Southern Ghost

by Carolyn G. Hart

  In the bedroom, the fax phone rang and the machine began to clatter.

  But Max made no move—toward the fax.

  Instead, he slipped an arm around Annie’s shoulders and pulled her close. “Hey, we can’t work all—”

  A hard, impatient rapping reverberated against their door.

  11:30 A.M., SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1970

  The two women stood locked in a tight embrace, the auburn head pressed down against soft dark curls.

  Julia trembled. “I can’t go home. I can’t. Oh, God, Amanda, I’ll die if he touches Missy.”

  Chapter 15.

  Miss Dora surged into the living room of their suite, her dark-gray cloak swirling around her, her silver-headed cane thumping against the heart pine floor. She stopped in the center of the artfully decorated room, planted her stick firmly in front of her, and raked them with those bright, malevolent eyes.

  “Noon,” she rasped. “Where have you been? What have you accomplished?”

  Miss Dora deigned to accept a hard straight chair, her back erect, her head high. Annie sat primly on the love seat. Alone. Her posture was excellent. Max stood respectfully near Miss Dora.

  As they made their reports, the old lady interspersed an occasional comment.

  “Lucy Jane’s no fool.” The wizened face puckered in thought. “So she’s skittish about Amanda. That’s interesting. Don’t quite see why, after all these years. Hmm.”

  She smiled sardonically as Max concluded. “So Whitney tossed you out, eh? He’s blustering. I’ll fix his wagon. But, first things first. My own investigations, made this morning, indicate the fire was set either by Julia or by Milam.” It was almost a modest announcement. And even Miss Dora was willing to accept appropriate praise. At their exclamations of interest, the sallow skin was touched by a faint pink glow. “It is quite clear that the blaze was fueled by gasoline. I confirmed that today when I spoke to our fire chief. Early this morning, I checked the garage at Tarrant House. The gasoline container used for the lawn mower was full. So, it was either replenished or not used. If replenished, I reasoned it must have been done this morning. I stopped at every gas station within the radius of several miles and inquired, presenting photographs of Charlotte and Whitney. All responses were negative. This done, I drove—”

  Annie gasped. “Miss Dora, you drive?”

  Miss Dora swept Annie with a furious reptilian gaze. There was a long moment of outraged silence, then the old lady snarled, “Are you questioning my competence, young miss?”

  “Oh, no, no, no. I just thought … I assumed you had a driver.”

  Miss Dora permitted herself to be mollified. “Perhaps you might be excused for that presumption. But I don’t believe in unnecessary frills. I’ve driven myself for almost seventy years, and I shall continue to do so. In any event, I drove to Wisteree Plantation. I went directly to the garage. What a rubbish heap! Milam should be ashamed—discarded boxes, tools in no order, messy, half-full cans of turpentine and paint. I finally discovered the gas container, flung carelessly in a corner. Not, I think, its customary location, for there was a distinct circular ring of sediment from gas and oil and dirt beneath some shelves along one wall. The container was empty. Milam and Julia’s garage, however, is such an untidy, ill-run mess that an empty gas can would come as no surprise. More to the point”—she leaned forward, the bony hands tight on the knob of her cane—“I examined both Milam’s truck and Julia’s car. The truck”—her aristocratic nose wrinkled in disdain—“was rusted out and filthy. Milam could have transported the container without leaving discernible traces. But, in Julia’s Honda”—the old lady’s eyes slitted—“the floor carpet in the back behind the driver’s seat was stained with a ring of oil, and there was a distinct odor, when the carpet was sniffed, of gasoline.” She thumped her cane.

  Annie wasn’t trying to disagree, but the suggestion didn’t make much sense to her. “Julia was just a young daughter-in-law when the Judge was shot. What could there possibly be either in the papers of the Judge or in Amanda’s papers that could threaten her?”

  Miss Dora glared. “Obviously, young miss, that is what we must discover. The question is, how do we proceed?”

  “Turn right on Chestnut,” Annie instructed.

  Max flipped on the signal. “I was tempted to tell her to take the investigation and do it all herself.” His voice didn’t quite have the take-this-job-and-shove-it tone. But, it was close. “If it weren’t for Courtney Kimball, I would.”

  “But Miss Dora is an asset.” Annie kept her tone bland, the better to assuage the grumpy male beast. “I mean, she knows everything there is to know about Chastain. And everybody.” Annie clung to the door strap as the Maserati screeched around the corner.

  “Humph.”

  Annie tried to hide her grin. Max prided himself on his ability to charm any woman from eight to eighty. She contemplated pointing out that, of course, Miss Dora was only the exception that proved the rule, but decided that wouldn’t improve matters.

  The Maserati jolted to a stop on the dry dirt street, kicking up a cloud of gray dust.

  Annie checked the address Miss Dora had given them. This was it.

  The white frame, one-story house was beautifully tended. The thin soil didn’t support a stand of grass but azaleas, wisteria, and amaryllis flowered in profusion, accented by a fragrant spill of daylilies, hyacinth, and jessamine. The sidewalk had recently been swept, the front steps were immaculate, the window panes gleamed.

  And the shades were drawn and the front door closed, despite the lovely spring afternoon. And mail poked out of the letter box next to the door.

  “Nobody’s home,” Annie cried in disappointment.

  But Max jumped out of the car, and, after a moment, Annie followed him. They knocked. And rang. And walked around the house—to discover that the garden was as lovely in back as in front—and Annie’s verdict held. Which, of course, had the contrary effect of making Max determined to find Enid Friendley, just as Miss Dora had charged them to do.

  Max tried the neighbors on each side and returned to the front steps, where Annie had plopped down to enjoy the garden scents. “I found Enid’s mother having coffee next door. She said Enid’s at the church getting the parlor ready for a wedding reception. She didn’t think it would do us any good to go over there because Enid wouldn’t have time to talk.” He pulled his notebook from his pocket. “We’ll leave her a note.”

  Annie looked over his shoulder as he wrote:

  Dear Mrs. Friendley,

  Miss Dora Brevard has asked us to visit with you about the Tarrant Family. She believes you can be very helpful to an inquiry she has asked us to undertake. My wife, Annie, and I will return to see you at nine A.M. tomorrow. If this isn’t convenient, please call me at the St. George Inn where we are staying.

  Very truly yours,

  Max Darling

  At Annie’s suggestion, Max added the phone number in a P.S. and tucked the note on top of the waiting mail. “There. She can’t miss that.” He slipped the notebook back in his pocket. As they returned to the car, he pulled out a fax, the latest they had received from Barb. “Here’s one name Miss Dora didn’t come up with. As soon as Louis tracked this one down, I knew we could really be onto something.” He was once again in his customary good humor. “Who knows everything in an office?”

  It didn’t take a marriage counselor to know the right response to this one.

  Annie answered obediently, “The secretary, of course.”

  Odors of disinfectant and boiled cabbage mingled unpleasantly with those of honeysuckle and banana shrub. A nursing aide in a blue pinafore pointed down the wide corridor. “Go all the way to the end and you’ll see the door to the screened-in porch. Miss Nelda spends most of the afternoon out there, reading. She’s a great reader.”

  Warehoused human beings.

  Annie made an effort not to look as they walked down the hall, passing open doors, but some glimpses could not be avoided.

&nbs
p; An ancient woman in a bedraggled pink chenille bathrobe was bent almost double over her walker as she progressed with aching slowness down the hall.

  A sharp-featured, grizzled old man slumped against the restraints that held him in his wheelchair.

  A middle-aged woman leaned close to a bed. “Mother, it’s Emily. How are you today?”

  A wheelchair scooted past them, and its pink-faced occupant, her white hair in fresh, rigid curls, gave them a cheery hello.

  Annie pushed through the door to the porch with immense relief. To be outside, to breathe sweet-scented air, to feel the easy grace of muscle and bone moving as bidden was, for an instant, a glorious reassurance.

  Two elderly men hunched over a checkerboard at the far end of the porch. One of them looked up eagerly as the door squeaked, then quickly away. The sudden droop of his mouth revealed his disappointment. His companion never moved his glance from the red markers in front of him.

  A small, birdlike woman with a beaked nose and thick glasses sat with her back to the game players, her wheelchair facing out toward the garden. She was immersed in a book, her face somber. The set of her mouth, Annie decided, was forbidding indeed. And she had to be Nelda Cartwright, who had served Augustus Tarrant as a secretary when he was in private practice and followed him to the courthouse when he became a judge.

  “Miss Cartwright?” Max inquired.

  Faded blue eyes, magnified by the lenses, peered up at him. “I don’t know you.” Her voice was reedy but decisive.

  “No, ma’am,” Max said quickly. “I’m Max Darling, and this is my wife, Annie. We are investigating the death of Judge Augustus Tarrant in May of 1970 on behalf of Miss Dora Brevard, who was—”

  “Young man, I know who Miss Dora Brevard is.” Heavily veined hands clapped her book shut—Annie was surprised somehow to identify it as Collected Sonnets of Edna St. Vincent Millay—and the expression on the old woman’s face turned fierce. “What is there to investigate? The Judge died from heart failure.”

  “No,” Max said gently. “If you will permit me to explain…”

  As Max described the revelations by Julia Tarrant and the other family members during that remarkable gathering at Miss Dora’s, Nelda Cartwright’s unwinking gaze never left his face.

  She spoke only once. “Augustus murdered! The devils.”

  When Max had concluded, Nelda Cartwright hunched in her wheelchair, the book in her lap ignored, her wrinkled face rigid with anger, her eyes blazing, her blue-veined hands gripping the wheelchair arms.

  “Will you help us?” Annie asked.

  “Augustus murdered. I should have known. I should have known! They all pulled at him constantly, wanting money, time, special attention, always making excuses.” Her voice was cold and disdainful. “Whitney fancied himself as quite the man-about-town, too busy playing golf to get his proper work done. That’s where he met Jessica Horton, of course. Whitney knew the firm was representing Alex Horton in the divorce proceedings, but did that stop Whitney? And you can’t tell me it wasn’t deliberate on Jessica’s part. Who knows what she got out of Whitney? I saw them together, going into that motel. So I told the Judge. It was my duty.” Her faded eyes burned with righteous fervor. “I said, Judge, did you know your son was meeting Alex Horton’s wife in a room at the Hansford Inn? And I’ve heard Alex is being represented by Tarrant & Tarrant in his divorce action.’ Oh, the Judge’s face looked like thunder at that piece of news. He said, ‘If that is true, Whitney will withdraw from the firm.’ The Judge was a man who always did the right thing. And he was always so proud of the firm. His cousin Darrell was the senior partner at that time.”

  Annie didn’t bother to ask how the Judge could have forced his son out of a firm in which the Judge no longer practiced. But she knew the answer to that. The Judge had only to speak to Whitney. His son would never have dared defy him. And, if he had, the Judge had only to pick up the telephone and call his cousin. The matter would have been attended to.

  The secretary pushed her glasses up on her nose. “Later that afternoon—I know he talked to Whitney because he came out of the Judge’s chambers and he looked like he’d had his comeuppance—the Judge told me that his son would be clearing out his office at the firm over the weekend.” Her mouth twisted. “Augustus died the next day.” Her cold eyes glittered. “I should have known!”

  Annie was puzzled. “But Whitney didn’t leave the firm.”

  “No. The week after the funerals, I asked Whitney if he needed any help clearing out his office. He looked shocked. Then he said of course not. I asked if there were any conflicts of interest that should be dealt with. I made myself extremely clear. He wouldn’t even look at me, cutting his eyes like a bad dog. He said that particular matter had been attended to, that I needn’t be concerned. I didn’t like it, but what could I do, with the Judge gone? The week after that, he called and asked if I’d like to come back to the firm. The new judge would bring in his own secretary, of course. I accepted. I thought it was the least I could do for the Judge.” A humorless smile touched her narrow lips. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think Whitney ever made that particular mistake again.”

  Max said dryly, “I doubt that Whitney would, with you on the spot.”

  Satisfaction glittered in her eyes. “Whitney’s no match for me, I can tell you, Mr. Darling.”

  “Do you happen to know the provisions of the Judge’s will?” Annie asked.

  Nelda Cartwright did, and, after a moment’s thought, elucidated them, crisply and succinctly. The balance of the estate had gone to Amanda, except for Tarrant House itself, which, in line with family tradition, always went in trust to the eldest surviving child.

  “But that’s Milam, isn’t it?” Max inquired.

  “Oh, yes, but Milam didn’t want to live in Tarrant House.” Nelda scowled. “He and Julia moved out to Wisteree almost immediately. Then, when Amanda died, Milam invited Whitney to stay on. Eventually, of course, Whitney and Charlotte’s daughter will inherit the house, if Milam follows the family tradition. Who knows what Milam might do? But there are no other living descendants. In any event, that’s far in the future.”

  Max redirected the old woman’s thoughts. “So the Judge’s death made a big difference for Whitney.”

  Nelda said bitterly, “It saved Whitney’s skin, all right. He didn’t have to leave the firm—and heaven knows who else would have wanted to hire him. Everyone would have wanted to know why he was leaving the family firm. He would have had a hard time explaining that. But with the Judge gone, Whitney had it all. And he never worked hard. He played golf every Wednesday and Friday. They tell me he still does. And, as soon as the Judge was out of the way, Amanda gave him and Milam whatever they wanted. If I’d had any idea—” Color flared briefly on her waxen cheeks. “I’ll swear to this. I’ll be glad to.”

  “So you think it may have been Whitney Tarrant who shot the Judge?” Max asked.

  Nelda riveted him with a piercing, irritated glare. “Obviously, Mr. Darling.”

  “You said they all pulled at him.” The scent of a mock orange shrub added a softness to what Annie would always remember as a bleak scene—the crippled old woman, her face alight with vengeance, and the quiet checker players, still alive but so divorced from life. “What did the others do that upset the Judge?”

  Nelda’s thin lips pursed. “What didn’t they do? That wife of his was always complaining because he worked so hard. I ask you,” she asked scathingly, “what else is a man to do?”

  Annie carefully didn’t look at Max.

  “A man’s work is his life, and no one ever did better than the Judge. When he was on the bench, he did what was right and just. That’s the way he lived too. A man of honor. A man of character.” Her chin quivered with outrage. “What did Amanda want? A namby-pamby stay-at-home, like her two older sons? The Judge never said a word against his family—why, he wouldn’t have done that—but it was as clear as clear that they were all a disappointment to him—all except R
oss. Now that was a fine young man, a leader in his class. The Judge was so proud that he was going to be a military officer.”

  Annie wondered how Miss Cartwright would react if they told her that Ross had decided to refuse his commission and go to Canada if necessary, to avoid serving in a war in which he did not believe. Would she see a man of honor in that, a true Tarrant, or would she be enraged, as the Judge had been so long ago?

  “What about Milam?” Max asked.

  Nelda’s eyes narrowed. “Milam.” Her fingers tapped the cover of her book. “He was in trouble with the Judge that week. I remember now—I took a letter.” Those faded eyes glittered. “Don’t think I couldn’t read between the lines.” Her lips curled in distaste. “None of it surprised me. It was utterly transparent, both to the Judge and to me. Milam took advantage of the family name to secure a historical restoration commission for this pretty young woman who’d come to town and opened up a decorating firm. No antecedents. Nothing to recommend her. To think Milam thought the Judge wouldn’t realize what was going on! The Judge understood, all right. His voice was like a winter day when he dictated the letter asking that woman to resign the commission since it had been obtained under false pretenses—Milam told the board she had the confidence of the Tarrant Family and, of course, everyone thought that meant the Judge had recommended her. Why, this is too small a town to get away with something like that! Felicity Moore was president of the historical society. When Milam told the board that pack of lies, Felicity telephoned the Judge at once, asked why he wasn’t in favor of continuing with Sheila Bauman. Sheila Bauman knew more about restoration than anyone else in Beaufort County! It was a scandal to think of throwing her over, after all the years she’d worked with the society, for this peroxided woman who’d moved here from Atlanta.”

  “A friend of Milam’s,” Max said carefully.

  “You could call it that.” Nelda’s stare was icy.