Part 18 (1/2)

”And you took the job. Didn't they ask for references?”

”I told them up front I didn't have experience in that area except for the time I spent with Jake's daughter, Julia, when she was a child, but I learned from my mother how to take care of a house and cook. The greenhouse where I'd worked before gave them a reference, and that seemed to satisfy them.” Mildred shrugged. ”Guess they were desperate. I meant to stay only a few months-a year at the most-until I could decide where I wanted to go from there, but of course by then I knew I couldn't leave Otto.”

Somehow it always came back to Otto.

”Does my grandmother know what really happened to your mother?” I asked.

”Good heavens, no! She never knew her, of course, but Vesta's always enjoyed telling about her beautiful aunt, Annie Rose, who died so young and so tragically in the Saluda River. It makes a good story.”

”She's never seen the pin with your mother's initials on the back?”

”No one has-except for Otto, and I never showed it to him. It was one of the few things left to me by my mother, and I kept it in a special place. Not special enough, I guess, to keep hidden from Otto.

”Lucy had a pin just like it,” she added. ”I found it just after she died, and that was what convinced me the two were sisters. That and some pictures I came across in the family alb.u.m.”

”Mildred...,” I began, and then hesitated. How do you ask a question like this? I took a deep breath and plunged in. ”Mildred, do you have any idea who your father was?”

She stood at the window looking out on the backyard already layered in the gloom of late afternoon. ”Does it matter? Whoever he was, he's long dead now.”

”Do you think it had anything to do with Otto's death?”

Mildred turned, and I was surprised to hear her laugh. ”You mean the fact that I'm illegitimate-or would've been if my mother hadn't married when she did?” She shook her head. ”People don't kill for that kind of thing in this day and time, Arminda.”

”How can you be sure Ben Parsons wasn't your natural father?”

”Because I found my mother's marriage license to him. It was dated five months before I was born.” Mildred crossed her arms and looked at me. ”I'm sure she didn't know him before she came there. And her name on the license was Annie Rose Westbrook.” Annie Rose Westbrook.”

I felt a s.h.i.+ver go through me. ”Is that what you learned when you went there this last time?”

She nodded. ”I should've done this long ago, but Estelle said there was nothing of my mother's there, said they'd thrown out her things years ago. Hateful to the end, Estelle was, but Julia is more like her father. Wrote me a week or so before Otto died and said she was putting the old place on the market and had discovered some things of my mother's in the attic. Jake died not too long after I left there, and Estelle's been gone four or five years. Julia and her husband are moving into a smaller place.”

”Have you told anyone else about this?” I asked.

Mildred sighed as she sat across from me. ”Not yet. I just wish I'd known this sooner! Everyone who knew my mother is gone now, and I have so many questions to ask.”

I reminded her about Mamie Estes. ”Her mind's still good for somebody as old as she is, and she remembers your mother.”

”Do you think she would talk with me? I wouldn't want to frighten her.”

”Why do you say that?” I said.

”When Lucy died all those years ago, I felt I'd lost my last link, and then I remembered Flora Dennis.” Mildred looked away, but I could still see the hurt on her face.

”What about Flora?”

”She used to correspond with Lucy, and I knew they'd gone to school together, so I thought perhaps she'd remember my mother, Annie Rose. I wrote to her telling her of Lucy's death and enclosed a copy of a photograph of Mama. It was made in our backyard in Brookbend when she was still a young woman, and I asked Flora if she remembered her.”

”Did you tell her it was a picture of Annie Rose?” I asked.

”No, no. It was kind of a test, you see, to discover if my mother was really who I suspected, but Flora never answered my letter.”

”Maybe she was sick,” I said. ”Or just forgetful. I don't think she lived too long after that.”

”It was more than that, Arminda. When I didn't hear from her after a few weeks I became concerned that perhaps she hadn't received my letter, and I telephoned there. When Flora answered the phone, I tried to explain who I was and what I wanted, but I couldn't get any response from her. The woman never said a word! After a few minutes, her granddaughter came to the phone and was most unpleasant to me. Accused me of trying to pull a cruel joke and warned me to never call there again. So of course I never did.”

”I can see why she reacted that way, Mildred. Flora thought your mother was dead-drowned. She never knew you existed, and now you were sending her a photograph of a dead woman.”

”I certainly didn't intend... I suppose I went about it in the wrong way. If only she'd have let me explain!”

I told her how Peggy O'Connor had responded when I mentioned the emblem on her grandmother's gravestone. ”Must be an emotional family,” I said. ”You'd have thought I'd dug up a body in the garden.”

”I don't know about a body,” Mildred said, ”but something mighty queer's going on with her, and I think I know what she's hiding.”

I looked at her, and she answered my unspoken question.

”The quilt. I believe the O'Connor woman has the quilt, and for some reason she doesn't want us to see it.”

Chapter Twenty-Two.

Igroaned, thinking of another long drive to Georgia only to have a door slammed in my face. ”Maybe if you go with me, Mildred, we can convince this woman we don't have some evil plot against her. We have to track down that quilt!”

”She's had a few years to mellow since I spoke with her last.” Mildred said, starting for the telephone in the hallway. ”Let me speak with her first-won't hurt to give it a try.”

”Gatlin didn't have any better luck than I did,” I told her. ”You'll just be wasting your time.”

”Don't worry, I'll be diplomatic,” she insisted, waiting by the phone.

Diplomacy is not one of Mildred's greater traits, and I tried not to make a face. Still I dug up Peggy O'Connor's phone number from somewhere in the depths of my purse and stood by as she punched in the number and explained to the person who answered exactly who she was and what she wanted. Mildred looked at me as she spoke in her usual calm, no-nonsense voice, and her expression never changed.

”Mrs. O'Connor, I'm eighty-three years old, have never had much of an imagination, and doubt if I ever will. I'm telling you the truth, and I hope you will believe me when I tell you that your grandmother's friend, Annie Rose Westbrook, didn't die as she believed in the Saluda River. I've only recently learned that Annie Rose was indeed my mother. She left Angel Heights when she was pregnant with me and never returned....

”... Oh, but Mrs. O'Connor, it should should concern you because that quilt your grandmother had...” concern you because that quilt your grandmother had...”

Mildred came very close to rolling her eyes at me. ”Yes, I'm sure your grandmother had it last because Mamie Estes mailed it to her. Mamie's a hundred and two but she still remembers your grandmother, and she's the last surviving member of that little group of friends-they even had a name for themselves, I hear.”

Mildred raised an eyebrow at me and I mouthed the answer she wanted. ”The Mystic Six, I'm told,” she told her, then, frowning, listened quietly to whatever was being said.

”Please don't hang up, Mrs. O'Connor. I wish we could convince you of the importance-”

I held out a hand for the receiver, and Mildred gave it to me with a world-weary sigh. If it had been Peggy O'Connor's neck, I would gladly have wrung it.

”Here's the thing,” I said. ”One person has been murdered here, and several-including me-were attacked. We believe the quilt may give us the key to the reason behind it. If you know anything about this, Mrs. O'Connor, your life may be in danger, as well. Won't you help us, please, before someone else is hurt?”

For a few silent seconds I thought she had gone away, and then she cleared her throat. ”I can't help you,” she said.

”Can't or won't?”