Too Late for Angels

by Mignon F. Ballard

  “I believe she’s taking a refresher course, and since I’m going to be here anyway, I told her I’d fill in.” Augusta glanced at the coffeepot to find it empty, but that didn’t seem to bother her. “Would anyone else like a cup of coffee? I thought I’d put on a pot if that’s all right?”

  Today, Lucy noticed, the angel wore a cream-colored tunic sweater trimmed in burgundy and gold over a full-flowing skirt in a dainty floral print. The winking necklace of lavender and turquoise fell loosely to her waist. “There should be some sandwiches left,” Augusta said.

  But Ellis was still trying to deal with her earlier statement. “A refresher course?” she said numbly, turning to Lucy for help. “What kind of course would that be?”

  Augusta filled the pot with water. “The syllabus includes praise and adoration, blessings and hope—good things we all need to be reminded of from time to time. I took it myself some time ago.”

  “Oh, please, give me a break!” Groaning, Ellis plopped into a kitchen chair.

  “That’s exactly what I intend to do if you’ll let me,” Augusta told her.

  “Hasn’t this gone far enough, Lucy Nan?” Ellis shook her head as if she were trying to empty her mind. “I honestly didn’t think this day could get any weirder!”

  “Guess again,” Lucy said, and pulled up a chair beside her.

  “I can’t believe I’m sitting here having a conversation with someone who claims to be an angel,” Ellis said after Augusta had explained her mission. “But if you’re crazy, then I must be, too.” She laughed. “Of course I’ve always known Lucy Nan was a little peculiar.” She rose to put her cup in the sink, and turned to face them. “Nobody else saw you, did they? Today at the meeting you were there in plain view, yet I’m the only one who could see you—besides, Lucy Nan, of course. Why is that?”

  “That happens to be my choice,” Augusta told her. “There’s a darkness here in Stone’s Throw that has nothing to do with nightfall, and we’re going to have to work through it together. I suggest we take the cow by the ears and begin now.”

  “Fine with me,” Lucy said, ignoring Ellis’s quizzical glance while trying not to smile. “But how?” She ran a finger along the top of the round oak table. It really did need polishing, she thought.

  “First, I think we need to find out why anyone would want to kill your cousin.” Augusta directed her attention to Ellis. “From all I’ve heard, she seemed a harmless, if somewhat disoriented, soul reliving—or trying to relive—her childhood days. But why now after all this time? And where has she been all these years?”

  “Something must have jogged her memory,” Lucy said. “Maybe something she saw or heard…”

  “The lottery!” Ellis shouted. “It had to have been the lottery. When Ronald and Virginia Brent won all that money, Stone’s Throw was plastered all over the newspapers—television, too.”

  From the bay window in her kitchen, Lucy watched dusk turn to darkness and hurried to latch the door to the back porch. “Did this woman—did Florence—have a family? Maybe they can tell us something.”

  “A husband,” Ellis said. “Leonard. Leonard Fenwick. Calls himself Len. He’s the one who reported her missing. Seems she slipped away from a shopping trip with a group from the assisted-living residence where she was staying—somewhere in Illinois, I think. The police put us in touch and I spoke with him this afternoon. That’s one reason I was so late getting here. Anyway, he’s due in late tomorrow.”

  “Here? He’s coming here?” Lucy drew the curtains across the big window and tried not to think of someone out there watching. She had never worried about things like that before and it angered her that she should have to now.

  “I’m meeting him at the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport, but yes, he’s coming here. After all, Florence was his wife and I’m the closest relative she had—besides, we have plenty of room.” Ellis paused. “He wants her buried here beside her parents. This was her home, you know.”

  “Finally together after all these years. How sad!” Lucy looked about her at the large, cheerful kitchen with its colorful striped curtains and Mimmer’s own rag rugs scattered about the hardwood floor. “I feel almost guilty for being happy here in the house she only knew in memory.”

  “Let’s hope she was happy somewhere else,” Augusta said. “We don’t know that she wasn’t.”

  Lucy turned to Ellis, who was now sitting in the chair where Florence had sat to have lemonade and cookies. Had it only been four days ago? It seemed like an eternity. “Did her husband say anything about the circumstances of her disappearance? Did he know the people who raised her?”

  “Only that Florence—he called her Shirley—thought she was adopted. The people who raised her told her her parents were dead. She called them Uncle and Aunt, he said.” Ellis’s voice quivered and she stopped speaking and looked at them for a minute. “Are you sure you want to hear this?” she said, and Augusta answered by quietly taking her hand. Calmer now, Ellis continued. “Shirley told her husband the couple had lost a child, a little girl, before she came to live with them and kept her pictures all over the house. They had no other children.”

  “So they just helped themselves to somebody else’s,” Lucy said. “Can you imagine the torment her parents must’ve felt?” She felt rage rising within her, spewing like burning embers from her stomach into her chest, and it made her weak with grief for them.

  “They never got over it,” Ellis said. “How could they?”

  “How did they bear it, not knowing, wondering every day if she was still alive?” Lucy remembered Julie as a toddler hiding behind a display in a crowded mall when she had turned her head for a fraction of a second, and the panic that ensued until her little daughter called out to her and laughed. In that frantic moment she would have torn the whole shopping center apart, brick by brick, if need be, to find her child. Lately, Lucy might have found herself tempted to trade her daughter for another model, but no matter how annoyed she became with either of her children, she loved them better than she did herself—as her mother had loved her, and her mother before her. As Augusta said, it came with the territory.

  Augusta stood suddenly and turned away from them and was quiet so long that Ellis asked her if something was wrong.

  “I was thinking of someone I haven’t seen in a while,” she said, trying to avoid their eyes. “Someone I care about and miss very much.” Augusta bustled about putting away the dishes they had washed earlier, but Lucy could see her eyes were misty with tears.

  “Oh, Augusta, is it a child?” Lucy spoke softly. “Did you lose a child?”

  “Not a child, but so like one at times. Penelope was an apprentice, and I didn’t really lose her.” Augusta drew herself up so that if she had had wings, Lucy could imagine them in full spread. “She’s been assigned her own charge now,” she said. “A baby girl, I understand, and Penelope is beside herself with joy. So am I, of course, but I grew accustomed to her company. I try not to think of it, but there’s a bit of an emptiness there.”

  “Welcome to the empty nest,” Ellis said. “Will you see her again?”

  “Oh, yes, from time to time when she needs direction.” Augusta smiled. “And maybe when she doesn’t.”

  “Nettie remembers the day Florence was taken,” Lucy told them. “She said her parents wouldn’t let her out of their sight for ages. If she’d been the one out playing alone that day, it could’ve been her instead.”

  “I doubt it,” Ellis said. “I’ve seen Nettie’s picture as a child. She was what you might call average-looking, and besides, she would’ve been too old, but Florence was beautiful. Her baby book is full of photographs of a rosy-looking cherub with a head full of brown curls.”

  “Kind of like Shirley Temple,” Lucy said. “Maybe that’s why the people who took her called her Shirley.”

  “I wonder who else lived on this street at the time,” Augusta said. “It seems odd that no one saw anything suspicious, even after the fact.”

  “T
he O’Brians used to live on the other side of this house,” Ellis said. “Remember them, Lucy Nan? Had a son, Barrett, who played on the high school football team. I was still in grammar school at the time, but I had a big crush on him.”

  Lucy nodded. “Mr. O’Brian died not long after Charlie and I married, and I think his wife left here to be near a sister. They were living here, though, when Florence disappeared.”

  “But both of them are dead, and Barrett wouldn’t have been born yet,” Ellis reminded her. “Nettie would remember the old neighborhood, I’ll bet. Seems like she told me that Boyd Henry Goodwin grew up in that house on the corner—never lived anywhere else.”

  Lucy smiled. “Funny, but I can’t imagine Boyd Henry growing up. I always thought he came here fully grown with that little gray mustache, wearing a three-piece suit and playing the violin!”

  “Except when he’s out working in his garden,” Ellis added, laughing.

  Boyd Henry had been registrar at Sarah Bedford College for as long as they could remember until his retirement a few years ago, and he and several others from the college were often called upon to provide music for anything from weddings to funerals in the area. They called themselves The Fiddlesticks and met regularly in members’ homes.

  “Poag Hemphill’s a member of The Fiddlesticks,” Lucy said. “I wonder if they’ll play at Calpernia’s funeral. I still can’t believe the police suspect she was murdered. I’ll admit there have been times I might’ve wanted to push Calpernia off a tower, but I never thought somebody would actually do it.”

  “It surprises me that she climbed up there,” Ellis said. “She told me once she was terrified of heights.”

  Augusta, who had been quietly working at her needlepoint while listening to the conversation, suddenly put her sewing aside. “That puts a different light on things,” she began, then stopped at the sound of a car in the driveway behind the house. “Are you expecting someone?” she asked.

  “Oh, that’s just Roger—he’s my son,” Lucy explained. “I can tell by the way he drives. That’s his ‘I’m here and I’m in a hurry’ sound.”

  The words were barely out of her mouth when the lock clicked on the back door and Roger Pilgrim more or less blew in, looking every bit the young professor in tweed sport coat with tie askew.

  “What’s this I hear about your taking in a roomer?” he asked, bypassing his mother for the refrigerator. “Did these tarts come from Do-Lollie’s? I hope they’re chess.”

  It never ceased to amaze Lucy that her son, who, with his wife, frowned on allowing their child to eat sweets, went straight to the good stuff when Jessica wasn’t around.

  Helping himself, he grazed Lucy’s cheek with a kiss and greeted Ellis with a hug. “I hope you’re talking some sense into her,” he said to Ellis. “Taking in a stranger she knows absolutely nothing about—especially with all that’s been going on.” With plate and fork in hand, he sat down to eat. “Just who is this person, Mom? Do you know anything about her?”

  “I promise you, she’s a perfect angel,” Lucy said with a glance at Ellis. “And don’t worry, I doubt if you’ll ever see her.”

  Although Augusta still sat at the table, she had laid her needlework aside and Ellis held it up for Roger to see. “This is something she’s been working on. Heavenly stitching, don’t you think?”

  Roger frowned. “Well, it is pretty. Don’t think I’ve ever seen colors like that…but that’s beside the point—and what are you two giggling about?”

  Lucy tousled the top of her son’s neat head. It was a gesture of affection but she knew it annoyed him. “Just ignore us, and please rest assured my roomer won’t murder me in my sleep. I really think she’s going to be a blessing.”

  “A blessing, huh? I’ll bet you don’t even know where she’s from.” Finishing his tart, Roger went in search of something to wash it down.

  “I believe Augusta’s from Realms,” Lucy said.

  Roger poured milk into a glass. “Realms? Never heard of it. Realms where?”

  “Of Glory,” Ellis muttered under her breath, then pretended to cough to cover her laughter. Thankfully, Lucy thought, Roger didn’t seem to hear her.

  “I think you two have been into the wine,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m glad you can be so lighthearted with two people found murdered here in less than a week. I’m afraid it’s not going to be good for the college.”

  “I doubt if it was too great for Florence, either,” Lucy reminded him. “But two people? Is it true, then, about Calpernia Hemphill? Do they really think somebody pushed her from that tower?”

  “I don’t know much more than you do,” Roger said, rising to go, “but Connie Jacobs—she’s secretary for Dean Ackerman—said her cousin who works at the police department told her there was some doubt about the way Calpernia fell.”

  Roger was almost to the door before he remembered the other reason for his visit. “Jessica asked me to find out if you’d mind chaperoning Teddy’s kindergarten class to Bellawood Friday. I think they’re going to pick cotton. She has a dentist’s appointment that morning or she’d go herself. I really am getting to be the absent-minded professor. I almost forgot to ask you.”

  Lucy followed Roger to the door. “The absent-minded associate professor, and of course I’ll be happy to go.”

  Bellawood, a living-history plantation on the outskirts of town, dated back to the antebellum period and was a popular resource for teachers in the area. Lucy always enjoyed visiting there. “Remember, Ellis, how we used to take a picnic to pick cotton on your daddy’s farm?” she said. “He always gave us a dollar whether we earned it or not.”

  “He didn’t see you!” Ellis said to Augusta after Roger left. “I still can’t believe this is happening. That was fun!”

  “You shouldn’t tease him so,” Augusta said, taking up her needlework. Her radiant hair shone so brightly she could probably sew in the dark, Lucy thought.

  “I should be leaving, too,” Ellis said, shrugging into her coat. “I have to get the guest room ready for Leonard Fenwick.”

  “What can I do to help?” Lucy asked.

  “I think he wants to have the funeral as soon as possible—just a small graveside service with a few old friends. Heck, most everybody she knew as a child is dead! Anyway, I thought I’d have a luncheon before the service. I’ll let you know when.”

  “Wait a minute before you go,” Lucy said. “I’ve been meaning to give you a copy of those old pictures you wanted for your scrapbook—the ones we made out at the lake on my sixteenth birthday. I think they’re in that chest in Julie’s room.”

  While Ellis waited below with Augusta, Lucy hurried upstairs thinking of what she could bring to help out with Ellis’s luncheon. Baked ham might be good, but somebody else usually brought that. Quiche would be easy to make, or maybe a frozen fruit salad…Lucy had taken only a few steps into Julie’s old room before she noticed something was different, out of place. It wasn’t anything major, but the drawer of the nightstand wasn’t quite shut; the corner of a pillowcase peeked from the top drawer of the bureau. And maybe she was imagining things, but it seemed as if the framed photograph of Julie’s high school graduating class had been moved from its usual position on the dresser.

  Her heart thundering, Lucy snatched the album from the bottom drawer and slowly backed from the room, then turned and hurried downstairs. “Have either of you been upstairs this afternoon?” she asked.

  They hadn’t, of course. Somehow that didn’t surprise her.

  “What is it?” Ellis asked. “Is something wrong?”

  “I’m not sure,” Lucy admitted, “but it looks like somebody’s been upstairs, and I think they were looking for something.”

  Chapter Six

  “Well, she’s done it!” Nettie McGinnis said.

  “Who’s done what?” Lucy asked. It was a little before noon and the two were walking the three blocks to Ellis’s, where the luncheon was scheduled prior to Florence Fenwick’s funeral se
rvice that afternoon.

  Nettie carried a basket of homemade yeast rolls with a small jar of her muscadine jelly tucked inside. From her other arm swung an ancient pocketbook of peeling leather that bumped her plump hip with every step. Now she paused to adjust the strap. “Zee Saint Clair, who else? Said she was going do it, didn’t she? And I’ll be John Brown if she didn’t! Now she’s gone and invited that jaybird man to stay in her mama’s guest house.”

  “Jaybird man? Oh, you mean that director Calpernia hired, Jay Warren-Winslow!” Lucy, carrying two foil-wrapped quiches on an enamel tray, stepped carefully around a puddle. She hoped nobody would notice the tray had a picture of a buxom barmaid with a great armload of foaming beer.

  “That criminal, you mean. Why would the police question him if they didn’t think he’d shoved Calpernia from that tower?”

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean he did it,” Lucy said. “They haven’t arrested him, have they?”

  “Only a matter of time,” Nettie muttered. “I reckon Zee’s trying to prove a point, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what it is!”

  “By the way,” Lucy asked, “did you happen to go upstairs the other day when the Thursdays met at my house?”

  “Why would I do that? Last time I was up there was when you wanted me to look at that woman—the one they claim is Florence.”

  “Somebody did and I was hoping it was you,” Lucy said. “I thought maybe the bathroom downstairs was occupied so you came up to use the one next to Julie’s room and were looking for a towel or something.” She told her about the drawers left slightly ajar.

  “Do-law! I’d dry my hands on my shirttail before I’d go rummaging in somebody else’s dresser drawers,” Nettie said. “Besides, you’ve got two toilets downstairs. How many people do you think would have to pee at once?”