Winter's Child Read online

  Trying to be fair, Lou said, “I think she was worried about Cal’s future. She never talked about the terms of her trust fund, so we don’t know how it was set up and whether or not it could transfer to the next generation.”

  She saw my blank look. “I don’t mean to throw off on Dwight—and you were right: he still is one fine-looking man!—but she didn’t think he’d be able to give Cal all the advantages she could. I mean, his people are just farmers, aren’t they?”

  That did it. It was crystal clear that they were unaware that Jonna had no huge funds at her disposal, that she treated her job at the Morrow House like a real job because it was a real job. I didn’t like Jonna Shay Bryant 238

  WINTER’S CHILD

  very much at that point. Ashamed of her sister, ashamed to tell her oldest friends that she was living on the very edge of her finances? To let them think that Pam was an alcoholic and that she herself was a penny-pinching tightwad rather than tell the truth? Afraid she’d lose face if—

  Wait a damn second here. Lose face?

  “In her papers,” I said. “There was something about a class gift?”

  They both nodded and explained that it had all been Jonna’s idea. Even though the old high school had closed eighteen years ago and was now apartments for the elderly, it still held their memories and their history and it was part of Shaysville’s History on the Square. Jonna had proposed that their class rebuild the old clock tower that used to stand on the front left side of the building.

  “Clock tower?”

  “It was built from the same local stones, two stories high with four tall slender arches and a clock that faced the commons,” said Lou. “About a year or two after they built the new high school and closed ours, a drunk driver crashed a dump truck into it and knocked it flat. Smashed the clock beyond repair and left the whole front looking unbalanced.”

  “So when Jonna suggested that our whole class chip in to replace it,” said Jill, taking up the story, “we got estimates and it was a lot higher than we hoped even though we could get the stones at cost from another old SHS

  alumnus. I mean, some of our classmates still work in the furniture factory and Jonna was afraid it would be too much of a hardship.”

  “But then Jill and I suggested that the three of us chip 23 in five thousand each for the clock and that would make the tower itself more affordable.”

  “Plus,” Jill said candidly, “we’d get to put our names on the brass plaque for donating the clock separately.”

  “Jonna was afraid the others might think we were being too pushy, but the rest of the committee said that nobody would object to memorializing the Three Musketeers that way. We put it to a class vote, and they were right.”

  “I could have told Jonna that,” said Jill, her huge emerald flashing as she straightened her collar. “If we gave the clock, it would mean fifteen thousand less that they’d have to contribute, so of course they agreed to it.”

  C H A P T E R

  25

  How like a winter hath my absence been.

  —Shakespeare

  “Jonna wasn’t worried that someone would smash her face,” I told Dwight and the two agents when I caught up with them at the Morrow House. “She cried because she was going to lose face if she didn’t come up with the money. Cal really did misunderstand.”

  I repeated what Jonna’s friends had told me about their ambitious plan for a class gift and how it had mush-roomed out of her control.

  “All these years and she never let them know that she didn’t have any money of her own.” That was the part that was hardest for me to understand. “When I put it to Mrs. Shay, she broke down and admitted it.”

  “Did she cry?” Dwight asked cynically.

  “Buckets. She’s on a complete guilt trip right now, wondering if Jonna would still be alive if she had agreed to advance her the money.” I looked up at the three men.

  “Would she?”

  The other two shrugged and Dwight said, “Be a pretty 24 big coincidence if the money’s not connected somehow or other, but coincidences do happen. That’s why they’re called coincidences.”

  “She tried to rationalize it by pleading poverty herself—that the house eats up so much of her income, she had to keep up her own appearances, and of course, all the doctor visits and the different medications they prescribe.

  She’s so torn up over it, though, that she’s going to donate the money in Jonna’s name. And speaking of medicines,” I said to Lewes and Clark, “did Jonna’s doctor have a suggestion as to what Pam took from her medicine cabinet?”

  Clark started to put me off, but Lewes answered candidly. “Her doctor didn’t, but the boy’s doctor prescribed some codeine-laced cough syrup a couple of weeks ago and that bottle doesn’t seem to be in the house.”

  “Jonna probably threw it out,” said Dwight. “Mrs.

  Shay said it made Cal so groggy that Jonna quit giving it to him.”

  While we stood there talking in the doorway of the office Jonna and Frederick Mayhew had shared, five or six people arrived at the front entrance. I glanced at my watch. One o’clock. Opening time for the house, but these people, mostly women, seemed more like friends than casual tourists. Belatedly, I remembered that Mayhew had said that today was the monthly meeting of the Shaysville Historical and Genealogical Society at four o’clock, with a reception at three. The women headed through to the kitchen with boxes of canapés and the makings of punch.

  Frederick Mayhew was everywhere, urging people to sign the register, suggesting that some of the men might begin setting up folding chairs in the double parlors, and giving us anxious looks every time he passed as if fearful we might rain on his parade before he could find the umbrellas.

  “Any luck here in the house?”

  “Nada,” said Dwight, “and we were from the attic to the basement. Looked under all the furniture, all the closets, in every storage chest. Not that there’s much of that upstairs. Like you thought, it’s just those two bedrooms that are furnished, Peter Morrow’s room on the second floor and Elizabeth’s on the third.”

  “Smell any gardenias?”

  “Actually, we did, so we turned that room inside out, but there’s no sign of Pam or Cal anywhere.”

  “What’s next?” I asked.

  “Radcliff’s got his people canvassing the area around the junkyard, but so far, ain’t nobody seen nothing,” said Agent Clark.

  “We’re going to drive up into the hills and interview the cousins that the sister stayed with earlier this week,”

  said Lewes.

  “I guess I’ll stay here and keep going through Jonna’s records, see if I can spot anything out of the ordinary,”

  Dwight said.

  I saw the strain in his face, heard the frustration in his voice.

  “I’m starved,” I said, trying to sound plaintive. “Could we go get something to eat first?”

  He wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about finding a restaurant, so once I’d freshened up and we were in the truck, I suggested that we swing by a grocery store, grab some deli stuff, and take it back to the house.

  That sounded better to him. “We probably ought to let Bandit out, too.”

  Twenty minutes later, as we waited in the checkout lane at the local supermarket with sliced turkey, lettuce, sandwich rolls, and broccoli salad, Dwight reached for his wallet and a slip of paper fell out of his pocket. It was the little map Eleanor Prentice had drawn for him just before I showed them the parka I’d found.

  “Damn!” said Dwight. “Dix Lunsford. I forgot all about him.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Cleaning man for the Morrow House. He and his wife used to be the live-in help when the Shays had that bigger house before Jonna’s father killed himself. I think he still does some yard work for her once in a while, and his wife comes in once a week. According to Mayhew and Mrs. Shay both, they’re devoted to the family.”

  Yeah, right. White employers always want to thin
k that their black employees are devoted.

  As soon as Dwight had paid for our food, he hurried me out to the truck. “If he’s known Jonna since she was a baby, then he knows Pam, too. Maybe he can tell us where she’d go to earth.”

  Because Eleanor had combined the drawn map with oral instructions, I drove while he navigated.

  Every little town in the South has its black section on the so-called wrong side of the railroad tracks or main highway, and Shaysville was no exception. A block of trashy unpainted shacks will butt up against blocks of modest but well-maintained bungalows. Most middle-class, white-collar blacks live in integrated neighborhoods these days, but the poor and working class still cling to the old familiar haunts.

  “Take the next right,” Dwight said as I drove slowly down a street wreathed in the quiet of a cold Sunday afternoon. “It’ll be the third house on the right, brick house with green shutters. There it is. Pull in here.”

  I waited in the warmth of the truck while he went up to the door and knocked. Then knocked again.

  My disappointment almost matched his after it became clear that no one was home.

  “Maybe they’re just having Sunday dinner with someone,” I said when he came back to the truck.

  “Yeah, and maybe they’ve gone to Florida for the winter,” he said gloomily. “I’ll see if any of the neighbors know.”

  I watched him trudge up the walk next door and ring the bell. An older man came to the door, they spoke briefly, then Dwight returned with a happier look on his face.

  “They’ve gone to visit one of her sisters and should be back before dark,” he reported.

  Back at the house, Dwight let Bandit out and went over to talk to Mr. Carlton while I put together a couple of sandwiches. He returned the little dog to its crate so that we could eat in peace. Although Bandit was too well trained to actually beg, he would sit on his haunches to watch with hope-filled eyes and would instantly pounce on any stray crumb that fell to the floor.

  Dwight was still on edge, but there had been a slight easing of tension. We were both frantic to find Cal, but 24 knowing that it was Jonna’s sister who had taken him and not some faceless child molester helped a little.

  As we ate, Dwight glanced at his watch, then did a double take. “Today’s the twenty-third,” he said, as if both surprised and chagrined.

  I looked at him inquiringly, my mind a blank.

  “As of yesterday, we’ve been married a whole month.”

  “Awww, and I didn’t get you a present.”

  “Yes, you did.” He reached for my hand. “You came.”

  The instant our hands touched, it was as if every hormone that had been quiescent those last three days flared into action.

  As of one mind, we left our half-eaten sandwiches on our plates and pushed back from the table. When we kissed, it took all the willpower we could muster not to start undressing each other then and there. Somehow we made it from the kitchen to the couch, but just barely. He unzipped my sweater while I struggled with his belt buckle. It seemed to take forever. We were like two lost and half-frozen hikers who suddenly stumble upon a steaming hot spring in the middle of an ice field. We dived in, sinking down, down, down into the liquid warmth, then coming up for air just long enough to take a breath before the waters closed over us again.

  Afterwards, we lay entwined and the most relaxed since Cal disappeared. Dwight pulled the blanket up over my bare shoulder and murmured, “Happy anniversary.”

  I yawned and snuggled closer. “Wake me in an hour, okay?”

  “Ummm,” he said with a yawn of his own.

  It was closer to two hours before we awoke, and the sun was heading for the horizon in a blaze of red and gold against the western sky.

  We took a quick shower and decided to split up for a while. Dwight would check in with Mayleen Richards or Bo Poole, see what was happening back home, then go question the Lunsfords. I would drive my car back to the Morrow House and try to catch Betty Ramos before the end of the HSGS’s monthly meeting. If she was helping with the inventory, maybe Jonna had let something slip.

  As I headed out, Dwight took pity on Bandit. “Poor little guy’s not getting the attention he’s used to. I think I’ll let him ride along with me this evening.”

  He snagged Bandit’s retractable leash from a nearby hook and the terrier ricocheted off the sides of his wire crate in excited anticipation.

  “You’re a kind man, Dwight Bryant,” I told him. “Y’all have fun. I’ve got my phone turned on, so call me if you hear anything.”

  C H A P T E R

  26

  The lion on your old stone gatesIs not more cold to you than I.

  —Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  Sunday afternoon, 23 January

  Down in Colleton County, Detectives Jack Jami-

  son and Raeford McLamb once again found themselves going door-to-door. Television might sensationalize police standoffs and car chases, but a lawman’s day-to-day routine was much less exciting, and that was perfectly fine with McLamb. After yesterday, he was more than happy to be back in the mundane world of knocking on doors, ringing doorbells, and questioning residents in the Rideout Road area as to whether they had noticed Sergeant Overholt or his black Subaru sedan around sunset on Thursday. As far as he was concerned, the less sensational the better. Getting shot at was for TV

  actors and nothing he wanted to make a habit of.

  The two deputies began their inquiries at the Diaz y Garcia compound, where they pulled out pictures they had taken from the Overholt trailer. “When y’all were working in that new development that backs up against Rideout Road, anybody see this man?”

  The two brothers-in-law recognized Overholt’s pictures from last night’s newscasts; and the name of the dead woman, Darla Overholt, had not gone unnoticed by J. D. Rouse’s wife. Nita Rouse was now blaming herself for her husband’s death. No, she had not told Overholt about the affair. Not really. But she had friends, friends who were hotly indignant on her behalf. Maybe one of them? No, she could not, would not, name names. Naming names had left three people dead.

  “On the news, they say someone else was shot,” said Miguel Diaz. “The woman who came with you before—

  Mrs. Richards?”

  “Detective Richards,” said McLamb. “She’s not married.”

  “Is she hurt bad?”

  “Bad enough,” Jamison said with a stern look toward the weeping Nita Rouse.

  “It was only a flesh wound,” McLamb told him, touching his side to indicate the place where the bullet had grazed Richards.

  “She is in the hospital?”

  “No, she’s able to come in to work as long as she takes it easy. Now, about Overholt. Did y’all see him hanging around the Orchard Range area Thursday? Maybe he parked his Subaru back there?”

  Diaz translated for his brother-in-law, who shook his head.

  “But I will ask our men,” said Diaz, “and I will tell you if they saw him.”

  From the Diaz y Garcia compound, they looked in on Mrs. Harper and her dog, Dixie, in the Holly Ridge development off Rideout Road. She, too, shook her head when shown Overholt’s picture.

  “Like I told you and Detective Richards yesterday, I don’t remember any cars other than that pickup truck.

  And now she gets shot? I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the news last night. Here she was sitting in my living room one minute and the next minute she’s down there in Makely getting shot at. That man was a disgrace to his uniform. Good riddance to bad cess!”

  She saw the deputies exchange glances and gave a sheepish smile. “The Colonel used to say that my temper rides my tongue. All the same, I’m really sorry to hear she got shot. Please give her my best.”

  There were fifteen houses in the Holly Ridge development, which was not on a ridge nor possessed of any holly trees. On this cool Sunday afternoon, most people seemed to be home. All had heard about the shooting even though none of them admitted to knowing Rouse.

/>   They were familiar with Mrs. Harper’s dedication to keeping the road free of litter; and at one house, two pre-teen black sisters said they occasionally went along to help. “Dixie’s cute and Mrs. Harper always gives us hot chocolate with marshmallows afterwards.”

  To their extreme disappointment, they had not been outside on Thursday afternoon when the shooting actually occurred. They had heard about it almost immedi- ately afterwards and, although forbidden to leave their street, they were watching at the intersection when Mrs.

  Harper came back.

  “She was so shook, that we pulled the wagon the rest of the way for her,” one girl said virtuously, “even though she didn’t want to let us do it.”

  “I didn’t know white folks could turn that green,” said her sister.

  Near the end of Rideout Road itself, they came across a homeowner who had known Rouse casually for years.

  “His mama might’ve loved him and maybe his little girls, but he’s not much loss to the rest of the world.”

  “Why, Thomas Conners!” his scandalized wife scolded.

  “What a thing to say. And on the Lord’s day, too.”

  “Tell the truth and shame the devil,” he retorted. “Besides, if you can’t tell the truth on Sunday, when can you?

  He never cared for anything or anybody ’cepting hisself, far as I ever saw. Too bad that poor woman had to be the one to see it happen.”

  “You know her?” his wife asked. “You never told me you knew her.”

  “Not to say know,” her husband protested. “But you see somebody enough, you get to thinking you do, you hear what I’m saying? She’s out at least once a week when I’m coming home.”

  But when Conners walked out to the drive with the deputies, he grinned and described how Mrs. Harper had read him the riot act once.

  “See, the wife, she’s real religious. Doesn’t hold with alcohol of any kind. Me, I like a beer once in a while. Espe-25 cially in the summer, you hear what I’m saying? I’ll stop off after work once in a while, get me a cold one and nurse it all the way home. Sometimes, I’d be almost home, so I’d stop along Rideout Road, finish it off and toss the can, then use a mouth spray so the wife wouldn’t know. Well!