In the Dreaming Hour

by Kathryn Le Veque

  “If Daddy kills my baby, he’ll go to Hell,” she hissed. “He’ll go to Hell and you’ll go, too, for letting him do it. All of the praying in the world won’t save your soul if you help him kill my baby.”

  Caroline closed her eyes briefly, tightly. She had been wrestling with that exact thought for months now. The woman chain smoked in private, where no one could see her, and then she’d drink liquor to mask the smell, liquor her maid got from a still out north of Tillatoba. With smoke and liquor on her breath, she usually tried to gargle it away and put on copious amounts of perfume, which upset Laveau because he didn’t like the smell of her perfume.

  He’d often walk away from her in disgust, but that was part of her plan – she wanted him away from her. She wanted him to go find another woman to lay his fat body on, some local tramp that his men would bring to him. Sometimes, she could hear the mattress squeaking on the bed in the plantation office and she thanked God for it. One less night her husband would want to impose himself on her.

  One less night to pray for death.

  Caroline Hembree was a tortured soul, too tortured to save her own child.

  “He’ll do what’s best,” she murmured again.

  In silence, she dragged her weeping daughter along on their nightly walk, a forced march in the darkness.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Present

  The child

  Lewis Ragsdale

  Aldridge Ragsdale

  Sheriff Meade

  Dr. Latling

  Lucy sat at her desk, looking at the list she’d made yesterday. She crossed out Sheriff Meade’s name because she was pretty certain she was at a dead end with Beau, his help, and his family.

  She’d spent another sleepless night thinking on Lovie Meade and the old bird’s insulting remarks. But as morning came, Lucy came to the conclusion that she probably deserved everything she got. She’d pressed the woman, after all, and just because the old lady told her some unsavory things… well, she had no right to be offended by it. She’d wanted to know what the old women knew and by the end of the evening, she certainly had.

  But that didn’t make hearing it any easier.

  So she rose early and took a long shower, planting herself in front of the desk with her hair wet as she looked at her list and pondered what she needed to do for the day. She’d failed to see Mo Guinn the day before because the man hadn’t been in the office, but she’d made an appointment with him for later this afternoon, so that was one thing she needed to do on behalf of Mamaw’s estate.

  A quick call to her parents led her to believe that they were already starting to inventory the house, something she promised to help them with after her visit to Mo. But she couldn’t take too much time with that. She remembered Beau saying that there was a Latling family in town and she intended to track them down.

  Truth was, she was a little gun shy about pressing people for information after what happened with Lovie Meade but it couldn’t be helped. She needed answers and her time was growing shorter by the day. She wondered how long she could brush her parents off until they figured out she had her own agenda.

  As the morning progressed, she dried her hair and dressed comfortably, in jeans and a cute top with her hair pulled back. She thought a visit to the historical society might be in order to see if they had anything at all about Glory or the Hembrees, or even the Ragsdale family. She might even drop in on Aunt Dell to see if she, too, had insulting things to say about Laveau and Victory. God only knew what Aunt Dell would have to say, but Lucy was coming to think that the woman might be the motherlode. Gossip or not, she’d been around a long time. She might know a few things.

  Glancing at her watch, Lucy saw that it was nearing the time when the hotel complimentary breakfast was cut off and she was hungry. So she put the journal and the letter back in her purse, collected her phone and iPad, and headed downstairs. The hotel was newer, with modern décor, and she headed to the area where they set out the breakfast to see that they were just starting to put things away.

  Quickly, she grabbed a foam plate and helped herself to the remainder of the eggs and some cold bacon. There were grits, of course, and she piled them on the plate as well. This breakfast was nothing like the breakfast she and Beau had shared the day before, and thoughts of that meal brought on thoughts of Beau she had been trying very hard to avoid.

  That big, handsome hunk had turned her head. She could admit that to herself but not to her parents. They would tell her she was rebounding, which wasn’t true. Well, not entirely. Three months of therapy had helped her get over the hump of losing Kevin but she still wasn’t out of the woods yet.

  Still, Beau Meade was making her life a little brighter without even knowing it. Or, at least he had. After last night, she was certain there was nothing left of that and she struggled not to feel disappointed about it.

  Sitting at one of the hotel’s tables near the front lobby, she wolfed down her eggs as she pulled out her iPad, running a search for the historical society’s address and hours. She found their website and saw that they weren’t even open today, so her plans shifted to Aunt Dell for the day. She knew where the woman lived, or at least she thought she remembered, so she planned on making a call that morning after she’d finished eating. Just as she shut down her iPad, she caught a glimpse of someone approaching her table.

  “I knew I’d find you!”

  It was Clyde. Lucy nearly choked on her coffee when she saw the man. “What in the hell are you doing here?” she demanded.

  Clyde had that usual smarmy look about him. “I’ve been looking at every hotel parking lot in town,” he said proudly. “I drove around yesterday at the Comfort Inn, the Holiday Inn, and the Econo Inn hoping I’d see your car and I was lucky enough to see you last night when you pulled in here. When I want to find something, I don’t give up.”

  “That’s being a stalker,” she said, anger in her tone. “There are laws against stalkers, Clyde. In fact, I’m going to the police station right now to file a stalking report against you and I also intend to file a restraining order.”

  His face fell. “Why?” he was genuinely bewildered. “I just wanted to see you before you went home, Lucy. Why are you so angry about it?”

  Lucy stood up and collected her things. “I’m not sure how much plainer I can be with you,” she said. “I don’t want to see you. I don’t want you following me or even thinking about me. The next time I see you, I’m not even going to say a word – I’m going to take the can of pepper spray I always carry and shoot you in the face with it. Is that what it’s going to take for you to leave me the hell alone? Because that’s what’s going to happen if you come near me again.”

  Clyde had swiftly gone from bewildered to defensive. “You’re not a nice girl, Lucy,” he said flatly. “I’m just trying to be friendly with you and you’re just not nice at all.”

  “Good,” Lucy said as if in full agreement. “I’m glad you think so. Now, go away. I don’t want to see you.”

  “It’s a free country.”

  “Not when she asks you to leave, it’s not.”

  Both Lucy and Clyde turned to see Beau standing a few feet away, dressed in his service uniform. He’d come in through the side entrance to the hotel and snuck up behind them both.

  Now, Clyde was left to shuffle back, infuriated by the sheriff’s appearance and humiliated by Lucy’s treatment of him. He pointed at Beau.

  “I haven’t done anything,” he pointed out. “This is public property and you can’t arrest me.”

  Beau simply shook his head. “Do we really have to go through this again?” he asked. “You’re going to walk out that door and never come back here. If you do, I will arrest you for harassment and I’m sure Miss Bondurant will be happy to press charges. This is the second time I’ve had to tell you to leave her alone so if you don’t listen, you’re going to find yourself in jail. Do you understand me?”

  Clyde was angry and ashamed. Quickly, he turned and walked aw
ay, leaving through the front door of the hotel as Beau followed behind him at a distance. When he was sure that Clyde wasn’t going to double back, he meandered over to the front desk and said something to the clerk, who in turn summoned her manager. Soon, it was the three of them up at the front desk as Beau evidently said something about Clyde because he kept pointing to the front door and the security monitors.

  Lucy stood there, watching it all go down, more thrilled than she cared to admit that Beau had made an appearance. She was also embarrassed, having run out on him and his grandmother the previous night, so she thought to slip away while he was occupied. She was a coward, she knew, not wanting to face him. Just as she headed for the side entrance, she heard him call after her.

  “Lucy,” he said. “Wait a minute.”

  Begrudgingly, she stopped, waiting as he finished up his conversation with the hotel employees and headed in her direction. She was having a hard time looking at him as he joined her.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “Clyde didn’t do anything, did he?”

  She shook her head. “No,” she replied. “But he said he’d been out all day yesterday looking for me. Now that he knows I’m staying here, I’m going to go somewhere else. I really don’t want to be here if he knows I’m here.”

  Beau nodded. “I don’t blame you,” he said. “Where are you going to go?”

  She shrugged. “I can always go stay at Glory,” she said. “Or there are other hotels around here. I’m not really sure.”

  His gaze lingered on her a moment. “Why not just go back to Glory?”

  She shrugged, somewhat sheepishly. “Would you go back there given everything you heard about the place yesterday?” she asked. “Honestly, I don’t even know what to think about it anymore. It’s always been something of a home for me because I stayed there so often throughout my life, but now….”

  He understood what she meant or at least he thought he did. “Look,” he said, lowering his voice. “I’m really sorry about dinner last night. I don’t know what possessed Lovie to go off on your family like she did, but I am really sorry about it. I thought she might be able to help you get to the bottom of Ms. Victory’s request, but I think all she did is freak you out.”

  Lucy was shaking her head even as he continued to apologize. “You know what?” she asked honestly. “I deserved it. I deserved everything she said. Here I was, using my interrogation skills on what I thought was a helpless old lady and she turned right around and bit me. I will admit, I was upset about it and I’m sorry that I ditched you at the restaurant. But I was so upset at that moment, I didn’t trust myself to sit in the same car with her. If she started up again about my great-grandfather actually being my grandfather, I would have had to jump out the window.”

  He grinned, shaking his head at the ridiculousness of what Lovie had said. “I know,” he said. “I am really sorry for that. No more Manhattans for her.”

  “Did she say anything more after I left?”

  “She wanted to know why I chased you off.”

  Lucy laughed it away. There was, truthfully, nothing more she could do. The situation was almost comical as well as deeply serious and there wasn’t a great divide between the two. After a moment, she extended her hand to him.

  “Friends?”

  His smile turned warm as he reached out and shook her hand. “Friends.”

  He didn’t let her go. He kept holding on to her, looking at her and smiling. Lucy had to chuckle as she practically wrenched her hand from his grip.

  “I’m off to see Aunt Dell this morning,” she said, turning for the side door as he followed. “I figure I might as well know what she has to say about it. I have a feeling she knows a whole lot more than your Lovie did.”

  He nodded, opening the door for her as they stepped out into the parking lot. “I’m sure she does,” he said. “But I actually have some more news about some things in that letter. Last night, I couldn’t sleep, so I did some digging around, too.”

  Lucy put her sunglasses on, looking at him. “After I walked out on you?”

  “I felt responsible for what happened. And you asked for my help, so I was helping.”

  “Even after all that?”

  “Even after all that.”

  She laughed softly. “Okay,” she conceded. “So what did you find?”

  He put on his Ray-Bans. “Latling,” he said. “I went back to the office and looked back through some police records of that time, records that we have buried in the basement storage. My great-granddad was sheriff in Tallahatchie County from nineteen hundred and thirty through nineteen hundred and forty-seven, when he had a heart attack that virtually crippled him. That’s seventeen years of Terhune Meade and Laveau Hembree, if you get my drift. Seventeen years of police reports and such, and not one thing I came across ever mentioned Laveau Hembree. Not one.”

  That was a disheartening statement but not surprising. “Jesus,” she breathed. “With everything that man did, you would have thought there would be some record of it. But surely you didn’t go through everything last night.”

  He cocked his head. “Near abouts,” he said. “Once I started, it was hard to stop. Once I realized that there wasn’t a record of Laveau Hembree anywhere in official records, it became an obsession to find something. But there wasn’t a thing. I did, however, find a few mentions of a Dr. S. S. Latling.”

  Lucy was very interested. “What did they say?”

  Beau thought back on the reports. “It seems that Dr. Latling was the county coroner, too,” he said. “Several mentions of him in death reports. There were some homicide reports that mentioned him, too, including a pretty nasty report about an old woman that was murdered in a house down the street from Glory. Seems that she was hacked to death with a machete of some kind. Anyway, Dr. Latling was in the reports quite a bit and the address given on those reports is, in fact, the same address of the current Latling family. It’s a big house in an older part of town. So I stopped by the house this morning before I came over to your hotel.”

  Lucy was on pins and needles. “And?”

  “And the current owner, Stephen Latling, is the son of Dr. S.S Latling,” he replied. “He’s retired and was golfing. But I spoke with his wife and she said you could come by around lunchtime and talk to her husband.”

  Lucy was stunned. “Wow,” she said. “I don’t even know what to say. Thank you doesn’t seem like enough, but thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said, eyes glimmering at her. “So we’re off to Aunt Dell’s now?”

  She gave him a quirky grin. “Don’t you have to work?”

  He snorted. “This is work,” he said. “There was a crime committed somewhere along the line here, according to your grandmother’s letter, and it’s my job to get to the bottom of it.”

  She was touched by his enthusiasm. “Talk about cold cases,” she said. “I think the statute of limitations has run out.”

  He shook his head. “For something like this, that statute never runs out. We’re missing a baby and I aim to find her.”

  It was a very sweet thing to say. Lucy struggled not to become swept up in his chivalry, but it was good to have the attention and comfort of a man, even one she would have to leave in five days. But she supposed, until then, that whatever was stirring between them couldn’t hurt. Selfishly, she needed it.

  “Okay,” she said. “We can be like Starsky and Hutch.”

  “I was thinking more Benson and Stabler.”

  “I like that better.”

  Once again, Lucy found herself in his custom Ford Edge police cruiser, now heading to the north side of town where Ms. Dell Alexander lived.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ~ You Might Not Like What You Find ~

  “Mr. Hembree, I just didn’t want you to think I had anything to do with that article, sir. I had to come and tell you myself.”

  A tall, gaunt man in a sweat-stained suit stood in the front parlor of
Glory, speaking to Laveau, Terhune, and a few of Laveau’s men. They were spread out over the room, a few of them fanning themselves lazily in the warm night. The man in the stained suit held his snap-brim hat in-hand, but it was quivering, just like the rest of him.

  Laveau could see the tremors. He liked it when men cowered before him. It made him feel powerful. He took a sip of his coffee without having offered any to his guests.

  “Mr. Haltom, I haven’t even seen the article,” he said, sounding benevolent. “But you were right to come to me. Who printed it, did you say?”

  “The Vicksburg Post, sir.”

  “Who is the editor?”

  “Mr. John Surratt.”

  Laveau pondered that for a moment. “And what, exactly, did it say?”

  Haltom cleared his throat nervously. “I have a copy in my car, sir….”

  “Just tell me.”

  Haltom did. “The article talks about corruption in the State of Mississippi as a whole,” he said. “It speaks of pockets of crime. It goes on to say that there’s some corruption in the state so thick that no one can touch it, not even at the ballot boxes, and that includes corruption in Pea Ridge. The reporter who ran the story tried to speak to me a few weeks ago about what I think on corruption in the state but I sent him away. I never spoke to him and he makes mention of the fact.”

  Laveau listened seriously. “Does he mention you by name?”

  Haltom nodded, pulling at the collar of his shirt. “He does,” he said. “He mentions you, too. He wanted to know my opinion of you, sir, but I didn’t say a word. In his article, he states that I was a lawyer who used to fight for the people, but now….”

  “Now… what?”

  Haltom sighed heavily, averting his gaze. “Now I’m your slave,” he muttered. “He went on to say that modern-day slavery isn’t dead so long as corruption rules.”