Hidden Riches (18 page)

“Mr. Rollings?”

“Where are the cats?” he asked. “Where are Diamond Jim and Baby Sue?”

He held up a couple of fish-shaped cookie-looking things. “I always bring a treat for them when I stop by. They like the salmon bites.”

“You know, I was wondering the same thing,” Delcine said. “For two animals who'll inherit millions if we mess this thing up, they've been conspicuously absent since we arrived.”

“I forgot about the cats,” Clayton said.

Suddenly, everyone was looking around the house. Moving chairs in the living room, looking under the sofa and under the beds and cushions, in a small basket near the window, the corners of the rooms, and on top of the refrigerator and cabinets, all of the places cats were known to frequent.

The search came up empty. And from the living room and kitchen all eyes, including Lester's, turned to JoJo.

“What?” she said, around a bite of ham sandwich.

“You're allergic to them,” Clayton said.

“Did you send the cats to the pound?” Delcine demanded.

“I believe it's dogs that go to the pound,” Archer said.

“Why would I do that?” JoJo asked. She dropped the sandwich on a paper plate and stared down her accusers.

“Well, Jo,” Clayton said in a let's-be-reasonable voice. “You did throw out the quilt. Maybe you sent the cats off too.”

“I never did anything of the sort.”

“Uh oh,” Lester said.

“What now, Lester?” Delcine asked.

“You know, in that Men in Black movie, the cat's collar held the secret to the universe. Maybe Annie Mae . . .”

“Ana Mae!” the siblings said in exasperation.

Undaunted, Lester continued. “Maybe the cats have diamond collars, and now they're at the pound about to be tossed into the incinerator.”

“You are so vile,” Delcine hissed.

The toilet flushed then, and a moment later Rosalee appeared. “Whew, I needed to go,” she said smoothing her slacks. “Turned out I really needed to go.”

Delcine frowned.

Lester grinned. “Yeah, I put some of that air freshener in there. I got it over at the Walmart when I picked up the shovel.”

“I saw that,” Rosalee said.

“Rosalee,” Delcine said. “Have you seen Diamond Jim and Baby Sue?”

“Sure,” she said, heading toward the cupboard near the refrigerator and oblivious to the parade of Futrells and company following behind her.

“Oh, I see you pulled out the food. Good. There's sure plenty of it.” She proceeded to pull down a glass and then help herself to a plate heaped with collard greens, ham, and a double helping of macaroni and cheese. “Sister Ettrick made this mac and cheese. She sure knows how to put her foot in it too.”

Everett Rollings stayed her hand. “Mrs. Jenkins, the cats?”

Rosalee gave him an odd look, then noticed the others peering at her. “What's going on with you people?”

“Are the cats alive?”

“Of course the cats are alive. What else would they be?”

“Where are they?” the impatient question came from both Delcine and Lester, for different reasons, though.

“At my house. Where else would they be?”

Rosalee put her plate in the microwave and punched in a few minutes of warm-up.

“How did they get to your place?” Clayton asked.

“I took them there right after Ana Mae died. They were a howling and carrying on like they knew she was gone. So I took 'em home with me to care for 'em. They both doing just fine and having fun with Snookie.”

“Snookie?”

“That's my tiger cat. She's a bit older than Diamond Jim and Baby Sue, but they all gets along just fine.”

“What kind of collars do they have?” Lester asked.

Rosalee scowled at him. “What kind of fool question is that? Ana Mae's cats don't have no collars.”

“Damn,” Lester said.

“Mr. Coston, I told you before that Ana Mae did not . . .”

Lester cut him off. “You were talking about buried money then, not diamonds on cats. Why else would the thing's name be Diamond Jim?”

“Diamonds on cats?” Rosalee asked, her brow crinkled in confusion.

“Because it has a white patch that is sort of in the shape of a diamond,” Rollings said.

Lester deflated. “Oh. Well, my bad.”

“As usual,” Delcine said.

After declining a plate for the third time, Rollings reminded them all that there was nothing buried anywhere, no jewel-encrusted cat collars or anything else untoward about Ana Mae's last will and testament.

“And other than bequests specifically mentioned in the will, the only piece of tangible property Ana Mae left for you is the quilt,” he said. “It's all you need.”

“And a fat lot of good that's doing so far,” Lester mumbled.

Delcine and Clayton shared a glance and then looked at JoJo, who nodded. The unspoken message among them was clear: The day's findings shouldn't be mentioned in front of the enemy—the enemy being Rosalee, who would undoubtedly take any information she gleaned straight to the ears of Reverend Toussaint le Baptiste.

Since neither JoJo nor Lester wanted to see to the welfare of the cats while they were staying at Ana Mae's house, it was mutually agreed that Diamond Jim and Baby Sue would remain in Rosalee's custody.

“Because this has morphed into a meeting of the heirs, I will see to it that Reverend le Baptiste is apprised of all that has transpired since he left,” Rollings commented.

“Great,” Lester mumbled.

In their rental car, with Archer again behind the wheel, Clayton and Archer talked on the ride home.

Archer waved at the people sitting outside the barbershop. The straight-back chairs couldn't be all that comfortable, but the customers looked as at ease as if they were at home stretched out in their La-Z-Boys and Barcaloungers.

“You know, Lester is definitely a fish out of water here in East of Mayberry, but he sure seems to be making himself comfortable.”

Clayton laughed at that, then waved at Eddie Spencer, who was loading a dresser onto his pickup truck.

“There's something else I noticed about that man your sister married. For someone who doesn't really have a stake in this, Lester is awfully vocal about his opinions.”

“He has just as much stake as you do,” Clayton said.

“Thank you for that. But I'm just here as your other half.”

“My better half.”

They shared a smile, and Archer reached for Clayton's hand to hold.

As they headed back to their bed-and-breakfast inn, Clayton caught Archer up on what he and his sisters had learned that morning, first from Roscoe at the Day-Ree Mart, and later from Jeremy Fisher, the young inventor and entrepreneur.

“Ana Mae was generous with her time and her money,” Archer observed.

Clayton nodded, but his eyes were squinched together as if he were suffering a migraine.

“What's wrong, hon?”

A moment later, Clayton slapped the dashboard. “That's it! I should have known.”

“What?”

“Did you hear what Rollings said?”

“When?”

“Back when he first came in back at the house. Telling you about the Fisher boy's garage made me remember it. Rollings said he always brings catnip treats for Ana Mae's cats. If he's at her house so often that the cats know him and he's bringing them cat snacks, maybe there was more to his relationship with Ana Mae than simply attorney-client.”

When Archer gave him a blank look, Clayton spelled it out.

“The elusive and mysterious Howard. Rollings has kids. There were at least a couple of young men on the mortuary staff who could belong to him . . . and to Ana Mae. He could be Ana Mae's baby daddy.”

Archer didn't look convinced.

“Those words—Ana Mae and baby daddy—don't even belong in the same sentence, Clay.”

“Well, somebody is Howard's father. He didn't just hatch.”

“Besides,” Archer added, “Ana Mae and Everett Rollings? No disrespect to your sister, Clay, but Ana Mae was a domestic. She died cleaning a toilet. I don't think she was the persnickety Mr. Rollings's type.”

“You weren't my type,” Clayton pointed out. “I was into muscle boys, not brainiacs.”

Archer looked at him when they came up on the light. “You do have a point there. Where to now?”

“Let's swing by the funeral home and see who resembles the two of them.”

But their hunch couldn't be verified—at least not that afternoon.

When they arrived, the staff was busy getting ready for a viewing, and the only males in sight were either too young or too old to be Ana Mae's Howard.

Clayton took a gamble, though.

“Is Mr. Rollings's son here?” he asked one of the attendants.

“Not at the moment,” the young woman said. “Trey should be in this office tomorrow, though.”

Thanking her, Clayton and Archer left the Rollings Funeral Home.

They had a name.

While the Futrells, Lester, and Rosalee were having it out at Ana Mae's house about dug-up flower beds and missing cats, the Reverend Toussaint le Baptiste finished up a call on a sick and shut-in church member, then headed to a place he hadn't been in a lot of years. If his hunch was right, he knew what he would find there based on the message Ana Mae had left for him in her legacy quilt. Should it turn out he was wrong, he'd pray on the matter some more and go from there.

Reverend Toussaint found himself at something of a loss, not knowing exactly what his role was supposed to be in Sister Ana Mae Futrell's after-death wishes. Among the most perplexing was why she'd included him at all.

As children growing up in Drapersville, they had been close once. Very close. But that had been a long, long time ago. Before either of them found the Lord. Before he'd gone off to college and she'd moved on to boys who could love her the way she deserved.

At Ana Mae's wake, Rosalee Jenkins slipped up and called him Too Sweet, the nickname he'd carried throughout his high school years. He didn't call her on it. He doubted she even realized she had said it. The moniker, with its double-edged meaning, brought back a lot of memories, most of them of the unpleasant variety.

But Ana Mae calling him Too Sweet was something he cherished. When she'd said it, it was not the derogatory nickname tagged onto a teenager questioning both his sexuality and his place in the world.

While some of the older folks in town might remember him from those days, he had worked long and hard to shed that image, living a life and lifestyle that was above reproach. It was also why he chose to remain a celibate bachelor, devoting his life to God's work. And, rather than pursuing a pastorate of his own, he chose to be an associate minister, not the senior pastor of a flock. The Lord called his children to different purposes and ministries in the kingdom.

Toussaint le Baptiste had found his and took joy in the work his did with the various outreach programs of the Holy Ghost Church of the Good Redeemer. In addition to being the church's Sunday school superintendent, he coordinated the meals and jobs programs, and served as overseer of the Good Redeemer Academy. In short, the work as director of outreach ministries kept him busy and fulfilled.

“Ana Mae. Ana Mae. Ana Mae,” he said on a wistful sigh.

He'd loved her like he loved all of the members of the congregation. There had, however, been a time in his life—in their lives—when his feelings for her ran much deeper. But that was ancient history, long ago and done with. They had both moved on, matured in their lives and their walks with God.