Bones To Pick

by Carolyn Haines

  We passed the square, which housed, brilliantly enough, Square Books. Oxford had grown around a central courthouse square. William Faulkner had hung his hat here, and a lively group of writers of all genres now lived in the area. Many of the authors hung out at the bookstore and taught, when they could, at Ole Miss to supplement their incomes. The mystique of Faulkner could still be found in the shade of majestic oaks and along a rural dirt road.

  The house that Allison and Quentin had shared was on the north side of town, a cottage really, tucked among second growth pines and oaks. The yard was a jungle. A storm that had come through in September had knocked trees down, and they remained partially draped across the driveway, which wound through the winter-bare trees and vines. In the summer, the place would be hidden by thick leaves.

  “This is a little on the creepy side,” Tinkie said as she maneuvered the car around a fallen pine. “It’s been two months since the storm, yet debris is everywhere.”

  “Quentin had been on a book tour.” I had to suppress a tiny shudder myself. The place was creepy. It was a strange blend of the witch’s cottage in Hansel and Gretel and a Tolkienesque hobbit’s hole. We pulled to a stop beneath the lattice-covered portico.

  “We didn’t bring a key,” Tinkie said.

  I could read her desire to leave on her face. But we’d driven hours to look for the threatening notes. “I’ll go in a window.” I got out and walked to the side door. To my surprise, the knob turned easily, and the door pushed open. “It isn’t locked.”

  Tinkie reluctantly got out of the car and followed me up the steps and into the kitchen. I stopped. The room was painted barn red, with white fixtures and white trim on the windows. Lacy curtains fluttered in a breeze that blew through a crack. An old white farm table with four oak chairs stood at the center of the room. Copper pots gleamed on the walls, along with pen-and-ink drawings, done by Quentin, I noted.

  “This is very nice,” Tinkie said.

  She was so close, I could feel her breath on my shoulder blades.

  “I would never have suspected they were such traditionalists.” She stepped forward and touched a vase full of dead flowers on the table. They’d been spider mums. “They were happy here, weren’t they?”

  I nodded. “Let’s find those notes.” We were trespassing on a past that was dead. The sensation made me uncomfortable, and I realized that this was what Tinkie had not wanted to feel. The life Quentin and Allison had shared was over. This was the last vestige of it. We had tainted it with our presence.

  “I’ll take the study.” Tinkie scooted past me, leaving the bedroom for me.

  “Thanks,” I called after her as I moved down the hallway to the bedroom. The bed was made, covered with heirloom quilts. On the lavender walls magnificent Wyatt Waters artwork hung beside black-and-white photographs. I went through the bedside table drawers and then the bureau and highboy drawers. There were no notes, but I did find what appeared to be several digital camera diskettes. I slipped them into my pocket and went to find Tinkie.

  She sat in the middle of the office floor, with pieces of paper all around her.

  “These are serious,” she said, her face pale in the fading light. “Someone really meant to harm Quentin, and finally did.” She handed the note to me.

  You are a disgrace to your family. Stop this foolishness or pay the consequences. There was no date, and I couldn’t tell if the note was about Quentin’s book or her relationship with Allison. I took another note Tinkie handed up to me. Your conduct will be the death of you. The note was still ambiguous. The third one, though, was more telling. The pen is mightier than the sword. Beware the consequences of what you write because you will pay in blood.

  “There aren’t any dates,” I pointed out.

  “If they were mailed, she didn’t keep the envelopes. They could have been left here for her.”

  If that were the case, then the murderer most likely lived in the vicinity and would know their routine of coming and going. “Where did you find them?”

  “In her address book. There were just the three of them, all together.”

  “Under which letter?” I thought the alphabet might be a clue.

  “Just shoved at the back, with some bills.” She handed the letters up to me. I noted that the unpaid power bill was for October, along with a platinum MasterCard bill. It was possible that one of the notes was received in October, at the same time the bills arrived. Which indicated to me that the threatening notes were mailed, not hand delivered. Then again, Quentin may have stuffed the threatening notes in with other mail she didn’t take seriously, like her bills.

  Tinkie was scanning the purchases on the credit card bill when she looked up. “There’s a charge on here for three thousand dollars to a lawyer, Linda Feinstein.”

  “Where’s her office?”

  “Clarksdale.” Tinkie tapped the bill against her palm. “We should pay her a visit.”

  “Tomorrow,” I said. “Let’s make certain we have all the notes.”

  We spent the next hour going through Quentin’s desk, but we didn’t find any other threatening notes. We did find one strange handwritten letter, which was unsigned. Instead of trying to intimidate Quentin, the note demanded that the author receive just due for her contributions to the book. The script appeared to be feminine.

  “We need to check and see if Quentin had some kind of researcher working for her.” I bundled that note with the others.

  We unplugged the computer and loaded it in the car. If Quentin was murdered because of what she intended to write next, we might find some good leads on her hard drive.

  Night had fallen as we slowly drove along the highway toward home. Tinkie slowed a bit so she could look at me. “We’ll leave the computer at the bank. Oscar has an employee who can do anything with computers. He’ll make us copies of everything on it.”

  I nodded. “Who would know enough about what Quentin intended to write to threaten her?”

  “She had a big mouth. She could have told anyone.”

  Tinkie spoke the truth. “That woman who spoke up at the funeral. What was her name?”

  “Genevieve Reynolds!” She turned to me. “She wanted to be in the book. Could she be the one wanting recognition for her contributions?”

  “We need to check it out.”

  “She lives in Rosedale. We could go there now.”

  “Now?” It would be seven at the earliest before we got back to Zinnia. If we went to Rosedale, it could be as late as midnight. “What about Oscar?”

  “If he hasn’t learned to use the microwave by now, he’s due for a crash course.”

  “You go, Tinkie.” I settled back into the comfortable leather seat for a ride to Rosedale.

  The Reynolds home was set back off the highway, on what appeared to be a manicured lawn, complete with several spruce trees and fairy lights along the driveway. Someone in the Reynolds family enjoyed gardening, but somehow I didn’t think it was the woman I’d seen at the funeral home. She was too pale, too intense.

  Genevieve Reynolds was not excited to see us, and it showed on her face. She pushed her brown hair behind her ears and took off her glasses to study us.

  “Tinkie Bellcase. Sarah Booth Delaney.” Her lips thinned. “What do you want?”

  “To chat.” Tinkie breezed by her and into the foyer.

  I had no choice but to follow suit. “We have some questions for you.”

  “If you don’t have the authority of a badge, I don’t have to talk to you at all.” Genevieve swiveled her finger from me to the front door. “Out.”

  “Perhaps you should listen to us first.” Tinkie cocked her head. “We have the note you sent to Quentin. Some people could interpret that as a motive for murder.”

  It was a bold move to make, but as I watched Genevieve’s face, I realized Tinkie had played her hand admirably.

  “Posh!” Genevieve’s hand flew all around her. “No one could possibly think I killed Quentin McGee. That’s the most
ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” She put both hands on her hips.

  “I’m sure Allison feels the same way.” Tinkie’s mark hit home. Genevieve stopped in her tracks. She turned to us. “What do you two really want?”

  “Information,” I said.

  She rolled her eyes. “Come into the library. But keep your voices down. My father is resting, and I don’t want him disturbed. Ever since my mother died, he’s had such a difficult time. His only consolation is the lawn. He works all day and paces the house all night.”

  We followed her into a huge room with a cathedral ceiling. Shelves of leather-bound books reached twenty feet high. The smell was wonderful; it reminded me of the tack room in the barn. A small fire burned in a fireplace, and a chair, covered with a maroon chenille throw, was drawn up there. Genevieve had obviously been reading. From the folds of the blanket, an old black head lifted.

  “Grrr-rrr-rrrr!” The poodle looked ancient and halfhearted in its attempts to intimidate us.

  “Beowulf, hush!” Genevieve hurried to the chair and scooped the poodle into her arms. “He’s a fierce one, isn’t he? He can’t see and he can’t chew, but if anyone tried to hurt me, he’d do his best to get them.”

  For the first time I felt a glimmer of compassion for Genevieve. She adored the old poodle. “What kind of work did you do for Quentin?”

  She held the poodle in her arms as she paced the library. “Some fact-checking, that kind of stuff. Quentin knew a lot of dirt on people, but she didn’t have the documentation. She was too impatient to bother with actually getting the proof. If it hadn’t been for me, she would have been sued for every penny she ever hoped to inherit.”

  The dog began to growl. Tinkie walked up to Genevieve and took the dog. “You’re exciting Beowulf.” She cooed softly to the old poodle, who immediately relaxed in her arms. The growls were replaced with the short, snuffling sounds of a dog falling into contented sleep.

  “I’m glad my mother is dead.” Genevieve turned her face away to hide the tears that filled her eyes. “She would be so ashamed of how this all turned out. She was so proud of me, so glad that I was finally going to get the recognition that I deserved.”

  “Recognition?” Somewhere along the way, Genevieve’s train had derailed. I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.

  “Quentin promised me that if I helped her, she’d devote an entire chapter to me. I became the youngest person ever inducted into Mensa. I write brainteasers for the New York Times that are so difficult, I have to send the answers. I’m a bonafide genius, and Quentin was supposed to put that in the book.” She dropped her head. “My mother hoped that some intelligent man would read it and see my value as a mate. I just wanted some recognition, instead of being the butt of everyone’s jokes.”

  “Whatever made you think Quentin would include anything nice about anyone?” Tinkie’s tone was sharp.

  “She said she would.” Genevieve’s head came up, and there was fire in her gray eyes. “She promised. I told my mother about it, and Mom thought it was great.” Her voice broke. “Right before she died, she told me to order a dozen copies of Quentin’s book so we could mail them to all the family for Christmas.” Her sobbing was in earnest.

  Beowulf began to squirm in Tinkie’s arms. She put him on the floor, and he ran to his mistress and began to paw at her knees.

  “Poor baby. He misses Momma, too.” Genevieve picked the old dog up and sobbed into his fur.

  I looked at Tinkie and mouthed, “What happened to her mother?”

  Tinkie shrugged. “Genevieve, how did you lose your mother?”

  “It’s all Quentin’s fault!”

  “How?” I was losing patience.

  “See those big reference books?” She pointed to a pile of huge books sitting on the floor beside the fireplace. “They belong up there.” Her finger moved to point out the very top shelf, which was strangely bare. I glanced around until I located the library ladder, which was a necessity to get that high.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I had those old books out. They’re bloodlines of all the best Delta families, a sort of register. I was looking up a particular request for Quentin. I got the books down and used them, but I didn’t put them back up.”

  Her face had grown pale, and the little poodle was trying to burrow up under her chin in an effort to give his mistress comfort.

  “And?” Tinkie and I said in unison.

  “Mother decided to tidy up the library. She was having some of her friends over for tea. She picked up those heavy books and climbed that ladder.” Genevieve turned to look at the ladder as she spoke. Her face was deathly pale. “Something happened. All of the books on that shelf came tumbling down on top of her.” She took a deep breath. “She was dead when the ladies found her.”

  Genevieve might have the highest IQ in the Southeast, but in my opinion, she didn’t have walking-around sense. “You got the books down, didn’t you?”

  She whirled on me. “Yes, but it isn’t my fault. I was going to put them up. I told Mother that.”

  I held up a hand. “I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”

  Genevieve sniffled. “Okay. But everyone is always on me about being too smart. Mrs. Carrington told me one time that I’d never catch a man, because men don’t like to have their noses rubbed in a woman’s superior intelligence.” She looked at me. “Something you don’t have to worry about, Sarah Booth.”

  I was about to take offense when Tinkie intervened. “Was there anything you were working on for the second book?”

  Genevieve considered it. “Quentin had it in her head that the Eastmans were the product of a relationship between Jebediah Eastman and one of his slaves.”

  The Eastmans were an old, prominent Southern family raised in the tradition of segregation. They’d fought long and hard against integration. Such a revelation would be a bitter irony indeed. “Is it true?”

  Genevieve thought about her answer. “I had information—I found a marriage certificate that isn’t recorded in the formal Eastman family tree—that appears to confirm this. Quentin was dying to get her hands on it.” She put her hand up to her mouth. “I didn’t mean that literally. But she was due to come by here and talk to me before Halloween. Mother’s death ...”

  “When did Mrs. Reynolds die?”

  “October the twenty-second. I haven’t been able to work. I can’t concentrate. You can’t begin to imagine. Dad is just destroyed. We both sit across the table from each other and stare.”

  “It’s okay,” Tinkie said soothingly.

  “I got that awful note and everything—”

  “What note?”

  My tone stopped her in her tracks. “The note telling me that I would suffer for being so smart.”

  “Where is it?” I demanded.

  “In the trash, where it belongs! What’s wrong with you?”

  Tinkie put a gentle hand on Genevieve’s arm. “Do you remember exactly what the note said?” She nodded at me as she encouraged Genevieve.

  “Not exactly. It was a stupid, threatening note. Why should I recall it verbatim?”

  “Think, Genevieve.” Tinkie patted her arm. “Trust us, it’s important.”

  “Okay.” She closed her eyes and frowned. “It went like this. ‘Back off or you’ll die under the weight of your own intelligence. ’” She opened her eyes. “That was it. I’m sure. Only the note didn’t use a contraction.”

  Across the top of Genevieve’s head, my gaze met Tinkie’s. We shared the same thought. Before we could say anything, we heard footsteps in the hall, and the library door opened. A man in his late fifties stopped in the doorway. He clearly wore the traces of grief on his face.

  Genevieve rose to her feet. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She left.

  Tinkie and I didn’t waste any time. We pushed the library ladder over to the area where Mrs. Reynolds had been trying to reshelve the books. I scurried up the ladder, holding tight. I’d never liked heights. When I go
t to the top shelf, I reached out and tugged. The wood tilted down with the slightest pressure—enough so that the weight of the books would have caused them to fall right on top of the person shelving them.

  “Was it deliberate?” Tinkie asked as she held the ladder.

  “I’ll have to take the shelf down to be sure.”

  “Do it!”

  I gave a good tug, and the wooden shelf came out in my hand. I turned it to examine the sides. I couldn’t be certain, but it appeared that the wooden dowels that would have held it in place had been sawed clean through on one side.

  Easing down the ladder, I handed the shelf to Tinkie. “We should take that to Gordon,” I said.

  “This is going to be a neat trick—getting out of the house with their library shelf.”

  I hurried to the window and dropped the shelf out on the ground. “In case Genevieve objects,” I said. And just in time. The door opened and Genevieve returned.

  “We have to be going,” I said as I sidled out the door.

  “We’ll be in touch,” Tinkie said as she slipped out with me. Once we cleared the front door, I waited several minutes before I hurried to the side of the house and retrieved the shelf.

  “Don’t you think they’re going to eventually notice a shelf is missing from their library?” Tinkie asked.

  “In this case, it’s better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.” I put the shelf in Tinkie’s backseat and signaled for her to take off.

  14

  The courthouse was empty, except for the sheriff’s office. Gordon Walters glared at us as I handed him the shelf and the three notes we’d found at Quentin’s cottage.

  “Sarah Booth, what if there were fingerprints? Now you’ve pawed all over the dang things.”

  He was tired and worried, but it had been a long day for me and Tinkie, too. “You wouldn’t have the evidence at all if it weren’t for us. You could at least act grateful.”