Augusta was silent as we walked back to the car. I flapped water from the umbrella, tossed it onto the floor in the back, and slid in beside her. "This all has something to do with Otto's murder, doesn't it?" I asked.
"I had hoped not, but yes, I'm afraid it might."
"Do you think whoever killed him dropped the pin I found, or could it have been Otto himself?"
"Either is possible, I suppose." Augusta unleashed hair that would put the harvest moon to shame and let it fan out to dry behind her. "Arminda, where did you put that pin?"
"In the box where I keep all my other junk—I mean jewelry. It's in my sweater drawer along with those old minutes from the meeting."
"Then I suggest you put it somewhere safe and promise you won't tell anyone you have it. It might have caused one death already. We don't want it bringing about another."
Chapter Twelve
Peggy O'Connor must have been waiting by the window, because she opened the door before I could ring the bell. Her home on Garden Avenue was a comfortable-looking Georgian set back from the road. A new beige Honda Accord sat in the driveway. Blue pansies nodded from a large urn by the front steps, and a baby's plastic swing hung from the limb of an oak in the yard.
"Cassandra's still sleeping," she whispered. "I was afraid the doorbell might wake her."
If, as her cousin Gordon had said, Peggy Briggs O'Connor was born at about the time her father was killed during World War II, she would have to be in her late fifties. She didn't look it. The woman who invited me in was trim, blond, and smooth-skinned in a green tweed skirt and matching sweater set. The latter appeared to be cashmere, and I wondered if she had changed after getting the baby down for her nap. It seemed much too expensive to chance being anointed with spit-up.
The room I was ushered into was formal but lived in. A child's playthings were scattered about the room, and a gas fire burned on the hearth. My hostess hesitated before sitting. "Can I get you something? Coffee or hot tea? The weather's taken a nasty turn."
I'm sure I must have looked as if I could use some, and I could. I accepted, grateful for the offer. The tea, when it came, was orange spice, accompanied by a couple of homemade gingersnaps, and I was pleased when Peggy joined me. I wondered if she ever made nondescripts.
"There was a recipe in one of my great-grandmother's old cookbooks for a pastry called nondescripts," I said, jumping in with both feet. "It was contributed, I think, by your great-grandmother."
When Peggy smiled, I noticed for the first time the tiny lines around her mouth and eyes. "Goodness, I'd almost forgotten about those! Gram used to make them for her circle meetings once in a while, and I remember how those ladies gobbled them up. I rarely got more than a taste, but I've never had anything like them." She took a dainty sip of tea and broke off a bite of the fairy-size cookie. "All that sugar and cholesterol—it's a wonder they didn't kill us! And Gram said they were a horror to make."
I told her I had heard the same. "Mrs. O'Connor, I think I mentioned an organization my great-grandmother belonged to, and your grandmother, too, I believe. Did she ever say anything about a group called the Mystic Six?"
"Not that I recall." She looked down to smooth an invisible wrinkle in her skirt. I couldn't see her face. "Would you like more tea?"
"No, thank you. I was hoping you might help me learn who the other members were," I said.
"But this was long before you were even born. My grandmother's been gone almost twenty years now. Why, surely none of them could still be alive!" She lifted her cup as if to drink, but there was nothing left in it.
"I thought she might have mentioned it, or even saved some letters. These women made a quilt together—passed it around for years. Vesta, my grandmother, says she never knew what became of it."
"I'm afraid I wouldn't know, either. Gram never spoke of belonging to a group like that. I don't remember her ever going back to Angel Heights. She had no brothers or sisters, and her parents both died in that terrible flu epidemic."
"I just assumed she kept in touch," I said. "Your cousin Gordon told me he and your dad were close friends, that he visited there often."
Peggy O'Connor straightened a brocaded sofa pillow. "My father was killed right after I was born. I never saw him."
"I'm sorry." I could tell she was getting impatient for me to leave, so I gathered my purse and coat to give her the notion my parting was imminent. But I wasn't out the door yet.
"There was a pin, you know. The girls in the Mystic Six wore a small gold pin: a flower with a star in the center."
She started toward the door, then turned to face me, and I had the distinct feeling she had just thrown down a gauntlet. Peggy O'Connor spoke in that calm, controlled voice some teachers use five minutes before the last bell. "That's interesting, but it has nothing to do with my grandmother or with me."
"Then why would that same emblem be engraved on her stone? I just came from the cemetery, Mrs. O'Connor. I saw it there."
She reared back and bristled like a skinny green porcupine. "I can't imagine what you mean by that. That engraving on my grandmother's stone is merely a design, nothing more. It has nothing to do with that group of academy girls you speak of or with Angel Heights."
I felt her hand on my shoulder and knew she was about a sniff away from shoving me out the door.
"Now, if you'll excuse me," she said, "I must go and see to my granddaughter. I hear her waking from her nap."
"Boy, did she ever have her drawers in a wad!" I said to Augusta as we backed out of the driveway. "I'm beginning to have a sneaky little suspicion she was trying to get rid of me."
"Don't be vulgar, Arminda, but you're right. The woman was rude. And clearly not telling the truth."
It was cold in the car, and Augusta bundled herself into her downy wrap and turned up the heat. "I could use a cup of that tea," she added with a hint of a shiver.
"You were there?"
She nodded. "Oh, yes, but of course you didn't see me. I didn't want to intrude."
"Then I suppose you noticed how upset she became when I mentioned the pin?"
"Indeed, I did. And that's not all I noticed," Augusta said. "Peggy O'Connor made a point of saying the engraving on her grandmother's stone had nothing to do with a group of girls from the academy."
"Right," I said. "She made that clear."
"Arminda, you never mentioned the academy.… I believe there's a place up on the left where we can get some tea," my angel pointed out.
"Pluma," my grandmother said.
"Pluma what?" Augusta and I had just walked in after our unrewarding drive to Georgia and back when the phone started to ring, and I could tell from the demanding way it jangled that Vesta was on the other end.
"Pluma Griffin."
The name meant nothing to me, but she sounded as though she meant for me to respond in some way, and so I did. "Who's that?" I asked.
Deep sigh here. "You were asking about the other members of that group my mother belonged to, weren't you? Well, Pluma Griffin was one of them."
"I thought you said you couldn't remember."
"I'm eighty years old," Vesta said, sounding more like forty. "I'm supposed to forget things, Minda. And I probably wouldn't think of it now except that when I was helping Gatlin sort through some of Otto's mess this morning, I ran across an old book she'd given Mama. It was a volume of poetry—one of those maudlin, flowery things people used to weep over, and she'd written an inscription in the front."
"Do you know what happened to her?" I was so excited to hear the news, I almost forgot to be tired.
"Well, she died." Vesta paused, baiting me, I guess, and when I didn't answer, she continued. "Moved away from Angel Heights probably before I was born—worked in a library somewhere in Charlotte, I think. Anyway, when Pluma retired, she came back here to live with a niece."
"The niece—she still here? Do I know her?"
"Don't know how you could forget her," Vesta said. "Martha Kate Hawkins was Hank Smith's receptionist for a
s long as he practiced. Lives in one of those assisted living places out on Chatham's Pond Road."
"Do you think it's too late—?"
"Don't you dare go there before you come by here and get this book!" Vesta said. "I don't want the old thing, and yet I'd feel guilty throwing it away. Let's shove it off on Martha Kate."
Augusta had put on a Crock-Pot of chicken vegetable chowder before we left that morning, and it smelled almost as good as chocolate. Stomach complaining, I left her up to her elbows in biscuit dough and did as my grandmother commanded.
The slender volume of poetry titled The Heart Sings a Blessing was frayed at the edges and bound in a faded blue. On the flyleaf, Pluma Griffin had inscribed in now fading brown ink
For Lucy, I won't forget!
Forever, Pluma
"Forget what?" I wondered aloud.
If Vesta knew, she didn't answer, for just then her doorbell rang, and she went to admit Edna Smith, who tumbled breathless and red-faced into the nearest chair.
"Scared of elevators," she explained to our unspoken question.
"Good grief, Edna, don't tell me you walked up four flights of stairs!" Vesta said, sending me a silent message to bring water.
"I didn't get this winded from sex—'scuse me, Minda," our visitor panted between gulps.
"You know I would've called first, Vesta," Edna said when she was able to breathe normally, "but this just came to me all of a sudden, and I can't talk to just anybody about it." She lowered her voice. "Didn't want to tell you over the phone."
"Do you want me to leave the room?" Oh Lordy, I really, really didn't want to hear intimate details of Edna and Hank Smith's love life—or lack of it.
"No, no. You'd better hear this, too, only keep it to yourself—both of you, please." Edna took another swallow of water and leaned forward. "Remember when Mildred got so sick the night of the UMW meeting?"
My grandmother looked like she could use some water, too. "Be hard to forget it," she said.
"I was sitting next to her when later on in the meeting she complained of feeling nauseated," Edna said. "I asked her if she wanted me to take her home, but she said no, she had something in her purse that was supposed to ease it. Looked like those stomach pills you buy over the counter—the ones for acid indigestion—but I can't swear that's what it was. Anyway, she washed one down with coffee."
"Dear God, Edna! Why didn't you tell us this sooner?"
"I guess I just forgot; it seemed like such a harmless thing. Just about everybody takes those things at one time or another."
"Do you know where she got them?" I asked. "Maybe we can trace the pills back to the store where she bought them."
Edna drained her glass and set it aside. "That's just it. Mildred didn't buy the pills. She said Irene Bradshaw gave them to her."
My grandmother frowned. "Since when did Irene become a pharmacist?"
"It didn't seem unusual at the time," Edna said. "Mildred told me she'd mentioned to Irene about feeling kind of sick when she saw her in the grocery store that morning, said she marked it up to stress—you know, with Otto and all. Anyway, a little later Irene came by her place and dropped off those pills, said they did her a world of good. Mildred put them in her purse and forgot about them until her stomach started acting up at the meeting that night."
Vesta didn't say anything for a minute. "Mildred might still have them in her purse. Let's wait and see what they are when she gets back—might turn out to be something totally harmless. Meanwhile, you're right, Edna. I wouldn't mention this to anybody."
"Did Gatlin say anything about Irene's visit to the bookshop yesterday?" I asked Vesta after Edna left. "She had an awful case of the 'wanna knows' about what Gatlin planned to do with Papa's Armchair."
"I can't imagine why." My grandmother slipped off her narrow size-nine shoes and rubbed her feet. "Irene was a good customer, though. Maybe she's afraid Gatlin won't be able to find any more of those out-of-print mysteries she likes."
"I thought she was going to blow a gasket when Gatlin said we wanted to expand into Dr. Hank's place next door. That building isn't worth anything, is it?"
"It's no historic landmark, if that's what you mean. And it's gut-ugly to boot. Besides, if Irene wants it, she can make Hank an offer as well as we can."
"Somehow I never thought of the Bradshaws as having money," I said.
"They don't, but their daughter, Bonnie, does—or Bonnie's husband does. She married into it. Robinson Sherwood came from money, and he's done all right with his legal practice. I like Robinson; he's an all right fellow, and I think he'll make a fine judge. He's just received an appointment, you know, and I hear he and Bonnie are adopting a baby."
It was so late by the time I left Vesta's, I decided to wait on my visit to Pluma Griffin's niece. And Gatlin agreed to go with me if I would help her clear a path at the bookshop the next day.
"What's Mildred going to think when she sees what we've done?" I said as the pile of books to go began to tower over the stack to keep.
"I don't know, but I wish she'd hurry back," Gatlin said. "I don't want to get rid of any of these books until Mildred's had a chance to look them over. She knows more about running this place than Otto ever did, and frankly, I'll be glad of her help. David's been great when it comes to actually moving things, but Mildred knows what people like to read."
The expression in Gatlin's eyes reminded me of the time she forgot her lines in the senior play back in high school. "I hope I'm not wading in over my head, Minda," she said.
"Hey, we're not going to let you drown," I said, sounding more confident than I felt. "Don't guess you've had any more visits from inquisitive Irene?" I was dying to tell Gatlin about the pills, but a promise was a promise.
"No, but Vesta and I made an offer to Hank Smith, and I'm almost sure he's going to sell us that building next door. I'd think most of those old records could be destroyed by now anyway. It's not like he needs the space."
I finished clearing a shelf and sneezed at the dust. "Vesta said she had no idea why Irene acted so peculiar about your buying that building," I said. "You'd think she'd be glad of a new place to eat."
"She's not the only one." My cousin flapped a dust rag at a spider web. "Hugh Talbot was in here yesterday hinting around about wanting to buy us out."
That didn't surprise me much. I told her about Hugh showing up at the house. "I think he was looking for something, and he obviously thinks we have it."
"I can't imagine what it could be," Gatlin said.
I could, but I wasn't ready to share it. "He said his sister seemed to be doing okay," I said.
Gatlin nodded. "Saw her in the drugstore yesterday. She had a bad bruise on her cheek and was wearing a bedroom slipper on one foot, but she told me she wasn't going to let that stop her.
"All that walking must've given her stamina," Gatlin said.
"When we were in high school, Mrs. Whitmire would always get there early so she could get in her laps around the track. I couldn't keep up with her on a bet." She looked at her watch. "Which reminds me, I'd better start walking for home. It's almost time for my two to be getting back from choir practice.
"If Mildred shows up tomorrow, maybe we can finally clear a space in here and get rid of some of these old books."
But Vesta pulled into the driveway behind me as soon as I reached home, and one glance at my grandmother told me something was bad wrong.
"I just got off the phone with Lydia Bowen. Arminda, Mildred hasn't been with her at all! She says she hasn't heard from her in weeks and has no idea where she could be."
Chapter Thirteen
It's just like Mildred to pull something like this!" my grandmother said the next day. "She ought to know we'd be out of our heads with worry. It's just plain selfish, that's all!"
Vesta and I were on our way to the bookshop after checking with the hospital staff about Mildred's actions on the day she disappeared, and in spite of my grandmother's sputtering, I knew she was deep-down
afraid of what might have happened to the woman who had become an important part of our family.
"The receptionist on duty said she remembers calling a taxi for her, and that an attendant wheeled Mildred out to the cab, but she didn't know where she meant to go," I said, trying to reconstruct what had happened.
"Shouldn't be difficult to find out," Vesta said. "There's only one taxi driver in Angel Heights, and that's Wilbur Dobbins. His mouth runs faster than that beat-up old cab he drives, but he'd know where she went if anybody would."
But Wilbur, parked in front of the town hall to eat his bologna and cheese sandwich, hadn't seen Mildred at all.
"Didn't call me," he said through a mouthful of pickle. "Must've been somebody else."
But who? The nurse on Mildred's floor had said Mildred had told her a friend was picking her up, but the receptionist was definite about seeing her get into a taxi. "She must have called a cab from somewhere else," I said. "Hope it's not Columbia—we'd never get through checking out all of those!"
"Too far away." Vesta shook her head. "Mildred would never spend that kind of money. Let's try Rock Hill; it's closer."
I used the phone at Papa's Armchair to make the calls while Vesta paced the length of the small room. Two of the four cab companies in Rock Hill had no record of making the trip to Angel Heights for a passenger on the day in question, I learned, but the other two promised to get back to us.
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