Bones To Pick

by Carolyn Haines

  “Did you see her do this?” It was a crucial detail. Assumption could be a fatal mistake.

  “I didn’t see her pour the gasoline or throw the match, but there’s a pile of ashes at the back of the driveway. I saw the flames, but by the time I ran back there, whoever set the fire was gone.” She touched one of the books. “Whether you agree or disagree with a book, it shouldn’t be burned.”

  “When Quentin arrived for the book signing, what did she say?” Tinkie leafed through the pages of the book she held, feigning simple curiosity. “She must have been furious.”

  “She chewed me out, and then she went outside to the ashes.”

  “Was she aware Umbria had bought all the books?”

  “She was. She said something to the effect that within twelve hours, Umbria wouldn’t have three thousand dollars to spend on destroying her dreams.”

  Tinkie and I stared at each other. It was a damning tidbit, as far as Umbria’s motive went. “Did she say anything else?”

  Jasmine straightened a neat stack of children’s books on her counter. “She said I should have known better than to sell all the books to one person.” She looked up. “She was right about that. I should have known better.”

  “Do you have a list of the people who showed up for the signing?”

  “A few people ordered the book. They should be back today to get their copy.” She pulled a notebook from behind the counter.

  I wrote down the names of Lorilee Brewer, Marilyn Jenkins, and Jolene Loper. The names weren’t familiar to me, but Tinkie was far better versed in Delta society than I. Once we were out of the shop, we could talk more freely.

  We thanked Jasmine and heard the tinkle of the bell behind us as we closed the door. A gust of wind sent a flurry of brown pecan leaves skittering across the porch, reminding me of my childhood and the joys of fall at Dahlia House when my mother was alive to make candied apples, pumpkin pies, and steaming pots of soup.

  When we were in the Caddy, Tinkie turned to me. “What’s wrong, Sarah Booth? You look as if the life was sucked out of you.”

  “I was just thinking of the past. Don’t you find fall a sad time of year?”

  She thought about it as she drove. “Sad because the year is ending?”

  “It’s a time of change.” I touched the window, feeling the chill. “Change has never been easy for me.”

  “Nor me. But I do love the cold weather and the fires and sitting beside Oscar under a blanket.” She slowed the Caddy as we turned down the drive to my home. Her gaze swept the long driveway, past the leafless sycamores to Dahlia House. “Fall isn’t so bad if you have someone to share it with.” She touched my arm. “You’re just lonely, Sarah Booth.”

  She was right about that; I was lonely. Perhaps that was all that was wrong with me, and I was just too self-absorbed to see it.

  “Thanks for the ride, Tink.” I leaned over and pecked her cheek. “I count on you a lot, you know.” Sweetie Pie and Chablis came running from the back of the house, where I’d had a doggie door installed. Obviously, the groomer at Cut and Curl had delivered them for us. The dogs, so different and yet such good friends, bounded toward us. Chablis barely touched the grass as she ran. With one giant stride, she leapt into the front seat of the car.

  Tinkie dazzled me with her smile. “Isn’t that odd? A year ago, I thought you might actually have stolen Chablis just to get some money.”

  Her words struck deep into my heart. I had stolen her dog for the ransom. Had I not done so, Dahlia House would be a shopping mall. “Tinkie, I—”

  “Oscar just laughed at me when I told him that. He said you couldn’t have thought of something so clever.”

  I wanted to kiss Oscar and then slap him silly. “I’m surprised with Oscar’s opinion of me, he allows you to work in the PI agency.”

  “Oh, he doesn’t allow it,” she said, and her smile was even more radiant. “One thing I’ve learned from you, Sarah Booth, is how to stand up for what I believe in. I count on you a lot, too.”

  She gave a cheery wave and headed down the drive.

  5

  Not every county in Mississippi has a doctor to perform autopsies. State law has few requirements for a coroner. But with Coleman’s help in the last election, Doc Sawyer had won appointment to the post. For the most part, Doc had retired from the medical profession, but he often took emergency calls at the hospital and maintained an office in a back corner of the emergency suite.

  “Help yourself,” he said, pointing at the coffeepot.

  I got a Styrofoam cup. The coffee was slightly thinner than molasses and twice as black. “Yum.”

  “I’m sixty-four and have the heart of a forty-year-old,” Doc said. “It’s all due to that coffee. It’s a wonder drug.”

  With such an endorsement, I couldn’t decline a cup. I took a sip and felt my jaw lock.

  “Good, huh?”

  I nodded, trying to swallow.

  “You’re here about Quentin McGee.”

  “Yes.” I put the cup down on the table and inched away from it.

  “What can I tell you?” Doc leaned back in his chair, the late afternoon light from a window catching in his wild thatch of white hair.

  For a split second he looked like an angel with a halo. I realized then that the coffee had some type of hallucinogenic properties. “Time of death is critical.” I forced my thoughts back on the business at hand.

  “I’ve put Quentin’s death at two in the morning. I understand her family isn’t happy with that.”

  “Is it possible she was killed before midnight?”

  He frowned. “I’ve heard a lot of money rests on my answer.”

  “I gather it does. It also speaks to motive.”

  He sipped his own cup of coffee and rubbed his chin. “Quentin’s body was found before dawn, as you well know. She hadn’t been dead more than three hours. I won’t go into all the medical details, but I’m positive of it. The McGees can have the autopsy repeated, but unless they pay off the examiner, he’s going to find exactly what I found.”

  “How did she die? Officially.”

  “Suffocation.” He got up and walked to the window. “Death is never a pretty thing to see, but it’s especially hard when a young person is murdered. Someone held her face down in the mud.” He faced me. “That’s hard to think about.”

  “Would it have to be someone strong?”

  “Not necessarily. Quentin had been roped, like a steer at a rodeo. The rope caught her initially around the waist. There was severe bruising, such as what would happen if the person on the other end of the rope were in a vehicle. She was pulled off her feet, and once she was injured and on the ground, the rope was shifted around her feet. She was dragged behind a vehicle into the bog. By that point, I doubt she had a lot of fight left in her.”

  I sat forward. “That’s awful.”

  “Someone had it in for her.” He sat back at his desk. “I think Gordon’s a good man, but I wish Coleman were back on the job.”

  “Me, too. Have you heard from him?” Whatever Doc thought about my question, he would keep it to himself. He’d treated my scraped knees and coughs when I was a child. He’d given me tonics and vitamins when my parents were killed. Though he’d done his best, he’d had no medicine for a broken heart.

  “I have.”

  “How’s he doing?” I forced myself to add, “And Connie? How is she? Is the baby okay?”

  He didn’t look at me. “Those are questions only Coleman should answer, Sarah Booth. It isn’t my place.”

  “You’re right.” I stood up, suddenly ashamed at my inability to keep my errant heart in check. “If you talk to him again, tell him I said hello.”

  “Sarah Booth, whoever killed Quentin meant for her to suffer. There’s an element of malice here that I haven’t seen in many murders. Be careful.”

  “I will,” I promised. “I think it’s a lot more dangerous to drink your coffee.”

  He shook his head. “You’re just
like your mama.”

  Dusk had fallen by the time I got to my car and headed back to Dahlia House. Lights began to flicker on in the houses I passed. In a few, I could see the blue glare of a television, and a sudden longing for family traced through my heart. I was lonely. Tinkie had hit the nail on the head. After a year of being back in Zinnia, I still went home to an empty house.

  My last case, with Doreen Mallory, had changed me. Doreen was a woman who believed in miracles. The day-to-day kind and the big ones. She also believed that everything in life happened for a reason. At first I’d fought against such a belief, but now my mind was exploring the possibility. The question I had to answer was why I chose to be alone.

  As I pulled up in front of Dahlia House, I heard Reveler whinny a welcome. Sweetie Pie came charging around the house to whip my legs with her eager tail. So I wasn’t exactly alone. I just didn’t have a man and children—the family that seemed so desirable, and so elusive.

  “Pull yourself out of that slump and feed your horse,” Jitty commanded from the porch.

  How foolish of me to think I was alone. “Yes, ma’am.” I detoured from the porch and went to the barn to give Reveler his grain.

  His soft muzzle blew kisses on my neck and cheeks as I brushed his coat while he ate. The sound of his chewing was comforting. When he was done, I went back to the house to confront Jitty.

  The back door was locked, so I had to walk around to the porch. If Jitty was going to inhabit the house, it would be nice if she could be a little helpful, like opening a door or making coffee in the morning. But no, noncorporeal beings didn’t have to lift a finger in the residences they haunted. It was some kind of ghostly union rule.

  I was still gnawing on my grievances when I tripped on something. Sitting right by the front door was a big box, gift wrapped.

  “Special delivery,” Jitty said.

  Somehow she’d managed to fit her huge dress into one of the rocking chairs. As she tipped back and forth, I could see her pantaloons.

  “It’s a good thing you waited for fall to play French Revolutionary. If you’d done this in August, you’d have died of heat exhaustion in all those clothes.”

  “I don’t sweat,” she said.

  “Ah, another benefit of being dead.”

  “I can eat anything I want and never gain weight, and my hair never frizzes.”

  Now she was getting insulting. I picked up the box, which bore no sign of any delivery system. Pulling the red ribbon that tied it, I sat down on the steps and opened the box. Layer after layer of tissue paper concealed the contents.

  “What’s in there?” Jitty asked. She’d stopped rocking.

  “Hold your horses. I’m getting there.” I peeled back at least twenty layers of flimsy red paper before my fingers struck something furry. I gave a little squeal as I pulled out a tiny froth of a silk garment.

  “The French do have the best design sensibilities when it comes to bedroom couture,” Jitty said as I sorted out the straps of a risqué red teddy trimmed in fluff.

  “Who sent this?” I felt a flush touch my cheeks.

  “Harold, I hope,” Jitty said. “There’s always a strong current beneath those still waters. That boy has some idea of sleep attire, but I doubt sleep is on his mind.”

  I sorted through the tissue papers only to find stiletto slippers with four-inch heels, also trimmed in red fur.

  “Ooh la la,” Jitty said, beside herself. “You’ve inspired me to learn French.”

  I turned the box over and shook it. The person who sent the gift surely left a card of some type. I couldn’t believe it was Harold. He’d truly fallen for Rachel Gaudel, and he knew that my heart was a war zone between conflicting interests. No, this was the work of someone who hadn’t heard of my reputation for death in the field of romance.

  At last I found a small note card. I took the box and contents into the house, where I could turn on a light to read. I didn’t have to invite Jitty to follow. Wild horses couldn’t have kept her away.

  “Hurry up, Sarah Booth. It isn’t every day you get a harlot outfit left on the porch.”

  Ignoring her, I went to the kitchen, where Sweetie Pie met me. She sniffed the gift box disdainfully and stalked out of the room.

  “That hound has an attitude problem,” Jitty said.

  I sat at the table and opened the envelope. Jitty hovered over my shoulder as I read: Let’s play Scarlett and Rhett! Tomorrow night at eight. You have the plantation house, and I have the champagne. Humphrey

  Humphrey Tatum. At his kinky best. I put everything back in the box and closed it, then retied the red ribbon.

  “You aren’t sending it back?” Jitty was horrified.

  “Of course, I am. Humphrey is my client. I can’t accept gifts from him. Especially not boudoir attire.”

  “Why not?”

  I couldn’t tell if Jitty was trying to devil me or if she was sincere. “It’s unethical.”

  She arched her eyebrows, which conveyed a world of my past ethical mistakes.

  “I’m not interested in Humphrey,” I finally admitted.

  “Sarah Booth, I have only one thing to say.”

  “What?”

  “Ticktock.”

  “Maybe I’m not meant to have a baby. Maybe I’m meant to run a private investigators agency.” My tone was getting hotter and hotter as I spoke. “Why is that unacceptable? Why can’t that be enough for you and Tinkie and everyone else? Why—”

  “Because it isn’t enough for you,” Jitty said, and she wasn’t deviling me. “I know you. You want a husband and a family.”

  I picked up the box and shook it at her. “This isn’t a marriage proposal, Jitty. It’s an invitation for sex. There’s a big difference, you know.”

  “In this day and age, Sarah Booth, one often leads to the other.”

  “I don’t want to marry Humphrey.”

  “Because he isn’t Coleman?”

  “Because I don’t love him.”

  She walked around the table, the rustle of her petticoats a gentle shush in the room. “You won’t love anyone until you get Coleman out of your heart. And Hamilton, too. You’re so conflicted over Coleman, you haven’t even begun to figure out what you feel for Hamilton.”

  “Exactly my point. And I don’t need to muck up my muddled emotions more by jumping into the sack with Humphrey-the-Hump er.”

  Jitty’s laughter was low and rich. “A little bit of two-backed tango might shake loose your heart.”

  My own laughter matched hers. “Not in my experience. Besides, Humphrey is a client. That has to mean something.”

  “If you say so,” she finally relented. “Now I’m off to the court to see what kind of action I can stir up.”

  I thought I felt her hand trace across my cheek as she passed me.

  “I don’t have to point out,” she said, “that casual sex without consequence is just one more advantage of being a ghost.”

  “Put that way, I can’t wait to be dead,” I said to her vanishing back.

  I was sitting on the front porch, sipping coffee, the next morning when Tinkie pulled up. Her blond hair glistened in the pale morning sunlight as she got out of the Caddy. To my amusement, she was wearing a navy suit with a pale pink blouse and a stunning string of pearls. Even her exquisite little feet were encased in conservative navy pumps.

  “Where’d you get the costume?” I asked.

  “We have an appointment in an hour with Virgie Carrington. I came over to help you pull yourself together.”

  I held up a hand a la Diana Ross. “Stop in the name of sanity. I’m not putting on some kind of ridiculous uniform.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “No way, Jose. I’m not a Carrington girl, and I’m not pretending to be.”

  Tinkie put her hands on her hips. “Sarah Booth, sometimes you’re just plain mulish. Virgie Carrington has spent her entire life training young women to fit into a certain mold. We need her help. We want her to talk to us. The sim
plest way to do that is to reflect the type of woman she creates.”

  Tinkie was right, but I felt my Irish dander rise. “I shouldn’t have to conform to her dress code for an interview.”

  “You don’t have to,” she pointed out. “But it will certainly grease the skids if you do. We meet her as equals that way.”

  “I don’t have a blue suit.”

  She reached into the back seat of the Caddy and pulled out a hanger covered by a Charlene’s bag. “Charlene opened the store early for me.” She thrust the bag at me. “I picked this out for you because I knew you’d try that excuse.”

  “I don’t have any shoes,” I countered.

  “You get dressed. I’ll find some suitable shoes.” She marched past me into the house. I was defeated. I had the choice of surrendering with honor or whining. Only because I figured Jitty was eavesdropping did I choose the former. Carrying the dress bag, I marched behind Tinkie to my doom.

  An hour later, we were sitting in the formal den at The Gardens B&B. I was wearing a Donna Karan designer suit and holding a cup of tea—Earl Grey—which looked like thin milk. I had no intention of drinking it, especially since Gertrude Stromm had made it. Hemlock was the word that came to my mind. Tinkie had no such apprehensions. She sipped her tea and chatted with Virgie Carrington about the desperate need in society for more Sunday brunches.

  “What would you view as the perfect menu for a brunch?” Virgie suddenly asked me.

  Her blue grey eyes were shrewd and a perfect match for the silk dress she wore. Her pearls had the sheen of age, as if they were family heirlooms. I knew her question was a test. “I don’t think the menu matters as long as the Bloody Marys and mimosas flow freely,” I answered, ignoring the daggers Tinkie shot at me.

  To my surprise, Virgie laughed. The iron maiden had a sense of humor. “I remember your mother, Sarah Booth. She was unconventional, but always with kindness. I see you’re a page from the same book.”

  It was a compliment I couldn’t ignore. “Thank you, Miss Carrington. I didn’t realize you knew my mother.”

  “Everyone knew her. And everyone adored her.”