Them Bones

by Carolyn Haines

  Dahlia House was beautiful; Knob Hill was the Hollywood version of Southern architecture. The porch fronted the entire first story, a sweep of gray boards that looked, in the waning afternoon light, as if they’d been freshly painted. The columns that supported the second-floor balcony were stout and white. Knob Hill was in excellent repair for a ghost house.

  I was surprised when I found the gates open. I’d anticipated driving by for a look, and then proceeding on to the tiny community of Bunker to find the people who had once staffed the great house.

  Since the gates were open, I decided to detour for a closer look at the place where Hamilton Garrett had spent his formative years. I couldn’t help but wonder how Europe had compared to this kingdom. For all of the culture and glamour of the great Continental cities, it would not have been an easy trade for me.

  I got out of the car, more to stretch my legs than with any purpose in mind. Curiosity led me up the steps to peer in the front windows. Eight feet in height, the windows had been designed to open from floor level to allow the Delta breezes to blow through the house during the hot summers.

  Through the lacy patterns of the sheers, I could make out a few details of the interior, but the gauzy panels and approaching darkness made it hard to see inside clearly.

  I moved along the front porch, satisfying my nosiness without pretense. I was snooping. But then that was what I was getting paid to do. I rather liked this job. I moved back to the glass panes on either side of the front door, surprised to see a suitcase beside the stairs. It should have alerted me, but instead my gaze went directly to a unique sculpture at the foot of the staircase. In clear and frosted glass, the woman stood against a stiff wind, her hair blowing and her hand attached to a tree trunk laced with vines. The statue caught the fading light, and her glass skin glowed pink. I was transfixed by the sight of her, until a motion halfway up the stairs caught my eye. In contrast to the statue, the man standing on the curving sweep of stairs seemed made of metal. Where she was filled by and reflected the light, he seemed to drink it in. He stepped slowly down the stairs, his gaze pinning me. Unable to look away, I felt as if an electric current bonded us. He began to move faster.

  I heard his feet pounding toward me. The front door flew open and I turned, my body already shifting toward the edge of the porch. I could jump to the ground without injury. It was only three or four feet. Escape was the only sensible action.

  I made it three steps before I felt his hand on my shoulder. The fingers were savage, gripping hard through muscle and clamping on bone. The pain made me stagger, and I went down on one knee, finally looking up to see the devil that gripped me in his talons.

  The face that stared down at me was wild with fury. Dark hair curled around a face contorted with anger. Green eyes burned with fevered emotion and his grip tightened, forcing me to cry out as my body curled into itself and away from the pain.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Who sent you?”

  He must have realized that his grip precluded any verbal response because he relaxed most of the pressure, retaining only enough to lift me to my feet.

  My first impulse was to knee him in the groin as hard as I could. I probably wouldn’t get away, but it would provide a slight payback. But then, revenge wasn’t worth feeling his strong fingers clench around my neck. I settled for slapping his hand away from my shoulder. “You’re hurting me!”

  “Once again, who are you?” he asked, releasing me.

  There was a hint of accent, something not definable. I took a breath and looked up at him. Rage had been replaced by caution. The change in his features was remarkable. The man who stood before me was handsome. Tinkie’s phrase, “a dark man,” slipped into my mind. There was no better description, physical or emotional. Blood suffused his olive complexion, and the generous lips of his mouth were straight with challenge. He was not a man to tamper with. I knew that instantly, even as I became fully aware of his broad chest, the large hands clenched at his side, the leanness of hip and thigh that spoke of physical strength.

  There was impatience in green eyes that also held a warning. He was a dangerous man, and I had better have the right answers to his questions. The thrill was delicious.

  “My name is Sarah Booth Delaney, of Dahlia House. And who are you?” Tit for tat. A powerful man is much like a horse—never show them fear.

  “Why are you trespassing on my property?”

  I had enough sense to hear the operative pronoun in his question. So this was Hamilton Garrett the Fifth. In the flesh. I had to come up with a story, and fast.

  “I had hoped to find you or someone from your staff at home,” I said. “Cece Dee Falcon asked me to do a story on the Christmas season parties for this area. Since you’ve returned home, the newspaper wanted to know if you’re planning on having a fěte here at Knob Hill?”

  It was weak, but it was better than nothing. And Cece would stand behind me if I offered her some tidbit of gossip.

  Hamilton’s left eyebrow lifted. “Knob Hill has been closed for nineteen years. Why would you think we’d have a party this holiday?”

  “My thought was it wouldn’t hurt to ask.” I smiled and wished that I’d had a little more experience playing weak and helpless. He would have recognized that as a lie, too, but he would have been honor bound to respond to it. That was assuming that a potential murderer was still adhering to the Code of the South.

  “Delaney,” he mused, never taking his gaze off me. “I know who you are.”

  “Of course you do,” I said. “I remember the 1979 Christmas parade when you drove Queen Treena in your daddy’s white Caddy convertible.” Now this was firmer ground. We were trading pedigrees. The crisis was over, though my body still trembled at the thought of his touch.

  “My last Christmas in Sunflower County,” he said, and there was a coldness in his voice that made me wish I’d picked another memory. Hamilton stepped back from me. “There will be no parties at Knob Hill. Please don’t bother us again.”

  “Are you home for good?”

  His features hardened. “My comings and goings are no one’s business. Particularly not a newspaper gossip columnist. Take my advice: Stay off my property, or the consequences will be dire.” He stepped back and away and reentered the house. The door slammed with a good, solid thunk.

  Walking back to the car, I was aware that my shoulder throbbed. Once the car door was locked, I stretched the neck of my blouse down and saw the clear marks of his fingers. The bruises would be colorful.

  Cruising down the gracious curve of the drive, I kept glancing in the rearview mirror. Knob Hill stood like a mammoth black fortress against the silvery night sky. Even as I stared at it, a single light blinked on in a third-floor window. I found my teeth chattering and I turned on the car heater. The falling night had stolen the day’s warmth.

  And Hamilton Garrett had stolen mine. My fingers were icy as I gripped the wheel and turned right toward Bunker. I still intended to find the people who’d once worked for the Garretts.

  I shared one thing with Harold Erkwell—a grim determination that only grew stronger with resistance. Now I was vested in the truth of what had happened nearly two decades ago. Hamilton Garrett had touched my life and left his mark—embedded in my flesh.

  Bunker was a four-way stop that featured a gas station/convenience store, a video rental that sold livestock feed, and cotton fields that seemed to stretch forever. The store was open and the owner told me Amos Henry, the Knob Hill groundskeeper, lived on a small farm two miles to the west.

  As I cruised toward the Mississippi River, I found myself replaying the images of Hamilton, the dark master of Knob Hill. He was a man a woman wouldn’t forget, and I understood Tinkie’s fascination with him. But he was also a hard man, one who demanded satisfaction. I hoped, for Claire’s sake, that he was not her father.

  At the juncture of county road 33, I saw my turnoff. The Henry farm, from what I could see by the car’s headlights, was neat as a pin.
The small farmhouse had a welcome glow, and I found myself eager to step into the warmth the house promised.

  My knock was answered by a woman who could have been fifty or seventy. “Can I help you?” she asked.

  I identified myself, honestly this time, and explained that I was looking for information on the Garrett family. She didn’t ask why I wanted the facts, and I didn’t tell her.

  “You’ll need to talk to Amos,” she said, pushing the screen door open for me to enter.

  The house was warm and filled with the smell of good cooking.

  “We’re having some leftovers for supper,” she said. “If you don’t mind eating in the kitchen …”

  I certainly didn’t. I followed her and took the place she indicated as she filled a plate at the stove and put it down in front of me. Turkey, dressing, ham, sweet potatoes—all the traditional foods. But each just different enough from my own cooking to make them interesting.

  An older man sat to my right, and he nodded and smiled but continued eating. It struck me that his priorities were right, and as soon as Mrs. Henry took a seat, we all gave the food our primary attention. We made small talk about the weather, the coming year, farming, and the price of cotton.

  “Wonderful,” I said when my plate was empty.

  “She wants to know about the Garretts,” Mrs. Henry said. “She’s from Dahlia House. One of the Delaneys over at Zinnia.”

  “I knew your father,” Henry said. I thought there was a hint of sadness in his eyes as he looked at me. “He was a good man. A fair man. He wasn’t afraid of helping others.”

  “He was like that,” I agreed.

  “You got some problem with the Garretts?” He sipped at the cup of coffee his wife placed before him. She put another cup in front of me, along with cream and sugar and a large slab of pumpkin pie topped with real whipped cream. My favorite.

  “No.” I thought about my shoulder and realized it was a lie. “I just met Hamilton for the first time today. He’s rather … forceful. I’m gathering information for someone else.”

  “Private investigator?” His brow furrowed.

  I hadn’t thought of calling myself that. I didn’t have a license or anything else. But the term described the job Tinkie had hired me to do. “Yes,” I said. “In a manner of speaking.”

  “The Garretts had plenty of heartbreak. Maybe it would be better if you let sleeping dogs lie.”

  There was an undertone in his voice that I couldn’t decipher. “My client has a reason for wanting to know. She wants to protect her … interests. This is a personal matter.”

  He seemed to think about that. Mrs. Henry picked up her coffee. “I’m going to watch some television.” She left the room.

  Amos Henry was still staring directly at the wall when he began to talk. “After fifty years working for the Garretts, I was fired this morning. Thanksgiving Day,” he said. He leaned back in his chair. “I cleaned out the fall garden Wednesday, and I was sitting on the porch early this morning. I’d just gone over to make sure I’d locked the toolshed good and tight. Young Hamilton pulled up. He left the car running and walked up on the porch. I thought for a minute that I was having a daydream, seeing him like that. He had grown into a man, but I recognized him. I stood up kind of slow, like I was in a daze, and then I smiled. I remember because that smile just kept stretching and stretching and it hurt my face, but I couldn’t stop it because I was so glad to see him. It’s hard to work at a place where nobody lives. It’s hard to make the flowers grow when nobody sees them or takes pleasure in their beauty.

  “I started toward him grinning like an old coonhound and sticking out my hand to shake his. I said, ‘You’re home. I can’t believe you’ve finally come home.’

  “And he said, not even looking at my hand, ‘Yes, I’m home. Your services aren’t required any longer.’ And he reached into his coat and pulled out a piece of paper. He put it in my hand and turned around and went back to the car. He drove off.”

  Amos Henry reached into the pocket of his shirt and pulled out a piece of paper. He carefully unfolded it and handed it to me.

  It was a check, and when I glanced at the figure, I took a deep breath. It was for twenty thousand dollars. The signature at the bottom was bold, a scrawl of black letters.

  “Mr. Henry, had you been receiving a paycheck for your work at Knob Hill?”

  “Every month I got my check, regular as could be.”

  “This is severance pay?” I handed the check back to him. Hamilton Garrett was forceful, ruthless, and generous.

  “That’s what some folks might call it.” He dropped the check on the table. “I’ve never been fired from a job. I went there fifty years, working each day when nobody would have known whether I did or not. And I get fired, just like that.” He shook his head.

  “Did Hamilton ever marry?” I was thinking about Tinkie. This was a fact she’d want.

  He shook his head. “As far as I know, neither of those children ever married. Or ever will, I dare say, after what all went on. Until today, I never talked to the boy after he left here. Ever since Mr. Guy and his wife died, I took my orders from Mr. Wade up at the real estate office.”

  “Guy?” I hadn’t heard his nickname before.

  “It was what we called him. Too many Hamiltons in that family. There was a time when Mr. Guy was alive, and his father and little Hamilton. You’d think with all that money they could have found a book with some baby names in it.”

  It was his first smile, and I responded in kind. I liked Amos Henry. He had a lot of dignity.

  “Tell me about Mr. Guy and Mrs. Veronica,” I said, forking another bite of pie. I was having an excellent time. Being a private investigator was great work. “Were they happy?”

  Amos looked at the kitchen wall for a long while. I could tell he was replaying old memories, things he’d thought about before. “Being married is not always a cause for happiness,” he said. “Sometimes money complicates things, whether you don’t have enough or you have too much. Mrs. Veronica needed money. Mr. Guy had it. It was a situation where the power never changed hands. That can cause a lot of grief between two people.”

  It was his way of telling me there was trouble in the marriage. Guy lorded money over his wife, or else his wife was so greedy that she could never get enough.

  “There was talk Mrs. Garrett might have had a boyfriend.” There was no way to sugarcoat this. “Was it true?”

  “She was a looker. And she liked for men to look. Any man. It caused more problems with the daughter, Miss Sylvia. Even when she was little, that girl would crawl up under my bushes. She could hold herself still for hours, just waiting, watching her mother. She was always watching. It made me uncomfortable, to be honest. She was a beautiful thing, but she never laughed or played. She just watched. Like she was an old, old woman trapped in that little girl, and she was watching for something she knew had to happen.”

  He paused for a moment as if he were deciding what else to tell. “Mrs. Garrett sent her away to school up in Tennessee when she was nine. I do believe that child scared her mother.”

  I filed the information about Sylvia away. She sounded like a strange duck, but my focus was Hamilton the Fifth. “Was there a particular man hanging around, someone who visited Mrs. Garrett a lot?”

  “No one special that I saw. Of course, Mrs. Garrett wasn’t a fool, either. There were lots of men, and she loved it. She lived for the attention. It wasn’t taking anything away from Mr. Guy. She couldn’t help it any more than he could help having all that money. Her looks were her power. She had a way about her, when she’d sit out in the sun and run that little butterfly comb through her hair. It was one of her favorite things, that comb. Some kind of special design. She told me once, but I forgot. She said it made her feel magical, and she would draw that comb through her hair and make a man want her in a way that made everything else just fly right out of his mind.”

  I swallowed, wondering if Amos Henry had felt the lasso of her at
traction. Everything around me spoke of a man who took deliberate, practical actions in his life. But every man has a weakness, and for many it’s a particular woman.

  “So there was a conflict between the parents—his money and her looks.”

  Amos thought about this for a time before he answered. “There was arguments. I worked outside, tending the yard, but I heard them fighting. They were two folks so different. Mr. Guy was an inside kind of man. He had his work and his investments, and he wasn’t the kind to play tennis or swim. Mrs. Veronica, now, she loved the sunshine.” He smiled. “She’d lay out by the pool and just soak up the sun. She’d laugh whenever anyone tried to tell her that it would make her old and wrinkled. She just said she didn’t intend to grow old. She said that women like her weren’t created to last long, they were meant to burn hot and fast and go out with a bang.”

  Mrs. Garrett’s big bang was a tree trunk. And she had lived to fulfill her own words. Suicide flashed in the back of my retinas in big red letters. It was another angle to check.

  “Mr. Guy didn’t enjoy the outdoors, but he was a bird hunter?” I probed.

  Amos snorted. “Not hardly.”

  “He died when he was hunting. I read the story in the newspaper.”

  Amos gave me a look like he thought I should be blond. “Mr. Guy wasn’t no hunter.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “One summer a big fat moccasin slithered up by the pool. Mrs. Veronica was screaming and yelling, and Hamilton was just a little fella, he was standing big-eyed about a foot from the snake, frozen, like. That ole snake was coiled up, big around as my arm. I called Mr. Guy and he comes running out with a gun. He just hands it over to me and tells me to shoot the snake. His son there, and that snake ready to leap out and bite the boy, and Mr. Guy hands the gun to me. No man who can use a gun would do that.”

  Amos Henry had convinced me. So what was Guy Garrett doing in a dove field if he wasn’t hunting? The possibilities were endless—and they all spelled murder.