A Garland of Bones

by Carolyn Haines

  “Nada,” Tinkie said as she joined me.

  “Nothing here that I can find.” I was dejected. “Let’s get out of here before someone else, like the law, stumbles in.”

  “Yes, time to go.” Tinkie moved back into the kitchen where she looked out the window on a beautiful backyard. The little calico was back, winding around her legs. “This is the sweetest cat,” she said. “I want my baby to grow up with pets, to learn to love them and treat them with respect. Maybe if Kathleen doesn’t … if Darla doesn’t want her, I could talk to Oscar about taking her.”

  “A perfect idea.” The kitty would live life in the lap of luxury if she became Tinkie’s pet. And Chablis, her little pooch, was cat friendly.

  We were exiting the kitchen when the cat jumped on top of the stove, and from there onto a shelf where some knickknacks and cookbooks were stored. “Bad kitty!” I moved the cat to the floor. Had the stovetop been on, the cat could have been hurt. “Stay off the stove.” I shooed her into the living room as Tinkie reached up for a cookbook. Kathleen wasn’t a tall person, so the shelf was within Tinkie’s strike zone.

  “Look at this, Sarah Booth. Antebellum Recipes from Lorilee’s Kitchen. This is a collector’s cookbook.”

  “Put it back. You know you can’t cook worth a lick. Don’t even pretend. I don’t want you to give Oscar food poisoning.”

  She gave me a sour look and reached up to return the book to the shelf, but holding it in her sleeved hand made her clumsy. Several books came tumbling down. The one that fell on top was a slim leather-bound journal. I picked it up and realized our search had been rewarded—maybe. “It’s a book of poems, and it looks as if Kathleen wrote them.”

  “They could be loaded with clues.”

  “You’re exactly right!”

  20

  Standing in Kathleen’s house was no place to examine our find, so I reluctantly left the kitty alone and we made our way, shrub by shrub, out of the neighborhood. When we were several blocks away from the house, Tinkie called a ride for us. Within twenty minutes we were getting out in front of the B and B.

  “We should have stopped for lunch somewhere,” Tinkie said. “I’m starving.”

  She’d eaten at least three biscuits for breakfast. I’d had only one and I wasn’t hungry. “That baby must be growing by leaps and bounds. You’re going to have to buy some kind of a sling to support your belly if you keep eating.” I was only half teasing.

  “Maybe I do eat a lot, but I still have the trimmest ankles in Mississippi.” She held up one foot to show how dainty her ankles were.

  “I am not even going to think about that.” I took her elbow and helped her up the stairs to the front door of the B and B. Before I could reach for the knob, the door flew open. A very startled Darla stopped before she ran both of us down.

  “Are you okay?” Tinkie asked her. She had a panicked look on her face, and when she stared at Tinkie, it was as if she didn’t recognize her.

  “I have to go.” She tried to brush past us, but I caught her arm. She didn’t look to be in any condition to be running anywhere, especially if she intended to drive.

  “Darla!” I jiggled her arm. “Darla!”

  At last she registered who I was. “Sarah Booth, let me go. I have to leave.”

  “Not until you tell us what’s going on. Maybe I should drive you.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “No! No time. Let me go.” She tried to pull free, but I kept my grip.

  “Hey, hold on just a minute.” I didn’t really want to stop her, but I was afraid she wasn’t thinking clearly—or thinking at all. She seemed in a terrible panic. “Just tell us what’s going on.”

  Tinkie put an arm around her waist and held on. “We’re here to help, remember? But you have to clue us in. And Darla, we can’t let you leave acting so erratically. You could hurt yourself or someone else.”

  “I have to go.” She made one more minimal effort to pull free, staring at the driveway where her car was parked.

  “Where are you trying to go?” I asked.

  “Kathleen. She has a kitty. I forgot about Gumbo. I need to make sure she’s okay and has food.”

  I heaved a sigh. “Let’s go inside for a moment. Then Tinkie and I will drive you over to pick up the cat, maybe bring her here.”

  “I should do that, but what if some of my guests are allergic to cats?”

  “Confine Gumbo to your quarters for the time being. We’ll help you find a more permanent solution if that becomes necessary,” Tinkie said. She gave me a nod to let me know she was still willing to take the kitty, should it be necessary.

  “I should get her now.” She started to pull away, and again I just held on.

  “We’ll go shortly,” I promised her. “You may need help catching the kitty. For right now, come back inside and let me make some coffee.” I didn’t know exactly what had happened to upset Darla to the point that she was acting a little unhinged, but I knew if we could keep her safe, she’d come around.

  Tinkie and I led her back inside and I put on the coffeepot for a quick cup. We sat at the kitchen table and sipped the strong black brew, giving Darla a chance to recover her wits. And it didn’t take her long.

  “I am so sorry, ladies. I realize I was out of it when I tried to leave. I’ve just been distraught, and I went back to bed this morning and fell asleep. I had a terrible nightmare. About Kathleen.”

  “What was it?” Tinkie asked.

  “She was down at the bottom of the river, wearing this white gown with lots of material floating out behind her. Her hair was spread out in the water. And she was calling for her cat, Gumbo. She was so forlorn and sad, and she was searching everywhere for her kitty. I woke up from the nightmare and I had this compulsion to go and make sure Gumbo was okay. It was an overwhelming sensation. I couldn’t stop myself.”

  I’d had a few nightmares that had driven me to rash action. And if I wanted to have the pants scared off me, all I had to do was listen to Madame Tomeeka’s dreams, which were often prophetic—if I could decipher them. I had great sympathy for the panic Darla must have felt, realizing that her friend’s little kitty was alone and confused about where Kathleen must have gone.

  “We’ll check on the kitty soon,” I promised her. “But we have some questions about Kathleen.”

  “Questions? Can’t you wait until they find her?”

  I didn’t want to say she wouldn’t likely be able to answer questions when her body was found, so I ignored it. “Just basic things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Did Tulla Tarbutton have it in for Kathleen?”

  “She did, and as it turned out, the eyewitness who saw Kathleen pull Clarissa over the side of the boat—well, that was none other than Tulla Tarbutton. She was on another boat because I wouldn’t let her on mine. And she claims she saw the whole thing. I don’t know why those women had it in for Kathleen. She never bothered them or ran in their circles. Now they’re determined to pretend that Kathleen was trying to knock Clarissa into the river.”

  “But Kathleen did have a crush on Bart Crenshaw, didn’t she?”

  “So what? Bart wouldn’t give her the time of day. She didn’t have enough money to be attractive to him. And besides that, she was a decent, caring woman who would have wanted a bond, not a one-night fling. Kathleen may have thought Bart handsome, but she’d never have acted on any crush she had. She’s smarter than that.”

  Darla had calmed down considerably, and I was concerned for the cat. My cat, Pluto, had a sixth sense when something was up. I suspected that Kathleen’s kitty was also perceptive. “Why don’t we go with you to check on Kathleen’s cat?”

  Darla stood up. “I’ll go. There’s no need for you to spend your time tracking down a cat. I’m perfectly fine now and I’m not certain the cat will take to strangers. You know how fickle cats can be.”

  I did, but Kathleen’s cat was a sweetheart. I couldn’t say that, though. “Don’t forget the litter box and litter,” I
said.

  “Good thinking.” Darla appeared to be a little rattled still. “Yes, I’ll get those things and the food.”

  “Maybe Kathleen will be found,” Tinkie said.

  Darla’s eyes filled, but she blinked back the tears. “Yes. That’s what we’re all hoping for. Now let me get Gumbo before any more time passes.”

  “Darla, do you know anyone who’d deliberately hurt Kathleen?” I asked.

  She stopped and thought for a full minute. “Kathleen was kind of a loner, except for our friendship. I don’t know why anyone would want to harm her.”

  “Why did she move to Columbus?” Tinkie asked. “She doesn’t have family here.”

  “I never pressed Kathleen about her past. She was shy, and reluctant to expose herself in anyway. I believe she came here because of a man.”

  This piqued our interest. “Bart?”

  “No, not him. I don’t know who it was. She never said a name. But she said something about a poet. Maybe a songwriter. Someone she’d met because those were also interests of hers. Whoever it was, she never introduced him to me. Once she was here, she liked Columbus, and she was here to stay.”

  “She’s such a pretty woman and so sweet-tempered,” Tinkie said. “Seems like any guy would be crazy to be with her.”

  “You would think,” Darla said with a bitter laugh. “You would think. But sadly, a kind heart and pretty face aren’t the coin a lot of men trade in.”

  “The right men do,” Tinkie said stoutly. “There are good guys out there. I promise you, when we find Kathleen, I’ll make it a point to introduce her to some of them.”

  At last Darla smiled. “I know you will, Tinkie. Thank you. Now I have to go.”

  After the front door closed, it took Tinkie and me several minutes to pull ourselves out of a funk to get busy with our case. I came to the surface with one question for my partner. “Do you think Darla could be involved in all of this?”

  Tinkie bit her bottom lip. “Of course she could. But why would she? She’s got a successful business and the goodwill of the town. I’m leaning more toward Sunny Crenshaw.”

  Tinkie was correct there. Sunny had a lot of motive and so far she’d dodged our calls. I still had her number, so I called from the Bissonette House phone. Eureka! She answered.

  All face-to-face meetings were nixed, but she did tell us something very interesting. “Bart’s a fool,” she said. “But he is a money-making machine. I don’t really care what he does as long as he keeps the money coming in.” With that, she hung up.

  Tinkie looked at me. “We have to keep her on the list, but Sunny Crenshaw, despite the slap she gave Bart at the restaurant, stikes me as someone far too pragmatic to be driven to murder.”

  Tinkie made perfect sense to me.

  * * *

  Darla’s offer to use her computer was coming in handy. Though I was curious about the journal we’d found, we first went to look up Kathleen’s tenure in Columbus. There wasn’t much to find. Her name was mentioned in a few Columbus social columns, mostly as attending or as cohosting with Darla. I put the other names we had through the same procedure—Tulla, Bricey, Sunny and Bart Crenshaw, Clarissa Olson. The results were the same. Gardening or historical awards, community service notices, hosts of gala events, and serving on planning commissions and various government agencies like the zoning board.

  “Both Clarissa and Bart are on the zoning commission,” Tinkie said. “Strange.”

  “It’s probably a lot more common than you’d ever imagine.” Self-interest seemed to be rampant among “public servants.” “The takeaway is that we haven’t discovered any new information that helps us.”

  “I need a drink,” Tinkie said, even as she held up a hand. “I know I can’t. I’m just vocalizing my needs.”

  I put a hand on her shoulder. “Soon!”

  I wanted a drink, too, but I wasn’t going to rub her nose in it. “Let’s go down to the river and check in with the searchers.”

  She nodded. “It’s better than sitting and moping.”

  Before we could get to our feet, my cell phone rang. Cece was calling.

  “The men are in some big warehouse on the outskirts of town,” she said. “We’ve tried every which way to sneak a peek inside, but the place is airtight. There’s a ten-foot chain-link fence with razor wire all around it, and there’s no way to get in. They have cameras everywhere. Something is going on in there, though. Lots of folks are inside.”

  “What the heck.” I was puzzled. Coleman and his he-man contingent weren’t likely holed up in a warehouse drinking away the day. They could do that with us. “Come on back to the B and B. Darla has gone to get Kathleen’s cat.”

  “That’s hard,” Cece said. “We’re on the way. Maybe we can cheer her up. What’s on the agenda for this evening?”

  I relayed the question to Tinkie, who was a little miffed no one had actually read her itinerary. I didn’t point out that we didn’t have to because she’d lined everything up and all we had to do was get dressed and be there for her to order us about. No decisions to make—no pressure.

  “Tonight Darla is supposed to help us come up with some costumes for mumming.”

  I put the phone on speaker and relayed that to Cece, who responded with “Are you sure she’s up for that?”

  “If she doesn’t feel up to it, we can head out for some shopping and put together our own costumes. The stores will be open later tonight. We can find something appropriate.”

  Cece was laughing at us. “We’ll be home shortly. You be thinking of ways to make these men spill the beans about what they’re up to.”

  “You ran them to ground, but you don’t have any idea what they’re doing?” I asked. “Did your driver, Dallas Sweeney, have any ideas what was going on?”

  “I had a sense she knew something but wasn’t talking. We’re on our way.” The phone went dead.

  I was overjoyed at the idea of mumming. My love of acting hadn’t died with the disappointment of my thwarted career. Dressing up and pretending was just as much fun as it had always been, but before we got to that, I held up the book of poetry Kathleen had written.

  “Let’s go through some of this before Darla returns. Chances are this will only upset her if she sees us working on it.”

  Tinkie nodded. “Good thinking.”

  Tinkie and I took a seat on the sofa in front of a fire that was burning to embers. I made myself a glass of Jack on the rocks and opened the little journal we’d found at Kathleen’s house. We didn’t have long before Darla would be back with Gumbo.

  We started at the back—the last things written. There were snippets of a scene or complete poems, mostly about loneliness. And some about love. Kathleen had found someone she seemed to care deeply about. Someone who returned that emotion. She wrote sonnets, a difficult form. She was pretty good in some instances. And the best poems, the ones that really worked, made me feel like I was violating her privacy.

  There were also things written that I couldn’t make any sense of. Tinkie was as puzzled as I was. But it made perfect sense that Kathleen, in writing only for herself, had not felt the need to be linear or logical.

  “Do you think she was depressed?” Tinkie asked.

  “She was lonely for a bit, but that seemed to have passed.” I thought back to the time I’d spent with her. She’d seemed happy enough, and her friendship with Darla seemed like a linchpin in her life.

  Tinkie tossed the journal at me. “If there’s anything declarative in there, I couldn’t find it. It’s mostly things about feelings and emotions, being on the outside looking in. Just fragments of things.”

  Tinkie was right about that. Perhaps someone better trained in literary symbolism could find substance in the journal. That wasn’t going to be me or Tinkie. I’d been so hopeful when we pulled it off the shelf that we would have answers to some of our questions.

  “What’s our next step?” Tinkie asked. Normally she was the person setting out the agenda.

/>   “We can check out some wig shops in town. We can call Dallas for a ride and pick her brain. Or we can join the search for Kathleen.” Those were the options, as I saw them.

  “What about talking with Clarissa about what really happened last night?”

  That was, indeed, another way to go. “I’m in.”

  “I’m just not buying that she’s paying fifteen grand to ‘protect the town cheaters.’”

  “I’m having a lot of trouble buying that, too.”

  “It might be best if we aren’t here when Darla brings the cat in,” Tinkie said. “She can have a good cry or whatever she needs without feeling she has to be the perfect host.”

  21

  I dialed Dallas Sweeney and booked a ride. “The Uber will be here in ten minutes.”

  We left a note on the kitchen counter for Darla and asked her to tell Cece and Millie we’d be back as quickly as we could. Whether Darla was up to helping us prepare our costumes or not, we still had to find something festive to wear to the mumming. And I had a lot to learn about the ancient tradition.

  Grinning widely, Dallas pulled up, and Tinkie and I hopped into her car.

  “Where to?” she asked.

  “Rook’s Nest.”

  She glanced at us in the rearview mirror. “You want to stop for a Kevlar vest and some weapons?”

  We both laughed. “That won’t be necessary,” Tinkie said. “But tell us about the mumming festivities. What should we expect?”

  “Are you going in disguise?” she asked.

  “We are. I’m not certain what Darla has in mind, but we’re participating,” Tinkie said. “I should have asked more questions about this.”

  “It isn’t rocket science,” Dallas said. “Darla will pick out a well-known story or fairy tale. You’ll dress up as the characters and act it out. Some of the mummers request pay, which is then contributed to a local charity. Do you know what story she’s focusing on?”