Southern Ghost (14 page)

The old lady took her place in front of the fireplace, hands clasped on the silver knob of her cane, and faced her seated guests scattered about the drawing room. Annie was glad Max sat next to her on the Georgian settee.

Despite the muted richness of her rose gown, Miss Dora had a funereal air. Her ancient, sharp-featured face settled in implacable lines, eyes hooded, lips pursed, arrogant chin thrust forward.

Slowly, one by one, voices fell silent.

Miss Dora looked at each of her invited guests in turn. In a doomsday voice, she pronounced their names, clearly a roll call. “Milam. Julia. Whitney. Charlotte. Sybil.”

Sybil’s intelligent eyes appraised her. “You’re on the warpath, aren’t you? Who’s in trouble? Is it Milam for attacking icons? Or maybe it’s poor dear Julia who starts the day with a glass of vodka neat. Or is it Whitney for grabbing a little ass when poor Charlotte’s not looking? Or Charlotte for that god-awful pretentious piece of crap she wrote about the Tarrants? She oh-so-conveniently left out all the drunks and the black sheep and especially the Tarrant who was playing both sides
against the middle during the Revolution, à la the revered and very clever Ben Franklin. Or am I the one on the spot?” She flashed a wicked grin. “But you know what I like, Miss Dora. I could have brought him tonight, but this crowd’s a little old for Bobby. He’s a sweet young man.”

“How can you be so disgusting,” Charlotte hissed. “To consort with mere boys.” Her pale-green eyes glistened with dislike.

“The usual term is ‘have sex,’ Charlotte. Although I don’t suppose it’s an activity you enjoy. Not high-class enough. And Bobby’s nineteen.” Sybil’s smile would have embarrassed a satyr. “That’s old enough. Believe, me.”

Miss Dora’s eyes, dark as pitch, turned to Sybil. They were for an instant filled with pity.

Sybil saw that, too. She sat very still in the gilt Louis Quinze armchair, every trace of mocking amusement erased. Slowly she lifted the glass to her lips and drank, focusing on that physical act.

Miss Dora’s eyes lingered on Sybil yet an instant longer; then the old woman spoke in measured tones. “I have called all of you here because I intend to institute a court of inquiry, prosecuted by me, into the events of May ninth, 1970.”

It should have been ludicrous, the old, hunched figure, the thin, age-roughened voice, the grandiloquent pronouncement. It was, to the contrary, majestic. Tiny and indomitable, the moment belonged to Miss Dora.

The silence was absolute.

Anger.

Shock.

And fear.

Annie could feel raw emotion in that elegant room.

But from whom?

Milam’s heavy face twisted into a scowl, every trace of sardonic lightness gone.

The fragile coffee cup in Julia’s hand began to shake. Clumsily, she put it down on the Queen Anne table.

Whitney’s thin face had the look of a fox hearing the hounds.

Charlotte’s social smile congealed into a blank, empty mask.

Sybil’s face crumpled. She turned away and came up blindly against the mantelpiece. Both hands gripped it. She stood with her back to them, her smooth, ivory shoulders hunched, then whirled to face Miss Dora.

“Ross,” she cried brokenly. “You know how it happened, you old bitch. It shouldn’t have happened, but it did. An accident. Ross and I…” She looked about with glazed, uncomprehending eyes. “That’s when everything went wrong, and it never came right again. Never. I still don’t know why he went out to the lodge. He was supposed to meet me at the bottom of the drive. I was there,” she said forlornly, years of grief weighting the words. “I waited and waited—and then Daddy found me and…” She broke off. Sybil’s bejeweled hands clenched. There was more than grief, there was anger that could never be answered, the fury at fate that had robbed her of the man she loved. Annie thought she’d never seen Sybil look more lovely … or more dangerous.

“I saw you and Ross in the garden that afternoon,” Miss Dora said gently.

For an instant, the years fell away and Sybil looked like a girl again, young and in love and breathtakingly beautiful. “One last kiss—it was so light, just the barest touch. We thought there would be time for all the kisses in the world.” The brief illusion of youth fled, replaced by the sorrow-ravaged yet still gorgeous face. Sybil’s bitter eyes raked the room. “Why couldn’t it have been one of you? Why couldn’t it have been Milam? Or Whitney? They aren’t a quarter the man Ross was. Ross was—” She swallowed convulsively. “Oh, God, he was wonderful. Young and strong. And a
man.
He knew how to live—and none of you has ever lived, not the way Ross did. He could laugh and make love and ride a horse and be brave and gentle and kind and rough. Oh, dear God, what irony, what sick and puking irony that he should die and any one of you live.” Years of anger corroded her husky voice.

Annie reached out and took Max’s hand and held it hard. Max watched Sybil, his dark-blue eyes somber.

“How
dare
you talk like that!” Charlotte, her voice high with anger, her plain face livid, turned to Miss Dora. “You make her hush up right this minute. We don’t have to sit here and be insulted. Why, Whitney and I—”

“You and Whitney will do as I say,” Miss Dora snapped.

Charlotte looked as though she’d been slapped. Her head jerked up, her mouth opened, but no words came. Then, her shoulders slumped and her eyes fell before Miss Dora’s unbending gaze.

“Of course we will, Miss Dora.” Whitney’s voice was placating. “But the past is past. Dad and Ross—that’s been over and done with for more than twenty years. There’s nothing to be gained by discussing it.”

Charlotte lifted her chin. “A tragic day,” she said loudly. But there was no sympathy in her voice. Annie heard instead the oily complacency of a chorus in a Greek tragedy. “A double loss for poor Amanda.”

Julia buried her face in her hands for a long moment, then struggled up from her chair and moved heavily toward the sideboard, one hand outstretched for the cut-glass decanter.

Milam bowed toward his great-aunt. “What an exquisite sense of drama you possess,” he drawled. His green eyes glittered with malice; his plump face was once again amused. “But the difficulty is, you face a dead end. No one will ever know more about that day because the principals are all beyond this earthly vale of tears.”

“I will know more.” The old woman spoke with utter confidence.

Again, taut silence stretched.

“You see,” the whispery voice continued, “no one has ever questioned the official version, Ross dead of an accidental gunshot wound; Augustus dead from a heart attack upon hearing the shocking news.” She smiled grimly, her ancient face an icy mask of contempt. “All of you—except dear Sybil, of course—were in Tarrant House that day. Whitney, how did you learn of Ross’s ‘accident’?” Her voice lingered deliberately on the final word.

Whitney stood with his hands clasped behind him, rocking
back and forth. He had the wary look of a man suddenly confronted with a minefield and ordered to cross it. He cleared his throat. “Grandfather told me.”

Annie’s mind went back to her painstakingly inked family trees. That would be Harmon Brevard, Amanda’s father.

“What time was that?” Miss Dora’s question was rapierquick.

Whitney looked confused.

“It’s disrespectful to the dead.” Nervously, Charlotte pleated her white chiffon skirt. “Miss Dora, this is dreadful, like pulling and picking at bones.”

But Miss Dora ignored Charlotte’s shrill protest. The old lady’s imperious gaze never left her great-nephew’s face.

Whitney moved restively. “God, it’s been twenty—”

“
Whitney
,” Miss Dora said sharply.

Whitney moved restively, then glanced uncertainly toward his brother.

Annie squeezed Max’s hand. How revealing! Whitney, the member of the bar, the substantial brother, still deferred to his older brother, whom Annie had supposed to be the weaker personality of the two. Or was that just society’s prejudice taking over, the assumption that a lawyer of substance in a community would, of course, dominate an older, unconventional sibling.

Milam sniggered, breaking the silence. “May as well give up, brother dear.” He fluffed the thick blond hair over his collar. “Aunt Dora always did have your number. Oh, well, I don’t suppose it matters after all these years. Why not let the truth come out—”

“Milam,
no
!” Charlotte importuned. Panic shrilled her voice.

“Truth!” Sybil said harshly. “What truth?” In the light from the glittering chandelier, her eyes glowed a hot, deep black.

“Your sweetie pie shot himself all right.” Milam’s light, high voice held a sickening note of satisfaction. “Suicide in the first degree, my dear Sybil. That’s why dear Papa dropped
dead—he and Ross had enjoyed a hell of a nasty little scene and—”

Hands raised, Sybil launched herself with a deep cry. Her fingernails raked Milam’s face, scoring crimson slashes on both cheeks.

Milam stumbled backwards, swearing and awkwardly struggling to push away Sybil’s slender, green-gowned body.

But it was Julia’s drunken voice that cut through the sound and fury and brought a terrible quiet to the drawing room.

Julia stood at the sideboard, pouring brandy sloppily into a cut-glass tumbler. She plunked down the decanter and picked up the glass in her trembling hand. “’s true, Sybil. Because it was the same gun, you know. Ross took the gun that killed the Judge and used it on himself.”

Sybil tore free of Milam’s grip and whirled to face her distant cousin’s wife. “The gun that killed the Judge? Jesus Christ, Julia, what are you saying?”

“Julia!” Milam’s voice was still high, but shorn of mockery, his tone sharp, urgent, imperative.

Julia clutched the tumbler of whisky in trembling hands and looked at her husband uncertainly. “Truth, Milam.” Her voice was slurred; her mouth quivered. There was a smear of crimson lipstick on one cheek. “You said we’d tell the truth.”

“Let her speak, Milam.” Miss Dora stalked between them.

But he refused to look at his great-aunt. “She’s upset. We’re going home,” and he took a step toward Julia.

Miss Dora’s cane slashed upward, barring him from touching his wife. “No, Milam. Not yet. Not until we know precisely what occurred that day. Julia, I want you—”

Sybil flew past them both. Her strong, beautifully manicured hands clutched Julia’s thin shoulders. Bourbon spilled down the front of Julia’s dress, and the tumbler crashed to the floor. “Who shot the Judge? When was he shot?”

Julia stood helplessly in Sybil’s grip. She blinked. “I tol’ you. You asked me. I tol’ you.
Ross
shot him. That’s what happened, he left a note and—”

Sybil let go of Julia and in a swift explosion of rage struck the drunken woman across the face.

Julia wavered unsteadily on her feet and began to whimper. Her arms hung straight and limp. She didn’t touch her cheek.

Miss Dora swung toward Sybil. “Enough. Get back, Sybil. Now.”

But Sybil, of them all, was not cowed by Miss Dora. Ignoring the old woman, she spat at Julia, “
Never
! Ross never shot his father; Ross never killed himself. Never.” Her voice was as deep as a lion’s roar and as full of danger. “Lies, all of it, lies.”

“You weren’t there, Sybil.” Whitney nervously smoothed his thinning hair. “What were we going to do? Nothing would bring Dad or Ross back. They were both dead; we had Ross’s note. Did we want to be entertainment for the tabloids? What would that have done to Mother? Dr. Rutledge agreed. It wasn’t even that hard to do. The bullet”—his voice shook—“left only a small slit in Dad’s coat and most of the bleeding was internal. The bullet lodged in his chest. There was no indication at all, other than the entry wound, that he’d been shot. I helped Dr. Rutledge put a fresh shirt and coat on him, and when he was taken to the funeral home, the director was instructed to cremate him immediately.”