Southern Ghost Page 5

  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.

&
nbsp; Annie picked up that list.

  PERSONS KNOWN TO HAVE BEEN IN

  TARRANT HOUSE

  MAY 9, 1970

  Judge Augustus Tarrant, 63

  Amanda Brevard Tarrant, 52

  Harmon Brevard, 73

  Ross Tarrant, 21

  Milam Tarrant, 28

  Julia Martin Tarrant, 26

  Whitney Tarrant, 25

  Charlotte Walker Tarrant, 25

  Dora Brevard, 61

  Lucy Jane McKay, 48 (Cook)

  Enid Friendley, 39 (Maid)

  Sam Willingham, 44 (Butler)

  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.

  8 A.M., SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1970

  May sunlight sparkled through the open French doors on the ruddy richness of cypress paneling. But neither shining sun nor gleaming wood dispelled the cool formality of the study, musty leather-bound books, crossed swords above the Adam mantel, a yellowed map of early Chastain framed in heavy silver. The room echoed its owner, the books precisely aligned, the desk top bare, the sofa cushions smooth. Judge Augustus Tarrant tolerated disarray neither in his surroundings nor in his life—nor in the lives of his family.

  The Judge sat behind the desk as he sat behind the bench, his back straight, his shoulders squared. He scowled at the newspaper. This kind of rebellion couldn’t be tolerated. What was wrong with some of these college administrators, giving in, listening, talking? As for closing campuses, that was surrender. It was time to face down the mobs, time to jail those dirty, violent, shouting protesters. Burning the flag! Refusing to serve their country! Who did they think they were? He wished some of them would come before his court.

  You had to have standards.

  Standards.

  Amanda’s face, her eyes red-rimmed and beseeching, rose in his mind.

  Rage swept him.

  Chapter 8.

  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.

  The Maserati picked up speed. “It’s like there’s some kind of conspiracy to keep me from finding out anything about Courtney. But at least I got the name of her family lawyer out of Matthews.” Max honked at a scrappy-looking black pickup nosing out of a side road. “Honest to God, doesn’t anybody down here know what a stop sign’s for?”

  Absently, Annie defended her adopted state. “I’ve seen some pretty lousy driving on the back roads of Connecticut.” But she was puzzling over Max’s information. “A lawyer? Why a lawyer? I mean, usually the cops direct you to a parent or a husband or brother or somebody in a family. Why a lawyer?”

  The Beaufort law offices of Smithson, Albright & Caston occupied a—what else?—antebellum buff brick home. (The tasteful bronze plaque noted that the Franklin Beaumont House was built in 1753.) Six Corinthian pillars supported three piazzas.

  A chestnut-haired receptionist smiled a sunny welcome as they stepped into the enormous hallway that divided the house.

  “I called earlier.” There was no mistaking the intensity in Max’s voice. “Please tell Mr. Smithson that Max Darling and his wife are here to talk to him about Courtney Kimball.” Under one arm, Max carried the file that Annie had studied at the motel.

  At the mention of Courtney’s name, the young woman’s smile fled. “Oh, yes,” she murmured. She kept her voice even, but curiosity flared in her eyes. She led them swiftly up the paneled staircase to the second floor and paused to knock on white double doors. She opened the right-hand door. “Mr. Smithson, Mr. Darling is here.” As she stood aside for them to enter, she stared at them openly. Annie could feel that avid glance as the door closed behind them.

  A slender man in his early sixties with a silver Vandyke beard rose from behind an enormous mahogany desk and hurried toward them. His patrician face was somber, his eyes fearful. “Courtney—is there any word?”

  “Not to my knowledge, sir,” an equally somber Max replied.

  “I had hoped…” The lawyer paused, pressed his lips together, then held out his hand to Max. “Roger Smithson.”

  “Max Darling. My wife, Annie.”

  “Please.” Smithson gestured toward a pair of wing chairs that faced his desk.

  When they were seated, the lawyer returned to his desk; then, still standing, he stared down at them, his face intent, suspicious. “On the telephone, you claimed that Courtney hired you.”

  Max met the penetrating gaze with equanimity. “Courtney hired me on Monday.” He opened the folder and drew out a slip of paper. He rose and handed it to Smithson.

  “That’s Courtney’s signature,” the lawyer acknowledged gruffly after a moment. Handing the paper back, he pressed a hand to his temple, as though it throbbed. He looked old and weary. “I talked to the authorities in Chastain this morning. They found Courtney’s car late last night at Lookout Point on Ephraim Street.”

  Annie knew that area well. The graveled lot on the point afforded a glorious view of the swift-running, silver river beneath. Across the street from Lookout Point was the squat, buff-colored Chastain Historical Preservation Society, which Annie had good cause to recall with clarity. She’d had her first encounter with Miss Dora there when she’d come to Chastain to plan a mystery program for the annual house-and-garden tour, a mystery program marred by murder. Rising along the river were some of the stateliest old homes in Chastain, including Tarrant House and Miss Dora’s home.

  “And Courtney?” Max asked eagerly.

  Smithson gripped the back of his desk chair. “The car door was open.” The lawyer swallowed once, then said starkly, “There are bloodstains in the car. On the front seat, the driver’s side.” His voice was impassive, but the hand on the chair whitened at the knuckles. It took a moment before he was able to continue. “But not a great amount”—he faltered—“of blood.”

  “Bloodstains�
��” Max’s face tightened. It was bad enough to find an abandoned purse. Worse to investigate a ransacked apartment. But blood … Max took a deep breath. “No trace of Courtney?”

  “None.” Smithson’s face was gray. He pulled out the chair, slumped into it. “I warned Courtney not to go to Chastain.”

  Annie looked at him sharply. “Why? Did you think something would happen to her there?”

  His head jerked toward Annie. “God, of course not. I would have stopped her somehow, if I’d had any idea. It never occurred to me she would be in danger. But I know—I think lawyers know better than most—that stirring up the past is a mistake. People don’t expect it. They don’t want it. But to have Courtney disappear—I never expected that.”

  “What did you expect?” Max watched him closely.

  “Perhaps some unpleasant surprises. That’s what I told Courtney. To expect unpleasant surprises. I told her she was a stubborn little idiot if she went to Chastain. And now…” He rubbed his eyes roughly.

  “Why did she go?” Annie asked gently. “What was so important, so urgent, so critical that she felt she had to go there?”

  He stared at the two of them with reddened eyes. Finally, abruptly, he nodded. “I tried to tell the police this morning, but they wouldn’t listen. They said they had a suspect.” The lawyer’s eyes fastened on Max. “They said Courtney was running around with a married man.” For an instant, his gaze narrowed. “They’re talking about you, aren’t they?”

  Max nodded impatiently. “Sure. For the same reason they wouldn’t listen when you tried to tell them why Courtney came to Chastain. They don’t want to hear anything connected with the Tarrant family.”

  “The Tarrant family.” Smithson said it without warmth, indeed with anger. “Old sins cast long shadows. I don’t know, you see, what the truth is, I don’t know what happened or why—but I know part of it and I can guess part of it.”

  He leaned forward, looked at them searchingly.