Charmed Bones

by Carolyn Haines

  “Are you still selling the manor to the Harringtons?” I asked.

  “No, I never intended to sell to them. We’re partners. That’s what sent Bob and Kitten over the edge. When I told them flatly that they would never get their hands on this land for a golf course, Bob lost his grip on his sanity.” He frowned. “I never thought he or Kitten would try to kill me. And why Esmeralda?” He turned to the writer. “Why did they try to kill you?”

  Esmeralda had been unnaturally quiet, and when the attention was focused on her, she seemed to withdraw even further. “I don’t know.”

  “Did you find something?” Tinkie pressed.

  “I found a lot of interesting things.” She looked at Trevor, and I thought I caught a glimmer of some real emotional connection. It was gone so quickly I couldn’t be sure.

  “You came to the manor to retrieve your personal belongings,” I said, remembering the sequence of events. “I told you I’d get them for you, but you didn’t wait. Why?”

  She inhaled but didn’t answer.

  “Why, Esmeralda?” Tinkie asked. “We need to know.”

  “The rosary beads I left hanging on the bedpost were from my modeling session for Trevor.”

  I remembered the necklace—and I knew where her painting was—in the secret hallway with a number of other valuable paintings. But I could keep a secret, too. “And?”

  “Kitten gave me the rosary for that portrait. She thought it would be provocative. You know, a nude saint wearing a rosary. I thought she was very clever.”

  “And?” Would this woman never move on to the nut of the story?

  “I saw that Fontana brat at the school board meeting. I was wearing the rosary Kitten gave me, and he laughed about how the beads themselves were made of a poisonous plant. That’s when I noticed that a couple of the beads were missing, and it occurred to me that was the poison used to kill Trevor. It was the perfect frame. I would have been blamed for his death. As it turned out, when I had a drink with Kitten she poisoned me, too. I would have also been dead so I couldn’t even defend my reputation.”

  I hated to give her credit, but I suspected she was onto something. “So you came back for the necklace, and…?”

  “Malvik came out of the wall. I was feeling sick, and the room was spinning. That’s the last thing I remember until I came to in the morgue at the hospital.”

  So Esmeralda hadn’t fallen from the third floor, she’d been hauled down there and dumped in the koi pond to make it look like she’d fallen. It was a miracle she hadn’t drowned.

  “I was just about to start the autopsy,” Doc said, “but I’d been through a similar scenario with Trevor, so I was better prepared when I detected a very weak pulse. I gave her the antidote, and she finally came around.”

  I turned to Trevor. “And you? How did you get to the orchard?”

  “I found a note from one of my models to meet her in the apple orchard. It was a cryptic note but the orchard was a place I sometimes rendezvoused with women, so it wasn’t an unusual request. When I got there, Kitten was waiting with a bottle of wine and the promise of some frisky fun. That’s all I remember. I woke up with Doc Sawyer’s ugly mug hovering over me. I have to say, I saw the crime-scene photographs of my face. Complete and abject fear. It’s given me inspiration for a whole new series of paintings—something along the lines of The Scream that shows the inner turmoil of landscapes. Of course, I’ll never abandon my female models. The female form embodies compassion and love and nurturing. These paintings will have tremendous commercial appeal.”

  And I didn’t doubt that for a single second. “Obviously Bob and Kitten want the dairy property, and I can see killing Trevor, if they thought he might testify that he and the Harringtons were in a legal partnership regarding the future of the land, but I don’t get this total crime spree. Why kill Esmeralda? And Faith?”

  Harold shook his head. “That I can’t answer. But once you figured out the land scam in Jackson with that subdivision and implicated Bob and Kitten, they had to know the jig was up. They were willing to sacrifice anyone who got in the way.”

  At least Tinkie and I were getting credit for finding Claudell Myers and the multimillion-dollar scam on the Pearl River. “Coleman and Doc should have told me what was going on.”

  “We took your original plan to use the witches to scare a confession from Bob and … elaborated a little,” Coleman said. “It came down exactly the way you’d envisioned.”

  “Except that I was left in the dark and nearly had a heart attack.”

  “I think your heart’s a lot more durable than you think,” Doc said.

  “Were you in on this?” I asked Tinkie.

  “No. Not until Coleman told me.”

  “But you were,” I said to Doc. “You knew Trevor and Esmeralda weren’t dead.”

  Doc’s grin disappeared.

  “If it’s any consolation, we didn’t know,” Hope said, putting a hand on Charity’s shoulder. “I really thought they’d killed Faith. They were going to pin the whole real-estate mess on her, just like they did with that Meyers woman who’s still in prison. Faith did help Mr. Keel sell his land. It was one of the last things she did as his broker and financial advisor. It was all aboveboard. But if you and Tinkie hadn’t stepped in,” she put a hand on my shoulder, “they would have gotten away with this and put the whole blame on Faith.” She turned to Coleman. “If anyone has a reason to be mad, it’s me. They let me think my sister was dead.”

  “The good news,” Coleman said, striving for a positive note, “is that I’ve called the Rankin County district attorney and filled him in on the Fontanas and the subdivision land scam. Claudell Myers should get a new trial if the charges aren’t dismissed altogether.” He approached me but I backed up. “You and Tinkie broke the case, Sarah Booth. I just engineered the confession.”

  My gut was in such knots that I didn’t know what I felt—except pain. I understood the need to leave people out of the loop sometimes. I’d been guilty of it myself. But Coleman was … my lover. The man I’d just let into my bed and my life. And Tinkie was my partner. The closest thing to family I had, other than Jitty.

  The knots in my stomach tightened even more.

  “I know that look,” Tinkie said, coming toward me. “Just stop. Right now. You can’t hold it against everyone that we did what we thought was best when you do it all the time and expect us to understand. I remember last month when there was a dead body in your driveway—and you decided it was wet and cold and safer for me not to know until morning. Ring any bells?”

  I looked to Harold for support, but he drained his Cosmo and refused to be pulled in. At last I looked at Coleman. I saw only hope. And that was the one thing I couldn’t refuse. “Okay. I get it. But what role does Malvik play? Was it him or Spurlock who slashed up my door and window and tried to scare me?”

  “It wasn’t Malvik,” Faith said. “He was a double agent. He was working for us. Once we realized the Fontanas had ‘killed’ Trevor, we knew they’d try forging a deed. You found the deed in the old trunk in the secret room. Spurlock stole it from you and knocked you out. Then Malvik stole it from Spurlock and took it to his hotel room to hide it until we could prove it was a forgery. Now that Trevor is alive, all of that is moot.”

  “Malvik is a good guy?” That one was hard to swallow.

  “He is,” Faith assured me. “So now it’s all tied up. We know what happened and who is responsible. The nightmare is over.”

  Tinkie rushed me and pulled me into a hug and Coleman hugged us both. The Harrington sisters refilled our glasses, and we drank a toast to putting the Fontanas and Spurlock behind bars. After we’d had a chance to warm by the fire, Coleman motioned us to circle round.

  “Let’s put all of the pieces in place,” he said. “Sarah Booth and Tinkie have information I don’t know. Faith knows a few things.”

  A knock on the door made us all jump, but Coleman went to open it. He returned with a grinning Budgie. “Man, when
I found Charity and Hope in the tunnels, I thought they were dead. Thank goodness they weren’t really hurt.” He took a drink from Charity and grinned wider. He wore the brown uniform of a Sunflower County deputy and it was clear he was proud to be a member of Coleman’s team.

  “To Budgie,” Coleman said, holding up his glass.

  “To Budgie,” we all echoed, sipping the Purple Zombie concoction that would be sure to extract a price in the morning.

  “Where did you hide Esmeralda and Trevor?” I asked Doc. The logistics of this great deception intrigued me.

  “In the morgue for a while, as they were recuperating. They were badly dehydrated and needed medical care. But when I kept ‘eating’ three hospital breakfasts and three lunches, I had to move them out. Cece took them in after the first twenty-four hours.”

  Ah, I wondered where my journalistic friend might be. Afraid of the consequences of her betrayal, she was lying low. And well she should. “Cece knew and didn’t tell me!”

  “She didn’t have a choice,” Doc said. “I put her in a tight spot. She didn’t want to do it without telling you, Sarah Booth. I called on her journalistic code. There’s a bond between reporters, or at least good reporters, that they will help another journalist in trouble. I asked Cece to honor that bond with Esmeralda.”

  “She made it clear she didn’t really consider me a journalist,” Esmeralda said, “but she protected me anyway. She showed me what a sisterhood journalism is.”

  “And Cece and Esmeralda are going to work together to create a blog,” Trevor said. “They’ll explore the world of celebrities, in art and entertainment, and spice it up with gossip and a few alternative facts. Millie is going to contribute.”

  I couldn’t put a damper on the obvious enthusiasm in the room. “Okay, but remember this. I get five free passes on screwing up by not telling people things. Five. And no one had better fuss at me. Got it?”

  “To Sarah Booth,” Coleman said.

  “To Sarah Booth!” And we all took a drink.

  “What will happen to Bob and Kitten?” Harold asked. “I mean, they’re going down on fraud and embezzlement and god knows what else in the Jackson subdivision case. But what will you charge him with?”

  “I always knew Bob was willing to do whatever was necessary to get ahead. His whole tenure on the school board was about locating new schools near his developments,” Coleman said, “but I truly never figured him for a killer. He’d cheat his mama out of her heart medicine if he could make a buck, but a killer…” He shook his head. “He was involved in the plot to kill Esmeralda and Trevor. Bob will face at least two counts of conspiring to commit murder and kidnapping on Hope and Charity for sure. I’ll have to get with the district attorney to see what additional charges we can support. Kitten is in this up to her ears. She supplied the rosary made from the poisonous beads, and she slipped the poison in Esmeralda’s drink and Trevor’s wine. She’ll face attempted-murder charges. Spurlock will be charged with first-degree assault for certain. It will take some digging for Budgie to suss out the role he played in Fontana Construction and Development’s business dealings, but he’s tied into that Jackson land deal.”

  “Malvik has always been weird, but he’s not a bad guy,” Hope added. “I hope you don’t charge him, but if you do, I’ll help with his bail.”

  “There’s one thing I don’t get.” The tangled thread of this case had taken me through snarls I’d never foreseen. “How did you sisters find out about Musgrove Manor?”

  Faith refilled her glass before she answered. “Mr. Keel introduced us, though I never met the Fontanas and only dealt with a woman named Lisbet Bailey, who I now know is Claudell Myers. At any rate, Mr. Keel was getting too old to manage the timber cuttings and replantings, even with his foreman. It looked like a good price to unload the land, but we were always very clear about the floodplain. The development company chose to ignore the truth.”

  So the last connection became clear. “Why did you leave your career?”

  “I was tired of the pressure of the money world, and when I found out about my two sisters in Louisiana, we reconnected and I left the investment world behind.”

  “Did you know what the Fontanas were up to?” Tinkie asked.

  Faith shook her head. “I did not. But who would believe me. I knew if there were a true investigation, I’d be caught up in it. It was so much easier to just disappear and become someone else. Faith Harrington instead of Ophelia Marsh. But in working with the Fontanas, I learned about the dairy here and when my sisters wanted to start a boarding school, I knew this was the perfect place.”

  “Plus, you could put it to Bob and Kitten Fontana by getting the very property they wanted so badly,” Esmeralda pointed out. “I like that. Revenge is always a fine motivator.”

  “I admit it. We had what Bob wanted so badly. He went on and on about how this was close enough to Memphis and the football weekends at Oxford, Mississippi, to be a premier development. He envisioned a golf course that would host championship games. The PGA. That’s all he talked about. The houses around the course would be only for billionaires. It was a huge dream, an obsession.”

  “One that he was ultimately willing to do anything to achieve,” Tinkie said.

  I didn’t feel sorry for Bob one whit. Given the chance, I would get Roscoe to pee on his head again. “Is Faith going to be charged with anything regarding that land deal?” I asked Coleman.

  “Not at this time. But there’s a lot of investigating left to do. If she violated investment laws, I’ll have to report it to the Florida authorities.”

  “That’s understood,” Faith said.

  “But she didn’t do anything illegal,” Hope said. “We know that.”

  It was nice they had confidence in their half-sibling, but I wondered if it was misplaced. Coleman would get to the bottom of it. Tinkie and I had earned our paychecks, and I could only say I was glad I’d deposited the money from Kitten and the Pickingill Society and that the checks had cleared.

  “What about that painting of you?” Harold asked Esmeralda. “You were so hot to get it from Trevor that you sued him.”

  “I just wanted an excuse to be around him.” She simpered as she looked over her shoulder at Trevor. “I’ve loved him for a long time. Now that we’ve shared a near-death experience together, we’re going to work out the kinks in our relationship.”

  Tinkie and I both made the sign of the cross—used to ward off vampires—with our fingers. “Do not give a single detail of those kinks,” Tinkie said to laughter.

  “The painting is here at the manor,” I said. “There’s a short hallway—”

  “Loose lips, Sarah Booth,” Trevor said, and I knew he meant to show Esmeralda the painting in a more private setting.

  “What about that rosary? Is it really poisonous?” I asked.

  “It is.” Doc had the floor. “An interesting history. Budgie told me all about it.” He nodded at the new deputy.

  “The plant is abrus precatorius, also known as rosary peas, the devil’s licorice, and a number of other names. In the past, they actually made rosary beads from the peas of the plant. It was high art to be able to carve and decorate the peas without damaging them, and I guess the poisonous nature of the bead made the religious use more powerful. They’re highly toxic if the pea is broken. And several peas were missing from Esmeralda’s necklace.”

  “That’s the poison used on Trevor and Esmeralda,” Doc said. “Faith wasn’t poisoned, just sedated. Trevor had no knowledge of the deadly beads, but Kitten and Bob did. They gave the rosary to Esmeralda, another ace in the hole if they needed to set someone up for murder.”

  “If Faith wasn’t poisoned, why was she hanged?” I asked.

  “We pretended to hang her to give the whole zombie reanimation more gusto,” Coleman said.

  “Plots within plots within plots. You’re sure Bob and Kitten are the source of all of this?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Coleman, Budgie, and Doc all answer
ed at once. “And they’re now locked in the hoosegow, along with Spurlock. Malvik is awaiting judgment. It’s finally over.”

  Exhaustion hit me without warning, and I suddenly felt as if my spine had turned to Jell-O. I noticed Tinkie hadn’t touched her drink, and yet she looked tired and pale. It was time to get home.

  “What about the boarding school?” Harold asked. “Is it still a go?”

  “Without a doubt,” Hope said. “We’ll be in business full swing by September. We’re hoping for at least fifty students. Millie at the café has agreed to train a cook for us and help us get going. The county agent is coming out next week to help us lay out our summer garden. Everything is fine.”

  “Good.” I was happy to hear the focus on nature would actually happen. “I’m heading home.” But doubt still lingered. There were just too many timelines that didn’t jibe, too many motives that seemed skewed. I’d have to sit down and lay it all out. But who had shot at Kitten and Bob the night Tinkie went over? Bob was drunk—he wasn’t pretending. And Kitten was the one who called Tinkie. Of course, she could have made it up.

  And I supposed Spurlock had been clawing up my door and window. It would just take more sorting than I had energy to provide right now. I wanted to take the victory and go home.

  We all stood. Faith put her arm around her sisters as they started to bid us farewell. I had only one more question.

  “Who untied Spurlock? I left him in the room where he had Harold’s cousins.”

  Before anyone could answer, a sharp report sounded and the window shattered. Red bloomed on Faith’s chest and her eyes widened. She tried to step forward, but she sank to her knees and then fell over.

  “She’s been shot!” Hope cried, kneeling down by her sister.

  “Everyone on the floor,” Coleman ordered.

  27

  Doc rushed to attend Faith, and her sisters scurried on their hands and knees to collect towels and whatever Doc said he needed. The wound was in her chest, but I had no idea if it had damaged her heart or lungs. Doc applied pressure to stanch the flow of blood.