Disappearance at Hangman's Bluff (10 page)

“How could people do that to children?” she asked in a soft voice that carried more accusation than a shout.

The question for me was: How could my ancestors have done that to children?

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. My shame felt so heavy that I was surprised I didn't sink right into the floor. I had no more answers than Bee did, because I also wondered how my great-great-great-great-whatever-grandparents had come all the way to America to escape people picking on them for their religion, yet at the same time they made other people into slaves. How did that make sense? I couldn't answer, but I knew those same genes had been passed on down to me. Was it possible that I could have done the same things they had? I didn't think so, but how could I ever be sure?

 

Afterward we walked back around the corner to Daddy's office. I looked at Bee as we walked and saw that she had her back straight and her chin stuck out as if she were spoiling for a fight. I assumed the person she wanted to fight with was me, and I couldn't blame her a bit.

If we had switched positions at that very moment, I think I would have hated Abbey Force and her whole family. However, Bee was also my best friend, and even though I totally understood how she felt, I didn't want to let this linger between us.

“Bee, I'm really sorry,” I said. “I know my family did bad things. It makes me angry and ashamed.”

Bee looked at me. “I know you feel that way,” she said. “I'm not angry at you.”

“What can I do to make things better?”

Bee was quiet for a moment. “Let's write the paper together. You write about your ancestors, and I'll write about mine.”

“But we don't know which of those people were your ancestors, do we? We don't really know much about them at all, right?”

“That's the point. They're anonymous, like horses or mules. I want to write about that. It's important.”

“That's not really the assignment, is it?”

“I don't care if the teacher gives me an F.”

I nodded. “I don't care, either.” If the teacher really gave Bee an F, it would probably be the first one she'd ever gotten in her life. Not so in my case, but that didn't really matter. Bee's idea was a good one.

When we walked back into Daddy's office, the reception desk was empty, and we took the long way around the corridor so that on the way to Daddy's office I could peek inside Custis Pettigrew's office. Custis was Daddy's partner and one of his best friends. He was also a friend of mine.

I stuck my head into the open door. Custis's blue eyes were staring hard at his computer screen, and he was typing away on his keyboard. A lock of his black hair had fallen down over his forehead.

“Hey,” I said.

He glanced up, and his face broke into a warm smile. “Hey, yourself. You guys here to see me?”

“I wish,” I said with a laugh. I always felt better when I saw Custis. “It's Cotillion night, and I'm being punished. We're here to take showers and put on our stupid dresses.”

Custis sat up straight and raised his eyebrows. “Do you feel as strongly as Abbey?” he said to Bee.

She shrugged. “I kind of like dancing.”

I glanced at Bee. She already wore a bra. I didn't. She looked good in one of those flouncy dresses. I looked like somebody stuck a boy with moppy hair in an upside-down Dixie cup.

Custis stood up from his desk. He was tall and lean and towered over me, but one of the things that made us such good friends was that he never talked down to me in that way that so many adults tend to do with kids. He walked over and put his hand on my shoulder. “Sorry to hear you hate it so much. Is it dancing or boys?”

“Both.”

“I'm guessing that will change, but maybe it won't. Should we go appeal to the barrister to cut you a little slack?”

The barrister was Daddy. “I would love it, but it's not going to do any good,” I said.

As all three of us started toward Daddy's office, Custis glanced at me. “Understand you and Bee made a pretty ugly discovery the other day.”

I nodded, and the picture flashed in my head again of the dead man lying on the stretcher, his skin white and pasty and raw from where the flies had been eating. I gave an involuntary shiver. “It was pretty gross.”

We got to Daddy's office, but he was on the phone, so we stood outside until he finished.

Custis glanced at me again. “You're not looking for Judge Gator's dog anymore, right?”

I shook my head. “You probably know that's why I'm going to Cotillion,” I said.

“Just be careful,” he said. “Leadenwah is normally about the most peaceful place there is, but there's somebody very dangerous running around.”

“Bee and I are both grounded.”

“Right,” he said, like he wasn't buying it. “I also understand you ran into the LaBelles.”

“Boy, you sure are keeping tabs on me.”

Custis smiled. “I keep tabs on all the pretty girls in this town.”

I could feel my cheeks start to burn. “Speaking of keeping tabs, do you know if Mr. LaBelle is maybe trying to build something out at Hangman's Bluff?”

“I don't think it would be David LaBelle. As far as I know, he's been trying to sell the property. From what I heard, he pretty much went broke after your dad blocked his condo project.”

“Donna LaBelle says Daddy ruined her family.”

“Not true, your dad just made sure the zoning laws and environmental laws were enforced. It's not his fault that Mr. LaBelle tried to ignore them.”

“Donna says they're going to be rich again.”

Custis shook his head. “You seem to know more about the LaBelles than I do, but I don't know where'd they'd get the money. Anyway,” he said, changing the subject and nodding at my tennis clothes and Bee's soccer uniform, “did y'all win?”

“Yessir,” Bee said.

It was my turn to smile. “Duuhhh. And I beat Donna LaBelle in a doubles match.”

“And now you two are about to transform yourselves into visions of loveliness for Cotillion.”

I turned at the sound of Daddy's voice to see that he was off the phone and standing in his office holding up a plastic garment bag with two long dresses inside. He also had a menu from a nearby Thai restaurant. My expression shifted to a scowl.

“Do I really have to go?” I asked. “That dress probably doesn't even fit. Isn't there some better way to punish me?” Given a choice, I would rather have gotten branded like a steer than go to Cotillion, the annual Charleston dance for “Young Ladies and Gentlemen.” “I played two matches this afternoon. I'm tired. I just want to go home.”

Custis raised his eyebrows. “Surely you're not going to spoil your father's attempt to make you into a lady?”

“I thought you were on my side.” I made a choking sound. “I
hate
dancing. And I
hate
boys.”

Probably if I ever met a boy my age who was like Custis, I might not feel that way, but boys my age were stupid. They smelled bad, and they thought their burps and farts were the funniest things in the world. My pony was smarter than almost all the boys I had ever met.

“We discussed this last night. You no longer have a choice in this, and you're not going to weasel out of Cotillion this year,” Daddy said. He waved the menu. “Tell me what you want to order, and I'll go pick it up while you girls shower.”

Daddy was the head partner of his firm, which meant that he had his own bathroom with a shower. Unfortunately it also meant that Bee and I could get cleaned up and dressed there and make it to Cotillion, which we would never have been able to do if we had to go all the way out to Reward after my tennis match.

Twenty minutes later, with our hair dry and combed, Bee and I walked into Daddy's conference room in our long dresses. Daddy had already picked up the food, and he and Custis both clapped when they saw us, and Custis whistled. It made my face get all red again.

“Haven't you ever seen anybody in a dress before?” I snapped, even though I wasn't as annoyed as I pretended to be. To my amazement, the dress Daddy had bought for me fit perfectly, and it might even have been one I would have picked out myself.

“Hardly anyone as lovely as you two,” Custis said.

I grabbed the bag of food and pulled out my curry and satay and kept my head down as I ate. I absolutely
hated
the way Custis could make me blush at the drop of a hat. It made me want to slug him. Someday I was going to do just that.

 

A half hour later I was standing beside Bee in a line of other girls inside South Carolina Hall. Just like every other girl there, I was wearing my long dress and my ridiculous white gloves, and in the short time we'd been there, things had gone from bad to worse.

Hearing some too loud laughter, I had looked over to find Donna LaBelle in a dress that looked like it must have cost five times more than Bee's and mine put together. Donna had been laughing ever so gaily as she talked to several boys, as if something one of them had said was the funniest thing she had
ever
heard. When she realized I was looking her way, she whispered something to the boys and they both glanced at me and sniggered. I was starting to head over to pay Donna back for her tennis body shots when the lady who ran the Cotillion made us stop whatever we were doing and line up for another dance.

A minute later all the girls were in a long row, waiting for the boys who were lined up across the room to come over and ask us to dance. It wasn't a choice thing. There were even numbers of boys and girls, and the boys were supposed to walk straight across and dance with whoever was in front of them. I counted down to see which boy matched my place in the line.

Unfortunately it was Arnie Snowdon. As I watched him he slipped a finger into one nostril, rummaged all around, pulled it out, and squinted at whatever he'd discovered.

“Oh, God,” I muttered under my breath.

“What?” Bee whispered.

“Arnie Snowdon is going to be my partner, and he's digging for treasure in his nose.”

Bee made a soft choking sound. “He find any?”

“'Fraid so.”

I watched Arnie as he flicked something on the floor and wiped the finger on his pants then started across the room with the rest of the boys. Was it any wonder why I couldn't stand boys when they did things like that and didn't wash their hands? For once I was actually glad for my stupid white gloves.

The look on Arnie's face told me he wasn't any happier about dancing with me than I was with him. The music started, and I put my hand on his shoulder. His face was full of red zits, which he probably couldn't help, but his hair had a greasy shine and smelled like he hadn't washed it in about three weeks. I was trying to decide how to tell Arnie about the fantastic uses of something called shampoo when he started talking.

“You go to Miss Walker's, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Didn't Donna LaBelle used to go there?”

“Yes,” I said. “Why?” Hearing Donna's name creeped me out. After the flat tire and the tennis match, she was suddenly like a bad itch that I couldn't get rid of.

Arnie shrugged. “She was outside when I first got here, and I'm just telling you she said a bunch of really nasty stuff about you. It was, like, all she could talk about.”

“We've had several unpleasant encounters in the past few days,” I told him. The second I spoke I realized how idiotic I sounded, like I was trying to be some kind of phony Southern Lady. It made me mad, and I wondered if Donna was the reason I wasn't even able to talk like myself.

“What happened?” Arnie asked.

“Donna and her mother were rude jerks when my friend and I tried to help them with a flat tire. I called them on it.”

Arnie pulled away, blinked at me, then laughed in surprise. “Donna said you dissed her mom real bad. Isn't she supposed to be, like, the original Ice Queen?”

“She deserved it.”

To my surprise Arnie laughed a second time. “I bet her mom
did
deserve it,” he said. “If it makes you feel any better, Donna always treats me like dirt.”

Maybe if you didn't pick your nose and wipe it on your pants,
I wanted to tell him, but I didn't. I actually found myself liking him a little.

“Anyway,” Arnie went on, “Donna says your father, like, ruined things for her whole family, but that they're rich again, and they're going to get back at you.”

“Don't believe everything Donna says.”

As the dance came to an end I stepped back from Arnie and gave him a nice smile. “Thank you,” I told him. “And if Donna treats you like dirt, that's her problem, not yours. You're a nice person.”

As I walked toward the rest of the girls I glanced back. Arnie was looking at me, and for some reason his face had turned as red as a boiled lobster.

Ten

O
n Saturday morning I woke
up in the dark an hour before my alarm, but thinking I could use the time to get the barn closed up the way Daddy wanted, I got out of bed, pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, then crept down to the kitchen. While Rufus smacked his tail against the wall hoping for an early breakfast, I turned on the television but kept the volume low and listened to the weather forecast while I ate some cereal. I didn't need sound to understand the threat of Dominique. It was still a tropical storm, but it was moving again, and now the TV weather map showed an arrow pointed straight at Leadenwah Island.

Everybody knows hurricanes are scary, but people who live on coastal islands
really
understand. Just your basic tropical storm can mean winds as high as seventy-four miles an hour. When that happens things like lawn chairs and branches start flying around, going as fast as cars on a highway. If they hit you, they can knock you out or worse. When you sit out a tropical storm or a category-one hurricane, which Daddy and I had done a couple times, the rain comes sideways and the wind howls like something huge and dark and evil that is tearing away at your house, ripping off shingles, trying to lift the whole roof, driving water into places where you never had leaks before. If a person wasn't scared when they heard that sound, they didn't have a brain. If a hurricane was going to be more powerful than category one,
everybody
went inland to higher ground and safety.

I knew that Dominique might turn out to be nothing, but the fact that it was sitting right to our east meant it could also get to be a
big something
and then come ashore very quickly. That was why it made sense to take all the precautions and get the horses and ponies off the property and headed west.

I turned off the television, and Rufus and I went out into the yard and headed toward the main plantation drive. The air was humid and only slightly cooled from the day before. The leaves of the live oaks and the Spanish moss hung dead in the unnatural stillness. The birds were quiet, which meant a lot of them had already flown inland, because animals know about storms. I saw stars in the west, but in the east the coming dawn was nothing but the barest smudge of light behind heavy banks of dark clouds.

Rufus didn't seem to care about the storm. He gave a couple of happy barks then chased three wild turkeys out of the soybean field. The turkeys did what they always do and disappeared like magic. One second I could see them, and the next second they were nearly invisible. I couldn't help but wonder what they would do in the storm and how they would survive.

Thinking about the turkeys made me wonder about Yemassee and where she was, whether she had decent shelter, whether her puppies had been born yet. I started to imagine her curled up someplace with a litter of baby Boykin spaniels huddled around her while waters rose and a hurricane lashed and tore at the world. I kept seeing all those horrible images in my head playing over and over.

Bee and I had checked out almost every inch of Leadenwah, but there was one place left where we hadn't looked. The odds were probably lousy, but if I could get most of my work done before sunrise, I might have time to sneak away, take one more look for Yemassee, and still get back in time to help Daddy put the horses and ponies on the trailer. I was already grounded, but when I thought about Yemassee and her puppies trapped in a terrible storm, there wasn't any amount of extra punishment that was going to keep me from looking one last time.

I went into the barn and flicked on the lights, then went around the outside locking down the covers on the stall windows.

When I finished and walked back into the barn, Bee was in the tack room moving all the saddles and bridles to the highest pegs in case we had flooding. “I couldn't sleep,” she said. “I woke up thinking about Yemassee.”

“Me too.”

We worked hard and fast, mucked out the stalls, got everything we could off the floor, and brought in every loose item from outside, like hoses, tools, and wheelbarrows. When we finished, the sun was just barely rising, and even then because of the heavy clouds in the east it looked like twilight.

“You know,” I said, saying what had been on my mind the whole time, “I think we have time for a quick ride to the other side of the island. We could take one more look.”

“We're grounded. Besides, I need to help Grandma Em.”

“We'll be back before they even have their coffee. They'll never even know we left,” I countered.

“Abbey—”

“If the storm gets bad, what happens to Yemassee? What if she's had her puppies? What's going to happen to Judge Gator if they all die? He'll be crushed.”

Bee let out a frustrated sigh. “This is crazy, and you know it.”

I knew she wanted to go as badly as I did. She just needed another push. “It's not crazy. The reason we have to go is that I have
hunches
about all this stuff. Okay? That's what happens when you're a detective, you get hunches.”

Bee shook her head. “What hunches?”

“Okay, Mr. LaBelle tried to sneak around the law once already. Donna's been telling people he's going to make a lot of money on something, so I've got a
hunch
that she's talking about Hangman's Bluff. We've seen all the dirt trucks, and then the mean guard threw us out of there, so that gives me another hunch. Also we know there are strangers at Hangman's Bluff, and strangers stole Yemassee.
And,
” I said, holding up a finger, “all that other weird stuff with Willie Smalls and the two robberies is like . . . like salt and pepper on the meat.”

Bee rolled her eyes at the last part, but she said, “You really think Yemassee could be there?”

“I don't know, but think about how you're going to feel when that storm comes in. You're going to be thinking about Yemassee and her puppies, and you're going to be feeling really guilty that we didn't try.”

 

We saddled our ponies and rode out the drive, and we were just trotting down the dirt road toward the paved county road when we spotted Mrs. Middleton out in her yard. She was still living in her old trailer while her new house on Felony Bay was being fixed up. She was leaning on her walker and looking up at the eastern sky with a scowl.

“Morning, Mrs. Middleton,” we both said.

She looked at us and screwed up her face. “Now what in blazes are y'all doin' out here on your ponies?” she demanded. “Don't y'all know there's a storm comin'?” She looked back and forth between us, and her eyes narrowed. “Your daddy and your grandma know you're out here ridin' around?”

“We already packed up the barn,” Bee said. “And we have someplace we need to go. It won't take us very long, and I just checked the weather forecast. They say it's still stalled offshore.”

Mrs. Middleton held up her arm. “And these old bones say they wrong. They say it's coming fast and getting worse.” Her brow wrinkled, and she looked back and forth between us. “And by the way,
where
do y'all
need
to go?”

I shook my head. “No place really.”

“Y'all still looking for that dog?”

I shot Bee a sideways glance to warn her not to say any more.

“I asked you
where
y'all going.”

Mrs. Middleton is a little tiny lady and she's old, but when she got that tone, we didn't have any choice. “Hangman's Bluff.”

Mrs. Middleton picked up her walker and slapped it down for emphasis. “Y'all stay away from that place!”

She said it like she knew something. Bee and I shared a look. “Why?” Bee asked.

“There's spirits over there, and I think they likely be riled up with all the bad things that's been happening around here. And now with this storm coming, they be even more upset.”

“You're kidding, right?” I asked, but Mrs. Middleton didn't look a bit like she was kidding.

“What spirits?” Bee asked.

“From the gallows, child,” Mrs. Middleton said. “They used to hang people there.” Then she turned her eyes on me. “You don't think there are spirits, girl, you go there sometime—not today, but sometime—and just listen. You tell me what you hear.”

“You think people are doing bad things over at Hangman's Bluff?” Bee asked.

Mrs. Middleton shook her head. “I wouldn't know 'bout what's happening there now. They got it all chained off so you can't go in, but probably both of us got people who were hanged there.” She nodded. “But what I do know is you girls need to get home. Right now. Don't make me call your daddy and grandma.”

On a small place like Leadenwah Island, every old woman acts like your own grandmother some of the time. “Yes, ma'am,” we both said.

Mrs. Middleton turned away and started to hobble back toward her house, but then she stopped and looked toward us again. “I know how bad you girls want to find the judge's dog, but y'all stay off that Hangman's Bluff land, hear? I'm not kidding about things not being right over there. Y'all know that some bad things have been happening around here, and the spirits know that, too. They're stirred up, and they're angry. I can feel it.”