Authors: Mignon F. Ballard

Angel at Troublesome Creek (18 page)

BOOK: Angel at Troublesome Creek

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T
his time a chicken rode home on my shoulder, and I bypassed the post office without hesitation. I was raised on Snapfinger Road. I know what should and shouldn’t be there, and that dark, person-size shape standing just beyond reach of the streetlight shouldn’t have been there at all. I spotted it by the stone wall on the corner just before turning out of Delia’s drive, and paused to see if it was somebody walking a dog, stopping to cross the street, but The Blob didn’t move. It was waiting me out.

And Delia was right. The post office was brightly lit, but I didn’t see a car in the parking lot. My neighbor had a point. Whatever was in that post office box would wait until tomorrow.

But the next day … well, if I were superstitious I’d say it was cursed.

In the first place, I was late leaving for work. When I had reached home the night before, Fronie was rehearsing for the international yodeling competition, or so it sounded. Whatever it was went on and on, and was much worse than awful. I made a decision right then and there to stay away from church that Sunday.

Then, just as I was about to drop off to sleep, Sam called from Atlanta and we talked for twenty minutes or more. He and his brother planned to leave early the next morning for a lakeside camp—far from telephones and civilization, he told me, and it would be several days before he called again. I told Sam about finding the key in the cookie jar, but not about being followed. After all, I wasn’t
sure
I was being followed, and I didn’t want him to know how nervous—oh, well, let’s face it, neurotic—I’d become.

Of course it’s difficult to hide something as obvious as that. “Mary G.,” he said, “I really think you should wait on this. Why not let Doc Nichols keep that key, at least until I get back? You can trust him, can’t you? It might not mean a thing, but if it does, just having it could put you in danger.”

“Are you crazy? You want me to
wait
until you’ve caught your quota of fish? No offense, Sam, and I do appreciate your concern, but there’s no way I’m going to put off opening that box!”

“There’s no use arguing with you, Mary G.,” he grumbled. “But please be careful, will you? You know you’re ruining my fishing trip. I won’t be able to relax a minute for worrying about you.”

I think I promised something ridiculous—that I would open the box at high noon in the company of an armed guard, or something crazy like that—but it got him off my back.

I was almost fifteen minutes late when I pulled into my usual space in the clinic’s parking lot the next morning. I grabbed my purse with one hand and smoothed my hair with the other, hoping I’d get a chance to put on a little makeup later if we didn’t have a heavy patient load that day.

He stepped in front of me so fast I almost ran smack into him, and for a minute I was so startled I couldn’t speak.

Todd Burkholder took me by the shoulders and held them in a tight, uncomfortable grip. “Hey, just a minute! Don’t be in such a hurry,” he said.

“Get out of my way, Todd! You know you aren’t supposed to be here, and I won’t think twice about calling the police.”

“Oh, don’t I just know it.” He gave me a slight shake, but his fingers relaxed on my arm. “This is a public parking lot, you little bitch. I have as much right to be here as anybody.”

We shared the lot with a couple of dentists and the town’s one florist, and as if in explanation, Todd waved a sickly-looking lily in my face.

“Get your hands off me
right now
,” I said in somebody else’s voice. I sounded meaner than a vegetarian at a barbecue. Good.

And it must have worked, because he did. Todd shook that pathetic flower in my face until the stem broke. “I’ve had it with you, Mary George Murphy! Because of you I’m probably going to lose my job—and for what? I didn’t do a damn thing to you! Didn’t follow you out to God knows where, and I sure as hell never broke in and searched your apartment.”

Todd’s face was an interesting shade of watermelon red. It reminded me of one of those new crayon colors. And he spit so when he talked I held up my purse like a shield. “Lady, you don’t have a thing I want!” he said. (Well, that’s not quite all he said, but I’ll leave out the adjectives. Thank goodness Augusta wasn’t listening!) After an apopletic pause, Todd hurled the lily in my direction, only it broke in two and flopped to the pavement.

Now he backed away from me, still sputtering. “All I wanted was a chance to explain. Now everybody thinks I’m some kind of pervert.”

I never thought I would feel sorry for this jerk, and I still didn’t, but I didn’t plan to destroy his shabby little life. What this man lacked in manners and diplomacy, he made up for in sheer boorishness. What in the world made me think I was in love with this creep? No wonder Aunt Caroline flinched at his name!

“I guess I did accuse you unfairly,” I said. “But you scared me half to death. If you want to discuss something, Todd, you don’t lurk in the shadows and pounce. It tends to put one on the defensive.

“Look, if it will help, I’ll call your boss and explain,” I said.

If he’d had a cross, I think he would have held it in front of him. “Just stay away!” Todd screamed. “For God’s sake, stay away from me, woman!”

“Well, sure,” I said, watching him leap into his car and scratch off. I jumped to get out of the way. One wheel backed over the lily. I didn’t think I’d be seeing Todd again.

“I thought he was going to run over my toe,” I told Doc Nichols later that morning as we shared some of his wife’s oatmeal raisin muffins with our coffee. I could laugh about it now, although still somewhat shakily.

“That reminds me of what happened when I was trying to teach my son to drive,” he said. “He’d practice backing down the driveway—up and down, up and down, and half the time he’d sideswipe his mama’s pansy bed. Finally I got out of the car and stood in the yard to try and guide him past the trouble spot.” Doc Nichols laughed. “And darned if he didn’t run right over my toe! Couldn’t walk for a week.”

“You must have been a patient dad. I had to learn in driver’s ed. Aunt Caroline didn’t drive, you know.”

“I know.” The doc refilled his cup. “That was a sad thing, that accident. They say it was months before she’d even ride in a car.”

“She wouldn’t talk about it,” I said. “I never knew exactly what happened.”

“Car stalled on the railroad tracks. She barely escaped with her life.” He frowned into his cup. “I was about ten or eleven at the time, but I’ll never forget when it happened. Junior Witherspoon was in my class at school.”

“Junior Witherspoon?”

“The boy who died in the accident. Well, his name was Albert, but everybody called him Junior. He was Delia Sims’s little brother.”

I guess he noticed my face, how I clutched the doorframe for support. “My God, Sport, I thought you knew that much!”

I shook my head. “Tell me about it,” I said.

“There’s really not that much more to tell. Caroline was about seventeen, maybe eighteen, and hadn’t been driving long. Happened just before Christmas. She and Delia had been in town doing a little shopping, and of course Junior had to come along. I don’t remember all the details, but it seems the other two were ready to leave before Delia, so she told them to go on without her, she’d walk home when she finished. It’s not that far, you know.”

Doc set down his mug and looked at me. “You sure you want to hear this, Sport?” I nodded. I had to hear it now.

“There was no signal at the crossing, and Caroline didn’t see the train. She’d started across when she heard it, and I guess she panicked when the car stalled. She tried to get Junior to jump, but he froze. The people in the car behind them saw what happened. They said Caroline ran screaming to the passenger side, tried to open the door. They snatched her away just before the train hit.”

I had heard Delia mention a brother who died, but I never knew how. Neither she nor my aunt ever discussed the accident in front of me. Everyone sort of tiptoed around the subject—it was something that happened long ago, and because of it, Aunt Caroline never drove. It was just one of my aunt’s peculiar little quirks, and I never thought it was important. Until now.

Poor Aunt Caroline! What an awful thing to have to live with. And poor Delia. Once in a while I had noticed, or rather, suspected, a strained moment between the two friends, but then nobody’s compatible 100 percent of the time. Now I wondered if the resentment went deeper, festered, until …

Enough of that! This is Delia you’re thinking about, Mary George
Murphy. I could never suspect our neighbor of hurting her best friend. But then I never thought Aunt Caroline would end up at the bottom of the back stairs with her neck snapped.

We had a couple of emergencies during our regular lunch hour that day, so I didn’t get a break until later in the afternoon. As soon as I got a chance, I gave Delia a call.

She sounded pleased, welcoming, and that made me feel even more of a heel. “Mary George! You haven’t opened that post office box, have you?”

“Not yet. Listen, is it okay if I come by for a minute after work? There’s something I need to ask you.”

“Well, of course, silly. I’d invite you to stay for supper, but I’ve been asked to fill in at bridge.” She didn’t even sound curious. “If I’m in the shower when you get here, just come on in. I’ll leave the back door unlocked.”

I drove straight to Delia’s as soon as I could get away. Hairy would be wanting his supper and needing to go out, but surely a few minutes more wouldn’t hurt. I had to hear about that accident from Delia herself.

No one answered when I knocked on the back door, so I opened it and stuck my head inside. “Delia?” I called, but there was still no reply.

“Delia, it’s me, Mary George!” In the kitchen four cats cried at my feet and tried to trick me into feeding them again, but I knew my neighbor had already given her “babies” their dinner. I scooped up the big orange tabby and walked into the living room to wait. Down the hall I heard the steady droning of the shower and hoped Delia wouldn’t be long.

I glanced through an antiques magazine, read some recipes in
Southern Living
, and when the phone rang in the kitchen it jolted me from my communion with deep-dish chocolate delight. Thinking it might be Delia’s bridge hostess calling about a change of plans, I was on my way to get it when the answering machine clicked on.

“Delia, it looks like things are going to work out! It wouldn’t do for you know who to find out about this, so the less said, the better. Remember, this is just between the two of us. I’ll be in touch soon.”

I dropped the cat and hurried out the door, closing it quietly behind me.

The caller was Sam Maguire.

Why in the world was Sam calling Delia? And, supposing I was the “you know who” he was referring to, (and who else?) just what was it I shouldn’t find out? I had mentioned to Sam that I thought Delia would make a perfect bookkeeper for Summerwood if we could arrange for her to live on the grounds, but we needed to refine the plan before presenting it to her. I wouldn’t want to disappoint Delia if it didn’t work out. No, it couldn’t be that.

Sam had made it obvious he wouldn’t be able to reach a phone from his “remote” camping area, yet here he was calling my neighbor when he should’ve been frying fish over his supper campfire.
There must be a reasonable explanation,
the rational side of me whispered calmly. But the doubting part of me shoved her roughly aside, sneering:
Are all men incapable of telling the truth?

And both Delia and Sam were determined, it seemed, to keep me from opening that box. Why?

Once home I clamped the leash to Hairy’s collar and gave it a little jerk as I started for town. After all, Hairy was male too, and hadn’t he run off to God knows where the minute the door was left open?

“Mary George! Wait up, what’s your hurry?” I’d heard footsteps behind me, but was so wrapped in my thoughts I didn’t pay much attention. Now I stopped to look back.

Breathing a little faster than usual, Kent caught up with me. “You look kind of flustered,” he said. “You all right, Mary George?”

I’d have to feel better to die, I thought, but I didn’t say so. And it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have company on my walk to the post office, although there was still plenty of daylight left and people waved as they passed. If Kent Coffey had wanted to do me harm, he’d had plenty of opportunities. Besides, he could hold the dog’s leash while I went inside the building. He didn’t have to know what was in the box.

“Is everything okay?” Kent repeated.

“I think I’ll soon be able to sit up and take some light nourishment,” I said.

BOOK: Angel at Troublesome Creek

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