Southern Ghost (23 page)

“So you think it may have been Whitney Tarrant who shot the Judge?” Max asked.

Nelda riveted him with a piercing, irritated glare. “Obviously, Mr. Darling.”

“You said they all pulled at him.” The scent of a mock orange shrub added a softness to what Annie would always remember as a bleak scene—the crippled old woman, her face alight with vengeance, and the quiet checker players, still alive but so divorced from life. “What did the others do that upset the Judge?”

Nelda’s thin lips pursed. “What didn’t they do? That wife of his was always complaining because he worked so hard. I ask you,” she asked scathingly, “what else is a man to do?”

Annie carefully didn’t look at Max.

“A man’s work is his life, and no one ever did better than the Judge. When he was on the bench, he did what was right and just. That’s the way he lived too. A man of honor. A man of character.” Her chin quivered with outrage. “What did Amanda want? A namby-pamby stay-at-home, like her two older sons? The Judge never said a word against his family—why, he wouldn’t have done that—but it was as clear as clear that they were all a disappointment to him—all except Ross. Now that was a fine young man, a leader in his class. The Judge was so proud that he was going to be a military officer.”

Annie wondered how Miss Cartwright would react if they told her that Ross had decided to refuse his commission and go to Canada if necessary, to avoid serving in a war in which he did not believe. Would she see a man of honor in that, a true Tarrant, or would she be enraged, as the Judge had been so long ago?

“What about Milam?” Max asked.

Nelda’s eyes narrowed. “Milam.” Her fingers tapped the cover of her book. “He was in trouble with the Judge that week. I remember now—I took a letter.” Those faded eyes glittered. “Don’t think I couldn’t read between the lines.” Her lips curled in distaste. “None of it surprised me. It was utterly transparent, both to the Judge and to me. Milam took advantage of the family name to secure a historical restoration commission for this pretty young woman who’d come to town and opened up a decorating firm. No antecedents. Nothing to
recommend her. To think Milam thought the Judge wouldn’t realize what was going on! The Judge understood, all right. His voice was like a winter day when he dictated the letter asking that woman to resign the commission since it had been obtained under false pretenses—Milam told the board she had the confidence of the Tarrant Family and, of course, everyone thought that meant the Judge had recommended her. Why, this is too small a town to get away with something like that! Felicity Moore was president of the historical society. When Milam told the board that pack of lies, Felicity telephoned the Judge at once, asked why he wasn’t in favor of continuing with Sheila Bauman. Sheila Bauman knew more about restoration than anyone else in Beaufort County! It was a scandal to think of throwing her over, after all the years she’d worked with the society, for this peroxided woman who’d moved here from Atlanta.”

“A friend of Milam’s,” Max said carefully.

“You could call it that.” Nelda’s stare was icy.

Annie wanted to get it straight. “Milam recommended this woman for a restoration job, inferring that’s what the Judge wanted?”

A sharp affirmative nod. Then a malicious smile. “Milam didn’t win that one, even though the Judge died. I’d already sent the letter to the historical society. The Judge made it perfectly clear he wanted Sheila Bauman to be reappointed. Not that Crandall woman.” The smile slid into a frown. “Of course, as soon as the Judge was dead and buried, Milam showed his true colors. He quit his job at the bank—I’ll bet they were glad to see the last of him with his smart tongue—moved out to the plantation, and called himself a painter.” Her tone oozed contempt. Nelda Cartwright apparently put artistic endeavors on the same level with panhandling and garbage collecting.

So how much of this diatribe should be attributed to malice?

Frowning darkly, the old lady gazed out at the lovely spring day. Delicate, wispy clouds laced the soft blue sky.
Lovely, yes, but Annie still hungered sometimes for the clear, harsh brilliance of a Texas sky.

Max softly jingled some coins in his pocket. “Miss Cart-wright, please, think very carefully for us, do you know of anyone—anyone at all—with a motive for murdering the Judge? Someone he had sentenced? Another lawyer whom he had bested? A client who was dissatisfied? Someone jealous of his prominence, his success?”

“Oh, there were many who were jealous of the Judge, I can tell you that.” Her gray head bobbed in emphasis. “Sometimes I think a man’s goodness can be measured by the number of his enemies.”

That was a new proposition to Annie.

Nelda looked up at her and snapped, “Just you wait until you’ve lived longer, young lady, then you’ll understand what I mean. Why, anyone would think good men would be revered, but they put others to shame, you see, show them up for what they are, and most people can’t stand the light of day on what they really are.”

Annie felt a pang of embarrassment. The old lady was right, of course. How well could anyone bear the spotlight if it focused on their shabby motives, their shameful desires, their petty jealousies, usually well hidden behind false social smiles?

How well, Annie wondered, could Judge Tarrant have borne such scrutiny?

“But the Judge—” Nelda’s voice was soft. “He always told the truth. He never made himself look big and important. And”—she poked a finger at them fiercely—“he did many a good deed that nobody ever knew about. Even I wouldn’t have known, but I kept his files in order.”

She didn’t say it, but obviously she’d read letters the Judge had composed and sent himself. Read for her own happiness, read because she loved him.

“He paid for many a poor young man to go to school. White and black. He made anonymous donations to the Baptist soup kitchen, though he was a good Episcopalian. He…” Her voice trailed off, her thin shoulders slumped.
Tears edged from beneath the thick glasses. “Struck down by a wretch in his own family. Who else could have gone into Tarrant House and not been seen by someone? They ail lived there, you know, because he was generous, giving food and board to grown men with wives who should have worked hard enough to earn the money for their own residences. But not Whitney or Milam.” She made no effort to wipe away the tears. Annie’s heart contracted.

“Couldn’t the Judge have helped his sons, made money available so they could have had their own homes?” Max inquired.

“What would that have taught them about standing on their own two feet?” she retorted angrily. “That would have been the worst possible thing to do.”

Max was looking both bemused and appalled. Since he had never understood Annie’s staunch devotion to the Puritan work ethic, it was unlikely the Judge’s approach would impress him. As far as Max was concerned, money, which his family had and shared in abundance, was marvelous because it afforded freedom. The idea that a person’s worth should be equated to how much money that person possessed or could earn was utterly foreign to him.

Annie offered up a silent prayer of gratitude for Laurel. Dear, flaky, unpredictable, impossible Laurel, who had successfully inculcated her economic beliefs in her offspring. They were rich, yes. They enjoyed being rich, yes. But they never thought possessing money made them special or better or worthy of deference. They thought it made them lucky.

“Oh, no, you look at those lazy Tarrant boys,” Nelda ordered. “Just one problem after another, the Judge had. Whitney and that graspy wife of his. Milam and that sad little woman he married. And the Judge’s wife.” An odd look crossed her face. She started to speak, paused, then said, “Funny, how things come back. I was thinking about the Judge on that last day, a Friday. Of course, I don’t see how it could matter now, nothing came of it, and she’s been dead so many years, too. But that afternoon, he put me to calling
condominiums in Florida, to see about buying one for his wife, Amanda.”

Sybil answered the door. “Where have you been all day?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. Turning on her heel, she marched into the dining room. One full wall, including the Federal fireplace, and the wainscoting on the other three walls were paneled with rich red cypress. But little of it could be seen and little of the magnificent, equally richly red Chippendale table and matching chairs. Photographs, large and small, were propped on every level space and against the walls.

Annie felt her breath catch in her chest.

Photographs of Courtney Kimball, at all ages, from babyhood to the present. They captured the girl’s beauty and the unusual, almost gaunt, configuration of her facial bones. She was elegant, elusive, fascinating.

As Annie looked from the photographs to Sybil, she realized that Courtney was very much her mother’s daughter. The resemblance could be missed at first because Courtney was so fair. Her ash-blond hair, porcelain-white skin, and Nordic blue eyes were all a heritage from her father, Ross. But the reckless gleam in those sapphire-blue eyes was a spark of the unquenchable fire that burned in Sybil’s and that remarkable, unforgettable bone structure was the legacy of her dark and dangerous mother.

Sybil stood, her arms folded across her chest, looking from one photograph to another: Courtney on horseback, playing tennis, as a baby, as a debutante, at Christmas, on Valentine’s Day, her birthday, wielding a hockey stick, at slumber parties, as a cheerleader. “God. Isn’t she beautiful? Isn’t she wonderful?”

Despite her beauty, Sybil looked haggard. Tight lines etched the corners of that sensual mouth. Her cheekbones jutted too sharply, her velvet-dark eyes were red-rimmed. She was, as always, dramatically and exquisitely dressed. But her crimson blouse was partially untucked, and her white linen
slacks wrinkled. Even her vivid makeup had the look of an afterthought.

She reached out tenderly and picked up a photograph. In it, Courtney must have been about twelve. She wore faded jeans, a pink T-shirt, and a mischievous grin. She leaned precariously out from a rickety, wood-slat tree house, high in an old live oak.

“I had a tree house once.” Sybil swallowed and said gruffly, “They were good to Courtney, those people who took her.” She looked at them piteously. “I would have taken good care of her.”

“Of course you would have,” Annie said warmly. She darted a helpless look at Max. She was out of her depth here. Nothing in her experience had prepared her to deal with this kind of anguish.

“They’re looking for her, looking everywhere now.” Sybil crooked the photograph in her arm and began to pace. “I put the fear of God into Wells. They’re really looking now.” She stopped and gripped Max’s arm with her free hand. “They can still find her, can’t they? Maybe she was hurt and wandered away. That happens, you know. Sometimes.”

Max put his hand over hers. “Sometimes,” he said gently.

Haunted eyes clung to his face. “You think she’s dead. I can tell. So does he. He said there’s no trace of her, none. Her credit cards haven’t been used, not since that day. No one’s seen her. She hasn’t cashed money out of her account. They think she would have—if she were out there somewhere. If she could.”

Sybil jerked free, walked blindly to the mantel, and rested her raven-dark head against its rich rosy-red wood, the framed picture held tight in her arms.

“We’re trying, Sybil,” Annie offered, and knew it was forlorn.

“The fastest way to find out…” Max paused, then pressed on, “… what happened to Courtney is to find the person who killed the Judge.”

For a long, long moment that dark bowed head didn’t move. Then slowly it lifted, and Sybil turned to face them.
The sight of her face brought a chill to Annie’s heart. There was no mercy in it. And no avenging angel ever spoke with greater resolution. “I will know. No matter what it takes, no matter how long, no matter what I have to do, I will know. Old sins have long shadows, that’s what my grandmother always said to me. I never knew what it meant—until now. There were so many sins at Tarrant House, weren’t there? Whitney was lazy and weak. Charlotte—oh, I don’t know that we can call her sinful. She’s too insignificant, isn’t she? Charlotte is one of those obstinate, boring, irritating people who don’t have any core to them, so they have to fasten onto something other than themselves. With some people, it’s religion. Or money. Or sex. But poor old boring Charlotte, it’s the Tarrant Family. Oh, Christ, the almighty Tarrant Family!” The words were torn from her. “And then there’s Milam. A lot more room for speculation there, you know. Milam’s deeper than you think. He always seemed to acquiesce when the Judge was alive, whatever was demanded, but all the while, underneath, he kept worming and squirming for what he wanted. Julia—” Her voice was puzzled. “I never understood why Julia stayed. Why didn’t she take Missy and leave? What could possibly have held her there? Milam’s affair had started, even then, even when Missy was just a baby.” She held out the picture in her arms, stared at it, her lips trembling. “Missy’s dead. And Courtney—” She walked woodenly toward the table and put the picture down. “No. No.” She whirled, her face ashen, and moved blindly past them. “No. Goddammit, no…”

“I know they’re home,” Annie insisted. The front of the mansion was immaculate, as always, which made the heavy scent of charred wood all the more disturbing.

Max knocked again. Rang the bell, kept his finger on the button.

They could hear the peal.

And see the lights blazing on both floors.

“Unfortunately,” Max said grimly, “we aren’t cops. We don’t have a search warrant. Nobody has to talk to us.”

Annie jerked to look to her left. Had the drapes moved at that second window on the ground floor?

But what if they had?

Charlotte and Whitney Tarrant were under no compulsion to permit Annie and Max Darling to enter Tarrant House.

But lights were also shining next door, at Miss Evangeline Copley’s house.

Annie nodded her head decisively. “Let’s see what Miss Copley has to say. She’s the one who heard Ross and the Judge quarrel that afternoon.”

Max resisted at first. “We know all about that, Annie. And isn’t she the ghost-lady Laurel talked to? Listen, Annie, I’m sure ghosts are fine, but they’re no help to us. No ghost spirited Courtney away or set fire to the Tarrant Museum.”