'Trying to find out more about the murder of Augustus Tarrant.' Annie checked her mileage counter. Another mile and a half past the grocery, she would turn right.
'Murder!' Laurel exclaimed.
Annie was too well-bred to gloat openly about knowing more than Laurel. Amiably, she brought her mother-in-law up-to-date on the results of Miss Dora's dinner party, evincing not even a soupзon of superiority.
'Good heavens!' Laurel exclaimed. 'Ross dead by his own hand and blamed for his father's murder! My dear, no wonder ghosts walk at Tarrant House.' Laurel's husky voice took on sepulchral overtones. 'Such trauma. Such despair. Such misery. Perhaps I should put aside my work here and join you and dear Max. A pallet on the floor would be more than ample and I—'
'Dear Laurel.' Annie braked sharply to make her turn. She'd almost missed her turn. The Volvo jolted down a rutted dusty gray road beneath an overhang of live oak limbs. 'I would never forgive myself for interfering in the creation of the definitive book, Ghosts of South Carolina, from Earliest Times to the Present.'
'Oh.' A thoughtful pause. 'There is my book.'
Annie pressed her advantage. 'You know how publishing is, Laurel. If an idea strikes one author, why, it will strike another.' (There was the year Joan Hess, Marian Babson, an( Carolyn G. Hart all did murder weekends.) 'You dare not lose time— or a book just like yours will come out.'
'Not just like mine, Annie. You don't understand. M! book is truly original, and . . .'
Annie saw the sign for the Mt. Zion Baptist Church—one mile. She slowed the car, looking for a spot to park.
'. . . I know absolutely no one else will have a chapter on— Perhaps I should be discreet.' Laurel's husky voice fell to a whisper. 'Telephones. Electronics. All that ether out there Someone might overhear.' She rebounded ebulliently. 'Annie you are such a dear. Such a fount of wisdom. Arrivederci, m' sweet.'
Annie was smiling as she replaced the receiver. How nice i was for Laurel to have an enthusiasm . . . at a distance.
There were no turnoffs and she didn't want to park at the church. Pulling over as far as she could on the narrow, dust' road, Annie idled the motor and hoped no traffic would come for a minute or so.
She picked up the top folder on the stack in the passenger' seat. Usually, she and Max studied background information before starting out, but this time, they'd split the list of those to be interviewed and taken the materials along. She knew i was one more evidence of their urge to hurry, hurry, hurry.
Flipping open the folder, she read:
LUCY JANE JEMSON McKAY—Born April 23, 1922, on a Beaufort County farm to Lola Wayne and Henry Jemson. Fifth of nine children. Attended rural schools, completed eighth grade. Worked on her parents' farm, married Edmond McKay June 5, 1939. Moved to Chastain, began working in the kitchen at Tarrant House as an assistant to the cook, Anna Duvall. Four children, Samuel, Elijah, Preston, and Martha. Husband killed in action in the European theater, World War II. She became chief cook at Tarrant House in 1944 on the retirement of
Mrs. Duvall and remained at Tarrant House until 1985 when she joined her widowed son, the Rev. Samuel McKay, as his housekeeper. A member of the choir of the Chastain Emmanuel Baptist Church for forty-six years. Matilda Weems, who sang with Lucy Jane for most of those years, describes her as 'Busy! Land sakes, you don't find any flies on Lucy Jane. Cooking, canning, cleaning, sewing, gardening, Lucy Jane does it all and she hasn't slowed down a particle since she was a girl. She's one no-nonsense woman. Raised those children by herself after her man was killed in the war—they were just babies then—and she wouldn't hear of anything but good from every one of them. Samuel, he's a preacher, Elijah is a cook like his mamma, Preston's a teacher at the high school, and Martha's a nurse. They all married and had families. Course, Samuel lost his wife and that's why Lucy Jane lives way out there in the country now, helping him. I miss her in the choir. Can't nobody else sing `Amazing Grace' like Lucy Jane. She's mighty proud of her children, though she won't let on. Says it'd give them the big head. She doesn't believe in complaining and won't put up with complainers. She has a deep laugh and she loves to let it ring out, says the world was meant for laughter, not tears.'
Annie closed the folder. She was looking forward to meeting Lucy Jane McKay.
'
As Max hurried up the sidewalk toward the yellow stucco building on Federal Street that housed the law offices of Tarrant & Tarrant (though Whitney was the only Tarrant at present in the firm), he reviewed what he had just read about Whitney Tarrant: Forty-six. Middle son of Augustus and Amanda Tarrant. Good health. Good credit. Income from law firm erratic, not impressive; lives on inherited wealth. A social leader in Chastain. Plays golf at the country club every Wednesday afternoon and on both Saturday and Sunday. Con?
sistently shoots in the eighties. Likes to play skins. Wins and losses even out. A complainer, nothing ever quite suits. One of the New South's strong Republicans. Hostile to unions. Episcopalian. Opposed to women priests, ordination of homosexu als. Reputed to have an eye for the ladies. Rumored to have
