Chapter 43
Beatrice awakened with a book spread over her chest. Oh, bother, she had fallen asleep with Leaves of Grass again. The phone rang—and she let it ring. Whoever it was would surely leave a message if it was important.
She felt the hard edges of the book and reached for her glasses. She vaguely remembered taking them off at some point. She sat up a bit on her pillow. Where had she left off?
Just then the phone began to ring again. She sat up all the way. “Damn,” she said, reaching for her bedside phone, then seeing Vera’s number on the display.
“What?” she said into the phone.
“That’s no way to answer the phone,” Annie said.
“What’s going on? Why can’t people just leave me alone?”
“Have you had your coffee yet?” Annie said, ignoring her question.
“No, I’m just getting up.”
“There’s plenty here, at Vera’s. She has Sarah’s baby.”
“What?” Beatrice’s heart leaped, and she hung up the phone. Hmm. Where was that blue sweater? And where were her sneakers? She desperately wanted to see that child.
When she finally arrived on the scene, Beatrice smelled the undeniable scent of buckwheat pancakes. Pungent. Delicious. She couldn’t wait to taste some. She was pleasantly met with a fresh stack of them on the table. Bill was cooking.
“Help yourself, Bea,” he said, smiling at her.
“Don’t mind if I do,” she said, grabbing a plate and heaping pancakes on it. “Now, where’s this baby?”
“Here she is, Mama,” Vera said, coming up behind her.
Elizabeth was toddling beside her and reached up for her grandmother. Beatrice placed the plate on the table and held Elizabeth. “Good morning, sweetie.” She buried her head in the mess of little girl in her arms. When Beatrice lifted her head from Elizabeth, she saw the baby looking up at her out of the cradle of Vera’s arms. She gasped. “Lawd,” she said. “I’ve never seen such blue eyes.”
“I have,” Annie said, coming up beside Vera. “On Luther.”
“Humph,” Beatrice said. “You don’t think that . . .”
“Who knows, Mama? You never know. We’ll surely find out after the DNA tests are done.”
“DNA?” Beatrice said, sitting down at the table, in front of the plate of pancakes. She spread butter over them, then looked back at the baby, who had an unnervingly mature look to her and seemed to like watching Beatrice.
Annie nodded. “Yes, they’re testing so they can find out the parentage of this baby.”
“You know, I had the weirdest dream last night,” Vera said after a minute. “I think it was all related to that scrapbook.”
Annie’s head cocked. “You know, I did, too.”
“I always have odd dreams, and the older I get, the worse it gets,” Beatrice said. “Last night was a doozy.”
“So we all had weird dreams last night about the scrapbook?” Sheila said, looking them all over. “I dreamed a wild dream about being back in art school, and Cookie was there, talking to me about art one minute, and the next minute I was absolutely naked in a cave and being chased by a huge scrapbook. The cave was so lovely, with lush moss and sparkly rocks.”
“Sparkly rocks? Calcite?” Beatrice said, remembering that there was calcite in the caves she loved in her youth.
Bill walked back into the room just as DeeAnn and Paige were coming in the front door, loaded down with breakfast food, murmuring hellos.
“What I want to know is what any of it has to do with the murders,” Bill said while pouring a cup of coffee.
“Any of what?” Sheila said. “We’re talking about dreams.”
“I thought we were talking about this baby and DNA?” Bill said.
“Keep up,” Sheila said.
Annie said to Bill, “Maybe the father of this baby knows who killed her mother. Or worse. Maybe he’s the one who killed her.”
“But why would he kill Rebecca and then try to kill the baby? It doesn’t make any sense to me,” Bill replied.
“Murders rarely make sense,” Beatrice said. “And most criminals are not very bright, in any case. That’s why lawyers make such a damn fine living.”
He rolled his eyes.
“How is Cookie?” Beatrice asked him.
He looked away from her.
“Bill?”
“I don’t know, Bea. I’ve not seen her in a while.”
“What? You’re her lawyer!”
“Yes, but she’s refused to see me for the past several days.”
“And they are not letting anybody else in,” Annie said.
“I’m sorry, ladies,” Bill said after swallowing some coffee. “It doesn’t look good. I can’t defend her if she won’t talk to me.”
“I agree, Bill,” Sheila said after a few minutes. “Cookie is not the person we thought she was.”
“Now, hold on,” Annie said over the baby’s fussing. “Why would you say that, Sheila?”
“She doesn’t know,” Beatrice said to Sheila. “She doesn’t know about the scrapbook.”
Sheila said, “We found this scrapbook—”
“The one you were looking at last night? The one in the bag at my house?” Annie said.
“Yes. It’s beautiful. Obviously not done by a newbie,” Sheila said, crossing her arms.
“So, do you think that proves anything about Cookie being a murderer?” Annie said. “Honestly, I don’t believe you could turn on Cookie so quickly because of a stupid scrapbook.”
“Now, wait a minute. Nobody’s turned on her,” Beatrice said. “We’d all like to prove her innocence. But things don’t add up. That scrapbook is a work of art, and she claimed to know nothing about scrapbooking.”
“There could be a thousand reasons for that,” Annie said.
“Like what?” Bill said.
“Maybe she just wanted to fit in,” Annie said.
“Unlikely. She doesn’t seem to care about fitting in, walking around claiming to be a witch,” Beatrice said.
“What are you saying, Bea? Do you think she’s a likely suspect?” Bill said.
Beatrice paused and thought about it. “No, I don’t. But I’d bet my life that there’s more to her than what we know.”
“That could be said about anybody,” Sheila noted.
Beatrice thought that was an odd statement coming from the Scrapbook Queen of Cumberland Creek.
“Indeed,” Annie said. “Everybody in this room has had secrets or has one now. Cookie is human. She is entitled to a private life, just like the rest of us.”
Annie looked around the room at the other women. Sheila looked away; Beatrice looked straight at her, white eyebrows lifted; Vera looked at the baby; Paige, at the table, was looking deep into her pancakes. DeeAnn shrugged as she sipped her coffee. All of them had gathered this morning to get a look at the mysterious baby.
Sheila finally said, “Annie, I think you’re not seeing things clearly—”
“What is there to see?” Vera interrupted. “Who cares about the scrapbook? Okay. It’s odd. But we know Cookie. We know she didn’t kill anybody. That’s the important thing.”
“We don’t know her,” DeeAnn said, standing closer to Sheila. “I’m sorry. Just because she’s hung around here for about a year doesn’t mean we know her. We have no idea where she’s from or who her people are.”
Beatrice groaned. God, she hated that turn of phrase.
“Well, you know what? You could almost say the same thing about me,” Annie said, then turned and walked out of the house.
“Annie!” Vera called to her and followed her to the front porch, but as far as Beatrice could tell, Annie was gone. Beatrice turned back to her pancakes and looked back up at the baby. Annie was right about one thing. The baby had eyes just like Luther’s.