Shadow Of An Angel Part 5

"Oh, it wasn't anything serious. I think both of them were lonely, that's all." My grandmother peered into a kitchen cabinet and found it stocked; then she disappeared into the pantry. "Don't tell me you made all those strawberry preserves," she said, holding a jar to the light.

"Okay, I won't. And please take some. They're absolutely divine." I could see Augusta hovering in the background, and smiled when she rolled her eyes.

"Irene Bradshaw thinks otherwise," I said, referring to Otto's relations.h.i.+p with Sylvia Smith.

"Irene Bradshaw? When did you run into her?" Vesta wiped the jar of preserves with a dishcloth and put it into her purse.

"This morning. She was out back picking up pecans. Told me Otto was the reason Sylvie didn't go back to London."

"You know how Irene exaggerates! I'm sure Mildred would've mentioned it, and Edna Smith-Sylvie's own mother-never said a word," Vesta spoke with that "final say so" tone in her voice. "I saw the two of them together on occasion, but I'm sure it was nothing more than a friendly relations.h.i.+p. Why, I don't even remember Sylvie being at the funeral."

Vesta stood in the doorway to the dining room. "My gracious, I'd almost forgotten this old table! We used to do our homework on it." She ran her fingers over the scarred oak surface. "If only this old thing could talk."

And maybe it did, I thought. "Irene told me her mother and yours were friends," I said. "Went to the academy together; I think she might've been a member of that club they had. Irene remembers the quilt they made. Said her mother would keep it for a year or so, then pa.s.s it along to somebody else."

"Of course-Aunt Pauline. Irene's mother used to bring us chocolate drops when she came to visit. Naturally she was a favorite of ours-not really an aunt, but we called her that. She and Mama were always close. I believe she died a few years before Mama did."

Vesta frowned. "Whatever happened to that quilt, I wonder? Guess it stayed with whoever had it last. Of course all those 'girls' are gone now. No telling who ended up with it. Funny, I don't remember my mother ever really using that quilt."

"Do you remember who they were?"

"My goodness, Minda, that was a long time ago! Frankly, I never paid much attention to it."

What about the nondescripts?" I asked. "Do you know who made them? They were mentioned in the minutes of their meeting as being served as part of the refreshments."

"Hmm...I think Mama served something like that once or twice, but pies were her specialty. I remember a sliced sweet potato pie with whiskey in it that would make your head spin!" My grandmother laughed and gave my shoulders a squeeze. "A lot of good food was eaten in this room, Minda."

Now she sniffed and inhaled deeply as we moved into the living room. "Ahh...I thought I smelled wood smoke! How ambitious of you, Minda! You've a fire going in the fireplace already! After your granddad died, I just didn't have the heart or the energy to take the trouble to build one, but I do love the smell, and this is certainly the day for it. Do we need to order more wood? Must be getting low."

"I'll check and see," I said, having no idea. Augusta had a bright blaze going when I came downstairs that morning. "Don't worry; I'll take care of it. You do have time for a cup of hot tea, don't you? I have some ginger-apricot you just have to try!"

She glanced at her watch. "Why not? I don't have to be anywhere until noon. The renovation committee of the Historical Society is meeting for lunch to discuss our plans for the Bradshaw place. Something tells me we'll need more than tea to tackle that one!"

The living room furniture my grandmother had left behind was worn but comfortable. Vesta sat nursing her tea in the club chair that had been her husband's, now slip covered in a faded blue floral print, and I pulled the squishy leather ottoman closer to the fire. I heard a drawer open and shut in the kitchen and the clatter of a pan on the stove and knew Augusta had begun to prepare her savory peanut-pumpkin soup. It was a favorite of George Was.h.i.+ngton Carver's, she'd told me.

"In fact, he gave me the recipe. And everyone seems to be nuts nuts about it!" And Augusta had smiled at her own awful joke. about it!" And Augusta had smiled at her own awful joke.

But Vesta chatted on, pausing now and then to um um and and ah ah over her tea and never heard a thing. over her tea and never heard a thing.

It wasn't until she had left for her meeting that I realized my grandmother hadn't taken the extra blankets she claimed she needed.

"I seem to have developed a sudden appet.i.te for pizza," Augusta said after my grandmother left.

It sounded good to me. "I'll pick one up. Care to go along?"

She folded her huge, gaudy ap.r.o.n over a chair. "I believe I will."

"I thought angels liked fancy things like ambrosia," I said. (Augusta, thank goodness, seemed to favor barbecue and pizza.) "There are restaurants in Columbia and Charlotte that offer more elegant fare."

But Augusta was already halfway to the car. "I've never been concerned about keeping up with the...what are those people's names?"

"Joneses," I said, and headed for the Heavenly Grill.

I got a pepperoni with extra cheese and two orders of lemon icebox pie to go, and pulled into the driveway at the Nut House, looking forward to eating it.

"There's a man at the back of the house," Augusta said. "Wonder what he's doing there."

A man in a brown overcoat was peering into the kitchen window. I wasn't sure, but it looked as though he might have been trying to open it.

I slammed the car door to get his attention. Hugh Talbot!

He hurried down the back steps to meet me. His legs were short, I noticed, and he puffed as he walked. "Arminda! I was afraid you weren't at home."

Balancing the pie on top of the pizza box, I made my way inside.

"Mr. Talbot! I didn't expect you." What was I supposed to say? "Won't you join me for pizza?"

Please say no!

I saw Augusta in mock prayer behind him and knew she was asking the same thing.

"No, no, thank you. I just wanted to see how you were after the strain of the last few days. I'm sure it must have been difficult for you."

"It hasn't been easy, but I believe we'll see things through. I don't suppose you've had any word from the police?"

He shook his head. "They're checking everybody who has a record, but nothing was stolen, so it doesn't look like a robbery."

"And how is Mrs. Whitmire?"

"Hobblin' and grumblin'." He smiled. "She'll be all right."

"Are you sure you can't stay?" I asked as he turned to leave, but he said he had stopped by for only a minute.

But why the back door instead of the front, I wondered. And I hadn't seen a sign of a car.

What was Hugh Talbot after?

"I wish we knew the rest of the Mystic Six," I said after we'd finished off the pizza and pie.

Augusta was smas.h.i.+ng cooked pumpkin through a sieve with a big wooden spoon, but she paused in her cooking to take a small notepad from her huge tapestry handbag. "At least we now know three of them," she said, with a quick flourish of her pen. "Lucy, Annie Rose, and Irene's mother, Pauline."

"But what about the others?"

Even as I waited for her answer, I knew there wasn't going to be one. "You know something, don't you? You were there there! If you know about the Mystic Six, why don't you tell me?"

The angel gathered her sparkling necklace into a handful of stars and turned to face me, the wooden spoon dripping jack-o'-lantern orange. "There are things you don't understand, Arminda. Things I don't even know myself. Pauline Watts practically lived here-a dark-haired girl with dimples-always reading novels.... But don't ask me about the others, because I just don't know."

Chapter Seven.

Minda?" I could tell by my cousin's voice something was wrong.

"Gatlin? What is it? Vesta hasn't had a wreck, has she?" I pictured the dangerous intersection near Calhoun Street, where I knew our grandmother was meeting for lunch. Vesta drove like she was racing the devil and had the speeding tickets to prove it. If she hadn't taught the local police chief in Sunday school, she'd be under the jail by now.

"No, no, nothing like that. It's Mildred. She's not answering her phone, and I'm kinda concerned is all. You know how she's been since Otto-"

"Maybe she's not there." I looked at the kitchen clock; it was almost two in the afternoon. "Even Mildred has to eat. She probably went to the store."

"Minda, she could've walked to the next county and been back by now! I've been calling all morning."

"I'll meet you there," I told her. A nasty little tongue of fear flickered inside me, but I wasn't having any part of that.

"I'm sure she's okay," I said. "But how do we get in? I don't have a key."

"I do," Gatlin said. "Actually, it's Vesta's. She left it with me that night Mildred insisted on going back there. Said I might need it sometime."

"Mildred may be in trouble. I hope her angel's on duty," I told Augusta as I grabbed my coat. "She does have one, doesn't she?"

Augusta was was.h.i.+ng the kitchen windows with something that smelled like new gra.s.s and looked like spring water. She didn't turn around. "Of course she does, Arminda, but I don't have my directory handy just now."

"Huh!" I said. Sometimes I couldn't tell if Augusta was joking, but I wouldn't be surprised if she really did carry an angel directory in that great big bag of hers.

The front of Papa's Armchair looked dark and deserted, and a blind was drawn in the doorway, so I parked behind Gatlin's ten-year-old red Pontiac at the back entrance to the rooms Mildred and Otto had called home. Gatlin already had her key in the lock by the time I got out of my car.

"I've rung the bell three times and knocked until my knuckles are raw," my cousin said. "I'm going in."

"Maybe we ought to call somebody first," I said. "What if something's happened? You don't know what we'll find in there."

But it was too late. Gatlin swung the door wide and stepped boldly inside the dark, narrow hallway with me crowding her footsteps, only to be met by a pink apparition.

I'd like to say I imagined it, but I'm almost sure I screamed. The apparition made a funny growling noise, s.n.a.t.c.hed a lamp off the hall table, and shook it at us.

"Look out, it's got a lamp!" I yelled just as the pink figure and the lamphit the floor together.

"Minda, for heaven's sake, it's Mildred!" Gatlin ran to hover over the dazed-looking woman who sat, still muttering, in the hallway while I rescued the lamp.

"What's going on?" Mildred spoke in a hoa.r.s.e, hesitating whisper. "I don't understand...and...oh, my head hurts so..."

Mildred Parsons was not a heavy person, but even with our support she walked like an adolescent in her first pair of heels, and it took the two of us several minutes to help her to a chair. If I hadn't known about Mildred's strict Methodist principles, I'd have suspected she'd been into the booze.

I whispered to Gatlin over Mildred's head. "Maybe we'd better get her in bed."

"No, no!" Mildred croaked weakly. "Just let me sit a minute-and water-a gla.s.s of water..."

"Easy now...sipit slowly." In the tiny living room Gatlin held the gla.s.s to Mildred's lips while I shoved a footstool under her feet and covered her with a throw. The throw had a smirky-looking cat on it and read IF YOU CAN'T SAY ANYTHING NICE ABOUT PEOPLE, COME AND SIT NEXT TO ME. This woman I had known all my life was surprising me at every turn.

Gatlin and I watched anxiously as she drank most of the water, leaned her head back, and closed her eyes for minutes that seemed longer than an off-key wedding solo. I was about to grab her wrist for a pulse when Mildred opened her eyes and announced that somebody had "slipped her a Mickey."

"A what?" Gatlin grinned and jabbed me with her elbow. "You've been watching too many of those old movies, Mildred. You must've eaten something that disagreed with you, or picked up a virus somewhere."

"Don't tell me what I picked up! I reckon I know what I picked up-I picked up a drink with some kind of dope in it!" Mildred sat a little straighter and then winced with the effort. "What time is it? I feel like I've been asleep a thousand years."

"It's close to three in the afternoon, and whatever you picked up, you need to see a doctor," I told her. "How long have you been sick?"

"Since I got home last night. Hardly made it to bed before my head started swimming. Sick as a dog and up half the night." She rubbed her eyes and pulled the coverlet closer about her.

"Got home from where?" Gatlin wanted to know.

"UMW. Wouldn't have gone, but we're in the middle of planning for the Christmas Bazaar, and I'm in charge of the quilt raffle this year."

"Did you eat anything there?" I asked, touching her forehead to check for fever. It felt clammy.

"A couple of pieces of Scotch shortbread and coffee. We met at Janice Palmer's, and she always serves that." Mildred put a trembling hand to her mouth. "Don't think I'll be wanting any more for a while."

"Who else was there? Maybe somebody else got sick," I said, although I couldn't imagine those refreshments causing an upset as severe as Mildred's.

"The usual-except for Gertrude Whitmire. She hardly ever comes. And Edna Smith. Vesta, too, but she came in late, so I'm not sure if she ate anything."

"What about supper? Did you have anything to eat before the meeting?" Gatlin reached for the phone as she spoke.

Mildred made a face. "Just some of Edna's vegetable soup and corn bread. But it couldn't have been that."

I wedged a pillow behind her. "Why not?"

"Because she had some with me. Said she didn't like to think of me eating alone." Mildred reached out for Gatlin. "Look now, who're you calling?"

"The Better Health Clinic. Somebody should take a look at you, Mildred. You might have food poisoning."

"I'm eighty-three years old. I don't have time to spend the rest of my days in their waiting room, thank you. Besides, what could they do? If this was going to kill me, I'd already be dead-and believe me, there were times last night I wanted to be!" Mildred reluctantly accepted the cold cloth I applied to her forehead. "I told you-somebody slipped something into my coffee-something to knock me out."

"They could check your stomach contents," Gatlin reasoned. "See if there's anything toxic-"

"What stomach contents?" Mildred looked a little green and turned away.

"Or the soup. We'll have them a.n.a.lyze what's left of the soup," I suggested.

"Too late. We ate it all, and I'm afraid I rinsed out the jar." Mildred attempted a smile. "Edna does make good soup....

You might call, though, and see if she's all right. Wouldn't hurt to see about Vesta, too."

"She was fine when she came by this morning," I told them. "But I'll try to track her down."

Willene Christenbury, who had hosted the luncheon for the Historical Society's renovation committee, told me my grandmother had left about thirty minutes before for a fitting at Phoebe's Alterations. "Said she was going to have that long black coat cut down to jacket size," Willene said. The coat was at least twenty years old, and I could tell by Willene's tone of voice that she wondered why Vesta would bother. I could have told her why. Vesta Maxwell got her penny's worth out of every thread she wore. My grandmother had never forgotten the Great Depression.