Hark! The Herald Angel Screamed: An Augusta Goodnight Mystery (with Heavenly Recipes) (31 page)

Idonia drained the rest of her tea and stood. “And now, if you don’t mind putting me up for the night, I’d like to get some sleep. I was going to ask Nettie for that spare room upstairs but she must’ve already gone to bed as I couldn’t get her to come to the door. You know, I wouldn’t dare mention this to Nettie, but I believe she’s getting quite deaf.”

Ellis, who also stood, held up a hand. “Whoa!” she said. “Do you realize, Idonia, that the police are looking for Melrose DuBois?”

The woman seemed genuinely puzzled. “Now why would they do that?”

“Let me count the ways,” I said, listing them on my fingers. “First, he was seen at the church the night of Opal Henshaw’s murder, and left town soon afterward—”

“Murder?”
Idonia gasped.

“We’re pretty sure it was deliberate,” I said, continuing. “Also, he lied about that locket he gave you, which, if you’ll remember, belonged to the Tanseys’ daughter, Dinah, who was married to Opal’s nephew Dexter Clark … “

“Remember him?” Ellis said. “Dexter was the fellow we found under the balcony at Willowbrook—deader than a doornail. The police are kind of curious to find out how Melrose came by that fascinating piece of jewelry.”

Idonia sat again. “I’ve asked him about that, and there’s a perfectly good explanation, if you’ll—”

“Idonia, if you know where Melrose is, I think you’d better tell us,” I said.

She looked down at her hands in her lap. “You’ll know soon enough. He plans to be at church in the morning … and Melrose didn’t know anything about that locket, I promise!”

“But why the disappearing act?” Ellis asked. “And why isn’t he with you now?”

Idonia shook her head and smiled. “He has his reasons. You’ll see. And now, if you don’t mind, I really need some sleep.”

“Only if you make a phone call first,” I told her, and Ellis and I stood on either side of her while she spoke with Nathan, who happened to be staying at Idonia’s. I could hear Nathan Culpepper’s stormy ranting from a few feet away.

“He wants to speak with you,” Idonia said, handing me the
phone, and I assured Nathan that his mother was safe with me and that I would deliver her to church in the morning. And then I laughed.

“What’s so funny? What did he say?” Idonia asked.

“He wanted to know if I thought you were getting even with him for that time he played hooky in junior high,” I said.

Idonia’s eyes widened. “Nathan
played hooky
in junior high?”

Ellis left soon afterward and Idonia was settled in the guest room for the night when I remembered there was something I meant to do. I looked at my watch. What time was it in Oregon? It didn’t matter. I picked up the phone and called my brother, Joel, whom I hadn’t seen in almost a year. He plans to come for a long visit soon after the holidays.

It was late when, after a long chat with Joel, I finally crawled into bed and I should’ve dropped right off to sleep, but the events of the day kept playing in my mind. Idonia was safely back, thank goodness; the local police were aware of where the missing locket was hidden, and it looked as if they would make an arrest soon. Or as soon as they could locate Jeremiah Tansey. Had it been Jeremiah who buried the locket in the flour canister? Augusta seemed to think she knew who had put it there, but she wasn’t sharing her secrets.

When at last I drifted off to sleep I dreamed of a young woman I took to be Dinah Tansey, only the Dinah in my dream was even younger than the girl in the photograph. She lay across a bed in a room with yellow walls and white curtains at the window and she was crying. It wasn’t at all like the room we had seen at the Tanseys’ cottage except for the locked door. But in my dream the door was bolted from the inside.

“There’s something I want to run past you when we get a chance,” I whispered to Ellis in the choir room the next morning. With Idonia there I hadn’t been able to discuss with Augusta what was on my mind, and we had to rush to the church after a hurried breakfast.

Ellis adjusted her stole and mine. “We have an hour break between services. Maybe we can sneak away to the parlor. Can it wait till then?”

I nodded. I guessed it would have to.

“Will Augusta be in the congregation this morning?” Ellis asked, checking to see if her music was in order.

“You might not see her, but she’ll be there both times. You know how she loves Christmas music,” I said. “And Idonia says Melrose is coming, too.”

Ellis sniffed. “He’d better!”

But try as I would, I couldn’t find Melrose DuBois among the people attending the Lessons and Carols program although I scanned every row while our minister read the scriptures, and again during the offertory until I felt my eyes would cross.

Idonia’s son, Nathan, sat in the second row flanked by his wife and daughter and I don’t believe he took his eyes off his mother for one second. I didn’t blame him. Idonia had a nervous, distracted look as if she wanted to bolt at any minute. A few days ago she had been pleased when she heard Nathan would be bringing his family, and now, after hours of rehearsals, all she could think of was the absence of one Melrose DuBois. God help him if he didn’t show up for the eleven o’clock service, I thought, because if the police didn’t track him down, I would!

Ellis closed the door to the parlor behind us and, kicking off her shoes, curled up on one end of the sofa. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Has Idonia heard any more from Melrose? She seems in a bad way—did you notice? I’ll swear, if that little jerk doesn’t show up for church this morning I’m going to wring his neck.”

“Let’s hope he’s there at eleven,” I said. “He’d better not be leading her on! I felt bad about leaving her there in the choir room. I know she wondered where we were going.”

“Maybe some of Cissy’s turtle bars will cheer her up,” Ellis said.

Our choir director always baked her fabulous cookies made with chocolate, brown sugar, and pecans to go with the other goodies choir members brought to eat between Christmas services. Most of us, I’ve learned, will grab any chance to have a party and I hated missing this one, but I needed somebody to tell me I wasn’t crazy.

“Ellis,” I began, “I had the strangest dream last night. Have you ever wondered if Dinah Tansey might still be alive?”

“Lucy Nan Pilgrim, you are totally, absolutely, and undeniably crazy!” my friend said. “What makes you think a thing like that?”

I told her about my dream and reminded her that Dinah’s family wasn’t told of the girl’s death until after she was buried. “What if she never died?”

Ellis frowned. “Then who’s buried in her grave?”

“Maybe there isn’t any grave. Maybe Dinah Tansey is the ghostly woman who haunts Willowbrook.”

“Now wait a minute, Lucy Nan, let’s don’t get carried away. You aren’t thinking she actually lives in that room we found? Dinah would be in her twenties now and the clothes we found, everything was for somebody much younger.”

Someone passed by the door and Ellis waited to continue until
the footsteps went away. “And why in the world would she do it? She’d have to be—well, you know—”

“Crazy,” I said. “I wish there were some way we could find out for sure.”

“I believe there is.”

I looked up to see Augusta standing before us. “The music this morning was lovely,” she said. “But if you want any of those refreshments, you’d better hurry. I’m afraid the others have already taken care of most of it.”

“How?” I said.

Augusta glanced at herself in the mirror that hung over the sofa. Today she wore a garment of what looked like golden filigree over a deep green satinlike dress that swirled when she walked and brought out the turquoise depths in her eyes. “How what?” she asked.

Today I had little patience with her vanity. “How can we find out if Dinah Tansey Clark is really dead?”

“If what I’ve read is correct, they have to issue a death certificate when someone dies. If you can find out where she was supposed to have died, they should have one on record,” she said.

“Augusta Goodnight, you’re a genius!” I threw my arms around her and sensed her serenity like a balm. “But how are we going to learn that?”

“Preacher Dave would be the most likely source,” Ellis said, “but if she really isn’t dead and the family is keeping her there in secret, he certainly isn’t going to tell us the truth.”

“Soso,” I said, remembering my conversations with Aunt Eula and her kin in the small Georgia town. “Dinah was a friend of the Shackelfords’ daughter Carolyn. Maybe she kept up with her after she married. I’ll call Aunt Eula as soon as we get home.”

But I immediately shoved that to the back of my mind when we processed into the sanctuary for the second time that day and that scumball Melrose DuBois was nowhere in sight.

“I’m worried about Idonia,” Jo Nell had confided when we met briefly in the ladies’ room earlier. “First she disappears and now she looks like she’s about to jump out of her skin. It’s that Melrose again, isn’t it?”

“He’s supposed to show up at one of the services this morning,” I explained. “Idonia said she had his word on it.”

“Ha!” Jo Nell snorted, letting the door slam behind her.

Ben smiled up at me from an aisle seat and I smiled back remembering he would be taking me to lunch after church at one of those new steak restaurants out on the highway. Roger sat near the front with Jessica and Teddy, and Julie would soon be home for Christmas. If only things would work out for Idonia! How rude and inconsiderate of that pipsqueak Melrose to put a damper on our holidays!

Nathan Culpepper stationed himself by the choir room door as soon as the service was over and I remembered that he expected his mother to go back to Savannah with him for Christmas. I wasn’t surprised to find Idonia waiting for me as I hung up my robe. “Lucy Nan, you’ve got to help me,” she said. “I can’t leave with Nathan today—I just can’t! Something’s happened to Melrose, I know it.”

I could see that this was not the time or the place to try and convince her that Melrose DuBois might not be the knight in shining armor she thought him to be. Instead I sent frantic eye signals to Zee and Jo Nell who stood behind her putting their music in appropriate stacks according to Cissy’s directions, and Jo Nell, bless her heart, came over and put her arm around Idonia.

“We’re so glad to have you back,” she said. “Don’t you dare scare us like that again!” And Idonia, ever the one with the stiff upper lip, began to cry.

“Honey, he’s not worth it,” Zee said with tears in her own eyes. “If the man’s going to make you unhappy like this, you’re well rid of him.”

“You don’t understand. He’s in trouble—bad trouble, and if we don’t find him, it might be too late.” Idonia accepted a tissue and used it accordingly.

“What kind of trouble?” Ellis asked. “I thought you said you knew where he was.”

“I did yesterday. It’s today I’m worried about. I’m afraid he’s gotten in over his head.” Idonia sank onto the nearest chair. “Melrose has good intentions—I know he does, but he has no idea who he’s dealing with, or, I’m afraid, how to go about it.”

“How to go about what?” I asked.

Idonia took another tissue and shook her head. “Detective work. He’s been taking a correspondence course in how to become a private investigator, and he says he’s on the trail of the person who drugged my punch and stole the dogwood locket. Melrose thinks it’s all tied up with the murder of that man you all found at Willowbrook and what happened to poor Opal Henshaw.”