Chapter ELEVEN
Belinda Donahue noticed the difference right away when she showed up later that afternoon with a huge pot of something so heavy it took both Uncle Lum and Grady to carry it from the car.
“Why, I’ve never even noticed this pretty little garden back here before,” she said, pausing to sniff a yellow-pink blossom. “Was there a fence or something around it?”
“Just straggly old trees and waist-high weeds,” Aunt Leona said, following her into the kitchen. “What’s in the pot?”
“Chicken bog. It’s an old South Carolina recipe. My mother came from there, you know.”
“Ours, too,” Cousin Violet said, lifting the lid. “Or at least our grandmother did. Charleston, wasn’t it, Maggie?”
My grandmother was on her hands and knees rattling things in the kitchen cabinets. “Now, where in the world do you suppose Ella put that big green glass fruit bowl?” She frowned at Violet over her shoulder. “What was that about Charleston?”
“Our grandmother, Nannie Jane! Wasn’t she from South Carolina? Remember how Nannie used to make chicken bog?”
Violet glared at what she saw in the pot. “Why, this has tomatoes in it! I never in my life heard of putting tomatoes in chicken bog. Chicken and rice—maybe a little onion—cooked in seasoned chicken stock. Now that’s chicken bog!”
“Smells fine to me.” Uncle Lum inhaled deeply and winked at Belinda, who looked as though she might be counting under her breath. “Don’t believe I’ve ever met a chicken bog I didn’t like.”
“And what do you know about it, Columbus Roundtree?” Violet clanged the lid on the pot and poked him with a magenta-nailed finger.
“Oh, I reckon I know a little bit—for an old fart.”
Aunt Leona almost dropped a bowl of slaw. “For heaven’s sakes, Lum, do you really have to be so crude?”
But Grady laughed. “If Dad’s an old fart, what does that make you, Mom?”
“Guess it makes her an old fartress,” his father said, ducking out the door.
Ma Maggie gave both of them a withering look as she sighed and rose to her feet. “Belinda, if you don’t mind, would you give me a hand with the cloths for the picnic tables? I think Ella keeps them in that wicker chest in the laundry room.”
“I know where they are, Maggie. I’ll get them,” Violet offered, distancing herself from the offending chicken bog. But my grandmother, obviously upset by Violet’s rudeness, ignored her.
Belinda, clearly distressed by the turn of events, didn’t seem to know which way to go. “Why don’t I gather some of those gorgeous roses?” she said with a forced brightness in her voice. “We can use them on the tables.”
My cousin Violet crossed her arms. “Those are Rose’s flowers. Ernest never lets anyone cut them.”
“Then it’s time he did,” Leona said, with a hand on Belinda’s arm. “Come on; I’ll help you round up some vases.”
The telephone rang just then and I was relieved when Grady, who had rushed to answer it, said it was for me.
“I’m afraid we’ve run into a blank wall,” a man’s voice said.
“What?” I was so distressed by Violet’s scene in the kitchen, the person might as well have been speaking Greek.
“Charles Hollingsworth. About those two who were supposed to have drowned here back in the sixties . . . Ron Vickers at the police department tracked down the brother of the young man. Took some doing, but with computers it’s a whole lot easier than it used to be.”
“So, what did you find out?”
“Not much,” he said. “Quincy Puckett’s brother still lives in Ohio; says his parents died several years ago, still hoping the guy would turn up, but he never did.”
“What about the girl?” I asked.
“The Puckett fellow didn’t know much about her. Said she was somebody his brother took up with after he left home. Her real name, though, was Valerie Dutton, and she came from some little town outside of Baltimore.”
“Would anybody there know what happened to her?” I wanted that skeleton to belong to one of those people. And I wanted to let Uncle Ernest off the hook.
“I doubt it,” Charles Hollingsworth said. “Not after all this time. Her family left there a year or so after that happened. She had two or three sisters, I think, but they’re all scattered now. Don’t even know if any of them are still alive—much less where to find them.”
“So I guess that’s that.” I gripped the receiver as if I could squeeze some hope from it. “Do you think it could’ve been one of them they unearthed over at Remeth?”
“Could’ve been,” he said. “I asked if the skeleton belonged to a man or a woman, but didn’t get to first base. Police are being closemouthed about that.” He paused. “Curious. And then there’s that peculiar thing about the Briscoe girl. She was about your age, wasn’t she?”
“Beverly? We were close friends all through school, but sort’ve grew apart when we went away to college.” I didn’t mention that Grady’s anguish over their breaking up was partially responsible for that. “What do you mean peculiar? You’re talking about her accident, I suppose?” I asked, curious as to why he used that particular adjective.
“That’s what we all assumed it was, but the police seem to think differently now. Looks like somebody might’ve tampered with the brakes.”
“Not Beverly . . . but this happened way back in—when was it? February? Why are they just now suspecting she might have been . . .” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word.
“Kate.” I could hear him breathe. “Beverly’s car missed the curve at a—well, an extremely steep precipice. The car fell—”
“Oh.” I leaned against the wall in the small alcove where the telephone sat on a recessed shelf. I didn’t want to hear any more. “Does anyone else know this?” Does Grady? If not, I didn’t want to be the one to tell him.
“I doubt it. They just got the report from the police up there. Naturally they’re investigating anyone she might’ve been in touch with, family, close friends . . .”
“Do they have any idea who might be responsible?” I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to kill Beverly. She had always been a little on the shy side, and during our school days was a serious student, active in the Latin Club, Junior Science Society—things like that. In fact, my mother had encouraged our friendship because she thought Beverly would be a steadying influence on me.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” he was saying, and I nodded, as if he could see me over the phone. I felt as if we were losing Beverly twice.
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“You look like a rabbit ran over your grave. What’s wrong?” Marge came in from outside with a squirming Hartley under one arm and what looked like a change of clothing in the other. “Been here less than an hour and he’s already found every mud puddle on the place!”
“It’s Beverly,” I whispered, following her into the bathroom where she began to strip and scrub her youngest. “They’re saying it might not have been an accident.” I told her what I had just heard from Charles Hollingsworth.
“Dear God! Why would anybody do a thing like that? Does Grady know?” Ignoring his protests, Marge ran a washcloth over Hartley’s dirt-smeared face.
“I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t. He and his dad were ganging up on Aunt Leona in the kitchen a while ago.”
“About what?”
“Not much of anything,” I said. “I think they were just trying to lighten things up a little.” And I told her of Violet’s irrational behavior.
“What you reckon’s gotten into her? She scatted outside a while ago looking like she’d just laid a square egg!”
“Maybe she’s jealous,” I said.
Marge frowned. “Of Belinda?”
“More like she just out and out resents her. Uncle Ernest has been without anybody all these years—just like Violet. No spouse, no children—only I never thought it bothered Uncle Ernest that much, once you got past the ‘Rose Memorial Garden.’”
“I never thought it mattered to Violet, either. At least, not until now.” My cousin toweled her son dry, stuffed him into clean clothes and gave him a pat on the rear. “Try to stay out of the mud until after we eat!” she called as he ran outside, slamming the screen door behind him.
Now she gathered Hartley’s soiled clothing into a bundle. “I’m still in shock about Beverly. Do they have any idea who did it?”
“You know what I know,” I told her. “But, now that I think of it, when I saw Bev at Ellie Holcomb’s drop-in last Christmas, she did mention something about a weird neighbor.”
“What do you mean, weird? What’d she say?”
“Just that she’d be glad to be finished with the requirements for her degree and come back to North Carolina. I got the idea she didn’t like the place where she was living.”
“How so?” Marge paused in the hallway and looked around, probably to be sure Grady wasn’t nearby.
“It was a dinky little apartment stuck in the middle of nowhere, but Bev said it was all she could afford. She said she hardly saw any of the other tenants except for this one weird guy who kept asking her out.”
Hearing Aunt Leona and Belinda Donahue talking as they clattered about in the kitchen, I lowered my voice. “You know how nice Beverly was—didn’t want to just come right out and tell the guy she wasn’t interested. She said she was running out of excuses.”
“Kate, you should mention that to the police,” Marge said. “The man was probably harmless, but it could be important.”
“You’re right. Maybe I should—”
“What’s with all this whispering going on? Maybe you should what?” Grady came in from outside with an empty tray in his hands. “Ma Majesty is ready for the condiments now,” he said, heading for the kitchen.
“Kate and I were just saying we should’ve thought of the croquet set,” Marge said. “Remember how we all used to play? I’ll bet that old thing is still in the attic.” She turned to me. “Do you have time to—”
“I’ll look,” I said, eager to escape to somewhere peaceful and boring—even if it was 110 degrees up there.
Marge gave me a look that meant, Call now! “Then I’ll give Grady a hand,” she said. “Where’s another tray?”
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As soon as they were gone, I hurried to leave a message with the dispatcher at the police station who promised to have Ron Vickers return my call. Frankly, I hoped Grady wouldn’t learn of it until after the picnic. Having a skeleton turn up next door, not to mention what happened to Ella, had made everyone jumpy. But I still had trouble believing somebody had deliberately sabotaged Beverly’s car.
Only a dim bulb illuminated the enclosed stairs to the attic, and I didn’t even want to know the last time they had been swept. As children, Beverly and I had sometimes played dress-up here while Ma Maggie visited downstairs with her brother. Now I pictured my friend at eight or nine prancing about in a trailing dress with flounces, a floppy hat trimmed in faded pink flowers, and something caught in my throat. It wasn’t dust.
During college, Beverly had spent summers away as a counselor at science camp, or interning with special programs in her field, and we rarely saw each other. Other than our brief conversation last Christmas, we hadn’t seen each other in years. Now, I wished I had made more of an effort to keep in touch. I hesitated at the top of the stairs, glad of an opportunity to compose myself before all the relatives descended on us. My hand was reaching for the doorknob when I heard a muffled thump, and it was coming from the attic!
I did an abrupt about-face and started down, trying to creep as quietly as possible. If the person who had pushed Ella was hiding in the attic, I didn’t want to meet him. Or her?
As luck would have it, I picked that particular time to sneeze.