Disappearance at Hangman's Bluff (6 page)

Seven

I
n the morning Daddy did
something else that shocked me: he drove Bee and me to school on his way to work. I sat in the front seat and watched him like a hawk, making sure he was okay. I felt bad about thinking it, but I almost wished he couldn't drive because it would mean he couldn't go to work very easily.

In the afternoon I had tennis practice, and Bee had volleyball, and then Grandma Em brought us home. Miss Walker's is a serious school, and since they believed in starting the year off with a bang, we both had a ton of homework. Daddy worked late, because in addition to Willie Smalls's hearing, he called me to say that he already had another big case. I was afraid that was going to happen a lot. People thought Daddy was a great lawyer, and probably a lot of them had been waiting for him to get back to work.

I ate dinner at Bee's house that night and also on Wednesday. Bee and I had a few classes together, like history and math, but I took Spanish and she took French, and then we played different sports, so we saw each other only for a few quick minutes between classes. Even at dinner we didn't have much chance to talk, because Grandma Em filled up the first meal telling us about her slave-graveyard project, and then on Wednesday Professor Washburn showed up for dinner.

He brought a little bouquet of flowers for Grandma Em, and from the way he smiled and jumped up from the table and pulled out a chair every time Grandma Em wanted to sit down, I almost got the impression he wanted to be her boyfriend. The whole thing struck me as funny, because I never imagined old people having boyfriends or girlfriends, but then I started to watch the way Grandma Em acted with Professor Washburn. She was all smiles and twinkly eyes as soon as we sat down. It was kind of embarrassing to watch two old people acting that way. I could sense Bee having the same reaction. I didn't dare look in her direction, because I knew if we made eye contact we would start giggling and never stop.

In spite of how weirdly funny I thought Grandma Em and the professor were, I found their conversation pretty boring as they talked about this graveyard and that graveyard and which ones had been mapped out and which ones were still rumored to exist but remained undiscovered. Blah, blah, blah.

I was tired and thinking about all the homework waiting for me back at my house. By the time we finished the main course, it was everything I could do not to let out a big, rude yawn.

I glanced at Bee, but unfortunately she was sitting with her hands folded in front of her, looking across the table at the professor just like she was some straight-A student, which of course she was. She even asked a couple of questions, and I wanted to kick her under the table, because she was making dinner last even longer.

I looked away from her, back at Grandma Em. I was desperate to catch her eye and let her know that I needed my dessert so I could get to studying. The professor was still in the middle of droning on about different parts of the island. He'd been talking about Bishop's Point earlier and was now talking about Sinner's Point. I was barely listening, but then I caught the words “Hangman's Bluff.”

In spite of myself, I said, “Pardon?”

Professor Washburn smiled, seeming delighted that I was suddenly showing interest in graveyards, but I wasn't. It was just that his mentioning Hangman's Bluff made me remember something totally different.

“Daddy won a big lawsuit over that property a couple years earlier,” I said.

“It's a large, undeveloped property,” the professor said.

“A man named Mr. LaBelle used to own it,” I said.

“Yes,” the professor said. “I believe he still does. Are you suggesting that's a place we should explore?”

I shuddered and shook my head, not because of Yemassee or Hangman's Bluff or the dead body we had found, but at the memory of Mr. LaBelle's daughter, Donna, who had gone to Miss Walker's, where Bee and I went, and had been the nastiest girl I ever knew.

“Mr. LaBelle isn't exactly friendly with our family,” I told him. “Daddy sued him back when Mr. LaBelle wanted to build a whole lot of condominiums out on Hangman's Bluff.”

“I think I remember reading about that,” the professor said.

“Mr. LaBelle was trying to get around the laws against building stuff.”

“Zoning laws?” asked Grandma Em.

“Yes, ma'am,” I said. “Mr. LaBelle had a lot of money, and Daddy says he must have thought the people on Leadenwah were a bunch of ignorant hicks and were too stupid to stop him from doing whatever he wanted. The zoning laws say Leadenwah is only allowed to have farms and plantations and homesteads, not shopping centers and condominiums. A bunch of people on the island hired Daddy to be their lawyer, and he beat Mr. LaBelle like an old drum. Mr. LaBelle ended up losing a whole lot of money, and they sold their house and moved away.”

Just about then Grandma Em glanced at her watch. “Oh my, the time has totally gotten away from me. You girls have homework. Why don't you take your plates in the kitchen and get your dessert there? Then Abbey can leave whenever she needs to.”

I didn't need any more encouragement. I thanked Grandma Em for dinner and said good night to the professor, then followed Bee into the kitchen.

“At least we don't have to talk about graveyards anymore,” I whispered as we got ice cream out of the freezer and Bee cut slices of freshly baked pecan pie. “Did you really think that stuff was interesting?”

“I thought you did, too, when the professor started talking about Hangman's Bluff.”

“Not because of graveyards,” I told her. “Only because it reminded me of Donna LaBelle.”

“I don't know her.”

“Obviously, because she moved away before you came, but just hope she never moves back.”

I shuddered again, and I suddenly got one of those weird feelings that seem to come out of nowhere. It told me that where Donna was concerned, luck was running against me. That was even more reason for us to take a little pony ride out to Sinner's Point, just to make sure there was no sign that the LaBelles had come back to Leadenwah.

When I whispered that to Bee, she looked at me like I was out of my mind, and in hindsight maybe she was right.

 

Daddy was in the kitchen eating a salad and watching the Weather Channel when I walked into the house. The announcer was talking about a storm that seemed to be heading someplace between central Florida and North Carolina.

I had been mulling over the bad feeling I had in my bones as I walked home. “Is there a way to tell if somebody is getting ready to build something new around here?” I asked.

He glanced away from the TV. “Hello to you, as well. Thank you for asking if I had a nice day. Yes, I did. And I hope you did.”

I went over and gave him a kiss on the cheek and said a proper hello. “Now can you answer my question, please?”

He kept one eye on the TV as he talked. “Building permits have to be filed with the county. They're public information.”

“Could you look and see if anybody has got building permits?”

He gave me a squirrelly look. “Why would I be doing this?”

“At dinner tonight Grandma Em and her friend were talking about slave graveyards.”

Daddy nodded. “She's told me about her project. It sounds interesting. Desecrating old graveyards has been a problem around here for a long time, but it's against the law. If people are building a new house or developing property and they find a graveyard, they have to report it, and then they have to properly rebury the bodies. Is that what you're trying to find out about?”

“No,” I said.

Daddy turned away from the TV by then and gave me one of his looks. “What's going on in that head of yours?”

“The professor brought up Hangman's Bluff and said he thought Mr. LaBelle still owns it. I thought he'd sold it.”

Daddy shrugged. “I'm not really sure what's happened to that land. What do you care?”

“You know how people get hunches?” I asked. “Well, I got a hunch that maybe Donna LaBelle hasn't gone away for good.”

Daddy rolled his eyes. “Donna LaBelle, your old nemesis.” He laughed. “I'll look into what's happened to that land, but it's going to be a day or two.” He pointed at the TV. “It might take even longer if this storm throws a wrench into everything and we have to spend time closing shutters and tying things down outside.”

“Could Custis check on it?”

Daddy shook his head. “He's helping me with this new case, and he's still at the office even as we speak. I'll get to it in a couple days. I promise.”

I nodded and said good night and went up to finish my homework. Afterward I got Rufus on the bed and tried to dream about Yemassee, but instead I had a nightmare about Donna LaBelle.

 

The next day was Thursday, the first afternoon of the week when neither Bee nor I had after-school sports, which meant there was free time for riding. Grandma Em picked us up after school and brought us out to Leadenwah. We had no chance to make plans in the car because we weren't supposed to go looking for Yemassee anymore, and also because Grandma Em had the radio turned up pretty high, listening to reports about a tropical storm.

The announcer said the storm had stalled off the coast, and its direction had become very difficult to predict. Even so, conditions were excellent for it to strengthen into a hurricane. He warned that people all along the East Coast should make sure they had plenty of batteries and fresh drinking water in their homes and to keep their car tanks filled with gas.

I wasn't very concerned from hearing all this stuff, because it seemed like every year in the late summer or fall we had at least one close call from a hurricane or tropical storm. When I looked overhead, all I could see was typical South Carolina blue sky, which made it even harder to get very worried. The day was sunny and perfect, and I was excited to go riding.

As soon as I got to the house, I let Rufus out to pee, then changed out of my uniform and into riding clothes, loaded a day pack with water and snacks, and headed to the barn. I saddled Timmy, and then because Bee hadn't shown up yet, I also saddled Buck. I was finished with both horses by the time Bee walked into the barn.

At first she didn't say anything, just walked over to where I had rested my day pack on top of one of the tack trunks. She lifted the flap and saw that I had put water and snacks in there for both of us.

She turned and gave me a look. “Grandma Em just gave me a whole fresh lecture. She says we're not to go looking for Yemassee.”

I gave an innocent shrug. “I just thought we'd explore a different part of the island. No problem with riding the roads, is there?”

She put her hands on her hips. “One dead body wasn't enough?”

“We're not going near where we found that guy.” As I said it an involuntary shiver ran down my back. “That would be way too creepy. I thought we should ride over to Sinner's Point.”

“We?”

I shrugged and smiled. “I got you snacks and water.”

One of Bee's eyebrows shot up. “You want to go looking for Yemassee,” she said.

Knowing Bee's instinct was usually to do exactly what she'd been told, I said, “We're not going to go snooping around looking for anything. I just want to, you know, go down some of the roads we never go down.”

“Just ride? No trespassing? No creepy dirt tracks? How far from Reward?”

“Not far.” I held up my hand and put two fingers in the air. “Scout's honor.”

Bee finally gave in, and we mounted and rode across the island toward the farther of the two rabbit ears that form the island's points. Each fork is fairly narrow, with just a single paved road running down the center and dirt roads cutting across and heading toward the water.

The main paved road had little traffic, just a couple pickups and SUVs that had drivers I knew. It was typical Leadenwah, except for another one of those huge tractor trailers full of dirt that went past. Just like the other day, the truck was going fast with loose dirt blowing from the top.

It got into our eyes and our mouths and made us cough, and it struck me suddenly that all this dirt had to be coming from a place where somebody was doing a lot of digging. And who would be digging except somebody who was building something? And weren't they building something pretty big to haul this much dirt? And wasn't there just one person I knew of who'd tried once before to build something big on Leadenwah? Mr. LaBelle had gotten stopped the first time, but what if he was trying to sneak some kind of building project in and get it done before Daddy and other people could stop him? If that was the case, it meant Donna LaBelle might be back on Leadenwah. My stomach clenched at the thought.

My mind had started to race, and I was wondering when Daddy would have time to try and find out who was doing all the digging, when Bee said something that stopped my thoughts dead, almost like somebody shoving a stick into the spokes of a bike. “What did you just say?” I asked.