In a low voice, she said, “I thought Dr. Gabriel had put her down.”
“He didn’t.” I studied Hyacinth. She’d definitely been drinking as I could smell the gin on her breath. But she wasn’t drunk. “He said he couldn’t bring himself to do it when she was perfectly healthy.”
A trembling hand went to her throat. “Why do you have her?”
“I adopted her,” I said, wondering if Louella had bitten Hyacinth one too many times. “When I found out she’d been living in the kennel since Virgil died, I decided she needed a home.”
Well, I hadn’t decided that. Virgil had.
The things I did for ghosts.
Still shaking, Hyacinth kept staring at Louella as though transfixed by the small dog.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Blinking, she said, “I’m just . . . overwhelmed right now with everything going on.”
Her blond hair was pulled back in a stubby ponytail that she had managed to make look elegant, and her statement headband was firmly in place, but the appearance of her eyes revealed her grief. Red and swollen, with dark circles beneath that no amount of makeup could cover.
“It’s been overwhelming,” I agreed.
Swallowing hard, she tore her gaze from Louella and turned her attention back to the graveyard.
There was something beautiful about old cemeteries with the way the earth seemed to embrace the old mossy tombstones as its own. Creeping vines twisted and twined as though hugging the limestone markers tight. My gaze skipped from headstone to headstone, some of which were unreadable due to age. The chiseled lettering had been worn down by a century of weather systems.
Rupert’s headstone stood out among the others for its newness. At only five years old, it hadn’t the botanical patina of the others. Next to his, his wife’s stone was worn but still readable. Patsy Ezekiel had died in the early forties. But it was the stone next to hers that caught my full attention—only because of the turned earth around it.
Tyson Beauregard Ezekiel. I squinted to make out what was printed beneath his name:
CPL
U.S. ARMY
KOREA
JAN 20 1927–DEC 10 1952
MEDAL OF HONOR
He’d been so young. So very young.
The muddy dirt in front of the grave was the only soil disturbance in the small cemetery, and I shuddered at just the thought of unearthing the old casket.
Haywood had to have been fairly desperate to dig up the grave.
“Did you know Haywood was an Ezekiel?” I asked Hyacinth, my voice low as though not wanting to disturb the dead.
Her hand gripped the iron fence, her knuckles white. “He told me a month ago that he suspected he was, and I thought he had lost his mind. When he received the paternity test that confirmed it and showed me the results, it was shocking to say the least. To both of us.”
“Both? He hadn’t known his whole life that he was an Ezekiel?”
“Not a clue,” she said. “He only started suspecting a few months ago.”
Louella sniffed Hyacinth’s boots, and Hyacinth recoiled a bit. I tugged the leash to the right, away from her, and Louella stubbornly plopped down right where she was. Virgil sat next to her, and her tail started thumping happily. My body ached, but I didn’t shoo him away. I noticed that Hyacinth looked at Louella as though viewing her worst nightmare, her face pinched with panic.
Louella must have really done a number on the woman for such a reaction.
“How did he come about suspecting after all these years?” I asked.
She looked away from the dog and sighed. “During the renovation, Hay came across a box of Tyson Ezekiel’s belongings that the army had shipped back to Rupert long after Tyson had died at war. Inside was a stack of love letters written to Tyson from a woman named Ree that had been sent overseas to his post in Korea. Sweetest things you ever did read. Apparently they met at a USO dance over in Rock Creek while Tyson was home on a short leave and it had been love at first sight. They had only one week together before he was shipped off to war.”
That explained a lot about the timing questions surrounding Haywood’s conception. Tyson had been home for only a little while. Hardly time enough to leave an indelible stamp in people’s memories.
Hyacinth went on. “In the last letter in the bunch Ree told Tyson she was with child . . .” She sighed. “Even though there had been no return address on the letters, Hay started figuring dates and such and couldn’t get it out of his head that he was the baby in the letter, as Ree was Hay’s mama Retta Lee’s nickname, used by only her family. Turns out he was.”
Hyacinth’s story also explained why the heir to the Ezekiel house had been so mysterious. It was entirely possible that Rupert Ezekiel hadn’t known the true identity of the woman named Ree so he hadn’t been able to find the grandchild whose existence he knew about only because of a bittersweet love letter in his son’s personal effects.