Rock-a-Bye Bones

by Carolyn Haines

  Gertrude’s voice cut through the night. “Oh, that pretty gray. That’s the one you rode over to my house with that bitch partner of yours. I wonder what he’d fetch at the meat buyer. At least thirty cents a pound? Where is Tinkie? She and Oscar took a private plane ride this afternoon.”

  How the hell was Gertrude keeping tabs on us when she was a phantom? No one on the west side of the state seemed able to arrest her, yet she knew the most intimate details of our lives.

  “Sarah Booth, I’m going to mess up your life. I came here in person to tell you. That movie star man threw you over after he realized I’d left him a cripple. I’m going to do the same to everyone who cares about you until you’re all alone. Then I’m going to make you pay.”

  For what? I’d never done anything to her. She had a stupid idea that my mother had betrayed a confidence—but that had never happened. Never. I’d tried to talk to Gertrude, but it was pointless. Her reality came strictly from her own twisted thought processes. She was a victim. She’d been wronged. No matter that it was all a fantasy. She still intended to make me and all my friends pay.

  Car lights swung down the driveway and swept across the barn. The purring motor of Harold’s sports car stopped after he’d parked behind my car. I could hear the radio playing a new Jason Isbell song. Harold had impeccable taste in music and really bad timing for his own safety.

  “Oh, company is here, Sarah Booth. It’s that handsome banker friend. How about I give him the surprise of his life?”

  I couldn’t hide like a desperate rat while Harold walked into Gertrude’s snare. I ran around the stacks of square bales and hurried to the loft widow. I pushed it open. “Harold, watch out! Gertrude is here and she has a gun.”

  Harold dropped behind his car, and a streak of frizz and gristle took off toward the barn. Roscoe was on the hunt. “Get Roscoe. Gertrude is insane!”

  I ducked back in, expecting her to take aim and plug me. But there was nothing. Not a sound. Roscoe set up a bark, but he stopped at the barn. He stared into the night, jumping up and down with the ferocity of his barking. In a moment Sweetie Pie joined him, baying as if she were on the trail of a Baskerville.

  Risking a hole in my head, I crept to the edge of the loft door and glanced down. Harold was behind his car. Sweetie Pie and Roscoe had stopped at the edge of the driveway and were looking toward the road. The chain of events was obvious. Gertrude had parked along the verge and walked across the front pasture to get to Dahlia House undetected. She’d left the same way. She’d come and gone with such ease.

  In the back pasture, the horses had settled down. I don’t know what Gertrude did to them, but once I was positive she wasn’t playing possum and had truly vacated the premises, I’d check them over thoroughly.

  “Sarah Booth,” Harold called. “Are you hurt?”

  “No. And you?”

  “Embarrassed. I should have had my shotgun. DeWayne said Gertrude was on the loose, but I never believed she’d show up here.”

  “Did you see her?”

  “No.” He slowly stood up behind the car. “I didn’t see anyone. And I didn’t see a vehicle. Are you sure it was Gertrude?”

  “Without a doubt. I’ll be right down.” I made my way back through the hay and down the ladder to the floor. Harold was waiting for me.

  “Gertrude isn’t a spring chicken.” Harold put an arm on my shoulder as he flipped on the barn lights and examined the interior of the barn. “How is she running all over the place and avoiding capture?”

  “That’s the sixty-four-million-dollar question, isn’t it?” Aggravation burned like salt in a wound. “She could have killed me, but she didn’t. She’s playing a game and having a great time.”

  I filled three buckets with grain and poured them into the horses’ stalls. Reveler, Miss Scrapiron, and Lucifer came on the run. While they ate I examined every inch of them. The only thing I could find were a few scratches on Reveler’s back legs. Tomorrow, when it was daylight, I would check the pasture for brambles.

  Harold patiently watched as I finished my chores. When the buckets were back in place and the horses turned out, he put his arms around me. “Calm down. Everything is okay.”

  I realized then how terrified I’d been—for him and my animals more than myself. Gertrude had damaged someone I loved. She’d changed his life irrevocably. Tears pushed against my eyelids, and I leaned against Harold and let him rub my back through my thick coat. “She is going to kill me if she can, and she’s going to hurt every one of you. Somehow she knows what each of us is doing. She knew Tinkie and Oscar had flown somewhere.”

  “How is she finding out all of this?” Harold asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come on to the house. I’ll make us both a drink and you can tell me what’s going on with Carrie Ann Musgrove.”

  “How did you know about Carrie Ann?” The grapevine in Sunflower County was humming and Gertrude wasn’t the only one downloading info.

  “Her ex-husband was in the bank for a construction loan. We’ve done business together for twenty years. He mentioned how she’d been howling about you and Tinkie. He said she was certifiable. The daughter, too. I quote, ‘They both have a screw loose.’”

  Oh, joy, two more nutcases to muck up my life. “You make the drinks. I’ll do the talking.” Arm in arm we left the barn and walked to the comfort of Dahlia House.

  * * *

  By the time my teeth quit chattering, I’d consumed two drinks and was sitting on the parlor floor at Harold’s feet while he rubbed my shoulders. He’d reported Gertrude’s assault to Coleman and the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. Yet again, Gertrude was on the radar of the top state law enforcement officials. We’d done all we could do for the evening. As my muscles relaxed, my body slumped.

  “This business with Gertrude has to stop,” Harold said. He rubbed my very short haircut, which was growing out—and taking forever to do so. “How can she evade the law so easily?”

  I repeated the things Coleman had said. “It’s a big territory. The law officers are busy solving murders and robberies and other violent crimes.”

  “Gertrude is violent.” Harold lifted me and eased me onto the old horsehair sofa beside him. “She is crazy and violent.”

  “She is.” I hadn’t really digested the fact that she’d come on my property, onto the porch and steps of my home, and fired a gun at me. She could have hit me, one of the horses, the dog or cat. She didn’t care who she hurt in the process of getting her imagined revenge.

  “She also has a source close to you, Sarah Booth.”

  That was the most troubling thing of all. “I have no idea who that might be.” I’d thought about it, and no one came to mind. My friends were as loyal as my hound. No one would assist Gertrude in her quest for revenge.

  “Who could it be, Harold? The people who know my business wouldn’t tell her the time of day.”

  “Non-friends, then. Someone who might know these details? A bank teller? A dental hygienist? A florist? The postal delivery person? Someone you see or talk to without even thinking about it is watching you and reporting to Gertrude.”

  “I hate this.” It put everyone I encountered in line as a suspect—perhaps even someone who wasn’t intentionally revealing facts about my life. “I’m friendly, but it’s Tinkie I’m worried about. She’ll talk to a post. And she has been shopping all over town with Libby. No telling who she told about taking the baby to Boston.”

  Harold nodded. “That’s likely the source. We’ll caution her when she gets back”—he checked his watch—“in about twelve hours.”

  “Still, I can’t think of anyone she might talk to who would relay the information to Gertrude.”

  “Perhaps accidentally, as I said.” He put his arm around me and pulled me close. “Don’t get all paranoid, Sarah Booth. That won’t help matters.”

  Leaning against Harold, I felt better. He didn’t lecture me on how dangerous my profession was, or how I put myself in
the path of trouble, or about any of the myriad character traits I had that ended up with me in danger. He simply supported me. Emotionally and physically, as he was doing now.

  The cotton of his multihued sweater was soft and warm, and I allowed myself a moment to gather my frayed nerves. Gertrude would be captured. She would be punished for the terrible things she’d done. My life would return to normal. And the most important thing on my plate—other than not getting killed—was finding the missing mother of a newborn infant. Focus. I had to focus.

  As comfortable as Harold’s shoulder was, I sat up.

  “Before you get all businesslike, I want to tell you something,” he said.

  I gave him my undivided attention. “Okay.”

  “Sarah Booth, when the dust clears and you’re ready to date again, I want you to consider spending some time with me. Romantic time. I’ll always be your friend, but I want more.”

  The thing I loved about Harold was his directness, his ability to put his thoughts and feelings out there without making it my burden to carry. “I love you, Harold. Since I came home, you’ve always been here when I needed you.”

  “I’ll say again, I want more. If you can’t love me with passion and commitment, I will be that friend. I just want a chance to see how deep our feelings run.”

  My thumb gave a weak throb. Once upon a time, Harold had proposed to me—with a four-carat diamond. He’d learned that baubles, even the gorgeous, expensive ones, couldn’t entice me to do a damn thing I didn’t want to do. And he valued me more because of it.

  Since that unfortunate incident, we’d learned each other. Unlike Coleman, Harold wasn’t a local “boy” I’d known my whole life. He came from wealth and another town. As the months passed, I found traits in Harold I admired, and he’d come to appreciate my independence and hardheadedness. I had to admit that while others saw me as mulish, Harold celebrated my iron will. His quick wit kept me laughing, and he had set a course with his courtship of me—I would go to him, not the other way around. He would not pursue or persuade or pamper or seduce me into anything. I had to want him, and I had to take action. It was a riskier position for him to hold, and I admired him for it.

  Not to mention that he was extremely handsome and urbane. And kindhearted. And he loved my critters almost as much as I did.

  He stood up. “Up and at ’em, Sarah Booth. We have some things to figure out. Let’s make a chart.”

  “I almost flunked geometry and I did flunk statistics. Charts are not in my wheelhouse.”

  Harold only laughed. “We can make a chart or we can go to bed. The doors are locked. Sweetie Pie and Roscoe are on red alert, and Pluto is watching out the front window to be sure we aren’t invaded.

  “Coleman hasn’t called about his emergency. I thought I would hear from him before bedtime.”

  “Let it go for tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll fix breakfast for you and all your friends. If, and it’s a mighty big if, you help me clean up the kitchen. What the hell happened in there? I recognize the remains of stir-fry, but what is that orange stuff everywhere?”

  “Pumpkin,” I mumbled.

  “You realize Thanksgiving is right around the corner.”

  I shot up like I’d been electrified. “I forgot! I haven’t prepared anything for our dinner.”

  Harold rose and put his hands on my arms. “Settle down, Julia Child. Thanksgiving dinner will get cooked. I promise. You want to do it all yourself—I grasp that. But a little help from your friends is a good thing.”

  His words calmed me. Harold knew how to make everything okay. I stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “I do take you seriously, Harold. I promise. I just don’t know what I want. That’s as honest as I know how to be.”

  “This will be a hard decision for you, Sarah Booth. After all the losses you’ve had, commitment is hard. I hate what happened between you and Graf. You didn’t need another loss like that. I understand it, and I appreciate his position. I’m not blaming him and you’re right not to either. But you’ve lost so much. You are the last of your family, and that’s a burden I understand.”

  Tears edged into my eyes, but I willed them back. A pity party wouldn’t do me a lick of good, even though I deserved one. “You always understand.”

  “I hope when your heart has healed that will be enough to earn a chance with you.”

  I nodded. “I promise.” I thought he might kiss me, but he was too smart. Harold knew the surest way to win me was to reverse the roles and make me chase him. “You’re a smart devil.”

  “Just like Roscoe,” he said. “Now let’s cook or clean or chart. Take your pick.”

  17

  My kitchen was usable and a Thanksgiving Day menu planned—by Harold—and the duties strategically allocated to different guests by the time we went to bed. I was so tired I didn’t bother undressing. I simply fell onto the mattress and when I woke, I saw Harold had covered me in a family quilt. He’d taken the green bedroom across the hall from me.

  Harold had created a pie chart, which might be as close as I got this year to making anything pie related. The chart showed the possible suspects in Pleasant’s disappearance, and the percentage that Harold and I believed they might be guilty. It was a Jim Dandy little tool. The largest slice of pie belonged to Carrie Ann and Lucinda Musgrove. I felt there was a forty-five percent probability they were behind Pleasant’s abduction. Tally McNair followed at thirty-five percent. That left another twenty percent for someone unknown to be the culprit. If there was such a person, I felt positive I would find him or her in Nashville. Pleasant’s value was in her musical talent.

  When I tromped down to the kitchen for some coffee to wake up, I found Harold already at work. “Cece and Jaytee are on the way for breakfast. The dynamic duo of law enforcement said they’d stop by if they could. Millie is running the kitchen at the café because a chef is out, and Madame Tomeeka has an eight o’clock client.”

  Whatever he was making smelled heavenly. I poured black coffee and settled into a chair. “Thank you, Harold. What’s on the menu?”

  “A grits casserole. Girl, you need to stock your larder. I had to make do with a lot of substitutions. How did you plan on cooking Thanksgiving without any supplies?”

  “I know.” Buying groceries, with the exception of critter food, was not a priority. But I had to get ready for Thanksgiving. I’d ordered a free-range turkey from Swift Level, a wonderful farm where the animals were all treated humanely and allowed to roam free. “Today I’ll buy everything on the list you made.”

  Harold laughed. “And when will you cook it all?”

  He was right. I had to find Pleasant. Defeat was hard to accept, but saving a young woman took precedence over being the hostess with the mostest. “I guess we won’t have the holiday meal at Dahlia House.”

  “Wrong. We’ll decorate to the nines here and everyone can bring a dish or two, just like we talked about last night. We’ll have the best Thanksgiving ever, Sarah Booth. In honor of your folks and little Libby. By the way, Tinkie and Oscar should arrive home any minute.”

  The beauty of private air transportation was scheduling and convenience. “Tinkie and I need to go to Nashville today. I have an appointment with Benny Hester, a music producer.”

  “That’s a good thing. She needs to be away from that baby for a little while. She and Oscar are dangerously attached.”

  “I know. I just don’t know what to do to stop it.”

  He put a plate loaded with the delicious sausage, egg, cheese, and grits casserole and homemade biscuits in front of me. “Chow down.”

  “Shouldn’t I wait for Cece and Jaytee?”

  “Eat and then jump in the shower and get ready. By the time you’re dressed they’ll be here and you can drink coffee with them.”

  Harold was better at managing time and money than anyone I knew. If I stuck to his schedule, I’d have my mystery solved and Thanksgiving dinner cooked.

  * * *

  A hot shower put a whole different
complexion on the morning. Outside my bedroom window, the sun was warming another bare November day. This was perfect weather for Thanksgiving prep, riding a horse, sharing a picnic, just about anything other than trying to find a psycho woman who wished me dead and searching for a young woman who’d just given birth and might be in a bad situation.

  I tripped down the stairs, sniffing something wonderful coming from the kitchen, and stopped at Coleman’s baritone. Harold was filling him in on Gertrude, and both men sounded upset.

  “She’s got a hideout here in Sunflower County, and someone is helping her,” Coleman said. “I’ll find her if it’s the last thing I do, and when I do, someone will be in a world of hurt. That murder at Fitler that DeWayne got called out on—it was a false alarm. It was a setup so that Sarah Booth would be here alone. Thank god you arrived in time, Harold.”

  “Gertrude had her timing down perfect. She arrived just after you’d left and before I could drive here,” Harold said. “I’m certain she was at the bottom of that fake call.”

  “And Gertrude has a mole,” Cece agreed. “She’s on top of every move Sarah Booth and Tinkie make. We’ll sniff out whoever it is.” Excitement laced her voice. “Once Sarah Booth finds Pleasant Smith, I think we should plant some false information for Gertrude. You know, a trap. Lure her somewhere we can drop the net on her and put her away for good.”

  I pushed into the kitchen. “A brilliant idea, and we’ll put that plan into motion as soon as Pleasant is found.” I snared a strip of bacon. “Tinkie and I will be gone most of the day. We have an appointment in Nashville.” I grabbed a homemade biscuit. My first bite almost melted in my mouth. “Harold, these are wonderful!” I turned to Coleman. “So what happened with Carrie Ann and Lucinda?”

  Cece jumped up and pointed out the window. “Squirrel, Sarah Booth! Squirrel!”

  Everyone laughed, even me.

  “Speeding much?” Cece asked, but it was said with humor. “You are wired, girl.”

  I took a couple of deep breaths. They were right. I’d roared into the kitchen like a cyclone. Sweetie Pie slipped up behind me and stole the rest of my biscuit from my hand. “Better on your hips than mine,” I said ruefully. “Okay, I’m sorry. Coleman, did Carrie Ann or Lucinda reveal how I magically set a fire from forty miles away?”