There was a slight noise from the front door, enough that Mike drew back from me and started toward it. He moved sideways, glancing from me to the open door.
"What was that?" he demanded.
I didn't say anything. The wrong word could tease his trigger finger into action, and I was still the target.
The sound came again, like a piece of furniture sliding over the polished floors.
"Who's there?" he yelled.
There was no answer, just the sliding sound again. Closer now, moving toward us.
"Stay away or I'll kill her," he yelled, bringing the gun barrel level with my head. From psychology I remembered that suicidal women who chose guns most often shot themselves in the chest. Vanity. They wanted an open casket. I didn't want a casket at all.
The noise stopped, replaced by the crash of glass.
"Who's out there?" Mike roared. His gaze shifted from me to the door in such rapid motion that I was terrified he'd accidentally squeeze the trigger.
The only answer was another crash of glass. My heart sank at the thought that Krystal had turned around and come back to try to help me. She hadn't had time to get to town, get help, and drive back out here. I rued my hardheadedness in not getting a cell phone and leaving it in the car. I'd been pigheaded and antitechnology, but I would change—if I got a chance.
Mike had slipped along the wall, and when he stuck his head out to see who was in the house, a plate sailed toward him, narrowly missing his head. It hit the wall and shattered.
"Damn you!" he yelled out the door, but his focus swung back to me. "No more time for games." He cocked the gun.
A vase flew through the door and landed right at my feet, shattering into a thousand pieces like a small explosion.
The gunshot that followed was strangely muted, more of a pop. Mike staggered, a frown crossing his face. He lurched forward, and his finger squeezed the trigger. The bullet tore into my arm. It was like being punched, but without any pain. It took a few seconds for the pain to arrive.
Before I could utter a scream, a lithe figure leaped through the doorway. There was the sound of another shot and Mike crumpled over, grabbing his gut. His brow was furrowed as he looked up at Carol Beth. She pointed a gun at him with complete aplomb. Somehow I'd missed the DG lesson on firearms.
"You shot me," he said, amazement evident in his voice.
"No kidding." She pulled the trigger again.
Mike staggered back and fell. He didn't move again.
"Carol Beth." I was astounded. "How did you get here?"
"Don't ask stupid questions, Sarah Booth." She walked over and looked at the gunshot wound in my arm. Blood was running down the length of my shirt, dripping onto the floor in a puddle that was getting much too large. "Too bad. Looks like he nicked an artery."
"Untie me," I said.
"You don't really look like you're in a position to give orders." She smiled, and flicked her mahogany ponytail off her shoulder. She was wearing her riding breeches, a white sleeveless shirt, and black boots with a spit-shined polish. She was awfully well turned out for a cold-blooded killer.
I was suddenly sick to my stomach and dizzy.
"If you bought a cell phone, Sarah Booth, you wouldn't have to go running all over the county. First the newspaper, then the dog groomer, then back to Dahlia House, then here. That's a lot of wasted time for me, waiting to get you alone. But it turned out best this way. Mike will take the blame." She bent closer to my bleeding arm. "I think you're going to bleed out. Too bad, I was looking forward to shooting you again."
She was holding a gun as black and ugly as the one Mike had been holding. Only I was no longer capable of witty repartee. I was bleeding to death.
"Why?" I had a full question to ask, but that was as much as I could say.
"Even in high school you were a nosy Nellie. I wouldn't exactly classify you as a top-rate investigator, but you know the old saying, even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then. You were getting too close. Eventually you would have figured out that I killed Kemper."
"Why?" I asked again.
"The horses were mine. The dirty bastard was double-crossing me, and no one gets away with that."
Even though I was weak, I could clearly discern the anger in her voice. I'd never realized how much the word "mine" meant to Carol Beth. It was a fatal mistake on my part.
"Avenger won't ever be yours," I said. "He's beyond your reach." I tried to focus on my surroundings, to fight the sense of spiraling into darkness. "In the end, Kemper was smarter than you."
"Kemper was a fool. I walked in just as he was trying to give the horse a shot of insulin. He'd sold Avenger to me, and then he was going to double-cross me to collect a big insurance policy on the horse. When I realized what he was doing, I picked up a pair of nippers and struck him from behind. He fell on the syringe. Which was it that killed him, the blow to the head or the insulin? I didn't wait around to find out. I heard someone coming. There were some papers on his desk. I thought the registration for Avenger was with them, so I snatched them up. It wasn't until later that I discovered it was the insurance policy Mike's been turning the county upside down to find."
My head was beginning to sink forward. I had other questions, but they were lost in the whirl of images and thoughts that were driven by pain. I never realized bleeding to death would be painful. Cramps shot through my body. I knew it was organs and muscles suddenly aware that they were dying. They were putting up a terrible ruckus.
"Lee ..." I couldn't remember what I was going to say.
"Lee won't suffer too much. I promise. But she'll stick to the story that she killed Kemper."
"Why should she?" I hung on to her voice.
"That's Lee for you, always so noble. She thinks Kip killed Kemper. It's ironic, isn't it? She's taking the rap for me and thinks she's saving her kid. I love it."
I tried to swallow and couldn't. I couldn't even hold my head up, much less ask another question, and I still had plenty of them. A P.I. shouldn't have to die with unanswered questions.
"See you at the pearly gates, Sarah Booth. I guess I'd better call Coleman and tell him the tragic news, how Mike shot you and I had to kill him, but it was too late for you. Who would have thought a little flesh wound could bleed so much?"
Somewhere in the darkness that had descended on me, I heard the baying of a hound, and I thought of Sweetie Pie. Who would care for her? Tinkie, I supposed. And Jitty! What would become of her and Dahlia House? All of her pushing and prodding to get me to step into the future had failed. I'd never married, and I'd never produced an heir. There would be no future for Dahlia House. The Delaney womb was at last defeated.
I knew I was dying when I heard the scrabble of toenails. It sounded just like Sweetie when she was in a rush to get into the kitchen and steal a roast. I forced my head up and my eyes open, and knew that I was dead.
A big hound rushed into the room, but it wasn't Sweetie Pie. This hound was wearing a glittery faux-diamond collar, and she was a rich, solid red-brown, not my brindled red tic.
"What in the hell—" Carol Beth asked just before the hound sprang across the room and struck her squarely in the chest.
A man in a big black cowboy hat rushed into the room and kicked the gun out of Carol Beth's hand. A big black boot pinned her wrist to the floor. "Hold the weddin'!" he said as he applied enough pressure to make Carol Beth yelp.
There was a sharp, squealing bark, and a six-inch mop of sun-glitzed hair bounced across the room and joined the hound and the black-hatted stranger in pinning Carol Beth to the floor. The hound fell across her chest, while the smaller dog tried to suffocate her by jumping on her face.
"Hang on, Sarah Booth," Tinkie said as she ran into the room. "You're okay now. I'm here to take care of you."
Her words were action. She was at my side, untying the knots that held me in the chair.
"Good thing we have plenty of rope here," she said. "You need a tourniquet, Sarah Booth. You're ble
eding like a stuck pig."
"Thanks, Tinkie," I mumbled.
"No thanks necessary. Coleman's on the way. You gave us all a bad scare." She punched numbers in her cell phone and placed an order for an ambulance. Pronto. "Thank goodness Mr. Friedman was at Dahlia House when I went to take Sweetie Pie home from her grooming appointment." She was talking a mile a minute. "Remember the phone call from the strange man at the Memphis airport? Well, that was Mr. Kinky. Anyway, I read your note, put two and two together, and we came straight out here."
"Ummmm." Once again Tinkie had proven she wasn't a real blonde. She had put the pieces of the puzzle together and brought the cavalry. I wanted to talk, but it was just too hard. I felt something wet and warm on my face and opened my eyes to see a row of sharp, pointed teeth belonging to a rather sweet hound face. The dog tongue slurped my cheek. "Who in the hell is that?" I asked.
"Why, you don't even recognize your own dog?" Tinkie's voice was so bright and perky it verged on hysteria. "I took Sweetie up to Canine Curls and got her a dye job. It's called Ravishing Redbone. Do you like it?"
Even as she talked, she'd applied a tourniquet and was easing me down on the floor.
From my vantage point, I looked up at the man in black. It was indeed Kinky Friedman. I recognized him from his book covers, his record albums, and my dreams.
"Nice decor," he said, looking around the room at the dead animals. "I'd like the name of the interior exterminator."
Carol Beth began to wiggle on the floor, attempting to extricate herself from dogs and the Kinkster.
"Nice movement, wrong symphony," Kinky said, pressing down a little more firmly on her wrist.
"Carol Beth killed Kemper," I said. "She confessed. I can testify to it."
"If you live that long," Carol Beth snarled.
"Sarah Booth, dear, you just concentrate on not dying," Tinkie babbled. She was about to cry. "I think Sweetie looks a lot better as a redhead, but to be truthful, I'm really not up to rearing a hound. Chablis is enough for me."
Speaking of the furball, she trotted up to my side and gave my other cheek a few delicate little licks.
"Just hold on, Sarah Booth. Coleman's on the way."
I did hear the sound of a siren. It was the low, wailing sound of the blues.
29
When I came to in the emergency room, Coleman was standing over me and Doc Sawyer was bent over a tray by a sink.
"Welcome back, Sarah Booth," Coleman said, and there was such relief in his blue eyes that I had to smile.
I didn't feel a thing, except a strange and wonderful floating sensation. "The drugs here are pretty good. Are they legal? You know, I dreamed that Tinkie dyed Sweetie Pie mahogany, and Kinky Friedman showed up to help rescue me."
Coleman grinned. "Fancy that."
I tried to sit up, but he held me down with one big hand. "Doc has to stitch you up."
Doc turned around and came toward me, his daffodil hair shining like an angel's halo—then I noticed the curved needle that looked like something you could use to land a fifty-pound channel cat. It took about two seconds to figure that it was the needle intended to sew on me.
"I'm fine." I tried again to get up, but Coleman once more pressed me to the table. "Police brutality," I said.
Coleman leaned down. "You can report it to Barney later. Right now you're staying here until Doc gives you the high sign to leave."
Instead of fighting I closed my eyes. Surprisingly, though I felt the tugging of my flesh, I didn't feel pain. It was over in less than ten minutes.
"Lie still awhile," Doc ordered me. "Coleman can take you home in a bit."
"I'm ready now."
"She's still as stubborn as a mule," Doc said. "And about as pretty as Joe Frazier."
"What?"
"Your face," Doc said with a merry grin. "Nothing broken, but it sure as hell looks like you had a fight."
I put my fingers up to feel my face. I withdrew them instantly. That part of my anatomy hadn't been deadened.
"The swelling will go down," Coleman assured me. "Of course, your eyes are probably going to be black." He leaned down and brushed a kiss on my cheek. "Yeah, there's already some color coming in right there."
"I don't know," Doc said, coming to my other side to examine me. "Her eyes aren't going to be black, but she's going to have some beautiful scabs on her knees."
"You are sadists." I was ready to move along.
"Happy sadists," Coleman said. "Happy that you're alive. And you have some friends outside who want to talk to you. It's a small thing, but you owe your life to Tinkie. She figured it out to rush out to Putnam Hall." He motioned with an arm before I could respond. When the door swung open, I heard a babble of voices.
Lee was the first one up to the table. Her red hair was neatly braided down her back, and she grabbed my uninjured arm. "Thank you, Sarah Booth."
"You're out!" I wondered if the drugs were better than I thought.
"I can't thank you enough. If you hadn't kept on and on, relentless as a pit bull, Carol Beth would have gotten away."
"Pit bull" wasn't exactly a description I would want engraved on my tomb. The drugs had mellowed me, though, so I didn't argue.
Tinkie pressed forward and held Chablis out to give me a kiss on the face. "We were worried sick," she said. "I thought Sweetie was going to kill Carol Beth. She just collapsed on her and completely shut off her lungs. I never realized that it might be a benefit to have a fat, ugly dog."
She looked over her shoulder and signaled someone else into the room. The man in the black cowboy hat stepped over to my bedside. "The number one rule of private investigating is always wait for the cavalry. I can see you need a little work with the P.I. handbook."
Tinkie slipped up beside him. "It was Mr. Friedman who convinced Sweetie Pie to get off Carol Beth. Although he's a cat person, I think he's bonded with Sweetie."
I vaguely remembered a visit from Kinky, but I wasn't certain what part of my life was dream and what part reality. "Thanks," I said, holding out my good hand.
"My pleasure," he said, "which is what everyone around here says when they really want to say 'What the hell's going on?' "
Tinkie tapped his arm playfully. She was happily married, but had still retained her DG skills. "Sarah Booth will explain everything, as soon as she's well. I don't have any idea about the cat business, but Sarah Booth's great-aunt Elizabeth was a little . . . eccentric. She had eighty-seven cats."
"Fifty-eight," I corrected her.
"Anyway, Sarah Booth has only the one dog. But if she sent you a message about cats in trouble, then she'll explain it, all in good time," Tinkie assured him, looking up at him with open admiration. She'd been biting down on her bottom lip and it popped out of her mouth. It was a moment that not even the Kinkster could resist.
He leaned down and whispered, sotto voce, "If you're not busy later tonight, we might talk about a little trip. You could send my penis to Venus."
Tinkie blushed and giggled. "I didn't realize you were a poet, too."
I touched Tinkie's arm. "Thanks for coming to the rescue. Hey, I dreamed you dyed Sweetie Pie." My laugh sounded high and funny. "Can you imagine anything more ridiculous?"
Tinkie's eyebrows drew together and she bit her bottom lip again. "Sarah Booth, that wasn't a—"
"I think she's had enough excitement," Doc Sawyer said. "Maybe you folks should go on home."
Lee picked up my hand and squeezed it hard. "I have some really good news for you, Sarah Booth." Her green eyes sparkled. "We'll be at Dahlia House, waiting for you."
I didn't get a chance to ask any more questions. Doc shooed them out of the room, and I was left to drift in the zone between sleep and wakefulness where the subconscious is free to conjure and entertain. There were voices and whispers. Someone stroked my forehead, and I thought for a while I was a young girl again. The chill of an ice pack on my face reminded me of cold winter mornings in New York when I was trying to be an actress. The wind w
ould come blasting down narrow streets and into my face with a force so different from the grand sweep of a Delta wind.
It was dark when I finally woke up. Doc was sitting on a chair, watching me.
"Sweet dreams? You were mumbling up a fog."
"Depends on what you consider sweet."
"You're going to be weak for a couple of days," he said. "Blood loss. And a bit sore. We'll get the stitches out in about ten days. I did what I could, but you'll have a scar."
"I suppose my ambitions to model strapless gowns are over," I said as I swung my feet over the side of the table. I was a little dizzy, but it passed immediately.
"You're a lucky young woman."
"Yes, I suppose I am."
"And you have a lot of people who care about you, including me." He came over and patted my uninjured shoulder. "I'll call Coleman. He's right down the hall. He wanted to take you home personally."
I realized that I was no longer wearing my jeans. Instead, my bandaged knees hung out of a backless hospital gown, which was a putrid pastel and did little to enhance my figure. I didn't want to ask Doc what had happened to my pants or my bra, or who had removed them. Sometimes details are best left unknown. I slipped to my feet and found I could stand and walk. All in all, things were improving rapidly.
Coleman came into the room with a grin as big as Texas. "You're looking more like yourself. Ready to go home?"
"Dorothy couldn't be any readier." I took his arm and he led me out into the Delta night. The cicadas were singing loud and vibrant in a stand of pines behind the hospital. The air was clean, with the tang of newly turned dirt from the fields all around us. Spring in the Delta is one of the very best times of year, and I took in a deep breath, glad to be alive.
"How's Krystal?" I asked.
"Not exactly a grieving widow. And that friend of yours, J.B. Washington, came out of his coma. He was trying to tell you that Mike was going to kill Krystal. He overheard him on the phone telling LaCoco about the insurance policy."
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