A Garland of Bones

by Carolyn Haines

  “Here it is!” Tinkie came out of the bedroom holding the wig on a coat hanger. “I found it in the back of the closet.”

  Just for show I made a photo of Tinkie holding it. “You marked the spot you found it?”

  “Of course,” Tinkie said. “The crime lab guys will need to know the exact location. To gather evidence.”

  Tinkie was really rubbing it in. To add to the heat, I pulled out my phone and started punching in a number.

  “Who are you calling?” Tulla asked.

  “Coleman. He needs to get that video to the Columbus police. If he waits any longer, they may think he was trying to protect you.”

  “Stop!” She reached up for the phone, but I stepped back, then slowly put it in my pocket. “Are you ready to talk?

  “I did steal the wig, but I didn’t plant it on Kathleen. I lent it to her. I was helping her.”

  “Helping her what?”

  “Get even with Bricey.”

  “I don’t believe that for an instant,” Tinkie said. “Call Coleman.” She started back to the bedroom.

  “It’s the truth. I swear it.” Tulla squirmed in her chair.

  “Kathleen hated all of you—Bricey, Clarissa, all of you,” Tinkie said. “Why in the world would she work with any of you?”

  “We had a common enemy,” Tulla said. “We both wanted to put Bricey in her place. She was so full of herself over the car and how much more Bart Crenshaw gave her than the rest of us. She rubbed our faces in it. We decided we’d had enough and to get even.”

  “You knew the car wasn’t insured?”

  Tulla lifted her chin. “I was the one who told Bricey to wait until after the first of the year to insure the car. I told her the insurance rates would drop.”

  “That’s not even true about the rates dropping after the first of the year,” I said, awed by her evil genius.

  “Of course it isn’t true. Bricey is a moron. She believed me, and that’s all that matters.”

  “So you went to Colton Horn and hired the cement truck.”

  Tulla shook her head. “No, that was really Kathleen. It’s just that when she went overboard and didn’t resurface, I knew I had to get that wig out of her house before someone found it. It was my wig and it would trace back to me.”

  Tinkie had returned the wig to the closet and came to stand beside me, hands on her hips. “I don’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth.”

  “Oh, boo-hoo, don’t make me cry,” Tulla said. “Like I care if you believe me. I’m telling the truth. That’s what you asked me to do.”

  “Kathleen wouldn’t work with you,” Tinkie said. “She wouldn’t. She despised all of you.”

  “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Tulla spouted the aphorism as if she’d coined it herself.

  “Can you prove any of this?” I asked.

  Tulla actually paused long enough to think for a bit. “I don’t have any physical proof, but I can tell you that Kathleen had it bad for Bart Crenshaw. It drove her crazy to know that Bricey, Clarissa, and I had sampled a piece of that tempting pie. She didn’t know how to go about snaring him for herself. She was so … pathetic. She’d moon over him at parties and call him about ridiculous real estate listings that she didn’t have the finances to afford. But he would show her houses and property. He wasn’t into her, so he never acted on her flagrant invitations.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “Kathleen was beautiful. And nice. He’s slept with everyone else in town.”

  “You are as big a fool as she was,” Tulla said. “It was the nice part that kept him away. Kathleen wanted more than just a roll in the sack or some firecracker-hot sex. She was nice. That meant she had expectations for a relationship or some such foolishness. That’s like a stake in the heart of a vampire to a real swinger. She’d be gum on his shoe he could never get rid of.”

  I didn’t want to admit it, but her rationale made sense. No swinger would deliberately bed a romantic. The only thing that could come out of that would be hard, hard feelings. Bart would feel trapped and Kathleen would get her heart broken.

  “Tulla, you slept with Bart,” Tinkie pointed out. “Why would Kathleen join up with you?”

  “I was no longer a threat,” Tulla said.

  “But Bart had broken up with Bricey,” I said. “He gave her that car as a parting gift.”

  Tulla shook her head. “No, he hadn’t. That was all a farce. He wouldn’t give a $70,000 car to a woman he was cutting loose. Bart’s wife, Sunny, was on his ass all day long. She said he was embarrassing her in town. So Bart agreed to break up with Bricey—pretend break up. It took the heat off them for a while.”

  She had a point. One I should have considered before now. “So you and Kathleen called the cement truck. What about the shock at karaoke?”

  “It was a setup. I knew about it and made it happen.”

  “You could have killed yourself,” Tinkie said, her voice rising in frustration. “How stupid can you be?”

  “I knew it wouldn’t kill me. I’d rigged the circuit. I had to make it look good.”

  “For what purpose? Not just to keep you off the suspect list for a ruined car.” Suddenly the bigger picture snapped into focus. “You had something else planned, didn’t you? Something where someone was really going to be hurt? Surely you weren’t going to kill Bricey? Or maybe you tampered with the stairs at Clarissa’s house. You have plenty of access there.”

  “Of course not!” Tulla finally stood up and began pacing the room. “We weren’t intending to kill anyone.”

  “We?” Tinkie said. “Who is this we?”

  “Me and Kathleen.”

  I was still finding it hard to believe that Tulla had joined forces with Kathleen, a woman she clearly viewed as her social inferior.

  “When pigs fly,” Tinkie muttered under her breath. She rounded on Tulla. “You would never really be friends with Kathleen. You were just setting her up. I know it. We all know it. So why did you steal the wig back? You could have framed her, and a dead woman has no defenses.”

  Tulla didn’t bother denying her lack of good faith with Kathleen. “Like I said, I was afraid the wig would track back to me. I’m the one who bought it. It was my idea that Kathleen dress up and hire Horn. Kathleen was so eager to be part of my world that she did it.”

  I didn’t believe that, either. Whatever else Kathleen had been, she wasn’t a blind follower.

  “Who set up Bart Crenshaw to take a tumble?” I asked.

  “Not me. It could have been Bricey or Sunny.”

  “Not Clarissa?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Clarissa still has it bad for Bart. She denies it all over the place, but she yearns for his touch.” She laughed. “That’s the truth. It wasn’t me or Clarissa. If Bart refused to give Bricey a new car, I wouldn’t put it past her pushing him.”

  “And why wouldn’t he just say so and have her arrested?” Tinkie asked.

  “That’s just not done. We deal with things ourselves.” She looked toward the door, clearly eager to be away from us.

  “That’s an ominous statement,” I said. “You’re like a secret nation unto yourselves. You have your own laws, your own punishments.”

  She glared at me. “I’m done.”

  “Not yet.” Tinkie stepped to block her from moving. “Did you deliberately push Kathleen into the river and drown her?”

  “No. That’s the truth. I would never be friends with her, you’re right about that, but I wouldn’t kill her.”

  “I’m not so sure I believe you,” Tinkie said, echoing my own thoughts.

  “I don’t give a rat’s patoot what you believe,” Tulla said. She was finding her backbone and about to bolt.

  “Who shot the arrow at Clarissa?”

  “It clearly wasn’t one of us. As much as I’d like to pin it on Bricey, we were all on the porch. You saw us.”

  “Like I believe you five are the only swingers in town,” I said. “It’s likely someone in your group
who has decided to settle a score. Put your thinking cap on and tell us before someone is killed. Is Officer Goode one of your swinging group?”

  “Him? Heavens no. He’s too straitlaced. He’d never play by our rules, and we’re the only ones that matter,” Tulla said with some of her old arrogance returning.

  “Who else is involved?” She exhausted me, but it was time to wrap this mess up.

  “None of your business.”

  “What about Colton Horn?” I asked. If he were in this up to his ears, it would throw a completely different light on the whole car episode.

  “He’s a stick-in-the-mud. Handsome man. He could have been fun, but too uptight.”

  “You legitimately hired him to fill Bricey’s car with cement?”

  “I didn’t hire anyone to do anything. I’ve told you already, Kathleen hired him.” Tulla all but dusted her hands to show her lack of involvement. I didn’t buy it for a second.

  “It was all Kathleen. That’s what you’re saying?” I asked.

  “Looks that way to me,” Tulla said. She had begun to enjoy herself. She intended to push the blame for everything onto a dead woman.

  Tulla waved a hand. “Look, you need to leave. I haven’t done anything illegal. None of us have.” She went to the front door and opened it wide. “Make your exit now, please.”

  29

  Exhausted, I trudged up the stairs at the B and B to find that Coleman had the sheets deliciously warmed. He’d been listening to some Christmas music on an app on his phone, and he snuggled me to him as Mariah Carey sang, “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”

  “That’s really all I do want,” Coleman whispered in my ear, sending chills over me. He had the magic touch when it came to me. “I only want you.”

  “Okay, I’ll send those presents back to Santa.” I couldn’t be all soft and gooey—I had a reputation to uphold.

  He chuckled. “Not a chance of that. And I have a really big surprise for you tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow isn’t Christmas,” I said.

  “But you’re getting a present anyway—if I can lure you away from your case long enough for a little fun.”

  “What kind of fun?” He’d really gotten my curiosity bone to itching.

  “Oh, something you may never have experienced.”

  Now he was definitely working on me. “I’ve never bungee jumped.”

  “Not that.”

  “Vacationed in Denmark.”

  He laughed. “For someone who didn’t want a present, you have some big dreams.”

  I kissed him. “I’m just playing along. You want me to guess, and I know even if I guess correctly, you won’t tell me.”

  “You’re right about that.” He smothered my protests with another kiss, which quickly turned into something that canceled all thoughts of trying to trick him into telling me his secrets.

  When we were both spent, we snuggled close, and I fell asleep to the mellow sounds of Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas.”

  The next morning, I was tapping on Tinkie’s door before sunrise. We’d finally reached the time of year when the days would get longer—by about a minute a day. I was ready for the longer days. Outside the windows of the B and B, night still held sway.

  When Tinkie didn’t answer the door, I tapped again. And again. Oh, I had some payback in store for her. At last the door cracked open.

  “What? It’s not even six A.M. It’s still dark outside.”

  “I know that. Get dressed. We have work to do.”

  “Don’t forget the Christmas parade is today,” Tinkie said. “Oscar has made me promise that we’ll be there. No excuses. Not even for a case.”

  I liked parades. I looked forward to the Columbus Christmas parade. “Fine by me. So let’s work this morning. The parade isn’t until tonight.”

  “Meet me downstairs. Give me fifteen minutes.”

  I didn’t hear Darla rattling around in the kitchen yet, so I poked up the glowing embers of the fire in the parlor and threw on two more logs. Gumbo came to join me as I waited for my partner. The little kitty was so dainty and feline, gently kneading my thighs. At last I put her aside and began to explore the room. It was spacious and lovely, with built-in bookshelves on either side of the fireplace.

  Anxious to get busy but stuck waiting for Tinkie, I examined a bust of William Faulkner. Judging from the books on the shelves, Darla was quite a reader. She had bestsellers, classics, childhood favorites, and a dozen slim volumes of poetry. I could spend a week going through her books.

  I saw a volume with a brown leather cover and picked it up. It was a journal. When I opened it, I discovered it was handwritten, like a diary. I wondered if I’d stumbled on the musings and thoughts of one of Darla’s ancestors. Perhaps someone connected with the Bissonnette House, which had once been a private home.

  I turned on a reading light beside the fire and dropped into a chair to read until Tinkie came down. The first page of the journal involved the B and B and the beauty of the structure. There were no dates or signatures—no way to know who wrote the journal or when it was created.

  The journal detailed holiday celebrations, complete with menus and comments about guests—who were named only with initials. Darla was obviously the author, and the journal was a neat look inside Darla’s time as a hostess. She obviously enjoyed her role and her work.

  I heard footsteps and closed the booklet to greet Tinkie, but it was Darla. I stood up and the journal slipped from my hand and dropped to the floor. A piece of paper fell out. Darla swooped down to get it, but I picked it up first. Written in blue ink was a simple message: “I’m sorry, Darla. Meet me at three where the moon and tide hold sway, where Artemis and the feminine rule. I shall sing an ode to the huntress.”

  Darla flushed as I handed over the journal and note. It was clear this was an assignation of some type that I’d stumbled onto. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t trying to pry.”

  “It’s embarrassing, this communicating by written notes in such poetic language. It’s so … old-world.”

  “And rather lovely,” I said. “So genteel.”

  Darla rolled her eyes. “You can take the gal out of romance, but you can’t take the romance out of the gal, I suppose. Please don’t mention this to anyone. It’s just that since Kathleen … I’m so very lonely. I lost my best friend, perhaps my only friend in Columbus. It’s probably jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, but I renewed an old relationship.” She flushed and looked away.

  I was happy she had someone else in her life, but she’d opened the door, mentioning Kathleen. And I had to walk through it, even if I knew it would upset her.

  “Darla, is there anyone who would want to hurt you by leaving something of Kathleen’s on your property?”

  “Something like what?”

  “An article of her clothing.”

  “What?” She put a hand to her throat and I could almost see the pulse jumping there. I’d really caught her unprepared. “Why would you even say anything like that?”

  “When I was hunting for Gumbo, I found something under the hedge. A cap.”

  “Kathleen’s cap?” Her eyes were wild and her voice was rising. She sank onto the sofa.

  “Please calm down. Yes, I believe it was Kathleen’s snowman stocking cap. She was wearing it on the boat the night she … fell overboard.”

  “That bitch Clarissa!” She was off the sofa like a cork flying from a champagne bottle. “She was scuba diving, pretending to be so concerned she was searching for Kathleen. She found the cap, brought it up, and left it in the hedge for me to find so I would get upset.”

  “Why would she do that?” I asked.

  “Because she’s a terrible person. She loves to inflict pain on people she doesn’t like. Even on people she does like. There’s something very wrong with her. Surely you’ve seen it.”

  My opinion of Clarissa wasn’t far off from Darla’s, but my opinion wasn’t the point. The cap was physical evidence. It was true Clar
issa had been diving in the river, saying she was helping with the search. It was possible she could have found the cap, brought it up, dried it, and put it under the hedge. But I wouldn’t have found it unless Gumbo had gone there. And how would Clarissa think that Kathleen’s cat would escape and find the hat? Still, maybe Clarissa was spying on the inn and accidentally dropped it.

  “Can you think of any reason Kathleen would pretend to be dead?” I asked her.

  She scoffed. “Not one single reason. She wouldn’t do that. She’d never have people searching for her just to play a prank. You don’t understand. Kathleen and I were close. Like sisters. She’d never do any of this.”

  “And would she throw in with Tulla Tarbutton to get even with some of the swingers in town?”

  Darla shook her head vehemently. “If someone is saying that, they’re lying. Who said that?”

  I was spared from coming up with a response when Tinkie came down. “Darla,” she said. “You don’t have to get up and cook for us. We can fend for ourselves. You’ve been the perfect hostess, but just take a rest.”

  “I love cooking for my guests. And tonight is the final Christmas event, the big parade downtown. You’ll want to get there early to find a spot on the street if you want to catch the treats that Santa and his elves will be throwing. I’ll get you started off with a hearty breakfast. How about a grits soufflé? Filled with cheese and eggs and other yummy stuff.”

  Darla found solace in her cooking. I wasn’t about to take that away from her. “Sounds delicious.”

  “I know you and your partner are always rushing out the door, so I’ll get busy in the kitchen.” She turned away, the journal forgotten in her hand. Tinkie jerked her head toward the door.

  I followed her out the front into the still-dark morning. Dawn was just peeking over the eastern horizon. “Darla doesn’t believe Kathleen was involved with Tulla,” Tinkie said.

  “I know,” I said. “She also doesn’t believe there’s a chance Kathleen is alive. She was adamant that Kathleen would never pretend to be drowned.”