Them Bones

by Carolyn Haines

  “Because Mrs. Hamilton the Fourth, Veronica Hampton Garrett, had a lover. She wanted to be free of her husband.”

  I took a sip of the cold coffee. This was exactly the end to which my affairs were headed—one big sordid mess. And because I was a Delaney, there would be some womb malfunction thrown in. “Who was her lover?”

  It was a logical question, but one that put a look of concentration on Cece’s pretty face. “No one has been able to find that out. Sylvia won’t discuss it, won’t discuss anything, from what I hear. Hamilton dropped off the face of the earth. And Veronica is dead.”

  “Exactly how dead?”

  “Very. Car crash, 1980, just a few months after her husband was shot.”

  “No charges were ever filed against Hamilton or Sylvia?”

  Cece gave me a look that showed pity for my chronic stupidity. “There was no evidence. Just a lot of gossip and innuendo.”

  “A murder and no evidence?” That was a neat trick.

  “Veronica and one of the Garrett oaks became intimately acquainted. I was a kid, but I remember the talk. She was hamburger. Her whole body went through the windshield. There was no question that the service would be closed coffin.”

  Cece’s imagery was as vivid as her writing. “Then it was an accident?”

  “Only if one discounts the fact that her brake line had been cut.”

  Cece had a real knack for taking a simple story and twisting it around in so many curves that you were worn out by the time you got to the end. It was how she made all of those weddings fun to read.

  “There had to be physical evidence of foul play, then.”

  “There should have been. Rumor had it that the sheriff covered up the whole nasty business. The Garretts were the most prominent family, you know.” She picked up the Danish and took a big bite. “You get the verdict you can afford to buy.” She licked a crumb off her lip. “A good story just whets one’s appetite. What’s the title of the book?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure yet.” I’d almost forgotten the ruse.

  “A little birdie told me an interesting thing about you,” she said, daintily putting the last morsel of pastry into her mouth. “I hear you like danger and darkness and doggies in distress.” She pushed a sheet of paper toward me.

  I glanced at the headline. DARING DELANEY RESCUES BOW-WOW. I didn’t have to read any further. Tinkie’s need to gossip outweighed her common sense. I had assumed that the ransom of Chablis was going to be our secret.

  “Were you afraid? Did you see the dognappers? Tinkie was just raving about you.” Cece was leaning so far across the desk I could see the false lashes she’d added to her own.

  “It was nothing,” I said, making for the door. I didn’t want public credit in a case where I deserved public blame.

  “Can I put it in my column that you’re writing a book?” she asked.

  “Wait until I have a title,” I said, knowing that day would never come. “Thanks, Cece, you’ve given me a lot of ideas.”

  “What about Kincaid’s luncheon? She said she sent you an invitation and it’s going to be the charity event of the season.”

  It was, at five hundred a plate plus bidding on the outfits modeled by the Zinnia Blossoms, a clutch of anorexic twenty-somethings who wanted to be Daddy’s Girls but grew up in the wrong generation.

  “I think I’d better work on my book.”

  “Kincaid dated Hamilton,” Cece said, flicking a bit of frosting from beneath a fingernail.

  I wasn’t a math whiz, but Kincaid was my age. That made her thirteen when Hamilton split. Tinkie might be obsessed by him, yet she never said she dated him. Kincaid had a reputation for being fast, but surely she wasn’t dating anyone at thirteen.

  Cece read the doubt on my face. “Kincaid spent a summer in Europe, dahling. I can’t believe you’ve forgotten that scandal. She was forcibly brought home and pushed into marriage with Chas Maxwell. It was said that she’d fallen completely under Hamilton the Fifth’s spell. Some even said she was bewitched.”

  I wasn’t buying into all of these dark Garrett powers, but Kincaid had come home from Europe a different girl. I always thought it was marriage—that she’d given up the aspects of herself that made working in tandem with a dolt unacceptable. Self-mutilation was considered part of the price of security for women in my set. “Kincaid became a wife.”

  Cece arched one finely penciled brow. “I think it was sexual obsession. There are certain men who possess those powers.” She picked up pastry crumbs with the tip of her index finger and transferred them to her mouth. “Men who can pleasure a woman to the point where she wants nothing more in life than their touch.”

  “What have you been reading?” I asked.

  “You didn’t spend time with her. I did. I wrote up the wedding, remember?”

  Cece had me there. I’d put in an appearance at the church, but in the back row, and with my mind on making an escape before all of the lovely young matrons could aim their pity at me for failing to have caught a husband. Kincaid had been pale, and thin. And rather lifeless, as I recalled.

  “She was a zombie,” Cece said. “Her mother planned that wedding and ramrodded her through it. I mentioned Hamilton’s name, once, and she flushed as if a fever had run through her. She was eaten up with wanting him.”

  The luncheon was sounding more and more intriguing. I had ten grand in the bank and another five under my mattress. I could afford a place at Kincaid’s table. Especially for a chance to talk to her. “What did Kincaid say about Hamilton?”

  Cece smiled, a tight little smile that told me she’d assaulted that wall more than once. “Not a word. Not a single syllable. Mention Hamilton’s name now and this blank wall drops over her face.”

  The luncheon was looking expensive again. Maybe I could run Kincaid down in the grocery store. “Does anyone know where he is?”

  Cece shrugged a shoulder, a maneuver that showed off her collarbone and the tricolored gold necklace that shimmered in the light. “He travels. One hears that he gambles.”

  “The Garrett estate, is it still intact?”

  “Intact and with the addition of some European holdings. Extensive holdings.”

  “Will Hamilton ever come home again?”

  Cece laughed out loud. “One can never tell, but that’s a question for Madame Tomeeka.”

  “I’ll be sure and ask her next time I see her.” Which would be in pretty short order. I dropped my coffee cup in the trash, noticing again the ornate mirror that reflected several small statuettes. Cece had taken a number of journalism awards. I wondered if she still dreamed of working on a major daily.

  “What about Dahlia House?” she asked, the spider finally vibrating her web. “I heard rumors that you were putting it up for sale.”

  “Not this week.” I fluttered a hand in the air, hoping to indicate that I was having a creative flash. “My muse is muttering and I need to get to my typewriter.”

  “I will get the galleys on this book before anyone else?” she asked.

  “Absolutely,” I promised, beating a trail out into the Zinnia sunshine. It was the day before Thanksgiving, and I had a turkey to buy.

  5

  There are only two grocery stores in Zinnia, the older Piggly Wiggly and the newer Winn Dixie. Winn Dixie has the more modern selections, but I know the aisles of The Pig by heart. I know Wanda, Peggy, and Lucy, the checkout girls, and Arlene, who runs the bakery/deli. Even though The Pig is too close to the Bank of Zinnia for comfort, I decided that tradition demanded that I get my bird from the place where Delaneys had bought turkeys for the past twenty years.

  I kept a sharp eye out for Harold. I was certain he’d heard of my large deposit by now. He’d want to know where I’d gotten ten grand. I hadn’t yet come up with a lie that satisfied me completely. As I pushed my cart along the worn tile, I tried to think of what to tell Harold. It would be hard not to be smug. I picked up two cans of green beans and ran through the recipe for the casserole. I
also needed sweet potatoes, brown sugar, and marshmallows. The items in my cart were disgustingly delicious. No tofu or romaine lettuce for Thanksgiving.

  The mountain of fresh cranberries in the middle of the produce stopped me cold, poleaxed by a memory of my mother placing a leaded crystal dish on the table. The contents were ruby red and dancing with candlelight. It was the last touch of the holiday meal, the signal that we could unfold our napkins and eat. I saw clearly the expression of delight on my father’s face, the glint of the Delaney silver in the candles.

  The memory was so real that it left me breathless. I made myself remember that those times were long ago. Tradition can mimic the past, but it can’t make it real. I picked up a bag and felt the light, firm berries.

  “I hear you’re the one who rescued my wife’s dog.”

  I’d been looking for Harold, not Oscar Richmond. I clutched the cranberries as if they were rosary beads as I turned to face him. “Hey, Oscar,” I said wittily.

  “I’ll give you five thousand dollars if you make that yipping fleabag disappear permanently.”

  I hadn’t realized Oscar was capable of making a joke. “Ha, ha.” I laughed. “Tinkie wouldn’t find that amusing.”

  “It’s not a joke.” Well, that explained it. He picked up the canned green beans from my cart. “Couple of these in a sack, snatch the dog, head for the Tibbeyama River. It wouldn’t take long.”

  “You aren’t kidding!” Chablis deserved a better father.

  “I hate that animal.” He glared at me. “Tinkie said you’re working for her mother.”

  It had occurred to me that the powers at the bank would know that a check on Mrs. Bellcase’s account had been written, but I hadn’t expected a frontal assault from Oscar. “Yes,” I said.

  “What are you doing for Mother Bellcase?”

  “You’ll have to get the details from her.” Heaven knew what Tinkie might have told him. “I’ll be by the bank after Thanksgiving to take care of some of my outstanding debts,” I said, maneuvering the cart to make an escape.

  “Ten grand is just a drop in the bucket on what you owe,” Oscar said. He sighed. “It’ll keep the wolf from the door for a month or two, but you’re going to need a lot more money if you intend to try to keep Dahlia House.”

  It was true. Even if I got the other ten thousand from Tinkie, that wouldn’t effect a real rescue, only a little time.

  “Consider selling the property, Sarah Booth.” Oscar returned the green beans to my cart. “You don’t need that big old house. You could get along just fine in an apartment. We’ve got a buyer interested in your property, someone who doesn’t care about the condition of the house. They’re more interested in the land.”

  I dropped the mutilated cranberries into my cart and gripped the handle. “If they don’t want Dahlia House, why do they want the property? No one in his right mind wants to farm.”

  “They’re thinking it’s a perfect location for a shopping center. And I agree. Zinnia has to grow or die, and as much as I hate it, the trend is toward shopping centers. The bank is even thinking about putting in a branch.”

  For a blazing second, I saw Dahlia House razed and a strip mall erected on the spot. I thought the vision would leave me permanently blinded. Oscar mistook my stunned silence for interest.

  “I wasn’t supposed to tell you about this, but you should know. You can make a good profit, settle your debts, and start over. I heard through the grapevine that you were writing a book. Not my idea of a career plan, but, hey, you’ve never been the type of girl who did things the easy way. You Delaneys always climbed the mountain when it would have been easier to drive up the road.”

  Oscar’s gossip connection was enviable, but I couldn’t stand in the produce aisle with him another minute. “I have to go.”

  “The reason I’m telling you this is because I think you ought to keep the money you just deposited. Don’t pay off any of your debts. We can structure the sale of Dahlia House so that the buyer assumes the indebtedness.”

  In his own sick way, he was trying to do me a favor. “Thanks, Oscar. I’ll think about it.”

  I hurried toward the section where the turkeys awaited their Thanksgiving fate. I had lost my zeal for cooking, but the requirements of the holiday kept me moving forward. I’d been worried before, but now I was beyond that. The bank had an interested buyer. That would eliminate any leniency I might have hoped for.

  I looked at the cold, plastic-coated bodies of the dead turkeys, but I saw Dahlia House crumbling under the blades of heavy equipment. I saw the long line of Delaneys standing beneath the leafless branches of the sycamores as they watched their family home leveled. They did not condemn me. They had lived through war and Reconstruction. They had lost and gained, loved and died. But I was the last. Dahlia House was my heritage, and I would not lose it while I had breath in my body.

  I dropped a twenty-pound turkey in the cart, my act of defiance. “I will never go hungry again,” I vowed, aware too late that Arlene in the bakery was watching me with pity.

  • • •

  I left the turkey on the drain board of the sink with Jitty mumbling incantations about salmonella and Ebola. I ignored her. Ever since the Delaneys had bought frozen turkeys, we’d thawed them on the drain board. I didn’t have five days to bring the dead bird gently to room temperature.

  “Twenty pounds! You gone be eatin’ turkey for the next six months.” Jitty gave the bird a dirty look and flipped her dangly earrings. “Martha Stewart says—”

  “Martha Stewart be damned,” I answered. Jitty adored Martha Stewart. She watched every show, bemoaning the fact that I hadn’t made a wreath for the door from the scuppernong vines at my very fingertips in the arbor behind the house. She pointed out that I was blind to the decorating variables of magnolia leaves. I had no imagination for making use of the sycamore balls or pyracantha berries or dried hydrangeas that could be spray-painted to great effect—I was decoratively challenged.

  I left Jitty giving a holiday rundown of all of Martha Stewart’s turkey-day decor and drove straight to the small, barely paved road that marked the transition from white neighborhood to black.

  Although modern times had caught up even with Zinnia, there was still a cultural distinctiveness to the Grove. I crossed the railroad tracks that served as the unofficial line of demarcation. Many of the tarpaper shanties of my mother’s youth had been replaced with brick homes. There was city plumbing and streetlights, just like the white residential sections. The difference came from the fact that in these yards, children played. Several of the older homes with porches contained chairs. People were sitting in those chairs, talking. They paused and watched my progress along the street, thinking another white woman with more money than brains was going to Tammy Odom’s, aka Madame Tomeeka’s. I wondered again what Tammy’s neighbors actually thought of her. Did they frequent her for advice on love and money?

  I pulled into the bare yard and parked under the big oak that sheltered the small wooden house. I also wondered what Tammy did with all the money she took in from the Daddy’s Girls, and the younger set of white girls who didn’t fully understand that there was no point worrying about the future—their fates had been sealed at birth.

  Tammy’s yard was empty of cars. Good. I wouldn’t have to wait. I went up the steps and knocked on the screen door. The day was balmy and I could hear a radio in the back of the house crooning Johnny Mathis.

  In a moment Tammy appeared in my line of vision. She held her hands up like a surgeon. It was too dark to see what was on them, but I knew I’d interrupted her cooking.

  “Got a minute?” I asked.

  “Come on in.” She disappeared and I went through the shotgun house to the kitchen in the back. She was mixing up cornbread for her dressing.

  “Expecting your whole family?” I asked. She had a daughter, Claire, seventeen and a true beauty, who no longer lived in Zinnia.

  “Maybe.” She pulled a hot black skillet from the oven and
poured the cornbread batter into it. There was the sizzling sound and smell of batter hitting bacon grease. She shoved the skillet back in the oven for the cornbread to bake.

  “How is Claire?” Tammy had sent her daughter to Mound Bayou to have her baby. There was trouble between them, but I could only guess why. Teenage pregnancy was epidemic in Zinnia. As Tammy knew, it was a hard row to hoe.

  “Fine. Had a little girl.” Tammy’s face gave away nothing.

  “What did she name her?”

  “Dahlia,” she said, and there was the first hint of a smile. “Claire remembers the time she spent with you, Sarah.”

  “I remember it, too,” I said, smiling back.

  “You didn’t come to ask about Claire,” she said, picking up a knife and chopping onions and celery with such speed that her hands seemed a blur.

  “No, I need your help.”

  Tammy’s hands never stopped. “You don’t believe I can see the future. You’re not here for a reading.”

  “Tinkie Richmond believes.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, scraping the chopped vegetables into a skillet on the stovetop. She picked up a bell pepper.

  “You told her someone from her past was returning. Someone dark.”

  “I remember what I said.” Tammy never slowed her chopping.

  “Tinkie has a way of … interpreting things to her satisfaction. I want to get this straight.”

  “Go on, ask what it is you want.”

  “Do you know if Hamilton Garrett plans to return to Sunflower County?”

  Tammy’s hands faltered. The knife nicked the end of her finger and blood shot onto the cutting board. I made a grab for a towel, but she turned away from me and went to the sink. She stuck the wound under the running water, creating a pink cascade along the white porcelain.

  “I can’t believe I’m so clumsy,” she said, blotting the wound with a clean dish towel. She rifled through a drawer and produced a Band-Aid.

  I could see only her profile, but it was enough. “What’s your connection to Hamilton Garrett?” I asked as she bandaged her finger.