When Did We Lose Harriet? Read online

  When Did We Lose Harriet?

  Books by Patricia Sprinkle

  Nonfiction

  Children Who Do Too Little

  A Gift from God Women Home Alone

  Women Who Do Too Much

  MacLaren Yarbrough Mysteries

  When Did We Lose Harriet?

  Sheila Travis Mysteries

  Deadly Secrets on the St. Johns

  A Mystery Bred in Buckhead

  Death of a Dunwoody Matron

  Somebody’s Dead in Snellville

  Murder on Peachtree Street

  Murder in the Charleston Manner

  Murder at Markham

  When Did We Lose Harriet?

  Maclaren Yarbrough Mysteries

  Patricia Sprinkle

  Zondervan

  When Did We Lose Harriet?

  Copyright © 1997 by Patricia H. Sprinkle

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.

  ePub Edition APRIL 2010 ISBN: 978-0-310-87711-0

  Requests for information should be addressed to:

  ZondervanPublishingHouse

  Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Sprinkle, Patricia Houck.

  When did we lose Harriet? / Patricia Sprinkle.

  p. cm.—(MacLaren Yarbrough mysteries)

  ISBN: 0-310-21294-4 (pbk.)

  I. Title. II. Series. PS3569.P687W48 1997

  813’.54—dc21

  97-13722

  CIP

  * * *

  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

  For Sarah Gay Edwards for years of laughter, friendship, and counsel, and for letting Jake and Glenna share your neighborhood

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Half Title Page

  Books by Patricia Sprinkle

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Characters

  Preface

  June

  One

  Two

  July

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  About the Publisher

  Share Your Thoughts

  Characters

  Harriet Lawson, age fifteen, and her family:

  Dee Lawson Sykes, Harriet’s paternal aunt, with whom she lives

  William Sykes, Dee’s husband

  Julie Sykes, their sixteen-year-old daughter

  Nora Sykes, William’s mother

  Lou Ella Sykes, William’s grandmother

  Myrna Crawley Lawson, Harriet’s mother

  Frank Lawson, Harriet’s deceased father

  Bertha (Granny) Lawson, Harriet’s deceased paternal grandmother

  Eunice Crawley, Harriet’s maternal aunt

  MacLaren Crane Yarbrough and her family:

  Joe Riddley Yarbrough, her husband

  Jake Crane, MacLaren’s brother

  Glenna Crane, his wife

  Carter Duggins, Glenna’s cousin the police officer

  Other characters:

  Josheba Davidson, part-time employee, Rosa L. Parks Avenue Branch Library

  Morse, Josheba’s boyfriend

  Lewis Henly, director of the teen center

  Kateisha, Harriet’s friend at the teen center

  Dré, Kateisha’s brother

  Z-dog, Dré’s friend

  Ricky Dodd, friend of Harriet’s who once lived as a foster child with Harriet’s grandmother

  Beverly White, Ricky’s girlfriend

  Claire Scott and her mother, Harriet’s former neighbors

  Preface

  Montgomery, Alabama, is a charming city with big, beautiful homes and the most hospitable people in the world. Natives may wonder why this book set in Montgomery, then, doesn’t just deal with charming parts of town and leave out the rest.

  It is the nature of fiction that characters have lives of their own. Characters in this story kept wandering in from all over town, and I could not be fair to their story if I didn’t let them live where they felt most at home. To those who would complain, “But Montgomery isn’t like that,” I would urge you to sample the rich diversity of your wonderful city. And if you’ll let me come back, I’ll set a murder on the Shakespeare Festival grounds with your favorite people.

  I have taken liberties with the community around Rosa L. Parks Avenue. The teen center in this book does not exist—although maybe it should. The Rosa L. Parks Branch Library does exist, and Teresa Temple and her wonderful staff gave me almost as much help as they do my detective. They also repeatedly told me no librarian could give out the address of a patron, which forced me to come up with a fictitious way around that law.

  I want to thank Judge Mildred Ann Palmer, who inspired this whole series. Special thanks to several Montgomery people who helped me with research. Sarah Gay Edwards housed me, fed me, encouraged me and acted like a “mean teacher with a red pen” to help me get the book as accurate as possible. Allison Gore, Craig Cornwell, Kimble Forrister, and the staff at Alabama Arise shared their perceptions of the city. Carol Gundlach and John “Boo” Starling talked in his hospital room about teenagers in Montgomery. The Rosa L. Parks Avenue Branch librarians let me use both their library and their books. Two nice men in Cottage Hill left their truck and reconstruction deliberations long enough to fill me in on some of the characteristics of that neighborhood. Eleanor Lucas at Capitol Book and News recommended the new Chamber of Commerce book on Montgomery just when I needed it. I hope I’ve been faithful to the help all of you so graciously gave me.

  Thanks also to Julie Martens, Gardening Editor, Southern Living Magazine, for help with plants that would be in bloom in Montgomery in July, and to Dr. Lee Hearns, Toxicology Department, Metro-Dade Medical Examiner’s office, for invaluable assistance on the forensics aspects of this mystery. I promise, Lee, not to tell everything I now know—nor to use it.

  Finally, thanks as always to Anne Strahota, Paula Rhea, my agent Dominick Abel, and my editor Dave Lambert, who all read the manuscript and made me redo it until I got it right. Thanks! I could not have done it without all of you.

  June

  One

  But little do they know that the dead

  are there, that her guests are in the

  depths of the grave. Proverbs 9:18

>   The step was steeper than Harriet expected. She stumbled, fell face forward, and caught herself just in time to plunge awkwardly off the bus into the breath-sucking heat that smothers Alabama in June.

  She glared down the long sidewalk strafed by the noonday sun, then turned back accusingly to the driver. “This the closest you can get? It’s got to be two blocks, and it’s hotter’n a stove out here!”

  “You can go on a block or two if you like,” he said with practiced patience, “but this is the stop you asked for. You won’t get any closer.”

  Outrage in every movement, she shrugged on her backpack and whirled away.

  He closed the door. When the bus roared off in a noxious cloud, she felt suddenly, inexplicably abandoned. Raising one fist to her mouth, she coughed dramatically in case the driver was watching. Harriet liked playing to an audience. Still playing, she adjusted her backpack and stomped off in the direction of Oakwood Cemetery—as instructed.

  The bus driver, Jerry Banks, caught one final glimpse of her in his side mirror. He was glad his wife Netty couldn’t see that kid. Now that their own two were grown, Netty was always bringing home strays. She would know what to do with this one—eyes as gold as a tiger’s pelt and a temper to match. She’d scrub off half the makeup and take a hairbrush to the long brown hair. While she brushed, Netty would sweet-talk the kid into losing her black nail polish and half the cheap perfume. The girl would clean up real good.

  As he pulled in to his next stop, Jerry felt a twinge of uneasiness. What did a teenager want in that old cemetery in all this heat? He couldn’t see her as a faithful daughter of the Confederacy, going up to read the historical marker and check out gravestones of early citizens or Confederate soldiers. He hoped she wasn’t making a pilgrimage to Hank Williams’s grave—old Hank was buried in the Oakwood Annex. She could have stayed on a few stops for that. In either case, she’d surely be the only person up there at high noon.

  But passengers weren’t Jerry’s responsibility once they left the bus—especially young white passengers. He knew that, and shrugged at his own foolishness. After all, the police station was right across the street from the cemetery.

  Jerry didn’t know that ivy and kudzu make an effective barrier between the Montgomery police station and Oakwood Cemetery.

  He’d guessed right about Harriet’s interest in history and Hank Williams, though. She had never heard of Hank Williams. She had no idea the old burying ground had a historical marker. And it would never occur to her to be interested in tombstones. Harriet’s concern with Oakwood Cemetery was uniquely her own.

  The black backpack hung heavily from her shoulders. A vivid bird of prey on her black T-shirt stuck damply to her front. Black jeans hugged her small flat behind. Harriet always wore black. Black sandals. Black lipstick. Black nail polish. She’d dye her hair black if Uncle William would let her. Women looked better in black. That’s what fashion magazines said. They never said how hot it was, though. She was so sweaty she felt grimy all over. She had wanted to meet later so she could go back to Aunt Dixie’s and change, but the morning caller had been insistent. “I want to see you right now. I can’t wait any longer!” The voice was a soft, muffled whisper. Harriet had read her own yearnings into it.

  Just remembering made her walk faster, hurrying toward her own particular miracle.

  Not that she quite believed it. Fifteen years of living had given Harriet a strong practical streak, and she’d never seen an honest-to-God miracle. She didn’t really expect to find one at the end of this hot street.

  “But it might be her,” she argued aloud in a fierce whisper, clenching her fists around hope. “Sometimes…in stories…”

  Stories, to Harriet, meant romance novels, where a secret caller could be the heroine’s mother coming back after thirteen years. Clasping the heroine close, she’d whisper through raining tears the reason she’d had to leave long ago without a word. Unfortunately, only in her deepest soul was Harriet the heroine of anything.

  Perspiration trickled down her back and under her arms. In her sandals, grit stuck to the balls of her feet and crept between her toes. “I’ll be filthy before I get there,” she muttered. With one hand she wiped her neck, then held her arm out critically. She’d have looked better with a tan.

  Anxious thoughts circled like buzzards. Would her mother think her pretty? “You’ve got great eyes,” she reminded herself. Did her mother have the same eyes? Harriet wished Granny Lawson had kept at least one picture.

  Mother. Harriet savored the word and regretted she hadn’t put on fresh mascara and eyeliner. She’d scarcely spent any time on her face this morning, she’d been in such a hurry to get to the bank.

  “What difference does it make?” She could hear her cousin Julie’s scorn. “You’re such a mess, nobody notices your eyes.” Julie the cheerleader, with the perfect figure, red-gold hair, and perfect tan. All Julie and her friends did on weekends was sit by pools and brag about all the boys they knew. Harriet wasn’t about to sit around with them and let them smirk at her flat chest, or ask whether she knew any boys. Her shoulders sagged, then lifted defiantly. She’d show Julie. She’d show them all!

  The cemetery gates were just ahead. Beyond them, irregular lines of white tombstones and a few tall trees marched up a high hill crowned by a grove and a small white gazebo. “At the gazebo,” the voice had said.

  She squinted against the sun, still afraid to believe. “Probably somebody just puttin’ me on,” she told herself for the umpteenth time. Anger surged. “But if it is—if they do—” She didn’t know how she would punish such betrayal, but it would be terrible.

  She felt torn between wanting to dash up that hill and wanting to turn and run. She wished it were yesterday, tomorrow, any minute but now.

  Harriet was no coward. “I can leave if I want to. I don’t have to stay.” Once she’d said it, she said it again. It became a rhythm to march to as she slogged up the narrow road, dogged purpose in every line of her body and a trace of hope in the way she lifted her head to gauge her ascent.

  The hill, however, was too steep for heroic entries. Gradually her steps slowed. Halfway up she stopped and swiped her forehead with one forearm, panting for breath and swatting pesky mosquitoes that swarmed around her head. It was so hot that Spanish moss dripped from an ancient cedar like branches melting.

  Jerry Banks was wrong again. The cemetery was not quite deserted. One person observed Harriet’s slow progress—a person who had parked behind the crest of the hill well before the appointed hour and now stood concealed by the gazebo. A cooling breeze brushed through the shady grove on the hilltop. The mosquitoes weren’t quite so thick up there, but from time to time the observer fanned away a few persistent ones and dabbed at a sweat-beaded forehead—keeping carefully out of sight.

  Not until Harriet arrived and looked warily about did the observer step out. “Hello!”

  Harriet’s eyes widened in recognition—then narrowed in suspicion. “What’re you doing here?”

  “I’m supposed to take you to her. Come on.”

  Nobody saw them walk together down the back side of the hill.

  Nobody heard the parked car start, or saw it leave.

  After that, the cemetery was truly deserted.

  Two

  Be sure of this: The wicked will not

  go unpunished, but those who are

  righteous will go free. Proverbs 11:21

  Forty miles north of Montgomery lies Lake Jordan, pronounced “jerden” by the well-informed. An hour after Harriet plodded up the road in Oakwood Cemetery, her cousin Julie sat on a dock overlooking Lake Jordan, holding her head in both hands and wishing she were dead. How could she have gotten herself into this mess? It was all Harriet’s fault. If she hadn’t acted like such a know-it-all…

  Julie’s stomach churned and her heart beat faster, faster, faster. Would she throw up first—or explode? She had never been dumber in all her sixteen years.

  She turned to Rachel Gray, he
r best friend. Rachel was crying. Julie felt worse than ever, because it had all been her idea.

  If it were done when ‘tis done, ‘twere well it was done quickly. How could she remember Shakespeare now, when she never could on tests? It was a dumb quote anyhow. How could you tell when something was done? She could see this day oozing out like a wet blot on her entire future, coming back to haunt her for the rest of her life.

  Julie laid her head down on her knees and, like Rachel, wept.

  In the little community of Chisholm—a cluster of small houses conveniently near Montgomery’s northside industrial district—Eunice Crawley and her neighbor Raye Hunter rocked lazily on Eunice’s front porch. Raye could tell Eunice was upset about something. Her plump face was flushed, and she kept breathing hard.

  “You all right?” Raye fumbled in her pocket, retrieved a sodden tissue, and blew her nose. With all the pollen in the air, her allergies were acting up something fierce.

  Eunice fanned flies that hummed a lazy duet with her rocker’s steady squeak. “I’m plumb burning up. I guess I oughta go ahead and spend the money to get that air conditioner fixed.” She swatted at a fly with her bare hand and missed, as usual. “Seems like if it isn’t one thing, it’s another. It’s hard when a woman has no family.”

  Raye knew what Eunice was hinting. She thought Raye’s second boy, Tom, ought to come look at her air conditioner for free. Eunice liked to hold on to her pennies. Raye dabbed her poor pink nose with the sodden tissue and shifted the subject. “You got a niece. Do you ever hear from Harriet? She okay about living with her other aunt?”

  Eunice shifted in her rocker and resettled herself on its sagging cane bottom. “I haven’t heard, but I can’t have her here, that’s for sure, what with me working and all these teenage gangs they keep talking about up here.”