“No wonder he hated her.” I remembered hearing about their backstage fights. It wasn’t ego, it was Graf feeling the pinch of Renata’s talons. “How much?”
“She paid $300,000 to get him out of jail. There’s no telling how many palms she greased on his way back to North America.” Tinkie was trying not to grin. “I can’t wait to tell Coleman. This is such a better motive than wanting to be on stage.”
I was aggravated beyond belief that Graf hadn’t told me about this, but I could clearly see why. He was trying to talk me into moving to Hollywood with him. He wasn’t going to own up to the fact that he owed Renata a wheelbarrow full of money. Besides, now that she was dead, how would anyone know that he owed it to her? “Was there a record of this debt? Some documentation?”
Tinkie lowered her coffee cup. “There is a record of the debt and also of his payments so far into Renata’s account. The reason he owes her the money isn’t documented anywhere we could find.”
“How did you find it?” I asked.
Tinkie considered whether she should tell me or not. “Harold called someone in New York. Someone who knew the story. He told Harold and Harold told me.”
“Then hold off on telling Coleman until we get solid proof.”
“You’re not trying to protect Graf, are you?” Cece asked.
I shook my head. “Not at the cost of my own skin. Don’t worry. If we have to bring this up, we certainly will. But this sounds conveniently like a Renata fabrication to me. Let me talk to Graf. I suspect there’s some truth to this, but this may not be the whole truth.” It wasn’t that I had any illusions about Graf; I just knew Renata’s potential to malign people.
I found the three women watching me like cats crouching over a crippled bird. “I’m not defending Graf.”
No one said anything.
“I have two more nights to perform. Let’s just finish the—”
The doorbell chimed and saved me from some dumb-footed pronouncement of my intentions. “I’ll be right back.”
Crazy, but my heart lifted at the thought that it might be Coleman. I knew it wasn’t. He was at the hospital with his tumor-producing wife, at her bedside where he’d been for the past year, and apparently where he belonged. The door swung open to reveal Tammy Odom shivering in the afternoon wind.
“Tammy!” I pulled her inside and hustled her toward the kitchen. “You’re about to freeze to death. Where’s your coat?”
“I was reading the cards for a lady, and I got such a powerful image, I just stood up and walked out the door to come over here.”
Tammy was known around town as Madame Tomeeka, Zinnia’s resident psychic. Except she was no joke. She had dreams and visions that frequently helped me with my cases.
She stopped dead still in the parlor and turned to me. “We’re not alone.”
The skin of my lower back rippled. “Of course we aren’t. The girls are in the kitchen.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it!”
The one thing I didn’t want was Tammy holding a séance and calling Jitty forth so that all four women could harangue me about my life’s choices. “It’s okay, Tammy. I swear it. The past at Dahlia House is fine. My problems are in the present.”
“You can say that again.”
When we got to the kitchen, Tammy was greeted with a hail of welcomes. Tinkie got up and hugged her neck. I got her coffee, and she took a seat at the table.
“I was reading the Tarot for someone else, and I got the strongest sense that I needed to get over here fast. I saw something.”
Her words stilled all conversation. Even Cece, the skeptic of the crowd, was listening attentively.
I’d come to have great respect for Tammy and her visions or dreams or telepathic messages from the other side. Normally, though, her dreams and visions were a sign of danger. “What happened?” I asked with some reluctance.
“It wasn’t a dream, except that it felt like one, but I was wide awake and looking at my client.”
Everyone leaned a little closer.
“I saw you in a dark, dark cave. You were all alone and frightened. You kept feeling along the wall of the cave, trying to find your way out.”
“That sounds like Sarah Booth,” Tinkie said stoutly. “She’s not just going to sit around and be afraid.”
I wanted to hug her, but I didn’t want to interrupt Tammy. “What happened?”
“You came to this small spring of water. The surface was perfectly smooth, and there seemed to be a light under the water. You were thirsty, so thirsty you couldn’t stop yourself from kneeling down and drinking the water. It was the most refreshing water you’d ever tasted.” Tammy’s eyes closed as she recounted the vision.
I could almost taste the water, so sweet and quenching. I sighed.
“You were drinking from your cupped hand. You looked down into the water and this body began to float up from the depths of the water. Dark hair streamed out from behind it. It floated toward you, faceup.”
Now I was scared. It was only a vision that Tammy had had, but in the past, all of her visions had some tremendous significance.
“The body hovered just beneath the surface, and it was clear this woman was dead.”
“Who was it?” Millie asked in a breathless whisper.
“It was Renata Trovaioli.”
For a moment there was only the sound of the old kitchen clock that hung over the space heater tick-tocking the seconds away.
“She was dead?” I asked.
“Yes. She was dead.” Tammy reached over and gripped my wrist. “You leaned down to touch her, to make sure she was dead. Suddenly—”
Cece shrieked and nearly fell out of her chair. I glared at her and turned my attention back to Tammy.
“Go on.”
“Suddenly she grabbed your wrist. She gave a sharp tug and pulled you under the water with her. You struggled, Sarah Booth. You fought to get away from her, but she didn’t have to breathe and you needed air.”
Tears touched Tammy’s cheeks, and when I looked at Tinkie, I saw that she was crying, too.
“Sarah Booth got away, didn’t she?” Millie asked.
Tammy sat up and wiped her face. “That was the end of the vision.”
Chapter 14
Tammy’s vision put a darker edge to my performance of Maggie the Cat. While the audience seemed to love it, I was troubled by all the things I’d learned about my costar. We finished the show, and when Graf asked me for a drink afterward, I agreed. There were things I needed to confront him about.
Because I wanted privacy without the temptation of being in my home, we drove to Cleveland and a small restaurant/bar that specialized in steaks, dry martinis, and quiet. Though I wasn’t in a drinking mood, I ordered a vodka martini, dirty and on the rocks. I ate my olives while I watched Graf. He was abnormally quiet, his eyes holding questions and what might be worry.
“Penny for your thoughts,” I said, suddenly scalded by another memory when I’d asked him the same thing, wanting badly to hear that he was thinking of me. That, of course, had not been his answer, because at that time Graf had thought only of himself.
“I haven’t been straight up with you, Sarah Booth.”
Surprise, surprise. “You haven’t?” I decided to play it all green-eyed innocence to see where he’d take me. Funny that he was ready to confess—after Tinkie got the goods on him.
“I got in some trouble in Mexico. Stupidity was my biggest sin, but the laws I broke were much more serious.”
I sipped my drink, my gaze never faltering. “Go on.”
“I was in financial trouble. I had to have some money, quick, or else some of my friends had a big desire to rearrange the features of my face.”
“You got into loan sharks?” I sat forward, startled despite myself. Graf really was a few brain cells short of a whole package.
“It was before I dated you. I rented a place on Fifth Avenue and bought furniture. I thought if I could live the lifestyle of
a successful actor, then folks would view me as successful, and ...” He finished his drink.
“Perception is everything.”
“You’ve got it.” He shrugged and signaled the waiter for another drink. “Anyway, I got in pretty deep before I realized it wasn’t going to work. All the furniture was repossessed, and I lost the lease on the apartment still owing a considerable amount in back rent.”
“Who owned the apartment?”
He grimaced. “That was the part I didn’t get at first. After a guy showed up backstage with a baseball bat, I got the message pretty quick. Then I moved and you came along, and for a while I sort of avoided them.”
“And they caught up with you?”
He nodded. “They asked me to bring some stuff back from Mexico. It was either that or they were going to mess me up.”
How was it possible that a man with Graf’s talent and looks could make such a muddle of his life? “And you got caught?”
He nodded. “I wouldn’t tell who the drugs belonged to, so I was held in a Mexican prison. You have to believe me, Sarah Booth, if I’d talked, they would have killed me. Anyway, Renata got a lawyer, paid the fees, paid the court costs, got them to understand I was stupid.” He lifted one shoulder. “I was in the process of paying her back. It was a lot of money, though. Half a million.”
“Oh, Graf.” My tone said it all—disappointment, disapproval, and disbelief that he could be such a fool.
“There’s nothing you can say that I haven’t said to myself. Now, if the law finds out about this, I’ll be the prime suspect in Renata’s death.”
Everyone I knew feared being where I was—in the hot seat of accusation for murder. “Did you sign anything, a legal document showing the loan from Renata?”
He shook his head slowly. “No. The movie people were sniffing around my heels, and Renata took a gamble. We made a deal. If I got in at the movies, I’d bring her along. She wanted to be a star. Not just a stage star, but a bona fide movie star.”
“I have to say I admire her gambling spirit.”
“She really saved my ass. But she always made people pay. If she did the smallest kindness for them, they paid and paid and paid. Renata could never let it go. She was always sniping at me about the drug charges and what would happen if the tabloids got wind of it.”
“Why would Renata even take a chance on ruining your Hollywood prospects? If she shot you down, she shot herself in the foot.”
He cleared his throat. “Sometimes it seemed that Renata didn’t care. Especially the last few months. It was almost as if she was determined to self-destruct and take all of us with her.”
I thought about his words. It sounded as if he was telling me the truth. The whole truth, this time. Graf had earned my skepticism, though, and I wasn’t about to jump for his story hook, line, and sinker. Like I once had.
“Several people have mentioned a big change in Renata in the past year. You among them,” I pointed out. “What would you attribute that to?”
Graf sipped his fresh drink and ordered our steaks. He remembered how I liked mine cooked. There were things that Graf did so well. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught several pretty women simply staring at him, their own dates forgotten as they gazed upon his handsome features. How they must be envying me—and how little they knew of my circumstances.
When he picked up my hand on the table, I felt a chill touch me. He still had power over me, especially in the vulnerable state in which Coleman had left me. “Answer my question, please,” I said.
“I was thinking. Renata did change. There were times—just fleeting moments—when I thought I saw something like fear in her eyes. I remember once, she was backstage in Reno, and I walked up behind her as she was staring in the mirror. I would have sworn she was petrified of what she saw looking back at her.”
His words chilled me again, and this time it wasn’t sexually charged. “What could it have been?”
“I put my hand on her shoulder and asked if I could do anything to help her. She almost bit my head off. That was Renata. She rebuffed all efforts of kindness. It was like she was afraid to allow anyone to see her innermost fears.”
Bingo. Graf had hit the nail on the head. But what could she have feared so much? Had she known all this time that someone was trying to kill her? I’d never worked a case where a person had been so aloof. Not one single person really knew Renata.
“Do you have any idea why she hated me so? To the point that she would frame me for her murder.”
He gently touched my cheek. “She was jealous of you. There were hints of it when she pushed all of us into coming to Zinnia instead of closing out the contract and going home. She would bring up your name to try and get a reaction out of me.”
“Why? I hadn’t crossed her path in a year? I hadn’t even been to a show as a spectator.” I couldn’t help that I was whining slightly.
“She somehow viewed you as having something she didn’t have, something she wanted.”
“You?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I was honorable with Renata until she pulled the plug on our romantic relationship. Sure, then I had some flings. Before that, though, I honored my word to her.”
“What could it be?”
Graf’s laughter was bitter. “You have friends, Sarah Booth. People who care about you. You left New York, whipped and beaten, and in twelve months, you’ve turned your life around completely. You’re loved here in Zinnia. You’re doing a job that makes a difference.”
The look in his eyes almost melted my bones. When he looked at me, he saw a diamond. A year ago, I was a lump of coal. No matter what anyone ever told me, this was a satisfying sensation.
I couldn’t let my emotions control me. I had to keep pressing if I planned on proving my innocence. “Something changed in Renata’s life. Something drastic in the last year.”
“You’ll find whatever it is, Sarah Booth. You and Tinkie, and the rest of your friends.”
I could only hope he was right.
I awoke the next morning and snuggled beneath the quilts on my bed as I watched the sunshine warm the floor of my room. This was my last performance as Maggie the Cat. Part of me felt relief, but another part, a part I’d thought long dead, wanted more of the stage, more character to bite into. What was I going to do, assuming I didn’t go to prison?
Pulling one of the quilts around me, I walked to the bedroom window and looked out over the bare fields. My gaze was drawn to the ten acres of bright winter rye that I’d had planted for Reveler. He was frolicking about in the grass, dancing with his shadow in the crisp morning. I needed a companion for him. I had plenty of land for a second horse, but I’d avoided the responsibility—and the expense. Dragging the quilt, I went to the telephone and dialed up my old friend Lee McBride. She’d bred Reveler and given him to me as part of her fee when she’d been charged with the murder of her rapscallion husband. Some men did need killing, and he’d been a prime example of the breed. Now that she was free of him and of the wrongful murder charge, Lee was breeding some of the finest horses in the nation.
She answered on the fifth ring. “Lee, can I borrow Miss Scrapiron for a while?” She was a lovely bay mare.
“I’m headed to see Dr. Matthews today. I’ll drop her off before lunch.”
“Thanks.” I hung up. Lee knew I’d take care of the horse no matter what. She didn’t feel compelled to ask any questions. And I hadn’t questioned my impulse. My next call was to Graf.
“How about a ride this afternoon before the show?”
“I’d love it.” His voice said he would.
“Two o’ clock. Meet me in the barn.” I hung up and sat down on the edge of the bed. I’d taken control of my life and wrested it back into forward movement. Coleman had broken my heart. I was charged with a murder I hadn’t committed. The future loomed ahead of me, secretive and dangerous, but I’d made a plan for the afternoon. I’d taken a step. It was something.
The telephone rang, and I
almost jumped out of my skin. No one would call so early except Tinkie, and I hoped she had news.
“Ms. Delaney?”
I didn’t recognize the voice on the other end of the phone. “Yes.”
“This is Brenda Mulholland. I’m Connie Peter’s sister.” Good thing I was sitting. “Connie wants to talk to you.”
“I don’t think—” But my words went unheeded. I heard Connie’s voice.
“Sarah Booth, Coleman has told me all that I’ve done to you. I want to apologize.”
She sounded lucid and sane. I wasn’t interested in getting in a moving vehicle with her behind the wheel, but I could talk to her on the phone. Still, I felt like one of Jacques Cousteau’s cameramen being lowered in the metal shark cage.
“I heard you had surgery, Connie. I hope you’re feeling better.” Damn those Southern manners! Why couldn’t I just tell her to screw off?
“I feel like a tremendous pressure has been relieved. But I didn’t call to talk about me. I did some bad things to you. I’m sorry, and I hope one day you’ll consider accepting my apology. That’s all I wanted to say.”
“Do you remember what you did?” I couldn’t help myself.
“No, but Coleman has given me chapter and verse. I’m not going to try to lay this at the door of a brain tumor. All I can do is promise you that I’m making plans as quickly as possible to get out of your life forever.”
I took a breath. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“I’m moving to Jackson with my sister. As soon as I get out of the hospital, I’m dropping my countersuit against Coleman for the divorce. You win, Sarah Booth.”
Whatever the genteel response to such an admission might be, I was at a loss to give it. “What does Coleman say?”
“Not much. I thought he’d be tap-dancing in the hallways.” There was a pause. “I have to go. I’m scheduled for a CAT scan.”
“I hope your health improves, Connie.” And I did. Poor health was more than anyone deserved.
There was a click, and she was gone. I pulled the quilt closer and considered flopping back in bed. Connie had taken the starch out of my spine.
Ham Bones Page 13
