by Donna McLean
Addie replied, “Yes, sir, she called an hour ago and said that they would be here by three o’clock. And she said for you to rest until they arrived!”
“Can’t do that,” McGrady said. “Got to keep my eyes open. Haven’t seen those two young’uns since the day they were born!”
“Poor Sarah, rest her soul. You say she’s been gone for ten years now?” Tilda asked.
The old man nodded, his eyes gleaming with unshed tears. “Buried her in the little chapel over at Bedford, the place they’d been living. She had a lot of friends over yonder, and the twins had a good upbringing.”
Addie phrased the next question with caution, remembering her first visit to the old man. “And you kept tabs on them all their lives?” To her relief, the gentleman seemed to want to talk about it, at last.
“Yes, I sure did. The old housekeeper, the one who was here before Hannah, knew they went to South Carolina soon as they left Sparrow Falls. Sarah wrote to her for a little while, until that lazy fellow she married up and left them. The letters stopped coming after that and so I hired a detective to find out what was going on. He told me that she had taken the twins to Bedford, a little town about a hundred miles up the road, and got a good job and a nice place to live. He didn’t let on that he was tracing her, of course. That would have just made her keep on running. From me.” McGrady’s expression saddened.
Addie picked up the glass of water and handed it to him. He sipped it and resumed the story.
“Well, be that as it may. I got hold of a lawyer over there in Bedford, and he made sure Sarah and the twins had everything they ever needed, but she never knew any of it was from me. It was always an anonymous donor from a church, or a neighbor moved away and left brand new bicycles behind, or some such thing. I never knew what all he told them, but he took care of Sarah and my grand-youngun’s, just the way I wanted him to.”
“And you never told a soul, you old jaybird!” Tilda teased. The old man grinned.
Peggy tiptoed into the outer sitting room and called softly to the visitors. “Ms. Tilda! Officer Campbell is downstairs. He wants to see Mr. McGrady. Is that all right?”
McGrady nodded.
Tilda called, “Yes, send him on up.”
The old man frowned. “Tilda, just how many womenfolk are sitting downstairs in my parlor, anyway? They will be eating me out of house and home!”
The little lady patted his shoulder. “Oh, hush! Somebody has to answer the phone and the door, and look after things in the kitchen. They’re here to help you, Lach McGrady, and you know it!”
His face crinkled and he laughed, a weak imitation of his former cackle. “Bless their hearts, y’all have been good to me,” he said.
Officer Campbell entered the room, his cap under one arm. “Good afternoon, Mr. McGrady. Can I have a few minutes of your time?”
“Yes, sir, just have a seat, young fellow.”
“We’ll step into the other room,” Tilda whispered, but the old man waved a hand.
“You will do no such thing, Tilda MacArdan! You and that little one will sit right here with me and hear everything the policeman has to say. That all right with you, Campbell?”
“Yes, sir, that’s fine.”
“Good. Go ahead, son.”
Campbell said, “I thought you would like to know that Richard Frederick confessed to the murder, and told us a few things we hadn’t known before. The motive was just as Ms. Tilda suspected—”
The elderly gent’s hands began to tremble. Campbell paused briefly and glanced at Tilda.
“Never thought the man would do something like that,” Lach McGrady said. “Never dreamed he had it in him! Why, he was always such a wet noodle. A stuffed shirt. Never stood up to me in all the years he worked for me, not even once. Never asked for a raise, never complained about anything. I feel right bad about it now.”
“Go on, Douglas,” Tilda murmured.
Campbell cleared his throat and McGrady fell silent. “Frederick didn’t have an alibi for that night at the restaurant. Apparently he never dreamed we would ever ask him to prove his whereabouts. And he gave us the gun. It’s a match.”
Addie asked, “What about the things that were found next to the river?”
“Said he wanted us to stop looking for Hannah, so he staged her death. It sounded strange to me—”
McGrady struggled to sit up in the bed. “That dang fool! I told him to make the police stop looking for Hannah!”
Everyone looked surprised. Tilda said, “You did, Mr. McGrady?”
“You bet I did! Didn’t want nobody spoiling anything. I sent Hannah to fetch the twins, that night she didn’t come back from the store. Didn’t think it would take her such a long time. She hadn’t shown up when I thought she would, and by that time the whole town was in an uproar! The disappearance was all over the news, and the police kept asking questions and poking into things, and I wanted it to stop so Hannah could find the twins and bring them home. I told that Richard Frederick to do something to call off the search. Figured he would file some kind of legal paperwork or use that fancy language or something to make them stop. Didn’t know he went and made people think Hannah was dead!”
Campbell replied, “He thought he could find Hannah and get to the twins before they ever found out what was happening back here. So he tore up a note Hannah had written, and placed the part with the words ‘I can’t go on’ inside her purse. Then he put that, with the shoes, on the riverbank. It could have worked, only, of course, we never recovered her body. That made us suspicious.”
“I wish you had told me that part, Douglas Winton!” Tilda sounded upset. “Y’all had me believing Hannah was dead and gone. I sure did grieve for my good friend Hannah Smith.”
Douglas Campbell looked at her kindly. “I’m sorry, Ms. Tilda. Somebody wanted us to believe that Hannah was dead, and we had to be careful. If you had known there was any real doubt about it, it may have put you in danger, too.”
Addie spoke up. “So Richard Frederick’s plan was to use the codicil to inherit the estate, and that’s why he killed the con man. Then Frederick needed to prevent the twins from returning to Sparrow Falls, for the same reason. What did he intend to do if he found Hannah and/or the twins?”
“Told us he hoped to pay them off so they would go away and he could still inherit.”
McGrady snorted. “That don’t make good sense. Why would they pass up their rightful inheritance for a few measly dollars?”
Campbell shrugged. “I think, by that time, Frederick was grasping at straws. He was desperate and knew his plan would probably fail, but he had to keep trying. I don’t believe he would have hurt Hannah, though, if that is any comfort to you, Mr. McGrady. He’s pretty torn up over killing a stranger.”
“A sad, sad story,” Tilda murmured, and the others agreed.
A soft knock sounded on the door of the outer sitting room, and Tilda hopped to her feet and ran to answer it.
Lach McGrady’s eyes followed her, an expression of anxiety mingling with hope on his wrinkled face.
Campbell and Addie slipped quietly to one side of the room to make a way for the old man’s much anticipated visitors.
“Bless your heart, Hannah, I sure am happy to see you!” Tilda said, her voice coming from the next room.
They could hear excited chatter and approaching footsteps. Lach McGrady leaned forward eagerly.
Hannah Smith entered the room first and hurried to the elderly man’s side, her plain face beaming. “It’s me, Mr. McGrady, and I’ve brought you some very special visitors, just like you asked!”
He grabbed her by the hand but, unlike the usually talkative Lach McGrady, did not say a word. He craned his neck to stare at the open doorway.
Two tall, thin people paused in the sitting room and peered into the bedroom. They seemed hesitant and even a bit shy until the old man yelled, “You two young’uns get in here! About time I saw my own grandchildren!”
They took a few careful steps
into the room, and stopped.
Lach McGrady looked at them and said, awestruck, “You’re my kin. My only kin! Andrew Wythe, the one they always called Andy. And Anna Belle, the one they always called Annie. I’ve heard about y’all all my life, and now I finally get to see you!”
The man and the woman exchanged glances, smiled at the elderly man and ran to his side. These two people bore a striking resemblance, not only to each other, but to the McGrady clan in general. Both had dark, curly hair and big dark eyes like their mother, Sarah McGrady Wallace. Both had mischievous grins like their rascally old grandfather, Lachlan McGrady. He grabbed the young woman’s hand and touched the young man’s shoulder with trembling fingers as though he could not believe his eyes, and a slow tear slid down one cheek.
The woman leaned forward and hugged him. “Don’t cry, Granddaddy, we’re finally together after all these years!”
Tilda, Addie, Douglas and Hannah tiptoed out of the room, and the newly reunited family did not even notice their silent departure. The housekeeper shut the bedroom door softly and they all sat down together in the sitting room.
“Now I want to know where you were and what happened and why you sent me that letter, Hannah Smith!” Tilda demanded, but her voice was affectionate. The spry senior was still so happy to see her friend again, alive and well and back in Sparrow Falls where she belonged.
“I’d kind of like to know the answer to that one, too,” Campbell said wryly.
Hannah replied, “Well, it was mostly because of Mr. McGrady. Imagine my surprise when he called me into his room the other day, made me shut the door behind me and said, ‘Hannah Smith, I am now swearing you to secrecy and putting my entire life in your hands!’ Just like that! And then he told me that he knew where the twins were and who they were, and had known about them all their lives! You could have knocked me over with a feather, I was that surprised!”
Tilda nodded. “Yes, I thought as much. Do go on!”
“Mr. McGrady told me not to tell anybody. Not anybody! He said, do not tell Ms. Tilda, and do not tell any of your friends, and do not tell Dr. Jones, and most of all, do not ever tell that Mr. Frederick! That kind of surprised me, too. The fact that even Mr. Frederick didn’t know about the twins, and that Mr. McGrady didn’t want him to know!” Hannah paused and gulped. “Then he gave me an address in Bedford, about a hundred miles away from here. He told me to go there, and talk to the man whose name was on the envelope he handed to me. Mr. McGrady said, ‘Do not open this here envelope and do not give it to anyone else, only to Mr. Phineas Phillips! Do you understand me?’ He said it very severe like. And I said, yes, Mr. McGrady, I do understand. And then he said, and this floored me, that Mr. Phillips knew who the twins were and where to find them, and that when I gave him that letter he would go fetch them, and that I was to bring the twins home to Sparrow Falls! And that I was not to say a word about it to anybody, not anybody at all, until after the twins had been reunited with their grandfather. He made me promise that!”
“Why did it take you so long, Hannah? You were gone a couple of weeks and we sure were worried sick about you,” Tilda said.
The kindly housekeeper put her hands on her cheeks. “Oh, Ms. Tilda, I feel so bad about that. As a matter of fact, I heard a little something on the news one day about the police searching for a missing housekeeper from Sparrow Falls! And I just knew it had to be about me! So I scribbled that note in a hurry and mailed it, and I hoped and I prayed that Mr. McGrady wouldn’t find out I did it. He told me not to say one word to anybody, but I couldn’t let y’all go on thinking I was dead. So I thought, maybe that will take care of the problem until I get back. I drove over to the little town next to Bedford and dropped it in a mailbox.”
“I wish you had contacted me, Hannah,” Campbell said gravely.
Hannah looked shamefaced. “I’m sorry, Officer Campbell, but I was certain you would tell Mr. McGrady and then I would be in big trouble! And I wasn’t really sure, but somehow I had the feeling it might put the twins in danger, too. It was all so mysterious, and so sudden, and Mr. McGrady was so determined to keep everything a big secret! So I thought, I’ll write to Tilda, and she will understand.” She beamed at the little lady.
“I appreciate it, Hannah, but that still doesn’t explain why you were gone for so long,” Tilda said.
“Well, wouldn’t you know it! After all that secrecy and rushing around and everything, I got to Bedford and Mr. Phillips was gone to some tropical island on vacation! And the secretary told me it would be at least another week and a half before he returned! So there I sat, with that sealed letter in my hand, not knowing exactly what it said but knowing that it was very important. And I had been told not to give it to anyone but Mr. Phineas Phillips, and not to tell anyone where I had gone, and not to even call Mr. McGrady or anyone else in Sparrow Falls on the telephone! So I decided I would just have to wait until Mr. Phillips got back. So that’s exactly what I did. I found a nice little hotel and I just stayed in Bedford until the day he returned, and then I went straight to his office that very morning and laid the letter on his desk. I said, ‘This is a very important letter from Mr. Lach McGrady of Sparrow Falls!’ That is exactly what Mr. McGrady told me to say when I gave it to Mr. Phillips. Said that is all I would need to say. And he was right! Mr. Phillips looked so surprised, and he grabbed that letter and opened it, and read the letter, and told me to have a seat and his secretary would bring me some coffee and a doughnut or whatever I wanted, and it would be just a few minutes and then we would go fetch the twins! They were awful nice to me at Mr. Phillips’ office after I handed him that letter.”
TWENTY TWO
Tilda MacArdan and Addie McRae approached the elegant McAndrews House on foot, and the strawberry blond paused to read the historical marker that stood just outside the black wrought iron entrance.
“Built 1900 in the popular Italianate style by wealthy industrialist James Archer McAndrews for his wife, Constance. The garden contains plants original to the home and its design has been carefully preserved.”
She eagerly pushed the little gate open and peered into the garden. A winding brick pathway, aged by smooth green moss, beckoned the women to come inside for a leisurely stroll.
“This is absolutely charming, Tilda!” Addie gazed around them with delight. Most of the plants were just beginning to bloom, in all colors and sizes. Placed between the flowering shrubs of azalea and camellia and the rosebushes were topiaries of ivy, some shaped into geometric forms and others in whimsical designs of rabbits or cats or other animals. Stone benches were placed at intervals beneath tall pines or shady oaks. The narrow brick path wended its way throughout the tiny garden.
“I wish I had more time to see everything,” Addie said wistfully.
“Oh, you don’t have to rush off somewhere today, do you, Addie?” Tilda protested. “I hoped you could visit the inside of the house, too. It’s really beautiful! And you should see it at the same time you see the garden. You really should!”
The strawberry blond shook her head. “I really don’t have time. I have to get ready for an interview regarding an article I’m writing.”
“But you don’t have to meet the person today, do you? I mean, you’re just thinking up questions to ask and things like that. Might be good to visit a new place, a place you haven’t seen before. Might be good to see some purty artwork and a lovely old home, full of charm and southern graciousness. That could get your imagination going real good, couldn’t it?” Tilda did her best to be persuasive, and Addie finally relented, with a smile.
“I guess a few minutes won’t hurt. I can always come back another day for a more leisurely visit.”
Ms. MacArdan beamed and scurried up the wide steps of the wraparound porch. “Let’s go in this side door, Addie, and it will take us right straight to the grandest ballroom you have ever seen in your life!”
“Don’t we have to use the official entrance, Tilda?”
The little lady tossed a han
d in the air and laughed. “No, the folks here won’t mind a bit. I used to be a docent for them, a few days a week, before I got so busy with the garden club.”
“I wondered how you knew your way around,” Addie teased. She followed the spry senior up the steps and through a large glass door and they entered a pretty room with big windows that looked out into the garden from which they had come. The air inside was cooler, but it still felt like an early spring day in the south.
“Now the ballroom is right through these doors,” Tilda said in a loud voice. She grasped twin doorknobs on a pair of huge, intricately carved double doors that stretched all the way to the ceiling, and opened them simultaneously.
Addie gasped. The room was filled with bright sunlight from windows that stretched two stories tall on three walls, and met a vaulted ceiling that was painted in pastels and etched with gold. Her face upturned, she stared at beautiful moldings and intricate designs, the entire room seeming to her like a tiny jewel box that had suddenly grown life-sized. Tilda quickly stepped into the room, followed by Addie, and their footsteps echoed lightly on a polished wooden floor.
Tilda said sweetly, “Addie, honey, I believe someone is here to see you.” She winked and slipped out, closing the doors softly behind her.
Addie McRae looked around, curious. A tall man stood at the far end of the room, his back to her as he stared out a window, waiting in composed silence. Streams of sunlight glinted off his golden-brown hair.
The strawberry blond curled her hands into fists and stuck them against her hips. “Pearce Allen Simms!” she roared.
The young man tilted his head back and raised his eyes upward in a gesture of despair. His shoulders slumped. He exhaled before he turned around to face her.
Addie swaggered toward him, slowly; her chin raised in defiance, their gazes meeting with magnetic force.
He stood perfectly still and she stopped just within arms’ reach. “You!” she spat.