Southern Ghost

Those dark, pain-filled eyes stared at Max, then tears began to streak her cheeks. 'Not Missy.' Her voice was hoarse. 'I would have died first.'

Max loosened his grip and reached into his pocket. He handed his handkerchief to her.

She took it and held it tight, but made no move to wipe away the tears. 'Not my baby.'

Annie and Miss Dora leaned closer, straining to hear that soft, agonized voice over the rustle of the leaves, the whipping of the branches, the growl of thunder.

'When I heard he was dead, I was glad.' She lifted her head and glared at them defiantly. 'Glad. Glad!'

For a crackling instant, Chastain House stood out against the lightning-white sky. The vivid explosion of the storm limned Sybil, too, her dark hair whipping in the freshening wind as she stood with the wild arrogance of a Valkyrie beside the gleaming bronze gates at the foot of the Chastain drive. Beside Sybil, his clothes crumpled now from having been slept in, his eyes red-rimmed from exhaustion, stood Harris Walker, his face bleak and hopeless.

'Tell us,' Sybil shouted over the crash of the thunder. 'Who, dammit, who?'

4:16 P.M., SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1970

Just short of the end of the drive, Ross Tarrant slammed on his brakes. He sat, his shoulders heaving, gripping the steering wheel. Then, with an unconscious moan, he threw open the door and ran to the brick wall he'd climbed so many times when he was a little boy. He pulled himself up, tearing away swaths of ivy, but pulling and climbing until he could see over the top.

He hung there and looked and looked, for this was the glimpse to last him a lifetime.

Sybil stood beside the bronze Chastain gates, her raven-black hair stirred by the breeze, her lovely face lifted to the sun, her mouth curved in a smile of joy, her eyes glowing with happiness. She walked up and down in front of the gate, not anxious, but eager, so eager. Then she glanced down at her watch, cast a quick look at the suitcase on the sidewalk, and turned to hurry back up the drive.

. . . something borrowed, something blue . . .

Ross landed heavily on his feet and ran to his car.

All the long drive out to the hunting lodge, he held tight to the sprig of ivy in his hand.

Chapter 21.

Miss Dora lifted the mallet and swung at the bronze temple gong that sat opposite the silent grandfather clock.

Charlotte straightened the rose scarf at her throat. 'Great-grandfather Jemson Tarrant brought it home from Ceylon. Such an interesting life he led. The captain of his own ship, of course. He was lost in a hurricane in 1891.'

The mallet swung again and again, the somber tone echo­ing in the hallway.

As they came—from outside, from upstairs, from other rooms—Miss Dora pointed with her cane toward the drawing room. Sybil came with white-faced Harris Walker at her side. Miss Dora looked at him searchingly, then nodded in acquies­cence. Milam was the last to appear, swaggering insolently down the stairs.

Miss Dora followed him into the drawing room.

In its dramatic and scarred history, the drawing room of Tarrant House must have welcomed many unlikely visitors. But Annie felt certain that in its century and a half of exis?

tence, this Saturday afternoon gathering was perhaps strangest of all.

Chief Wells, hands behind his back, stood next to a dainty Chippendale piecrust table, dwarfing it. His white hat, the curved rim undented, rested next to a Spode clock. In defer­ence to his surroundings, the ever-present hunk of tobacco was absent from his cheek. He glanced at Max, then at Annie. As usual, his icy dark eyes evinced no joy at seeing them.

But Annie ignored him. Her eyes kept returning to the Spode clock. It didn't surprise her that the hour hand pointed to four, the minute hand to two past the hour.

Miss Dora, so tiny she didn't even reach the chief's elbow, stood beside him. But she gave him no heed. Her gaze, too, focused on the clock. Slowly, she lifted her cane and pointed at the delicately tinted china clock.

'The hour has come. I have summoned you here to con­clude my inquiry into the death of Augustus Tarrant.' There was a terrible dignity in her voice. 'But I am not alone. Augustus and Amanda demand justice.'

The tiny old woman looked around the drawing room.

The glistening chandelier with its brilliant pinpoints of light emphasized the gloom beyond the storm-darkened win­dows. Thunder rumbled almost incessantly, a reminder that nature is inimical, untrustworthy, dangerous. Annie thought of Courtney Kimball, last seen on a soft spring night receding in time, and put away her last hope for Courtney's survival. How could they continue to believe Courtney would be found when there was no reason to hope? Three full days had passed since Max found her half-open purse flung to the ground in St. Michael's Cemetery. The steady rumble, the rattle of wind-whipped branches, the sighing of wind through the eaves sounded a requiem. Was Courtney's killer listening in this room? Who struck Courtney down? And why?

Whitney and Charlotte sat on the silver-brocaded Regency sofa. There was no sense of a united front against the world with this couple. They sat as separately as two people could sit. Charlotte cringed at every crash of thunder, her eyes mov­ing restlessly around the room, her fingers pulling and pickingat her rose scarf. Whitney's face was stolid and thoughtful. A fine dark stubble coated his cheeks. He looked like a seedy aristocrat who had gambled the night—and his birthright—. away.

Julia was in the room, but not a part of it. Her frail shoul­ders hunched, she gripped the sides of her armchair as if only that tight handhold kept her in place. Her smudged, lonely eyes looked into a past where no one could follow.