The Girl from Felony Bay (9 page)

We waited for a couple more minutes, then circled the house and walked in the back door, where Ruth was reading a magazine at the kitchen table. “Where you been?” she asked, as if she didn't remember that I had called earlier to tell her I would be having dinner at Bee's.

“The big house.”

She sniffed. “Don't get used to it. You don't live there anymore, and you got dishes to do here, girl.”

I bit my tongue, tied on an apron, and started rinsing dishes and loading them in the dishwasher. There was no use trying to talk to Ruth when Uncle Charlie was home. I had realized some time ago that even if Ruth was nice on occasion, she was just as mean as Uncle Charlie when he was around.

As soon as I'd finished the dishes, I walked to the doorway of the small den, where Uncle Charlie was watching television and drinking a beer. He glanced at me, and his face darkened.

“What?”

“Good evening to you, too,” I said.

My heart was bucking in my chest. I told myself to calm down, but I had a hunch that I was about to open a big can of worms.

“I was out walking today,” I began.

Uncle Charlie stared at the TV, not bothering to acknowledge that he was listening.

“Up toward Felony Bay, I saw a bunch of No Trespassing signs strung up on the trees.”

“Uh-huh,” he said.

“What's the story?” I asked.

Uncle Charlie's eyes got smaller. I could tell from his expression that he was trying hard to be cagey. “What're y'all talking about?”

“I mean why are signs there?”

“'Cause maybe the new owners don't want y'all walkin' on their land.”

“Mr. Force is the new owner. His daughter doesn't know anything about this either.”

Uncle Charlie gave me a pained look. “He might a bought the plantation, but he ain't the new owner of Felony Bay.”

My jaw dropped, but I quickly picked it up. “How's that possible?” I managed after a few seconds.

“Simple. Felony Bay was a separate piece of property.”

“No, it wasn't.”

Uncle Charlie's cheeks grew red. “Don't argue with me, girl. If I said it was a separate piece, it was a separate piece.”

“Since when?”

“Long time.”

“So . . . who owns it now?”

“If they wanted y'all to know, I guess they would a come over and introduced themselves.”

“But you know who they are.”

Uncle Charlie's eyes glimmered with his secret knowledge. “Maybe I do.”

“And you're not going to say.”

“Ain't none a your beeswax.” Then Uncle Charlie said something that I didn't expect. He looked at me and smiled. “But you'll find out soon enough.”

I went to bed a few minutes later, but I lay awake for a long time watching the moon through my window and wondering about Felony Bay and what Uncle Charlie was up to.

I
n spite of staying up
a lot of the night tossing and turning with questions I couldn't answer, I woke up extra early the next morning when Rufus stuck his wet nose in my face. As if that wasn't enough to drag me out of sleep, Rufus gassed me with his Labrador retriever breath. It was almost strong enough to kill.

I ate my usual bowl of cereal and fed Rufus, then the two of us snuck out the back door and headed to the pasture. Since the moment I'd opened my eyes, I had been thinking about the same things that had kept me up the night before—the No Trespassing signs, the holes, Uncle Charlie, and Bubba Simmons.

The temperature had dropped a bit overnight. Heavy dew lay on the grass, and thick fog drifted off the river, lending everything a mysterious quality that only sharpened my hunger for answers. Timmy and his fellow horses, Clem and Lem, looked as indistinct as ghosts where they stood against the fence. As soon as Timmy caught my scent, he nickered and came over to nuzzle me. You could barely see twenty feet in front of you, and Timmy's back was dripping with dew and drifting fog, so rather than try to ride, I led him to the barn.

I fed and watered the horses, and when they finished their grain, I dried their backs and put on the fly coats they would need when the sun burned through. I did other chores, and once the fog started to lift, I let them back out in the pasture.

A yell came from back behind me. Bee was limping down the track on her way from the big house. “You done already?”

“Couldn't sleep thanks to Rufus, so I decided to get an early start.”

“I was coming down to help,” she said, sounding disappointed that she hadn't gotten there in time. A second later her thoughts seemed to shift, and she brightened. “Guess what! My dad called from India last night, and I asked him about that property.”

“What did he say?”

“He got on his computer and looked at the survey he received when he bought the plantation. He says there isn't anything on the property that looks like a bay. He also said that while lots of parts of the plantation have names, there's no Felony Bay.”

I nodded. “Uncle Charlie basically admitted that the land was sold to somebody else, but he won't tell me who. Also, when I walked home last night, Bubba Simmons was at our house. I overheard him and Uncle Charlie talking about the holes and keeping us off the property.”

Bee looked at me a moment. “What do you think this is all about?”

I shook my head. “I think we need to find out.”

“So what are we going to do?” Bee asked.

“We need to get the facts.”

“How?”

I took a deep breath. “We need to go downtown and check the property records. One of the only things Uncle Charlie said was that Felony Bay was a separate property. I'm pretty sure it wasn't, and I want to find out if he was lying. Either way, I think there are records and things we can search. If somebody bought Felony Bay, once we find out who they are, maybe we can figure out why they did and what they're doing.”

After I'd said it all out loud, the stuff we needed to do sounded really boring, and I was afraid Bee would want no part in it.

“So when do we start?”

I blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“You do want my help, don't you?”

“Of . . . of course!” I said, unable to hide my surprise and my pleasure. “I just didn't think you'd want to.”

Bee glanced at her wristwatch. “We should go up to the house right now. Grandma Em is planning to go out shopping, and it sounds like we need to get a ride downtown.”

We walked up to the big house and found Grandma Em just about to get in her car and leave. Bee asked if we might come along with her.

“What do you girls need to do in town?” Grandma Em asked in her deep voice. “Please don't tell me you need to shop.”

The thought of shopping made me glance involuntarily at Bee, and I felt a sudden sense of dread. What if she wanted to go shopping before we did our research? I didn't want to go into fancy stores where I wouldn't have any money to buy anything and where I'd feel bad about my own clothes. Bee was tall and thin, and I have to admit she looked pretty in her well-fitting jeans. Her top definitely hadn't come off the rack at a discount store. And her hair was straight and recently cut, and she had small gold-knot earrings that set everything off.

I couldn't help feeling shabby in my old jeans that were already too short and my Atlanta Braves T-shirt that Ruth had bought at a church consignment shop a few months back. My ears weren't pierced, because Daddy had said we were going to wait to do that on my twelfth birthday, and then he'd had his accident and Ruth couldn't have cared less. Unlike Bee's perfect hair, mine was curly and dark blond, and it only got cut when Ruth told me it looked as bushy as a palmetto tree. When it was cut short, I looked more like a boy, and when it was long, like a scruffy girl. Neither made me want to hang out in fancy stores where I couldn't buy anything anyway.

When Bee replied to Grandma Em, my worries disappeared. “We're not shopping,” she shot back, as if the very idea was beneath us. “We're working on a mystery.”

Grandma Em raised her eyebrows slowly in a way that oozed suspicion. “What kind of mystery?”

“A mystery about some land that used to be part of Reward Plantation but that didn't get sold to Daddy when he bought it,” Bee said.

Grandma Em seemed to think about that for a moment. She looked at me. “So what are you planning to do?”

“Talk to one of the lawyers at my father's firm and go to the library.”

“That's all?”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said.

“Well, I'm going to be a while. I have a hair appointment, and then I have some shopping to do. You think that mystery will keep you girls busy for five hours or so?”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said.

She shrugged and gave us a wave. “Come on.”

We climbed into the car, and as we headed into town, I thought of one more thing. “Would you mind if we went to one other place?” I asked.

I was sitting in the backseat, and Grandma Em glanced over her shoulder. “Where to?”

“The hospital. My dad is there. It won't take long, and then we'll take the bus the rest of the way downtown.”

“Have you taken the bus by yourself before?”

“Yes, ma'am. Lots of times.”

In the front seat Bee's head was turned. I felt her looking at me out of the corner of her eye, but she didn't say anything. I didn't understand the look, but before I could say anything, Grandma Em broke the silence.

“I'm sorry about your dad,” she said. “How long has he been in the hospital?”

I felt my stomach clench. “Nine months.”

Grandma Em nodded. Bee kept looking at me.

No one said anything for a long moment. The silence was becoming awkward. I felt like something weird was going on between all of us, but I had no idea what it was or exactly what had caused it.

“He's in a coma,” I said, when I couldn't stand it any longer. “I go in and talk to him because I hope maybe he'll hear me and wake up.”

Grandma Em seemed to think about that for an awfully long time. She gave Bee a sideways glance, then nodded. “Okaaaay,” she said, drawing the word out. “I guess we could stop at the hospital and let you go talk to your dad. Does that sound okay to you, Bee?”

I was surprised at the way she asked the question, but then I was even more surprised at Bee's reaction. She sat there, perfectly still, looking as though she was frozen. Finally, looking as if it took a lot of effort, she gave her head a tiny nod. “Yes, it's okay,” she whispered.

Grandma Em drove us to the Medical University Hospital, pulled over to the curb, and gave Bee another long look.

“Okay?” she asked again.

I realized her question had nothing to do with me or my father. It had something to do with Bee, but I didn't know what.

Bee sat with the same rigid posture, staring straight ahead. She gave her head another little nod. “Yes.” Once again her voice was a choked whisper.

Grandma Em reached out and gave Bee's arm a little squeeze. “Okay then.”

Bee opened the car door and climbed out. I did the same.

Grandma Em put down her window and glanced at her watch. “It's ten o'clock. What are you girls doing for lunch?”

I opened my mouth and closed it again. I had been planning to skip lunch or maybe buy a candy bar, because I had only a little over a dollar to my name.

“Do you know a place you can eat near where you're going?” she asked.

“Yes, ma'am, but . . .”

Grandma Em smiled. She seemed to sense my discomfort and maybe even guessed my problem. “I forgot to tell you, lunch is my treat.” She took some money from her purse and put it into Bee's hand. “Just don't eat junk.”

I glanced at Bee and then I started to say, “It's okay, I—” but Grandma Em talked right over my words.

“Where do you want me to pick you up?”

“I . . . at the Library Society on King Street,” I replied. “But I—”

“Library Society,” she repeated, and typed the name into her phone. “Got it. I'll be out in front at about three o'clock. You girls be ready.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Bee said.

Grandma Em waved and drove away.

I turned and started walking toward the hospital entrance, but after a second I realized that Bee wasn't with me. I looked back and saw her. She was watching Grandma Em's car, and as it disappeared around a corner, I heard a sound almost like a sob escape Bee's lips.

Finally she took a deep breath and turned to face me.

“You all right?” I asked.

She nodded, even though she looked anything but okay.