To my dismay, I was seated between a graduate student and the dean. They'd obviously come to the party together and chatted—over and through me—about books, authors, and Mississippi's place in the world of the literati. Of course they both knew everything about each subject. And what they didn't know, the bookstore owner across the table was glad to fill in.
During the delicious pumpkin soup, I learned of their importance in Mississippi in particular and the universe in general. The Chicken Muriel Spark was a treat, and I had a respite from the Ego Bowl while Lawrence explained briefly how he'd come to acquire the recipe. As the hired help served the chicken accompanied by beautiful crystal dishes of cranberry salad, Bailey Bronson, the bookstore owner, rose unsteadily.
"To Lawrence!" He raised his glass. "Underappreciated and now in the catbird seat." He swayed dangerously. "Renowned for his international Epicurean flair and his parties, at which too many people drank too much and spilled their guts. May he take his secrets to the grave. The sooner the better."
Madame's gasp was the only sound. Even the cutlery stilled.
"My death would benefit no one," Lawrence said as casually as if he were ordering coffee. "All pertinent information is already in writing. As a vessel of secrets,
I've been drained. But what abomination do you fear, Bronson? We'd love to know. I could hazard a guess if you'd like."
At that moment the waiters burst out of the kitchen with the cheese course. As they served, the tension grew. Only Lawrence seemed oblivious to it all.
When the waiters left, Lawrence smiled and nodded. "You're still not worried about that literary contest you organized. Some dazzling talent. I judged it, but the winner . . ." He arched his eyebrows. "There was some confusion, as I recall."
Bailey Bronson tried to rise but sat back down heavily in his chair. His hand trembled as he reached for his wine.
Time seemed to flat-line and stretch. I'd spent a few awkward weeks in a sorority house back in my younger days, but I'd never been in a room where the air seemed to itch as if it had been lightly salted. Everyone at the table focused on his or her food, except for Brianna. She blew a kiss across the table to her father. His smile was both tolerant and proud.
The kitchen door opened again and the waiters returned.
"Ah, the salad," Lawrence said, once again breaching an awkward silence. "Don't expect iceberg lettuce and pallid tomatoes. This is a fence row salad made from weeds gathered along the roadways and a hint of that wonderful plant that smells like an angel's armpit."
Beneath the clatter of china, individual conversations once again sprang up. I sat back in my chair and sipped my wine, examining the faces of my fellow diners. They were all practiced at the art of facade. Only Madame and Willem Arquillo made no attempt to hide their discomfort.
At last dessert was served, a persimmon parfait made from fruit Lawrence had gathered "at the Shelby hog farm. I had to fight the sows back." With the serving of the sweet, and last, course, the momentum of the party seemed to escalate.
Conversation rose in pitch and volume, and I was still left wondering why a man as charming as Lawrence Ambrose would choose to spend an evening with these tedious people. The purpose of the evening—the real purpose—and my role in it remained unclear.
Still, Lawrence's reputation as a chef was indisputable. I was captivated by the parfait, savoring the hint of Cointreau in the rich dessert. It was after my second spoonful that my tenure of boredom with my table companions paid off. The Dean dropped a blob of parfait on his lap and in the conversational lull that ensued as he tried to wipe it off, I heard Willem Arquillo talking about a new coffee bean he was developing on his finca in Nicaragua.
"So tell us, Arquillo, are you testing the new blend on the hapless Nicaraguan campesinos?" Bailey Bronson asked in a slur that was clear enough to stop all conversation at the table. "Isn't that what your father did? Some sort of testing on the Jews. Human genetics, I believe. Was it Auschwitz or Dachau? I hear Lawrence intends to spill his guts about your family in his book. That'll put the knife in your new political career as Nicaraguan Minister of Agriculture."
In the silence that followed, a thin woman I'd completely overlooked let out a choked cry. "Stop it! Just stop it!" The only color in the woman's face was a harsh flush that ran up her neck and into her cheeks. "This is enough stabbing and cutting. We all bleed!"
Beside me Grace expelled a burst of air, a sound of disgust.
"Bailey Bronson, you fool." Lillian Sparks rose to her feet. "You'd repeat any rumor that belittled someone else, hoping, I presume, to increase your own stature. You're pathetic." She reached over to the other woman. "It's okay, Tilda. Don't let them upset you. He's just a drunk, and Willem is far too cultured to even acknowledge him."
The bookstore owner sat taller. "I was addressing the Latin bean breeder, Lillian. But then you spent an awful lot of time down in the family barns, didn't you? Breeding is a big interest for you. Perhaps you think it's fine to experiment on beasts and humans. Is that why you never married?"
Willem rose slowly from the table, dropping his napkin in the parfait. "Bronson, if you wish to question my family and my honor, I suggest you stand up and do it like a man."
No one moved. Bailey tried to find his feet, but he was too drunk. He slammed back into his seat, tottered dangerously, then fell forward into his plate with a smack. The only appropriate thing seemed to be to toss my napkin over his head, which I did with flair. "Rest in peace," I proclaimed.
Lawrence stood at the head of the table and blew a kiss at me. "Dahling," he said, his blue eyes dancing with merriment. "I dub you Sissy Pom-Pom Ali. That's a combination of Mother Teresa and Muhammad Ali. You saved old Bailey's skin, though now that I consider it, that could be a crime against nature."
Laughter swept the table, and glasses were raised in my honor. Only Willem didn't pick up his glass. He was still angry, that Latin blood thundering. I could see it in his eyes, and it had a more potent effect on me than the wine, which I gulped down.
"Now that all of the excitement is over, let me tell you some stories about the days of Henry Miller, Anais Nin, Hemingway, Fitzgerald—the Left Bankers." Lawrence recaptured the table with perfect grace. "It was a time of magic. We smoked Turkish cigarettes, drank, and ran wild in the more permissive climes of Paris."
While he talked I concentrated on using the private investigator's primary skill—observation. Harold sat with the attentiveness that marked his comfort with culture, and his pleasure in Lawrence. Layton Rathbone's gaze never left Lawrence, while beside him Brianna held a compact in her lap, studying her flawless face.
Off to my left, the Dean set up a buzzsaw of commentary. He was tipsy but able to enunciate clearly, and what he said suddenly caught my interest.
"Lawrence lived out in the wilds of Lula, you know," he said, talking still to the graduate student and an unconscious Bailey. I was getting worried that perhaps the bookstore owner had snorted his parfait and suffocated. But he gurgled, turned his head, and passed out again while Grace continued to talk.
"Lawrence worked as an entertainer and chef on a lake, a very interesting place. Tennessee Williams visited often, and others, but you won't hear Lawrence talking about those years. There was gambling and liquor. And a murder. I wonder if the old fossil will reveal that in his book."
"Sounds to me like something Ambrose made up to generate interest in his life." The graduate student licked the rim of his parfait glass. "I mean he was a brief luminary, wasn't he? This whole idea of letting a has-been model write his biography is scandalous. Strictly a publicity stunt. How else to reclaim a bit of spotlight?"
I felt a deep urge to shove the parfait glass down his throat. I was relieved of the urge thankfully when Lawrence adjourned the table. Coffee would be served in the European tradition, standing, so guests could move about, smoke, and mingle. I sprang from the table.
"A moment," Lawrence said, drawing everyone's attention back to him. "I have a brief ann
ouncement. I just want everyone to know that my book will be thorough and truthful." The room stilled. "Down to every little gritty detail. Those of you who are my old, dear friends—you'll all be stars." He smiled and I was reminded of the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood. "Each one of us sitting here hides something. I, of course, am included. I have my own shadow world where half-truths and base actions lie curled in a fetal position in the darkness. But I believe there is an accounting, and I prefer to have mine here. I hope you understand . . . and forgive me for whatever light I cast on your dark corners. Now let's have some coffee."
He walked away from the table, which suddenly erupted in a scraping of chairs as the guests evacuated. Madame had said Lawrence was playing out a dangerous scheme, and if his intent was to strike fear into the heart of his guests about what he might reveal, he'd done a thorough job of it.
I'd made it only a few steps from the table when I felt another hand on my arm, this one with perfectly manicured nails painted a glittering white to match her dress.
"Sarah Booth, I hate to ask," Cece said, "but could you possibly take me home?"
I turned to find her face blanched, her bottom lip trembling. "What's wrong?" I asked.
"I'm not well," she said, her voice shaky, eyes wild.
She didn't have to say it twice. She looked ghastly. "Let me get your coat and bag."
Lawrence spotted us and quietly escorted Cece to my car and carefully seated her. "I'll check with you later," he assured her. "We'll have a long chat."
When he turned to me, his eyes were lively in the moonlight. "Dahling, come to brunch tomorrow. We'll do something interesting with the carcass of this meal. And then we'll talk. Just you and I. Rosalyn is worried about me, and I want to set her mind at rest. I'm not the fool I might appear to be, nor am I an old crank bent on malice. The gloves must come off for the truth to come out. Come at nine."
"In the morning," I agreed.
I got into the car, where Cece was huddled in her coat, shaking like a leaf. She'd taken on a blue tint, but it could've been the moonlight reflecting off her glittery gown.
She groaned. "Why is Lawrence doing this?" It was suddenly like someone let the air out of her. There was a long sigh, and she slumped down in her seat.
I just looked at her and shook my head. I had no answer for her.
"Get me home, Sarah Booth. Just get me home."
3
Christmas Day dawned gray and gloomy. The promised snow had not fallen but seemed to hang low in the clouds, an impending, ominous pressure that made the drive to Dahlia House seem fraught with danger. In the Delta, there's only sky and land, and the sky rules. Against the lowering clouds, Dahlia House looked like a haven.
The weather perfectly reflected my mood. I'd spent the night at Cece's. Doc Sawyer had made a house call, giving her a shot of Valium and a lecture about the dangers of unchecked anxiety—work related, Cece insisted. When I left, she was sedated and asleep, the unexplained fear gone from her features. Now I needed strong black coffee and some rest. Unfortunately, I had time for neither. I was due at Lawrence's for brunch.
I was headed down the drive at a fast clip when a slant of sunlight broke through the clouds. Odd how an angle of light can evoke an avalanche of memories. I thought of my parents, sauntering down that drive on just such a winter morning, hand in hand. I could still hear my mother's laughter.
Or the Christmas Day that Eulalee McBride came galloping down it on Spartacus, an incredibly beautiful gray stallion that she'd gotten for a present. The light had caught her red braids and made her look like a Viking warrior.
Or Johnny Wells, walking down the lane toward the house, a box of chocolates in his hand as he came to pay a Valentine's call on me. I was twelve and mortified by his attentions. But it hadn't kept me from watching him come, black hair made sleek and brilliant as a crow's wing by the winter sun.
My life was captured in moments, some of them occurring in the lane that curved gently before me. But I knew that the past was so appealing only because the present was empty. I had diagnosed the disease; it was only the cure that eluded me.
Perhaps Jitty was right. Had I not slept with Hamilton Garrett V, the man I'd been hired to investigate as a mother-killer, I would never have known what I was missing. The feelings he'd awakened would have remained dormant. As my father used to tell me when I was a child, "You can't miss what you've never had."
As I continued—slowly—down the drive and through the flat land of the Delta, brown and barren after the cotton harvest but topped by a pink meringue of clouds so full of early light that my heart ached, I knew I wouldn't undo what I'd done. Fool for love or just plain fool, I would suffer the pain to pay for the pleasure. Thank goodness, though, I had no time for reflection. I was late for a very important date.
I made a mad dash up the stairs and into my bedroom where I jerked the first thing I could lay hands on out of the closet and threw it on. Red was good. Lawrence had complimented my red cocktail dress. Clingy was not so good, but it would have to do.
"Try black. It's a minimizin' color," Jitty advised from the doorway as I checked my reflection for unsightly panty lines under the beaded sweater dress.
My plans for Christmas Day had been starvation and a form of physical abuse termed aerobics. Instead, I'd signed on for two big meals prepared by gourmands. Well, it was Christmas. Food was the one thing I had left to enjoy.
In a pattern of bad behavior that codified the worst of the Daddy's Girls, I'd opened every Christmas present as soon as it arrived. Instant gratification, the mantra of every red-blooded DG. End result—there was nothing under my tree to slow me down this morning.
Jitty eyed me up and down. "You be sure and gobble all the food at Mr. Ambrose's so that when you get around to dinin' with Harold, you can eat like a lady instead of a field hand."
"I thought you were watching reruns instead of Gone With the Wind." Not for the first time I considered having the cable removed. Psychological studies indicated that violent behavior on the little screen warped the minds of children. Jitty was watching way too many of the old black and white shows. She'd bought into the theory that if she turned back the clock on conduct to the fifties, then the era of moral prosperity with families, mealtime, and cheerful children would magically return. "Jitty, I might not love the way things are now, but I won't ever be a Stepford Wife."
She ignored me completely and continued her tirade. "No man wants a woman who can eat her weight in cornbread dressin'. I found some back issues of Bride's magazine up in the attic. I think we can fit you into somethin' decent if you don't balloon up another size. Those empire waistlines can hide a lot of—"
"I'll keep that in mind." I'd gained five pounds, not six dress sizes. As a ghost, Jitty never gained an ounce. I wanted to snatch her bald.
"Uh-oh," Jitty said and vanished.
I finished applying my lipstick just as I heard the sound of someone beating on the back door. Since Santa only used the chimney and I wasn't expecting any other guests, I hurried downstairs, curious as to who was knocking at my door.
I slipped into the kitchen and made my way to the window for a view of the back steps. A strange whine was coming from the back door. I eased open the curtains and found myself staring directly into the ice-blue gaze of Harold Erkwell. For the longest moment we simply stared at each other.
"Merry Christmas," he said, bent over in the strangest position. For all of his contortions, his salt-and-pepper hair was immaculate, his smile charming.
"Harold?" Just brilliant. Harold was a master of social intercourse, and I sounded like one of those sitcom idiots.
"I have a present," he said, not yet straightening up. "Open the door, please."
I did, eagerly. Harold was known for his exquisite gifts.
I never saw what it was that knocked me down, stepped all over me, and barreled through the swinging door of the kitchen. I only heard glass hit the floor and shatter.
"Sweetie Pie!" Harold cried o
ut.
No amount of sweet talk was going to work now.
"You are going to die," I answered, all tender thoughts knocked slam out of me. What type of creature had Harold unleashed in my house?
A chair crashed over and more glass broke.
"I'll get her," Harold said, leaping over me as he ran across the kitchen and through the swinging door.
I remained on the floor, wondering if he'd remember his impeccable manners and rush back to help me to my feet. There was the sound of another crash and I leapt up, convinced that if I didn't get into the dining room, there would be nothing left.
"Sweetie, come here," Harold called pleadingly.
I was going to sweetie him! I pushed through the door and stopped dead still. A huge, raw-boned hound dog was standing in the center of the dining room table licking the hand-varnished oak. There wasn't a piece of china or crystal left on the table.
"What is that}" I asked, pointing at the creature that sat down on the fine oak table and scratched a floppy ear.
"It's Delo Wiley's hound. You said you wanted one. So I picked out the youngest, took her up to the vet, got all her shots, had her spayed, and here she is." His smile was amused, apologetic, and quite charming. "Merry Christmas, Sarah Booth!"
As usual, the purr of the Roadster boosted my spirits. The heavy gray sky met the dark brown gumbo of the Delta soil in the far distance. I sniffed the air and thought I detected the probability of snow. At least it would relieve the pressure, though it would do nothing for my blood pressure. I'd left Dahlia House entrusted to a ghost and a four-legged food disposal. After Harold fled the scene of his crime, Sweetie Pie managed to open the refrigerator and eat a pound of cheese, half a dozen deviled eggs, the remains of a baked ham, and two California-raised tomatoes. Not exactly a balanced meal. Then she'd fallen into a food coma at my feet.
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