When Did We Lose Harriet? (14 page)

I applied my heart to what I observed
and learned a lesson from what I saw.
Proverbs 24:32

The brown-haired child looked up from a smeared, torn paper. “Granny, I can’t do this math! Come help me.”

The voice from the kitchen was weary and short. “I don’t know nothin’ about math, girl, and I got things to do. Ask your teacher to help you. That’s what they’re there for.”

The teacher towered over her desk. “No homework again? And you’ve failed another test. If this keeps up, I will have to call your parents. Put away that book and pay attention.” She moved on down the row of desks, stopping to rest one hand on a boy’s shoulder. “Good work. Another perfect paper.”

He turned his head and gave the brown-haired child a satisfied smirk. She glowered and returned to her novel. Nobody saw the tear she wiped off her cheek.

“No!” I moaned. “No! Help her! Help her!” I woke to find my lips still mouthing the words. When I looked at the clock, it was only half past two. A heck of a lot of night still to get through.

I got up and padded into the bathroom for a drink of water. In the lavatory mirror I saw the big dark eyes of the child in my dream. Now I recognized her face. It belonged to my older granddaughter.

I sank onto the toilet with a groan. What if it
were
my granddaughter who was missing? We’d have turned over heaven and earth by now. Would nobody turn over even one clod of dirt for poor Harriet?

Clod of dirt.

Grave.

I remembered the phone call. Had that been a dream, too?

No. I could still hear that loud, hissing whisper, then a click.

I hadn’t been really frightened. The thunder and lightning effects outside the window made it seem more theatrical than scary. But who would make such a call? Why?

“Maybe Ricky?” Josheba suggested when I called her early Thursday morning. I felt like I’d burst if I didn’t tell somebody, and I didn’t like to tell Glenna. I think I woke Josheba up, but I didn’t even apologize.

“I thought of Julie, myself,” I told her. “She’s down at Gulf Shores all week with a friend, but kids these days think nothing of using long distance. And my favorite suspect is William. Especially if his grandmother called him after I met her in the hospital last night. She was appalled that he hasn’t reported that child missing before now.”

“Then he could well be trying to scare you off,” Josheba agreed. “Or maybe Eunice was more upset by our visit than she seemed.”

We weren’t saying anything I hadn’t already thought. In the dark kitchen after the call, I’d come up
with good reasons why the caller could have been anybody I’d talked to so far.

“Why would anyone bother? That’s the big question, Mac.”

“It’s not the biggest one, Josheba. Do you think Harriet is truly dead?”

“The only question I have,” Lewis Henly said later that morning, “is why you and Josheba can’t leave poor Harriet alone.”

I called the teen center from the hospital while they were moving Jake from intensive care to a real room. I wanted to tell Lewis about the call to see what he’d say.

What he said was, “I don’t for a minute believe she’s dead. In fact, if she heard you were looking for her, she could well have made that call herself.”

“Looks to me like if she heard somebody was looking for her, she’d have showed up at the center to get her money back,” I argued.

“Don’t get too hung up on the money thing, Mac. Kids around here shed belongings like a snake sheds skin. I’ve known a kid to leave every stitch of clothing he owned, including a brand-new leather jacket, lying in the bathroom at an interstate rest stop because somebody offered him a ride he didn’t want to lose. With these kids, it’s easy come, easy go. Harriet will come back for the money if she needs it. Meanwhile, she’s just gone.”

“You don’t sound very sorry.” As soon as the words were out, I regretted them.

He didn’t sound offended, though. “I’m not very sorry, Mac. Harriet can be a royal pain in the
be
-hind. She loves finding out things about people, and if she finds out anything about you that isn’t perfectly up-and-up, heaven help you after that.”

I wasn’t sure I understood. “You mean she tries to blackmail people?”

Lewis barked a short laugh. “Not tries to, does. Look, you may as well have the whole picture. One of the guys at the club got into trouble some years back. He’s clean now, but Harriet found out about it. She sidled up to him one day and asked for Coke money. When he refused, she asked, ‘Do they know about you around here?’ and told him enough to convince him she could blow his cover real good. He went numb and handed her money without thinking. Next thing he knew, she was coming after him for money on a regular basis.”

“What did you do?”

“What did I
do?
What
could
I do?”

“You could tell her to stop bothering him, couldn’t you?”

“Sure—and I did, once I found out about it. I even paid her a little bit to answer the phone after school. I felt sorry for her. Heck, I know what it’s like to be short of cash. But don’t go painting a picture of Saint Harriet in your mind. Saintly she isn’t.”

This opened all sorts of possibilities, though. “If she operated like that around the club, she may have tried the same thing with other people. Ricky Dodd, for instance,”

“He’d have wrung her neck before giving her a penny.”

“Okay, not Ricky, and not Dee, probably, but maybe William? Or Julie? Maybe somebody got tired of it, or—”

Lewis interrupted in exasperation. “Look, Mac, the girl hasn’t turned up dead. Even if a dozen people wanted to murder her, nobody has. Can’t you get that through your head?”

“No, because something’s wrong, Lewis. Penniless fifteen-year-olds don’t disappear leaving three thousand dollars behind. I hear what you’re saying about kids being careless about possessions, but not money, Lewis—surely not money.”

“This one was. And if you want the honest truth, my center is a pleasanter place this summer without her. I
suspect the Sykes house is, too. So if she ever does come back, the only two people singing the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ will be you and Josheba.” He must have realized he’d climbed up on his high horse, because he added in a gentler tone, “You’ve got plenty of other things to do with your time in Montgomery, Mac. The only question I have is, why can’t you and Josheba just leave poor Harriet alone?”

“I can’t, Lewis. I started all this because it was a puzzle, but it’s not a puzzle any longer. It’s a child. I never saw her, but I dream about her. She has my granddaughter’s face. This week has showed me how much I care for Jake. I keep thinking somebody ought to care about Harriet like that. Until we find her, I can’t forget her—and neither should you.”

He gave another short laugh. “What you really mean is, ‘I can’t forget her, so neither
will
you,’ isn’t it, Mac? You and Josheba are gonna make sure of that, aren’t you?”

“Probably so,” I admitted cheerfully. “I keep thinking
Just one more person and we’ll find her.
Well, I have another person I want to talk to. The other day Kateisha mentioned somebody named Ms. Scott who might know something. If Kateisha comes in today, will you ask her how to find Ms. Scott?”

He laughed, and finally he sounded amused. “You and Josheba are two hearts that beat as one. She’s already bugged me this morning about Ms. Scott. I’ll talk to Kateisha. Call me back after lunch, and I’ll tell you what she says.”

I called back while Jake took his afternoon nap. “All Kateisha would say is that Ms. Scott was a friend of Harriet’s grandmother,” he told me.

I was already looking up Scotts in the telephone book—which I kicked myself for not doing earlier. There was a C. Scott on the Lawson’s old street in Cottage Hill.

The voice on the phone, cracked with age, brought to mind immediately black-eyed Susans and wisps of white hair escaping from a straw hat. “You the same woman come by here t’other day lookin’ for Harriet?”

“I sure am,” I told her, “and I’m still looking.”

“You haven’t found her?” The old woman was obviously surprised. “Did you ask Dixie? Didn’t she tell you Harriet’s gone away for the summer?”

“Not exactly. She said Harriet and her uncle quarreled about some summer plans, and Harriet ran away. They haven’t seen her since June.”

“June? Do tell! You better come talk to my daughter Claire, then. She gets home about five. I’ll tell her to look out for you.”

Just before five, I pulled Glenna’s Ford up near the little blue house with cream shutters. Not long after, a silver Lexus parked in front of the house. A woman with platinum hair got out, reached for a smart black briefcase, and started toward the house. If I was forty-five and that long and skinny, I’d have permed my hair instead of wearing it so short and severe. She must be good at whatever she does, though, because her car, her light gray suit, and that particular briefcase don’t come cheap.

I got out in a hurry. “Claire Scott? I am MacLaren Yarbrough, and I’m trying to find Harriet Lawson. Your mother said you’d be getting home about now and I should talk to you. Have you seen Harriet recently?” I couldn’t imagine any reason why she should have. This lady wouldn’t bother herself with teenagers. I doubted if she bothered herself much with anybody. She was looking
me
over in a way that made me wish I’d worn my navy linen, pearls, and heels instead of my new blue pantsuit and flats.

I repeated the explanation I’d given so often I could spout it in my sleep. “I found some of Harriet’s things at a teen center where I was volunteering earlier this week,
and I’ve been trying to return them to her. Your mother first suggested I try her aunt, but she’s not been there since early June.”

Claire didn’t look at all bothered by that. “Of course not,” she said impatiently. “Didn’t they tell you she’s in Atlanta?”

“No,” I replied, annoyance making me feel more like my own capable self. “They told me she and her uncle had a row about her
going
to Atlanta, and she ran away from home. They haven’t heard from her since.”

Claire looked more disgusted than puzzled. “I can’t believe this. Just as I thought she was finally growing up a bit. I
told
her to tell them gently, but she probably blurted it out as soon as she got home.”

“Tell them about the summer acting school, you mean?”

“Yes. It wasn’t the smartest idea in the world, but at least she was showing interest in something that meant work. I thought it might be good for her—with her aunt and uncle’s permission, of course. I guess she went without it. Heaven help her when she comes back.”

“A brochure from the acting school was among the things I found,” I said gravely. “I talked to them yesterday. Harriet’s not there. In fact, I can’t find a single person who has seen or heard from that child since early June. I am getting seriously worried.”

Claire stared at me for a long minute, then stepped back and motioned with a long skinny hand. “Won’t you come in?”

The room within was spacious, bright, and expensive, in a bare bones kind of way. Not much furniture, but what there was was very good. Wooden blinds instead of drapes. Wood floors dotted with Chinese rugs.

“I’m home, Mama,” Claire called as we entered. The old woman did not reply.

Claire didn’t bother to offer me anything to drink, but kicked off her shoes and flopped onto an oatmeal
linen sofa, waving me to a matching chair. Following her lead, I slid my feet out of my shoes, too. “I love your house,” I said frankly, admiring a sleek crystal sculpture on a bare oak coffee table.

She didn’t exactly sparkle when she was pleased, but at least the ice thawed a little. “I hated this house growing up. Couldn’t wait to leave. But after my divorce, when Mama invited me to come back, I discovered Cottage Hill is some of the nicest real estate in Montgomery. The houses are solid, the rooms are big, there’s not much yard to keep up, and I’m five minutes from work. As soon as I discovered heart pine floors under the shag carpet, I offered to buy Mama out. I had some restoration done, and it turned out quite nicely.” She looked around in content. “Now Mama keeps the yard, I do the house, and we bumble along real well together.” She tucked her feet beneath her and got right down to business. “Tell me who all you’ve talked to about Harriet.”

“Her aunts in McGehee Estates and Chisholm, and Ricky, a boy who used to live with her grandmother—”

“Ricky? Now there’s a real prize. I wish Harriet would forget him.”

“She isn’t out there right now, at any rate. One of the girls at the center said Harriet talked about you a lot, so I thought perhaps you’d seen her. Are you friends?”

Claire’s eyes widened in surprise. “Heavens no! I thought you knew—I’m her trustee. I’m an investment broker, so Bertha Lawson, Harriet’s grandmother, asked me to manage the money until Harriet’s twenty-one. Bertha and Mama were friends, so I hated to say no.”

“Pardon me for asking, and don’t answer if you don’t want to, but it doesn’t look like there would have been very much to manage. The house couldn’t have brought much, did it?”

“About twenty thousand. But Harriet’s dad died last winter and left a life insurance policy for his mother, and
Bertha had one little vice.” Her face thawed again slightly into what passed for a smile. “When the riverboat casinos opened a few years ago, Bertha and Mama started going down a couple of times a month. ‘I’ve got a system,’ Bertha used to tell me. She never told me what her system was, but it must have worked. Real often she’d bring back money to invest. When she died, she was worth nearly a hundred thousand dollars.”

“Merciful heavens! And it all went to Harriet? That hardly seems fair to Dee.”

This time Claire’s smile was broad, and not very pleasant. “Apparently it was Dixie’s idea, years ago. Pardon my calling her Dixie. I know she changed it to Dee in college, but I still think of her as the bratty little princess across the street. Anyway, Bertha said Dixie told her several years ago that William could take care of her and their little girl, so Harriet ought to get whatever Bertha had. That was before Dixie thought she had anything, of course, and back when she assumed Harriet would go on out to her dad when her grandmother died.”