Part 13 (1/2)
”You really are an angel,” I said, and meant it. ”I just can't believe somebody I've known all my life murdered Otto and might be trying to do the same to me. These people are our friends, Augusta. It's awful not to know who to trust anymore.”
She set the steaming cup in front of me. ”Drink up now,” she said. ”We'll think about it in the morning.”
But I was forced to think about it a little earlier than I intended when Rusty Echols phoned the next day just as I was getting out of the shower. All the students who had been absent the day before were accounted for during the time I was thrown from my bicycle, he told me. Except for one.
”We haven't been able to locate Duncan Oliver,” Rusty said, ”and frankly, I wouldn't be too surprised if the little devil might've had something to do with it. It wouldn't be the first time he's pulled a dangerous stunt like that. I know he was the one who threw that rock from an overpa.s.s and damaged some tourist's fancy foreign job, but we never could prove it. Even his own mama can't seem to keep up with him.”
”You mean she doesn't know where he is?” I asked.
”I mean n.o.body answers when I call their place. Checked with the neighbors, and they said Duncan's mom quit her job at the mill and went to work somewhere else. None of them seemed to know where. Hadn't seen either of them for a couple of days.”
”What about his father?”
”He's not in the picture,” the policeman said. ”As soon as we locate them, I'll get back to you on this. Meanwhile, I'd stay close to home if I were you.
”By the way,” he added, ”Chief McBride went back to that place where you said the rope was tied and found fiber strands embedded in the tree bark. It's not much, but at least it's something to go on.”
When the phone rang just after breakfast, I hoped it was Rusty or his uncle calling to tell me they'd arrested whoever was making my life miserable, but it was Tess Estes phoning to let me know Mamie was up to having a visitor if it still suited me to come. I told her I'd be there in a couple of hours, and had started out the door when I remembered it might be a good thing to let Vesta know where I was going. There wasn't room in the doghouse for Mildred and me both.
”I don't suppose you've heard from her,” I said.
”Not so much as a mumblin' word,” my grandmother told me. ”And how is your head this morning?”
”Got a lot of straight yellow hair on the outside and not much in the inside,” I said. ”Other than that, it's okay.”
”Ha. Ha.” She didn't sound amused. ”If that's the best you can come up with, you do need to take it easy today. And just why are driving to Charlotte?”
”I'm going to see Mamie Estes,” I told her.
”Who?”
”Mamie Estes. The last of the Mystic Six.”
”Oh. Mama always spoke of her as Mamie Trammell,” my grandmother said. ”You don't mean she's still alive?”
”A hundred and two,” I told her. ”And every minute counts. Gotta run!”
But before I left, I telephoned the Better Health Clinic and left a message for Dr. Ivey. ”Just tell him I called to let him know I'm okay,” I told the receptionist.
”If you'll hold a minute, I think I can chase him down for you,” she said.
”No, that's all right. Thanks. I'm fine, really. All patched up.”
If we spoke on the phone, Harrison Ivey might ask me out. Or maybe he wouldn't, and I wasn't sure which bothered me more. But I couldn't deny that I was attracted to him. The thing that puzzled me the most, I think, was that he wasn't one bit like Jarvis.
Augusta seemed unusually quiet during the drive to Charlotte, but I was rea.s.sured by her company, especially after what happened the day before. I tried not to think about where I might have ended up if Augusta hadn't warned me to jump, but I found myself glancing in the rearview mirror every few minutes to see if I recognized the car behind us.
”I don't think we need to worry any more about the idiot who tied that rope across the road,” I said, more to myself than to Augusta. ”Paddington Bear seems to think it was a local delinquent who's done this kind of thing before.”
”Paddington Bear?” Augusta was concentrating on the traffic in the other lane and didn't look at me.
”Officer Echols. He said the boy wasn't in school yesterday, and they haven't been able to locate him.”
The angel spoke softly. ”Vigilance, faith, and determination-they will see us through.”
”Glad to hear it. Those are powerful words. Who said them?”
”I can't remember,” Augusta said with a perfectly straight face. ”But I think it might have been me.”
The Esteses lived in a blue Cape Cod with white trim in an older part of Charlotte, and Tess Estes, a plump, graying woman who looked like she should be on the cover of a Mother Goose Mother Goose book, met me at the door. She wore an ap.r.o.n that read, PAYTHECOOK... FORGET THE KISSES! and a smudge of cocoa on her chin. book, met me at the door. She wore an ap.r.o.n that read, PAYTHECOOK... FORGET THE KISSES! and a smudge of cocoa on her chin.
”You're just in time! Come join us in the kitchen. Coffee's hot, and I've a batch of mola.s.ses cookies ready to come out of the oven.”
”It smells wonderful in here!” I trailed happily after her past a living room furnished with overstuffed chintz and velvet Victorian, through a dining room featuring Danish Modern, and into an Early American kitchen, where a child-size old woman sat at a table sprinkling unbaked cookies with red sugar.
”We're trying to get a head start on our Christmas baking,” the lady in the ap.r.o.n said, ”and please excuse my poor manners.” She stuck out a floury hand. ”I'm Tess, and this is Mother Estes, cookie decorator extraordinaire. The pastry chef on that TV cooking show's been trying to hire her away from me, but I'm not letting her go.”
Mamie Estes completed a ginger snowman's attire with a row of raisin b.u.t.tons and looked up at me with eyes almost as blue as the gingham curtains behind her. She wore no gla.s.ses. ”You're Lucy's granddaughter.” It was more of an announcement than a question.
”Great-granddaughter,” I said, and took the hand she offered. It was so tiny and delicate I was afraid I might crush it in my larger, stronger one.
Tess scooped spicy brown cookies from the baking tin and piled them on a blue spatterware plate that she set in front of us. I bit into a nut-encrusted Christmas tree and thought of Augusta, who was looking on, no doubt, with her mouth watering.
”I came to ask you about the Mystic Six,” I said to the woman sitting next to me. ”I need your help, Mrs. Estes.”
A small blue blaze flared in her old eyes, but only for a second. ”What kind of help?” she said.
”I need to know about the quilt, what happened to it.”
Mamie Estes broke a cookie in two and it crumbled into her lap. ”That's all over and done with. n.o.body left but me.”
”I know,” I said. ”Still, it could be important.”
Tess looked at me across the table and her eyes signaled, Don't go there! Don't go there!
But what else could I do? ”I'm sorry,” I said to both of them, ”but... well, things have happened that might have been prevented. Bad things.” I couldn't tell her about Otto! What if she dropped dead from the shock of it? However, even in her frail condition, Mamie Estes looked as if she could handle a bombsh.e.l.l or two.
”There's something about that quilt you made back then that might help us to work through a difficult problem now,” I told her.
Mamie looked at her daughter-in-law and slowly shook her head. ”What does it matter now? I can't see the harm-but why? What good would it do?”
She was reluctant to let the old quilt go, and I didn't blame her. She was the last member and had earned the right to keep it. ”If you could just let me see it, that might be enough. I'd understand if you'd rather I not-”
”I don't have it,” Mamie said in a voice that didn't seem frail at all. ”I'd give it to you if I could.” She fumbled in the box of cookie cutters until she found one she liked. It was an angel. ”I don't care if I never see the blamed thing again.”
”Then who? There's n.o.body else. You were the last one.” I glanced at Tess with what I hoped was a ”help me” look, but Tess, upper arms jiggling, thumped dough onto a floured board and rolled it into a plate-size circle.