A tapping noise on the wall woke Jim, and he opened his eyes to horrible wallpaper. He groaned as he turned over in the sunk-in-the-middle bed. It was daylight, but hardly sunny, so he was surprised to see it was almost 9. He didn't have to review the past hours. They came in a rush. The wheels started going around…from Mrs. Benning to Jerry and the graveyard. He wondered if any unlikely person had come upon Jerry's remains and decided not. Nobody in the joint was unlikely in his book.
Jim tapped back at Aunt Annie, pulled his way into pants and a sport shirt, and spread tepid water on his face. If he didn't have a rugged constitution he would never have gotten out of bed. There was a knock on the door.
He opened it and both Aunt Annie and Lena darted in. Aunt Annie had on pink slippers, a scarlet flowered shirt, and large, round, gold earrings. Lena was sumptuous in a flowing, unbelted garment of gold lame plus a Mexican hat saddled with purple lei wound twice around the hat, which gave a rather top-heavy appearance. Aunt Annie handed him something warmish in a paper napkin. Lena was teetering a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
Looking at Jim solemnly, Aunt Annie said:
"There are two red flags out today, Charlie!"
So here he was back in the wonderful world of idiocy. He shook his head to clear it and wished he hadn’t. Then he opened the paper napkin to discover a slightly soggy sweet roll, and took the coffee out of Lena's hand. He said, "Where is everybody?" Aunt Annie shrugged. "They seem to be having a clambake in the kitchen. You missed your breakfast with us," she reproved. Lena looked at Jim dolefully and flicked ashes on the floor.
He wondered what they'd do if he provided a full report on his activities the night before, probably head for the bar. He pulled together a smile and said, "Thanks for the sweet roll and the coffee, ladies. I'm sorry about breakfast." He wasn't half as sorry about breakfast as he was about the mess he had gotten himself into by listening to Beau Mitchell in the first place.
Lena reached over and helped herself to one of his cigarettes on the dresser, lit it from her own, and put the first delicately in the one ashtray. "What are you going to do?" she demanded, staring at Jim.
He looked through the window half-covered with ivy at a dull gray sky. At least, he thought, it wasn't raining. With the recent bash on the head, the body upstairs, and two unpredictable females waiting apparently with baited breath for his answer, he felt like saying,
"Shoot myself…what else?" but decided against it. One of them might have handed him a gun. The first thing he had to do was go back to the graveyard. So he said, "I have to run an errand. In broad daylight you two ladies will be perfectly safe. When I come back we'll think about getting out of here."
Aunt Annie grabbed Lena's arm and started for the door. "But the two red flags?" she said with a question in her voice.
Jim tried to make his voice patient. "Now, never you mind about the flags, girls. Take a nice long walk on the beach. I'll get back as soon as I can." He shut the door on them.
Slipping his wallet into a back pocket, he picked up his keys and went down the front stairs to find a deserted lobby. Where was the ever present Leddon? Probably he was in the kitchen with the rest of the crew. "Lucky, I guess," he mused aloud as he went out into the humid dull day and slid into his car.
Everything was calm, even the bay which looked like a bad watercolor because it almost matched the sky. There were a few cars speeding across the bridge and a couple of men pulling a skiff up to the road. They were shouting at each other and gesticulating wildly, but were too far away for him to make out what they said. Just a couple more nuts, he thought, and headed for Highway 90.
Anywhere else he had ever been the rain soaks into the ground or runs off it, at least overnight. Not here. The ditches on either side of the road were full of water. Any more and they would flood the road which was hardly dry. But he had more on his mind than that. He cursed for not checking the mileage while he was chasing Jerry the night before.
He made a couple of wrong turns before he found the road he had followed the previous evening.
The road went directly through the tall pines he had glimpsed last night and came to several man-made canals. A dilapidated sign indicated this was a subdivision, but it was minus houses with only a few tilted sticks to stake out what were supposed to be waterfront lots. The earth they had piled up to dig the canals was dead and bare. It would be a long time before lush green grass would take over these choice lots. And apparently somebody had come up with the idea of bulldozing down the trees that stood in the way of digging the canals. Cheaper, he guessed, but most unappetizing. He looked for the area where he parked the night before. He stopped when he saw it, and realized he had been parked on Harbor Drive, according to the sign which seemed to have stood up to the weather better than the subdivision sign.
As he backtracked to the spot where Duprey had turned off, another sign proclaimed the place where he had turned was Riviera Road.
He went on more slowly until he thought he was in line with the old cemetery. The road to the cemetery was Durnvie Dell road. The cemetery was off to the left. Unless you knew it was there, you would pass it up for sure.
Very depressing spot, he thought. Even for a cemetery. He got out of the car and looked up and down the road. Not a soul in sight. He walked over to the half-up, half-down fence and looked at the cemetery. What in the hell was Jerry doing out here in the middle of the night? Around the cemetery were half a dozen live oak trees which from their size dated back into the last century. Even in the daylight he could see no names on the grave markers.
Slowly he walked back to the car.
This time he had a bright thought. He wondered about the land and about the graveyard. He could find out who owned the land, if he knew where he was. He started back to Highway 90, checking the mileage to the city limits of Bay St. Louis. He knew the size of the town, having checked it when he was getting ready to get on Duprey's trail. So, it had to be big enough for a courthouse.
A green and white sign said Business District to the right of the highway. He turned down a straight stretch of asphalt and sure enough, the street sign said Main Street. Main Street seemed a likely place for a courthouse. But the first few blocks didn't give much of an idea of the city. Just some more pines, until he came to a ballpark on the right side of the narrow road. This was encouraging. Houses were straggling out on both sides of the street, and he stopped before a house where a man was struggling to carry a large sheet of plywood through a gate. "Can you tell me where the courthouse is, sir?" he asked pleasantly enough. The man rested one corner of the plywood on the ground and frowned at him.
"The flags is up!" he said belligerently. "I ain't got no time to talk, young man….courthouse that way." He waved in the direction Jim was going, picked up the plywood again, and struggled to get it through the narrow gate.
The whole town's nuts, Jim thought. "Flags is up!" Aunt Annie had her mind on flags, too.
But at least he learned the direction of the courthouse…someplace between where he was and the direction he was headed. That was a help. And it wasn't too hard to find when he had gone half a dozen blocks. It looked strictly like any other courthouse in any other small town anywhere, except for embellishment of southern culture. Six white tall pillars, a bunch of poplar trees, and the bars of a jail in the back. Jim actually found a parking place in front of the building. The street was deserted, probably due to the excessive heat of the day.
He entered the ancient building. Across the front on the floor in ceramic tile was engraved Hancock County, Mississippi. So that was where he was! The hall was deserted except for an ageless female seated on the edge of her chair at a desk near the front door. She jumped when he asked her where he could find a map of the county and the title records. She gave him a startled look, pointed to an inner room, and continued writing on a pad with her left hand. He opened the door and found himself alone, but he didn't need much help. All courthouses were more or less alike, and a computer is a computer.
He found a map of Hancock County and looked at it with interest. Judging from his mileage check he was looking for Section Eight, Township Four South, and Range Sixteen West. He typed in the required data and pushed the enter key. The computer screen was instantly filled with data from top to bottom. The most recent entries were at the bottom of the page, and the last Grantor listed was a certain Landis Dupree. The Grantee was Edith Dupree. As he checked back to the beginning of the file, he noticed the records went only as far back as 1861, the start of the Civil War. The original Grantor was difficult to read, but the original Grantee was Jeanne Dupree, apparently a blood relative of Landis Dupree who came along much later. The cemetery and 60 acres surrounding it, belonged to Edith Dupree, whoever she was.
Two and two were beginning to come up to four. Jerry's name was Duprey, and Jim was willing to bet all the cotton in Mississippi there was a connection. Spell it Dupree or Duprey, pronounce it any old way, Jerry was definitely in the act.
He closed the file on the computer screen, and on his way out wondered who the original Grantor had been, why the land was sold to Jeanne Dupree, and why it was later transferred to Edith Dupree. Maybe Jeanne Dupree was a friend of the original owner. But what was the connection between Edith Dupree and Mrs. Benning? He hated to express his ignorance, but he had been raised in Chicago, and his high school history class didn't cover the Civil War, at least not from the southern viewpoint. He decided he had better find a library if Bay St. Louis had one, then he could return to the Grand Manor with his mind at peace. Well, almost at peace, except for all the crazy things happening.
The ageless female frowned in his direction.
"Library, of course we have a library, if it's open. One block down on the left, then first right. There's a BIG sign in front." The implication was not overlooked as he left.
Apparently she didn't like his accent, didn't like men, or just didn't like anything or anyone.
An old house with a huge LIBRARY sign in front popped up just where it should have. A few books were in the bay window at his left, and inside he could see a shaded light spilling 60 watts onto some beautiful chestnut hair.
The door jingled as he entered, and a woman rose to meet him. The sign on her desk said Mrs. Wharton, which switched off his mind. He didn’t go for married dames.
A wad of hair done up neatly on top of her head was complimented by dark blue eyes and an uncompromising mouth. She said, "Yes?" and looked at him as if he were interfering with her nonexistent work schedule. The emptiness of her desk said so. However, he could see a paperback novel stuck in the half open top drawer, so maybe he was interfering.
He went into his charm school act, giving her a most amiable smile.
"I am," he announced modestly, "an author. I am looking for background material on Hancock County, legendary stuff, something which might appeal to everyone. This is to be a historical novel," he added hastily.
She looked at him coldly. "Precisely what legend are you looking up in what era?"
Oh boy! She'd been reading up on how to be a librarian! Or maybe she hadn't been in the business long. He started over. "You have a Mississippi history shelf?" he asked, looking about the neatly tagged rows of books.
She moved regally to a shelf nearest the door.
Her demeanor indicated she didn't think much of his profession as an author. "Here are the books on southern history, going back as far as the Civil War." Apparently she too had caught the Yankee accent, and from the tone in her voice she thought he must have caused the Civil War personally. "And general information which may help you," she added.
Her voice intimated she didn't think there was anything that could help him. But she stared at him curiously. Jim didn't think he was such an oddity. Then she insisted, "Can I help you find any particular thing?" Sure, he thought. Why don't you give me the pitch on that abandoned graveyard in Section Eight, Township Four South, and Range Sixteen West, if you know it's there, and I bet you don't. Then she said in a compromising soft voice: "The legends about this county have been over-exploited for years Mr…?"
"Smith", he said hastily, knowing she didn't believe him, and feeling like a heel for interrupting her paperback reading in the first place. He sounded properly apologetic, but turned his head so he could read the title of her book in the drawer. He wanted to laugh.
Shame on you, Mrs. Wharton, he said to himself and found her blushing when she caught his look at the title. She slammed the drawer. Jim grinned at her.
"Very well, Mr. Smith," she dismissed him.
"Let me know if I can be of any assistance to you." She abandoned the paperback and drew a sheaf of papers from the files, looking very professional.
So here he was with a couple of dozen books on southern and Civil War history and almost no place to start. He decided to start at the beginning by searching the indices at the back.
He was suddenly interrupted by Mrs. Wharton standing over him with her hands on her hips.
She smelled nice, and she had a certain look not given to married females.
"Do you want a card?" she asked. "A library card," she explained when he looked blank.
He thought about it and nodded. She pulled a card from her pocket and put it down on the table. "What is your first name, Mr. Smith, and where are you staying?"
Perhaps he was wrong about his first appraisal. All he could see now were fantastically long eyelashes. He might as well go along with Charlie. He gave her that and the Grand Manor and she said: "As an author, how do you feel about Artrand Bran's hitting the best seller list with his Never the Day? Her eyes widened in question. Jim had never heard of Artrand whats his name or his book, but he decided to be obliging. "Now there's a BOOK!" he exclaimed. His reply stemmed back to when he was obliged to look at somebody's baby and having not the least idea whether it was male or female, he decided the safest thing to say was, "Now there's a BABY!"
Mrs. Wharton nodded, apparently unable to match his remark. The telephone rang loudly.
She picked it up and announced importantly,
"Bay St. Louis Library, Mrs. Wharton." Then her voice changed. She sounded quite rattled.
"Yes. YES! I'll close up now. I didn't have any idea, Mayor Boggs. Thank you."
She started locking drawers, looking flustered but suddenly prettier and more human. "Mr.
Smith," she said, "the FLAGS are up!" She slammed the middle door shut, and added, "I have to close!"
More flags! "What do you mean the flags are up? Everybody's got flags on their mind.
What's with all the flags?"
Her eyes got wide. "It's Bertha!" she gasped.
"That's what it is!"
"Bertha?" Jim repeated. Here we go again.
"Who is Bertha?"
She looked at him with exasperation. "Bertha is a Category 3 hurricane!" Mrs. Wharton replied. "She's headed right at us! The flags are hurricane flags!"