Southern Ghost

by Carolyn G. Hart

  “I knew I didn’t like Charlotte,” Annie said decisively.

  “Being a lousy parent doesn’t equate to committing murder,” Max cautioned.

  “I know,” Annie said regretfully. “Besides, the woman’s obviously scared to death.”

  When Max didn’t immediately comment, Annie raised an eyebrow.

  He looked at her with a gravity so foreign to his usual confident demeanor that she felt suddenly uneasy.

  “Annie, the hell of it is, I think Charlotte’s damned smart to be scared. I’m scared, too, about that roundup at Tarrant House tomorrow afternoon. It’s almost twenty-two years to the day when murder occurred, and, you can bet on it, the murderer will be there.” He jammed a hand through his thick, unruly blond hair. “I wish to God we knew where that gun was!”

  2:30 P.M., SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1970

  Ross listened tensely to the news through the crackle of static on the car radio. The station faded in and out, but he heard enough. Campuses were closing across the country, in California, in Illinois, in Massachusetts. Witnesses were saying no one had fired at the National Guard. Witnesses were saying the students, walking to class, were gunned down for no reason. The Guard was claiming an attack. Students were marching. … The station faded out. Ross turned the dial and Hank Thompson’s mournful voice filled the car. Ross turned off the radio. He was almost home.

  He’d made the right decision. He squared his shoulders, gripped the wheel tighter.

  He could see his father’s face, proud and arrogant. Always the Judge’s somber eyes lighted for him.

  What would his father say?

  Chapter 18.

  Annie gripped the door as the Maserati bumped down the deep-rutted, overgrowth-choked, dusty gray road. Cones from the slash pines crunched beneath the tires. Giant ferns glistened with dew beneath spreading live oaks. Holly and sharp-edged yucca, saw palmetto, and running oak flourished. Annie, for an instant, envisioned the land as it appeared to long-ago travelers: wild, untamed, inimical, with an almost overpowering fecundity.

  The road curved left.

  Max jammed on the brake at a flurry of movement in the foliage. Annie hung on tight. A blue-gray hawk zoomed across the road, swooping to pounce on a pinkish copperhead stretched in a sunny spot on a rotting log.

  It was the only time Annie had ever felt sorry for a snake.

  She wondered how much she would have loved the Low Country two hundred years ago. She wasn’t altogether crazy about this present-day, off-the-beaten-path forest. She loved sassafras, sweet gum, and red bay trees, but nicely pruned and cut back, thank you. It was exciting to glimpse white-tailed deer, but the sudden thrashing in the undergrowth and the sight of bristly black hair and an ugly snout with razor-sharp tusks made her long for the confines of a well-kept clay tennis court.

  Annie hunched tensely in her seat. Any kind of horror could occur in the midst of these longleaf-pine flatwoods.

  “Do you think it’s much farther?” She tried to sound casual.

  Max, as always, wasn’t deceived. “Don’t worry, honey. As long as you don’t step on a diamondback, you’ll be okay.”

  She did not consider his answer especially reassuring.

  “Oh, hell,” Max swore, and the Maserati jolted to a stop.

  One of last winter’s nor’easters had toppled a dead pine. Breaking as it fell, a portion of the trunk blocked the road. A huge limb had splintered the wooden bridge over the sluggish stream.

  Max glanced at the mileage counter he had punched when they left the blacktop. “It’s about a half-mile farther. Look, Annie, you can stay here and—”

  She was already opening her door. “In for a penny,” she announced stalwartly, wishing she had put on hiking boots and jeans and a long-sleeved cotton top instead of white flats, a pleated pink-rose cotton skirt, and a delicate white cotton blouse with a lacy embroidered collar. She had considered it a fetching outfit (and perfectly appropriate) this morning at the St. George Inn. It was little comfort that she would be as out of place slapping away resurrection ferns and skidding on pine hay as that briefly spotted bristly black-haired wild boar would be reclining on the chintz-covered chaise longue at the inn.

  Max retrieved a flashlight from the car pocket. They stepped out of the car into insect hell. The air was alive with whirring patches of no-see-ums. Mosquitos and biting flies attacked. Wasps buzzed angrily.

  Annie waved her arms and broke into a trot, then almost slid into water scummed with green duckweed when her shoe soles skimmed over the pine hay.

  Max caught her in time. “Be careful, Annie. Watch where you step. There will be plenty of snakes out.”

  Annie repressed a shudder. She knew she should reverence all God’s creatures, but who could love a venomous pit viper?

  She was glad she didn’t have a video of their progress. Their careful, considered footfalls (rattlesnakes always have the right-of-way) were in stark contrast to the continued wild movements of their arms and hands as they tried to deflect the scores of starved or insanely bored insects.

  The horde of biting bugs pursued them as they hopped from one remnant of the bridge to another to cross the stream. The buzzing cloud whirled around them as they hurried through the now thinning stand of pines. They came out onto a huge expanse of grass, covered with the vivid shades of spring wildflowers, the brilliant yellow of Carolina jessamine, the maroon of purple trillium, the bright red of crossvine. They’d reached the savannah, and there before them was the Tarrant hunting lodge.

  Weathered wooden steps—the third sagged alarmingly—led up to a shallow porch. Although the paint had long ago peeled away, the square box building, well built, was still in good repair. As Max unlocked the front door, Annie did note a broken pane in the window on her left. She wondered how Miss Dora had obtained the keys. From Whitney? Yes, more than likely. She couldn’t picture Milam here. She vainly swatted another mosquito and hurried inside as Max opened the door.

  Max turned on the flashlight.

  Annie followed the sweeping beam of light across the single room: a rough-hewn fireplace with an open hearth, scattered chairs, a pinewood table, a sink, cupboards on one wall, and dust. Dust on the floor, dust on every surface, cobwebs on the walls.

  A mournful, dreary, deserted room, musty and dank.

  How long had it been since human voices had sounded here?

  Max moved away, checking the windows and the back door.

  Annie stood near the chair next to the rock fireplace. For the first time, painful as an unexpected blow, she felt the reality of Ross Tarrant’s death. She stood very still, staring at the darkish upholstery. That irregular, barely visible, long-dried stain—

  What would he feel now, if he knew about his daughter and the desperate search for her?

  A man who lived and died that passionately would move heaven and earth to find his missing daughter.

  “Max,” Annie said abruptly, urgently, “let’s hurry.”

  Enid Friendley studied them thoughtfully. Close-cropped, graying hair framed intelligent, wary eyes and a resolute mouth. She had an air of brisk confidence tinged with impatience. After a moment, she glanced at her plain gold watch. “I can give you twenty minutes.”

  In the immaculate living room, she gestured for them to take the couch, upholstered in plain blue linen. Enid sat in a straight chair, her posture excellent. The modern light-oak furniture was as angular and spare as its owner. No curtains. Pale-lemon blinds were the only window covering. No knick-knacks broke the smooth expanse of the ocean-green, glass coffee table. The room was as cool and unrevealing as their hostess and her quietly tasteful but unremarkable black skirt and white, high-necked cotton blouse.

  Perceptive dark eyes watched Annie. “I’ve seen enough old furniture to last me a lifetime.” Her tone was dry. “Where I grew up, we were lucky to have one real chair. Of course, the covering was ragged and the springs poked through. Cast off. Somebody hired my father to haul it away.” Again, pointedly, she glanced at
her watch.

  Annie didn’t need to look at hers. It was almost ten. Time raced ahead. The hours had piled up since Courtney Kimball was last seen, three days ago. Annie leaned forward impatiently as Max quickly described their mission.

  Enid’s face remained impassive. Even when Max mentioned the bloody shirt she had brought to Lucy Jane so many years ago.

  “… so we’re hoping you can help us, Mrs. Friendley. We need to know what you saw that day and what you know about the Tarrants. But to begin, did you—”

  Enid lifted a hand. She wore no rings, and her fingernails were trimmed short and unpainted. “Just a minute, Mr. Darling. I’ll talk about that day and the Tarrants. I don’t have anything to say about anything that happened later.” She paused.

  Annie looked at her, puzzled.

  But Max nodded in instant comprehension. “Certainly, although I’m confident at this point that no one would accuse you of acting as an accomplice after the fact. After all, you were merely an employee following the directives of your superior. You had no reason to suspect that a crime had been committed.”

  The small, dark woman considered it, her suspicious eyes probing his face.

  Annie had the feeling it could go either way. Enid Friendley would have no compunction about showing them the door. But perhaps she liked what she saw, or perhaps she, too, wanted to know the truth of that deadly Saturday. Whatever the reason, she finally nodded, grudgingly.

  “All right. What do you want to know?”

  “Have you seen or talked to Courtney Kimball?” Max didn’t try to keep the eagerness from his voice.

  Annie ached for him. He still felt responsible because he hadn’t reached his young client in time.

  “Wednesday afternoon,” Enid said briskly.

  Annie tried not to get excited, but this was as close as they’d come to Courtney Kimball in three days of searching. Wednesday afternoon!

  “I was at work—we had two hundred chicken potpies due at the County Horticultural Building—that’s out at the fairgrounds—by five o’clock. She insisted she had to talk to me. I told her straight out I was too busy. She didn’t want to take no for an answer. You can tell she’s always had her way.” The resentment of a lifetime crackled in the words. “So I’m not surprised when you say she was Sybil and Ross’s girl. It’s in her blood.” A meager smile curved her lips in reluctant tribute to the kind of personality that sweeps the world before it. “I couldn’t help but kind of like her, bright, smart, brash—and pretty, very pretty. Yes, I can see Ross Tarrant in her face, now that I know. He was always the handsomest one. The best of the bunch. He saw me as a real person—talked to me about going to college and what a difference it could make in my life. I couldn’t believe it when he killed himself. The only thing I could figure was that Sybil had thrown him over, and he took it too hard. Sybil’s the kind of woman—and that was as true twenty years ago as today—who lives from her heart. That will hurt you pretty bad. She broke down at the funeral. I thought it was a guilty conscience. Anyway, that girl Courtney’s got Sybil’s wild streak, I can tell you that. I saw it in her eyes. Not afraid of the devil himself.” She pursed her lips. “Maybe she’d have been better off if she’d had the sense to be afraid.”

  “What happened?” Annie urged.

  “I don’t put up with sass. Not from anybody. White or black.”

  Annie didn’t doubt her for a moment.

  “When she saw I meant what I said—I wasn’t going to fool with her right then—she kind of laughed, and gave a shrug, and said, ‘So you’re upfront about things. Then answer one question for me and I’ll leave. Of all the people who were at Tarrant House when Judge Tarrant and his son died, who can I trust?”’ There was grudging admiration in Enid’s dark eyes. “Not many people ever get around me. She did. I didn’t have an extra minute to spare. Eliza Jones had called in sick. Probably her son’d beat her up again. My best driver had the mumps. Thirty-four-year-old man with the mumps! I was busy six ways from Sunday. But I took the time. I told her, ‘Not a single one of them.’ I told her if she wanted help from someone in the family, old Miss Dora was the only one I’d put any stock in. Then I shooed her out the door and went back to my chicken pies.”

  Had Courtney tried to contact Miss Dora on Wednesday? Obviously, she hadn’t succeeded. Otherwise, Miss Dora would have told them, Annie was certain. But she made a mental note to check with their employer when they met her at Tarrant House in the afternoon.

  “What time was this?” Max asked.

  “Just after two. I was keeping a close eye on the time, I can tell you. I deliver on time. And I did on Wednesday.”

  Was that pride of ownership? Or was Enid Friendley trying to show she was too busy to have been involved in Courtney’s disappearance?

  Annie attempted to sound casual. “So you made your delivery around five. What time did you leave the fairgrounds?”

  Enid took just an instant too long to answer. When she did, her words were clipped. “I finished the cleanup, still two short in my crew, about nine o’clock.”

  Max gave her his most charming smile.

  There wasn’t a quiver of response on Enid’s face. Annie wondered if Max felt a bit as though he’d smashed headfirst into a brick wall.

  Undaunted, Max continued good-humoredly, “I suppose that like every business in the world, there’s always some crisis—major or minor—in completing a job. Did you have to get back to your kitchen for anything?”

  Once again, her response was just a beat too slow. “One dessert carrier was left behind. I went back for it, but returned directly to the fairgrounds.”

  Annie was pleased that Max let it drop. It was obvious that Enid read the newspapers and knew when Courtney had last been heard from and equally obvious that Enid had been away from the fairgrounds at about that time.

  “You didn’t see Courtney again?” Annie asked.

  Enid bristled. “No. Why should I? I didn’t have anything to do with her disappearance. You can look to the Tarrants for that.”

  “We are,” Max said soberly. “As for the Tarrants, what can you tell us about the day the Judge was murdered?”

  Enid smoothed her unwrinkled skirt. “That day … It was a lovely day, soft and warm. It smelled good, spaded-up dirt and honeysuckle and wisteria and pittosporum. I didn’t usually work on Saturdays, but I’d had the afternoon off earlier in the week.” Her narrow face was sleek and satisfied. “I’d enrolled for the summer session at Chastain College.” She darted a quick glance at them. “If you’ve found out much about Judge Tarrant, you’ll know he often helped students—poor people—to go to school. He gave me the money to start college. Actually, that was the last week I was to work there. But, because of what happened, I stayed on for a few weeks, after the funerals, to help with packing things away. That kind of thing. But that Saturday I was there, catching up on the ironing. So I was in the laundry rooms behind the kitchen.” She scowled. “I hated being a servant.” Her voice was controlled but Annie heard the resentment, saw it in the flash of her eyes. “Yes, ma’am, no, ma’am, scrubbing up after people like they were kings and I was a slave, all for barely enough money to buy a little food. And people so proud of themselves. The Tarrants. The kind of people who bought my people, bought them like a broom or a shovel and threw them away when they couldn’t work in the fields.” Now those slender brown hands were laced tightly together. “I started in Tarrant House, but I’ll tell you this”—she lifted her chin—“I could buy Tarrant House now. I wouldn’t want it, but if I did, I could buy it.” Her eyes were cold. “People so proud of themselves, so used to telling people like me what to do. So high and mighty, but they had their secrets, all of them. The Judge—I wonder what all his fine friends would have thought if they could have seen the pictures he kept locked in the wooden box in his room.” She flicked a glance at Annie. “Not the kind of pictures you’d know about—women tied up. And other things.” Dark amusement glinted in her chilly eyes. “Such a high a
nd mighty man. Just goes to show, you know, that white hair and a gentleman’s face don’t mean much. The next week, after the Judge died, I saw Miss Amanda slip out of the house with that box. She burned it up.” Enid gave them a challenging glance. “Makes you wonder about the Judge. Doesn’t it?”