An Angel to Die For

by Mignon F. Ballard

  CHAPTER TEN

  Let him be out on assignment, I thought as I placed the call. Please Rob, don’t answer! I would leave a message, and then the ball would be in his court again. It was Saturday here in the States, and in England as well if I calculated right. Most people didn’t go in to work on Saturdays, especially at this strange hour, but Rob McCullough wasn’t most people and he didn’t work at just any job. I wanted to hear his voice so much I could almost taste the words, and yet I had to force myself not to hang up the phone. What kind of wishy-washy dishrag had I become?

  “Rob? I’m sorry I didn’t—”

  “Prentice? Is that you? I was about to walk out the door, but something just told me to hang around! How’s that for a lucky hunch?”

  “So, how’ve you been?” I asked. Prentice, Prentice, what a brilliant thing to say!

  “Missing you. Honey, it’s great to hear your voice.”

  “Yours too.” Silence. What was the matter with me?

  “But I want to do more than hear you. Prentice, I want to see you, need to see you.” Rob hesitated. Was he waiting for me to speak? “I heard about Maggie. What a god-awful thing to happen! Why didn’t you call me?”

  “It happened so fast. There was nothing we could do, nothing anyone could do. I guess I’m not dealing with it very well, but I’m trying.”

  “I understand. Believe me, I’ve been there, and I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.” Rob paused and I could imagine him hunched over with pencil and paper, doodling as we spoke. He kept a pad by the phone and decorated the margins with pastoral scenes that could have come from a child’s storybook: a barn, a tree, a rabbit, a squirrel with a nut in its paws, a road winding over a bridge. Maybe you were meant to be an illustrator, I used to tell him, but he only laughed. Now I pictured him in a London apartment, much like the one he’d had in Atlanta, filled with serviceable but comfortable furniture, every surface covered in books, papers, and coffee cups. If a person stood still in there long enough, I warned him, he might disappear forever.

  “Dottie told me about Martha’s Journal, Prentice, and I’m sorry. I can only imagine what you’ve gone through lately. And look, here’s the thing—I know how you loved what you were doing, but before you get involved in anything else, why not make a trip over here?”

  “Rob . . . I do want to see you but—”

  “If you’re worried about your mother, bring her along. I have a friend who’s a travel agent, and I can get a good price on the tickets. My treat. I want to do this for you, and it would probably be good for your mom to get away for a while.”

  “It’s not that, Rob. Some things have come up, things I have to take care of before I do anything else.”

  Silence. He was frowning now, I knew it, as his pencil moved rapidly across the page: the brook would overflow its banks and wash away the bridge; the playful squirrel would froth at the mouth and bite the rabbit.

  “I just found out my sister had a baby,” I said. “A little boy.”

  “Maggie? No kidding? Where is he?”

  “That’s the problem. I don’t know. I’m doing my best to find him.”

  “My God, Prentice! Don’t you have any idea who has him? Where he might be?”

  “Yes, and I’m working on it. It’s too complicated to go into over the phone right now, but I hope to hear something soon.”

  “Good, good. You will let me know, won’t you?” Rob said. “Leave a message if I’m not here.”

  I noticed he didn’t offer to come over and help.

  Aunt Zorah arrived without notice the next morning in that ancient green trucklike machine she calls a car and announced herself with a token “you-hoo” before making herself at home.

  “I’m hiding from Be-trice,” she confessed, “and if you have any compassion at all, you won’t let on I’m here. She’s about to drive me crazy wanting to know what’s going on out here, and if I’ve found out what happened to Faris—as if I’d tell her if I knew!” My aunt stomped into the kitchen and tossed her pocketbook on a chair. She hadn’t had breakfast, she said, so the two of us sat in the kitchen and finished off the batch of waffles Augusta had stirred up earlier. Augusta disappeared upstairs. I just hoped she wouldn’t decide to practice the violin again.

  “These are the best waffles I ever put in my mouth,” Aunt Zorah said. “You’ll have to give me the recipe. And where on earth did you get that heavenly strawberry syrup? Don’t tell me it came from anywhere in Liberty Bend, because I’ve never seen it in the stores.”

  Since our little town had only two grocery stores, I knew not to argue with her. And I suspected the syrup didn’t come from anywhere on earth. “Made right here in this kitchen,” I bragged. “Ready for another?”

  She held up an empty plate. “You’ve certainly been hiding your culinary talents,” my aunt said. “But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. It runs in the family, you know.”

  I almost choked on a big gulp of coffee.

  After breakfast my aunt pulled on brown rubber boots I’m sure she must’ve worn in high school for a tramp around the yard. “Told your mother I’d keep an eye on her azaleas,” she said. “And that dwarf gardenia by the front walk oughtta be covered up if it gets down to freezing.”

  “If you want to walk over to the cemetery, I’ll go with you,” I told her. I didn’t want her coming upon that grim scene alone.

  But she waved me away. “Maybe later.”

  I gave her a couple of old sheets to cover the plants and watched from the living-room window as she puttered about the lawn.

  “That’s thoughtful of her,” Augusta said, pulling aside the curtain to look. I didn’t answer. As well read as my aunt was, she knew p-turkey squat about gardening, and I was almost sure Aunt Zorah would have been the last person my mother would ask to look after her plants, especially since she knew I was perfectly capable of doing it myself.

  Later in the morning Deputy Weber called to tell me they had kept their vigil in vain the night before, but were going to try again tonight. “Just wanted to let you know in case you happened to run across one of our men—although you shouldn’t if they stay out of sight the way they’re supposed to. And I guess you know not to say anything about this to anyone else.”

  I didn’t mention Aunt Zorah was there because I wasn’t going to tell her. Maybe it’s all those years of having to be quiet in the library, but she could out-talk a preacher at an August camp meeting. My own daddy said it of her and I know it’s true.

  Later that morning we did walk over to the family graveyard and I stood off by myself for a few minutes while Aunt Zorah examined her late husband’s former resting place. She didn’t say much, just wandered around and looked at the ground like she expected to find Faris Haskell’s footprints there.

  The trench on the side of the hill was still there and still empty. I had to remind myself not to say anything about the police coming back, so I got a jolt when Aunt Zorah decided we needed to fill it in. “This is an eyesore and an abomination,” she said. “And if you’ll get a couple of shovels, we ought to be able to fill this hole in no time.”

  But I finally convinced her the sheriff was still investigating and didn’t want the evidence tampered with. “Actually some of his men will be watching this place tonight,” I admitted.

  “Thornton Bonner wouldn’t know evidence if it jumped up and snatched off that silly rug he wears on his head!” my aunt snorted. But she gave in about the shovels. I can’t say I wasn’t relieved to see her drive away soon after we got back to the house.

  Inside I found Augusta watching Casablanca featuring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman on the old movie channel. She looked up misty-eyed and silently made room for me on the sofa.

  “What happened to your aunt’s husband—I mean before this latest unfortunate incident?” she asked after the film was over. “Were the two no longer together?”

  “He was involved in some kind of crooked scheme,” I told her. “Dad never would talk about i
t around us, but I think he embezzled a lot of money. According to Mother, Uncle Faris never would admit it, but he didn’t get away with it either. If he hadn’t driven his car off Poindexter Point, he would’ve gone to jail for a long, long time.” I shrugged. “Still be there, I guess. Aunt Zorah never could forgive him.”

  Augusta made a little shame-shame sound. “Still, suicide is a no-win solution.”

  “It was either that or face Aunt Zorah,” I said. “He must’ve thought he was taking the easy way out.”

  “Prentice Dobson! Shame on you!” Augusta laughed in spite of herself. “Your aunt seems a bit of a free spirit as well, or I imagine she was in her younger days.”

  “Mom said she was sort of a beatnik-wanna-be; you know—funky clothes, weird poetry, and all that. Of course she’d never do the least thing scandalous. My heavens!”

  She nodded. “Still, she doesn’t seem all that prim and proper.”

  “Aunt Zorah was never what you’d call prim and proper, but she follows a rigid code of ethics, and don’t dare mess with her family honor! If there’s an organization of descendants of whoever, my aunt belongs to it. Dad used to call it ‘The Sons and Daughters of I Will Arise’—made Aunt Zorah spittin’ mad.” I laughed. Sometimes I forgot what a sense of humor my father had.

  Augusta had left some of my mother’s cookbooks out on the kitchen counter, and that afternoon while she caught up on her reading, I flipped through a few and rediscovered some familiar favorites. When I was about ten, Mom taught me to prepare a simple pork chop meal with onions, rice, and canned tomatoes, along with corn bread baked in a black iron skillet. For years it was the only thing I knew how to make.

  And there was no reason I couldn’t make it now. I found pork chops in the freezer, a canister of cornmeal in the refrigerator, and the other ingredients in the pantry. I smiled, remembering how my mother greased the skillet and heated it before pouring in the corn bread batter. “Now be careful, honey, it’s hot! Don’t let it spatter and burn you.” And after a few tries, she claimed my corn bread was every bit as good as hers. I stood on tiptoe to reach the blue striped bowl Mom always used to mix corn bread, found the old tin measuring cup and spoons we’d played with as babies. I almost sensed my mother beside me saying, “Go easy now. Don’t get heavy-handed with the salt.” And even though she wasn’t here at Smokerise, a little part of her remained.

  For dessert I made a pudding cake Mom always called “lemon mystery,” and it tasted every bit as good as I remembered.

  “I believe being here brings out your domestic side,” Augusta said after her second helping of dessert. “No wonder you don’t want to sell Smokerise. It’s beautiful here, Prentice. Have you considered staying?”

  “What would I do with it? I can’t commute from here. And then there’s Joey. I have to think of him.”

  She frowned. “What about Joey? Have you considered who’s going to raise him? You? Your mom? And don’t forget the other side of the family. I assume he has other grandparents too.”

  “Whose side are you on? Believe me, I don’t need reminding! I’m sure it was Sonny’s father, Pershing Gaines, who tried to follow us home from Ruby.”

  I tried to picture Sonny’s father’s face, although I’d never seen it, and I always came up with somebody with bad teeth and a beard who probably carried a club to keep defenseless females in line.

  “The weatherman mentioned the S word tonight,” I said as we cleared the table after supper. “This time I hope he’s wrong.”

  “The S word?”

  “Snow. They think there’s a chance of snow. Can you believe it after that great weather we’ve been having? I feel sorry for whoever has the duty out there tonight.”

  I automatically checked our supply of milk and bread, which is what most Georgians do anytime there’s a hint of bad winter weather. Then we all rush out and strip the grocery stores of about a month’s supply of perishables, even though the snow rarely stays on the ground for more than a day or two. This time, though, it looked as if we had enough food to get us through.

  I tried not to think of Deputy Weber or whoever was crouched out on that cold muddy hillside. After a relatively moderate morning, the temperature had inched downward throughout the afternoon, and it was supposed to drop below freezing by morning. If the person who dug that grave meant to bury somebody tonight, they’d have to move fast before the ground froze.

  Later, at Augusta’s suggestion, I picked up Dad’s old fiddle and played around with some of his favorite square dance tunes: “Turkey in the Straw,” “Skip to My Lou,” and the one I always liked best, “Ol Dan Tucker.” The fingering came back to me bit by bit, and I could almost hear Dad’s voice encouraging me. “Let the fiddle know you love it, honey. Snuggle it under your chin, stroke it tenderly, and it will love you back.” I closed my eyes, and the polished smoothness of the instrument against my cheek gave me a few minutes of something close to peace.

  It didn’t last. Not long after midnight Augusta woke me from a sound sleep to tell me she’d looked out the bedroom window to see somebody moving around our barn lot with a light.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I sat up dazed. “What kind of light?”

  “Flashlight I guess. Like a torch, moved around a lot. I wouldn’t have noticed it, but I thought I heard something out there and went to the window.” Augusta stood in my bedroom doorway wrapped in an enormous blue plaid robe of my father’s she’d found in the closet. The dim lamp in the upstairs hallway cast a halfhearted light on her sock-clad feet. “You don’t want to miss this! Hurry, you’ll see what I mean,” she urged in a loud whisper.

  I yawned, scrambling for my shoes in the dark. I wouldn’t be the least bit upset if I did miss it, but sleep was impossible now. “What time is it? Seems like I just got to bed.”

  “Almost two.” Augusta crept across the hall looking kind of like a cartoon cat sneaking up on a cartoon canary. Of course I laughed.

  “What’s so funny? Will you be quiet? And for heaven’s sake, keep down. Do you want them to see you?”

  “Good grief, lighten up! It’s probably one of the sheriff’s men. They’re supposed to be out there tonight. Remember?”

  “But aren’t they watching behind that far hill, on the other side of the cemetery?” She knelt by the window. “Look, there it is again. See . . . just beyond the barn.”

  For a fraction of a second a faint light wavered, hardly longer than a firefly’s glimmer, only there aren’t any fireflies in February.

  “What in the world do you think they’re looking for?” Augusta crouched beside me even though whoever was out there wouldn’t be able to see her. She smelled like sheets dried in the sun.

  “Don’t know. Maybe it’s Uncle Faris hunting for his coffin.” I crawled away from the light and edged into the hall.

  “That’s not funny, Prentice . . . Prentice, where are you going?”

  “To call the sheriff. Maybe somebody can tell us if that’s his man out there or one of the creeps who killed that woman and made off with Uncle Faris.”

  But the dispatcher who took my call said she would have to get back to me on that.

  “How soon will that be?” I asked. “Because if it isn’t one of them, somebody’s prowling around our barn who isn’t supposed to be there.”

  “What’d they say?” Augusta asked from across the room.

  “That she’d get the message to them as soon as she could, and for me to keep my doors locked.” I found myself whispering too. “Can you see anything else?”

  “Snow. At least I think it’s snow . . . it is! Prentice, look! It’s beginning to snow. How lovely!” Suddenly Augusta sobered. “Except that it reminds me of that awful winter at Valley Forge.”

  “Valley Forge? You were there? With Washington?”

  She nodded solemnly. “For a while. They got across the river, didn’t they? Why do you think I don’t like the cold?”

  I tiptoed clumsily to the window. I couldn’t see anyone mov
ing around, but as we watched, snowflakes, sparse at first, began falling thicker, swirling in the back porch light.

  Augusta and I padded downstairs in the dark and I put on the kettle for tea. Thank goodness Mom was a creature of habit and the canister sat in its usual place on the countertop, the mugs on the shelf above it.

  The phone rang as we sipped our hot drinks in the darkened sitting room, our hands cupped around the familiar brown mugs for warmth. The light we saw was not one of the sheriff’s men, the dispatcher told me. Sergeant Sloan and another policeman were on their way to check it out, and I was to keep the house dark and remain inside. Not a problem here, I thought.

  “We’ll do our best to keep you informed as soon as we know anything,” she said. “And the sergeant says not to answer the door unless you’re sure it’s one of them.”

  “That’s comforting,” I said, relating this to Augusta. She balled into a blue plaid wad and rolled herself cocoonlike in my grandmother’s afghan. I wrapped a scratchy blanket that smelled of mothballs about me and snuggled in Dad’s big chair. I wished we could have a fire, but that would give off too much light.

  About an hour later, Sergeant Sloan knocked at the back door to tell us they had found tracks in the barn lot and followed them partway to the road before they were obliterated by snow.

  Cottony blobs fell silently around us shrouding the landscape in a cold, soft cloak. The policemen’s boots were caked with clumps of muddy snow, and even their shoulders wore epaulets of frosty white.

  I shivered in the doorway as the two men stood on the porch stamping their feet, their faces red from the cold. “You must be freezing . . . come in and get warm,” I said. “I’m sure you could use some coffee.”

  But they didn’t want to track up the floor, they said, and besides, they had to get back to file a report. I noticed by the kitchen clock that it was almost five. After a night of tramping around in the cold and slush, I’d imagine the two would be ready for a hot shower and a big breakfast.