Biggie and the Quincy Ghost (17 page)

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Authors: Nancy Bell

BOOK: Biggie and the Quincy Ghost
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“You hated the idea of Brian marrying Annabeth. You were terrified of it,” Biggie said.
“Mom!” Brian looked stricken. “You killed Annabeth?”
“Honey, no.” She got up and walked over to Brian, pleading with him. “You’ve got to understand …”
“It was the blood, wasn’t it?” Biggie asked.
Mary Ann hung her head and nodded.
“Miss Biggie,” Brian begged, “will you please tell us what this is all about?”
“I’m trying,” Biggie said. “It’s complicated. Your mother was afraid because Annabeth’s grandmother was, in fact, your great aunt. That wouldn’t have been so awful except for the fact that she was the child of a brother and sister, both related to you. And somehow, out of this union, came some sort of defective gene, which has caused at least one case of mental retardation in every generation since poor old Marcella Baugh.”
“But, how …?”
Biggie spoke patiently. “Years ago, your Grandfather Quincy fathered a baby by his sister, your great-aunt Rachel. We don’t know any details, and those who could provide them are dead. All I know is, Lucas’s father, old Judge Fitzgerald, in order to avert a scandal, arranged for the baby to be given away—to the Baughs. He arranged payments to be made to the family until the child reached eighteen. That baby was Annabeth’s grandmother, who was well known in town as being strange, to say the least.”
“Crazy as a bat,” Alice mumbled. “I remember once …”
“Then, there was Annabeth’s uncle, Counce,” Biggie went on. “Mr. Johnson told me that he lived in the swamp. Never wore any clothes. It seems the Baughs just turned him out of the house when he was a child. He died of exposure before he was twelve.”
“Dreadful.” Hen Lester bit her lip.
“They thought this generation would escape the taint until young Lucy was born. She had it, too. It’s too bad they live in isolation and ignorance. Today, these children can learn to live happy and productive lives. Anyway, as I said, Mary Ann, you couldn’t let Brian and Annabeth marry.”
“But I never hurt her. I swear.”
“I know you never,” Biggie said. “On the night Annabeth died, J.R. thought he heard a ghost in the next room. A man’s voice, then a woman crying. At first, I suspected Brian. Maybe they had a tryst in the empty room, then had a quarrel and he killed her. Now, I know who the person was who followed her through the abolitionist’s tunnel and killed her with a butcher knife and moved her body to the fountain.”
“For God’s sake, woman! Tell us who!” Lucas said.
“I’m getting to that,” Biggie said. She reached into her big black purse and pulled out Annabeth’s little white one and, reaching her hand in, took out the note and passed it to Mary Ann. “Perhaps you would read this aloud for us.”
Miss Mary Ann’s voice trembled as she read,
Go back where you came from if you know what’s good for you. The Angel of Death
. Oh, my!”
“You do recognize the handwriting, don’t you?” Biggie said.
Miss Mary Ann nodded.
Biggie went back to her purse and took out her address book, holding it up for the others to see. “If you remember, I asked each of you to sign your names and addresses in my book. I’ve compared each of your handwriting to that in the letter.” She paused and looked around the room, then back at Mary Ann. “J.R. heard voices in the room next door just two nights ago.”
“That was Lew and me,” Miss Mary Ann said. “We quarreled.”
“Why didn’t you go out through the door?” I asked. “Instead of the tunnel?”
“I was distraught. I don’t know why I did it. He followed me. I just wanted to get away from him.” Miss Mary Ann burst into tears. “Brian, honey, you’ve got to believe me, I never meant for this to happen.”
Brian looked away.
Biggie continued to talk to Mary Ann. “You know who wrote that note, don’t you?”
Mary Ann nodded.
“You knew that Lew would do anything to make you happy—even murder.”
“I—I never asked him to.”
“But you couldn’t let Brian marry a Baugh.”
Mr. Masters never said a word, just sat looking from Biggie to Miss Mary Ann. The sheriff walked over and stood in front of him, then read him his rights, just like they do on television. Mr. Masters looked pleadingly at Miss Mary Ann, who turned her face away, then stuck out his hands for the handcuffs.
H
ome at last! When Rosebud pulled the car into the driveway, I saw my cat, Booger, sitting on the front porch rail, dozing with one eye open. When he heard the car door slam, he sat up and started licking himself like he didn’t even notice us. But when I walked over and started petting him, he commenced purring real loud and jumped up on his hind legs so he could rub his face next to mine. After I finished saying hello to Booger, I ran around back and opened the gate to the picket fence that divides our yard from Mrs. Moody’s. Sure enough, there was my puppy, Bingo, wiggling all over and peeing on himself because he was so glad to see me. I scooped him up and took him home, ignoring Prissy Moody, who was yapping her head off trying to get all the attention for herself.
That night, after supper, we all sat on the front porch until bedtime.
“There’s no place like home,” Biggie said. “I’m going to sleep like a baby in my own bed tonight.”
I was sitting in the wicker swing. “Me, too,” I said. “I want to forget all about that old town.”
“Oh, you’ll get over it.” Biggie watched Booger as he somersaulted across the yard trying to catch a moth. “It’s really a charming little town. Anyway, you can’t forget just yet. I’ve invited the Thripps and Butch to dinner tomorrow night. They’ll want to know what happened.”
I jumped off the swing. “I’m going to call Monica. She’ll flip when I tell her about the ghost.”
“What ghost?” Rosebud said. “They wasn’t no ghost.”
I grinned. “She doesn’t have to know that.”
Rosebud grinned back, showing his gold teeth.
The next night, the Thripps and Butch got there around six for dinner. Miss Julia Lockhart, who writes a column for the paper, had dropped so many hints that Biggie said she could come, too. Willie Mae made pork chops with gravy, fried green tomatoes, purple hull peas, garlic cheese grits, and biscuits.
“I knew all along it was that coffin salesman,” Mr. Thripp said. “He had a shifty look in his eye.”
“Isn’t that just typical of you, Norman?” Miss Mattie spooned gravy on a biscuit. “Always trying to show off. You wouldn’t know a clue if it came up and hit you upside the head. Personally, I suspected that Hen Lester, going around like she was Mrs. God, or something.”
“Well, come on, Biggie. Tell.” Butch squirmed in his chair. “Don’t leave out one single thing.”
Biggie sipped her tea. “Well, J.R. here provided the
first real clue when he found the notebook that had belonged to old Judge Fitzgerald. Why would he be making payments to the Baughs? They were dirt-poor and couldn’t possibly have anything he would want. It just didn’t make sense until Hance Johnson told me that he had heard all his life about how “Crazy Ella” Baugh was the child of rich town folks. He knew about the incest, too. It seemed that the Baughs didn’t have any better sense than to brag about it and lord it over the neighbors because they had that little bit of money coming in.”
“I know people like that,” Butch said. “Ruby Muckleroy, for one.”
“But how did you find out for sure?” Miss Julia was writing in her little notebook. “Don’t seem to me that little book would be enough.”
“It wasn’t,” Biggie said. “I went to the County Clerk’s office and looked up the birth records. Frankly, I was afraid the old judge might have pulled strings to keep the birth from being recorded, but there it was, plain as day: a girl baby born to Rachel Quincy, June 2, 1882, father unknown.”
“But still, Biggie. How did you know Mary Ann didn’t do it? After all, she was the one with the motive. Butch, push those pork chops over this way.” Mr. Thripp had already eaten three.
“Well, naturally, she was the perfect suspect.” Biggie pushed her plate away and rang the little bell for Willie Mae to come clear the table. “But I just couldn’t picture her doing it that way. Poison, maybe, but not stabbing. So I went to see Dr. Littlejohn. He’s the only doctor in town and the coroner as well. He told me that it took him and
his nurse together to pull the knife out. It had been driven in so hard, it had lodged in a vertebra. Mary Ann would never have had the strength to do that. Then I began to suspect Brian.”
“I knew he didn’t do it,” I said.
“I know you did,” Biggie said. “Well, I didn’t focus on him very long. After we found the notebook, I began to think Annabeth might have been murdered because of something that happened a long time ago. Those people are stuck in the past. And it seemed strange to me that Lucas Fitzgerald kept putting forth the theory that someone had found Diamond Lucy’s baby alive. If that had happened, it would have been a miracle.”
“That old man was just a nut about the past,” Miss Mattie said. “My lord, who cares about all that? Me, I’m a new-millennium woman. What’s for dessert, Willie Mae?”
“Blackberry cobbler.” Willie Mae picked up the last of the dishes just as Rosebud came in carrying a tray holding a steaming-hot cobbler and a glass bowl full of whipped cream.
Nobody talked for awhile as we all tasted our dessert. Finally, Butch spoke up. “But how did you figure out it was Lew Masters? Ooh, I got blackberry juice on my shirt. That’ll never come out.”
“Yes it will,” Miss Julia said. “Make you up a paste of baking soda and bleach and leave it on for five minutes—no longer or it’ll eat a hole. Then, if the spot don’t come out, rub a lemon on it and leave it out in the sun.”
Biggie ignored them. “By the back door. After I found out about the incest, I felt that Mary Ann had the most likely motive, but Dr. Littlejohn had already squashed that
theory when he told me a small woman could never have plunged the knife in so hard. Brian had no motive. He was obviously head over heels in love with the girl.”
“But what about Lucas?” Mr. Thripp said.
“Yeah,” I said. “That old man was a lot stronger than he looked.”
“Lucas was my prime suspect for a time.” Biggie scraped the last of her cobbler off her bowl and put her spoon down. “I thought he might have killed to save the reputation of the Quincys.”
“That’s crazy,” Norman said.
“I think he is a little bit crazy,” Biggie said. “At least when it comes to that town. Anyway, after the sheriff got the results of the background check he had run on Lew Masters, my attention turned to him. Turns out, he’d been accused of killing his first wife up in Texarkana. They never could make a case, and he went free. But she was killed with a butcher knife through the heart. It was circumstantial, of course. But that fact, coupled with his obsessive love for Mary Ann, sure made him look suspicious.”
“But you didn’t
know
, Biggie,” Butch said.
“I was pretty sure,” Biggie said. “Remember the note we found in Annabeth’s purse? Well, I compared the handwriting samples I had gathered in my address book with the writing in the note. It might not hold up in court, but Lew Masters’s writing was a perfect match. The sheriff and I thought that was enough for us to try a bluff. It worked and he confessed everything as soon as the sheriff got him down to the jail, so I don’t suppose it matters.”
Norman Thripp spooned sugar into his coffee. “Was Mary Ann in on it?”
“Oh, no,” Biggie said. “She had no idea what he was up to. Mary Ann was scared to death Brian had done it.”
“So, Biggie,” Miss Julia said. “What did you find out about their historical society? Anything we can use here in Job’s Crossing?”
“Yuck!” Miss Mattie said. “As far as I’m concerned, they can keep their old historical society. It’s not good to live so much in the past.”
“I agree,” Biggie said. “I move here and now that we scrap that idea and move on to something more productive. Here’s my idea. We fix up the old Claxton Hotel down by the tracks and use it to attract tourists. It could be ten times better than their hotel. All in favor, say
Aye
.”
Have your oven heated to 350 degrees. Grease up four round pans and sprinkle on some flour. Cream your butter with your sugar until they be real light and fluffy. Add in your vanilla. Make sure you use the real thing—not that imitation stuff.
Next, mix your flour, baking powder, and salt together and then start adding this to your butter and sugar. Add in your milk, too, but alternate it with the flour. End with flour.
Now, beat up your egg whites ’til they’re stiff—real stiff. Fold your egg whites into your batter. Divide the batter into four cake pans.
Bake in the oven for twenty-five minutes or until a broom straw comes out clean when you stick it in the middle.
You can use a toothpick, if you’re picky. Cool the layers on a rack while you make your filling.
Put your butter and your sugar in the top of a double boiler. Don’t put it on the fire yet. First, you’ve got to beat it together then beat in your egg yolks. Stir in your brandy and water. Now, put your pan over boiling water and cook and stir until it’s thick. Add in your fruit and nuts. Stir it up good and take it off the heat to cool before you put it between the cake layers.
Mix your sugar, corn syrup, and water in a saucepan. Put a lid on and let it boil real good on medium heat. Now, take the lid off and boil some more ’til a little dab of it makes a good hard ball in a cup of cold water. If you have a candy thermometer, you can use that. Let it cook to 242 degrees.
Now, while that’s boiling, beat up your egg whites until
they’re real stiff. Pour your hot syrup
real slow
into your egg whites, beating all the time. Add in the vanilla and keep beating on high speed until it forms stiff peaks.
Spread it on the top and sides of your cake.
This makes a lot of frosting, but J.R. likes it that way.
P.S. Once when I was in a hurry, I used a white cake mix for this. It wasn’t too bad.
—Willie Mae

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