murdered. But why would she murder her father-in-law? 'Did the Judge like Julia?'
Lucy Jane carefully set down her coffee cup. She looked out the window at the neat graveyard plots, many garlanded withflowers. She didn't look at Annie. 'I don't think'—was she picking her words carefully? —'that the Judge ever under stood Miz Julia.'
'Why was that?'
Lucy Jane met her inquiring gaze with grave dignity. 'I'm sure I couldn't say.'
There was something here. Annie felt certain of it, certain and surprised and more than a little confused. Lucy Jane had, to this point, seemed so straightforward. Straightforward, clear-sighted, sympathetic. Her face was still pleasant, but now her lips were stubbornly closed.
Was the Judge involved with Julia? With his son's wife? That moral, upright, judgmental man? Perish the thought. But there was something. . . .
Lucy Jane gazed soberly out the window.
Annie looked, too, and saw the worn granite markers, the tendrils of Spanish moss dangling down from the live oak trees. Thick mats of grass covered all but one new, dirt-topped grave. Many of the graves had sunk with time until almost level with the spongy ground.
'They say trouble comes in threes,' Lucy Jane murmured, 'though it was a long year later that Miz Amanda went to her rest. But her heart died that day with young Mr. Ross. Oh, she grieved for him, her baby.'
There was a good deal left unsaid. Annie raised an eyebrow. 'And for the Judge?'
Lucy Jane again smoothed her unwrinkled skirt. 'A woman couldn't help but feel sorry for a man struck down without warning, but Miz Amanda and the Judge, it wasn't a love match.' Her gaze moved from the tombstones toward Annie. 'Sometimes families bind together for different reasons. I know her poppa thought the world of Mr. Augustus. Miz Amanda, she was one you never knew what she was thinking, but she had a sweet way and she was kind to everyone around her. Never much to say.'
A description of a gentle, even-tempered woman. But there must have been moments when Amanda Brevard Tarrant was angry or afraid or unhappy. Surely Lucy Jane saw other sides of
this woman in all the years she spent in that troubled household. 'I understand Amanda and the Judge quarreled on the day he died.'
That was what Charlotte claimed at Miss Dora's dinner party. And there had to be some reason why Ross would have believed his mother guilty of murder, something more damning than finding her with the gun in hand.
But Lucy Jane's ebony face was shuttered and closed. 'I couldn't speak to that,' she said firmly.
'It would be unusual for them to quarrel?' Annie pressed. 'Yes'm.' And not another word.
Annie felt certain there had indeed been a quarrel. But why? About what? And why on that day? And darn it, why was she pursuing this? If there was one certain fact, Amanda Brevard Tarrant had been dead, too, these many years, and, despite Laurel's belief in ghosts, Amanda assuredly could not have been involved in Courtney Kimball's disappearance or in last night's arson at the Tarrant Museum.
Annie decided to change tactics. 'Lucy Jane'—she used her most beguiling voice—'I want you to think back to the day the Judge died and remember that afternoon before Mr. Ross died.'
Lucy Jane's posture was still upright and formal, but her tense shoulders relaxed. 'The Judge,' she said ruminatively, 'I saw him in the hall going to his study, oh, it must have been right on two o'clock. His face was white as a sheet. He looked like a man with a passel of thoughts. It was later—I was on my way out to my quarters—when I saw Miz Char lotte, and she looked worried, like she had a big burden to carry and didn't know what to do. Funny. Most usually, she was sure what to do. I didn't see Mr. Whitney or Mr. Milam until later that day, after they came and told me Mr. Ross was dead. Mr. Whitney, he looked upset as could be. Mr. Milam didn't show much concern. He was already talking about moving out to the plantation. I heard him tell Miz Julia they'd move pretty quick. He said, 'I can always get around Mother. We won't have to stay in this house much longer.' '
Lucy Jane paused.'Mrs. Julia?' Annie prodded.
'She ran out to the garden, just before lunch.'
'Ran out?'
'She was sobbing.' Lucy Jane's voice was so soft, it was hard to hear.
'Do you know why?'
