The House of Memory (Pluto's Snitch Book 2) Page 22

  I held the car in the middle of the road, but the mud tugged at my arms, and there were times I feared I might lose control. To drive so fast was madness, but to linger might prove more deadly.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “One of the men was Kern, an orderly from the hospital.” Camilla’s voice trembled. “They know I’ve run away.”

  “But how did they get ahead of us?” I asked. “We stopped only long enough to find David and buy gas. Not forty minutes in all, and no one saw us leave. There was no alarm.”

  “Maybe that’s what they wanted us to think,” Reginald said. “What if they meant to catch us on a dark and empty road?”

  “But why?”

  “Because Camilla knows something, and they’re afraid she’ll reveal it?”

  “What could she know?” David asked.

  “She was friends with two of the young women who went missing,” I said.

  “There’s no other reason for an orderly from the hospital to be on a wet and dark road so far from the hospital,” Reginald said. “Whether Camilla knows anything or not about those missing women, they think she does.”

  “And they know we’re asking questions. Zelda hired Kuddle to probe the hospital. Maybe he’s stirred a hornet’s nest asking questions of the wrong people.”

  “I don’t know anything,” Camilla said. “If I did, I’d tell someone so they could find Joanne. I just know she hasn’t left the hospital.”

  “How do you know that?” I’d been so intent on getting Camilla away from Bryce that I’d failed to ask that obvious question.

  “I still have her earrings, those black jet earbobs she got from her brother. She asked me to hold them for her because they would be stolen in the ward. They were her prized possession. She’d never leave those behind, no matter what. She’s still there at Bryce.”

  “One thing’s for certain,” Reginald said. “Bentley, French, and Perkins were all out in the barn in the middle of the night. Why?”

  “A very good question,” David said. “I don’t like any of this. I can’t thank you enough for getting Camilla out, for convincing us both that she wasn’t safe there.”

  “Thank Zelda,” I said. “We wouldn’t be here without her and Tallulah’s interference.”

  David put his hand over the seat and gently gripped Camilla’s shoulder. “When this is over, and when Camilla and I have our wedding, I hope you can attend.”

  “I hope so, too.” We weren’t far out of Montgomery. All I had to do was concentrate on driving for a little longer.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Dawn illuminated the road and the outskirts of Montgomery. The road behind us remained empty, and I could only hope Kern and company had bogged in the wet shoulders of the road and required a farmer to come and pull them out with a tractor. We’d have a good head start.

  The dense forest growth had given way to cleared pastures and gardens. David gave directions to back roads that would lead to his bachelor home near downtown, avoiding the main road where the police—or someone far more sinister—might be waiting. We’d have to find a safer place for Camilla, but this was our best option for the moment.

  It was too risky to take Camilla to the Greystone Hotel, where she’d be exposed to public scrutiny, nor did we want to embroil the Sayres in our illegal scheme. The long car ride and her lack of aggression toward David had convinced her and us that she could stay at his place while he went to work.

  Mud-spattered, but without mechanical issues that I could detect, the roadster cruised through the early-morning streets to stop before a lovely Victorian home with borders of the smooth-skinned crepe myrtles in vibrant pink hues in bloom. Inviting rockers with cowhide seats sat on a wide porch. David’s gracious taste was in evidence, even in the smaller town house he’d selected for his temporary home.

  When the workday was over and David was free of his duties at the bank, we’d gather at Roswell House. Until then, we had to keep out of sight because we were surely the prime suspects in Camilla’s disappearance from the hospital.

  “I’ll stay with Camilla while David washes up for work,” I said. “Reginald, can you check over Zelda’s car? If it needs repairs, we should get that done.” I opened the door and stepped out, more glad than I’d ever imagined to be standing on pavement. Reginald got out and assisted Camilla to the sidewalk, where David joined her.

  “Take it to Turner’s Garage over on Hamilton Street. I’ll take care of the repairs,” David said. “You did a magnificent job of driving, Raissa.” He patted my shoulder. “Truly magnificent. I thought we were going to hit them dead center, but you managed to avoid them and get back on the road.” He was almost gleeful.

  “All by accident.” I couldn’t take credit when luck had been behind the wheel.

  “Never disavow skill.” David put an arm around Camilla. “I owe you both such a large debt. And, Camilla, I want to marry you today. At the courthouse. I’ll arrange for a judge to meet us there at lunch. We’ll make it legal. Then your mother no longer has any say in what happens to you. We don’t have to stay here in Montgomery. We can live anywhere.”

  Camilla shook her head. “This must be settled. We have to figure out what is at Roswell House and why I’m susceptible to it. I won’t marry you until that’s resolved. Who’s to say it won’t follow me wherever I go?”

  “I have some ideas,” I said, eager to share them with Reginald when we were alone. “Reginald and I will check into some things. I hope to have more information later, and if I’m correct, we’ll know what we’re facing.”

  Camilla looked up at the pleasant white clapboard house. “I’ll be fine here, Raissa. You don’t have to mollycoddle me. Mama will never suspect that I’d actually stay at David’s home. I’ve been too well trained.”

  “What she doesn’t know . . .” I shrugged, but my offer to stay with Camilla had dual purposes. To watch over her and to obtain a little more detail, if I could get her to talk. “I’ll stay anyway, and I’m sure our friends Zelda and Tallulah will be happy to spend some time with you. You won’t be alone with David, so your reputation will be intact.”

  Camilla laughed. “A month ago, my precious reputation would have been a serious worry. I don’t care anymore, but Mama will. What’s important to me is that I don’t try to kill my fiancé.”

  “Then we’re agreed?” When everyone nodded, I signaled my partner. “Reginald, may I have a word before you leave?”

  “We’ll wait for you on the porch,” David said, offering Camilla his arm.

  We were a bedraggled group standing on the sidewalk as the sun came up, and the smart move was to hide the mud-spattered car and go inside. But I had to tell Reginald what I’d learned. When David and Camilla were out of earshot, I filled him in on my suspicions that Camilla might be a female descendant of the Roswell family and subject to the family curse.

  “That would certainly explain a lot.” He worried the car keys. “Be careful with her. I don’t like leaving you alone. She seems perfectly rational, but—”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “Once you’ve taken care of Zelda’s car, would you bring Zelda to sit with her? We have to prepare for the séance tonight. We won’t have another chance. Maude will get wind of the escape, and she’ll come sniffing around David and Zelda.”

  “I’ll be back within the hour.” Reginald gave a cocky salute.

  I watched him drive away with a strange sense of dread. We’d evaded the trap on the road, but by running, we’d failed to discover who had tried to waylay us. And there was still no explanation of how Kern and his partner had gotten ahead of us on the road home. That troubled me, and I wondered what they might attempt next.

  When David had cleaned up, changed clothes, and gone for breakfast at the Greystone, which was his normal workday routine, I sat with Camilla in the quiet front parlor of David’s home. The room was beautifully decorated, if a little sparse on personal items. There were only two photographs, one of his parents and one o
f Camilla, a beautiful portrait of her taken on her own front porch.

  “I’m as nervous as a cat.” Camilla paced the room, unable to settle.

  “You had no aggressive action toward David. That should make you feel more confident.”

  “We weren’t alone.”

  “I know you’re worried, but you’ve spent endless hours together at functions, and many moments alone with him. Before you went to Roswell House, nothing untoward ever happened.”

  She eased onto a love seat. “You’re right.”

  “I’m not in the business of false hope, but neither should you suffer from false fear. Tonight will tell the tale. And I promise you—Reginald and I will not let anything happen to David. I’m far more worried about you.”

  She made a derisive sound. “So I might become possessed by an accursed entity in the house my husband-to-be bought as a gift for me. Consider the alternative. Having part of my brain destroyed.”

  It felt good to release the pent-up tension, and for a long moment we simply laughed out loud. At last I heard a car stop out front. When I looked, I saw Zelda and Tallulah striding toward the front door. I didn’t want to tell them anything until I’d checked some facts.

  The young women came in, babbling brightly about dress lengths, the new swimsuits, and the trivia of a privileged lifestyle. They fought the darkness that hovered over Camilla with breezy gossip and inconsequential chatter. Zelda leaned over to whisper in my ear but loud enough for all to hear. “Do you think the bank is open for David yet?”

  Camilla pretended offense, but we all laughed at the slang for sexual activity.

  “Well, David is a banker. He should be very good at banking activities,” Tallulah added, to more laughter.

  It was good to see the friends united, and to see Camilla’s cheeks pink from gentle teasing. “Where’s Reginald?” I asked, knowing that he must have told them we were here.

  “Since the car was running fine and Tallulah had her car for us to use, he said he had an errand. He asked us to apologize. He said he’d track you down later.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that, but there was nothing I could do. And I had my own mission. I said my good-byes, assuring the women that events would fall into place and leaving without giving them any details. As I walked out the door, I heard Tallulah’s throaty drawl. “You look a little pea-ked, Camilla, darling.” Tallulah used the old pronunciation that I’d heard all my life. “If you’d let David tickle your fancy, you’d increase your health.”

  “Tease all you want,” Camilla said. “I’m so happy to be here, to see you.”

  As I closed the front door on their chatter, I had no doubt we’d done the right thing taking Camilla away from Bryce. Now I had one immediate problem to handle. I went to the Greystone to find David and borrow his car—thank goodness Uncle Brett had insisted I learn to drive, and bless Travis, my uncle’s gardener and estate manager, for his kind instruction. The trolley didn’t run where I needed to go. Bernard West had not been completely truthful with me. Was he protecting Herman Roswell or Maude Granger? I didn’t care who or why—I just wanted answers.

  When I turned down the neglected lane that went to Bernard’s home, I slowed. The rope swing, the dead flower beds—nothing had changed, but I saw it all with different eyes. Hopefully wiser eyes. Bernard had taken to the bottle with gusto, and I wondered what was at the bottom of his desire to drink and forget. He’d once been a respected lawyer, a man with a loving family. What had driven him to abandon his life for an existence of solitary drinking? I intended to find out.

  The screen wasn’t even latched, and I knocked hard on it and called out his name.

  “Go away,” came from deep inside the house.

  “I can’t.” I would get my answers.

  “Zelda?” he called out, hope rising in his voice.

  I opened the door and walked in. What was one more charge of breaking and entering in the long list of my growing illegal actions? The house was dark and musty smelling, but I continued toward the back. I found Bernard at the kitchen table. His hands were shaking so hard he’d knocked his glass of liquor onto the floor and couldn’t get down to pick it up.

  “Go away,” he said.

  I picked up the glass and the bottle, which still had an inch of corn whiskey in it. I found a clean glass and poured it for him, holding his hand to steady the drink to this mouth. I’d heard of the shakes that heavy drinkers suffered when they ran out of alcohol. “You need a doctor.”

  “You’re wrong. I need a coffin. You don’t know how much I look forward to the release of death.”

  Pity was too expensive at this moment. “Is Herman Roswell Camilla’s father?” I asked him squarely.

  His answer was a laugh that built until he almost choked. I steadied his hand for another swallow of liquor. “No, no, she isn’t. I’d hoped that she might be mine, but that wasn’t to be either.”

  “You mean . . . Maude was free with her favors to you and Herman?”

  “The only person she shut the bank on was poor ol’ Jefferson. He married her, thinking he got the prize. He hasn’t had a moment of happiness since Camilla was born.”

  “You’re positive she’s Jefferson’s daughter?”

  “I am.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I wasn’t keen on accepting a drunk’s perception of something so important.

  “Herman had been in an accident when Maude became pregnant, so he was out of the running. I was in New York.”

  “But you wanted her to be yours?”

  “It’s impossible to imagine, I know, but there was once a time when Maude was a beautiful young woman, alive and filled with mischief and laughter. She was born poor and with a great ambition to be a lady. It was that ambition that drove her to become what she is today.”

  “A bitter old peahen.”

  “You could have said a lot worse. When Maude realized Jefferson would never rise to the social heights she wanted, it twisted her. She’d trapped herself, but she blamed everyone, especially that little girl. Herman and I both tried to make it up to Camilla with little treats and pleasures that we could sneak past Maude. She seemed to begrudge that child a single moment of joy.”

  “I have to get to the bottom of what’s happening to her at Roswell House. Camilla is in real danger, and you know Maude will do whatever it takes to control behavior that she doesn’t approve of. She will eradicate Camilla’s personality, if that’s what it takes.”

  “You can’t let this happen.”

  At last I had Bernard’s complete attention. The blurry haze of alcohol he’d hidden behind was gone, burned away by my hard words.

  “Then help me.”

  “How? What can I do?”

  “What is Camilla’s connection to Roswell House? If she isn’t Herman Roswell’s daughter, how is she tied to that house?”

  His shoulders slumped. “It was all so long ago. Maude wanted that house. She always told me that she deserved to live there. When I was seeing her, we’d go there sometimes, in the woods where she could see the house when we made love. I thought I was getting something over on Herman, because we both wanted her. Now I know there was something else, some sickness in Maude. That’s all I know. She said more than once that she should have lived there and that she’d been cheated out of it.”

  “Was she a Roswell? A bastard child?”

  “I can’t see how. Herman swore Camilla wasn’t his. He was adamant that he’d never have children. If Camilla had been a Roswell, Maude would have seen that Herman provided for her. Maude was a Cooner, through and through, from the other side of the tracks. Her mother, Maybel Cooner, was a small-time grifter. The story I heard on Maude was that her mother attached herself to the powerful men in Montgomery. She had a yen for law officers, elected officials, wealthy businessmen. When the legislature was in session, she liked to party with the lawmakers. Stories around town were that Maude was the bastard daughter of a governor. If that was true, Maybel couldn’t make the p
aternity stick or was afraid to try. Floozies who tried that trick sometimes died in mysterious ways. Anyway, all that rumor did was feed into Maude’s sense of being cheated.”

  “So Maude could be a Roswell.”

  “Anything’s possible, I guess, but I wouldn’t lay money on it. I never heard of Maybel canoodling with any of the Roswells. I think trying to tie Camilla to the Roswell bloodline is barking up the wrong tree.”

  “Tell me about the Roswell curse. Who put it on the family and why?”

  He finished his drink. “I need another bottle.”

  “I’ll drive you to get one if you’ll tell me.” I felt like a heel bargaining with someone so desperate. “Do you know a place to buy whiskey?”

  “I do. And I have the money, just not a car.”

  “Come on. You can tell me about the curse when we get the liquor.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Pulling up in front of the bootlegger’s house, I had one thought: Uncle Brett would be very upset with me. Not because of the booze, but because the place looked like it might be inhabited by dangerous hillbillies. Some people, especially those making ’shine or involved in other illegal activities, didn’t take kindly to a stranger driving up in their front yard. I’d had enough of a scare last night. I was wary of what might happen here on this isolated farm that showed only neglect.

  Bernard told me to wait in the car, and I was glad to do so, especially when a mama sow and her shoats came around the corner of the house with a squeal of rage at Bernard.

  He ran up the rickety steps to the porch with more speed than I thought he was capable of. He spoke to someone at the door. A few minutes later, a woman appeared with a jug of what I took to be moonshine. Money was exchanged, and Bernard came back to the car, one eye on the sow.