A Penny Urned

by Tamar Myers

  “Who gets custody of your children?” C.J. asked.

  “Her children are in their thirties,” I hissed. Tears filled my eyes, imperiling my mascara. “Wynnell, are you sure?”

  C.J. giggled. “Of course she’s sure. A good mama knows her children’s ages. Well, most of them at any rate. My Aunt Nellie Ledbetter had the darndest time keeping track of her kids’ ages until she had them tattooed on their little foreheads.”

  “C.J., shut up,” I said, not unkindly. I turned back to Wynnell. “Is Ed having an affair?”

  Wynnell’s hedgerows almost hit her hairline. A good geisha would get them plucked.

  “What? Abby, that’s a hoot. Ed’s no longer interested in sex. Hasn’t been for years.”

  “Please,” I begged, “don’t tell us more than we want to know.”

  “Ooh,” C.J. said, her eyes as big as the pork medallions I’d just consumed. “When a man’s no longer interested, that only means one thing.”

  “C.J!”

  “That’s okay, Abby. Let her be. Ed’s having an affair all right—with Mrs. Green. Mrs. Putting Green, if you know what I mean. That’s all he’s done since he retired. I don’t think he’ll even notice I’m gone.”

  “Of course he will. What am I saying? You’re not going! You can’t!”

  “Sorry, Abby, but you can’t stop me.”

  “But your passport!” I cried gleefully. “You don’t have your passport with you.”

  Wynnell smiled, a hint of sadness already on her face. She stood and smoothed the front of her kimono.

  “That’s why we’re leaving tonight. They’ve changed their flight to leave from Charlotte rather than Atlanta. We’ll be stopping by the house to pick it up on the way to the airport.”

  There was nothing I could do to stop her. Even if there was, it wouldn’t have been my place to do so. We are all entitled to our mistakes, even when we get to be Wynnell’s age. Who knows, just maybe it wasn’t a mistake. Maybe Ed would wake up some morning and not smell the coffee. Maybe this was just the nudge he needed.

  I sighed and hugged my best friend good-bye.

  C.J. and I returned to the Heritage. I had just handed my car keys over to the parking attendant when I smelled the cigar. I allowed my sniffer—which is vastly inferior to Mama’s—to point my eyes in the right direction, and that’s when I spotted Ralph Lizard’s shiny dome exiting a cab. It was followed seconds later by the faux blond locks of Raynatta with an A and a Y.

  “Inside, quick!” I ordered C.J.

  “But Abby, it’s so nice out here. Why don’t we stroll down to the river and see what’s happening there? Maybe we can find a nice jazz club.”

  “Just get inside,” I hissed. I grabbed C.J.’s arm and tried pulling her toward the front door. The girl doesn’t appear to be overweight, but let me tell you, she weighs a ton. I’m surprised she hadn’t sunk straight to the bottom of the Savannah River.

  “But Abby, I wanted to go upstairs at the Pirate’s House Restaurant to that nightclub. What was it called again?”

  “Hannah’s,” I huffed. “C.J., come on!”

  “That’s it! Hannah’s. I wanted to hear Emma Kelly sing. The woman of a thousand faces.”

  “You mean songs, dear, not faces.”

  “You’re right. Cousin Alma Ledbetter is the one with a thousand faces. Anyway, Abby. After we said good-bye to Wynnell, you stopped being fun. All you’ve wanted to do is come right back here to the room. You’re a spoilsport, Abby, you know that?”

  “I am not! I’m just not in the mood for—”

  “Oh, Miss Timberlake!”

  Alas, the lizard had spotted me and was scuttling in our direction. Raynatta with an A and a Y struggled to keep pace.

  “Miss Timberlake, I’m so glad I finally caught up with you again. I’ve been thinking—”

  “We’ve been thinking,” Raynatta with an A and a Y rasped. She was out of breath, even though she’d covered just a short distance. Perhaps if she lost the Y…

  “Yeah, we’ve been thinking that maybe we didn’t make ourselves too clear.”

  “Oh, but I think you did.”

  Ralph rubbed the back of his cue-ball cranium with the heel of his cigar hand. The wad of ash on the tip of his stogie made this seem like a dangerous habit.

  “No, ma’am, or else we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.”

  “That sounds vaguely like a threat, Mr. Lizard.”

  A narrow grayish tongue flicked about the corners of an almost lipless mouth. “Ma’am, that ain’t a threat at all. I just wanted to show you something.” He turned to his girlfriend. “Give it to her.

  Raynatta with an A and a Y fumbled about in a back velvet bag. “It’s in here somewhere.”

  “Damn! I told you to put it in a safe place.”

  “I did.”

  Ralph looked prepared to personally delve into that forbidden territory from which few men emerge unscarred, the female purse. You can’t imagine the look of relief on his face when a fistful of lime green fingernails with iridescent purple spots emerged holding a scrap of yellowed paper.

  “Here it is!” Raynatta with an A and a Y thrust the newspaper clipping at me.

  “Really, y’all, I don’t have time for this.”

  “Please read it, ma’am.” The woman was practically begging.

  I sighed and carefully extracted the fragile piece from the tangle of claws. The print was small, and the overhead lights not intended to facilitate reading. But I did my best just to send the pesky pair on their way. At last I handed it back.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “That article has to do with General Sherman”—I spat discreetly on the walk at my feet—“may his name not rest in peace.”

  “Yeah, but it says he stayed in that house of yours on Gaston Street.”

  That wasn’t the case at all. Near as I could make out, it was about a wealthy merchant named Charles Green who offered his house on Madison Square to the invading general. It was from this house, now referred to as the Green-Meldrim House, that Sherman sent his infamous telegram to President Abraham Lincoln. Please bear with me while I quote that audacious message:

  To His Excellency

  Dear Sir: President Lincoln

  I beg to present you as a Christmas gift, the City of Savannah with 150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition and also about 25,000 bales of cotton.

  W. T. Sherman, Maj.Gen

  I spat again. “This garbage says nothing about my house on Gaston Street.”

  Ralph Lizard snatched the ancient article from my hand. For a nanosecond our skin touched, and I can tell you for a fact that his was cool, like that of the pet snake my son Charlie tricked me into touching when he was in the seventh grade.

  “What the hel1!” He turned on Raynatta with an A and a Y. “I told you to bring the other article. The one that mentioned Sherman visiting my great-great-granddaddy Uriah P. Lizard.”

  I struggled not to spit a third time. The Daughters of Impeccable Lineage, an organization to which Mama proudly belongs, carry men’s handkerchiefs in their purses in which to expectorate every time they hear the S word. I didn’t have as much as a tissue in my purse and didn’t wish to foul the Heritage’s drive any further.

  “I brought both articles.” Raynatta with an A and a Y was pawing in the velvet bag, like a dog trying to uncover a bone. “I know the other one is in here someplace.”

  Ralph Lizard used the other S word, which I’m too much of a lady to repeat. He dropped the cigar on the walk and snatched the bag from his lady.

  “Look,” I said sternly, “I don’t know what y’all’s scheme is, but it isn’t going to work. If what you say is true, your great-great-granddaddy was a traitor, and I wouldn’t sell you my house if I was flat broke and you were the last buyer on earth.”

  “But ma’am,” Raynatta with an A and a Y wailed—she seemed desperate enough to drop the Y if I asked her—“we got it all figured out. If we charge tourists five dollars
a head to visit the house and set up a little gift shop—”

  “Shut up!” Ralph had a hand raised as if to strike his pleading platinum sidekick.

  “Just try and make me,” the woman snarled. She raised a hand of her own.

  Ralph must have thought better of tangling with the green talons, because he lowered his hand first. “Now she’ll never sell it!”

  “You’re darn tooting,” I said, and finally managed to budge C.J. by poking her in the side with the handle of a rattail comb. The girl can step lively under the right circumstances, and I managed to get her into the hotel while the lovebirds glared at each other.

  Little did I know that I was taking C.J. straight from the frying pan into the fire.

  21

  Ashley Hawkins descended on us like—well, like a hawk. She practically flew out from behind the check-in counter, her long strawberry-blond hair rising and falling like silent wings.

  “You got a message,” she said.

  I took the small sealed envelope. My name had been printed on the plain white front with black ink. The letters had not been executed with a ballpoint, because the strokes were wide in the middle and tapered at the ends, reminiscent of Far Eastern calligraphy.

  “Who from?” I asked.

  Ashley shrugged; the wings flapped one last time before coming to rest on freckled shoulders. “I don’t know. I was checking in this couple from Ottawa—they couldn’t speak a word of English—and the next thing I know, there it is lying on the counter.”

  “Well, thanks,” I said, and slipped the envelope into my pocketbook.

  “Aren’t you going to read it?”

  “Later,” I said, and gave C.J. another nudge with the rattail comb. Ashley Hawkins had a lot to learn about manners.

  “It could be really important.”

  “That’s my business, isn’t it?” I asked, not unkindly.

  “Ooh, read it!” C.J. squealed. “Maybe it’s from Wynnell.”

  After a good deal of fumbling I retrieved the envelope from the morass of extraneous items I lug around with me all day, every day. Buford used to accuse me of carrying an entire department store around in my purse, yet whenever he needed something—nail clippers, facial tissue, breath fresheners—they were always available.

  “You’re supposed to have the second sight, dear. Why don’t you tell me what’s in it.”

  C.J. snatched the envelope and pressed it to her broad forehead. “It says: ‘Dear Abby, please make sure C.J. gets first pick of my inventory.’”

  I snatched it back and laughed pleasantly. Who knew the girl had a sense of humor?

  “Wrong! Besides, you have better taste than Wynnell. You wouldn’t want her stuff in your shop.”

  “Ooh, Abby, do you really think so? That I have good taste, you mean.”

  “The best,” I said. Ironically, it was true. Well, almost true. The Rob-Bobs have better taste, but C.J.’s is surprisingly good, despite the fact that her reality piston misfires from time to time.

  The auburn hawk was still hovering about. “Open it,” she urged. “I’m dying to see what it really says.”

  I slid the rattail comb handle into a slight gap at the seal, and the envelope opened just as easily as if I’d used the ivory Victorian letter opener I keep on my desk. The missive, however, had been folded in thirds and then folded again, and it took some effort to extract it, rather like prying a walnut from its shell.

  Finally I got it loose and spread it flat against my raised thigh. Still balancing on one leg, I read aloud: Put money in palmetto leaf at base of Oglethorpe statue. “That doesn’t make a lick of sense,” I wailed.

  C.J. giggled. “Ooh, Abby, I think you got someone else’s message. That note’s meant for a drug dealer.”

  “Which I am not!” I said for Ashley’s benefit.

  The auburn tresses lifted and fell several times, but the nosy girl remained earthbound. “Sounds more like a ransom note to me,” she said.

  “What?”

  Ashley cleared her throat. “Well, suppose somebody you knew was kidnapped, and the kidnappers wrote several notes, only somebody made a mistake and left the wrong note at the wrong time.”

  I smiled pleasantly. “You have a lot of imagination. Have you ever considered writing? There is a frizzy-haired blond woman at my church who’s published a few mysteries. Maybe I could get her to look at your manuscript.”

  “I know you think I’m being ridiculous, Ms. Timberlake, but somebody you know is missing.”

  “Who?”

  “Your mother.”

  “She isn’t missing! She went to Saint Simons Island with some friends. You said so yourself.”

  “Yes, ma’am, that’s what she told me on the phone. But what if she was being forced to say that?”

  My knees felt suddenly weak. A feather brushing against their backs would have sent me collapsing like an old deck chair with loosened screws.

  “How did she sound?” I asked, my own voice barely a squeak. “Did she sound stressed?”

  Ashley wrinkled her nose in thought. “Well,” she said at last, “I didn’t really know her of course, but come to think of it, there was something really odd about the conversation.”

  “Odd? How do you mean?”

  “Well, she said things at odd times. It was kind of like—”

  “Like it had been taped?” C.J. wore a look of genuine concern.

  “Well—”

  C.J. nodded vigorously. “My granny Ledbetter used to do that all the time, only she used to pretend she was God. She had tape recorders hidden all over her house that were motion-activated. If you dropped your socks next to the hamper instead of putting them in, you heard a deep voice coming out of nowhere telling you to pick them up. Or if you were sneaking something from the refrigerator, she’d tell you to put it back. Then one day—”

  “C.J., please,” I begged.

  “I’m almost finished, Abby. Then one day she got the tapes mixed up, and after Cousin Alvin got done milking the cow, he heard a voice telling him to put it back. Well, Cousin Alvin Ledbetter O’Leary was a very religious boy and not the brightest bulb in the family chandelier, so he tried to put the milk back. Only Clarabell didn’t take kindly to that. She kicked Alvin—which is why he has two foreheads—and then she kicked over the lamp, and soon the entire city of Shelby was in flames.”

  Ashley Hawkins’s eyes were spinning like bingo numbers in a tumbler. “My, what an interesting story,” she said, the sarcasm puddling at her feet, “but my conversation with Ms. Timberlake’s mother was not taped. At least, not prerecorded. What was odd was that she kept adding things.”

  I dropped the envelope and message to grab a freckled arm. “What kind of things?” I demanded.

  “Well, things like ‘I kid you not’ and ‘Naps are for little children.’ That kind of thing. But you see, they didn’t fit into the conversation.”

  I staggered over to a leather armchair in the faux shade of a silk ficus tree. Ashley and C.J. followed close on my heels.

  “Abby, are you all right?” C.J. may have a pewter personality, but her heart is pure gold.

  “No, I’m not!” I wailed. “Mama’s been kidnapped!”

  Sergeant Albergeria didn’t seem to think so. Or least she was lying through both sets of teeth to keep me calm. We were alone in my room—something about which C.J. was not happy—and could speak without interruption.

  “Your mother drinks, right?”

  “No, she doesn’t.”

  “Not at all?”

  “Well, of course she drinks a little, she is an Episcopalian, after all. But besides communion, she might have only a glass or two of wine a month. I don’t call that drinking.”

  “I see, but it isn’t against her principles.”

  “What is your point?” I may have sounded a tad terser than I’d intended.

  “Ms. Timberlake, a lot of people change their behavior when they go out of town, and your mother said she met up with some old frie
nds, right?”

  “That’s what Ashley said.”

  “Believe me, I’ve seen it before. Old friends get together, tie one on, and the next thing you know, they’ve hopped on a plane to Rio.”

  “Rio?”

  Sergeant Albergeria grinned. “It was my ten-year college reunion in Atlanta. We drank a little too much, and I do speak a few words of Portuguese. Everyone says I had a wonderful time, but frankly, I can barely remember the plane ride back.” She must have been paying attention to my expression because she added, “Of course I was off duty the entire time.”

  “Okay,” I conceded. “Mama is unpredictable and doesn’t always make a whole lot of sense, but how do you explain the coincidence of her phone message and this note?”

  The sergeant, who had been casually examining the paper evidence, handed it back to me. “Coincidences are a dime a dozen,” she said. “You see them all the time in my line of work. But I tell you what, I’ll call Saint Simons Island and have Jim—he’s a buddy of mine on the force down there—do a little asking around. See if he’s seen a woman matching her description. I’ll ask around here too. Ms. Timberlake, I really don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

  I absentmindedly picked at a fine yellowish hair that was stuck to the glue of the envelope. Sergeant Albergeria’s words were ones I wanted to hear. And no doubt she was right. If Mama called from Nepal to tell me she’d had an audience with the Dalai Lama, I would be surprised but not shocked. And I would be surprised only because I know she doesn’t have a valid passport.

  “Thanks for the reassurance. It’s been a really stressful day—well, you know that. And speaking of which, any leads as to who might have trashed my aunt’s house?”

  “We’re still working on that, ma’am. There are no signs of forced entry. Whoever did it had a key.” Her voice rose just enough to imply a question.

  “What? Surely you don’t mean me.”

  The sergeant shook her pretty head. She had thick chestnut locks, the kind that never look mussed. What a blessing it must be to have every day be a good hair day.

  “No, ma’am. But can you think of anyone to whom your aunt might have given keys? Do you know any of her friends, for instance?”