Ham Bones

by Carolyn Haines

  “And the biggest liar of all was Renata.” Tinkie pulled up to the curb at the courthouse. We stopped behind Coleman’s truck.

  “I thought he was in Jackson.” The one person I didn’t want to see was Coleman Peters.

  “Sarah Booth, whether you feel like it or not, I think tonight’s the night to clear up any misunderstandings. This business has gone on long enough. On all fronts. Coleman is going to come clean. So is Graf, and so is Bobbe.”

  “Throw Gabriel in there, too. We need to find him and bring him up here.”

  “That’s an excellent idea.” She whipped out her cell phone. “Coleman, it’s Tinkie. I need you to bring Gabriel Trovaioli in from The Gardens so that Sarah Booth and I can talk to him. I realize you don’t have to do this, but I think you should. It’s time to put a stop to all of this suspicion. We both know Sarah Booth is innocent. One of these people killed Renata, or one of them knows who did. I want answers, and I want them now.”

  I could hear the weariness in Coleman’s deep voice, and for a split second, I felt sorry for him. Then I reminded myself that pity ran only one way with him. He had done what he felt he had to do. Now Tinkie and I were going to do what we had to do. And the end result was that my name would be cleared before the clock struck midnight.

  Chapter 23

  Coleman arrived with a sputtering Gabriel about the same time Gordon returned with a very unhappy Bobbe. She was complaining loudly about missing her flight when she stepped into the sheriff’s office and saw Graf, Gabriel, and me.

  Sweetie Pie wagged her tail, but that was the only bit of welcome Bobbe got. I called Sweetie to my side, and she sat down, uncertain about all the tension in the room.

  “What’s going on?” Bobbe asked, but I wasn’t paying that much attention to her.

  My gaze had settled on Coleman, and I wasn’t prepared to see how worn he looked. He’d lost at least ten pounds since I’d seen him last, and the lines around his eyes and mouth were not put there with smiles. The gauntness made him seem angry.

  “What’s this about?” Bobbe’s hands trembled, and I wondered what she really had to hide. I’d felt sorry for her, thinking about how she’d been forced to be away from her husband and baby. She’d played on my sympathy—and then she’d tampered with evidence, leaving me to face a murder charge.

  “It’s about the truth,” Coleman said. “At last. We’ve come to the part in the investigation where someone is going to tell me exactly what’s going on here.”

  He walked past Gabriel and Graf at the counter and on to Bobbe, where she stood by the door. “I suggest you all take a seat. No one is leaving until this is finished and the truth is told.”

  “You can’t hold us. You have absolutely no reason to detain any of us.” Gabriel started toward the door.

  “Gordon, put the cuffs on him and read him his rights.” Coleman’s voice was calm and deadly. “Charge him with obstructing justice. We’ll hold him as a material witness until the trial.”

  “You can’t do that!” Gabriel looked around at us but found no help. “Kristine is waiting for me. We have plans. We—”

  “I have plans, too, Gabriel.” I spoke with a certain edge. “Like living the rest of my life free because I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Really, Sarah Booth, it’s not my fault this has come down on your head.” He glowered at me.

  “Wrong.” I really looked at him. Perhaps it was the lighting, but I thought I caught a glimpse of Renata in the depths of his eyes. “You came to town accusing me, saying that Renata was afraid of me, heightening the suspicion that I hurt her. And you did this without any evidence. You took the rumor that someone deliberately planted and helped to grow it until I stood accused in my hometown.”

  Gabriel wasn’t one to back down. He met me glare for glare. “I came to Zinnia for justice for my sister’s murder. Which I haven’t received yet.” He gave Coleman a contemptuous look. “I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever find out the truth.”

  “You had one goal in mind when you came, Gabriel.” I thought of his very public accusation in Millie’s Café. “And you set Booter on me like a bloodhound. You wanted me to know you suspected me, and you fed that suspicion in Booter and anyone else who would listen. You led her on and sicced her on me like a mad dog.”

  He shrugged. “So what? So sue me. I thought you killed Renata, and I devised a small way to make your life unpleasant. I admit that. But so what?”

  Tinkie lifted her chin. “So what is that Sarah Booth didn’t do a thing to Renata, and she’s suffered all this time. So what is that you’ve just admitted to slandering Sarah Booth in front of witnesses. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  “Who did kill my sister?” Gabriel looked around the room. “If not Sarah Booth, who? Are you any closer to answering that question?”

  “Maybe.” Coleman glanced at Tinkie, then at me. “With Sarah Booth as a named suspect, I’d hoped to draw the real killer out.”

  “Gee, thanks.” I felt blood rush to my face, and my head, where Gertrude had bonked me, started throbbing again. “Does the word scapegoat ring any bells here?”

  “I never believed you harmed Renata. Of all the people who were suspects, I knew you hadn’t hurt anyone.” Coleman’s tone was gentle, a little sad.

  “Could you have mentioned that to me?” I could hear my heartbeat in my ears, a very bad sign. If I started crying, it would all be over with. I only cried when I was so angry that there was no undoing the damage. If Coleman made me cry, in public, in front of these people, I would never forgive him.

  “It had to play out the way it did, Sarah Booth. Trust me.”

  “Right. That’s exactly what I want to do—trust you.”

  Graf moved up to stand beside me. “That’s a rotten thing to do to anyone, Sheriff, but especially to someone you say you love.”

  “Stay out of it, Milieu.” Coleman’s tone was murderous. “You don’t have a clue about any of this.”

  “I have enough of a clue to know that no one deserves to be accused of murder. Not only accused, but charged and put in jail. This is the woman you say you love. How, exactly, does love figure into those actions?”

  For once, Graf got it right. “If you don’t believe that I killed her, who then?”

  “That’s something the night will tell.” Coleman pointed at Gabriel. “You, come with me. Gordon, take Milieu to a cell.”

  “What about me?” Bobbe asked.

  “You’ve got some explaining to do. And Sarah Booth and Tinkie have some questions for you.”

  While Graf and Gabriel were shifted out of the room, Bobbe turned to me. “You have to help me. My husband and baby will be at the airport to pick me up. You have to—”

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Bobbe wailed.

  “What was taken from Robert Morgan’s New York apartment?”

  All of the color faded from her face, leaving her lipstick a dark umber slash. “How did you know?”

  “I overheard you on the phone just before you took off for Memphis.”

  “But—” She looked away. “You heard me telling Danny to put what he’d taken back.”

  “That’s right.” I’d been bonked on the head, but my memory was still intact.

  “It isn’t like it sounds. It was just a medical report.”

  “What kind of medical report?” Tinkie asked.

  “Renata’s.”

  I sat up. “And what did it say?”

  “Nothing of any importance to anyone but me.” Bobbe bit her bottom lip and one lone tear traced down her face. “Honest, it was about makeup. She showed me the report and said she was keeping it for future reference.”

  Coleman stepped back into the room. He stood near the door to his office, listening, allowing Tinkie and me to conduct the interview.

  “What kind of report about makeup is worth stealing?” Tinkie asked.

  “One that says that Renata’s makeup
wasn’t pure.” Bobbe’s voice was barely a whisper. “After Danny was nearly electrocuted, we came very close to losing our home. Renata used this incredibly expensive makeup.” She looked at me. “You know that. The stuff was hand-concocted especially for her. Her lipstick was a hundred and fifty dollars a tube. The liquid foundation she wore cost nearly three hundred. She’d give me the money to order it for her. Renata liked to have people run her personal errands. I think it gave her a sense of real power.”

  To quote Johnny Cash, I could see the train a’comin’. “So you bought cheap makeup, put it in the expensive bottle, and kept the money.”

  She nodded. “I know it was wrong, but I was desperate. I figured it couldn’t hurt. The makeup was excellent, but so are a lot of less expensive brands. No one could tell the difference, and for the most part that was true.”

  “Except ...”

  “Except Renata’s face broke out. She had the makeup tested and discovered the switch. She thought the company had screwed her, so she was raising hell with them, threatening a lawsuit.”

  “La Burnisco?” I guessed.

  “Right. Renata has used their cosmetics for years. They worked it out somehow.”

  I knew exactly how. The money Renata gave Carlotta was only part of the deal at La Burnisco. The other part of the bargain was when she dropped the threat of a lawsuit. No wonder Carlotta had jumped into the fire with the devil.

  “You got your husband to steal the report because it would show a history of tainting her makeup.” I wasn’t certain how much of Bobbe’s story I believed now. It was possible she’d worked with Robert Morgan to poison the lipstick.

  “I knew how bad it would look if Renata died of tainted makeup and then it was discovered that someone had tampered with her makeup once before. I knew it would all be traced back to me, so I called Danny and asked him to steal the report.”

  I remembered how freaked out Bobbe became when I wanted to call Danny and ask him to come to Zinnia to support his wife. Now I knew why. She had him busy on a breaking-and-entering errand in New York. “So Danny got the report.”

  Bobbe nodded. “Then when the sheriff said I could go home, I realized that it was wrong to take the report. Danny was going to put it back.”

  “A day late and a dollar short,” Tinkie sniffed.

  “It was only a skin rash. It wasn’t a serious problem.” Bobbe’s voice cracked.

  “When did this happen?” I asked.

  “In Reno.”

  “Why did Renata send the medical report to Morgan?” The connection between those two held the answer to a lot of unexplained things.

  “I don’t know. They were friends. He came up with some cream to soothe the rash.” Bobbe shrugged.

  “Tampering with evidence in a murder case is a serious thing.” Coleman walked over. “And it does look bad, Ms. Renshaw.”

  She sighed. “Ever since Renata came into my life, things have looked bad. I did a bad thing, but I didn’t hurt anyone. Neither did Danny. Let me call him and if he still has the report, he can fax it to you.”

  Coleman nodded and handed her a telephone.

  Bobbe fought hard to hold onto her composure as she placed the call. She spoke hurriedly with her husband and gave him the fax number for the sheriff’s office. When she hung up the phone, she took a deep breath. “I’m glad you know. I’m glad all of this is over. I just want to be free of this nightmare.”

  It was a sentiment I could clearly echo. The fax machine in the corner whirred into life and began producing pages.

  Coleman examined the report and passed it to me. It showed exactly what Bobbe had said. The makeup contained nothing unusual, but it didn’t match the composition of La Burnisco’s magic formula. Bobbe hadn’t harmed Renata in any serious way, but my eye was caught by the name of the doctor that Renata had gone to for the skin rash. Albert Samen. A copy of the report had also been sent to Dr. Varik, the retina specialist. Why would Renata send a report of a skin rash to two medical doctors in Los Angeles?

  I pointed this out to Coleman. “Did you ever get Samen’s medical report on Renata?”

  He shook his head. “First thing tomorrow, I’ll make another call.” He looked around the room. “As for tonight, Milieu, Trovaioli, and Ms. Renshaw will be guests of Sunflower County.”

  Coleman was calling a halt to the questioning. I was surprised to find that it was nearly midnight. Tinkie was dead on her feet, and Coleman didn’t look good either. Gordon had taken a seat at the radio, but he looked done in, too. I could only assume that I was in a similar state.

  “We’ll be here bright and early,” Tinkie said as she took my arm and led me into the hallway. Sweetie fell into step beside us, seemingly glad to be leaving the courthouse.

  I turned back. Things with Coleman were not good, and I wanted to finish it. At the thought of what he’d done, my anger bubbled up again. “I want to have a talk with Coleman.”

  “Not now,” Tinkie said, tugging on my arm. “Let it go for tonight, Sarah Booth. We’re all about to drop.”

  “But—”

  “No buts! Get some sleep and see how you feel in the morning.” She dragged me down the hall and out into the cold night. I shivered until I thought my bones would rattle. She was right. I had no reserves left. There wasn’t anything I had to say tonight that wouldn’t wait until morning.

  When I finally woke up the next morning, I felt as if I’d been away from home for a long, long time. I’d dreamed about Hollywood. The dreams had been fragmented, split with images of orange groves, the ocean, windswept hillsides. The scenes I’d witnessed had contained big-finned Cadillac convertibles, blondes with dark sunglasses and cinch-waisted dresses, martinis and palm trees. It was as if I’d flown over the state of California, sampling different places, different times.

  Now I was in my own bed in a cold bedroom with late morning sun pouring through the windows. When I checked the bedside clock, I was shocked to see it was nearly eleven. No one had called, or knocked on the door, or licked my face. I’d been allowed to sleep for a solid eleven hours. And I felt much better.

  I got up and called Tinkie. “Where are you?” I asked her.

  “At the bakery. I’m picking up some Danish and coffee and one tall society reporter.”

  “Cece?”

  “That’s right. She called about thirty minutes ago. Seems like she finally turned up something on those Hollywood physicians.”

  “What about Coleman and Graf and Gabriel and Bobbe?”

  “Coleman was called out of town. Gordon said he’d be back after lunch, so I thought we’d wait until then to go talk to Graf and Gabriel.”

  I didn’t disagree with her logic, but I wasn’t prepared for the sense of betrayal that came with the knowledge Coleman had left Sunflower County. Again. No doubt involving Connie. I wasn’t going to ask, though. Whatever convoluted schemes Connie had trapped him in were his business. I could wait to talk to him later, when my name was completely cleared, and I could tell him exactly what I thought.

  “Are you bringing Cece here?” I asked, forcing my voice to remain bright and cheerful.

  “If that’s what you’d like.”

  “Or I could meet you at the paper?” I looked around the room to see clothes scattered everywhere. Surely I had clean jeans in the closet, and a sweater. How hard could that be to find?

  “Then meet us at the paper. Cece’s on her morning deadline, and that’ll be easier on her. Then we can go on to the courthouse.”

  “Got it.” I was already out of bed, digging through the closet. I came up with an old pair of worn blue jeans and a perky red sweater. Perfect. In three minutes I was lacing my paddock boots and dashing downstairs as I ran a brush through my hair.

  I stopped long enough to feed Reveler and Miss Scrapiron, and then I was in the roadster headed to the Zinnia Dispatch.

  As soon as I walked in the newsroom, I was blinded by a flashgun going off inches from my face.

  “Gavin, you moron.” C
ece stalked across the newsroom and snatched the camera from the photographer’s hands. “What are you doing?”

  “She’s news. Indicted, unindicted, out on bail, in the slammer. Sarah Booth Delaney is news. I can get five hundred dollars a pop from the National Snout for a picture of her.”

  “Gavin, we’re going to hold you down and wax your legs.” Cece’s threat was serious. “We’ll pull the wax off slowly, so that you feel each screaming root as it lets loose.”

  “Hey, that’s not right. You can’t threaten me.”

  “Oh, dahling, that’s not a threat. That’s a promise.”

  Gavin backed away, leaving his camera in Cece’s clutches. “I’m going to tell the publisher on you.”

  “Do that.” Cece dropped the camera in a trash can as we walked to her office. “Sorry, Sarah Booth.”

  “It’s okay. He’s only trying to make a little money on the side.”

  She arched one eyebrow. “Tinkie told me you were struck on the head. I see it was serious.”

  I shook my head as we walked into her office and she closed the door. Tinkie was already there, and she held out a cup of coffee for me. I sipped the brew and waited until Cece was sitting at her desk, an envelope in her hand.

  “I got this by FedEx this morning. One of my colleagues at the LA Times did some legwork for me.” She dumped the contents of the envelope on her desk. There were several photographs, which she passed to me. They showed a middle-aged man, shoulders hunched, as he walked into a glass and steel building with the words Samen Clinic on its facade. Right behind him was Robert Morgan.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “Why was the photographer taking pictures of this clinic and Morgan?” I accepted the pastries that Tinkie passed and selected a cheese Danish.

  “Essentially, Samen is an internist with a very particular specialty. He’s been experimenting to help stop the aging process. That’s why the photographer had him staked out. Word on the street is that a number of aging stars have been seeking his unapproved treatments.” Cece was grinning like a Cheshire cat.