Delcine rolled her eyes, a reaction Jeremy missed because he’d hopped up to go to a console behind the large sofa. He returned with a scrapbook and opened it to a page featuring a clipping from the Drapersville Times & Review:
Local Man Invents Cleaning Caddy
A photo of Jeremy outside the front of the Day-Ree Mart and another of him in front of a display of his mop and bucket caddy inside the Jefferson Brothers Hardware Store went along with the article.
“I’m sure you were very proud,” Delcine said.
If he caught the flat note of sarcasm in her voice, Jeremy didn’t let on.
“Yes. Mama and Miss Ana Mae were right there with me. They’re both quoted in the story. If it hadn’t been for them—especially Miss Ana Mae believing in me and supplying that initial capital—I wouldn’t be where I am today.”
The Futrells thanked him for his time, and they all got up to head for the door.
“Jeremy!” Nell called. “Wait. I have something.”
A moment later, she appeared with a basket on her lap. It brimmed with tomatoes, peppers, and corn. “Fresh grown,” she said. “Please, enjoy the harvest. Ana Mae always did. And she made the most wonderful sauces with vegetables grown right out back.”
Accepting the gift, Clayton thanked them for it, their time, and their friendship with Ana Mae.
Back in the car, Clayton hefted one of the tomatoes. “This will be great in a salad,” he said.
“Hmmph,” Delcine grunted. “That was more than an hour of wasted time.”
“No, it wasn’t,” JoJo said. “We have another quilt clue solved, and we met some nice people who knew Ana Mae. It’s kind of fun to find out about this Ana Mae we didn’t know.”
Delcine took her gaze off the road long enough to roll her eyes at her sister.
“It was a waste of time if you ask me,” Delcine said. “I still don’t get where she got almost four million dollars. That Fisher boy didn’t sell that many of those bucket things at the Day-Ree Mart.”
“Well,” Clayton said, taking a bite of the tomato and chewing it, “look at it this way: we have seven more quilt blocks to figure it out.”
13
Digging Up The Past
When Clayton, Delcine, and JoJo got back to Ana Mae’s house after their quilt-clue hunting, it was to find Ana Mae’s car at the curb instead of in the small driveway adjacent to the house. They pulled into the drive only to spy Lester, in jeans, sneakers, and a sweat-stained white T-shirt, digging up the yard.
Mounds of dirt like abandoned molehills clumped and cluttered the side yard. Soil, unceremoniously dumped, strangled the flower beds that Ana Mae had carefully tended. The jonquils and daylilies, the tea rose bushes, and all of the brightly colored annuals she put in every summer—marigolds in a riot of yellows, golds, and oranges—all of them buried or bent under the dirt.
On the bottom step of the side porch, a metal bucket filled with ice and bottles of Budweiser beer sweated about as much as Lester did.
“What the hell are you doing?” Delcine shrieked.
Lester looked up and grinned. With the back of one hand he wiped his brow. The other hand gripped the shovel he’d clearly used to dig a giant hole in the ground. He was working on the second hole when they interrupted his labor.
“Took you all long enough to get back. I started without you. Haven’t found anything yet, though. But I know it’s here.”
“What the hell are you doing?”
This time the demand came from Clayton.
JoJo went to one of the flower beds. She tried to squat in her tight jeans, thought better of that notion, and used her foot to try to knock some of the dirt off the flowers. “Oh, Lord, Lester. Look what you did to Ana Mae’s pretty flowers.”
“What do you care about a bunch of flowers? He might care,” Lester said nodding toward Clayton, “but I’m looking for the money.”
“What the hell did you say?” Clayton demanded.
“You have no right to . . .”
Delcine, so indignant she actually sputtered, advanced on her brother-in-law and snatched the shovel from his hands and reared back. “You ignorant son of a bitch.”
“Lester,” JoJo said, cutting off her sister and grabbing her husband by the arm. She yanked him a few steps away from Delcine and the shovel, and from Clayton, who looked like he was ready to go twelve rounds with Lester.
“Who the hell does he think he is?” Clayton said.
Delcine tossed the shovel to the ground. Then, her hands on her hips, she just looked around in disbelief at the destruction wrought on the pin-neat little yard in just a few short hours.
“I’m calling the police,” she said, stomping up the side steps.
The screen door creaked and then slammed behind her.
Her cussing matched Lester’s as JoJo lit into him.
“Have you lost your ever-loving mind, Lester? This isn’t a treasure hunt where X marks the spot.”
“How do you know? That fancy lawyer-undertaker sure wasn’t offering much insight into how to go about looking for the money.”
“It’s not your money to find, Lester,” Clayton said.
“Now see here, you little . . .”
JoJo cut him off. “Clay’s right, Lester. You are way out of line here.”
“Out of line? I don’t think so. That Bible verse clearly said the money was buried in the earth. That,” he said pointing to the ground, “is the earth. And I’m digging it up to get at that money Annie Mae buried.”
“Ana Mae!” JoJo and Clayton practically yelled.
Lester shrugged. “Yeah, whatever.”
“What’s going on over there?”
The new voice had them all turning toward the driveway entrance. Ana Mae’s next-door neighbor was hanging out her back door, but someone they all knew was coming across the lawn.
“Oh, great. It’s Reverend Holy Ghost,” Lester said.
JoJo hit him in the stomach with the back of her hand. “Hush. You’ve already caused enough trouble.”
“Is everything all right?” Reverend Toussaint asked. “I was passing by and heard some commotion.”
“Hi, Reverend,” Clayton said.
A moment later, a siren heralding a Hertford County sheriff’s vehicle could be heard racing down the street.
JoJo hit Lester again. “Now look what you’ve done.”
“I didn’t do it. That sister of yours called the cops.”
The deputy pulled partially into the driveway. He turned the siren off but left the lights flashing.
“Lord, have mercy,” the next-door neighbor hollered. Her hair was in pink curlers and she had on a housedress, but that didn’t stop her from coming closer. “Has something else happened?”
“Howdy, folks,” the deputy said. “We got a call about some trespassing and destruction of property.”
“I called,” Delcine said, coming out the side door. “Arrest that man,” she said pointing at Lester.
“Wait just one minute,” Lester declared. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Ana Mae may have been country, Lester, but she sure wasn’t crazy,” Delcine said. “Even you have to know she wouldn’t be fool enough to bury almost four million dollars.”
The deputy’s eyes bulged. “Did you say four million dollars? In cash?”
“No!”
The emphatic answer came from all of the would-be heirs.
“Ana Mae buried four million dollars?” the neighbor asked.
“No!”
Eyeing each one of the suspects, the law officer reached for his radio. “I think I better call Sheriff Daughtry.”
“That won’t be necessary, Deputy Howard,” said Everett Rollings, undertaker-cum-lawyer, striding toward them.
Dressed in a black suit, black shirt, black tie, and black shoes, he looked more like a Mafia don than a funeral director or attorney-at-law.
And that’s when the Futrells, Reverend Toussaint, and the sheriff’s deputy all noticed the
crowd of neighbors and onlookers who had gathered in front of Ana Mae’s house. Word spread quickly, with the police car at the house and probably aided by the next-door neighbor’s speed dial. The profanity, the police, and the prospect of money buried in Ana Mae’s yard brought them all to the scene to see what would happen.
At the same time that that fact registered, so did Rollings’s greeting. Delcine was the first to make the leap.
“Did you say ‘Officer Howard’?”
The young deputy, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five years old, gave her an odd look. “Yes, that’s my name, ma’am.”
“Howard,” Clayton said.
Reverend Toussaint, closest to the deputy, peered into his face. “Howard?”
The deputy, cautious and suspicious, put a hand on his service revolver and took a step back. “Mr. Rollings, what’s going on here?”
“Everything is okay, son,” Rollings said. “I think I can clear this up quickly enough.”
He motioned for everyone to gather around, including all of the curious onlookers. Archer, who’d pulled up behind Delcine’s car at the curb, excused himself, and a path opened for him. All the onlookers knew he belonged to Ana Mae’s bunch. He made his way to the group of heirs.
“What’s going on?” he whispered to JoJo, who just shook her head.
“Let me be perfectly clear,” Rollings said. “Ana Mae Futrell did not, I repeat, did not bury any money or any other valuables in her yard or anywhere else. All of her financial assets are in secure bank accounts, just as they should be.
“So if anyone has any ideas about coming over here in the middle of the night and digging up the rest of the yard,” he said with a pointed look first at Lester and the shovel and then at a few of the folks in the crowd most likely to launch a late-night expedition, “let me spare you both the trouble and the trespassing charges.”
“Yeah, that’s what you say,” Lester muttered.
“It is the truth,” Rollings said, lowering his voice so just the heirs and the deputy heard him. “If I had, for even a moment, thought that someone would come to that conclusion, I would have told you during our meeting. This is not a buried treasure.”
“Who thought that?” Reverend Toussaint asked.
All eyes turned toward Lester, who maintained a belligerent stance.
As usual, he didn’t look at all convinced that the fancy-schmantzy undertaker was being straight up with them.
“I just stopped because I heard a commotion when I passed by Sister Futrell’s house,” Reverend Toussaint said. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m late for an appointment down the street.”
He scurried through the gathering of neighbors.
“Go home, people,” Rollings told the onlookers. “There is nothing more to see here.”
“Get out of my way!” a woman said.
The group of about thirty people crowding the front yard parted like Moses at the Red Sea to make way for Rosalee Jenkins. She took one look at the yard, grabbed her head, and let out a wail.
“Look what you did to Ana Mae’s garden!”
“Here we go again,” Lester said.
Delcine and JoJo quickly went to Rosalee to comfort the woman, who was actually shedding tears over the destruction of the yard.
Lester pursed his lips and set the shovel up against the side of the house. “For real, Mr. Rollings? There’s no money buried?”
“No, Mr. Coston. There is no buried treasure or anything else buried here in this yard. Do I make myself clear?”
“Well, damn,” Lester said, pounding a hand on his jeans. “I thought for sure that that was the clue.”
He plucked a beer from his makeshift cooler and with a twist screwed off the top to take a long slug.
“Mr. Rollings?” the deputy said.
“Howard!” the Futrell siblings all exclaimed at the same time.
This time the deputy took two steps backward. “Why do they keep saying my name like that?”
“Who’s your mother, deputy?” JoJo asked.
“And what year were you born?” Delcine added.
The young lawman’s eyes darted from one to the other and then to the one person he actually knew. “Mr. Rollings?”
“Just answer their questions, son.”
“My mom is Lucy Howard, and my father is Kenneth. Why?”
Rosalee glanced around and then let out a bark of laughter.
“You all can stop scaring the man,” she said. “He’s not that Howard. His last name is Howard. And I remember when he was born. I was working at the county hospital then and remember his mama in labor.”
“What Howard?” the deputy asked. “And my name is Tyrone. Deputy Tyrone Howard.”
“Just a case of mistaken identity,” Rollings assured him.
The deputy pulled out a small black notepad and jotted down a few things.
“Do you want to press charges?” the deputy asked Delcine, who appeared to be in charge.
“Yes,” Delcine declared.
“No,” JoJo and Lester said.
“I believe the differences have been resolved,” Archer said. He stood off a bit and to the side, leaving Clayton room to maneuver physically and emotionally.
This was not San Francisco, and there was enough stress and drama already without being overt about their relationship in front of all of the more-than-curious neighbors.
“And who are you?” the deputy asked.
“He’s with me,” Clayton said.
The two shared a fleeting look, and then, almost blushing, Clayton glanced away, a small smile at his mouth.
“All righty, then,” said the deputy. “About the charges?”
“Everything is fine, son,” Rollings said.
“This yard isn’t fine,” Delcine said. “Somebody is going to put it to rights, and that somebody is the imbecile who tore it up in the first place.”
“You tell him!” someone from the yard yelled.
“Yea,” another neighbor hollered. “Disrespecting Miss Ana Mae that way ain’t right.”
“Well, under the circumstances,” the deputy began.
“He’ll be doing the repairs,” JoJo said, nudging her husband. “Right?”
Lester didn’t look too happy about it, but he acquiesced. “Yeah, I’ll fix it back to the way it was.”
“And I have pictures to make sure you do it right,” Rosalee said, still visibly upset over the upturned earth and destroyed flower beds.
The young deputy dispersed the reluctant-to-leave crowd while Everett Rollings turned to his client’s would-be heirs and ushered them toward the side door of the house. He waited as they all filed inside, Clayton and Archer followed by Rosalee, JoJo, and Lester, with Delcine bringing up the rear.
“Thank you for handling that, Mr. Rollings,” she said.
“Anytime, Marguerite,” he replied.
“It’s Delcine here,” she said.
He gave a slight bow in an “as you wish” gesture reminiscent of English butlers. Then, pulling something from the pocket of his trousers, the lawyer-undertaker stepped around Lester’s bucket of beer bottles and closed the screen door behind him.
No one but Rosalee had ventured beyond the kitchen, where JoJo was pulling trays and foil pans out of the refrigerator.
“There’s still a ton of food from the neighbors and Ana Mae’s church folks, so y’all all need to make a plate and eat,” she said, placing the ham on the table.
But with one glance at Clayton and Delcine, the three siblings started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Lester groused.
“It’s nothing, Lester,” Delcine told her brother-in-law. “Just something we were talking about earlier in the car.”
“You too, Mr. Rollings,” JoJo said. “It’s about lunchtime, so you need to get yourself a plate as well.”
Rollings was still near the door, though, frowning and looking around at the floor.
“Mr. Rollings?”
“Where are the
cats?” he asked. “Where are Diamond Jim and Baby Sue?”
He held up a couple of fish-shaped cookie-looking things. “I always bring a treat for them when I stop by. They like the salmon bites.”
“You know, I was wondering the same thing,” Delcine said. “For two animals who’ll inherit millions if we mess this thing up, they’ve been conspicuously absent since we arrived.”
“I forgot about the cats,” Clayton said.
Suddenly, everyone was looking around the house. Moving chairs in the living room, looking under the sofa and under the beds and cushions, in a small basket near the window, the corners of the rooms, and on top of the refrigerator and cabinets, all of the places cats were known to frequent.
The search came up empty. And from the living room and kitchen all eyes, including Lester’s, turned to JoJo.
“What?” she said, around a bite of ham sandwich.
“You’re allergic to them,” Clayton said.
“Did you send the cats to the pound?” Delcine demanded.
“I believe it’s dogs that go to the pound,” Archer said.
“Why would I do that?” JoJo asked. She dropped the sandwich on a paper plate and stared down her accusers.
“Well, Jo,” Clayton said in a let’s-be-reasonable voice. “You did throw out the quilt. Maybe you sent the cats off too.”
“I never did anything of the sort.”
“Uh oh,” Lester said.
“What now, Lester?” Delcine asked.
“You know, in that Men in Black movie, the cat’s collar held the secret to the universe. Maybe Annie Mae . . .”
“Ana Mae!” the siblings said in exasperation.
Undaunted, Lester continued. “Maybe the cats have diamond collars, and now they’re at the pound about to be tossed into the incinerator.”
“You are so vile,” Delcine hissed.
The toilet flushed then, and a moment later Rosalee appeared. “Whew, I needed to go,” she said smoothing her slacks. “Turned out I really needed to go.”
Delcine frowned.
Hidden Riches Page 16