Hark! The Herald Angel Screamed: An Augusta Goodnight Mystery (with Heavenly Recipes) Page 15

  Idonia twisted her hands in her lap. “Then why would Melrose tell me it belonged to his grandmother?”

  Ellis sat on the arm of our friend’s chair and put a hand on her shoulder. “Maybe he thought it would make it seem even more special,” she said, forcing a smile.

  “Do you think he was the one who—who stole it?” Idonia bit her lip. “Somebody drugged my punch, but it wasn’t him! I know Melrose wouldn’t do that to me. Besides, he seemed most upset when I told him what had happened.”

  “It couldn’t have been Melrose,” I assured her. “Al Evans confirmed that he worked until after ten that night at the funeral home.”

  Zee frowned. “Then who?”

  “Probably one of the Tanseys,” I said, and told them what I’d learned from Martin Shackelford. “Remember that man we found out at Willowbrook? Died from a fall from the balcony out there? Well, he had been married to the Tanseys’ daughter, Dinah.”

  Ellis made a rude noise. “Fall nothing! I’ll bet one of those Tanseys pushed him.”

  “But which one?” Jo Nell asked. “I can’t imagine Preacher Dave or that mousy Louella doing anything that bold.”

  “What about that boy—that Jeremiah? I wouldn’t put much of anything past that one!” Zee said.

  Idonia sat up straighter. “Seems if Jeremiah Tansey was at Bellawood, one of us would’ve seen him.”

  “Wait a minute!” I said. “Somebody had a video camera that night—remember? Genevieve wanted to get a record of the festivities and it seemed that every time I turned around, they had it in my face.”

  “Ralph Snow. He filmed for a while in the schoolhouse, too, until Nettie had enough of it and ran him off,” Jo Nell said. “If any of the Tanseys were there, maybe they’ll show up on film.”

  “I’ll give Ralph a call,” I offered, “if one of you will get in touch with Nettie and Claudia.” I looked at my watch. “It’s a little after five o’clock now. I’ll be serving up soup and corn bread in a little over an hour for anybody who’s interested.”

  “Sounds good,” Idonia said. “But how can you manage, Lucy Nan, in such a short time?”

  Ellis looked at me and smiled. She knew who would be making the soup and corn bread.

  “Ralph’s going to drop his camera by in a little while,” I told them as we all gathered around my kitchen table later that evening. “Of course I had to swear in blood I’d have it back by tomorrow.”

  Idonia, who had barely touched her food, shoved her plate aside. “It’s not that old locket I worry about, it’s Melrose! I haven’t heard from him since day before yesterday, and it just isn’t like him not to call. I’m so afraid something’s happened to him.”

  Something would happen to him if I had my way, I thought, but instead, I said, with some conviction, that I was sure Melrose was just fine.

  “I expect he’ll show up before too long,” Zee said. “After all, it’s only been a couple of days.”

  Nettie stood as we heard a car in the driveway. “I’ll bet that’s Ralph with the camera now. I can’t wait to see what’s on that film.”

  Jo Nell frowned. “What if we don’t find anything there? Then what?”

  “Then we’ll have to figure out some way to get our hands on that locket,” Ellis said.

  ow, what do you call this apparatus?” Augusta asked the next day, inspecting Ralph Snow’s camcorder without daring to touch it. We had eaten an early breakfast of oatmeal, cinnamon toast, and freshly squeezed orange juice and the camera sat on the kitchen table ready to be returned to its owner.

  “A video camera,” I said, “only it records sounds and voices as well. I promised Ralph I’d have it back before noon as he’ll be going out of town for Christmas.”

  Augusta laughed and clapped her hands. “Mickey Mouse!”

  “What?”

  “Mickey Mouse. Cleveland Tarver.”

  I shrugged. “I guess you’re going to explain that,” I said.

  “Cleveland Tarver. I was assigned to him for a brief period during the war. He was a widower going through some difficult times just then. His only son was in the service overseas and his daughter-in-law and grandson came to live with him for a while—sweet little boy about three—Sonny, they called him. The son’s wife was constantly worried, of course, so Cleveland bought this camera—a movie camera they called it then. With it she recorded Sonny’s activities so his father wouldn’t miss so much of his childhood, and once in a while they would show cartoons on their home screen—most were about Mickey Mouse.” Augusta smiled. “How Sonny loved watching them … and so did I!”

  “What happened?” I asked, expecting the worst. I knew Augusta was referring to World War II as that had been her last period on assignment as a guardian angel until recently.

  “What happened to whom?”

  “To Sonny’s father, and to—Cleveland—what’s-his-name?” I asked.

  “Sonny’s father came home after the war and went on to become a physician, I believe. Cleveland eventually married again and lived well into his nineties.” Augusta examined her cup and seemed surprised that it was empty. “Any more of that coffee?”

  I rinsed our dishes in the sink and put them into the dishwasher. All this chasing around and worrying was starting to get to me. I could use a little Mickey Mouse myself. “Augusta, what are we going to do? We seem to have come up against a brick wall and I don’t know where to go from here. Ellis is right. We have to find out who has that locket!”

  Augusta wiped off the table in one wide, circular swoop, and it gleamed as if it were new. “I was hoping something would turn up on that camera last night, but that doesn’t mean any of those people weren’t there.”

  “We know that Preacher Dave was in the vicinity, and Ellis was going to phone the fabric shop where Louella works and make up some story to find out if she was working there that night, but then we realized the drop-in at Bellawood was on a Sunday and they wouldn’t have been open then,” I said.

  “Then where do you think she might be on a Sunday night?” Augusta asked, teasing Clementine with a doggy treat.

  “Well … I suppose she could’ve been at her church, especially since her husband’s the minister. But he was at Bellawood parking cars, so they must not have had a service.”

  “Maybe not a proper service, but there could have been choir rehearsal or some other kind of meeting,” she said. “Do you know anyone who belongs to that congregation?”

  “Not right offhand,” I said, “but I’ll ask around. Frankly, Jeremiah’s the one who concerns me. I wish I knew where he was the night Idonia’s locket was taken.”

  Augusta stood at the window as if she might find an answer somewhere in the clouds. “I’m sure the boy keeps company with someone. Perhaps some of his companions might be able to help.”

  “According to Kim who does Nettie’s hair at the Total Perfection, Jeremiah hangs out with that bunch at the Red Horse Café and I’m not about to go in there! And even if I did, I doubt if they’d tell me the truth.”

  I remembered how Kemper had reacted when I first mentioned Jeremiah that morning at Willowbrook. “We’ve heard nothing more from the police about their investigation into what happened to Idonia. I guess Opal’s death sort of put it on the back burner, but I think I’ll give Kemper Mungo a call. They may or may not know about the Tanseys’ connection to Dexter Clark, but I have a feeling the police know a lot more about what goes on with Jeremiah Tansey than they’re letting on.”

  Augusta rode with me to return the camcorder to Ralph Snow, and afterward I dropped by the library to return a couple of her books and check out enough mysteries to last her until after the holidays. “I don’t know what to do about Idonia,” I confessed on the way home. “She’s worried about Melrose DuBois—afraid something’s happened to him, when I know good and well he was alive and kicking when we saw him in Georgia yesterday.”

  Augusta was reading the jacket copy on one of the mysteries. “If it were you, would you want to kno
w the truth?” she said, setting the book aside.

  I considered the question. “Yes, I think I would. But Idonia’s been through a rough time, Augusta. She seems especially fragile just now. Do you really think I should tell her?”

  “She seems an intelligent person to me, and she’s certainly mature enough to deal with adversity. I believe your friend might consider it an injustice to be treated in any other manner.”

  “In other words, you think it’s insulting to protect her?”

  “Idonia’s free to make choices just as you are, Lucy Nan. I’m sure she’s capable of facing the situation if necessary.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that, but I didn’t have time to think on it longer because we reached home to find two cars parked in our driveway, and Nettie, wrapped in her old brown sweater, scuttling over from next door, house shoes flapping.

  My first thought was that something was wrong with Idonia. “What’s going on?” I asked Zee, who happened to be the first person I reached.

  “Have you seen The Messenger this morning?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” I said. “Has something happened to Idonia?”

  “No, no! Wait until you see this!” Claudia rattled the weekly newspaper in my face. At the same time, Nettie called out something I couldn’t understand, probably because she was still putting in her teeth, and I ran to help her recover the fuzzy slipper she’d lost under the azalea bush.

  “I had a feeling there was something peculiar going on there,” Nettie said, panting to keep up.

  “What? Where? Will somebody please tell me something?” I trailed after them into my house where Claudia spread the newspaper on the kitchen table, smoothing it with her hand.

  “Read this,” she demanded, poking her finger on what was obviously the lead story on the front page. I didn’t need my reading glasses to make out the bold headline: LOCAL MATRON DIES IN FALL FROM BALCONY.

  Silently I read the first few paragraphs describing what had happened at the church that night. I didn’t see anything new.

  “Well, we knew this already,” I said, wondering why they were so excited.

  Zee leaned over my shoulder. “Skip to the obituary information at the end,” she said.

  Services will be held, Sat., Dec. 22, at Stone’s Throw Presbyterian Church … I read aloud. “Gosh, that’s tomorrow!”

  “Never mind that,” Zee said. “Check out where it tells about her family.”

  I cleared my throat. Mrs. Henshaw was preceded in death by her husband, Virgil Henshaw, and a sister, Maisie Clark of Raleigh, North Carolina. She is survived by a brother, Terrance Banks, of Knoxville, Tennessee, and a nephew, Dexter Clark …

  “Dexter Clark! Do they mean Dexter Clark as in dead Dexter Clark?”

  Nettie nodded. “One and the same.”

  “Whoever put this in the paper obviously didn’t know he wasn’t still alive,” Claudia said.

  “So Opal’s nephew was married to the Tanseys’ daughter, Dinah,” I said. “That’s why she was so curious about the locket Dinah wore in the photograph. But wouldn’t she have known about the marriage?”

  “Not necessarily,” Claudia said. “We were talking about families, holiday customs, things like that, the day we delivered the fruitcakes and Opal told me her only sister died several years ago and she rarely spoke to her brother. She didn’t mention a nephew.”

  Zee frowned. “Even if Dexter married the Tansey girl after his mother died … still, you’d think Opal would’ve been invited to the wedding,” she said.

  “Maybe they eloped,” Nettie suggested.

  “Wait a minute!” Claudia, who had been sitting, suddenly jumped to her feet. “If Opal didn’t know about her nephew’s marriage, why did she take such an unusual interest in that picture while we were at the Tanseys’ place that day—especially about the locket Dinah wore? Wanted to know all about it.”

  “Do you remember what she said?” I asked.

  “Something about her mother—or maybe it was her grandmother—having one like it. Louella told her it was a family heirloom. She hurried us out of there right soon after that. You could tell she didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “Melrose must have shown the locket to Opal before he gave it to Idonia,” Zee said. “Do you remember if Opal mentioned Idonia having one like it?”

  Claudia nodded. “I’m pretty sure she did … Yes, I’m positive because Louella said she guessed there must be more than one.”

  “But not with two seed pearls missing in the exact places,” I said. “And that very night somebody drugged Idonia’s drink and stole it.”

  “But they must’ve known about Idonia’s locket earlier,” Zee pointed out. “She swears somebody was following her while we were caroling.”

  That didn’t surprise me because Idonia had taken every opportunity to show off her gift from Melrose. “It had to have been one of the Tanseys,” I said. “Do any of you know somebody who goes to their church?”

  “I think Helen does,” Claudia said. “Helen Harlan. She’s a student at Sarah Bedford, works part time in the office to help with her tuition. Helen’s kind of quiet and serious—keeps to herself, but she mentioned going to Chandler’s Creek. I think she sings in the choir.”

  “Do you know how to get in touch with her?” I asked. “Maybe she could give us an idea where Louella Tansey was last Sunday night.”

  “Sure. I’ll probably see her tonight at the staff Christmas party … but what’ll I say?”

  “You’ll think of something,” I told her, “just let us know what you find out—”

  “As soon as you can!” Zee added. “And shouldn’t somebody check with Al Evans about Idonia’s slippery boyfriend? After all, Melrose is supposed to be working there.”

  “And claims to be related, too!” Nettie clicked her teeth. “You reckon Al knows what that little varmint’s been up to?”

  There wasn’t but one way to find out, and I was about to volunteer when Ellis came bursting in, almost tripping over Clementine, who was stretched out in her usual place.

  “I’ve left two messages! Don’t you ever pick up?” she said, then realizing we were all gathered around the story in The Messenger, pulled out a chair and joined us.

  “You’re just in time. You’re nominated,” I told her after the others took time about telling her what we had discussed.

  Ellis stooped to pet Clementine as an apology for almost stepping on her tail. “Nominated for what?” she asked.

  “To see what you can find out about Melrose from Al Evans,” I said. “Surely he must have some idea what the man’s about.”

  I could tell by her expression Ellis was going to balk. “You want me to go to the funeral home? By myself? And I can never tell when Al’s looking at me. He has a glass eye, you know.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, I’ll go with you, but we’d better get on with it,” I said. The day was over half gone, I realized, and I still hadn’t spoken with Kemper Mungo although I had left a message earlier asking him to get in touch. No doubt he thought I wanted to bug him to tell me what he knew.

  “Has anybody seen Idonia?” Ellis asked as we left. “I’ve been trying to reach her all morning.”

  Nettie suggested she’d probably gone to the grocery store and Zee promised to check on Idonia on her way home, but I still felt uneasy as Ellis and I drove the few blocks to Evans and Son. If the person responsible for the other two deaths thought Idonia might know too much, our friend could be next.

  Al Evans greeted us cordially and seated us on a Victorian love seat upholstered in purple velvet. Now he shook his head and fastened his gaze on the huge decorative vase in the corner—at least that’s where he seemed to be looking. “I wish I could help you, but I declare, I don’t know what Melrose has gotten himself up to. I’m sure the police would like to know, too, but unfortunately, he didn’t see fit to tell me.”

  “Do you know where Melrose lived before he came here?” I asked.

  Our host pondered
that silently for a minute. “Melrose spent most of his life in a small town in Mississippi working in his father’s hardware store, then later, for somebody else. After his wife died a few years ago, he moved from here to there—didn’t seem to know what to do with himself.”

  “Did they have children?” Ellis asked, and Al shook his head. “No, and I think it might’ve made a difference if they had. He’s been lonely, I know, and I expect that’s why he came here to work with me. As far as I know I’m the only relative Melrose has left. Our mothers were sisters, you know. I just wish I knew what was going on.”

  Suddenly he rose and went to a large metal urnlike vessel on the table behind him. “My goodness, where are my manners? Can I offer you ladies some coffee?”

  I could feel Ellis stiffening beside me. “Um—no, thank you,” we chorused.

  Ellis leaned forward. “He didn’t leave any word at all?”

  Al Evans shook his head. “That incident with his friend Mrs. Culpepper really bothered him, I could tell. Seemed to blame himself. Of course I tried to tell him it wasn’t his fault … I just wish I knew where he was.”

  I looked at Ellis and she nodded. “I know where he is—at least he was there yesterday,” I said, and told him about my experience seeing Melrose DuBois at a north Georgia outlet mall.

  “Well, if that doesn’t beat all!” Al sighed. “I shouldn’t be too surprised, though. Melrose seems to have developed some strange habits lately.”

  “Like what?” Ellis wanted to know.

  “Secretive little things—like he’d go off by himself and not bother to say where he was going, what he was doing.” Al shrugged. “Not that it really mattered. He’s a grown man and it’s his business how he spends his time. But I guess you could say Melrose made an issue out of not making an issue.”

  “I guess we’ll have to tell the police about your seeing Melrose at the mall,” Ellis said as we left.