Bones of a Feather: A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery

by Carolyn Haines

  “The Eola is worth a visit. Lots of history in that old hotel. I should have this report by tomorrow.” He gave a cross between a salute and a tip of his hat and returned to supervise his investigators.

  If we stayed, we could write up our report on Tinkie’s laptop, turn it in tomorrow when we had all of the police data, take our check, and go home. Besides, a night in the river town of Natchez held appeal. An advertisement for a “haunted Natchez” walking tour had sparked my interest. Maybe I could find some ammo to direct at Jitty. Briarcliff had put me in the mood for a good spooking.

  * * *

  The Eola was a grande dame nestled in the heart of Natchez. Tinkie and I took separate rooms, bought toiletries we’d failed to bring for the night, and Tinkie went on a shopping spree for new clothes. I managed with a new T-shirt that said, “I Got Down and Dirty Under-the-Hill,” a reference to Natchez’s riverfront district. Tinkie said it made her think of trolls.

  We met in the lobby for the haunted tour. Along with a totally impractical but gorgeous cocktail dress, Tinkie purchased walking shoes, khakis, a sweater, and a jacket. Evenings along the river could be brisk, even in summer.

  We fortified ourselves with a few adult beverages in the Eola bar before we met up with the tour group, an eclectic mix of tourists, locals, semiprofessional ghost hunters, and high school kids who knew the spiel by heart but enjoyed it nonetheless. Our merry company toured the town, stopping to see orbs flit by haunted houses and hear tales of gore and murder that generally accompany a haunting.

  At King’s Tavern, a local eatery, we had drinks and I felt the warm spot on the upstairs bed where the ghost Madeline slept. Tinkie accused me of fibbing, but an area on the bed where a body might lie was warm to my hand.

  The last stop was the bluff beneath Briarcliff, an unexpected bonus. Our tour guide gave a brief history of Barthelme Levert and his five tragic marriages. “Each bride was buried with a valuable ruby necklace. Some say it was Barthelme’s attempt to assuage the guilt of murder. Wife number six survived the old pirate. She knew the art of poison and drove Barthelme mad with a potion that sent him running and screaming out of the house and over the edge of this very cliff!”

  The tour concluded, and everyone began to talk and laugh as we retraced our steps to the Eola. I turned back for one last glimpse of the loess bluffs created by a long-ago earthquake that dictated the route of the Mississippi River. A large object encased in fluttering, diaphanous material sailed off the top of the cliff. I watched in soundless horror as the human-sized entity fell more than one hundred feet to smack into the water with a splash that drew everyone’s attention.

  “What was that?” the guide asked.

  Several people laughed shakily. I clutched Tinkie’s hand. “It looked like a body,” I whispered.

  Tinkie pushed my shoulder. “It’s part of the show, Sarah Booth. We got our money’s worth on this tour.”

  Her comment drew agreement from the others. Even the guide chuckled.

  As we meandered back to the Eola, Tinkie chatted with an older couple from St. Francisville, Louisiana. I couldn’t shake the sense of tragedy that flooded me at the sight of the lace-clad missile dropping into the swift current of the Mississippi River. There had been no scream, nothing to indicate the object was alive. Still, I couldn’t let it go. The menacing gloom that hung over Briarcliff had slithered into my bones.

  A. J. and Carlie Wells, the older couple from down river, were also staying at the Eola, so we pushed through the revolving door one after the other, Tinkie’s bright laughter leading the way. I loved her laugh, and I determined to shake off my glum mood.

  Tinkie suggested a drink at the bar, so we followed her, until she stopped abruptly in the doorway. Like a line of ducks, we tumbled into one another. “What the—” And then I saw what had brought my partner to a dead halt—El Hombre Siniestro.

  He wore a tuxedo and sat, one foot cocked on the bar rail in a GQ pose. His dark hair was pulled in a queue at the nape of his neck and an ill-tempered scowl claimed his face. He glowered as if we’d intruded on his most private moment.

  Ignoring him, we settled at a table in the corner. We had a round of drinks and chatted pleasantly for half an hour.

  “I think we’ll head upstairs,” A. J. said. “It’s been a long day.” He and Carlie slipped out of the bar, leaving me and Tinkie with the Thunder God. The tuxedoed man tapped the bar with his thumb as he scowled.

  “Who the heck is he?” Tinkie whispered.

  “An ass.” I liked brooding well enough, but I didn’t like it forced down my throat. When the waitress came to take our order, I buttonholed her. “Who is that guy?”

  “He just arrived. From out of town.”

  “Transylvania?” I asked. My wit was lost on her.

  “No, I think New Orleans. His name is Don Cipriano. He’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen.” She sashayed past him, her hips swaying just a little more than normal.

  Cipriano had the bad-boy appeal down to a science. I didn’t need Madame Tomeeka, Zinnia’s talented psychic, to tell me he was arrogant, overbearing, boorish, tormented, and aware of the figure he cut. In my younger days, he would have been like mainlining heroin. Now, though, I had Graf and a better understanding of the joys of a real relationship.

  “We’d better check the harbor and see if he came with a coffin filled with dirt,” I murmured to Tinkie.

  “He’s dangerous, all right.” Tinkie, too, had a weakness for handsome men, though her marriage to Oscar was solid.

  “As Aunt Loulane would say, ‘Look, look, but looking and getting are two different things.’ We can look all we want as long as we don’t touch.”

  “Righto,” she agreed. “But he is a perfect … specimen.”

  How correct she was. Broad shoulders, balanced features, big feet clad in polished boots. The tuxedo looked custom-tailored.

  With a mere tip of his head, he acknowledged us and stood. To my surprise, he approached our table. “Ladies, may I buy you a drink?”

  “We’ve ordered.” My protective shields were on full alert. This man was a force to be reckoned with, and he knew it.

  “May I join you?”

  “Please do.” Tinkie indicated a chair. “What brings you to Natchez, Mr. Cipriano?”

  “So, you know my name. I haven’t had the pleasure.”

  Tinkie made the introductions. “Natchez is a small town. I’m sure eighty percent of the population knows who you are.”

  “Should I be flattered or concerned?”

  “Depends on your intentions.” Tinkie was so much better at banter than I was. While I might be a better horsewoman, she had mastered the opposite-gender verbal-parry.

  “I have no intentions.” Don Cipriano signaled the waitress for another drink. There was something decidedly Old World in his manners. Old world and old money. I’d had my brush with both in the body of Hamilton Garrett V, a man I’d ultimately done wrong. Maybe it was a guilty conscience that made me try harder with Cipriano.

  “So you’re vacationing in Natchez?” I asked.

  “A smart man combines business and pleasure whenever possible.” His dark gaze drilled into me.

  “I grasp the pleasures of a visit to Natchez. I’m just curious about your business.” My deflector shields were taking a beating, but I could still fire back.

  “I’m a collector.”

  “Don’t tell me. Rare books?”

  His laughter was rich, espresso-strength. “Hardly. So you’re a reader?”

  His amusement didn’t totally mask the darkness that flitted in the depths of his eyes. “When I have time,” I said. “So what do you collect? Butterflies? Art?”

  “Nothing so exotic. Antiques. I have a store in New Orleans.” He patted his chest. “I normally carry a card, but the tuxedo…”

  “We love New Orleans.” Tinkie interjected a lighter tone into the conversation. “Sarah Booth and I had a case—”

  “A case?” He took the drink f
rom the waitress’s tray before she could put it down. “Are you doctors?”

  “Private investigators,” Tinkie said.

  “Is that why you’re in Natchez?” If his interest was feigned, he was a good actor.

  “Yes.”

  “Cheating husband? Missing wife? Murder?” he asked, and I thought I heard excitement in his tone.

  “Nothing so deadly.” Tinkie ate the last olive in her martini. “Just an insurance case. And we have much to do tomorrow, Sarah Booth. We should get some rest.”

  She was right. Tomorrow would be busy. We stood together. “Have a nice evening,” I said.

  “Ladies.” He executed a courtly little bow. “I hope our paths cross again.”

  3

  Tinkie retired to her room—and a long phone chat with Oscar. She was good at smoothing things over with her husband. I didn’t have that particular talent, so I decided against calling Graf. In all likelihood, he was still jammed in traffic on the road to the apartment he’d rented in Los Angeles. By a stroke of good fortune, he’d found a chic place within a reasonable drive from the studio. Due on the set early in the morning, he’d probably hit the hay as soon as he arrived home.

  Behind me, the soft rustle of fabric was followed by a distinctive British accent. “M’ lady, perhaps if you birthed a male heir, you could rest easy as Queen. As Loulane would say, ‘The proof is in the pudding.’ And no ruler can resist Delaney pudding.”

  “Jitty!” I whirled to find her bedecked, begowned, and bejeweled. She was stunning, even if the cut of the dress imprisoned her usually bodacious breasts. A scarf wound cunningly around her neck was anachronistic. “First the Wicked Witch of the West with a message from Disraeli. Now—”

  “My king threw me over because I didn’t conceive a son. Don’t let that be your fate.” Her elegant hands chopped the air and she made a gruesome noise.

  I wasn’t in the mood to banter historical trivia with Jitty, but it was pointless to argue. “So now you’re Anne of the Thousand Days. One of two Boleyn sisters given to King Henry in an effort to woo control of his power through sex.”

  “Anne lost her head.” Jitty touched the scarf at her throat.

  “And Mary lost her chance at true love.” Both sisters were tragic, in my book. Bred and bartered for the purpose of gaining money and power.

  “And all because they failed to do the bed boogie and get themselves with a male heir to the throne.” Jitty’s pretentious British accent was fading.

  “Doesn’t the male sperm determine the child’s gender?” I should have paid more attention in family planning class. “At any rate, I don’t have to worry about being the king’s consort.” I couldn’t imagine a parent willingly using me as a bargaining chip in a deadly game for a king’s fickle favor. People did amazing things for political clout. “So what’s shaking in the royal regions of the Great Beyond? Costume party?”

  “Guess again,” she said.

  Jitty seldom left Dahlia House. I’d learned she could travel wherever she chose, but she liked to be close to home, which in her case was the Delaney family cemetery on the grounds of my ancestral home. Jitty was there, along with Aunt Loulane, my parents, and a number of other deceased relatives.

  “Dahlia House was boring without me? You had no one to torment?”

  “What’s the story with the stolen necklace?” Jitty was good at answering a question with a question on a totally different topic.

  “Looks like the Levert sisters were careless and someone who knows the layout of the house and their habits broke in and swiped the jewelry.” I didn’t tell her I was puzzled by the fact that someone broke in again today, in broad daylight—and apparently took nothing.

  She glanced around the room. “Nice digs. I can see why you decided on a vacation night.”

  “We’re going home tomorrow.” The most recent burglary was not in our purview. We’d do our report, maybe a nice lunch in town, then book it back to Zinnia.

  “Good.” Jitty strolled across the room. I couldn’t help but admire her posture and carriage. Either her dress came with a corset that could make a limp noodle stand tall or Jitty was playing the role of Queen to the hilt. “Graf won’t like it when he figures out—”

  “Stop!” I put up a hand. “Stop now. Graf doesn’t own me nor does he tell me what to do.”

  “Can you say pigheaded?” Jitty reverted to a Delta drawl. “Girl, you are determined to ruin this, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve learned one thing, Jitty. I have to set my boundaries early. If I concede and go along with Graf’s whims, that’s tantamount to lying.”

  “Lyin’ might be the best mode here. If he ever sees how hardheaded you truly are, he’s gone run for the hills.”

  “Better sooner than later.”

  “Sarah Booth, haven’t you ever heard of a honeymoon period? Even the president of the United States gets cut a little slack when he first goes into office. You need to ease Graf into your personality. Hide the thorns, prickles, and warts until you got that golden band on your finger. Every Delta girl worth her salt knows this.”

  “My mother wouldn’t agree.”

  Jitty sighed. “Your daddy was a man in a million. James Franklin took pride in your mama’s spunk. Most men don’t want a woman with a personality like a cactus. He could handle your mama and her ways, but that bond doesn’t come along every day.”

  “I don’t deserve less. I think you’re selling Graf short.”

  Jitty peered through the window at the quiet Natchez street. It was a weekday, and with the shops closed, the town had settled into a late-summer snooze. “Consider his fears and concerns, Sarah Booth. That ain’t sellin’ out your personality, it’s showing regard for someone who loves you.”

  I couldn’t argue that. “Okay.”

  “Then get your butt home tomorrow.”

  I could see the downtown lights through her. She was fading, but she wasn’t pulling one of her famous quick-draw disappearances. She wavered and blinked and finally dissolved on a low, sweet laugh.

  “See you at Dahlia House,” I said to the empty room.

  * * *

  My sleep was troubled by dreams of a darkly handsome man. He stayed in the shadows, watching me, gliding in and out of a thick fog that weighed down my arms and legs like quicksand. I struggled, and he made no offer to help me.

  I awoke sweating and breathing hard to the ringing of the telephone on the nightstand. I answered automatically, still confused by my surroundings and oppressed by the sense of danger and helplessness from the dream.

  “Ms. Delaney, it’s Eleanor Levert.” Her voice was breathy with panic.

  The bedside clock showed nearly three a.m. “What’s wrong?”

  “Monica is missing. Has been for hours. The police won’t do anything.” She started to cry.

  “I’m sure she’s fine.” The words were rote, merely what someone says in such a situation. “Maybe she had a date.” The Levert sisters were extremely handsome women. I had no doubt suitors paid court in droves.

  “We don’t date anymore,” Eleanor said. “We both decided at fifty we’d had enough. We’re not man-haters or anything. It’s just that we have so many other interests to pursue. And we do everything together.”

  I’d pegged them for early forties. My, my, money and a life of luxury might not buy youth, but it sure kept the wrinkles and sags away. “When was the last time you saw Monica?”

  “She said she was going into the gardens to think,” Eleanor said. “That was just as dusk was falling.”

  “She never came back inside?” That was eight hours ago.

  “I went to my room. Monica insisted we pack for Geneva. She decided we had to escape Natchez before we were hurt. I got the suitcases from the attic, put hers in her room, and took mine. I got involved selecting my wardrobe for the trip. She wanted to head for New Orleans as soon as the insurance check came through. From there, we were going to Europe.” She fought to control the tremor in her voice but was
only partially successful. “What’s happened to her? What if she’s hurt?”

  “When did the police arrive?” I held the phone with one hand and grabbed my jeans with the other.

  “I finally called them about midnight. They said she wasn’t missing until twenty-four hours had passed.”

  “They refused to check it out?” Monica wasn’t a teenager likely to strike off after a spat with parents or boyfriend.

  “They think we’re insurance scammers and crooks.” Eleanor sounded defeated. “They aren’t interested in hunting for my sister.”

  “I’ll wake Tinkie and we’ll be there as soon as possible.” Monica might be perfectly safe at a hotel or apartment playing the cougar to some buff young man, but Eleanor was worried. Extremely worried.

  “Thank you,” she said before she hung up, and I thought there was just a tiny amount of relief in her voice.

  I pulled on my shoes and a sweater and knocked at Tinkie’s door. She appeared, hair tousled and a frown on her face. “Sarah Booth, what in heaven’s name are you doing up at this hour?”

  “Monica Levert has disappeared from Briarcliff. Eleanor is distraught, and the police won’t do anything until tomorrow.”

  Traces of sleep evaporated. “Let me get dressed.” I hunted for her practical shoes while she found the clothes she’d left in a trail on the carpet. Tinkie wasn’t a slob by any stretch, but her family, the Bellcases, had always had domestic help. Why hang up clothes when someone else would do it?

  To her credit, she was dressed in under two minutes, and we left the Eola and got in her car. As we approached Briarcliff, Tinkie slowed, using the Caddy’s high-beams to search the dense bushes. I’d never thought of camellias and azaleas as sinister, but these huge heritage shrubs were twenty feet tall. An army of invading Huns could hide in them.

  The car’s headlights threw moving shadows that gave me hope and then the creeps. Anyone or anything could be lurking in the towering vegetation.

  As we drew closer to the house, I caught a glimpse of it in the light of a gibbous moon that peeked through a scudding cloud cover. The dark gray stones glittered with a silvery cast, a place of half and full shadows. Not a single window held a light.