“Oh, Cece. We love every inch of you just the way you are! No one could ask for a smarter, more courageous, and more loyal friend. We’ll continue to work for Olive.” Tinkie made the proclamation with an eye toward me to make sure I agreed.
I nodded. Aside from the fact that Cece needed us to continue, I didn’t like the idea of dropping a case in midstream. It smacked of unprofessionalism. Besides, I was hooked. Who had killed Boswell? And why? Better yet, who was Boswell—I was clearly beginning to discover that no one in this case was who he appeared to be. And what was Boswell’s agenda? Was Twist the intended target?
So many questions to answer. It was better than a feast.
* * *
When we left the office, there was still no sign of Graf, and I decided to tackle Jeremiah head-on, though I didn’t tell Tinkie or Cece. I didn’t want either of them following me and mucking up a difficult job. My frontal assault would infuriate Jeremiah, but I had to reason with him, or at least try.
Cece had reminded me of the man Jeremiah had once been. For such a long time I’d viewed him as a heartless, money-grubbing man who disdained love and family for profit and gain—his gain and Cece’s loss as he manipulated their parents against her. And then he’d let everything he’d won go straight to hell.
Almost as if he knew the cost had been his soul.
I left a note for Graf and jumped into the roadster with Sweetie Pie riding shotgun.
Graf had installed a satellite radio because I loved the old classics of forties and fifties rock. To set the mood, I pulled scarves and sunglasses from the glove box for Sweetie and me and turned the calendar back to the era of ducktails and bobby sox. The Skyliners belted out “Since I Don’t Have You,” but it was the Platters signature song that applied to Jeremiah, “The Great Pretender.” I had to make him see that.
When we turned into the drive to Magnolia Grove, Sweetie sat up in the seat and warbled a low, mournful howl. She’d never known the Falcon estate in all its glory, but somehow she sensed the decline.
“I know, girl.” I scratched her speckled back. “It’s sad to see something that was once so beautiful fall into ruin.”
Jeremiah’s old Jaguar was parked in front of the house, and I stopped behind it, honked the horn, and got out. Sweetie waited obediently in the front seat for an invitation to disembark. She had better manners than any of my friends or family, and she was self-taught.
The front door burst open and Jeremiah stormed onto the veranda. Because I was seeking it, I caught a glimpse of a man from long ago. He was still there, hidden in the slender frame that moved with grace. Silver threaded his blond hair, and he wore shabby, dingy clothes instead of European chic. Like the house and grounds, he was in decay. And like the condition of the house, it was a voluntary choice. Whatever his reasons, Jeremiah had decided not to take care of himself.
Instead of a gun or a weapon, he held a phone. “You have sixty seconds to clear off this property or I’ll call the sheriff to have you arrested for trespassing. A second offense.”
“I need to speak with you.” I signaled Sweetie out of the car. She bounded over the door and halted at my thigh. She didn’t growl or act aggressive, but she was tense. Jeremiah recognized her posturing and knew if he so much as stumbled in my direction, she’d protect me.
“If that dog comes at me, I’ll have it destroyed.”
“Dream on, Jeremiah. I only want a few minutes of your time. Call Coleman if you want, but until he gets here, I intend to try reasoning with you.”
“I have nothing to say to you or any of your deviant friends or associates.”
I thought about the tire iron in the trunk and what satisfaction it would be to bring it down on his pumpkin-filled head. Instead, I reached for patience and understanding. What was it about Cece that sent Jeremiah off the deep end? And then I knew. “What did you really want to be, Jeremiah? It wasn’t a chemist. Sure, you have a natural talent for science. But it wasn’t your love. What was taken from you that makes you hate Cece so much? She didn’t let your parents subvert her identity, and you did.”
“You pompous bitch.” He came down the steps, but he stopped short. Sweetie watched every motion he made.
His reaction told me I’d hit the nail on the head—and I knew the answer. In Jeremiah’s old room were dozens of drawings—landscapes, still lifes, pen-and-ink creations of beauty. “Why didn’t you pursue a career as an artist? You could have done both.”
He paled, and the hand holding the phone shook. “Get off my land. No matter what you think, it’s my land, and I can do what I want with it.”
“Another lie. You were never allowed to do what you wanted. As the elder son, you did what was expected.” And here was the seed of his cruelty toward Cece. He didn’t hate her so much as he hated himself. She demanded to be taken on her own terms, and he’d folded to pressure.
“I don’t know who you think you are—”
“I’m Cece’s friend. Someone who cares about her, the way you should. She never harmed you. She never wanted anything from you except love.”
“I’m still pressing trespassing charges against both of you.”
His arrogance was nearly my undoing. “Go ahead. Show the entire county how petty you are. I’ll happily pay a fine. And at the end of it, you’ll still be all alone, with no real friends except the buffoons who hang out here because you’ve squandered your family fortune buying beer and pandering to their pathetic need for power against someone.”
He crossed the yard. Sweetie’s hackles raised, and she gave a warning growl. “You don’t know a damn thing, Sarah Booth Delaney. Nothing. Not about your friends or the history of this place.”
“Maybe I don’t. But you’ve done more harm to yourself than anyone else ever could. I know it could stop now, if you let it.”
A wild laugh escaped him. “If you knew me so well, you wouldn’t be here. You’d be too afraid of what I might do to you.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “You wouldn’t hurt me. Not deliberately. In some ways you’re like me, Jeremiah. You’ve turned the past into an idealistic romance. I’m part of that past for you.” I tried my rusty French, the same awkward phrase I’d spoken so many years ago. If I’d slapped him, I couldn’t have stunned him more.
“Go home,” he said softly.
If he would ever tell me the truth, it was now. “Did you poison Jimmy Boswell? You’re an expert in chemicals. Poisons would be right up your alley.”
Confusion clouded his features. “Are you joking?”
“You didn’t.” I’d discovered what I needed.
“Of course not. Why would I poison one of us?”
I froze, my satisfaction sliding into the dust at my feet. “What do you mean, ‘one of us’?”
He laughed, and the mask of ugliness was firmly back in place. His vulnerability, if I’d ever truly seen it, was gone. “Boswell was a member of the Heritage Pride Heroes.” He let it sink in, his sneer widening. “You didn’t know.”
“Unbelievable.” No, I hadn’t known. Nor had I suspected. Were I a conspiracy nut, I’d be babbling “grassy knoll” all over the place. “I knew about Boswell’s connection to Vicksburg. His family, like so many others, suffered during the war and Reconstruction. A hundred fifty years ago, Jeremiah! Boswell was educated. Smart enough to see the economic factors and realize the conquered always suffer. Why would he belong to a group that celebrates ignorance and criminal behavior?”
“Maybe because we’re sick of the way this country is going. Maybe because the South will never be under the federal boot heel again. Maybe because he intended to write his own book and make his own film, documenting that awful woman for what she is—an abusive overlord and the worst kind of pretender.”
“What you say may all be true, but here’s more truth for you. The Heritage Pride Heroes is an organization of frightened men. You want to control women and bully others with fear into following your agenda.”
“We’re a well-organiz
ed paramilitary organization. We don’t recognize the federal authority. You’d be surprised at the people who share our philosophy.”
“No, I wouldn’t. There are nutcases all over the place.” I opened my door and called Sweetie into the front seat. One foot on the running board, I changed my mind and went to him. “I remember you, Jeremiah. When you lived in France. You went there because you thought you could pursue your drawing as well as work in the chemical business. I realize now you intended to please your father but hold on to your dream. I don’t know what happened, but you can still go after the things that are important to you. Cece would support you. She’s that kind of friend, and she would be that kind of sister to you. Don’t squander any more time.”
“You think you know Cecil. You don’t. And you certainly don’t know me.”
“I think I know you both. Better than even I knew. I’m happy for Cece. She’s her own person. But I’m very sad for you. This whole Heritage Pride thing is just one more punishment, but this time you’re heaping it on yourself.”
“You’ll see us in a different light soon enough. When we’re ready to go public.”
“Who killed Boswell? Was it one of your buddies intending to get Twist?”
“That’s what I’m hoping you and Sheriff Peters can answer.”
11
I took my time driving home. Jeremiah had given me a lot to think about. Because I’d never bought into the glory of war—not any war—I couldn’t follow the thought processes of those who clung to “tattered glory.”
How could an educated, well-traveled man like Jeremiah worship at the altar of such stupidity? It was as if he’d decided if he couldn’t pursue art, he would kill everything of beauty or sense in his life.
Some would say that made him a very dangerous man.
Because my thoughts were so depressing, I telephoned Graf. He didn’t answer, and I left a message asking him to call me on my cell phone. I wasn’t ready to head home to an empty house, so I called Harold and swung by to collect him and Roscoe for an ice cream treat. We rolled along the drive-thru at the Sweetheart and picked up our cones at the window.
“Lick fast,” I ordered the dogs. “It’s hot as Satan’s toenails.”
Harold studied me as I held Sweetie’s cone and enjoyed my own. When we were done, I pulled onto the highway.
“Let’s ride to Morgan Creek,” Harold suggested. “We can let the dogs swim and hang our feet in the water.”
The idea charmed me instantly. Morgan Creek held many good memories of picnics, water games, hunting for arrowheads along the sandy banks, and swimming with my mother and childhood friends.
I turned down a dusty lane and aimed for a distant clump of trees marking the creek’s passage. Pulling into the shade, I said, “I haven’t been here in years.”
“Me, either.” Harold hopped out and whistled up the dogs. They abandoned the car like it was on fire. Roscoe’s gravelly bark spurred Sweetie on as they ran for the water. “Come on, Sarah Booth. We have to at least wade.”
Pulling me by the hand, Harold led us to the spring-fed, amber creek. It was only fifteen yards wide, and no more than four feet deep in places, but the dogs flew into it with woofing joy. Sweetie tackled Roscoe in the shallows, and the evil little beggar was caught completely off-guard. He recovered and jumped on her, knocking her into the water.
“The smile makes it all better,” Harold said. “For a moment I thought you might sink through the asphalt, you were so low. Why are you so down?”
One thing I loved about Harold was how well he read me. “I went to see Jeremiah. He’s filled with bitterness and anger, and he wants to hurt everyone around him. Especially Cece.”
I picked up a piece of compressed earth and threw it into the creek. “I went to Magnolia Grove all determined that all I had to do was remind Jeremiah about the good old days and he’d see how he was hurting his only close relative. Like I could ride onto the scene and change the way he views life with a few pithy sentences about the importance of family. I’m as deluded as the rest of them.”
“I take it Jeremiah didn’t react as you expected. How dare he!” He folded onto the ground and patted a spot beside him for me to sit.
Harold had long ago accepted me as the occasionally snarky little troll I could be. I amused him. “Understatement of the week.”
“Tell your uncle Harold how he can help.”
He wasn’t patronizing me; he was teasing me. But I took him at his word. “I can see how Jeremiah clings to the myth of the Old South where all the residents were genteel and educated and cloaked in nobility. Those nasty Yankees came along and disrupted Utopia. The fantasy appeals to a lot of people who never studied history or who deliberately choose ignorance. What I don’t get is how he can so totally reject Cece. He doesn’t even know who she is.” I caught myself before I crashed into tears.
“Oh, he knows enough about Cece to know he hates her.” Harold sat taller, monitoring the dogs playing downstream in the shallows. They chased and barked and ran up and down the banks.
“Why would he hate her?”
Harold loosened his tie, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and put his arm around my shoulders. It was a gesture of friendship, not intimacy. “Jeremiah let his parents break him. They held money over his head and he kept jumping for it. Cece gave up the family inheritance and all the power it had over her.”
I put a stick in the path of a soldier ant and watched the creature’s amazing dexterity. “That’s exactly what I felt. I told Jeremiah he could still pursue art or whatever his dream was, but I infuriated him.”
“Many people who are victimized struggle hard to reclaim their lives, but a certain type of victim never wants to be told they have the power to change their status. Fear or self-doubt prevents them from changing. So they have to believe it isn’t their fault. The shame of it is that they become victims of their own belief systems.”
It always amazed me when Harold and I found ourselves not only on the same page but reading the same line. “Now I’m depressed all over again.”
“We live in a world of free choice, Sarah Booth. People want to be victims. Ignorance and bigotry are comfortable places, especially for victims. It’s easier to hate than to be curious. Sad truth of human nature.”
Harold pulled a backward Cinderella moment and removed my shoes. When he was barefoot, too, he escorted me into the water. The gently flowing creek was deliciously cool under the shady trees. As the dogs sprayed us with water and sand, I closed my eyes and soaked in the bliss of creek water and good friendship.
“As much as I dislike him, I don’t think Jeremiah killed Boswell.” I took the opportunity to hash out the case with Harold. He had a good head for logic, and he was excellent at playing devil’s advocate.
“Jeremiah can be dangerous, and don’t ever forget that. But I don’t think he killed Boswell, either. Poison is a coward’s weapon. Jeremiah is deluded, but he isn’t cowardly.”
He made a good point. Jeremiah and Buford viewed themselves as men left behind by history. They were the knights of the Round Table in a world that didn’t appreciate their nobility or willingness to sacrifice. Men of honor. Throwing rotten tomatoes had a rakish humor to it. “Oscar, with Cece’s help, says he’ll push to institutionalize both of them.”
“He can try.” Harold stepped in a depression and water covered his trousers to his knees. Instead of being upset, he laughed.
“You don’t think he can?”
“I don’t. Oscar has influence with a few judges, and he might manage to have Buford evaluated by a psychiatric team, but not Jeremiah. He has no standing to initiate action based on questionable mental health. Cece won’t pursue this. Don’t ask it of her.”
The cool waters sloshed our legs as we walked to a fallen tree growing sideways from the bank. It made a perfect seat, and he lifted me onto it before he jumped up himself. The limb was low enough that our feet dangled in the creek. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Roscoe swimming towar
d us like a big gator.
Harold hiked his feet before Roscoe could nip them. “If you want my opinion on who killed poor Boswell, I’d vote for Webber.”
“What do you know about Dr. Webber?” I moved my feet to safety, too. Roscoe circled like a shark.
The sunlight filtering through trees’ canopy showered us with dappled shadows. Harold hesitated. At last he answered. “Do you remember Linley Hanks?”
The image of a slender blonde with dark brown eyes came to mind. She’d been Miss Sunflower County my high school junior year. The little movie projector in my brain spun a reel. Linley Hanks wore a red glitter outfit and white boots with pom-poms. She twirled a baton at the head of the band as they marched around the courthouse square. Santa Claus threw candy from a float that followed behind Linley and the marching band.
“I do,” I said.
“Christmas Parade.” Harold sighed. “Red costume, white boots, and her baton had green tinsel.”
I’d forgotten the metallic green streamers on the end of her twirling baton. “Nice stroll down memory lane, but what does Linley have to do with this discussion.”
“She got pregnant and had a baby girl. The father wouldn’t marry her or support the child. She never told who it was.”
Working in the bank, Harold was privy to private info involving most of the region. “I hope she left town. Folks can be mighty hard on a girl who makes a mistake, especially one as beautiful as Linley.”
“She moved to Oxford and took a job on campus as a secretary. In the history department.”
“Oh, no.” I saw where this was headed. “He seduced her, didn’t he?”
“Right. They were something of a fairy-tale story—the secretary who nabs the professor. Linley was plenty smart. She could’ve been anything, but she fell hard for Webber. She spread the word around the university they were a couple. She said he’d offered marriage and support for her baby.”
Smarty Bones: A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery Page 17
