The Angel Whispered Danger (12 page)

“Oh, I picked those up at a bakery,” I said, pouring orange juice all around—and spilling about half of it.

“Maybe it was Casey you heard,” Grady offered. “Must’ve come back last night: I saw him trimming the shrubbery when I went out to get the paper this morning.”

“Why would Casey be digging in the middle of the night?” his mother wanted to know.

Grady shrugged. “To get an early start? Told me he was planning to mow that field behind the orchard so the children could play games this afternoon.”

Every year at the reunion all the children competed in sack races and relay games in the big field where I’d seen my uncle walking the day before, and later, some of the adults joined in for a family softball game. Parker and Burdette were due over soon to help Grady set up long tables, made of boards laid across sawhorses, under the large oaks at the edge of the yard, and family members who lived out of town would be arriving all during the day with potato salad, baked ham, fried chicken and just about every kind of cake and pie I’d ever heard of—and some I hadn’t.

Uncle Lum peered over his coffee cup. “Did anybody else hear that thunder last night? Sounded like a gully washer there for a while. Sure glad it moved on in time for the picnic.”

Grady and I both said we’d heard it, too, but Uncle Ernest, jamming on his familiar hat, excused himself to go to the hospital.

“Mosquitoes just about chewed me alive out on the porch yesterday,” Aunt Leona said as he was leaving. “Might be a good idea to ask Casey to get rid of some of those weeds around where Rose—Around the flowerbed back there. I believe they must be breeding in there.”

I could have told her that.

Since my uncle was in a hurry to see about Ella, I told him I’d talk to Casey about the weeds. Frankly, I was curious about the man, plus I wanted to see where Uncle Ernest had been digging in the garden.

I found the caretaker on the riding mower behind the orchard, and even after I chased him down, the tractor made such a racket I almost had to risk being run over to get his attention. Casey Grindle was large and red-cheeked. A green-checkered shirt, open at the neck, strained over his bulging stomach, and he wore jeans and a straw hat about as big as a bushel basket. Wild gray hair stuck out from beneath it, making him look kind of like a rotund scarecrow.

While I introduced myself and explained my errand, he took the opportunity to wipe his face with a soiled hand towel. I noticed that he wore thick gardening gloves, which really didn’t surprise me since Violet had said he was a writer and I supposed he would need to take care of his hands to use a computer or whatever he wrote on. He didn’t look much like a writer, though—or at least my idea of one.

“You’re talking about that little garden behind the house that’s surrounded with all those trees?” he said. His voice was sort of scratchy like an old phonograph record. “I asked about that earlier, but he didn’t seem to want anything done about it. Lot of underbrush around there.”

“I know. I don’t think he expects you to clean it out in one day, but maybe you can get some of the worst of it. I’ll show you, if you like.”

Even with Casey riding, I managed to get there first as he had to go the long way around and I cut across the yard.

It was obvious that somebody had been digging around the roses, and the dirt had been put back loosely in several places, but an excavation in a far corner of the garden was still uncovered, with a mound of dirt and grass piled beside a hole that looked to be over a foot deep and two or three times as wide.

“Your uncle intending to plant something here?” Casey asked, wading through knee-deep weeds to stand beside me.

“He hasn’t mentioned it,” I said. “Probably some of the children playing at digging for buried treasure.”

“Or somebody meaning to bury something,” he said.

I hadn’t thought of that. But why dig all those holes to bury something—unless it was in several pieces? But I didn’t even want to go there.

“My cousin tells me you’re a writer,” I said. “Do you think I might’ve read any of your titles?”

“Not yet, but maybe someday.” He started back to the tractor. “Still trying to get published. Took a year off to see what I could do.”

“Any particular genre?”

“Something in the category of historical romance, more or less,” he said, swinging into the seat.

“Oh,” I said. It was all I could think to say since that wasn’t at all what I expected. Suspense, maybe, or even science fiction, but not romance! “Well, do join us for our picnic tonight,” I said. “There’ll be plenty of good food and you’re welcome to come. Uncle Ernest probably hasn’t had a chance to invite you after what happened to Ella.”

“Yeah, that was a pretty bad thing . . . just learned about it yesterday.” Casey Grindle jammed his grimy towel in a back pocket and clattered away. He never did answer about the picnic.

“We have a problem,” I said to Grady when I found him practicing his putting on the shady side of the house.

He frowned. I had made him miss putting his golf ball into a circle of string. “Whatdaya mean?”

I told him about Uncle Ernest and the midnight digging.

“You think it might have something to do with that skeleton they found?” he asked.

I didn’t know, but I felt as if a chunk of iron was wedged inside my chest. Neither of us wanted to mention who we thought the skeleton might be.

Grady tried to flip up golf balls with his wedge the way Tiger Woods does, but it didn’t work too well. With one hand on my shoulder, he steered me away from the house. “Kate, surely you don’t think that skeleton could be hers . . .”

“You mean Rose’s? Yes, I do. I hate to say it, Grady, but do
you
know what happened to her? Does anybody? As far as I know, nobody’s laid eyes on the woman since she left here—and it was about the same time somebody dumped that body in the Remeth burying ground.”

My cousin thought about that for a minute. “You’re right,” he said finally, “but that doesn’t mean
Uncle Ernest
did it! Could’ve been somebody else, and it might not be Rose at all. Didn’t those two rafters disappear about the same time?”

“Dear God, I hope you’re right! This is Uncle Ernest we’re talking about! I can’t imagine him doing a thing like that, but this was long before we were even born, and who knows what a person might do in a fit of jealousy—or rage. And everybody says she was beautiful. Maybe she played around. Violet thinks Judge Kidd had a crush on her.”

Grady’s face grew almost stormy. He ran a hand through his dark hair and bent to collect his golf balls. “We can stand here and make suppositions all day, but it doesn’t prove a thing. Whatever happened to those hippie rafters? Were their bodies ever found? How come everybody’s so certain they drowned?”

“They found their overturned raft and some of their belongings snagged on debris downriver,” I said, “and both of them dropped out of sight—never came back.”

Grady smiled that familiar “older cousin know-it-all” smile that made me want to smack him. “Would you wave your arms and yell, ‘Look at me!’ if you were wanted for robbing a store?”

“But from what I’ve heard, they never went back to their families. Even if they stayed in hiding for however long it takes for the statute of limitations to run out, you’d think they would eventually surface, wouldn’t you? Or maybe you haven’t heard about the statue of limitations.” I slung my words hard enough to knock him cold.

He laughed instead. “Touché. Okay, so maybe they did drown. But there must’ve been something about it in the paper when it happened. Even a name would help. All I’ve ever heard were those kooky monikers.”

“Great, then why don’t we go down to
The Bulletin
and see what we can dig up, if you’ll excuse the expression? We ought to have just enough time before all the kin start pouring in.”

Grady glanced at his watch. “You forget I have to help set up grazing tables. It’s almost ten now. Burdette and Parker should be getting here any minute.”

And I had promised Josie I’d make homemade peach ice cream if Ma Maggie could round up her churn—which also meant I needed to stop by the store for ingredients. “I’ll be back by noon,” I told him, dashing into the house for my keys. “Get ready to help turn the crank!”

The Bulletin
was located in a mustard-colored brick building, built around the turn of the last century, that had housed the Bank of Bishop’s Bridge until they moved into an upscale stone-and-glass monstrosity a few blocks down the street. The receptionist didn’t look much older than Josie, and I must have interrupted her in an especially intriguing passage of the romance novel she was reading because she seemed reluctant to put it aside.

“I wanted to look up some old issues,” I said. “Do you have a morgue here?”

“A
what
?” She shifted her gum to the other side of her mouth. “Ma’am, this is a
newspaper
office. I think you must be looking for the funeral home or something.”

“No, I mean a newspaper morgue—a place where they keep old issues.” I tried to keep a straight face.

“Oh. Well, that’s all on microfilm now. You’ll have to go to the library for that.” She picked up the book again.

Fine. But I hadn’t the faintest idea of the year the rafters had disappeared.

“Is Mr. Hollingsworth still here?” I asked, referring to the editor who had been there when I was in high school.

“He’s semiretired now. Only comes in twice a week.”

“Then do you know when he’ll be in?” I asked, resisting the urge to look at my watch. The morning was already half-gone.

She looked at me as if I had my head on backwards. “Oh, he’s in—or I reckon he is; saw him getting coffee ’bout an hour ago.”

I followed the woman’s pointing finger to a small office in the back where I found Charles Hollingsworth reared back in his chair, eyes closed, with his hands across his chest. He looked a bit thinner, and a lot grayer than I remembered. The door was open, but I knocked anyway and he leapt to his feet and invited me in, seeming glad of the company.

“I know who you are,” he said when I started to introduce myself. “Look just like your old man . . . and how’s England? Any baby news yet?”

I smiled and shook my head. Sometimes I forget just how small Bishop’s Bridge is! “I’m hoping you can help me,” I said, and told him about Burdette unearthing the skeleton in Remeth churchyard. “My cousin and I were wondering if it might be one of the rafters who disappeared on the river sometime back in the sixties, but we aren’t sure of the year.”

The old editor smiled. “Front-page news, that skeleton! Bishop’s Bridge hasn’t had a story like that since . . . well, probably since those two young rafters disappeared. Bo Crane was all over it yesterday—you probably don’t know our reporter, Bo; came here after you left.” He leaned back in his chair and laughed. “The man made enough pictures to paper a house! ’Course the police wouldn’t tell him much—probably because they don’t know much.”

“They didn’t tell us anything, either,” I said, “but Burdette said they think it must’ve been there close to forty years and that would’ve been about when the two rafters were supposed to have drowned.”

“By golly, you’re right! You just might have something there.” The man who had been dozing a few minutes before came to life as if somebody had plugged him in. “And I’m fairly sure of the date, too, because it was the year after I came here; happened around the time Christine and I married because I remember everybody talking about it at all the parties.” He frowned. “Never did find ’em, but we kept gnawing on the subject until the story—and the interest—finally fizzled. Can’t be sure of the exact date, but it was toward the end of July.”

The editor’s lean face took on a look that can only be described as cunning, and he lowered his voice a notch. “Mind if an old man comes along? I’d like to get a look at those back issues, too.”

I had a feeling young Bo Crane was about to be scooped.

A walk around the block and a few minutes later, we found the news item we were looking for.