"By his desire to be read," she finished, her voice trembling. "You can't imagine what it was like for him. He was famous once, sought after, respected, consulted about literature and art. He was somebody, Sarah Booth. And the last years have just passed. He watched his contemporaries achieve great success. Tom and Truman and Nell, all of those powerful Southern voices finding people who read them again and again, while his wonderful books were forgotten, out of print."
I could easily understand, but there was a problem. "It would have been Brianna's book, not his."
"Not really," Madame said, finally looking at me. "Not at all. Lawrence was actually doing most of the writing. I know that for a fact. And if the book was successful, what would it matter? His books would be reprinted, his body of work revived. There would be new opportunities. He had it all figured out."
Perhaps. "And he really thought Brianna could deliver?"
"He did. And in a way, I think he felt sorry for her. Her career, too, was over. In another year no one in fashion would remember her name. He saw it as an opportunity to help her."
"Why?" The question popped out. Brianna Rathbone wasn't a woman who elicited my sympathy. She was a very wealthy woman, if not in her own right, then by inheritance. Layton Rathbone was a millionaire many times over.
Madame went to the decanter and tipped a splash of liquor into her glass. "I tried to tell him that she wasn't to be trusted. Now, if she has the manuscript, she'll publish it. I know she will. She'll ruin anyone who gets in her way. We have to get it back."
We were back at the original point. Madame had grown short of breath as she talked. I went to her and eased her down into a chair. What she said made just enough sense to trigger my neck-crepe reaction. The flesh at the back of my neck was prickling and drawing, a very unladylike behavior.
The doorbell chimed and I knew it was Harold. I started to the door as Madame's small hand caught my wrist in a grip that would have done Charles Atlas proud.
"You have to get the manuscript back," she said, "and then prove that Brianna Rathbone is a killer."
Staring into her black eyes, I could only swallow. Madame had always been demanding, rigid, passionate, and suffered no fools. But I'd never seen such iron as I did in her gaze.
The bell chimed again and she released me, but her eyes held me firmly in place.
"There's a lot at stake, Sarah Booth. Whatever you do, don't mention this to another living soul. Promise me.
"Not a word." I turned to go to the door, shaken by Madame's naked determination. Sweetie Pie almost bowled me over as she hurried forward. This time there were no growls, only a metronome tail that was as dangerous as a swinging blackjack. She whined fetchingly at the door.
"Harold," I said, opening the door, trying hard to sidestep Sweetie's baton tail. No matter how many times I greeted him, I was surprised by his handsomeness. His gray wool suit was perfectly tailored, offset with a red Christmas tie that sported a blinking tree. Odd that the foolish tie clip only made him look more distinguished. And desirable.
"Sweetie." He swept the dog into a big bear hug. "And nice to see you, too, Sarah Booth," he added as he stood and took my hand. His ice-blue eyes danced.
We hadn't made it past the doorway when Madame entered the foyer, her hood back in place, her face partially concealed.
"Good evening, Harold," she said before she turned to me. "Remember, Sarah Booth, I'm counting on you." She swept past us into the night, leaving a palpable void of silence.
"She's upset," I said, opting for the Daddy's Girl tactic of obvious understatement. This would, hopefully, put Harold in the position of assuming the tower-of-strength pose, which would then make him forget to wonder about Madame's presence in my home and her strange remark.
"Lawrence's death is a tragedy," Harold said as he stepped inside. "I'm certain she's devastated. They were best friends."
I cast a keen glance at Harold. He sounded downright emotional. "How about a drink?" I led the way into the parlor.
Harold stopped at the threshold, an abrupt movement that sent Sweetie Pie crashing into the backs of his knees. Red and green neon pulsed, washing him in rhythmic light. "Very nice," he said. "Very Elvis."
It was the perfect description. "Thanks." It hadn't occurred to me, but music was what I needed. I pulled out Mother's 45 of "Blue Christmas."
"Ah, Sarah Booth," Harold said with a grin. "Let's dance."
Though I'd never admit it to Jitty, Harold's stock rose once again in my eyes as he settled a firm hand on my back. He held me tight and slipped into movement with the music. It was exactly what I needed. By the time we left Dahlia House half an hour later, I'd forgotten Madame and her demands. It was Christmas Day, or the last few hours of it. A tiny bit of celebration wasn't unwarranted.
We carried our festive mood into the car and along for the drive. Harold's Christmas decorations were unexpected. Candles in red and green paper sacks lined the drive. I let out a sigh of appreciation. Terribly, terribly romantic.
Inside, there was the smell of fresh-cut cedar from the boughs that lined his staircase. Holly and wild magnolia leaves formed a bower, and from it hung the mistletoe. I had kissed Harold only once before. I'd been surprised, then, by my reaction to him. This time I was prepared. The restraint he used made me want to press for more. As before, though, he refused to accelerate the embrace.
"Our past indicates we should proceed with caution," he said gravely as he ran his hands over my bare arms and concluded the kiss with a brushing of his lips across my cheek in a tease. "You returned my ring, and I tried to recapture something that was long gone," he reminded me.
He spoke truth. I didn't bother to say that I could forgive him for taking off with Sylvia Garrett since I'd had my turn with her brother. I wasn't much of a scorekeeper in home runs of the heart, but we seemed to be even in the errors department.
He seated me and poured us both a glass of wine. Then he set the room ablaze in candles.
We ate in that rare light where everything gleamed and sparkled, even my conversation. We took champagne to the fireplace and sat down to listen to Beethoven. I found myself leaning against Harold, his arm around me, as I sipped the bubbly he'd poured into Waterford flutes.
"To the future, Sarah Booth. Yours and mine," Harold said. "And to Lawrence Ambrose, a man of talent and generosity."
It was an easy toast to drink to. "Tell me how you knew Lawrence," I said. Though the hour was late, I didn't want to go home. It was Christmas. Harold's arm around me felt just right, creating a 3.2 on the Richter scale in my right thumb as I remembered a moment beneath fairy lights.
"As an adult, I became reacquainted with him through his wonderful work. But I knew him when I was a child. He was a friend of my Aunt Lenore's. He encouraged me to pursue music, but it was mainly our love of art that drew us together in the past few years.
Lawrence was a fine sculptor. His work is in the best collections in Europe."
"Sculptor, too?"
"He was many things, Sarah Booth. It's one reason he never achieved the acclaim he deserved in this country. He refused to focus. That made him hard to categorize—and easy to dismiss."
"What was he like?" The champagne had made me warm and lazy, and I relaxed against Harold, enjoying his solid warmth, the beautiful music, and the flames of the fire.
"He'd come to visit Lenore, and sometimes he spent hours with me. He had the imagination to create another world, a place of enchantment for a young boy who craved attention from an adult."
I didn't know a lot about Harold's childhood, but I knew enough to know it hadn't been like mine. "He sounds wonderful."
"He was. And kind. He made me feel special, Sarah Booth." A log shifted in the fire, sending up a shower of sparks. It broke the spell of memory and Harold sat a little straighter. "Lawrence did what few people ever have the courage to do. He took life by his own terms."
"And he may have paid the price." The words were out of my mouth before I thought of t
he implications. Harold, though, was not as sizzled by the wine and candlelight.
"What are you saying?" He turned so that he could look into my eyes. "The cut on his hand was an accident. He died while trying to call for help—didn't he?"
I shrugged, hoping to end it there.
"If foul play was involved . . ." His gaze focused beyond me for a moment. "Last night, that party, it was all about the book. He wanted everyone there to worry about what he'd written, what he might reveal."
I could see Harold mentally going over the guest list from the night before. It didn't take him long to get to the Rs. "Will Brianna go forward with the book?"
"I don't know." I put every scrap of sincerity I could muster into those three words. I sipped my champagne and decided to shift gears. "Harold, what could have prompted trouble between Brianna and Lawrence?"
"What makes you think there was trouble?"
The habit of answering a question with a question was strictly male, and highly annoying. But Harold's pale blue eyes held real worry. "Madame says the manuscript is missing. She said Lawrence pulled out of the book deal with Brianna the night of the dinner party."
"Do you have any proof?"
I cleared my throat softly. "I'm not accusing Brianna of anything. Yet. I'm merely telling you what Madame said. Do you know of a reason someone might hurt Lawrence?"
"Brianna had no reason to hurt Lawrence. In fact, it would be to her detriment." Harold got to his feet and poked the fire even though it was burning fine.
"Okay, someone other than Brianna."
"There was talk that Lawrence left Paris for a reason. He had a falling out with some of the other writers there, and when he left, he broke all ties. But there was also a story before that." He hesitated just long enough to qualify it as a tease. "Something to do with gambling and a place called Moon Lake. Lawrence worked up at a casino near Lula when he was a very young man. It's all forgotten now."
"How do you know this?" Harold was a virtual encyclopedia of Delta gossip.
He gave me a look. "My Aunt Lenore ran away from home when she was sixteen and took a job as a guitar player in the same lodge. It was a gathering place for young artists. They worked at the casino and talked literature and art and music. It was 1940, Sarah Booth. Times were hard. Women had no freedom, and risk was a drug for the young."
Putting aside Harold's chivalrous defense of Brianna, this was the second mention of the old casino. "There was a murder there, right?"
He finished his drink. "I don't know. Lenore seldom talked of the past, yet she was trapped by it. She couldn't accept the restrictions of that time or her family's expectations."
Perhaps no one had asked the right questions. "What's she doing now?"
Harold shifted. His gaze dropped to the empty glass he held. "She hanged herself."
"I'm sorry." I felt as if I'd been slapped. The buzz of the champagne flattened, leaving the bitter aftertaste of regret. "Harold, really. I'm sorry. I had no idea."
"I was ten. She was still a beautiful woman, only forty-two. It's odd, now that I think about it. She never spoke of it, but that summer on Moon Lake may have been the only time of pure joy in Lenore's life."
Harold refilled both our glasses. "To my knowledge, she never accepted an invitation to any social event. She worked at the Presbyterian church. That was her life." His gaze found the fireplace and held to the flames. "She hanged herself from the wrought iron fence in the church cemetery."
I drank my champagne rapidly, but the bubbly had lost its magic. I had another glass, but the evening had turned as flat as my buzz.
"I'd better head home," I said at last. Harold, though perfectly mannered, had also slipped beneath the surface of the past. He and his dead aunt would spend this Christmas night together. And I would have Jitty.
He wrapped me in my coat and went out to warm the car. While I waited I toured his home, a beautiful old house filled with art. It was with some degree of surprise that I found myself gazing into a pair of piercing eyes that were familiar. The work was labeled "Self-Portrait: Lawrence, 1940." The image of the young writer was compelling, but the background also caught my interest. Behind the lanky young man who held a fishing rod was a huge lake. It was done in charcoal, a sketch more than a polished drawing. But far in the distance on the lake was a boat, and in it a young woman and a man were engaged in a clench. I was no art critic, but I found it interesting that Lawrence had chosen to include that little passionate scene in his self-portrait. What it meant was anybody's guess. Was it part of his view of himself, or something he'd witnessed that had affected him?
Ah, I wondered. What secrets had Lenore Erkwell brought back from Moon Lake? It was a question she'd never be able to answer for me.
6
The real problem with Christmas for Delaney women is the day after. The feast is over, the buildup has peaked, and all that's left is the decline into creative ways of disguising leftovers. Since I'd chosen to accept invitations to eat out, I didn't even have leftovers for entertainment. No bubbling pots of turkey soup. No turkey sandwiches made with dinner rolls and cranberry sauce. No chopping and dicing for turkey salad.
The only person more unhappy than I was Sweetie Pie. She moped under the table, warming my feet as I drank black coffee, as if she knew I'd let her down in the menu department.
"You know it's a scientific fact that people resemble their dogs," Jitty said from behind my chair. She stared over my shoulder at the crossword puzzle I was stumped by.
I didn't bother to respond.
"It would seem to me that Harold would have preferred somethin' with a little more bloodline and a lot less ear." Jitty walked around the table and glanced at my loyal canine. "That's a yard dog, Sarah Booth. At least your Aunt Elizabeth only let cats in the house."
"You thought it was fine for Chablis to be in the house," I reminded her. Chablis was my friend Tinkie's little Yorkie.
"Cha-blis was temporary. Besides that little dog had class."
"Back off, Jitty," I said, pushing aside the newspaper. "Sweetie and I have bonded." I looked up and almost choked on my coffee. Tiny pink donuts were all over Jitty's head. Spoolies! Aunt LouLane had used them once in my hair. It had taken three washings to get the kinks out.
"You'd bond with anything that stood still for five minutes," Jitty muttered, oblivious of my horror.
"I didn't sleep with Harold," I pointed out, not bothering to add that if I tried he probably would have said no. For a man who made his living manipulating money, he wasn't a risk-taker in love. "Did you leave your hair up in those things all night?" When she finally took them down it was going to be worth watching.
"You wouldn't sleep with Harold because he's already asked to marry you. Why should you sleep with him when you can chase down some other man who has no interest in makin' an honest woman of you? Sex isn't the measurin' stick to rate a relationship, you know."
I liked Jitty better when she was interested in pregnancy rather than matrimony and when the long, free hairstyles of the seventies better represented her attitude toward sex. Lately, she was as tight as those damn little hair curlers.
"Sex isn't the only critereon, but it is important." I decided to devil her a little, to see if she might shoot a Spoolie across the room. "Anyway, Harold aside, there's Willem to consider. He looks like a man who wouldn't mind procreating."
"He's a dangerous man," she said, but with an obvious lack of conviction. "Lordy, he's fine-lookin'. That smile could blast the starch out of a girl's petticoats."
"Jitty!" She wasn't completely brainwashed by the fifties.
"That's all the more reason for you to steer clear of him. He's unemployed, from what I can tell. Of course that seems to be a drawin' card for you."
She was referring to several past boyfriends, none of whom I cared to defend. "He's independently wealthy," I pointed out.
"So he says." She cast me a worried look.
"He's eligible. And talented." I rubbed my hands up my a
rms for effect. "And he's on the market."
"Honey, a one-eyed armadillo can see he's not the marryin' kind. Better keep your libido down and your panties up." Her back stiffened and she set her mouth in that unforgiving purse. It was interesting watching Jitty hog-tie her own ardor.
"Latin men are excellent lovers. You know, a little hot blood for a cold Delta night—"
"Probably got a passel of chil'ren and none with his name." She was about to wear a hole in the floor with her pacing.
"We don't really care about a last name, do we, Jitty? Just as long as the Delaney blood runs true. Look at the bright side, he'd probably be more than glad to escape the bonds of matrimony and leave the two of us to raise a child." I scooted back my chair. "I'm going to the hospital to check on a few things."
"Forget that artist. Now a single doctor would be ideal," Jitty said. Her dress billowed on crinoline petticoats. She actually swished as she paced back and forth. I caught the fragment of a TV memory—Gale Storm concocting a plan with Esmerelda Nugent to foil Captain Huxley?
"Nah, doctors are so . . . clinical." The little devil on my shoulder was having an excellent time. "But I hear cowboys stay in the saddle just a little bit longer."
"A doctor," she said, ignoring me. "Compassionate, healing, dedicated, smart, a man with all of the right qualities."
"It's the twenty-first century, Jitty, not Beaver time. Try on the concept of an HMO."
"The problem with you, missy, is all you want is the playboys. Loose livin' and fast times. You better listen to me or you'll end up payin' the wages of sin."
I paused in the doorway. "If someone offered some sin, I'd hop right on it and ride into the sunset." I couldn't fade like she could but I darted out the door before she could respond.
In Mississippi, the position of coroner is elected and requires no specific talents or educational background. In my last case involving the Garrett family I'd managed to get myself in dutch with the current coroner, Fel Harper, who was now under investigation by the state for his role in body swapping.
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