Southern Ghost (7 page)

Her dark eyes were unreadable, but the moment stretched until Max knew there was an answer. He waited, scarcely daring to breathe.

She picked up the registration slip, then said abruptly, “She said Miss Dora told her to come here. Miss Dora’s—”

Max nodded, completed the sentence. “Miss Dora Brevard.”

He and Annie first met Dora Brevard when Annie put together the mystery program for Chastain’s annual house-and-garden tours one spring.

Miss Dora, who knew everything there was to know about Chastain. Max felt a stirring of hope.

By the time Annie finished reading the monograph (also authored by Charlotte Tarrant) on the history of Tarrant House, she had a good understanding of how to make tabby for foundations (a combination of oyster shells, sand, and a lime obtained through the burning of oyster shells), the popularity of Corinthian capitals, and the reason for the ever-present pineapple motif (pineapples indicated prosperity and hospitality). As far as she could tell, the important point about Tarrant House was that it had stood in all its Greek Revival glory on that lot since 1840, and was one of the few homes in Chastain still in the hands of the original family.

But, shades of Laurel, if she could be permitted that phrase,
Tarrant House did have a very interesting background in ghosts.

Background in ghosts? Of ghosts?

Annie was unsure how to say it.

Laurel would know.

The telephone rang.

Startled, Annie knocked over her almost—but not quite empty—Styrofoam cup.

The phone continued to ring as she bolted to the bath and grabbed up a face towel to mop up the coffee, saving
The Tarrant Family History
from desecration.

Another peal of the phone. Was Max once again being permitted a single call?

“Hello.” She tried to sound in command, ready for anything.

“Dear Annie.”

God, it was Laurel. Which was almost spooky. Except surely there was an obvious and rational explanation. Laurel must have called Barb, Max’s secretary, to track them down. However, Annie would have remarked upon the coincidence of Laurel calling at the precise moment Annie was thinking of her, but Laurel’s words riveted her attention.

“You are feeling beleaguered! That is evident from the strain in your voice. My dearest, I have called to offer my services and I
shall
come. Even though it will require an ambulance. I cannot—”

“Ambulance! Laurel, where are you? What’s wrong? What’s happened?” Annie moved the file away from the damp spot on the desk.

“A
minor
contretemps.” For once, the throaty voice lacked its usual élan, verging indeed upon embarrassment. “I am in Charleston, surely one of the loveliest cities of the world and filled with the
most
hospitable, charming people, most of whom are quite sophisticated about the specters in their midst, such as dear young Dr. Ladd at the house in Church Street and the rattling wheels of Ruth Simmons’s coach on Tradd Street. I am confident that all true Charlestonians
would agree that it is permissible to resort to deceit when obdurate personalities thwart reasonable goals.”

“Laurel”—Annie said it gently but firmly—“in words of one syllable, what happened?”

Shorn of elaborate circumlocution, Laurel’s recital boiled down to trespassing late at night upon posted property, entering a condemned building, tumbling down ramshackle stairs, and severely spraining not one, but both ankles. “I quite fail to understand the exceedingly unpleasant response of the property owners, who have refused to cooperate with psychical researchers despite the fact that a most delightful and energetic ghost is reputed to have lived there. At least, we are almost
certain
this is the right house. The story goes that a little girl, Lavinia, came there to live with two old aunts after her parents died. Lavinia enjoyed the third floor—I was on the third floor when I fell—such a long way down—and one day as the poor child ran up the steps, she was surprised to hear running steps beside her. Well, the long and the short of it is, though she never saw anyone, Lavinia realized the steps belonged to a ghost, whom she called Pinky. Now, Lavinia and Pinky had such fun together. They danced and ran and skipped. But, as happens to us all, Lavinia grew up—and she met a young man in whom she was very interested. Of course, the first thing she did was to tell Pinky—and I’m sorry to report that Pinky was
most
jealous, and now instead of dancing feet there were ugly stamps. Temper, you see. And he rapped angrily on the walls and tossed objects about.” (Obviously, despite the name, Pinky was a boy ghost.) “But Lavinia was in love. Finally, when Pinky’s temper didn’t improve, Lavinia told him to go away and never come back.

“Silence. No more companionable footsteps. Pinky was gone. Lavinia—such a kindhearted girl—tried to coax him back, promising they would always be friends, even though she dearly loved Kenneth and they were going to marry. But Pinky didn’t return.

“It was a lovely wedding in the front parlor. That night she and Kenneth came upstairs to her room for their honeymoon. That was the custom then. When they were ready for bed,
Kenneth turned down the oil wick and all of a sudden there were great raps and stamping and clothes flew about. Kenneth jumped out of bed, turned up the wick, and looked about in astonishment. Pinky yanked on Kenneth’s nightshirt. It was then that Lavinia explained to her bridegroom about her ghost. Kenneth was as aggravated as could be. Lavinia tried to persuade Pinky to be a good ghost and, finally, she laughed and said they’d just have to put up with it, that’s all they could do. And so, they began their new life together. The three of them.”

“Three,” Annie said ominously, “is a hell of a crowd.”

“Oh, I rather thought Lavinia was a dear—making room in her life for everyone.”

Annie wasn’t going to pursue this conversation. As far as she was concerned, conjugal frolics definitely were limited to two. She almost said so, then decided to get to the heart of the matter.

“Both ankles?”

“I am
prostrate.
However, nothing shall keep me from Max’s side when he is in need. As soon as I talked to Barb this morning—my dear, she’s having such fun at Death on Demand, playing with Agatha and reading—my duty was clear. I shall order an ambulance immediately and come to Chastain.” Rustlings of an uncertain nature sounded on the telephone line. “So difficult to keep one’s papers in order when confined to bed. But now I have paper and pen. Where are you in Chastain?”

“Oh, Laurel”—and if ever Annie had sounded heartfelt it was at this moment—“I cannot tell you how your devotion to duty touches me and how much it will mean to Max, but clearly it is your responsibility to stay in Charleston. Don’t you feel that it was meant that you should have an uninterrupted period of quiet to ponder the wondrous information you have collected and perhaps to make a substantial start upon your book?”

“Can you dear young people cope without me?” Laurel obviously had her doubts.

“Laurel”—Annie felt as if she had been inspired—“we
shall call upon you, yes. But not to come here. After all, we are in communication at this moment, even more closely than those who have gone before communicate with we who have come after.” Even if she had to say so herself, this was an especially nice touch. “We shall call you daily and share our investigation with you and you will be able to provide leadership and encouragement.”

Laurel’s satisfied murmurs were as liquid as the call of mourning doves. They parted with mutual protestations of affection, respect, and good intent.

Annie was grinning as she returned to her papers. Funny, the way Laurel had phoned just as Annie reached the part about the ghosts of Tarrant House. For a split instant, Annie felt the sting of guilt. Wasn’t it heartless not to share that surely fascinating information with their own intrepid ghost-seeker? But there would be ample opportunity during the calls aimed at keeping Laurel safely in Charleston.

Besides, right now, Annie was more interested in flesh-and-blood Tarrants, especially those who had been in Tarrant House the day Judge Tarrant and his youngest son died.

Annie picked up that list.

May 9, 1970. A traumatic day for the Tarrant family. How would those still alive remember those hours?

Nineteen-seventy. Annie was six years old. She didn’t know now how much she truly remembered of that spring and how much she had learned in later years. But there were words that still struck a chill in her heart and would forever cast a shadow in her mind.

Kent State.

That was 1970 to Annie. She remembered her mother staring at the flickering black-and-white television, tears running down her cheeks.

Max knocked again. “I can’t believe she isn’t here.” He rattled the huge brass knob. “It’s not even nine o’clock yet. Where can she be this early?”

“Out looking for a fresh supply of eye of newt,” Annie suggested as she pressed against the screen to peer into Miss Dora’s unlit dining room. “Or simply disinclined to answer the door.”

“We’ll come back.” He said it aloud and a little louder than necessary for Annie to hear.

If the old lady was inside, listening … Annie suppressed a shudder. She couldn’t think about Miss Dora without remembering embittered old Miss Havisham in
Great Expectations
, a withered old spinster living among the dust and decay of her broken dreams.

The cordgrass in the salt marsh rippled in the breeze. Fiddler crabs swarmed on the mud flats. The exquisitely blue sky
looked as though it had never harbored clouds, though the evidence of March rains remained in overflowing drainage ditches on either side of the asphalt road. Thick, oozy-green algae scummed the stagnant water.

Annie welcomed the rush of the mild spring air through the open windows of the Maserati. There was an aura of decay and stagnation about Miss Dora’s house, a sense of secrets long held and deeply hid. Had Courtney Kimball knocked on that door? What would have brought her to Miss Dora? Had Courtney stood on that porch, young and alive, intent upon her own mysterious goal only days before? Annie shivered.

Raising her voice to be heard over the rush of wind, she asked crisply, “What about next of kin?”

“The sergeant got real cagey there.” Max fumbled in the car pocket, retrieved his sunglasses, and slipped them on.

Annie admired that familiar, so-handsome profile, thick blond hair now attractively ruffled by the wind, the straight nose, firm chin, good-humored mouth. A mouth now tight with worry and irritation.