Greedy Bones

by Carolyn Haines

  “And two of those people are my friends.”

  “Sarah Booth, your dedication to your friends is admirable, but you have a reputation for taking matters into your own hands. Don’t do that here. We don’t need another sick person. The CDC is on-site, and we should be able to reassure the people. Another new case would break the public’s confidence in us.”

  He checked his watch, reminding me it was time for the press conference. I eased toward the door. “I’ll check back with you. I want to watch the press conference.”

  I left the chancery clerk’s office and walked down the empty hallway to the stairs. While I didn’t care to be seen, I wanted to hear what Coleman and Bonnie Louise had to say. The simplest way to accomplish this was to slip out onto the small balcony that fed off the second-floor landing. I would be right above the action. While I couldn’t see Coleman and Bonnie Louise—I simply could not bring myself to call her Beaucoup—I could hear them.

  Surprised that no one else had thought of listening from above, I found myself alone. Coleman was already talking.

  “I want to assure everyone that this is under control. We have four reported cases of an unspecified illness. But there have been no new cases.”

  “Is this an epidemic?” a male reporter asked.

  “ ‘Epidemic’ is not a word that applies here,” Coleman answered. “Our medical staff in Sunflower County is on top of this. Experts have been consulted. We have the sick people isolated, and this is under control, but there is no indication that this is a problem with the potential of spreading. It is contained.”

  “What does the CDC have to say?” another reporter called out.

  Bonnie Louise’s tone was crisp and authoritative, but it still contained a trace of drawl. “We have full faith that in a matter of hours we’ll have an explanation for the illness, which I point out has not spread. Sheriff Peters and his men, the county medical staff, everyone is working with us. We have four very sick people, but this is not an epidemic and there is no reason to panic.”

  “Will Sunflower County be quarantined?” a female reporter asked.

  “There are no plans to impose a countywide quarantine. Things are under control.” Bonnie Louise answered each question head-on, and I had to admire her for that.

  “My office will issue a daily statement updating the media on any new information,” Coleman said. “Thank you for coming.”

  The press conference was over. Leaning over the balcony, I caught a glimpse of him stepping back from the microphone. Bonnie Louise had her hand on his arm and a carnivorous smile on her face.

  A cool spring dusk fell over the land as I drove home toward a sky glowing with peaches and lavenders. The sycamore trees that lined the drive of Dahlia House had budded into green. This time of year, every living thing seemed to jump into life. I pulled up to the front, where I was greeted by Sweetie Pie and Chablis. The little dustmop looked fine, but her near death in Costa Rica had left me anxious. Tinkie was counting on me to keep Chablis safe.

  The dogs followed me to the barn, where I fed Reveler, my Connemara cross, and Miss Scrapiron, a beautiful mahogany Thoroughbred mare. Lee, my childhood friend who ran a breeding farm, had brought both horses back to Dahlia House. Had darkness not been upon me, I would have saddled up for a ride.

  The dogs led me to the house. Inside, a huge chicken potpie sat on the kitchen counter. Millie had stopped by and left food. I dished up three bowls and settled in for dinner with my companions.

  We were finishing when the phone rang. To my delight, it was Graf. I needed a dose of surrealism from Hollywood to put my day in perspective.

  “Sarah Booth, I have four scripts here for you. Everyone wants you on a project.”

  “Really?” My stomach tightened and I felt a pang of nausea. Hollywood was far from conquered in my opinion. I’d barely nicked the surface of that tough city.

  “Two of them look great. Want me to send them down to you?”

  “Sure.” Graf made me smile. “Thank you.”

  “For sending the scripts?”

  “For being you.” I gripped the phone so tightly, my hand cramped. “I miss you, Graf.” I felt empty without him. The idea of going up to my old childhood bedroom, alone, was almost unbearable. The term was old-fashioned, but I “longed” for him.

  “You sound pitiful,” he said. “Say the word and I’ll be there.”

  “No.” I couldn’t allow my weakness to spoil his shot at a film. “How’s it going for you?”

  “I took a meeting this morning with Ethan and Joel and they are so smart. I can’t wait for this film to start shooting. It’s the best role I’ve ever been offered.”

  Excitement rippled in his voice, and I closed my eyes and imagined that he was in the room talking with me instead of a continent away. “Tell me about your part.”

  He spoke for ten minutes about the role he’d accepted and the shooting schedule. I loved listening to him, the sense of being included in a special and very private world. I missed Graf and the movie business.

  “You’ll be fabulous,” I assured him. “That part was written for you.”

  “So you think I’m gunslinger material?”

  “You have the flair for it, and the looks, and the smile. You could steal a herd of cows and the lady rancher’s heart.”

  He laughed, pleased at my blatant flattery. “They wanted you, too.”

  I almost asked him not to make it any harder on me, but I couldn’t. “I’ll find the perfect role once Oscar is well.”

  “Absolutely.”

  I heard the beep of his other line. It was still business hours in Hollywood.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “Words to sleep by,” I answered before we hung up, and I was alone in Dahlia House with two dogs and a potpie.

  “You got a roof over your head, food to eat, and money in your pocket. Why so down?” Jitty stepped over Sweetie Pie, who’d fallen into a food coma beside the table.

  She still looked like a refugee from a hunger camp. Her clothes were worn and torn, her face lined with worry.

  “For goodness’ sake, have some chicken potpie.” I pushed the pan toward her.

  “It isn’t food I need,” she said, “but you have some more. You’re lookin’ too thin.”

  “Do you realize that you’re impossible to please? I’m too heavy, too thin, too busy, too lazy, too here or too gone.”

  “What’s got you in such a fractious mood?” she asked.

  “I miss Graf. I miss making movies.”

  She sat down at the table, her silver bracelets jingling softly as they slid down her arm. “You gave up a lot for friendship.” For once she wasn’t deviling me.

  “And I don’t regret it at all. It’s just that I feel useless. I haven’t accomplished anything. Oscar is still at death’s door, and Tinkie is suffering. I don’t know a single thing more today than I did three days ago.”

  “The fact that Oscar, Gordon, Regina, and Luann are hangin’ on is a good thing. And no one else has come down with this epizootis. Now that’s got to count for somethin’.”

  “It does?”

  “You’re on the trail of figurin’ it out.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.” I twirled my spoon in the chicken potpie. “I want to fix this.”

  “Back during the Great Depression, folks got caught up in a lot of things they couldn’t stop or control. Hard times touched most ever’body.”

  “I don’t know if I can stand to hear about this.” I looked around the kitchen. Outside, night had almost fallen. I heard Reveler’s soft whicker and Miss Scrapiron’s answer.

  “You can leave this and go to Graf, you know.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Sure, you can,” she interrupted. “You can put a ‘For Sale’ sign out front and head to Hollywood anytime you want.”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  She studied me in that frank way of hers. “You can’t hold on to two different dreams, Sarah Bo
oth. Not ones that are so far apart. But life has a way of showin’ you the path you need to take.”

  “I’m not very good at listening,” I said.

  Her laughter was rich and soft, almost a touch. “You sure down in the dumps for a big-time movie star.”

  I got up and gave Sweetie the last of my potpie. She woke long enough to wolf it down in one quick whisk of her tongue. “I hate being helpless.”

  “Lots of folks are feelin’ that same way. Times are tough. Not just here in Sunflower County, but all over. This ain’t the Great Depression, but it sure ain’t Camelot, either.”

  Jitty had the benefit of nearly two hundred years and those times she hadn’t physically lived through, I believe she visited as a specter. I’d learned never to argue history with her.

  “I could stand a dose of Camelot.”

  “You got a home here, friends here, a man in Los Angeles who loves you. You got riches that most people never see.”

  Oh, swell, a case of shame was exactly what I needed. “Thanks, Jitty. I feel worlds better now.”

  Her laughter filled the kitchen. “Now that sounds like my Sarah Booth. Sarcastic and sassy.”

  I headed out of the kitchen knowing she would follow me. “I’m going out to the Carlisle plantation. I want to look around myself.”

  “No, you are not!”

  I faced her. “You can’t stop me.”

  “Use your head, Sarah Booth. All Tinkie needs is to have to keep vigil over you and Oscar. Stay away from that place. You got other people beside yourself to worry about.”

  I hadn’t seen Jitty so worked up in a while. “I need to look for clues myself.”

  She sniffed. “Can’t see no clues at night. Might as well wait until tomorrow.”

  On that note, I had to concede. Besides, I was weary. I’d had a busy and hectic day, but not enough to warrant the bone-deep fatigue that had seeped into me. I was barely able to keep my eyelids up.

  “Tomorrow then,” I countered.

  “Get yourself in bed and take care of that body you treat so shabbily. I’d make you some hot chocolate if I could.”

  Chocolate laced with a shot of Kahlúa—that was a great idea. I turned to the kitchen to heat some milk and whistle the dogs inside. In the morning I’d investigate the place where all of this madness had started. When the sun was shining, I’d use the skills as a private investigator that I’d acquired over the past year and a half.

  Tomorrow, I would move mountains.

  But tonight, I wasn’t even able to stay awake long enough to heat milk. I put the saucepan, unheated, on the floor for the dogs, dragged myself upstairs, and fell into bed.

  7

  I woke up to the sounds of Sweetie and Chablis racing up and down the stairs. It took me a moment to realize it was after nine. I’d overslept. The bed was so wonderfully comfortable that even though I had much to do, I hated to peel back the covers.

  The thought of Tinkie, pale, exhausted, and standing at a hospital window guarding Oscar, was like a Hot-Shot against my thigh. Guilt-ridden, I bolted out of bed and padded downstairs to the kitchen to put on some coffee. I was ravenous.

  Rummaging through the refrigerator to see what I might eat, I found only unidentifiable food items. I threw them in the trash. Thoughts of breakfast at Millie’s made my mouth water. I’d grab some eggs and something for Tinkie and then begin my investigation of the Carlisle place.

  The brewing coffee smelled delicious, and I stood with my cup in hand waiting for it to finish. The first wave of nausea hit me without warning. I made it to the bathroom off the kitchen before I threw up.

  Hanging on to the toilet, fear traveled through my marrow. I fought against it. Since I hadn’t gone near the Carlisle place, I couldn’t be seriously sick. It wasn’t possible.

  The nausea passed as quickly as it had come, and I wiped my face and went upstairs to brush my teeth. By the time I got to the second floor, I felt fine. The idea of coffee was once again tantalizing.

  Since I was already upstairs, I showered and polished off my morning routine in under ten minutes. Dressed in my favorite black jeans and a red shirt with black geometric designs that I’d picked up in a Los Angeles boutique, I was ready to start my day.

  I made sure Sweetie and Chablis had gone out to whiz and were back in, poured a go-cup of black coffee, and hit the road.

  Millie’s was bustling, and I was unprepared for the wave of oohs and aahs that erupted when I walked in the door. The attention was heavenly. Two teenage girls actually asked for my autograph. When I explained that the movie had been destroyed and wouldn’t be released, they didn’t care. They’d heard about me, and in their books, I was celebrity enough.

  Millie plopped a plate heaping enough for a farmworker down in front of me with a cup of hot coffee and a glass of milk.

  “The potpie was delicious, Millie. But why are you feeding me like I’m a starving indigent?”

  “You don’t look good, Sarah Booth. You need sleep or food. I’m not selling sleep, so I’m piling on food.”

  Her logic was infallible. “Thanks.” I tucked into the eggs and grits. “I got plenty of sleep last night. And I’m eating a lot of food.”

  She lifted my chin so that my face was better illuminated. “Your color isn’t good.”

  A stab of fear zinged through me. I couldn’t be sick. Not me. “I’m fine.”

  She nodded. “Worried about Tinkie, I’m sure.”

  That had to be it. Worry did strange things to the Delaney women. Stories abounded of tilted uteruses, snarled Fallopian tubes, ectopic pregnancies, and hydra-like endometriosis, not to mention the dreaded “fallen” uterus, as if the organ itself had committed a sin worthy of being cast down. All of these much-discussed ailments were laid at the feet of anxiety and worry. Genetics might dictate eye color or refined hands or the handsome arch of a foot, but worry and anxiety wrecked the breeding potential of Delaney women.

  Millie put a glass of water on the table, and I snapped out of my mental family medical album. “I am worried about Tinkie. I’ll take her some breakfast when I leave.”

  “Sure thing. I’ll be back.” Millie swung through the café, refilling coffee cups and dropping a smile or an “I’ll get that, sugar” on her regulars.

  I was looking straight at the door when Bonnie Louise walked in, her shapely legs tan and perfect in a pair of shorts and hiking boots. The Colorado fashion statement caught the attention of every man and woman in the café. Bonnie made a beeline toward me.

  “Mind if I join you?” she asked.

  What could I say? “Have a seat.” I focused on the eggs and grits.

  “Coleman says this is the best place to eat in the Southeast.”

  “He would be right.” I aimed at pleasant. Surely by now someone had told her Coleman and I had a history, but she could only goad me if I let her.

  “I’m glad I ran into you, Sarah Booth. I wanted to ask you something.”

  I stopped eating and waited.

  “Word is that you broke things off with Coleman before you went out to L.A. Is that right?”

  “That’s really not your concern.” A curl of nausea started in my upper stomach.

  “I’m interested in him, and I wanted to be upfront about it. He told me he’d filed for divorce. He should be a free man in a matter of months.”

  I considered my response as carefully as I could under the circumstances. “Coleman feels an obligation for Connie. Married or not, he’s always going to care for her.”

  “Not a problem for me.” She waved at Millie as if she were in a fancy eatery ordering a minion around. “Coffee, and make it fresh.” She dismissed Millie and zeroed in on me. “I gather that was a problem for you.”

  “What is the point of this conversation?”

  “I like what I see when I look at the sheriff. I want him. But I don’t like stepping on someone to get what I want. I’m asking because I want to be sure the field is clear.”

  I had no intenti
on of explaining my complicated relationship. “Good luck,” I said.

  She nodded. “That’s what I wanted to be sure of. I didn’t want to move in on your territory.”

  So she wasn’t a poacher; she was still a barracuda. But Coleman was a grown man. “I have no claim on the sheriff.”

  “I heard you were all hooked up with some handsome Hollywood guy and would be going back out there as soon as this illness is cleared up.”

  “I haven’t made any plans and don’t intend to until Oscar is well.”

  “Not my business.” She held up a hand like some teenager.

  That really annoyed me. Bonnie Louise got under my skin. I sipped my coffee. The nausea I’d been battling surged forward, and I thought for a moment I might throw up. I looked down at her boots to see how much damage I might be able to inflict. The sensation passed, and I took a breath. “Are you planning a hiking expedition? I guess you’ve forgotten the Delta is flat.”

  She laughed. “I remember the land and the soil you call ‘gumbo.’ Down in the bogs it used to pull my shoes right off my feet. I used to ride with Daddy on the combine and the cotton pickers. I loved that.”

  For a split second the edge left her voice and I thought I heard true sadness. “Does your family still farm?” I asked.

  “No.” She picked up the cup that Millie put in front of her. “Good and fresh,” she said to no one in particular.

  My appetite had evaporated, and my stomach, while fine now, wasn’t totally trustworthy. If the spastic gut didn’t stop, I’d talk with Doc.

  “What made you go into research?” I asked.

  “I like science, and I like puzzles. Research has both. What made you decide to be a private investigator?”

  “I sort of stumbled into it.” No point fibbing about that.

  “Well, stay out of this investigation, okay? Let me rephrase. Stay out of this investigation.”

  “Let me rephrase for you, Ms. McRae. Oscar is a friend. I’ll do what ever it takes to help him.”

  “Get in my way, Sarah Booth, and I’ll roll over you. I’m not some localite you can intimidate.” Her face brightened and she began signaling.