An Angel to Die For (7 page)

I was so relieved to hear the Gaineses didn’t have Joey with them, I thanked the man at least three times on my way out.

“Ma’am?” Mr. Clark spoke as I reached the door. “I’d tread lightly with those folks if I were you.”

“What do you mean?”

“From the way the young man’s father talked when they were here, I think they blame your sister for their son’s death. The autopsy showed he had drugs in his system.”

“Drugs? Why blame Maggie for that? Sonny Gaines was driving. He certainly had no business behind the wheel of a car—he didn’t even try to stop! We’re the ones who should be upset.”

“I wouldn’t call them upset,” Mr. Clark, Jr., said. “I’d call them foamin’ at the mouth mad.”

I caught Augusta sneaking a peek at herself in the car mirror as I started back to the parking lot. With a quick little tweak here and a pat there, she repaired whatever she imagined was wrong with her image and seemed pleased with the result. I told her what Mr. Clark had said as she adjusted her scarf.

“I must say, you don’t seem worried,” I said as we drove away.

“Being worried won’t do us any good. Being prepared will.”

“You sound like a Boy Scout,” I said.

“I once filled in as Juliette Low’s angel for a brief period a few years back,” Augusta said. “Founded the Girl Scouts, you know. About wore me out, that lady did! Crossing foot bridges and driving like a wild woman. I can assure you I was relieved when
that
assignment was over.” Augusta took a deep breath. “As for the Gaineses’ ill will,
forewarned is forearmed
, that rascal Cervantes said.”

“You read Cervantes?” All I could remember was
Don Quixote
.

“Read him? I knew him. Only fleetingly, mind you. Too adventurous to remain in one place long.”

“I wish all I had to fight were windmills,” I said. The Gaines gang didn’t sound like anyone I’d like to have in my neighborhood, much less in my family. How in the world did Maggie let herself get mixed up with somebody like that? And I found myself getting annoyed with my dead sister all over again.

Augusta leaned forward and looked at me. “Scowling doesn’t become you, Prentice.” She examined the passing landscape of grazing cattle before speaking again. “I assume you worked things out with your young man?”

“Huh?”

“That night you spent at your aunt’s. He telephoned, left a message.”

I groaned. In all the excitement of learning about Joey, I hadn’t had time to check the answering machine. “I don’t suppose you heard what he said?”

“I couldn’t very well avoid it since I was right there in the room. Seems he wants to talk rather urgently and begs you to please get in touch.”

“I haven’t talked to Rob since early October,” I said. “Guess he’ll keep a little longer.”

About ten miles outside of Ruby I began rehearsing what I would say to Ola Cress. I had even brought pictures of my sister and myself together to prove our relationship, but what good would they do if I couldn’t
find her, or if she wouldn’t give me a chance to speak? Anxieties, along with the slaw and barbecue I’d had for lunch, played leapfrog in my stomach, until finally I stopped at the edge of town just to get some air.

“Breathe deeply and think blue,” Augusta said as I stood beside the car.

“Blue?”

“It’s a tranquil color. Restful. Just close your eyes and relax. You’ll see.”

I pictured a summer sky with white clouds drifting, a sapphire lake dotted with swans. And maybe it was the blue, or maybe the barbecue made friends with the slaw, but I felt much better when I got back behind the wheel again. A few miles down the road I stopped at a convenience store with a telephone out front and looked up Ola Cress’s address. Thank goodness she was listed!

The woman behind the counter directed me to Cinnamon Street, which was about four or five blocks to the right after you passed the post office. It was a little after four o’clock, and if Ola Cress worked during the day, chances were she might not be at home. Fine, I thought. That would give me an opportunity to look around.

Ruby wasn’t a big town, but the streets were clean, the buildings seemed to be well taken care of, and it had been there a long time. The rambling frame houses would be almost hidden from the street when the oaks came into leaf. Had my sister lived in this town? If so, I hoped she had found comfort here.

At the corner, one little girl pushed another in a rope swing. Farther down the street, a group of young boys, who looked to be about Cub Scout age, tussled on the lawn of the Methodist Church. Several older men clustered in front of the downtown bank. I could hear their laughter as I stopped for the light. A young mother passed by pushing her baby in a stroller, and my heart did a double flip because she looked a little like Maggie. But she wasn’t Maggie. Maggie was dead, and I was going to find her little boy and bring him home where he belonged.

I turned right at the post office and passed an elementary school of worn red brick, a row of shops: florist, cleaners, bakery, then drove through a residential area of smaller homes set close to the street. “There’s Cinnamon,” Augusta said, pointing to a street sign, and we turned and made our way slowly up the narrow winding road looking for the number of the house where I hoped to find my sister’s child.

Number 106 Cinnamon Street was a duplex on a slight hill surrounded by bushy shrubbery that would soon come into flower: quince, forsythia, lilac. I recognized them because we had some in our yard at Smokerise. Maggie should have felt at home here.

The house seemed to have been a one-family residence, converted to house two families. I parked the car out front and climbed the five steps to a broken cement walk that led to the porch. I couldn’t see a light in any of the windows, and it didn’t look as if anyone was at home. On the porch a metal glider sat
against the wall, and two folded aluminum lawn chairs rested on top of it waiting out the season. Letters fanned out from the mailbox by the door, and I brazenly read the front of an envelope. It was addressed to Ola Cress.

I knocked at the door, but no one answered. I didn’t expect them to. After waiting for what I thought was a reasonable length of time, I wandered around the outside of the house looking for any sign of Joey. The other duplex didn’t seem to be occupied, and the shades were drawn on Ola’s side. A big yellow cat rubbed against my legs as I skirted the back porch. A stack of terra-cotta pots leaned against the steps waiting for spring, and a plant that looked like oregano tumbled from a circle of stones nearby.

Okay, so Ola Cress had a cat and cooked with herbs. But was she kind to children? I ducked under the bare limbs of a dogwood tree and started back to the car. That was when I saw the blue canvas baby swing at the far end of the back porch, and in the seat, my sister’s beloved rag doll, Miss Mary Priscilla.

T
hey’re not at home right now. Can I help you?” Ola Cress’s neighbor from across the street stood on the sidewalk, arms crossed. At a guess, I’d say she weighed over two hundred pounds, and that’s being polite. I wasn’t going to tangle with her.

I offered my hand and a smile. “I’m Prentice Dobson. Ola doesn’t know me, but she was a friend of my sister’s, and I’ve been trying to find her. Do you know where they went?”
She had said they, hadn’t she? Which must mean Ola didn’t live alone
.

“Went to visit her brother, I think. Somewhere near Chattanooga.” Her little brown eyes locked in on me and she wrapped her bright pink sweater around her and shuffled her feet. I saw that she wore slippers that used to be white and used to be fuzzy.

“Do you know when they’ll be back?” I said.

“Couldn’t say. Ola works part-time over at the phone company. Had a big job there, but she cut back when her health got so bad.”

“Really? I’m sorry.”

“Practically ran the place. And ran herself ragged! I said to her, I said, ‘Ola Cress, you’d better slow down. Gettin’ too old to be pushin’ yourself like that.’ And sure enough, she had to have that
anglo plastic
—you know, where they put them balloons in your veins.”

I nodded. Ola’s neighbor was getting downright blabby. I was dying to ask her about Joey, but I knew she’d be waiting to tell Ola Cress everything I’d said, and I’d already said too much.

“When you see her, tell her I’m sorry I missed her,” I said.

“You’re not stay in’ then?”

“Not long I’m afraid. Just passing through.” I offered my hand again. “Thanks for your help Mrs.—”

“Grace. Grace Pittman.” She stood watching me as I got behind the wheel of the car and drove away. I guessed she’d been looking out the window the whole time I was prowling around across the street.

“Any luck?” Augusta wanted to know.

“I think Joey’s been there, but where he is now is anybody’s guess.” I told her about finding the swing with the doll in it. “I led the neighbor to believe I wouldn’t be back; don’t want to scare our friend Ola away. I have a feeling she doesn’t trust anybody.”

“I suspect she has reasons,” Augusta said. “Did her neighbor know when she might return?”

“If she knows, she’s not saying. I think we should find a place to stay for the night, then drive by Ola’s a little later, see if there are any lights.”

The Berry Patch Cafe on the corner of Main and Nutmeg offered a great hamburger and blackberry cobbler every bit as good as Mom’s, only I wouldn’t tell her that. I got an order to go for Augusta. My waiter’s name was Justin. He had red hair, a huge smile, and a great big yearning to get out of Ruby. As soon as he graduated from high school, he told me, he was going to get a job in Nashville and live with some cousins. Life in Ruby was about as exciting as yesterday’s oatmeal, and he was ready to move on.

“And here I was thinking it was kind of a nice place,” I said. “Thought I might even spend the night. Are there any motels close by?”

“Nothing like that, but there’s Mr. Humphreys’s place a couple of blocks down from the library. It’s an old white house—kinda sits back from the road. He’ll give you breakfast and everything.”

“A bed and breakfast. Sounds great. Think he might have room for me?”

Justin shrugged. “Don’t see why not. Nobody much comes here unless they have to. You can call if you want. He left us some cards.”

The name
Nightingale House
was printed with a lot of curlicues, and beneath it
Tisdale Humphreys, Proprietor
, with the address and phone number. Mr. Humphreys, when I called, said he would have the Azalea Room, along with tea or sherry, ready when I arrived.
On leaving, I asked Justin if he knew Ola Cress and if she had a little boy staying with her, and I think it kind of took him by surprise because he frowned and shook his head.

“Oh, I know who she is all right, used to come in once in a while, but I haven’t seen much of her lately. Don’t know anything about a little boy.” He totaled my bill and stuck it under my plate. “Funny you should ask, though. You’re the second person wantin’ to know that this week.”

“I should’ve asked him if he knew my sister,” I mumbled as we drove away.

“What’s that?” Augusta was looking out the window and it bothered me a little that she wasn’t listening to what I said.

“That young waiter back there. He might’ve known Maggie, but I was so surprised by what he said, I didn’t think to ask.” I told Augusta that somebody else had been asking questions before us.

“Did he have a beard?” Augusta asked.

“Who, the waiter?”

“No, the person asking questions, because there’s a man behind us in a dark-looking car who seems to be following closer than I’d like. Looks like he has a beard.”

I started for Mr. Humphreys’s and as we passed the town library, I pulled in without signaling and parked
out front. A light still shone from inside and I could see somebody at the front desk. The car that had been behind us passed without slowing. “False alarm,” I said.

Augusta didn’t blink. “Maybe.”

We waited a couple of minutes longer but the car didn’t come back. Since it was dark, I decided to try Ola’s again just to see if there was anyone there. Maybe her nosy neighbor wouldn’t notice me at night. But the windows were still dark at Ola Cress’s, and across the street at Grace Pittman’s the only things that moved were the story-tale figures on the television screen.

The streets of the little town were empty as we drove to Nightingale House, and only an occasional street-lamp splashed the sidewalks with a pale yellow light. A wooden sign bearing the name of the establishment swung from a post by the gate. It was meant to look weathered, I think, and did. A vine, probably wisteria, twined overhead on an arched trellis, and I followed a brick walk to the wraparound porch where a welcoming light beckoned. Augusta, I noticed, had done her disappearing act, but I knew she was around somewhere.

“Please come in, and here, let me take that bag.” Tisdale Humphreys was sixtyish, trim, and more well groomed than any winner of the Triple Crown. I felt downright shoddy in my wrinkled pants and baggy sweater, but I let him relieve me of my overnight bag and plodded along after him into a room he called the front parlor. I expected stiff Victorian, but this room was bright and elegant with a comfortable-looking sofa and two armchairs on either side of a marble fireplace
where a cheery fire burned low in the grate. When offered a chair, I accepted gratefully and cozied right up to the warmth. I accepted the sherry too, and hoped my host would join me. I had a feeling he knew just about everything going on in Ruby and would be glad to share it under the right conditions.