The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing

by Sheila Turnage

  7.

  I pointed to the period. “Right there,” I said.

  Starr flitted a fine powder across the pane. A fingerprint stared back at us. We held our breath as Starr placed a wide piece of tape over the print and carefully peeled it from the glass.

  “Looks like a good print,” he said, holding it to the light. “But anybody could have put it here.”

  “But anybody didn’t,” I said. “That’s Nellie Blake’s print.”

  Starr snorted. “Not likely. She hasn’t lived here in decades. And even if it was hers, you couldn’t prove it. She wouldn’t have a print in my data bank.”

  “It’s in our data bank,” I said, reaching into my messenger bag and pulling out Nellie’s geometry book—the one we found our first day in the library. I opened it and handed it to Starr. He read the inscription:

  “I hate math. N.B.—August 28, 1937.”

  Beneath her initials were Nellie’s inky prints.

  Starr frowned. “What the . . .” He held his tape over one print, the next . . . and stopped over her index finger. “This can’t be right,” he said.

  I opened A Girl’s Book of Poems. “Here’s her signature, if you want to match the handwriting samples.”

  Starr shifted the captured fingerprint away from Nellie’s print and back. “I’ll have an expert take a look. But if you ask me, these prints are a perfect match.”

  Chapter 35

  We Forgot About Harm!

  “Harm!” Dale cried, smacking himself on the forehead as Detective Starr drove away. “We forgot about Harm!” He swung my arm up like I wasn’t attached and stared at my Elvis watch. “It’s already quarter past lunch,” he said. “Hurry!”

  A few minutes later, we dropped our bikes and rushed the garage door. Inside, tools littered the floor and the old Duesenberg’s hood gaped open. Harm crouched over a workbench, his notebook open on Mr. Red’s blueprints.

  “Took you long enough,” he said, shoving his hair from his eyes. “I’ve got Red’s numbers down. I need you two to distract him while I put the blueprints in his truck.”

  “Distract who?” Grandmother Miss Lacy asked, strolling in with a lunch tray. “Oh. Hello dears, where’s Sam?”

  I stepped in front of Harm as he swept the blueprints to the ground. “Is that lunch?” I asked. “Because I’m starved.”

  “Me too,” Dale said, lining up shoulder to shoulder beside me.

  “Mo LoBeau, are you hiding something from me?” she asked, her voice playful. She leaned around me, and zeroed in on the blueprints. Her smile collapsed like last year’s rusty lawn chair. “What have you got there, Harm?”

  “Nothing,” he mumbled.

  “Wonderful. Because for a moment I thought those were Red Baker’s purloined blueprints. The ones Detective Starr called me about. The ones I swore the three of you had nothing to do with.”

  If her voice got any colder, I’d need earmuffs. I lowered my eyes to the Duesenberg’s disemboweled carburetor at my feet.

  She slammed the tray on the workbench, grabbed the blueprints, and rolled them up. “I have never been so disappointed,” she said. “I stood up for you, Harm Crenshaw. And for you two. What have you got to say for yourselves?”

  Harm took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Miss Thornton,” he said. She didn’t answer—the Waiting For Confession trick. It worked, as usual. “I haven’t been completely honest with you. I hope you’ll give me a chance to make things right.”

  “I’m not sure you can make this right,” she said as Dale slipped a sandwich off Sam’s lunch tray. “But please come up on the porch and try.”

  • •

  A half hour later, she had the whole ugly story minus the ghosts: Red Baker in the forest, marking off steps. The blueprints with their mysterious code. Harm swiping the blueprints in the middle of the night.

  “He was trying to protect Mr. Red and you from Flick and Rat Face,” I said. “It’s almost good in a Robin Hood way if you hold your head right.”

  “I don’t believe my neck bends that way,” she replied.

  “No, ma’am,” Dale whispered. “I expect not.”

  We needed a mega change of subject. I went for the ghost.

  “We got good news too,” I said. “We’re close to naming the entity. We got proof that will hold up in a court of law—well, once Joe Starr brings it back to us: Nellie Blake’s fingerprint.” I watched Grandmother Miss Lacy’s face, which went pale.

  “Nellie Blake’s fingerprint?” she said, rocking forward in her chair. “But how . . .”

  “We got them off a windowpane she touched the other night. Joe Starr helped us,” I said, and Harm whistled.

  “Plus Nellie smells like rosemary,” Dale added. “We have a witness to that—one that’s not me or Mo.”

  I hesitated. That would make Queen Elizabeth our witness. I moved on.

  “Rosemary?” Grandmother Miss Lacy said. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes ma’am,” I told her. “Sure on both counts.”

  Her old eyes filled with tears, and Dale’s shoulders slumped. “I didn’t know rosemary would make you cry,” he said. “Girls,” he muttered. “Even wrinkled they’re a mystery.”

  “It’s all right, dear,” she said, pulling a handkerchief from her sweater pocket. “It’s just that Nellie and I were good friends. And she did rinse her hair in rosemary water. There’s no way you could have known that—I’d forgotten it myself. That’s how we lose people . . . detail by detail, day by day, until they’re pale, pale memories.”

  She blew her nose. “You three haven’t been honest with me about the blueprints. But I’m afraid I haven’t been very honest with you, either—about your ghost. I never dreamed she could be real.”

  “Nellie’s real, all right,” I said.

  She dabbed the corner of her eye. “Come inside,” she said. “I have something to show you.” And she led us to her parlor. She crossed to her bookshelves and plucked down a small photo album. “Meet my best friend,” she said. “Nellie Blake.”

  She opened the album, and a pretty, dark-haired girl smiled at us. Nellie licking an ice-cream cone. Posing for a portrait with a one-eyed dog. Reading by the springhouse’s shady back door. “We must have read a hundred books there,” Grandmother Miss Lacy said. “Her father had that door bricked shut after Nellie died. He said he couldn’t stand to see anyone use it ever again.”

  That explained why Nellie walked through that bricked-up door, I thought. I studied the next photo: two girls sitting at the piano in the inn. Nellie and Grandmother Miss Lacy. “You’re playing ‘Heart and Soul,’” I said, and Dale gasped.

  Grandmother Miss Lacy nodded. “Probably. We all played it. Me, Nellie, Red, Myrt . . . But it’s Nellie I think of when I hear it now.”

  Harm looked from the photos to me. “You look like her,” he said.

  “A little, perhaps,” Grandmother Miss Lacy agreed. “But my word, you act like her, Mo,” she said, blinking away sudden tears. “Always thinking, always meddling.” She reached over and patted Dale’s hand. “Always getting friends in trouble. Such kindred spirits.”

  “And Nellie’s dog?” Dale asked. Dale’s a sucker for a dog story.

  “Oh, that’s Right-Turn Wilma,” she said, laughing back tears. “Wilma had just one eye. She only turned right. That’s the only way she could see to go, I suppose.”

  “You hid these photos from us,” I said, trying not to sound hurt.

  She brushed her fingertip across Nellie’s photo like she could brush the messy hair from Nellie’s face. “I did,” she said. “Please forgive me, Mo.”

  “She does,” Dale said, and I nodded.

  She gave me a quick smile. “It never occurred to me the ghost rumors were true, and I certainly didn’t want to breathe new life into Nellie’s sad, sad story. You’ve discovered that s
tory by now, I imagine.”

  “An automobile accident,” I prompted, and the light slipped from her eyes.

  “Yes, this time of year,” she said, looking out the window. “Nellie was so excited. It was to be her first dance that night. Nellie and her father were speeding from the old store to the inn when their brakes gave way in a curve. We heard the crash at the store.

  “Red Baker looked like a ghost, climbing into his daddy’s Ford. I piled into the Duesenberg with Father and we flew along the Judas Trail, one behind the other.”

  “The ghost cars,” Dale whispered.

  “Red and his father arrived first,” she said, looking at Harm. “Red found Mr. Blake hurt and dazed, but Nellie . . .” She sank to the settee. “Later, Red told me she said, ‘Tell Lacy . . .’”

  Harm sat beside her. “Tell you what?” he asked, his voice soft.

  “That’s all,” she said, opening her hands and letting them fall. “She was gone.” Her voice cracked. “She was my best friend,” she said, her voice rising like a hurt child’s. “I’ve wished a thousand times I had a chance to say good-bye.”

  Her eyes glittered with tears. “This goes back on my shelf,” she said, closing the photo album. “Now that you’ve uncovered her story, I’ll make you copies for your history paper—or for you to keep. You two are so much alike, Mo.”

  Usually I have a river of words flowing in me. Now my river ran dry.

  “Maybe that’s why Nellie likes us,” Dale said.

  Or because Grandmother Miss Lacy loves us, I thought.

  “Thank you for the copies,” I said. “We’ll footnote you. We got something to show you too,” I said, pulling Mr. Blake’s letter from my bag.

  She read the letter. “That poor man,” she murmured, handing it back. “Was Nellie murdered? Mr. Blake certainly thought so, and other people did too. But Truman Baker swore he didn’t touch their car. My parents believed him and tried to stop the gossip. Even with no proof, the rumors swirled on day after day, keeping our pain so fresh, it felt like Nellie died day after day too. One day her parents had had enough. They packed up and left, and all I had of Nellie was gone.” She closed her eyes and leaned into the curve of the settee.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. The moment felt rare and tender, delicate as a moth cupped in my hands. We rose and tiptoed toward the door.

  Her eyes flew open.

  “Not so fast,” she snapped. “We still have those blueprints to deal with.”

  Crud.

  She stared at Harm, her eyes icy sharp. “I’ve given you time to think, young man. What are your plans?” she demanded.

  “Young man,” Dale whispered. “That’s not good.”

  “I’m . . . trying to come . . . to come up with a plan,” Harm stammered.

  She stood, snatched her navy blue purse from the secretary, and hooked it over her arm. “Fortunately for you I already have one,” she said. “Get in the Buick, all three of you. We’re paying Red Baker a call.”

  Chapter 36

  The Ghost of the Boy He Used to Be

  We rode in silence—past the school, over Fool’s Bridge, past the old store. Harm sat in the front seat clutching the blueprints. Dale and me sat in back, Queen Elizabeth lounging between us. “She’s getting a little pudgy,” I whispered, poking her tummy. “Is she okay?”

  “Ignore her, Liz,” Dale said, and they both turned to stare out the window.

  “Maybe we should rethink this,” Harm said, his voice thin and brittle as old paper. “I thought I’d slip the blueprints in his truck, and let him think he’s gone senile. Red has a temper.”

  “Who has a temper?” Grandmother Miss Lacy demanded.

  “Gramps,” he said as we bounced down the lane. “Gramps has a temper.”

  She slowed for a deep rut. “So did Nellie. I’d be surprised if either of them ever learned to count past ten.”

  I smiled. Something else me and Nellie have in common.

  Mr. Red was crossing his dirt yard with a galvanized pail when we pulled in. He pushed into his dog pen, emptied the bucket into a trough, and headed for us, wiping his hands on a blue bandana. “Afternoon, Lacy,” he said, opening her door.

  “Hello, Red.” She stepped out of the car, ignoring the pen’s stench. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but these children have something to say.”

  Harm gulped.

  “Act innocent,” I whispered, climbing out of the Buick. “Hey, Mr. Red.”

  “I made a sweet potato pie, Lacy,” he said like I hadn’t spoken. “Come in and I’ll cut you a piece.”

  Harm’s mouth fell open. “I didn’t know you could cook.”

  “Didn’t need to with you here,” Mr. Red told him without looking back.

  Moments later we sat in a wreck of a kitchen. Towers of plates teetered by the sink. A pot lolled on its side on the stove. Mr. Red placed two saucers on the table: one in front of his chair; one in front of Grandmother Miss Lacy’s. She didn’t flinch.

  “Thank you, but I don’t believe I care for pie,” she said. “We’d like to return something to you. And to show you something we think you’ll want to see.”

  Harm dropped the blueprints on the table.

  “I knew you three stole them,” Mr. Red said, his eyes glinting.

  “Not us three,” Harm said. “Me. I took them.”

  “Red, I hope you’ll hear him out,” Grandmother Miss Lacy said. “We’re probably going to lose the inn,” she added. “Flick and his girlfriend will grab it up to get your savings. I’ll lose every dollar I’ve sunk into the place—and so will you.”

  Mr. Red looked like she’d sent a flying sidekick to his head. “Flick double-crossed me?”

  Harm nodded. “He can’t find your money without the blueprints. I thought it would be better if we dug it up and shared with Miss Thornton, since . . .”

  “We?” he said, his voice climbing.

  Harm clamped his lips tight. Then: “I’m sorry I took the blueprints. I was trying to help. But I didn’t dig up anything. Your money’s still there.”

  Grandmother Miss Lacy nodded, giving me my cue. “We wanted to show you this letter,” I said, taking it from my pocket. “We found it in the inn. It’s from Nellie’s father.”

  Mr. Red went pale behind his whiskers. “What’s that got to do with me?”

  Grandmother Miss Lacy reached for his hand. He pulled it away. “Red, I’ve been haunted by Nellie’s death all my life,” she said, her voice soft. “Can’t you help me lay that to rest? Won’t you at least look at the letter?”

  Smart, I thought. He’d do it for her before he’d do it for himself.

  Mr. Red unfolded the letter and read it out loud, his voice rough as gravel in rain: “Darling Nellie, Forgive my greed, forgive my temper, forgive my ridiculous disagreement with Truman. How I wish he’d killed me and not you. I’d give my world to hear you laugh again. Father.” Mr. Red’s voice stumbled into silence.

  “Red,” Grandmother Miss Lacy said, “if you do know what happened that night, please tell me. Who could the truth hurt now?”

  Mr. Red’s eyes glistened. He dropped the letter to the table and stared at it so hard, I thought it might levitate. Behind me, tap water dripped into the sink. Plunk. Plunk. Plunk.

  Mr. Red drew a shallow breath. “Papa was angry with Norton Blake that night,” he said, his voice small and flat. “Papa’s distillery helped put that inn on the map. You know it did.” His voice gained strength. “But when Prohibition hit, Blake turned him out just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “One day we were one of the finest families of Tupelo Landing. The next day—outlaws,” he said, his voice bitter.

  “Father told me,” she said.

  “When Prohibition ended, Papa thought Blake would take him back,” he said. “He didn’t. Without Blake we couldn’t afford the rigmarole to go
legal. Where did that leave Papa?” he demanded.

  “It left him hurt, I imagine,” she said. “And very angry.”

  He looked at her, his eyes blazing. “Did Papa and Blake argue that night? They did. Nellie and I heard every ugly word of it. Blake shoved Papa and stomped into the store, dragging Nellie behind him.”

  His face flushed. “You want to know the truth? I’ll tell you. Papa cut Blake’s brake line quick as cutting a man’s throat. God help me, I stood in the shadows and didn’t lift a hand to stop him. I’ve wished every day since I’d stopped Nellie from getting in that car. But I didn’t. I stood in the shadows like a coward and watched Old Man Blake drive away.”

  He curled his hand into a soft, helpless fist. “So Nellie died. I’m sorry, Lacy,” he added, his eyes brimming with tears. “I know you loved her.”

  “We both did. Thank you for telling me,” she said, and her voice drifted away like a lost kite.

  Dale propped his elbows on the table. It made him look smaller, somehow. “You were probably about twenty when that happened,” he said, staring at Mr. Red.

  I frowned. Twenty? Dale knew better than that.

  “No,” Mr. Red said, swiping his tears with the back of his hand. “I was about your age.”

  “Oh,” Dale said. “The way you told that story, I thought you were way older. Because I can’t go up against a grown man, especially one in a rage. I’ve tried.”

  Mr. Red looked at Dale like he was seeing him for the first time.

  Grandmother Miss Lacy took Mr. Red’s hand. This time he didn’t pull away. “Dale’s right,” she said. “You were a child. I don’t think for one minute you’re responsible for Nellie’s death. But you listen to me.” She waited for him to look into her eyes. “I forgive you.”

  He gasped like something hard inside him cracked open. His life unwound across his old face, making him young, younger, until for a moment I sat face-to-face with the ghost of the boy he used to be.

  “Nellie forgives you too, Gramps,” Harm said. “I know she does because she’s liked me ever since I walked through that inn door, the spitting image of you.”