by Tamar Myers
I was considering breaking and entering the mansion to use the phone—I had become something of an expert, after all—when I heard the distinct sound of rap. I don’t mean a knocking noise, either, but that sort of staccato entertainment in which today’s young people openly and unabashedly shout obscenities, denigrate women, and malign minorities. Oh, for the good old days when innuendo and allusion were an art.
It wasn’t difficult tracking down the source of the rap: a beat-up pickup on the front lawn of the plantation. The cab, as far I could tell, was empty, but the vehicle was bucking up and down like a bronco with a burr under its saddle.
There was no need for Dmitri and me to sneak up on the ardent lovers. Lightning, an earthquake, and a volcanic eruption all happening simultaneously could not have gotten their attention. In fact, I drove almost a mile before they realized they were moving horizontally as well as vertically.
25
I politely turned off the radio as soon as the young man began pounding on the rear window. I will spare you his exact words, but they were taken from the lyrics to which we had just been listening.
“I’m only borrowing it, dear,” I shouted.
He put together another string of invectives and pounded harder. I calmly responded by braking sharply, then gunning the engine. There was a great deal of horizontal movement in the bed of the truck, none of it happy. From then on the young couple clung to each other morosely. They didn’t even have the decency to be afraid, and shame was out of the question.
I hung a right on 901, and another right on Cherry Road, which is the main drag. The clock above Nations Bank read two A.M., and there was not another car in sight. Contrary to the stereotype of a small southern town, folks in Rock Hill do not roll up the sidewalks at sundown. There are plenty of cultural events to enjoy in the evenings before the sidewalks are taken up, and they are never rolled but folded neatly and stored in giant drawers lined with sachets.
Any thinking, responsible person would have driven straight to the police station or Piedmont Medical Center, but not yours truly. I was battered and bruised, and craved the bosom of my mama. It was as simple as that.
I pulled into Mama’s driveway, put the truck in park, but left the engine running. Dmitri graciously allowed me to pick him up, and I jumped down. Every fiber in my body screamed in agony; some screamed twice.
“Thanks for the ride,” I told the kids.
The boy stood up shakily. “You ain’t going to turn us in to the police?”
His question gave me a start. I hadn’t but for a second considered that they might be responsible for the condition I was in. I didn’t think the two of them together could change a lightbulb without a manual.
“Should I?”
“Dewayne said the truck was his.” The girl pouted. “I didn’t know it was stolen, I swear.”
“Shut up, Yolanda. It ain’t stolen.”
“Does your mother know where you are?” I asked her.
“Man, we don’t need this shit,” Dewayne said. He hustled Yolanda into the cab, and they were off in a squeal of tires that woke half the neighborhood, including Mama.
“Lord have mercy!” Mama said, opening the door just a crack. “Police Chief Larry is going to hear about this. There is supposed to be a curfew in this town.”
“Mama, it’s me!” I cried, wanting nothing more than to fling myself into her comforting arms.
“Abigail! What in heaven’s name are you doing here this time of night? Was that Greg who dropped you off?” She craned her neck to look down the street in the direction of the vanished truck.
“Mama! Look at me.”
She looked, and did a double-take. “Lord have mercy, Abby. You look like something the cat dragged in.” She must have seen that I was holding Dmitri. “No offense,” she added.
Dewayne and his truck were now a faint buzz in the night. A mosquito receding into the distance. She turned, and I followed her inside.
“I’m sorry, Mama, that I worried you so. I guess I should have gone straight to the police so they could start their investigation. I’ll call them now. We don’t want my kidnappers to get away.”
Mama looked as confused as she did the first time she tried to open a bottle of childproof pills. I hastened to explain.
“I was supposed to meet Shirley at Roselawn but she didn’t show and I got conked on the head and tossed down a hole with a dead Yankee and a pile of treasures and only just now escaped through a tunnel the size of a heating duct where I met Dmitri who’d been locked in the old plantation kitchen but we had to steal a truck first.” I said it in one breath, a feat that would have been impossible in the thin air of the pit.
Mama instinctively felt my forehead. “Well, you’re not burning up, so I don’t think it’s fever talking. Have you been drinking, dear?”
“Mama!”
Both hands flew up to caress her pearls. “You’re serious, Abby?”
“Look at me, Mama. Would I do this to myself? And smell me! I—” What I did was burst into tears. I smelled like a Port-O-John in August.
“I’ve had a bad cold,” Mama said. “I haven’t been able to smell a thing since Sunday night.”
“Didn’t you care that I was missing?”
The pearls were a blur. “You were missing?”
“Since Monday night. What day is it now?”
Mama glanced at the clock above her TV. “Wednesday morning. Early Wednesday morning.” Eight-millimeter tears had formed in her eyes. “I didn’t know you were missing, dear. I’ve had a real humdinger of a cold. I was in bed all day yesterday. I called your shop twice, and your house three times, but you didn’t return my calls. I didn’t think you cared.”
I threw myself into my mother’s arms, and we both sobbed like babies. Good mother that she is, she allowed us just enough time to dwell on our mutual failures before putting a pragmatic spin on things.
“You need to eat,” she said. Her nose began to twitch. “You go take a nice hot bath while I rustle up some pork chops, mashed potatoes, collard greens, fried okra, biscuits—and for dessert some piping hot peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream.”
Mama was fully capable of rustling it up, despite her cold. Besides, she needed to feel useful. Still, all that food on a long-empty stomach might not be such a good idea.
I shook my head. “Just some peach cobbler.”
“That does it,” Mama said sternly. “I’m taking you straight to the hospital. No ifs, ands, or buts.”
The doctor who examined me at Piedmont Medical Center was very kind, but he plugged me into a labyrinth of plastic tubes and forced me to stay overnight for observation. Every time I blinked, a staff of thousands shone flashlights in my eyes, and I got prodded and poked with thermometers more times than a Thanksgiving turkey. And of course I had to give my statement to the police. I was finally left alone just as the morning food trolleys began their rounds, and I fell asleep to the sound of clanking cutlery.
I woke up in mid-afternoon to find Mama sitting by my bed, her face grim. My first thought was that she had been the victim of an intense religious experience.
“Mama?”
Her face brightened upon hearing my voice, and I breathed a deep sigh of relief. She would no doubt continue to sing in the Episcopal choir and sit on washing machines.
“Abby! I was so worried. We all were. Greg was just here, but he didn’t want to wake you up. He said you looked just like a—uh—”
“Sleeping Beauty?”
“An unraveled skein of yarn.”
“Thanks, Mama. Tell him I love him, too.”
Mama and I had sound-bite conversations, interspersed with periods of dozing. We both dozed, as much as she denies it. When the supper trolleys rolled around, Mama fed me as if I were a baby. She made me clean my plate, too, and then I fell into a deep sleep and didn’t wake again until the next morning. Upon awakening I felt like a million bucks. After a sponge bath and a little makeup, I looked like a thousand.
“Jeepers, creepers,” I said to Mama, who was back on duty again, “where did that giant bouquet come from?”
She surveyed the room, which contained more flowers than either of us had ever seen outside a funeral home. She pointed to an arrangement the size of a Volkswagen bug, and I nodded.
“That’s from the Upstate Preservation Foundation. They’re afraid of a lawsuit, if you ask me.”
“And so they should—well, one of them, at any rate.”
“Do you know which one?”
“I have a hunch, but I can’t prove anything at this point.”
“If I didn’t still have my cold, I could help you smell out the culprit,” she said loyally.
I asked her to bring me the card attached to the behemoth bouquet. It was signed by all the board members, except for one.
“Aha! Just as I thought. Shirley Hall’s name isn’t on the card. No doubt she’s down in Rio by now, with a suitcase of stolen loot—”
“Abby—”
“No, Rio is too hot. Shirley likes it cold. Where do cold-loving criminals go when they’re on the lam? The Yukon? Siberia?”
“Abigail!”
“But, Mama, she tried to poison me. I’ve got the brew at home to prove it.”
Mama hoisted herself up on the bed and gently patted a battle-scarred arm. “Abby, dear, Shirley Hall is dead.”
“What?”
“Her body was found in the Catawba River, not far from Roselawn. It was discovered by two boys who were hiking in Landsford Canal State Park.”
“Oh, Mama—”
I began to cry, for Shirley, of course, but for myself as well. It was time to let it all out, to cry myself dry. I could have cried for weeks had the nurses not been so inconsiderate and unhooked my IV the day before.
Poor Mama did her best to comfort me. I have always been sure of her love, but cuddling and coddling do not come naturally to her. Patting gingerly seemed to be her forte, and I graciously allowed her to do this. The pain would eventually ebb away.
“She called and left a message for you,” Mama said suddenly, just as I was catching my second wind and working up to another good blubber. “She couldn’t get you at home, so she decided to try me.”
“What? When?”
“Monday evening.”
I gripped Mama’s patting arm. “What did she say?”
“She said she was running late for your meeting, but would be there as soon as possible. Oh, Abigail, I didn’t realize that the ‘there’ she was referring to was Roselawn Plantation!”
“Did she say anything else?”
“Some Bible verse, I think. I didn’t know Shirley was religious.”
“Mama, what was the verse?” I asked with remarkable patience.
“Something about the last being first, and the other way around,” Mama said. “It was hard to understand her; the static was terrible. That is a Bible verse, isn’t it? Or is it from the Kama Sutra?”
“It’s a Bible verse,” I said.
I chewed on its meaning while Mama dutifully dabbed at my blotched face with a napkin soaked in water. We were both so preoccupied that neither of us heard Greg knock and enter.
“Hey,” he said almost bashfully.
I looked up to see a sight for sore eyes, and everything else for that matter. He had never looked so handsome. The Wedgwood eyes, thick dark hair, classic nose, straight white teeth—Greg was perfect Hollywood leading man material. He had, in fact, once worked as an extra in the cult classic Romancing the Kidney Stone. Why Hollywood had not snatched him up could only be a testimony to its lack of good judgment. Well, its loss was my gain, and I meant to tell Greg so just as soon as I settled another small matter.
“I know who killed June Troyan, Frank McBride, and then tried to kill me,” I said.
26
It took every one of my feminine wiles to persuade Greg to go along with my plan. Perhaps if I hadn’t looked like an unraveled skein of yarn, the job might have been easier. Nonetheless, just after the supper trolleys had been wheeled away with their empty cargo, the entire board of the Upstate Preservation Foundation trooped in. Frankly I was so nervous, I had scarcely eaten a bite.
“This better be damned good,” Red growled. “I already shelled out big bucks for the bouquet.”
“Shhh,” Marsha said.
I frowned at her. She wasn’t invited. I was considering telling her so when the Roach burst into my room. At least the pecking order was preserved.
“Make it fast,” Gloria snapped. “I have to be in court in twenty-five minutes.”
I gave Miss Muscles the critical once-over. She was wearing a purple spandex tank top and lemon yellow sweatpants. Either her hearing was on a racquetball court, or courtroom etiquette, along with just about everything else these days, had gone to hell in a gym bag. At least she was carrying a briefcase.
“Have a seat,” I said pleasantly.
Of course that was easier said than done. Marsha had taken the only chair, and Mama was the only person—besides Greg—I would allow to perch on my bed.
I might have made an exception for the elderly lady who stumbled in next, had I not known that Anne Holliday, in addition to being a mistress of Rose, was a master of ruse. She was in fine fettle that day, too, with a flowered hat that shamed some of the arrangements my well-wishers had sent.
“What a cheery little room,” she chirped. She pretended to admire my botanical garden, but her shrewd little eyes were boring holes in me. Squeal and you’ll pay, they said.
I smiled at Marsha. “Would you be a doll, dear, and let Miss Holliday have the chair?”
Marsha sighed, and with all the speed of a teenager jumping up to mow the lawn, relinquished her coveted seat. Anne staggered convincingly over to the chair, but gave no indication that she appreciated my complicity.
The door opened one more time, and in swept the grande dame herself. As usual, Miss Lilah was impeccably dressed, this time in muted spring colors. Her linen suit was ecru, and her long-sleeved silk blouse was robin’s egg blue. True to character, her skirt, though it was linen, showed not a wrinkle. Either the woman had walked to the hospital or had mastered the art of driving while standing.
“Why, Lilah, what have you done to your hair?” Anne Holliday was sitting bolt upright and sounding twenty years younger. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to blow her own cover.
We were all, in fact, staring at Miss Lilah. Gone was the immaculate chignon. It had been replaced by soft silvery waves that brushed across her cheeks and spilled down to almost shoulder level. I’m sure there are some who would consider that length to be too long for a woman of Miss Lilah’s maturity, but frankly it was flattering. Not all of us can afford plastic surgery—or even want it—which doesn’t mean we enjoy being seen in public with turkey necks. Not that Miss Lilah had pronounced wattles, mind you. I’m just saying that a woman has a right to cover her deficits with her assets.
Miss Lilah graced us with one of her beneficent smiles. “This time of year I always feel the need for a little change,” she said. “I hope I haven’t gone too far.”
“Well, frankly—”
I shot Anne Holliday a warning look, which she wisely heeded. My ice pitcher was within reach, and her English perennial garden was an easy target.
“I think it’s lovely,” I said.
“Ladies, please,” Red grumbled. “I didn’t come here for a fashion show. I’ve got three building sites that need my attention.”
“Hear, hear,” the Roach said as she flexed her arms in an isometric exercise that made her muscles bulge obscenely.
Greg glanced at me, and I nodded.
He cleared his throat. “Thanks for coming. I know it was rather short notice, and y’all have busy schedules—”
“You can say that again.” Gloria Roach’s right biceps had assumed the size and shape of a leg of lamb.
Greg, Mama, and I frowned at her. “The sooner you hush up and listen, the sooner you can leave,” Mama sa
id.
Gloria’s left biceps swelled to the size of a small ham, but she said no more.
“As y’all know,” Greg said calmly, “Ms. Timberlake here was accosted out at Roselawn Plantation on Monday night.”
“I already told the police that I have an alibi,” Red growled. “Marsha, tell them where I was.”
“I have an alibi, too!” Anne warbled.
Red turned viciously to her. “Mr. Johnny Walker or Mr. Mogen David?”
Greg held up a restraining hand. “We are not here to make accusations. We are here to listen to a statement from Ms. Timberlake.”
All eyes fastened on me. I swallowed deeply, trying desperately to remember everything Greg and I had agreed on.
“Go on,” Mama whispered.
“Well, uh—I—uh—”
“She wants to tell you a ghost story,” Mama said.
Red grabbed his wife’s hand. “Hell, I don’t have time for this.”
Greg, my hero, took a step forward. “You’ll make time.”
“There’re no such things as ghosts,” Red snarled.
“Maybe that depends on your definition, Mr. Barnes. From what Ms. Timberlake tells me, there most certainly is something that goes bump in the night.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? He can’t make us stay and listen to this shit, can he?” Red turned to Gloria.
The Roach looked as if her body had sprung a fast leak. Her muscles drooped, and her little brown ferret face had turned the color and texture of cottage cheese.
“I knew there was a ghost out there,” she whispered, barely audible. “I could feel its presence. Once I even saw it—a little girl standing on the landing with a rag doll in her hand. One second there she was; the next thing I knew she was gone.”
Anne twittered. “You and I should do happy hour together. I lived in that damn house for thirty years and never once saw a ghost.”
“Did this little girl ghost have a name?” I asked pleasantly.
Gloria shrugged. “How should I know? She was only there for a second.”
“Miss Lilah,” I said, “have you ever seen a ghost out at the old plantation?”
