Southern Ghost (36 page)

Miss Dora lifted the mallet and swung at the bronze temple gong that sat opposite the silent grandfather clock.

Charlotte straightened the rose scarf at her throat. “Great-grandfather Jemson Tarrant brought it home from Ceylon. Such an interesting life he led. The captain of his own ship, of course. He was lost in a hurricane in 1891.”

The mallet swung again and again, the somber tone echoing in the hallway.

As they came—from outside, from upstairs, from other rooms—Miss Dora pointed with her cane toward the drawing room. Sybil came with white-faced Harris Walker at her side. Miss Dora looked at him searchingly, then nodded in acquiescence. Milam was the last to appear, swaggering insolently down the stairs.

Miss Dora followed him into the drawing room.

In its dramatic and scarred history, the drawing room of Tarrant House must have welcomed many unlikely visitors. But Annie felt certain that in its century and a half of existence,
this Saturday afternoon gathering was perhaps strangest of all.

Chief Wells, hands behind his back, stood next to a dainty Chippendale piecrust table, dwarfing it. His white hat, the curved rim undented, rested next to a Spode clock. In deference to his surroundings, the ever-present hunk of tobacco was absent from his cheek. He glanced at Max, then at Annie. As usual, his icy dark eyes evinced no joy at seeing them.

But Annie ignored him. Her eyes kept returning to the Spode clock. It didn’t surprise her that the hour hand pointed to four, the minute hand to two past the hour.

Miss Dora, so tiny she didn’t even reach the chief’s elbow, stood beside him. But she gave him no heed. Her gaze, too, focused on the clock. Slowly, she lifted her cane and pointed at the delicately tinted china clock.

“The hour has come. I have summoned you here to conclude my inquiry into the death of Augustus Tarrant.” There was a terrible dignity in her voice. “But I am not alone. Augustus and Amanda demand justice.”

The tiny old woman looked around the drawing room.

The glistening chandelier with its brilliant pinpoints of light emphasized the gloom beyond the storm-darkened windows. Thunder rumbled almost incessantly, a reminder that nature is inimical, untrustworthy, dangerous. Annie thought of Courtney Kimball, last seen on a soft spring night receding in time, and put away her last hope for Courtney’s survival. How could they continue to believe Courtney would be found when there was no reason to hope? Three full days had passed since Max found her half-open purse flung to the ground in St. Michael’s Cemetery. The steady rumble, the rattle of wind-whipped branches, the sighing of wind through the eaves sounded a requiem. Was Courtney’s killer listening in this room? Who struck Courtney down? And why?

Whitney and Charlotte sat on the silver-brocaded Regency sofa. There was no sense of a united front against the world with this couple. They sat as separately as two people could sit. Charlotte cringed at every crash of thunder, her eyes moving restlessly around the room, her fingers pulling and picking
at her rose scarf. Whitney’s face was stolid and thoughtful. A fine dark stubble coated his cheeks. He looked like a seedy aristocrat who had gambled the night—and his birthright—away.

Julia was in the room, but not a part of it. Her frail shoulders hunched, she gripped the sides of her armchair as if only that tight handhold kept her in place. Her smudged, lonely eyes looked into a past where no one could follow.

Milam stood behind Julia, one hand touching the back of her chair, but she didn’t seem aware of him. He watched her, pain and worry in his eyes.

Sybil, her lovely face pale and haggard, paced like a lithe and dangerous animal, back and forth, back and forth, in front of the fireplace.

Harris Walker leaned against the mantel, his eyes, angry, hurt, dangerous eyes, probing each face in turn.

Lucy Jane sat in a straight chair near the archway to the hall. Her posture was regal, and her face impassive.

Miss Dora thumped her cane against the heart pine floor. “Our investigation is done.”

Chief Wells shifted his weight.

Annie sensed terror abroad in that room. One of those listening was the quarry, feeling now the hot breath of the pursuing hounds, beginning to weary, quivering with desperate lurching fear, hunted with no place to hide.

“Twenty-two years ago Death walked in Tarrant House, setting in motion events brutal enough to sear our souls.” Miss Dora’s tar-black eyes touched each face. “Tonight, let us find peace.”

A long, quiet silence pulsed with feeling.

“Let us,” she said softly, “finally lay to rest the ghost that has haunted us since that dreadful day.”

Julia’s chin sunk on her thin chest. She began to shake.

Miss Dora’s gaze focused on Whitney. “Whitney, what did you see from the window of the garage?” All of the impress of her formidable personality was contained in that simple question.

Whitney was not her equal; he had never been her equal.
His eyes shifted away from her. The hand he lifted to his chin trembled. “I didn’t”—he paused, took a deep breath—“I didn’t see anything. Or anyone.”

Oddly, unexpectedly, Annie believed him. There was a ring of truth in Whitney’s voice, yet, at the same time, a tone of abject despair.

What kind of sense did that make?

Miss Dora pursed her lips. Her face was as empty of expression as a skull, but Annie knew she had failed. This was Miss Dora’s moment. She had wielded her power—and lost.

What now?

“Very well.” The arrogant voice was as confident as ever. “I would have welcomed your assistance, Whitney, but I shall prevail. I know what happened. I know who committed murder. Not once, but twice. This chapter must be closed. I know, and tomorrow I shall inform the authorities.”

“Grandstanding!” Annie poured fresh coffee, but even their best Colombian couldn’t warm away the chill in her heart.

Thunder crashed, drowning out Max’s reply. Lightning exploded, and the lights quivered, dimmed, returned to full strength. Wind-driven rain lashed against the windows.

Max tried again. “Relax, Annie. You can bet the chief has men upstairs and down at her house. He’s probably in the old monster’s boudoir himself, right this minute.” His tone was irritated. Max, too, wasn’t pleased with their aged employer’s calculated indiscretion.

“Doesn’t she have any confidence in us?” Annie demanded, her mood swinging from worry to fury.

Max grinned. “What do you think?”

Unwillingly, Annie grinned, too. “So, okay, she decided to short-circuit her way to a solution. She’s going to be damned lucky if she doesn’t short-circuit her way into the family plot at the cemetery. See how she’d like that!” Annie demanded obscurely.

Max was accustomed to Annie’s thought processes. He kept
to the point. “No sweat, honey. It’s the hoariest ploy in the world.”

Annie muttered, “Right out of Edgar Wallace.”

Max bypassed a peanut butter cookie for a shiny apple. He took a bite and, between crunches, said, “Only an old-time melodrama fan would even try it. There’s no danger. Chief Wells isn’t my favorite cop, but he’s not stupid. The security around Miss Dora at this moment is right on a par with the patrols at Kennebunkport, you can count on it.”

Annie picked up two peanut butter cookies and stared moodily at the welter of papers on the golden oak breakfast room table. “Dammit, Max, we ought to know. We ought to
know
!”

The fruits of two hours’ intensive labor lay before them. She took two bites, finishing off the first cookie, and picked up Max’s motive sheet.

A montage of unguarded moments whirled in Annie’s mind: Charlotte’s eyes suddenly shifting, Julia’s tight grip on the chair arms, Whitney looking out the first window in the garage toward the back piazza, Milam standing behind his wife’s chair, the click as Lucy Jane replaced the receiver, Enid’s angry eyes, Sybil standing like a Valkyrie at the Chastain gates, Miss Dora gazing down toward the river and saying, oh so conversationally, “That’s when they see Amanda, dressed all in white to please Augustus,” Enid’s tart comment about Courtney Kimball, “She’s got a lot to learn.”

“It looks bad for Julia.” Max’s voice was heavy. He pointed at the drawings spread out on the table. Annie was really rather proud of her depictions of Tarrant House and its surroundings.

Annie studied the map. Max had circled the numeral marking Whitney’s location.

“It seems obvious.” His voice wasn’t happy. Max, too, liked Julia. “If Whitney saw the murderer from that first window in the garage—well, it has to be Julia, Lucy Jane—or Miss Dora.” He stared morosely at the map. “And Julia’s the only likely one.”

“What about Sybil?”

Max leaned closer. She smelled the nice scent of fresh soap. She reached up and touched his cheek and liked the prickly feel of stubble.

“Oh, yes,” he agreed. “Yes, we can’t forget Sybil. But why would she burn down the Tarrant Museum?”

“She didn’t. That was Julia.” But Annie’s answer was automatic,
unthinking. She was concentrating on the map—and suddenly she knew.

Oh, God, of course. Whitney looking out—and seeing no one.

All the pieces shifted in Annie’s mind, clicking irrevocably into place. Tarrant House. The Judge dead. Milam and Julia and Missy at Wisteree. Missy’s birthday party. The teddy bear. Amanda hearing Miss Dora’s chatter and discovering her youngest son was not guilty of patricide. In her happiness at clearing Ross’s name, had Amanda followed that truth through to its lethal conclusion? Or was she so elated at Ross’s innocence that she’d talked too much and to the wrong person? Years passed, and Courtney Kimball demanded to know what happened on May 9, 1970. The history of the Tarrant Family. So much good and so much bad, but Charlotte included only the good.

“Max—”

The phone shrilled.

Annie was nearest. As she reached for it, another burst of thunder was followed hard by a sheet of lightning.
It was a dark and stormy night
—The familiar refrain flashed in her mind. It almost brought a smile because it was such a perfect time for Laurel to call with macabre descriptions of ghostly peregrinations. Annie wondered, did ghosts get wet? That was an absorbing metaphysical puzzle.

But the voice on the other end of the line, hoarse and strained with worry, was not Laurel’s.

“… I tell you, she’s gone! I tried Aunt Dora’s. She’s not there. We’ve got to find her. She’s out in the storm. She hates storms!” There was panic in Milam’s voice. “She left a note.”

A note. Annie tensed. “What did she say?”

Static crackled on the line.

“’… sorry for everything. We never had a chance, did we? But you were always kind. You hated Tarrant House, too. And you loved Missy. Don’t follow me.”’