Biggie and the Quincy Ghost (13 page)

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Authors: Nancy Bell

BOOK: Biggie and the Quincy Ghost
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After that, we cut through the woods until we came to the banks of the creek. Monica pointed to the opposite bank. “See that clump of sumac?”
I nodded.
“It’s behind that. Come on!”
I looked at the sky. The sun was getting low. “It’s getting late. You reckon we ought to wait until tomorrow?”
“Naw. Come on.” Monica was already walking across a sandbar in the creek. “Follow me, and you won’t get your feet wet.”
Buster swam across and was already rooting around in the sumac bushes when we got there. Suddenly, there was a rustling noise, and three armadillos came scuttling out of the bushes. I like to jumped out of my skin.
Naturally, Monica laughed her head off. “Come on,” she said. “A little old armadillo can’t hurt you.”
“I know it,” I said, miffed.
I followed Monica until we came to the entrance of the cave. The air coming out felt cool but smelled to high heaven.”
“Pee-yew!” I said.
Monica turned around and grinned at me.
We hadn’t gotten far into the cave when Buster came trotting back out with something in his mouth.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Oh, Buster’s probably caught a mole. Ain’t he smart?”
I didn’t answer, because I don’t have as high an opinion of Buster as Monica does.
Now, we turned a corner and suddenly it was pitch-black in the cave. The smell was getting worse. “Okay,” Monica said. “Now, let’s just set down and rest. In a minute, you’re going to get the surprise of your life.”
“Probably Amos Durley coming to cut us up into fish bait,” I said. But I sat down on a rock next to Monica. “I don’t know why you got the bright idea to show me this old cave anyway. We could be fishing.”
“Just wait,” Monica said.
It wasn’t long before I knew what she meant. At first it was just a faint rustling sound. Then I began to hear some tweeting noises. “Birds?” I asked.
Monica grabbed my arm. “Just sit still and be quiet.”
I tried, but seconds later, I felt something soft brush the top of my head.
“What was that?” I started to stand up, but Monica held me back.
“Now, duck!” she said.
I put my head between my knees just before I felt a rush of air as thousands of tiny wings fluttered over our heads and the tweeting sound became a roar. Bats! Monica had brought me to a bat cave.
“Keep your head down,” she said, giggling, “if you don’t want to get a face full of bat poop. Ain’t this fun?”
“Yeah, fun,” I said, covering my head with my hands.
After what seemed like a long time but was probably just a few minutes, the sounds stopped. Monica grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the mouth of the cave. “Look!” she shouted, pointing to the sky.
What looked like a cigar-shaped black cloud was shooting toward the setting sun. Bats, thousands of them, were flying off for a night of hunting bugs.
Sitting on that toilet in the hotel, I suddenly saw Monica’s face in front of me, laughing and calling me chicken because I was too scared to investigate a little trap door. I got up and started toward the wardrobe room.
A
n hour later, I was standing in the hall pounding on Biggie’s door as loud as I could.
Biggie, wearing her little short-tailed nightie, opened the door a crack and peered out, then swung it open as soon as she saw it was me. “Honey, what’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” She pulled me into the room.
I stood just inside her door panting on account of I’d run all the way back upstairs.
“J.R., are you all right?” Biggie put her hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eye.
“Yes’m,” I said, “but I found out something really important, Biggie.” I flopped down on her bed and started in telling her all about the voices in the next room and about the little door in the bottom of the wardrobe.
“My soul.” Biggie, who had climbed back in bed and
wrapped the covers around her knees, leaned forward. “Did you look down there?”
“Better’n that. I
went
down there. See, Biggie, there were these stairs leading down. Oo-wee, was it dark! But I’d taken a candle, see, so I could see just a little bit. The steps led down a pretty long way and, Biggie, there were spiders as big as your hand in there.”
“Did you see one?” Biggie asked, and I thought I saw a twinkle in her eye.
“Um, I didn’t exactly what you’d call see one, but I saw their webs—and they were huge!”
“Okay,” Biggie said, “go on.”
“Well, when I came to the end of the stairs, I came to this, like room thing, you know?”
Biggie nodded.
“And it was like a cellar, or something, dirt floor and brick walls, all musty and kind of damp.”
“Was anything in there?” Biggie poured a glass of water from the pitcher by her bed and took a sip, then handed it to me.
I drank some water and went on. “Yes’m, but that comes later. See, it was pitch dark in there except for my candle which was about to go out and a little square of light that was coming in from one wall. I walked over to that light and, guess what, it was the same little door me and Rosebud had found out in the courtyard. Remember, Biggie? Where we found Annabeth’s purse?”
“I remember.”
“So, anyway, I went over and pushed open the little door (It ain‘t—isn’t—much taller than I am.) and poked my head out to make sure there wasn’t anybody hanging
around out in the courtyard. When I saw the coast was clear, I left the door open so I could see a little better by the moonlight.”
“J.R., you’re getting as windy as Rosebud. Just tell me what you found.”
“It had some benches around the sides, wide so somebody could sleep on um, and a few old bottles and jars scattered around on the floor. A pile of old rags or clothes was in the corner, but I wasn’t about to touch that mess. It most likely would have had a rat’s nest in it.”
“So, then what did you do?”
“Came back to my room. By then, my candle was really getting low, so I just closed the little door and skedaddled back up the stairs. Whatcha think, Biggie?”
Biggie squinted her eyes and looked at the ceiling. “I think maybe you have just discovered the abolitionist’s secret.”
“Huh?”
“Hosiah Tilley,” Biggie said. “Remember at lunch Saturday, Lucas was telling us that an abolitionist used to own this hotel, and he helped runaway slaves escape?”
“Oh, yeah. And they said he had a secret place here in the hotel where he hid them.”
“Right,” Biggie said. “He’d hide them in that little room you found, then at night, he’d take them out, give them a horse from the livery stable next door and a twenty-dollar gold piece and send them on their way. But there’s more. J.R., tell me again about the ghost you saw on the night Annabeth was killed.”
I paused a minute, remembering. “Well, I was in the bathroom, just like tonight, and I heard somebody crying,
real faint. I opened the door and felt a cold wind brush past me. Biggie! They must have opened the trapdoor and got away just as I came in there. That’s what that cold wind was. It wasn’t a ghost at all!” I breathed a sigh of relief. “Biggie, I’ll bet that was Annabeth crying that night.” Then I thought of something. “But who was crying in there tonight? Biggie, do you reckon it was Annabeth’s ghost?”
“No, I don’t,” Biggie said. “I reckon it was a flesh-and-blood person. And I reckon we’re going to find out who it was. What’s that sticking out of your pocket?”
I pulled the little book out and handed it to Biggie. “I stole it from the museum, but don’t be mad, Biggie. I thought you ought to see it.”
Biggie flipped through the book.
“I’ll show you.” I crawled up beside Biggie and turned the pages to the first entry about Augustus Baugh. “They’re all the way through the book, Biggie. Lucas’s granddaddy was paying money to Annabeth’s family. Didn’t you want to see that?”
“You did the right thing,” Biggie said. “Now, let’s get some sleep. Do you want to spend the night in here with me?”
“Uh-uh. What are you going to do next, Biggie?”
“I’m not right sure, but eventually, we’re going to have to go out to Caddo Lake and interview the Baughs. Now, scoot off to bed.”
The next day was Tuesday. We had already been at this hotel five days, and I don’t mind telling you, I was past ready to go home. I woke early and hurried down to
the kitchen to talk to Willie Mae and Rosebud. Willie Mae was pouring batter into muffin cups.
“What’s that?” I asked sliding into a kitchen chair.
“Cranberry walnut muffins,” Willie Mae said. “They be ready in fifteen minutes. Get you some milk out of the icebox.”
“I’d rather have coffee,” I said.
“You know coffee’ll stunt your growth, and you ain’t no bigger than a flea right now.” Willie Mae slid the muffin pan into the oven.
“Can I have eggs?”
Willie Mae sighed and took a frying pan from the pot rack over the stove. “How you want um cooked?”
“Eyeballs,” I said.
Willie Mae put a glob of butter in the pan and stirred it around with the spatula until it was melted. Rosebud came into the room and stood beside her as she cracked two eggs into the butter.
“Best put three more in there,” he said. “I’m hungry as a hog this morning. Boy, them folks were sure glad to get back home. They jabbered my head off all the way.”
Willie Mae dropped three more eggs into the pan. “You sure took your good time getting back.”
“I reckon I was glad to be there, too,” Rosebud said. “I brought in the mail and swept the leaves off the front porch before I come on back.”
Willie Mae looked over her shoulder at me. “If you want any toast, you better put you some bread in the toaster. I ain’t got but two hands.”
“Rosebud,” I said, dropping two slices of bread into
the toaster, “how old were you when you started drinking coffee?”
“Six,” he said.
Willie Mae gave him a look.
“Sixteen, I meant.” He winked at me. “I was sixteen before I ever laid a lip around a coffee mug.”
I decided to let the matter drop. “Who’s taking care of Booger and Bingo while we’re gone?”
Willie Mae put two fried eggs on my plate and three on Rosebud’s. “Miz Moody taken the puppy to her house to stay. I left plenty of food and water for that cat out on the back porch.”
“Old Booger was layin’ up on the porch rail purrin’ his head off when I left,” Rosebud said.
“I’m about ready to go home,” I said, spearing an egg yolk with a piece of toast.
Just then, Biggie came bustling into the kitchen. She was dressed to go out. “My soul, I slept too late,” she said. “This morning, I want to go down to the courthouse. I have a feeling we might find some answers to why Judge Fitzgerald was making payments to Augustus Baugh somewhere in the county records.” She poured herself a cup of coffee and took a seat at the table.
“Biggie, I was just saying that I’m about ready to go home.”
“I am, too,” she said. “And we will just as soon as we find out who murdered poor Annabeth. Come to the courthouse and help me run the records.”
When we got to the county clerk’s office, who should be standing behind the counter than Emily Faye LaRue.
“Why, Emily,” Biggie said, “I didn’t know you worked here.”
“I just work mornings,” Emily said, not looking Biggie in the eye. “I took over from Jen Meeks. She’s just had a baby.”
“Are you going to college this fall?”
“I don’t guess so.”
“Why?”
“Mama doesn’t think it’s necessary. I guess I’d like to.”
“We’ll talk later,” Biggie said. “Right now, I want to look at all the records from 1900 to around 1920. Birth, marriage, death certificates, deeds, the works.”
The walls behind the tall counter were lined with file cabinets, and I could see an open door behind her that led to another room filled with tall shelves holding the big books of deeds and stuff.
Emily pulled a pad toward her and wrote down the dates. She went into a little side office marked COUNTY CLERK and spoke to someone, then came back carrying a key. “Those records are downstairs in the basement,” she said. “I can take you down there—or, if you’d rather, you can look at them on microfilm here in this office.”
“I want to see the originals,” Biggie said.
Emily led us down the hall to a flight of marble steps that led into the basement. She turned right and pretty soon we came face-to-face with another thick door like the one I’d seen at the museum. “We keep them in this vault,” she said, inserting her key and turning the big wheel that opened the door. Emily flipped on a light and commenced to show Biggie where the different records were kept.
When she was through, Biggie watched while she left the room and then began pulling books off the shelves.
“You take the deeds,” she said. “Mark everything that has the name of Baugh or Fitzgerald. The judge may have bought a piece of land from Augustus Baugh. On second thought, check the notary’s signature down at the bottom of the documents. Back in the old days, attorneys used to notarize their own work. It’s possible the judge was making those payments for someone else. I’ll run the marriage, birth, and death records.”
We worked along in silence for a long time. All of the deeds were written by hand, and the language they used was funny. I was barely halfway through 1882 when Biggie slapped the page she was looking at.
“Well, I’ll be,” she said. “This might be our answer. A birth certificate. It says on January 1, 1900, a baby girl, Marcella, was born to Rachel Quincy. Funny, they don’t give a father’s name.”
“I reckon she wasn’t married.”
“I guess. But that’s not all. On that same date, a child, stillborn, was born to one Augustus Baugh and his wife, Coralee. J.R., leave the deed records and start looking through probate. Find every will that was filed in the name of Quincy and see if the name Marcella shows up.”
That took a while. Plenty of Quincys died, but none had an heir named Marcella. I shoved that aside and started looking through marriages. “Biggie, here’s something funny,” I said.
“Hmm?” Biggie had her head in the death certificates.
“Biggie, it says here, a lady named Marcella Baugh got married to Ralph Meeks in December of 1914.”
“Let me see that,” Biggie said. “Well, if it is the same child, she got married at fourteen. But I don’t suppose that was unheard of back then—especially among country folks. Run upstairs and ask Emily if we can get copies of these papers, the two birth certificates and the marriage license.”
I came back to tell her Emily says we can have the copies, but she’ll have to make them from the microfilm. The books can’t leave this room. She says get the volume and page for her, and she’ll make the copies.
It was lunchtime by the time we got back to the hotel. Biggie had the copies in her big black purse.
“Who can tell me how to get to the Baugh place?” Biggie asked when we were all seated at the big table in the dining room.
Miss Mary Ann set a plate of cornbread on the corner of the table and looked at Biggie. “Biggie, I don’t think … I mean … do you really think you should go out there? Those people …”
“I really don’t advise it, Miss Biggie.” Lew Masters looked serious.
“Rosebud is driving us.” Biggie spooned butterbeans with little bits of ham onto her plate.
“You take Highway 18 out of town going east.” Lucas smeared butter on a piece of cornbread, being careful to get it all over. “When you see a sign pointing to Nowhere, turn right. Keep going until you come to Beck’s Bait Shop. They’ll be able to tell you where to go from there.”
“Nowhere?” I said.
“It’s the name of a town, and when you get there, you’ll see why,” Brian said.
“Have you ever been there?”
“A few times.” Brian looked down at his plate.
Rosebud drove the car to the outskirts of town and turned east on Highway 18. We passed pretty little farms and ranches with white houses and red barns and mowed pastures. Occasionally we would see a great big house sitting back on a hill. Biggie said those were most likely owned by Dallas folks who had come to the country to retire.

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