“Archie proposed to me. Not Betty. Me. After more than sixty years, he finally popped the question.”
“Archie Bunker?” I knew she meant Archie Andrews, but I couldn’t help tormenting her. If she could appear as vintage comic characters, I could pretend not to recognize her.
“You are a meathead,” she said in disgust.
“You spend way too much time watching television. Too bad I can’t book you on a trivia show. You might win us money.” I returned to my pursuit of creating the perfect sweet potato salad. From the cabinet I pulled out local honey and then chopped celery while the potatoes cooked.
“You know who I am, Sarah Booth. The classic triangle. Betty, Veronica, and Archie.”
“I do.” I refused to look at her. I’d deduced Jitty hated it when I ignored her special outfits. “Veronica Lodge. I get it. So Archie asked you to marry him. After sixty-something years. Your eggs are probably all dead and shriveled and I doubt Archie is going to be worth the wait, sexually. I mean, he’s been a virgin forever. Low libido. Stifled sperm. Bad choice, Jitty. I figured you’d be more the Wolverine type. Howling at the moon and all.”
“Well, I never—”
“Can the outrage. If the shoe were on the other foot, you’d dog me to my grave about my aging eggs.”
“That’s true, but it’s also beside the point. Comic-book characters and ghosts don’t procreate. Humans do. Or at least those who aren’t too hardheaded to manage wrangling a man into bed for a little contribution to the cause of motherhood.”
There were some days when Jitty made me so mad I thought my hair would catch on fire. This was turning into one of those days. “I don’t have to trick Graf into making love to me.”
“Where’s the proof?”
“Where’s Betty? You know, the girl Archie should have proposed to.” I hoped to distract her.
“Check the Kleenex factory. She’s still boo-hooing. Wholesome just doesn’t cut it when it comes to a man.” She grinned, and I swear she looked exactly like Veronica Lodge. Why would Archie choose her over Betty? Could it be Veronica was an heiress? What in thunderation was I doing trying to figure out the motives of cartoon characters?
I gathered my focus. “I don’t care for this incarnation, Jitty.” I had to be honest. “I never liked Veronica back in the day when I read comic books. I don’t really care for Betty, either. Or Archie for that matter. And Jughead was too weird, though I liked his crown.” I flicked wet fingers at her, showering her with water. “Go away and come back as someone interesting.”
“Stop that! Ghosts don’t like water.”
“What? Will you melt?” I tried to look eager at the prospect.
“I’m a ghost, not a witch,” she grumbled. “Instead of flapping your hands like a hysterical female, you should do something useful.”
“I have a better idea. Why don’t you make contact with the Lady in Red and find some answers for me? Was she associated with Lincoln? Did she conspire to kill the president? If you could get a few basic answers it would make my life a lot more wholesome.”
“You think I got nothing better to do than your legwork?”
I put down my knife. “Yes. That’s exactly what I think. If you can come here as a comic character, I think you have time to burn. If you aren’t going to help me, then don’t devil me with my lack of a child. Graf and I aren’t even married yet. All things in time.”
“Graf’s asked for your hand, and I think you should speed up those wedding plans. Time’s a’wastin’.”
“Go talk to Graf. He wants to marry in Ireland in April.”
“As long as it’s just the wedding in Ireland.” She preened a little. “I could be right popular with some of the departed Irish if we went over for a celebration. But you are both coming back to Dahlia House to live, right? You’re not thinking of moving to Ireland, are you? Why, that would be as bad as living in Hollywood.”
I had no idea what had her in such an insecure mood. “Of course we won’t live in Ireland.” Like it or not, Dahlia House was my anchor and my millstone. I could never leave the land I loved.
Jitty walked across the room, her hips swaying. “Sarah Booth, you don’t have the stretch of time a cartoon character has. There’s only dust and mold for most people. Have that baby, a Delaney to carry on the name and the lineage. Think of the joy of watching your daughter grow up here. And a son. You want at least two children.”
Jitty always pushed me to follow the regime she’d outlined. I seldom obliged, but this time she snared me with her fantasy. I could envision a little chestnut-haired girl running through the rooms searching for her handsome father.
“Don’t you want a family?” she asked.
“I do. And it will happen. Soon enough. The clock is ticking, but I have time left.”
Jitty perched one hip on the edge of the kitchen table. Her beautiful face took on a pensiveness Veronica Lodge could never have managed. “Time goes so fast, Sarah Booth. That’s one of the shocking things you learn when you’ve been around for a few centuries.”
I’d also felt the speeding up of the clock’s hands. “Everything will work out.”
Jitty was staring out the kitchen window at the cemetery where she and her husband were both buried. “After the men left for the war and it was just me and Miss Alice to work this land and tend the young-uns and try to keep body and soul together, it seemed like each day was a century.
“We’d go out to those fields in the hot sun and work until we staggered back to the house to eat. And then the long afternoon called us back out there. There was never enough time to get everything done, yet it seemed each day would never end.”
I slipped beside her, looking out at the gravestones. “I never had to work that hard, but I understand. After my parents died, it felt like I was trapped underwater and time had stopped. I’d fall asleep and it would seem years passed, but I would wake up and only ten minutes would be gone. I thought I would die before I found a way to stand against the grief.”
“In the good moments, time speeds up and goes much too fast.” She gave me a hint of a smile. “These are the fast days for you, Sarah Booth. In the blink of an eye, you’ll look in the mirror and see an old woman. It goes way too quick. Don’t let it slip away without havin’ those children.”
“I won’t.” I wished to comfort her, but I didn’t know how. “I promise.”
“Promise what?” Graf sauntered into the kitchen in jeans and nothing else. “And who were you making a promise to?”
“Myself.”
“You’re talking to yourself and you’re very pleased about it.” He caught me in his arms and pressed me against him. “What did you promise yourself?”
I kissed his chin and then his jaw. “That I’ll love you with every bit of my heart every day. I won’t waste a moment of this precious time together.”
He eased me back so he could look into my eyes. “I love you, Sarah Booth. You constantly surprise and amaze me. I’m the luckiest man alive.” He brushed his lips against my ear in a way he knew drove me crazy. “Let’s not waste any more time.”
Reaching behind me, I turned off the sweet potatoes. Food could wait a little longer.
* * *
The sun had set when I got Frances on the phone. I invited her to Dahlia House so I could update her on Olive Twist. I hoped Graf’s presence would help her maintain her calm. Ladies like Frances never created a spectacle in front of a handsome man.
When she arrived, Graf walked her into the parlor and poured her a glass of sherry. She was old-school. I abstained, until I got past the bad news.
“I’m so sorry, Frances, but Dr. Twist isn’t planning to leave town. In fact, she’s holding a press conference tomorrow to announce the exhumation of the Lady in Red.” I blurted the facts before she interrupted.
“This can’t be true.” Frances looked at Graf, hoping I was playing an awful practical joke. “Surely she won’t be allowed to desecrate a grave?”
Graf sa
t down on the horsehair sofa beside her and patted her free hand. “She’s petitioned for the right to exhume the body. I don’t know if she’ll be granted legal permission. It’s up to Judge Colbert. Do you happen to know him?”
“Delbert Colbert? Of course I know him. And his daddy, and his granddaddy.”
“Then I suggest you make a few phone calls. If there’s a protest against the exhumation, it will at least delay it. But you have to have grounds to stop it.”
Frances drew herself up and belted the entire glass of sherry. “That grave is a historic site. It should not be tampered with so an interloper can test out a ridiculous theory she’s concocted.”
“Exactly what you need to tell the judge.” I felt relief. If nothing else, we could create a delay.
“This is already causing trouble in our community. Serious consequences will occur if this desperate woman isn’t stopped,” Frances continued.
I didn’t think heart palpitations in the Daughters of the Supreme Confederacy would really be viewed as a dangerous situation, but who was I to discount the weight of a clique of heritage ladies? “The judge needs to hear this.”
“And so does Oscar Richmond,” she said.
“I’m not sure I follow.” Graf rose from the sofa and refilled her glass.
“Then you haven’t heard?” Frances sipped the sherry.
“No, ma’am. What have we missed? Sarah Booth and I were … rehearsing some movie parts this afternoon.”
I’d thought I heard the phone ring, but to be honest, I hadn’t paid a lot of attention. I’d been very, very busy with other things. “What happened?”
“Tinkie was supposed to call and tell you that Buford Richmond, Oscar’s ne’er-do-well cousin, showed up at The Gardens this afternoon and got into it with Dr. Twist. Some harsh things were said, mostly about her feet.” Her eyes widened. “Have you noticed how huge her feet are?”
Olive’s tootsies didn’t interest me. “What did Buford say?” Oscar’s cousin was a loose cannon. He was a survivalist nut who’d once bought every roll of toilet tissue in the Piggly Wiggly and refused to share. Several folks in town who’d run out of Charmin had wanted to string him up. He said he was storing the tissue and soap for “the coming apocalypse.”
“Well, he heard Dr. Twist intends to connect the Richmond and Falcon families with a conspiracy, and that’s all it took. He had a gun, actually an old derringer—and he threatened to blow Olive’s ‘mud flappers from here to eternity.’”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Buford acting like an idiot would be fuel to the flame of Olive’s prejudice against Southerners. “I wish the townspeople had whipped some sense into him when he hoarded the toilet paper.”
“It gets worse. I can’t believe you haven’t heard anything about all of this. It was a real scene.” Frances gave me the stink eye. “What were you doing all afternoon?” She watched the blush rise up my cheeks and then she looked at Graf, who to my amusement also blushed. “I see,” Frances said.
“What else happened?” I tried to put the conversation back on track.
“Jeremiah Falcon showed up looking every inch the buffoon. He had on the blue seersucker suit with the white panama hat, acting all lord of the manor.”
Cece’s brother, Jeremiah, was a good ten or fifteen years older than she was. He fancied himself a planter, except he’d never done an honest day’s work in his life. Well, at least in the last twenty years. He lived in the Falcon family home, Magnolia Grove, and survived off the fortune his parents had amassed and he’d cheated Cece out of.
“Jeremiah never comes to town. He’s virtually a recluse. How did he hear about Olive?”
Frances considered. “I guess Buford called him. Those two have been thick as thieves since grade school. They had the potential to do amazing things, and both have squandered their lives.”
That they were in cahoots didn’t surprise me, but it did concern me. Every kook in town had come out of the woodwork. “Does Cece know?” Jeremiah had been a total jackass about her sexual reassignment and was instrumental in getting Cece disinherited. He’d done everything in his power to make sure his sister, who was smart and talented and kind, had been left out in the cold.
“She knows by now. Everyone in town knows, except you.”
“I’ll call her right away.”
“People will be hurt by Olive Twist. She’s doing a lot more than digging up graves. She’s resurrecting a lot of pain and hurt. And your friends are the ones who will suffer, Sarah Booth.”
I could clearly see that. “Gather the Daughters of the Supreme Confederacy and get them all to call Judge Colbert down in Holmes County to stop the exhumation. We each have as much standing to stop it as Olive has to request it.”
Graf interrupted. “If Olive presents a case the Lady in Red was murdered, that could weigh in her favor.”
He was right. But my immediate worry was Cece. She’d been wounded by her family’s reaction to her sexual reassignment. They’d told her they would rather see her dead than a “thing.” Sometimes words hurt more than a bullet. “I need to talk to Cece.”
“I’ll discuss this further with Frances,” Graf said. “You check on Cece.”
My love for Graf was a constant, but his offer to chat with Frances, a woman he’d just met, so I could attend to Cece sent my love spiking off the charts. “Thank you.”
He kissed me lightly on the lips. “Sarah Booth and I will be married in the spring,” he told Frances. “I’m the luckiest man alive.”
She beamed at both of us. “I think Libby would approve of your choice, Sarah Booth. He puts me in mind of James Franklin, your daddy.”
“Me, too.” I could barely get the words out past the lump in my throat. I grabbed my car keys from the table and whistled up my hound. Sweetie loved to ride in my convertible, and I had reason to believe she could comfort Cece in a way I could not.
“Take your time, Sarah Booth. Pluto and I will feed the horses.”
“You are a saint.” I blew a kiss and ran out the front door.
I tried calling Cece on my cell phone as I drove toward her house. When she didn’t answer I tried Harold, Oscar’s right-hand man at the bank and a member of Delta high society. He might be a good ally in figuring out how to handle Jeremiah and minimizing the damage to Cece.
Harold answered instantly. “What can I do for my favorite girl detective?”
I gave him a rundown on what was happening.
“I’ll meet you at Cece’s house.”
“Thanks.” I hung up and called the newspaper just to be sure she wasn’t working late. No dice. The receptionist told me Cece had left around noon and hadn’t been back.
I wasn’t worried. Not really. Concerned. A little. When the phone rang, I was relieved the ID showed Tinkie. But the relief was short-lived.
“Oscar’s disappeared.” Tinkie was close to tears, judging by her voice. “He isn’t at Hill Top, or the bank, or The Club. It’s just not like him to disappear. This whole thing with the Lady in Red and Buford acting a fool has upset him more than he lets on. Cece, too.”
“You don’t think Cece has gone hunting Jeremiah, do you?”
“I hope not.”
I didn’t have to be a mind reader to know Tinkie and I envisioned the same bloodbath. Cece had fought Jeremiah in the courts over the Falcon estate, and she’d failed. The last words she’d spoken to her brother included the phrases “rot in hell” and “too dead for backtalk.” If they clashed, I didn’t trust Jeremiah not to hurt her.
“Do you know where Jeremiah might be?”
“Jeremiah doesn’t socialize much, but I heard Buford was holding court in the bar at The Gardens. If Jeremiah is with Buford Richmond, they’ll be knocking back the whiskey. The two egg each other on. Normally, Jeremiah is standoffish and aloof, but he’s changed lately. Buford, too. I can’t put my finger on it, but I don’t like it. I hope Oscar hasn’t gone there to try and talk sense into Buford. That’s a waste of breath.”
Testosterone and liquor were never a good combination. Especially not when mixed with rampant ignorance, a sense of superiority and entitlement, and guns. Buford had an arsenal, including illegal automatic weapons. Everyone in town knew Jeremiah carried a derringer in his boot. A boot he didn’t have enough sense to pour piss out of when he was in his cups.
“I’ll go to Cece’s and then work my way to The Gardens.” I would rather take a beating than return to Gertrude’s den, but Cece was my friend. Jeremiah and Buford were both crazy enough to shoot her if she got in their faces.
“I’m sorry, Sarah Booth, I can’t go with you. I have to find Oscar.”
“No apologies, Tinkie. If I run across him, I’ll call.”
* * *
Harold was waiting at Cece’s when I pulled into the drive. “She’s not here,” he said. “I peeped in every window. She isn’t home.”
“The Gardens.”
“Okay.” He knew my history with Gertrude. A wicked smile lit his face as he petted Sweetie in the backseat of my car. “Can I bring Roscoe? He’s here with me.”
Roscoe was a demon with four legs. That his vet file labeled him “canine” didn’t mean a thing. A DNA test would prove he was a descendant of Beelzebub. “Sure.” If I could give Gertrude Strom a stroke by taking Sweetie, it wouldn’t hurt to have Roscoe along, too. “Maybe Roscoe will pee on Gertrude’s foot. I don’t know why she hates me so much. It’s almost as if she thinks I’ve plotted against her.”
“I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it, Sarah Booth.” Harold held the car door open for Roscoe, who flew across the porch making a noise somewhere between grumbling and snorting. He was a vile little customer.
The dogs loved my old roadster convertible, and we set out for The Gardens just as the sun slipped behind the tree line. When I turned into the lane, shaded by beautiful oaks and brilliant with blossoming shrubs and beds of flowers, I had to stop the car and take it in. The peachy light of sunset saturated the golds, russets, and purples of the mums. As we idled in the drive, shadows overtook the day.
Smarty Bones: A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery Page 6
