Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_04 by Death in Paradise Page A

spots of color in the dim and dusty room.
    She followed my gaze. “Johnnie made them. Pretty, aren’t they?”
    It was easy to see the same hand carved them all. Each blocky ten-inch-tall soldier stood on a two-inch base. The soldiers flaunted cockaded hats and brass-studded coats in vivid scarlet, cerulean, or tangerine.
    Faintly, she began to hum “The March of the Toy Soldier,” her voice sweet and soft, and I knew where Johnnie had gotten his dream.
    â€œJohnnie loved toy soldiers. From the time he was a little boy.” She picked up a Revolutionary War soldier with a musket. “He never learned to read real well, but all he needed was to see a picture. He spent all his free time carving. This was the last one he made. It was for Christmas.” She held it out to me.
    I put down my coffee mug, took the carving. Gilded letters on the base read: TO MAMA. I handed the soldier back to her.
    Her smile was full of love. She put the carving down gently. “Johnnie was a good boy.” The chair squeaked as she rocked. “And I know he never hurt Miss CeeCee.” She fastened mournful, puzzled eyes on me. “Maybe it was meant, you coming here to ask about Johnnie. I been thinking. If ever I was to tell anyone, now’s the time.”
    The moment stretched between us. I wanted to grab those thin shoulders, grip them tight, shake out the truth.
    â€œPlease tell me.” I spoke as a supplicant.
    Our eyes met and held and we each knew the other had a troubled heart.
    She sighed and it was as light as the flutter of wings. “I growed up telling the truth. My pa said an honest heart was a gift to God. And I’ve grieved ever since because I lied about the night Miss CeeCee was taken. Johnnie was so scared the next week when the call come that the deputy wanted to see him and ask where he was when Miss CeeCee disappeared.Johnnie said I had to tell them he was home that Friday night, like he always was. He promised me he didn’t know what had happened to Miss CeeCee, but he was scared he’d be in big trouble if it come out what they’d done. They’d thought it was all in fun, but it was a trick. But they could never prove it, couldn’t prove anything. He swore to me he didn’t know anything that would help the police find her. And that was all he’d say—ever. But I know he didn’t do nothing bad. Not Johnnie. So I said I was here Friday night and Johnnie and me had supper and he was working on a soldier and didn’t go nowhere. And Johnnie had been working on a soldier, the parts were all out on his table. The deputy believed me because he and Johnnie went to school together and he knew Johnnie’d never hurt nobody. And Johnnie, he got out and searched till he was so tired he was ready to drop and he kept saying Miss CeeCee had to be somewhere.”
    Johnnie joined in the search. Yet, obviously he knew something of what happened on Friday evening. But if he searched, he must not have known where CeeCee Burke was. Or he searched to show he knew nothing.
    I smoothed the doily on my chair arm. “So Johnnie said ‘they’d thought it was all in fun’? They?”
    â€œYes’m, he did.” Her tone was sharp.
    Was this really what Johnnie had said? Or was this his mother’s version to lessen Johnnie’s involvement? Or had Johnnie lied to his mother?
    They ? Johnnie and who? “Did he say who he was talking about?”
    â€œNo’m. He never said.” There was the faintest inflection on the last word.
    â€œBut you know?” I kept my voice undemanding, casual.
    â€œJohnnie was working over there that day. It had to be that Mackey, that man who works for Miz Ericcson.” The bones in her face sharpened, and for an instant she had the predatory look of a bird of prey.
    That was a familiar name to me. Lester Mackey was Belle’s jack-of-all-trades. Mackey had served her and her several husbands as