I was really confused. Sweetie wouldn’t have rushed several miles into town to bite Mrs. Hedgepeth and then go home. It didn’t make a lick of sense. Unless . . . “It’s a lie.”
There was a chorus of hoots from the jail cells. “The dog is innocent!” They picked up the chant and ran with it.
“Mrs. Hedgepeth had it in for me, and now she’s after my dog,” I said. But not even that made sense. Mrs. Hedgepeth had had it in for every child in the county. She hated children, cats, and dogs. But nearly three decades had passed since I’d walked by her house on my way to the courthouse after school.
Coleman tried hard not to grin. “I don’t believe she was bitten, either, though she had her hand wrapped in about ten miles of gauze. She didn’t go to the hospital or the doctor’s office. I checked both.”
“She’s lying. Sweetie doesn’t bite!”
“I suspect she’s lying. Nonetheless, Reg had to pick Sweetie up and bring her in. He was taking her to the pound when I heard about it and got her brought here. She’s perfectly fine, Sarah Booth. She has to be quarantined for ten days, though.”
“And if Mrs. Hedgepeth develops rabies? She’s mad anyway. There’s no telling how far she’ll take this.”
“She’s a mean woman, no doubt about that,” Coleman agreed. “But I don’t think she’ll go through a series of abdominal shots just to spite a dog. And I told Doc Sawyer, if she showed up in the emergency room, to paint a really gruesome picture of the treatment she’ll have to receive. Somehow, I think she’ll back off this one.”
“I could bite her myself,” I said.
“The quarantine for you would be a lot longer.”
His smile was infectious and I returned it. “Thanks for getting her, Coleman. I didn’t want her in the pound.”
“Nor I. Reg tries hard. They’re swamped, and folks around here are just too ignorant to spay and neuter their pets.”
“Is that a legal opinion?”
“Legal and personal. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what happens to an unneutered pet.” He sighed and helped me to my feet. “Sweetie is fine. I bought her a plate lunch from Millie’s, and Lee’s been by with chicken and rice.” He closed the door to the jail and we were alone in his office. “You look tired and hungry. Want a cheeseburger?”
“Millie’s is closed,” I said. “So is Burger Haven.”
“Coleman’s grill is still open. I rented a small house on Grisham Road. A cottage, you might say. But it has a gas barbecue grill, and I happen to have some burgers ready for the flames.”
I tried to absorb what he was telling me. He’d moved out on Connie. He must have seen the look on my face.
“It wasn’t my choice. She threw me out. I went home day before yesterday and the locks had been changed. She was inside and threatened to hurt herself if I broke the door in. She threw my clothes out the window and told me if I came back she’d kill the baby.”
“What are you going to do?”
“My first inclination was to break the door in, handcuff her, and take her to a psychiatrist for treatment. Wisdom prevailed and I simply left.”
“Is she safe?”
“Her mother’s with her. And her sister. They call me every day and let me know what’s going on.”
“Are they getting help for her?”
He shook his head. “I don’t really know. She’s told them so many crazy things, they don’t really trust me. They let me know she’s eating and okay, but no real details.”
“What a mess.”
“What about that burger? I’ve been experimenting and I’ve developed a Jack Daniel’s chocolate malt that goes down smooth and kicks in with a vengeance.”
“Sounds like exactly what I need.” I cast a lingering look at the door to the jail.
“Sweetie has to stay. Technically, she should be at the pound.”
“I know.” Still, it was hard to walk away from my loyal canine.
“Sarah Booth, she’s fine. Jones is in there and whenever he starts strumming his guitar and singing, Sweetie joins in with that wonderful voice. Those guys love her.”
“Okay,” I agreed. I was starving, and somewhere during the night I was going to have to tell Coleman about Hamilton. I might have a greedy heart, but it was one that now suffered under the burden of guilty duplicity. It was time to come clean.
I WAS SO full my stomach was a rounded lump beneath my jeans and shirt. I stretched in the hammock and sighed in contentment. Coleman was in a chair beside me. The night was totally dark but not too chilly for the first of November. In the distance, the last of the cicadas and frogs sang about the summer past. Soon their lives would be ending, yet they didn’t sound sad. The creatures of nature seemed to have a far superior understanding of the cycle of life. I was the one warring against death.
“Are you going back in the morning?”
I’d filled Coleman in on the case, including the hair-pulling between Cece and Ellisea. He, too, was concerned about the Boudet connection, but he also knew Cece. I hadn’t tried to convince him that Doreen was innocent, but as I presented the evidence I’d found, I could see he was being won to her side. He was particularly incensed with Arnold LeMont’s connection to Senator Clay and Ellisea, and the possible corruption that it implied.
“I have to,” I said, thinking of Kiley Crenshaw and her strident demands. “Chances are I’ll have to go to Lafayette and drag that maid back. It’s pretty obvious LeMont’s not going to do it.”
“I’ll give him a call in the morning,” Coleman offered. “I don’t have a lick of authority there, but a little talk, lawman to lawman, might be interesting.”
“Thanks, Coleman.” It seemed that Coleman had taken on a role in my life—knight in shining armor. I knew enough about fairy tales not to look too deeply beneath the surface, but it was a wonderful thing to have someone who championed my cause every now and again.
We’d deliberately skirted the topics of Connie and Hamilton, but as the night chill touched my body, I knew I couldn’t wait much longer. All evening long, Coleman and I might have been good friends and buddies, sharing a burger and a few Jack Daniel’s milk shakes. We’d played it by the rules, too. But beneath the surface, a lot more was happening.
“Hamilton was my date for the ball.” I just said it. For a long moment my words hung in the November night, and I could imagine what Coleman was imagining.
“He’s a wealthy man, Sarah Booth. As I told you once before, he’s got the credentials. And he’s single.” The last was spoken bitterly.
“He’s been very good to me, Coleman. And there’s more to him than just money and looks. He cares about people. He works for an organization that helps find missing people. People who have been disappeared by political factions.”
“You don’t have to sing his praises, Sarah Booth. I don’t have a leg to stand on. I know that.”
I stared up at the stars. There were millions of them, but they had somehow dimmed. “I’m not singing his praises, I just want to be totally honest with you.”
“Tell you what. We have right now, just this moment together. Right down the road is Connie and that hornet’s nest that has become my life. In the opposite direction is Hamilton and all of the bright and shining things he offers you. We’re right here, in this weedy backyard, but we’re together. Let’s just keep it between the two of us.”
The pain in my chest was so intense, I know my heart cracked just a little. Coleman wasn’t asking for anything, only a crisp night and some uncomplicated companionship. “You’ve got it, Coleman,” I said, forcing a note of flipness into my voice to hide the pain.
We talked of high school and the way our dreams had shifted and changed, growing smaller and smaller. At one point in time, Coleman had considered professional football. But his father’s illness had kept him on a tight leash, binding him to Sunflower County and a job in law enforcement that he’d never considered until he had it.
I was going to be an actress. Not a film st
ar, but an honest-to-God Broadway actress. I was Maggie the Cat and Blanche DuBois. The Big Apple was going to be my snack.
And that city had kicked my ass. I’d come limping home to lick my wounds.
Much the same thing had happened to our classmates and friends. Some had had tremendous success, such as Krystal, the former Daddy’s Girl who was now at the top of the country charts. But even with her career success, she’d confronted the narrowing of her dreams. We’d all once thought “happily ever after” was our due.
For all the loss of innocence, though, we’d gained a better understanding of ourselves, and that, Coleman said, was the flip side of our loss.
“So we see ourselves more clearly and accept our limitations?” I asked, a little disappointed in his negative philosophy.
“No,” he said, leaning forward to swing the hammock gently with his hands. “We see ourselves clearly and we understand that we have chosen to be where we are.”
“You sound like Doreen,” I said, surprised.
“Really?”
“You do. With her, it’s all about choice.”
“When this is all behind her, I’d like to talk to her. In fact, I’d give just about anything if Connie would talk to her.”
Against his own rule he’d dragged his wife into the backyard. But he had a valid point. I didn’t think Connie’s body needed healing; it was her head. Maybe Doreen could help by talking to her. She seemed to have a real way with the folks who gathered in Jackson Square.
“I bet Doreen would come up here to see her, but she can’t leave that jurisdiction.”
In the dim light that filtered from the kitchen window I could see the hope in Coleman’s face. “Maybe Connie would go to New Orleans and talk to her. If she won’t go with me, maybe she’ll go with her mother and sister.”
I watched the play of emotion on his face and wondered at his true agenda. Did he want his wife well? Or did he want her well enough to leave? It wasn’t a question I was prepared to ask.
“I’d better get on home,” I said, dreading the inevitable confrontation with Jitty.
“By the way, I asked Coot about that tombstone. He said he didn’t pay for it. But he said when he saw it, it nearly frightened him to death. It was exactly like he saw Lillith standing there in the flames.”
“But she was already dead when the fire started,” I said.
“I know,” Coleman agreed, “she died of smoke inhalation. But you’ve got to admit that it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand on end.”
He had a point there. He surely did.
I DROVE BACK to Dahlia House with only my thoughts. I won’t claim that they were deep, but they were low-down. On so many fronts, my life was terrific and exciting. I had a compelling case to work on, and Hamilton was waiting for me to return to New Orleans so he could sweep me off my feet yet again.
Instead of making me feel wonderful, though, I felt as if I’d lost control. I’d made no real progress on Doreen’s case. Sure, Tinkie and I had dug up a lot of leads, but none of them had led to anything concrete. All we could do was throw suspicion on a handful of people. It just wasn’t good enough. And emotionally, I wasn’t ready to make a commitment to Hamilton—even if he asked, which he hadn’t.
I sat in the car outside Dahlia House and stared in at the darkened windows. There was no Sweetie Pie to greet me, and if Reveler knew I’d come home, he wasn’t talking. Jitty wasn’t even around to accost me as my steps echoed on the porch.
The good thing about coming home is that you don’t have to bring a suitcase. I hurried up the steps with one thought in mind, a long hot bath.
“Sarah Booth, girl, water won’t wash away what ails you.”
Jitty was sitting in the dark. All I could see of her was the light reflected in her eyes.
“I know,” I said, unwilling to argue. “I’m tired, Jitty. I don’t know what I want. I’m confused. I’m all of the things in life that add up to one big mess.”
There was a low chuckle. “Maybe I was bein’ a little hard. At least you didn’t sleep with the sheriff.”
“Coleman’s married. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“How many times do you have to tell yourself?” she asked softly.
For some reason I felt the approach of tears. Anger was my normal reaction, but I had to take a seat on the horsehair sofa to keep from crying.
“Sarah Booth, what do you know about flappers?”
If she was trying to distract me, I could only thank her. “Short skirts, short hair, illegal gin. They were party girls.” I thought for a moment. “They were change, I suppose. They were the first modern women.”
“You got it. Women began to see themselves in a new way. Some folks thought it was a dangerous way.”
“I guess it was the first wave of true independence.” I sighed again. I didn’t feel very independent or capable. “Sometimes I think all of that is an illusion, Jitty. I’m independent, but I don’t want to be. Not all the time.”
“For all of the image of gaiety the flapper projected, I think maybe she suffered most of all.”
Jitty stepped into the light and I saw her outfit. It was stunning. Crystal beads hung on the sheath dress of aqua shantung. A peacock feather adorned her headdress.
“Who’s the most famous flapper?” she asked.
“Zelda Fitzgerald.” I’d done a paper on her in college. For the term of the literature course, I was completely absorbed in Zelda. I admired her courage, her kiss-my-ass attitude toward what others thought of her, her absolute devotion to scenes and pranks. I’d also fallen into the school of thought that her husband stole more from her work than was ethical.
“Zelda Fitzgerald died in an insane asylum.”
“I know,” I said. “She came to a bad end.”
“A very bad end.”
I considered a glass of Jack, but didn’t have the energy to fix one. “Zelda always sort of reminded me of Mama,” I said.
“Lord, Sarah Booth, that’s a terrible thing to say.”
I looked at Jitty. “Why? Zelda was a remarkable woman.”
“Not takin’ a thing away from Zelda, but when you make that comparison, you sure do underestimate your mama.”
“How so?”
“Your mama didn’t give a damn what people thought, that’s true. But she didn’t flaunt it with pranks and scandal. She fought for causes.” Jitty leaned forward. “Your mama was grounded in the importance of life. Seems to me Zelda lived on the edge of the frivolous.”
“She might have been a great writer.”
“But she chose not to write.”
I hated debating with Jitty, especially when I was tired. “I know there’s a point here somewhere.”
“Illusion-slash-delusion,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. The smile that touched her face was beautiful. “Delusion is an art form that brings only disaster. The worst delusion of all is self-delusion.”
“And Zelda suffered from self-delusion?”
“I think it became her fortress.”
“And Mother?”
“Your mother sometimes created an illusion. For effect. To make a point.”
“But she truly didn’t care if she aggravated people.”
“That’s only partially true, Sarah Booth. She cared about agitating you and your father. There were people she cared greatly about. And sometimes, those people needed what she liked to term a wake-up call.”
“Grandpa and Grandma Baker?”
“That’s right. She felt that they’d fallen victim to their own delusions of wealth and social standing and class. She didn’t aim to hurt them.”
“But she did.”
“All I’m saying is that your mother may have adopted some of the exterior characteristics of the flapper. She was bold and outspoken and her own woman. She drank whiskey and danced with the man she loved in a way that certainly wasn’t ladylike.”
I couldn’t help but smile, remembering Tammy’s dream of my paren
ts. They had been a little on the scandalous side when it came to their dancing.
“But beneath all of that was the real thing. She didn’t self-destruct, because at her core she was a woman of substance. She didn’t suffer from delusions.”
“But I do,” I said softly. “I’m talking to a ghost.”
Jitty chuckled. “Sarah Booth, I’m the least of your troubles, girl. You have some hard choices, but it’s our choices that define us. Just remember that.”
She was gone.
I went upstairs, took my bath, and set the clock for five A.M. I had to get back to New Orleans and find the evidence that would free Doreen. There was another task that awaited me, too. I could no longer ignore the choices laid before my heart. To continue to do so might be to slip the moorings of happiness forever.
25
“CECE WENT HOME, THANK GOODNESS,” TINKIE SAID AS SHE SIPPED her café au lait. “She had to be at work this morning.” She bit into a beignet, leaving a fine dusting of powdered sugar beneath her nose. Without thought, she licked her lip in a way that made a waiter collide with a customer. Hot coffee flew, but no one was injured. I could only shake my head and smile.
“I didn’t do that deliberately,” she said, but there was a glint of pleasure in her eyes. Nondeliberate devastation of the male is one of the highlights of a Daddy’s Girl’s day. She’d wreaked havoc without intent.
“Coleman’s keeping Sweetie in the jail for her term of incarceration.”
“That’s good for Sweetie, I’m just not sure it’s good for you,” she said. Her blue eyes probed mine, but I gave nothing away. “What about Coleman, Sarah Booth? What about Hamilton?”
“What about me?” I asked in a monotone.
“Yes. What about you, Sarah Booth? What do you want?”
“I don’t have any answers. The best I can do is come up with more questions.”
“You’re going to have to do a little better than that. I think Hamilton may be falling in love with you.”
I sighed.
“I guess I always viewed Hamilton as the unattainable man. He was the brass ring, something to reach for, but forever out of a woman’s grasp. But I see him look at you, Sarah Booth, and I know that he can truly be yours. He’s a good man. That’s a big responsibility.”
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