Shadow of an Angle (6 page)

"What's wrong?" I said when I saw her setting the table for four. I knew only two of us would be eating.

"I believe they're going to have to change the name of this town to Devil Heights," Vesta said. "Gatlin called a few minutes ago to tell me somebody tried to run down Gertrude Whitmire while she was out walking this morning."

"Is Mrs. Whitmire all right?"

"I think so. I phoned to see how she was, and she said she was pretty well scratched up—scraped her knees and got a few bruises when she tried to jump out of the way. I'm afraid it messed up her ankle, too. Had an ice pack on it when I called."

"Where did it happen?" I asked.

"You know where she lives, way out in the middle of nowhere, and the house sits back from the road. I've been telling Gertrude she needs to move closer to town.

"Anyway, she'd started on her daily walk—does three or four miles every morning—and just as she came out of her driveway, she says a car careened around that curve there and headed straight for her!"

"She must've been terrified! How did she get out of the way?"

"Gertrude said she thought the idiot would see her and swerve, and when she finally realized it wasn't going to, she sort of rolled backwards into the ditch."

I tried not to think of that.

"And listen to this, Arminda," my grandmother added. "While Gertrude was climbing out of the ditch,
she saw the same car turning around to make another pass!
"

"I'd probably drop dead from fright," I said.

Vesta put the extra place settings away. "No, you wouldn't, and neither did Gert. She knew if she tried to escape down the driveway, the car would follow and run her down, so she cut across the woods to a neighbor's. Only trouble is, the closest neighbor lives about a half mile away and is deaf as a post." Vesta shook her head. "Ben Thrasher. His daughter's been trying to get him to wear a hearing aid for years."

"Can she identify the car?" I said.

"Gertrude said it was sort of a tan color. Maybe a Toyota or a Honda—or it could've been a Saturn."

"That really narrows it down," I said.

There were times back in high school when I wished Gert would come down with acute laryngitis, but I never considered turning the poor woman into road kill. "Why would anybody want to do that?" I said. "…Unless they think she knows something about Otto's murder?"

"Don't see how she could," my grandmother said, "but it's another reason for Gertrude to move closer to town."

"Isn't there a Mr. Whitmire?"

"Oh, Arminda, he's been gone for years."

"Oh," I said. "I didn't know." Gertrude Whitmire and I had something in common.

"Have you heard from Mildred?" Vesta asked.

I nodded. "I asked her to join us for supper, but she said Edna Smith was bringing vegetable soup and corn muffins."

Vesta frowned. "Still has her nose out of joint, but I suppose she's all right for the time being. I don't know why Hank Smith isn't as big as a barn with all the baking Edna does. Why Sylvie must've gained ten pounds since she's been back," she added, speaking of the couple's daughter.

Born late in her parents' marriage, Sylvia Smith was a couple of years younger than Gatlin but had been educated at some prestigious boarding school, so I never really got to know her. "I thought she was living in London," I said. "Doesn't Sylvie work in a museum over there?"

Vesta nodded. "Did. And seemed to be doing very well, according to Hank. She was in line for a big promotion when Edna had that knee replacement surgery last summer and Sylvie came home to see about her parents. Don't know why she never went back." My grandmother made a noise that sounded like something between a grunt and a snort. "I said something to Edna about it once, but she made it clear she didn't want to discuss it. Edna can get a little stiff-necked at times, but they've always been good friends to us, and it's kind of her to keep an eye on Mildred."

We sat at Vesta's heirloom dining table eating leftover chicken pie from the night before, and looked out on her tiny balcony, where a dead fern waved in the wind. "Mildred gave it to me when I moved in here," my grandmother said. "I told her I'd forget to water it, but she wouldn't listen.

"And since we're speaking of Mildred," she continued, "I went by the bookshop this morning to see how she was doing, but she wouldn't let me in. Said she was taking inventory, of all things. I was going to see if she wanted to go somewhere for lunch. Thought it might do her good to get out, but she wasn't having any part of it. Acting the martyr, if you ask me."

I hadn't asked, but I agreed. "She thinks somebody was prowling around the shop while she was away. Said she was going to check and see if anything's missing."

"What would anyone want? Nothing there but old books, and most of them aren't worth more than a quarter…. Here, please have some of this salad. The Circle committee brought enough for a battalion, and I'll never get rid of it all."

The salad was green and wiggly, but I took some, anyway. "And why would anybody want to kill Otto?" I reminded her. "Nothing about this makes sense! I don't guess you've heard any more from the police?"

My grandmother helped herself to one of Mary Ruth Godwin's yeast rolls and passed them along to me. "If they know anything, they haven't shared it with the rest of us. Gertrude Whitmire says she doesn't know if she'll ever work up the nerve to set foot in that place again." She buttered her roll and sighed. "Well, enough of that. Tell me, how are things at the Nut House?"

If you only knew!
I thought. But I told Vesta about the library table with the club minutes in it. "Must have been some sort of secret girls' thing," I said. "Had something that looked like an emblem at the bottom—a flower with a star in the center. The same thing's on that alma mater your mama stitched that hangs at the academy, and Gatlin said she thought she'd seen something like it on a quilt."

"Dear heaven! I haven't seen that thing in ages. They took time about keeping that quilt, you know."

"Who did?"

"Why, the girls who made it. The Mystic Six. My mother was one. It was some kind of silly secret thing they organized at the academy. The quilt was supposed to tell a story about the school. I always thought it was kind of sad with that young professor dying in the fire and all."

I smiled. "The Mystic Six. Wonder what that was all about?"

"Who knows. But they were quite serious about it, I believe. Even had a pin."

I declined more salad. "Really?"

"I guess it was kind of like a sorority pin," Vesta said. "Mama had one, although I never saw her wearing it, but it looked like that design you saw in those old minutes, and it had her initials on the back. I keep it in my jewelry box."

Elvis was singing somewhere upstairs when I got home that night, and I found Augusta in the room at the end of the hall with the record player that had belonged to my mother. She was shuffling to the music of
"Jailhouse Rock,"
and the expression on her face could only be described as blissful. Mom's collection of 45s were fanned out on the table behind her.

Augusta opened her eyes when she heard me and pulled me into the dance. "I haven't heard anything this good since Glen Miller did that thing about the little brown jar," she said, swinging me out and around.

"That's
jug
," I said. I was beginning to get a little dizzy.

"Oh. Well, anyway, I'm sorry I missed that era."

"What era?"I asked.

"The fifties. What do you call this—boogie woogie?"

"Rock and roll," I said. "So, where
were
you in the fifties?"

"Heaven, of course. I'm only a temp, Arminda. Between assignments I'm in charge of strawberry fields up there."

"Really? They actually grow strawberries?"

"Well, of course. Or it wouldn't be Heaven, now, would it?"

The music ended and I was glad for a break, but Augusta found another record to her liking—this time something called
"Heart break Hotel."
"You're going to have to teach me the steps," she said, listening to the beat.

I laughed as she tapped her feet in time. "I think
you'll
have to teach
me
."

I was having such a good time dancing, I almost forgot to check the initials on the back of the pin I'd found. If my grandmother had Lucy's pin, then whose pin did I find on the bathroom floor?

I turned the gold disk under the light. The initials
A. W.
were inscribed on the back.
Annie Westbrook.
So Lucy's younger sister had not been wearing her pin when she drowned in the Saluda. But what was Otto doing with it?

I showed the minutes to Augusta, pointing out the emblem at the bottom.

"The same design is on the alma mater my great-grand-mother stitched," I said, "and Gatlin says she's seen it on a quilt."

Augusta studied the brittle paper with something close to a frown. "Where did you find this?"

In that old library table in the attic. You wanted it moved into the dining room, remember?"

"Of course." Augusta gave the yellowed paper back to me. I paused. "And there's a pin, too. I think it belonged to Annie Rose, the girl who died…and Augusta, it was in the bathroom at the academy right next to where we found Otto."
There, it was out!

"Where in the bathroom?"

"Right there in the stall next to where Otto died. It was wedged in a corner."

"I'd keep these in a safe place if I were you. I have a feeling they might tell us something important."

And I had a feeling Augusta Goodnight had meant for me to find those old minutes in the attic, and that something that happened years ago might have led to my cousin Otto's murder.

Chapter Six

G
atlin's husband, Dave, dropped by a little later that night with four husky Angels, members of the high school football team, and with much banging and grunting they maneuvered the unwieldy library table down from the attic and into the dining room. Afterward I made the mistake of treating the boys to pizza at their favorite hangout, the Heavenly Grill, although Dave tried to warn me against it. It was a darn good thing I'd eaten earlier, as I had barely enough money to pay the bill and was grateful when Dave offered to take care of the tip.

I knew from Gatlin that her family was just managing to squeak by on Dave's coaching salary and the spasmodic returns from their part-time jobs. Unfortunately things were not booming in Angel Heights, South Carolina, and I hoped my cousin's plans for a lunchroom-bookshop would bring an end to their hand-to-mouth lifestyle.

The next morning I heard hammering coming from the old Bradshaw house next door and went out to take a look.

A couple of trucks were parked in the driveway, and renovations, it seemed, had begun.

It felt strange not having the Bradshaws close by. Irene and her husband, Frank, had lived next door to the Nut House for as long as I could remember, but, according to Vesta, they recently moved in with their daughter's family when the place got too much to keep up.

Not that Irene bothered to do much "keeping up," if what my grandmother said was true. According to Vesta, labeling our old neighbor a poor housekeeper would be putting it kindly. Irene Bradshaw spent her time playing bridge, reading, or doing whatever else she pleased. Today she pleased to pick up pecans in our backyard.

Swathed in a gray knitted sweater that must have been Frank's and with a red beret pulled over her ears, she wore ancient galoshes and looked like a bag lady with a plastic bag dangling from her hand. Irene straightened when she saw me and gave me sort of a half-wave as she dropped nuts into her sack.

"Minda? That is you, isn't it? Glasses get all misted over in this cold air." Irene paused to wipe her spectacles on her sleeve. "Hope you don't mind me picking up some of these nuts…just lying there, you know, and Bonnie said if I could find enough, she'd make us a pecan pie.

"We're living with Bonnie now, Frank and myself—have a cute little apartment in the back." Irene giggled. "Almost like being newlyweds again, except without all that sex!"

I didn't want to go there at all. "Vesta says you sold your home to the Historical Society," I said. "It won't seem the same without you two next door."

"Next door…yes. Vesta and Charles were such good neighbors, and your great-grandmother Lucy, too, bless her heart. Always there when we needed them, and so generous to share these pecans—got to where I didn't even ask." Irene stooped to scoop up a handful of nuts, and I combed the grass for more, adding them to her bag, then stepped quickly out of reach. Irene was an arm-grabber, an overenthusiastic greeter. She didn't mean any harm, of course, but Vesta swears she's had bruises.

"You know you're always welcome to them," I said. "There's more than we can use." I noticed that Irene wore leather gloves, but I didn't, and my hands were bare and red from the cold. I shoved them deep into my jacket pockets. "I wish I remembered Great-grandmother Lucy," I said. "Everyone seemed to think so highly of her."

"Highly, yes. Grand lady. She and my mother were friends, you know. Went to school together."

"At the academy?" Was Irene's mother one of the Mystic Six?

"The academy. Yes. And what a dreadful thing to happen to poor Otto! I haven't slept well since—let me tell you! And just as he was beginning to relax and enjoy himself a little, too. Otto was always so serious; I don't believe he even knew how to play." Irene glanced around for more pecans and, finding none, weighed the bag in her hand and tied a knot in the top. "I thought maybe the old love bug had finally bitten him," she said.

If the idea hadn't been so ridiculous and Otto hadn't been so dead, I would've laughed right then and there. I looked at Irene to see if she was joking, but she appeared to be serious. "What do you mean,
love bug
?" I asked. If Otto had ever had a romance, I'd never heard about it. I couldn't imagine who would have him. "Was Otto seeing somebody special? Vesta hasn't mentioned anything about it, and Mildred's never said a word."

"A word…no, she wouldn't. I suppose Mildred hoped it would go away if she just ignored it long enough." Irene Bradshaw smiled as we walked together over the frosty ground, brown leaves scattering in our wake. "Didn't look like it was going away to me."

"But who? Was he seeing someone from around here?"

Her look told me I was probably the only person in Angel Heights who didn't know about Otto's love life. "I suppose you wouldn't have heard, being away and all. Otto was seeing Sylvie Smith, Arminda."

"Are you sure? I mean, did you actually see them together?"

"Together? Certainly. Several times. Back in the summer they'd often picnic by the river. There's a nice little recreation spot there now with tables and walking trails, and you can rent canoes. My grandchildren like to go there. And once in a while we'd run into them at the picture show." Irene reached for my arm, but I pretended to dig in my pockets for a tissue. She dropped her voice, although it was obvious we were alone. "That's why Sylvie didn't go back to England, you know. Didn't want to leave Otto."

She must have noticed my stunned expression, because Irene seemed to be searching for something to say. "Well, I'm sure Vesta's happy to have you back for a while, Minda. And I do believe you're getting to look more like your great-grandmother Lucy every time I see you. Something about your eyes and the set of your chin."

"Thank you," I said, although from looking at her pictures, I always thought Lucy had sad eyes. Maybe mine were sad, too. "You said your mother and Lucy were friends. For some reason I didn't think you were raised in Angel Heights," I said as we neared the house.

"My mother moved away when she married. She was Pauline Watts before then," Irene told me over coffee and some of Augusta's honey wheat loaf. "I was raised in North Carolina, but I used to visit cousins here in Angel Heights, and this is where I met Frank. It's been home to me most of my life."

"Vesta said her mother belonged to a group of girls that called themselves the Mystic Six," I said, pooling jam onto my bread. "I think they had a pin and held meetings—the works. Do you remember hearing anything about that?"

Irene shook her head and smiled. "No, but it sounds like something Mama would've done. She and a few of her old friends used to pass a quilt back and forth. I do remember that."

"Do you know what happened to it?" I swallowed my coffee so quickly it burned my throat.

"Happened to it? No, but I'd like to. It seemed important to Mama—something about the academy." Irene studied my face over her cup. "Why?"

"Just curious, I guess. You'll have to admit it was kind of unusual. When women made a quilt back then it was meant for a specific person, usually a bride, but they took time about keeping theirs. There must have been a reason."

"I can't imagine. Don't know why I never asked." Our old neighbor sipped her coffee and frowned. "And you say they had meetings?"

"Wait. I'll show you." I retrieved the brittle paper from the bottom of my dresser drawer and placed it in front of her, watching her face as she read.

"Nondescripts. I remember Mama talking about nondescripts," she said, smiling. "She never could make them, though."

"Do you know who did?"

Irene shook her head. "Somebody my mother knew. One of her friends, I guess. Sounded like a pain to make…this bread is wonderful, Minda. Bonnie has one of those bread machines, but hers isn't nearly this good."

I was glad she didn't ask for the recipe.

"What about that little star-flower thing at the bottom?" I asked. "Have you seen that before?"

"Star-flower? Of course. It was on the quilt—the one my mother and her schoolmates used to share."

"Why didn't you tell me Otto had a girlfriend?" I asked Vesta when she dropped by later that morning. Her condo was chilly, she said, and she needed an extra blanket or two, but I think she really wanted to see if I'd settled in okay and had enough to eat.

"Oh, it wasn't anything serious. I think both of them were lonely, that's all." My grandmother peered into a kitchen cabinet and found it stocked; then she disappeared into the pantry. "Don't tell me you made all those strawberry preserves," she said, holding a jar to the light.

"Okay, I won't. And please take some. They're absolutely divine." I could see Augusta hovering in the background, and smiled when she rolled her eyes.

"Irene Bradshaw thinks otherwise," I said, referring to Otto's relationship with Sylvia Smith.

"Irene Bradshaw? When did you run into her?" Vesta wiped the jar of preserves with a dishcloth and put it into her purse.

"This morning. She was out back picking up pecans. Told me Otto was the reason Sylvie didn't go back to London."

"You know how Irene exaggerates! I'm sure Mildred would've mentioned it, and Edna Smith—Sylvie's own mother—never said a word," Vesta spoke with that "final say so" tone in her voice. "I saw the two of them together on occasion, but I'm sure it was nothing more than a friendly relationship. Why, I don't even remember Sylvie being at the funeral."

Vesta stood in the doorway to the dining room. "My gracious, I'd almost forgotten this old table! We used to do our homework on it." She ran her fingers over the scarred oak surface. "If only this old thing could talk."

And maybe it did, I thought. "Irene told me her mother and yours were friends," I said. "Went to the academy together; I think she might've been a member of that club they had. Irene remembers the quilt they made. Said her mother would keep it for a year or so, then pass it along to somebody else."

"Of course—Aunt Pauline. Irene's mother used to bring us chocolate drops when she came to visit. Naturally she was a favorite of ours—not really an aunt, but we called her that. She and Mama were always close. I believe she died a few years before Mama did."

Vesta frowned. "Whatever happened to that quilt, I wonder? Guess it stayed with whoever had it last. Of course all those 'girls' are gone now. No telling who ended up with it. Funny, I don't remember my mother ever really using that quilt."

"Do you remember who they were?"

"My goodness, Minda, that was a long time ago! Frankly, I never paid much attention to it."

What about the nondescripts?" I asked. "Do you know who made them? They were mentioned in the minutes of their meeting as being served as part of the refreshments."

"Hmm…I think Mama served something like that once or twice, but pies were her specialty. I remember a sliced sweet potato pie with whiskey in it that would make your head spin!" My grandmother laughed and gave my shoulders a squeeze. "A lot of good food was eaten in this room, Minda."

Now she sniffed and inhaled deeply as we moved into the living room. "Ahh…I thought I smelled wood smoke! How ambitious of you, Minda! You've a fire going in the fireplace already! After your granddad died, I just didn't have the heart or the energy to take the trouble to build one, but I do love the smell, and this is certainly the day for it. Do we need to order more wood? Must be getting low."

"I'll check and see," I said, having no idea. Augusta had a bright blaze going when I came downstairs that morning. "Don't worry; I'll take care of it. You do have time for a cup of hot tea, don't you? I have some ginger-apricot you just have to try!"

She glanced at her watch. "Why not? I don't have to be anywhere until noon. The renovation committee of the Historical Society is meeting for lunch to discuss our plans for the Bradshaw place. Something tells me we'll need more than tea to tackle that one!"

The living room furniture my grandmother had left behind was worn but comfortable. Vesta sat nursing her tea in the club chair that had been her husband's, now slip covered in a faded blue floral print, and I pulled the squishy leather ottoman closer to the fire. I heard a drawer open and shut in the kitchen and the clatter of a pan on the stove and knew Augusta had begun to prepare her savory peanut-pumpkin soup. It was a favorite of George Washington Carver's, she'd told me.

"In fact, he gave me the recipe. And everyone seems to be
nuts
about it!" And Augusta had smiled at her own awful joke.