by Tamar Myers
“Tourists like a good show. Ever since The Book there’s been a good market for voodoo spells. A good curse can go for a thousand dollars.”
“Aha!” I cried. “You said you didn’t do curses. You called it devil stuff.”
“So, I lied. I was trying to sound you out. To get a feel for what sort of people you are.”
“Why? So you could fleece us?”
The older woman patted her mojo pouch with its disgusting chicken foot. It was like watching Mama pat her pearls.
“I don’t want your money, Miss Timberlake. I want you to do right by my great-granddaughter.”
“Come again?”
“Amanda,” she said proudly. “Amanda Gabrenas.”
23
“You’re kidding!”
“Watch it, Abby,” C.J. warned. “This may be part of her scam.”
Diamond shook her head like a goat with its head stuck in a pail. “Amanda Gabrenas is my great-granddaughter. Her mama, Rose, was my granddaughter. Rose’s daddy was my firstborn, John. Rose’s mama was—uh—well, she was your aunt.”
“So that’s the connection,” I said. “How interesting!”
Diamond gave her head a final shake. “You don’t seem surprised.”
“I’m not—well, not too surprised. I knew Amanda was my Aunt Lula Mae’s granddaughter. I just didn’t know how you fit in the picture. So your son John was my uncle?”
“John was not your uncle,” Diamond said, her voice tinged with bitterness.
“Amanda said he was.”
“Well, he wasn’t. Not legally. Such a thing wasn’t possible then.”
“Hey, it wasn’t my fault.”
She sighed. “No, I guess it wasn’t. But I have a right to blame that crazy aunt of yours. I told my John that hanging around with white trash would ruin his life, and that’s exactly what happened.”
“Wait just one cotton-picking minute! My aunt was not trash! She was bohemian, a free spirit.”
Diamond’s cackle would have made a laying hen jealous. “Bohemian! Free spirit! Sure, she could afford to be a free spirit, because she was free. It wasn’t the same for a black man back then. Still isn’t, if you ask me.”
“Which we didn’t,” C.J. said loyally.
“C.J., hush.” I turned back to Diamond. “Look, I’m sorry if you think my aunt ruined your son’s life. But like I already said, it isn’t my fault.”
Diamond’s eyes glittered like the jewel for which she was named. “Maybe, maybe not. It depends on what you’re doing to change the status quo, because if you’re not part of the solution—”
“You’re part of the problem. That’s a cliché, and I resent your implication that I might be racist—well, any more of a racist than you are. Because face it, we all have tribal baggage we need to dump if we’re going to get along in this world. And for the record, I think it’s neat that Amanda is my cousin.”
“Yeah, she’s almost as white as you.”
“That’s unfair, and you know it. I’d feel the same way if Moriah Johnson was my cousin.” I gasped. “Is she my cousin as well?”
Diamond stared at me.
“Is she?”
“No,” she said at last. “Moriah is my John’s daughter by his wife. His legal wife. She died the year he met your aunt. John loved his wife so much. It was grief over losing her that caused him to act crazy and take up with—”
“Don’t even go there!”
She nodded. “Amanda is my concern now. Like I said, all I want is that you do right by her.”
“What exactly do you mean by that?”
Diamond took a step forward. It wasn’t a threatening move, nonetheless both C.J. and I, who were still sitting on the base of the temple, leaned back away from the woman. As a general rule, I like to keep a certain distance between myself and folks flaunting fowl feet.
“I want my great-granddaughter to inherit that woman’s estate.” Diamond spoke slowly, as if trying to recall rehearsed words. “Not everything, of course, but her fair share. After all, she is a direct descendant.”
“She can have it all.”
Diamond stepped back. “What did you say?”
“I said—”
“She didn’t say anything!” C.J. practically broke my eardrums.
“Stay out of it, C.J.!”
‘But Abby—”
“Shut up, dear.” I smiled at Diamond. “I mean it. I want Amanda to inherit my aunt’s estate. Her entire estate. It’s only fair.”
“You’re serious?” Amanda’s great-grandmother sounded just like Mama when she pretends to open the door to Ed McMahon. Diamond, thank heavens, was not wearing a pink chiffon bathrobe.
“Absolutely. But there is a condition.”
I could feel Diamond’s sigh on my bare legs. “I knew it.”
I swallowed my irritation. Fortunately it was time for a midmorning snack.
“Don’t jump to conclusions. It could be dangerous at your age. You might fall and twist your ankle or something.”
“Very funny.”
“Thank you. Sarcasm has always been my forte. Anyhow, I just want to know something.”
Diamond scowled. “If you think I want that money for myself, you’re wrong!”
“You’re jumping again,” I said with commendable patience. “I merely want to know how it is you knew I was coming to town. I mean, it wasn’t a coincidence that we met, was it?”
“That’s all you want? That’s your condition?”
I glanced at my watch. “As of this moment.”
Diamond’s face softened. “Now that I can help you with. But you have to promise to keep this to yourself.”
“Sorry, ma’am, but I’m not going to buy a pig in a poke.”
“Well, I can’t say that I blame you. Okay. But I’ll deny it if he asks me.”
“Deny what?” C.J. demanded. “Ooh, Abby, don’t believe a word this woman says.”
I patted C.J.’s arm in an attempt to calm her. “She said you had the second sight, dear.”
C.J. jerked her arm away. “But I don’t have the second sight! If I did, I would have known she was a fraud.”
“C.J., please!”
“But Abby, she’s not even a real voodoo priestess, she already admitted that, and—”
“C.J., take a hike!”
Much to my astonishment, C.J. hauled her lanky frame off the temple base and lit out for a group of tourists that had wandered into our section. Why was I not surprised to see Wilma Pridgen, the lady with the spring festival of flowers for a hat, in charge? At any rate, C.J. blended right in with the group, and when a few minutes later they were picked up by a chartered bus, she clambered aboard as well.
Diamond and I watched in astonishment. Finally she turned to me.
“You’re really hard on your daughter, you know that?”
“She is not my daughter!” I wailed.
“Uh-huh.” She didn’t sound at all convinced.
“Do we look alike?”
Diamond’s smile was slow and deliberate. “All you white folks look alike to me.”
“Be careful what you say. Your great-granddaughter Amanda passes for white.”
“Touché.”
“So, Diamond, if indeed that is your real name, who put you on to me? Who told you I was here?”
“Dewayne Kimbro.”
“So much for lawyer-client confidentiality!”
“Dewayne is a good man, Miss Timberlake. He went to school with my daughter Rose back when they were first desegregated. He sat next to her on the bus. Wouldn’t let any of the troublemakers mess with her.”
I nodded. “But that still doesn’t explain how you caught up with us at the cemetery.”
“Ah, that. Well, I may not be a voodoo priestess, but I am not without, uh—shall we say, special gifts?”
“Right.” To better let the sarcasm drip from my lips, I bent over to scratch a mosquito bite on my left ankle. “I suppose you’re going to tell me you have this
homing instinct that allows you to zero in on people if they’re within a certain range and that you can just pop in on folks and then disappear at will. Kind of like what’s her name?—yeah, Barbara Eden on that TV show I Dream of Jeannie.”
Diamond didn’t answer. When I looked up, she was nowhere in sight.
I sat there on the base of the Grecian temple and thought. I pondered for about as long as it took for Greek civilization to rise and fall. The dome offered shade for my head and torso, whereas the sun felt good on my legs, especially my mosquito bite. The birds—one mockingbird in particular—provided background music for my little melodrama.
For that’s exactly how I was feeling: melodramatic. Here I was sitting alone in a cemetery, for crying out loud! I was forty-eight years old, divorced, and unable to commit to a kind, gorgeous man whose only fault—that I could remember at the time—was wandering eyes. I seemed to be alienating all my friends, and even my mama, bless her padded little bosom, had deserted me. Well, at least I had a cat!
Of course, given my luck, Dmitri would hiss at me next time I saw him. But who could blame him? Being locked up in a cage in a strange house like that. Well, at least he was safe. Lord only knows what might have happened if I’d schlepped him around town with me.
It’s a wonder I was still functionally sane, what with all the weird people I’d encountered in the last couple of days. Men with names like Lizard and Bleeks. Women with single Ts in their names, and As and Ys that had no business being there. Not to mention folks of both sexes who popped up hither, thither, and yon, as wanted as pimples on your prom night. Bald heads, platinum tresses, wobbly necks, garden hats, white out of season—folks up in Charlotte seemed positively normal by comparison. And then there was that bizarre note of the cat hair—a yellow cat hair!
I sat bolt upright. No, it couldn’t be! Could it? Why on earth would Lougee Hawkins, owner of Velvet Paws, kidnap my ten-pound baby? Unless she thought I was loaded. But where would she get that idea? From Mama! My petite, pearl-patting progenitress had blabbed to Ashley, the desk clerk, that I was in town to inherit a fortune. And Ashley was Lougee Hawkins’s sister.
I gasped. That was it! After Ashley gave me the note, she stuck as close as white on rice until I read it. There hadn’t been any mention of a sum, but hadn’t the strawberry-blond clerk herself suggested that it may have been a ransom note out of order? She’d even gone so far as to make me fear for Mama’s safety. Why would she do that? Unless—oh, no, now I was being silly. Sergeant Albergeria was sure Mama was just where she said she would be, down on Saint Simons Island partying with friends.
It was absolutely ridiculous, and harmful, for me to entertain, even for a second, the idea of Mama locked in a cat cage while two incompetent sisters got their messages sorted out. But Mama, who is only three inches taller than I, would certainly fit in a cage the size of the ones I’d seen at Velvet Paws. What if she had been in one of these cages since the day before? What if the wicked sisters were feeding her nothing but cat chow and water? What if they made her use a litter box?
Obviously I needed a reality check. I slapped my cheek with my right hand and touched it gingerly with my left. Perhaps I was crazy as a loon—maybe even as crazy as C.J.—but I definitely felt the pain. And the dread.
There was only one way to find out. I left my car parked in the cemetery under the spindly cherry laurel and set out on foot to Velvet Paws. Lacking cat feet I can’t quite creep as silently as fog. But mine are tiny feet, and I did a pretty good job. Or so I thought.
24
My tiny feet took me on a detour to the cemetery office to use a telephone. Sergeant Albergeria was out on a call, and I got Dewayne Kimbro’s answering machine. Thank heavens Albert Quarles picked up on the second ring as usual.
“Albert. Abby.”
“Abby! I was just thinking about you. In fact, my son was saying—”
“Look, Albert, I don’t have much time. I’m calling from the phone in the cemetery office at Bonaventure. It isn’t a public phone, and besides, folks come drifting in and out of here like flies on baking day.”
“I understand. What can I do for you, Abby?”
I took a deep breath. “Albert, at the risk of sounding paranoid, I just want you to keep track of my whereabouts. You know, in case something happens to me.”
He wasted a precious moment in silence. “Abby, please explain.”
“Well, you see—uh—I know this is going to sound crazy, but I have a feeling the owner of Velvet Paws is holding my mother for ransom.”
Another precious moment dragged by. “What is Velvet Paws?”
“It’s a boarding kennel,” I said irritably. “For cats. It’s about a quarter of a mile from here toward town. I think that’s where they’ve got Mama.”
“Who is they, if you don’t mind my asking? And why would they be holding your mother for ransom?”
“They is Lougee Hawkins and her sister, Ashley. Lougee is the owner of Velvet Paws, but Ashley is a desk clerk at the Heritage. When we checked in, Mama bragged to Ashley about me being related to Lula Mae. She must have gotten the impression we were rich. Anyway, I think the sisters might be in cahoots.”
“Have you called the police?”
“I don’t have any proof, Albert. I was going to run my theory by Sergeant Albergeria, because she was there when I got the ransom note—”
“There’s a ransom note?” He was finally shifting into gear.
“Well, not exactly. Look, like I said, I can’t really talk now. I just wanted to let someone know where I am while I do a little investigating on my own. Will you be home for, say, another hour?” It would take a good fifteen minutes just to walk to Velvet Paws, more like twenty if I was to mimic a feline.
“I’ll make a point of it, Abby. I’ll be right here.”
“Thanks. And I’ll call you as soon as I learn something. If I don’t call you…” My voice trailed off as I thought of the possibilities. Given more time, I would have asked in the cemetery office about the price of plots. Perhaps there was a vacancy near Johnny Mercer. The steady stream of tourists would certainly alleviate boredom.
“You be careful, Abby.”
“I will.”
“I mean it. Watch your back at all times. Damn, I wish you had a cell phone.”
It was sweet of Albert to be so concerned. “Yeah, I’ll have to get a cell phone. Okay, Albert, I have to go.”
I hung up. A family of tourists had waddled in. And although it may sound unkind, I meant that literally. There were four of them, mother, father, and two teenage kids, but they shared enough excess poundage to create a third child. They were all sweating profusely, their corn-belt faces beet-red from the sun. Upon spotting me, the mother lit up like the dome light on Sergeant Albergeria’s cruiser.
“Where’s the statue?” she demanded, lumbering at me.
I tensed. If the woman didn’t stop in time, I was going to find myself suddenly taller, albeit a good deal thinner.
“What statue, ma’am?”
Mrs. Iowa came to a shuddering stop just in the nick of time. “You know, the one on the cover of The Book. The one of that little girl holding two bowls.”
“Ah, that. Those aren’t bowls,” I said, thinking creatively. “Those are offering plates. They keep the statue in one of the downtown churches, but I forget which one.” Actually, I had no idea of the statue’s whereabouts, neither did I care.
Fleshy as it was, her brow managed to furrow. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I ducked the ponderous bosoms and scurried out the door, swearing softly to myself the entire time. Heaven forfend Mama should be held captive in a cat cage a second longer just because some tourist family was too cheap to buy a guide.
It took me longer to get to Velvet Paws than I’d anticipated. The shoulder of the road was sandy, and the sand kept getting in my loafers. I preferred to walk on the pavement, but the volume of traffic made this impractical, if not downright dangerous. It was l
ike step aerobics class. Finally, after nearly being creamed by a tour bus traveling at twice the speed limit, I made peace with sand-filled shoes.
Just before I reached the corner of the Hawkins property, I stopped and surveyed the front of the long, narrow lot. Like many older homes on the coastal plain, Lougee Hawkins’s house did not have a garage. Unlike most, it didn’t even have a carport, just a sandy driveway that ended in a small circle in front of the main entrance. To my relief the drive was devoid of cars.
On the chance that Lougee might still be home or return at any minute, I elected to trespass rather than make myself vulnerable. Fortunately the adjacent yard was bordered by a hedge of red-tip photinias. The shrubs were probably waist high to their owner, but they were head high to me, so I was able to progress unseen until I was even with Velvet Paws. If Lougee’s neighbor noticed my presence, he or she was too polite to object.
Once even with the house, I climbed through the hedge and made a quick dash to the cover of one of the enormous camellia bushes that all but obscured the front door. I hadn’t realized it before, but the treelike plants had been planted in front of windows. Camellias are evergreen, and no doubt because they do such an effective job of screening, the windows were without curtains or blinds. I peered cautiously into the Hawkins house. The living room was just as messy as I remembered, if not more so. A bra had joined the panties on the living room floor, and the stacks of dirty dishes now rose precariously high wherever there was a flat place. There was, however, no sign of Lougee Hawkins or Mama.
I crept around the house, keeping to camellias and azalea for cover. The back bedroom was so cluttered it took me several precious minutes to determine that it too was unoccupied. With my heart pounding loud enough to wake the nearby dead, I inched around the corner of the house and stole a peek at the back porch.
No humans, just cats. Although I couldn’t be positive, the occupants of the first three cages appeared to be the same cats I’d seen when I’d dropped off Dmitri. I can’t tell you what a relief it was to see their miserable faces; at least the evil Lougee didn’t eat cats.