Splintered Bones

by Carolyn Haines

  “Krystal, baby.” I turned to the door as her husband strode in.

  “Sarah Booth, this is my husband, Mike Rich.” Krystal’s introduction was flawless, but something changed the moment her husband got near. I realized it was her eyes. They were suddenly Barbie’s—beautiful but without life.

  “Yes, we’ve met.”

  “Sarah Booth, I hear you’re going to put my wife in your book.” Mike shook my hand in a pump that was guaranteed to bring water in less than thirty seconds. I would have gushed if I could have.

  This was going to be tricky. The old line “Never con a con” came to mind. “That’s my goal. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever finish this darn book.” Artful Dodging, lesson number thirty-two in the DG training manual, was coming in handy.

  “You should try singing,” he said. He perched on the edge of Krystal’s vanity table. “My wife goes out there every night and takes the temperature of the mob. She can sing her heart out and get nothing. She can put every inch of her soul out there for them to stomp on. A writer has it easy, compared to that. And you can’t imagine the money that’s tied up in launching a singing career. Krystal better pay off soon, or I’ll have to get a new model.”

  Gritting my teeth, I smiled. “You seem to know everything about everything.”

  Krystal went to her husband and put her arm around him, giving a big squeeze. “Sarah Booth wants to ask me some questions.”

  Actually, I wanted to ask him what he was doing picking up a teenager from my home in the wee hours of the morning, but now wasn’t the time.

  “Sure, go ahead.” He inched his butt further up on the vanity, knocking over a bottle of perfume. He ignored it.

  “I’d like to talk to her alone,” I said sweetly.

  “Sorry. As her manager, I don’t think that’s a wise idea.”

  I nodded. “I see your point, and I certainly understand. Thanks.” I started toward the open door.

  “Mike, baby, Sarah Booth and I are old friends.” Krystal tilted her head up at him. “We’ve got some old gossip to dig up, and we don’t want you hearin’ it.”

  “I think we need to control the things that are printed about you,” Mike said as he watched my reaction. “The wrong kind of publicity can do tremendous damage.”

  “Sarah Booth wouldn’t write a harmful word about me,” Krystal said, putting her hands on her hips. “Now go on and let us talk for a few minutes.”

  “I don’t understand why I shouldn’t listen to the interview,” he said, standing up.

  “I’m afraid my interviews are conducted one on one. That’s the premise of my book,” I ad-libbed. “I appreciate your viewpoint, though. A star has to protect her privacy. No hard feelings; I’ll just find another singer to interview.”

  “You won’t put her in the book if you don’t talk to her alone?” He was incredulous.

  “Structure, you know. It’s everything in a book. I’m sorry, but I have to follow the structure I’ve established.”

  His eyes narrowed, and he looked at Krystal. She shrugged and made her expression helpless.

  “What kind of questions?”

  “Oh, just about her recording career, where she started, that kind of thing. Fans want to know the basic details of a celebrity’s life. It makes the star more real, more human.”

  Mike studied me. “Nothing personal. You’re not going to ask why she doesn’t have kids or that kind of thing that’s nobody’s business but mine?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t have to ask that question. He’d just given me the answer. “Strictly professional questions.”

  He pursed his lips. “Okay. But I’ll be outside the door. Krystal, you know the rules.”

  “Yes, Mike.” She gave him a smile that should have set his clothes on fire. Krystal had added a full measure of sexual heat to the talents of a Daddy’s Girl.

  He stepped out of the room, and I walked over and closed the door. When I looked at Krystal she was about to laugh out loud. “Mike’s got his good points, but Lord, he can be a trial. He thinks if he doesn’t have his finger in every pie, none of them will bake.”

  “Thanks for doing this for Lee,” I said. “She’s in a real mess.”

  “What is it you want to ask me?” She sat down at the vanity and began to check her makeup.

  “What can you tell me about Bud Lynch?”

  She darkened an eyebrow, her hand never faltering. “We can’t talk about that here.”

  “Then where?”

  There was a knock on the door. “Five minutes, Miss Brook. Mike wants you to do a sound check on all the equipment.”

  Mike had left the room, but he’d made sure there was no time for real questions. I watched Krystal closely. Her back straightened, her shoulders drew back, and she tipped the cowboy hat on her head.

  “Honey, this will have to wait. We’ll talk later. Right now, though, it’s show time.” She grasped my shoulders and leaned over to kiss my cheek. “Sarah Booth, it was sure good seeing you.”

  16

  Mike was standing outside the dressing room, hands in pockets and silk tie loosened. His compulsion had not allowed him to go further than the closed door. “How’d it go?” he asked.

  “Fine. I can’t wait to see Krystal’s performance.” I thought of the star/manager marriages I’d read about in magazines. Mike fit the stereotype to a T. His claim to fame was controlling the talent. Living as the-man-behind-the-woman had to be tough on his fragile ego.

  “Got all your questions answered?” he pressed. Sweat glistened on his forehead.

  “All except one.” I shifted so that I could look him directly in the eye. “What were you doing, picking Kip up at two in the morning?”

  He was startled, but only for a second. “The kid called me and asked me some questions. I knew she was having a hard time, so I talked to her a little and one thing led to another.” He shrugged.

  “She just called you up, out of the blue?” It wasn’t hard to generate disbelief in my voice.

  Mike’s face darkened. “I was suffering from a guilty conscience. Krystal’s just getting into the horse thing, but we’re figuring it won’t do her career any harm if she learns some rodeo stuff. That Lynch is teaching her. Sometimes I go watch her take lessons, and I overheard some things I shouldn’t have repeated.”

  I raised my eyebrows. I wondered if he knew exactly what Bud was teaching his wife.

  “I let it slip that Carol Beth had bought that mare of hers. Kemper never should have done that to the kid.”

  “Kemper was a total bastard,” I agreed. “But Kip is in my care. Didn’t it occur to you that I would be upset if she left in the middle of the night?”

  “Hell, she said she told you that she was going out with a friend.” He frowned. “I guess it’s different with boys. We used to take off at all hours.”

  “And you didn’t have a clue she was going to vandalize Carol Beth’s truck?”

  He was surprised. “I didn’t know. She just said she wanted to talk to Carol Beth about the horse. Make sure it was doing okay. She said Carol Beth was expecting her, so I let her out at the motel and left. That’s all I had to do with it. Honest.” His grin was all charm. “Sorry if it worried you. I won’t do it again. This time I promise.”

  The girls I’d grown up with had made interesting choices in spouses. By comparison, I didn’t mind being single.

  “How’d you get into the music business?” I asked, pulling out a notepad that I’d brought as a cover. There was something in Krystal and Mike’s relationship that niggled at me. He didn’t have the finesse required for the truly big league, and I was vaguely curious as to why Krystal kept him around. Maybe he had her tied up in a contract.

  “I started out in real estate, some car dealerships, insurance, HMO groups, services for the homebound, those kinds of things. I still dabble a little, but now I’m a record producer and manager of Krystal’s career. She’s going to be the toast of Nashville by this time next year. She has the tal
ent, and I have the money to make it happen.”

  So, he was the capital investor. “She’s certainly rein-vented herself,” I agreed.

  “Do you think there’s something wrong with that?” he asked with more than a hint of aggression.

  I almost stepped back. “Certainly not. I think the ability to go after what you want without being hampered by the past is a sign of real strength. I admire Simpson.”

  He laughed without humor. “My God, she hated that name. She hated everything about her childhood. Her mother was the ice queen, and her father was a lush. She was lucky she found me. We’re the best thing that ever happened to each other.”

  “I’ll be sure to note that in my book,” I said as I made my escape.

  When I went back out front, the joint was so jammed I had to push for fifteen minutes to get close enough to the bar to order a drink. With a bourbon-and-water in hand, I perched at the edge of the bar and watched the stage.

  Krystal came out on a roll of drums and blew two kisses into the audience. She didn’t waste any time. Long strides carried her across the small stage as she belted out an old Janice Joplin song, redone in country style. She was damn good.

  The more I watched her, the more I liked her act. She’d blended the look of the Grand-Ole-Opry-cowboyglitz with the heart of traditional rock’n’roll, and in the process had harnessed something hot. She also looked and moved like a star. She possessed that legendary “it” quality.

  Everyone who had known Simpson would be stunned at the transformation. The only thing that could begin to compare was Cece’s sex change. Even then, everyone had always sort of thought of Cecil as feminine.

  No one could ever have imagined Simpson as Krystal.

  The song ended to wild applause before Krystal calmed the crowd. “If y’all will listen for just a minute.” She held the microphone and waited. Gradually the audience quieted. “As you know, my good friend Lee McBride is in a little trouble. I want to thank you all for comin’ out tonight and puttin’ some money in her legal kitty. Lee’s a good woman.” She said it again with emphasis. “A . . . good . . . woman.”

  She paused dramatically. Her eyes searched the crowd but didn’t linger on anyone. She began talking again and I was amazed at the down-home syntax.

  “Life takes some strange twists and turns. I know that for a personal fact. Sometimes we find ourselves in places that, a year before, we would never have dreamed we could stumble into, much less stay in. I know I sure have.”

  That private revelation sent a wave of applause through the crowd. Obviously, everyone in the bar had been someplace that wasn’t a comfortable fit. It also gave me some insight into exactly how good Krystal was at working the crowd. She’d connected with everyone in the room on a personal basis.

  “Lee and I go back a long way. All the way to high school. Where we were good friends! I only wish she’d called me sooner. I know The Beatles aren’t country, but they still had a lot of good things to say, and one of the truest was that you can get by with a little help from your friends.” She nodded and her red hair shimmied around her shoulders, catching the lights. “With all of that said, there’s only one other thing to say. . . .”

  The lead guitar did an introduction that was picked up by the rest of the band. Then Krystal began to sing. “Maryanne and Wanda were the best of friends, all through their high school days.”

  The audience picked up the words to the Dixie Chicks’ song that had touched a national nerve. When they got to the part where “Earl had to die,” the entire place was shouting out loud.

  The only two not singing along were me and the prosecuting attorney.

  For the entire hour that Krystal performed, she never let the audience settle down. She gave a show that was one of the best live performances I’d ever seen. It gave me plenty of opportunity to seek out the other DGs.

  I wasn’t too surprised to find that Mary Louise was the only one in attendance. She looked more than a little out of place in her spit-polished paddock boots, jeans with a crease, and diamond Rolex, but she was trying. In fact, she was on the dance floor in the tight embrace of a local when I found her. When the song was over, I made my move.

  “Mary Louise,” I said sweetly as I went up to her. “It’s been years.”

  “Sarah Booth.” She smiled, but it didn’t hide the worry in her eyes. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

  It was a lie, but a nice one. “Can we talk outside for a moment?”

  “Sure.” She led the way into the relative quiet of the parking lot. My ears were still ringing, and I could feel the bass throbbing in my bones.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Bud Lynch.” I had decided on a frontal assault. It was the one method of attack a Daddy’s Girl would never use.

  “Oh.” She didn’t look away. “Bud Lynch.” She gave a half laugh. “How’d you hear about that?”

  “Carol Beth has been very, very busy,” I said.

  Mary Louise shrugged a shoulder. “Hell, she wants everything at Swift Level, including Bud. Susannah and Elizabeth and I were mostly having fun, driving Carol Beth crazy. We’d just sit around and talk about Bud so she could overhear.” She shrugged again. “In case you haven’t kept up, my track record with men hasn’t been so great. Why are you so interested in Bud?”

  “Because of Kemper’s murder.”

  She looked at me hard. “You think Bud murdered Kemper?”

  By her tone I could tell she didn’t believe it. “Maybe. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  “Lee confessed,” she pointed out. If she wasn’t truly puzzled, she was a damn good actress.

  “She’s lying,” I countered.

  Her eyebrows rose in sudden understanding. “To protect someone. Lee would do something like that.” She thought a moment. “But I don’t think it’s Bud. She knew him for what he was, a terrific trainer and good in the sack. But he’s what my therapist would term emotionally unavailable. Lee always wanted more than that. She wanted a partner. What a crock of happy horse-shit.”

  Mary Louise had developed a salty tongue and a pragmatic attitude about life. She also had some insight into Lee that I didn’t. “If Bud is emotionally unavailable, what would your therapist term Kemper?”

  “Earl.” She smiled, but it was sad. “See, we all knew Kemper was knocking her around, but Lee wouldn’t let anyone help her. She wouldn’t talk. She’d just show up in the barn with another black eye, another cast. Hell, if I said anything she got all pissy. Even Bud gave up trying to talk to her.”

  “It’s hard for me to picture Lee taking that kind of abuse.”

  Mary Louise rolled her eyes. “The worst was that poor kid. She was caught between it. If she didn’t win a class, Kemper took it out on Lee or one of the horses. I’ll tell you, that bastard Kemper should have been strung up. Getting stomped to a pulp was too easy for him. And the fact that it was Avenger sure is sweet revenge. He hated that horse. Kemper knew Avenger’s value, so he couldn’t really hurt him, but he didn’t spare the riding crop. Not on the horse or on Lee.”

  “A jury is going to want to know why she didn’t simply divorce him.”

  Mary Louise belted back her drink. “You’ve never been married, Sarah Booth. Once you say those magic words of bondage, you open the door to suffering. If it’s not physical abuse, it’s emotional. Derk never hit me. That would have been too clean and simple. No, he liked to tell me how inept I was . . . in bed, in the kitchen, at parties, in business, in providing for his many needs. Lucky for me he found an eighteen-year-old who could take the pressure off me.”

  That was a whole minefield of emotion I knew I couldn’t step into without setting off a dozen bombs. “Would you testify in Lee’s behalf? About the beatings.”

  “Sure.”

  I had to make certain of one other thing. “What if your relationship with Bud comes up in court?” I kept going. “It occurred to me that perhaps Kemper was blackmailing you and the other women beca
use of Bud. Was he?”

  “Blackmailing me? No. Like I said, Bud is one in a long line. It won’t hurt my feelings to have it pointed out in a court of law that I’m an idiot with piss-poor taste in men. As for Susannah and Lizzie, I don’t think they’ll testify. They’re still pretending that they have a marriage.” The ice tinkled in her empty glass.

  “Is it possible Kemper was blackmailing them?”

  She shook her head. “They would have told me if he tried.”

  “What about Carol Beth?”

  She laughed out loud, and this time with a bit of humor. “Now, I’d pay a lot of money to hear what Carol Beth would have to say about her relationship with Bud. I hear she signed a prenup with Benny. Adultery is grounds for walking off without a dime.” She mimed concern. “Carol Beth can’t afford to admit to bedding down with Bud. She’d quicker own up to murder.”

  “Thanks, Mary Louise. I’ll be in touch.”

  I mentally scratched Mary Louise off my list of suspects. She was many things, but she wasn’t a candidate for blackmail, so she no longer had a motive to kill Kemper. More shocking was the fact that she’d voluntarily left the tribe of Daddy’s Girls. Somewhere along the road of life, she’d grown up and turned into a woman I would probably like to know a lot better.

  She went back inside the bar, and I stood outside in the parking lot, glad to have some fresh air and reassured that my ears might eventually readjust to normal.

  I was almost ready to go back in when the door opened and a tall man whose walk I recognized came out into the starry night. He came straight toward me.

  “Good evening, Coleman,” I said, glad to see him. Leavening the gladness was an image of him sitting on the floor in front of a fire with Lee.

  “Sarah Booth, it’s a relief to be out here.”

  “Have you found anything new about Kemper’s murder?”

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” he said, leaning against the side of a car. “I talked with the prosecutor. I know Lee’s protecting someone, and you know she’s protecting someone. Lincoln Bangs thinks she’s protecting her accomplice.”