The Angel and the Jabberwocky Murders

by Mignon F. Ballard

  The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

  Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

  And burbled as it came!

  Ellis looked up, frowning. “Now what in the world could they have meant by that?”

  “I suppose it could be some kind of warning,” Augusta said, reading the lines over her shoulder. “The tulgey wood…She drowned in the college lake, and the lake was in the woods.”

  “What did she do about the note?” I asked Ellis.

  “They didn’t go into detail in the newspaper, but her roommate said she thought it was a joke.”

  “What about the other girl?” I asked. “What about D. C. Hunter?”

  Ellis put the open book in my hands. “Gets a little gory.”

  One, two! One, two! And through and through

  The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

  He left it dead, and with its head

  He went galumphing back.

  A sickening kind of shudder went through me. Back in the ninth grade we had laughed over Carroll’s nonsensical verse. It wasn’t funny now. This must have been what was in the letter the police found in the Hunter girl’s room.

  “Were the verses typed or handwritten?” Augusta asked. “I’ve read where they’re sometimes able to trace—”

  But Ellis shook her head. “Came from a book. Somebody made a copy of a page from the book and glued the verse to a piece of notepaper.”

  I looked at the poem again. “Wonder why they started in the middle?”

  “The middle of what?” Ellis asked as she and Augusta followed me outside. I was glad for their company as I stood in the darkness to lock the heavy oak door.

  “The middle of the poem. Didn’t you notice? The person who sent them only used the fourth and fifth verses. Do you think maybe he sent the first three to somebody else?”

  “The girl who died in the fall from the Tree House might have received one,” Augusta said, explaining to Ellis what we had learned from Josie Kiker. “And there’re still more verses to go.”

  When I got home that night I found my old copy of Through the Looking-Glass and looked up the poem again.

  “If the killer had sent them in order,” Augusta pointed out, “Carla Martinez should’ve received this third verse before she fell—or was pushed—from the Tree House:

  He took his vorpal blade in hand:

  Long time the manxome foe he sought—

  So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

  And stood awhile in thought.

  I wondered how long the murderer waited in the Tree House and contemplated shoving that girl to her death.

  “Why Jabberwocky? What does that have to do with anything?” Weigelia asked the next day. She had dropped by to borrow my thirty-cup percolator for her upcoming family reunion and wanted to know what the fuss was all about.

  “Beats me,” I said. “I thought you might have some inside information from your cousin Kemper, but if you think about it, it sort of fits the way these girls died.” I told her about looking up the verses.

  Weigelia shook her head and made what I call her “woebegone” face. Today she wore a bright red hat with shoes to match and her new black dress with the velvet collar for an afternoon meeting of the Blessed Sisters of Praise and Glory. “I don’t know what’s goin’ on over at that school, but I don’t like it one little bit! I told Celeste she should come home and stay until they catch that devil what’s doin’ all this, but she won’t pay me no mind.”

  The weather had turned warm and sunny and I had dusted off the front porch chairs where we sat drinking some of Augusta’s apricot tea. Ellis found us there a little later when she came by with a set of dishes Julie had always admired. “Thought she might be able to use these in her new kitchen,” she explained. “Bennett’s aunt Eunice gave them to us when we married, and you know I’ve never cared much for blue,” she said, setting the box on the floor.

  “I’ve been thinking about this Jabberwocky thing,” she said, ignoring the offered chair to sit on the steps. “There has to be a connection. Assuming the Tree House death was a murder, too, what could be the common denominator?”

  Weigelia put down her cup with a clatter. “What Tree House death? You tellin’ me another one of them girls has done gone and got herself killed?”

  “This happened about nine years ago,” I told her, “and we’re not even sure it was a murder.

  Ellis drained the rest of my tea. (She really didn’t care for any, she’d said. She’d just have a little swallow of mine.) “All the girls were new to Sara Bedford…and they all came from out of state.”

  I nodded. “That’s right. D.C. was raised in Virginia, Rachel came from Florida, and the other girl was from somewhere in New York.”

  “That other girl, did she get the same kind of note?” Weigelia asked.

  “If she did, she must’ve thrown it away,” I told her. “The newspaper didn’t even mention her.”

  Ellis gave me back my empty cup. “What would you do if you got a letter like that—a silly verse pasted on a piece of paper? I’d figure some nut had too much time on his hands and toss it.”

  “Clay Hornsby was seeing the Hunter girl,” I said. “And somebody told me the girl who drowned had a boyfriend back home in Florida. I don’t know much about the girl from New York except that she was a music major.”

  “D.C. was interested in drama,” Ellis added, and I don’t guess anybody knows about the other girl’s major.”

  “I think she was a freshman,” I said, “so she probably hadn’t decided yet.”

  Weigelia sighed a deep-down sigh. “Do-law! Them poor little things. They didn’t get a chance to decide about nothin’!”

  Chapter Twelve

  I never thought I’d see Ellis Saxon at a quilting bee. Well, for that matter, I wasn’t a likely participant, either, but there we sat cutting calico patches and sewing them into squares under Nettie’s supervision.

  The hands-on history class was making a friendship quilt with each quilter’s name embroidered on a square of her own making. Nettie would then stitch the squares together and bring them back to class to be quilted by hand.

  “This doesn’t seem so hard,” Ellis said, weaving her needle in and out. “I should be able to finish one like this for Susan in time for Christmas, don’t you think, Nettie?”

  My neighbor laughed. “We’ll see, but you might want to start over on that square. You’ve sewn it to your skirt.”

  “Oh. Well, no problem. I’ve started over so many times already, this cloth is beginning to look like corduroy.”

  I laughed. Ellis had asked to sit in on the quilting sessions because she’d “always wanted to learn how.” Just as she had always wanted to paint with oils, refinish furniture and play the guitar. And so what if her quilt ended up in the attic with a partially sanded dresser, an almost new guitar, and a still life of a purple geranium and two eggplants on steroids?

  I was having problems of my own. I’ve always wanted a quilt—especially the colorful patchwork kind, and I had good intentions of learning to make one, but I had stuck my finger so many times my name was embroidered in red. Although Nettie managed to maintain a calm demeanor as she collected our creations at the end of the class, I could swear her face blanched at Ellis’s and mine.

  “Who’s getting this masterpiece, anyway?” Ellis asked as we swept up scraps of cloth.

  “It’s going to be raffled in December to help raise money for needy families,” I said. “How many chances do you want?”

  “If all the squares look like yours and mine, I’ll gladly pay not to win,” she said.

  “I don’t care how messy it looks,” I said. “I’d love to have one just like it. Wouldn’t it look perfect in Julie’s old room?”

  Nettie seemed somber as she gathered the finished squares and put them into her big canvas bag. She had been kind and patient with the novices in the class—which meant most of us—but my neighbor hadn’t seemed her usual lighthearted self since
I told her what I suspected of her niece.

  “I’ve read about eating disorders,” she had said earlier, “but I never thought of it affecting someone in my own family. Are you sure that’s what’s wrong with Leslie?”

  “Good heavens, no! I’m not sure of anything, but she does seem a likely candidate. It certainly can’t hurt her to see a doctor.”

  That was when Nettie decided to work in a visit to her niece on the day she helped with my class. Now she crammed the last scrap into her bulging bag and straightened her shoulders. “You don’t think she’ll guess why I’m really here?”

  “Why should she? I told her the other day you were coming. It’s perfectly natural that you’d drop by to see her. And does it really matter if she does guess? She must know you’re concerned about her.”

  “You’re right, of course.” Nettie smoothed her gray hair back into a bun. “And I have to find out what’s going on so I can prepare her father. Should’ve called him earlier, I know. Guess I just kept hoping this would pass.”

  I put an arm around her plump, solid shoulders. It was like my neighbor to have problems understanding why anybody would deliberately pass up good food. I have trouble with it myself.

  “Let me put that heavy bag in the car for you,” I told her. “Ellis and I will meet you at Leslie’s dorm in about an hour.”

  “This is a kind of day they write poetry about,” Ellis said as we left the parking lot. “Remember ‘October’s Bright Blue Weather’? Mrs. Strain made us memorize it in the sixth grade.

  “‘O suns and skies and clouds of June, and flowers of June together, ye cannot rival for one hour October’s bright blue weather,’” a familiar voice chanted behind us. Augusta. Today she wore a coral crepe with a multitiered skirt that fluttered behind her as she walked. Her hair, the color of maple leaves, escaped from a trailing turquoise scarf.

  “Did you have Mrs. Strain in the sixth grade, too?” Ellis asked, apparently not at all surprised by the angel’s abrupt appearance.

  Augusta laughed, twirling among the bright oak leaves as they zigzagged to the ground. “I learned that from a lady named Mary Emma Howard,” she said. “She had a lovely soul, and I was fortunate to be assigned to her toward the end. Her eyesight wasn’t good and she loved being read to—especially poetry. That was one of her favorites.” Augusta smiled as a leaf caught in her hair. “I like to think it helped to ease her over.”

  Ellis and I stood in silence. “Augusta, what a beautiful thought,” I said finally. “And I agree with Mary Emma—October’s the most brilliant month of all. Makes me feel like striking out on a wooded trail with a pack upon my back.”

  “‘There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir,’” the angel quoted as we waded through papery leaves.

  “There’s sort of a trail down by the Old Lake,” Ellis said. “Will that do?”

  Augusta hesitated. “The Old Lake? Isn’t that where you found the Hunter girl?”

  “Near there,” I said, but we can walk here on main campus if you’d rather.” I hadn’t been near that old shed since that awful day, and I didn’t care if I never saw it again.

  “There’s a path that follows the hills above town,” Augusta said. “A bit of a climb, but I could probably use the exercise after that barbecue I had for lunch.” She had made a large batch in the Crock-Pot the week before and frozen most of it in meal-size portions.

  “I have to be back in an hour to meet Nettie,” I explained. “I’m afraid that would take too long, but if you really want to take the hill path, go ahead. Who knows what the weather might bring tomorrow.”

  “And Bennett’s taking me to dinner tonight,” Ellis said, “so I need to get home early.” She smiled. “We’re shopping for the new baby afterward. There’s a big sale in Charlotte, I hear.”

  “I hope you’re not disappointed,” I said to Augusta. “Maybe we can explore it together another day.”

  But she was already trailing across the leaf-strewn campus with a jaunty wave of her hand, her vivid scarf fluttering behind her.

  “I know you and Augusta didn’t want to go near there, but frankly I’m curious about that old shed,” Ellis said. “Did those two really have a tryst in that old place? Not that I’d want to go inside or anything.”

  “Good, because it’s probably padlocked. I doubt if the college wants anybody going in there,” I said, reluctantly following her lead.

  But as we drew closer to the stone building I noticed one of the doors ajar.

  Ellis touched my arm and looked at me. “Let’s.”

  “Let’s not,” I said. I could almost smell the odor of death.

  “We might never get the chance again,” she said. “Come on, Lucy Nan. I don’t want to go in there by myself.”

  I had heard this before when, against my better judgment, I followed her up the fire tower when we were eight, and again at ten when she dared me to climb on top of the arched stone entrance to the Confederate Cemetery. The fire department had to come and get me down. And in the ninth grade didn’t I help her put that bottle of gin in Miss Edna Barnhardt’s desk drawer? Our math teacher belonged to the Reach of Love Church of the Comforting Arms and didn’t even wear makeup.

  Okay, I’ll have to admit, sometimes I like taking chances. It’s kind of like jumping into a hot tub after a cool swim. It makes my skin tingle. It was tingling now, but more in dread than excitement. You’re getting too old for this, Lucy Nan Pilgrim! I told myself. The sun scalloped the woods in yellow patches. A squirrel skittered up a hickory and disappeared beneath leaves that looked like old gold. Close by a lingering robin sang just for the glory of it. I wish I could.

  Snicker-snack, snicker-snack…the vorpal blade went snicker-snack! Like an evil nursery rhyme, the words went back and forth, back and forth. The stone shed. The cold gray rain. The putrid smell. Desolation. “I can’t,” I said. “If you want to go inside, go ahead. I’ll wait here.”

  I watched as Ellis walked slowly, quietly to the door. Did she think somebody was going to hear her? She stood there for a minute, then put her head inside, and finally the rest of her.

  Augusta, how I wish you were here—or that I weren’t! I waited. Ellis had only been in the shed a few seconds when she stepped out again with a warning finger to her lips and motioned for me to join her. I came halfway.

  Urging me to hurry, Ellis pointed to the shed with all the drama she could muster. Why didn’t she just speak up? But when I got close enough to see the look in her eyes, I knew something was wrong.

  “There’s somebody up there,” she whispered, latching onto my arm.

  “Are you sure? I don’t hear anything.”

  “Of course I’m sure! They’re in the loft.”

  I wasn’t convinced, but I let her drag me along. Hardly daring to breathe, we stopped to listen at the open door. A mouse, I thought. The shed would be full of them—rats, too. Or a squirrel could be nesting in the rafters, I told myself.

  But an animal doesn’t have a heavy tread like the one I was hearing now. Footsteps. Human footsteps thudded in the loft, then paused as if whoever was up there was listening, too. Did they know we were there?

  Well, one thing was certain—we shouldn’t be there. I looked around. We couldn’t run fast enough to get away, but underbrush surrounded the building and I hurried behind it for cover, hoping Ellis would follow. She quickly squiggled out of sight behind a clump of cedars, and I hugged the rough back wall of the shed, along with the Virginia creeper and whatever else grew there. My right ankle burned and I looked down to see a red jagged tear, probably from a blackberry bush; there were scratches on my hands as well. I doubted if the sun ever reached this side of the building. In spite of the clear October day, my hiding place smelled damp and earthy.

  I heard the door of the shed bang shut and wondered what had become of the lock, as I was sure the police hadn’t left the scene accessible to the public. So how did they get in, and who could it be? I remembered that old adage about a murd
erer always returning to the scene of the crime. If so, I wished this one had picked another time to return. My stomach was none too happy and it was hard to breathe past the knot in my throat. A few feet away I saw the bright yellow sleeve of Ellis’s blouse as she crouched in hiding. If whoever had been in the shed looked in her direction, he would see it, too. He wasn’t even trying to be quiet. Leaves rustled in the woods to my right and I took a chance to get a glimpse of his face.

  But it wasn’t a man walking away from the building. It was a woman. Tall, of indiscriminate age, she wore khaki pants and a navy-blue windbreaker, and her dishwater-blond hair was coiled in a braid at the back. I had never seen her before but she had been described to me often. Monica Hornsby. I was almost sure of it. But what was “Horny” Hornsby’s wife looking for in that shed?

  “What do you suppose she was doing in there?” Ellis asked as we hurried back to main campus.

  “Looking for something, I guess.”

  “Wonder if she found it.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I couldn’t tell if she had anything with her, could you? Besides, I’d think if there was anything to find, the police would’ve already found it.”

  Ellis glanced behind us as she walked. “Should we tell somebody? About what we’ve seen, I mean.”

  “I don’t know…not yet, anyway. What would we tell them? She wasn’t breaking the law. Maybe she was just curious.”

  I was glad when we came into the clearing and made our way past the familiar campus buildings. Nearby a girl shrieked as two others threatened to throw her into the fountain, and both Ellis and I jumped at the sound.

  “I think I just lost a year of my life,” Ellis said. “We’re getting too old for this, Lucy Nan. I don’t know why I let you drag me into these things.

  “Do you think the Hornsbys are still living together?” she asked before I could protest. “I can’t believe she’d take him back.”