“They’re not coffee beans,” I said wearily. I was physically sick. My stomach was giving me signs that revenge would soon follow.
“Back when your many-g’s-grandma Alice was a single woman, it was up to the relatives and neighbors to find her a man. They did all the investigatin’ before they ever introduced her. That’s the way it worked back then. Relatives took it on themselves to check out a man, look into his past. Things were simpler then. If somebody of low character came along, they didn’t let the young girls near ’em.”
“Sort of like Rhett Butler meeting Scarlett at the Wilkes ball, right?” I wasn’t buying into Jitty’s love affair with the past. It was the past that had me in the mess I was in.
“That was a book, Sarah Booth. Surely you know the difference between books and life.”
I stood up. “Yeah, and look what happened to Scarlett.” I looked at Jitty for the first time. She was still in the silver skin dress, but her eye makeup was smeared and her pageboy had begun to kink. “You look like you had one helluva night.”
“It’s a reciprocal thing. You were busy so I grabbed a little fun for myself. You know, Sarah Booth, you need to do the wild thing more often. I really needed that.”
I turned and walked down the stairs to the kitchen to put on some more coffee. “If your sexual health is based on what I do, I pity you,” I called out. “I’m no good at this, and I think a convent is the only solution.”
“Honey, you just rode the one horse. My favorite is just comin’ to the post.”
When the coffee had perked I took a seat at the table, not caring that the kitchen was freezing. I leaned my head on my hand and tried not to think back to the night before. How had something so wonderful turned into such a nightmare? It was the question of my life.
Jitty drifted through the wall, completely redone in purple hip-hugger jeans and a paisley body shirt of pink and purple. I knew I was in bad shape, because her outfits were beginning to grow on me.
“You don’t have time to sit around here mopin’,” she said, pacing back and forth in front of the stove.
“The last time I looked, my agenda wasn’t exactly full.” I sank deeper into self-pity.
“Snap out of it, Sarah Booth. Remember Kincaid’s charity do.”
I sat up. I had forgotten. My Dolly costume was lying in a heap in my room. There was no time for anything except to get dressed and get there.
“You’ll be a knockout,” Jitty pronounced with a surety that made me feel marginally better.
“I could simply stay home,” I said.
“Yeah, just go on and crawl up under the porch like a kicked dog.” Jitty looked at me in disgust. “All your Delaney blood must be in the womb, ’cause you don’t seem to have a drop in your spine.”
She had thrown down the challenge. I rose from the table. “Okay, I’m going.”
“Do me a favor, Sarah Booth,” she said.
“Maybe.” I was leery of Jitty’s requests.
“You left the barn door open and one horse has run out. Don’t close the door yet. Another one might run in.”
“If that’s your euphemistic way of promoting Harold, give it a rest. I’m over men. All of them.” My thumb gave a pathetic little gasp of a pulse. I rushed to the table and stuck it in the cup of hot coffee. “Take that!” I cried.
“Girl, you ever heard of that drug called Halcion? Maybe you ought to get you a few tablets.”
I chose to ignore Jitty as I took my coffee and headed up the stairs.
Wisteria Hall was not as big as Knob Hill or as old as Dahlia House, but it was a lovely setting for a luncheon. Kincaid had gone the extra mile. Gingham bows had been tied around the huge oaks that lined the drive, and she’d hired a troupe of singing midgets dressed as cowboys to escort us from the driveway around the rose arbors to the old patio. One short cowpoke gave me a wolf whistle as I got out of the car.
True to Fel Harper’s gossip, hay bales were scattered about, highlighted with vibrant mums. In the center of the half-acre patio was a swimming pool shaped like a cut emerald. The water sparkled aqua, and promised that summer would indeed return.
“Sarah Booth,” Kincaid said, rushing forward in a hand-tailored, leather-and-suede Dale Evans outfit. She air-kissed my cheeks. “Where did you get that costume?” she said loudly, then threw her arms around me and grabbed me in a bear hug. She whispered, “You’ve got to do something.”
“And you’re welcome for saving your ass from the fire,” I replied calmly, though her grip was amazingly tight for someone who was almost a skeleton. She’d lost another ten pounds.
“That fink Isaac backed out. He didn’t get the check.”
I felt the eyes of everyone on us. It looked as if Kincaid was giving me the hug of the century. I tried to escape, but she held on and we danced clumsily together for several steps. “Let me go,” I ordered in a tone that made her loosen her hold. “Get a grip, Kincaid. This isn’t the way a Daddy’s Girl behaves.”
I stepped out of her arms and looked at her. Her tawny eyes were wild, and her cheeks had that hollowed look of someone who is starving or drinking too much—or both. “Chas wants me to see a psychiatrist. You know he’ll use that against me if we divorce.” Her eyes brimmed with tears.
Disaster was imminent. When Lesley Gore sang, “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to,” it was obvious that she was not a Daddy’s Girl. Kincaid simply could not cry in front of her guests. It wasn’t done. I gripped her elbow and propelled her toward the house. “Kincaid, dahlin’, I have to be sure Fel used the right bourbon in his sauce. Come show me,” I said, waving with my other hand to the gathered daughters of the South. I felt needle pricks in my spine and I turned into the gaze of Bitty Sue Holcomb. She was not smiling.
I ignored them and hustled Kincaid into the house. Once I had her inside, I poured her some of the bourbon I found in the liquor cabinet and propped her on the arm of the sofa. “Isaac didn’t get the check?” This was a problem.
“He was afraid he’d get caught. And he and Kitty are going to Greece for the entire holiday season. He’s leaving me holding the bag,” she said bitterly. “If the law finds that check and he’s gone, it’s going to be all on me.”
I hurried into the kitchen, snatched two paper towels, and handed them to her. “If you cry, you’ll ruin your makeup.”
She sniffed and straightened her spine. There wasn’t time to reapply. “I’ll give you another three thousand if you’ll get the check,” she said, then amended. “Five thousand. That’s all I have in my secret account.”
The environment of a working PI sometimes left a lot to be desired, but the hourly wage was more than adequate. I’d been to Delo’s. It wouldn’t be that hard to break into the house. But finding a check would be difficult.
“I’ll pay you if you just look,” Kincaid said.
“On one condition.” I had my own Achilles’ heel. “I want to know about you and Hamilton.”
Kincaid’s mouth opened and she drew a soft, whistling breath. “What?”
“You went to Europe just before you married Chas. I want to know about Hamilton.” I had hardened my heart, and now I wanted a Kevlar vest. If I knew every dirty, low-down thing about Hamilton, at least my pride wouldn’t allow me to mourn for him. He’d done something terrible to Kincaid, and I wanted to know what it was. I remembered the way she looked when she came back from Europe. It was almost as bad as she looked now.
“Why?” The word came out on a gust of air, like she’d been punched.
“Another investigation.” My own, perhaps, but it was none of her business.
“Bitty Sue hasn’t hired you to look into this, has she?”
I saw terror in Kincaid’s eyes. Bitty Sue was the most petite of the Daddy’s Girls, and a force to be reckoned with.
“It isn’t Bitty Sue,” I reassured her.
Kincaid swallowed the glass of bourbon. She was developing a serious drinking problem, along with a potential murder charge.
>
When she met my gaze there was a steeliness to her that I’d never seen before. Not the hard, mean edge, but a firm resolve. “I went to Europe to see a doctor. Not the medical kind. A brain doctor. I had an eating disorder, and I tried to kill my father.”
I took the glass from her hand and sucked out the last drop, then went to pour us both a big one. If Kincaid’s background came to light and the check wasn’t recovered from Delo’s, she would inhale the sweet promise of the afterlife in the gas chamber at Parchman State Penitentiary.
I composed my face before I took our drink back. “How did you try to kill him?” Not why, which didn’t really matter now, but how. I prayed it wasn’t a gun.
Her grimace told me my prayers were futile. “I shot him with his shotgun.”
I sank down beside her on the sofa arm. “Why, for God’s sake?” Now I needed to know.
“I was in love with someone. Someone he didn’t approve of. He told me if I married this man that he’d disinherit me. He said he wouldn’t allow Mother to speak my name. That I would be dead to the family and to the town of Zinnia.” As she talked, her voice grew stronger. “I didn’t know anything but the Delta. I didn’t have the courage to go away, like you did.”
Forrest Gump had it wrong. Life is not a box of chocolates; it’s a kaleidoscope. In the flip of a wrist, realities are shredded and the world takes on a totally new shape. Never in my wildest dreams had I thought Kincaid would love anyone, much less a man outside her social circle. I would have bet Dahlia House that the only passion she was capable of feeling was acquisitive in nature—the purchase of a designer label or the perfect shade of nail polish.
“Did anyone know you shot your father?”
Kincaid stood up and began to pace. “Mother went into hysterics and called the sheriff. Pasco came and called Doc McAdams. Daddy wasn’t hurt bad. It was bird shot, and from a distance, so it was more messy than life-threatening.”
“No report was filed?”
“Well, Pasco said he was going to have to write it up, but he said he’d make it accidental, like Daddy said.” She stopped her pacing. “You know, Daddy was madder at Mother for calling the sheriff than he was at me for shooting him.”
After a week as a PI, I understood that perfectly. Written records, official reports—documentation of that ilk is dangerous. One small mistake could haunt a person for the rest of her life. In Kincaid’s case, an incident from her teens could easily prove the foundation for the state to view her as a murderer. She’d shot a man—her father—once. She had a history of solving problems with violence. I could only hope that Pasco had never gotten around to writing the report. Since he was dead, he couldn’t mitigate the bald facts of a shooting.
“So what role did Hamilton play?”
“When I was in Europe, they kept me in this place, a hospital, sort of. I couldn’t leave or have phone calls or friends. My parents didn’t even send me a letter. I was completely alone, and one day I got in the trunk of one of the doctor’s cars and escaped.”
I schooled my face to hide my amazement. “Where did you go?”
“I didn’t know anyone in Switzerland. I’d heard my parents talking about Hamilton and how he was supposedly amassing a fortune in Paris. I went there.”
“Without money or anything?”
“I found him in the phone book and called him and he came to get me. He helped me. And I threw myself at him, but he never touched me. He said,” her voice broke, but she continued, “that it would be immoral to take advantage of me in the state I was in. And so he kept me in his house and protected me for several weeks, until I cut a deal with my father. I would marry Chas, and I could come home.”
“But everyone thought you and Hamilton …”
“I made up the story about having a torrid affair with Hamilton because I was so ashamed of where I’d been and what happened. The truth was, Hamilton was very kind, but he frightened me. So intense. He kept turning every conversation back to Sylvia, his sister. Whatever happened in that crazy family of his, he was more messed up than I was.”
There was the sound of tiny footsteps coming. Kincaid pointed to a photograph of an old cotton gin on the wall. “Chas says Emerson Glade will be famous one day. I love his use of light.”
“I always preferred black-and-white,” I stumbled, trying to fall into Kincaid’s cover-up.
“Well, I never,” Bitty Sue said as she came into the middle of the room and stopped. “Kincaid Maxwell, there are about a hundred people out there looking for you. Your guests,” she said with great emphasis, “in case you’ve forgotten that you’re the hostess for the biggest charity event of the season.”
She looked at me. “I know you,” she said slowly. “You’re …” She wrinkled her little rabbit nose.
“Sarah Booth Delaney,” I said, ordering my body not to show my distress. “We went to school together for twelve years, Bitty Sue. You probably don’t recognize me because I’m wearing a blond wig and my family is in financial ruin.”
My sarcasm was wasted on her. She gave me a sour look. “If you lost your social skills along with your money, that’s fine for you, Sarah Booth. But Kincaid has a position to uphold in this community. She is a Maxwell, and this is the charity event of the year. You need to quit dragging her off to look at stupid pictures of cotton.” She reached out and grasped Kincaid’s hand. “Your guests are looking for you.”
Kincaid gave me a look, but I shrugged her on. I’d found out more than I ever anticipated.
23
I endured the rest of the party—including a lengthy speech by Kincaid, which was delivered with the cool, bitchy façade that I now admired. I suffered through the fashion show by the twenty-year-old mannequins, the fried catfish and hush puppies, the speculative glances of all the Daddy’s Girls who were afraid my impoverishment would rub off on them, and the singing cowboy midgets who also square-danced.
I waited for my chance to corner Fel Harper. Kincaid’s passing remark about Hamilton’s fondness for his sister had shaken me. I was tired of playing nice. I wanted answers, and I wanted them now.
When Fel disappeared behind the house to put his portable kitchen back into the trailer, I followed him. He was bent over a vat of hot grease when I tapped him on the back.
“Holy shit,” he said, whirling fast for a fat man. “I almost burned myself.”
“Guilty conscience?” I accused.
He gave me a dirty look and started throwing tongs and scoops into the trailer.
“Who killed Hamilton Garrett the Fourth?” I demanded.
“You know Mr. Garrett’s death was ruled accidental.” He scooped a crusty hush puppy from the grease and pretended to examine it.
“He was murdered, and you know it. Delo knew it, and now he’s dead.” I didn’t expect my words to have an effect, but I saw his eyes squinch and he looked past me, as if he expected someone to come up from behind.
His heavy hand on my arm was unexpected, and unpleasant. “Stirrin’ up the past is a dangerous business. For you and a lot of other people. Mr. Garrett’s dead and buried for twenty years. Digging in his moldy grave won’t bring him back to life. Leave it alone, Sarah Booth, before someone else gets hurt.”
His words might have scared me, except they weren’t spoken as a threat. Tension radiated through him.
“Who are you afraid of, Fel?” I asked. “Is it Gordon Walters?”
He stepped back from me and looked around again. “You go diggin’ up old bones, they’re liable to stand up and walk,” he said. “I’m afraid of ghosts, Sarah Booth. The kind that slip into your house at night and stand by your bed. The kind that press the pillow down over your face with a handsome smile.”
My heart clutched. There’s no other way to describe that sensation of racing blood and frozen muscle. Fel could not have known about Hamilton’s visit to my home. I hung on to that as hard as I could.
Fel looked around again and leaned closer to me. “Delo is dead. He talked to you and then
he was shot. I don’t think it was coincidental that he was killed in the same spot as Mr. Garrett, and I don’t want that to happen to me.” He put a skimmer over the big vat of grease and hefted it up. It made a sizzling sound as he poured it back into a container. “Don’t come near me again,” he said.
I had never made the direct link that I was responsible for Delo’s death. That my visit had precipitated his murder. I wasn’t a threat to anyone. Not me, Sarah Booth Delaney, failed Daddy’s Girl, actress, heir, female, and week-long private investigator, not to mention fool for love. The fried fish churned in my stomach at the memory of Delo, chopping his wood and tending to his own business. He was a Cagey Old Redneck who took money for gossiping about the past, but he didn’t deserve to have his head blown off.
“What do you know about the knife that was used to cut Veronica’s brake lines?” This was familiar ground, but I was hoping Fel would rethink his answer.
“Not a damn thing. If Delo had remembered to forget certain things, he’d still be alive today.” He tossed his equipment in the trailer and was getting in his truck when I put a hand on his shoulder.
“Pasco Walters drowned in Memphis. What’s the story on that?”
Fel considered for several seconds. “If I tell you, will you stay the hell away from me?”
I nodded.
“Pasco had him a girlfriend up in Memphis. He would go up there on weekends and see her. I think they both liked to do a little drinking. Anyway, he’d been there, and the best we could figure was that he got a late start headed home on Sunday night. Chances were good that he’d been drinkin’ hard. He was apparently goin’ pretty fast when his truck missed the bridge and went into the river. It had been a spring with a lot of rain and the body didn’t float up for about a week. My guess is it got hung on something.” He stared at me. “Does that satisfy you?”
“Who was his girlfriend?”
“Who the hell knows?” Fel asked with irritation. “The ladies liked Pasco. He tried to keep that business in Memphis so it wouldn’t make his wife and family suffer.” He shrugged. “Seems like Pasco had a new woman every few months.”
Them Bones Page 21