Diamond Duo (40 page)

“Thaddeus Abel Bloom, may the wife of your youth bring you joy. May your pockets be blessed and your quiver full. May God shine His face on your journeys and prosper the work of your hands.” He motioned for Thad to stand. “Friends and family, I give you Thaddeus Bloom and his wee wife, Bertha.”

A riotous outcry and boisterous clapping ensued. The guests surged toward them, shouting congratulations and pounding Thad on the back. After Julius Ney and his wife wished them well, Rhodie Pharr stepped up and took their place.

Bertha smiled, happy to see the beaming girl. “Hey, Rhodie.”

“Hey, Bertha. You sure make a lovely bride.”

“Why, thank you.”

Rhodie held up her thimble. “Guess I’ll never be one.”

Bertha took it from her hand. “Rubbish. A clear case of mistaken identity. You must’ve cut in front of someone.”

She grinned and glanced at her brother. “I did, actually. I jumped ahead of Mose.”

Mose blushed and lowered his head. Bertha always suspected the boy was sweet on her, but likely no more than on every other girl he met.

“Hey, Bertha, whatever happened to that pretty necklace my brother gave you?” Rhodie blurted. “You know, the one that looked like woven metal straws?”

Mose blushed from the roots of his hair to his turned-down collar. He leaned to yank Rhodie’s long red braid. “Dumb girl. I said not to mention it today.”

Bertha’s own face grew warm. Rhodie meant the filigreed cross. Since Mose found it and gave it to her, Bertha didn’t know how he’d react to hearing that she’d given it to Annie. “I haven’t seen it for quite some time.” She asked God to forgive her if the vague
answer was a lie by omission. She just couldn’t bear to hurt Mose’s feelings.

Bertha wanted the necklace back in the worst way. Not because Mose gave it to her, but as a remembrance of Annie. Thad helped her search for it after the funeral. It never showed up at Brooks House, and the coroner’s office assured her it wasn’t with Annie’s body when they found her, a fact that broke Bertha’s heart.

She had prayed every day that it would somehow turn up. Finally, she’d had to agree with Thad’s opinion that Abe Monroe, who was in fact Abraham Rothschild, son of a wealthy Ohio jeweler, took the cross when he took Annie’s diamonds.

Rhodie twisted around to gloat at Mose. “See, I told you. I knew it was Bertha’s. I’d know that thing anywhere.”

Bertha squeezed Thad’s hand. “Rhodie, what are you talking about?”

Too busy winning her argument to heed Bertha’s question, Rhodie put both hands on her hips and thrust out her chest. “You owe me a nickel, Moses Pharr.”

Thad, who towered over Mose, took his arm and hauled him around. “What’s your sister talking about?”

The boy looked up with frightened eyes then scowled at Rhodie. “Aw, she thinks she saw that worthless trinket I gave Bertha.”

Thad gave him a little shake. “I got that part. When did she see it?”

Rhodie squeezed between Thad and Mose. “Yesterday,” she provided. “I saw it yesterday.”

Bertha’s heart pounded so hard she heard it inside her ears. “Where, Rhodie?”

Mose eased free of Thad’s grip. “She claims T-Bone Taylor’s sister wore it to school on Friday.”

Bertha met Thad’s knowing glance. Beau and T-Bone Taylor. The little scoundrels who ran thieving raids along the banks of the Big Cypress. “Theresa Taylor has my cross?”

Rhodie snorted. “Sure does. She pranced around the classroom bragging to anybody who’d listen. Said her brothers found it.” She
cocked her head at Bertha. “You must’ve dropped it somewhere, huh? That’s too bad. I guess it’s finders keepers, just like when Mose gave it to you, right, Bertha? Because I’ll tell you this: Theresa Taylor will never give that necklace back.”

Bertha clutched Thad’s arm. “We have to go find it.”

He nodded. “Don’t worry; we will.”

“No, I mean now.”

He blinked and glanced around at the guests. “We can’t go just yet, sugar. We have to wait until the party’s over.”

She shook her head. “Theresa won’t give us the necklace, but her brothers can get it. We have to find them, and it may take all afternoon to track those two down.” She cast a desperate look around the room. “We have to do something, Thad. I won’t rest until I know if it’s mine.”

“Don’t forget, sugar, our train leaves Jefferson in about three hours.”

She tried to put her feelings into the determined look she gave him. “I won’t get on it until I find out.”

He sighed his surrender and kissed the top of her head. “Wait here. I’ll go fix it with your folks.”

Thad crossed the room and took Papa aside. They huddled a few minutes before Papa motioned for Mama to join them. He spoke quietly to her; then they hurried over while Thad turned to his parents and Cyrus.

Bertha met Mama with a tearful hug. “Are you angry with me?”

“Of course not, dear.”

“Papa?”

“Go do what you must, sprite. Just try to spare time for a proper good-bye before you leave.”

“I will. I promise. Please pray our efforts pay off.”

Magda linked arms with Bertha. “I’m coming along to help you find them.”

Rhodie squealed. “Can we come, too?”

Bertha nodded. “I’d like you and Mose both to come, if you will. We need all the eyes we can get.”

After she made her apologies and accepted another round of hearty congratulations, Bertha found herself seated next to Thad in her new father-in-law’s phaeton buggy amid a shouting circle of well-wishers. Mose, Rhodie, and Magda sat behind them in Mose’s wagon waiting for them to pull out.

Charles Gouldy shoved his way through and crowded close to the rig. “Hey, Thad! Wait up. Are you leaving so soon?”

Thad leaned to take his offered hand. “What are your plans for the next hour or so?”

Charlie shrugged. “You tell me.”

Thad hooked his thumb. “Climb in back of Mose’s rig. They’ll fill you in.”

On the way to the Taylors’ tumbledown shack, Thad looked over his shoulder and frowned. “We would be there already on horseback.”

“True, but I could hardly ride the back of your mare in this dress. And those four won’t fit in the saddlebag.”

He snorted. “I thought you wanted to find the Taylor boys. When we roll up there in a wagon train, they’re sure to bolt.”

She unpinned her wedding bonnet and folded it on the seat between them. “We’ll find them. You can bet on that.”

“I don’t know, sugar. Those rascals are slippery as greased otters.”

She peered up at him. “Maybe so, but I prayed.”

Thad laughed. “They don’t stand a chance, then. God knows where they are.”

The wagons turned down the rutted road leading to the faded cypress hovel that housed Gladys Taylor and her three unruly offspring. Hardly more than an overgrown trail, the lane ran alongside the bayou all the way up to the property. Bertha scanned the water and spotted the boys’ blue dinghy gliding up to the dilapidated pier in back. She nudged Thad and pointed just as they moored the boat and crawled ashore.

Even from a distance, their gangly arms and legs looked as brown as beans, probably from time spent near the water where the
hot sun reflected off the surface, baking them twice. Dodging and sparring, they ran straight up the bank and into the barn without a glance toward the approaching wagons. Behind them, the little boat bobbed low on the surface of the water, likely filled to the brim with pilfered loot.

Giddy with excitement, Bertha clutched Thad’s arm. “Park right here. We’ll slip around and catch them in the barn.”

Thad shook his head. “We’ll knock at the front door, thank you. Slipping around anywhere on this place will get you a buckshot shower.” He applied the tip of his whip to the horse’s rear end, and the buggy sped toward the house with Mose hot on their tail. Thad rolled to a stop and bailed out, ran around to help Bertha, then ushered her up the crumbling walkway. The others got down off the wagon but waited at the foot of the path.

The door opened before they reached it. A disheveled Gladys Taylor met them on the porch with her shotgun, staring dumbly at Bertha in her wedding dress. “What madness is this?”

Thad positioned his body between the wild-eyed woman and Bertha.

She stayed put but peered around him to see.

He took off his hat. “Morning, ma’am. We don’t mean to bother you. Just came by to see your boys for a minute.”

Suspicion sparked in her faded blue eyes. “My boys?” Her voice came out cracked and shrill, sounding too old for her age. “What fer?”

Thad held up his hands. “Just to talk. We’re hunting information about a necklace Theresa wore to school on Friday.”

When her eyebrows drew together, Bertha nudged him in the ribs.

He glanced at her and changed his tactic. “We intend to offer a generous reward.”

Gladys lowered the gun onto her hip. “A reward?” She seemed to chew on the word. “For the necklace or the information?”

Bertha brushed past Thad. “Mrs. Taylor, I understand the boys found a cross on a silver chain?” She cleared her throat. “I really
need to see it. If it’s the piece of jewelry we’re looking for, it’s not worth very much, except in sentimental value.”

Thad put a protective arm around her shoulders. “Ma’am, I’ll pay good money for a short talk with the boys. Or Theresa, for that matter.”

Gladys seemed to mull it over then shook her head. “They ain’t here. Ain’t none of ’em here.”

Bertha opened her mouth to protest, but Thad tugged on her sleeve. “How about you, ma’am? Do you know anything about a silver cross? Maybe you’d be interested in trading some information for a few dollars.”

She raised her chin. “I don’t get in my children’s business or rifle through their personal things. We stay friends thata way.”

Frustrated, Bertha bristled. “With all due respect, Mrs. Taylor, you’d do well to keep up with their things. Because most everything in their possession doesn’t belong to them.”

Thad hauled her back. “Bertha. . .”

A thundercloud formed on the woman’s face. She opened her mouth ready to spew, but before she let fly her venomous rant, T-Bone and Beau rounded the house, still shoving each other and laughing. They saw Thad and Bertha at the same time and froze like startled deer. Then they spun, clinging to each other for balance, and shot out of sight.

“Get ’em, Mose!” Rhodie screamed.

Springing past them so fast his image blurred, Mose vaulted into motion. When he disappeared around the house, Thad took off after him, with Charlie and Gladys Taylor close behind. Bertha, Magda, and Rhodie followed as fast as their skirts would allow.

“No!” Gladys Taylor’s bloodcurdling howl rocked the secluded cove. “Don’t you hurt my boys!” Seconds ticked past, bogged in molasses, as she raised her shotgun at Thad’s back.

Bertha, Magda, and Rhodie screamed and scuttled forward. Bertha lunged for the gun and shoved the exploding barrel to the sky. Rhodie and Magda piled on Gladys and wrestled the weapon
from her hands. She sank to the ground, rolling and screaming like a banshee.

The two boys had reached the boat and were paddling furiously down the bayou. Mose shot alongside them on the bank, running full out, with Thad and Charlie on his heels.

“Please, God, don’t let them get away,” Bertha prayed aloud. “We’ll never find them in those woods.”

Rhodie, so excited her freckles stood out, gave her head a vigorous shake. “My brother won’t lose them. Mose can track a gnat in a whirlwind.”

Just as the skiff disappeared around a crook in the bayou, Mose dove, but Bertha didn’t see if he landed in the boat or the water. With a burst of speed to the end of the bank and a gangly soar, Charlie followed him in. Thad, his long legs hurdling fallen logs and briar patches, tore around the bend on dry land.

“Let’s go,” Rhodie shouted. “They’ll catch them at the low crossing.”

Bertha glanced at the boys’ hysterical mama and decided to return her shotgun later. She hurried after Magda and Rhodie, stashing the gun in the buggy’s boot before she climbed aboard Mose’s wagon.

Rhodie snapped the reins, and they took off faster than Bertha believed the tired old horse could run. They rumbled past a good stretch of piney woods before Rhodie cut over on a logging road toward the bayou. At the end of it, she reined in the horse, and the three of them jumped down without regard to modesty or decorum.

Rhodie pointed ahead of her as she ran. “Through here.”

Bertha and Magda followed, though branches and prickly bushes tore at their clothes. Bertha wished she’d heeded wisdom instead of vanity when she decided to stay in her dress.

They broke onto a sandy clearing at the water’s edge. Just as Rhodie predicted, the rascals were caught. Thad, still in his suit, sat on the ground holding little Beau in his lap. It took Mose and Charlie, both soaking wet, to pin T-Bone to the ground. The whelps
howled like wounded hounds, kicking and beating at their captors with flailing hands and feet.

“Be still, now,” Thad shouted. “We don’t plan to hurt you none.”

Bertha kneeled on the ground next to the oldest boy and touched his arm. “T-Bone, listen to me. We just want to ask you some questions. You have my word we won’t harm you or your brother.” She tried to soften her eyes to a plea.

He stilled and stared back at her, his frantic gaze roaming her upswept hair and fancy dress.

Thad nodded at Mose and Charlie. “Let him go.”

They pulled away from T-Bone and he sat up, scooting to rest his back against a sapling. His tongue flicked nervously over his lips as he glanced at his brother. Thad let go of Beau, who scurried on his backside like a crab to press against his brother.

Bertha crawled closer to the two frightened boys. “Rhodie saw a cross necklace that you found and gave to your sister. Do you know the one I mean?”

The question stirred visible fear to the surface. T-Bone shot Beau a warning look then stared at the ground. “We ain’t gave Theresa no necklace.”

“Did, too,” Rhodie cried.

Bertha held up her hand to silence her. “Boys, listen to me. It’s very important that you tell me where you found it.”

T-Bone shook his head. “Sorry, ma’am. Don’t know what you’re yapping about.”

Thad stooped down beside Bertha. “I’m real sorry you boys don’t trust us. We could’ve kept you out of a heap of trouble, what with Sheriff Bagby so interested in talking to you two about that missing gold jewelry.”