Southern Ghost (35 page)

Miss Dora called after her, “Wait now, Enid. We need you.”

The only answer was the slam of the front door as it closed behind Enid.

“She blackmailed him!” Annie said urgently.

“It could be,” Max said grimly. “It very well could be.”

•  •  •

Whitney, his brows drawn in a tight frown, stood stiffly by a post in the garage, irritation in every line of his body.

It was a three-car garage. A dark-green Jaguar was parked in the first space, a blue Chrysler in the second. The third was empty.

Max edged between the west wall and the Jaguar, past the first window to the second. He looked at Whitney across the hood. “As you recall, you were cleaning out your car from a picnic the previous day?”

“Yes.” He clipped his answer. His mouth was a thin, tight, hostile line.

Max waited.

Whitney might not be the world’s best lawyer, but he wasn’t stupid. He didn’t say a word.

“Why don’t you demonstrate what you did?” Max suggested.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Darling, I’ve had enough—”

“Whitney.” It was a command, punctuated by a single crack of his aunt’s cane on the cement floor.

He resisted for a moment, his head down, his shoulders hunched, then, grudgingly, he stepped closer to the Jaguar. His face was sullen as he pantomimed opening the trunk, removing materials, placing them on shelving against the wall. Then Whitney walked to the rear door of the automobile, pretended with exaggerated motions to open it, and mimed removing and carrying more objects to the shelves. He finished and stood, arms folded, and glared at them.

Max ignored his hostility. “Let’s see, you were putting things away. That brought you up and down the length of this wall which parallels the garden.”

“Yes.” Whitney sounded bored.

“So you passed both of these windows.”

“Yes.”

Max walked to the second window, past the hood of the Jaguar. He looked out, but he couldn’t see the house. His view was blocked by the wooden arbor covered with climbing roses.
The arbor was obviously designed to keep the garden shed out of sight from the house.

Max pointed out the window. “Was the arbor here twenty-two years ago?”

Whitney glanced out the window. Slowly, after a glance at the shed, he nodded.

Max retraced his steps, stood by the backseat and looked out the first window. This was a different story. The entire back of the house was in full view, plus the drive along the side of Tarrant House. Max’s eyes settled on the steps to the back piazza onto which, of course, opened the French doors to the study.

Max swung sharply about. “What did you see that day, Whitney, from this window?”

Whitney stared at the first window for a long time.

Annie tensed. Was Whitney going to help? Did he remember something?

Then, with an odd note in his voice, Whitney finally spoke. “I didn’t see a damned thing.”

No matter how Max went at it, Whitney stubbornly repeated his denial.

Annie broke in. “You’re lying.” She saw Max’s quick frown. But sweet words would do no good with Whitney, and he might as well know they weren’t taken in.

Whitney ignored her, shaking his head, but his eyes had a distant, faraway look.

Annie started to speak, but subsided at Max’s stern look.

Max stepped to the first window and looked out again into the murky light. “Anyone coming from Miss Dora’s or the back of the garden or the servants’ quarters would be visible to you.”

“Sure,” Whitney agreed. His answer was ready, but his tone was still abstracted. Then he spoke more briskly. “Thing is, I didn’t see anybody at all, so let’s drop it. Okay?”

“Whitney, this is a very serious situation.” Miss Dora poked her head at him, like an irascible turtle. “You must tell us what you saw. Don’t you understand, you could be in danger!”

Something flickered in his eyes, but he just shook his head. “Aunt Dora, don’t worry about me. I don’t know anything that has to do with the Judge’s murder. Look, I was out here, out of the way. The first I knew there was a problem was when Ross slammed into the garage, white as a sheet, the gun in his hand.” He paused and genuine sorrow touched his voice. “God, to think he blew his brains out for nothing!”

Or was it, Annie wondered, simulated sorrow? Had Ross been manipulated by an older brother he trusted? She said briskly, “Of course, there’s another reason you might not have seen anything out the windows.”

“What is that, young miss?” Miss Dora demanded.

Annie’s eyes locked with Whitney’s. “You wouldn’t have seen a thing—if you weren’t here.”

Whitney’s face hardened. “If I killed the Judge, that’s what you’re saying. No. I didn’t do it. Why the hell should I?”

Max went right to the point. “Jessica Horton.”

For an instant, Whitney’s shock was naked—the widening of his eyes, the quickly indrawn breath, the sudden stillness.

But only for an instant. Then, he shrugged. “Horton,” he mused. “Jessica Horton. I don’t think I—oh.” The dawn of phony remembrance was almost a caricature. “Oh, yes, of course. She was killed in a plane crash a few years ago.”

Dead men—and dead women—tell no tales. Obviously, that was Whitney’s conclusion.

“Your father was furious that you got involved with Jessica when the firm was representing her husband in a divorce action against her,” Max persisted.

Whitney’s lips curved in a smug smile. “Really? That’s very interesting. I don’t know a thing about it.”

Charlotte stood stiffly in the doorway of the gardening shed, too upset to even try to hide her uneasiness and fear. Her chin quivered, and her voice shook. “I can’t stand this. It’s all so awful, so dreadful.”

“But why are
you
afraid, Charlotte?” Miss Dora peered at her with troubled eyes.

“The gun,” she whispered. “Someone took the gun. Why?”

Leaves skittered in a tiny dust devil near them. The wind soughed through the limbs of the live oaks and magnolias. The storm could not be far away. The dark sky lowered over them. The shed behind Charlotte was as dark as a cave.

Annie shivered. Charlotte’s fear was contagious. The woman was consumed by terror.

“The best way to be safe is to tell us all you know,” Max urged.

“But I don’t know anything!” Charlotte wailed. “If it weren’t for the gun being stolen, I’d think you were wrong, that there must have been another shot, that Ross killed the Judge like we’ve always thought. But the gun—” Frightened eyes stared at them.

Max looked at the rose-laden arbor that stood between the shed and the back of the house and then at Charlotte. “Could you show us where you were that afternoon, what you were doing?”

Like a sleepwalker, Charlotte stepped inside the shed. She switched on the light and turned to the worktable. She was clearly visible through the open doorway. But when Charlotte faced them, it was obvious she would have seen nothing. The arbor blocked her view.

Just to be sure, Annie asked, “Did you see or hear anyone go past, just before four o’clock?”

Charlotte shook her head. “I wasn’t looking toward the house. I was snipping and cutting, working on the flowers for the hall table and for the dining room. If anyone passed by, I didn’t notice.”

“Charlotte”—Miss Dora was getting good at blunt questions—“did you know that Whitney was in trouble with the Judge?”

“Whitney? Why, that’s silly. The Judge thought Whitney was wonderful.”

Did she really believe this, Annie wondered, or had the passage of time dimmed her memory of the Judge’s strained relations with his older sons?

Annie would have challenged her, but once again Max
caught her eye. Annie chafed at the restraint. Charlotte may have thought her young husband was wonderful; it was pretty clear Augustus Tarrant didn’t share her vision. But Max was right. There was no point in raking up long-ago escapades to trouble Charlotte now.

“The Judge and Whitney quarreled that morning,” Max said.

“I don’t believe that!” Her lower lip jutted out. “Who said so? I’ll bet I know. Enid! Enid’s trying to cause trouble. That wretched woman has always hated all of us. She’s such an ingrate, after all the Judge did for her. I’ve never understood why she’s so hateful.”

Annie stared at the older woman’s suddenly spiteful face. No, Charlotte didn’t understand Enid’s anger. Even if Enid’s fury at poverty and second-class treatment were explained, Charlotte wouldn’t—with the myopia of her background: white, prosperous, landowning, and steeped in a mystic past garlanded with heroes—have understood.

“I wouldn’t believe a word Enid says,” Charlotte said harshly.

Lucy Jane McKay stared somberly at the ruins of the Tarrant House Museum. “Ashes to ashes,” she murmured. “I don’t rightly know what’s right or wrong, but it’s a bad thing to drag the dead out of their graves. Leave the dead to themselves.”

“That might be the thing to do,” Max agreed quietly, “but we must find out what happened to Courtney Kimball.”

Thunder exploded with an earthshaking roar. A sheet of brilliant white lightning cut a jagged rent in the black clouds. Wind spurted against them. Leaves and dust swirled in the heavy air.

The former Tarrant cook lifted her face to look up at the storm-freighted sky. The wind flattened her dress against her. She spoke above the growing clamor of the wind. “It’s wrong that a young girl should be taken away.” She turned to Annie. “On the telephone, you asked me about Miz Amanda and Miz
Julia. I don’t know the truth of it, but that morning the Judge told Miz Julia she would have to leave Tarrant House and take Missy and go back to her parents. I saw Miz Julia’s face. It was … so pitiful.”

Thunder crashed nearby, followed immediately by a cascade of sheet lightning. Julia, clutching a shabby umbrella, huddled on a wooden bench near the back wall in a shady glen surrounded by azaleas. She looked up blankly as Miss Dora, followed by Annie and Max, ducked beneath overreaching branches of vivid crimson-flowered shrubs.

Miss Dora planted her cane firmly on a stepping stone. “Julia, why didn’t you go to lunch—the day the Judge was murdered?”

“Lunch?” Julia fingered the tassel to the umbrella. “I don’t know. I wasn’t—I suppose I wasn’t hungry.”

“What did the Judge say to you?” Annie asked.

Julia worked the umbrella tassel between her thumb and forefinger, faster and faster. Her face was slack. The dark smudges in the hollows beneath her eyes gave her an abandoned, neglected look. “He was so angry. Amanda tried to tell him—and he wouldn’t listen.” She spoke in a rapid, dull monotone, never once looking up. “I didn’t know what I was going to do. I came out to the garden, and I dug and dug. Later, I went back and there was a hole”—her hands spread until they were two feet apart—“and I dug it.” Surprise lifted that monotone for an instant. “I
dug
it. Maybe I thought I could dig my way to China—anywhere. Anywhere but home. I wasn’t going to go.” Now she did look up. Her voice was suddenly childlike, but her face was older than time. “I wasn’t going to go. No matter what happened. I’d already decided that.” A quirky half-smile tilted her lips. “Everyone’s so ugly about Milam. But he promised me. He said Missy and I didn’t have to go.”

Max leaned forward. “Go where, Julia?”

“Back … home.” A shudder racked her thin body. “I couldn’t do that. If I did, then Missy—” Tears welled in her
eyes. “Everything was always good for Missy. Nothing ugly ever happened to her. We all loved her. And Milam did, too. But the right way. The
right
way.”

The three of them looked at her in silence. Max crouched on one knee by the bench and took Julia’s hand, quieting the spasmodic quiver of that hand working the tassel. “Your father—” Max’s voice was gentle. “It wasn’t right, was it?”

Those dark, pain-filled eyes stared at Max, then tears began to streak her cheeks. “Not Missy.” Her voice was hoarse. “I would have died first.”

Max loosened his grip and reached into his pocket. He handed his handkerchief to her.

She took it and held it tight, but made no move to wipe away the tears. “Not my baby.”

Annie and Miss Dora leaned closer, straining to hear that soft, agonized voice over the rustle of the leaves, the whipping of the branches, the growl of thunder.

“When I heard he was dead, I was glad.” She lifted her head and glared at them defiantly. “Glad. Glad!”

For a crackling instant, Chastain House stood out against the lightning-white sky. The vivid explosion of the storm limned Sybil, too, her dark hair whipping in the freshening wind as she stood with the wild arrogance of a Valkyrie beside the gleaming bronze gates at the foot of the Chastain drive. Beside Sybil, his clothes crumpled now from having been slept in, his eyes red-rimmed from exhaustion, stood Harris Walker, his face bleak and hopeless.

“Tell us,” Sybil shouted over the crash of the thunder. “Who, dammit,
who?
”