Part 19 (1/2)
”And does Mildred plan to stay there with all that remodeling going on?” Gertrude asked.
”I don't think she'd miss it,” I told her. ”In fact, she's looking forward to it.”
Gertrude nodded. ”Probably feels a lot safer with all the hustle and bustle about.”
Irene gathered her coat about her and rose to leave. ”As safe as any of us can feel until we find the bad apple among us,” she said.
”An apt description if I ever heard one,” Augusta said as she stood at the window watching the three women leave in their separate cars.
”What do you mean?” I asked. I knew she had been eavesdropping when Vesta and the others were here. Even though I didn't see her, there had been a strong ”Augusta current” in the air.
”Bad apple. Rotten Rotten apple would be even more fitting.” She frowned. ”Did the police find any evidence at the Smiths' that might help in their investigation?” apple would be even more fitting.” She frowned. ”Did the police find any evidence at the Smiths' that might help in their investigation?”
”The vase, of course,” I said, ”and they dusted for prints. They didn't find a forced entrance, but Vesta says Edna and Hank just about always left a side door unlocked.”
”I wonder if whoever it was found what they were looking for,” Augusta said. ”Do you think Sylvia has something of Otto's? Could that be what they were after?”
”Only Sylvia could tell us that,” I said. ”And she's not talking right now.”
I stood at the window beside her. ”You brought me there, didn't you? You wanted me to find her.”
”Find who?”
”Sylvie. I didn't plan to go there. It's like I was led.”
Augusta spoke softly. ”She needed help, Arminda.”
”And so did Annie Rose,” I said. ”You helped her stage that drowning. You were the one who sent her to Brookbend.”
”The drowning would have been a reality if I hadn't convinced her not to take her own and her unborn baby's life,” Augusta said. ”Annie Rose was planning to put an end to her life and her child's, as well.”
”But why Brookbend?”
”I knew the Parsons there. Had been a.s.signed to Ben's mother, Ella, for a while. Ella was dying, and she accepted that, but she worried about her widowed son and the child, Jake, who had no one to care for them. They were good people, and they agreed to take her in. Annie Rose left her shawl beside the river and found a ride to the next town, then took a train for Brookbend, where Ben and his mother waited.” She smiled. ”He came to love her, you know, and she, him.”
”Do you know who Mildred's father was?” I asked, but Augusta shook her head.
”She never told me. Wouldn't talk about it at all.”
I was going to ask Augusta what she thought we should do next when the telephone rang and answered my question for me.
It was Peggy O'Connor calling to tell me she had thought about what Mildred and I had said and had a change of heart.
Chapter Twenty-Three.
That's wonderful!” I said, oozing gooey relief all the way to Cornelia, Georgia, via Ma Bell. ”And I promise we'll take good care of your quilt and return it promptly. In fact, if you'd rather, we could examine it there.”
”But I told you, I don't have the quilt. I sold it.”
”Sold it? Then who-?”
”There was always something depressing about that old quilt,” Peggy O'Connorsaid. ”Gram never told me what it was, but I know she felt that way about it, too. After she died, I got in touch with a collector, thinking, of course, that my grandmother was the last member to go. I felt just terrible when you told me about Mamie Estes, and I've torn this house apart looking for the receipt, but I must've thrown it away because I can't find it anywhere. If I could only remember the name of the person who bought it, I'd be glad to buy it back and deliver it to Mrs. Estes myself.”
I smiled at the thought of the pristine O'Connor household being ”torn apart.”
”Mamie Estes doesn't want it,” I a.s.sured her. ”I think she was as glad to be rid of it as you were, but I believe you're right in your feelings about it. That quilt could hold the key to a grim secret-one someone doesn't want us to learn.”
”It has something to do with that society they belonged to, doesn't it?”
I could hear Peggy O'Connor tapping the receiver with a well-manicured nail. ”My grandmother wouldn't talk much about it, but it had a serious influence on her life. Did you know she wore that pin until the day she died? I had her buried in it.”
I remembered how she'd carried on when I'd questioned her about Flora's unusual grave marker. You'd have thought I'd insulted her ancestry all the way back to Adam. This, however, was not the time to remind her, I decided.
”Look, I'm...sorry...for the way I acted... when you were here that day.” The woman drew out each word like it was stuck to her tongue with superglue. ”It's just that the elderly lady who called earlier ...”
”Mildred?” I offered.
”Right. Well, when she sent that snapshot to Gram all those years ago, it nearly frightened her to death. Withdrew into herself for days and wouldn't even talk about it. I didn't know what was going on-still don't-but it made me uneasy somehow.”
I told her I didn't blame her-which I didn't-and that I was sorry for troubling her-which I wasn't. ”I don't suppose you remember where this person lived? The one who bought the quilt?”
”Somewhere up in the mountains. Dahlonega maybe, or it could've been Toccoa, even Gainesville. She advertised in a catalog, came here and saw it-bought it right off. Said she entered them in shows-kind of like artwork, I think.
”Anyway, I'm sorry I can't help more. Got to thinking about what you said, about it being important. And a little voice just whispered to me to tell you what I knew. Maybe it was Gram's.”
I thanked her and hung up, making a face as I did. I wish Gram had whispered sooner. Heck, I wish the old woman had hollered!
”Well, I suppose that's that.” Mildred spoke in Eeyore-like tones. ”Only the good Lord knows where that quilt is now.”
”Not necessarily,” I said. ”I think I know somebody else who might help us find it, or at least lead us in the right direction.” And I told her about Maureen Foster.
Maureen wasn't familiar with the quilt we were looking for, but she referred me to Louise Starr, the woman who ran the gift shop she sold to in Charlotte, who in turn directed me to Alpha Styles.
Alpha Styles owned a folklore museum up near Blowing Rock in the North Carolina mountains, and it must've been blowing that day because she bellowed at me over the telephone as if she were trying to speak over a howling wind.
”HATTIE CARNES!” the woman told me.
”Hattie Carnes. Yes. And where-?”
”HATTIE BROUGHT THAT QUILT IN A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO. I'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT! SHE LET ME SHOW IT FOR A SEASON, BUT WOULDN'T SELL IT FOR LOVE NOR MONEY. I TRIED, BUT I COULD TELL I WAS JUST HOLLERIN' INTO THE WIND.”.
Which in her case must have been a familiar experience, I thought as I held the receiver away from my ear. Hattie Carnes, I learned, lived in the foothills near Lenoir. She had a phone, Alpha said, but rarely answered it. I took a chance and drove up there anyway, hoping to find her at home. Mildred went with me, and at the last minute, my grandmother decided she, too, would go along for the ride.
For once, I was in luck. A hound dog-friendly, thank goodness-greeted us in the yard, and the whole place, I thought, had a serene feeling about it. Hattie's home, a two story frame building with a low-columned porch extending across the front, had at one time been a tavern, Alpha had told me, and was supposed to be one of the oldest buildings in the area. It had never had a coat of paint as far as I could tell, but the weathered gray house looked down on the road below from a screen of stately cedars, much as a revered matriarch might peer from an upstairs suite. We could smell corn bread baking as soon as we got out of the car, and I heard the sharp sound of pounding coming from somewhere out back.