Shadow of an Angle (26 page)

Hugh took another step sideways, his eye on the door. I blocked him.

"How on earth could you know any of this is true?" he said.

"Because
I'm
that baby," Mildred told him. "My mother was Annie Rose Westbrook, a student here at the academy, and a member of the Mystic Six. I have her pin."

Hugh Talbot tried to laugh. "That doesn't mean a thing. The girl probably wasn't wearing it when she…Well, what does it matter now, anyway? This happened years ago."

"Oh, but she was wearing it," Mildred said, holding the pin in the palm of her hand. "This pin belonged to my mother. It has her initials on the back. She always kept it in a box in her dresser drawer, but I didn't know what it was until lately. Lucy had one just like it, and so did the other members."

"I really don't give a damn about your mother's pin, or any of the rest of this! Can't you see that?" The man's face turned red, and sweat broke out on his forehead, even though it was cold in Holley Hall. "What my grandfather did was his business. I couldn't care less."

"Then why were you so interested in the stuffed zebra Faye was playing with?" I asked.

"I didn't care about—I only asked her where she got it. But it seemed to frighten her, and she ran away. I didn't hurt the child, didn't mean to scare her. Look, I really don't know where she is, but if you're concealing something important in that toy, you might want to call the police. I'm afraid the little girl could be in danger."

"We've already called them," I told him as I saw Chief McBride and another policeman pull up out front. "Why do you think she's in danger?"

"I—I can't be sure…."

"Tell me!"

A brass paperweight in the shape of a monkey sat on the desk only a few inches away, and my hand moved instinctively toward it, but Mildred grabbed my wrist firmly. "For heaven's sakes, don't bean him now, Arminda! He won't be able to talk."

Hugh Talbot sank into a dainty Queen Anne side chair that seemed almost too fragile to hold him, and put his head in his hands. "It's Gert," he said. "My sister's the one who wanted that zebra. She thinks there's something hidden in there, something incriminating that might hurt us, hurt the family.

"I was just going to look at it, that's all. I guess the little girl thought I meant to take it away from her. She ran away before I had a chance to explain."

"Does your sister know what happened?" I asked.

He nodded. "I was supposed to bring it here, and when I came back without it, she tore out of here like a bat out of hell. God knows where she is now."

"Do you think she would harm Faye?" I had to ask.

He sighed. "Not deliberately, but she's obsessed about our grandfather, our heritage, she calls it. At this point, I don't know what she might do; I really don't."

Chapter Twenty-Six

I
honestly think Hugh Talbot was glad to see the police. He started to stand; then sat down again. "Have they found the little girl?" he asked the chief.

"Not yet. They're still searching the school, but Dave didn't turn up any sign of her at the house."

Where in the world could she be? Wherever Faye was, she had to be hungry. She rarely ate much breakfast, and she hadn't had any lunch. I looked at my watch. It wasn't quite one o'clock, yet I felt it should be late afternoon, that Faye had been missing for hours. I told Chief McBride what Hugh Talbot had said about Gertrude Whitmire.

"Mrs. Whitmire? You think
Mrs. Whitmire
could be responsible for the child's disappearing?"

You'd have thought I'd said Jesus Christ drowned kittens and tied tin cans to puppies' tails.

"And what makes you think that?" the chief wanted to know

I wanted to dash out the door and search the town for Faye, but I didn't trust Hugh to give the account correctly. And I wanted this crazy woman stopped. "Mrs. Whitmire's been having a few problems lately," I said. "I'll let Mr. Talbot tell you about it."

While Hugh gave the police the story, I phoned Vesta and left a message about Faye's being missing. "Has anyone checked my place or my grandmother's?" I asked when I was through.

"I believe Dave went by there earlier, and we have volunteers right now lined up to search everywhere between here and the river. I'll ask them especially to be on the lookout for Mrs. Whitmire's car. A blue Lincoln, isn't it?" He asked her brother. "Don't suppose you know the license number? Well, never mind, I'll get it."

The river! Oh, dear God, I hadn't even thought about the river!
"I have to go," I said. "I have to look for Faye."

"Ma'am, we're doing everything that can be done." The chief's voice was gentle. "I honestly believe the little girl is hiding somewhere. She ran away from school, and now she's afraid to come home. She's going to be all right, just you wait and see."

Yeah, that's easy for you to say,
I thought.
She's not your little girl.
Heck, she wasn't mine either, but if I ever did have one, I'd like one just like her, and when they did find Faye, I was going to buy her all the hot dogs she could eat!

"If you don't mind, I'd like for you to stick around awhile," Chief McBride said. "Since you were the one who found your cousin Otto, maybe you can help us out here." He nodded to Mildred. "Charlie here can run Miss Parsons home if you like."

"I don't want to go home, but I would like for you to take me by the school while they look for Faye. I think Gatlin and David might need some help when Lizzie gets out of school."

The chief and I agreed that was an excellent idea, and after the two of them left, moved into the musty, grim parlor, where Hugh suggested we might be more comfortable. The three of us sat around the feeble gas fire, and it reminded me of my recent nasty experience, as well as the day weeks before when we had waited here after I had found my cousin's body.

The thought of it made me shudder and draw my coat closer about me. The chief must've been thinking the same thing, because he turned to Hugh Talbot, who sat next to the mantel, leaning forward with his hands clasped between his knees. "All this has something to do with Otto Alexander's death, doesn't it, Hugh?" Chief McBride asked.

Hugh didn't answer. Why wasn't I surprised?

"Yes, it does," I said. "There's something I haven't told you. The day I found Otto's body, I also found a pin—about the size of a sorority or fraternity pin. It was in the shape of a flower with a star in its center, and it had belonged to my aunt—great-great-aunt really, who was supposed to have drowned in the Saluda over eighty years ago."

Hugh made sort of a rumbling noise and shifted in his chair. "You say you found that here? Where?"

"In the bathroom, in the stall next to Otto's. It was on the floor, and I almost didn't see it. I think he had it wrapped in his handkerchief, and when he pulled it out, the pin rolled under the side of the stall—just before
somebody
smothered him." I looked at Hugh Talbot, and this time he met my eyes.

"It wasn't me," he said. "I'm not taking the blame for that."

"Mr. Talbot, you're in and out of this place all the time. As far as I know, you, your sister, and Otto were the only ones who had a key." The chief stood and leaned on the mantel. He was not a tall man, but he looked tall then. "I know you announced a football game that night, but the game was over by a little before ten. Where did you go then?"

"I've already told you, I went home! We've gone over this before." Hugh slapped his knee, and his hairpiece slid a little to the side. "I want a lawyer."

"Fine, call one, but if you had nothing to do with this, it will make it a whole lot easier for you and for us, too, if you just cooperate," the chief said calmly.

The man sat there so long I didn't think he was going to answer. Finally he sighed and rose to his feet. "I need a drink. Do you mind?"

He moved to a small cupboard that looked like part of the wainscoting and took out a decanter and several small glasses. "Anyone care to join me?" he asked.

Of course the chief said no thank you and so did I, although to tell the truth, I could've used a belt about then.

He downed one drink in what seemed like a gulp, poured another to sip, and then sat again in the chair by the fireplace. "I was at the bookshop—Otto's shop—that night."

Hugh Talbot spoke so softly I could barely hear him. "I knew Otto would be at the academy then, and there was something I wanted to find."

"And what was that?" the chief wanted to know.

"It has no relevance to what happened. It was just something I knew Otto had, and I thought perhaps it was somewhere in the bookshop."

So Mildred's pencils really had been moved!

Chief McBride leaned forward. "Man, how can you say it has no relevance? A man is dead, this young lady here has been attacked, and now a child is missing." He did everything but wave a finger in the man's face, but still Hugh wouldn't tell us what he was looking for.

"I don't suppose you found it, then?" the chief said.

"No." Hugh slumped in his chair and stared at the feeble fire. He didn't move, rarely blinked.

"Is that what you think is concealed in the stuffed animal you wanted from the little girl?"

"That was stupid of me, I know. It was just something my sister asked me to do."

"And why would Mrs. Whitmire want this child's toy?" Chief McBride asked.

"She thinks there's something in there that would put our family in a bad light. My sister is very proud of her heritage."

Chief McBride sat and closed his eyes for a minute, as if the whole thing were just too much for him. "So, you didn't go to the academy the night Otto Alexander was killed?" "

No." Hugh Talbot shook his head.

"But you knew he was going to be here. How was that?"

Hugh Talbot sighed. "Otto had called me at the academy, left a message on the machine. He said he'd be here that night—he volunteered in the academy library, you know— and that he had something I might be interested to see. He'd hinted—well, more than hinted, really—that he could ruin me. Wanted money, of course."

"So Otto was blackmailing you?"

"That was his intention, yes, but I wasn't planning to take the bait."

"The pin," I said. "He told you about the pin." I knew Otto had taken the pin from Mildred's hiding place.

Hugh nodded. "That was part of it." He turned to the chief. "My grandfather, I'm afraid, wasn't as squeaky clean as he was stacked up to be. A bit of a ladies' man, I think. At any rate, he got one of the young women in the family way, and she was supposed to have drowned in the Saluda—only it turns out she didn't. Now her daughter has come back to haunt us for his sins."

"Don't you dare make light of it!" I jumped to my feet and would have clobbered him, I think, if the chief hadn't cleared his throat really loud. "Your grandfather forced himself on those girls—students who were supposed to be in his care! He should've been locked away.

"You killed Otto, didn't you? You got him drunk, then smothered him to keep him quiet."

"No, I did not. I'm sorry my grandfather was a lech and that he caused grief to those young women—if indeed he did—but that's not my fault. I wouldn't kill a man for that."

"Otto met somebody here that night," I told the police chief. "He had that pin in his pocket just before he was killed, only it rolled into the next stall, and the murderer didn't see it."

Chief McBride frowned. "Why didn't you tell us this earlier?"

"I forgot I had it. Didn't even realize what it was for a while; then I guess I was afraid. Otto might have been killed for that pin; I didn't want the same thing happening to me."

The chief turned to Hugh. "And you say these things weren't important to you, yet you searched Otto's bookshop for
something
. Was Otto already dead?"

"Certainly not! I knew nothing about that. But I had to look there while Mildred was at that church movie thing, and I knew Otto would be waiting to meet me at the academy. Look, I was only trying to spare us both a lot of trouble."

"So if what you say is true, someone else must have known about that telephone message. What happened to that tape, Mr. Talbot?"

Hugh Talbot shrugged and stared into his empty glass.

There was only one other person who could have heard Otto's message on that tape. Gertrude Whitmire. And she was somewhere in this town hunting for a five-year-old with a stuffed zebra.

"I have to go," I said, and didn't stop until I reached my car.

I drove straight home, keeping an eye out for both Faye and Gertrude Whitmire along the way, pulled into the drive, and ran into the house. I needed some heavenly help, and fast.

"Augusta!" I called her name over and over again, checking every room, but she wasn't there. I knew she wasn't there as soon as I walked inside, but I had to hope.

"How could you do this? How could you leave me when I need you most?" I yelled aloud to an echoing house.

Pausing in the hallway, I called the school to see if Faye had turned up. The police had completed their search there with no success, the principal told me. And Gatlin and Dave had collected Lizzie and gone back to their place with Mildred.

Mildred answered when I phoned there and told me she was staying with Lizzie while her parents were out scouting for Faye.

"Do you have any idea where they've looked so far?" I asked.

She hesitated. "The school, of course, and the neighborhood around it, and I think they went to your place, too."

"What about the shop?"

"That's the first place Dave checked," Mildred said, sounding more like Eeyore than ever.

I felt like Eeyore, too. "I'll keep in touch," I said, and then went out and sat behind the wheel of my car and closed my eyes.

"Think blue," Augusta had advised me once when I got all worked up about something. "It calms you, helps you think straight." I could almost sense her beside me now.

I pictured a sky with clouds drifting, misty blue mountains framing a crystal sapphire lake. Where would I go if I were five years old, cold, hungry, and scared?

I would go home, of course, but obviously Faye hadn't done that. For some reason she was afraid to go there…. So what would she do then?

Knowing my little cousin, I was almost sure she felt guilty for taking Mildred's zebra, and perhaps felt she would be punished for not returning it. Yet Mildred had said they had already checked the shop.

Checked it first!

R. T. Foster was getting ready to leave for another job when I pulled up in front of the bookstore, but the door was still unlocked.

"Any news about the little girl?" he asked, loading tools into his truck.

I shook my head. "Not yet. I was hoping maybe you'd seen her."

"No, they came by here earlier looking. Of course, I've been busy on the other side trying to get rid of some of this clutter, but good Lord, I would've called if I'd have seen her!"