11

Sheriff Matt Garitty read back over Brady’s statement and then dropped the paper on the desk. They were in the sheriff’s office, first floor of the new courthouse, two blocks from the austere police station, where Brady had gone initially to have his statement taken down for the city police.

“So, it says here that you just decided to go talk to Annabelle because you had some questions about her mother’s background or something.”

Brady nodded, trying to gauge how much he should give away. He liked the sheriff, but years of experience with lawmen had taught him to guard his mouth. Once you said something, there was no getting it back, and there were things he needed to think about before they became part of an official record.

“That’s right. She seemed like the person who’d know best.”

Garitty leaned forward over his desk. “What kind of questions, Mr. Brady?”

“For one thing, I was interested in the mysterious Mr. MacBride.”

“And you think he might have something to do with Frieda’s murder.”

“I don’t know. It seemed worth the trouble to try to find out.”

Garitty sighed and pulled a folder from a file of material in his basket. He opened it and handed a sheet of paper over to the publisher. Brady found himself holding the photocopy of a marriage license.

“May 3, 1941,” Garitty intoned from memory. “Shreveport, Louisiana. Bride, Frieda Payne Troy; age 26; resident of Troy, in the Parish of Troy. Groom, Michael Lee MacBride; age 25; resident of Bossier City, Bossier Parish.” He handed Brady another paper. “Obviously,” the sheriff said, “the union didn’t take.”

Brady looked down at the new paper. It was a divorce decree, dated 1943 and citing abandonment.

“It says here that both parties are residents of Bossier parish,” Brady commented. “That’s a hundred miles away.”

“Not so far. Just the distance from one end of the judge’s signature to the other.”

Brady nodded. The sheriff was right, of course. Frieda’s father had been a powerful man, part of the machine. A friendly judge in Bossier would have been glad to overlook a minor matter such as residence.…

“Anything more on Michael MacBride?” Brady asked.

Garitty shook his head. “Vanishes like smoke. But I can’t see it matters too much. The old judge paid him for doing the honorable thing after he knocked up Frieda and for keeping his mouth shut. He did his part and that was that. What else is there?”

“The child,” Brady said. “The child Frieda had back in June of 1941.”

“Ah,” Garitty nodded. “That’s a little more difficult. Frieda could’ve given birth in Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, or Mississippi. There’s no telling where the record would be, if it even exists. But I’ve got to admit I can’t quite see the relevance of all this. So Frieda had a scandal in her life forty-odd years ago. Do you think somebody was blackmailing her? And why would they kill Annabelle Lee?”

Brady shook his head. “I don’t know. But if I find out, I’ll tell you.”

“Are you holding out on me, Mr. Brady?”

The publisher allowed himself a faint smile. “No. I don’t have any evidence you don’t have, yourself.”

“I can’t believe it,” Kelly declared, as they sat in the newspaper office. “Here I was covering a dull city council meeting and you were discovering the scene of a murder!”

“Luck,” Brady said dryly.

“Well, tell me about it. It isn’t fair to keep it all to yourself.”

Brady winced inwardly, trying to think how to keep Emmett’s name out of things. In the end, he gave her the same facts as he’d given the sheriff, hating himself for holding out, and at the same time knowing he couldn’t let her find out about his real suspicions.

“So Frieda was almost an unwed mother,” Kelly pronounced, her dark brows raised. “Who’d of thunk it?” She bit her lip and frowned. “But I’m with Matt Garitty. I still don’t see what that has to do with her being killed. I mean, I had the impression she was doing the blackmailing.”

“I don’t know,” Brady admitted. “But I can’t help but think the two things are related. You see, there was a photograph on the floor in Annabelle’s room. The woman in the photograph looked a lot like Annabelle. But—and I didn’t tell Garitty this, because I figure he can use his own eyes—the woman in the picture also looked a lot like Frieda.”

“My God,” Kelly exclaimed. “You mean Annabelle was really Frieda’s granddaughter.”

“That’s my guess. I think something happened with Frieda’s real daughter in 1957, when Frieda took a week off from her column and came back with Annabelle. It would help if we could find Frieda’s daughter, but I have a bad feeling about that.”

“Then where do we go from here?” Kelly asked, expression intent.

Brady dropped his gaze. “I have one or two things I’d like to check out,” he said.

“Well, we could split them up, or I can go with you.”

He tried to smile, failed, and shook his head instead.

“I really need you back here. Somebody has to run the paper. And you know how to do it, from what I saw earlier.”

Uncertainty passed through her face. “You’re patronizing me, Brady. I can tell.”

He shook his head. “No, I’m not, believe me. I wouldn’t dare.”

“Then what about our deal? This way you get the story. That’s not fair. I mean, just because last night we …”

He went over to where she sat and put a hand on either side of her face. “Seems to me that last night proved we work pretty well together.”

“Then why are you holding out on me?”

He sighed inwardly. Damned if he was going to tell her about Emmett. “Look, Kelly, you’ll just have to let me do this my way, okay?”

“Sure,” she said bitterly. “Where have I heard that before? First from my father and then from …” Her fists clenched and she jumped up from the chair, tears streaking her face. “Oh, hell. Do it any way you want. I should’ve known; big-time reporter, big ego. Well, you can’t stop me from working on my own. Or from sending it to the Town Talk or even the damned Picayune. And to think I was …!” She stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

Brady stared down at the floor, his emotions churning his guts like a cement mixer. He wanted to run after her, grab her, explain, but then he would have to tell her about Emmett. And if it wasn’t Emmett, there would always be that between them. The trouble was, he told himself as he went over and placed the CLOSED sign on the door, if it was Emmett, there’d be no way around that, either.

He drove across town, stopping at the house with the brick pillars. He held the facts in his hands, at least enough to fill in over half of the puzzle. But it was interpreting the facts that was the problem. And there was only one person he could think of that might be able—and willing—to help. But he had to find that person first.

He got out and went up to the door, but he had just raised his fist to knock when it opened, and he was staring into the surprised face of Dr. Miles Sanborn.

“Mr.… Brady, isn’t it?” He stuck out his right hand and gave the newsman the firm grip Brady had expected. “Are you here to see Addie?”

“I hope she’s not ill,” Brady said.

Doc shook his head and gave a quiet little chuckle. “Addie? Naw. I just stop by every few days and check on her medications. She’s nervous, you know.”

Brady searched the doctor’s face for an explanation, but none was forthcoming.

“Actually,” Doc confided, leaning over toward the publisher, “a little visit’ll do her some good. Half of her problem’s just loneliness, ever since Abner died.” He touched Brady’s shoulder. “Got to go now.”

Brady nodded, then turned before the doctor could get off the porch. “Terrible thing about Annabelle MacBride, wasn’t it?”

Doc stopped quickly, then nodded, his shoulders slumping a little. “Terrible,” he said. “She was an unhappy girl, but, my God …” He shook his head. “The hell of it is the coroner’s out of town. Sheriff called me half an hour ago and asked me to do the autopsy.” He leaned against one of the pillars, as if all his strength had been sapped out of him by the very thought.

“You know, I’ve lived in this town for thirty-five years. There was a time when I knew every man, woman, and child in Troy. I delivered ’em, treated their illnesses, dressed their gunshot wounds, cured their snake bites, and did my share of marriage counseling and general psychiatry.” He shook his head again. “There’s something evil here, Mr. Brady. Something that needs to be expunged.” He straightened suddenly, one foot on the first step and stuck his golfing cap down onto his bald head. “Mr. Brady, you’re an outsider, but sometimes an outsider can see more clearly than anybody else. If you find out what this is all about …”

“It will be published, I promise,” Brady assured him, thinking no matter who it hurts. That’s the system isn’t it? The merciless, damned system.

He turned from the doctor to find Addie Forbes staring out at him from the doorway, a hand clutching the top of her dress.

“Yes?” She took a step backward, the shadows grabbing half of her face.

“Miss Addie, could I talk to you for a minute?”

Her lip trembled. “I don’t know. I … Is this about my subscription?”

“No, ma’am. It’s about something else.”

“Oh?”

“May I come in?”

She nodded. “Yes.” Her voice was quavering in a way it hadn’t been the first time he’d met her. “You’ll have to forgive me. I’m feeling weak today. Dr. Sanborn left some medicine, but I don’t know if there’s any medicine that will do any good.”

She looked away, distracted. “Wena’s not here right now, if that’s who you want to see.”

She sat down in the big stuffed chair and he took a seat on the couch, so as not to tower over her. The smell of chicken cooking, which he remembered from the last time, was gone, replaced by the scent of lavender.

“Miss Addie, you said something the other day. Something that made me curious. I thought maybe if I came back you could tell me more.”

“Me? I said something? I can’t imagine what.”

He took a deep breath. “It was about the minister, Dr. Goynes. I think you said he’d have understood your missing church.”

“Oh, that.” She gave a fleeting smile. “I didn’t mean that as a criticism of Brother Sims. He’s a fine man, I’m sure, and a good Christian. I just meant he wasn’t Dr. Goynes. Dr. Goynes was such a fine man.”

“Then why did he leave?”

The old woman pursed her lips. “It was a wicked, spiteful business, that’s what it was. They called themselves Christians, and what they did to that poor man was something you’d expect of heathens.”

“What did they do, Miss Addie?”

Her eyes narrowed in anger. “Why, they made his life miserable and they ran him out of town. The stories they circulated. Scandal, that’s all it was, and the poor man unable to defend himself. They said it was him and that young woman, the church secretary, though there was not one shred of evidence, not one iota of proof, but that didn’t stop them. They hounded him until it just wasn’t worthwhile for him to stay anymore. Telephone calls in the middle of the night. ‘Did you hear about the preacher and his secretary?’ And when you’d ask who it was, they’d always hang up. But I knew. They could put a handkerchief over their mouth if they wanted, but I knew who it was.”

“Who was it?”

She waited a second, both of them knowing what she was going to say, but knowing, also, that she would have to say the name aloud.

“Well, it was Frieda Troy MacBride, of course.”

There was silence as the tension mounted, and finally she spoke again, as he’d known she would:

“She was a vicious, spiteful woman. She may be dead, but I won’t be a hypocrite. I won’t pretend to something I don’t feel. Poor Wena, she tries to be so Christian, sending flowers after the things that woman did to her. She couldn’t be happy unless she was making somebody else unhappy. All because she was a Troy. The Troys were like that, you know. Born with silver spoons, but I know better. Wasn’t the judge just a political flunky for Huey Long and that gang? That’s how they got their money, through graft and corruption. But Frieda always ignored that. Just like she ignored her marriage that didn’t last but a few months.”

Suddenly her hand flew up to her throat again and her lip trembled. “I … I’ve said too much. I don’t know how it must sound. I’m not a vengeful old woman, Mr. Brady. I let myself get carried away. I suppose I’ve just lived too long.”

Brady looked at his shoes and then back up at the old lady. “Miss Addie, what did Frieda have to gain by making Dr. Goynes leave town?”

Miss Addie shook her head. “I don’t know.” It was clear that she felt she’d said too much, and he knew he would have to come to the point of his visit.

“But you were close to Goynes, is that right? You hated to see him go.”

“Yes. He was a wonderful, an understanding man. He used to come by here in the evenings on Wednesday, after prayer meeting, just to check on me. He cared, you see.”

“Do you know, has he found another church?”

“Oh, yes. A good man like that, we were lucky to ever have him here to begin with. He writes me, you know. I got a letter from him just last week.”

She rose stiffly and went to a maple desk on one side of the room, and Brady watched her open the drawer and remove a piece of paper.

“Right here,” she said, shuffling toward him. “You see? He doesn’t forget.” She held out the envelope and Brady took it. It was a letter-sized envelope, plain white, with the address neatly written in black ink. The return address was on a printed label, stuck in the left-hand corner, and it was this that Brady memorized before handing the envelope back.

“You see?” Miss Addie said, clutching her letter. “He was too good for us here.”

Brady smiled and rose, leaving the sad old woman to her misery. It was a long way to go, but he had no choice. He would have to go to Bayou Lanier to see the Reverend Conway Goynes.