“You’re pushin’ your luck, Sarah Booth Delaney.”
“I know. But I remember a very famous Eleanor Roosevelt quote, and I think it applies. ‘The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.’ I predict a great future for both of us. Right here at Dahlia House. Whatever the future brings, we’ll face it together.”
“You got that right. As long as there’s no cookin’ involved.”
Jitty was a true Delaney—she had to have the last word. And on such a beautiful fall morning, I wasn’t about to let her get away with it. I pulled on riding pants, boots, and a heavy sweatshirt, and grabbed another cup of coffee as I headed to the back door.
“Hey, Jitty! To quote another famous rabble-rouser, Mr. Kinky Friedman, ‘Get your biscuits in the oven and your buns in the bed!’”
Before she had a chance to respond, I was out the door and into the sunshine. I had a wonderful ride on Reveler ahead of me.
1
The chill December wind rattles the windows of my bedroom at Dahlia House. Old man winter has a grip on my ancestral home, but I’m not about to let the cold keep me from this evening. I lean into the vanity mirror that has reflected at least seven generations of Delaney women and adjust my mother’s diamond and pearl earrings. They’re the perfect accessory for the white tulle dress I’ve chosen. It is by far the most beautiful gown I’ve ever worn, and though I’m a bit long in the tooth to play Cinderella, I feel like I’ve been tapped by a fairy godmother’s wand. I do a little twirl and watch the dress float around me à la Disney animation. It is perfect for the approaching celebration marking the end of one year and the beginning of a new one.
“Glamour is nothing without intrigue, Sarah Booth Delaney.” A husky voice comes from the doorway.
Without looking I know it is Jitty, the ghost who shares the Delaney family home with me. During the Civil War, Jitty was a nanny, but since she’s taken up residence at Dahlia House with me, she is more of a bane. Nurturing is far down her list of talents—way behind tormenting, torturing, annoying, bossing, heckling . . . Did I say bossing?
I turn slowly and discover that Jitty, too, is dressed for the occasion. She’s encased from head to toe in a beautiful black and gold sequined gown with a matching skullcap that reflects an era long past. I recognize her instantly. My nearly two-hundred-year-old ghost is vamping as Greta Garbo in Mata Hari, a film about a female spy. Oh, Hollywood, gird your loins.
“You look marvelous, darling,” I say. “Where did you steal that gown and that body?”
Jitty is beautiful on her own, but she is something else as Greta. She moves and the gown is like warm, molten gold. There’s no doubt she could worm the most secret information from any man. As she slithers across the room toward me she is leaking sexuality all over the floor.
“You should practice your interrogation skills, Sarah Booth. I believe they’ll come in handy.”
“Is that a hint that I’m about to have a new case?”
“I don’t give hints.” She looks down her nose at me as I secure the last earring.
I stand up and reach for my wrap. “Good, because I don’t have time for your hints and teases.”
“My, my, my, but don’t you look feminine.” Jitty circles me. “Sarah Booth, this is the dress that could do it. Uh, huh! This dress could offset that annoying mouth of yours. Wearing this, you should be able to throw a man to the ground and catch some little swimmers. I’ll have me a Delaney heir before the new year even gets a jumpstart.”
Protesting would only make her more outrageous so I pick up my purse and walk to the door. “Happy New Year, Jitty. Don’t wait up, and take care of Pluto and Sweetie Pie.”
“The cat and dog will be just fine. Don’t come back until you’re pregnant,” Jitty calls out, followed by a cackle.
As I get into the car, I look up at my bedroom window. Jitty is there, her silhouette classic Garbo. I’d have to give some serious consideration to what she was up to. Jitty never gives hints, but she often uses symbols. Was my haint trying to tell me something or just having a frolic? Only time would tell.
The drive to town was short but cold. The party was in the Prince Albert Hotel ballroom, and I stepped inside and stopped. Winter Garden was the theme, and Harold Erkwell, the best party thrower in the Southeast, had truly created an enchantment with billows of blue silk decorated with twinkling stars forming the ceiling and frosted foliage and tiny white lights everywhere.
The words of “Unforgettable” swirled through the glittering ballroom on the strings of a small orchestra. Harold had done himself proud. This New Year’s Eve party served a dual purpose—celebrating the coming year and the grand opening of the exclusive boutique hotel.
I was greeted with a chorus of well-wishes from my friends and swept into the party, where the champagne flowed and the orchestra took me back to the 1940s. I love the dances of that era, and I danced until my shoes were smoking.
At last, I leaned against a marble column to catch my breath and watch the glamorous couples spin around the dance floor. The gowns were all white and the men wore white tuxes, giving the party an Old World elegance. I spotted Harold across the room and waved. He was at my side in an instant.
“Happy New Year, Sarah Booth. I’ve been trying to flag you down for a dance but every time I get a break from my duties as host, I can’t find you.”
“It’s almost a new year. Can you believe how fast time slips by?”
“It’s terrifying how quickly the months roll past.” He nodded toward the far side of the room. “There’s your partner in crime.”
Tinkie Bellcase Richmond, in a flowing gown of white silk with a diamond belt at the waist, was my partner in solving crime at the Delaney Detective Agency. She waved and came toward us. “Sarah Booth, you look beautiful.”
“She does,” Harold said, “and so do you, Tinkie.”
“Ditto,” I said.
“It’s a lovely party, Harold. Millie is having a great time, and Cece has taken enough photos to fill the Zinnia Dispatch for the next year.” Millie Roberts was the proprietress of Millie’s Café, the finest eating establishment in the South, and Cece Dee Falcon was the society editor of the local newspaper.
Cece came toward us, a waiter in tow with a tray of brimming champagne glasses. “Grab a drink, everyone. It’s almost time to toast in the new year!” Cece, though she was once Cecil, was the prettiest woman in the room. She wore an off-the-shoulder gown that hugged her slender form. Millie wore a white sheath overlaid with gossamer lace. With her hair swept up, she looked ten years younger.
We each took a glass, and Cece was about to propose a toast when the door of the ballroom burst open in the tradition of all bad fairy tales—the grand entrance of the witch, sorcerer, villain, or, in this case, troll. Frangelica “Sister” McFee stepped into the ballroom. Her gaze drilled into Tinkie.
“Well, well, if it isn’t Stinky Bellcase Richmond.” She sniffed the air. “Doesn’t anyone else smell that awful stench?” She curled her lips in a nasty smile.
I’d never seen Tinkie intimidated by anyone, but she took two steps backward before she bumped into me. I tried to push her forward, but she balked.
“Oh, holy Christmas,” I whispered. “It’s Sister McFee.” I pronounced the name properly for the Mississippi social elite—Sista.
“What the hell is she doing back in Zinnia?” Cece asked, just before she blinded Sister with some flashes of her camera. “Run, Tinkie, run, before she regains her vision.”
Tinkie had finally found her backbone. “I’m not running anywhere.”
“Frangelica,” Harold said, trying to step into the breach. “I had no idea you’d be in Zinnia or I would have sent you an invitation to my party.”
“I figured it was an oversight,” she said. “I hate this Podunk town and this backward county, not to mention this third-world state. And call me Sister, please. Only my classy New York friends call me Frangelica. Right, Stinky?”
I
looked around for Oscar, Tinkie’s husband, but didn’t see him. This confrontation was headed south at a rapid pace. Coleman was supposed to arrive before midnight, but he would be too late to stop the bloodshed. Tinkie hated Sister McFee. I didn’t know the details, but my normally cool and collected partner couldn’t talk about Sister without becoming spitting mad. Something had happened in the sorority house at Ole Miss that Tinkie couldn’t forgive or forget.
“Get out.” Tinkie squared her shoulders and walked over to Sister. “Get out right this minute.”
“Or you’ll do what, Stinky? Gas me to death?” She laughed like a sweet Southern belle. “You’re too cute.” She reached to pinch my partner’s cheek, and Tinkie snapped. Her teeth clicked on empty air with an audible sound as she tried to bite Sister’s hand.
“Stinky and rabid,” Sister said with a merry laugh. “Good to know you grew into my predictions.”
“Get out!” Tinkie roared the words.
Harold stepped between the two women and grasped Sister’s arm. “It was so good of you to drop by, and I’m sorry you have to leave.” He propelled her out of the ballroom like a paper sack before a hurricane.
Two hotel staffers closed the doors as soon as the witch’s hasty exit was complete. I put a hand on Tinkie’s trembling shoulder.
“I hate her,” Tinkie said, almost in tears. “She is the biggest biyotch on the face of the planet!”
I couldn’t argue with that assessment, so I didn’t try. At last Oscar noticed Millie’s frantic attempts to get his attention, and he hurried over and immediately saw Tinkie’s distress. “Are you okay?” he asked, looking at all of us.
“I’m fine,” Tinkie said, and with those words she seemed to expel the miasma that Sister had cast upon her. “Sister McFee made an appearance.”
“She’s a total bit—” He didn’t finish because Cece elbowed him in the side.
“What is Sister doing in our Podunk town?” I asked.
“Her new book about the death of her mama and brother has been at the top of the bestseller list for several months now. I heard some gossip about a movie,” Millie said. “I thought it was just big talk, but maybe not. Maybe she’s here because they are going to film.”
“Refresh me on what happened with Mrs. McFee and Son.” Cleo, Sister’s mother, and her son Daryl, better known as Son, had driven into the flooded and raging Sunflower River during a terrible rainstorm five summers earlier. Cleo’s body was found trapped in the car, but Son’s body was never recovered. The presumption was that he had also drowned and then been washed downriver. Son had been driving the car.
Millie gave the short version because she had the best memory for local history. “Son was known to use drugs and drink,” Millie said. “His father, Colin, insisted that Son had killed his own mother and himself, either by accident because he was drugged up or in a murder-suicide scenario.”
“What a terrible thing for a father to say about his child,” Tinkie said. She’d regained her composure, and now she was about to lose her temper.
“How could Colin know that to be true?” I asked. “Son’s body wasn’t recovered. The investigators couldn’t do a tox screen. It was raining cats and dogs. It could truly have been an accident.”
Millie held up a finger, considering. “Colin couldn’t know anything for a fact, but it didn’t stop him from publicly blaming Son. And Sister’s book does the same. I’ve heard rumors for the past several weeks that the book had been optioned for a movie.” Millie always had the scoop on Hollywood. She read tabloids religiously, and she consulted Zinnia’s famous psychic and one of my best friends, Madame Tomeeka, aka my high school chum Tammy Odom.
“Great,” Tinkie said. “Just great. She’ll be in town for weeks.”
“Colin is running for the U.S. Senate from Mississippi,” Harold pointed out. “This might be a manipulation to gain sympathy votes. You know, the poor guy whose loaded son killed his wife.”
“Didn’t he marry, like, six weeks after Cleo was buried? She was barely cold.” Tinkie was no fading violet in the arena of gossip.
Before anyone could respond, the bandleader rapped for attention on his music stand. “And the countdown begins! Ten, nine, eight . . .”
The doors opened and Coleman walked into the room.
“Seven, six, five, four, three . . .” The bandleader marked off the time.
Coleman strode toward our little group.
“Two, one! Happy New Year!”
Harold swept me into his arms and laid a kiss on me that I wasn’t likely to forget in the next twenty years. “Happy New Year, Sarah Booth.”
“Happy New Year to you, Harold.” I was flushed and breathless.
“You know your aunt Loulane would tell you that whatever you do on this day, you’ll do for the rest of the year.” And he kissed me again.
I’d forgotten how powerful Harold’s kisses could be until my thumb gave a strange tingle.
Just as he released me, I felt a hand on my shoulder. When I turned, Coleman lifted my face with a gentle hand. “In that case, I need to greet the new year myself.” He kissed me, too, but very chastely on the cheek.
“Happy New Year,” I said to both men, because I was too flustered to think of anything original to say.
Tinkie at last stepped up to defend me. “That’s enough, Romeos. Now let’s forget about all the McFees and celebrate the new year. Oscar, can we contribute heavily to whoever is running for that Senate seat against Colin? Surely he doesn’t stand a dog’s chance of winning.” But a tiny line of worry tugged at her lips.
When, an hour later, I managed to pull her away, I asked, “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Sister. Why is she back in town? Do you really think it’s a movie deal?”
“I don’t know, but I’m positive we’ll find out sooner rather than later.” I grabbed two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter. “Don’t let her ruin this evening for you.”
“You have no idea how much I loathe her.”
“Why? I mean she’s awful, but you handle awful people all the time.”
Tinkie only shook her head, and her blue eyes teared up. “I have my reasons.”
“Tinkie, I’m your best friend. You can tell me anything.”
She shook her head harder. “I can’t. I’ve never told anyone and I can’t. Just know that Frangelica is the meanest bit—”
She never got to finish because Scott Hampton and his band, including Cece’s squeeze, Jaytee, burst into the party. “Happy New Year,” Scott said, grabbing me and Tinkie and pressing a kiss on each of us. “And the new year is off to a rip-snorting beginning.”
Before we could finish our conversation, we were pulled to the dance floor. It was impossible to stop Scott’s infectious good spirits, so I let go and partied as hard as I could, dancing again and again with Scott, Harold, Coleman, and a dozen other men.
As Jitty would have told me had she been there, magical evenings don’t come around all that often. I took full advantage.
New Year’s Day rang itself in with a hangover from too much champagne, but the wonderful memories from Harold’s party offset the Thor’s hammer–like headache. I’d picked up the phone to call Harold and thank him for the lovely evening when I glanced at the time: 11:10. I was due to meet Tinkie and the gang at Millie’s Café for the traditional Southern New Year’s Day fare of black-eyed peas cooked with hog jowl or a ham bone, greens, and cornbread. The peas were for luck and the greens for money. I wasn’t about to miss out on luck or money.
I jumped in the shower, slapped on makeup and clothes, loaded my hound dog and cat into the antique Mercedes roadster, and tore down the driveway. The day was cold, and I left the windows rolled up, much to Sweetie Pie’s consternation. She kept nosing the cold glass, but I wouldn’t give in. If I let the window down so she could hang her head out, my eyelashes would freeze and break off.
“Millie said you and Pluto could hang out in her office,” I told the critters. “She made a
special dish for you both. A pesky pet celebration for the new year. Roscoe will probably be there, too.” Roscoe was an evil little dog I’d ended up with while working a case. Harold adopted him—and adored him. Every vile thing Roscoe did, Harold enjoyed.
I whipped into the parking lot. The parked cars told me everyone was already there. Millie had closed the café for us to have a private lunch. She would reopen at two for her regulars. A lot of people didn’t cook and relied on Millie’s delicious and nutritious offerings to keep themselves fed.
“Happy New Year. Sorry I’m late,” I sang out as I rushed into the warmth of the small café, which faced an otherwise empty Main Street. The most delicious smells made me sigh with pleasure.
“Champagne?” Harold asked wickedly as he approached me with a crystal stem and a bottle.
“Back!” I made the sign of the cross. “Coffee. Please.”
Everyone laughed, and Cece pushed a mug filled with strong black coffee into my hand. “Caffeine and something greasy and filled with carbohydrates will do the trick.”
Tinkie nudged me into a chair, and Millie put buttered toast and a side of hot grits in front of me. “The New Year’s food is on the way,” Millie said. “Eat this now and you’ll feel better.”
Of course, she was right. As soon as I ate, my stomach settled, and the little man with a sledgehammer tapping on my optic nerve stopped. “Thank you,” I told them.
“Too bad you can’t have a toast with us,” Harold teased.
“I can toast. There’s no law that says it has to be alcohol.” I raised my cup of coffee and clinked with my friends as Oscar proclaimed the word for the new year to be positivity.
The lunch at Millie’s had become a tradition since I’d returned to Zinnia. I looked around the room with gratitude. I was rich in friends. Good friends, and that was the greatest gift of all. But people were missing.
“Where’s Coleman, DeWayne, Scott, and Jaytee?” Cece almost never left Jaytee’s side.
“They’re coming,” Cece said. “I told the band to relax a little bit. After Harold’s party, they went back and closed down their club. The work of a musician is never done.”
Guru Bones Page 6
