by John Clayton
Since I had been involuntarily included in the conversation, I started to explain the unwritten rule that everybody got to come to the ball as long as they were in costume, regardless of sex, race, or sexual orientation.
But Victoria just carried right on. “No self-respecting woman in 1860 would have displayed a décolletage like that. It’s just plain tacky. There’s no other word for it. If he were still alive, Uncle George Ebenton would certainly put a stop to it.”
***
I slipped away without answering. Fanny was leaning up against the wall next to the ladies’ room, her pretty blue dress in slight disarray. I looked up and down the hall, gave her a thumbs-up signal, and slid into the office door—only to be confronted by Old Oilhead himself, standing behind the desk, talking to our hostess, the ever-seductive Cassie. She seemed to be cooing something in the general direction of his ear, while he was hanging on her every word, his eyes glued to her heaving bosoms through the frilly white lace of her bodice.
“Augie says I’m supposed to make sure all of the guests get what they want,” she bubbled.
I knew that he had chased every female in the county, but you had to draw the line somewhere. Sharing a man, even one you’ve dropped, with the likes of Cassandra Pickerill was just a little much. In fact, it was downright tacky, to use Victoria’s word. I was about to rudely announce my presence, when I remembered that my first priority was the search.
Cassie had been so absorbed in getting out her next word, and Old Oilhead had been so intent on waiting for it, that neither of them noticed me. I retreated, beckoning Fanny over. When she got there, I swung the door wide open, leaving her standing there in full view of the room’s occupants.
“Oh, pardon me. I thought this was the ladies’,” she apologized without missing a beat as she leaned up against the door.
Old Oilhead immediately ushered Cassie out toward the dance floor, explaining to Fanny, as he went by, that the ladies’ was across the hall.
So that they wouldn’t see me as they passed, I had slipped into the ladies’ room myself. The fact that it had been empty was surely a sign that the gods were on my side.
***
As I entered the recently evacuated office, I was as usual, amazed—even though I’d dropped by several times when I’d been working in the basement. Its style was French Empire. True, it was only European classical revival from the 1880s, which meant the contents were worth a little less than a hundred thousand dollars rather than over two hundred and fifty thousand, but it was still pretty spectacular. There were two pedestal statues, one on each side of the door: Apollo, on one side, chasing Daphne, who was, in turn, metamorphosing into a tree on the other. Each statue was about six feet tall and stood on a two-foot marble base. There was plenty of headroom since the ceilings on the first floor were about twelve feet. I gave a perfunctory tug on each statue but neither slid out revealing a secret hiding place, so I kept going.
In front of the fireplace were four chairs, two on each side with a small Turkish rug in-between. The rug might as well be small, since it was actually on top of an Aubusson carpet that covered most of the floor. In front of the back window was the desk: rosewood with real ormolu griffins on each corner. The only false note was the four-drawer filing cabinet in kingwood. The fixtures were shiny gold, indicating modern electroplating. I started by checking all the chairs for hidden crevices and the fireplace for secret compartments. Nothing. I edged out each picture from the wall, as I looked for a wall safe. Nothing again. Then, I looked behind the drapes, which were pulled back to the sides of the open windows because the weather was not warm enough for air conditioning. Again nothing.
All of that took about three minutes, so I got to the desk pretty quickly. Pulling out all the drawers, I found office supplies, envelopes, paper clips, etc. Zip, as I had expected. That left the filing cabinet. I’d sort of left it for last because I was probably subconsciously afraid of what I wouldn’t find. It was locked and there was no obvious way to get it open. I looked at my watch—only four minutes used so far. The filing cabinet had to have a key somewhere. I hadn’t seen any so far, but during my search of the desk, I hadn’t really looked for secret compartments. I’d handled enough semi-antiques of this type to know where to look. The center drawer appeared to be about three inches short. The drawer didn’t come all the way out, but I could reach around inside, systematically pushing every little spot. I felt something give and the false back folded down. I wiggled my hand in and pulled out a set of keys
On the second key I tried, the filing cabinet opened like a charm. I started on the top drawer, which was divided into two separate sections. The first had household expenses, including a lot of unpaid bills from furniture and clothing stores. It looked like J. Augustus never paid his debts until they had been overdue at least three months—a privilege of the rich, I supposed. The back section had records of transactions for the farm: rent from Sam Hill and expenses for repairs. No reference to the mob.
The next two drawers had stock market transactions going back about twenty years, organized by company. The first folder had a cross reference by date with a separate section for something called an options market. I didn’t understand all the mumbo jumbo. Jack Senior would have, but he was too damned honest to save his wife.
A quick look through the folder tabs indicated that most of the companies were real—General Motors, AT&T, and so forth. There were a few I’d never heard of, but the transactions looked the same. There were no funny lists, such as Old Oilhead had in his little book, nor any records from suspicious business in New York. But then, if he were mob, he probably wouldn’t have had any records.
The bottom drawer contained tax records. The first folder had about twenty pages, with almost no tax owed at the end. Another privilege of the rich: charity and stock market losses offsetting gains on the hog farm. The next couple of folders were pretty much the same.
The back half of the drawer had the details of the charitable donations. There was a folder for a gift to the New York City Library system, complete with a letter saying he’d have a room named for him. That was about twenty years ago. It was followed by more for gifts to library systems and hospitals in New York.
The last folder was about the new addition to the library here in Mason County. There was a letter from Priscilla Goodenough, stating that the pictures he had given had only brought forty-five thousand dollars at auction. He had to come up with another six thousand dollars if he wanted to have the new wing named for him, since the other high contributor had provided fifty thousand dollars. Sleazy, but not evidence of criminal connections.
I was just putting the folder back into place, cursing Jack Senior for being right, when there was a thump from the hallway. Fanny had stepped into the room and was waving her arms. I ran to the door and looked over her shoulder. Jack Senior and Spike Bender were playing football with a large chunk of what looked like angel’s food cake. Jack Senior had been quarterback and Spike a tight end at Mason County High School, albeit twenty years apart. They certainly weren’t heading to the ladies’ room, even if Spike did look the part. That meant that Jack Senior’s misplaced morality had decided to interfere with what I was doing. Damn him.
Then, behind the football players I saw Maurice trying to step around Henry. Spike had just caught a pass near the office door and passed the fake ball to Jack Senior, who managed to catch it right where Maurice was trying to get by, misstepping a bit and toppling the butler into a heap on the floor. My husband had let his Southern chivalry toward his wife overcome his selective ethics.
I would have basked in the revelation, but there was no time. Only, I couldn’t get across the hall to the ladies’ room without being seen by Maurice. An open window at the back was the best way out. But as I turned to run, my chignon caught on one of Daphne’s tree limbs. The wig was pinned pretty tightly to my hair, so I was wasting precious time trying to decide whether it was faster to unpin it or just push and pull until I got free,
when Fanny ran up and tipped the statue over a bit.
I managed to lift the wig off the limb while it was still on my head and was turning back toward the window when I heard a grunt. Spinning back, I saw Fanny balancing the statue with both hands, not being able to get it back up straight. I reached up and helped her push with as much strength as I could muster. We were slowly, slowly, struggling the statue back to vertical. But then, suddenly, Fanny’s feet slipped out from under her, and I could feel more than see her slide down to a prone position right under the looming weight. Two hundred plus pounds was too much for me to handle all by myself, especially since I still had Pickerill’s folder in my right hand. I couldn’t decide whether to wiggle one hand loose and drop the folder or keep pushing. If I dropped the folder, I would loose my grip for a spit second, and if I held on, I couldn’t get a real purchase with my right hand.
Suddenly the weight was relieved: taken out of my hands completely.
Spike Bender was reaching up over my head, lifting Daphne’s upper torso, while Jack Senior pulled Fanny out from underneath. Salvation! But only temporary. Down the hall, Maurice was getting up from the floor, cradling the loaf of angel’s food cake like he was an offensive guard and had just recovered a fumble. He was beginning to move toward the tumult in the office but still looked a little dazed.
That gave me time to run, stopping only to relock the filing cabinet, throw the key into the drawer, flip the secret compartment closed, and raise the screen at the back window. The step to the ground was easier than I had anticipated—but as I turned back to lower the screen, it crashed down on its own, booming louder than the ruckus inside. Maurice had stopped to help Spike put Daphne back upright, so maybe he would be too busy to hear—I hoped.
Before I turned away into the darkness of the yard, the last image that I saw would really have sent Uncle George Ebenton spinning in his grave, wherever that was. Spike’s effort in pushing up the statue had caused his dress to split completely down the back, and there he was, cradling a statue of Daphne in his hairy arms—a six foot six antebellum Southern belle wearing not much more than light straw-colored polyester panty hose complemented by lavender and orange fake kidskin pumps.
***
The trick now was to get back around front, unobserved, before anyone sounded the alarm. Then I could be found socializing in the ballroom like I’d been there all along. But the Dobermans were raising a fit in their run, which was only about a hundred feet from the end of the house. Somebody might come and look. So I ran to the rear corner and stopped a moment to look back between the boxwoods and the foundation of the house. Maurice already had the screen window open and was leaning out. I gave a little prayer that he hadn’t seen me. And Spike Bender had been too busy saving Fanny to think about me. Another little prayer. Fanny would certainly lie and say she’d turned the wrong way for the ladies’ room, accidentally upset the statue. That left Jack Senior. He’d refused to help, but did that include an after-the-fact cover-up? He’d certainly tried to warn me. Unless he was just showing Spike what a great quarterback he’d been. But bragging was out of character. So even if the Pickerills and Maurice guessed that someone had been rifling the office, and that I was that someone, they wouldn’t be able to prove it.
I figured I had a minute to make it to the dance floor, so I sacrificed speed and wiggled my way carefully along the sidewall behind the shrubs, going slowly because crinolines were not made for walking through bushes. But it proved to be the right choice, because Weevil came bounding into the side yard, baseball bat at the ready, investigating the howling dogs.
I struggled ahead as quietly as I could and slipped sideways around the corner of the house. The boxwoods there were planted closer to the front of the building, and I had to ease branches back carefully in order to get through without tearing my bodice: a dead giveaway if I ever got into the ball. But it was even slower going than before. I was aiming at the side of the portico, where I’d be able to hop up about three feet and slip in the front door in a wink. If the gods were with me, I’d be able to manage it. I was a few feet away from making it, when Sheriff Overhouse came stomping out the front door, followed by a wildly gesticulating Maurice.
Damn. If they’d just run around toward the back, I could slip in. And that’s what they did—but not until J. Augustus himself had arrived on the porch and started screaming orders. The sheriff headed around after Weevil, and Maurice went the other way. J. Augustus stayed planted at the helm of the operation like an admiral in one of those 1930s adventure movies. He wasn’t going to move. I couldn’t even get across the front yard because the driveway was so well lighted. Maybe I could get back to the side of the house and pretend to be passed out in the van. Not as good as being inside but better than nothing.
I was backing slowly toward the shadows at the corner, when I was grabbed by a hand. I lowered my shoulder and wiggled almost free, pushing toward the safety of the side yard, dragging a few fingers still grasping my left arm. But my escape route was blocked by a fuzzy leg. I threw out my right hand to push it away and grasped instead a fuzzy rump.
I was pulling back, deciding to risk bursting straight out into the yard, when I heard, “Quiet.” The deep voice was followed by a higher-pitched, “Hold this.”
And there I was, holding a horse’s head, as nimble hands ran down my back, unhooking buttons. It was Elvira Short, wearing a skintight leotard. She quickly pulled off my dress and was putting it on, as Sambo picked me up and stuck my feet into the now empty horse’s hooves.
“Here, you do it!” Elvira said, as she was fumbling with the buttons down her back.
I turned her a bit and buttoned as fast as I could, while Sambo took the wig from my hair and pinned it to Elvira’s.
Suddenly the horse’s head enclosed mine. It was then that I realized that I was still holding the folder with the letter from Prissy to J. Augustus in my hand. I stuffed it down in the right leg of the horse and buttoned up the front as fast as I could. The next I knew I was sitting on Sambo’s knee, back on the iron settee closest to the front door.
“Just act natural,” he said. “Elvira’s going to take your place. Nobody’ll recognize her.”
So I was bouncing a bit, settling into Sambo’s bony knees as best I could when a wailing whimper burst out, “I can’t do it. I thought I could but I can’t go out into this crowd.”
***
Through the horse’s mouth, I could see the sheriff returning from the back area, followed by Weevil, who was being directed to search down the driveway. J. Augustus was still on the portico, waving his arms. This time at Jack Senior, who was explaining that he’d taken me home with a headache about a half hour before. A few of the guests were leaving, making their polite good-byes to Mr. Pickerill in-between his waves.
“I’d turn the dogs loose, but there are too many people around,” he said, before turning to the sheriff. “I told you that you couldn’t handle it. You let an intruder in.”
“Now, we don’t know it was an intruder,” the sheriff said. “Mr. Abernathy and Miz Beecham didn’t see anybody.”
“Then why was the window screen bent and why were the dogs barking?” Pickerill asked as the sheriff turned to survey the lawn. Old Oilhead was carrying Fanny propped against his shoulder toward his car, taking her home to recover from her close call. Frank Dresser was entering the house with a small sewing case—probably to repair Spike’s dress. Elvira was still hidden in the bushes, holding onto my neck.
Shit, I was going to get everybody in trouble: Jack Senior for lying, even if it was to protect his meal ticket, Fanny for throwing herself under a two-hundred-pound statue, and the Shorts, who hadn’t done anything but lend me the front end of a horse’s costume. It would have been more fitting if they’d made me use the rear.
***
Suddenly, in front of the horse’s nose appeared a tray, holding two stemmed goblets. “Time to refill the trough,” said Robert E. Lee, a true Southern gentleman tending to the welfare of
his trusty steed.
Behind Henry, Lucille was working in our direction, sweeping the driveway with her feather duster.
From somewhere in the horse’s midsection, Sambo explained the problem to Henry.
J. Augustus was screeching at the sheriff, Weevil, and Maurice, “You go around this house again and look into everything and behind everything. And do it right, this time.” Which, of course, would mean finding Elvira in the bushes.
Lucille, who had been listening to the conversation while dusting a boxwood, reached behind the bush and gave Elvira a tug. “Come on, let’s go in. I’ll tell everybody you’re my cousin come to visit from Richmond.”
“You know Lucille,” Sambo said to the trembling Mrs. Short. “She’ll help.”
I could feel the bushes move as the sheriff started walking down the steps in our direction. Elvira was going to get out just in time, but then the movement stopped. “I just can’t do it,” came a small voice.
“OK, then, you can be my second cousin,” Lucille said firmly, giving a tug just in time for Elvira to pop out of the bush in front of the sheriff.
“Hi, Sheriff Overhouse,” Lucille said, doing a half curtsey. “I want you to meet one of my son Billy’s history professors from UVA. She asked if she could come and observe what the Old South was really like,”—shifting to a less pointed subject when the chips were down.
The sheriff tipped his hat, just like the woman from Charlottesville might have been a voter in Mason County, and asked whether they had seen anybody running outside. Lucille vigorously shook her feather duster up and down, while providing a reasonably accurate description of Weevil Tuttle. The sheriff thanked her for helping, and gave a stiff bow to both ladies. He had undoubtedly seen Elvira up at the Short farmstead a number of times, but habit being what it was, he simply wasn’t expecting to meet her out in public, at the ball, in my dress—and he didn’t notice it was my dress because men never notice those things anyway.