Them Bones

by Carolyn Haines

  “Was there any sign of foul play in his death?”

  The look he gave me was suddenly interested. “With Pasco? Not to my knowledge. Check with the Memphis police. They handled everything, and it all seemed cut and dried. Pasco’s blood alcohol was real high, and folks kind of hushed that up to spare the family. That’s all I know.”

  Before I could ask another question, he slammed the truck door and drove away.

  The luncheon was still going on—the women writing down silent bids for the various outfits that had been modeled. If I left now, everyone would think it was because I didn’t have the money to buy anything. I slipped around the side of the house and made my escape.

  I couldn’t risk breaking into Delo’s until nightfall, so I went home, changed into jeans and my black leather jacket, and went to the courthouse. I checked the cars in the sheriff’s parking lot and made sure that Gordon Walters’s truck was not there. It was mid-afternoon, and I’d assumed, rightly, that he worked the eleven-to-seven shift. I needed to see some old files and talk with the sheriff.

  At the courthouse, I discovered that Coleman had rushed home for an emergency. The deputy behind the counter noted, rather indiscreetly, that Carlene was always calling with fake emergencies so she could get Coleman home for another fight.

  I looked first for a record of the shooting of Jameson O’Rourk, Kincaid’s father. If Pasco had followed up on his threat to write the report, I couldn’t find it anywhere. I felt a measure of relief for Kincaid, and turned my attention to the records of Guy Garrett’s murder. I went over the reports again and spent a while examining the photos of the body. The placement of the bodies of Guy Garrett and Delo were similar—deliberately so, I thought. There seemed to be a theme at work. And very possibly the same killer. No one else seemed to see this but me.

  I saved the best for last—Veronica. With an ear tuned for Gordon’s return, I went through the file thoroughly. There was no report of severed brake lines, but there was evidence of a missing page. The work was deft. It looked as if a razor had been used.

  The missing page could have contained only meaningless doodles. Or it could have been Pasco’s notations about a severed brake line and a knife. Or—one final scenario came to mind—Gordon could have cut out a meaningless page simply to stimulate the suspicions already whirling around Sylvia and Hamilton. I was fond of the latter explanation for a number of reasons, one being that Gordon was the one saying he’d cut out the page.

  I mentally went over my list of murder suspects. The problem was that I had three separate murders, maybe four, if Pasco hadn’t died in an accident, and they all seemed connected. In the death of Hamilton the Fourth, I suspected Veronica, her unnamed lover, Isaac Carter and his Memphis associates, Pasco Walters, Fel Harper, Sylvia. And Hamilton. At the thought of him I went hot and cold, but I forced myself to keep thinking.

  In Veronica’s death, I was looking at Hamilton the Fifth, Sylvia, Pasco, and, to some degree as an accomplice, Fel.

  In Delo’s death, the prime suspects were Isaac, Hamilton, Sylvia, and, once again, Fel, as an outside possibility. Gordon was a question here, too. Delo might have known something that would dishonor the Walters name, and Gordon might have killed him to keep him quiet.

  The motive for Pasco’s murder would be that he knew too much. But the more I thought about Fel’s recounting of the drowning, the more likely it seemed that Pasco’s lifestyle had finally caught up with him.

  In all of the murders there were common suspects, and like it or not, they were Hamilton, his sister, and Isaac. They all had motive, means, and opportunity.

  I slammed the dusty record book shut and left, heading three blocks across town to City Hall. My chosen career of acting had taught me many things, but it was the dinner conversations orchestrated by my father, the circuit court judge, that had laid my bedrock understanding of civics.

  Meetings of the city aldermen and zoning boards are public records, and I asked for the minutes book from 1979. It was going to be a few long, boring hours of reading.

  I took the heavy clothbound volume and found a seat in the boardroom. Page by page I began to scan the typewritten records of Zinnia’s guiding fathers. I did note that they were all men.

  It was March before I came across a reference to a request for a zoning change on land in the northeast part of town. That would roughly comprise the black section, I estimated. The request was filed by Aubrey Malone, real estate developer. He was asking for commercial zoning of residential property and a permit to construct a docking facility on the river. That was exactly as Isaac had told me.

  At the thought of Isaac, I checked my watch. It was four-thirty. I had half an hour left to read, and soon after it would be dark. I could swing by Delo’s and see about Kincaid’s check. Once I had it, I was going to tear it into bits and make Isaac Carter eat them.

  That train of thought hit a junction, and I took the left-hand fork. Of all of the suspects, Isaac had a double motive for killing Delo. The past and the present. And knowing how women like to bond after sex, I found it highly possible that Kincaid, in a moment of afterglow, had told Isaac all about her little trip to Psychoworld in Switzerland and how she’d shot her own father. It would make Isaac’s planting of the check doubly despicable.

  I turned back to the minutes book and read on. On March 14, 1979, a citizen’s group appeared before the board to protest the zoning change. The group was led by James Levert and Bessie Mae Odom. The name stopped me dead in my tracks. Bessie Mae Odom was Tammy’s old granny. This was a woman who was older than Methuselah when I was a teenager. And yet she read a statement to the board. I scanned the record and could almost hear her rusty old voice talking about her heritage and her home. She spoke my feelings for Dahlia House, for my land and my family. She vowed to cling to her small house on her bit of land until she was dead. No matter what it was zoned or who came by and offered her money to leave Sunflower County.

  There was a timid tap on the door and the city clerk peeked in at me. “Time to close,” she said.

  My eyes were burning and I needed to walk around and think, so I gave her the book and walked into the twilight of downtown Zinnia.

  Up and down Main Street, shops were closing and men and women were bundled in coats and hurrying to their vehicles. The Wal-Mart chain had not found its way to Zinnia, but based on what Oscar Richmond and his ilk were saying, it wouldn’t be long before this pattern of small-town life ended.

  I drove by the Sweetheart drive-in and treated myself to a real chocolate malt before I headed back toward Delo’s. I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t like the idea of breaking into a dead man’s house. But I felt this overwhelming urge to protect Kincaid. I couldn’t explain it and didn’t want to try. Maybe I simply felt luckier than she was. My parents were dead, but they would never have bartered me into marriage with a weasel like Chas Maxwell.

  I drove past the turnoff to Delo’s, turned around, and came back, driving past again. I couldn’t see the house, and Gordon Walters and an army of deputies might be waiting in ambush at the end of the road. There was no way to tell.

  It was a three-quarter-mile hike back to his place, but I pulled the car down an old farm road, parked, and cut across the cornfields. The moon wasn’t full, but it cast plenty of light and I had a good sense of direction. I had only a few acres to cross, and I knew I could hit pretty close to Delo’s.

  My breath plumed out before me and seemed to hang in the cold night air. In the pale moonlight, the cornfield was ragged, and I cautioned myself not to be startled if I flushed a covey of quail or doves from their winter sleep. Clear and cold, the night was also silent, except for the light crunching of frosted husks beneath my feet and the fast, regular sound of my breathing.

  I’d been walking for ten minutes when I heard the dogs kick in. I’d forgotten about them, coursing the ground by Delo’s body as the two black men tried to pull them back. They were hounds, normally a gregarious breed of dog. I whistled softly to
them and was rewarded by lonesome whines. Delo had gone off and left them, and I could only hope someone had remembered to bring them food. I eased up by the pens and held out a hand, rewarded by the warm lapping of tongues.

  In the moonlight I could make out their sad eyes. They were not Chablis, but then I wasn’t Tinkie. Perhaps a hound or two would give Dahlia House a homier look. I slipped away from them and circled the house. It seemed abandoned. There was no sign of the yellow crime tape I’d seen so often on television, but then the actual murder had taken place outside. Trying not to have a panic attack, I walked to the front door and turned the knob. The door swung open on a hinge that gave only the faintest creak.

  It was pitch black inside. Inching forward, I closed the door and held my breath, listening for the sound of someone else. Only silence came back to me.

  I don’t believe in ghosts, or at least not the amorphous kind that show themselves as wavering banshees out to terrorize little children and play practical jokes on mortals. I believe in Jitty, an extension of my family’s past and my own personal warrior goddess. Still, I have to admit, I was scared. Jitty was benevolent; she was family. Delo was undoubtedly pissed. If he decided to make an ethereal appearance, it would not be to give me advice on my clothes or love life.

  I’d been smart enough to bring a small flashlight, and I clicked it on and held it low to the floor. The odd lighting gave the room a theatrical appearance, and I found that it calmed me. I went for the drawers and the stack of unopened mail that someone had piled carefully on the kitchen table. Then I went into the kitchen shelves and canisters, hoping that there was a general “junk” collection that served as a temporary filing system.

  As I sifted through the odds and ends of Delo’s life, I wondered if Gordon Walters and the other deputies had been there before me. Surely they’d already searched the obvious places. I was wasting my time and freezing to death in the cold house. Yet I searched on, determined not to let impatience or discomfort rule my success.

  The kitchen was small, and I eased around the table where two coffee cups remained. As I turned away my jacket sleeve caught an ashtray and sent it crashing to the floor. It was a heavy piece of glass and didn’t break, but a cigarette butt and a book of matches scattered across the old oak boards. I gathered them up and put them back.

  The butt brand was Marlboro, and as my freezing fingers clutched at the matchbook, I felt the embossed letters with a sense of wonder. I swung the light to them. La Tour d’Argent.

  There are no French restaurants in Zinnia. Nor in Sunflower County. The cigarette brand was the same as the butts left behind Harold’s yew hedge. This and the matches spoke of one person. Hamilton Garrett the Fifth.

  I had not recovered from the surprise of my discovery when I heard the mild creak of the front door. I instantly clicked off the flashlight and was swallowed in blackness. Very slowly the night sky appeared in a bright wedge that grew as the front door eased open. A tall, dark form stood at the threshold.

  I stood perfectly still, praying that the intruder would not be able to see me if I didn’t move. My muscles trembled with the strain. With no way to defend myself, I watched the larger silhouette shift, and then there was the glint of starlight on sleek black metal. Slowly the barrel of the shotgun rose to chest level, and then swung to point directly at me.

  24

  “Don’t move.”

  The voice was male but soft as warm cotton. It was not Hamilton or Gordon. Relief was sweet, but also limited.

  “My name is Sarah Booth Delaney,” I said, but I didn’t move. The intruder was young and black. This was not Chicago or Los Angeles. Chances were, if I didn’t know this man, he would know me. The day I saw Delo’s body, there had been two black men who’d taken Delo’s dogs. The older was James and the younger … “Cooley?” I asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he answered, and the barrel of his gun notched down slightly. “Come on outside where I can see you. What are you doin’ in Mr. Delo’s house?”

  He stepped back from the door so I could walk out on the porch. “Looking for something.”

  “Lot’s o’ folks say they lost things here in a dead man’s house.”

  Healthy skepticism is a sign of intelligence, and I stepped forward so that he could get a glimpse of me in the moonlight.

  “I’m looking for a check written by Kincaid Maxwell.” My eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and I could see his expression, a narrowing of his eyes, which signified wariness.

  “Mr. Delo told me that he rented those cabins for money. It seems that money was owed.”

  “I’m not disputing the debt, but someone else should pay it.” I thought about my options. “If the sheriff finds that check, Mrs. Maxwell will be a suspect in Delo’s murder. She didn’t kill him. If she’s investigated, a lot of secrets will come out and a lot of innocent people will be hurt.”

  He lowered the gun to the floor. “If you’re talkin’ about her meetin’ that old man in the cabin, she shoulda thought of that before she got caught.” He gave a soft snort of contempt. “And you’re just here to help your friend.”

  One of the dogs gave a mournful howl. “Kincaid isn’t exactly my friend. She’s my client.”

  “Seems to me she ought to be here riskin’ her neck.”

  He was right, but I needed the money, and Kincaid would be even worse at this than me. “She paid me to do this.”

  He nodded and motioned me out of the house. “So you think it’s okay to bust into a dead man’s house and rummage through his things to find evidence that might go against your client.”

  He was not stupid, and he’d mastered the art of sarcasm. “I think it’s probably against the law. But the way I’m looking at it is that a bigger injustice would be done if Kincaid were falsely accused.”

  “What if she did kill him?”

  “She didn’t. I’ve given it a lot of thought. There are two people Kincaid would have killed before she even thought about killing Delo. Her husband and Isaac Carter. Kincaid would have bought Delo off.”

  Unlike most men, Cooley seemed willing to accept my evaluation as fact. He nodded as if the wisdom of my words were growing on him. “Maybe you killed him,” he suggested.

  Now this was something I didn’t expect. It was possible my actions could be interpreted in that way. “If you believed that, you’d have the gun pointed at me,” I noted. I saw a fleeting smile on his face. “Are you looking after his dogs?”

  “Me and James. Delo loved those hounds. Nobody’s been up to see about them.” He shook his head. “Delo never expected they’d outlive him.”

  “Maybe you should take them home with you,” I suggested. If the dogs’ fate was left in the hands of the court system, they might be destroyed.

  “James and I talked about it, but we wouldn’t want to be accused of stealin’.”

  There was a long and tangled web of innuendo attached to his simple words. “What if I just turned them loose?”

  “I live across that field,” he said, pointing. “I bet if you open the pens those dogs will find their way to my house.”

  “Looks to me like they need some exercise,” I said as I walked over to the pens and examined the lock. It was little more than a latch used to hold a screen door shut, and I flipped it up and opened the door. The four hounds came out in a wiggling mass. Their tails thumped my legs and their tongues found every inch of exposed skin. As soon as they heard Cooley’s clear whistle, they charged in his direction.

  “Walk with me,” he said softly.

  It wasn’t exactly on my way home, but I no longer believed I’d find Kincaid’s check at Delo’s and I had a few questions for Cooley. I jogged over and fell into step with him as the hounds, delighted with their freedom, coursed through the cotton fields in an ecstasy of sniffing and running.

  “Did you see anyone visiting Delo? Anyone unusual?”

  “Delo didn’t have many friends. Only folks ever talked to him were me and James. Until lately.” Cooley k
ept a fast pace over the uneven rows. Up ahead the dogs caught the scent of something and took off baying and yelping.

  “ ’Coon, most likely,” he said without breaking stride.

  “Who was talking to Delo, lately?” I pressed.

  “You were the first to stop by. Then that woman who left the check. The deputy—”

  “Gordon Walters?”

  “Yeah, him.”

  “Who else?”

  “Mr. Garrett. He was over there Sunday mornin’ early.”

  Hamilton had been there. I’d made a correct deduction. “What did he want?”

  “Mr. Delo didn’t tell me his business. I just know what I saw.”

  Up ahead the lights of a house glowed bright. The dogs were still baying at the edge of the woods, and Cooley paused long enough to whistle them up. As he started up the steps, they went under the porch.

  “They’ll be okay here, right?” I asked.

  “They’ll be fine.”

  I hesitated, wondering if he intended for me to go inside with him. When he opened the door and the yellow light spilled out and over me, he waited. “You comin’?”

  I hurried inside, glad for the warmth and the cheerfulness of the room. At first I didn’t notice the older black man sitting in a big armchair, reading. He looked up at me over his glasses. “Miss Delaney,” he said softly. “What brings you here?”

  “She was breakin’ into Delo’s. That’s what the dogs were fussin’ about.”

  I had seen James in the cornfield, but I hadn’t realized he was so old. His hair was grizzled and there were deep lines in his face. He examined me in a way that let me know he knew me, and that whatever status quo I’d been raised to believe in, he was his own man.

  “Would you make us some coffee, Cooley?” he asked politely, but his gaze remained on me.