Out of Circulation (16 page)

“I’m not sure, boy.”

He meowed and thrust out a paw to touch my leg. I had to smile. I wasn’t sure what he was trying to convey, but the fact that he always seemed to respond when I talked to him made me feel like we were having a conversation.

My cell phone rang, and I peered at the number that came up on the screen. I frowned. Why was Melba Gilley calling me?

I answered the call and before I could do more than utter hello, Melba was off and running.

“Charlie, the weirdest thing. One of the work-study students just walked over from the main building with a letter for you. Apparently it got delivered by mistake over there and was sitting on somebody’s desk since Monday. Anyway, you’ll never guess who it’s from.”

I suppressed a sigh of irritation. I loved Melba dearly, but she could be exasperating—especially when she thought there was gossip involved. “No, you’re right, I’ll never guess. So who’s the letter from?”

“Vera Cassity.”

I nearly dropped the phone.

“Charlie, you still there?”

“Yes, I’m here.” Shaken, but here. Why would Vera write to me?

“Don’t you think you ought to come and see what’s in the letter? Or I could bring it to you in a little bit, when I go out to lunch.”

“I’ll come get it,” I said. “I’m feeling a bit better now, and the walk will do me and Diesel good. We’ll see you in about fifteen minutes.” I ended the call.

A letter from Vera—that was distinctly creepy. Obviously she had written and posted it late last week, probably after she came to see me at the archives. It might not be
anything more than another attempt to coerce me into letting her nose around in the Ducote papers.

Too late for that, I thought grimly.

“Come on, boy, we’re going back to work.” Diesel waited for me by the door as I scribbled a quick note for Azalea and left it on the table. I wanted to let her know that I would be back for lunch later on. If I didn’t turn up as usual, I would mess up her routine, and I had upset her enough already today.

When Diesel and I walked into the library director’s suite, Melba’s face lit up with excitement. She bobbed up out of her chair and came to greet us. She and Diesel were great pals, and she squatted to put herself on face level with him. They rubbed noses, and she scratched his head and talked nonsense to him while I stood patiently by.

At last Melba stood, brushed some hair from her bright turquoise pants, and said, “Charlie, I know you’re tired, but you have to tell me all about what happened last night.” She pointed to a chair by her desk. “Now, sit and spill.”

I’d known Melba since elementary school, when she was a gap-toothed, pigtailed nuisance who could talk the hind legs off a mule. Forty-odd years later she was an attractive, stylish woman, but her mouth hadn’t slowed down. I had to be careful what I told her, because it would be all over town ten minutes after I left her.

I started out with a carefully edited account of the gala, but Melba interrupted with questions.

“How was Vera dressed? The article in the paper didn’t say anything about it, and they haven’t run any photos from the gala yet.”

“She came as Scarlett O’Hara, and her husband was Rhett Butler.”

Melba snorted with laughter. “You have got to be kidding
me. Vera Cassity as Scarlett O’Hara? That must have been a sight.”

I winced, thinking of Vera’s corpse on the stairwell, with that hoop skirt billowing up, stuck in place. I wasn’t going to share that detail with Melba, however.

“Sorry.” Melba looked almost contrite. “I know it’s terrible of me to make fun of her like that, but a woman her age dressing like that. She should have gone as Scarlett’s grandmother, Lord have mercy. She was seventy-five at least.”

That surprised me. “I thought she was about sixty. She sure didn’t look seventy-five.”

“Well, she was.” Melba’s tone brooked no argument. She was invariably right about these things. “Don’t forget, honey, she had the money for plastic surgery. She’d had everything that sagged tucked up so many times it’s a wonder her toes weren’t on top of her knees.”

“Then her husband must have had surgery, too, because he doesn’t look much more than sixty himself.”

“That’s because he’s only about ten years older than you and me, honey.” Melba shook her head at my obvious denseness. “Vera was at least a dozen years older than Morty. I thought you knew that.”

“I had no idea,” I said. “Why did he marry a woman that much older?”

“Money.”

“I thought Vera came from a poor family.” This wasn’t adding up.

“She did,” Melba said. “Dirt-poor. But Vera’s mama inherited some money from some old aunt in Georgia, or maybe it was Florida, around the time Vera was almost thirty. Then her mama died and left it all to Vera. Morty came calling soon after, and he used Vera’s money to get started in business.”

“He couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen at that point.”

“He wasn’t,” Melba said. “But they got married, and within ten years Morty had three car dealerships. He’s got seven now, I think. Loaded, and it all started with Vera’s mama’s money.”

Diesel, tired of being ignored, crawled into Melba’s lap, and she laughed. “Sweetie, I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting you.” She loved on him as she continued, “I got you sidetracked, Charlie. Go on, tell me the rest of it.”

I spent another fifteen minutes talking, until I got to the point where I found Azalea and Vera’s body in the stairwell.

“That’s the end of it,” I said, my throat dry. “After that we all had to wait to talk to the sheriff, and then we were able to get home.”

Melba’s eyes narrowed. “I know you’re leaving out a lot. You can’t fool me.”

“I’ve told you all I can,” I said. “I’ll have to leave it at that, but I promise to tell you, as soon as I am able, anything else that I might have left out. Deal?”

Melba sighed and nodded. “You’re going to be nosing around again, aren’t you?” She didn’t wait for an answer as she reached into a drawer and pulled out an envelope. “Here’s your letter.”

The envelope was made of thick, quality paper, and Vera’s name and address were embossed in silver on it. My name and address were handwritten in block capitals.

I debated whether to open it in front of Melba, but I could always claim the contents were private. She might badger me, but I could handle that. Curiosity was eating at me, and I couldn’t wait any longer.

“Can I borrow your letter opener?”

Melba handed it across to me, and I slit the envelope. There was a single sheet inside, and I pulled it out.

I unfolded it to reveal the scanned image of a photograph. An old photograph, judging by the clothing of the woman in the picture. The words “Essie Mae Hobson” were printed underneath the photo. I had no idea who she was.

I showed it to Melba, and her eyes widened as she spoke. “Why would Vera send you a picture of her mother?”

I stared at the face of the woman in the picture. The photograph was cracked and faded, probably taken in the mid-1920s, to judge by the subject’s clothing. Essie Mae Hobson looked young here, perhaps no more than twenty. She sat in profile, her head bent shyly, so it was difficult to get a full impression of her.

I couldn’t see much of Vera in her, except perhaps the shape of her nose. Vera must have taken more after her father—unless the plastic surgery Melba told me about had altered her features significantly.

There was something elusively familiar, however, about Essie Mae’s face. Maybe Vera looked more like her mother than I realized.

“What do you know about Vera’s mother?” Melba knew most every family in Athena and the surrounding county, so she ought to be able to tell me something.

“Not much,” Melba said in a grudging tone. “She was married
to Jedediah Hobson, who was a drunk and a fool, according to my grandma on my daddy’s side. She knew the family. About as redneck as they came, she said, and mean and stupid with it. Jedediah ran shine until he was killed in a car wreck when Vera was probably about twelve or thirteen, I think. Amory, Vera’s brother, would have been eight or nine. They didn’t have any money to speak of, until Essie Mae got her inheritance.”

Sounded like Vera had grown up in an unpleasant, if not sordid, environment, with a father like that. I looked at Essie Mae again, and my heart went out to her. Such a gentle, sweet-looking girl to end up with an ignorant moonshiner.

“Why on earth did Vera send me this picture?”

“Maybe she wanted you to help her do some research on her family,” Melba said. She frowned. “You know, come to think of it, I never heard anybody say where Essie Mae came from or even who her people were. That’s odd.” She cooed at Diesel, and he chirped for her.

I paid them scant attention, lost in my thoughts.

Could Essie Mae Hobson have anything to do with Vera’s death? The chances seemed remote, but I was definitely intrigued. Sending me this copy of a photograph was a bizarre thing to do—unless Melba was right about Vera’s wanting help to find out more about her mother and her family.

I wouldn’t accomplish anything by sitting here at Melba’s desk. Time to go back to my office upstairs and get busy.

“Come on, Diesel, let’s go.” I stood and motioned for the cat to get out of Melba’s lap.

Melba scowled at me. “Can’t he stay down here with me for a bit? I’ll bring him up later.”

“If he wants to, I reckon it’s okay.” I trusted Melba to take good care of him. From time to time he visited with her down here while I worked upstairs.

Diesel jumped down and ambled toward the door. “Not today, I guess.” Melba sighed. “Men are so fickle, even the feline ones.”

I gave that the answer it deserved by ignoring it. “See you later,” I said. “And thanks for letting me know about the letter.”

Upstairs Diesel wasted no time in settling down in his napping spot in the window. I figured he was ready to snooze for a while; otherwise he would have stayed with Melba. Wished I could catch a few winks myself, even after the sound sleep I’d had last night.

I switched on the computer and checked my phone for voice mail from yesterday when I was out of the office. I hadn’t thought about it this morning, and I saw now that the message light was blinking. I turned the speaker on so I could listen while I checked e-mail.

The first two calls were basic reference questions, people looking for genealogical information. I’d get back to them later today or tomorrow.

The third call startled the heck out of me. I heard Vera Cassity’s strident voice. Talk about unnerving. Diesel sat up and meowed, just as disturbed by it as I was.

I missed the first part of Vera’s message, so I had to replay it.

“By now you ought to’ve received a letter I sent you. It’s a photograph of my mother. I know diddly-squat about her life before she married my father, because she never talked about those years. I want to know, and I figured you could help me. I think there was some kind of connection with the Ducotes, though, and if you won’t let me look in those
papers, maybe you can do it for me. I’ll see you at River Hill tonight.”

That was the final message. More final than Vera could have known, I realized, and that creeped me out again.

I thought about the message. Did Vera really not know anything about her mother’s early life? Or had she intended to use her mother as a ploy to get into the Ducote papers?

As the archivist, I had access to the papers, and Vera had probably figured that out. But whether I could justify snooping in them on another person’s behalf was questionable.

I didn’t entirely trust Vera, even in death. If I complied with her request, I could waste a lot of time on something that was a complete dead end.

What should I do? Ignore this and focus on other aspects of the case?

What other aspects did I have to focus on?

Morty Cassity and his desire for a divorce, for one.

Sissy Beauchamp’s alleged desire to marry Morty, for another.

I couldn’t rule out Hank Beauchamp, either. He might be just as interested in Morty’s money as his sister. I recalled the unpleasant little scene at Helen Louise’s bakery, when Hank’s credit card was declined.

Then there was Azalea, and potentially her sister Lily. Both of them despised Vera because of what had happened to Lily’s son, Johnny. But Lily wasn’t at River Hill last night, so far as I knew, and Azalea couldn’t have pushed Vera down the stairs.

That let Azalea out, but I couldn’t forget my feeling that she’d seen more than she’d been willing to admit to me this morning.

Kanesha. I needed to talk to Kanesha, let her know what
her mother had told me and share with her the photograph and phone message from Vera.

I found the card with her private cell number and called it. Voice mail. I left a hasty message, stressing that it was urgent she call me back.

Within two minutes my phone rang—Kanesha returning my call.

“Are you where you can talk?” I asked.

“No. Where are you? I can meet you.” She sounded angry—not at me, I hoped.

“The archives. Come as soon as you can.”

“Right.” She ended the call.

I tried to settle down to work while I waited for her, but to no avail. My brain simply couldn’t focus on regular tasks. I kept hearing Vera’s voice in my head, and that wasn’t pleasant. The sooner I told Kanesha about this, the better. Maybe then Vera’s voice would go away.

Either Kanesha broke the speed limit or she wasn’t far away when she called me back, because she walked in my office door within ten minutes.

“Shut the door,” I said. “I don’t want to be overheard.”

Diesel sat up and warbled a greeting at her, but she was so focused on me she didn’t appear to notice. Diesel resumed his nap, no doubt affronted at the slight.

“You talked to my mother,” she said as she slid into a chair.

“Yes, I did.” I launched into a full summary of Azalea’s story, and Kanesha did not speak until I finished. While I talked I tried to read her expression, but it was no use. She had the consummate poker face.

“Did she tell the sheriff everything she told you?”

I felt like an idiot. “I don’t know. I didn’t think to ask.”