Haskell had shared with me privately that he had confronted his mother about his aunt this morning, and she had finally revealed the truth. His aunt had severe mental problems and had been admitted to the state mental institution at Whitfield. His mother found this so shameful that she didn’t allow anyone except her husband to know. She had driven her sister there herself, and Mrs. Hale, wife of the old man, had voluntarily committed herself. Mrs. Bates was deeply ashamed by all this, not an uncommon attitude in those days. Haskell asked me not to tell anyone. He had already told Stewart. Mrs. Hale had died some years ago at Whitfield.
Sean had already talked to Alex, Frank, and Laura about Alissa, so they were aware that there was a relationship. Sean hadn’t gone into detail with them, however. He promised that I would make everything clear to them today. I could tell Laura was bubbling with curiosity. She had tried to get me to start explaining, but I intended to wait until the dessert course to satisfy everyone’s demands for information.
The conversation remained desultory until Helen Louise summoned us to the dining room. One topic was foremost in everyone’s mind. I held firm, however. We left Charlie and Rose sound asleep in their separate cribs with Diesel on guard duty while we ate.
Our family meal today consisted of pot roast, potatoes and carrots, steamed broccoli, creamed corn, and freshly made yeast rolls. For dessert, there would be hot apple pie and vanilla ice cream. After I said the blessing, we all tucked in, chatting about nothing in particular while we ate.
When the time came to clear the table for dessert, I was not allowed to help. I had been told I was the patriarch, and my help was not required. I sat and sipped my iced sweet tea and watched everyone else, except Alissa, work. Despite her new status as a family member, she was not yet familiar with the clearing-away routine.
We talked about books until dessert arrived. Once everyone was around the table again and attacking the apple pie, I began to talk.
“I hope you will let me tell this my way,” I said, “and save questions for later.” I glanced around the table and saw the nods of affirmation.
“Thank you. First I want to say that, out of these tragedies, past and present, we have a blessing. We have discovered Alissa, and I am delighted by that.”
“Hear, hear,” said everyone around the table, and Alissa blushed.
“Thank you,” she said, then motioned for me to continue.
“Most of this story is about family,” I began. “I owe the story I’m about to tell you to Jordan Thompson, actually, because she recommended a local history book to me. Esther Carraway is a native of Athena with a deep interest in the town and the county and all their families. In the book Jordan handed me, I discovered information about the Harris family. Information that, frankly, surprised me, because I was entirely unaware of it.”
I paused for a sip of my tea. “I discovered that the Harrises were once a wealthy family in Athena, thanks to my ancestor’s mercantile business. He prospered and eventually bought property out in the county, where he built a house for his wife. She apparently didn’t care for life in town and preferred the quiet of the country. With the Civil War, my ancestor lost the business in town and became a farmer. He managed to accrue more land in time.
“His wife came from an antislavery family, and he employed only free men, both white and Black, I surmise, on the farm.”
“My grandfather died when I was a small boy, and my father, for whatever reason, never told me this about his family. Aunt Dottie never did, either. I don’t know if they were unaware of these facts, or if they simply didn’t think they were important or interesting. While I was growing up, I wasn’t that interested in American history, because I became fascinated by English history instead.
“Inheriting my grandfather’s house was a complete surprise. My father had never mentioned this, either, though surely he must have known the terms of his father’s will. He had no interest in farming, and he could see that I had none, either. Perhaps that’s why he never told me. Had he and my mother not been killed relatively young, he might have told me at some point.”
Time for more tea. I wasn’t used to talking at this length.
“That’s what really sparked my interest in the family’s history, inheriting the house and the farm. I never knew Martin Hale, the tenant for life, and I doubted that he knew, or cared, who I was. He led his grandson, also named Martin, to believe that the land belonged to him. It wasn’t until after he died that the younger Martin found out his grandfather had lied to him about that. Apparently, it wasn’t unusual for the elder Martin to indulge in self-aggrandizement, but it had unfortunate effects. I’ll come back to that.
“Back to the family tree. I met with Mrs. Carraway to find out more about the family. Her sources for the information in her book came from papers in the county historical archive. I wasn’t able to consult those papers until yesterday.” I withdrew the copy of the family tree from my shirt pocket, unfolded the pages, and passed them to Laura, sitting on my right.
“This tree takes the family further back to the Revolutionary War era. I want to investigate that in more depth, but I discovered something intriguing that I had to find out about right away. Mrs. Carraway had told me when I talked with her that she had no interest in publicizing scandalous bits of family history in her books. If people wanted to find out about them, they could look for it themselves. As it turned out, that’s exactly what I did.
“I first discovered that my grandfather and my aunt had a brother I’d never heard about, Allan. He died, unmarried, in the South Pacific during the Second World War. I don’t know why they didn’t talk about him, but families are funny like that. My dad never mentioned him, either, but he surely must have known his uncle. He was nearly an adult when his uncle was killed.” I shrugged. “One generation’s scandal is no big deal to another, I think you’ll find. The scandal in this case is that Allan fathered an illegitimate child with a woman named Maudie Magee. He died not long before his son was born, leaving Maudie a single, unmarried mother in the mid-1940s. She gave him up for adoption, and a couple in this county named Hale adopted him.”
I heard several gasps. “Yes, Martin Hale was my father’s first cousin and Aunt Dottie’s nephew. I doubt they knew who he was, but I think they might have known that the child existed somewhere. I do believe my grandfather possibly knew Hale was his nephew, though.”
I told the story of Asa Luckney, my grandfather’s protégé, and how he expected to have the life lease once my grandfather died. “I’m pretty sure Martin Hale had found out about his biological father’s family, and he confronted my grandfather not long before he died. My grandfather had kept Hale as a worker despite the fact that Hale was an unreliable drunk. My grandfather was a teetotaler. I think he had to know who Hale was or he wouldn’t have tolerated his behavior.
“Grandfather changed his will shortly before he died, leaving Martin Hale life tenancy to the farmland and the house. I suspect Hale had threatened to expose the family scandal if he didn’t. Later on, Mr. Luckney and Gil Jackson sublet land from Hale, who was probably content to live off the lease money. We discovered that he also was sharing in the profits from Gil Jackson’s bootlegging operation.”
I paused for dramatic effect. “That operation had been taking place for the last dozen or so years in a secret cellar beneath the parlor in the farmhouse.”
That really got reactions. Helen Louise shook her head and said, “Shades of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. Secret cellars. I want to see it.”
“You all can as soon the sheriff’s department is finished with it. Back to Martin Hale and the bones in the attic. We’re pretty sure they belonged to his natural mother, Maudie Magee. She came to visit her son about twenty-five years ago. Tragically, Mrs. Magee had lost both her hands and her feet in an accident, as yet undetermined, and she frightened poor Alissa, who was about two years old at the time.”
Alissa nodded self-consciously but didn’t speak.
“Mrs. Magee was in poor health and evidently died there in Hale’s home. She had no family left in Alabama, where she came from. I suspect he didn’t want anyone to know who she was, because he didn’t want people to know he was illegitimate. He dug a grave in the woods and put her there.”
“How did her bones end up in the attic?” Laura asked.
“According to Alissa, her brother, Marty, came to visit their grandfather for a few weeks three years ago. She thinks Marty stumbled across the grave, excavated the bones, and hid them in the attic as a prank.” I shrugged. “I don’t have any idea whether Mr. Hale ever found them. If he did, he left them where they were.”
“Creepy,” Laura said.
“Mr. Hale went to California recently to visit his grandchildren. His only son was killed in an accident when Alissa was a baby. While there, he suffered a massive stroke and died. Not before, however, giving his grandson a false picture of his financial position. Marty came to Athena thinking he had inherited a house and a farm, only to find out that his grandfather was only a tenant for life.
“In the meantime, Marty was busy nosing around. He discovered the still in the cellar, and he found Gil Jackson in the house. Jackson had no idea Marty was there. This was the day of that storm. Sometime that morning, before the storm hit, Jackson took Marty out into the woods and killed him. He left the body where it dropped, and a tree uprooted in the storm fell on the body. The sheriff’s department found some fibers Jackson left behind, so they had forensic evidence to tie someone to the scene. They were also aware of Jackson’s bootlegging, but they had never been able to find the still.”
“They couldn’t because it was in that secret cellar all along,” Haskell said. “Clever. If you hadn’t stumbled into him in the house, we might never have found it.”
“True, but frankly I wish you could have found it another way. Jackson planned to kill me, but he had no idea I had a secret weapon.” I smiled at Alissa. “She saved my life, and Diesel’s, too. She kicked Jackson in the behind and knocked him into the cellar.”
“Three cheers for Alissa.” Frank lifted his glass, and everyone else except the honoree lifted theirs, too. Alissa blushed and stammered her thanks.
When we’d finished, I raised my glass again. “To family.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The usual suspects played their usual important role in getting this book to publication stage, although I imagine most of them thought it might never happen. Bountiful thanks to my editor, Michelle Vega, and to the entire Berkley team, including Jennifer Snyder, Elisha Katz, and Brittanie Black, for being unfailingly helpful and professional.
The other set of suspects hang out at Nancy Yost Literary: Nancy herself, my agent for more years than either of us would care to count, a staunch advocate for her writers, and her team: Sarah E. Younger, Natanya Wheeler, and the helpful interns who take care of the business end of things.
Two good friends, Don Herrington and Stan Porter, sustain me in the day-to-day, putting up with my idiosyncrasies (while sharing their own), and helping me make it to a new day intact. My two long-distance cheerleaders and beta readers Patricia Orr and Terry Farmer, who always know just how to encourage me with the right words of criticism.
Finally, as always, I have to thank the readers who continue to hold Charlie and Diesel close to their hearts. Without you, none of this would be possible.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Miranda James is the New York Times bestselling author of the Cat in the Stacks Mysteries and the Southern Ladies Mysteries.
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What the Cat Dragged In Page 23