The Devil's Bones

by Carolyn Haines

  “Did she mention what she was working on with Hans?” I was curious, I had to admit.

  “She didn’t, but I’ve made my own deductions.”

  “And they are?” Millie probably knew me, Tinkie, and Cece better than we knew ourselves. She wasn’t that much older, but she mother-henned us, which we all loved.

  “Hans has all but offered her a job, but she won’t leave Zinnia. She’ll take special assignments and work it out with Ed. She’s proving herself on camera to Hans, and she deserves this chance, ladies. So don’t give her any grief.”

  That was a big relief. I wanted my friend to do well in her career and to fulfill all her dreams—but I wanted her to stay in Zinnia to do it. “We’re excited about the big launch of your column,” Tinkie threw in. “Tell me the name again?”

  “The Truth Is Out There.”

  Tinkie and I both laughed. The reference to The X-Files was truly delicious.

  Millie’s voice danced with excitement. “Harold is hosting a big launch party on Sunday for the column. He’s invited hundreds of people. You have to promise to be back for that, both of you.”

  Harold Erkwell worked at the bank that Tinkie’s husband ran. He was one of our running buddies. “I can’t wait,” Tinkie and I said in unison. Sometimes we did have a twin moment.

  “Neither can I,” Millie said. “He and Roscoe have been very, very busy.”

  “Roscoe?” That was Harold’s evil little dog. I’d gotten him during a case in Natchez, Mississippi, before he was put down, shot, or thrown in the river because he was truly, truly incorrigible. Harold had taken him in, and they were the perfect team. “What’s Roscoe been doing?”

  “He’s back to his old ways. He’s been running around town tearing into people’s garbage and dragging it back to Harold to give to me for a little local focus on the gossip angle. I tell you, Sarah Booth, I can’t reveal any names, but did you know there was such a thing as devil head condoms?”

  “What?” Tinkie and I were in sync. “Holy crap,” I said, and Tinkie said something a little more profane.

  “It’s true, and I know who they belong to and it isn’t some cult person. You would laugh and laugh.”

  “You aren’t going to use that in your column, are you?” I could see why Ed Oakes was going nuts.

  “Of course not, at least not with the person’s name.”

  “Someone is going to shoot that dog and then Harold and then you, Millie.” Tinkie was concerned.

  “Roscoe is smarter than you think. He only hits places when the people are gone to work or out of town. It’s amazing the things you can learn about a person by going through their garbage.”

  “Does Coleman know about this?” I had a sudden suspicion.

  “Maybe,” Millie said.

  I couldn’t hold back the laughter. “If the voters get wind that he knows what Roscoe is up to and did nothing, he won’t get reelected.”

  “Maybe,” Millie said, and then she laughed. “Hurry home. We have plans to make.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Home soon,” Tinkie said before I hung up.

  I returned to my float, but I couldn’t force down another bite. When Tinkie’s glass was empty, I stood up. “Let’s get busy.”

  “I don’t know if I can walk,” Tinkie said, putting a hand on my arm. She actually looked distressed.

  “What do you mean you can’t walk?”

  “The waistband of my pants is so tight I think it shut off the flow of blood to my legs. I can’t feel them.”

  “Are you messing with me?”

  Tinkie pushed her empty glass away. She was serious. “I am not kidding. I’ve gained about ten pounds and I just can’t bring myself to buy a larger size.”

  “You’re having a baby, Tinkie. You’re going to gain weight.”

  “Some people don’t.”

  “Some people don’t eat two slices of lemon pie, ramekins of custard, Coke floats, and all kinds of food.”

  She bit her bottom lip in an old gesture that made me smile. “I have gone hog wild, haven’t I?”

  She sounded so sad and remorseful that I couldn’t be stern. “Your body is doing a lot of crazy things. Cut yourself some slack.”

  “It’s not my body I’m concerned about, it’s my mouth. It’s working overtime. This is it. I’m going to find my willpower and zip my lips.”

  “Uh-huh.” I didn’t believe it for a minute, but I loved Tinkie too much to devil her about her sugar addiction—at least not any more than I already had. “Let’s call Ana.” I punched in the number Erik had given me and helped Tinkie out to the car. We’d parked on Main Street and I couldn’t help but admire the Chinese red of the old Roadster with the dove-gray interior against the backdrop of a small-town street. It make me think that I’d stepped back into the 1970s.

  The phone rang and rang, but no one answered, so I hung up and refocused on my partner. “Can you feel your feet yet?”

  “Yes, but I wish I couldn’t. Even my shoes are getting too tight.”

  I managed not to chuckle as she abandoned my arm and slipped into the passenger side. I stepped behind the car, waiting for a truck to pass, when I noticed a dark car speeding toward us. Lucedale was a sleepy little town with a twenty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit. This car was going at least sixty, coming from the west. This driver was cruising for a six-hundred-dollar ticket and loss of insurance. I had plenty of room to get into the Roadster, and I stepped into the street and opened the door.

  Because I was watching the fast-approaching car and not what I was doing, I snagged the toe of my shoe on the doorframe. With the forward momentum of my body, I pitched headfirst into the front seat, knocking Tinkie into the passenger door and out onto the sidewalk just as a gunshot blasted. The drugstore’s plate-glass window on the other side of the Roadster splintered and glass rained down.

  The black car tore down Main Street, traveling now at a very high speed. Merchants and customers poured out of the stores nearby, and the soda jerk came out of the pharmacy, looking at the broken window with awe and fear.

  “Tinkie! Tinkie!” I climbed over the console and out the passenger door to where my partner lay in the gutter. “Call an ambulance!” I yelled at the soda jerk. “Hurry.”

  There was a spatter of blood on Tinkie’s face and she was pale, too pale. “Tinkie.” I almost couldn’t speak. “Where are you hit?”

  She didn’t respond. I looked up and down the street, hoping by some miracle a doctor would arrive. Or someone who could help my partner. I brushed the blood from her face and realized it came from a tiny cut made when the glass shattered and fell on her. I looked her over and didn’t see any serious bleeding.

  “Tinkie?”

  “Get off me,” she said. “I can’t breathe.”

  I rolled off her and got to my feet. Her eyes were open and I offered her my hand. With a groan she got to her feet, shedding shards of glass everywhere. “Who was that trying to kill us?”

  I shook my head. I was so relieved she was okay that I honestly couldn’t frame a sentence.

  “When I catch whoever it was, I’m going to hurt them bad.” She shook her clothes and turned to the pharmacy where Adam stood with an open mouth. The plate-glass window was completely destroyed.

  “Why was someone trying to kill you?” Adam asked.

  “I don’t know.” I hadn’t gotten a look at the driver or the license plate. All I’d seen was a black, sleek car. “Tinkie, did you see the make and model?”

  “Trans Am, newer year. That’s all I got. I wasn’t paying attention either.”

  “You both could have been killed,” Adam said.

  “Had my partner not knocked me out of the car, I really might be dead.” Tinkie looked at me. “Thank you.”

  “Are you sure you’re both okay?” he asked as he pulled out a cell phone and called the authorities. “Sheriff Glory isn’t going to like this. She takes it kind of personal when people shoot up her streets.”

  *
* *

  “Shall we try to go over to Mobile and interview Ana Arguello?” I asked Tinkie. We’d finished at the sheriff’s office and stepped outside to stand in the sunshine on the courthouse steps. Neither of us were hurt, and if we could solidify Erik’s alibi, we might be able to get out of town and get home. Glory had taken down the very sparse information we could give her on the Trans Am. She’d engaged the authorities in Alabama, which was only sixteen miles away, to be on the lookout for a car of that description. The bullet lodged in the drugstore wall had been collected, and she’d helped the store employees call a glass service since Erik wasn’t around or answering his phone. She’d done what she could.

  She’d questioned us as witnesses, prying a little too hard to see if we’d made anyone in town mad enough to kill us. Then she’d cut us loose to walk back to the Roadster, which was remarkably unscathed. I needed some physical exercise; it would allow me to clear my mind. I was still a bit shocked that someone had tried to kill us. It didn’t make a lot of sense. At the back of my mind was the real concern about telling Coleman and Oscar about this latest event. Both men would press us to come home—and they had every right to. But something was going on in Lucedale that I didn’t understand, and I wasn’t ready to walk away. Now that someone had tried to murder me and my partner, I had a dog in this fight. I had a real burn on to find the driver of that black Trans Am.

  “There’s a lot of violence here for such a pretty little town,” Tinkie commented.

  “Yeah, you’re right about that.” She still hadn’t answered my question about tracking down Ana Arguello and I sensed that Tinkie was exhausted. It had been a helluva day. “Maybe we should call it quits and head back to the inn.”

  It was a little surreal to stand in the silence and sunshine after such a violent event. Down the street I could hear children playing. School was out and the afternoon light was slanted, casting long shadows. Tinkie hadn’t been hurt, but she didn’t look 100 percent.

  “We really should talk to this Ana. We need to conclude this case. I’m ready to get back to Zinnia. I wanted this baby more than anything, and I’m not complaining, Sarah Booth, but I never expected to be tired and hungry all the time. I feel like I don’t own my body anymore.”

  I put an arm around her and gave her a hug. “You don’t. But it will be worth all of this when you hold that baby in your arms.”

  That pleased her and she nodded. “You’re right. Thanks for knocking me out of the car.” She kicked some glass off the sidewalk. “Do you think someone local really tried to kill us?”

  The attack had come from out of the blue. “Why? Because we’re working for Erik?”

  She shrugged. “Why else?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “It was the killer, wasn’t it?” Tinkie looked more tired than upset. “He must think we’re getting closer and closer to the truth. But what truth?”

  “I don’t know. It could have been the killer, you’re right, but why shoot at us? Why not shoot Erik?” I didn’t say it, but Erik had, once again, been absent. I didn’t like the direction my thoughts were taking. Every time anything untoward happened in this town, Erik was nowhere to be found. He might, of course, be bringing Cosmo Constantine in to talk to the sheriff, but in my heart of hearts, I didn’t believe that. And as evidence against Cosmo stacked higher and higher, I had to question Erik’s continued attempts to protect him from the consequences of his actions.

  “You’re looking pensive. What are you thinking?”

  I didn’t want to further upset Tinkie with my suspicions about our client. Not yet. “Shall we head to Mobile?” That was where Ana lived. It was also where Betsy Dell lived, and I wondered if it might be beneficial to drop in on Betsy unannounced. Glory had been so busy getting APBs and volunteers to look for the car with the person who’d shot at us that I hadn’t bothered her with the details of Erik’s dance history. I really wanted him to tell her. It would look better coming from him, especially if what Betsy had said about Johnny Braun being murdered proved to be true.

  “We need to go to Mobile, but I’d rather go back to the B and B and have a nice foot massage. My feet are swelling. I’ve heard some pregnant women go up a shoe size or two.”

  I’d heard that, too, but I wasn’t going to say it. Tinkie had a small fortune invested in shoes. Especially stilettos. She loved a sexy high heel and she could run as fast in five-inch heels as I could in sneakers. If her feet grew, she’d be inconsolable—until the baby arrived. “It’s probably just that you’ve been standing on them too much.”

  “You’re probably right. Let’s find Ana and get this behind us.”

  We were about to leave when the soda jerk hurried out to us. “There was a call for you.”

  “In the drugstore?”

  He nodded. “On the business phone. It was a woman. She asked me to tell you, ‘I have information that can ex … exon … exonerate your client.’ Those were the exact words. She made me repeat them.”

  “Did she leave a number or a way to get in touch?”

  “She said she’d meet you in forty minutes on the Escatawpa River.”

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Tinkie said. “Where is that?”

  “No, ma’am, I’m not kidding. That’s what she said. There’s a swimming hole on the east side, the Alabama side of the river. She said to take that little dirt road and go down to the water. It’s about a mile off Highway 98. She’ll be there waiting for you.”

  “You’re certain it was a woman?” I asked.

  “Yes, ma’am, it was a lady. An older lady, I think.” He shrugged. “Maybe not.”

  “Thank you.” I offered him a tip but he refused. “Mr. Erik pays me real good.” He went back into the drugstore and got a broom and dustpan and began sweeping up the broken glass on the sidewalk.

  19

  “We shouldn’t go running off into the woods,” Tinkie said. “We were almost killed, Sarah Booth. This could be an ambush.”

  She was right about that. More than anything I wished Coleman was around. I’d feel a lot safer. Not that Glory wasn’t an exceptional lawman; she was. I just knew Coleman inside out. The wise decision would be to ignore this anonymous tipster, but that was hard to do. “What if the caller really has proof that Erik is innocent?”

  “Erik hasn’t been one hundred percent honest with us the whole time,” Tinkie said, a little more hotly than I expected. “Let him go off in the woods and get the proof that he’s innocent.”

  She might be angry, but she was also thinking clearly. “You’re right. He should be the one, but he isn’t here.” My intuition gave a nasty little pulse. As we’d begun probing into Erik’s background, maybe there was something there to hide. Something worth hurting us for—or at least making us believe we would be hurt. And yet again, Erik was off on his own when tragedy struck. “This might be a good lead, but someone wants to meet us in the woods an hour after a shooter tries to blow our heads off. I don’t think so.”

  She pulled out her cell phone and dialed. “Erik, when you get this message, call me right away. Someone says they can prove your innocence. If you want the evidence, you’ll need to go over to the Alabama side of the Escatawpa River. There’s a woman there waiting to meet us at…” She looked at her watch. “Five thirty. You’d better hurry.”

  She hung up and looked at me as I backed up to avoid any scattered glass in preparation to ease out into the street. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “To the B and B. The streets are going to roll up in this town any minute. Call Ana again.”

  She did and held out the ringing telephone so I could hear. No answer. “Damn. We’re blocked at every turn.” Tinkie turned in the seat and looked east, toward Alabama. The road was empty. The few cars that had been parked on Main Street were long gone. “Dammit, let’s go to the river.”

  I looked at her. “I don’t think that’s smart, Tinkie.”

  “I know it isn’t smart, but whoever made that call lives
here in town. Let’s take the meeting and get it over with.”

  “How do you know the caller lives in town?” I asked. “That older woman could be someone Erik put up to calling us. Or Snaith.” Cosmo was still a prime suspect, but somehow I didn’t see him having the charm to con an older lady into making calls for him. “Maybe they’re just trying to divert our focus, or maybe it’s a setup where we get hurt.”

  Tinkie’s brow furrowed and her lips drew down. “I don’t like thinking our client may be trying to kill us.”

  “Neither do I. But Erik is a chronic liar. He’s loaded with charm. He’s able to talk his way out of trouble easily enough.”

  “And he has means, motive, and opportunity. Unless we find Ana Arguello and prove that he was indeed with her in a public place the night Slay was killed. And where the heck was he when Patrice was poisoned?”

  “Missing in action.”

  “But why dump the bodies at the Garden of Bones?” Tinkie seemed as perplexed as I was.

  “That’s one thing we need to investigate. I don’t want to believe it’s Erik, but things just keep happening that point the finger of guilt directly at him. Think about it. This strange woman, offering an alibi for Erik, who isn’t around to get the collaborating evidence himself, calls just when we arrived back at the drugstore. That’s a little more than a tad convenient unless she was watching us arrive here.”

  “The caller couldn’t be the person who tried to kill us,” Tinkie continued. “But it could be a confederate, if you believe there’s a ring of assassins after us.” She gave me a wry look.

  I didn’t believe a gaggle of assassins was after us, but the shooting didn’t feel like a warning. Someone meant to hurt one or both of us. Tinkie had good instincts and she’d made a good point. “You believe the shooter and the caller who has information for us are two separate people?”