Hot Southern Nights

by Patt Bucheister

  As though coming out of a trance, Brett shook her head and left the kitchen.

  Her red coat and purse were by the back door. She grabbed them, finding her car keys in her purse. Her fingers closed around them, holding them so tightly, the uneven edges bit painfully into her palm.

  She let herself out the back door and walked to her car. Morning dew had collected on the windshield, and she removed the excess with several swipes of her hand.

  Inside the car, she turned on the wipers for a few seconds until the windshield was clear enough for her to see where she was going. She started the engine and backed out of the parking space. Gravel sprayed several feet behind her car when she pressed her foot down on the accelerator after changing gears. Her hands were sure and steady on the wheel as she drove away from the mansion and Sam. She had no idea where she was going. Her priority was just to get away from Maddox Hill. It didn't matter where.

  Without making a conscious decision, she ended up at Abbie Nelson's. Habit had her honking her horn in the prearranged signal she always used to let Abbie know who had arrived. She glanced at the clock on the dashboard of her car. Six in the morning was a hell of a time to come calling, even on close friends.

  She was about to put the car in reverse and leave when the front door opened. Elsa stood in the open doorway and gestured for Brett to come in.

  Brett shoved aside her misery when she saw the exhaustion around Elsa's eyes and the weary slump of her shoulders. Pushing open her car door, she got out and walked toward the house.

  As she approached the bottom step, she asked, "Did Abbie have a bad night?"

  Elsa shook her head. "An emergency call."

  "I hope it wasn't anything serious."

  "A new set of parents needed some reassurance. Their baby is fine. They're a wreck. I got home about ten minutes ago and just made a pot of coffee." She stepped back to make room for Brett to enter the house. As Brett passed her Elsa looked closely at her. "What's the matter?"

  "How much time do you have?"

  "However long it takes." Elsa shut the door and put her arm around Brett's waist as they walked together toward the kitchen. "Momma is up early, as usual. She heard your signal and probably has a cup of coffee poured for you already."

  Entering the kitchen, Brett saw Abbie's sweet welcoming smile and felt her throat tighten pain-rally. She walked up to Abbie's chair and knelt beside it, putting her arms around the older woman. She buried her face against Abbie's shoulder and closed her eyes. Abbie held her securely with one arm while her other hand stroked Brett's hair.

  Neither woman rushed her or tried to soothe her with trite sayings and kind words. The only movement in the room was Abbie's fingers in Brett's hair and the sideways motion of the eyes and tail of a plastic black-cat wall clock.

  Lifting her head, Brett smiled thinly. "I'm back to being twelve again," she said with wry humor, "and Johnny Spazac has just told me he's going to take Mary Lou Spencer to the May Day Dance instead of me. If I remember correctly, I ended up in the same position I am now."

  Abbie's hand slid along Brett's cheek. "Feelings can get hurt at any age, child. Has Sam Horne hurt yours this time?"

  Brett squeezed Abbie's hand before releasing it. She pulled out the chair between the two women and sat down at the table, calmed and comforted by the love of her friends. As Elsa had predicted, her mother had poured a cup of coffee for Brett, and it was sitting in front of her.

  "I realized as I was driving here that Sam isn't at fault. I did this to myself."

  She related the conversation between Darren and Sam. Then she described the events of the previous evening, including the fire, the police, and the bit of fabric she'd found on the ladder.

  Both women listened quietly until Brett finished. Elsa was the first to speak. "Why would someone purposely set fire to your barn, Brett?"

  "The obvious answer is that someone doesn't want the production company at Maddox Hill."

  "Well, whoever did it either isn't very good at arson or didn't really want to burn down the entire building. You said the amount of kerosene used hadn't been enough to do much damage."

  "That's what the firemen reported. They also pointed out that whoever started the fire knew there wasn't any straw in the loft. He brought his own, but the straw was damp and didn't burn very well."

  "The guy is either dumb or made all those mistakes intentionally," Elsa said. "Is it possible someone simply wanted to get your attention, to warn you?"

  "About what? I own a specialty gift shop, hardly a threat to anyone."

  Abbie's quiet voice intervened. "Are you still searching for answers about your mother's death?"

  Brett stared at the woman. She shouldn't be amazed at Abbie's perceptiveness after all this time, but in this case, she was. Somehow the blind woman saw things that the sighted couldn't see, even when it was right in front of their faces.

  "How did you know?"

  "I've heard your voice when you've occasion-ally asked me about Melanie. Did I know if she was upset about anything? Had she complained about not feeling well shortly before she died? Had she said anything about any problems between her and your father? You weren't satisfied with the verdict the authorities came up with of your mother's death, so I wondered if you had been actively investigating whatever theories you might have."

  "You don't believe she took her own life either, Abbie. You knew my mother better than anyone. You know she wouldn't have taken even one sleeping pill. She certainly wouldn't have swallowed the amount the medical examiner found in her system. Someone had put the medication in her tea. The police found an empty pot and cup on her bedside table."

  "Both of which had been washed," Elsa added. "I thought that was odd."

  "Or some other method was used without her being suspicious," Brett went on. "Then when she became sleepy, someone guided her toward the stairs and pushed her down them so it would appear she fell after ingesting sleeping pills."

  "Who would hate your mother that much, they'd go to such extremes to kill her?" Elsa asked.

  "As far as I know, she didn't have an enemy in the world. For someone to arrange to have sleeping pills with them when they came to Maddox Hill means premeditation. It wasn't a spur-of-the-moment thing. My father knew of nothing that would cause someone to want to kill her." Brett looked at Abbie. "I was completely stumped as to how I was going to prove my suspicions until I realized her journal for this year is missing. I'm hoping there will be some entry, some notation that will give me a clue as to who could have killed her."

  Abbie tapped her fingers absently on the table as she thought over what Brett had said. Then she asked, "Where have you looked?"

  Brett described her search of the rooms on the upper floors of the mansion, her father's office, the kitchen, the library, all the places where her mother might have kept the journal. All of the secret passages had been examined, even though her mother never cared to enter any of them because she didn't like confined places.

  "I haven't checked the parlor, the conservatory, or the dining room yet, although I don't hold much hope for finding her journal in any of those rooms. I even went through her greenhouse, but I didn't find anything that would help."

  "What about her treasure box?" the older woman asked.

  Brett stared at Abbie. She vaguely remembered a wooden box with a brass clasp that she had seen when she was small. At one time it had been a display case that held a hundred cigars. Her mother had told her the box had been given to her by an uncle who said only valuable treasures should be kept inside it. Her mother had raised the lid with reverence and carefully taken out each item, as though they were made of precious stones. Brett remembered a ribbon, a seashell, an acorn with a face drawn on it, a small purple bottle of Blue Danube perfume, a stone with a fossilized leaf in it, among other childhood memorabilia. Shortly afterward, her mother had given Brett a small wooden chest of her own to use for her treasures.

  "I haven't thought about that box for years." Bre
tt frowned. "I don't remember seeing it among her belongings. I wonder where it could be."

  Abbie pushed her chair back and stood. With one hand outstretched in front of her, the older woman left the kitchen. Elsa and Brett looked at each other with similar puzzled expressions on their faces. They could hear a drawer being opened and closed, then the sound of Abbie's felt slippers on the polished wooden floor in the hallway. When she reentered the kitchen, she had the wooden cigar box in her hand.

  She carefully placed it on the table near Brett. "Your mother brought this over a day or so before the electricians were scheduled to update the wiring in the mansion. I believe it was about a week before she died. I thought it was odd at the time, considering that she had many more valuable things at Maddox Hill she didn't appear concerned about. Then she died. As you know, I was still adjusting to being blind then." Abbie paused for a few moments to compose herself. "I didn't think of this box until you mentioned her journal. Her journals, as I remember, were usually about five inches by seven. One would fit her treasure box if she still used that size."

  Brett stared at the box. Apprehension tingled up and down her spine, like slivers of ice. The answers she was looking for could be in her mother's treasure box, or the contents could be the same as they'd been when Brett was a child. Either way, opening the box was going to affect her search for answers. This was basically her last chance, and she was hesitant about taking it. If the answer was in the box, her life would undergo a drastic change. If there was no clue at all, she would have to wonder until she died what really happened to her mother. The box and its contents were her last hope, and she found hope very difficult to give up.

  Elsa placed her hand on Brett's arm. "One of my patients was recently diagnosed with leukemia, and when I told his mother, she said a curious thing. She naturally had wanted to know what was wrong with her child and now that she knew, she said, she had an enemy she could fight, an enemy with a name. If you find the journal in this box and your mother wrote something in it that implicates someone in her death, your enemy will have a name. Not knowing that name might be safer than knowing."

  Brett met her friend's gaze. "I have to know one way or the other. For myself, for my father, and especially for my mother." She turned to Abbie. "Abbie, do you understand why I have to know for sure what happened to her?"

  "Of course, child," the older woman said gently. "If someone took Melanie's life, that person cannot get away with ending her existence before it was her time."

  Brett rubbed her suddenly damp hands on the thighs of her slacks. Taking a deep breath, she snapped open the clasp and lifted the lid.

  Elsa leaned forward to see inside. "Well?" Abbie asked. "Is the journal there?"

  "Yes," Brett murmured. "It's here."

  When Abbie didn't hear movement, she prodded: "Are you going to read the entries? If so, please read them aloud."

  The pleasant scent of dried herbs rose from the box as Brett reached in to remove the journal. She set it on the table in front of her, opened it to the middle, and read aloud instructions for planting garlic.

  The three women smiled at the earnest wording of the directions, written as exacting and painstakingly detailed as a formula for an important medical discovery. Melanie had always taken her research very seriously, and it showed in her writing.

  Brett leafed through several more pages, reading bits and pieces of planting schedules, descriptions of what had been picked to be dried, and how the hand cream she'd made had helped Mrs. Arthur's dry skin.

  Disappointed, Brett turned a couple more pages. "At least now I can stop looking for her journal." Flipping over another page, she glanced at a few lines, then looked closer. "Oh, my God," she breathed.

  Abbie and Elsa said in tandem, "What!"

  Brett silently read through the paragraph that had caught her attention, then she read it aloud.

  " 'Judson asked me not to tell Phillip about his situation. I tried to persuade Judson to go to Dr. Chambers when he said the chamomile tea concoction had no effect. I mentioned that Dr. Chambers is a qualified psychologist, and Judson became quite agitated, and I'm concerned he will do something rash.' "

  No one spoke for a long time after Brett finished reading. Finally Abbie said quietly, "I don't believe Judson Quill would do anything to cause your mother any pain. He adored her. He has ever since they were children."

  "I find it hard to believe too," Elsa said. "Judson Quill has always impressed me as being full of hot air at times, but collapses like a pricked balloon if someone stands up to him."

  Brett didn't take her gaze away from the journal. She turned page after page, reading excerpts when something caught her eye. After going back a number of pages, then forward to the last entry, she didn't find any other references to the lawyer or his problems. She did see Kathryn's name several times with herb plants listed after it. Melanie had probably given those plants to Kathryn.

  "Listen," she said, then read, " 'As hardy as the mint and rosemary are, I feel they will not survive Kathryn's smothering attention. Her reason for wanting the plants was simply stated as being necessary because Judson said I know so much about herbs. Kathryn wants Judson to think she is as smart as I am. Such a sad woman'."

  Elsa got up to fetch the coffeepot. Refilling their cups, she said, "It certainly sounds like Judson has his hands full with his second wife. Chamomile is used as a calming agent for nerves and stress. It's possible Judson asked for herbal remedies for Kathryn."

  "What if," Brett said thoughtfully, "I call Judson and ask him to meet me somewhere? Not at the office where he could pull rank as my attorney. Somewhere else where he would feel more inclined to talk. I talked to other friends of mother's after she died, hoping to find some clue as to what really happened. I never discussed her with Judson, though."

  Abbie sat back in her chair and turned her head toward Brett. "Judson was too distraught after Melanie died to have been much help. If you do meet him, you need to have a safety net in case Judson is not as rational as we think he is, someone who could come to your rescue if the situation gets out of hand. A blind woman and her reed-thin daughter are not going to be much help."

  Brett knew what Abbie was going to say next. "I can handle this on my own, Abbie. I'll be expecting trouble and my mother wasn't. The outcome will be completely different."

  As though Brett hadn't said a word, Abbie continued, "What you need is Sam Horne."

  TEN

  Sam tried extremely hard to concentrate on the shooting schedule that day. In the morning they rehearsed the Union charge on the stone wall near the Sunken Road, the most dramatic scene in the documentary. Throughout the afternoon, they filmed the attack in numerous takes from various angles, until Sam was certain he had enough to work with. Now they were getting ready for one last shot before the sun set.

  Sam's thoughts, however, kept shifting to earlier that morning, when he had called Brett's shop and she hadn't answered. Her assistant Myra had. Discovering Brett wasn't at Southern Touch had bothered him. Myra had told him that Brett had called to say she wouldn't be in until late that afternoon.

  It wasn't like her to change her plans without telling him. She had told him before her shower that she had a lot to do at the store that day, and she was counting on Myra to help with customers and filling orders while she went over her books.

  He and Brett had settled into a routine of sorts in the short time he'd been staying at Maddox Hill. Each morning as they dressed they told each other what the day had in store for them. It was a quiet, intimate time, ordinary to some people perhaps, but special to Sam, for he'd never experienced anything like it.

  In the brief time he'd known her, he'd learned that even the smallest common activity became magical with Brett.

  Instead of looking through the viewfinder at the layout in front of him as he was supposed to be doing, Sam stared off into space and thought about the rush of warmth that had flooded his chest when he had watched Brett brush her teeth yesterday m
orning. Brush her teeth, for crying out loud. Such a simple thing, and he had been overwhelmed with a strange combination of emotions; a blending of affection, arousal, and contentment.

  Hank coughed a couple of times. "Ah, Sam. You wanted to check the angle."

  Sam went through the motions of looking through the viewfinder. The fading sunlight was coming through the trees on Marye Heights, creating a picturesque sight in sharp contrast to the shocking scene of hundreds of Union soldiers lying on the grass incline leading up to the formidable stone wall. Actually, the death total had been nine thousand, but Sam had compensated for the numbers by shooting groupings of bodies to make the hundreds of reenactors appear to be many more.

  Smoke drifted across the top of the gray stone wall where Confederate soldiers had stood four deep to steadily bombard the attacking army. The setting sun added just the right touch of pathos to the bloody aftermath of the battle.

  "It's exactly what I wanted, Hank. Let's get it the first time before the sun disappears."

  Stepping back to let Hank do his job, Sam tried to ignore the chill of dread that had been steadily enveloping him since that morning.

  His usual concentration was being blown to bits by an auburn-haired chocolatier who seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. Or at least from this small corner of the universe.

  Where in the hell was she? he wondered, for the thousandth time.

  The important scene was completed to his satisfaction, and he instructed Hank to take a few more feet of film of the overall layout just in case more was needed when they edited.

  Darren called out to him and Sam looked around, finding his partner holding out a cellular telephone. His long strides ate up the ground as he quickly walked over to Darren.

  "Is it Brett?"

  Darren shook his head. "Some woman named Nelson. Terry said she's been calling all over for you. Says it's important she talk to you."