The Ming and I (12 page)

I
t was still quite light out, and the red clay where I parked looked perfectly normal. Uma’s blood had been the product of my silly imagination and Miss Lilah’s story-telling skills. As for the elusive Maynard, he was probably halfway back to Rock Hill, his blond bimbo bobbing along beside him.

Quite honestly, I was not afraid as I went about my work. Fine furniture, even reproduction, is a joy to behold and, since I am a fairly tactile person, to touch as well.

I ran my forefinger along the surface of a tulip-wood veneer writing table. There wasn’t a scratch on it. If I hadn’t peeked underneath and seen the screws, I would have believed it to be an authentic Regency table, circa 1810.

“Well, whoever brought you up here had good taste,” I said aloud.

The sound of my own words sent a chill up my spine, and I involuntarily glanced up at the door. My heart froze. Standing in the hallway, framed by the door, was a man in blue. Perhaps I blinked or looked elsewhere for a second, but the next thing I knew he was gone.

Think what you will. Call me a coward, and doubt that I ever poked under my bed with a broom. I don’t care. In less time than it took Buford to you-
know-what, I was out of that room, down those stairs, and out the door. Perhaps I actually flew, flapping my arms like wings, which might explain why I left my purse behind.

Fortunately I keep a spare car key taped to the inside of my gas cap. And I had the nerve to criticize Red for barreling down the lane at breakneck speed! The Japanese have yet to invent a train that could have kept up with me.

“But it wasn’t my imagination,” I said to Mama. “And would you take me seriously?”

I was, I hate to admit, more than a little annoyed with my mother. She was watching “National Geographic” on TV, something about wild dogs feuding with hyenas, and could barely tear her eyes away from the screen. The wild dogs were ugly spotted things, and the hyenas, although their spots were smaller, were even uglier. I failed to see what the show’s attraction was. And it was a rerun, for Pete’s sake!

“Oh, Abby, don’t be silly. There are no such things as ghosts.”

“Fine. Call it a specter—ectoplasm, whatever. I saw it plain as day. It was just as clear as you.”

“But no one has ever been able to prove—Oh, Abby, look at those wild dog pups. Aren’t they just the cutest things? Now wait! In just a minute that nasty old hyena is going to lope over and snatch one.”

That didn’t happen. Instead, I loped over and switched off her set.

“Mama! I saw him standing there. He was a Union soldier.”

“Nonsense. That’s just the stress talking, dear.”

“Then I have very creative stress,” I snapped. “This soldier was wearing a canteen around his neck and holding a gun in his left hand.”

“What about his right hand?” Mama asked just as casually as if we were discussing spot patterns on the wild dogs.

“He was holding his right hand to his head—he had a rag or something in it. Blood was pouring down the right side of his face.”

Mama was staring at me just like that time when I was twelve and thought I might be pregnant because I had kissed Jimmy Blattner behind a tree at a church picnic, and his tongue had accidentally touched mine. For at least a split second back then, Mama had entertained the possibility that I might be pregnant. I had seen it in her eyes.

“Abby, maybe it’s time for a checkup,” she said. Fortunately she had not made the same suggestion when I was twelve.

“Mama! You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

“Of course not, dear.” She patted the sofa seat beside her.

Obediently I sat down. I was twelve again. I would let her feel my forehead, hear
my
confession, and I would promise to never kiss Jimmy Blattner again—tongue or no tongue. I would not, however, allow her to convince me that I had not seen a ghost. Of course, being Mama, she had to try.

“You have just seen two murders up close,” she said. “It’s only natural that your imagination is overworked. How about you and I go down to Charleston for a couple of days? We could have some she-crab soup and poke around the antique shops. Not to mention all those lovely gardens this time of year.”

It was a tempting offer. Forget April in Paris; think Charleston instead. There are only two other cities in America (I’m not going to divulge their names) anywhere near as lovely as Charleston, and neither of them can hold a candle to Charleston in April. Paris comes nowhere even close.

Whereas Paris can be cold and drizzling in April, and noses that aren’t running are apt to be turned haughtily skyward, Charleston is all sunshine and flowers, with noses pressed admiringly into bouquets. Paris is, of course, much bigger and much older, and can afford to mock the very folk who have journeyed there to venerate her. But Charleston is old too—at least by American standards—although she wears her age graciously, like a prized heirloom mantel.

The fine embroidery on Charleston’s cloak is her Greek revival mansions and the many courtyard gardens tucked between them. Tradition has it that visitors may enter any garden with its gate left ajar. Old brick walls covered with creeping fig, roses, and rosemary; a palmetto or two; and a splashing fountain—my idea of heaven is a Charleston garden.
And
an unlimited supply of chocolate—peanut butter ice cream.

April is
the
time to see Charleston. Quite frankly, tourists who swoon in Charleston in July do so because of its excessive heat, not from ecstasy. Some aficionados, however, claim that it is preferable to die from heatstroke in Charleston than it is to live anywhere else.

“I can’t go with you to Charleston!” I wailed. “I have too much on my plate.”

“Honey, the folks in the Bonanza salad bar line have too much on their plates. You have the beginnings of a nervous breakdown. At least speak to a professional.”

That did it. That hiked my hackles. That extra little bit of pressure was enough to transform me from a reactive flibbertigibbet into the proactive, broom-wielding woman I liked to think I was.

I snatched up my car keys. “You coming or not?”

“To Charleston?”

“Nope. Back to Roselawn. I left my purse there, and I’m going back for it.”

Mama clapped a hand over her pearls. “But Abby, it’s dark out now.”

“So? You said you didn’t believe in ghosts.”

“Well, of course it’s not ghosts I’m thinking of, dear. But that place is so isolated—and two women alone—don’t you think we’d be asking for trouble?”

“Plenty of folks live by themselves out in the country, Mama. They’re probably a lot safer there than we are here in town.”

“But that road is dangerous. You said so yourself.”

I did my best chicken imitation.

“All right!”

Mama marched off to her bedroom to get her purse. She looked so grim when she returned that I couldn’t help but laugh.

“There are no ghosts, Mama, remember?”

She shook her purse at me. “You owe me big time for this one, Abigail Louise. When we get back—if we do—we’re heading straight over to Tiny Tim’s Tattoo Palace.”

I rolled my eyes before glancing at my watch. “Okay, okay.”

“And don’t think they won’t be open, either,” she said triumphantly. “I called, and they stay open around the clock.”

I rolled my eyes again for good measure.

I’m sure it would be disconcerting for anyone to open their front door and find someone, quite unexpected, standing there. Given the state of my nerves, it was perfectly understandable that I would scream. C.J., however, was not so understanding.

“Lord have mercy!” she complained. “I haven’t heard such a racket since Cousin LeRoy saw the light.”

“You mean he was saved?” Mama asked politely. “Saved” is not a word that rolls easily off Episcopalian tongues.

C.J. brushed past us and flopped across one of Mama’s armchairs. “No, I mean saw the light. He was taking a shortcut between Charlotte and Gastonia along the railway tracks, see, and his shoe got stuck under a tie. Well, it was at night, and Cousin LeRoy was busy trying to pull his shoe out when he sees this bright light coming right at him.” She paused to catch her breath.

“Spare us the gruesome details,” I said.

“Oh, there aren’t any. Cousin LeRoy was a skinny little fellow, and he just lay right down there inside the tracks and let the train roll right over him. Only the tip of his nose was burned. But still, when he saw that train bearing down on him, he screamed so loud they heard it all the way over in Shelby. Even some folks up in Hickory claim their dogs pricked up their ears that night.”

Mama is hard to impress. “Why didn’t he just take his foot out of his shoe?”

C.J. gave her a funny look. “His feet were never in the shoes. He was carrying them when he dropped one next to the tie.”

I offered to punch C.J., but Mama restrained me. “At least let her tell us why she’s here.”

C.J. sighed. “Oh, that. I’m afraid it’s not very good news. Y’all know Frank McBride.”

“Of course.”

“He was shot tonight in his shop. Apparently he was just getting ready to lock up, because his keys were found in his hand.”

“Oh my God!” I sat down in an armchair facing C.J. Mama leaned against the doorjamb.

“Who found him?” Mama asked. “Were there any witnesses?”

“Wynnell heard a noise that sounded like a gun
shot. She found him. There weren’t any eyewitnesses, but I saw this car cruising back and forth on Selwyn not long before this happened.” She looked at me. “That’s what I told your fiancé.”

“He’s not my fiancé.”

“What kind of car?” Mama asked sensibly. “Did you get a good look at the people in it?”

C.J. was about as much help as Columbus’s cartographers. About the only thing we could conclude from her description was that it wasn’t the
Niña
, the
Pinta
, or the
Santa María
that had been cruising Selwyn that afternoon.

“Well,” Mama said at last, “if we’re going out tonight, we better be going. I have bridge club tomorrow morning at ten.”

“Where are y’all going?” C.J. was shameless.

“Roselawn Plantation,” Mama said quickly. “You want to come along?”

I was shocked at Mama’s invitation, and even more shocked when C.J. accepted.

“I just love haunted houses. There’s one in Shelby—”

“On the condition you don’t tell us any ghost stories. Abby’s scared enough.”

I will be the first to admit that it felt downright spooky driving out there that late at night. Rock Hill does not roll up its sidewalks at night, but folks don’t congregate to boogie in the streets on Sunday nights, either. The country roads were all but deserted. The one car we passed was most likely a couple coming home from a weekend at Myrtle Beach.

“Or else they were cow tippers,” C.J. said.

I wisely let it pass.

“They say cow tipping is gaining in popularity these days.”

Mama bit. “What is cow tipping, C.J.?”

“Well,” C.J. drawled, “most folks don’t know this, but cows sleep standing up.”

“Didn’t Aunt Eulonia used to do that?” I asked.

“Shh,” Mama said. “Let her tell.”

C.J. sighed with pleasure. “Now, cows have different stages of sleep, just like we humans. And when they are in their deepest sleep mode, they can’t hear a thing around them.”

“Abby never could hear her alarm clock.”

C.J. giggled. “So the trick is to sneak up on a cow that’s in her deep-sleep stage and tip her over.”

“How?”

“You just push. The cow will fall over—boom!”

“That’s cruel,” I said. “And besides, what’s the point?”

“It’s funny,” C.J. said. “They fall over all at once. Like in a cartoon or something.”

“I want to see that,” Mama said. “Abby, stop if we come to a cow.”

“Mama, I will not! Cows weigh hundreds of pounds. I’m sure that hurts them.”

C.J. took a deep breath. “Actually—”

Unlike Mama, I have no qualms about interrupting. “Can it, C.J. I’m not stopping for cows.”

“Spoilsport,” Mama said, and if she had been in the backseat with C.J., I’m sure the two of them would have put their heads together and started whispering.

Uma’s blood was flowing fast and deep that night.

“I can’t even see my feet,” Mama wailed.

I grabbed her hand and moved it over a few inches. “It helps if you shine the light on them.”

It was like taking Susan and her friends on a Girl Scout camping trip. No, it was like taking Charlie and his friends on a Boy Scout outing. I had never seen such big wusses. Mama and C.J., I mean. At least I didn’t have to worry about losing them. They
clung so close, we inadvertently swapped shadows a couple of times.

“Y’all aren’t even giving me enough room to breathe,” I said at the bottom of the stairs.

“I heard something from up there.” C.J., who was carrying the flashlight at that point, waved it at the top of the stairs. The entire stairwell, incidentally, was well lit by a lightbulb—studded chandelier.

“Turn your flashlight off, C.J.,” I directed her. “There’s no need to waste the batteries.”

C.J. reluctantly did as she was told.

“Old houses settle at night,” Mama said. She sounded more convincing the night she assured me that Santa Claus was real. Of course I was twelve by then, and had begun to have serious doubts.

“Y’all just stay down here and shiver,” I said. “My purse is upstairs, and I aim to get it. Be back in a jiffy.”

They would have none of it. We climbed the stairs
together
, like some strange six-legged, six-eyed beast, flailing and fumbling, panting and puffing. A real ghost would have fled in terror.

At the top of the stairs we teetered to a halt. “Turn left,” I directed.

Even as I spoke the chandelier above our heads went black. Mama and C.J. both shrieked, and they claim that I did as well. At any rate it was a few seconds before C.J. turned the flashlight on. Then we all screamed.

Standing right in front of us, just as real as C.J. and Mama, was a Union soldier. I kid you not. This was no ephemeral apparition. This was a real live soldier—well, you know what I mean. If any of us had possessed ten-foot arms, we could have reached out and touched the man.