A Gift of Bones--A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery

by Carolyn Haines

  We rose. It was time to go. She stood also, but it was the maid who walked us to the door and let us out.

  “I wonder who really hired Eve and Jodie?” Tinkie asked as we pulled onto the highway. “I don’t think it was Freddy Teddy.”

  “You think it was Ricky?”

  “I do.”

  “I tend to agree with you. Iron fist in a velvet glove.”

  “And she likes the perks of her husband’s job.” Tinkie leaned back into the seat as I drove. “Do you think Eve is alive?”

  “I do. The only lead we have right now is the young man who was watching her from the hardware store. We can go there and ask around.”

  “It’s not a very substantial lead.” Tinkie was nobody’s fool. We were whistling past the cemetery.

  “Chew the bone you’ve got,” I said. It was an old law-enforcement saying. The truth was, we didn’t have another bone. “Cleveland is only twelve miles down the road.”

  “Hit it.” Tinkie pushed her sunglasses more firmly into place and leaned her head back.

  I turned on the radio to a blues station and rode into Cleveland on the joy and sadness of Billie Holiday.

  The bank was just where we left it, across the street from the local farm supply store. My old antique convertible was pretty conspicuous—but so would Tinkie’s new Caddy have been. I pulled around the building and we got out and sauntered inside.

  I love old farm supply stores. I’m a regular customer at the Sunflower County Seed and Feed. I like the smell of the horse and cattle feed, and in the spring there are baby chicks, which I always worried about. They seem so fragile and frisky and helpless. The Cleveland feed store was no exception. I wandered through the aisles looking at gardening tools and weed killers, fertilizers and salt blocks. I kept one eye out on the parking lot, hoping against hope that our stalker would appear.

  Tinkie had fallen into conversation with the clerk behind the counter, and they were laughing at some joke she’d shared. The clerk was an older man and it was clear he was smitten with her, in the most gentlemanly fashion. She used her feminine wiles to ask him questions that he didn’t know he was answering, but it was also genuine from Tinkie’s perspective. She liked men. She enjoyed their weaknesses and their strengths, and while she knew how to play one like a fine fiddle, she was never careless or cruel. It was a craft she’d been taught in the cradle. The art of being a Daddy’s Girl, a woman who could bend a man to her whims and fancy and make him think it was his idea.

  Long ago, I’d been contemptuous of such manipulations. I was an older and wiser woman now. Why battle with a man to prove a point? Sometimes you could catch more flies with sugar than vinegar, as Aunt Loulane used to say. Tinkie, with her sweet laugh and flashing blue eyes, was bringing in a swarm of flies.

  I ambled a little closer to the conversation and learned that the store owner had seen a young man watching the bank. He gave a pretty good description of a dark-haired, slender man in his early twenties. He’d applied for work at the farm supply store and Mr. Melton, the owner, was thinking of hiring him if he showed up again.

  “Didn’t leave a phone number or address,” Mr. Melton said. “I got the idea he was looking for a job so he could find a place to settle. So many young folks today got no family to rely on. It’s a shame. They’re just out there on their own.”

  He was right about that.

  “Do you remember his name?” Tinkie asked.

  “Sorry, Mrs. Richmond, I don’t. I should have written it down, but an eighteen-wheeler of fertilizer arrived and it was all hands on deck unloading it. The young man helped, and I was going to give him a ten spot because he threw in without being asked. I came in the store and got the money but when I went back out to give it to him, he was gone.”

  “And you haven’t seen him since?”

  Mr. Melton shook his head. “I haven’t. That was three days ago.”

  “Did you know Eve Falcon from over at the bank?”

  “Oh, yes. Pretty little thing, but she was about to pop the last time I saw her. She stopped by for some dog food. She said there was a stray dog near the place she rented and she wanted to feed it. Sweet woman.” His mouth thinned. “That father of her baby wasn’t around to help her. Some men should be horsewhipped.”

  Mr. Melton was old-school when it came to responsibilities. I liked that.

  “Did Eve have a place in town here?” Tinkie asked.

  “She rented a little apartment off Dawes Road. Cute little green cottage set off the road in a nice residential area. I haven’t seen her lately, so I assumed she was at the hospital having the baby.” He was getting suspicious. “Is something wrong?”

  “Eve’s gone missing.” Tinkie just put it out there. “Her cousin has hired me and my partner to find her. You’ve helped us a lot.”

  “What do you mean she’s missing?” He was about to get upset.

  “She hasn’t shown up at work and her relative is worried. Because of the baby and all.”

  “You let me know when you find her, okay?” Mr. Melton wrote a number on the back of a receipt. “I’m fond of that young woman. Everyone who meets her is.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Melton. We’ll let you know for sure.” Tinkie took the number and soon after we left. We had one more lead—Eve’s cottage. Cece hadn’t known where Eve was living, but now we did. It wouldn’t take but a minute to search through it to see if there was evidence of an abduction or a scuffle … or worse.

  4

  Eve’s cottage was tiny—and absolutely adorable. It was almost a dollhouse, and somehow seemed so perfect for a soon-to-be mother. As Mr. Melton had explained, her landlady was an older woman who lived next door but “didn’t pry.”

  “Mrs. Otis is a good soul,” he’d said. “Outlived all her family, and I get the idea she really dotes on Eve. Might be good to check with her, too.”

  As we took in the cottage and the “big house” in front of it, Tinkie said, “Let’s talk to Mrs. Otis first. I don’t want her to think we’re burglars.”

  A neat brick path led from the cottage to a large-frame house that would have been called a plantation owner’s “town house” in an earlier time. When the Mississippi Delta was cleared and settled, wealthy planters often had a plantation house on the vast stretches of agricultural properties and another, smaller house in town for social events and soirees. The families stayed in town for the social season and for loading and selling the cotton that was harvested in the fall.

  Tinkie had the whole registry of historic homes lodged in her brain. As the head Daddy’s Girl in the Delta, she knew the pedigree of families and properties.

  “Who built this house?” I asked as I took in the gingerbread trim around the curved front porch that graced the house on three sides. It was certainly a porch for sipping juleps and regaling guests with stories of the glory days.

  “It’s the Otis house. Been in the same family since it was built back in the 1850s. Myrtle Otis is the last of her line and she inherited this property plus five thousand acres of farm land. She sold the plantation to Chamblee Agricola about three years ago, and I think it’s almost driven her insane. They’re planting GMO corn and soybeans and she’s been to several protests saying they’re poisoning the crops, the ground, and the people. No one listens to her. They treat her like she’s a crazy old lady. I feel bad for her. She couldn’t keep up the plantation, but she never expected to see the land abused.” Tinkie’s expression reflected her sadness. “Time leaves us all vulnerable and outdated.”

  “I know what you mean.” And I did. I lived with one foot in the past, and it was hard to straddle both worlds. “Let’s take off the mourning clothes and have a chat with Myrtle.”

  “You’re too perky for your own good,” Tinkie admonished as we climbed the steps to the front door and rang the bell. Unlike our reception at Ricky Belvue’s home, the owner opened the door. There were no maids or butlers or silver calling-card trays. It was Myrtle Otis who met us in a floral lavender dre
ss that screamed 1960, a string of elegant pearls, and a smile.

  “Ladies, what can I do for you?” she asked.

  Tinkie gave her a business card. “We need your help, Miss Myrtle. Eve’s cousin, Cece Falcon, has hired us to look for Eve. We’re all a little worried about her. We wanted to ask if we could search her cottage and see if you might know where she went.”

  She pushed the door open. “Come in. Thank goodness someone is looking for her. I’ve been worried sick. I’m Eve’s partner in the Lamaze classes. We’ve been working together for the past two months. I was supposed to go into labor and delivery with her. And then she just disappeared.”

  Myrtle Otis’s home stopped me in my tracks. It held the warmth and love of history that I’d missed since my aunt had passed on. The gracious old furniture gleamed under a careful polishing. The crystals on a tasteful chandelier sparkled. A large fireplace centered the front parlor, and logs had been laid, ready for a match when the evening chill crept in. Even the smell of baking cookies floated from the kitchen.

  “I was making a batch of Toll House cookies for Eve. She’s had a real sweet tooth for the past three months, though she complained about the weight gain. I told her, ‘Honey, you’re carrying a baby. Eat.’ So I decided to bake a batch today. I had to do something constructive while I was waiting to hear from her.” She inhaled raggedly. “She’s hurt, isn’t she? Something has gone wrong.”

  “We don’t know,” Tinkie said. “She is missing, and we’re worried.”

  “Sit and I’ll get some coffee. I just made a fresh pot. And some cookies.”

  “I’ll help,” Tinkie said, giving me the eye. She wanted me to poke around, and I was happy to oblige. It wasn’t that we didn’t trust Mrs. Otis, but sometimes people knew things and didn’t know they knew. If something was obvious, maybe I’d stumble across it.

  I did a quick walk-through and found something extremely helpful—Myrtle had rigged her grounds with surveillance cameras. And one was pointed at the cottage where Eve lived. If I could work the conversation around to that, she might give us permission to look at any footage she had.

  When Tinkie and Myrtle returned with a huge silver tray that held a sparkling coffee service, with lovely, fragile china cups, and a platter of cookies that made my mouth water, I was seated on a brocade sofa that was probably worth at least five grand. The house was furnished in antiques and artwork that even I recognized as valuable. Some of the portraits of Otises from generations long past were exquisite.

  “That’s my grandmother, Bella Schaffer Otis,” Myrtle said as she handed me a cup filled with aromatic coffee. “She was from Virginia, and she was Wickham Otis’s third wife. The first two died in childbirth. It was during Reconstruction, and times were hard. There was little food and worse health care. Pregnancy was a very dangerous time. It still can be.”

  “Eve was taking care of herself, wasn’t she?” I asked. Tinkie looked too upset to talk. The whole pregnancy/baby topic was tough for her because she wanted a child so badly.

  “Yes, Eve made every doctor’s appointment, took her vitamins, ate properly. I made sure of that.”

  “You were very good to Eve.” I had to be blunt. “Why?”

  Myrtle nodded as she passed the cookies around. I took one because I couldn’t resist. I was still full of tamales, but the cookies smelled like heaven.

  “My daughter was killed coming home from Ole Miss. Freak car accident. She was the light of my life. Eve reminded me of her.”

  I sipped my coffee, unable to say anything for a moment. Myrtle’s grief and sorrow were palpable, but she was not a woman who would be beaten down by loss, no matter how acute.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know.”

  “She was a remarkable young woman. You would have liked Rebekah.”

  Somehow, I thought I probably would have. “Did Eve ever mention the father of her child?” I asked. Tinkie was blinking back tears.

  “I asked her, and she only said that he was a good man and that she was happy to have the baby on her own.”

  “Could the baby have belonged to her boss, Mr. Belvue?”

  Myrtle almost snorted her coffee. “Absolutely not. Eve didn’t suffer fools, and Mr. Belvue understood that she ran the bank. He was too smart to fart in his own scuba tank.”

  I almost choked on a bite of cookie. Tinkie put a napkin to her mouth to control her surprise.

  “I’m twenty years older than you girls, but I still have vigor, and Freddy Teddy isn’t brilliant, but he’s business smart. Eve was his best asset. He took care of her.”

  “Then who might the father be?” Tinkie asked. At last she had gained control of her emotions.

  “I don’t know.” Myrtle sighed. “I didn’t want to know. I had this idea that Eve and the baby would live in the cottage and I’d keep the baby during the day while she worked. I had it all planned out in my head. To be honest, the daddy would have been an inconvenience, so I never pressed hard for information. I should have. I was selfish, and now she’s been taken away.”

  Tinkie moved to the sofa beside Myrtle and put a hand on her arm. “She’s not been taken away. She’s just missing, and we’re going to find her.”

  “There’s been a ransom note, hasn’t there?” Myrtle asked. She was sharper than anyone else we’d talked to.

  When we didn’t deny it, she continued. “I’ll pay it. Whatever it is.”

  “We have the amount covered,” Tinkie said. She glanced at me and I nodded. “It was an unusual amount. One hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Do you have any idea who might think Eve could raise that kind of money?”

  She thought a moment, passing the cookies again. “Do you believe it’s the father of the child?”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “It isn’t. No, I can’t see that. It’s someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “Someone who would risk Eve and her baby’s well-being. I never got that impression about the father. Eve never said much about him, but she let me believe he was a decent man who might not know he was a potential father.” She paused with the coffee cup almost to her lips. “But there was a young man lurking around her cottage a week ago.”

  “Tell us.” I clicked on the recording button on my phone just to have a record if she happened to give a good description.

  “I can show you. I have video.”

  And that was that. We followed Myrtle into the small office where she’d set up screens to view the surveillance camera recordings. “Before my husband died, he had these cameras installed. A lot of houses in this area were being burglarized and he was worried about me. At first I thought he’d lost his mind, but now this gives me a sense of safety. I know exactly who’s roaming around my property. I even saw you two earlier.”

  She went back through several CDs. “I don’t keep the footage, normally, but this bothered me. Eve said the same guy was watching her at the bank.”

  This was exactly what we needed. “Did Eve know him?”

  “No. She said she didn’t.”

  “But you didn’t believe her completely,” Tinkie said softly.

  “She was curious about him. And not in the way you’d be if someone scared you. He was a puzzle to her and she was intrigued.”

  Oh, I knew that sort of curiosity and how dangerous it could be. Especially to a woman. We watched the video of a young man walking around Eve’s cottage and peering in the window twice. There was never a clear view of his face, though. It was almost as if he knew where the cameras had been placed and could avoid them.

  “I don’t know him,” Myrtle said. “I know most of the younger people from the county, but not this man. Maybe if I had a clear view of him, but all I can tell is that he has dark hair and seems to be tall and slender. He has good posture.”

  “Eve said she didn’t know him?” I asked again.

  “I don’t think she did, but she wanted to. That’s what concerns me.”

  The guy didn’t behave fur
tively, but he was poking around while no one was home. That in itself was suspect—even though Tinkie and I did it all the time when we were on a case.

  “He’s wearing that hoodie and we can’t see his face,” Tinkie said.

  “I’ve studied the images,” Myrtle said. “I don’t know who he is.”

  “The morning she disappeared, was he hanging around?” I asked.

  Myrtle expertly scrolled forward to the morning of Eve’s disappearance. We watched Eve on the footage as she came out of the cottage, got in her car, and drove away. I noted she had a blue Ford Focus.

  “May we have those CDs?” I asked. “We’ve been warned not to go to the police, but if Cece changes her mind, the sheriff might be able to enhance the images of the stalker.”

  “Sure. Take them.” Myrtle popped them out and handed them to us.

  “Is there anything else you can tell us?” Tinkie asked.

  “Only that Eve loved that baby more than anything. She had everything arranged, planned out, ready. She’d even named her.”

  “Her?” Tinkie said.

  “Yes, she was having a girl. Eve never missed her medical appointments.”

  “What was … is the baby’s name?” Tinkie corrected, but we’d all heard the slip.

  “Sally. She said it was an old-fashioned name for an old-fashioned child. She wanted Sally to grow up with all the love that she’d never had, with a mother and auntie who baked cookies and decorated for Halloween and made Christmas special. Eve never had that.”

  “Eve’s mother doesn’t believe in Christmas.” I remembered the story Cece had told me about Carla burning the bicycle. “I think Carla Falcon doesn’t believe in anything soft or pleasant. Eve really got cheated.”

  “That’s why she’s so determined that little Sally have all of that. Not material things, but the important things like time and love and knowing she’s wanted.” Myrtle stood up. “Please find Eve. I love her like she’s my daughter. I’ll pay any amount.”