Southern Ghost (34 page)

When they came out on the first-floor piazza at the back of the house, Annie felt sweat trickling down her back and thighs. What had happened to their usual crisp, clear, dry days of spring? She took a deep breath and felt as though she’d gulped mist from a sauna. The storm couldn’t come too soon to satisfy her. As if in answer, lightning crackled to the south, followed almost immediately by a low growl of thunder.

“Charlotte has a green thumb, no doubt about that. Amanda would be pleased. She loved this garden.” Miss Dora waggled her cane. “She spent a good deal of time working the borders toward the back wall.”

In the murky light, the garden had the greenish, watery glow of an aquarium, the bright reds and pinks of the azaleas and camellias softened into smudged impressionist tints. Beneath the scent of coming rain and freshly turned earth was the darker, angrier odor of fire. The charred remains of the museum dominated the garden, drawing the eye away from the superbly tended plantings. The garden’s design—separate components scattered around the structures—was still evident. Rosebushes in formal beds circled the fountain and its brick patio. Scarlet tulips formed a brilliant necklace around the obelisk. Bunches of flowering azaleas curved and flowed
around nooks and crannies with benches. Honeysuckle and bougainvillea cascaded over the garden walls. Willows ringed the pond near the bluff. An herb garden thrived near the kitchen. An arbor thickly covered with climbing roses kept the potting shed out of sight. It would be quite possible—it was planned for that effect—for several persons to enjoy solitude in the garden without intruding upon each other.

But the effects of the fire—the charred structure tumbled inward to create uneven heaps of debris, the trampled-down iris beds where the firemen had labored, the muddy spots where water had collected on the ground—gave the garden an aura of desolation, made even bleaker by the gray and cloudy day.

Faintly, a bell rang within the house.

Miss Dora’s pale lips tightened. “It is time,” she said grimly, “for the curtain to rise.”

Quickly, as if impelled by urgency, Miss Dora orchestrated the cast of survivors. In scarcely a quarter of an hour, each person was standing—if truthful—where he or she had been at approximately four o’clock on Saturday, May 9, twenty-two years before.

In the central hallway of Tarrant House, Miss Dora shrugged as the last unwilling participant straggled out the back door. “Can’t prove who was where, after all this time. But only one person has reason to lie. Now, before we start”—wizened fingers scrabbled in the black reticule hanging from her left wrist—“I’ve some notes here.” She pulled out a tiny notebook, opened it to a page of crabbed writing, and said briskly, “Amanda was in her room. Missy was asleep in the northwest bedroom—that belonged to Milam and Julia. Sam—he died about six years ago.” She paused, looking pleased. “Ninety-seven and he walked two miles to church the day before he passed away. Sam was in his room in the servants’ quarters. Just like Lucy Jane. Ross was in the garden. And the Judge was in the study. Clear?” she demanded.

Annie and Max both nodded and the old woman started up the mahogany steps.

Milam lounged in a wooden-slatted white chair on the second-story back piazza, a sketch pad in his lap. He didn’t rise as they walked out on the piazza. He didn’t look quite so much sullen as sardonic and bored. “Nice to see you keeping interested in the world, Miss Dora.”

She eyed him coldly, her disapproval evident, but she made no response.

Milam tried again. “I can see it now, the parlor game to end all parlor games. Re-create the day dear old Pater died—”

“Milam.”

The single snapped word silenced him and brought an unaccustomed tinge of pink to his plump cheeks.

Max tried conciliation. “Milam, don’t fight us. We’re not the problem. The problem is what happened to your father twenty-two years ago. We need your help.”

“Look, Darling, if I knew what really happened, I’d tell you. But I don’t have any f—” He paused, looked at Miss Dora, then continued, “I don’t know. And I don’t think this afternoon will tell you anything.”

“Maybe not,” Max said agreeably. “Let’s talk about your father.”

Milam’s face was still and guarded.

“And your mother.” Max’s blue eyes were intent. “Did you know they were going to separate?”

“I think you’ve been misled,” Milam drawled. “That would be out of character. For both of them.”

His eyes dropped. He stared at his tightly clenched hands.

Annie felt a rush of excitement. Milam
did
know. The question was, did he know why?

“What kind of marriage did they have?” Annie asked.

Those graceful hands, artist’s hands, slowly relaxed. He flicked her a derisive glance. “I was their oldest son. Not their confidant. I don’t have any damned idea. They were polite to each other. Very polite. They never quarreled. What they did—or didn’t do—behind closed doors, I don’t know. But what difference does it make? Mother’s not here to take the rap.”

“If,” Max said slowly, and Annie knew he wanted to be careful in what he said, “your father intended to force your mother to leave Tarrant House, would you have any idea why?”

“No.”

There was no way to know whether he spoke the truth.

“About your mother’s fall from the bluff—”

For the first time, anger laced Milam’s voice. “Wait a minute, Darling. Are you suggesting I gave my mother a shove off the path?”

“Somebody did.” Miss Dora’s gravelly tone was certain.

Milam’s head jerked up. This, obviously, was an altogether new thought—and an unpleasant one—to Milam. Or was he simulating shock?

“Why?” he demanded harshly, his voice raw with disbelief.

Max rocked back on his heels. “Somehow she discovered that Ross wasn’t guilty—”

A sharply indrawn breath brought silence. They all looked at Miss Dora.

“If only Amanda had told me, shared—” Miss Dora gazed somberly at Milam. “I came to see her. One year to the day of your father’s death. You must remember that I had not been told what happened. I knew only the story that had been made public: Ross dead of an accident, the Judge collapsing with a heart attack. Amanda and I sat in the drawing room, with tea. It was a rainy afternoon. We talked about the Judge. And about Ross. It must have been fate—or the hand of God—or of the Devil. I don’t know. I said that I would never forget Ross, moving so quickly at the sound of a shot that afternoon and he himself to be dead so soon in an accident with a gun. She looked at me strangely, but I thought it was grief, the pain of remembering. She said, ‘You and Ross heard a shot?’ And I replied—I had no reason not to do so—I said so carelessly, never dreaming how much harm I was doing with those words, ‘Oh, yes, about four o’clock. I was at the gate. I could see Ross standing in the garden.’ Amanda looked quite faint. So I poured her more tea and then she thanked me for coming
but said she must go upstairs, to rest. Don’t you see? That’s when she realized—and then she began to think.”

It could, Annie realized, have happened exactly like that. Or it could have been some other memory entirely that reformed Amanda’s picture of that day. Perhaps on the anniversary of the Judge’s death, she remembered the click of a cane in the hall or perhaps she remembered the glimpse of a long, old-fashioned dress. …

“You think Mother went from that to accusing someone of the Judge’s murder?” Milam frowned fiercely. “That wouldn’t be like her. She would have come to me or to Whitney.”

“Or perhaps to Julia?” Annie asked quietly.

“Maybe.” The suggestion apparently didn’t bother Milam. “Or even to Charlotte, though I never thought Mother liked her overmuch.”

Miss Dora was nodding, her shaggy white hair flying. “Of course. Don’t you see? She
did
tell someone. But it was the wrong person.”

“Murder piled upon murder?” Milam’s lips curved down in ugly amusement. “You’ve been reading too much family history, Aunt Dora.”

Max lost patience. “You seem to think all of this is amusing. But you weren’t laughing the day your father died. You were upset.”

Milam let the pad slip into his lap and folded his hands behind his head. He looked insolently up at Max. “Sorry if I let the Family down, showing emotion and all that. But it’s quite a shock, to have your little brother blow away your old man. At least, that’s what I thought at the time. Believe me, it was a hell of an afternoon. I suppose I—”

“You were upset
before
your father died,” Annie interrupted irritably. “We have it on good authority.” Was it stretching the truth to consider Enid Friendley a good authority?

Milam’s arms dropped. His expression smoothed out as if all thought and emotion had been wiped away with a sponge. “Do you now?” he asked silkily. “And who would that be?”

No one answered.

A sour smile stretched his lips. “Enid, probably. Well,
that’s fine. Maybe so. It was a long time ago. If Enid told you that, ask her what else she knows.”

“We will,” Max replied. “Look, Milam, you were upset that morning. Long before someone shot the Judge. Why?”

Milam looked down at the sketch pad in his lap.

So did Annie.

It was just the merest hint of a sketch. A child’s face. A wispy ponytail. That’s all it was.

Milam traced the outline of a delicately drawn cheek. “I don’t remember. It’s been too damn long ago.”

When they walked—the three of them—into the downstairs laundry room, Enid Friendley watched them approach, her arms folded across her abdomen, a curious expression on her face.

“We appreciate your coming,” Max said briskly.

Her unfriendly eyes remained wary. They moved from Max to Annie to Miss Dora. It was to the latter that Enid spoke. “Hello, Miss Dora.”

“Enid, we need your help.” Miss Dora’s glance was compelling. “What happened that last day? Who did the Judge talk to? What did you see?”

The caterer hesitated.

“Come now.” Miss Dora was impatient. “Max and Annie told me what you said about Amanda and Julia. I can’t say I believe you were right, but we’ll leave that for now. Tell us what you actually saw or heard.”

“I know what I know,” Enid said mulishly. “If it isn’t true, then why were Amanda and Julia scared to death that day, quaking in their shoes? And Amanda—well, she came out of her room that morning and there was a bright-red mark on her cheek where he’d slapped her. And I can’t say I blame him. Two women—” Her face wrinkled in disgust. “And later, Julia came running down the stairs and out into the garden and she looked like the hounds of hell were after her. And maybe they were! And rightly so. But they weren’t the only ones upset. Milam came downstairs a little after that and he
had an ugly look on his face when he went into the study. I was still in the hall when he came out. He stopped in the door and threatened his father. He said, cold and clear, ‘I won’t stand for it. You don’t run the world.’ He walked by me like I wasn’t there. He left the door open and in a minute the Judge came and pulled it shut and his face was hard as the stones in the cemetery.”

Milam’s story.

Enid’s story.

“What happened next?” Max asked.

Enid shrugged. “I was out in the kitchen to help with lunch.” A look of surprise touched her face. “Funny. I hadn’t thought about it for years. But he was the only one who came to lunch.”

“He?” Annie asked.

“The Judge. Ate all by himself, and he was mad as a wet hen. Later, after he died, I thought he’d given his heart a beating that day sure enough. Quarreling with first one, then another. It was after lunch—oh, more than an hour—that Ross came home. From school. He wasn’t expected. I was surprised when I heard his voice—and he was upset, upset as he could be. I didn’t understand ail of it, but he was standing in the door of the study—just like Milam—and he was saying that he wouldn’t go, that it was all wrong. It wasn’t till later that I knew what he was talking about.” Her eyes filled with anguish. “My cousin Eddie died over there. Just three weeks before it was all over.” Unquenched anger burst out. “That’s when I knew the government lied to us. They said we had to be there, that if we didn’t stay, didn’t fight, that all those countries over there would go Communist and we couldn’t let that happen, that it would be bad trouble for us. But when the war ended, nothing happened! And finally I saw it for what it was—a big lie. All those soldiers died for nothing. That’s when I stopped believing the government—ever.” Tears glistened in her blazing eyes. “They put Eddie’s name on a wall. Like that helped.”

To Annie, that long-ago war was the stuff of history. And here was raw pain and unhealed bitterness flowing from that
history. For the first time, Annie understood on a personal level something of the misery and anger of those days. The shootings at Kent State crystallized the emotions of many Americans, including Ross Tarrant, who made a fateful decision.

“So Ross said he wouldn’t go—he wouldn’t die for nothing. Then he died anyway. And he was the Tarrant everybody loved. I can tell you, the tears in this house were for him. Not the Judge.” Her voice was harsh.

“Do you think everybody knew about Ross’s argument with his father?” Max asked thoughtfully.

“Oh, yes. You could have heard them from here to Bathsheba. The Judge’s voice was terrible, like a winter wind.” Enid didn’t even try to mask her dislike.

“It must have broken Augustus’s heart.” Miss Dora’s face softened with pity. “Ross was his favorite—because Ross always did everything right. To have Ross refuse to serve his country—I can imagine how Augustus felt.”

But Annie wasn’t focused on Augustus Tarrant and whatever disappointment he had felt over his son’s decision. She was studying the bitter twist to Enid’s mouth, the fury in her eyes. “Enid, when did the Judge offer to send you to college?”

Enid stood still and straight, her face suddenly empty of expression.

Annie attacked. “Was it before you found the key to that special box—or after?”

Annie would have sworn there was a flash of satisfaction in Enid’s eyes, but it came and went so quickly she couldn’t be certain.

“I came here to help,” Enid snapped, “not to take the blame.” She grabbed up her purse from a table crowded with wash powders and bleach and brushed past them.