Tarrant House lay straight ahead, framed between the avenue of live oaks. On this cloudy, sultry afternoon, the plastered brick varied in shade from pale green to beige to misty gray, depending upon the slant of sunlight diffused through the clouds.
The-air was moist and sticky, as humid as a July day. Not a vestige of wind stirred the shiny, showy magnolia leaves. Sharp-edged palmettos stood like sentinels on either side of the house. Gossamer threads of Spanish moss hung straight and limp on the low-limbed live oaks, their beauty as delicate as the brushwork in a Chinese landscape. Purplish clouds darkened the southern sky. It wasn't storm season, but a storm was surely coming.
This house had weathered more than a century and a half of storms and stormy lives. Tarrant House had seen happiness and loss, love and hatred, plenty and famine, peace and war. It seemed to Annie—though she knew it was fanciful—that the house had a wily, watching, wary appearance, drawing into
It was a day as fated for storm and death as the day Faulkner's Addie Bundren lay listening to the chock and thunk of her coffin being constructed.
What would this day see?
Without question, a murderer would walk the halls of Tarrant House once again before the storm broke.
Annie wondered if she and Max would be clever enough to determine the truth of May 9, 1970.
Miss Dora appeared suddenly, stepping out from behind a hedge of pittosporum. 'I've been waiting.' There was, as usual, no warmth in her greeting or in the midnight-dark eyes that looked at them so intensely, as if to rake out the secrets of their souls by sheer impress of will.
But, dammit, it was Miss Dora who had lied!
Abruptly, as they looked at each other, the young woman and the old, Annie glimpsed—for an instant that seemed an eternity—a welter of emotion in Miss Dora's gaze, uncertainty and terror and a terrible resolution.
Then the moment passed. Annie was left to wonder, as the old woman lifted her stick, gesturing for them to hurry, if that glimpse of agony in those implacable eyes reflected nothing more than the turmoil in Annie's own mind. Certainly, Miss Dora gave no other hint of distress as she led the way up the crushed-shell drive, using her cane as a pointer.
'That oak—the huge one to the south—was the site of a hanging in 1862. A Yankee spy. Redheaded, they say.' The old voice was brisk, matter-of-fact.
How old was he, Annie wondered, and why had he come to Chastain?
As if she'd heard the unspoken query, Miss Dora continued: 'Scouting to see about the fortifications and whether the harbor could be captured. Said to be a handsome young man. One of the Tarrant girls fainted at the sight, and everyone always wondered if there were more to his coming than was
said to the world.'
At least, Annie thought, it had not been the girl's arm,
raised in the iron grip of an angry father, that struck the mount beneath the victim.
The scene before them darkened, the sun now hidden behind thick clouds. Annie looked up at the old house, at the double piazzas, at the four massive octagonal columns supporting the five-foot-high decorated parapet, at the four huge chimneys towering above the parapet.
'There are seventy-two windows,' Miss Dora observed, as they started up the front steps. The stairway was necessary because the house was built one story above ground, supported by brick columns. A sour, musty smell rose from the arched entrances to the space beneath the house.
Cemeteries weren't high on Annie's list of places to spend time, but she felt certain no graveyard ever smelled earthier than the dark nooks beneath Tarrant House.
She was glad to reach the broad, first-floor piazza. Pompeian-red shutters framed the immense windows. An enormous fanlight curved above the double walnut front doors. The glass panes were clear as ice.
Miss Dora ignored the bell punch. Opening the door, she motioned for Annie and Max to enter. 'Whitney and Charlotte know we're coming. Can't say they're thrilled.' She gave a high cackle of malicious amusement.
Annie stepped into the entrance hall, a broad sweep of old wood flooring with occasional rugs. An elegant French chandelier hung from an intricate Adam plaster medallion.
So this was Tarrant House.
Annie's first impression, despite the gloom of the day, was of brightness and beauty. Archways opened off either side of the hall. A monumental grandfather clock stood near the cross hallway.
The soft rich glow of cypress, gloriously carved, dominated the drawing room, from the magnificent chimney breast and mantel to the archway decorated with surrounds of fluted Corinthian pilasters. Over the mantel was an oil portrait of a lovely woman with soft auburn hair and kind blue eyes. Her white ballgown was modestly cut. A pink sash curved around her waist.
Miss Dora saw Annie's glance.
'A lovely likeness of Amanda. She was,' and the tart voice softened, 'as good and kind as she looked. She deserved better than she got.'
The dining room was equally beautiful. Other family portraits lined these walls. The peach walls made a gorgeous background for the Hepplewhite dining table and shield-back chairs. The drapes were of ivory silk. Crystal hung in delicate swags from the chandelier. Ivory and peach predominated in the rug.
Miss Dora jabbed her cane. 'Drawing room to the left, dining room to the right. A cross hall opens to the side
