Chapter Seven
I tried to sleep in the next morning, but my grandmother was up before dawn and had me up by eight.
“C’mon and get dressed, baby,” she said. We have to be at Lester’s by eleven-thirty.”
I had plenty of time, of course, but I showered and dressed anyway, just to make her happy. I had to wear slacks and a short-sleeved, button-down shirt, because we were visiting the rich cousins and having lunch with them at the Ransom Country Club.
A few minutes after eleven we got our things together and started up her car, also an old Chevrolet, to get
the air conditioning going. She couldn’t breathe without it. On the way over, I told her about Sally
Ann, and she said she remembered her from years ago, when she was just a little girl. “Her father isn’t a
bad man, as cops go,” she said. “He’s as smart as any.”
We arrived at the Macaboos’ house and parked in the wide driveway. They had his and her Rolls Royces parked in a covered car-park, and we parked next to a Thunderbird.
Francis, a black servant of about age 35, answered the kitchen door. I had known him since I was a boy and had always been very fond of him. He had a loud, high, scratchy voice and always seemed to be yelling.
“Mr. Carey!” he yelled, and threw his arms around me in a hug. “I haven’t seen you in a long time!”
“How are you, Francis?” I replied.
“Just fine, just fine. Got a boy of my own now!” I hadn’t even known he was married. My grandmother had been standing patiently next to me as we exchanged greetings.
“Miss Mary! Good to see you.”
“Don’t be giving me none of your hugs, Francis,” she told him. “I know what you’re after.”
He laughed. “That’s a good one, Miss Mary! Oh my, yes.” With that, he ducked into the kitchen and let us in. We walked through the kitchen and into a sort of den, which featured several sofas and a projection TV several feet across.
“Can I get you all a drink?” Francis bellowed, as I helped my grandmother down onto one of the sofas. I had a Dr. Pepper and she had ice water. “Mr. Macaboo said he’d be right down to see you,” Francis yelled. “Make yourselves comfortable.” He went back out the kitchen door and we sat there, sipping our drinks.
The Macaboo family was one of the wealthiest in the town of Ransom. The current patriarch, Lester Macaboo Jr., was the president of the Oak Street Bakery, where the family’s latest fortune had been made. The bakery had a brisk business in town, but the real money came from the mail order business, which shipped pecan pies all over the world. The pecans were grown in Carallo County, on farms all within a fifty-mile radius of Ransom, and the pies were cooked with a secret recipe that had been passed down from Lester Macaboo Sr., the late founder of the family fortune. The pies were shipped to nearly every country in the world, frozen, and brought millions of dollars a year into Ransom and the Macaboo coffers.
Lester Macaboo Sr., had been my grandmother’s uncle; he and my great-grandfather were brothers. He had made a killing in oil back in the early part of the century, before he made and lost a fortune or two on horses. He had bought the bakery after the war, in 1947, and had turned it into one of the early successes of the mail order industry when the process of freezing food for shipment first became available.
His son, Lester Jr., was my grandmother’s first cousin, and they had known each other well all their lives, although she was fifteen years older than he and ran in very different social circles.
My grandmother and I sat in the Macaboo den until Lester Jr. came walking in. The house was an ornate ranch house, built in a long U-shape around a beautifully-landscaped patio and swimming pool. The kitchen, den, and garage were on one end of the U; the parlor and several bedrooms comprised the middle, and the master bedroom suite was on the other end, across from the den. Sliding glass doors led out to the patio and pool from every room.
Lester Jr. wore tan golf slacks and a green knit shirt, and he came into the den with a big smile, looking at us through his gold-rimmed glasses as he approached.
“Mary! Good to see you.” He bent down to embrace my grandmother where she sat, not giving her the chance to struggle to her feet. She gave a feeble hug and he turned and shook my hand vigorously. I was standing.
“Are you ready to go?” he asked, and we replied that we were. “I’ll go over and get Momma Millie and we’ll be all set.”
Momma Millie was his mother, who was about 92 years old at the time. She was blind as a bat but wouldn’t admit it, and none of us was rude enough to attempt to deny the charade that she could see us.
I walked my grandmother out to the driveway, where Francis had the “his” Rolls-Royce waiting with the rear doors open. My grandmother leaned against the fender as Lester and I ventured across the street to Aunt Millie’s house (she was always “Aunt” to us), a ranch only slightly smaller than Lester Macaboo’s.
Her maid Bessie Lee answered the kitchen door and was only slightly less excited to see me than Francis had been. She was related to him in some way I’d never cared to explore, and she had been Aunt Millie’s devoted housekeeper and cook for as long as I could remember.
Lester came walking into the kitchen with Momma Millie on his arm. She walked slowly and looked more fragile than I recalled, but she was dressed in a bright polyester pants suit and her hair was dyed and done up in curls. She wore glasses, too, perhaps to give her the illusion of sight.
“Carey Lovett!” she cried. “Stand there and let me look at you.” I obliged. “My, how you’ve grown. You’re the spit ‘n’ image of Mary!” I thanked her and gave her a welcome hug.
“Are we ready to go?” she asked, as she took my arm and I led her out into the driveway, where Francis had pulled the Rolls. My grandmother was in back. Millie liked to be chaperoned by young men, I supposed, because she took my arm and left her son standing in the kitchen.
Millie and I got in the backseat with my grandmother, and Lester took the passenger seat. Francis drove us to the Ransom Country Club, which is located just outside of town near Bowman’s Creek, nestled among farms.
As we rode, Millie asked me about my family back home in New Jersey and slipped me a twenty-dollar bill “for fun,” as she put it. She had millions and was always giving me bills when I saw her. I thought she was quite generous.
We arrived at the country club and Francis dropped us at the door and drove off. I walked in with my grandmother, while Lester escorted Millie.
The Ransom Country Club was basically a golf course, a swimming pool, and a fancy restaurant. There were tablecloths on all the tables and the room was surrounded by huge, plate-glass windows that overlooked the pool and the greens. We sat at a table near a window, far from the door or the kitchen entrance.
“What a pretty day it is out there,” remarked Aunt Millie, her face inclined in the general direction of the window.
“Oh, cut it out, Millie,” said my grandmother, who liked to tease her. “You don’t know if it’s raining or not.”
“Why yes, I certainly do,” replied Millie in a petulant tone. “It’s a lovely, bright day and the sun is shining,” she said. “Isn’t that right, Lester?” She moved her head in his direction.
“Of course it is, Momma, of course it is,” he answered, patting her blue-veined hand. He quickly changed the subject. “Well, Carey, what have you found to do in Ransom since you arrived?”
I told him about the relatives I’d seen, then I remembered what Sally Ann had told me about Lulabelle’s brother having worked at the Oak Street Bakery, which Lester, of course, owned.
“I’ve been playing a bit of amateur detective,” I began, and his ears perked up. Just then, the waiter arrived and we placed our orders. After he was gone, I resumed my tale.
“Did you see about the young girl who was killed on North Beaton Street the other day?” I asked.
“You mean the colored girl?” he answered. “Tragic case. It’s a dangerous world out there.”
Aunt Millie hadn’t heard about the shooting, and she asked me what had happened. Lester tried to change the subject again, but she told him to be quiet and insisted I go on and tell her all I knew. When I told her about Lulabelle’s brother working at the bakery, she said she didn’t recognize the name. “What do you know about him?” she asked her son.
“Not much, Momma,” he replied. He’s one of the boys who cleans up after the day shift, but that’s about all I know.”
“I heard he disappeared not long ago and no one has heard from him,” I interjected.
“I don’t know. I don’t get too involved with the staff,” Lester replied. “You should ask Lester III. He might know something.”
I said I would, and we finished lunch without mentioning it again.
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