Part 9 (1/2)
”Maybe she's interested in something here, a rare book or something. Do you think Irene might be the person who ransacked the shop after sending Mildred to the Land of Nod?” The sample of Janice Palmer's shortbread the lab had tested turned out fine, but there were traces of a strong sedative in the coffee Mildred had ingested, and since no one else was affected, it seemed obvious the drug must've been added to her serving only.
”How could she? Irene wasn't even there that night. And how would she know which cup was Mildred's?”
”I wish I knew,” I said. ”I don't suppose you've heard from Mildred?”
”No, but they aren't due back until sometime in the middle of the week, are they? And I'm sure Vesta would let us know if she called.” Gatlin pushed bright hair from her forehead and sat on a box of books to rest. ”Did you find out anything from Gordon Carstairs yesterday?”
I grinned. ”I was hoping you'd ask. Number Five lived in Cornelia, Georgia-at least I think that's who she was-and she had that flower-star thing engraved on her tombstone.”
”Get outta here!” My cousin swatted me with a dust rag. ”Why would she do a thing like that?”
”She's not talking, but I'm hoping her descendants will. Mr. Carstairs gave me her granddaughter's address, and I'm going to try to get down there tomorrow. Wanna keep me company?”
She shook her head. ”No time. That's an all day trip, Minda, and there's too much I need to do here.” Gatlin stood and leaned against the shelf where I sorted books in stacks of those that I thought could be worth keeping, those that probably wouldn't, and the few that might be valued at more than $5.98.
”I wish I knew what I was doing,” I said, studying over a history book published in 1924, before adding it to the ”keep” pile. I hoped my cousin knew more about the book business than I did.
”It's something to do with what happened to Otto, isn't it?” Gatlin persisted. ”That group of women, the quilt they made, and that blasted pin they wore. Why won't you tell me what it is?”
”Because I don't know myself,” I said. I didn't add that I was afraid if I shared my secret about the tiny gold pin, I might put my cousin and her family in danger.
”Just be careful, then,” she said. ”That's a long way to drive alone.”
I wouldn't be driving to Georgia alone, but that's another thing I didn't tell her.
Augusta and I left early the next morning with Gordon Carstairs's directions to the O'Connors' house, a thermos of coffee, and a basket of Augusta's strawberry m.u.f.fins. The m.u.f.fins were still hot as we pa.s.sed the town limits of Angel Heights, and I ate two of them before we'd gotten ten miles down the road. Augusta, I noticed, put away a good supply herself.
A couple of hours later when we stopped for a midmorning break, I gave in to temptation and had another and was surprised to find them still warm. There also appeared to be as many of them as there were when we started.
”How do you do that?” I asked my heavenly pa.s.senger, but Augusta only smiled. She had shed the voluminous wrap she'd started out in that looked to me like the lining of clouds when the sun s.h.i.+nes through them and had finally stopped asking if my car heater was broken. I didn't know angels could be cold-natured, but Augusta said it all went back to her being at Valley Forge that freezing winter with Was.h.i.+ngton's army.
Now she sat fingering her wonderful necklace that seemed to have changed from sunrise pink to a kind of maple-leaf gold and back again. ”I a.s.sume this woman's expecting us,” she said. ”Seems an awfully long way to drive and then find her gone.”
”You a.s.sume wrong,” I told her. Sometimes Augusta can be a bit of a know-it-all. ”I didn't call on purpose; it might scare her off. You'll have to admit it would be sort of strange having somebody you never heard of asking questions about your grandmother. And even if she's not there, we can go to the cemetery. I'm curious about that emblem, Augusta. Gordon Carstairs says it was on Flora Dennis's stone.”
”That is curious. I hope the granddaughter will be able to tell us something about Flora,” Augusta said. ”What did you say her name was?”
”Peggy. Peggy O'Connor. And she should know if anyone would. Gordon Carstairs says Flora and her husband raised her after her parents died.”
Cl.u.s.ters of autumn leaves still clung in places, and their orange and gold was reflected in the water as we pa.s.sed Lake Hartwell at the Georgia state line. The bright collage stirred a memory. This was my husband's favorite season. Jarvis and I always went hiking in the fall and had gone camping in this area several times. I swallowed a would-be moan. At the same time, Augusta touched me lightly on the arm, and when I looked into her eyes I saw that she was hurting with me. I didn't want her to hurt any more. I didn't want me me to hurt any more, and when Augusta smiled, I smiled back. It helped. to hurt any more, and when Augusta smiled, I smiled back. It helped.
”I wish you could remember who the other two Mystic members were,” I said as we neared the turnoff for Cornelia. ”If this doesn't work out, I don't know where else to look.”
”It's not that I can't remember them, Minda; I never knew who they were. I'm as much in the dusk about this as you are. Rome wasn't built in a week, you know.”
I let the dusk dusk thing go. ”You mean a day?” I said. thing go. ”You mean a day?” I said.
”That, either.” Augusta dug into her bottomless bag, unfolded a soft-looking fabric in a sunny yellow print, and began to sew.
”You're not going to have time to get started on that before we get there,” I told her. ”What is it, anyway?”
”Pajamas. Snug, aren't they?” Augusta held up a tiny pair with feet already finished that looked like it might fit a six-month-old. ”I dislike it when my feet get cold,” she said. ”This is for the little boy in that house right next to the water tower. Father lost his job.”
”Where? In Angel Heights?”
She nodded. ”The pajamas will grow as he grows. Should last awhile.”
”How do you plan to deliver them?” I asked.
”There's more than one kind of angel, Arminda.” Augusta Goodnight carefully folded the small garment and laid it on the seat beside her. I knew who the other ”angel” would be.
Peggy O'Connor was baby-sitting her grandbaby when I called from a convenience store just outside of town and seemed understandably confused as to why I would want to see her.
I told her who I was and that my family, like hers, was from Angel Heights. She didn't seem impressed. ”I'm researching some family history and ran across some minutes from a meeting of a group of young women calling themselves the Mystic Six,” I explained. ”I think your grandmother, Flora, might have been one of them.”
Peggy O'Connor's only comment was a soothing shush to the baby wailing in the background.
”I should've called ahead, I know, but we-I-was pa.s.sing through and hoped you might be able to spare a little time,” I babbled. ”If it's not convenient now, maybe sometime later this afternoon?”
”Right now I'm trying to get Ca.s.sandra down for her nap, and I just don't know...”
”Oh, I hope I didn't wake her!” Naturally this woman wasn't going to invite me over. She didn't know me from Adam's house cat. I might be a child-s.n.a.t.c.her or even somebody trying to sell magazines or cosmetics. ”Your cousin Gordon suggested I get in touch with you,” I said. ”You see, my great-grandmother was Lucy Alexander. She was a Westbrook before she married, and Vesta-that's my grandmother-said she used to talk about somebody named Flora.” A lie A lie. Augusta, standing beside me, lifted an eyebrow. ”I think they were close friends growing up.”
”Ca.s.sandra usually sleeps until around two-thirty.... I suppose it would be all right if you dropped by after then, but I really don't know how I can help you.” The woman spoke as if she had to wrench out each word with pliers.
I gratefully accepted the crumbs. ”That would be fine, thank you. I'll see you then.” I got off the phone before she could change her mind.
Augusta's thermos of coffee seemed as bottomless as her handbag, but both of us had lost our taste for strawberry m.u.f.fins, so I picked up sandwiches from a fast-food restaurant, and we picnicked under a big sycamore tree in the town cemetery. A light rain began to fall as we packed away our paper wrappers and scattered crumbs for the birds, and neither of us had any idea where Flora Dennis was buried. Gordon Carstairs had told me that her husband's name was Douglas Briggs, so at least we had something to go on.
Rain was coming down harder by the time I dug out an umbrella from the clutter in my backseat and waved down a caretaker at the bottom of the hill. The Briggs plot, he told me, was against the far wall on the other end of the cemetery. ”You might want to take your car,” he suggested, wondering, I suppose, why anybody would be wandering around a graveyard on a day like this. I sort of wondered myself.
We found Flora's son Chester and his wife, Julia, buried in the small plot along with the older Briggses. Augusta hesitated at each stone-to say a prayer, I supposed, for the ones who rested there-but she stopped short when she came to the place where Flora lay, then knelt, and ran her fingers over the star-flower emblem there.
”How sad,” she whispered. ”How very sad.”
”What do you mean? Because of the design?”
”That poor child!” Augusta stood looking down at the stone as if she could make the engraving disappear. ”To think she still carried this after all those years!”
”Still carried what? What does this have to do with Annie's pin and the Mystic Six?” I could understand loyalty to a group of friends, but this was taking things a bit too far!
Augusta was silent as we walked back to the car. I flapped water from the umbrella, tossed it onto the floor in the back, and slid in beside her. ”This all has something to do with Otto's murder, doesn't it?” I asked.
”I had hoped not, but yes, I'm afraid it might.”
”Do you think whoever killed him dropped the pin I found, or could it have been Otto himself?”