A Reckless Love, page 19
“Fine.” He dropped his hands. “Wait. What?”
“Never mind.” She bent to pick up the lamp. “I’m sorry I’ve kept you from your work.” She started walking, somewhat at random.
“Aurora. Wait, come back. Where are you going?”
“To the kitchen to get some food for the witnesses we are apparently hiding in our barn.” She could hear him following her. “Grandmama told me to take them some leftovers from the meal.”
He caught up to her. “How is it that everybody except me knows where these people have been all this time?”
“Probably because you’re so intent on talking to prostitutes, you haven’t been listening.”
“All right, all right. I deserve that. Stop. Aurora, listen, I’m sorry.”
“You’re what? I didn’t quite hear you.”
“I said I’m sorry! Jiminy, what a crosspatch!”
She laughed.
“You’re not really angry, are you?” He sounded aggrieved.
She stopped and held the lamp up to search his face. “Oh, I’m angry all right. But I also understand exactly why you behave this way. Grandmama says men have to be taught how to talk to women. It took her nearly thirty years to train Grandpapa.”
He didn’t respond to that.
“See?” she said. “You’re learning already.”
Then he chuckled, that rusty sound that tickled her heart. “Come on,” he said, “let’s get the interview with the girls over with, then you can take me to the barn. Are you sure your grandmother doesn’t mind?”
“I told you, she sent me. I think she trusts you. In fact, I’m sure of it.” She flicked a look up at him as they walked. “Though I don’t know why.”
“I imagine she’s aware I’m scared to death of you.”
“Oh really?” She skipped a step, and Zane took the lamp from her.
“Here, you’re going to set us both on fire.”
She sighed. “I’m pretty sure that’s already happened.”
All right. So be it, Zane thought, following Aurora literally down the primrose path.
He wasn’t sure what a primrose was, but it had to be characterized by the lure of this switchback journey in and out of delirious joy and utter despair. The astounding thing was, she saw right through his attempts to hide his feelings. He hadn’t even known he had feelings until a couple of weeks ago, and he sure wouldn’t have suspected they’d climb right out from under his hard-won self-control.
It looked like he wasn’t getting rid of her anytime soon, so he was just going to have to get used to sleeping with one eye open—which, in his case, meant no rest at all. He would have found the thought hilarious, if it weren’t so pathetic.
Fortunately, before he could succumb to the temptation to set the lamp down again and find out if her lips tasted as berry-ripe as he remembered them, they arrived at the small front porch of the brick manager’s cottage.
Aurora opened the door and stuck her head inside. “Horatia, it’s me,” she called. “Are y’all still here?”
“In the kitchen, honey. I’ll be right there.”
Aurora smiled at Zane over her shoulder, then went inside. “I brought Deputy Marshal Sager to talk to—oh, there you are. Horatia, this is Zane Sager. Zane, meet Horatia Lawrence. She and her husband, Mose, have been co-managers of the business since the beginning. We couldn’t do without them.”
Zane followed Aurora into the tiny entryway and offered a courteous bow to the neat black woman who’d rescued him from Bedelia’s attentions in the dining room. “I hope we’re not interrupting your work too much,” he said. “I had a question or two I wanted to ask Bedelia and Rosie while I’m here.”
“We’re just wiping things down a last lick before Mose and me goes home,” Horatia said. “Miss Aurora, why don’t you take him to the office, and I’ll send the girls along in just a minute.”
“Yes, ma’am, but could I ask a favor before you close the kitchen for the night? Grandmama asked me to take supper to the guests in the hayloft. Have you got anything left?”
“Yes, in fact I’d already packed a basket to take to them on our way home. I’ll set it out on the kitchen table while you talk to the girls.”
“Thank you, Horatia. Zane, come this way.” Aurora turned right through an open doorway.
Zane found himself in a large, comfortable office furnished with three or four overstuffed man-sized chairs and a large built-in desk under a wall of pigeonhole shelves. Papers and ledgers had been filed there in orderly fashion, indicating that somebody cared about records and numbers. The remaining walls were lined with bookshelves, except for a cozy fireplace in the corner. The brown-toned rug was old and well-worn. He liked the feel of this room.
He sat down in the chair Aurora pointed at, stretched out his legs, and relaxed.
“This was my papa’s office.” Aurora turned the desk chair outward to face the center of the room and sat down. “I used to come in here when I was very small, to play with my dolls while he worked on the ledgers.” She closed her eyes, as if remembering. “He was already teaching Selah how to keep books. I think she was managing the paperwork by the time she was ten or eleven. That’s why they made her and Jo go to boarding school. He wanted her to have the science and math she needed.”
“That’s . . . fairly uncommon, I would think,” he said.
“Yes.” Aurora sighed. “Mama was very conventional, but Papa—he never did anything the way other people said he should. I do know he loved our mama, though, and came unhinged when he discovered he couldn’t protect her. I think that’s why he lost his mind.” She shuddered.
Zane was silent. There were apparently some tragedies in life he had managed to escape. But he knew what she meant. “Wartime prisons can steal a man’s humanity.” He looked around. “He seems to have been quite a reader.”
“I think so. But about half of these are Joelle’s.” She gave him a suspicious look. “Do you like to read?”
“Not particularly.”
“Me either.” She grinned. “Except fashion magazines.”
“I do read my Bible every day. That’s one thing the judge insisted on. He said the first voice in my head every day ought to be Scripture.”
“That sounds like Selah. I try to do that, too, but I always get stuck on Leviticus and Numbers.”
“Well, you know, I think once you’ve read those, you might get a pass on rereading them.”
“You think?” She scrunched her nose. “Tell me more about the judge. How did you meet him?”
He froze. “I told you, I don’t like to talk about prison.”
“I know, but—Zane, it might not hold so much power over you if you’d tell somebody about it.”
“Not right now.” Not ever.
Fortunately, before Aurora could pester the daylights out of him, Bedelia burst into the room, followed by the Asian—Chinese?—girl, Rosie.
“Mr. Sager!” Noting that he wasn’t alone in the room, Bedelia scowled. “Miss Aurora.”
“Come in and sit over there.” Coolly, Aurora nodded at an empty chair across the rug from Zane, then smiled at Rosie. “Rosamund, I understand you made the pudding tonight. It was delicious!”
“Thank you.” Rosie took the remaining chair and sat back, her feet dangling an inch off the floor. “You going to have best restaurant in Tupelo, Miss Ola. I promise I learn everything good.”
“I know you will.” Aurora glanced at Zane. “The deputy marshal wants to ask you ladies some questions. I hope you’ll provide him with whatever information he needs to catch some very bad men who burned down our kitchen and schoolroom and Horatia’s church.”
Rosie’s eyes widened. “I don’t know nothing about bad men. I’m a good girl!”
“I’m sure you are,” Zane said soothingly. “Anyway, nobody’s going to arrest you for anything you tell us. But what I’m thinking is that you and Bedelia might have heard some talk at the bar, about some of their meetings—maybe the reasons they wanted to hurt the black people in town.” He saw Bedelia flinch. “Deedee, did Constable Pickett or any of the others threaten to hurt you if you talked?”
“No.” But Bedelia looked down, picking at her fingernails, high color in her naturally florid face.
“All right, fair enough.” He paused. “There’s a man I’m looking for, name of Maney. Did you ever meet him? Either at the bar or . . . anyplace else?”
“I might have heard the name,” Bedelia said sullenly, “but I don’t remember where or when. I was at the Dogwood a long time, and I met a lot of men.”
“Will you tell me if you remember anything? Or if you see him again, will you let me know?” He looked at Rosamund. “Please, Rosie. I have to find him before he hurts someone else.”
The Chinese girl gave him a reluctant nod, then addressed Aurora. “No more men, Miss Ola? Only Deputy Zane. I like him. He nice.”
Since he wasn’t likely to get anything else out of either of the former saloon girls—though at least he’d apparently gained an ally in Rosie—Zane stood up. “Aurora, perhaps we should collect Horatia’s basket from the kitchen and let these girls go to bed. They look exhausted.”
“I ain’t tired.” Bedelia shimmied her shoulders. “I’m just gettin’ my second wind!”
Aurora rose. “Good night, Bedelia, Rosamund. I’ll talk to you both in the morning about coming back to the Dogwood permanently.”
“Don’t know as I want to do that no more,” Bedelia said, apparently in a contrary mood. “I likes it here, so.”
“Fine. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” Aurora waited, arms crossed, until the two women had quit the room, then gave Zane a comical look. “She’ll sing a different tune when she finds out you’re a guest at the Dogwood.”
He scratched his head in embarrassment. “All I’m trying to do is get her to talk.”
Aurora gave him a thoughtful stare. “Well, you’ll have to decide how far you’re willing to go to accomplish that. But I’d be very careful, if I were you. Cross that one, and she’s just as likely to scratch your eyes out as look at you.”
nineteen
EXCEPT FOR THE POOL OF LAMPLIGHT in which she stood with Zane, the barn was dark, warm, and redolent of the animal smells and sounds that had comforted Aurora since she was a small child. Breathing it in, she smiled, relaxing for the first time all day.
“Come here, I want you to meet someone.” She took Zane’s hand and headed down the center aisle of the barn, past the stalls on either side.
“The hayloft ladder is the other way.” He sounded confused.
“Yes, we’ll get there in a minute. This old fellow is my best friend, and we have to speak to him first.”
She stopped at the last stall on the left and peered over the low door. “Shep! Wake up, Grandpa, I brought somebody to meet you.” Her childhood Shetland pony blinked up at her, then lurched to his feet to eagerly poke his grizzled muzzle over the door. She laughed and fished in the basket hanging from her arm. “I brought you a carrot—be patient!” As Shep gobbled the treat, she looked up at Zane. He smiled and reached down to pet the miniature horse. “When Papa told me he was a Shetland pony, I thought he said ‘Shepland’ and insisted on calling him ‘Shep,’ as if he were a dog. That’s how I treated him. Would have let him sleep in my room if Mama hadn’t pitched a fit.”
“How old is he?” Zane asked.
“About my age, I think. Papa gave him to me for my fourth birthday. Papa taught me to muck stalls, to feed and water Shep, brush him, and eventually handle the tack.” She fed the pony another carrot piece. “Even though I was too big to ride him by then, leaving him behind when I went to Memphis was the hardest part of that ordeal.” She sent Zane a self-conscious look. “I know it doesn’t compare to what you went through, but it was big to me at the time. When the war ended, I was relieved to find out Shep hadn’t been stolen or mistreated by the Yankees who came through here. They even fed him and exercised him.”
“I can see why. Give me that carrot.” Clearly enamored, Zane opened the stall door to make friends, and Aurora lost another piece of her heart.
They spent another five minutes with the little horse, Aurora putting Shep through his tricks—Zane’s favorite being “Bow to the queen!”—and Zane demonstrating his ability to charm anything on two or four legs with a minimum of effort.
Eventually, however, Zane, who had seated himself cross-legged in the hay at the pony’s feet, looked up at her. “We’ve got to get back to business. But can I come and visit another day?”
“Of course.” She leaned over to stroke Shep’s shaggy forelock and kiss him between the eyes. “Good night, old fellow. Sleep well.” She extended a hand to Zane, boosting him to his feet. Aurora picked up the basket, Zane took the lamp, and they left the stall. “I wish you could stay the night. I’d bring you back out here to look over the matched sorrels Levi and I bought for the carriage.”
“That them?” Zane nodded at two curious noses poking over the tops of their stalls as they passed.
“Yes. Here’s the ladder to the loft.”
“You’re in an evening dress,” he said. “Can you manage it?”
“Of course I can. Hold the lamp. I’ll go up first.”
The climb wasn’t as easy as she’d made it sound. The soles of her evening shoes were slippery, and she’d had ThomasAnne cinch her corset so tight she could hardly breathe. But at last she emerged, huffing and puffing, and turned to sit for a second, with her feet dangling into the opening.
As Zane began the climb, she heard a scraping noise behind her and scrambled to her feet. “Psst! Mr. and Mrs. Frye, it’s Aurora Daughtry. We haven’t met yet, but Grandmama and Horatia sent me to bring you some supper.”
After a moment of silence, a cautious male voice answered out of the darkness, “Who is that with you?”
“It’s Deputy Marshal Zane Sager. He’s assisting the prosecution of the Klan trials. He needs to talk to you.”
“All right,” Frye said. “Get behind me, Georgia.”
Aurora moved aside to allow Zane through the opening.
Zane set the lamp on the floor, then climbed out to crouch beside it, looking up at the small, bespectacled young man who greeted them from behind the barrel of a revolver. He lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I don’t blame you for being suspicious, Frye. Let me show you my badge.” He slowly reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out his US Marshals badge. “I came for dinner tonight, but when I found out you and Mrs. Frye were here, I couldn’t pass up the chance to find out what you know. Marshal Pierce and the US Attorney will want to talk with you as well, but I believe the Daughtrys are wise to keep your location a secret for now.”
“It looks like everybody in the county knows where we are,” Frye said dryly, lowering the gun. He reached back with the other hand for his wife’s hand. “This is my wife, Georgia.”
A light-skinned black woman, dressed in gray calico, stepped forward. She was very pretty, with big dark eyes and a sweet, intelligent expression that Aurora instantly liked. Already aware of the Fryes’ interracial marriage, Aurora glanced at Zane.
His eyebrow rose, but fine manners quickly masked any shock, and he simply nodded. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Frye.”
“We’re ready to bring this situation to an end,” Georgia said, “and we want to help in any way we can. But we’ve been ambushed more than once.” She looked at her husband.
Frye nodded. “Tuscaloosa was our home, and we did good work there, until the Klan took exception to the Freedman’s Bureau and the Union League joining to educate Negroes. I understand you have my wife’s brother in custody.”
“That’s right.” Zane moved to sit on a nearby hay bale.
Since he left enough room for Aurora, she sat down too, even though she was short enough to have stood upright under the roof. The Fryes sat nearby so that they could comfortably converse in whispers.
“He seems willing to turn on Jefcoat now,” Zane said. “I think he realizes he was played for a fool.”
“I don’t know why he trusted the Jefcoats to begin with,” Georgia said. “Little Andrew is a lazy drunkard, always looking for a shortcut to get what he wants.” She stared at Zane in the lamplight. “Don’t believe anything he says.”
Zane nodded. “All right, duly noted. Mrs. Frye, according to Beaumont and Riggins, you and Moore are both children of Jefcoat Sr. and one of his house slaves, but you were sold off fairly young at the Memphis slave auction to a family from east Tennessee.”
“That’s right,” Georgia said. “The Maney family bought me, and I became nursemaid to their children.” She glanced at her husband. “Lemuel was their tutor.”
“This is what interests me the most,” Zane said. “Alonzo Maney seems to be the nexus of this giant spiderweb, with connections to everyone. I understand you think he is behind Ezekiel Beaumont’s murder—that young Jefcoat’s fatal shot was no accident.”
“I’m convinced it was an assassination.” Frye’s expression was grim. “Crooks like Maney do not change their stripes. During the war—in the spring of 1864, to be precise—my wife came across a letter to Mrs. Maney from her husband, hinting that he had purchased intelligence from a Masonic brother—no names mentioned—regarding an anticipated Union invasion of Mississippi. Maney had in turn passed this information to Forrest’s camp. Georgia felt safe in keeping the letter, which had been thrown away, but didn’t feel it warranted putting ourselves in danger with immediate action. However, a few years later, we met Mr. Beaumont at a Union League meeting in Alabama. As we got acquainted, we discovered a mutual interest in the financial shenanigans of General Maney. Beaumont had apparently come across proof that Maney was in the Senate just long enough to become involved in a highly unethical—if not illegal—money-laundering scheme that is presently under congressional investigation.”
