Hidden Riches

by Felicia Mason

Lester grinned. “Yeah, I put some of that air freshener in there. I got it over at the Walmart when I picked up the shovel.”

  “I saw that,” Rosalee said.

  “Rosalee,” Delcine said. “Have you seen Diamond Jim and Baby Sue?”

  “Sure,” she said, heading toward the cupboard near the refrigerator and oblivious to the parade of Futrells and company following behind her.

  “Oh, I see you pulled out the food. Good. There’s sure plenty of it.” She proceeded to pull down a glass and then help herself to a plate heaped with collard greens, ham, and a double helping of macaroni and cheese. “Sister Ettrick made this mac and cheese. She sure knows how to put her foot in it too.”

  Everett Rollings stayed her hand. “Mrs. Jenkins, the cats?”

  Rosalee gave him an odd look, then noticed the others peering at her. “What’s going on with you people?”

  “Are the cats alive?”

  “Of course the cats are alive. What else would they be?”

  “Where are they?” the impatient question came from both Delcine and Lester, for different reasons, though.

  “At my house. Where else would they be?”

  Rosalee put her plate in the microwave and punched in a few minutes of warm-up.

  “How did they get to your place?” Clayton asked.

  “I took them there right after Ana Mae died. They were a howling and carrying on like they knew she was gone. So I took ’em home with me to care for ’em. They both doing just fine and having fun with Snookie.”

  “Snookie?”

  “That’s my tiger cat. She’s a bit older than Diamond Jim and Baby Sue, but they all gets along just fine.”

  “What kind of collars do they have?” Lester asked.

  Rosalee scowled at him. “What kind of fool question is that? Ana Mae’s cats don’t have no collars.”

  “Damn,” Lester said.

  “Mr. Coston, I told you before that Ana Mae did not . . .”

  Lester cut him off. “You were talking about buried money then, not diamonds on cats. Why else would the thing’s name be Diamond Jim?”

  “Diamonds on cats?” Rosalee asked, her brow crinkled in confusion.

  “Because it has a white patch that is sort of in the shape of a diamond,” Rollings said.

  Lester deflated. “Oh. Well, my bad.”

  “As usual,” Delcine said.

  After declining a plate for the third time, Rollings reminded them all that there was nothing buried anywhere, no jewel-encrusted cat collars or anything else untoward about Ana Mae’s last will and testament.

  “And other than bequests specifically mentioned in the will, the only piece of tangible property Ana Mae left for you is the quilt,” he said. “It’s all you need.”

  “And a fat lot of good that’s doing so far,” Lester mumbled.

  Delcine and Clayton shared a glance and then looked at JoJo, who nodded. The unspoken message among them was clear: The day’s findings shouldn’t be mentioned in front of the enemy—the enemy being Rosalee, who would undoubtedly take any information she gleaned straight to the ears of Reverend Toussaint le Baptiste.

  Since neither JoJo nor Lester wanted to see to the welfare of the cats while they were staying at Ana Mae’s house, it was mutually agreed that Diamond Jim and Baby Sue would remain in Rosalee’s custody.

  “Because this has morphed into a meeting of the heirs, I will see to it that Reverend le Baptiste is apprised of all that has transpired since he left,” Rollings commented.

  “Great,” Lester mumbled.

  In their rental car, with Archer again behind the wheel, Clayton and Archer talked on the ride home.

  Archer waved at the people sitting outside the barbershop. The straight-back chairs couldn’t be all that comfortable, but the customers looked as at ease as if they were at home stretched out in their La-Z-Boys and Barcaloungers.

  “You know, Lester is definitely a fish out of water here in East of Mayberry, but he sure seems to be making himself comfortable.”

  Clayton laughed at that, then waved at Eddie Spencer, who was loading a dresser onto his pickup truck.

  “There’s something else I noticed about that man your sister married. For someone who doesn’t really have a stake in this, Lester is awfully vocal about his opinions.”

  “He has just as much stake as you do,” Clayton said.

  “Thank you for that. But I’m just here as your other half.”

  “My better half.”

  They shared a smile, and Archer reached for Clayton’s hand to hold.

  As they headed back to their bed-and-breakfast inn, Clayton caught Archer up on what he and his sisters had learned that morning, first from Roscoe at the Day-Ree Mart, and later from Jeremy Fisher, the young inventor and entrepreneur.

  “Ana Mae was generous with her time and her money,” Archer observed.

  Clayton nodded, but his eyes were squinched together as if he were suffering a migraine.

  “What’s wrong, hon?”

  A moment later, Clayton slapped the dashboard. “That’s it! I should have known.”

  “What?”

  “Did you hear what Rollings said?”

  “When?”

  “Back when he first came in back at the house. Telling you about the Fisher boy’s garage made me remember it. Rollings said he always brings catnip treats for Ana Mae’s cats. If he’s at her house so often that the cats know him and he’s bringing them cat snacks, maybe there was more to his relationship with Ana Mae than simply attorney-client.”

  When Archer gave him a blank look, Clayton spelled it out.

  “The elusive and mysterious Howard. Rollings has kids. There were at least a couple of young men on the mortuary staff who could belong to him . . . and to Ana Mae. He could be Ana Mae’s baby daddy.”

  Archer didn’t look convinced.

  “Those words—Ana Mae and baby daddy—don’t even belong in the same sentence, Clay.”

  “Well, somebody is Howard’s father. He didn’t just hatch.”

  “Besides,” Archer added, “Ana Mae and Everett Rollings? No disrespect to your sister, Clay, but Ana Mae was a domestic. She died cleaning a toilet. I don’t think she was the persnickety Mr. Rollings’s type.”

  “You weren’t my type,” Clayton pointed out. “I was into muscle boys, not brainiacs.”

  Archer looked at him when they came up on the light. “You do have a point there. Where to now?”

  “Let’s swing by the funeral home and see who resembles the two of them.”

  But their hunch couldn’t be verified—at least not that afternoon.

  When they arrived, the staff was busy getting ready for a viewing, and the only males in sight were either too young or too old to be Ana Mae’s Howard.

  Clayton took a gamble, though.

  “Is Mr. Rollings’s son here?” he asked one of the attendants.

  “Not at the moment,” the young woman said. “Trey should be in this office tomorrow, though.”

  Thanking her, Clayton and Archer left the Rollings Funeral Home.

  They had a name.

  While the Futrells, Lester, and Rosalee were having it out at Ana Mae’s house about dug-up flower beds and missing cats, the Reverend Toussaint le Baptiste finished up a call on a sick and shut-in church member, then headed to a place he hadn’t been in a lot of years. If his hunch was right, he knew what he would find there based on the message Ana Mae had left for him in her legacy quilt. Should it turn out he was wrong, he’d pray on the matter some more and go from there.

  Reverend Toussaint found himself at something of a loss, not knowing exactly what his role was supposed to be in Sister Ana Mae Futrell’s after-death wishes. Among the most perplexing was why she’d included him at all.

  As children growing up in Drapersville, they had been close once. Very close. But that had been a long, long time ago. Before either of them found the Lord. Before he’d gone off to college and she’d moved on to boys who could love her
the way she deserved.

  At Ana Mae’s wake, Rosalee Jenkins slipped up and called him Too Sweet, the nickname he’d carried throughout his high school years. He didn’t call her on it. He doubted she even realized she had said it. The moniker, with its double-edged meaning, brought back a lot of memories, most of them of the unpleasant variety.

  But Ana Mae calling him Too Sweet was something he cherished. When she’d said it, it was not the derogatory nickname tagged onto a teenager questioning both his sexuality and his place in the world.

  While some of the older folks in town might remember him from those days, he had worked long and hard to shed that image, living a life and lifestyle that was above reproach. It was also why he chose to remain a celibate bachelor, devoting his life to God’s work. And, rather than pursuing a pastorate of his own, he chose to be an associate minister, not the senior pastor of a flock. The Lord called his children to different purposes and ministries in the kingdom.

  Toussaint le Baptiste had found his and took joy in the work his did with the various outreach programs of the Holy Ghost Church of the Good Redeemer. In addition to being the church’s Sunday school superintendent, he coordinated the meals and jobs programs, and served as overseer of the Good Redeemer Academy. In short, the work as director of outreach ministries kept him busy and fulfilled.

  “Ana Mae. Ana Mae. Ana Mae,” he said on a wistful sigh.

  He’d loved her like he loved all of the members of the congregation. There had, however, been a time in his life—in their lives—when his feelings for her ran much deeper. But that was ancient history, long ago and done with. They had both moved on, matured in their lives and their walks with God.

  While he couldn’t get a grasp on her wishes, something about her last will and testament quilt, The Legacy of Ana Mae Futrell, called to him . . . and nagged at him. The colors, so bright and cheerful, like the woman herself, and the leaves, they too especially called to him.

  He wanted to touch the quilt again. To feel the smooth fabric under his fingers. Somehow, being near it and able to touch the soft material comforted him. He would have been hard pressed to explain to anyone the why of that, especially now. Toussaint was not even sure it was something he could articulate to himself, let alone someone else.

  He glanced at the booklet from Everett Rollings on the passenger seat. The extra copy of the quilt image he’d requested of Mr. Rollings was taped to his fridge at home. Something about it nagged at him.

  Ana Mae had made plenty of quilts through the years. Every year she donated one to the church’s annual bazaar. And she’d made an outstanding one for Pastor and First Lady Leonard’s tenth church anniversary, which coincided with their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Double wedding ring was the pattern, if he recalled correctly. But Ana Mae had put her own unique spin on it by adding a cross in a center medallion to symbolize their everlasting love of each other and of Christ. That blue, gold, and cream quilt was lovely and hung on their family room wall as art rather than cover a bed.

  But something about the quilt Ana Mae made for herself—for her heirs—was truly special.

  Toussaint le Baptiste didn’t covet anything in this world, but he wanted that quilt. It spoke to him in ways he didn’t quite understand. All he knew was he desperately wanted to possess that piece of the late Sister Ana Mae Futrell.

  14

  Surprises from Ohio

  Since Rosalee knew more about sewing than Delcine and JoJo combined, the siblings agreed to let Rosalee go through Ana Mae’s sewing room the next day.

  “What’s to say she didn’t already take the good stuff before any of us got into town?” Delcine asked. “It’s clear she’s used to coming and going in this house as she pleases.”

  “That’s what friends do,” Clayton said. “Or so I’m told.”

  He couldn’t imagine any of their San Francisco friends, even the neighbor who had a key in the event of an emergency, just wandering into their home for grins and giggles or because of sheer curiosity. But here in the South, well, things were done a little differently than on the rest of the planet.

  “What good stuff?” JoJo demanded. “It’s a room full of fabric. Let her take it all.”

  “What are we going to do about the house?” Clayton asked.

  That was a question they’d all been avoiding. Clearing out Ana Mae’s stuff had kept JoJo and Delcine busy since they’d arrived in North Carolina, but to what avail?

  Delcine looked around. “Even with a couple of coats of paint and some new appliances, it’s not going to fetch much on the market.”

  “And the market is still pretty lackluster, especially around here,” Clayton said. “I looked it up before we left California.”

  JoJo cleared her throat. “Uh, actually, guys, I’ve kind of been thinking about this.”

  Her siblings turned to her, eyebrows raised in question.

  But a knock at a door and Rosalee’s “Hey, y’all, anybody home?” interrupted.

  “We’re back here,” Clayton hollered toward the kitchen since Rosalee usually came in the side door.

  A moment later, she bustled into the room, followed by two plumpish women who could have been sisters or twins or mother and daughter.

  “I brought a couple of the ladies from the Holy Ghost Bee over to take a look at the fabric.”

  Clayton stepped out of the room to give the women more room to get inside. JoJo was near the window, Delcine sitting in the chair at the sewing machine. Two of the walls were lined with built-in cubbies containing all types and colors of fabrics. One wall served as a design space, with blocks and fabric pinned to it. There was even space for a couple of shelves of pattern books and binders and a small television. And a camera bag hung from a hook next to a corkboard that held all manner of magazine pages and pieces of paper ripped and pinned up.

  “Lord, have mercy,” one of the women exclaimed. “It’s like Elnora Rogers’s store.”

  “Better than Elnora’s,” her companion said, squeezing over to fondle the fabric. “Look at these batiks.”

  Rosalee grinned. “I told you all Ana Mae had a sewing room to die for.”

  If she realized the irony of what she said, neither Rosalee nor her guests gave any indication.

  “It look like a rainbow threw up in here.”

  Delcine and Clayton scowled at that one.

  “Betty and Hetty Johnson, these here are Ana Mae’s sisters and brother.”

  Rosalee made the rest of the introductions. One of the Johnsons embraced Delcine in a hug that clearly wasn’t reciprocated. But JoJo hugged her back hard.

  “I sure was sorry to hear about Ana Mae,” Betty or Hetty said. “But her homegoing was something else. She woulda loved that service. And you,” she said, letting JoJo go and heading over to Clayton. “That tribute to her,” Hetty or Betty patted her chest. “You done Ana Mae proud, Mr. Clayton. You done her proud.”

  When tears welled up in the woman’s eyes, Clayton glanced at Rosalee. But she was busy pointing out some aspect of Ana Mae’s sewing machine to the other Johnson. Clayton murmured a few words that sounded consoling and offered the woman a tissue from the box on a shelf.

  A few minutes later, the sewing room was cleared of Futrells. JoJo went off to make coffee for their guests, while Clayton and Delcine went to the living room to talk.

  “Have you and Archer made any progress on any of the other clues?”

  Clayton moved a box of newspaper-wrapped knickknacks out of the chair and onto the floor before taking a seat.

  “Not really,” he said, deciding to keep the Everett Rollings as Howard’s father theory private for now. “And despite what that idiot Lester did, I think Rollings was being straight up. I don’t think any of these so-called clues are really tangible things.”

  “What do you mean? The quilt is a tangible item; so was that lottery ticket that launched all of this.”

  “Speaking of that ticket,” Clayton said. He got up to peruse the carefully labeled box
es. He paused at the one marked IMPORTANT PAPERS. “We need to figure out what Ana Mae’s connection is with David Bell.”

  “We know already,” Delcine said. “He’s from that Zorin Corporation in Ohio.”

  “But how did they meet? What was she visiting him for?”

  Delcine snorted out a half-laugh. “Well, seeing as how our big sister apparently led a life that none of us knew anything about, I’d say she was going to get her some.”

  “Some what?” Clayton said. Then, “Oh.” He scowled. “Since when do you talk like that?”

  Delcine shrugged. “Apparently, North Carolina is a bad influence on me.”

  Clayton pulled out one of the envelopes in the important papers box, a large white one. Inside he found an annual report. On the cover and in the middle, almost like a quilt medallion was a big Z. Photographs, presumably of customers or people important to the company formed the inside of the Z. He peered at it more closely.

  “It can’t be.”

  “What?”

  Distracted, Clayton moved closer to a lamp, leaning down to see better. Sure enough, among the photos was Ana Mae. David Bell had his arm thrown around her shoulder, and the two grinned at the camera from one of the collage of photographs.

  “Hey, you all,” JoJo called. “Come take a look at what we found!”

  Clayton and Delcine glanced at each other, then, almost as one, dashed to the sewing room.

  “What is it?” Delcine said, beating Clayton to the doorway.

  They both clearly expected to find riches hidden among the bolts and cuts of fabric. But the Johnsons, Rosalee, and JoJo were all focused on a binder.

  “It’s the quilts,” JoJo said, wonder in her voice. “Every single one that Ana Mae ever made.”

  “Huh?”

  “She kept a record,” Rosalee explained. “It’s a quilt journal. She tells the story of every quilt she ever made and gave away to someone. There are even pictures.”

  “And this one,” JoJo said, holding up an identical large three-ring binder, “has all of the quilts that she ever entered in a contest or fair, and even the prizes she won.”

  One of the Johnsons, Hetty or Betty, stood over JoJo’s chair. The other one stood next to Rosalee as they thumbed through the binder. Each sheet, in a page protector, had a photo of a quilt. On the other side was information on the dimensions of the piece, small cuts of the fabric used to make it, the date it was made, and whom it was made for, as well as the techniques used and whether it was an original design or made from a pattern. Some of the back sides featured pictures of Ana Mae with the quilt recipient, both smiling, with the quilt also prominently displayed.