Sins of the Fathers (17 page)

She changed into white pants and a coral top, slid her feet into tan sandals, and made herself into the person she wished Mona Bayard could see. “Dr. Flo isn’t the only one with ancestors to research,” she told her reflection.

The Atlanta History Center was only minutes away. Its library, the Kenan Research Center, was a tranquil place with soft yellow walls and tall windows overlooking a gracious garden. It was also a place where people went for serious research, not to chat. Nobody would expect her to greet or even smile at them unless she wanted to. Accustomed to spending most of her time alone, she needed some time among people without being expected to talk to them.

She left her purse in a locker and, carrying a legal pad and a couple of pencils, headed to the glassed-in genealogy room to one side of the main reference room. Before she reached the door, a gravelly voice said, “Why, hey, Miz Murray. You checking your ancestors again?”

A whiff of stale tobacco and old coffee wafted over Katharine’s right shoulder. She turned to see a man about her own height but twenty years older. His face was bronzed from the sun and had a sharp beaked nose. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail that curled in a white ringlet over his shoulder. An anchor tattoo decorated one arm, and his black T-shirt commanded,
DON’T BOTHER ME. I’M LOST IN THOUGHT AND IT’S UNFAMILIAR TERRITORY.
With the shirt he wore black jeans and workmen’s boots that had seen a lot of work.

His smile was full of stained teeth as he held out one hand and said in a North Georgia twang, “Lamar Franklin, ma’am. Do you remember me?”

How could she not? He and Hasty had come to blows in the history center parking lot the previous month due to a foolish misunderstanding. Each had thought the other was stalking her when in fact each was protecting her from the other. Katharine had seldom been so mortified.

Hoping she was hiding her reluctance, she shook his calloused palm. “Of course.”

“So, are you back here researching your family? I could give you he’p, if you need it.” He walked that fine line between friendly and obsequious.

“Thanks, but I’m just browsing today. I thought I’d get familiar with what’s on the shelves in the genealogy room.”

“They got all sorts of stuff.” He took her elbow and steered her through the doorway. “What county were you interested in?”

Katharine disengaged her elbow. “Fulton, and I can find it.”

“Okay.” He took a step back and held up both palms. “I get the message. I’ll be right over there.” He jerked his head toward a table outside the door. “Let me know if I kin he’p you any. Be seeing you.” He sauntered off with the swagger of a man who has done another good deed for the day.

The smell of him lingered after he was gone. Katharine moved down the shelf looking for fresher air. She had intended to see what she could find on her mother’s family, but her attention was caught by a volume entitled
Early Days of the Georgia Tidewater: The Story of McIntosh County and Sapelo.
Three days ago she had known nothing about McIntosh County, including where it was. Now she reached for the book as if it were the biography of an old friend.

She checked the index first, but found no mention of the Bayards or Bayard Bluff. Nevertheless, she read with fascination about other big plantations that flourished in the region in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. When she read that the planters only spent the two coolest months of each year on their plantations, she exclaimed, “Just like Agnes said!”

A man at the next table looked her way. She flushed and mouthed a silent, “Sorry.”

I really must stop talking to myself,
she thought.
It’s getting to be such a habit, I don’t notice when I’m doing it.
She had a disquieting vision of herself as an old woman, pottering about Atlanta in deep conversation with herself.

As she read, she wondered which side of the war Yankee plantation owners had fought on—if they had fought at all. She knew that many wealthy Yankees paid poor men to take their places in the Union Army. She also wondered why Georgians who owned plantations in McIntosh County had weathered the war a few miles inland, in Waycross. The author gave no clue as to what had prompted that choice.

A history major in college, Katharine was so interested in what she was reading that she lost track of time. She took pages of notes on what had happened to blacks in the county after the war. She learned that on January 16, 1865, General Sherman issued a special order decreeing that barrier islands from Charleston to the St. Johns River in north Florida were to be set aside as “reservations” for freed slaves. She shuddered at the language, given how American Indians had fared on reservations. Had Sherman really been naïve enough to believe field hands would know how to administer vast plantations? Did he think the land would earn as much broken into small parcels as it did when farmed in vast tracts?

When she read that he had also decreed that all abandoned plantation lands from the islands to thirty miles inland were to be off-limits to whites, she deduced that the measure was more punitive than compassionate or even practical. That meant that former plantation accountants and those who understood not only crop production but also the process of marketing crops were forbidden to offer their expertise to the new landowners, had they so desired. The stupidity of those Reconstruction years appalled her, but were current government policies on a number of issues any wiser?

To her relief, as she continued reading she found no evidence that Sherman’s special order or ban on white residents was ever enforced. Instead, the author reported that the 1870 census showed that the county had over a thousand whites, although the majority of the population was black. One interesting chapter was devoted to Tunis Campbell, a black lawyer from New Jersey who came to McIntosh County as the commissioned representation of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Soon afterwards, he set himself up as a dictator. During his tenure, blacks were given most of the power in the county. Would that have attracted Haitians like Marie Guilbert to move to McIntosh County? Had she settled on Bayard Island in defiance of the Bayards themselves?

She was reading about Burch’s cousin, naval commander John McIntosh Kell—who was actually as important as Burch had boasted—when Lamar Franklin asked over her shoulder, “You interested in naval battles?”

Trying not to cringe at his tobacco-and-coffee cologne, she gave him a curt reply. “Not particularly. I would be interested in pirates if I found any, but I haven’t.”

“They was some privateers during the War, but that’s about as close as you’re gonna get to pirates that late in history.” Rightly guessing that she had no idea what he was talking about—and that they were disturbing the man down the table—he bent closer and explained, “Those were private ships given permission to capture enemy vessels and share the spoils. I got a book about the subject at home, if you are interested.”

“I don’t know if I’m interested or not. Did they fly the skull and crossed bones?”

“I don’t rightly know, but I’m heading home now to get ahead of the traffic. When I get there, I’ll look it up for you.” He strutted away.

Katharine finished her research into McIntosh County by checking the index for Guilberts, and discovered she was disappointed not to find any. As she gathered up her notes, she wore a wry smile. At the moment she was far more interested in Dr. Flo’s relatives than her own.

When she reached her house, she was chagrined to find Hasty’s red Jeep parked in front of Hollis’s black-and-white Mini. “Oh, dear,” she groaned.

Ever since Hollis had seen Katharine and Hasty at a restaurant having a perfectly harmless reunion lunch after they’d run into each other for the first time in twenty-nine years, Tom’s niece had regarded him as a threat to her uncle, whom she adored. Once Posey had spilt the beans that Katharine dated Hasty in high school, nothing Katharine could say or do would convince Hollis that he was now simply a friend.

Maybe because it wasn’t strictly true.

Hollis had a key to the house. Chances were good that at the moment she and Hasty were in the kitchen drinking Cokes while she either grilled Hasty about his intentions with regard to her aunt or sang her uncle’s praises. Neither was likely to please Hasty. Katharine was tempted to head back down the drive and go out to supper.

She couldn’t. She had cats to feed.

As she pulled into her garage, she reminded herself, “You are a grownup. You can deal with this. All you have to do is imitate Agnes and tell both of them,
‘Git
!’”

Sure enough, they were in the kitchen, but on their second round of beers, not Cokes. As soon as Katharine appeared, both started talking.

“I came to set up Susan’s room,” Hollis informed her, her dark eyes stormy, “and found
him—
” she jerked her thumb toward Hasty, her emphasis on the pronoun reducing him to something that had crawled out of the slime “—sitting in the drive. I also found a cat in your utility room.”

“Did you forget our date?” Hasty demanded simultaneously. “I thought we could swim before dinner. And I brought that blank book you wanted.” He held up a slender journal bound in soft blue leather.

“Date?” Hollis swung from one to the other. Her new haircut—mahogany instead of the dead black she’d affected in college—flared out, then settled back against her cheeks.

Katharine dealt with Hasty first. “We didn’t have a date. You said you would call.”

“I did, but you weren’t here, so I figured the drive home was taking longer than you expected and I’d be here to welcome you. You said you’d be back this afternoon.” He held out his arm so she could read his watch. “It is officially evening.” He stood.

“Come back another time, but call first,” Katharine suggested. “The book is lovely. Thanks.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I was getting you a Coke.”

“She might want a beer.” Hollis knew good and well Katharine never drank beer. When she was small, a nasty boy had informed her it was made from horse pee. That was how it had tasted to her ever since.

“She doesn’t like beer,” Hasty said, ambling to the fridge like he lived there.

Katharine could have throttled them both. Another headache was sprouting at the base of her scalp and working its way up the back of her head.

Hollis watched sulkily while Hasty filled a glass with ice and poured a Coke into it, waited for the foam to go down, and filled it some more. “Did you know a cat got in here while you were away? He’s hiding between the washer and the dryer.”

Katharine massaged the base of her skull with the fingers of both hands. “There are two cats. While I was down at the beach their owner died and nobody else would take them.” Seeing that Hollis had more questions, Katharine waved a weary hand. “Don’t ask. It’s too complicated to explain. Put it down to my inability to say ‘no.’”

An unfortunate statement, given that Hasty was setting the Coke before her and asking, “Do you want a massage? You look worn out.” Without waiting for an answer, he put his hands on her shoulders and began to work her muscles hard.

Katharine pulled away. “What I really want are a couple of aspirin. There are some in the upper cabinet next to the fridge.”

He fetched them, and she downed them with Coke. Then she closed her eyes, waiting for the throbbing to subside. Now that she had the Coke, she discovered she was very thirsty. She took several swallows and savored the sting in her mouth before she said, “Now I need a minute to catch my breath. We got back later than I expected, since we stopped to…get the cats.” She wasn’t ready to talk about Agnes’s house yet. “Then I went to the history center for a bit.” She opened her eyes long enough to ask, “Would you feed the cats, Hollis? There’s food in a bag on the washer. You’ll need to put some in both dishes. They don’t share.”

Hollis complied.

Hasty again came to stand behind Katharine and massaged her shoulders and neck. She curved her head into the pain. “Oh, that feels good!”

Hollis crouched down, held out a dish of food, and called “Kitty? Kitty?” The big cat did not come out. She swiveled toward Katharine. “What are their names?”

When she saw what Hasty was doing, she put down the cat dish and hurried to the table. “I’ll do that. I thought about becoming a massage therapist at one point, and I give great massages.”

To Katharine’s relief, Hasty stepped back and let her take over, but he gave Katharine a wink as he slid into a chair across the table.

“They don’t have names,” Katharine said to distract Hollis. “Or if they did, I never heard them. I suppose I’ll have to think of new ones. You got any ideas?”

“Live with them a few days. Something will come to you.” Hollis dug her strong fingers into the weary muscles. Katharine winced with pain, but it was good pain. Finally Hollis stopped. “That’s enough for today. I don’t want you sore tomorrow. Do you want to come upstairs so we can hang Susan’s curtains and put on her bedspreads? That’s what I was planning to do before I found
him
here.” She jerked one thumb toward Hasty.

Hasty pushed back his chair. “Let Kate rest. I can hang curtains. I don’t even need a stool.”

Katharine didn’t bother to open her eyes. “That would be marvelous. But if you go out to your cars for anything, be careful not to let the cats out. They aren’t used to the place yet. And Hollis? I’ll be getting ready for Tom to come home tomorrow, so I won’t have time to shop. Or swim,” she added for Hasty’s benefit.

She laid her head down on her crossed arms like a child at school and dozed while she waited to be called for applause.

They were fast. In less time than it took for Katharine’s aspirins to work, Hollis was back. “You want to see the room? It turned out pretty good, I think.” Katharine wearily followed her upstairs. After all, the child (she still thought of all her own offspring and nieces as children when she was tired or irritable) had gone to a lot of trouble over this while she was lolling around at Jekyll. She hoped she could muster enough enthusiasm.

“It’s great,” she said a minute later, and meant it. The room had turned out better than pretty good. Susan was going to like the combination of peach, taupe, and green as much as she had liked the rose, white, and blue she had grown up with, and Hollis had used a combination of striped curtains, solid bedspreads, and floral cushions that made it appropriate for guests of both sexes.

If we ever had guests,
Katharine thought wistfully. Her parents used to have a wide circle of friends from all over the world, and Miami’s winter weather, combined with the proximity of their Coral Gables home to Miami’s International Airport, meant they entertained frequent out-of-town guests. Some years her family had so many folks who stopped by for a quick nap and a bite to eat during long layovers between international flights that her dad had joked, “We may not run a bed and breakfast, but we run a snooze and snack.” A wave of yearning for them swept over her. No matter how many years it had been, she was still often taken unawares by moments when the reality of their absence was fresh and raw.

They stayed in the room a few minutes longer while Hollis pointed out special touches and Katharine praised her taste, then they trooped back down. Hollis, Katharine noticed with amusement, stayed between her and Hasty on the stairs.

“Did you see her study?” Hollis asked him over her shoulder. She headed that way and stood in the arch with a glow of satisfaction. “I think it turned out rather well, don’t you, Aunt Kat?”

The early evening sun slanted through the blinds and bathed the room in gold. Katharine’s new carpet glowed like jewels on the floor. All her favorite bits and pieces on the bookshelves were rimmed with light. A reading chair Katharine had never seen sat invitingly by the window.

“Where did that chair come from?” she asked.

Hollis bit her lip. “Do you like it?”

“I love it. It’s just what the room needed to be perfect.”

“Good. I saw it in a Salvation Army yesterday afternoon, and that’s what I thought, too. You don’t mind that I bought it there, do you?”

“Kate loves the Salvation Army.” Hasty draped one arm over Katharine’s shoulder. “She used to shop there all the time.”

Hollis narrowed her eyes and glared.

Katharine pushed Hasty away. “As long as you all are in the working mode, would you put together my computer?”

She sat in her new chair and watched them work. When they weren’t competing for her attention, they worked well together. They even managed to laugh a time or two.

“Do you want to stay for supper?” she asked impulsively, having taken a quick mental inventory of her pantry and fridge. “It won’t be much—linguini with white clam sauce, tomato and mozzarella salad, and garlic bread—but I’ve got fresh peaches we can slice over ice cream.”

“Works for me,” Hasty agreed.

“I’ll make the salad,” Hollis volunteered. “Do you have basil in the garden?”

A few minutes later Katharine was slicing peaches at one counter, Hollis was making salads at the island, and Hasty was at the counter near the stove lathering slices of French bread with butter and showering them with garlic and parsley. Katharine felt herself beginning to relax.

Her newly remodeled kitchen felt like it used to in the past, when all four Murrays were home and fixing a festive dinner together. This house loved being filled with people. It needed them. So did she.

The temperature was pleasant, so they decided to light a citronella candle and eat down by the pool. “So how did your week at the beach go?” Hollis asked when they’d all filled their plates and wine glasses. “Good swims and lazy reading?”

“Plus old graves and pirates.” Katharine told them about Dr. Flo’s mysterious graves and the one with the skull and crossed bones. “We think whoever it was must have been buried around the time of the Civil War,” she concluded, “given the dates on the other graves in that section of the cemetery.”

“Pirates left that coast in the early seventeen hundreds,” Hasty objected. “They hung some of them in Charleston and cleared out the rest. Pirates sailed around in the Caribbean for a while after that, but I don’t think there were any down there by the time of the American Civil War.”

“How about around Haiti?” Katharine asked.

“I don’t know a thing about Haiti.”

“Do you know anything about privateers? I learned today that the Confederacy had some of those.”

“What are privateers?” Hollis asked as she twirled linguini on her fork.

Hasty always loved to lecture. “Countries used to give something called a ‘letter of marque’ to private ships, granting permission to capture vessels of an enemy nation and promising them part of the spoils. Those who sailed on those ships were called ‘privateers.’ It was one way of increasing a country’s naval power with little or no expense. In the mid-eighteen-fifties, the nations of Europe admitted that privateering was nothing but legal piracy and signed a treaty not to issue any more letters of marque. The United States, however, refused to sign, saying it hadn’t issued letters for a long time anyway. That backfired when the Civil War broke out, because one of the first things Jefferson Davis did was start issuing letters of marque to Southern ships so they could help the Confederate navy by seizing Yankee vessels.”

“Would they have put a skull and crossed bones on a privateer’s grave?” Katharine asked.

“I doubt it. I also doubt you found a pirate’s grave. It was probably a skull, a symbol of death.”

“There were crossed bones under it,” she said firmly, “and Dr. Flo’s daddy always told her they had a pirate in the family.”

“Not during the Civil War,” Hasty spoke in the obstinate tone he was apt to use when corrected.

“There’s no point fighting about something nobody can prove right this minute,” Hollis rebuked them, but she looked happy that they were quarreling. “Didn’t you promise us peaches and ice cream, Aunt Kat?”

They finished dessert as the last minutes of day slid down a pink and gold sky. Fireflies appeared to dance above the lawn. The moon, almost full, rose above the trees. It would have been a lovely romantic evening with the right people. It wasn’t half bad with the ones Katharine had.

Hollis waited to leave until Hasty had driven away. “Are you afraid to sleep here alone?” she asked.

“No, I not only have the security system, I also wedge a chair under my door.”

“Like that would do any good,” Hollis scoffed.

“Don’t knock it. It works for me.”

But Katharine lay awake longer than usual that night, listening for sounds in the house. She had barely fallen asleep when she was disturbed again by the telephone.

Heavy breathing was followed by a whispered hiss delivered in a false accent somebody had probably copied from a bad movie. “Neffer return to Bayard Island. It iss not healthy for you. You and your friend could die!” There was a pause, then the whisper added, “Do you understand?”

“Go to bed, Miranda,” Katharine said crossly.

She heard a gasp, then the phone went dead.

Only after she had hung up did she wonder how Miranda had gotten her unlisted home number.