Well Read, Then Dead(10)
I was distracted when Judge Harcroft came in. Even though each and every morning he ate the Hammett Ham ’n Eggs over hard, I still had to wait, order pad in hand, while he pretended to decide. The day may come when he asks for the Agatha Christie Soft-Boiled Eggs over Catcher in the Rye Toast, but it won’t be in this century.
The cook was still sitting with her aunt. I pulled the judge’s order off my pad and held it out to her.
“Here you go.”
“Duty calls. You sit here and rest, Aunt Ophie. I’ll be right back.”
I followed her, wondering aloud about her conversation with Skully.
“Poor guy. He wanted to tell me Rowena seemed a little distant when they spoke. I told him to go on over to the Emporium because we straightened it all out last night. He’s on his way to see her now. Here comes Miss Augusta. I wonder where Miss Delia is. I’d love to ask her about the island Rowena mentioned.”
Augusta stopped short when she saw Aunt Ophie sitting at Emily Dickinson. I ran over to do a quick introduction before Augusta could start booming about “her table.”
“Here you go, Miss Augusta. Have a seat. You remember Bridgy’s aunt Ophelia. She’s helping us while poor Miguel is recovering from his fall.”
“Don’t look like much help, sitting around drinking sweet tea.” Augusta’s baritone filled the room. The regulars paid no attention, but the vacationers were startled and turned to glare at the great hulk who was shouting querulously. The disbelief on their faces when they realized all that noise came from diminutive Augusta was comical.
“And where is Miss Delia, this morning?”
Augusta shook her head. “Delia knows what’s expected. If we’re going out in the morning, we decide the time the night before. I drive because her eyes are good for nothing but the big-screen TV.” She emphasized with her arms spread wider than a fisherman lying about the one that got away. “We give up our bikes the year she turned seventy-three and I turned seventy-six. Knees gone. Anyway, I expect she stands on the porch. I pull up. She gets in the car. If she ain’t on the porch, I tap the horn. Count to fifty and pull away. Used to count to twenty but we move slower now. Guess she changed her mind.” She pointed to me. “You know how Delia is—flighty.”
Aunt Ophie patted Augusta’s hand. “Honey chile, I understand. I have a friend like that back in Pinetta, that’s up in Madison County, you know. Few miles south of the Georgia border. Sassy, get my friend—Augusta, is it? Lovely name—get my friend Augusta a glass of sweet tea.”
I’d never seen Augusta drink sweet tea, but when she didn’t demur, I went to the kitchen. I placed the glass in front of her, and Ophie offered the plate of mint. “Have a sprig. Adds a little zing to the tea.” On my way back to the kitchen I heard a rap on the window. I looked over and Cady Stanton was waving frantically for me to come outside. I shook my head and signaled him to come in, but he was insistent that I come out. Cady is way too gentle to insist on anything, so I wondered what could be so earth-shattering. Still, I signaled I’d be right there. I pushed the kitchen door, told Bridgy I’d be in the parking lot and hurried away without listening to her questions and objections.
Cady was pacing back and forth with his hands behind his back, and his chin buried so deep in his chest that his hunched shoulders grazed the tips of his earlobes. A gust of wind tossed his sandy hair this way and that, but he didn’t reach up to slick his hair back in place, something he normally does a hundred times a day. He stopped in front of me. His face was so unnaturally pale that his freckles stood out like freshly painted dots on a Raggedy Andy doll. He threw his shoulders back and stretched to his full six feet. His thin frame looked a tad scrawny. Absently, I wondered why I suddenly thought him scrawny, and unbidden, the biceps of Ryan’s new lieutenant flitted through my mind.