Sins of the Fathers (11 page)

Dr. Flo shook her head. “I don’t have a cell phone.”

Having seen the secretary, Katharine had little faith in her ability to do genealogical or any other type of research, but she gave him the number at Posey’s. Better that than Mr. Curtis calling on her cell.

As they rose to go, he reminded them, “Don’t wait too long to get back to me, you hear? They’s millions riding on this deal.”

Katharine wondered how much he personally stood to gain. Was development on Bayard Island his personal ticket out of his dreary little office?

“There is also the dignity of the dead.” Dr. Flo rose, but did not put out her hand. “I think you will agree that we owe them that much?”

Mr. Curtis didn’t reply. As Katharine followed Dr. Flo out the door, she looked back. The panda had been replaced by an angry little bull.

Dr. Flo was silent until Katharine pulled out of the parking lot and headed south toward town, then she cupped her slender hands over her nose and bowed low over her lap, rocking back and forth. Katharine was startled. She’d been embarrassed for the professor, but had never imagined Mr. Curtis would make her cry.

A gasp and a chuckle made her realize Dr. Flo was laughing. Still rocking back and forth, she clapped her hands to punctuate her delight. “Thought he had himself an old darky grandmother in there, didn’t he? Gonna sign that white man’s paper and say ‘Yessuh, yessuh, glad to have you move my fambly graves. Kin I polish your fu’niture whiles I’s heah?’”

Her accent was so droll that Katharine laughed, too. Once she started, she couldn’t stop. She laughed so hard she had to pull into a filling station parking lot. They laughed until tears ran down their faces and washed away the whole afternoon. Whenever Katharine was about to regain her composure, Dr. Flo would blurt out something like “Agnes and that shotgun!” or “Just like a wood nymph,” or “Wooee—the size of that rattlesnake!” or “My chauffeur,” and set them off again.

Finally Dr. Flo took several deep, gusty breaths. “I needed that. And when we get down to Jekyll? I’ll tell you what, girlfriend, I might take you up on that swim. I feel the need right now for a thorough cleansing.” She brushed her face and the front of her jacket. “Don’t want to carry along any microscopic particles of Mr. Curtis that might have stuck.”

“One hour and we can be up to our necks in the ocean,” Katharine promised.

When they got back on the road, Dr. Flo brought out her reading glasses and the small notebook she’d used at the cemetery. “I sure hope I can find out something about these Guilberts and where they came from.”

“And Mallery the pirate. You won’t forget him, will you?”

Dr. Flo gave a gentle snort. “Let’s give Mallery to Burch’s family. I would like to know why he was buried alongside my relatives, though—and why my relatives were buried with the Bayard family.” She took out a pencil and began to make notes.

“I wouldn’t know how to start looking for something like that.”

“First, I’ll go online and check ancestry.com to see if I can find the Guilberts. Is there an Internet connection in this house where we’ll be staying?”

“Sure.”

“Good. Maybe I can find something tonight. I’ll particularly want to look at the census data for 1870 and 1880. If Marie lived in McIntosh County, I should be able to find her and a good bit about her. By then they were listing the names, ages, and professions of every member of every household.”

“You can get all that online?” A novice to genealogy research, Katharine was astounded.

“Absolutely. I also want to look up Francis and Elizabeth Bayard, to find out if their entries are near hers. That would indicate they were neighbors, since the census lists households in the order the census-taker got to them.”

“I wonder why the husband’s memorial said ‘Beloved husband,’ but hers only said ‘Wife of Francis and Mother of Claude.’ I’ll bet there’s a story there.”

“That’s the kind of thing that is harder to find. The dead can’t take their wealth, but they sure do take most of their stories. Genealogy is like real detective work, not the kind you read about in books. Not much violence or sex, just a lot of slogging. You don’t expect to get all the answers fast, either. Sometimes you don’t get answers at all.”

She returned to her notes. “There’s one possibility about Marie that may have occurred to you, too.”

Katharine didn’t want to admit she hadn’t given Marie a thought since they’d left the cemetery. “What’s that?”

“Francis Bayard was born in 1818 and Marie in 1825. Marie may have been Francis’s mistress, and the children their grandchildren, whom she raised. She could have come from New Orleans or somewhere like that.”

“Which would mean that Burch might not know all he thinks he does about his family’s history. Do you think that looking at the various censuses—or is it censi?—will tell you enough?”

“Probably not. I may have to look at marriage and death records and see if there’s a deeds book for McIntosh County showing who owned property back then. There’s even a book that lists what is found on the family pages of old Georgia Bibles. If Marie kept her family records in a Bible that got copied in that book, I’ll have hit pure gold. And there’s always the chance I’ll come across a reference book I have never used before. Genealogy is a constant learning curve.”

Katharine gave her a teasing glance. “You aren’t likely to find all you need as fast as Burch and Mr. Curtis would wish.”

“Absolutely not. This could take weeks, months, even years.”

“While poor Mr. Curtis pines away. You are
bad
, Dr. Flo.”

Her eyes twinkled. “Girl, you don’t know the half of it.”

As they left the mainland for the Jekyll Island causeway, Dr. Flo looked across the marshes and confessed, “I’ve never been to Jekyll. I always meant to come, but never got here.”

“It’s one of the nation’s seashore treasures, but developers are hot to get their hands on it. It’s got terrific beaches, wonderful riding waves, good golf courses, and an ideal location.”

“I’m getting the notion that any location is ideal to you so long as it’s close to the ocean.”

Katharine arched her back to get the kinks out from driving. “True, but what I meant was, Jekyll is at the far western tip of the curved coastline between Florida and South Carolina, so hurricanes generally pass far out to sea.”

“That does give it a certain advantage. We aren’t expecting any hurricanes this week, are we?” Dr. Flo sounded anxious.

“Not even a storm. Do you mind if I open the windows now so I can enjoy the air?”

“Go ahead, if you can stand the heat. The wind won’t ruin my hairdo.” She patted her crisp silver curls. “But can you believe how hot it is, even at the end of the day? My only consolation is that it’s hotter in Boston, Chicago, and St. Louis.”

“All those places that make fun of the South for being so hot,” Katharine agreed. “I’ll leave the AC on to cool us down a bit, even if I do open the windows.”

She appreciated the cool on her knees even while she enjoyed gulps of thick, humid air redolent of salt marshes and tidal decay. The marshes were not at their best wearing large patches of summer brown and sticky with mud at low tide, but as she watched the rippling interplay between sun and shadows on the grass, she said, “Every time I get back near the ocean, I wonder why I left. To me, that’s the smell of home. Isn’t it marvelous?”

Dr. Flo wrinkled her dainty nose. “Girlfriend, if this is the smell you associate with home, you had a deprived childhood. Smells like the whole place is slowly rotting away.”

Katharine laughed. “I guess it does, a little. Miami doesn’t smell like this, anyway, but the keys do. We used to rent a little place down on Marathon every summer, and no matter how hot it was, I always slept with my windows open so I could smell the air. At Posey’s cottage I always leave my bedroom windows open at night.”

“Inviting burglars?”

Katharine wished she hadn’t mentioned burglars. For the first time all day she felt the nightmares crouched and waiting. Determined not to let them spoil her vacation, she said firmly, “But isn’t this gorgeous? I feel like I can inhale not only the marshes, but the colors of the marsh and the water and the sky.”

Dr. Flo craned her neck and peered up. “That sky seems awfully big and close. Feels like it might crush us.”

Katharine laughed. “My mother always said that at the beach, God makes up for the lack of mountains by giving folks an incredible sky.”

“Well, I wouldn’t mind a few hills to hold it up.”

Katharine laughed again as she pulled into a small shopping center near the end of the causeway. She couldn’t remember when she’d last felt so carefree. “No hills on Jekyll except a few little ones on golf courses. Sorry. I’m going to run in and pick up a few groceries to supplement what I brought. Do you want to wait in the car?”

Dr. Flo picked up her purse. “Let me come in and pay.”

“Nonsense. I won’t get much. You can pay tomorrow.”

At the checkout counter, Katharine saw a slim woman who looked vaguely familiar. She had fluffy blond curls, soft pink skin that looked like it had never been out in the sun, and well-shaped hands tipped with deep red nails. She smiled. “Aren’t you Katharine Murray? I’m Joye Folsum, from the realty office.”

“You didn’t wait for us, did you?” Beside so much perfection, Katharine was keenly aware of her gritty feet, travel-creased pants and shirt, and the fact that she hadn’t put on lipstick or powder since lunchtime. She was appalled if she had kept this woman at her office so late.

“Oh, no, I had other things to do.” Ms. Folsum was a multitasking marvel. She managed to swipe her debit card and punch in her PIN while smiling her thanks to the cashier and carrying on a coherent conversation. “But Mrs. Buiton called and told me to expect you, so I went over earlier to check things and make sure the house was aired and ready. You know where to find the family’s hidden key, or do I need to get you one from the office?”

Katharine started unloading her own basket. “I know where the key is hidden. Thanks.”

“Give us a call if there is anything you need.” Ms. Folsum picked up two bags of groceries and headed out the door.

“Did you see that gorgeous woman who left just before me?” Katharine asked as she climbed back into the car. Dr. Flo nodded. “She’s Posey’s realtor. She made me feel like a frump. How can a woman work this late and still manage to look like that?”

“She hasn’t been exploring cemeteries all day.” Dr. Flo stretched, arching her back. “This is so marvelous. I’ve been sitting here thanking God for you. This is the first real vacation I’ve had since Maurice died.”

Katharine gave her a surprised glance. “I thought you’d been out of the country a lot. I hadn’t seen you for ages until I ran into you at the history center back in June.”

“No, I was—” Dr. Flo looked out the window as if looking for a word “—hibernating. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

Katharine tried not to feel hurt that Dr. Flo would pull the curtains of privacy so tightly around her after their camaraderie of the past hours, but reminded herself,
She owes you nothing just because you’ve had fun together.
Still, she found it puzzling that a woman of Dr. Flo’s intellect and social stature could drop out of the Atlanta scene for so long without a single rumor circulating about where she was. Had she had a breakdown? Gone into a serious depression? From all reports, she and Maurice had been very close. Whatever she’d been doing and wherever she’d been, apparently Katharine wasn’t to be told.

As they headed up the island in the slanting golden light of early evening, Dr. Flo peered out at the trim brick houses, backyard patios, and well-kept lawns that lined the street. “It’s very suburban, isn’t it?” she said with a trace of disappointment she couldn’t quite conceal. “When you said ‘cottage,’ I was expecting something in the nature of big wooden houses with wraparound verandas, a conglomeration of mismatched furniture, and linoleum floors nobody minds if you track sand in on.”

“Those are all gone.” Katharine shared her regret. “Still, brick or stucco houses, vinyl or tile floors, and aluminum windows make more sense when you have to keep a house up in this climate. And while I miss the big porches, I find that air conditioning and modern kitchens are definite compensations.”

When she turned into Posey’s driveway, she could tell Dr. Flo was still not impressed. She had seen that reaction before. Posey and Wrens valued their privacy, so had built a two-story,
U
-shaped stucco house without a single window facing the street except for matching sets of French doors with small balconies upstairs at each end of the
U
. With a smile, Katharine got out and punched in the code to let them into the garage. Once she had pulled the SUV inside, she fetched the hidden key to the house, but instead of taking Dr. Flo in the kitchen door, she led her across the courtyard to the front door, using the code pad to close the garage door behind them.

When they stepped inside onto the white tile floor, Dr. Flo dropped her bag and gasped. “How lovely!”

“It is, isn’t it?” Katharine had seen that reaction before.

The foyer ceiling soared two stories above them, then sloped slightly over the great room to meet a wall of glass facing the ocean. A bridge connected the two sides of the upstairs, its white banisters scarcely noticeable in the expanse of space, especially when—as now—the eastern sky was a rosy reflection of the sunset, spread over a deep purple sea.

The great room flowed into the dining room and kitchen to their right, behind the garage, creating one large space of white walls, white wicker furniture, white cabinets and counter tops, glass-topped tables, and fat down cushions in bright beach colors of hot pink, yellow, turquoise, and orange. Beyond the glass wall, a broad deck was ready for relaxing, outdoor wicker already in place. A wooden boardwalk meandered across sparsely planted dunes to the beach.

Katharine hefted her own bag. “There’s a master suite downstairs to the left and four bedrooms upstairs. Two of them face the ocean. I’ll be in one of those, and if you like, you can have the other.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d rather be downstairs. I have always been afraid of fire.”

When Katharine got upstairs she flung up the windows so her room would fill with the sound and scent of the surf. Beyond the boardwalk, the beach was wide and only slightly damp. She called downstairs. “The tide’s just started in—perfect for a quick dip before dusk.”

Dr. Flo called back. “I’ve changed my mind. Do you mind if I stay here and see if I can find Marie on the Internet?”

Katharine bit her lip. She respected the ocean too much to swim without at least somebody watching her from shore, but after all, they had come down for Dr. Flo to research her family. “That’s fine.” She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

She was looking sadly at those perfect waves across the dunes—who knew if they’d be that perfect again before they left?—when Dr. Flo appeared in her doorway in a soft white cotton tank top, white shorts that showed off her slender legs, and red flip-flops.

“I remembered how much you’ve been wanting to swim. How about if I take a book down and read while you go in? I don’t want you swimming alone. But I’m warning you, if a shark gets you, I’ll wave and tell him to have a good dinner.”

As they headed down the boardwalk, somebody called “Yoohoo!” A perky redhead stood on the deck of the house next door, wearing blue shorts and a white shirt that set off her nicely rounded figure. “Hey, folks. Is one of you Katharine?” Her accent was thick South Georgia.

“Yes,” Katharine acknowledged.

“I’m Jenny-Jill Roberts, from Bainbridge. Posey called to tell me you were coming down. I just wanted to say if there’s anything whatsoever that we can do for you while you’re here, let us know. We’re both retired, so we’re here pretty much all the time. If you need something, don’t hesitate to call us. Our number is beside your kitchen phone.”

“Friendly neighbors,” Dr. Flo remarked as they padded along the wooden boardwalk and finally reached the soft sand above the reach of the tide.

“A vast improvement over Posey’s last ones. They were always yelling about kids making too much noise on the deck, and since Posey has three girls and four grandchildren, they usually bring kids down when they come.”

On the hard-packed sand, Dr. Flo chose a spot for her towel. Before she had spread it out, Katharine had dropped her own towel and dashed to the sea.