"At the scene we checked for forced entry; there was none. We asked Ms. Mallory if anyone else had a key to the apartment and she said only the maid. We also asked about the father, and she wouldn't even tell us who he was, much less where he was. Then we find out the baby died of an overdose of pills. When I go back to re-interview Ms. Mallory, I discover she's left town to come up here to talk to her mother's grave."
He put his coffee mug on the desk and stood. "Now I have to get back to New Orleans."
"Could I have a few moments with Doreen before you go?" I asked.
LeMont looked at his watch one more time. "Hurry it up."
Coleman closed the door to the jail behind me. I ignored the drunks and petty thieves as I walked back to Doreen's cell. She'd changed her blouse and now wore a red slipover that intensified her dark hair and fair skin. Arlin McLain was right. Doreen was stunning.
"They've come to extradite you," I said.
"Do you think they'd let me stop by the cemetery?"
I shook my head. "I seriously doubt it. The officer would have to assume too much personal risk. Besides that, he seems like he's in a big hurry to get home."
"Even if I make bail, they won't allow me to leave New Orleans," she said. "This may be my only chance to talk to Mama."
I shook my head. "Forget it, Doreen. But there are some questions I need to ask you before you go, and we don't have much time."
"Okay."
"Who is Rebekah's father?"
My question caught her totally by surprise. She started to say something, then stopped. "What difference does that make?" she asked.
"A lot. If it is proven that someone murdered your baby, the next logical choice after you is the father."
She was having trouble processing what I was saying. "That's ridiculous. Why would Rebekah's father want to hurt her?"
"For the same reasons the police think you hurt her. And possibly one more—to hide the fact of his paternity."
"This has no bearing on the case. I'm not going to tell you or anyone else. Rebekah's birth was a contract between me and the Divine. It had nothing to do with the father."
Patience had never been one of my virtues. "Don't be a fool," I snapped. "I'm not interested in your claims of divinity or immaculate conception. I need the father's name and I need to check on him now."
"No."
She was as stubborn as a mule. "This isn't optional, Doreen. If I'm going to help you, I need this information."
"It has no bearing. You have to trust me on this."
A terrible suspicion was forming in my brain. "Do you know who the father is?"
She looked straight into my eyes without the least bit of shame or remorse. "It could be one of several people."
I didn't care what Doreen's sexual habits were, but I could see that this wasn't going to make her very sympathetic to a jury. It was one more little indication that a baby with multiple birth defects would have a negative impact on her lifestyle. Doreen's habits were going to make her trial a public nightmare for her lawyer. "Give me the names," I said, pulling a small notebook from my pocket.
"No."
Her chin was up and out. I wondered for a moment if sexual behavior was hereditary. She hadn't known anything about her mother, yet she'd followed in her footsteps.
"Doreen, I saw the autopsy report. There's no doubt that someone killed your baby. Now, do you want that person to get away with it?"
Pain crossed her face. "You really believe someone killed Rebekah? Who would do such a thing? And why? She wasn't going to live very long. Why would someone kill her?"
Here was the shock and grief and anger I'd expected to see when I first met her. Perhaps Tinkie was right. Doreen had never believed her baby was murdered.
"Tell me the names of the men you were sleeping with," I said.
She sighed. "None of them even thought they were the father. I never wanted them to think about my baby as anything to do with themselves, and they were glad not to. They all assumed the baby belonged to someone else."
"The list," I said relentlessly. If stubborn defined her, tenacity would be my prominent trait.
"These men have no idea they might be the father." She gripped the bars. "They really aren't involved."
I held my pen over the pad and waited.
"What you're asking me to do is violate a type of confidence. I was helping these men."
She had my attention. "Helping them?"
Her gaze never wavered. "Love is the most powerful of all the weapons given a healer. Some men aren't capable of love. They link sex and love together so tightly that the only way to reach them is through sex."
My expression must have registered my incredulity, because she shook her head and walked away, giving me her back.
"I know it sounds like I'm making excuses or rationalizing my actions. That isn't the case. I was working with these men and making progress. In order to love, you first have to believe that you can be loved. Some men—and some women, too, but it's more often men—have never experienced the true intimacy of love. Sex is an access to intimacy. If I reveal the names of these men to the police, I'll break the fragile bond of trust that I've been able to establish. I may do more damage than you can ever imagine."
I sighed. "Give me the list. I'll investigate them."
"And you won't share the names with the police?"
"Not at this time. Not unless there's some indication that one of the men is involved in murdering your child."
She nodded. "Thaddeus Clay."
I didn't even start to write. I looked at her. "Senator Thaddeus Clay? United States Senator Thaddeus Clay?"
"Yes. He lives in New Orleans."
I wasn't a maven of current events, but even I had heard of Thaddeus Clay, the head of the Senate Environmental Committee as well as cochair of Ways and Means. He was serving his fourth term. He was also married to a former New York model, Ellisea Boudet, known throughout the fashion world as El.
"I was also sleeping with Michael Anderson. He's in charge of the financial aspects of my ministry," Doreen said. "And Oren Weaver."
Once again the name stopped me. "The televangelist?"
She nodded.
Oren Weaver hailed from my neck of the woods. He'd come up hardscrabble, poor as dirt, but with a powerful ability to orate.
"Oren could be a great healer," Doreen said. "He hums with energy. Literally. But with all of this talent, he lacks the ability to love."
"He loves money," I pointed out. He'd been the subject of several television newsmagazine investigations. He'd made millions with his television ministry, rooking those desperate for healing and faith into sending in donations, promising that fifty-dollar prayer handkerchiefs could heal. Of course, when the prayer cloths didn't work, it was always because the buyer lacked faith.
"Yes, Oren loves money. But he has the capacity to truly love. And if that is ever unleashed in him, he could help thousands of people."
"And what is the senator's gift?" I asked. I could clearly see what an advantage it would be for Doreen to align herself with two such powerful men.
"If he were truly to love himself," she said softly, "it would influence our government, the policies that are made. He would look at the world, our natural world, as a place to cherish rather than rape."
"And Michael Anderson? What does he offer?"
"Michael offers hope. Beneath his mild manners, he's the angriest man I've ever met. He doesn't believe in love at all. He isn't a powerful or public man, but that isn't important. I don't select the men I help, the gods, or God if you prefer—it doesn't really matter what you call the Divine—put them in my path. I only know that given time, I can reach Michael. I can make a difference for him, and there is no telling the impact of one man who believes in the power of love."
I hadn't committed a single name to my notepad. I didn't need to write a list. The names were branded into my brain. "Is there anyone else?"
She smiled with a hint of a secret
. "Not at this time. And you promised that you wouldn't reveal these names to the police, remember. "
"At this time, I don't see a need. You're positive none of these men believed he was the father?" I could see motive a mile high with the senator and the minister. Both men would lose a lot if it became public knowledge they'd fathered a child by a woman who professed to use sex as a therapeutic tool. I'd have to dig a little deeper into Michael Anderson to find a motive for him, but I hadn't forgotten that he held the purse strings to Doreen's ministry. Baby Rebekah could certainly be bad for the faith-healing business if some of Doreen's followers ever began to ask why Doreen didn't heal her own child.
"Each of the men knew I had other... patients. That's an improper word, but the best one I can come up with. I led each one to understand that another was the father. And none of them knew the other men in my life."
"Were you in love with any of them?" I asked.
Again, the secret smile touched her lips. "All of them," she said. "Love is what I do. It is my special gift."
7
IT WAS NEARLY LEVEN O'CLOCK WHEN I WALKED OUT OF THE courthouse and into the most gorgeous October morning that had ever been created. My mind was whirling with the angles of my new case, and for the first time in weeks, I felt as if my life was moving forward.
Doreen was on her way to New Orleans, and I was headed to the bakery to pick up some cheese Danish and coffee. Lucky for me my close personal friend, Cece Dee Falcon, society editor of the Zinnia Dispatch, was a workaholic with a looming deadline. I needed to talk to Cece, but I also needed access to the newspaper files. Sunday was the perfect time to look—without the scrutiny of the rest of the newspaper staff.
Bribe in hand, I went to Cece's office window and peeped in. The pale light of her computer screen highlighted her classic profile and tawny hair. Her perfect nails were a blur on the keyboard.
Before Cece became society editor and long before she became my source for historical Sunflower County facts, Cece was Cecil. We'd gone to high school together. The weather put me in mind of a few Friday night football games where we'd huddled beneath the bleachers drinking Wild Turkey and Coca-Cola, talking about our futures. I had wanted to be an actress, and Cecil had wanted to be a girl. My trip to New York was daring, but Cecil's trip to Sweden was the bravest single act I knew.
I tapped on the window and then walked around to the front door as she unlocked it.
"Dahling," Cece said, reaching for the bakery bag. "These are so fresh they're still warm." We walked back to her office.
I put a cup of coffee in front of her. Three creams, two sugars. Just the way she liked it.
She took a bite of the pastry, revealing her strong white teeth, and I had time to identify the Little Red Riding Hood nail polish that was the hit of the season. She was dressed in a mocha turtleneck and brown suede pants that hugged her lean hips perfectly. I frowned at her. "If you were a real woman, you'd have wider hips."
She licked a bit of frosting off her perfect lips and smiled. "Don't be a bitch, Sarah Booth, just because you have improper distribution of fat deposits. That old 'more to love' crap is just that—crap."
I laughed out loud. Cece was hard to best.
"What brings you to the newspaper on a beautiful Sunday?" she asked. "Something about Doreen Mallory?"
"Tinkie and I are helping her."
"Did she kill her own baby?" Cece asked, suddenly still. She was on the scent of a story.
"She says no." I was careful.
"And what do you believe, Sarah Booth?"
"I believe I have a lot of work to do to find out the truth." Incredible as it seemed, I was beginning to believe that the spiritual healer/sex therapist actually had not killed her own baby.
"And somehow I'm going to play a role in this truth-finding, right?" Cece was always willing to jump into the middle of a good case.
"Absolutely." I grinned. "I need to look up Lillith Lucas. See if there are any stories about her in the paper."
Cece lifted one eyebrow in a way that was strictly predatory. She licked her fingers. The Danish was gone. "I heard the rumor that Doreen is her daughter. I also heard that Lillith had over fifty thousand dollars in the bank when she died. Doreen is the sole heir."
Cece's sources were often as good as my own, but I had the scoop on her this time. "There's a brother," I said, watching her take it in. "He may or may not be alive."
"Boy, that Lillith. Talk about 'do as I say, not as I do.' Didn't she ever hear about 'practice what you preach'? Remember the night we left the junior prom early and stopped at the Revolving Root Beer? She was hiding in the bushes and jumped out at us. 'Sex is the Devil's highway.' That's exactly what she said."
"Then she said, 'And you're traveling down it at breakneck speed.'" It was a funny memory now. Back then she'd nearly scared us to death. I was caught between frenzied hormones, lack of real knowledge about sex, and total fear of a rogue sperm with superpowers.
"She looked totally insane," Cece recalled. "Her eyes were burning with that fervor that put me off religion once and for all."
"She was frightening."
"Remember what else she said?"
I did, but I'd rather have forgotten it.
"She said that God could smell sex on us. She said we reeked of it, and that we'd burn in hell."
"Now that's a series of images I'd rather not have in my head," I said. I had been kissing Roger Wayne Gillum that night and I went home and took six showers before I would allow Aunt LouLane near me. Lillith had truly scared me and most of my friends—but that was before we realized that Lillith was just a crazy old woman. I was thinking about the contrast between Doreen and Lillith. Doreen saw sex as the door to love. Lillith saw it as the threshold to hell.
I looked at Cece. "I wonder why no one ever locked her up?"
"Good question."
Cece eyed the Danish that I'd only taken two bites out of.
"Help yourself. Can we go to the records?"
"Of course, dahling. One should always take up activities that might make one blind just to help a friend."
Cece's fears were far overstated. I knew she wouldn't stay in the microfiche room and help me hunt. But she did get me started, and by noon, I'd found three references to Lillith Lucas. Two were notices of a tent revival where she was a featured preacher, and the third was a 1963 arrest for public drunkenness. That was it.
I left the newspaper a little disappointed, wondering what I'd hoped to find. None of this bore directly on Doreen, but somehow, I sensed a connection. Doreen had come to Sunflower County to search out her past—to talk to her dead mama. There was a link here, I just wasn't sure what it was.
I was tempted to stop in at Millie's for lunch, but I went home instead. I called Tinkie and filled her in on what had happened, and she filled me in on the fact that she'd arranged for rooms for us at the Monteleone Hotel in the historic French Quarter of New Orleans for the next several days. She explained that the bank kept several suites of rooms at the hotel for official bank business, but we could use them. Tinkie came through in the most unexpected ways.
"What's got you grinnin' like a 'coon in the chicken house?" Jitty asked from behind me.
I sat down at my desk and took in her latest outfit.
In contrast to my khakis and olive-green cotton pullover, Jitty wore a bejeweled gown that shimmered with iridescence when she walked. It was a sack design and it looked as if she'd somehow bound her chest to fit into the boyish silhouette. Nonetheless, she was stunning.
"I'm going to New Orleans for a few days. Remind me to call Lee and ask her if she'll feed Reveler and Sweetie Pie." Lee was a fellow horse-lover who adored her daughter Kip and all creatures with four legs.
"I love New Orleans," Jitty said. "That's the town that invented sin and then turned it into an art form. There's not a single vice, from eatin' to drinkin' to shoppin' to sexy late afternoons, that ain't been improved on in New Orleans. When do we leave?"
"We?" It had never occurred to me that Jitty would follow me to the Crescent City. Jitty was of Dahlia House. This was the only place I'd known her.
"I been to New Orleans. I went with Alice when she first married and Dahlia House was being built. We bought furniture and dishes, and they all had to be brought back up the Mississippi River and then carted overland in a wagon. I sat with all that china, cradling it in my arms like it was a sick baby."
I'd heard all the family stories of how Great-great-grandma Alice and the slave who'd been hired to be her nanny and who had become her best friend had seen to the design and decor of Dahlia House. Only a few years later, they'd watched as their home was nearly destroyed by a war that cost them both their husbands and the futures they'd dreamed of.
Jitty was a ghost with a mind of her own, but she wasn't going to New Orleans with me.
"Where we stayin'?" she asked.
"The Monteleone."
She nodded approval. "That's a hotel for nice women. They'll take care of you there. Knowin' you, I was afraid you'd stay in some fly-by-night flophouse. Tinkie musta found the rooms."
I gave her a sour frown. "Why don't you haunt Tinkie, since you think she's so much more refined?"
Jitty grinned. " 'Cause you the one who needs me. You're mine, Sarah Booth. Like it or not, you and I are bound together."
"Where are you headed?" I wanted to change the topic.
"A little speakeasy that just opened up." She grinned.
I never could tell when Jitty was pulling my leg or when she was serious. Her remarks and adventures were almost always thematic—aimed at telling me something I needed to know.
"You take so much for granted, Sarah Booth. You can pack to go to New Orleans without a husband or a father. There was a time that wasn't so for women."
"I know." Jitty had a point. I had inherited a lot of rights and privileges because someone else paid the price for me to have them.
"It'll do you good to get away from Zinnia. You keep seeing that sheriff every day, that fire you stomped out is gonna recombust."
I didn't bother to deny it. Seeing Coleman every day was like living in a candy store. The temptation was ever present and always hard to resist.
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