Southern Ghost

Milam traced the outline of a delicately drawn cheek. 'I don't remember. It's been too damn long ago.'

When they walked—the three of them—into the downstairs laundry room, Enid Friendley watched them approach, her arms folded across her abdomen, a curious expression on her face.

'We appreciate your coming,' Max said briskly.

Her unfriendly eyes remained wary. They moved from Max to Annie to Miss Dora. It was to the latter that Enid spoke. 'Hello, Miss Dora.'

'Enid, we need your help.' Miss Dora's glance was compel­ling. 'What happened that last day? Who did the Judge talk to? What did you see?'

The caterer hesitated.

'Come now.' Miss Dora was impatient. 'Max and Annie told me what you said about Amanda and Julia. I can't say I believe you were right, but we'll leave that for now. Tell us what you actually saw or heard.'

'I know what I know,' Enid said mulishly. 'If it isn't true, then why were Amanda and Julia scared to death that day, quaking in their shoes? And Amanda—well, she came out of her room that morning and there was a bright-red mark on her cheek where he'd slapped her. And I can't say I blame him. Two women—' Her face wrinkled in disgust. 'And later, Julia came running down the stairs and out into the garden and she looked like the hounds of hell were after her. And maybe they were! And rightly so. But they weren't the only ones upset. Milam came downstairs a little after that and hehad an ugly look on his face when he went into the study. I was still in the hall when he came out. He stopped in the door and threatened his father. He said, cold and clear, 'I won't stand for it. You don't run the world.' He walked by me like I wasn't there. He left the door open and in a minute the Judge came and pulled it shut and his face was hard as the stones in the cemetery.'

Milam's story.

Enid's story.

'What happened next?' Max asked.

Enid shrugged. 'I was out in the kitchen to help with lunch.' A look of surprise touched her face. 'Funny. I hadn't thought about it for years. But he was the only one who came to lunch.'

'He?' Annie asked.

'The Judge. Ate all by himself, and he was mad as a wet hen. Later, after he died, I thought he'd given his heart a beating that day sure enough. Quarreling with first one, then another. It was after lunch—oh, more than an hour—that Ross came home. From school. He wasn't expected. I was surprised when I heard his voice—and he was upset, upset as he could be. I didn't understand all of it, but he was standing in the door of the study—just like Milam—and he was saying that he wouldn't go, that it was all wrong. It wasn't till later that I knew what he was talking about.' Her eyes filled with anguish. 'My cousin Eddie died over there. Just three weeks before it was all over.' Unquenched anger burst out. 'That's when I knew the government lied to us. They said we had to be there, that if we didn't stay, didn't fight, that all those countries over there would go Communist and we couldn't let that happen, that it would be bad trouble for us. But when the war ended, nothing happened! And finally I saw it for what it was—a big lie. All those soldiers died for nothing. That's when I stopped believing the government—ever.' Tears glis­tened in her blazing eyes. 'They put Eddie's name on a wall. Like that helped.'

To Annie, that long-ago war was the stuff of history. And here was raw pain and unhealed bitterness flowing from that

history. For the first time, Annie understood on a personal level something of the misery and anger of those days. The shootings at Kent State crystallized the emotions of many Americans, including Ross Tarrant, who made a fateful deci­sion.

'So Ross said he wouldn't go—he wouldn't die for noth­ing. Then he died anyway. And he was the Tarrant everybody loved. I can tell you, the tears in this house were for him. Not the Judge.' Her voice was harsh.

'Do you think everybody knew about Ross's argument with his father?' Max asked thoughtfully.

'Oh, yes. You could have heard them from here to Bath­sheba. The Judge's voice was terrible, like a winter wind.' Enid didn't even try to mask her dislike.

'It must have broken Augustus's heart.' Miss Dora's face softened with pity. 'Ross was his favorite—because Ross al­ways did everything right. To have Ross refuse to serve his country—I can imagine how Augustus felt.'

But Annie wasn't focused on Augustus Tarrant and what­ever disappointment he had felt over his son's decision. She was studying the bitter twist to Enid's mouth, the fury in her eyes. 'Enid, when did the Judge offer to send you to college?'

Enid stood still and straight, her face suddenly empty of expression.

Annie attacked. 'Was it before you found the key to that special box—or after?'

Annie would have sworn there was a flash of satisfaction in Enid's eyes, but it came and went so quickly she couldn't be certain.

'I came here to help,' Enid snapped, 'not to take the blame.' She grabbed up her purse from a table crowded with wash powders and bleach and brushed past them.

Miss Dora called after her, 'Wait now, Enid. We need you.'

The only answer was the slam of the front door as it closed behind Enid.

'She blackmailed him!' Annie said urgently.

'It could be,' Max said grimly. 'It very well could be.'Whitney, his brows drawn in a tight frown, stood stiffly by a post in the garage, irritation in every line of his body.

It was a three-car garage. A dark-green Jaguar was parked in the first space, a blue Chrysler in the second. The third was empty.

Max edged between the west wall and the Jaguar, past the first window to the second. He looked at Whitney across the hood. 'As you recall, you were cleaning out your car from a picnic the previous day?'