by Nancy Bell
“I knew he didn’t do it,” I said.
“I know you did,” Biggie said. “Well, I didn’t focus on him very long. After we found the notebook, I began to think Annabeth might have been murdered because of something that happened a long time ago. Those people are stuck in the past. And it seemed strange to me that Lucas Fitzgerald kept putting forth the theory that someone had found Diamond Lucy’s baby alive. If that had happened, it would have been a miracle.”
“That old man was just a nut about the past,” Miss Mattie said. “My lord, who cares about all that? Me, I’m a new-millennium woman. What’s for dessert, Willie Mae?”
“Blackberry cobbler.” Willie Mae picked up the last of the dishes just as Rosebud came in carrying a tray holding a steaming-hot cobbler and a glass bowl full of whipped cream.
Nobody talked for awhile as we all tasted our dessert. Finally, Butch spoke up. “But how did you figure out it was Lew Masters? Ooh, I got blackberry juice on my shirt. That’ll never come out.”
“Yes it will,” Miss Julia said. “Make you up a paste of baking soda and bleach and leave it on for five minutes—no longer or it’ll eat a hole. Then, if the spot don’t come out, rub a lemon on it and leave it out in the sun.”
Biggie ignored them. “By the back door. After I found out about the incest, I felt that Mary Ann had the most likely motive, but Dr. Littlejohn had already squashed that theory when he told me a small woman could never have plunged the knife in so hard. Brian had no motive. He was obviously head over heels in love with the girl.”
“But what about Lucas?” Mr. Thripp said.
“Yeah,” I said. “That old man was a lot stronger than he looked.”
“Lucas was my prime suspect for a time.” Biggie scraped the last of her cobbler off her bowl and put her spoon down. “I thought he might have killed to save the reputation of the Quincys.”
“That’s crazy,” Norman said.
“I think he is a little bit crazy,” Biggie said. “At least when it comes to that town. Anyway, after the sheriff got the results of the background check he had run on Lew Masters, my attention turned to him. Turns out, he’d been accused of killing his first wife up in Texarkana. They never could make a case, and he went free. But she was killed with a butcher knife through the heart. It was circumstantial, of course. But that fact, coupled with his obsessive love for Mary Ann, sure made him look suspicious.”
“But you didn’t know, Biggie,” Butch said.
“I was pretty sure,” Biggie said. “Remember the note we found in Annabeth’s purse? Well, I compared the handwriting samples I had gathered in my address book with the writing in the note. It might not hold up in court, but Lew Masters’s writing was a perfect match. The sheriff and I thought that was enough for us to try a bluff. It worked and he confessed everything as soon as the sheriff got him down to the jail, so I don’t suppose it matters.”
Norman Thripp spooned sugar into his coffee. “Was Mary Ann in on it?”
“Oh, no,” Biggie said. “She had no idea what he was up to. Mary Ann was scared to death Brian had done it.”
“So, Biggie,” Miss Julia said. “What did you find out about their historical society? Anything we can use here in Job’s Crossing?”
“Yuck!” Miss Mattie said. “As far as I’m concerned, they can keep their old historical society. It’s not good to live so much in the past.”
“I agree,” Biggie said. “I move here and now that we scrap that idea and move on to something more productive. Here’s my idea. We fix up the old Claxton Hotel down by the tracks and use it to attract tourists. It could be ten times better than their hotel. All in favor, say Aye.”
Willie Mae’s Wedding Reception Lane Cake
Have your oven heated to 350 degrees. Grease up four round pans and sprinkle on some flour. Cream your butter with your sugar until they be real light and fluffy. Add in your vanilla. Make sure you use the real thing—not that imitation stuff.
Next, mix your flour, baking powder, and salt together and then start adding this to your butter and sugar. Add in your milk, too, but alternate it with the flour. End with flour.
Now, beat up your egg whites ’til they’re stiff—real stiff. Fold your egg whites into your batter. Divide the batter into four cake pans.
Bake in the oven for twenty-five minutes or until a broom straw comes out clean when you stick it in the middle.
You can use a toothpick, if you’re picky. Cool the layers on a rack while you make your filling.
Filling
Put your butter and your sugar in the top of a double boiler. Don’t put it on the fire yet. First, you’ve got to beat it together then beat in your egg yolks. Stir in your brandy and water. Now, put your pan over boiling water and cook and stir until it’s thick. Add in your fruit and nuts. Stir it up good and take it off the heat to cool before you put it between the cake layers.
Icing
Mix your sugar, corn syrup, and water in a saucepan. Put a lid on and let it boil real good on medium heat. Now, take the lid off and boil some more ’til a little dab of it makes a good hard ball in a cup of cold water. If you have a candy thermometer, you can use that. Let it cook to 242 degrees.
Now, while that’s boiling, beat up your egg whites until they’re real stiff. Pour your hot syrup real slow into your egg whites, beating all the time. Add in the vanilla and keep beating on high speed until it forms stiff peaks.
Spread it on the top and sides of your cake.
This makes a lot of frosting, but J.R. likes it that way.
P.S. Once when I was in a hurry, I used a white cake mix for this. It wasn’t too bad.
—Willie Mae
Acknowledgements
This book would not exist without the ever-so-tactful comments from the Shoal Creek Writers: Karen Fitzjerrall, Dena Garcia, Eileen Joyce, Sharon Kahn, and Judy Austin Mills, who have been with me every step of the way. It is their keen instincts and unwavering insistence on excellence that send me back to the keyboard again and again until what I produce meets their strict standards.
I would like to thank Elissa R. Ballesteros of the Austin Public Library for taking the time to locate a recipe for Willie Mae’s Lane cake, the original having been lost. It was a great help, although it must be admitted that Willie Mae insisted on adding a few touches of her own before she would permit it to be printed.
I would especially like to acknowledge my wonderful agent, Vicky Bijur, who goes not only the second mile, but the third, fourth, and as far as it takes to get the job done. Also, and this is long past due, I thank Ruth Cavin, my editor at St. Martin’s Press, who has taught me more than she will ever know.
Finally, thanks to the citizens of Jefferson, Texas, from whose town and its history I have borrowed freely in the creation of the fictional town of Quincy. However, I hasten to add that the characters in this story were born in my mind and exist only on the pages of this book.
ALSO BY NANCY BELL
Biggie and the Meddlesome Mailman
Biggie and the Fricasseed Fat Man
Biggie and the Mangled Mortician
Biggie and the Poisoned Politician
BIGGIE AND THE QUINCY GHOST. Copyright © 2001 by Nancy Bell. All rights reserved. . No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
www.minotaurbooks.com
eISBN 9781429970778
First eBook Edition : March 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bell, Nancy.
Biggie and the Quincy ghost / Nancy Bell.—1st ed. p. cm.
1. Biggie (Fictitious character : Bell)—Fiction. 2. Women detectives—Fiction. 3. Grandmothers—Fiction. 4. Texas—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3552.E5219 B57 2001
813’.54—dc21
2001037193
First Edition: September 2001