"And how did she find out?" I was afraid I knew that answer, too.
"Lawrence told her."
I didn't say anything. My finger moved across the face in the photograph. Lawrence was a handsome man with kind eyes. Surely kindness was the motivating factor in what he'd done. "Is there anything in his biography about the experiments?"
Willem's hand brushed down my shoulder. "I don't know. There's something else. Did you ever wonder why Lawrence was so encouraging of my art?"
I didn't follow him. "What do you mean?"
"I was in medical school when I took up painting to relieve the stress of school. I enjoyed painting, but my dream was to be a doctor, like my father, to go into the small villages and heal. Lawrence urged me to drop medicine and become an artist. He wrote me letters every week, encouraging me, giving me introductions to influential people in the art world. In a manner, he seduced me away from medicine and into art."
I couldn't tell if he was blaming Lawrence or not. "Do you regret becoming an artist?"
"No," he said. "He was right. In my dream, I was a hero. Self-aggrandizement isn't a good reason to become a doctor." His smile was self-deprecating, and worth at least two million bucks. "But I can't help but wonder if he understood what would happen to my medical career if my father's past became public. I would have been ruined. The taint of such things is never forgotten."
I wondered, too. "How far along were you in school before you quit?"
"I finished, I just never practiced. The week after I got my diploma, Lawrence arranged a huge showing for me in Paris. Friends of his friends. I sold every painting I had, and received several commissions—the kind of money that a young artist fantasizes about. I was a celebrity in a world of beauty and glamour. No disease or sickness. No maimed or hungry children. I embraced that life, and I had no time to think about medicine. But that life is costly. There were times I was overextended. Times I used Lawrence's name as a ticket. Times I acted . . . unethically. Even illegally."
His confession and the implications didn't shock me. He'd bent opportunity to his needs. Hadn't I done the same when I'd kidnapped Chablis?
He shifted so that he faced me.
"Willem, I—"
Before I could offer my own confession, he interrupted me. "Don't say anything," he said softly. He went over to the old record player, selected an album, and put it on the turntable. "As Times Goes By" was a song my parents often danced to, a song that called for dim lights and a crackling fire, for the sound of their soft whispers and the lilt of my mother's laughter in response to something my father said.
Willem came to stand in front of me, in the edge of the light cast by an old lamp. Beyond him, out the window, Moon Lake glimmered.
"The song suits your gown," he said, his finger pushing aside the lapel of his jacket and tracing the narrow strap of coral satin. His hand closed over my wrist and lifted me to my feet. His jacket fell to the floor.
He drew me into his arms. "For just a few moments, forget who we both are and live what this place used to be. We share many things, Sarah Booth. A love of family, a love of the land. We are much alike. Forget everything else for the time of one dance."
There was no hesitation as he swept me into the rhythm of the song, leading with a strength and sureness that left only the music, the movement. My body pressed tightly against his, the nightgown offered little protection from the sensation of flesh against flesh.
I had been freezing earlier, but I was flushed with sudden warmth. I closed my eyes and yielded to the subtle pressure of his body against mine, the timeless pleasure of dance.
The needle moved into the final groove with a repetitive scratch, scratch, scratch that broke the spell. Willem put his hands on my shoulders as he stepped back from me. "Ah, Sarah Booth," he said. His lips brushed my forehead, then grazed my ear. "We'll go to Memphis and examine the art vault. That's where the manuscript is hidden."
I was surprised that Willem knew about the storage facility in Memphis, but since he was an artist, Lawrence had probably told him about it. "Okay. We'll get it together." I frowned up at him. "What did you tell Harold to make him give you the key?"
For a moment he said nothing. "I thought you had it. Brianna said you were going to Memphis to open the vault." Willem looked puzzled. "Why would she—"
"You talked to Brianna about Memphis?" An alarm was ringing.
Willem stepped back from me. The cold seemed to move in closer, as if it had been waiting. "I have to leave." He put words to action and started down the long room toward the stairs.
I jumped up and followed after him, my bare feet lightly slapping the freezing floor. "Willem!" I caught him on the stairs. "You can't leave me here. My car isn't working."
"I have to get in that vault. Right away." "How do you know the manuscript is there?" On the darkened stairwell he had to look up at me. A hint of moonlight slipped through a landing window and seemed to linger in his eyes. "It's the only place Harold could have hidden it so successfully."
He hurried down the stairs, leaving me standing in the cold in a movie star's borrowed nightgown.
21
For the rest of the night I replayed the hour I'd spent with Willem. He'd hornswaggled me with his charm and Latin movement—and then left me high and dry. I suspected him of crippling my car. I gratified myself with visions of revenge, and then moved on to Harold.
The idea that Harold knew where the manuscript was—had deliberately concealed it—my mind balked at such deception. Yet Harold was romantically linked with Brianna. It was possible that somehow she'd sucked his brain slam out of his head. Whatever technique she used to send normally intelligent men off the deep end, it was an awesome talent.
I took a shower, carefully folded the nightgown, left it on the bed with a shivery tad of regret, and went downstairs where Edy and Johnny were having breakfast. The dining room was open and there were half a dozen big, burly men eating. All conversation halted at my entrance. Something exciting was going on.
"Lucas," Edy pointed to a man in a flannel shirt and overalls eating a plateful of bacon and eggs, "fixed your car. Someone had unhooked the spark plug wires."
I walked over and thanked him, shaking his hand and offering to pay him, which he refused. When I returned, Edy had breakfast in front of me.
"What's going on?" I asked her. Conversation was still hushed.
"A body washed up at Harbo's Landing. Some fancy-pants."
"Fancy-pants?"
"Tourist, more than likely. It happens two, three times a year. Local folks don't normally drown in Moon Lake." She finished her eggs and poured us both coffee. "Whatever it is you're up to, be careful. Those spark plug wires didn't jump off your car. That was deliberately aimed at keeping you here."
My effort to pay was again flatly refused. It was with some reluctance that I said goodbye to Edy and the lodge. There was something very special about the place. The car started perfectly, and I headed for home through a bleak winter day. In the summer, the Delta days are long and monotonous, the heat broken only by an occasional afternoon thunderstorm. The winter is another story. A fairyland of ice crystals can melt and give way to a day as balmy as spring. Or the sky can lower in a gun-metal gray so that it touches the horizon like a prison wall. It was this latter kind of day I drove into.
I dug out my Townes Van Zandt tape and pushed it into the stereo, a sad songman for a day that begged for bed, bonbons, and bourbon. Unfortunately, I had no window of opportunity to indulge in my three preferred pastimes. I pressed down on the accelerator and sped toward Dahlia House.
Sweetie Pie greeted me with a yodeling bark that brought a baker's dozen suitors out from under the porch. "Slut," I whispered to her as I caught her collar and dragged her into the house with me. No matter that she was just following her natural instincts. I, too, am instinct-driven—as much an animal as my hound, yet I must subjugate my urges. All except for nosiness. Which, so far, was the one instinctual drive that was saving my
home.
Once inside the house, with a resisting Sweetie Pie in tow, I heard the television. The sound of laughter stopped me in my tracks and I listened for a moment. The television in my bedroom was going full blast.
"Rick-y!" came a woman's wail.
"Lu-cy!" was the shocked response, in an accent that made a shiver touch my spine as I remembered dancing in Willem's arms.
I crept up the stairs to my bedroom where I found Jitty sitting on a chaise lounge by the window intently watching an episode of I Love Lucy.
In the soft gray tones of television, Lucille Ball looked both elegant and comic, a neat trick. Desi Arnaz glowered handsomely at some caper she'd pulled.
"Welcome home, traveler," Jitty said over her shoulder.
"Busy morning?" I replied, going to the closet to find some clean clothes.
"Tinkie left the television on to keep the hound company last night. These I Love Lucy episodes are pretty good. Did you know Desi Arnaz developed the split screen technique of showing two sequences simultaneously?"
That comment stopped me dead in my tracks. "What are you up to, Jitty?"
"Watching the tube."
"You are not that innocent, and I am not that stupid." There was something different about Jitty, but I couldn't discern exactly what. It was only when she moved her legs, curling them up beneath her that I saw the red toenail polish. June Cleaver would never wear Red Passion toenail polish. And false eyelashes! My God, they were as thick as a broom.
"Updating your image?" I asked.
"Close your mouth or you might catch a fly," Jitty responded.
She rose slowly to her feet, and I was given the full effect of the tight black pants overlaid with a fitted gold jacket that flared from her waist into a calf-length skirt. With the stand-up collar she looked like a cross between the wicked witch in Snow White and Mrs. Jetson.
I heard the rush of my breath through my open lips, and I snapped my jaw shut before she pointed out that I was little more than a mouth-breather. I almost choked when I saw the shoes—stiletto heels, backless, and with a clear strap across the ball of her foot. She looked like some designer's dark vision of vixen hell.
"Wow," I managed.
"Deadly, huh?" she asked, pleased by my reaction.
"I thought you were into a family values mode."
"I am." She did a little turn, giving me the view from all angles. "Desi and Lucy were married and worked together."
Somewhere along the track my train derailed. "What are you talking about?"
If all of this reverted to her obsession with wholesome families of the fifties, I didn't have time for it. I was trying to unravel a murder and build the foundation for a life in the new millennium—a life with some form of companionship other than the company of a ghost.
"Lucy and Desi are evidence that family and glamour aren't mutually exclusive," she said, preening in front of my mirror.
I snatched a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt from the closet. Harold Erkwell was the man I needed to see, and pronto. "Real life isn't television, Jitty."
"That's where we got it wrong, Sarah Booth. We thought that solid family values came along with rigid conduct and rigid underwear. Watching I Love Lucy I realized that wasn't true. She was beautiful and glamorous and Ricky loved her. They created a dynasty together."
It was all I could do to keep from rolling my eyes. "They fought like cats and dogs. They divorced, Jitty."
She followed me into the bathroom, where I began running water. "They had years of happiness, Sarah Booth. And children. Years and years together. Your track record is what, six dates?"
"And that long only for someone who really, really interests me," I replied. She was about to hurt my feelings.
"You can do it, Sarah Booth. I've been giving it some thought, and if that Nicaraguan artist isn't a murderer, maybe you should go after him." She was staring at herself in the bathroom mirror and batting her eyes. I wanted to smack her, but she was talking to her image in the mirror.
"Willem Arquillo is handsome and single. After listenin' to Ricky Ricardo, I've developed a yen for that Latin accent. Very sexy."
She had a point. Willem could seduce the petals off a flower just by talking to it. I slipped out of my clothes and got into the bath. The water felt delicious and I sank beneath it. When I came up, Jitty was still standing there.
"Maybe you should add a little comedy to your datin' routine," she said, finally pulling her gaze away from herself and over to me.
"Comedy?" Maybe my ears had clogged with water.
"Pranks, pratfalls, the lighter side of life. You're terribly serious, Sarah Booth. Men like a woman who makes 'em laugh. They want to be the hero. It doesn't hurt for a woman to be a little silly, a little foolish, and let the man come to the rescue. I've been watchin' these old shows, and—"
"Jitty, those shows are idealizations of a time that never existed, except in Hollywood. It's a television show." I thought I'd pop with frustration.
"You ever listen to the news? Everybody's torn up today about the violence on television affectin' children. If that's true, if watchin' violence can make children violent, then why can't watchin' these old shows make families happy?"
"Because it's television! TV doesn't make anything happen. Even if I were willing to suck up to a man to make him feel like a hero, it wouldn't last. I'd be pretending!"
"What's wrong with that? Seems to me like a little nice pretendin' would go a long way in this old world."
"Jitty, those shows are all about what a man needs. Don't you see? The women look good, fix dinner, keep the house clean, and are always there with a smile when someone needs nurturing or a kiss."
"That don't sound too hard."
I could feel my righteous indignation heating the water. I climbed out and began to dry off. "I'm not interested in that kind of life."
"But what if being loved was the payoff?"
Give the devil her due—Jitty had a way of defending her side of an argument. I pulled on my jeans and the black sweatshirt that gave me an artist look. "I don't know that being loved is enough. I want to be respected and valued as a person."
"You think I been brainwashed by TV—who you been talkin' to?"
I finally saw the humor in the situation and began to laugh. "I don't have time for this. I've got to find Harold."
Jitty's eyes brightened. "Harold's good. Stable, local, a man with a secure future. Now you're talkin'. But put on a dress. Men like dresses. You gone pry him out of the clutches of that female barracuda, you better use everything you got in your arsenal, includin' that black garter belt."
"This is business," I told her.
"The wise woman makes an opportunity where none exists."
"Is that a Lucille Ball quote?"
"It's a Jitty quote. And don't you forget it." She viewed me up and down. "It's almost New Year's Eve, and you don't have a date, yet you're goin' into town dressed like a derelict."
"I may have to move fast," I replied.
"Yeah, 'cause the fashion police gone come and put you under the jail."
"Later." I took the stairs two at a time, halting in the foyer when I saw the red light of the answering machine blinking in the parlor. There were four messages.
I rewound the tape and listened.
The first was from Dr. Matthews. "Sarah Booth, stop by the office, please. The results are in on Rasmus. The cat was poisoned. Looks like some form of Coumadin. Could be he got into some rat poison, but not at Lawrence's house. You know he wouldn't even use flea spray, much less rat poison. When you come, I think you should bring Coleman with you."
I stopped the tape and replayed it just to be certain I heard correctly. After hearing it again, I let the machine continue to the second call.
"Sarah Booth, I just don't think you should go off and leave that dog again. She's ugly as homemade sin, but she still has feelings. Why, she was so excited to see me and Chablis, I thought she was going to wag herself to death. Why ar
e all those other dogs in the yard? There were at least twenty of them. My God, Sarah Booth, you haven't become one of those humane society ladies, have you? You know if you start bringing home all those strays you'll end up with some man who looks just like one of them. But it's in your blood, isn't it? Oh, Sarah Booth! Folks will think you're craz—eccentric like your aunt Elizabeth. How many cats was it? Fifty-four? We'll have to discuss this when you get home. Think how bad it would be for business. People won't hire our agency to solve mysteries if they think you're a kook. Maybe we can get someone to help with a shelter for those dogs. I'll ask Daddy. You know, Daddy can be a little uptight about things. But don't worry, I'll handle it. By the way, I hear Harold's taken a vacation! Can you imagine? He hasn't gone anywhere in years. Call me."
My stomach was in a complete knot. Harold was gone! I set the tape in motion again. The next call was from Cece.
"The photographs you took at the wake are fabulous, Sarah Booth. Marvelous. New assignment, dahling. Very you. Call."
It took me a moment to recognize the voice of the final caller. The remnants of her German accent gave her away, and I checked the time of the call—two o'clock this morning.
"Ms. Delaney, my husband has been missing for two days. I'd like to hire you to look for him. Please call me at 601-555-3434. This is Tilda Grace."
22
I called Tinkie first and made a valiant attempt to cut her off before she could get started. "No time to explain. Find out where Harold's gone. That's your assignment."
"Where have you been? Those dogs! I'm positive there's some kind of law against letting your dog run wild. People draw parallels between dogs and their owners."
"Tinkie, just find out about Harold. Find out where he is and if Brianna's with him." Things were coming to a head in this case, and fast.
"Okay. I'll get it out of Oscar." The momentum of her words slowed. "It's going to take some work. I could invite him home for lunch." There was a pause that hinted at her sacrifice, then her voice perked up. "He only takes an hour for lunch. Those are the rules at the bank, you know. I suppose I could tempt, tantalize, and then delay on delivery."
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