“When did you last see her?” I asked.
“Deborah!” Cyl protested. “He’s a minor.”
“And if Ralph were here, do you think he’d object to Stan telling us that?”
“It’s okay, Miss Cyl,” said Stan, using his paper napkin to wipe milk from his upper lip. “She came over to the house yesterday morning just as Mama was fixing to drive us to school. Shandy and I were already in the car, but Mama was still in the house and Miss Rosa just went on in. Said she had to speak to Mama about something.”
“Did she say what about?” asked Dwight.
“No, sir. And Mama didn’t say, either. They both came out together and Miss Rosa drove off and then Mama took us to school. That’s the last time we saw her. I tried to call her when Mama went missing, but she never answered her phone. I guess she was working then?”
“Do you know where she works?” I interjected curiously.
He shook his head. “I think she’s a housekeeper somewhere in Dobbs. One of the motels?”
Dwight gave me one of his do-you-mind? looks. “And all she said was that she had to speak to your mother? Those were her exact words? Nothing about why?”
Stan nibbled thoughtfully on the drumstick he held, then shook his head. “I’m sorry, no.”
“Stan,” I said slowly. “There was an envelope in your mother’s purse and—”
“Hey, right!” His face brightened. “I forgot. When Miss Rosa went in the house, she was carrying a white envelope. And when she came back out, she wasn’t. She must’ve given it to Mama. Did you open it? What was in it?”
“I didn’t open it. Someone burgled my house tonight and took it.”
Cyl and Stan were both looking at me in disbelief. “That’s why Reese and I were so long getting back with Lashanda’s doll,” I said and told them about the broken window and fleeing taillights.
Cyl shook her head. “Girl, you do stay in the middle of things, don’t you?”
“That’s why Miss Rosa got killed, wasn’t it?” asked Stan, making the same leap I’d made but not for the same reasons. If Lynn Bullock’s murder over in Dobbs had even registered on him, it was clear he didn’t connect it to Rosa Edwards. “She had something somebody wanted and she gave it to Mama to hold for her? And then when Mama disappeared, they must’ve thought Miss Rosa was lying about not being able to get it back?”
He yawned again. “I wonder if she told Mama what it was?” Suddenly he looked very young. “I sure hope she wakes up tomorrow.”
“Today,” said Cyl. “And you’d better get some sleep.”
“You okay on that pallet?” I asked. “Or would you rather try one of the recliners?”
“The floor’s fine,” he said with yet another wide yawn that made me yawn, too.
Cyl and Dwight were smothering yawns of their own as Stan said goodnight and went to lie down in the den.
I opened the back door to let in some fresh air. It was only marginally cooler than the air inside and heavy with moisture. Rain still pounded the tin roof and fell as if it meant to go on falling forever.
Dwight’s face was grim as he joined me by the doorway.
“It was her insurance policy, wasn’t it?” I said.
“Probably.”
“She told him she’d written it down and given it to someone to hold,” Cyl said softly from behind us. “That’s why he cut her so badly. And kept cutting till she told him who.”
“Then killed her because he thought he’d already killed the who and sunk her purse,” I said. “I wonder if Millard King really was visiting his brother in Fuquay last night or was he hanging around Possum Creek waiting to see if he could get to Clara Freeman’s car before anyone else did?”
“If he was, it must’ve scared the hell out of him when you grabbed her purse,” said Dwight with a wry smile.
“Unless it was Dr. Jeremy Potts,” said Cyl. “Surgeons don’t mind blood, do they?”
* * *
After Dwight went off to bed in my old corner room upstairs, Cyl and I changed into gym shorts and baggy T- shirts for sleeping. I turned the lantern wick down real low, then went around blowing out all the candles.
Stan had crawled under the sheet next to his little sister’s feet and both children were breathing deeply.
I crawled onto my side of the couch. It felt wonderful to lie down.
I watched as Cyl untangled the top of the sheet from Lashanda’s arm and moved Ladybelle away from her face, then came and stretched out beside me.
“They’re really nice kids, aren’t they?” she sighed.
“You’re going to make a terrific mother someday,” I told her.
“But not their mother.” A great sadness was in her voice.
“They have a mother, Cyl.”
