Chapter Fourteen

I awoke—or at least, came to consciousness—sometime in the early hours of the morning. I could hear Maw-Maw snoring loudly in her room and when I poked my head through the door of Ashara’s room, I saw that she was curled into a tight ball under the covers, just her dark reddish-brown curls peeking out.

I wandered through the house for a little while trying to decide what our next move should be. Howard’s attempt to waylay us the night before had worried me more than I had wanted to let on. I paced back and forth in the living room, trying to put all the pieces together.

So Clifford Howard and Jeffrey McClatchey had somehow conspired to split a bunch of money in a safe deposit box belonging to a Mary Rowell, but to which both the McClatchey brothers had access. But only Rick McClatchey had the key. Mary Rowell was related to a man who had probably been murdered in the 1940s by men related to Clifford Howard.

I suspected the money in the safe deposit box was somehow connected to the 1940s killing of Jimmy Rowell, but I couldn’t figure out why Clifford had killed Molly McClatchey. I had no idea where the McClatcheys fit into this at all.

I was still pacing back and forth when Maw-Maw came out of her bedroom wrapped in an old blue terry cloth robe, her hair already tucked into its bun, pieces already escaping to frame her face.

“How’s an old woman supposed to sleep with you making all that racket in here?” she asked irritably.

“Racket?” I asked in stunned amazement, looking down at my feet. “I’m floating six inches off the ground. I haven’t touched anything. How could I be making a racket?”

“Hmph,” the old woman said—which really didn’t seem to be much of an answer to me—and stumped off to the kitchen. I heard her start the coffee pot.

“Well,” she said, coming back in a little later, steaming coffee cup in hand, “you might as well sit down and talk about what’s got you so riled up. I’m awake now.”

I suppressed a grin and told her everything I’d been considering.

“Well, now,” she said, setting her coffee to one side and leaning her head back against the headrest of her recliner, “let’s see.” She hummed a little to herself, her eyes closed.

Finally, she opened them again. “Well, Mary Rowell—Jimmy’s mama—wasn’t never the same after he disappeared. She took to spending all her time at home. Before that, she had herself plenty of friends. But my mama said that Jimmy’s loss just took all the heart out of Mary.” She shook her head, her mouth twisted to the side.

“You said there was a daughter named Mary, too, right?” I asked.

She nodded. “Now she was a scandal.”

“Really?” I leaned forward from my seat on the couch.

“Yes, ma’am. She and her mama had opposite reactions to losing Jimmy. Her mama hid out in her house, wouldn’t hardly do nothing. But little Mary—she must’ve been about seventeen at the time—got even worse than she had been, running around with all kinds of boys, drinking, smoking, generally acting up.”

“And her mother didn’t do anything to stop her?” I asked.

Maw-Maw shook her head. “Not at first. Mind you, she had always been a wild child, and her mother hadn’t done nothing about it then. When Jimmy came home, he tried to stop her, but it was tough row to hoe with that one. She never did take to being told what to do.”

“But later?”

“Well.” And now Maw-Maw was also leaning forward in her chair, her voice dropped low to tell the secret of a sixty-year-old scandal. “Not all too long after Jimmy disappeared,

Miss Mary left town. Her relations here put it out that she was going to go live with some cousins out in Georgia, but we didn’t none of us believe it.”

“So where do you think she went?” I asked breathlessly, completely drawn into the story.

“She was gone just a little over eight months,” Maw-Maw said, leaning back in her chair and nodding complacently, “as those of us was counting figured it. Just about the right amount of time to have herself a little one and then come on home.”

“Did she bring the baby back with her?” I asked.

Maw-Maw let out a bark of laughter. “Not then. But it weren’t but a few months after that a Rowell cousin comes to town and asks if Mrs. Mary—little Mary’s mother—could take care of this baby she, the cousin, just ain’t got the means for.

As if Mary had any more money than anybody else. We all knew it was Miss Mary’s baby, but we all pretended we didn’t.”

I leaned back in my seat, too. “Wow. So, whose baby was it? I mean, who was the father?”

Maw-Maw shook her head. “Never did know for sure.

Some white man, though, to look at the boy.”

Ashara came walking through the doorway into the living room, yawning and grimacing. “What are you two in here talking about? Can’t you let a person sleep?” She glared at us briefly, yawned again, and staggered toward the kitchen.

“Neither of you are really morning people, are you?” I asked.

Maw-Maw just shook her head. “Never was able to get that child out of bed. Even when she was a tiny baby, her mama would have to just about lie on top of her to get her to be still enough to go to sleep at night. And once she was asleep, she didn’t want nobody waking her up.” She smiled.

“What happened to Ashara’s parents?”

Ashara walked in with coffee in hand.

“My daddy left when I was just little,” she said. “I hardly remember him.”

“He never was no good,” Maw-Maw said, her mouth tightening up.

“And Mama died of breast cancer five years ago,” Ashara said.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Ashara shook her head. “It’s okay. It was hard, but I’ve still got Maw-Maw.” She took her grandmother’s hand and squeezed it.

“So what were you talking about?” she asked, sitting down on the other end of the couch and curling her feet under her.

“Miss Adelaide was telling me about the Rowell family.”

“Yeah?”

So Maw-Maw repeated it. As I listened to it again, the barest hint of an idea began to tickle at the back of my mind.

“What happened to the baby boy?”

“Well, when little Mary finally settled down and married one of the Washington boys, the little boy stayed on with her mother. Guess Miss Mary’s new husband didn’t have no interest in having her first little one around. Seemed to put the heart back into Mrs. Mary, to some degree, anyway. He growed up to be just almost as pretty as his uncle Jimmy had been.”

“Then what?”

“Well,” she said, squinting her eyes as she thought.

“He went off to Atlanta and married himself a white woman. That was in the seventies, you know, and it was a bit of a scandal, but those two sure did love each other.”

“And they had kids?” I asked.

She tilted her head. “Well. I guess I don’t rightly know.”

I stood up and brushed a kiss toward Maw-Maw’s cheek. “Thank you, Miss Adelaide. You’ve been a big help.”

She patted me on my own cheek, her hand sliding halfway into my face. “I’m glad, Callie, honey.”

I turned to Ashara. “You’re going to have to call in sick today,” I said.

“I can’t,” she said indignantly. “I’m not sick.”

I sighed. “There is a crazy murderer out there who knows where you work and might just be waiting for you there. You can’t go to work. You can’t even leave this house in your own car. You have to call in sick at least until we get that guy off the streets. But I’ve got some ideas about that, so if you’ll just quit being so damned stubborn, ignore your own work ethic for one day, and come help me, we might be able to fix it so that you never have to call in sick ever again.”

Maw-Maw snickered.

Ashara glared first at her, and then at me. “Fine. As soon as the bank opens, I’ll let them know.”

“Good,” I said. “In the meantime, we need to call Stephen. Howard doesn’t recognize his car.”

“Sure,” said Ashara. “Let me get my cell.”

Maw-Maw and I glanced at each other.

“You can both just quit it,” Ashara said. “Yes, I have his number. He’s part of this, too. I knew we might need to get in touch with him.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Maw-Maw said, clearly humoring her.

Ashara shook her head in irritation and flounced out of the room.

Maw-Maw and I snickered.

A few moments later, Ashara re-entered the living room. “Well,” she said, “I woke him up. Hope you’re happy.”

“Is he coming over here?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I’m happy.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “He’ll be here in about forty-five minutes. I’m going to go take a shower and get dressed.”

“Be sure to wear something pretty,” Maw-Maw called out after her.

“You are a bad, bad woman,” I teased affectionately.

She smiled sweetly. “That’s why you like me so much,” she said.