“Give me those,” Bailey snapped, then snatched them out of his hands. “Don’t you know that a canner’s recipes are secret?” she said as she looked down. “Oh, my goodness. Two teaspoonsful of lemon juice. Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?”
“If they’re secret, then maybe we should respect the dead and burn them?”
Bailey opened her mouth to say something; then she smiled. “Sure. Who needs more Brandy Peach Conserve in the world?” She held out the cards toward him. “ You burn them.”
“I hate women,” he said, smiling, as he removed the envelope from the bottom of the box.
Matt and Bailey looked at each other, and a feeling—this is it—passed between them. Matt held out the envelope toward Bailey, but she shook her head, so he moved the two chairs close together, and with their shoulders touching, they opened the envelope.
In it were two photographs. The first one was a copy of the same photo that Matt had found. Atlanta and Ray were teenagers, standing in front of the mulberry tree where Matt and Bailey were now sitting, and looking into the camera with sullen hostility. On the back of the photo was penciled, “Eva and Ralph Turnbull, 1966.”
The next photo was a studio portrait of the man who had hanged himself and an older woman, who didn’t look very happy. She wasn’t pretty, and the turn-down of her mouth added to her overall picture of misery. But the man looked sublimely happy. His light colored eyes—the photo was black and white—had a faraway look to them anyway, but in this picture, they looked rapturous.
Both the man and the woman had on suits, both of them with flowers in their lapels.
“Wedding,” Bailey said. “This is a wedding photo, and she did not want to be married to him.”
Matt turned the picture over. On the back, written in what looked to be a child’s block lettering, was, “Hilda Turnbull and Gus Venters. Married May 12, 1966.”
“It looks like the two kids weren’t his,” Bailey said.
“Or three kids. How does Manville fit into this?”
“You don’t think that this woman was once married to Frank McCallum, do you? Didn’t I read that Frank left Calburn right after graduation, but returned a few years later with a young son?”
“Yeah,” Matt said.
“What if Frank went away, married this woman Hilda Turnbull, had three kids right away, then divorced her? But what if she said she didn’t want the youngest child, the one with the cleft lip?”
“So Frank returned here to Calburn with his youngest son; then, years later, this Hilda showed up with the other two kids?” Matt looked at her with admiration. “Not bad sleuthing. For a girl,” he added.
When Bailey threw a pillow at him, he caught it, then pulled her into his arms and began kissing her.
“Who would know?” Bailey said, her mouth on Matt’s ear.
“Know what?” His lips were running down her neck.
“Who would know more about these people? We can’t very well go back to Rodney. He went crazy when I mentioned Gus’s name.”
“Mmmm,” Matt said, his lips moving farther down her throat. “We could ask Violet when she gets back from the funeral,” he said.
“Right. Her, uh, connections to all the men in this town.”
“No,” Matt said. “We can ask her what Burgess told her.” He had unbuttoned four buttons on her blouse.
Bailey pulled
away to look at him. “Burgess? The football hero? Were he and Violet lovers?”
“I assume so, since she was married to him.”
Bailey stiffened in his arms. “Violet was married to one of the Golden Six? And no one told me about this?”
At her tone, Matt moved away with a sigh. He knew that there was going to be no more lovemaking until this was hashed out. He ran his hand over his eyes. “That’s why she came to Calburn. Burgess went to California on business back in the sixties, and he returned home with a wife. I was just a kid then, but I still remember hearing how she shocked people.”
“While she was married?!” Bailey asked, wide-eyed.
“No,” he said in disgust. “Not that way. It was the clothes she wore and the way she acted.”