Them Bones

by Carolyn Haines

  “Revenge is sweet,” I said to the dog. I got Pasco’s flashlight and went in the direction Chablis had been flung. I found her little body near the side of the dog pen.

  “Chablis,” I said, overcome with grief. She had been such a delicate thing. Jumping off the sofa could have broken her front legs. Pasco had punted her like a soccer ball. She simply wasn’t tough enough to survive a man like him.

  I bent to pick her up. I wouldn’t leave her in the mud and the cold night. As I lifted her into my arms, I felt her tremble. Then she gave a low growl and before I could stop her, she snapped her under-bitten little jaws shut on my chin and began to tear into me.

  “Chablis,” I said, as well as I could with a six-ounce biting fury hanging from my chin. “Chablis, it’s me, Sarah Booth.”

  At last my voice penetrated her anger and she opened her jaws. I groped at my chin. I didn’t feel a gaping wound, but it hurt like hell. “Good girl,” I said, kissing her hairy, pugnacious little face. A bitten chin was a small price to pay for my life.

  I found Pasco’s pistol and started toward the house.

  In the distance, the mournful wail of a siren was headed my way. Out in the fog the hounds began to howl. To my surprise, Chablis, snug in my arms, joined in with them.

  29

  Because my experience with guns was limited to water pistols, and because my knees had begun to feel liquidy and unreliable, I waited for the cavalry.

  Sheriff Coleman Peters got out of the car first, with Hamilton rising out of the passenger side. His eyes moved up and down me, and I felt a surge of warmth. Tinkie and Tammy got out of the backseat.

  Gordon Walters rode alone in the second patrol car.

  Hamilton started toward me, but Tinkie beat him to the punch.

  “My darling,” she cried as she lifted Chablis from my arms. “Sarah Booth, are you okay?”

  “Sylvia and Millie are in there,” I said. “And—” I dreaded saying it, but worse than the shock of my telling would be seeing her alive. “And Veronica. She isn’t dead, Hamilton.”

  “I know,” he answered, and then he put his hand on my shoulder. “Sylvia never believed she was dead. And I’ve suspected for a long, long time.”

  “Veronica has your sister and Millie.” I knew I sounded pitiful, like a whipped dog. This wasn’t a fitting conclusion for the fact that I had single-handedly—well, with the help of the dogs—brained Pasco Walters. I bucked up and gave a tight smile. “Pasco Walters is by the dog pen. He won’t be giving anyone any trouble for a while.” I was rewarded by Gordon’s hand lifting his service revolver out of the holster.

  “Good ol’ Daddy. I knew he was too mean to die,” Gordon said as he checked his clip.

  For all of my bravado, I wanted to fling myself against Hamilton’s chest. It wasn’t a Daddy’s Girl maneuver; it was a simple human need. I wanted to rest for a moment against someone who seemed capable of taking the reins. But Hamilton only rubbed my arms and then moved toward the house with Coleman.

  “Take the back door,” Coleman directed him.

  Tinkie and Tammy huddled behind the patrol car. “Oscar is just going to die when I tell him about this,” Tinkie said. “So when you were telling me about a dark, dangerous man from the past, you weren’t really talking about Hamilton. It was Pasco all along.”

  “I was afraid it was Pasco. In my dreams, I’d seen him in the dove field with a shotgun. I feared that he was still alive,” Tammy said. “Millie let it slip that Sylvia was laying a trap for them. She got Delo to play along, never dreaming that he might be hurt.”

  Gordon started toward the dog pen. “I’ll take care of my father.”

  I started after Gordon. Pasco was my trophy.

  “Mrs. Garrett,” Coleman called out into the night. “We’ve got you surrounded. Pasco is in custody, so you’d better come out.”

  The house was dark and silent as I slipped into the fog and followed Gordon. He looked back over his shoulder at me. “You know, you’re a real pain in the ass,” he said. “Hamilton and I figured you’d get blown to bits before the night was over, but there wasn’t a damn thing we could do to stop you from poking your nose in it.”

  “Thanks,” I said. It was something of a compliment.

  He went to his father’s inert form and stood over it. He nudged him with a boot. Pasco’s eyes blinked open.

  “Hello, Daddy,” Gordon said, before he bent down and snapped on the cuffs. He pulled Pasco to his feet, and I followed them back to the house.

  Headlights cut a dim halo in the fog as another car approached. I wondered if it was going to be old home week at Delo’s house. I wasn’t even surprised when I recognized Harold’s Lexus, the headlights aimed directly at the front door of the house. He left the lights on and got out of the car. My thumb gave a weak tingle, and I waited for him to come to me. I was simply too tired to move.

  “Stay back,” Coleman ordered Harold. The sheriff stepped to the front door. Just as he was about to kick it in, the door slowly opened. Then Millie and Sylvia ran out onto the porch and fled into the yard.

  “Sylvia!” Harold cried. He rushed past me and caught her in his arms. “Sylvia,” he said again, crushing her to his chest. Tinkie, Chablis sleeping in her arms, and Tammy surrounded Millie and pulled her back to the safety of the patrol car.

  I was left alone, standing in the yard, holding a pistol that I wasn’t even certain I could use. The man who’d offered me marriage was consoling another woman. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised.

  Hamilton had obviously made his way through the back door and into the house. “We’re coming out,” he called from the dark interior. “She’s unarmed.”

  As Coleman stepped back from the door, Hamilton and his mother came out into the high beams of the car lights. Hamilton held the shotgun loosely in his hand.

  Veronica looked like the star of a B-movie. She drew herself up, threw back her shoulders, and stared all of us down.

  “She’s all yours,” Hamilton said to Coleman, brushing past his mother and joining Harold and his sister. “Thanks for coming, Harold. For the past twenty years, you were the only person in this town that Sylvia ever mentioned with any degree of affection. I figured if it came down to it, she might listen to you.”

  “When you said Sylvia was in danger, I realized how much I cared,” Harold said. “I’m just glad it’s all over.”

  The three of them got in Harold’s Lexus and drove away without another word.

  I watched as Coleman cuffed Veronica and put her in the patrol car. Gordon put Pasco in the other car. Tinkie and Tammy had settled Millie in the backseat of the Cadillac. It seemed I was the only one who didn’t know where to go or what to do.

  When Coleman approached me, I tried for a smile, but I knew I looked pretty undone.

  “I ought to give you a lecture about putting yourself in a dangerous spot,” he said, “but instead—” He pulled me into a bear hug. “Good work, Sarah Booth. You’re the only woman I know who can stir shit and not get it all over you.”

  “Thanks, Coleman,” I said, feeling a tremendous urge to cry. Of course, I didn’t. Over at the Caddy I could hear the excited babble of Tinkie and Tammy trying to comfort Millie.

  “Would you give me a ride home?” I asked the sheriff.

  “Sure thing. Let me drop off the prisoner. Then how about we have that cup of coffee?”

  I had no reason to hurry home. Jitty would be there whenever I finally made it back. Harold was busy with Sylvia, and Hamilton had left without saying good-bye. “That would be nice,” I said, because I simply didn’t want to confront the fact that in my finest hour as a PI, I’d lost both of the men I cared about.

  “Tell me the part again where you whacked Pasco with the shovel,” Jitty said, her feet propped on the porch railing. She wore white go-go boots, white hip-hugger shorts with a wide patent leather belt, and a lime green polyester blouse. Though it was thirty degrees on the porch, she was impervious to the cold.

  I sipp
ed my glass of moonshine and told her again. I knew she was only trying to keep my mind off my heartbreak, and I appreciated her efforts. It was not her general nature, and it couldn’t last for long.

  The first rim of the morning sun crept over the horizon, and I felt a sense of accomplishment that I’d made it through the night without tears.

  “This is the first day of the rest of your life, Sarah Booth,” Jitty said.

  I looked at her. “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. I don’t have a life. I have responsibility and obligations—no life.”

  “I’ll tell you the stupidest thing I ever heard. A girl rides two horses and gets dumped by both. Quit wallowing in self-pity, get your lasso out, and go find another horse.”

  Ah, the real Jitty had returned. I dropped my feet to the floor and stood. It was time to go inside and figure out what to do next. Sleep would have been the obvious choice, but I wasn’t sleepy even though I was bone-tired. I suppose it was the six cups of coffee I drank with Coleman as he gave me a blow-by-blow of his disintegrating marriage. Misery did love company, and besides, it had kept my mind off Hamilton.

  Somewhere in my subconscious, I saw the rightness of Harold and Sylvia. He’d been in love with her since she visited Hamilton at Dorsett Military Academy. I remembered the way he’d spoken of her. He’d also pointed out that she was not like me.

  Perhaps not in the obvious physical ways, but I think what made him want me was that I was actually a great deal like Sylvia. We shared a directness, a lack of facade, that appealed to him. Though we had both been raised in the realm of the Daddy’s Girls, neither of us had become one.

  “Look, Sarah Booth,” Jitty said, that grating, reasonable tone in her voice. “It ain’t over till the fat lady sings.”

  “If you quote one more cliché, I’m going to …” I couldn’t think of a threat dire enough.

  “You never really wanted Harold, though I still contend he was the man to pin your future on. My point is, you can’t whine now that he’s gone.”

  “You’re mistaken,” I said, pacing the porch. “I can whine as much as I want to. I don’t even have Chablis,” I pointed out. Once Tinkie had her back in her arms, I simply couldn’t demand that she give her to me.

  “Take a look at yourself in the mirror, Sarah Booth. You aren’t exactly a froufrou dog kind of woman. I’m sure James will give you one of those hounds. And that little dust mop bit your chin. Don’t forget about that. Looks like some kind of nearsighted vampire got hold of you.”

  “It’ll heal,” I said. “The point isn’t that I can get a dog, the point is that I can’t get the dog I want.”

  “Oh, I see,” Jitty said, jangling those damn bracelets on her wrist. “You still want Hamilton.”

  “You’re damn right.” I did want him. And this time I wasn’t taking orders from my womb.

  “I sort of like it with just the two of us here,” Jitty said.

  “Good for you.” I was reduced to true childishness.

  “Course, all is not lost.”

  I walked around so I could face her. The morning sun bathed her face in golden light, and slowly she began to smile. “There’s always a chance that you’re carrying the Garrett heir, as well as the last of the Delaneys.”

  My hands went to my stomach. It was true. I’d slept with Hamilton without protection. Although I had the most demanding womb in the universe, I didn’t pay a lot of attention to its cycles.

  “I’m not pregnant,” I said, determined that it was true. Jitty might want a Delaney heir to haunt, but I didn’t want a baby if I didn’t have the father of that child in my bed every night.

  “Well, you should be—but I suppose he’s not ready for that, either,” she said as she began to fade in the strengthening morning light.

  I heard the sound of the car approaching as soon as she was gone. Hamilton’s Mercedes pulled into the driveway, and he got out of the car and walked up on the porch. He was a handsome man.

  “I came to apologize,” he said. “Billie is putting a new tire on your car. I’d hoped to keep you out of trouble, but in the end I think it’s a good thing you were there. Pasco would have killed Sylvia, and probably Millie, too. He admitted to killing a vagrant in Memphis and putting him in the river. Another body-double.”

  It was so much easier to talk about the case than anything else, so I found a question. “The half million Pasco was looking for—Sylvia made that up, didn’t she?”

  Hamilton shifted so that his weight was on the porch railing. “Yes. Pasco and Mother had it all to begin with. Sylvia started rumors, and Tammy, James, and Delo reluctantly went along with her. All along Sylvia believed that Mother was alive. The Lalique hair combs were missing from the body. Mother never went anywhere without them. When I found the wreck, the body was so disfigured I couldn’t tell it wasn’t Mother. And Sylvia wasn’t allowed to view the body.”

  He walked to the railing and looked out over the beautiful fields. “I didn’t believe her. I didn’t want to believe. It was easier to let her go her own headstrong way. But she was right, damn it. Right for twenty long years. She knew that greed would eventually bring Pasco and Mother out of hiding. They couldn’t resist coming back for more.” There was grim satisfaction on his face as he turned to me.

  My anger was inexplicable. “You’ve both wasted the last twenty years waiting for revenge. Your sister’s life has been spent in an institution.”

  My raw emotion made him pull back. “There are some things worth waiting for, Sarah Booth. If you don’t understand that now, you will before you die.”

  “Revenge isn’t one of them,” I answered bitterly. It seemed no matter what the topic, Hamilton and I were doomed to argue—unless we were in bed.

  “My life hasn’t been wasted.” He spoke with patience.

  I wondered why he felt compelled to respond to my anger. “What about Sylvia?” I countered, determined to fight.

  “She made her own choices. Perhaps now, she’ll be strong enough to make some different ones. I never realized how Harold felt about her, but I think she’s found an anchor.”

  I knew only too well how stable and giving Harold could be. “I think he’s loved her a long time,” I said.

  “He told me he also loved you.”

  I finally looked up, shocked by Harold’s candor. “He only thinks that because I remind him of your sister.”

  Hamilton moved so swiftly that I had no time to back away. His hands caught my shoulders. “You aren’t a thing like Sylvia,” he said. “If you were, I’d have to be worried about myself.”

  I lifted my face to meet his kiss. His lips were demanding, and I rose to the occasion. I wanted nothing more than his arms around me, his lips on mine. Well, maybe a bit more. I had been so certain that I’d lost him, and now he was here, with me, on Dahlia House’s porch.

  I was about to take his hand and lead him into the house when he stepped back from me.

  “I came to tell you good-bye,” he said, and he kept his hands on my shoulders to steady me. “I have to go back to Europe. I left my life there on hold.”

  Ah, his life in Europe. He’d said he hadn’t wasted the last nineteen years. He was probably married. Probably had five kids, a mansion, a country estate, and a wife who looked like Gwyneth Paltrow, thin, blond, and intelligent.

  I had one option—I could beg him to stay. But somehow, I knew the words would never leave my lips.

  “Will you ever come back to Zinnia?” I asked.

  Instead of answering, he said, “Sylvia is moving into Knob Hill. Be a friend to her, Sarah Booth. She’s going to need a lot of friends.”

  I nodded.

  “I will come back. I’m just not sure when. We never had the money people thought we did, and it’s depleted our resources to keep Knob Hill up. But I knew one day Sylvia would want to go home. We have a lot of good memories there, along with the bad.”

  I felt a strange thud in my womb and I wondered if it might be the dividing cells of a li
ttle Garrett already at work.

  Hamilton took a card from his pocket and handed it to me. “This is my home number. If you need anything, call me.”

  So I was going to be allowed emergency calls. No long-distance chitchat, no letters, no promises of meetings in the future. He really had come to say good-bye.

  I took the card. “I’m in the book,” I said.

  “I’ve never met a woman like you, Sarah Booth. I’m going to miss you.” He bent to kiss me again, but this time his lips only brushed over my cheek.

  “I’ll miss you, too,” I said, holding tight to the card to prevent myself from grabbing on to him.

  “Good luck in your new PI business.” He stepped back. “Be careful.”

  “You, too.”

  He smiled and headed down the steps. Back straight, stride long, he walked to his car, got in, and drove away.

  I stood on the porch, clutching his card, and knew the meaning of heartbreak. I felt Jitty behind me, and I turned to her. “He’s gone. Back to Europe.”

  “He’ll be back,” Jitty said matter-of-factly. “Once a man tastes a Delaney woman, he can’t leave it alone. It’s in the blood.”

  A cool, ticklish sensation brushed over my arm, and I realized that Jitty had touched me. “Let’s make some breakfast,” I said, suddenly hungry.

  As we walked in the door, the telephone began to ring. I picked it up and smiled at the verve in Cece’s voice.

  “Sarah Booth Delaney, you get yourself down to the newspaper office right this minute. I want all the details—all of them. Coleman Peters is calling you a hero. Tinkie Bellcase Richmond is saying you solved the mystery of the Garrett murders, and that she’s putting you on a retainer for all future investigations that she might need. Kincaid Maxwell is claiming—off the record, of course—that you saved her good name from a scandal which she won’t even begin to talk about. You must come right down here and give me an interview. I hear you’re going to be the hottest detective this side of the Mississippi.”