A Gift of Bones--A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery

by Carolyn Haines

  She was gleefully tormenting me. She knew I was itching to have a reason to go to the sheriff’s office. I was behaving like a teenager, and she could read it all over me. “Sure. That’s a good plan. When Cece chops your head off for bringing the law into this, I’ll make sure Oscar buries you all together.” But she had raised an interesting point. There was a way around this dilemma and I would still get to spend a few minutes with Coleman. “I have a Plan B. Why don’t I lure Coleman and the deputies out of the office, then you can sneak in there, pretend to be the dispatcher, and call the hospital from their phones? It’ll show up on caller ID as the Sunflower County SO and the hospital will be more likely to share info.”

  “Okay.”

  I looked up in shock. Tinkie never gave in that easily. “That’s it? Okay?”

  “It’s a good plan. How are you going to distract them?”

  “I don’t know yet.” I hadn’t anticipated her capitulation. “Do you have any ideas?”

  “Sex always works with men.” Her grin widened. “Then again, that may be old hat for Coleman now. Or maybe you broke it.”

  I gave her my best Darth Vader death stare, but she only laughed out loud. “You are so much fun to tease.”

  She was right. I was an easy target. “Okay, now help me think. What about coffee at Millie’s? I could invite them for coffee and pie.”

  “They might want to go but they wouldn’t leave the SO unattended for coffee. No, it needs to be an emergency of some kind. One that requires all of them. And one that isn’t very far away.” She was right about all of the parameters.

  “Okay, I hate to do it but I can.”

  “What?” Tinkie was wary.

  “I’m going to get into a brawl with Mrs. Hedgepeth about Sweetie Pie.”

  “She really does hate you. On sight.” Tinkie frowned. “Why is that?”

  “No clue; don’t care. She hated me when I was a child. She was always calling my parents to claim I was up to some horrible behavior.”

  “She’s had it in for Sweetie Pie for a long time, too.”

  “True. You can call Coleman and tell him I’m about to slug her and that he’ll need help to break up the fight. Tell him to bring all forces before we tie up like lady wrestlers.”

  “How do you know Mrs. Hedgepeth will rise to the bait?” She rolled her eyes. “Okay, I know she always rises to the bait when it’s your dog. She hates Sweetie Pie.”

  “No, she hates all dogs and cats. She’s a mean old woman and all the Zinnia children avoid her like the plague. I’ll head over to her house with Sweetie Pie and you please call Coleman. Once they leave the courthouse, you can slip in and call the Tishomingo County Hospital and find those birth records.”

  It wasn’t a sophisticated or even very clever plan, but I hoped it would work.

  15

  Sweetie and Pluto had evacuated the car and were watching the removal of the statue. The day was gray and brisk, perfect from the critters’ perspective. They had no attachment to Johnny Reb so they plopped on the courthouse lawn and rolled in the grass. I called Sweetie Pie to me and we headed off to Mrs. Hedgepeth’s house with Pluto following behind like a bad toddler.

  Mrs. Hedgepeth had been gunning for me since I was nine years old and would ride my bike down her street and pick up the pears that fell from her tree onto the sidewalk and verge. She didn’t really want the pears, she just didn’t want anyone else to have them. And she took every opportunity to call my parents and report my “stealing” as she called it. My father had waited a few days and then gone down the street and busily picked up the fallen sand pears. When she came out the door, pleasant as could be imagined, he told her he was retrieving them for me. She’d never forgiven him or me. And that had begun a series of her attempts to try to get me in trouble. For the next three years, she called at least once a week, claiming that I looked at her wrong. I tried to hit her with my bicycle. I was rude and uppity. Even when I crossed the street from her house and rode on the other side, she still had it in for me.

  Since I’d returned home from New York and adopted Sweetie Pie, she’d been after my dog every chance she could get. So far, Sweetie Pie had escaped her many attempts at entrapment, and there was only one good thing about the situation: Coleman would believe I’d kicked the hornets’ nest with Mrs. Hedgepeth. He would come to rescue me.

  I hustled Sweetie Pie and Pluto down the street and made a beeline for the older woman’s yard. She was decorated to the gills for Christmas. Inflatable Santas bobbed about the front lawn beside lighted wicker reindeer and tree silhouettes created by strings of glowing lights and flashing icicles. One of the machines that cast moving light shows on the walls of her house was hidden in her shrubbery. When it came on, the effect would be dizzying and annoying. It was like Christmas on steroids about to go into a ’roid rage. I looked at Sweetie Pie and I looked at the decorations. It would be very easy to go to the dark side here. After all the accusations she’d made against me—for things I hadn’t done—maybe it was time to do something a little bad.

  As if she could read my mind, Mrs. Hedgepeth blasted out her front door and came rolling into the yard in some sort of muslin sack dress with a sash and head gear that looked like a dishtowel with a braided rope around the forehead. “What the hell?” I said before I could snap my lips shut.

  “I’m Mary, the mother of Jesus,” she said.

  I gave her a cool look. She’d left herself wide open for a real set-to. “More like Mia Farrow and the mother of the antichrist.”

  “How dare you?” She was easy to rile.

  “Oh, I dare to do that and a lot more. Tell me you’re not in the church Christmas pageant tonight?”

  “I have the starring role. I’m Mary, who gives birth to the baby Jesus.” She reached into the voluminous folds of her robe-slash-tent and brought forth a bald-headed baby doll circa 1950. The little plastic face was molded into a smudged, permanent frown, the Kewpie doll lips swollen and angry. It was the ugliest baby doll I’d ever seen.

  “You’re playing Mary? As old as you are that would be a miracle birth.” I drew first blood. I’d have her angry enough to start something physical in a short time.

  “You are a rude and obnoxious adult, just like you were a terrible little brat.”

  “What was it about those pears?” I asked. “Did you really care that a child picked up two or three? You left them to rot on the sidewalk.”

  “You should have asked permission.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “I was nine. I didn’t know you, and the pears were all over the sidewalk. No one wanted them. A lot of them had rotted.”

  “You should have asked.”

  “My mother would have skinned me if I’d gone around knocking on a stranger’s door. The pears were on the sidewalk. They didn’t belong to anyone.”

  “That’s how you young people think. That everything is just yours for the taking. You don’t have to ask, you don’t have to work for anything. You just take.”

  “Why are you so angry?” I was suddenly more interested in learning the truth than in picking a fight to entertain Coleman. “What happened to you that made you so horrid?” I looked around at the Christmas decorations. They were so over the top that I was suddenly struck by the answer. “You never had children but you really wanted them. Why didn’t you just adopt?”

  “You don’t know anything.” She dropped the plastic baby doll onto the ground and stepped back from me. In the distance I heard sirens. Tinkie must have scared Coleman good. There were two patrol cars singing their way toward me.

  “I never meant to take anything you wanted. I was a kid. I thought the pears were there for anyone to take. I’m sorry if I took something you valued.”

  She had the grace to look ashamed. “Your father apologized for you.”

  I never knew that. “He shouldn’t have. It was my place, not his.”

  “That’s what I told him, but he said that you were innocent in your thoughts and actions and he
would protect that innocence with everything he had.”

  And that had made her envious of me. It wasn’t children she’d longed for, but someone to protect her. “My father was a smart man, but this time he was wrong. He should have told me and let me make amends.”

  Mrs. Hedgepeth loosened the belt around her costume and let it fall to the ground around her, revealing her normal slacks and a sweater. “I shouldn’t play Mary.”

  Coleman, Budgie, and DeWayne jumped out of the patrol cars as if I were forcing Mrs. Hedgepeth to strip in her front yard. I didn’t know what to do so I just stood there.

  “What’s going on?” Coleman asked as he approached.

  “Mrs. Hedgepeth needs a costume adjustment before tonight’s pageant,” I said. I’d gone there to torment her, but now I felt sorry for her. I’d lost my zest for wicked repartee.

  “I’m not going to play Mary,” she said.

  “Now, Martha.” Coleman gave her his arm and assisted her toward her house. She was not disabled or ill, but she leaned on his arm as if she were exhausted. “Let’s get you inside and figure out what’s wrong.”

  DeWayne scooped up the fallen costume and tried to hand it to me, but I backed away. “The one person she doesn’t want inside her house is me. You two take her the costume.”

  Sweetie Pie, Pluto, and I stood under the bare branches of the pear tree that had been the bone of contention between this woman and myself—for reasons neither of us understood at the time. Now it all seemed like such a waste of energy. She’d disliked me, a kid, because I had a loving father. And I’d tormented her because I’d viewed her as mean and crotchety instead of broken. Big waste on both of our parts.

  DeWayne shook the dead grass out of the costume and handed it off to Budgie, who’d backed up to stand beside the patrol car.

  “Convince her that she has to be in the pageant tonight. The show can’t go on without her.” I gave them both a thumbs-up.

  “Why me?” Budgie looked just like a kid being assigned to re-shelve books during study hall.

  “Because you’re a man of the law.” I punched him lightly on the arm. “You do all the community things that are necessary to keep the citizens of Zinnia safe. If Mrs. Hedgepeth wakes up in the morning and realizes she passed on her chance to be the star of the Christmas pageant, the world will not be safe.” I picked up Pluto. “And she needs cheering up. The holidays are tough for a lot of solitary people.”

  I instantly saw my chance to torment Budgie. Since he’d become a deputy, he had really blossomed. He was smart and helpful and had taken a load off Coleman in the research department. But he had also been a substitute high school teacher, and as a former student, I couldn’t resist messing with him. “She’s only fifteen or so years older than you. Why don’t you take her to dinner? Make this holiday special for her.”

  He cast me a sidelong look and considered my suggestion. “You’re a devil, Sarah Booth. I may just do it because it’s the kind thing to do. You know she lost her husband and son in a terrible accident back when you were an infant. She probably is lonely.”

  I felt my prankster mojo wilt. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Her husband, Ronald Hedgepeth, was a great guy. He worked with the sheriff’s department repairing toys for children who often did without. Their son was the kind of kid who went around town mowing lawns for single ladies and helping older gentlemen with gardens and such.”

  I felt lower than a heel. The idea that Mrs. Hedgepeth had lost a husband and a son was bad enough, but they sounded like wonderful people. “My parents never told me that. They never mentioned what happened to Mr. Hedgepeth and I never knew about the son.”

  “His name was Randy. He was the pitcher on the softball team and was going to be valedictorian. He was about to graduate when he and his dad were killed in a terrible accident.”

  “What kind of accident?” I was wallowing in guilt now.

  “Oh, it was a tragedy. They were driving home late one night from delivering meals on wheels when they came up on this steep hill slick with ice. They went over it and that was it for them.”

  “What hill? The Delta is flat. There aren’t any hills.”

  He grinned wide, and I realized DeWayne was also way too amused. “Fool’s hill, just like you.” He stepped back in case I took a swing at him.

  “Dammit, Budgie.” He’d reeled me in like a hooked fish. “When did you become such an accomplished liar?”

  “I had a lot of great teachers, but mostly this clutch of high school girls who could tell a lie and look as innocent as angels. Shall I name them?”

  “No, that won’t be necessary.”

  “I’ll take Mrs. Hedgepeth her costume and tell her how much we’re looking forward to the play.”

  “Wait a minute, please. What did happen to Mr. Hedgepeth?”

  “He ran off with his secretary because Mrs. Hedgepeth was having an affair with the insurance salesman. He caught her parked in the woods when she put her high heel through the ragtop of the insurance salesman’s car and got her shoe stuck.”

  Budgie was still laughing when he left to take the costume in the house. I owed him one, big-time.

  16

  Tinkie was waiting for me on the front steps of the courthouse. She looked mighty forlorn, looking at the pedestal where the statue had once stood. Sweetie Pie and Pluto sat at her feet while her pup, Chablis, cuddled in her arms. The critters were good at giving comfort.

  “I’m sorry you saw this,” I said.

  “The good news is that they’re going to create a park where cities and counties from all across the state can bring their statues. The Mississippi Artistic Council is going to commission many additional statues to tell the whole story of the history of Mississippi. The end creation will be a natural history trail of personalities and historic markers, coupled with a nature trail that tells the story of how the land here once was, how it was cleared, how the environment is changing because of humans, and how we need to protect it.” Her smile was sad but not desolate. “The Harrington sisters are in charge of the nature trail. Imagine that. The Wiccans have gotten a state grant. I hear the plan is for the schoolchildren to help identify all the native plants. Things are changing in Mississippi.”

  She was right about that, and while change always hurt, it also brought hope. Things could be better—for everyone.

  “What did you find out?” I asked, eager to hear what she’d unearthed. “Did you have any trouble posing as Coleman’s deputy?”

  “Not a bit of trouble. I sold it completely, and I did find the birth records, but I don’t know how much it will help us. The birth mother was a woman named Joanne Woodcock. She gave birth to two babies, twins. A girl and a boy. She abandoned them at the hospital, where they were taken in by the state and put up for adoption.”

  I found it hard to understand how a woman could simply walk off and leave her newborn babies, but I’d never faced the circumstances some women had to live with. “What happened to the babies?”

  “The girl was claimed by a relative. The other baby, the boy, went into the system. He was taken in by the state orphanage.”

  “Did the hospital have any records showing who might have adopted the little girl? Did she list the name of the father?”

  “No and no.”

  “It’s going to be hard to trace that baby.”

  “Yes, but the big news is that I think you’re right about Ms. Woodcock and Will Falcon. We just can’t prove it. But it’s possible Eve has a brother.”

  “And one who may have a long-burning resentment that Eve found a home and he didn’t.”

  Tinkie nodded. “The description of the young man stalking Eve could easily fit her brother in age. If this is about blood and abandonment, I’m not certain that paying a ransom will help get Eve home.”

  “That’s damning with slim evidence, but my gut tells me we’re on the right track.”

  “I agree, but we have to remember that this is a hunch unsupporte
d with real evidence. The bad news is that I’m not finding a lot of other people who would think to kidnap a pregnant bank employee and ask for that kind of ransom. This is someone who knows Eve and wants to cash in on what they know.”

  That I couldn’t argue. “Did you get an address on Woodcock?”

  “She’s deceased. Or at least that’s what the person in records at the hospital said.”

  “Well, damn.” That was a dead end when we really needed a live lead.

  “Onaria, the records clerk, was a friend of Joanne. And she had some interesting things to say.”

  Tinkie was dribbling her information. “Spill it, Tinkie, before I have to hurt you.”

  “Onaria said she believed the babies’ father was Will Falcon. She said he and Joanne were courting. He led Joanne to believe he was leaving Carla and was going to marry her. He said he wanted to take care of her and both babies. Then something happened and it was over. He said he couldn’t divorce Carla and that he couldn’t see Joanne or the children. Joanne couldn’t take care of herself much less twins. After the babies were born, Carla agreed to take one child. She made Will choose which.”

  Now that was a hellish way to punish a man for infidelity—to make him choose between his own children.

  Tinkie couldn’t keep the emotion out of her voice. “He picked the little girl because he thought the boy would be better able to take care of himself.”

  “Yeah and the way it turned out, picking Eve may not have been much of a blessing for her. Carla hated her and showed it every day.”

  “I know. Carla was mean, but she was particularly awful about anything Eve might enjoy. Imagine hating a child enough to ban the celebration of Christmas in a house.”

  “How did Joanne die?” I asked. “And when?”

  “Suicide. Almost twenty years ago. Onaria said Joanne was so depressed at leaving her babies in the hospital that she just lost all hope and didn’t want to continue on. I couldn’t live if I had to give up a baby.” Tinkie put a hand on her flat stomach and I knew how much she longed to have a child.