Angel at Troublesome Creek (24 page)

Authors: Mignon F. Ballard

BOOK: Angel at Troublesome Creek

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Uncle Ben shook his head. “Fronie won’t be calling anybody for a long time now, except maybe her lawyer!”

He narrowed his eyes and frowned at me. “Mary George Murphy, why do you keep twisting about in that chair? Would you like a pillow, or do you need to be excused?”

“Sorry. I was kind of hoping to meet your butler Igor—I mean, what’s his name? Milford … What? What’s so funny?”

My uncle laughed until tears trickled down his well-preserved old cheeks. “There is no Milford,” he said when he finally stopped for breath.

“No Milford? Then who answered the phone when I called? Said you couldn’t be disturbed. That was you …
you
! It was you, wasn’t it?”

My uncle winked at me and smiled. “Somebody has to screen my calls. Besides, when you get to be my age, you have to liven things up once in a while.

“Now, don’t look at me like that, my dear. Just because I concocted an imaginary butler doesn’t necessarily mean I’m crazy. We all need a little fantasy now and then.”

“I won’t argue with that,” I said.

But had Augusta Goodnight been a fantasy? Someone I invented out of my own desperation? No one had seen her but me, and after Fronie’s tomato chase and subsequent incarceration, she had appeared for shorter durations. And there was a wistful kind of joy about her. She reminded me of the way Aunt Caroline looked the night I graduated from Troublesome Creek High. I knew she was trying to tell me good-bye.

The smell of coffee greeted me when I got home from my uncle’s that night. Strong coffee. And there Augusta sat in the kitchen with the half-empty pot at her elbow. When she saw me, she smiled and raised her cup. “To you, Mary George Murphy. Congratulations.”

“You’re leaving me,” I said. “Why?”

“You can take care of yourself. And very well, I might add. My job here is done.” And she quickly rose and kissed me, brushed my cheek with her strawberry-scented lips. I heard a soft sort of flutter and my eyes got swimmy hot. “I’ll miss you, Augusta,” I whispered.

“Don’t cry, now,” she said. And I didn’t. I closed my eyes for a minute, and when I opened them she was gone. But there’s a sweet, brave place inside me that wasn’t there before.

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Mignon F. Ballard

Minerva Cries Murder

Final Curtain

The Widow’s Woods

Deadly Promise

Cry at Dusk

Raven Rock

Aunt Matilda’s Ghost

Mignon F. Ballard. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

Design by Heidi Eriksen

eISBN 9781466802742

First eBook Edition : October 2011

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ballard, Mignon Franklin.

Angel at Troublesome Creek : a mystery / by Mignon F. Ballard.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-312-24175-5

I. Title

PS3552.A466A84 1999
813’.54—dc21

99—33543

CIP

First St. Martin’s Minotaur Edition: November 1999