Smarty Bones: A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery

by Haines, Carolyn

She ordered two coffees, and I didn’t press. The sun was hotter than six degrees of hell even with the air conditioner blowing hard. She found a shady spot and parked.

  “Exactly what is wrong with Oscar?” I asked.

  She checked the rearview mirror as if we were being followed. “I found this in his jacket pocket.” She pulled a folded piece of paper from her purse and handed it to me.

  Meet me tonight. Dr. Twist has fabricated material about your family. I have evidence, but it will cost you.

  There was no signature. I considered the many implications of Tinkie’s revelation. “Who gave this to Oscar?”

  Her lips quivered, as if she might cry. “I can’t be certain, but from the paper and handwriting, I think it was Jimmy Boswell. After the firebomb incident. I think he slipped the note in Oscar’s pocket.”

  “Did Oscar meet with him?”

  “I don’t know.” She cleared her throat. “Last night, Oscar disappeared for a couple of hours. He could have met Boswell then.”

  “So what? Surely you don’t suspect Oscar of trying to poison Boswell or Twist.”

  “Of course not.” Righteous indignation pushed her tears away. “I’m worried Twist caught on to what Boswell was doing and killed him herself. But if that’s the case, she’s smart enough to implicate Oscar. She’d do it for meanness.”

  Traffic whizzed by as we sat beneath a pecan tree beside a strip mall and a fast-food joint. The thermometer in the car showed ninety-four degrees.

  “How do you want to handle this?”

  “Find out if Oscar met with Boswell, and if he did, what happened between them.” She shifted into drive and edged to the highway. “Why didn’t Oscar just tell me? We promised not to keep secrets from each other.”

  “I don’t know.” But I had a guess. “The Richmond family honor is at stake. Maybe Oscar doesn’t want to taint that for you, especially if all of this is made-up bull-crap Olive is trying to sell as fact.”

  “I married Oscar, not his name. Who cares what happened two hundred years ago?”

  I laughed, but I wasn’t mocking her, because her heart was true. Yet family name and reputation carried a lot of weight in the South. In the current climate, the charge of being Lincoln’s lover might shock a few people, but to be labeled an accomplice in his assassination was completely different. Time wouldn’t fade that stain. “A logical attitude, but if the Bellcase name were linked with political assassination, you might see things differently. And don’t forget, we’re looking at current illegal acts. Someone tried to blow up Olive Twist and killed Boswell.”

  “If Buford and Jeremiah killed that young man, they have to be punished. It’s just that … Buford used to be somebody. And Jeremiah, too. People looked up to them. We were little kids, so we don’t remember. Buford served on the bank’s board of directors. He went into financial advising and made money for a lot of people. He only started drinking when the economy tanked. Now he’s like a joke. It just hurts me.”

  Her conversation triggered an old memory. Buford coming out of the courthouse with my father. They both wore suits and laughed as they walked in dappled sunshine to Millie’s for coffee. Buford was handsome, well groomed, and well liked by my father and the people they passed. I’d been a kid, as Tinkie said. And I’d forgotten the admirable Buford.

  “All I’m saying is Oscar and Cece may act like this doesn’t bother them, but it does. There’s history here. Everything isn’t black-and-white.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “It doesn’t change what we have to do. I just wish Buford would consider the impact of his actions on others.”

  Drunks had no conscience, as far as I could tell. Their needs were all they thought of. No sense saying it, though. Tinkie knew it as well as I did.

  Easing into the traffic, Tinkie aimed for the southbound lane of the highway that would take us to Holmes County.

  “Who do you think killed Boswell?” I asked as the sun-soaked fields of green slipped past us.

  She didn’t hesitate. “I think Olive did it. He betrayed her on two fronts. With Webber and Oscar. She found out and acted out of rage.”

  “But you agreed to work for her to prove her innocence.” Her lack of even a shade of gray surprised me. Tinkie wasn’t duplicitous.

  “And I’ll do my best. But I’m convinced what we’ll prove is her guilt. And I won’t be unhappy by those results.” She cut a sly look at me. “Dr. Webber makes a lot of sense. And he’s very persuasive.”

  “You think he’s handsome, don’t you?” I slapped the dashboard. “You’ve got a crush on the professor.”

  “I’ve always had a weakness for academics, or anyone with doctor in front of his name. Why, when I was a junior at Ole Miss, Dr. Mitchell was the Canterbury scholar. He whispered old English in my ear when we were making out. Honestly, it just weakened my knees.”

  “Tinkie Richmond!” I couldn’t believe it. “You dated your professor? And Old English turned you on?” I wasn’t certain which part of her revelation was more provocative.

  “Of course we didn’t date. That would’ve been against the rules. We just kissed in his office. It was really innocent, but very exciting. You know, forbidden passion. And I swear, ‘The Wife of Bath’ is exquisite. So bawdy!”

  “You are a scandal.”

  Tinkie laughed. “Oh, don’t play innocent with me. I’m sure you had your flirtations in college. The theater department was a hotbed of steamy sex. Do you remember Carlos Rodriguez? Oh, he was the heartthrob for many girls. Of course I couldn’t date him because he didn’t belong to a fraternity, but he was so sexy.”

  “My lips are sealed.” I’d had a crush on the handsome Carlos, but I’d never acted on it. He was the Latin lover who made the rounds—and won the male lead in every production for the four years he was in school. Had he not been so busy putting notches on his belt, I might have fallen for him.

  “You’ll end up telling me everything,” Tinkie said with confidence. “You always do.”

  She slowed for a roadblock as she approached the Odd Fellows Cemetery. “Uh-oh. Things are heating up.” She parked on the roadside. “Grab my camera, Sarah Booth. We may get a photo of Boswell’s killer. And of course I want to document this for our client. God knows she loves being filmed.”

  I took in the chaotic scene. “Half of Zinnia is here.”

  Several hundred people milled in and around the cemetery. Many were society ladies, wilting in business suits and pumps. They’d come to protest the exhumation.

  Tinkie couldn’t mask her disapproval. “You know, a Daddy’s Girl would never cause a spectacle like this. It’s unseemly to dig up a dead woman and hold a press conference about it.”

  “Bad taste is the least of our troubles,” I said, pointing to four men armed with hunting rifles. Second Amendment nutcases took the Bill of Rights to the extreme. I was always leery of an emotionally unbalanced person carrying a loaded weapon. With their sweat-stained camo T-shirts, beer guts, swagger, and guns, they seemed more than half a bubble off plumb.

  “Sarah Booth, this could get out of hand.” Tinkie had the same thought.

  “An understatement, Tink.” We stopped halfway to the cemetery. “If Twist persists in this, someone will be hurt.”

  “There’s the coroner.” Tinkie pointed through the crowd to Meshach in his hot suit. The man believed in personal presentation. He held an envelope in his hand and approached Olive Twist with it extended. He spoke a few words and left the way he’d come. Olive opened the envelope and read for a moment.

  “Uh-oh, her desires have been thwarted and she’s mad.” Tinkie’s eyes twinkled. “Look how her face went pale and then red. Sure sign her temper is up.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Olive called out. “My request for exhumation has been denied. I will pursue this matter legally. I promise the mystery of the Lady in Red will be solved. I will prove she’s a relative of prominent Delta families and that she was involved in a nefarious crime.”


  When the first tomato flew through the air, I thought Olive had been shot. The red splotch on her white blouse looked, for a second, at least, like blood. By the time three or four rotten tomatoes had splattered her, I realized a troublemaker was pelting her with spoiled fruit.

  An enraged shriek let me know Dr. Twist failed to find a scintilla of humor in the situation. “Who’s responsible for this?” she demanded. “Sheriff, arrest whoever did this. I want them charged with deadly assault.”

  “Ma’am, it’s a tomato, not a hand grenade.” Holmes County sheriff Adams Peeples was a tall, slender black man with studied calm.

  “It’s that idiot Buford,” Tinkie whispered in my ear, and pointed to a tall holly hedge where the fruit pelter had hunkered down. “At least he isn’t shooting hollow points. Let’s take him out.”

  “Are you serious?” I checked out her expensive sundress and bejeweled sandals. “You want to tackle him in a dress?”

  “I don’t intend to get dirty. You tackle him. Once he’s on the ground, I’ll stand on him. I can put a hurting on him.”

  It was pointless to argue with Tinkie. I was the one wearing jeans and boots. I was the taller and heavier partner. I was the muscle. “Okay.” I broke away from the crowd and circled behind the hedge. It wasn’t just Buford involved. Jeremiah was handing him the overripe tomatoes and he was tossing them with deadly accuracy.

  Twist had taken refuge behind the sheriff’s car, and a swarm of tomatoes burst against the white and green cruiser. So far, the local constabulary showed no interest in stopping the fruit attack.

  “Buford, dammit!” I slapped a tomato out of his hand just as he was about to hurl it. “Stop this shit or you’ll go to jail.”

  “I doubt it,” Jeremiah said. “We don’t listen to the likes of you anyway.”

  Jeremiah had made it abundantly clear that anyone who supported Cece was his enemy. I’d given him a piece of my mind several years back and it had rolled off him like water off a duck’s back. The only thing he’d accomplished in his miserable life was to shut out his last remaining family member and doom himself to loneliness and hate.

  “You think it’s fun throwing tomatoes?” I asked.

  “Yeah. It’s fun,” Buford said. “Big fun.”

  “Yeah,” Jeremiah brilliantly added.

  I picked up a crate of tomatoes and started throwing at both of them. I scored a few direct hits before they reorganized. By then, Tinkie had arrived with the sheriff.

  “Arrest them,” she said. “They’re a danger to the community. Vandalism. Flat-out stupidity—I don’t care what the charge is, just lock them up.”

  A cluster of armed men stood beneath an old cedar tree in a corner of the cemetery. They talked and nodded toward Twist. The sheriff was well aware of the potential for violence.

  “This is a volatile situation. Dr. Twist will keep stirring the pot until she gets media attention. She’s willing to risk her life for a spot on the six o’clock news. Those two buffoons”—I indicated Buford and Jeremiah—“will be goaded into acting so stupendously stupid the national media will be down here. Lock them up for their own protection.”

  “Not a bad idea.” Sheriff Peeples snapped cuffs on Buford and Jeremiah before they knew what happened. “Let’s head to the jail so you can tell me all about your rights as citizens of the great state of Mississippi.”

  Like it or not, I needed to talk to Olive. I herded Tinkie in that direction. “Should we drop her case?”

  “Nope. This way we’re on the inside. We’ll know what she’s up to.”

  I considered it as we crossed the cemetery, moving from one shady patch to the next to avoid the sun. “Do you believe what Dr. Webber said about Boswell’s secret stash of videotapes?”

  Tinkie stared at Olive as she berated a group of Heritage Pride Heroes. The professor obviously had a serious death wish. “Maybe. Olive is certainly self-destructive. Look at her.” She used her palm to remove a sheen of perspiration from her brow. “On the other hand, I don’t trust Webber as far as I can throw him.”

  “I thought you liked him.” I was surprised.

  “Oh, he’s sexy and smart. But he’s a snake. He certainly thinks well of himself, as does Olive.”

  “I don’t understand the standards academics judge themselves by.” Things were very different in the theater department at Ole Miss. The measuring stick of success was a role on Broadway or in a film in Los Angeles. “Is Webber successful?”

  “He’s a prince among paupers in his own reviews. And Olive is a princess. We walk amongst royalty.”

  We were still chuckling when we approached Olive’s side. “Thank you for saving me from those nabobs,” she said. “Lord, the ignorance here is abysmal.”

  “Our pleasure,” Tinkie interjected before I could point out we weren’t really concerned for her safety when tomatoes were the weapon of choice.

  “It seems a petition to stop the exhumation was presented to the judge. He halted the process to consider the petitioner’s views. I’m positive I’ll prevail, but it’ll delay things.” She tried brushing tomato pulp from her clothes to no avail. The stain only spread over the left side of her blouse. “I should sue those cretins for ruining my clothes.”

  “I’m sure you can replace the whole outfit for little or nothing. There’s a Nickle-Mart not far from here.” Tinkie let that bomb roll toward Olive with a smile.

  “I hate shopping,” Olive confessed. “It’s such a waste of my valuable time and intellect.”

  “Not to mention your fashion sense.” A smile plastered Tinkie’s face.

  “Yes, you’re exactly right.” Olive bestowed the warmest smile on my partner. “You understand how valuable my time is. I have moments of sheer brilliance, but those breakthroughs require hours of thinking. To be totally original, one must struggle to find the enlightened path. Mental labor is intensive. I don’t like to waste my energy shopping.”

  “Oh, I understand.” Tinkie played right along.

  Since I was behind both of them, I took the opportunity to pinch the snot out of Tinkie’s waist. She bolted forward but suppressed a squeal, bumping into Olive, who cast a furious look at my partner.

  “Sometimes Tinkie has a flash of brilliance, like just now, and she almost has an out-of-body experience,” I chattered away. “The surge of intellect is so powerful, it’s almost as if she were possessed. I wish I could feel something like that.”

  Tinkie’s expression promised retaliation. “Oh, trust me. You will. At the most unexpected time.”

  Olive pulled her shoulders back. “You’re so generous, Mrs. Richmond, but you really can’t expect someone with an ordinary mind to feel what you feel. There are those of us who have quality of mind, but the majority of the population simply doesn’t.”

  “Yes, we elite few can only pity the fools who suffer in mental darkness.” Tinkie heaved a big sigh.

  I’d had enough. “Since you can’t dig up any dead people today, what’s on our agenda? Maybe Tink and I could deposit our retainer?”

  “Oh, dear, I forgot the check.” Olive almost fanned herself. “Let’s head back to The Gardens for it and to prepare my legal plea on the exhumation. This pleading is vitally important. I’m sure I’ll get my way. These dolts have simply set me back a few days, but they haven’t foiled me.”

  I didn’t like her persistence or optimism. “Surely there are other projects. Why not research Leland Stanford’s or J. P. Morgan’s railroad schemes. There’s bound to be plenty to write about there.”

  “Of course there are numerous historical events to excavate. Unfortunately, Sheriff Peters informed me I can’t leave the area. Even if I wanted to abandon this project and move on to something that doesn’t remind me so much of the loss of my research assistant, I can’t. I’m stuck here. So I might as well work.”

  “I could put in a word with the sheriff for you,” I offered.

  “No thanks. I’ll put a few words on Coleman Peters all by myself.” She sim
pered, and her chest emitted the strangest little trill. “He’s one burning hunk of man.”

  Tinkie grinned over her shoulder. “He is a fine example of man flesh, and he’s single.”

  I’d kill her as soon as I got her alone. “But he supports his ex-wife, a nutcase who tries to kill all of his girlfriends.”

  “Another chapter for my book,” Olive said. “That’s why I love the South. Such eccentrics. It’s like Faulkner’s characters are hiding under every rock around here.”

  “You cannot put anything about Mrs. Peters in a book,” I blurted.

  “Of course not.” She gave me a withering look. “I’ll use it in the romance novel I’m writing. With my active brain and linguistic abilities, I should be able to pen a bestseller in a matter of weeks.”

  “Yeah,” Tinkie agreed. “Simple as pie.”

  “But don’t you have to be able to convey human emotions to write a successful romance?” I asked.

  She missed the point completely. “Emotion schmotion,” she said. “I want to convey far more than just the ordinary ‘he loves her, she loves him.’ I want to write about destiny. In my novel, Ian and Enya are fated to share the most intense love imaginable. At first she hates him, and he must teach her obedience. Then, of course, there’s a war. She thinks she’s in love with this simpering Englishman who only wants to destroy her clan. In the end, Ian spanks some sense into her and they live happily ever after. A good spanking really spices up the love scenes, don’t you think?”

  Tinkie rolled her eyes. “Fascinating. What do you call it?”

  “Gone with the Heather. It all takes place on the western moors. The story starts at the beginning of the heather blooming season, which is August, and ends when a big storm sweeps through and fog blocks out the view of the heather. Enya realizes Ian is the man for her, but she can’t find her way to him in the fog.”

  “This sounds vaguely familiar,” I said.

  “If I find out someone has plagiarized my story, I’ll sue.” Twist squared her shoulders. “Brilliance is often stolen.”

  “No doubt,” Tinkie said. “No doubt.”