Hidden Riches (31 page)

“This doesn't have anything to do with that,” Rosalee said, with an unguarded nod toward the funeral director-cum-lawyer.

“I beg your pardon,” Rollings said.

Rosalee waved a hand, dismissing that exchange as an aside. “There was a county prosecutor back in the day . . .”

“Are we going to spend the entire afternoon talking about ‘back in the day'?” Delcine groused.

“Those who don't know their history are destined to repeat it,” Archer murmured.

Delcine cut her eyes at her brother-in-law but didn't say anything.

“It was in the early 1970s,” Mr. Rollings said. “The fallout from the Summer of Love and all that it ushered in was more than Prosecutor Grayson could handle. With all of the hippies still running through town, turning the stately and historic Draper Building into what he accounted as a commune with around-the-clock orgies, Grayson dusted off a little-used North Carolina state statute and put the kibosh on fornication. He prosecuted at least three people.”

“On what charges?” Archer asked. “And how were the charges enforced?”

“The bedroom police,” Rosalee said.

“The bedroom police,” Reverend Toussaint murmured. “Lord, have mercy, I haven't heard that in years.”

The lawyer in Archer had to know. “What was it?”

“A merry band of Bible-toting deputies, handpicked by Grayson.”

“The stories were all over the papers,” Rosalee said. “I saw some of them over at the newspaper building.”

“That's because the law, at least as interpreted by Prosecutor Grayson and old Judge Harper painted a broad stroke,” Rollings said. “The charge was ‘lewd and indecent behavior that threatened the moral fiber of the community.' ”

“Oh, for goodness sakes,” Archer said.

“Now you see why I had to get the hell up out of Drapersville, North Carolina?” Clayton said. “Even though by the time I was coming along, and coming out, that law had been shoved back in a closet where it belonged, there was still a pervasive atmosphere here that frowned upon anything deemed outside the norm.”

“And a fourteen-year-old pregnant black girl was definitely something outside the norm.”

JoJo, who had been picking at a chip in her long, painted nails, said, “I have to give her credit, though.”

“Who?” Clayton wanted to know.

“Mama. That she even thought about that law and what was going on in town. How it might affect her child and her unborn grandchild.”

Reverend Toussaint started to nod. “And along come me and Ana Mae, two teenagers who have nothing to do with the hippies, but surely fit the definition of what the judge and the prosecutor were gunning for. Miss Georgette must have panicked.”

“She did,” Rollings said. “And so she loaded up her car with her toddler, her young daughter, and her pregnant fourteen-year-old and moved them across the state border to Suffolk, which at the time was another small country town a world away from here. Ana Mae could have the baby, and when the Futrells finally got back to Drapersville, with Georgette toting a newborn, no one would be the wiser since everyone knew about her on-again, off-again relationship with her husband.”

“There was no reason for anyone to think anything except what they saw,” Clayton said. “And I became permanent brother to Ana Mae, Delcine, and JoJo.”

Rollings aimed the remote to rewind and started the video again at the part they'd missed. Ana Mae, in her own rambling words, recapped the same story they'd just pieced together.

“. . . So that's my story,” Ana Mae said. “While I could make a guess, I don't know which one of you will get it. I hope you'll do what's right, though. And you'll know what's right when the time comes. But this,” she said reaching forward and pulling something from the front porch railing—the very quilt that was now displayed in the conference room. “This quilt tells the whole story. My story. It took me a long time to make it, but it was a labor of love. I never stopped loving you, Too Sweet. We went our separate ways and had our own lives, but you were always my one and only even though there was a time when there were a lot of stories running around about me for a while there. Yeah, I had a lot of boyfriends, but when I refused to,” she shrugged, “well, you know, when I wouldn't sleep with 'em, they got mad, called me names, and said ugly things. But you, Toussaint, you were always my one and only.”

Ana Mae hugged the quilt to her bosom, smiled at the camera, and then the screen went white again.

The tissue box made the rounds at the table.

Everyone, including Everett Rollings, was outright crying or sniffling. Everyone except Delcine, who had a bigger loss on her hands.

She had passed on the ten thousand dollars—a sure thing—for the chance to get her hands on Ana Mae's millions. And now it was looking like she would be shut out—shut out by a preacher that Ana Mae slept with one time more than thirty years ago. That just was not right.

“It's not right,” she said aloud.

“What's not right?” JoJo said, fanning her eyes with one hand and with the other trying to either secure or take off one of her false eyelashes that had come unglued.

“That, that preacher who doesn't even pastor a church gets all of Ana Mae's money. It's not right.”

“I don't want it,” Reverend Toussaint said. “That's why I'm giving anything that may have come to me for figuring out the quilt's story over to Clayton. Ana Mae gave me a precious, precious gift. She gave me a son. She and Miss Georgette could have gotten rid of you with some back-alley abortion or given you up for adoption. But instead, they brought you back here where both of us, me and Ana Mae, could see you grow up. And there's no dollar amount I can ever, or would if I could, put on that.”

Archer squeezed Clayton's hand and gave a little nod.

Clayton, still a little wary, rose. “When you put it that way, Reverend, I sort of get it.”

For a moment, the two men stood together awkwardly. Then Clayton, deciding or realizing that the moment and the decision was his to make, tentatively held out a hand to Toussaint le Baptiste. The minister took it and shook it, and before Clayton could back away, Toussaint pulled his son into a hearty embrace.

JoJo started crying again.

Mr. Rollings and Archer smiled.

Rosalee looked heavenward, shaking her head.

Only Delcine still sat pouting. “This is just so wrong. I don't get it.”

“W
hat don't you get, Delcine? Even I've figured out this whole thing, and I'm the slow one of the bunch.”

“You're not slow, JoJo,” Archer said. “Your thinking is contemplative and deliberate.”

“Thank you, Archer.”

“But it was Reverend Toussaint who figured out that Ana Mae's son was Clayton,” Archer added.

“About that,” Clayton said. “My name isn't Howard. I have my birth certificate, and there's no Howard on it anywhere.”

They all looked toward Mr. Rollings, who nodded.

“What you have is an official duplicate,” the lawyer told Clayton. “Not necessarily usual, but not unheard of. They are issued when an original document is lost or destroyed—for example, in a fire or hurricane.”

“So what's the significance of the name Howard—other than it being mama's maiden name?”

“I think I can answer that,” Reverend Toussaint said. “I don't know why it never occurred to me before. Howard is such a common name here.”

“He's right,” Rollings said. “Just as an example, my middle name is Howard.”

“Well, we sure ran into enough Howards that were dead ends,” Delcine grumbled. “That cop. Your son,” she said, nodding toward Rollings.

“And there was Emily Daniels's Howard,” Clayton said.

“If you open the county phone book, you'll see at least two columns of Howards,” Rollings added.

Reverend Toussaint shook his head. “No,” he said. “I think she wanted her son named after his father, and she remembered that Howard was almost my name. My father wanted me named that. But my mother, who had roots in Haiti, wanted me named for one of her national heroes. So I became Toussaint. Howard may have been Ana Mae's indirect way of naming her son . . . our son . . . after me. It was a name we almost had in common.”

“The quilt,” Delcine said. “What was the purpose of the quilt? All we did was run around town talking to people who knew Ana Mae. There were no clues about the money.”

“Talking to people who knew Ana Mae was the whole thing, just like Reverend Toussaint said,” Clayton said. “Don't you see?”

Delcine grabbed her big purse and plopped it into her lap. “Clearly not.”

“The clues, the nine blocks in the quilt were the clues. Everything we'd need to know to find out more about Ana Mae was right there in the fabric, in the images she created. The quilt was about how she lived, what she loved, and what she spent her time on this earth doing.”

Delcine didn't look convinced and sought out Mr. Rollings. “It couldn't be that simple,” she said.

“It was that simple,” he assured her.

“But . . .”

“Shoot, I knew that the first time I looked at the thing,” Rosalee said. “It's as clear as day and would be to anyone who knew Ana Mae.”

“And that's just it,” Clayton said softly, both awe and respect reflected in his voice. “We didn't know Ana Mae.”

Before Delcine could get out her next whiny complaint, Reverend Toussaint strode forward, pulling the quilt and its stand out again so all could see.

“It was a diversion,” he said. “All a diversion.” He pointed to the block in the bottom row that had the trunk and lower leaves of the big tree appliquéd. “It's about the tree,” he said. “See how its branches, leaves, and flowers encompass the entire quilt. That was a clue for me. As was this,” he said, pointing to the heart with
HOWARD
in the middle of it.

“Seeing that is what made it all eventually click for me,” he said. “But not until you read that book to the children, Sister Josephine. I hadn't thought about that tree in years, let alone its significance to me and to Ana Mae. We are, after all, talking thirty-some years ago. I'm a different man than I was at seventeen. This block and that message,
HOWARD
inside a heart, was just for me. None of you would ever have known its true significance. Not with your family name on your mama's side being Howard. I'm the only one who could decipher what this meant.”

He then told them about carving their initials in an old oak one night, an old oak just like the one Ana Mae had reproduced in fabric and stitches.

“And these clues were for the rest of us to figure out,” Clayton said, approaching the quilt and the father he never knew.

“The Scripture on the back, on the label,” Reverend Toussaint said, flipping it over for them to see. “ ‘Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.' That's what she wanted you, us, to remember.”

“That's what I don't understand, Clay,” Delcine said, this time her voice almost the whine they remembered from their childhood in Drapersville.

Clayton held out a hand to her. On a heavy sigh and with a much-put-out huff, Delcine put her big purse aside and got up to peer at the quilt with Clayton.

“Some of them we figured out as a group,” he said. “The scratch-off lottery ticket that began it all, at least the financial part of the story.”

For all of her book education and time in the Washington, D.C., area as a real housewife, not one portrayed on TV, Delcine remained slow on the uptake. “All we did was talk to the people at the store where she got the ticket.”

Clayton nodded. “That's it. If what I'm thinking is right—and Mr. Rollings, I'm sure, will tell us if we're not—that's what this whole quote/unquote treasure hunt was all about. It wasn't, like Lester thought, digging for actual buried treasure. Like Mr. Rollings said, the money is all in bank or brokerage accounts. The treasure was finding out who our sister was.”

He paused, frowned a bit, and then amended his last statement. “Well, for me, who my mother was.”

JoJo bent over to untie the straps on her high heels, which were, as usual, killing her feet. She gathered up and dropped the sexy and not really appropriate for daytime shoes on top of her bag, then padded barefoot over to the quilt. Without thinking or asking, she hopped up on the conference table, closer to her siblings, one leg dangling as if she were perched on top of a baby grand piano while a crooner wooed her.

Reverend Toussaint and Archer glanced at each other, both shrugged, and they too moved closer to be able to see the detail.

“Well, don't y'all leave me,” Rosalee said. “I had something to do with this too.”

With a welcoming arm out to her, Reverend Toussaint opened a hole.

Watching them, Mr. Rollings smiled. The small group looked like a family at the moment. That's the picture he wished his deceased client could have seen. He glanced up and the smile grew wry as he realized Ana Mae was probably seeing it unfold just as he was.

“The clues we all figured out as a group or as a group talking to Ana Mae's friends, neighbors, and townspeople were these,” Clayton said, pointing to the scratch-off lottery ticket and the Matthew 25 Scripture reference. “Ana Mae took the money, the talents, she'd been given via the lottery and made the money grow. She took her five talents and made them ten.”

“Did y'all notice a sheriff's deputy car outside the house since that day?” Rosalee asked.

The lawyer replied, “Given the commotion caused by Mr. Coston and all of the neighborhood assembled out in the yard and on the street, Sheriff Daughtry and I decided to head off any treasure hunters bent on digging up the yard to find a chest full of gold coins.”

“Thank you, Mr. Rollings,” JoJo said. “I'm still sleeping in that house, and it would be mighty disconcerting to wake up in the middle of the night to hear somebody digging out there.”

Rollings nodded, then stepped out of the conference room for a moment. When he returned, his efficient and quiet assistant, Maria, bore a tray with small bottles of water and cups for coffee.

“It will be just a few minutes, sir. They're on the way here now. And the other delivery will be here in about fifteen minutes. They're just putting the finishing touches on.”

“Excellent,” Rollings murmured. “And Mr. Coston, do you know where he went?”

“I called the sheriff's office when you buzzed and when Clyde came in here. He stopped over at Junior's and has just been making a nuisance of himself. A deputy's on him, though.”

“Thank you.”

“Another one we worked as a group was the bucket and the mop,” Clayton resumed, commenting about the quilt. “That's that Fisher boy and his invention. Ana Mae invested in him and his company, and together they made a killing when he sold it to the Zorin Corporation.”

“What about the animals?” JoJo asked.

“That one was me,” Rosalee said, laying claim to one of the blocks. “Baby Sue and Diamond Jim came from The Haven. Ana Mae spent almost as much time there as she did at the church and at the Good Redeemer Academy.”

“And Emily Daniels from the shelter stopped by the house with an award for Ana Mae,” Clayton added.

“Ooh, ooh!” JoJo exclaimed. “I got that one.”

“Which one?” Delcine asked.

JoJo pointed to the seventh block of Jesus and the little children.

“Ana Mae loved those kids,” JoJo said. “Jesus represents the church, or maybe the church and the school, and the little kids are all of her adopted grandchildren. They all published a book, Ana Mae and the Good Redeemer Academy kids.”

She sent a flirtatious smile Reverend Toussaint's way.

He blushed and cleared his throat.

Archer saved him by pointing out the teapot and teacup. “We found the tea shop where she gets her special blend. It's lovely,” he said. “It's a bit of a drive, but well worth it. And they simply adore Ana Mae there. We're on their mailing list now, by the way,” he told Clayton in an aside. “They can overnight tea to us.”

Rosalee tapped JoJo on the shoulder. “You found that square the day Hetty and Betty Johnson stopped by Ana Mae's house.”

“Reverend, you weren't there that day. You've got to come see all of Ana Mae's quilts. She has them all documented in binders with pictures.”

Reverend Toussaint, who had been mostly silent while the Futrells and Rosalee worked through the blocks of the quilt, realized they'd skipped one.

“What about the first block?” he asked. “The chicken.”

“Ana Mae made the best fried chicken in the county. Even that old shrew Lizbeth Hornsby had to admit it,” Rosalee practically cackled. “You shoulda seen her old prune face when Ana Mae got awarded the blue ribbon at the county fair last year. That was a sight to behold. You remember, Reverend. I see you over there smiling.”

Reverend Toussaint couldn't hide the grin at that memory. But Rosalee told them the rest of what happened that day.

“You'd a thought Lizbeth got a lemon stuck in her mouth her face was so scrunched up.” She was still chuckling when Archer spoke up.

“That doesn't seem to fit the pattern,” he said.

“What pattern?”

“Well, look,” he said, pointing to the corresponding quilt blocks as he made his case. “In each one of these, there's a story that was either relayed to one of you or that you found out. No one talked to this Lizbeth chicken lady, right?”

The Futrells and Rosalee shook their heads in the negative.

“So that means there must be something else about the chicken. A clue or person we haven't talked to or found yet.”

“That would be me,” a new voice said from the conference room door.

All of the heads turned as Rollings got up to greet the newcomer.

“Mr. Bell, I presume?” he asked holding out a hand.

The man who'd boo-hooed all over the church at Ana Mae's funeral bounded into the room.

Trailing behind him was a young man, about twenty-five or so years old, with short spiky brown hair and multiple piercings and tattoos. His jeans, strategically ripped, had the expensive look of a designer's interpretation of grunge rather than the honest to goodness wear and tear of a favorite pair of Levis.

David Bell—David Z. Bell, Chairman and CEO of the Zorin Corporation in Ohio—pumped Rollings's hand. “I don't know how you did it, Mr. Rollings, or how Ana Mae did it, but thank you,” he said. “Thank you so much for giving me back my son.”

Rollings dipped his head as if offering a regal blessing. “I'd like to take the credit,” Rollings said. “But it's Miss Futrell who found him.”

“Is that Granna Mae?” The young man asked. “Is that who this Ms. Futrell is?”

Reverend Toussaint and JoJo exchanged a look.

“Another adopted grandchild?” JoJo asked him.

Reverend Toussaint shrugged.

“One thing is for sure about Ana Mae,” Clayton said in an aside to Archer, “she believed in picking up strays along the way, whether people or animals or projects.”

“The virtuous woman,” Reverend Toussaint intoned.

“May I have your attention, everyone?” Rollings said. “I believe most of you met David Bell during Miss Futrell's homegoing service. This is his son, Theodore Edgerton.”

“Teddy,” the young man said. “Theodore Edgerton Bell sounds like some stuffy-ass lawyer.” He glanced at Rollings in his three-piece suit, then added, “No offense, dude.”

“None taken, Mr. Bell. I've taken the liberty of having dinner ordered and delivered from Junior's Bar and Grille. Despite the name, they make an excellent barbeque.”

“Any fried chicken?” David Bell asked.

“None like Ana Mae's,” Rosalee said.

“There sure wasn't,” Bell said.