George, Anne (24 page)

"Death records?" the wood nymph said when I asked her. "They're over at the courthouse. We're going to get all that kind of stuff put on the computer some day, so all you'll have to do is call it up right here." She pointed vaguely toward a couple of computers that sat, unused, on a table. "But right now you're going to have to go over to the courthouse. Up on the tenth floor. Archives Department."

I cut across the park to the courthouse, remembering that the last time I had been in this park, there had been emergency vehicles flashing their lights and Judge Haskins running to tell us Meg was dead. Today a few people were sitting on benches or by the reflecting pool, eating lunch or just enjoying the spring sun. A tranquil scene.

The lobby of the courthouse was dim and cool after the brilliant sunshine outside. I found the elevators and pushed the button for the tenth floor, realizing that the reason Meg had been on the tenth floor was probably because she was looking for something in the Archives Department. I shivered.

The tenth floor seemed deserted. A double glass door at the end of the hall looked promising, though. I walked toward it and saw that it was, indeed, the Jefferson County Archives and History Department. I pushed the door open, and a woman looked up in surprise from behind a tall counter.

"I'm looking up a family," I said. "They lived in Jefferson County in the late 1800s."

The counter, I realized, was average height; the woman was very short. "Sure," she said. "What do you want? Births, deaths?"

"Deaths. I need to find out when a man's first wife died. But I need the marriages, too."

"What's the name? Some of those records are al-

phabetized. Just some of them, though."

"Johnson. I need all I can find on a woman named Elizabeth Sherman Johnson. Her husband's name was Clovis Reed Johnson."

"What is this? You're the second person this week wanting to know about Elizabeth Sherman Johnson. What is it with her?"

"Really?"

"God's truth." The short woman opened a door in the counter. "Come on back. I don't think I've even put those records up yet."

The woman was as wide as she was tall. I followed her down aisles lined with record books, where small stepladders attested to the way she reached the ones that were over five feet high.

"What did this person look like?" I asked. "The other one who wanted Elizabeth Johnson's records."

"Little bitty. Gray."

"Did she look like Jessica Tandy?"

"You know, she did. Thanks. I kept asking myself, 'Aileen, who is it this lady reminds you of?' And for the life of me, I couldn't think of it. And that was it exactly."

It was Meg. It had to be. "Did she sign anything in order to look at the records?"

"No, honey. They're here for the looking. She didn't stay but a minute, anyway."

Coming from between the aisles, we came into an area with several tables and windows that overlooked the park.

"There they are," Aileen said, pointing to a couple of large record books on the table. "I know those are the same ones." She opened the nearest one. "Let's see. Johnson, Clovis. That's an unusual name, isn't it?"

"It's his wife, Elizabeth Sherman Johnson, when I'm really interested in."

"They list them by the man, honey. Makes me furious." She ran her finger down an index. "Here's Clovis, page 219. Elizabeth should be attached. What's she done, anyway, to warrant all this attention?"

"Nothing that I know of. It's a family-tree thing."

"Family trees are for the birds." Aileen laughed at her own wit while she opened the heavy record book. I reached over to help her.

"Page 219, 219," she murmured, turning the pages. "Pages 218, page 221. Page 219?"

"What?" I asked.

"There's not a page 219." She turned back several pages and looked through again.

"Let me see," I said. She moved over and I turned the pages. 218, 221. No 219 or 220. "Is there any way it could be misnumbered? Out of place?"

"With these records, sure. But look here." Aileen, whose eyes were much closer to the book than mine, pointed. Close to the binding were a few jagged edges of paper.

"Somebody tore it out?" I asked.

"Somebody tore the son of a bitch out! Brenda!"

A voice from the stacks answered, "What? I'm dusting."

"Come here."

A tall thin woman with a red feather duster in her hand appeared from between two of the aisles.

"Look at this," Aileen pointed. "They've done it again."

Brenda came up, looked at the ragged edge, and shook her head. "Computers," she said.

"Well, I know what the answer is, Brenda," Aileen said. "How many you going to donate?"

"What laws are they breaking?" I asked. "Tearing these pages out."

"Every law in the book. Ticks me off to hell and back."

"Me, too," Brenda said.

"Well," I put my notebook back in my purse, "I guess I'll try Samford. Clovis was a Baptist preacher."

"Gonna have to put these things under lock and key," I heard Aileen telling Brenda as I left. For starters, she could try not leaving them lying out on the desk for days, I thought.

On the way to the elevator, I passed a ladies' room and decided I would be more comfortable if I took advantage of the facilities. When I entered, I found myself in what was the courthouse tenth-floor equivalent of the teachers' lounge at Alexander High. And like all teachers' lounges, it was furnished with a couple of chairs and an old sofa salvaged from someone's basement. In this case, they matched, though, rattan with faded flowered cushions. A coffee table with a cracked glass top and a nice, built-in makeup counter completed the furnishings. In the next room were four toilet cubicles and sinks. The courthouse is a nonsmoking building, but word hadn't gotten up to the ladies' room on the tenth floor. Smoke hung heavy in the air in spite of the window opened wide to the spectacular spring day.

As I was drying my hands, I walked to the window and did a double take. This was where Meg jumped. Or was pushed. I glanced down again. The view made me dizzy and I backed away, but below me was the exact spot where her body had landed. I looked around the room as if expecting some answers.

The door burst open and two young women came in laughing.

"Hi," they both said to me as they took out their cigarettes and plunked down in the chairs.

r Fifteen I was starving. I was starving for fast, fatty food. I went through the drive-in at the Green Springs McDonald's and ordered a Big Mac and a chocolate milkshake. Then I took them home, pulled off my shoes, and settled down to eat and watch
Jeopardy.
I knew the answer to the Final Jeopardy question and that, plus more fat than my digestive system usually had to cope with in a week, cheered me up. So did a message on my answering machine from Debbie that they were home, very happy, and I should give them a call.

"The most wonderful honeymoon in the world," Debbie bubbled. The quaintest inn, a wonderful fireplace in their room with a fire every night, a wonderful view of the mountains from rocking chairs across the porch. And a wonderful husband to share it with.

"I'm glad you had a wonderful time," I said.

"Thank-you, Aunt Pat," Debbie said, seriously, a sure sign of how rattled she was. "I talked to Haley, so I know about her and Philip. I think that's wonderful."

213

"Wonderful," I agreed. "And your mother got a marriage proposal."

"So I hear. I think it's—" Debbie paused.

"Wonderful?"

"Well, sure. He's getting on up there in years, though, isn't he?"

"Honey, you know that game on
The Price Is Right
where they play yodeling music while the little mountain climber chugs up to the top? And he falls over, clunk, when you overbid?"

"You're saying Mama better bid carefully?"

"Something like that. On the other hand, who knows? Buddy Johnson may outlast us all. You need to come over when you can. We've got a lot of catching up to do. This has been a busy week."

"So I hear. I couldn't believe Meg Bryan's death. She seemed fine at the wedding."

"That was just the beginning," I said.

"Well, could you and Uncle Fred come to supper tomorrow night? Henry wants to try out a new lamb recipe. I think Haley and Philip will be here, and Mama. We can hear about everything."

"That sounds wonderful," I said. We made a date for six o'clock so we would have a chance to see the twins before their bedtime.

I had been talking to Debbie at the table where I had stacked the letters from Meg Bryan's computer disk. I picked up the one on top of stack three, with the names, Williams, Murphy, Bobby, Trinity, scribbled on it. It reminded me that I hadn't found Heidi Williams like I had promised Georgiana Peach. I called Debbie back and asked her if she had a city directory.

"Sure. Right here."

"See if there's a Williams, Heidi listed. She's not in the phone book under the name Heidi, but the city directory lists wives' names separately."

"Just a minute, Aunt Pat. Talk to Fay while I'm looking."

A conversation with a child who has just turned two is exhausting. Not that Fay didn't talk; she talked a blue streak. But I didn't have the foggiest idea what she was telling me. Consequently, my side of the conversation consisted of "That's right, darling." I was glad when Debbie rescued me with the news that Heidi was, indeed, listed, and did I have a pencil?

I did and was rewarded with both Ms. Williams's phone number and address. Bless the city directory people. I called the number and got the usual answering machine. Heidi had such a strong Southern accent, her voice could have been a study for a linguistics class. Most people think Southern accents are all alike. Not so, as any Southerner can tell you. Heidi's voice was straight from the Tennessee mountains. I left a message for her to call me, and told her that Georgiana Peach was sick at University Hospital and was trying to get in touch with her. I stuck the card with the phone number and address in my purse, then turned back to the letters. The last one I read before my eyes closed in a delicious nap was one in which Meg was questioning the contraction of Pollack into Polk. Was James K. Polk's original family name Pollack? The sandman cometh; I embraced him.

An hour later, I awoke feeling like hell. I had been too sound asleep for too short a time. My head ached slightly, I had a crick in my neck, and the Big Mac seemed to have wedged sideways in my esophagus. I got up stiffly and went looking for the aspirin and Maalox, which I promptly spilled on the kitchen counter. Damn. Why is it that sleeping in the daytime seems such a great idea but leaves you feeling like a zombie?

I was holding a wet paper towel against my face when the phone rang.

"Patricia Anne?" It was Frances Zata, my friend, the counselor at Robert Alexander High. "You know we were talking about Castine Murphy?"

"I knew you would be happy to know she's turned out okay."

"Well, I went back and pulled her record here at the school. She went to Vanderbilt. Did you know that? And here's a letter from Vanderbilt in her file that she graduated magna cum laude."

"Nobody said she didn't have a brilliant mind," I grumbled. "She just did what she wanted with it."

"Were you asleep?"

"Just waking up," I admitted. "My head's loggy."

"Oh, but the idea of being able to take a nap," Frances enthused. "I've decided I'm definitely retiring this year. Why shouldn't I? I've put in my thirty years."

"You'll miss the kids," I warned. "And the school."

"About as much as you do."

Which was quite a lot. There was a large hole in my life that I still hadn't filled.

"Anyway, you know I told you her parents were killed by lightning while Castine was in college?"

"Yes, and that she didn't inherit the money everyone thought she would. She still got to finish school, though?"

"Apparently, thanks to that judge that was murdered the other day. Judge Raskins. He became her guardian. This letter is a copy of one Vanderbilt sent to him saying congratulations, that Castine was in the top five percentile of her class and would be graduating with honors."

My head wasn't loggy anymore. In fact, I felt very alert. "Judge Haskins was Cassie's guardian?"

"Fortunately, since her father had just declared bankruptcy before he died. I guess she could have done it, but that child would have had a tough time getting through school without some help."

"Judge Haskins was a bankruptcy judge," I said, putting two and two together. "I'll bet that's how he met her."

"Lucky girl," Frances said, "to have the judge step in like that."

"Hmmm."

"Anyway, I thought you might like to know, so if you see her again you can express your sympathy about the judge's death."

"Thanks." I heard bells ringing in the background.

"Gotta go, Patricia Anne. See you soon."

I hung up the phone and said, "I'll be damned." I picked up the note Meg had written with Murphy, Williams, Trinity, Bobby, Georgiana on it. Can of worms, I thought. And getting curiouser and curi-ouser. So Judge Haskins had been the teenager Cassie's guardian. That relationship should have been an interesting one. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was strictly business and paternal goodwill.