Coleman came back on the telephone. “I have to go, Sarah Booth.”
“I’m in West Point. I’ll stay on—” Janks took that moment to execute a sharp left turn across traffic. There was no way I could follow him.
“Coleman?” I turned left at the next block, hoping to catch up with Janks. “Coleman?”
There was no answer from the sheriff, and Janks had vanished.
Disappearing acts were getting to be old hat—and I didn’t care for them. Perhaps Janks had realized he had a tail and deliberately dumped me, or maybe Hell had opened and swallowed him whole. What ever, he’d vanished.
Cursing did no good. Conjuring Janks wasn’t in my power. A fifteen-minute cross-search of the town told me Janks had slipped by me. My only lead to Cece, tenuous though it was, had been severed.
I parked in front of the busiest shop in town, a place called Bits and Pieces. As I watched customers come and go, I tried Cece’s phone. No answer. At home, on her cell, or at the newspaper.
Since I was in West Point, I decided to make my drive count.
I hurried inside the shop to see if anyone there knew the Entrekin family. Luck was on my side. The store owner, Bill East, not only knew the Entrekins but had gone to school with Lana. His fondness for her was easy to see.
“Gregory Carlisle was a handsome and wealthy man,” Bill said as he organized a rack of wind chimes made from melted glass bottles. “Almost everyone in town thought Lana had made the catch of the century.”
“Except you?”
He shrugged. “Folks say money can’t buy happiness. I happen to believe that. Before Lana married, we talked a good bit. She wasn’t totally convinced but felt she could make a go of the marriage and of living in the Delta.”
“Did you see Lana after she married and moved away?”
He straightened a box of pens on the counter. “About two weeks before she died, she came home. Her parents were already dead, but she stayed at her old family home. I think she was homesick.”
“Did she say that?”
He shook his head. “Not in those words.”
“But you talked with her?”
“In town, on the street. Nothing personal. Just friendly conversation. I saw her one evening, at a party. My wife and I talked to her for half an hour. She waited outside until I went out to smoke a cigarette.”
“And?”
“She was unhappy.” He paced the narrow aisle filled with unusual relics, antiques, and original artwork. “She talked about our high school days for a few minutes and then she left.”
“Do you remember what she said?”
“Nothing that made sense. She said the Carlisle name was more than just land and money but that it had never been her name. Not really.”
“That was it?” No earth-shattering revelations that would clearly identify Lana’s killer—if she was killed.
“She seemed sad. I offered to call one of her children, but she said no, she’d head back to Sunflower County in a day or two. And she did.”
“Why did she come back to West Point?” I asked.
“I found out later, it was to buy a burial plot. A single plot, beneath an old magnolia tree at the foot of a hill in the West Point cemetery.”
“She’s not buried beside her parents?”
“No, she’s alone.”
He drew me a map of the town and showed me how to get to the cemetery, and then he shook my hand and bade me farewell.
17
Before I left West Point, I drove by the cemetery where Lana Entrekin Carlisle had been laid to rest. The last of the fog was lifting in wisps, revealing a well-shaped magnolia tree, the leaves a green so dense, they looked black against the bright grass. Beneath the tree was a single headstone.
As I approached, I saw that someone had left fresh flowers on the grave. Violets. Their deep purple contrasted with the silvery granite of the stone, and I gently picked them up.
Violets are delicate and wilt shortly after they’re cut. I had a vague memory of gathering the shy blooms with my Grandmother Booth as we walked along one of the wooded trails behind her home. We’d always wait until we turned toward home to pick the wild blossoms that grew in clumps protected by leaves and shadows. Holding them for the short walk home took a toll on them.
The flowers in my hand were unwilted. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to find fresh violets—not exactly the easiest plant to locate.
Movement in my peripheral vision made me swing around. Jimmy Janks sprinted from behind an oak tree and hauled ass across the cemetery. He jumped gravestones like hurdles.
“Hey!” I took off after him, dropping the flowers and my purse. “Janks! Stop!”
He ignored me. I put on a burst of speed, hopping the graves behind him, amazed that my old track instincts kicked in. Aunt Loulane would never approve of such disrespect for the dead, but I had to catch the fleeing developer.
“Janks! Where’s Cece?” He was drawing away from me, and I was tiring.
He looked back over his shoulder once, then vaulted the wrought-iron fence that encircled the cemetery. By the time I climbed the fence, he was driving away.
I’d lost him.
Again.
I caught my breath before I went back to retrieve my purse, forcing the images of a dead body floating in dark river water out of my head.
As a matter of respect, I gathered up the violets and returned them to Lana’s grave. Her stone marker was simple and plain. “Lana Entrekin Carlisle,” the dates of her birth and death, and one small quote: “Home Forever.” A pain touched my chest at those words.
No matter how many questions I had, Lana couldn’t answer them. As I started up the slope toward my car, I saw a woman kneeling in the Saint Augustine grass, tending a grave.
Once the introductions were exchanged and I explained my pell-mell rush across hallowed ground, I realized that Lucille Armstrong was a sharp-eyed observer of human nature. She’d not only seen Jimmy Janks, she’d watched him.
“He put the violets on the grave,” she said, “then stood there. I think he might have been talking.”
She was too far away to hear the conversation, but she was astute at reading body language.
“He cared for Lana.” She removed the gloves she wore to pull weeds. The grave she cleaned belonged to Bobby McKnight. Born 1926, died 1981.
“Why would you think he cared about Lana Carlisle?” I was curious to hear her take. It was just as possible he’d been cursing Lana, though the flowers did support an emotional connection.
Lucille thought for a moment before she answered. “I knew Lana when she was a young girl. I taught her, actually. That child loved purple, and she often wore silk violets woven into her hair. Whoever that man was, he knew what Lana preferred. He knew and cared enough to bring her favorite.”
Janks was a good twenty years younger than Lana. Likely not a lover. If Janks grew up in Chicago, where had he met Lana?
“Could you tell by the way he behaved what he was feeling?”
Lucille pointed to the grave. “Bobby McKnight was my father’s best friend. He taught me to drive. He let me ride the horses on his farm and encouraged me to go to college.” She brushed a spot of dirt from her forehead with the back of her hand. “He introduced me to my husband, Norman. I care for Bobby’s grave because I loved him. The way that man stood at Lana’s grave, I think he cared about her.”
Lucille was attributing her feelings to Jimmy Janks. I wasn’t certain the transfer applied, but it was certainly worth considering.
“Why wasn’t Lana buried in the Carlisle family cemetery?”
She motioned to a bench not far away. We walked over and sat in the shade of a live oak. “There were rumors floating around West Point that Lana didn’t want to marry Gregory Carlisle and move to the Delta.” She took a breath. “I always thought the gossip might have been motivated by jealousy. People saw Lana had snatched the gold ring on the merry-go-round of marriage and so sullied the tale as much a
s they could. There were rumors of Gregory’s infidelities, but never any evidence.”
“You changed your mind?”
“I don’t know. Lana’s wedding was big society news in the South. Then she was gone. She had two children. Whenever she visited West Point, I’d see her on the street; she seemed happy enough. I think, though, that she was homesick for this area. Sometimes, Miss Delaney, the land calls a person home.”
How well I knew that sentiment. The sun was nearing its zenith, and while the background on Lana Carlisle was interesting, it didn’t explain Jimmy Janks or help me find Cece. “Thank you, Mrs. Armstrong.”
“My pleasure.” She rose and returned to the grave of her father’s friend.
When I pulled away from the cemetery, she was weeding again, a short woman determined to honor someone who’d been good to her.
When the outskirts of Zinnia filled my windshield, I settled on a plan of action. Coleman, wherever he was, had no cell phone signal. Dewayne, who sounded as heartsick as I, hadn’t heard from him.
I stopped by Cece’s house, then the newspaper. No one had seen her. The publisher, Mr. Truesdale, literally wrung his hands. “Please call me when you find her,” he said.
I left the paper and pulled up at a four-way stop. Half the day was already gone—with nothing to show. Janks was the ticket to Cece, and I’d lost him.
A car behind me honked, reminding me that I was sitting at a stop sign. I eased forward as my cell phone rang.
“Sarah Booth,” Coleman began, “we’ve found Cece.” I could tell from his tone that the news wasn’t good.
It took all of my control not to burst into tears. “How did she die?”
The pause lasted only milliseconds, but it was enough for Coleman to grasp my thoughts.
“Cece is alive. She’s been beaten, but she’s alive. The body in the river is Lester Ballard.”
“Cece’s alive?”
“Yes. I left you a message on your phone about Lester Ballard. He was shot in the back and dumped in the river. I thought you knew.”
His call must have come in while I was chasing Janks through the cemetery. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that Cece was alive. “Where is she?”
“She’s in the hospital in Jackson.”
My heart lurched. “How bad is it?”
“Serious. I’m tied up at the river, so Harold has gone to check on her. If possible, he’ll have her transported back here to Zinnia. He’s halfway to Jackson by now.”
“Is she going to be okay?” I dreaded his answer, but I had to know.
“The beating was severe, but the doctor didn’t feel the damage was permanent. She managed to get to the emergency room before she collapsed. She just regained consciousness and gave them her name.”
A wedge of emotion almost choked me.
“She’s going to be okay, Sarah Booth.”
I pulled the roadster to the side of the highway. I didn’t trust myself to drive. Or to talk.
“Do you think Jimmy Janks is responsible for what’s happened to Cece?” I asked. I would carve out his gizzard with an iced-tea spoon.
“The Jackson PD is investigating, but Cece hasn’t been able to tell them much. She’s heavily sedated. What the officer was able to piece together was that she was attacked in the parking lot in front of Erin Carlisle’s studio.”
“I lost Janks in West Point. At Lana Carlisle’s grave.”
“That’s an intriguing twist. Don’t worry. He won’t get far. We’ll get him.” He hesitated. “Look, Beaucoup is calling. She helped in recovering the body, but she had to rush back to conclude some tests. Maybe she’s found something. I’ll call you when I hear anything.”
I leaned my head against the headrest of the car. My world had turned upside down again. I was at sixes and sevens, and while I knew I needed to go check on Tinkie and Oscar, I had no faith that I could conceal the truth of Cece’s condition.
My life in Hollywood hadn’t been easy or problem-free; it had been surreal, almost as though it were happening to someone wearing my skin. This was too real and too awful.
Easing the car back onto the road, I drove to the CDC offices. Peyton might be in, and it was possible he’d have more information. No matter that Cece had been found, I still wanted to investigate the Carlisle plantation for myself.
The CDC used the back entrance rather than traipse through waiting rooms with wall-to-wall moms and children who needed vaccinations or medical attention. Once inside, I saw Peyton’s door was cracked and I heard him on the phone.
“That is Bonnie Louise’s area of specialty. I’ll pass that information along.” He made a few more affirmative sounds, then replaced the phone.
“Is someone there?” he asked.
The man had bat-hearing. I’d barely shuffled on the linoleum. “It’s me, Sarah Booth. I came for the hazmat suit.”
Peyton came to the door and waved me in. There was a glint of excitement in his dark eyes.
“Do you have anything on the illness yet?”
He paced the room. “We took samples from the blood, mucous lining, skin scrapings, tissue samples from all of the sick people.”
I didn’t dare interrupt him but said a silent prayer that, at last, something useful had been discovered.
“The reason Oscar and the others haven’t responded to antibiotics is because this isn’t a bacterial infection.”
“But it doesn’t appear to be viral, either,” I said.
“True. None of the tests for viral agents have been conclusive.”
I couldn’t help jumping ahead. “If it isn’t bacterial or viral, what is it?”
“Fungal.”
After Katrina, thousands of homes in New Orleans and along the Mississippi Gulf Coast flooded and became infested with mold. Some owners became very ill. But we hadn’t even had a good rainy spring in Zinnia.
“We’re talking mold, right?” I wanted to be sure I hadn’t gone off on a tangent.
“Some form of mold or spore. The patients must have inhaled the spores.” He lifted both palms. “That’s an educated guess. I don’t have all the facts yet, but at least I have a direction.”
“Where did this mold come from?”
He closed the office door before he sat on the edge of his desk. “This can go no further, Sarah Booth. I’m trusting you with information that I may not share—just yet—with the sheriff.”
“You have to tell Coleman. He’s working to resolve this just like you are.” I didn’t see why he would withhold any information.
“In good time, Sarah Booth.” His tone warned me to back off. “I should probably keep this to myself until I have something solid.”
“Someone deliberately infected the Carlisle plantation, didn’t they?” I asked. Even speculation would be helpful to me.
He hesitated, then finally spoke. “That would be my guess. The problem is that I’ve not been able to identify a spore that would cause these exact symptoms.”
“A mutation.”
“Exactly. But until I have more information . . . I don’t want to send this investigation down a rabbit trail, understand?”
I saw his point. Peyton was talking serious crimes. “The mold, by itself, is it harmful?”
He shuffled some papers on his desk until he found one sheet. Pulling it to the top of a stack, he looked it over. “Bonnie and Dr. Unger have worked nonstop on the weevils. They’d found a very different breeding cycle. It may be attributable to the mold.”
“So how do we find out about this mold? What will counter the effects in Oscar and the others?”
“I’m running tests on the cotton. Bonnie Louise is working on the weevils. Now Doc can address the mold. Between the three of us, we should find an answer.”
“How long?”
“Mold is insidious. Now that we know to look in this direction, we have a focus, but it isn’t as simple as A follows B to conclude with C.”
“Oscar and the others don’t have a lot of time, Peyton.
”
“I know that. We’ll get the answer you want, Sarah Booth.”
I was about to ask for the hazmat suit when the door flew open and banged against a wall.
“I want to talk to the CDC.” The tall, lanky man from Millie’s Café entered armed with a bad attitude. Joe Downs was making the rounds of Zinnia and, judging from the redness of his face, he was still pissed off.
18
“Who the hell are you?” Peyton was as cool as a crap shooter on a winning streak.
“I’m Joe Downs. Mississippi Agri-Team leases the Carlisle plantation. I have a murdered employee and some land that I’m told looks like a biblical plague struck.” He jabbed his pointer in Peyton’s direction. “If those weevils spread to other plantations, this could be the ruination of the economy here.”
Peyton pulled up another chair. “Have a seat, Mr. Downs. This is Sarah Booth Delaney.”
Downs gave me a nod of acknowledgment and eased his angular frame into the chair. “I know ’er. Knew her dad. He did some legal work for my father. Knew his business and treated folks fair.”
I didn’t get a chance to thank him before Peyton cut in.
“First of all, Mr. Downs, I regret the situation you’re in, but I have nothing to do with it. The CDC is studying an illness, and I have to point out, the boll weevils are a secondary matter.”
“Look, Lester Ballard was a friend as well as an employee. He’s dead. Murdered. Shot in the back! People who went out to that plantation are seriously sick. A strange crop is infested with weevils, and all I can get from the sheriff is a bunch of guff. I want to know what you’ve found and what you’re planning to do.” Downs gripped the arms of his chair.
“We’re doing everything in our power.” Peyton went to a carafe, poured a glass of water, and handed it to Downs.
If what Peyton suspected was true, someone had created the problems with the cotton and weevils. And that someone had something to gain. “Did MAT have a written agreement with the Carlisle family for the use of the plantation?” I asked.
“Of course we did. Used to be a handshake was good enough, but not any more. We had a signed lease. Good for another six years.”
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