Southern Ghost (17 page)
Authors: Carolyn G. Hart
“That’s what she said, Sybil.” Pulling free of Sybil’s grasp, Whitney glanced toward his wife, then continued defiantly. “Attractive young woman. Though I suppose that’s neither here nor there. She claimed to have a letter from Mother saying that Ross wasn’t guilty, that no matter what anyone should say, Courtney should know that her father was innocent. She gave me a photocopy of the letter—” He looked briefly at his wife. “It sure looked like Mother’s handwriting, but everyone knows Mother wasn’t herself—before she died.”
“Courtney.” Sybil’s voice shook. “When was she born?”
“How in the world should we know?” Charlotte said irritably.
“
When
was she born?” Sybil cried desperately.
“December twelfth, 1970,” Max said quietly.
“December twelfth…” Tears spilled down Sybil’s cheeks. “December twelfth—oh, Jesus, they lied to me. They lied to me! They said she was born dead. Oh, God, I heard her cry. I told my father I heard her cry, and he said I was wrong. He said it was another baby. Oh, God, they took my baby away from me.”
As the front door of Chastain House closed behind Sybil, Max took Annie’s hand. They walked in silence down the broad steps and along the moonlight-dappled drive toward the street.
“How could they?” Annie tried hard to keep the tremor from her voice. She didn’t succeed.
Max slipped his arm around her shoulders. “It was a different day, a different age. And this was a conservative family in a small town.”
She repeated it. “How could they?”
“Her father dead; her mother seventeen and unmarried.” Max took a deep breath. “Annie, they thought they were doing the best thing for the baby and for Sybil.”
“God.” Annie stumbled to a stop and looked back toward the Greek Revival mansion. “Max, will she be all right? Shouldn’t we stay?”
“She didn’t give us a choice,” he said dryly.
At Miss Dora’s brusque command, Annie and Max had walked home with Sybil. Or tried to. Sybil had plunged ahead of them, taking a dark shortcut that she knew, and they had trouble following. But they were close behind when she stormed up her front steps, unlocked the door, and paused only to say, her face grim and stricken, “Tell them—tell them I will find her. I will. And if anything’s happened to her, I’ll spend the rest of my life finding the one who hurt her. Tell them that,” and she’d slammed the door behind her.
Partway down the drive, Annie stopped again and looked back. Lights blazed from almost every room in the Chastain mansion. “Max, I don’t think we should leave her alone.”
Max gave Annie a quick, hard hug, then turned her once again toward the street. “Sybil will survive this night,” he said quietly. “She’s a survivor. She has to come to terms with the most shocking revelations she’s ever faced. We can’t help her do that. No one can. But tomorrow, tomorrow she’ll see us. Because she’ll want our help in searching for Courtney.”
Slowly, reluctantly, Annie walked with him down the drive.
The oyster shells crunched beneath their feet. The faraway, mournful whistle of a freight train mingled with the nearby hoot of an owl.
Annie shivered. The night was cool and damp, the shadows ink dark, the rustles of the shrubbery disquieting.
“Max?” Her voice was thin. “Do you think Courtney’s dead?”
Her question hung in the air.
He didn’t answer, but his hand tightly gripped hers.
Annie felt better when they walked into their carefully appointed suite at the St. George Inn. The crimson coals from a discreet fire glimmered in the grate. The Tiffany lamp cast a warming glow over the chintz-covered sofa. The spread was invitingly turned down on the four-poster rice bed, and foil-wrapped
candy in the unmistakable shape of truffles waited on the plump pillows.
As Max put on Colombian decaf to brew, Annie picked up the envelope lying on the coffee table. It was addressed to them in Barb’s free-flowing script.
Dear Annie and Max,
What a day! For starters, the PI from Savannah dropped by and we have a date to go bowling tonight. Honestly, Max, do you believe in fate? He’s really neat—kind of like Michael J. Fox, that cutie, all grown up—maybe forty-something. And he’s really come up with the goods for you and Annie. I put the folders with all his stuff on your table—
Annie looked at the stack of folders piled on the replica of a pine plantation desk near the kitchenette.
—and I’ll fax you some more stuff tomorrow. You’ll find the fax behind the chaise longue in the bedroom. I paid a bonus to get the phone installed and turned on today. Also, I wangled about a half-dozen pictures of Courtney Kimball from friends, schools, etc. Isn’t she pretty? Gee, I hope you find her okay. But it’s scary, isn’t it? More than twenty-four hours now.
Everything’s super at Death on Demand. Except I think maybe Agatha needs counseling. I was reading about these cats in New York and they go to a psychiatrist and maybe you could get a long-distance consultation. I’d swear that Agatha actually threatened me! I know that sounds crazy—
Annie didn’t think so. She’d known Agatha to be in a mood.
—but when I was fixing an anchovy pizza for lunch, Agatha jumped up on the coffee bar and tried to snag an anchovy, so, of course, I gave her a push—
Annie could have written the rest of the scenario herself. One did not shove Agatha.
—and I swear she growled and raised her paw at me! And, Annie, she wouldn’t get down until I put a couple of anchovies in her bowl. Have you ever had a cat give you an I-don’t-give-a-damn look and refuse to budge? Other than that—
Annie decided she would have to instruct Barb without delay that what Agatha wanted, Agatha got. Otherwise, many unpleasant and rationally inexplicable events would occur—books randomly knocked down from displays, customer lists shredded, claw marks on collectibles (Annie’d had to knock fourteen dollars off the price of an otherwise vf copy of
Murder with a Theme Song
by Virginia Rath), and once—and Annie had no explanation for this—the utter disappearance of a miniature replica of the famed Edgar awarded annually at the Mystery Writers of America banquet. Annie was confident Agatha couldn’t have removed it by mouth (it was ceramic and so offered no toothholds) or by paw (she was smart but didn’t have opposable thumbs). Nonetheless, the miniature was nowhere to be found. Annie consoled herself with the thought that life did hold its little mysteries as well as its big. (Two socks go into a washing machine, one comes out; you are wearing your oldest, sorriest sweat outfit and the first person you see in the grocery is a) your priest, b) the hunk you’ve hankered to impress, c) the banker you approached for a business loan in your niftiest little black suit; late for a job interview on the fourteenth floor, you find the elevator is broken so you arrive in the office with a cherry-tomato face and a respiratory rate qualifying you to blow up the balloons at the annual company picnic.)
—everything’s going fine. I put Henny’s latest postcard on top of the folders. Gosh, if some people don’t have all the luck! Anyway, hope you and Max are figuring out what happened. We had two calls today from the
Atlanta Constitution
and one from the
New York Times
and one from AP. I put out a news release that said Max was pursuing late-breaking developments and hoped for an early and successful conclusion to his investigation. Was that okay?
Next to her flamboyant signature, Barb had penned a happy face wearing a deerstalker hat.
“Milk?” Max asked, his hand on the small refrigerator.
“Milk and sugar both.” Why did she still feel so cold inside?
“Coming up.”
He brought the coffee on a tray—this was a suite with every refinement—with the cups and saucers, sugar bowl and milk pitcher, and a plate full of peanut butter cookies.
Annie grabbed her cup and handed Max the message. As he started to read, she said, “I hope Barb had fun bowling.”
“Barb always has fun,” he answered absently. He settled beside her on the cushioned wicker couch, the note in one hand, his cup in the other.
Annie picked up Henny’s postcard.
Dear Annie,
X marks the spot.
Annie turned the card over and spotted a red X inked beside St. Paul’s Cathedral.
I actually stood at the very spot where Charlotte and Anne Brontë stayed when they came to London to see their publisher in 1848! They stopped at the Chapter Coffee House which was at the entrance to St. Paul’s Alley, just by St. Paul’s Churchyard. Can you believe it? In transports of joy, yours, as ever
—
Henny.
They were both smiling as they put down the respective missives. Annie drank the clear, fresh coffee, munched on her cookie, and felt the icy core inside beginning to warm.
Max picked up the top folder and opened it. He drew his breath in sharply, then held up, for her to see, a photograph.
Annie put down her coffee cup. She shivered. No, the coldness hadn’t gone away.
Courtney Kimball’s blond hair was drawn back in a ponytail. Barefoot, she wore a floppy shell-pink T-shirt, and faded cutoffs. She leaned forward to balance on the uplifting catamaran, the carefree grin on her face and the luminous shine in her eyes the essence of summer.
“Oh, Max.” Annie’s voice broke. “We
have
to find her.”
11:15 A.M., SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1970
Charlotte gazed complacently at the gilt-framed oval mirror that hung in the hallway near the door to the study. Such a lovely mirror, though the glass now was smoky with age. There was a story that a handsome British officer had given it to the mistress, Mary Tarrant. She’d accepted with many pretty protestations of appreciation and accepted from him also a pass through the British lines, which she used to smuggle quinine to her husband in a prisoner-of-war camp. Sometimes Charlotte felt that she glimpsed another face there, brown hair peeping from beneath a dainty lace cap, high cheekbones, and a generous mouth. Charlotte smiled at her fancy and nodded in satisfaction at her own reflection, her hair drawn back in a smooth chignon, just the trace of pale-pink lipstick, no other makeup. The Judge admired restraint. Charlotte’s glance swept the hallway, the glistening heart pine flooring, the Chinese print wallpaper, the magnificent mahogany stairway, the marble bust of Homer on a black oak pedestal. The bust of Homer had been brought home from Athens when Nathaniel and Rachel honeymooned there. She brushed her finger over the cool stone. Tarrant House. She belonged here. She and the Judge held the same values. Not like Julia. Julia didn’t understand the importance of family. Julia didn’t appreciate continuity, the thrill of pouring tea from a china service brought from London for Christmas in 1762. Julia didn’t deserve to be mistress of Tarrant House. With a final approving look—the pale-blue chambray of her dress was perfect—Charlotte turned toward the study.
The wail of the sirens and the ring of the telephone registered at almost the same time in Annie’s sleep-numbed consciousness. She fought to wake from the bone-deep sleep of mental and emotional exhaustion.
The telephone shrilled again. The siren’s cry became a shriek.
Annie came flailing out of bed and banged her knee into the chaise longue. Max rolled out from his side and knocked over a chair.
Max flicked the light switch just as Annie’s pawing hands found the telephone.
She knew before she lifted the receiver that something terrible had happened. Good news doesn’t come over the telephone in the middle of the night.
“Come at once.” There was both anger and chagrin in Miss Dora’s pronouncement. “A fire at Tarrant House.” And the connection was broken.
• • •
Annie stumbled over a fire hose.
“Lady, get out of the way!”
“This way, Annie.” Max held her elbow. They backtracked, skirting the far side of the two fire engines, then cut across the street to the west side of Tarrant House.
Flames danced against the night sky. Smoke billowed high.
“Max!” Annie strained to see. “It doesn’t look like it’s the house. It’s
behind
the house.”