An Angel to Die For (2 page)

“The rodeo left in October,” I said, sidling toward the door.

I think I hurt her feelings because she lowered her eyes and gave her skirt a little flounce. “Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Prentice. I wear this for line dancing,” she explained. “Helps to stay in practice, or one tends to forget the steps.” She fingered the fabric for a minute and sighed. “Though I am ready for something a little softer, a bit more buoyant, I think. Don’t you just love the way a skirt twirls when you dance?”

I was about to demand that she dance herself right out the door when it occurred to me that Aunt Zorah might have sent her. After all, she knew my name. “Are you from some kind of agency?”

She smiled. “You might say that. I’m here to help you.” Silly Cat curled about her legs and the stranger scooped her up in her arms. “I hope you’ll let me.”

The kitchen could use a good cleaning, and dust was deep enough to plow, but I didn’t think that was what she intended.

“How do you mean?” I looked past her into the kitchen where chocolate steamed on the stove and my stomach rumbled.

“There’ll be time enough for that.” She stepped aside, then followed me into the kitchen and pulled out a chair, indicating where I was to sit. I sat. It was the chair near the window that had always been my place, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had tucked a bib around me. Cinnamon toast, arranged in dainty triangles, looked tempting on Mom’s violet-painted cake plate. The stranger sat across from me and poured chocolate into cups.

“You knew my name,” I said. “How?” I might as well taste the toast and chocolate—just to be polite. Meanwhile, I had to think of a way to get rid of her.

The sparkling necklace shifted through her fingers, the colors winking from turquoise to violet to deep-water green. I’d never seen anything like them. “It’s my business to know these things. Now, drink up before your chocolate skims, it’ll warm you up a bit. It’s most unpleasant out today.”

I didn’t argue. The chocolate was perfect. Warm and smooth, sweet and bitter. I licked cinnamon from my thumb.

“More toast?” The woman offered the plate. “Such lovely china. Your grandmother painted it, didn’t she? I don’t suppose you—”

“Who told you that? Does my mother know you’re here?” But the strange visitor only smiled in answer. Mom was particular about her hand-painted platter, bringing it out only for special occasions. She wouldn’t like this woman making herself at home with her treasures, and I started to say so, but I didn’t want to annoy her. Who knew what she might do?

“How did you get inside?” I asked after gobbling most of the toast and downing two large cups of chocolate. “Did Aunt Zorah give you a key?”

She looked at me over the rim of her cup with eyes the color of the sea: gray and green with a hint of blue. Gentle ocean eyes. I let their calmness wash over me.

“Let’s move into the sitting room,” she said, scooping
up Noodles and nuzzling her against her cheek. “We can warm ourselves by the fire.”

Silently I followed her, the denim skirt flowing like satin, although it wasn’t. This peculiar woman didn’t know my aunt Zorah, had offered no acceptable excuse for being here, and for all I knew,
she
might be the one who dug up Uncle Faris. But for some reason I didn’t care.

A fire leapt and danced in an orange frenzy in the sitting-room fireplace that had been cold thirty minutes before. When on earth did she light it? And why wasn’t I surprised?

Again I sat in my father’s chair and held my feet to the warmth. The woman in the cowgirl clothes perched on the braided rug in front of me with the cat in her lap. Night had come down like a dark shade and rain sliced across the back porch. A rocking chair bump-bumped out there in the wind.

She looked at me like she knew what I was thinking. I was thinking I didn’t want her to be a grave robber or someone who poisoned her victims with kindness and cinnamon toast. And I didn’t want her to leave.

“You said you came to help,” I began. “You could start by telling me who you are. What are you really doing here?”

She traced the cat’s white muzzle with a slender finger. “I’m Augusta Goodnight, your guardian angel—for now, and from what I’ve observed so far, we’re going to have a tough row to plow—as you say down here on earth.”

“I’ve never said that.”

“Said what?” The faintest suggestion of a crease marred her brow.

“I’ve never in my life said I had ‘a tough row to plow.’ I think you must mean—”

She tossed her head. “I probably picked that up before your time. It means the same thing as ‘a hard nut to break.’ ”

I tried to keep a straight face. “And you’re going to help me plow it, break it, whatever?”

She stood and gave the fire a little poke. “That’s why I’m here. We can start in the morning.”

“And you’re really my guardian angel?”

“That’s right.” She twirled lightly, settled on an ottoman, and crossed her booted feet, tassels swinging.

“But only
for now
, you said?”

“Right again. I’m a temp. I’ll be filling in for Lillian until they find a permanent replacement. Lillian’s been promoted.” Augusta’s face fairly glowed.
“She’s singing in the choir!”

“The heavenly choir, I suppose?”

“The very same. I’ll be around until they decide on the right one to take her place. Usually I’m assigned to the strawberry fields,” she said.

“Weeding them?”

“Oh, no! Weeds don’t grow in heaven. Picking them mostly. And I sometimes work with flowers as well.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, although I did detect a sweet berry scent. “Then maybe you can tell me who moved Uncle Faris.”

From the look on her face, I could see she hadn’t made his acquaintance. I wasn’t surprised. Aunt Zorah always said he’d gone the other direction.

I told her what I’d found in the family burying ground.

She fished a dog-eared notepad from a huge tapestry bag I hadn’t noticed before and scribbled something on it. “
Uncle Faris
. We’ll get to him in time. But aren’t there more urgent concerns?”

I took a deep breath as she leaned closer, and the room smelled of lavender and something else, something clean and fresh and new like the first day of spring.

I nodded. “My sister. Where is Maggie? Why did she have to die? And my dad . . . I hope they’re speaking now.”

Augusta reached out and touched my hand. “I’m sure they are. I rarely see the newcomers, Prentice, but everything’s
right
up there. It’s down here that concerns me.”

It concerned me too, but not enough to keep me awake. After weeks of restless nights, I felt as though I could sleep forever. I didn’t even bother to go upstairs, but curled on the couch wrapped in my grandmother’s faded afghan. Just before I closed my eyes I remembered I hadn’t phoned Aunt Zorah or the sheriff. The wind slammed shutters against the house, and surges of dark rain pounded the windows. Tomorrow would have to do. It seemed a shame to bring anyone out on a night like this for somebody who had been dead for more than twenty-five years.

As I drifted off, I heard Augusta singing that same song in the kitchen as she tidied up after our unusual supper. It was the tune she’d been humming earlier. Then, except for Noodles purring at my feet, the house grew still.

Augusta Goodnight, guardian angel
. Surely I had dreamed her; when I woke in the morning, she would be gone. Yet embers still glowed red in the grate, and the taste of chocolate lingered on my tongue.

Y
ou’ll never guess what I dreamed last night,” I would tell my friend Dottie when I called. And she would burst forth with her froggy laugh and say something silly like, “How about dreaming me up an angel with money? We’ll need big bucks to get
Martha
up and running again.”

I missed Dottie Ives. She always made me laugh, and I knew I’d find her at home because as editor of the “late”
Martha’s Journal
, she didn’t have a job either. I pulled the soft old afghan a little closer, stuck a tentative foot from under the cover, and opened one eye. Sun glinted off the brass fender in front of the fireplace and made a yellow path across the floor. I hadn’t seen that fender looking as bright since Dad made me polish it every week for staying out too late
back in junior high. The rich wake-up aroma of coffee wrapped itself around me and I sat up and sniffed. A wholesome, start-the-day-off-right smell came from the kitchen, and I knew the cowgirl with angelic delusions wasn’t a figment of my imagination after all. I wasn’t sure if I should be glad or disappointed. I
was
sure I was hungry.

The muffins were bran with walnuts, dates, and a slight tang of oranges. They were sweetened with honey, Augusta said, and she served them with a bowl of fresh peaches, cantaloupe, and strawberries that must have come from heaven. I didn’t ask.

Today Augusta wore an emerald skirt with a liquid green sheen that might have been fashioned from lake water. Her blouse was a soft, shimmering yellow, and the necklace, an iridescent rainbow, glinted in the morning light. Its brilliance fascinated me, and I had to force myself to look away. The ensemble was tied at the waist with a filmy, chiffonlike scarf that trailed behind her when she walked. Her boots, I noticed, had been replaced with something that looked like silvery ballet slippers.

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll trip on that?” I asked, letting her scarf trail over my hand. It felt like air. “What happened to Dale Evans?”

She twirled about, and I was reminded of the Sugar Plum Fairy—but only briefly. Augusta’s not nearly as dainty. “I’ve had my fill of tailored clothing,” she said. “There was a shortage of nearly everything—including
fabric—during my stay here in the forties, and on my last assignment, I hardly had time to dwell on secular things.”

She smoothed her secular skirt, rose on her secular toes, and sighed happily. “It’s time for a change, and this suits me, don’t you think? Makes me feel like floating.”

“I thought angels flew,” I said, dodging as the skirt whirled past.

“Only when it’s necessary.” She smiled at me over the coffeepot. “Drink up now. Morning’s half gone.”

I groaned. It was barely eight o’clock. The first thing I needed to do, I decided, as Augusta joined me in a second cup of coffee, was phone Aunt Zorah about Uncle Faris’s sudden disappearance. Maybe she would know what had happened.

“I imagine you’ll be speaking with your aunt this morning,” Augusta said brightly. “About your uncle’s grave?” She raised an elegant eyebrow as if she expected an answer. I grunted. I’d be darned if I’d give her one. I ate another muffin oozing with strawberry jam.

After breakfast I phoned Aunt Zorah at the library in Liberty Bend where she has reigned for the last forty years and told her about Uncle Faris. For a moment there was only silence at her end. I was afraid I’d upset her.

“He’s
what
?” Was Aunt Zorah
laughing
? “Prentice, are you sure?”

It would have been hard to pass over something as
big and unsettling as an empty grave, but I tried to be tactful. “At first I thought you might have had him moved,” I said. “But I’m sure Mom would’ve told me—and the stone—well, it was still there.” I couldn’t bring myself to describe the ghastly reality of the scene, even if the two hadn’t been especially cozy when Uncle Faris took the dive off Poindexter’s Point.

Aunt Zorah muttered something about That Fool still giving her trouble. “I’d check with Simmons and Griggs at the funeral home before calling the police, Prentice. Your mother and I have discussed having Faris moved to the upper part of the cemetery, but we hadn’t—excuse me—No,
no Hollis, we don’t climb on the library shelves. Get down this minute!
As I was saying, we hadn’t made definite plans. They’re building a road through there, you know, and I’m not sure about the property line.” Her voice softened. “I wouldn’t mention this just yet to your mother. Virginia’s been through enough lately.”

I knew my mother had already sold her share of the estate to a developer, and the back part of the property would be divided into one-acre lots. Dad’s life insurance policy had been a modest one, and this was about the only way she could get by, she said. Besides, Mom always disliked the loneliness of living “so far from town,” although it was only a little over six miles to Liberty Bend. The other part of the farm, including the house, I was to share with Maggie. I only wish my sister could have known before she died that our father still claimed her as an heir.

As a small child, Maggie was always about three steps behind Dad wherever he went, followed by a menagerie of animals, since she collected every stray that came around. When she asked for a pony for her fifth birthday, Dad bought her a Shetland and taught her to ride. “How come I never got a pony?” I asked, wishing at that moment my little sister would ride off into the sunset and stay until she was at least thirty.

“Why, Jemima Puddleduck!” my dad said, laughing, “you never asked for one.” But Maggie never cared for the rough elements of farming as I did. Digging potatoes was like a treasure hunt for me, and I liked keeping weeds from the neat rows of vegetables in our family garden while my sister rescued baby rabbits and dressed kittens in doll clothes.