George, Anne (5 page)

"Hand me that front briefcase, Bobby." Meg said. She took it from the judge and riffled through it, drawing out a manila envelope. "You show me yours and I'll show you mine."

"My office is right over at the courthouse, Meg. Just across the park."

"Let's go." Meg Bryan pushed her chair back. "I'll be in the Southern Department at the library in a little while, girls. Probably by the time you finish your coffee. Would you mind meeting me up there with my briefcases?"

Mary Alice and I looked at each other.

"Fine." Meg Bryan and Judge Haskins exited the dining room.

"What the hell was that about?" Sister wondered.

"Who knows? Here," I cut Meg's cheesecake in half, "there's more for us."

"Your anorexia's better, isn't it?" Sister said. Sometimes I think she really believes I'm anorexic.

"I'm forcing myself."

Mary Alice had recovered from her slight bout with empty-nest syndrome and was in a good humor today. "What do you suppose is on that computer?" She pointed toward the chair.

"Nothing we would recognize if we saw it." I held the last bit of cheesecake on my tongue, savoring it. "Do you think this is Sara Lee?"

"Don't be silly. They make their own desserts here."

"Well, it could be. Sara Lee's great. Put your own topping on it and everybody thinks you made it yourself. Henry says a lot of restaurants do that."

Sister shrugged and looked thoughtful. "Maybe we ought to let Meg look up our family tree."

It was my turn to shrug. "You and Fred. And you know what you're going to find? Horse thieves. Murderers. You'd be as unhappy as that woman was at the wedding. That Camille Atchison. Who was she, anyway?"

"I have no idea. Somebody from Henry's list." She took her last bite of cheesecake. "It still might be fun. I'll bet we have all kinds of interesting ancestors. I wonder how much she charges."

I was chasing graham-cracker crumbs around my plate with my fork. "Meg? A lot. Probably by the hour."

"That's okay."

"Maybe for you, Miss Moneybags. Fred's going to do his own." I gave up on the last of the crumbs. "Come on. Let's go over to the library. See what's available."

We collected Meg Bryan's briefcases and headed for the Southern Department on the third floor of the research library. The downtown Birmingham Public Library should be added to the list of things that surprise people who come to the city for the first time. Actually two large buildings connected by a walkway over the street, it boasts the largest circulation of any library in the South. So much for stereotypes. Ala-bamians read.

The research library is housed in what was the main library. It has high vaulted ceilings, murals of mythological figures, and row after row of study tables and lamps that are well-used. And unlike the new, modern building across the street, it smells like a library, a combination of old books, ink, furniture polish, floor wax. It's as distinctive as the smell of a school.

I sniffed appreciatively as we crossed the main reading room to the elevators.

"You need a Kleenex?" Sister asked.

And then we were in the department where I had had my first job. A portrait of Miss Boxx, the lady who had been responsible for this impressive collection of Southern history, stared at me as sternly as she had when I was nineteen. The artist had captured her daring anyone to mess up what she had spent years amassing.

"The genealogy stuff is over here," I said, turning left.

"Good God!" Sister said as a dozen Megs looked up from the tables to see who had come in. They all frowned and then resumed their work.

"They all look alike," Sister whispered.

"I think it's the same bunch that was here forty years ago." We giggled and got the same frowns. "Come on, let's look at some Georgia stuff. Fred said his great grandmother or somebody was born in Madison."

"What was her name?"

"I don't know. Maybe we'll run up on some Tates. Everybody in Alabama came from Georgia or South Carolina. Or Virginia."

"That really narrows it down." Mary Alice followed me to the Georgia section. Bound records are arranged alphabetically by states.

"Land grants?" I asked, looking at the shelves. "Census records? Deaths?"

"Yuck." Mary Alice plunked the briefcases down on a table. Two Megs looked up and frowned. "Let's just wait on Meg."

But I had opened an 1842 census record and discovered a Tate listed in the index. "Look. Page ninety-four."

"Probably a horse thief like you said. I just want to know about the good ones."

"This is a good one. Joshua Tree Tate, landowner. Wife Maria Caldwell Tate. And five children. See?" I handed the book to Sister.

"What kind of a name is Joshua Tree? Isn't there a real tree named that?"

"I'll bet his mother was a Tree."

"Shhh," said the two old ladies at our table.

"You know what, Mouse?" Sister whispered, calling me by my childhood nickname. "These boys would all have been just the right age to serve in the Civil War."

"Those records are here, too," I said. "We could find out what regiment they were in and whether they were killed."

We were hooked.

It was at least a half hour later when Mary Alice wondered where Meg was. "She said she would be here in a few minutes."

"She's fine," I said. "Look. Here's where one of the sons married his brother's widow."

Another half hour had passed when we began to hear an unusual amount of noise outside. Fire trucks, police cars, ambulances. All seemed to be coming to a screeching halt close to the library.

"Think someone needs to shout 'Fire'?" Sister asked.

"Something's going on. I wish these damn windows weren't so high."

The librarian was talking into her phone. She hung up and came over to our table. "Something's happened over at the courthouse. Nothing to concern us."

"A shooting?" one of the Megs asked eagerly.

"I don't think so," the librarian assured her.

"We better go find Meg," Sister said. "She may be trying to cross the park and they have it blocked."

But the small park between the courthouse and the library wasn't blocked. We cut right across to the back of a crowd that had collected around a couple of police cars, a fire truck, and a rescue squad. From inside the library, it had sounded like a dozen sirens wailing at once.

"Someone must have had a heart attack," I said.

A man in front of us turned. "Somebody took a dive," he said "What?"

"Jumped from the eighth floor."

"Oh, my God!" Mary Alice pressed her hands to her mouth. "Let's go back to the library, Mouse."

I agreed. My stomach has never cooperated at the sight of blood.

We had neared the fountain in the center of the park when we heard footsteps rushing up behind us.

"Wait, wait!" Judge Haskins said. Short of breath and redfaced, he staggered to the curb of the reflecting pool, sat down, and put his head between his knees. "I think I'm dying," he gasped.

I grabbed a Kleenex from my purse, dipped it in the pool, and held it against his forehead. "Just keep your head down."

"That water's filthy," Sister said. "Kids pee in it." I gave her a hard look. "You know. When they go wading."

But the judge wasn't worried about bacteria. He took the wet Kleenex and held it against his eyes. I reached in my purse for another one.

"Are you having a heart attack or something?" I asked, kneeling beside him. "The paramedics are right over yonder."

"She's dead," he mumbled.

"What did he say?" Sister asked.

"He said, 'She's dead.' "

"It was a woman who jumped?"

"Oh, God." The judge began to sob, loud gasping sobs. He still hadn't raised his head, and I could see the deep pink of scalp through thinning white hair.

And then I knew. "It's Meg," I said. "Meg's dead, isn't she?"

Mary Alice sank down on the curb beside Judge Haskins. "Don't be ridiculous. It couldn't be Meg."

But the judge's head was nodding up and down, affirming what I had said.

Mary Alice grabbed his shoulder and gave it a shake. "Are you telling us that Meg Bryan jumped from the eighth floor of the courthouse?"

His head moved sideways in a no.

I closed my eyes in relief. Mary Alice gave a small whistle, a "whew."

"The ninth."

Sister and I stared at each other. "What?" we said together.

He sobbed again. "She's dead."

Mary Alice reached into the reflecting pool with cupped hands and doused Judge Haskins's bowed head. "Sit up and talk like you've got sense!"

For a moment, I thought she'd killed him. The gasping breathing stopped. Then, with a long sigh, he raised his head. "Do you have another Kleenex?"

I handed him another, and he wiped his face. "Thanks."

"Well?" Mary Alice said. Behind us, the fire truck was leaving.

"Meg jumped from the ninth floor. Or the tenth. Anyway, I was sitting at my desk on the eighth and she came sailing by. Looked right in at me. I think she said good-bye. Like this. The judge mouthed, "Goood-byyeeeee" and hiccuped. Tears began to run down his face again. "It was awful." His hands were trembling against his pants legs. Old hands. Liver spots.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said truthfully.

"Meg's dead?" Mary Alice asked.

"That's what he said, Sister." I patted the judge's hand.

"Dear God. Why would she have done that?"

The judge said he had no idea, that they had compared their genealogical findings and Meg had left. The next thing he knew, she was sailing past his window looking right in, "Goood-byeeee." He mouthed it again.

"She sure didn't seem suicidal to me." Mary Alice said. "She ate a good lunch, didn't she, Mouse. Three of those veal medallions with orange sauce on them. Green beans with almonds."

"We finished her cheesecake," I offered.

The three of us were quiet for a few minutes, watching as the crowd parted for the rescue squad. Nothing more they could do here.

"Patricia Anne," Sister said. "You need to go tell them who the body is."

"She's your company. Your son-in-law's cousin."

The judge got up. His legs were still shaky, but his voice was steady. "I'll go tell them," he said.

"Where will they take her?" Mary Alice asked. "Ridout's?" Ridout's has always seemed an apropos name for a funeral home.

"The morgue, I guess." The judge started away and turned. "Will you call her family?"

"I don't know how," Sister said.

"Her sister, Trinity Buckalew, lives in Fairhope. She'll get the word around. Believe me."

"One of us will call," Sister promised.

"You'll call," I said. "She was your company." I watched the judge walking away and thought of what he was walking to, the broken body on the courthouse steps, the blue-gray jacket and flowered dress crumpled and bloody. The black purse with the contents scattered. Shoes flung onto the sidewalk. I shuddered.

"Wait a minute!" I yelled to Judge Haskins.

He turned. "What?"

I jumped up, ran to him, and snatched Meg Bryan's briefcase, the heavier one with the computer inside, from under his arm.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he said. "I'm so upset, I don't know what I'm doing."

"Tell me about it." I walked back to the reflecting pool. "Did you see that?" I asked Sister. "He was trying to get away with Meg Bryan's computer, and her lying over there dead as a doornail."

Sister shook her head. "I still can't believe it. She was so nice and quiet. So ladylike." She pointed toward the crowd. "Look at all that commotion. That's not ladylike at all."

"How would you recommend a lady do herself in?"

"Nothing bloody. Taking a whole lot of Valium and then walking into the water might be nice." She got up and sighed. "Well, at least she had a good lunch."

"Things do tend to balance out, don't they?" Sarcasm is totally lost on Sister. She agreed that yes, indeed, they do.

Four You mean," Fred said that night, "that you and Mary Alice had lunch with this lady, that she didn't seem at all upset or suicidal, and yet she went over to the courthouse and jumped out of the ninth-floor window?"

"Maybe the tenth. She passed Judge Raskins's window and he thinks she said, 'Goood-byyeee.' Really shook him up, her sailing by the window like that."

"Gooood-byeeeee?''

I nodded. "That's what he said."

"Where were you and Mary Alice?"

"At the library, Fred, and damn it, don't lay a guilt trip on me. She didn't say, 'I'm going to go jump out of a tenth-floor window. Splat.' She seemed fine. And if we'd been there, face it, it's not like we could have given her CPR."

"I'm not trying to lay a guilt trip on you, honey. I'm just having a hard time believing Meg Bryan would commit suicide that way. Remember how she wouldn't even sit on the wall at The Club on Saturday? Said she was scared of heights."