Them Bones

by Carolyn Haines

  9

  I had to pass by Knob Hill on my way home. There was no evidence of the house, no lights, or at least none that could be seen from the road. The idea of Hamilton, alone and brooding in that big old house, was chilling. Not even my great-aunt Elizabeth, who wore her petticoat and nothing else to church, had been so far gone into madness that she chose to sit in the dark on a cold November night.

  The case—and I had begun to think of it as “my case”—had taken on a different twist. Hamilton had not attended Sunflower County High. Unless he had gone to Memphis or one of the bigger Mississippi cities, he’d graduated from Dorsett Military Academy, the place where all Delta males of blue blood and bad disposition completed secondary education.

  And Sylvia? Henry Amos had left me with a vivid image of a young girl, an obsessive child who spent her life in the shadows, watching. I gave a little shudder at the thought of a primary-school stalker. Sylvia had been sent to Tennessee, probably Bethany Academy.

  So Veronica had had an open playing field during the day, when hubby was working and the staff could be deployed in other directions.

  I had plenty of questions to ask Mr. Henry, but in the proper time. Good manners dictated that a visit should last no longer than two hours. I had stretched my stay, and my stomach, to the maximum.

  Feeling satisfied with what I’d achieved, I cleared the Zinnia town limits and decided on the spur of the moment to stop at Millie’s for a diet Dr Pepper. I was wired from the excitement of the day, and it also occurred to me that if Millie’s was open, business would be slow. Other than Martha Sue Riley at the Glitz and Glamour, Millie was one of the best sources of gossip. She’d know plenty about the Garretts, and whether her gossip was true or not, it would lead me to new possibilities.

  The café was open, and Millie was sitting at the counter reading a tabloid newspaper. I could see her in the window as I drove by, so I pulled into a parking space and hurried inside. The night was turning downright cold. By morning, there would be a blanket of frost on the ground.

  “How’s it shaking, Sarah Booth?” Millie asked as I walked in. Millie would never have spoken to any of the other Daddy’s Girls in such an informal manner. But then the others ate at The Club, not at a diner. Even as a teenager I’d loved the thick white coffee cups and the egg-and-bacon sandwiches Millie made while holding conversations with three or four patrons at the counter.

  “I’m full as a tick but thirsty.” I gave my order as I took a seat beside her and read the headlines of her tabloid. Roseanne was pregnant by an alien. “I wasn’t certain you’d be open.”

  “I cooked, I ate, I washed the dishes, and then I discovered I was bored. It’s slow, but a few folks have come in.” She lit a cigarette. “Most of them thirsty.”

  Millie is older than I am, a single mother whose children are grown, married, and producing offspring of their own. There are no womb disorders in the Roberts family. I could understand that opening the café was preferable to staying home alone.

  She put the fizzing soda in front of me and reclaimed her seat. I saw that she was reading a story about a sighting of Princess Di at Graceland. The photo that accompanied the story showed a ghostly figure that resembled the late Princess of Wales—and about ten million other slender blond women—peering through the musical gates of Graceland.

  “Do you think she’s really dead?” Millie asked, pointing at Di.

  I hadn’t thought about it as up for debate. “I guess.”

  “Some folks think she and Dodi only wanted to live their lives in peace. They think she’s living on an island off the coast of Greece.”

  It was one way of interpreting the facts. “Sounds like a nice ending to an unpleasant life,” I said. I’d seen the handwriting on the wall in that marriage when Di had to do the virgin check and Charles didn’t.

  “The way I’ve got it figured is that Charles and the queen went along with it because that way they’d get Diana out of their hair. I mean, she’s dead; she can’t keep upstaging Charles. And all she ever really wanted was to be loved. So she gets that and peace.”

  It was a pretty neat bundle, I had to admit. “I hope you’re right.”

  “Me, too,” she said, but her voice had lost its conviction. Millie enjoyed creating fantasies, but that didn’t mean she was stupid enough to believe them.

  “Speaking of tragic families, I saw lights on at Knob Hill tonight.” In the commerce of gossip, you have to learn to trade. I’d just plopped the Hope diamond of red-hot news on the table. Millie’s face lit up like she was standing at a Tiffany’s counter.

  “Lights? On Thanksgiving night?” Then the wheels turned. “What were you doing at Knob Hill?”

  “Driving by,” I said, waving a hand to dismiss my errand as insignificant. “That house has been closed for nearly twenty years, as best I can remember.”

  Millie nodded. “Hamilton the Fifth has been home a few times, or that’s what I’ve been told. He hasn’t put in an appearance in Zinnia.” Her voice had taken on a careful edge.

  I nodded and sipped my drink. The fizz was very comforting. Without a qualm, I stole a line from Cece. “His whole life has been like a Greek tragedy.”

  Millie shot me a strange look but picked up her cigarette. “Yeah, it would make a great miniseries on television. If anyone ever really got to the bottom of it.”

  Pay dirt. “You mean you don’t think it happened like—”

  “Guy Garrett wasn’t a hunter. He couldn’t hurt a fly.” She got up and went behind the counter. She picked up a stack of menus and tapped them into a neat pile, laid them down, and began to wrap flatware in paper napkins. She kept her back to me.

  I put a few things together fast—Millie’s hungry look as I mentioned Knob Hill, her careful tone, and her use of Hamilton Garrett the Fourth’s nickname.

  “I was a kid when all of that happened.” I kept it casual. “How awful for Hamilton the Fifth to lose his father and then his mother. I wonder if he liked Europe.”

  “He didn’t have much of a choice.” Millie put the flatware aside and turned to pick up her cigarette, which was mostly a big, long ash. She thumped it and put it out. “There wasn’t anybody on the Garrett side of the family left to take him. And his mama’s people wouldn’t take him.”

  “Why not?”

  She stared at me as if she could discern the true reason for my curiosity. “Tragedy has a way of marking a person,” she said slowly. “Folks don’t want it in their homes. There was enough money for Hamilton to go somewhere far away, to finish growing up in a place where he wasn’t viewed as a victim or a murderer. He made the smart choice.”

  “Murderer? I don’t remember anything about that.”

  I saw the truth strike Millie. “You had other things on your mind then, Sarah Booth. I don’t suppose you would remember anybody else’s troubles.” Her voice had softened. “Anyway, it was never an official murder. No charges were filed, but they spread the gossip. That’s how things are done in Zinnia. Nothing official, just trial by innuendo. Drove his poor sister into an asylum. That little girl never had a chance with a mother like that, always more interested in her looks and her collectibles than anything else.” She gave a sharp little snort of disgust. “If anyone deserved to die, it was Veronica Garrett. And if anyone wanted her dead, it was me.” She lit another cigarette and as the flame met the tip, she stared directly into my eyes with a look that actually chilled me. “Veronica murdered Guy as sure as I’m standing here. She deserved exactly what she got. I just wish I believed she got it.”

  Apparently Millie had a theme going with women who’d cheated death. First Di and now Veronica. But the anger in her eyes made me sit up straight on the bar stool. After two decades, she still hated Veronica Garrett with a dangerous passion. “Did Hamilton have something to do with his mother’s wreck?”

  Millie swallowed, her mouth moving funny as she worked to reign in her emotions. “Hamilton was a child.”

  That wasn’t an answer.
“Is it possible Hamilton thought his mother … that he might have taken revenge on Veronica? There’s still a lot of talk that he cut the brake line on her car.”

  She swallowed again. “Sarah Booth, I’m not feeling well. I know you’ll understand if I close up and go on home.”

  Oh, I understood. “Can I get you something?”

  She gave a half snort. “A chance to change the past. Can you manage that?”

  “What would you change?” I asked slowly.

  “I’d be born in the rich class of folks,” she answered. “With a different last name, I could make all the same decisions and still have a different outcome.”

  My psychology degree from Ole Miss had been an indulgence. I had no desire to spend my time listening to the sordid problems of people who’d screwed up their lives and wanted an audience to whine to. I studied psychology because it was easy, interesting, and, like many of the other students, I hoped to find the answers to my own problems without having to reveal my particular soul-squalor to anyone else.

  I had found no answers, but I had learned a great many fascinating things about the human animal. One of the questions I’d pondered in class was the ability of a human to commit an act she personally considered a horror. For example, the woman who abhors violence, yet kills without hesitation to protect her child. In any other circumstances, the woman might be incapable of self-defense. But when it comes to her child, she can blast brains over the wall and never bat an eye.

  The underlying thesis of the class had been that each and every person is capable of anything, given the right circumstances. I knew this to be true. In the past week, I’d done things I would never have thought myself capable of doing. Put in the right situation, I could probably kill.

  As I drove through the night, top down on the Roadster so that my ears ached with cold and my eyes watered, I put my new view of Millie on top of how I’d always considered her: kind, generous, a mother whose entire life had been devoted to her children. This night, I’d glimpsed Millie the woman, who loved a man out of her reach. And hated the woman who’d owned him.

  Was Millie capable of cutting Veronica’s brake lines? She had motive and opportunity. Millie’s brother was Zinnia’s prime auto mechanic. He worked on everyone’s vehicles, especially the expensive automobiles of the rich and famous. I made a mental note to stop by Billie’s Garage and see if I could finagle a look at his records.

  As I pulled up at Dahlia House, I regretted that I hadn’t left a light burning. It was almost more than I could abide, walking into that dark house alone. It occurred to me that even the company of Harold Erkwell would be preferable to my singular thoughts on this depressing night.

  It had been a long day. An eventful day. I hadn’t forgotten Harold’s proposal, I’d just shoved it to the back of my mind. Now, as I started up the back steps, I saw the small jewel box. My first reaction was disbelief that Harold had left a four-carat diamond on the back steps. My next thought was that he was in the bushes. But when I picked up the velvet jewel case, he didn’t magically spring out at me.

  I flipped open the lid and even in the pale wash of moonlight, the diamond glittered with a promise of ease and security and beauty. The sheer size of it symbolized hearth fires and the relaxing strains of Mozart, the smell of hot food prepared by another’s hands. That diamond burned with the expectation of shared conversation over dinner, the safety of someone solid and warm beside me in bed.

  Then the Delaney womb kicked in. I was stunned by the remembered feel of little Dahlia in my arms and the simultaneous clamp of pressure in my nether regions. Reproduce! Reproduce! The Delaney womb pulsed the order.

  And I resisted, remembering that all of those wonderful things I’d just imagined came attached to Harold Erkwell, a man I did not love. I grasped the rail beside the steps and steadied myself. My legs trembled as raw animal instinct warred with hard-won intelligence. I snapped the lid shut on the box with such force that it sounded like a gunshot. The best thing would be to hurl the thing into the bushes, and I swung my arm back—

  “Don’t be the jackass I think you’re about to become.” Jitty put a feathery ghost touch on my arm, and it was enough to halt me. “That ring is worth a lot of dough. All you have to do is accept it. You don’t have to marry him. Just accept the ring, say you’re engaged, then break it off. Legally, the ring belongs to you. Push comes to shove, we can cash that sucker in and have enough money to keep Dahlia House afloat for a little longer.”

  I began to drop my arm, and Jitty’s gold tooth sparkled in the moonlight as her smile widened. “That’s it, girl, use your brain.”

  Easy for her to say; her womb wasn’t sending out mating calls. “Thanks for the plan,” I said sarcastically, because I was frightened by my own reactions. I’d been tempted. Tempted! It showed how weak I was becoming. “I’ve already rolled over Tinkie by stealing her dog, now I should lead Harold on so I can pawn his engagement ring.”

  Jitty’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t be getting’ all high-and-mighty on me. You could have vetoed the plan with Cha-blis.”

  It was true. I could have and I hadn’t. I still had the five thousand cash tucked under my mattress.

  “Let me see that ring again,” Jitty said.

  I went inside, turning on the kitchen light. The house was cold as a tomb. I turned on the oven, opened the door, and backed up to it while I snapped open the jewel case and gave Jitty a good look at the ring.

  “That’s a hunk o’diamond,” she agreed. “I thought Harold only wanted a playmate for the sheets.”

  “So did I. Obviously, he’s aiming for a more enduring relationship.”

  “Sort of complicates things, doesn’t it?”

  There was a hint of sympathy in Jitty’s voice, and it was nearly my undoing. My life would become so much easier if I accepted Harold. Maybe I could grow to love him. Or hell, what did that matter? Most all of the Daddy’s Girls had married for a list of reasons, and love wasn’t even close to the top. They had all secured their lives, while I floated around in the ocean of financial woes like a pathetic single plank. Would I have turned out differently had my mother not died, had I not been influenced by an aunt who taught me to dance the Virginia reel when I felt blue and that math for girls was satanic?

  “Don’t go there, girl,” Jitty said softly. “One thing about being a spook, aside from the cool thing about passing through walls, is that we see the past a lot differently from you mortals. Dancing and math didn’t ruin you, and they won’t save you. You were who you were before LouLane put her stamp on you. You came out of the womb a Delaney. No help for it, not in the past and not in the future.”

  “If you mean to comfort me, you’re doing a terrible job.” But she had pulled me out of the ditch of the past. “What am I going to do about Harold?”

  “Keep the ring. Delay. You have to admit, he’s sort of growing on you.”

  “Like a fungus,” I answered. “He looks better than he did, because my options look so much worse. That’s hardly a recommendation for matrimony.”

  The backs of my legs were hot. Really hot. My jeans had gotten superheated and now whenever they touched my skin, they burned me. I danced away from the stove. Jitty rolled her eyes.

  “Harold won’t push you too hard. Not at first. Later, it’ll be fish or cut bait. Right now, you holdin’ all the cards. Keep the ring. Don’t wear it. Don’t even mention it. That’ll drive him wild.”

  It was good advice, but in my heart of hearts, I was feeling low-down about my conduct. Twisting fate was the motto of a Daddy’s Girl, but it had always been hard for me. Even now, when I had no other option, I didn’t like it.

  “I’m going to soak in a hot tub,” I said, flexing the shoulder that bore the shadowy pain of Hamilton the Fifth’s grip.

  “Put some of those salts in the water. Aromatherapy. Hell, your great-great-grandmother Alice knew about all of that back before the War Between the States. Nothing is new; it’s all recycles.” Her eyebrows lifted
. “If you’re desperate, there’s that hooch down in the cellar.”

  I’d forgotten about the moonshine. The trouble with hooch was that it could be really good, or it could contain lead and other poisons that could cause blindness or insanity. Lots of bootleggers ran the stuff through old car radiators or fermented it with cow manure. Of course, Sunflower County boasted some of the finest ‘shine makers in the world, the producers of pure, clean, sippin’ whiskey. If the bottle was in the Dahlia House cellar, it followed that it was good stuff.

  I picked up the flashlight and trotted down the steps. This was one of those days when a little drink was necessary. In the kitchen, I poured a glass. It was clear as spring water and when I took a sip, I felt it running down my throat like liquid fire. It hit bottom with a satisfying roar. Take that, you womb, I said to myself as I topped off the glass and headed up the stairs to the big old bathtub that I intended to fill with enough hot water to swim.

  I woke from a troubled sleep to find the sun bright in my bedroom window. It was Friday, November 28. Twenty-six shopping days till Christmas, I thought inanely.

  I wanted to burrow back under the pillows, but the fragments of my dreams were like pinpricks. I didn’t have full recollection, but the overall atmosphere of the dream had been darker than a bat’s butt in hell. It had taken place in the fields beside Knob Hill, the big old creepy house just a black silhouette. I was on the porch, and then Hamilton the Fifth appeared. In the dream he was dressed in a black suit, formal, and his angry green eyes blazed in a mostly monochromatic dreamscape. Out in the night sky, the red, burning tip of a cigarette wrote the name Veronica in smoke. And then I was in the cotton field, hiding, afraid. A clutch of doves fluttered out of the husk-dry cotton with that terrible whir of wings that sounded like a whispered plea for mercy. And suddenly I was with the doves, one of them. Some of us would die. We knew it and we hung low to the ground for safety.

  My tiny bird heart pumped, too full of blood. The huge effort of flying and hugging the brown earth, the panting terror of the boom of the shotgun and the spray of pellets that seemed impossible to avoid made me feel as if my chest would burst. Beside me a dove faltered and fell, mortally wounded. I flew harder, faster, toward consciousness and away from the horror of the dream.