Ham Bones

by Carolyn Haines

  “You think Morgan was setting up a treatment for Renata?” I could see all sorts of new motives to murder Renata and put the blame on someone else. Maybe it wasn’t personally directed at me—maybe I was just convenient as the sacrificial murderess.

  I handed the photographs to Tinkie. She studied them a moment before she spoke. “Morgan looks a little furtive, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes.” Cece and I spoke in unison.

  “What if something this guy Samen gave Renata had begun to cause serious problems for her, health-wise? What if one of the experiments went awry?”

  “And the two men, caught in what could potentially be horrific publicity and monetary damages, decided to end the problem simply.” Cece popped the last of the Danish in her mouth. “Renata provided the perfect suspect, because she was constantly talking about you. Her jealousy set you up like a lamb to the slaughter.”

  Tinkie bit into a cream puff. “We’re going to have to get Dr. Samen’s records.”

  Chapter 24

  With Cece’s help, we’d inched closer to uncovering what might be the truth. The note Tinkie had found in Gabriel’s room could be evidence to support our theory that Renata never intended to die. She had intended to stick me with a false murder charge while she frolicked away her middle years on the sandy beaches of Tahiti. Except something had gone wrong.

  “Let’s stop at Le Chic,” I suggested to Tinkie as we left the newspaper office.

  “Are we going shopping?” Tinkie perked up instantly. “You’re in desperate need of something new, Sarah Booth. It’ll take your mind off a lot of things.”

  My intention wasn’t to shop, but Tinkie was so excited that I couldn’t crush her enthusiasm. “I can shop for an hour. That’s it. An hour. I already owe you money for the bail, so I’m not buying anything, but I’ll talk while you shop.”

  We walked the two blocks to the cute little boutique that fronted Main Street and had been renovated between an old drugstore and a toy store. Zinnia had a good bit of charm, and Mitzy Mercer had made the most of it with her shop. The dress in the window was dazzling—a perfect winter white sheath sprinkled with shimmering crystals and a ruffled skirt that started at the upper thigh and ended about six inches above the knee in front and trailed to a V in the back. Va-va-voom. That was a dress to wear to a screen test.

  “That says Hollywood to me,” Tinkie said. “You’ve got the perfect skin tone for that warm white. With your hair and eyes ...”

  I tore myself away from the dress and the temptations that danced in my head. Even if Hollywood called, I couldn’t go. I couldn’t leave Sunflower County.

  “Tinkie, do you think all along Coleman knew I was innocent?” The bell over the door tinkled merrily as we entered the shop.

  “I don’t think he ever really believed you’d harmed Renata.” She greeted Mitzy with air-kisses to each cheek. “Sarah Booth wants to try that dress on.” She pointed to the window. “She’s going to Hollywood for a screen test.”

  Mitzy didn’t even try to hide her excitement. “Sarah Booth, I saw the play. You were incredible. I mean I was simply transported out of time and place. I was right there with you and Brick and Big Daddy.”

  “Thanks, Mitzy.” She was always nice when I came into the shop, but she’d never been effusive. I couldn’t tell if it was Tinkie or my work on the stage.

  Mitzy went to the back of the shop and brought out the dress in my size. “I only got two of them. This and the one on the dummy, which is Tinkie’s size 2.”

  I took the dress and held it. Suddenly, I didn’t want to see how I looked in it. I was tempting a fate that could end up breaking my heart.

  “Go on.” Tinkie pushed me to the dressing room. “I won’t take no for an answer.” She followed me in but stopped at the door of a booth when I entered.

  As I took off my clothes, I tried to think of a way to ask my question that wouldn’t make Tinkie think I was throwing a pity party. “If Coleman never believed I did it, why would he charge me? Why would he destroy my life?”

  “First of all, your life isn’t destroyed. Think about it, Sarah Booth. You got international attention on the stage because you were charged. But you’re asking me to fathom the dark recesses of male thought processes, which I’ll try.” She took a breath. “I think it was two-prong. He knew everyone else would think you guilty, and if he didn’t charge you, the doubt would linger. Forever. And I also think that he had a plan in mind. If you were charged, then the real murderer might grow careless.”

  “Yeah, that worked great.” I slipped the dress over my head. The material was silky, and it settled over my hips like a lover’s touch. I reached around and zipped it most of the way up. It fit like it had been made for me. I was almost afraid to look in the mirror.

  “Are you done?” Tinkie’s fingers gripped over the edge of the door.

  I turned the knob and stepped out. I could see from her face that the dress was perfect. Mitzy walked back with a pair of sling-back heels in her hand. She stopped. “My God, Sarah Booth, you even look like a movie star, and you don’t have on a stitch of makeup.”

  I turned and looked in the full-length mirror. The two weeks of torture had worked as the most effective diet I’d ever tried. I was thin. Movie star thin. Which made my eyes look larger, and sculpted collarbones showed near my throat. I simply stared.

  “She’ll take the dress.” Tinkie snapped out of it first.

  “I can’t.” I stepped back into the stall to take it off. When it slid to the floor, I picked it up and put it on a hanger. When I walked out, I went past Tinkie and Mitzy.

  “I’ll give you a discount,” Mitzy said, hurrying after me. “Sarah Booth, it’s perfection on you. No one else can wear it the way you do.”

  I smiled at her. “Thank you, Mitzy. If I get my name cleared, and I get some money, I’ll be back for it.”

  “I’ll put it up.”

  “No, don’t do that.” I couldn’t make any promises when I would be back, if ever. “Don’t hold it for me. Thanks, Mitzy. It’s a great dress.” I signaled Tinkie that I was leaving.

  I heard Tink’s high heels tapping after me, and when we were on the street again, she fell into step beside me in silence.

  We walked several blocks. I had no real destination. I needed to talk to Coleman, but at the moment, I had no stomach for it. My emotions were too volatile. Still, we were going to have to go to the courthouse to see what he’d gotten out of Graf and Gabriel. Maybe a night in the slammer had cleared Bobbe’s memory, too.

  “Tinkie, do you still have that letter Renata wrote to Gabriel?”

  “I made a copy of it, like you said. I put the original back in Gabriel’s room.” She slowed so that she could rummage around in her purse until she brought out several folded sheets of paper.

  I took them, and we walked to a small park between a restaurant and a music shop. Long ago, a car dealership had been in the empty spot. I remembered it because I’d been fascinated by the glass bricks used for one entire wall. It had been highly innovative architecture for Zinnia in the ’70s.

  We settled onto a bench in the sunshine. The day was warmer than it had been, and several small wrens had taken up a chirping residence in an Indian hawthorn. The town had removed the poinsettias that had been planted in the huge pots on the corners. The first pointed leaves of daffodils, tulips, and bearded irises were breaking the soil. Soon the spring flowers would be in bloom. Time was passing quickly.

  Tinkie handed me the letter she’d found, and I read through it quickly. It was exactly as she’d said. Renata was telling Gabriel that she was leaving the stage and Graf and the United States for an “island paradise” in an undisclosed location. “Don’t try to find me,” she said. “You’re well and healthy and should lead a happy life. I was never really part of it, so let me go. We parted ways long ago when I was sixteen and forced to leave you behind.”

  I read the letter again, noting that the date was in November, only two months before she d
ied. She had to have been in Reno. She could have canceled the Mississippi leg of the production, yet she’d been the one to insist on coming to Zinnia. Why, if she was so eager to get to her “island paradise”? The answer was simple. Because she intended to set me up.

  “Who do you think killed Renata?” I handed the letter back to Tinkie for safekeeping. It might prove to be valuable evidence in my trial.

  “I think Robert Morgan had a hand in it. If we’re right, then one of her doctors is also involved. Someone who is unscrupulous. I mean, that’s not unheard of in a world where beauty is bought and sold in a doctor’s office. There’s no telling what Renata might have signed up for, or what went wrong. Sarah Booth, do you realize some women are ingesting tapeworms to stay thin? How sick is that?”

  Tinkie had finally done it. She’d rattled me out of my self-involvement. “What?”

  “They put the tapeworm in a gel capsule and then swallow it. The tape grows and grows, eating a lot of calories in the process. Then they kill it with wormer and start over again.”

  I liked my newly acquired thinness, but not at the expense of swallowing worms. I’d had too many dogs, cats, and horses—and the attending parasite issues—to be enthused about the dietetic properties of tapeworms. “Can’t the worms do permanent damage?”

  “My point exactly. This kind of madness bolsters your theory that something went wrong during a medical procedure.”

  “This is all great, Tinkie. But we have no evidence of any of it.”

  She stood up. “So why are we sitting on a park bench like two old-timers? Let’s shake the lead out and get after this.”

  I had no choice but to follow her. When we passed Le Chic, I noticed that the mannequin in the window was stark naked. At the sight a shiver ran through me. Someone had bought the dress in Tinkie’s size. That’s how easily a dream could be stolen, and Renata had done a thorough job of stealing mine.

  As Tinkie hurried up the courthouse steps, I lingered for a moment to pay my respects to Johnny Reb. The statue, symbolizing the dead Confederate soldiers whose bones were scattered across the entire South, looked more worn than usual in the winter sunshine. Johnny’s hat was rumpled, and a stain at the corner of his right eye made him look as if he’d been crying.

  I turned away and ran up the steps. Tinkie was already at work. It was time for me to get busy, too.

  “What do you mean they’re gone?”

  I heard Tinkie long before I opened the door of the sheriff’s office. Everyone in the courthouse’s lower floors heard her. She was furious, and she wasn’t hiding it.

  “What’s wrong?” I stepped inside and pushed the door closed. I looked from Tinkie, whose face was beet red with a pulse throbbing at her temple, to Dewayne, who fondled the microphone on the radio and refused to look up.

  “What happened?” I asked again.

  “Coleman let all of them leave.” The words exploded from Tinkie’s mouth.

  “Since you weren’t up here earlier, he cut them loose about ten o’clock. Look, he didn’t really have any grounds to hold them. He interviewed them and he cut them loose.” Dewayne spoke to the microphone.

  “We had no idea he was going to let them go.” Tinkie leaned against the counter and glared at Dewayne. “He could have called us.”

  “Coleman’s not obligated to call you.” Dewayne’s jaw was setting into a stubborn position. One thing about Coleman’s deputies—they were loyal to a fault.

  “Why did he do that?” My question was asked softly, and both Dewayne and Tinkie looked at me as if I’d declared that I was going to fly.

  “Because he talked to them and had no reason to hold them longer.” Dewayne rose and came to the counter. If he’d been chagrined before, now he was testy. “So that’s that. You can yell at me all you want, but it won’t change a thing.” He directed that at Tinkie.

  She’d managed to gain some control. “I’m sorry, Dewayne. This isn’t your fault. But what in the world possessed Coleman? Why would he do that when he knew we were counting on talking to Graf and Gabriel?”

  “You’ll have to ask him that.” Dewayne wasn’t going to take any more of our questions. “Now I’ve got work to do.” He picked up his hat and a set of keys to a cruiser and headed out the back door.

  “You can’t leave the sheriff’s office unattended,” Tinkie said.

  “Watch me.” He closed the door on his retreating back.

  “Well, I never.” Tinkie looked at me. “Why would Coleman do this?”

  “Because they had nothing useful to add.” A better question, from my point of view, was where had Graf gone? Had Coleman dropped the charges on him about the wreck where Robert Morgan had been killed or was Graf still tied to Sunflower County by a bail bond, like I was?

  “I wonder where Coleman is,” Tinkie said.

  I wasn’t going to lie and say I didn’t care. But I also wasn’t going to speculate and spend my time thinking about him. Either he was on the case or not. Nothing I thought or said or did would make a difference.

  “When Doc did the autopsy on Renata, he said he hadn’t found any unusual substances like Botox in her system.” There were things that just didn’t add up, and my brain kept going back to Renata, the doctors she’d visited, and her plans to move to Tahiti.

  “That’s right. Except for being dead, she seemed fine.”

  I rolled my eyes at Tinkie. “Very clever.” But something she’d said stopped me. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Doc Sawyer.

  “Doc, can you talk to me and Tinkie? Right away.”

  “Are you two tailing the sheriff, or do you want to talk to me about something serious?”

  “Coleman is there?” Was he really on the case?

  “He was. Been gone about two minutes. Left here in a hurry, too.”

  “We’re on our way.”

  We jogged back to Main Street, where we’d left our cars. The roadster was closest, so we took that, buzzing through a quiet downtown on the way to the hospital.

  We turned to go to the hospital when I noticed a silver Porsche on our tail. The car zoomed up close, giving me a clear view of Graf behind the wheel.

  He hadn’t left town. Whether it was because he was still on bond or because he was waiting for me, I didn’t know. But the fact was, he was here. Despite all my internal monologue about how Graf wasn’t a man to pin my hopes on, I felt my spirits lift. While everyone involved with the play was now undoubtedly gone, Graf had remained behind.

  “Snap out of it,” Tinkie said grumpily. “I see him, and it means nothing except he’s as desperate as you are to clear his name.”

  My answer was to pull into a parking slot and get out. Graf parked beside us. When he stood, tall and handsome in the noon sunlight, I walked over and gave him a hug.

  “Why are you following us?” Tinkie asked.

  “I went to Dahlia House, but no one was home. I tried the sheriff’s department and no one was there.” He shrugged. “Like a good junior detective, I found your cars on Main Street and waited.”

  “That’s the how. What I asked is why.” Tinkie gave no quarter.

  “Coleman dropped the charges against me. I’m free to go. I told him the truth, that I intended to get ahead of Robert Morgan and force him to stop. But I didn’t cause the wreck. I did leave the scene. Because I was scared. But I turned myself in at the Jackson, Mississippi, Police Department. He believed me and cut me loose.” His arm dropped over my shoulders. “But I’m not leaving Zinnia without Sarah Booth. So why I’m here has to do with helping to prove her innocence. I’m available to do whatever you need done.”

  “What about Hollywood and Federico Marquez? You had a screen test scheduled. You—”

  He pulled me against his chest. “We have a special magic, Sarah Booth. I’m not going without you. Sure, I could be a leading man on my own, but with you at my side, I can be a star.”

  I saw Tinkie roll her eyes, but that wasn’t my reaction. I heard the self-serving portion of Graf�
�s statement. But I also heard the fact that he was putting his bright career on hold to help me. Perhaps it was partly for selfish reasons. I didn’t care. He was standing tall beside me, and I so needed that.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “You’re not going anywhere.” Tinkie put her hands on her tiny hips and tapped her alligator shoe on the asphalt.

  I was caught between the two of them, a position I’d felt for the last two weeks. I sighed. “Graf, do you know where Gabriel went?”

  “To get his things from The Gardens. He was picking up Kristine and Giblet and they were going to leave after lunch.”

  “Could you find them and ask Gabriel if he’d be willing to talk to me?”

  “Sure.” He didn’t hesitate or question my reasons. He opened the door of the Porsche and got in. “Do you have a cell number?” He whipped out his phone, ready to install my pertinent data for instant communication.

  I give him my number and, for good measure, Tinkie’s. As we watched him drive away, she turned to me. “I still don’t trust him.”

  “Tinkie, the only person I trust is you.” I wasn’t normally a touchy-huggy kind of person, but I put my arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “Don’t worry about Graf.”

  “It’s just strange that he’d hang around when the whole world is waiting for him to explode from the silver screen.”

  “I know.” Graf’s taillights disappeared. “He isn’t our biggest worry, though.”

  “Who is?”

  “Renata.”

  “I realize she’s set up an elaborate frame, but she is, after all, dead.”

  “She may be dead, but she’s still clinging to this world. Today, I’m going to put the stake through her heart.”

  Chapter 25

  Doc had Renata’s file open on his desk when we got to his office. “Before you ask, I’ll tell you exactly what I told Coleman. In fact, he asked me to tell you.” He let that sink in while he adjusted his glasses and perused some papers. “A preliminary autopsy showed Renata to be a healthy female of the age of thirty-seven. There was no cancer, no life-threatening disease.”