Hark! The Herald Angel Screamed: An Augusta Goodnight Mystery (with Heavenly Recipes)

by Mignon F. Ballard

  “Are they planning to arrest anybody?” I said.

  “Doesn’t sound like it. I doubt if they have enough evidence—yet, but Weigelia thinks something’s brewing.”

  I hadn’t been to Willowbrook since the morning Ben and I went there for my Christmas tree and were greeted by ghostly music. “I know they’ve boarded up the house, but I’m still curious about those hidden stairs. Wonder if the police ever checked that out again.”

  “If they didn’t, I’ll bet they will now,” Ellis said.

  Opal Henshaw and her late husband Virgil had belonged to Stone’s Throw Presbyterian Church for as long as I could remember, and I was baptized there, so the line to pay condolences had already snaked out the door of the fellowship hall and people were clustered on the walkway by the time Ellis and I arrived. I passed my cake along to one of the circle members in charge of today’s lunch and turned up the collar of my coat to wait along with the others, waving to Nettie and Jo Nell who were ahead of us in line.

  As we shuffled slowly along I caught snatches of murmured conversation about the circumstances surrounding Opal’s death, and since most people knew we were in the choir, Ellis and I received several sympathetic pats and words of condolence for having experienced the trauma of finding her.

  Oohs and aahs of approval rose when Geraldine Overton passed us on her way in the fellowship hall with an arrangement of daisies and white chrysanthemums for the table, and Ellis poked me from behind. “Opal will be whirling in her grave when she finds out that’s not artificial,” she whispered.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Myra Jennings and her daughter Alice working their way up to where we stood and wasn’t surprised later when I felt a firm grip on my arm.

  “I heard Idonia Mae had a frightful scare the other night out at Bellawood,” Myra bellowed loud enough to wake those in the cemetery behind the church. “Is she going to be all right?”

  I saw Ellis bite her lip and look quickly away. “Yes, thank you, Myra. She’s doing fine.”

  Alice stuck her face so close to mine I could tell she’d had sausage for breakfast. “What was the matter with her? I heard she was poisoned!”

  “It was something she ate, but Dr. Smiley says she’s going to be okay,” I said. Thank goodness the line surged forward just then and Ellis and I were able to inch inside the hall and leave them behind. If these two heard Idonia had disappeared, we’d never see the last of them.

  “I think somebody’s trying to get your attention on the other side of the room,” someone ahead of us said, and I looked up to see Nathan Culpepper waving to us from the table by the kitchen where coffee was being served.

  “Maybe he’s heard from Idonia,” Ellis said as we hurried over together, but as soon as I saw his face, I knew the news wasn’t good.

  “Any word?” I asked, trying to shield him from curious eyes.

  “Nothing.” Nathan sighed. “I don’t know what else to do. I’m about ready to get in my car and start scouting the countryside.” He poured coffee for Ellis and me and offered it silently. “The police told me you saw this Melrose fellow in Georgia. What was he doing there?”

  “Beats me, unless he was doing the same thing we—uh—I was, which was trying to find out more about the Tanseys. I believe he was in Soso about the same time I was there. That’s where the family lived before they came to Stone’s Throw, and later he turned up at the mall in Commerce.”

  Nathan frowned. “And why, if I might ask, did you decide to go there?”

  I took my time stirring sweetener into my coffee before answering, wondering all the while if Idonia had told Nathan there were doubts about the locket’s origin, but as Nettie would say, the shit had already hit the fan. There was no holding back now.

  “We think the locket Melrose gave your mother for Christmas might have originally belonged to one of the Tanseys,” I began.

  “You mean the man stole it?” Coffee sloshed as Nathan set down his cup.

  “I don’t know about that, but Dave Tansey was helping to park cars at Bellawood the night your mother was drugged and we believed there was a possibility a member of his family put that sleeping mixture in her drink,” I said. “I thought if I talked with some of the people who knew them in Soso where he lived before, we might find out something about their background. After all, they’re living out there at Willowbrook where a man died recently from a suspicious fall from a balcony.” I didn’t go into the fact that Dinah Tansey had been married to him.

  “And Preacher Dave was seen at the church the night Opal died,” Ellis added.

  “Then, by God, why don’t they arrest the man?” Nathan spoke so loudly several people turned to stare and Ellis and I hustled him into the kitchen where a couple of women from our circle arranged food on platters. I noticed that Anna Caldwell had brought her cream cheese salad with pineapple, apples, and pecans and hoped there might be at least a smidgen left for us.

  We assured Nathan that the police probably didn’t have enough evidence to arrest anyone yet but we had it on good authority (Weigelia’s) that it would only be a matter of time.

  “Meanwhile, my mother is who-knows-where with a man who might be not only a thief but a murderer as well!” he said.

  Ellis was trying to convince Nathan to go back to Idonia’s and wait in case his mother returned or tried to contact him there when the people who had been in line behind us signaled to tell us they had almost made their way to the front. As we hurried over I looked back to see him disappear through the door to the main part of the church and hoped he didn’t intend to find Dave Tansey and confront him.

  Ellis looked over my shoulder as we waited to speak to what was left of Opal Henshaw’s family. “Which one do you think is her brother?” she whispered.

  I shook my head. There were only a few people in the receiving line and none of them looked familiar to me.

  I introduced myself to a matronly woman who looked as if all she wanted to do in this world was to sit down, and I didn’t blame her. She turned out to be the sister of Opal’s husband, Virgil, who died the summer before, and the younger man standing next to her, I learned, was her son. The son’s wife, a teenaged boy, and two smaller girls comprised the family.

  “Can you believe Opal’s own brother didn’t even come to her funeral?” Ellis said as we made our way back to the kitchen to help with lunch. “We’ll have enough food left over to feed the multitudes.”

  And enough of Anna’s salad left for us, I thought, eyeing the creamy squares on a platter of crisp green lettuce. But how were we going to get in touch with Opal’s brother in Knoxville?

  I kept an eye on the door the whole time we served the family, hoping that Terrance Banks would put in an appearance, but he didn’t show. Ellis and I stayed after the meal to divide what was left of the food to take to some of the shut-ins in the community so the main sanctuary was full when we arrived for the service and we were directed to the balcony. Thank goodness we didn’t have to sit on the first row because the only thing I could think of was poor Opal Henshaw tumbling over the railing.

  Ellis nodded toward the area where Opal would have been standing, bending over the railing to reach the lopsided swag. “Can you imagine being shoved from behind like that?” she said under her breath. “Poor unsuspecting Opal!”

  A shiver came over me as I looked involuntarily over my shoulder for some wicked unseen hand. Thank goodness Cissy, our organist, began playing softly, and since the hymn was “Nearer My God to Thee,” I thought, Maybe being in the balcony might have an advantage. Of course, I didn’t want to be quite as near to God as Opal was, just yet.

  I was reading the memorial program when the family was ushered down the aisle to sit in the first pew so I didn’t pay much attention to them until Ellis nudged me. “There’s seven,” she whispered.

  I frowned. “Seven what?” All I could think of was that old tale, “Seven in One Blow,” about a man killing flies, and I didn’t see what that could possibly have to do w
ith Opal’s funeral.

  “Seven people,” she said. “There were only six for lunch.”

  I shifted to get a better look, and sure enough there was an extra man down there. Oh, please, let him be Terrance, I thought. He looked to be about the right age with graying hair and a slight balding spot in the back. A brief graveside service was scheduled for immediately after this one and in spite of the rising winds and falling temperature, I was determined to see Opal Henshaw all the way to the end.

  “Let’s sneak out the side door,” Ellis suggested as the service ended, and I nodded in agreement. If we could get to the cemetery ahead of the others maybe we could station ourselves to head off Terrance when it was over before he could get away.

  “Listen,” I said as we stood for the family to recess. “Cissy’s playing ‘Oh, Come All Ye Faithful,’” and I felt tears welling in my eyes in spite of myself. Opal might have been aggravating at times, but nobody could ever say she wasn’t faithful.

  uddled together in the sparse protection of a large sycamore in the corner of the Henshaws’ plot, Ellis and I waited for the family to be seated under the green canopy with Evans and Son in white lettering on the side. Al Evans, who didn’t have a son, or at least any he was claiming, had been using the same awnings since his father died at least ten years ago and they were beginning to show the effects of the elements.

  Al himself escorted the family of Virgil Henshaw’s brother, carefully holding the arm of his wife as she made her way down the graveled path from the sleek black limousine, and I wondered if he had heard any more from his cousin, Melrose. As the town’s decorous undertaker, Al Evans would hardly take to the idea of having criminal kin, and if Melrose had been responsible for what happened to Idonia or Opal, he might be inclined to cover it up, I thought. After all, isn’t covering things up what undertakers do best? The more I pondered the idea, the more I suspected that Al might even have been the reason his cousin left town. But if so, why had they involved Idonia?

  “What are you frowning so about, Lucy Nan?” Jo Nell said as she joined us. “I noticed your scowl two plots away.”

  “Tell you later,” I said, keeping a watchful eye on Al, who seemed to be looking back at me, or I thought he was looking at me. It was hard to tell.

  “We’re going to try and have a word with Opal’s brother when this is over,” Ellis told her. “He’s the one in the gray overcoat sitting on the end. It’s important, so don’t let him get away.”

  “Good grief, you talk like he’s going to make a run for it or something.” Jo Nell drew a fluffy white beret from her coat pocket and pulled it over her ears. “What’s so important that you need to speak with him?”

  We didn’t have a chance to answer as everyone grew quiet when the minister began reading a passage from Psalms.

  I looked at the people gathered around the grave site to see if Nathan Culpepper was among them but he wasn’t there. I hoped he had taken our advice and gone home instead of tearing off on the warpath as he seemed inclined to do.

  Beside me Jo Nell was standing first on one foot and then the other and I supposed she was either trying to keep warm or she had to go to the bathroom. Mercifully, the service was brief and those attending paid hurried respects to the family before rushing to the warmth of their nearby vehicles.

  The cemetery emptied quickly but the three of us stayed behind while Opal’s brother held a quiet conversation with Al Evans.

  “I wish I knew where Al was going when he leaves here,” I whispered. “He looks like he’s hiding something, don’t you think? Kind of like he has a guilty secret.”

  “I guess he’ll be going home to get warm like everyone else. The poor man can’t help it if he has a glass eye,” Jo Nell reminded me.

  Just then the two men turned and noticed us there, pausing as if they expected us to join them, so we did.

  “I wonder if we might have a few minutes of your time,” I said to Terrance Banks after the three of us introduced ourselves. I looked pointedly at Al but he stood there as if he had no immediate plans to leave until Terrance offered him his hand.

  “I’ll drop by before I leave,” Terrance said. “And thank you again for taking care of things.”

  “It’s freezing out here,” I said after Al finally left us. “Why don’t we go inside where we can be more comfortable?”

  Terrance nodded, looking puzzled. “You knew my sister Opal, then?” he said, walking along beside us. The wind lifted his scarf as he glanced back at the open grave. His face looked lined and sad.

  “Oh, my, yes!” Jo Nell said. “And Virgil, too. It’s not going to seem the same without them.”

  “I’m a good five years older than Opal,” Terrance said, “so we weren’t very close growing up, and I regret that. My sister was probably around fourteen when I left home, and frankly, we didn’t have a lot in common.” He sighed. “I wish I had made more of an effort to stay in touch.”

  I thought about my own brother, Joel, whom I adored but hadn’t seen in months and promised myself I would phone him in Oregon as soon as I got home.

  We found the church parlor empty and quickly shed our coats in the warm confines of the room after coming in from the cold. Terrance settled on one end of the mauve-striped love seat and leaned forward, hands on his knees. “If any of you have any idea about the circumstances of my sister’s death, I’d like to hear it,” he said. “The police seem to think it might not have been an accident, but they haven’t been able to pinpoint a motive or give me any kind of explanation.” He drew in his breath. “I’d like to get to the bottom if this.”

  “And so would we,” Ellis said. She told him how we had found Opal the night of our Christmas choir rehearsal and how Margaret had tried to revive her.

  His voice was bleak. “But it was too late. She was already dead. What in God’s name was she doing up in the balcony?”

  “Straightening an evergreen swag,” Jo Nell said. “It was crooked, you know.”

  “I see.” A smile played on Terrance Banks’s lips. “She would, of course. I realize my sister could be a bit—uh—overbearing at times, but I don’t understand why someone would want to kill her.”

  “Neither do we,” I said, “but there seems to be some kind of connection to a family here, the Tanseys, and a locket that belonged to their daughter.”

  Disbelief was obvious in his face. “What does a locket have to do with it?”

  “That’s why we wanted to talk with you,” Ellis said. “Opal told the girl’s mother that a locket identical to the one belonging to her daughter had been in her family for years. We thought you might remember it.”

  He frowned. “Do you know what it was like?”

  “Gold with a raised design of a dogwood blossom—” I began.

  Terrance nodded. “Set with six small pearls. It belonged to my grandmother, but Mother passed it along to the older of the two girls, my sister Maisie. I remember Maisie wearing it when she married, but I don’t know what happened to it after that.”

  “I think I do,” I told him. I hesitated to bring up the subject of Terrance’s nephew, Dexter Clark, especially since I would have to be the bearer of bad news, but it couldn’t be avoided.

  Noticing my hesitancy, Ellis jumped in. “Your sister Maisie’s son, Dexter, was married to the Tanseys’ daughter, Dinah. Dexter must’ve given her the locket as a wedding gift.”

  Terrance nodded. “Or his mother did—probably as an engagement gift. That sounds like something our Maisie would do. She died several months before the two married.” He frowned. “My sister spent the last years of her life worrying about Dexter, and I don’t doubt for one minute that his behavior hastened her death.” Terrance paused as if weighing his words before continuing. “It’s a terrible thing to say about my own kin, but Dexter always was a sorry sort, reckless and rebellious—didn’t give a damn about anybody but himself. What happened to his young wife was a senseless tragedy! I didn’t even know it had happened until months later when
I learned about it from a friend, and well … I just couldn’t believe it.”

  “Believe it,” I said. “He didn’t even bother to tell her own parents until she was dead and buried.”

  “God only knows what Dexter’s up to now,” Terrance said. “I heard he got religion after that happened to his wife, and I hope it’s true—we’ll see. Called me not too long ago, left a message he wanted to get together, but I hadn’t had a chance to get back to him. I reckon he just wants money. Far as I’m concerned, it’s just as well Maisie’s not around to worry about it.”

  Ellis and I exchanged glances, hoping Jo Nell would volunteer to deliver the grim news, but she was preoccupied with folding her scarf in neat accordion pleats and wouldn’t even look up.

  “I don’t think you’re going to have to deal with Dexter anymore,” I said, and told him what had happened at Willowbrook.

  Terrance Banks didn’t speak but sat for a minute with his hand supporting his forehead. Despite his harsh words about his nephew, he seemed to be genuinely upset. Maybe he was thinking of happier times when Dexter was small. Had he read to him from Winnie the Pooh? Given him a tricycle for Christmas? Probably not, I thought. The man hardly seemed the cuddly uncle type.

  “And you think this locket might have had something to do with my sister’s death?” he said finally. “Why?”

  “I’m sure you knew about Opal’s bed-and-breakfast?” Ellis said, and Terrance nodded, wondering, I’m sure, what connection that might have with Opal’s quick descent from the church balcony. “One of her guests,” she continued, “a fellow named Melrose DuBois, somehow came by that locket and gave it to a friend of ours for Christmas … “

  “We can’t be sure,” I said, “but there’s a possibility that he showed the locket to Opal before making a gift of it to—”

  “And don’t forget to tell him about Opal’s fruitcake run,” Jo Nell offered.

  I frowned at her. “I was getting to that,” I said. “A few days before Opal was killed, she and another member of our church circle took fruitcake and cookies to Dinah Tansey’s family. You see, Dinah’s father, Dave Tansey, is the sexton at our church. During the visit Opal noticed a studio photograph of Dinah on the piano, and she was wearing that locket in the picture.”