The Angel and the Jabberwocky Murders (7 page)

“Well, that makes sense. He's always up earlier than everybody else, and his work takes him all over the campus.” Joy Ellen thought for a minute, then shrugged. “Nah! Londus is scared of his shadow. Besides, I can't see him getting that riled at anybody.”

I told her what had happened to his father. “I've always heard it's the calm ones you have to watch out for,” I said. “The ones who hold it in.”

“Could be, but if the police thought Londus was guilty, they would've arrested him by now—unless he's a lot slyer than I think.”

I resisted the impulse to look behind me. Were we dealing with two different murderers? “What about the professor?”

“I can't believe Clay Hornsby would let himself get mixed up in a thing like this—especially since his novel was accepted last summer. They've been playing it up big in the English Department.” Joy Ellen's eyebrows went up. “But…a waitress in Columbia says she served Clay and a young woman that Friday before D.C. disappeared and that the girl looked like she'd been crying. Said she recognized them when she saw their pictures on the television news. Sounds like the two of them were together all that day.” She marked another book. “And then there's that box of breath mints with his prints on it, and of course they were all over that shed, too, I hear.”

“What does he say about that?” I asked.

“What can he say? They were his, all right. That old shed was their secret meeting place, but he swears he didn't see her after that night. Says they had a long talk, then D.C. drove back to the campus, or at least that's what he assumed she did. Clay drove over to Table Rock Mountain and rented a cabin for a couple of nights.” Joy Ellen made a face and shook her head. “Needed time to think! Anyway, he got home late Sunday and didn't find out D.C. was missing until the next day…or so he says.”

“That would explain why somebody heard her crying,” I said. “And her roommate swears her car wasn't there when she got in that Friday night, so D.C. must've come in later. But wouldn't the people who rented the cabin to Clay Hornsby remember if he was there?”

“It seems so, but of course I don't know the details. The last I heard, the police were letting him go,” Joy Ellen said. “Frankly, I think the only thing Claymore Hornsby is guilty of is poor judgment and a bad tailor.”

The weather was almost summerlike as I walked across campus after class that day. Students in shirtsleeves strolled past and several gathered by the fountain in the sunny commons area. Sarah Bedford seemed a different place from the cold bleak campus where we had found D. C. Hunter's body the week before.

The professor's story of a cabin at Table Rock Mountain must have checked out or he wouldn't have been released, I thought. But Table Rock State Park was only a couple of hours away. Clay Hornsby could have come back to the campus, killed his young lover, and been snug in his mountain cabin before dawn, and nobody would be the wiser. Unless they saw him here.

The students' light voices blended with the trickle of the fountain as I walked past the commons, and for a minute I almost forgot a girl recently had been murdered here. Two of the girls in my class called to me and I waved back. They walked in pairs now, or clusters. The students at Sarah Bedford were afraid to walk alone. Several, I heard, had already left the college.

In a far corner of the campus I saw the empty Tree House in the dark shade of the huge oak whose limbs almost touched the ground. Its leaves were beginning to turn the same color as the red earth that nourished it, and it looked like a picture you might find in a coffee-table book. I started to hurry past when I noticed a movement near the top of the twisting steps and glimpsed the swirl of a lavender gossamer skirt that shimmered as if it had been sprinkled with stardust. Augusta.

She hurried to meet me at the base of the tree and paused briefly to glance back at the platform above us. “There's only one way someone could fall from that Tree House,” she said, “and that's if they either stood on the railing or crawled under it.”

“Or if they were pushed,” I said.

Augusta looked up from her latest Agatha Christie novel and lifted a brow. She had already finished most of the stack I'd brought from the library and was especially fond of what she called the English village mysteries. “You wouldn't be going over to the college, would you?” she asked.

“I don't have a class there today, but I thought I'd see how Blythe is doing. Want me to stop by the library?”

She marked her place in
The Body in the Library
and laid it aside. “Later, perhaps, but I'd like to go along if you don't mind, maybe stroll about the campus a bit.” Augusta looked at me with a perfectly straight face and said, “Sometimes, you know, it's difficult to see the thicket for all the oaks.”

“I see,” I said, and nodded, planning to decipher that later.

Augusta seemed lost in thought as we drove to the campus. Blythe Cornelius had been so helpful during our recent chaotic invasion, I stopped by the store for a pot of African violets which Augusta held on her lap, and maybe I imagined it, but the soft lavender of the flowers' petals seemed more vivid after the angel's touch. We had waited until mid-afternoon to go so that Blythe would have a chance to unwind after what must be a tiring day with the dean, and she seemed pleased when she greeted me at the door.

“Why, Lucy! You didn't have to bring me anything, but it's good to see you again.” Blythe took the foil-wrapped pot from my hands and held it to the window light. “See how it matches my curtains…and isn't it odd?” she added, sniffing. “It smells a little like strawberries.” She bent to stroke a yellow cat I hadn't seen before that rubbed against her legs. “It will be lovely right here in the window if my babies will just leave it alone. You be a good girl now, Miranda.”

I glanced quickly at Augusta, but her back was turned as she stooped to examine titles in a bookcase across the room, looking for mysteries, no doubt.

Willene Benson sat on the edge of a dainty Victorian chair with her ankles primly crossed and dabbed her nose with a handkerchief. “Allergy,” she explained without looking up.

The woman seemed to have a perpetual smile, as if her teeth were too large for her mouth and she didn't know what to do with them, but in spite of her ever-present grin it was obvious she had been crying.

“I was just about to offer Willene some banana bread,” Blythe said. “Not homemade, I'm afraid—the bakery has me beat. The water's about to boil. Won't you join us?”

She sounded as if she meant it, so I accepted, leaving Augusta to her own diversions. Also, I wanted to find out what Blythe Cornelius knew about the girl who had fallen from the Tree House.

Blythe obviously had been working on cross-stitch, as a half-finished design of a vase of flowers waited on one end of the sofa. “For my niece,” she explained. “She's getting married in May.”

I helped her bring in the tea tray and sat at the other end. We had to move an array of framed photographs to make room for the refreshments, and Blythe spoke to each one as though the person were present.

“Excuse me, Uncle Henry, I'm going to put you over here on the end table with Cousin Ella for a while…Aunt Mae, I'll leave the twins with you…”

I almost expected some long-dead ancestor to plop down beside me and ask me to pass the sugar.

Willene managed a smile. “Don't mind her,” she said. “She talks that way all the time.”

Blythe nodded. “They keep me company,” she said, offering me a cup of tea. She called my attention to an oval portrait in a silver filigree frame. A pretty girl of about twelve sat with a chubby toddler on her lap. “That's me with my little sister,” Blythe explained. “She didn't want to sit still for the photographer.”

I smiled, thinking of what a wiggleworm Teddy had been at that age. Blythe Cornelius had been a striking-looking child with her straight nose and firm chin, and she had grown into a handsome woman.

I finished my banana bread and set my cup aside, fumbling about in my mind for a way to bring up the subject of Carla Martinez. As it turned out, I didn't have to because Willene led into it for me.

“I suppose you've heard the police have let Clay Hornsby go,” she said, folding her paper napkin and laying it aside as though Blythe might want to use it again. “One of the cooks in the cafeteria told me he was here at the college when that other girl was killed, too. Sure sounds peculiar to me. I don't mind telling you, I'm afraid to go out alone.”

“A lot of us were here when that happened, Willene.” Blythe slipped a large magnifying glass around her neck and took up her cross-stitch, frowning as she poked the needle in and out. “Claymore Hornsby's a first-class jackass, but he wouldn't hurt you or anyone else. Besides, both the victims were college girls.”

“And there may have been a third,” I said, and told them about Carla Martinez.

“But that was an accident, wasn't it?” Blythe paused in mid-stitch. “An awful thing! I remember how shocked we all were. But murder? I don't think they ever considered it anything other than an accident. I was led to believe she went up there on a dare, or maybe even to meet someone.”

“Did you know the girl?” I asked, trying to find a spot for my empty plate.

“Stop that, Mabel!” Blythe gently untangled the gray cat from a network of thread. “No, not well, and I was out of town when it happened. I think that was the weekend my cousin Joyce's baby was baptized. They were living in Birmingham then.”

“What about Clay Hornsby?” Willene asked.

“Clay took old Amos Crockett's place when he died a few years back. He wasn't even here then,” Blythe said. “I don't know why anyone would think that girl's death is related to the other two. That Tree House is dark enough in the daylight. The girl had no business there at that time of night. She probably slipped and fell.” Blythe gave her needle a final jerk and bit off the thread.

“Blythe, where are your scissors? You'll ruin your teeth doing that.” Willene sounded just like Miss Harriet Middleton, who taught me home economics in the ninth grade.

“Must've mislaid them. Can't find 'em anywhere, and my thimble's gone, too.” Blythe shook her head. “Reckon I'm getting addlepated. Could've sworn I left them right here on this end table.” She shrugged. “Guess they'll turn up sooner or later.”

“I'd better be getting on home,” Willene said, brushing a crumb from her lap. “And I don't care what you say, I'd feel a lot safer if they kept that man locked up.” She set her cup aside and stood, and since she seemed to be waiting for me to say something, I looked at my watch and announced that it was time for me to go, too. Augusta, I noticed, had already taken her leave.

“I know you'll think I'm the biggest baby in the world,” Willene said as we stepped outside, “but would you walk with me as far as my door? It's getting kind of late, and I don't like to cross this campus alone.”

I said I'd be glad to. It was on the way to where I'd parked my car, but it wasn't even dark yet, and I didn't think we needed to worry about somebody jumping out at us with a sickle. Poor Willene reminded me of a child playing “Ain't no bugger bears out tonight,” anticipating monsters behind every tree.

It was hard to believe Willene Benson's quarters had ever been a garage. Set snugly behind Main Hall, the worn brick had faded to pink, and long windows with dark green shutters flanked a polished oak door. A profusion of purple pansies nodded above twin window boxes.

Willene hesitated at the door. “I'm such a scaredy-cat, would you mind waiting while I look around inside? It will only take a minute.”

I could hear her telephone ringing as she searched for her key, and by the time she had unlocked the door it had rung at least five times. She seemed in no hurry to answer.

I stood in her neat but shabby living room while Willene crept timidly through each room, ignoring the shrill noise. Was the woman deaf? “Aren't you going to answer the phone?” I asked when I couldn't stand it any longer.

She didn't answer but her face was vanilla-white, and there was no mistaking the fear in her eyes. Willene Benson was afraid to answer her telephone.

“Are you all right?” I steadied her with my arm and led her to a faded green sofa. Thank God the phone finally had stopped ringing.

“I—I think so…yes…I'm fine, really.” She looked up at me and attempted a smile. “I'm afraid all this has just upset me. I'm sure I'll feel better after a good night's rest.”

This was none of my business, but I've never let that stop me before. “Willene,” I said, “have you considered getting caller ID? When somebody calls, their number appears on your phone, so you don't have to answer if you don't want to. In other words, it screens your calls.”

She sighed. “Administration has been after me to get one of those answering machines, but I've been putting it off. Seems people would know that if I don't answer, I'm not here!” Willene laughed halfheartedly at her attempt at a joke. “The management people keep reminding me there are times when it's important for them to be able to leave a message, so I suppose I'll have to break down and get one just so they'll leave me alone.”

She seemed calmer now, so I began to take my leave.

“Does that thing really work?” she asked, accompanying me to the door.

“What thing?”

“That caller ID thing. Can you really tell who's calling?”

I assured her that you could. “Why don't you talk to the phone company?” I said. “They can tell you more about it than I can.”

“Why, yes, I believe I will…and thank you, Lucy, for being patient with me. I'm not…well, I wasn't always this way.”

I waited outside while she double-latched the door and then waved to me from the window. Dusky shadows were blending as I crossed the courtyard to the parking lot and Augusta was nowhere in sight. I walked a little faster.

I barely had time to pick up shrimp from the market, shower, and change before Ben was due for dinner, so I didn't waste any time getting home. I sensed Augusta wasn't there as soon as I walked in the door. Whenever she's present, there's a certain awareness that makes colors seem brighter and troubles seem lighter, and I wondered where she could be, then smiled when I saw the note on the kitchen table. Augusta's elegant handwriting resembles something you might find in an old manuscript, and it seemed oddly out of place on the back of a grocery list:
Gone to help Ellis with her needlework. Don't eat all the apple cobbler! Augusta

Apple cobbler? What apple cobbler? I certainly hadn't had time to bake—but Augusta had, and there it sat on the counter basking in all its warm, spicy goodness. Ben would be delirious with joy, as it was his favorite. Augusta was aware of that, of course, which is why she made it. She would never admit it, but I suspect Augusta has a bit of a crush on Benjamin Maxwell!

I knew Ellis's husband was due to attend a session meeting at our church that night, which would allow Augusta time to help her with her embroidery project, but I also had an idea the angel deliberately made herself sparse so Ben and I could have the house to ourselves. Maybe that's part of being an angel.

Later, the two of us sat at the kitchen table eating Cajun spiced shrimp with corn on the cob and washing it down with beer. Messy eating, but Ben is the kind of person you can relax and be messy with, which is one of the reasons I like him—plus he makes me laugh.

Ben comes from this little crossroads town called Sweet Gum Valley, which is even smaller than Stone's Throw, and he probably makes up most of those tales, but that's part of who he is. And more and more, I'm kind of liking who he is!

When we first began seeing each other, I thought the man was about to launch a serious discussion when he managed to weave in one of his stories, which, if I remember correctly, involved a nineteenth-century farmer going into town to see his first train come through. Fearing the horse would be frightened, he tied the animal to a tree and got between the traces of his buggy to keep it from rolling away. “When he saw that train,” Ben told me, “that fellow took off running, dragging that buggy behind him and turned up in a cloud of dust ten miles down the road!” Now I know more or less what to expect and can sometimes even predict when he's getting ready to “hark back to Sweet Gum Valley,” as he says.