“I forgot how stubborn you can be when you get your teeth into a subject that interests you.” Angie tried to grin, and failed.

“Nice try, Mangiamele.”

“Okay,” she said. “Sure, there’s a lot we don’t know. We’ve only been working on this for a month. So what exactly is it you’re talking about?

“There are family tragedies I’m not sure Miss Zula would want you digging around in.”

Angie said, “That’s between Miss Zula and Tied to the Tracks—as you pointed out last night. So far she hasn’t refused to answer any question we’ve asked.”

“Is that so?” John said, looking more than a little agitated. “So, how much has she told you about her mother and her brother?” And, seeing her expression, he said: “That’s what I thought.”

“We haven’t really pursued the subject,” Angie said, feeling suddenly defensive and intrigued, too. “But why don’t you go ahead and tell me this big secret. Unless you don’t trust me with it.”

He shot her a disgusted look. “You know that’s not the issue.”

“Could have fooled me,” Angie said. “Look, we should leave this—”

He cut her off with a shake of the head. “Listen. The reason Anabel Spate moved to Savannah had nothing to do with Zula,” said John. “Or only indirectly. What happened was, she got on a train one summer day and without telling anybody went up to Oberlin. Abe Bragg was there, on leave, waiting for her. And they got married by a Catholic priest.”

Angie tried to make sense of the words. “Anabel Spate and Abe Bragg?”

“I don’t know the details of what happened next, except that Miss Louisa brought enough pressure to bear that the marriage was annulled within the week. The next time Abe came home on leave he married Lavinia, and then he was gone again. After that I don’t think he was back here more than three times before he was killed in action.”

“Christ,” Angie said.

“I told you, it’s explosive stuff.”

“What in the hell could his mother have said to him?”

“Your guess is probably better than mine. It must have been pretty ugly, the whole thing, but at least Abe didn’t have to stick around and face the consequences.”

“So Anabel had to handle it on her own.”

“There wasn’t much to handle, Angie. We are talking about Georgia in the fifties. I can’t claim that things are perfect now, but back then, black on white? It must have been hell for her. Of course she couldn’t stay. She moved to Savannah and made a name for herself as an activist.”

“That’s what Jude was talking about last night.”

“Part of it,” John agreed.