and frankly, I wasn’t too keen on the odor, either.

  “What on earth made you hire her?” Aunt Leona went straight to the point. “I mean, the woman couldn’t cook—even when she could see—and her housekeeping was hit and miss, to put it graciously. It couldn’t have been for her sparkling personality, and I certainly don’t remember Ella being any great beauty.”

  “Leona!” Uncle Lum looked as if he wanted to smother his wife. “That’s an awful thing to say, and with poor Ella lying—”

  “That’s just it,” Uncle Ernest said. “Poor Ella. She’s always been such a sad creature, even when she was young—or younger. I don’t think Ella was ever young. Must’ve been somewhere in her midthirties when she came here. Worked for a while at Horace Warren’s insurance agency, but Horace never was much of a businessman, and the firm went under. Horace felt kind of responsible for El
la, I guess . . . the woman had nowhere to go, and he asked me if I could use some help.”

  “But forty-one years! That’s going over and aboveboard, isn’t it?” Aunt Leona said, ignoring her husband’s scowl.

  “Who else do you know who would be content to live way up here so far from town?” Uncle Ernest came close to growling. “The guesthouse was empty and Ella seemed glad to get it. Then, as she got older, I fixed up some rooms for her here. She never got in my way, and I never got in hers. Seemed to work out just fine.”

  That was all well and good, I thought, but it still didn’t answer the question of who might have had it in for Ella Stegall. “By the way,” I said, giving my scheming side full rein, “did Belinda Donahue find you yesterday? Said she planned to go by the hospital.”

  Uncle Ernest frowned. “Did who what?”

  “Belinda Donahue. Did she find you at the hospital?”

  He nodded, drawing on his pipe, then leaned back in his chair. “Stayed for almost an hour. It really bothered Belinda, I think, this happening to Ella that way.” Uncle Ernest blinked at us over the smoke. “Didn’t get along, you know.”

  I started to say I’d heard, but my uncle didn’t give me a chance. “Guess you might as well hear this before everybody else does—bound to come out sooner or later . . . Belinda was married to Ella’s younger brother back in Virginia. It wasn’t a happy arrangement, but she stuck it out far longer than she should’ve. They had a daughter—married now and lives in Atlanta. After the daughter left home, Belinda filed for divorce and took a teaching position somewhere in North Carolina using her maiden name. Her husband never did reconcile himself to it, it seems, and according to Ella, the man grieved himself to death. Died a couple of years after that—of cancer, Belinda says, but Ella never forgave her for leaving him.”

  Uncle Ernest chuckled almost to himself. “You should’ve seen Ella’s face when Belinda Donahue showed up here in Bishop’s Bridge!”