Too Late for Angels

by Mignon F. Ballard

“Not a moment too soon!” she called, snatching the lid from the pot and giving its contents a stir. It smelled wonderful, and although she hadn’t thought she could eat a bite, Lucy’s stomach rumbled as she put together a green salad while Augusta took bread from the oven and brushed the golden-brown top with salted butter.

  “And how is Ellis?” Augusta asked as she sliced the yeasty-smelling loaf. “I’m surprised she didn’t come home with you.”

  “She’s not taking this too well—and who could blame her? Pulling Boyd Henry from that pool was a chilling experience in more ways than one. We’ll probably both have nightmares about it, and I did ask her to stay with us, but her daughter’s on the way.” Lucy glanced at the kitchen clock, which looked like the face of a cow rolling its eyes. It usually made her smile, but not tonight. “Ellis’s husband Bennett will be home tomorrow and Susan plans to stay with her until then. She lives less than an hour away and should be there by now, but I’d better phone to make sure.”

  Rich brown stew steamed in her bowl when Lucy returned to the table. Susan had answered the telephone and assured her her mother was fine. “Everything’s double-locked and the police have promised to keep an eye on the house,” she told Lucy, adding that Ellis was convinced they were really keeping an eye on her.

  Lucy dribbled oil and vinegar on her salad. “If Ellis really wanted to do away with Boyd Henry, she certainly wouldn’t have drowned him in her own pool. The real killer’s out wandering the streets while the police are bullying Ellis.” She snorted. “Doesn’t make me feel too secure—especially after what happened while we were at Bellawood yesterday.”

  Lucy wished she had thought to ask Ed and Sheila if they had any leads on her break-in, but in the trauma of the moment she hadn’t thought to mention it.

  Augusta glanced at Clementine, who had gulped her supper and was now earnestly seeking theirs. “But now you have this ferocious guard dog to frighten intruders away.”

  “Oh, yeah, right—if she stepped on their feet!” Lucy laughed.

  “I hope Ellis won’t take it too personally about the police investigation,” Augusta said. “It’s only natural they should question her. After all, what would’ve been Florence’s inheritance came to Ellis, and she was in the vicinity when Florence was killed.”

  “So was I. So was Nettie next door. In fact, Nettie probably knew Florence better than anyone. She’s never admitted that woman actually was Florence Calhoun.” Lucy buttered another slice of bread and wondered which part of her already well-padded anatomy would receive the extra fat. “Anybody who knows Ellis would agree it’s just plain ridiculous.”

  “Will her daughter be here long?” Augusta asked.

  “Just until Bennett gets home, but she said she’d stay longer if needed. Susan’s two girls are six and nine and her husband works out of the home—plus she has great neighbors.” Lucy lifted her fork and put it down. “Ellis and her daughter have always been close.”

  Augusta eyed her across the table. “You don’t think your daughter would come if you needed her?”

  “You don’t see her here, do you?” Lucy forked a fat mushroom from the beefy broth and savored it.

  “Does she know what’s been going on?” The angel lifted an elegant eyebrow.

  “It’s a little difficult to carry on a conversation with someone who won’t return your calls,” Lucy said.

  “Speaking of calls, you might want to check your messages,” Augusta said. “I believe you have several on the machine.”

  “From Julie?” Lucy shoved back her chair.

  Augusta touched her necklace, which glowed amber under her fingers. “Your son Roger phoned. He heard about the break-in yesterday and sounded worried—wants you to call him back…and a woman telephoned about decorating for some kind of harvest festival at your church. Ruby, I think her name was. Or maybe it was Pearl.”

  “Opal. Opal Henshaw.” Lucy groaned. “I’d almost forgotten I was on that blasted committee—and with Opal of all people as chairman!” She tossed her napkin aside. “I might as well call her now. She’ll drive me crazy until I get back to her.”

  Augusta stirred cream into her coffee. “Oh, and a gentleman phoned as well.”

  “A gentleman? Who could that be?”

  “I believe his name was Ben. He said you spoke at Bellawood.”

  “Ben Maxwell? The man who ran us out of his woodworking shop? What on earth could he want?”

  Augusta sipped her coffee and smiled. “Why don’t you listen to your messages and find out? It sounded to me as if he wants to take you to dinner.”

  “I don’t have time for this,” Lucy said, returning from the telephone.

  “Time for what?” Augusta was enjoying her second cup of coffee along with a slice of bread oozing strawberry jam.

  “Men. Ben Maxwell asked me out—some kind of concert at the college—and dinner as well, he said.” Lucy poured a cup of coffee for herself. Augusta never made decaf and she knew it would keep her awake, but she’d probably have trouble in that area anyway, especially after today. “I don’t have time for romance. There’s too much on my slate already.”

  “I wouldn’t call dinner and a concert romance—although it could lead to that, I suppose. You declined, of course?”

  “Certainly not! Do you know how long it’s been since anyone asked me on a date? Just wait until I tell Ellis.”

  And then she remembered that Ellis Saxon had more important things on her mind, as did she. Florence Calhoun was dead; Calpernia Hemphill had been killed under suspicious circumstances; and now Boyd Henry had drowned. Who would be next?

  Chapter Fourteen

  “What’s this I hear about you and Ellis pulling Boyd Henry outa the swimming pool last night?” Nettie McGinnis wanted to know. Lucy was poking about in her backyard to see if she had enough chrysanthemums to make a presentable table arrangement for the harvest festival when her neighbor made her customary entrance through a gap in the hedge. “Dead as a doornail, too! Do-law, Lucy Nan, that would tend to turn a person’s innards plumb to jelly!”

  “Mine are still quivering,” Lucy admitted, untangling a greedy jasmine vine from her pink daisy mums. She hadn’t spoken with Ellis that morning, but she was sure her friend felt the same. She gave the vine a tug. “It was horrible, Nettie. I wish I could just forget about it.”

  “Don’t I reckon? You know that little bottle-blond cashier at the drugstore? Well, she said her boyfriend’s cousin has a night job cleaning over at the morgue and Boyd Henry was already colder than a well digger’s ass when they brought him in last night.”

  “Um.” Lucy moved on to the purplish blue Michaelmas daisies, the color so vibrant it almost hurt her eyes. “These should last another week or so, don’t you think?”

  Nettie picked up a stray pecan and put it in her pocket while searching the ground for another. “You know, I wondered about Boyd Henry when I ran into him the other day. Seemed not himself—sort of queer-like. Fretful as an old lady!”

  “Boyd Henry’s always been kind of different, Nettie.”

  “Don’t I know it! Lived across the street from him all my life. But I think this thing with Florence—if it was Florence—really got to him. He asked me if I remembered the day she disappeared—as if I could forget!”

  “When was this?”

  “Couple of days ago…no, before that. Must’ve been the day after that Shirley woman’s funeral. I was in Do-Lollie’s—had a notion for some of her lemon chess tarts—when Boyd Henry came in looking like it was ten minutes till doomsday.”

  Nettie found another pecan and cracked the two together, nibbling the nut meats as she walked. “Then here came Zee wantin’ croissants for some kind of sandwiches she was going to make—for that young director fellow, I reckon.”

  “Was he with her?”

  “Waitin’ in the car. I saw it parked out front.”

  “What else did he say?” Lucy asked. Maybe Augusta was right about Boyd Henry seeing something the night
Florence was killed.

  “I didn’t wait around to find out.” Nettie made a face. “That Lollie sold the last one of those tarts just before I got there.”

  Lucy made appropriate consoling noises. “You were right about Boyd Henry being fretful. He told Ellis he actually saw the people he believes took little Florence. All this time the guilt must’ve been gnawing away at him, poor man.”

  She expected her neighbor to be surprised at this news, but Nettie only nodded. “Uh-huh,” she grunted.

  “Is that all you can say? Uh-huh? Or did you know about this, too?” Lucy sat on the steps of the summerhouse, knowing full well her pants would be soiled by a season’s dust and grime.

  Nettie groaned as she joined her. “Let’s just say it doesn’t surprise me. Boyd Henry was a good bit older than Florence and me and we kinda looked up to him the way small children do. I do remember him selling snow cones that day, only neither one of us had a nickel to buy one. People didn’t throw around money like they do today, you know.” She tossed pecan shells into the bushes and brushed her hands together. “Of course I didn’t know about him seeing the people who took her. Florence was playing in her front yard when Mama called me in to dinner.

  “You don’t reckon he took his own life?” she added.

  Lucy shook her head. “Not like that.”

  “It doesn’t suit, does it?” Nettie said. “Maybe his foot slipped or something. As far as I know, Boyd Henry couldn’t swim a stroke. It could’ve been an accident.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Lucy said, but she didn’t believe it.

  Apparently, neither did Nettie. “I don’t know what’s happening in our little town, Lucy Nan. Why, I don’t remember the police being called on this street since Hortense Pendergrass whacked that door-to-door corset saleswoman in the noggin with a soup ladle for telling her she needed a larger size.”

  “If you’ll tell me what you’re looking for, maybe I can help,” Augusta said later that morning as Lucy rummaged through boxes in the attic.

  “Decorations for the festival. I know I have some ceramic pumpkins up here somewhere. Opal Henshaw’s getting some real ones from the farmer’s market, but I thought we could fill in with these…Ahh! Here you are!” Lucy leaned back on her knees and brought out a grinning jack-o’-lantern. “I made this in my one venture into ceramics when the children were small. It’s about as artistic as I ever got.”

  Augusta examined it solemnly. “It looks like a fine jack-a-light to me—and what’s this?” She reached into the box for a large tissue-wrapped package with yellow yarn escaping from the bundle.

  Lucy smiled as she unwrapped the stuffed scarecrow. “That’s Patches! I’d forgotten all about him. My mother made him for Julie when she was about six and he sat on our hearth every fall for years.”

  Augusta fingered the patchwork jacket. “He still seems to be in good shape—for a scarebird, that is.”

  Lucy couldn’t hide her smile. Jack-a-light she could ignore, but scarebird was just too much.

  “What’s wrong? Is it something I said?” Augusta’s voice sounded as if it had been wound with a key. Her tenant’s reaction to criticism was sometimes far from angelic, Lucy observed.

  “It’s scarecrow,” Lucy told her, laughing.

  “Oh.” Flushing, Augusta smoothed Patches’s rumpled coat. “I wonder if Julie remembers this,” she said.

  “Probably. She always looked forward to putting it out.”

  “Then why not send it to her?” Augusta smiled, her error apparently forgotten.

  Lucy adjusted the scarecrow’s straw hat, remembering how much fun they used to have decorating for holidays. “I’ll go to the post office tomorrow,” she said, rescuing a box of Halloween candleholders from Clementine’s inquisitive nose. “But now I’m going to give Ellis a call to see if she’s heard any more from the police.”

  “Nary a mumblin’ word,” Ellis said. “At least nothing we didn’t already know. A couple of uniformed men came by with the same questions we answered last night and I told them the story all over again. I did ask them if Boyd Henry had been hit over the head or something but they said the autopsy wasn’t completed.” She sighed. “Susan’s going home tomorrow. Thank goodness Bennett’s here!

  “I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything?”

  Lucy told her what Nettie had said about Boyd Henry’s gloomy visit to Do-Lollie’s.

  “No telling how many people’s he’s talked to,” Ellis said. “One of them might just be the person who sent him for a swim. You don’t suppose he’d be nervy enough to confront whoever he suspected, do you?”

  “Not nervy. Naive. It would be like Boyd Henry to want to put things right.”

  “So I guess we’re expected to wait around looking over our shoulders until this psycho decides it’s our time to go,” Ellis said.

  “Unless you’re on the decorating committee for the harvest festival with Opal Henshaw cracking the whip. I don’t have time to wait around. Don’t you want to help round up cornstalks with Augusta and me?”

  “Opal Henshaw? Thanks, I’ll take my chances with the local exterminator. Opal wants you to gather cornstalks? I didn’t know she decorated with anything that wasn’t plastic!”

  “Meow! Meow!” Lucy giggled. “We’re going all out this time, but actually it was Augusta’s idea. Know where we can find any?”

  “There’s plenty out at the Folly. Or there used to be. I remember when Susan was on the decorating committee for a class dance back in high school and Poag told them to just go out and help themselves. He rents out a few acres to a local farmer and I’m sure he won’t mind if you get some. After all, what are they going to do with dead cornstalks?”

  “The Folly? Not on my favorite list of places right now, and I hate to mention it to Poag. It’s kind of a sensitive subject after what happened to Calpernia out there,” Lucy said.

  “Then why mention it, for heaven’s sake? Just go out there and chop off a few stalks. They’ll be glad to get rid of them.” Ellis’s voice had an edge to it, which was unusual for her.

  “Ellis, are you okay? The police haven’t been breathing down your neck, have they? I mean, they can’t be serious about your being involved in what happened to Boyd Henry.”

  “Who knows what they think, but Bennett’s talked to a lawyer friend of his who specializes in this kind of thing.” She sighed. “I’m letting him handle it.”

  “Good.” Lucy waited. “Ellis, is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “Damn it, Lucy Nan, I can’t keep a thing from you! I wasn’t going to tell you this, but that Leonard Fenwick’s filed a suit.”

  “Florence’s husband? What kind of suit?”

  “Over the inheritance. He wants his share of the property I inherited that would’ve come to Florence.”

  “Can he do that?” Lucy asked. “Isn’t there a statute of limitations on that kind of thing?”

  “I don’t think so. He can try—and, Lucy Nan, if Florence were alive, or even if she had children, I would see that they got a fair share, but not Leonard Fenwick! I don’t owe him a thing!

  “You will take Augusta along when you go for the cornstalks,” she added as the conversation came to a close.

  “Of course. Wouldn’t go without her,” Lucy said.

  “Better take that big puppy, too—just for good measure.” Ellis laughed when she said it, but Lucy suspected she wasn’t joking.

  “I feel kind of strange about this,” Lucy said as they bumped along over the narrow red dirt road that wound through the rolling acres of Bertram’s Folly. Clementine, her nose pressed to the window, panted with delight at the outing.

  “It shouldn’t take long,” Augusta said. “And poor Clementine really does need to run about a bit. She’s a growing dog, you know.”

  “Tell me about it! We’re about out of dog food already. I’m going to have to start buying the large economy size.” Lucy stopped the car in a grassy area on the side of the road and opened th
e door for Clementine, who immediately took off running.

  “Okay, get it out of your system, but you’d better come when I call or you’ll have to walk home, you imp!” Lucy yelled as the dog’s white-tipped black tail disappeared around a bend in the road.

  On the other side of a shallow ditch a field of dry brown cornstalks rustled in a slight wind. “They sound like they’re whispering, don’t they?” Augusta hopped gracefully over the ditch and looked about. “Well, it looks as if we’ll have our choice.” She shaded her eyes with one hand. “Just where is this folly you were talking about?”

  “About a half mile down the road. It’s not far,” Lucy said. “I’ll show it to you when we’re through if you like. It gives me the creeps, though.”

  Augusta broke off several cornstalks and tossed them into a pile. “Who lives in the little cottage over there?”

  Lucy glanced over her shoulder at the rustic house nestled in the trees behind them. In the October woods the cabin was partially camouflaged against the browning oak trees around it. “No one,” she said. “Poag and Calpernia used to come here weekends. Calpernia wanted to establish a theater camp here, and I hope Poag will carry out her plans. It seems something positive should come of this place.”

  Augusta looked about. “It is lovely, but…”

  “But what?” Lucy asked.

  Augusta didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. Lucy could guess what the angel was thinking. The whole time they had been there she’d felt uncomfortable.

  “Let’s hurry and get these in the trunk,” Lucy said as the pile of stalks grew substantial. “It’s getting late and I don’t want to be here after dark.”

  Augusta called to Clementine, who zigzagged ecstatically through brittle stalks of corn and skidded to a stop at the angel’s feet. “Do you mind if we walk a little farther?” she asked, swirling her voluminous green cape about her. “I’d like to have a look at that folly.”

  “As long as you don’t expect me to climb it,” Lucy said, walking along beside her. Augusta walked fast, and she had to make an effort to keep up, but the weather was crisp and cool and sunlight still streaked the road ahead. Lucy took a deep breath and picked up her pace. She hadn’t realized how much she had missed walking. “We should do this more often,” she said.