The Angel Whispered Danger (21 page)

Things began to quiet down after the rest of the searchers left, and Uncle Ernest drove off to see about Ella at the hospital while Uncle Lum and Aunt Leona escaped to front porch rockers where now and then they spoke softly. Marge and family had left earlier, promising to check back with us the next day, and only Violet, Ma Maggie and I remained in the house.

The old house seemed to echo after all the activity of the day before and the frenzied flurry on our return that afternoon, and the big room looked even grayer than usual with its frayed rugs and worn furniture where the faint smell of Uncle Ernest’s pipe tobacco blended with Aunt Leona’s Misty Glade cologne. But gray and quiet were fine with me. I was content to be just where I was, and stretched out in the squishy old armchair where I could keep an eye on my sleeping child. Ma Maggie and Violet sat across from me on the sofa, and from the expression on their faces, I think they expected me to disintegrate at any moment.

“What?” I said.

My grantmother lifted an eyebrow. “What do you mean,
what
?”

“You keep staring at me like I’m going to break or something. I’m fine.”

“Good,” Ma Maggie said. “That’s fine,” and kept on staring.

“You don’t have to watch over me or anything. Nothing’s going to happen, so just relax, okay? Why don’t you two go home and get some sleep?” I was sure neither of them had closed their eyes the night before.

“I think I’ll stay until Ernest gets back,” my grandmother said. “I’m concerned about him. Something’s not right.”

“It won’t do any good if you get sick, too,” Violet said. “Your blood pressure’s probably through the ceiling already.” She made a face. “Let Belinda worry about Ernest.”

“Belinda’s not here,” Ma Maggie told her.

“I know she’s not
here
,” my cousin Violet said. “Left for home soon as Kate and the others turned up, but she doesn’t live that far away. Let her hold Ernest’s hand.”

My grandmother shook her head. “No, I mean Belinda’s not in town. I think she went to a daughter’s or something.” She lowered her voice. “I heard Ernest tell her to go away.”

“What do you mean?” Violet leaned forward with the beginning of a smile on her face. “I thought they were a couple now.”

“Oh, not like that!” Ma Maggie waved her hand. “He told her he’d feel a lot better if she went away for a few days. After what happened yesterday with the yellow jackets and all, Ernest said he thought she’d be safer somewhere else.”

For once Cousin Violet was speechless. But not for long. “For heaven’s sakes, surely Ernest doesn’t think that attack was planned. You can’t train a bunch of bees to go after a person!”

“No, but it looks like somebody deliberately hid her purse, and I’m beginning to think it wasn’t Hartley.” My grandmother peered over the sofa to see if Josie was listening, but I could have assured her my daughter was sleeping too soundly to hear anything we said. “In fact,” she went on, “if it weren’t for Hartley playing with Belinda’s purse, we might not have found that antidote in time.”

“Still, Violet has a point,” I told them. “It isn’t going to do Uncle Ernest or Belinda or anybody else any good for you two to stick around any longer. I’m going to sleep down here on the sofa tonight, and I doubt if Uncle Lum and Aunt Leona—or Grady, either—will be going anywhere until tomorrow at least.”

“Won’t be going then unless we get some of this mess cleared up,” Violet said, raising a brow—or trying to. “That nice young policeman—the one who’s been talking to Ernest so much lately—well, he told everybody not to go anywhere for a while.”

“What? When did this happen?” I glanced at my grandmother. Sometimes Violet gets things all mixed up.

But Ma Maggie didn’t dispute it. “Well, not everybody,” she said, nodding. “Just those of us who were here when that happened to Ella. It was while you all were gone, Kate. That fellow from the sheriff’s department was here most of the day while everybody was out looking for you and Josie—Grady, too. He said he thought it best if we didn’t stray far from Bishop’s Bridge for a few days. Just until they can get to the bottom of all this.”

“I reckon he must think one of us pushed poor old Ella into that gully,” Violet said. “Although for the life of me, I can’t imagine why.” She shook her head at me. “I hope you have a good alibi, Kate.”

“It’s not funny, Violet!” My grandmother stood and gathered her things. “None of this is funny. Somebody gave poor Ella a shove, and somebody took Belinda’s purse and hid it where they didn’t think we’d find it—not in time, anyway.”

Cousin Violet folded plump arms across her ample bosom. “Well, I can assure you, it wasn’t me! Why, my dear Hodges used to say I didn’t have a mean bone in my body.”

Ma Maggie said it wasn’t her, either, and that she wasn’t going to worry about it any more tonight, but was going home to bed, and if we had any sense at all we’d do the same.

My cousin Violet had her eccentricities but I never considered her capable of murder any more than I had my own grandmother. For a while, I had even suspected my cousin Grady, but now I wasn’t even sure about that. Then who? I wondered. And more importantly, why?

Before she left for home, Ma Maggie patted my shoulder, planted a light kiss on my forehead and told me to go to sleep. I could see her darting obvious glances at Violet, urging her to do the same, but as usual, her cousin ignored her. From the way Violet was acting, I guessed she had something to tell me she didn’t want my grandmother to hear. And I was right.

Violet waited until we heard Ma Maggie say good-bye to Uncle Lum and Aunt Leona, cross the porch and start down the steps before she shoved Uncle Ernest’s old hassock next to my chair and plopped down beside me. “Now, I don’t want to alarm your grandmother,” she said under her breath. “You know how worked up she gets sometimes over the least little thing . . .”

“Uh-huh,” I said, trying not to smile.

“Look, I know you all think I’m just a crazy old woman, and maybe I am,” she said, “but Maggie’s right about one thing. Something’s mighty wrong here, and I think I know who’s at the bottom of it.”

I looked at Violet. The woman was completely serious. “I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to one of you,” my cousin went on. “But I’ll need you to help me, Kate.”

When she reached for my hand, I couldn’t ignore the chipped purple nail polish and a bracelet that looked as if it came from a box of Cracker Jack, but for some reason I wanted to believe her—at least long enough to listen to whatever she had to tell me.

But before Violet had a chance to speak, Uncle Ernest phoned to tell us that Ella had died.

“There’s nothing you or anyone can do,” Uncle Ernest told Aunt Leona when she and Uncle Lum offered to meet him at the hospital.

“He’s on his way home,” my aunt said, hanging up the phone. “Said he’d make arrangements in the morning. Poor man must be exhausted.”

We all were, and since I would be sleeping on the living room sofa, I offered Violet my bed so she wouldn’t have to drive home so late at night.

“I don’t suppose Ella mentioned anything else about who might have attacked her,” Violet said.

“Uncle Ernest said she slipped away peacefully without regaining consciousness,” my aunt told her.

“I doubt if she knew,” Uncle Lum said. “And even if she did, we’ll never find out now.”

Cousin Violet squeezed my hand as she left to go upstairs. “Talk to you in the morning,” she whispered.

Grady stumbled past me sleepily, mumbled good night, then followed his parents upstairs, and I found an extra pillow and a light blanket for the sofa and checked to see if Josie was still asleep. My daughter hadn’t moved from the position she’d been in earlier and I risked a light kiss on her cheek as I adjusted her covers. I decided to try calling Ned before I went to bed, and braced myself for his response. My husband was going to be angry that I hadn’t gotten in touch with him sooner.

But I reached the hotel desk only to be told that Ned McBride had checked out earlier. And no, he said, Mr. McBride had left no word as to where he might be reached.

I thought I would drop off to sleep the minute my head hit the pillow. Wrong! I listened to every breath my daughter took, then heard Uncle Ernest drive up, come through the back way and go quietly to his room, wondering the whole time why Ned had left the seminar in California before it was due to be over. Had they rescheduled his speech? And wasn’t he supposed to have been on some sort of panel, as well, I thought. If my husband had heard about Josie’s being lost, he would certainly have telephoned somebody at Bramblewood, but no one here had heard from him. So where was he?

I was turning over my pillow for the third time when I caught a whiff of a most delightful aroma coming from the kitchen and knew Augusta must be there.

“Tea or coffee?” she asked, lifting dark, moist brownies onto a leaf-patterned plate. “I thought we might take these out on the porch. It’s cooler there now and everyone else seems to have gone to bed.”

Penelope, in a daisy-sprigged shift of simple design with eyelet trim at the neck, pinched off the corner of a steaming cake and popped it into her mouth.

“Why, Penelope!” Augusta pretended to be shocked, but she smiled when she said it. We loaded a tray with the brownies, plus milk for Penelope, peppermint tea for me and dark, rich coffee for Augusta, and made our way to the porch, quietly skirting Amos sleeping by Josie’s cot.

“Thank you, Penelope, for looking after Josie last night,” I said as soon as we were settled. “I’m so glad you were with her. You probably saved her life.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, and I could see the young angel’s smile even in the dark.

The brownies were as good as they looked and smelled, and tasted of dark chocolate and strawberry jam. I ate two of them and licked my fingers after every bite. I waited until Penelope had fallen asleep on the settee before I spoke.

“Violet thinks she knows who’s behind all this,” I told Augusta. “I don’t know whether to take her seriously or not. She’s as flaky as a bowl of cereal, but I’m so confused, I’m ready to grasp at anything.”

Augusta sat in the rocking chair next to mine slowly sipping her coffee. “What does she say?”

“Only that she’s worried about us and has an idea who might be responsible.”

I let peppermint steam waft into my face. “Augusta, you know I even suspected Grady, and I’m still not sure he’s not mixed up in what happened to Beverly. He was there, you know. He as good as admitted it.”

“He was there when she died?”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, but he’s been there. He told me about her apartment, and earlier Grady said he hadn’t seen Beverly in years.” I sipped my tea and felt its warmth relax me. “Do you think there might be a connection between Beverly’s death and Ella’s?”

Augusta swung one gold-sandaled foot and trailed amethyst and sapphire stones through her long fingers. “I think it might have begun with the young couple who came through here on a raft,” she said. “Back when Ella first arrived. There has to be a connection somehow.”

“You mean because of the anklet we found in the attic? Valerie was one of the names that girl used.”

She nodded. “Possibly. That’s one reason, but not enough.” Augusta sighed. “I’m afraid your cousin Violet is right. We do need to get to the bottom of this before someone else gets hurt.”

“Grady admitted to accidently killing his father, and he may or may not have had anything to do with the way Beverly died—although I don’t even want to think about that—but he wasn’t even born when those two came through here on the raft,” I said. “And that skeleton they dug up in Remeth churchyard is older than he is.”

“But not older than your uncle Ernest,” Augusta said.

“You don’t think Uncle Ernest had anything to do with it, do you?”

The steam from Augusta’s coffee curled around her face. “I think he might have an idea who did.” She looked at me over her cup. “I’m afraid your uncle’s life might be in danger, Kate.”

“I still can’t see how Beverly’s death could have anything to do with something that happened almost forty years ago,” I said.