“You’re eating PB and J. Coleman looks like he hasn’t eaten in a week.”
Oh, poor him. “Look, I’m not in the mood to hear how hard Coleman has it.”
There was a long silence. “That’s good, because he’s transferring Connie to the hospital in Zinnia so he can return to his duties. Since you don’t care about him anymore, that shouldn’t bother you a bit.”
“Right. He and Connie can do whatever they want.”
“And you and Graf are tripping off to Hollywood, right?”
“Maybe.” She was making me mad and pushing me into a corner where I didn’t want to go. If she kept it up, I’d be packed and gone by Sunday morning.
“Well, good then.”
I could hear the hurt in her voice. “Hold on a minute. I’m not certain what I’ll do, but I’m not doing anything with a murder charge hanging over my head.”
“If it weren’t for that, you’d go, wouldn’t you?”
For all that Tinkie wanted me to have my dream, she was feeling a little abandoned. Finding Graf at Dahlia House had brought it all home for her. “I honestly don’t know. I don’t know what to do.”
“I don’t want to stop you, Sarah Booth, but I don’t want you to go!” She was almost wailing.
“I haven’t made any plans,” I confessed, “but we’ll work it out together.”
“I’m coming home. Coleman is staying for the ambulance to take Connie in the morning.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to get a hotel room and wait until daylight to drive?” I asked. Tinkie sounded tired and upset.
“I don’t want to wait.”
Well, that was a Daddy’s Girl’s prerogative. “Be careful.” I replaced the phone and finished my sandwich. Licking the grape jam from my fingers, I headed up to bed.
I awoke Tuesday morning when the sun was high in the sky. It had to be nearly noon, and for a moment panic touched my heart. Sweetie never let me sleep late. Nor Jitty. Then I remembered that Sweetie was tired from our midnight ride, but I had no idea why Jitty was being so considerate.
My thoughts were on Coleman and Connie as I bathed, dressed, and prepared for my day. I was absolutely numb—and I wanted to keep it that way. My future was at stake, and I intended to clear my name.
First on the agenda was a trip to the feed store. Neil Sheffield would tell me what he knew, and soon Nancy would be in to work. As a work study student, she got out of high school early.
The day was cold and bright, and I bundled up in an old sweatshirt and a heavy jacket. Knit hats had a ridiculous habit of shooting off my head, so I opted for a beautiful magenta scarf that my Aunt LouLane had knitted for me when I was in college. Like my parents, she now slept in the family cemetery. As I wrapped the warm knit around my ears and throat, I gave her a silent thanks.
Sheffield’s was a hopping place. Farmers from fifty miles around came to buy seed and fertilizer, feed and supplies. Neil was a handsome man with an easy grin and a quick humor. His knowledge of blues music was legendary, and he kept a state-of-the-art sound system in the feed store, playing the Mississippi greats like Muddy Waters and B.B. King.
I picked up some vitamins and hoof treatment for Reveler as I waited for my turn at the counter. I hoped for a moment alone.
When old man Barnaby had paid for his two bags of chicken scratch and left, I stepped forward.
“Sorry to hear about your troubles, Sarah Booth.” Neil shook his head. “I know Coleman knows better. What’s wrong with that man?”
“I don’t know, but I need to talk to you about Nancy.”
“I heard she said you came in to buy poison. I wish I’d known what she intended to say, because I would’ve stopped her.”
His kindness made me feel better, even if we both knew he couldn’t have stopped anything. “I never asked for poison, and I wasn’t here that day.”
“Neither was I. I’d gone up to Clarksdale. Nancy admitted she didn’t get a good look at you. She assumed it was you because you talked about Reveler and the hound.”
“Did she express any doubt to you?”
He sighed. “Just the opposite. I think I questioned her so closely it made her stubborn. Now she’s determined to say it was you. I’m sorry. I was trying to help.”
This wasn’t good news. “Would you care if I spoke with her?”
“Not at all.” He checked his watch. “She’ll be here in five minutes or so. She’s a punctual girl.”
True to his word, the buzzer sounded when the front door opened and Nancy stepped into the store. She took one look at me and headed for the restroom in the back.
“Nancy, I’m not angry!” I went after her. I had to catch a break in this case and fast. “I just want to ask some questions.”
She turned around. “And I want to ask you one. Why are you trying to make me out as a liar?”
Now it was my turn to start. “I’m only trying to find out the truth.”
“Then tell it! You came in and asked for poison. We didn’t have it, and you left.”
I took a deep breath. Getting angry or frustrated wouldn’t do any good. Nancy wasn’t lying; she’d been played and now her reputation was on the line. I had to win her over in an effort to counter the damage she’d dealt me.
“I believe someone came in here and pretended to be me. I know you saw me—or at least someone who looked a lot like me. That person meant for you to believe it was me.”
My reasoned words at least had her thinking. She was a pretty girl. I’d made it a point to know she was the oldest of five kids and an absentee father. She wasn’t a person who liked her word questioned because responsibility defined her.
“You were wearing a big old gardening hat.” Her tone was stubborn.
I nodded. “I don’t own such a hat. In all the times you’ve seen me here in the store, have I ever worn such a hat?”
“Usually you look like you’ve been cleaning the stalls—T-shirts and paddock boots. Never anything as nice as that hat.” She was nodding.
“The voice sounded like mine?”
She dragged her bottom teeth across her upper lip. “Enough so I didn’t think any more about it.”
“And I asked for some poison to kill raccoons?”
“That ’bout made me fall off the ladder. I’ve heard you talk about animals before, and you’d never hurt one. Not even a raccoon.”
Thank God, she was thinking now. She’d inched back off her story and begun to look for another interpretation. I pressed my point home. “If you can say that maybe that person wasn’t me, do you think you would know her if you saw her again?”
Her eyes closed. “I’m not sure. I just caught a glimpse of her cheek.”
I pulled the photographs of Kristine Rolofson and Bobbe Renshaw from my purse. I’d found them on the Internet, and though the quality wasn’t professional, the prints were good likenesses of the women.
“Neither of them,” she said with teenage certainty.
“How can you be so sure?” I forced myself to be calm.
“Well, if it was one of them, they wore a wig ’cause the woman who came in here had hair the same color as yours. I saw it curling out from beneath the hat.”
Great. I put the pictures away. Both women could easily have access to a wig. And most likely, they’d destroyed the hairpiece. “Thanks, Nancy.” I picked up my purchases and headed for the roadster, no closer to finding the truth than I had been.
The Sunflower County Courthouse contains the sheriff’s department as well as the chancery and circuit clerks and their courtrooms. The serious business of felons is carried on upstairs, while divorce court proceeds on the lower levels in a smaller addition that had been tacked onto the building in 1974.
I’d hoped that Coleman’s divorce proceedings would take place in that courtroom. Not likely now. I went to the sheriff’s office, praying that he was still at the hospital with Connie. I needed to ask Gordon some questions about forensics in the case. I could have waited for Tinkie, but I was
tired of waiting, tired of hoping someone else could unknot the tangle of my life. I’d played the shocked and innocent victim for too long; it was time for me to be an investigator.
“What about the lipstick tube?” I asked as I walked in the door.
Gordon looked up from a report he was typing. “I’m not sure I’m supposed to give forensic evidence to the accused.” He reached for the phone, but I was quicker. “Don’t call Coleman. It’ll only make it harder on him. If you don’t tell me, Tinkie will just come in and get the info, and she’ll tell me.”
He looked doubtful.
“You know I didn’t do this, Gordon. All I’m asking for is the stuff my lawyer will get anyway.”
Shuffling through the papers on his desk, Gordon pulled out a sheet. He scanned it. “The lipstick contained enough poison to kill a person if it was licked off the lips.”
“How in the hell would I get the cyanide into the lipstick in the first place. It would have had to have been mixed into the ingredients while it was being shaped.”
Gordon nodded. “That’s a problem. La Burnisco denies that this lipstick even came from their salon. They have no record of your purchase, Sarah Booth.”
“I gave the receipt to Graf to give to Renata so I could be reimbursed. It has to be among her things.” What a complete fool I’d been. The killer had probably picked it up off her dressing table, destroying the only physical thing that might back up my story.
“The DA can make a good case that you produced this lipstick all on your own.”
“Right, me and my little chemistry lab at home. What about fingerprints?”
“On the tube itself there are Renata’s and Bobbe Renshaw’s. No one else’s.”
“Have you spoken with Bobbe?”
“I’m going to see her after lunch.”
“The cast and crew will be leaving in three days.” The noose of time was tightening around my neck.
Gordon finally looked me in the eye. “I don’t think so, Sarah Booth.”
“What do you mean?” There would be no holding Keith Watley in Zinnia. He had bigger fish to fry and in his opinion, the only frying pan was in New York City.
“Coleman put me in charge of the case. With Connie so sick and all ...” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I’m in charge, and I’m not about to let my most prime suspects leave town.”
My heart thudded. “You really believe one of the cast or crew did it?”
“Makes a lot more sense to my way of thinking, Sarah Booth. Let me line it out for you the way I see it.” He was grinning big now, and I was, too.
“You didn’t like Renata, and you wanted to play the part of Maggie. But in seven nights, those folks would be gone, and you’d be back in your life. If you still had the itch to be a Broadway star, I think you’d be in New York still trying.”
Gordon’s assessment of me made me proud. It’s always interesting to see the picture someone else paints. “Thank you, Gordon.”
He held up a hand. “On top of that, Renata might have pissed you off, but not enough to kill her. There are others in the cast and crew that she’s done terrible things to. Like Renshaw and Milieu—they truly had reason to kill her.”
I wasn’t about to concur or disagree. I didn’t want to shift the finger of blame from me to some other innocent person, and I didn’t have the facts to begin to speculate.
“Go on, please.”
“The most damning evidence is the lipstick and the poison in your car. You don’t have any way to explain the lipstick with physical evidence, but the truth is, Renata asked for that particular lipstick and directed you to the store to get it. Nancy from the feed store called up and said she was having second thoughts about that being you who came in and asked for poison.”
God bless Nancy!
“So the case is weakening?”
He nodded. “You’re still charged, and I don’t have enough to drop the charges, but let’s just say I’m continuing to investigate.”
“Thank you, Gordon.” I wanted to kiss his cheek but knew better. I looked around the office and felt a serious bolt of pain in my heart. Why couldn’t it be Coleman who was standing here, telling me the reasons why I couldn’t be guilty of murder?
Gordon picked up his hat. “Got to go, Sarah Booth. In the future, it would be more professional if Tinkie was the one who stopped by to chat.”
“You got it,” I said as I walked to the door.
Chapter 11
Tinkie waited until the show was over to drop the Connie-bomb on me. She’d insisted we drive to Clarksdale to eat at Madidi, a lovely upscale restaurant. I thought it was a long ride for a celebratory dinner and drink, but she wanted to get me alone in a very public place where I couldn’t howl at the moon.
We’d finished our meals, and she had her cosmopolitan and I had a vodka martini. Around us, groups were dining and laughing. I recognized several sorority girls from Ole Miss. They’d aged with grace. Most were mothers, but their trim figures didn’t give it away. They looked as sleek and hungry as New York models—the diamonds glittering on their ring fingers the symbolic designer label of an excellent marriage. I had to give it to the DGs on elegance. They had it in spades, and Madidi was the perfect place to show it off.
“I spoke with Coleman this afternoon,” Tinkie said as she studied the pink perfection of her drink.
“I wondered what you were up to.” I hadn’t heard from Tinkie all afternoon. I’d assumed she was working on the case against me.
“Connie has no memory of any of her actions from the past year.”
Anger bubbled in volcanic measure. “How freaking convenient!”
All around us the laughter stopped as people turned to look at me. While Tinkie could pass in this crowd, I was a definite outsider, and I was acting like one.
Tinkie put her hand on my wrist. “When they took out the tumor, they had to remove some healthy tissue. Or it could be that the tumor destroyed—”
“Tell me Coleman isn’t buying this?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, or the expression on Tinkie’s face. She believed that Conniving Connie was actually telling the truth. This was the woman who’d faked mental illness, faked pregnancy—all to keep Coleman from leaving her. If he believed her now, he deserved to be saddled with her for the rest of his life.
“He doesn’t believe Connie, but he does believe the doctor.”
There it was. After the months of waiting, I was still standing alone as Coleman struggled in the web of Connie’s deceit. I took a deep breath. “Fine.”
“Sarah Booth, if Connie doesn’t remember, can he hold her accountable? The doctor said the tumor might’ve made her behave so erratically.”
“Tumor, malice, jealousy, vindictiveness, desperation.” I ticked them off on my fingers. “What difference does it make? She did terrible things to him and to me.”
“I think Coleman would rather be burned at the stake than lose you.”
“He has a really funny way of showing it. Hey, I’ve got the perfect solution. Coleman can turn me over to the grand jury for a true bill on a murder charge. Then I can be tried and sent to prison, and he and Connie can live happily ever after. How’s that?”
She patted my arm, and when I tried to withdraw it, she held on with grim determination. “I’m not the enemy here.”
“You’re just the messenger, I know. Next time let Coleman do his own dirty work.”
Tears filled her eyes but didn’t fall. “I’m sorry, Sarah Booth. I am. For you and for him.”
“Save it, Tinkie. I made a bad decision. I made several of them. But I’m only thirty-four. If I don’t go to prison for the rest of my life, I can make different choices.”
She squeezed my arm. “I didn’t want to tell you this, but I wanted you to have the facts. So when you make your choice about Hollywood, you can make it fully informed.” She blinked the tears back and took a big swallow of her drink.
This wasn’t Tinkie’s fault, and I was treating her awful. Sh
e’d come to tell me the truth so I could make my plans to leave town—even though she didn’t want me to go. She didn’t want me clinging to the hope of Coleman as my reason to stay.
“Thanks for telling me, Tinkie. You’re the best friend a gal could have.”
She looked down at the table. “You should’ve left with Hamilton V. Then none of this would have happened. You wouldn’t be charged with murder.”
I finished my martini and signaled the waiter for another. Tinkie was driving, after all. “I should’ve done a lot of things differently.”
She waited until I had my fresh drink before she spoke again. “I do have a tiny bit of good news.”
“I could stand some of that.” Now all the laughter around me sounded wrong, harsh. I wanted to belt down my drink and head home, but Tinkie was still sipping hers.
“I spoke with Cece today. She’s been spending a lot of time with Gabriel Trovaioli, and she’s pulled some interesting stuff from him.”
“Like what?” I bit my olive in half.
“Renata started acting really strange about nine months ago. Gabriel said she’d never been all that close to him, but she began to call him almost every weekend.”
“Did he say why?” I felt my interest perk up.
She shook her head. “Like she was trying to build some kind of connection is what he told Cece.”
In the time I knew Renata in New York, she’d never mentioned a brother or any other family, for that matter. It was as if she’d sprung fully formed from the head of a God—at least in her opinion.
“He told Cece she’d become ... almost tender toward him.”
“Now that is creepy.” Renata might be able to play tender on the stage, but I doubted she’d ever felt it. “And when, exactly, did she call and tell him I was trying to kill her?”
“The night before she died. It was after dress rehearsal. She told him you’d stopped her backstage and told her you were going to play Maggie no matter what you had to do to get there.”
That was absurd. I wasn’t even at The Club for the dress rehearsal. I told Tinkie so. “I don’t think I spoke to Renata at all after I ran her errand. I put some flowers in her dressing room, but I didn’t see her.”
Ham Bones Page 10
