Charmed Bones

by Carolyn Haines

  “Sorry,” Tinkie said. “The wages of sin…” The strangest look crossed her face as we both thought of the note left in Kitten’s mailbox. It was like a little comment bubble with a lightbulb had been shared between us. The light clicked on.

  “What does Lisbet Bailey look like?” I asked.

  “Like some Jersey Shore meatball.”

  I wasn’t sure I understood what that meant, but a very ugly picture was starting to become clear in my head. “Does she look like the TV show person Snooki?”

  Claudell nodded. “I think Snooki is her hero. She wore short, tight dresses, stacked sandals, lots of ugly print and bling, huge earrings, and that stupid hair poof. I have to say, when I was playing the part, I put a little class in it.” Her hand went to her hair. “Now look at me. I haven’t had my hair done in forever.”

  She certainly wasn’t ready for her glamour shots, but I also wasn’t sympathetic. I was on a hot lead. “If I showed you a picture, could you identify Lisbet?”

  “Maybe. What’s in it for me?”

  “Maybe your freedom,” Tinkie snapped. “We don’t have to help you and I’m pretty much ready to walk out the door.”

  “No one helps me out of the goodness of her heart. That’s one lesson I’ve learned the hard way. What are you two up to?”

  “We’re private investigators and we’re working on a case.” I scrolled through my phone until I found the photos from the school board meeting. There was Kitten Fontana, big as life and twice as tawdry. “Is this Lisbet?”

  Claudell looked at the tiny screen for a long time. “That’s her. I’d begun to believe I made up how cheap she looks. But there she is, in all her glory.”

  “You’re sure that’s Lisbet Bailey?”

  “Positive. She looks like she’s in a fight at some meeting. What’s she doing in that picture?”

  I ignored her question. “Bob Fontana had an invoice for two grand. It was nine months ago.”

  Her answer was a blank stare. “I didn’t do that.”

  “Why would he have that payment in his books?”

  She slowly shook her head. “If I’d somehow gotten someone to listen to me, a reporter or someone, maybe they put in payments to make me look guilty. Or maybe there really is a Lisbet Bailey who’s paying them off. All I know is that I don’t have two hundred dollars to pay anyone.”

  “How much longer is your sentence?” Tinkie asked.

  “Ten years.”

  “We’ll do what we can.” It was time to hit the road. Kitten Fontana had some questions to answer and I couldn’t wait to get Coleman to ask them. I just couldn’t believe she and Bob had successfully pulled off such a huge scam and not one single person had caught on to it. Claudell Myers had lost everything, including her past. The wages of sin, indeed.

  * * *

  There was still daylight left when Tinkie and I got back to Zinnia. We picked up the critters—it was either that or risk being eaten alive in the middle of the night—and drove toward one place I’d never in a million years thought I might go. Budgie Burton’s house.

  The former substitute history teacher lived in a small, older subdivision on the south side of Zinnia. The houses had been built during World War II, and some were in not great repair. The entire place would look better in the spring when the trees were leafed out, but it was pretty barren-looking now. Budgie’s house was neatly maintained with painted shutters and an edged sidewalk. The flower beds had been turned with the promise of some bright color in the future.

  Budgie Burton had left the teaching profession and taken a job at the state prison in Parchman. It was a position that Sunflower County High School had prepared him well for since a lot of my classmates’d had criminal tendencies.

  Budgie had agreed to meet with us and talk about Musgrove Manor and the architecture of the houses he considered part of “the spy network.”

  Budgie’s concession to the passing years was less hair, a tad more stomach, and a much calmer expression. He still wore khakis and long-sleeved dress shirts with sweater vests. His wardrobe had earned him a lot of torment from the students, but he’d never changed. He was clean-shaven and neat, and he ushered us into his living room, which was also orderly. Looking at him now, I realized he was probably only in his early forties. He’d seemed so old when he taught me.

  “So you actually ended up in an honest profession, Sarah Booth,” he said. “I had some sincere conversations with your aunt about your future.”

  That was a startling bit of information. “Aunt Loulane thought I’d grow up to be a criminal?” She’d never uttered a word.

  “Not a criminal. She was afraid you’d never be happy. That you’d never trust another person enough again to be happy. You absorbed that terrible shock and loss and you went on. You wouldn’t let anyone help you.”

  I swallowed a sudden lump in my throat. I’d had a difficult time after my parents’ deaths. That was true. But I didn’t recall rebuffing any offers of help. Then again, I’d been a shy and silent young girl who grew into a physically active teenager. I’d hurled myself into acting and sports and big dreams in New York. If anyone tried to talk to me about my feelings, I shut them down. I did remember that much.

  “Lots of people reached out to you, Sarah Booth. You just weren’t in a place where you could take a hand. You had to struggle through those emotions on your own.”

  Funny how my perception of Budgie Burton had missed so much of his depth and kindness. But I didn’t want to talk about me. “We’re here about Musgrove Manor and what you might know about secret passages or hidden rooms in the manor.” I had to move the topic off my personal past. The swell of emotion I felt was genuinely uncomfortable.

  “Based on the year the manor house was built and that it was patterned after a famous priory that did contain hidden passages, I’d say there’s a better than average chance you’ll find something. The border wars between Scotland and England resulted in a lot of tunnels and passages where those trapped in one of the large estate houses could either hide until it was safe to come out, or escape. Those passages were also employed in World War Two.”

  “Where should I look for rooms or passages?” I asked.

  “At Musgrove Manor, I’d look for hidden staircases that led to tunnels that go out into the barns and tractor sheds. That would make the most sense. From the barns, someone could easily move into the woods.” He took a breath. “I heard some witches had taken over the house.”

  I didn’t feel like getting into a debate over the merits of Wicca, so I changed the subject. “You know Trevor is dead?”

  “Yeah, it’s all over town he was frightened to death by those witches.”

  And we were back to the witches. “Would you like to meet them, Budgie?” It felt only a little weird calling him by his first name, but I thought I’d found the bait that would lure him into helping us.

  “Yes.” He had no hesitation. “I’m open to all kinds of spirituality and I must admit a real curiosity about those Harrington sisters. Who would come to an ultra-religious community like Zinnia and proclaim themselves pagans? I’m fascinated by either their courage or their ignorance.”

  “They aren’t so different from us,” I told him. “But if you want to meet them, I can make that happen. Will you help me search for a secret passage?”

  “Sure.” He looked around. “I’m off tomorrow. How would that be?”

  “I’ll arrange it,” I said.

  Tinkie had been strangely silent during the exchange, but she rejoined the conversation. “Budgie, were we bad kids when you had to deal with us?”

  “A lot of the time you were bored. Sarah Booth, too. It’s hard to be well-behaved when you’re held captive somewhere and left without a challenge.”

  “If you had a child, would you support the public schools or go with a charter school?”

  My stomach flipped as I realized that Tinkie had spent the last fifteen minutes not furthering our investigation or even day-tripping to the pas
t, but spinning out the future of her would-be child and his/her education. This wasn’t a theoretical question. She was making plans.

  “Public education has been the backbone of America’s superiority across the globe. In past generations, every citizen had an opportunity for a basic education, and that’s been our greatest strength. That’s not true anymore, though. Rural children, those growing up in inner cities, and those from poor backgrounds are being left behind. If parents are allowed to take the tax money meant for public education and spend it at charter schools, it will wreck the public school system. Then the divide between the haves and the have-nots will only grow wider.”

  I had a sudden memory of Budgie Burton standing in front of our raucous eighth grade class. We were little more than hormonal thugs, squirming and sweating and all too aware of the romantic intrigues that swirled over us. I wondered how he’d restrained himself from bonking us on the head simply to get our estrogen- and testosterone-addled attention.

  “Why did you even want to teach us?” I asked him.

  “I like kids. There was so much potential in every classroom I ever walked into. I’m not the brightest lamp on the street, but I know that if we don’t teach our youngsters history—the true history of this country—the good, bad, and ugly, we’ll forever be caught in a loop of repetition. Sanitized history books are useless and that’s what’s being taught now. America never made a mistake. The Native Americans wanted us to take their land. Slavery is just another form of migration. Bull crap like that.”

  I was smote by a memory of Budgie handing out excerpts from a book called Black Like Me. He’d been talking about the black experience in America, from slavery to the racial conflict of the 1960s. He’d created a stir and some parents had complained to the school board. Budgie had defended his choice of material with much the same speech he’d just given. I remembered Aunt Loulane had gone to the school board meeting to stand with him. At thirteen, I’d found the whole business tedious and silly. The thought of trying to see life from the perspective of another person had seemed simply unnecessary. Budgie had been the first person to point out to me how such an attitude was a rare privilege awarded to only one segment of our society. For his trouble, he’d been sued.

  “And now you work at a prison.” Guilt at my own complicity knotted my stomach. I should have fought for him, too.

  “That lawsuit didn’t go anywhere, Sarah Booth. I left teaching because the pay at the prison is better and to be honest, the work is less stressful these days. Also I’m teaching some GED classes and the inmates I work with want to learn.” He shook his head. “That’s a helpful attitude.”

  “Glad you have a sense of humor,” Tinkie said.

  “You two were good kids.” He smiled and years fell away. “Tinkie, you were destined to be the social leader of the Delta. Sarah Booth, you could have gone either way, criminal or force for justice. You picked the latter. Your aunt would be so relieved. At any rate, I’m glad you came back to the Delta, Sarah Booth. I know it must not have been easy.”

  I nodded. “In some ways, very easy. In other ways, difficult.” Expectations were always the worst thing I had to overcome. I’d returned home because I had nowhere else to go. But the home I’d known was forever gone. What I’d found was a house in need of repair work and a snarky ghost who tried to get me wed and bred before I’d unpacked my suitcase. No loving aunt or parents met me. No network of high school routines to instill some order in my life. Still, it could have been a lot worse.

  “We find our path, don’t we?” Budgie asked. “While I’ve been working at the prison I’ve had the time and energy to write my book about the feudal system in the old South. I’ve gotten a nibble from a publisher.”

  “That’s terrific.” I was pleased for my old substitute teacher. “We’ll pick you up in the morning for a jaunt over to Musgrove Manor.”

  “See you then.”

  He showed us out and stood in the doorway as we drove away. Because I had no food in the house or any intention of cooking, we swung by Millie’s on the way home and took to-go plates for us and the critters.

  Cooking wasn’t on Tinkie’s agenda either, but Oscar definitely needed sustenance for what she had in mind.

  18

  When I pulled up at Dahlia House after dropping off Tinkie and Chablis, I wanted only to slog into the house and spend a few quiet minutes talking to Coleman on the phone. What I really wanted was for him to call me, to tease me gently about the intimacy we’d shared, to show that it had meant something to him. Radio silence after sex is one thing that can drive a woman to mayhem. And I hadn’t really talked with Coleman since we’d made love. Not really. Sure I’d seen him at a crime scene, exchanged facts, all conversation he could have had with DeWayne. My insecurities had begun to circle their wagons and draw closer to me. I hated that my brain even went to that place of doubt—was it just something he preferred not to pursue? Had he had second thoughts?

  If I’d been a cuticle chewer, my digits would be bleeding. As it was, only my poor, doubting heart was leaking fluids all over the cold front porch.

  I unlocked the door and stepped into the perfume of roses and a roomful of flowers. Vases of red roses, stargazer lilies, and of course, dahlias and zinnias, had been set in the foyer and by the wet bar where I would be sure to see them. The delicious rose perfume made me stop, close my eyes, and simply inhale.

  Coleman!

  I had no doubt who’d delivered them, and the shadow fell away from my heart and I felt as if a belt that had tightened across my lungs was suddenly released. Coleman was thinking of me—good thoughts. Good enough to raid the entire stock of flowers at Blooming Things, Zinnia’s florist.

  I snapped a few photos and sent a quick thank-you text. I kept it short and fun. He would call when he had time. Reassured that if Coleman didn’t respect me, at least he still liked me, I basked in the beauty of the flowers. What a relief it was to drop the burden of self-doubt. And I wondered, not for the first time, why I was prone to doubt myself.

  “Jitty!” I called for my haint. I wanted someone to share the flowers with and to gloat a little. Jitty was always deviling me about my man skills. I wasn’t about to send photos to Tinkie or Cece. That was a waste of a proper impact. I would invite them over for coffee in the morning and they could discover the garden of delights Coleman had created for me. They would be suitably impressed.

  It occurred to me that Tinkie had to know what my lawman was up to—she must have given Coleman her key to Dahlia House, after all. Those two! She hadn’t even hinted. I would pay her back in kind at the first opportunity.

  “Jitty!” That she gave no response didn’t bode well. She was either engaged in business of the Great Beyond, or she was plotting something tragic for me.

  The emptiness of the house stopped me for a moment. This is what it would be like if Jitty ever disappeared. It nagged at me that, somehow, I would violate the rules of the Great Beyond and Jitty, too, would be taken from me. But so far, it seemed that Jitty was my companion, boss, protector, and albatross to carry. And right now she was absent from my life, which left me a little sad.

  I gave myself a pep talk. “Grow up, Sarah Booth. You’re insecure about Coleman; you’re missing Jitty. Take it upstairs and get in bed. Tomorrow is another day.”

  I sniffed the beautiful roses and the stargazers, then took my own good advice, hustled up the stairs with the dog, cat, and our takeout, and jumped into bed. Nothing like a midnight snack and warm critters to snuggle with. Tomorrow I’d figure out what was what with Jitty and what I needed to do next with Coleman.

  Five minutes after I stretched out, I was gone.

  I awoke to the sound of huge waves crashing against a high bluff. Snuggled deep under quilts, I looked toward the bedroom window where flimsy curtains danced in a chill wind. Who’d opened the damn windows? What was going on?

  The sound of a wild and raging sea was even more confusing. I was smack-dab in the middle of the world’s mo
st fertile alluvial soil. There was no salt water near. No waves to crash or rocks to break over. The Delta was flat! But no matter—the sea ran wild outside my bedroom.

  When the first, chilling strains of the theme music vibrated throughout the room, I knew instinctively that I was in big trouble. I recognized the soundtrack from the old daytime soap, Dark Shadows. Reruns of the show had terrorized me as a child and pushed Aunt Loulane into forbidding me to watch them. Of course, forbidding me anything was the surest way to make certain I’d do it. I’d watched the Dark Shadows tapes over at a girlfriend’s house, unable to steer clear of the compelling chill of Barnabas Collins and his star-crossed love.

  I knew the dark and twisted secrets of the cast like an old forgotten song. The wavering music compelled me, but it also meant that Barnabas Collins was somewhere in the near vicinity, waiting to drink my blood.

  I sat up slowly in bed, aware that Sweetie Pie slumbered on the floor and Pluto snored lightly on the pillow beside mine. The animals hadn’t heard the music and sea—or if they had, they weren’t disturbed by it. Perhaps because they’d never watched the television show.

  Slight movement in a corner of the room made the hair on my neck tingle. A slender blond woman, her hair piled in ringlets, wore an aqua peignoir that fluttered in the wind from the open window. She held something in her hand. I couldn’t discern what it was and I was literally too scared to move.

  “You’ll never leave here,” she said, stepping into a shaft of moonlight so that I could see the doll in her left hand. In her right was a long, sharp needle. “I’ll control him by keeping the child sick.” She slid the needle into the doll’s shoulder. “And another here.”

  “Hey! Stop that.” I made a move toward her but she whirled away.

  She was a beautiful woman, but the glare she gave me could have curdled milk. “You will not interfere. The future is predetermined, and Barnabas is mine. I will curse him so that he never finds true love.”