“Harold, I think that’s Gregory’s phone.” I hit redial and the music started again.
Not ten seconds later, I heard Harold exclaim, “Oh, dear. Sarah Booth, you’d better call DeWayne and an ambulance. I’ve found the good-looking cupid, and he’s unconscious.”
Harold and i managed to handle the situation discreetly, if anyone in a short toga can be discreet. I called DeWayne Dattilo, the deputy sheriff in charge during Coleman’s absence. Harold called the paramedics, who arrived in no time and kept looking at me as if I’d grown a second head. Yes, I was freezing in a mini skirt made from a sheet. I’d also knocked my wig askew helping Harold drag the unconscious man out of the bushes, and in the dark I couldn’t figure out how to put it back on properly.
In the ambulance headlights Gregory Lent’s oiled torso glistened. The diaper he wore was so small it barely covered the essentials, and he was everything Tinkie had promised, a man who could easily pass as a male stripper.
The party in Tinkie’s back lawn continued, the guests unaware of the tragedy not a hundred yards away. DeWayne identified the young man as Gregory Lent based on a driver’s license found near his unconscious body. And the fact he was wearing a diaper. I did not relish the idea of telling Tinkie I’d found her cupid and he’d been rendered unconscious.
Doc Sawyer, Sunflower County’s emergency doctor, waited until Gregory had been loaded into an ambulance and was on the way to the hospital before he sought me out. “Blunt force trauma to the right temple,” he said. “Someone hit him hard with a bat or pipe or something. I won’t know how bad he’s hurt until I run some tests.”
Gregory had been attacked along Tinkie’s long driveway and dragged into the bushes. DeWayne had found footprints and drag marks. Had Harold and I not been looking for the little short cupid, the tall unconscious cupid wouldn’t have been discovered for a long while.
“Do you think he’ll be okay?” I asked.
“It can go either way, Sarah Booth. We don’t know how long he’s been like this.”
“At least an hour.” I knew that didn’t sound good.
“I’ll let you know when I know,” Doc said, patting my shoulder. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Are you okay?” When Doc had driven away, Harold put his arm around me. “Do you want me to tell Tinkie? DeWayne needs to question every guest.”
“Let me tell Tinkie. This is going to be a disaster. Her party for love has become a crime scene.”
“Not your fault, Sarah Booth. Not her’s either.”
“Some Valentine party.” I was worried. “Cupid was conked in the head on her front lawn.”
He chuckled and hugged me closer. “A new case for Delaney Detective Agency. The mysterious cupid conker. Not to mention the cupid that disappeared. There’s no sign of that hairy little devil and he’s the person we need to corral. Obviously he’s a replacement.”
Harold was right. The solution to the attack on one cupid would be found in the apprehension of another. They had to be connected.
When we returned to the party, the scene was a mishmash of gods, goddesses, slaves, generals—all dancing to music of the period. It was damned impressive. I hated the chore in front of me.
Tinkie was surveying the food, making sure the offerings were plentiful. I motioned her away from the crowd and filled her in on what had happened.
“I was ready to murder Gregory, and he was lying out in my front yard all this time! I feel terrible.”
“Let’s just hope he is okay. Why did this happen? Why would someone go to the trouble of knocking out a hired cupid to substitute another?”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Tinkie said.
“Help! Help! Someone has stolen my wallet!” The cry came from a group of partiers gathered at the bar.
“My necklace is gone,” a woman on the other side of the gathering called out. “My wallet is gone!” another man called out.
“This can’t be happening,” Tinkie said as her hands went to her ears. An angry expression crossed her face. “My diamond earrings are gone, too.”
“Someone has robbed your guests,” I said.The game became clear to me. The little cupid who’d so vividly captured our attention was a diversion. He’d commanded that we look at him while his confederates went around the party stealing. It was one of the oldest scams in the world.
“Now, now, Tinkie,” Doc Sawyer said soothingly as he waved some ammonia under her nose. He’d turned around and come straight back to Hilltop when I called him. “Sit up. I’d never have taken you for a woman with the vapors.”
“My cupid was ambushed in my camellias, and my guests were robbed!” Tinkie swooned again, but I pinched her hard and she sat up like she’d been electrocuted. “Dammit, Sarah Booth, that hurt. You can’t go pinching my thigh like that.”
“Quit pretending that you’re Aunt Pittypat and talk to us.” I tapped my forefinger and thumb together several times like a crab claw, promising her another pinch. “How did you happen to hire Gregory Lent for your cupid?”
“Let me think.” Tinkie sighed. “Have all the guest gone home?”
“They have. DeWayne made a list of all the things that were stolen. He interviewed everyone and let them go.” I didn’t want to tell her the total haul could be over two hundred thousand dollars. The clever thieves had also taken a lot of the Richmond valuables, stripping the house while the guests partied outside.
Oscar came to sit beside his wife, rubbing her arm in a comforting gesture. “We’ll catch the rascals and get everyone’s belongings back.”
Without any warning, Tinkie dissolved in tears against Oscar’s chest. He patted her back as she sobbed. “Give her a minute,” he said gently. “She’ll be fine. I found all of the party receipts. They’re on the kitchen counter. She hired Gregory Lent through a talent agency in Memphis called We Aim to Please. They offer strippers, clowns, magicians, sexy girls and boys. You know, whatever it takes to get a party up and keep it going.”
I went to the counter and retrieved the documents. Although I didn’t intend to pry, my eyeballs popped wide at the cost of the services from We Aim to Please. Gregory Lent’s fee was $900 for the evening. The sirens, on the other hand, were a bonus package for $1000. There were at least five other hired actors who’d enlivened the party.
Pushing past the cost, I focused on the company’s logo. The address was on the west side of Memphis, and the owner of the company was one Jonathan French. I stored the number on my phone for a call in the morning. It was too late now, and we were exhausted. I returned to the parlor where everyone had gathered.
“You should take Tinkie to bed,” Harold said, kneeling beside Tinkie as she slumped against Oscar. “It will all be fine. A good night’s sleep and things will look brighter in the morning. Mr. Lent will be fine. Doc said he’d keep a sharp eye on him.”
She only hiccupped and buried her face in Oscar’s tunic. She was taking this hard, and I understood. She was the Queen Bee of Zinnia society. To have her guests robbed at her own home was unacceptable. The cruel attack on a young man—that was downright horrible.
“Let’s go home,” I said to Harold. Then a thought occurred to me. “Millie and Claude? Did they leave?”
“I hope so.” Tinkie pushed to an upright position. “Did you see them? You’d think the arrow that little thief shot was the real thing straight from Cupid’s bow. I thought I’d have to call the lawn man to turn the hose on Millie and that man.”
We laughed with relief because Tinkie was back to herself.
“Millie needs a romantic encounter,” I said. “She thought that guy was handsome before she was shot with Cupid’s arrow. By the way, who is Claude?”
Tinkie frowned. “He’s Prentiss Luce’s cousin from Ittabeena. He lives in D.C. now, though. He runs a famous bar called the Poet’s Corner. Big hangout for the beltway bandits and a lot of local writers. They have poetry and fiction readings there.”
Millie would love that. In a cockeyed way, she and Claud
e were in the same business. She served food and he served liquor.
“So what did you do with Prentiss, Harold?” Tinkie asked. It wasn’t until Tinkie said her name that I realized Harold had completely abandoned his date. Everyone from the party had gone home, yet Harold was still here. Once Gregory Lent was discovered, Harold and I were like bloodhounds on a trail. “What happened to Prentiss?” I dreaded asking.
“Claude and Millie took her home,” Harold said, winking at me. “I made sure she was taken care of. Prentiss isn’t a fool. She knows I was caught up in a tragedy. Yes, she was my date for the party but we aren’t romantically involved.”
Thank goodness. I didn’t say it out loud, but Tinkie’s words of caution came back to me. I would never want to intrude in Harold’s chance for happiness. “I hope she understands,” I whispered to Harold.
“She does. Prentiss and I go way back. She asked me to get her and her cousin invited to the party. Prentiss isn’t a fragile Delta blossom who wilts if a man doesn’t devote all of his attention to her. She’s a tough cookie. The art world isn’t for the faint of heart and her gallery in New Orleans is going gangbusters.”
“That’s good to know.” I was relieved. “I should head home too.” Although Dahlia House was only the first location I had in mind. I wanted to change clothes and go to the sheriff’s office.
“Tomorrow we’ll get to the bottom of this,” Tinkie said and then yawned. “Someone is going to pay big time.”
Dahlia House, aglow with lights, welcomed me home, as did Sweetie Pie and Pluto, my hound and elegant black kitty. The three horses raced the car down the drive and then bucked and stampeded in the opposite direction. Before I went inside, I hurried through the cold in my silly toga and fed them. Pluto and Sweetie Pie accompanied me to the barn but offered no help. They were miffed they hadn’t been invited to the festivities at Tinkie’s house, but even Tinkie’s pup, Chablis, had been relegated to an upstairs bedroom.
I was almost finished putting away the feed buckets when Sweetie Pie set up a racket. She faced the barn door barking, her hackles raised. Pluto watched something in the night intently, but he remained perfectly still.
“Crap.” I eased to the door, freezing to death in my skimpy costume. A cry of terror slipped from me when I saw a voluptuous naked woman riding a clamshell toward the barn. I’d never seen anything like it.
When the shell stopped not twenty yards away, the beautiful woman stepped to the ground and came toward me.
“Jitty, you are going to give me a coronary.” I recognized my ghost and the goddess she portrayed. Venus on the half shell, as the Botticelli masterpiece was nicknamed. “I am done with gods and goddesses, and you are indecent. If your hair was an inch shorter, I’d be able to see possible.” Aunt Loulane had always cautioned me against any public displays of possible. “Stay away from me.”
“That toga would be cute if your legs weren’t all pied and covered in chill bumps. Girl, you look like you stepped out of the deep freeze. Any man who thought to touch that skin would regret it. Looks like you got a lizard disease.”
“Just because you can run around naked in thirty degree weather and not get cold is no reason to pick on me because I’m alive.” I stepped around the stupid clamshell even though I knew it wasn’t really there.
“Running around naked is freeing. You should try it.”
“It’s thirty-eight degrees.” I dismissed the idea.
“Girl, your erogenous zone is frosted over. You need to let a man warm you up and get that motor purring again. Remember, if you don’t use it, God will take it away from you.”
“Just because you were the goddess of love and bestowed your favors on every Tom, Dick, and Harry that walked past doesn’t mean I have to be promiscuous.”
“Okay, Iron Maiden. Keep all that love to yourself and see where it gets you. Alone on Valentine Day night. All alone. With no big, warm, man-body to heat you up or cuddle with you in front of the fire. No one to bump uglies with.”
“Stop it!” Jitty was a bruise masher from the get-go.
“Don’t get snippy with me, Missy.” Jitty was suddenly right in front of me. Her long, long hair wrapped around her body. “I know how to lure a man and bring him to his knees.”
“Goody for you, Venus. Your hairy little lovechild created by bumping uglies with Mars made a splash at Tinkie’s party. Too bad the real cupid was knocked unconscious.” That took some of the starch out of her pantaloons. Well, she wasn’t wearing panties of any description, but it changed her attitude.
“What happened to Cupid?” She shifted back to the beautiful woman who had once served as my great-great-great grandmother Alice’s nanny. Jitty and Alice had survived the Civil War, more as sisters than master and slave.
I gave her the details of the Cupid coup.
“Somebody done waylaid Cupid,” she said, adopting the vernacular of a time long past. “Oh, lawd, somebody whacked love!”
“I only thought I was in hell at Tinkie’s party,” I muttered. “You’re giving me visions of the fiery lake and I’m eager to jump in it if I can get away from you.”
“Sarcasm don’t touch me none at all.” Jitty preened, a word I never thought I’d have reason to use.
“Stop that cornpone crap and talk normal.”
“Cupid is supposed to be immortal,” she said in her natural voice. “But I swear, Sarah Booth, you’re deadly. Even a for-hire Cupid can’t survive an evening with you without serious injury.”
“I didn’t bash his skull in.”
“You didn’t have to. That stony heart of yours broke him.”
“I didn’t even meet him.” I edged past her and headed to the house. “I’m not talking to you anymore.” I put my fingers in my ears. “Na-na-na-na-na-na.” By the time I got to the back door and cast a glance toward the barn, Jitty and her clamshell had faded into the dark night.
I fed Sweetie Pie and a grumpy Pluto in the kitchen and then ran upstairs to change clothes. When I had my jeans, boots, and a warm red sweater on, I called the pets to the car and headed for the courthouse. DeWayne was competent and always a good friend, but I missed Coleman.
Coleman’s schooling in Quantico came as a complete surprise—funding from the Sunflower County supervisors was unexpected. He’d been gone ten days and I’d hoped he would put in a surprise appearance at Tinkie’s shindig. My hopes were in vain. This was a perfect time for him to be at the FBI training center because things in Sunflower County had slipped into the winter doldrums until the robbery at Hilltop and the assault on Cupid. That had been unexpected.
Driving through the fallow winter fields that spread into the darkness on either side of the road, I felt as if the land could swallow me whole. That wouldn’t be a bad way to go—I loved the Delta with a deep passion. The land was part of me in a way that defied explanation. My connection to the dirt was bone deep, but I missed that strong bond with another human. Coleman and I were involved in a dance. Would we or wouldn’t we give in to the sexual attraction we shared? While my body said yes, my heart was a cowardly organ. Coleman, too, had reservations about pushing our relationship to a different level. We’d been to this point before, and he’d made another choice. One that put a wedge between us. Now, we had a solid friendship, but it wouldn’t survive a crash and burn romance.
I parked at the courthouse and ran up the steps to the sheriff’s office entrance. Though it was hard on midnight, DeWayne was at his desk, the office flooded with lights.
“Any breakthroughs?” I asked. No one had officially hired me to find out who clobbered Cupid, but since the crime occurred on my partner’s front lawn and her guests had been skillfully robbed, I claimed it as a Delaney Detective Agency case. We wouldn’t impede DeWayne; we would assist.
DeWayne looked up from a handful of preliminary reports. “The fingerprints I lifted on the sideboard where Tinkie’s silver was taken don’t have a match in the system. Thank goodness for technology—everyone at the party had a cell pho
ne and I’ve gotten some photos of the cupid that shot Millie. I’m running them through the FBI’s NGI system.
“That’s a real thing?” I’d read about the Next Generation Index that included both criminal and non-criminal likenesses. Big Brother was indeed watching.
“Real enough,” DeWayne said.
The fax machine beeped and began to whir. DeWayne swiveled in his chair and shot across the hardwood floor to catch the report that shot out of the fax.
“Wiley Ryan,” he read. “He did seven years for a spree of robberies in the Birmingham area. He specialized in infiltrating high-end parties and robbing the guests. He’s been out of the system for two years.”
“That’s what happened at Tinkie’s house. He couldn’t have done this alone. He had to have help with the robbery. And the bigger question, is he violent?”
“No record of any violent crimes. Strictly theft.”
“How is he aware of who’s having a party and what the theme is. I mean to come dressed as Cupid—how would he know?”
“Good question, Sarah Booth, and one I’ll look into. The robbery obviously ties into the attack on Gregory Lent.”
“I agree. Any word from Coleman?”
“I talked to him an hour ago. He was considering coming home, but I discouraged him. This is a once in a lifetime chance for him to learn at Quantico. He needs to take advantage of it. That training will help all of us when he returns.”
DeWayne was correct. “We’ll handle this. Tomorrow, when Tinkie’s had a chance to recover from the shock, she’ll help.”
“I told Coleman I could count on you two.”
“Any leads on what happened to Lent?”
“Lent is awake, and he said he didn’t get a look at his attacker. Someone snuck up from behind and hit him. They wanted him out of the way so Ryan could infiltrate the party and keep everyone’s attention focused away from the house.”
“We have to identify Wiley Ryan’s accomplices. I could check with the Birmingham police to see what they know about Ryan.”
Bones and Arrows: A Sarah Booth Delaney Short Mystery Page 2
