"Ma"am, we"re doing everything that can be done." The chief"s voice was gentle. "I honestly believe the little girl is hiding somewhere. She ran away from school, and now she"s afraid to come home. She"s going to be all right, just you wait and see."
Yeah, that"s easy for you to say, I thought. I thought. She"s not your little girl. She"s not your little girl. Heck, she wasn"t mine either, but if I ever did have one, I"d like one just like her, and when they did find Faye, I was going to buy her all the hot dogs she could eat! Heck, she wasn"t mine either, but if I ever did have one, I"d like one just like her, and when they did find Faye, I was going to buy her all the hot dogs she could eat!
"If you don"t mind, I"d like for you to stick around awhile," Chief McBride said. "Since you were the one who found your cousin Otto, maybe you can help us out here." He nodded to Mildred. "Charlie here can run Miss Parsons home if you like."
"I don"t want to go home, but I would like for you to take me by the school while they look for Faye. I think Gatlin and David might need some help when Lizzie gets out of school."
The chief and I agreed that was an excellent idea, and after the two of them left, moved into the musty, grim parlor, where Hugh suggested we might be more comfortable. The three of us sat around the feeble gas fire, and it reminded me of my recent nasty experience, as well as the day weeks before when we had waited here after I had found my cousin"s body.
The thought of it made me shudder and draw my coat closer about me. The chief must"ve been thinking the same thing, because he turned to Hugh Talbot, who sat next to the mantel, leaning forward with his hands clasped between his knees. "All this has something to do with Otto Alexander"s death, doesn"t it, Hugh?" Chief McBride asked.
Hugh didn"t answer. Why wasn"t I surprised?
"Yes, it does," I said. "There"s something I haven"t told you. The day I found Otto"s body, I also found a pin-about the size of a sorority or fraternity pin. It was in the shape of a flower with a star in its center, and it had belonged to my aunt-great-great-aunt really, who was supposed to have drowned in the Saluda over eighty years ago."
Hugh made sort of a rumbling noise and shifted in his chair. "You say you found that here? Where?"
"In the bathroom, in the stall next to Otto"s. It was on the floor, and I almost didn"t see it. I think he had it wrapped in his handkerchief, and when he pulled it out, the pin rolled under the side of the stall-just before somebody somebody smothered him." I looked at Hugh Talbot, and this time he met my eyes. smothered him." I looked at Hugh Talbot, and this time he met my eyes.
"It wasn"t me," he said. "I"m not taking the blame for that."
"Mr. Talbot, you"re in and out of this place all the time. As far as I know, you, your sister, and Otto were the only ones who had a key." The chief stood and leaned on the mantel. He was not a tall man, but he looked tall then. "I know you announced a football game that night, but the game was over by a little before ten. Where did you go then?"
"I"ve already told you, I went home! We"ve gone over this before." Hugh slapped his knee, and his hairpiece slid a little to the side. "I want a lawyer."
"Fine, call one, but if you had nothing to do with this, it will make it a whole lot easier for you and for us, too, if you just cooperate," the chief said calmly.
The man sat there so long I didn"t think he was going to answer. Finally he sighed and rose to his feet. "I need a drink. Do you mind?"
He moved to a small cupboard that looked like part of the wainscoting and took out a decanter and several small gla.s.ses. "Anyone care to join me?" he asked.
Of course the chief said no thank you and so did I, although to tell the truth, I could"ve used a belt about then.
He downed one drink in what seemed like a gulp, poured another to sip, and then sat again in the chair by the fireplace. "I was at the bookshop-Otto"s shop-that night."
Hugh Talbot spoke so softly I could barely hear him. "I knew Otto would be at the academy then, and there was something I wanted to find."
"And what was that?" the chief wanted to know.
"It has no relevance to what happened. It was just something I knew Otto had, and I thought perhaps it was somewhere in the bookshop."
So Mildred"s pencils really had been moved!
Chief McBride leaned forward. "Man, how can you say it has no relevance? A man is dead, this young lady here has been attacked, and now a child is missing." He did everything but wave a finger in the man"s face, but still Hugh wouldn"t tell us what he was looking for.
"I don"t suppose you found it, then?" the chief said.
"No." Hugh slumped in his chair and stared at the feeble fire. He didn"t move, rarely blinked.
"Is that what you think is concealed in the stuffed animal you wanted from the little girl?"
"That was stupid of me, I know. It was just something my sister asked me to do."
"And why would Mrs. Whitmire want this child"s toy?" Chief McBride asked.
"She thinks there"s something in there that would put our family in a bad light. My sister is very proud of her heritage."
Chief McBride sat and closed his eyes for a minute, as if the whole thing were just too much for him. "So, you didn"t go to the academy the night Otto Alexander was killed?" "
No." Hugh Talbot shook his head.
"But you knew he was going to be here. How was that?"
Hugh Talbot sighed. "Otto had called me at the academy, left a message on the machine. He said he"d be here that night-he volunteered in the academy library, you know- and that he had something I might be interested to see. He"d hinted-well, more than hinted, really-that he could ruin me. Wanted money, of course."
"So Otto was blackmailing you?"
"That was his intention, yes, but I wasn"t planning to take the bait."
"The pin," I said. "He told you about the pin." I knew Otto had taken the pin from Mildred"s hiding place.
Hugh nodded. "That was part of it." He turned to the chief. "My grandfather, I"m afraid, wasn"t as squeaky clean as he was stacked up to be. A bit of a ladies" man, I think. At any rate, he got one of the young women in the family way, and she was supposed to have drowned in the Saluda-only it turns out she didn"t. Now her daughter has come back to haunt us for his sins."
"Don"t you dare make light of it!" I jumped to my feet and would have clobbered him, I think, if the chief hadn"t cleared his throat really loud. "Your grandfather forced himself on those girls-students who were supposed to be in his care! He should"ve been locked away.
"You killed Otto, didn"t you? You got him drunk, then smothered him to keep him quiet."
"No, I did not. I"m sorry my grandfather was a lech and that he caused grief to those young women-if indeed he did-but that"s not my fault. I wouldn"t kill a man for that."
"Otto met somebody here that night," I told the police chief. "He had that pin in his pocket just before he was killed, only it rolled into the next stall, and the murderer didn"t see it."
Chief McBride frowned. "Why didn"t you tell us this earlier?"
"I forgot I had it. Didn"t even realize what it was for a while; then I guess I was afraid. Otto might have been killed for that pin; I didn"t want the same thing happening to me."
The chief turned to Hugh. "And you say these things weren"t important to you, yet you searched Otto"s bookshop for something something. Was Otto already dead?"
"Certainly not! I knew nothing about that. But I had to look there while Mildred was at that church movie thing, and I knew Otto would be waiting to meet me at the academy. Look, I was only trying to spare us both a lot of trouble."
"So if what you say is true, someone else must have known about that telephone message. What happened to that tape, Mr. Talbot?"
Hugh Talbot shrugged and stared into his empty gla.s.s.
There was only one other person who could have heard Otto"s message on that tape. Gertrude Whitmire. And she was somewhere in this town hunting for a five-year-old with a stuffed zebra.
"I have to go," I said, and didn"t stop until I reached my car.
I drove straight home, keeping an eye out for both Faye and Gertrude Whitmire along the way, pulled into the drive, and ran into the house. I needed some heavenly help, and fast.
"Augusta!" I called her name over and over again, checking every room, but she wasn"t there. I knew she wasn"t there as soon as I walked inside, but I had to hope.
"How could you do this? How could you leave me when I need you most?" I yelled aloud to an echoing house.
Pausing in the hallway, I called the school to see if Faye had turned up. The police had completed their search there with no success, the princ.i.p.al told me. And Gatlin and Dave had collected Lizzie and gone back to their place with Mildred.
Mildred answered when I phoned there and told me she was staying with Lizzie while her parents were out scouting for Faye.
"Do you have any idea where they"ve looked so far?" I asked.
She hesitated. "The school, of course, and the neighborhood around it, and I think they went to your place, too."
"What about the shop?"
"That"s the first place Dave checked," Mildred said, sounding more like Eeyore than ever.
I felt like Eeyore, too. "I"ll keep in touch," I said, and then went out and sat behind the wheel of my car and closed my eyes.
"Think blue," Augusta had advised me once when I got all worked up about something. "It calms you, helps you think straight." I could almost sense her beside me now.
I pictured a sky with clouds drifting, misty blue mountains framing a crystal sapphire lake. Where would I go if I were five years old, cold, hungry, and scared?
I would go home, of course, but obviously Faye hadn"t done that. For some reason she was afraid to go there.... So what would she do then?
Knowing my little cousin, I was almost sure she felt guilty for taking Mildred"s zebra, and perhaps felt she would be punished for not returning it. Yet Mildred had said they had already checked the shop.
Checked it first!
R. T. Foster was getting ready to leave for another job when I pulled up in front of the bookstore, but the door was still unlocked.
"Any news about the little girl?" he asked, loading tools into his truck.
I shook my head. "Not yet. I was hoping maybe you"d seen her."
"No, they came by here earlier looking. Of course, I"ve been busy on the other side trying to get rid of some of this clutter, but good Lord, I would"ve called if I"d have seen her!"
I told him I thought I"d hang around for a while just in case Faye might turn up, and before driving away, he showed me how to lock up without a key using the entrance to the empty building.
The books that remained in the bookshop were shrouded in sheets to protect them, and the floor was littered with plaster dust and jagged pieces of wood. The place would have given me an eerie feeling even if I weren"t already scared out of my skin.
Still I searched the rows of empty shelves, boxes of books, lifting covers to peer underneath, hoping to glimpse a frightened, runaway child. I even wandered into the empty room where R. T. had been working but found only sawdust, brick fragments, and dirt. The place smelled of damp and mildew, and I couldn"t imagine it ever being a restaurant, but if R. T. Foster said it was possible, then we"d have to hope he knew what he was talking about.
The restaurant seemed unimportant now. I didn"t even care anymore who murdered Otto or tried to dump me over a railing. The only thing that mattered was finding Faye alive and safe.
Back in the bookshop I noticed R. T"s large footprints in the snow of plaster. He had made a trail going back and forth, in and then out to his truck. And then I saw something else. Small footprints. Very small footprints leading to the back of the shop. In my hurry to look under covers, I hadn"t noticed them before.
I also hadn"t noticed the scent. Strawberries-faint at first, and then stronger as I followed the footprints to the door of the small back office. Augusta was here, and so, I hoped, was Faye.
But when I opened the door, the office was empty. And so was my heart. Was this some kind of rotten trick? I could almost visualize the missing child curled up in the old armchair that had belonged to my grandfather. But the chair was empty. The office was empty. Yet the smell of strawberries remained.
"Don"t play with me, Augusta Goodnight!" I said, stamping my foot. And since that didn"t get results, I stamped it again.
"Minda?" A sleepy voice spoke from underneath Mildred"s big old desk, and Faye, clutching the celebrated zebra, crawled out, dragging a fringed throw behind her. "Did you bring me anything to eat?" she asked.
Chapter Twenty-Seven.
It looks to me like you"ve already eaten," I said, noticing the chocolate on her face and the candy wrapper under the desk. It was all I could say for the moment. I held her on my lap in the big armchair and let the tears flow.
"Why are you crying, Minda?"
"Because I was worried about you, you silly! We didn"t know where you were. Why did you run off like that?"
"That man-he was mad at me for taking Mildred"s zebra."
"What man?"
"The man back at school-on the playground."
"What makes you think that, honey?"
"He wanted to know where I got it; I think he wanted to take it away from me."
"Why didn"t you tell your teacher? You know she wouldn"t let anyone do that?"
" "Cause I was scared..." Faye rubbed her eyes and began to cry. "Mama told me not to take it, and I did anyway. I was afraid I"d get in trouble, so I hid in the bushes until the man left, and my cla.s.s had already gone inside."
"Don"t cry now, it"s all right. And then where did you go?"
"Home. Well, I started home, and this lady came up in a big car and asked if I wanted a candy bar."
"Faye! You know better than to take candy from strangers!"
"But she wasn"t a stranger, Minda. I"ve seen her lots of times. Besides, it was chocolate."
"So you accepted the candy?"
"Yeah, and then I ran away and hid."
"Where?"
"In Mr. Thompson"s garage. He"s got lots of neat stuff in there, but I didn"t bother any of it. Besides, it was cold. I just hid in there till that lady left. She wanted my zebra, too," Faye said, snuggling closer.
"She said that-that she wanted the zebra?"