It was at least fifty-fifty that Connie had lied to Coleman about pregnancy prevention, but that still didn’t undo what had been done. “I don’t want to think about this,” I said. “But I do have a question for you, Jitty. Why do you think I was born to my parents?”
Her eyebrows lifted higher and higher. She reached out as if to touch my forehead, and I felt a feathery whisper of cool breeze. “You got a fever? You talkin’ out of your head. You were born to them because they wanted you.”
“They wanted me, specifically, or a baby?”
She nodded in understanding. “Girl, you’re questioning the work of the Divine. All I know is that your mama often said that you were a special gift from heaven. I’m surprised you don’t remember that. She said it just before she left, the night she was killed.”
But I did remember. To my mother and father, it didn’t matter what strange blend of biology or heavenly intervention had created me, I was the child they loved.
“Do you believe in some sort of divinely ordained plan for each person?” I asked Jitty.
Her eyes were liquid chocolate. “I may have an answer to that, but it won’t do any good for me to tell you. That’s something you have to figure out on your own, Sarah Booth.”
5
SWEETIE AND I MOVED OUR LUNCH TO THE SIDE PORCH WHERE THE crisp October breeze blew even more memories over me. Long ago, I’d sat in this swing with my father while he sang old classics to me. Where my mother had a great love of the blues, my father had been more of a Cole Porter man.
Although it was a happy memory, I was left with a piercing sadness. Bittersweet was a word I was developing an intimate knowledge of.
“Let’s go for a ride,” I suggested to Sweetie Pie. Maybe a brisk canter around the cotton fields would clear the past from my brain. Living in Dahlia House I was always steeped in the history of my family, but it didn’t often have the power to quick me as it had been doing lately.
I went inside and slipped into jeans and my riding boots. I was ready to go when the phone rang. Tinkie was on her way to her hair appointment. I thought there might be an edge to her voice, but the cell phone static made it impossible to determine.
“Sarah Booth, I was thinking what to do next. Do you suppose Coleman has any of the NOPD reports? We need to see them.”
It was a good point. If Coleman had any reports, I felt certain he’d share with us. If he didn’t, then I’d have to deal with the New Orleans Police Department, and that might take a lot longer. It was something that needed to be addressed before I escaped for my horseback ride.
“Good thinking, Tinkie. I’ll take care of it right away.”
“Sarah Booth, are you okay?” I heard Chablis’ little bark in the background as if she echoed Tinkie’s concern.
“Sure. I’m fine. Why do you ask?”
“You just seem . . . quiet. I don’t know. Not really quiet, but sort of removed or unfocused. I mean, you’re always the one who thinks of things like autopsy reports.”
She had a point, but I wasn’t going to give it to her. “Could it be, Tinkie, that you’re just getting better and better as a PI?”
Her laughter sounded tinny and empty on the phone. “Well, I’ll see you later, when I’m a glamorous Malibu blonde.”
“You’d be glamorous if you were bald,” I told her before I hung up.
I didn’t want to think about the question Tinkie had asked me, so I called the sheriff’s office. I needed official info and Coleman was the man who could give it to me. When Rinda answered the phone, I was determined not to let her get under my skin. I asked for Coleman.
“He’s taken the afternoon off to be with his wife,” she said. “Don’t you get it, Sarah Booth? He’s a married man, and he’s with his wife. Why don’t you give it a rest and call back Monday?”
“Tell him I need to talk with him about Doreen Mallory,” I said, ignoring her insults.
“Doreen Mallory is the perfect client for you. If Dr. Frankenstein could blend the two of you together, he’d have the perfect Madonna-slash-whore complex. You, of course, being the whore.” She laughed.
To be honest, I was more shocked than insulted. I’d never thought Rinda was smart enough to come up with a slam that combined horror, religion, and psychology.
“Rinda, remember when you used to do those handstands and cartwheels during halftime and everyone at the football game looked at you?”
There was a cautious pause. “Yes. I was the best cartwheeler on the cheerleading squad.”
“Every time that little skirt went over your head, we could see the cellulite on the back of your thighs.”
There was a gasp from her end. Smiling, I hung up.
I’d barely gotten the phone in the cradle before it rang. Millie, proprietress of Millie’s Café on Main Street, was on the line.
“Arlin McLain is in the café,” Millie said in a whisper. “You’d better get over here quick.”
Arlin was a local lawyer and a man known for his calm and reason. He was a serious man who’d been the town’s most eligible bachelor in his younger days. He’d never married, but he’d built a reputation as a fine lawyer and a man of ethics—a difficult balance. He wasn’t the type to invoke a riot or require someone to whisper about his presence. “What’s going on?” I asked Millie.
“He says he’s been talking with your client. It would seem Doreen Mallory has come into some money.” Millie rang up a sale on the cash register. I could hear her making change. “The best I can tell, Lillith Lucas left money in the bank when she died. Doreen’s the heir.”
“What is Arlin saying?” I asked, curious.
“Nothing to me. That’s why I called you. He won’t give me any details, but you know how this town is. He mentioned it to a couple of the courthouse crowd. It’ll be all out of proportion and all over town in half an hour. Folks in here have been buzzing all day about Doreen killing her baby and how she should be sent to the gas chamber.”
“I’m on the way,” I said.
“Hurry up, he’s about finished. I’ll refill his coffee and try to hold him.”
On the drive over, I called Tinkie just in case she wanted to meet me at the café. She was still at the salon, and her hair was pulled through a plastic cap so that her stylist could add those sun-gilded strands to her tawny mane. “I can’t make it,” she wailed. “Damn it. I hate this.”
“This isn’t exactly a matter of life or death,” I assured her as I sped through the cotton fields. “I think I can handle this one.”
“I never thought I’d have to choose between . . . vanity and career,” she said.
“It’s a choice no woman should have to make,” I said with amusement. “I’ll fill you in later.”
I parked the car and walked into Millie’s, caught, as always, by the aroma of fried chicken and other wondrous things. Arlin was seated at a corner table with several other lawyers. I took a seat at the counter.
Arlin was finishing the last bite of his apple pie and coffee, and I waited until he went to the cash register to pay.
“How are you doing today, Mr. McLain?” I asked.
“Why, Sarah Booth,” he said, smiling, his eyes scanning my riding breeches and boots. “You look very fit and stylish. I hear you’re going to help Doreen Mallory.”
I nodded. “I hear you’re involved, too.” He’d been a friend of my parents and had often joined us for dinner.
Arlin took his change and settled onto a stool beside me. “I’d say your sources are much better than mine. I barely uttered Doreen’s name.” He eyed Millie, sending her hustling into the kitchen.
“Are you representing Doreen on the murder charge?” I asked.
“No, I’m handling an inheritance matter for her. There’s nothing I can do for her criminally,” he said. “She’s charged in New Orleans. She’ll need someone with a Louisiana law license, and she’ll need someone who knows the intricacies of criminal law in that state. It doesn’t look good for her.”
&nb
sp; “She says it’s all a mistake. She doesn’t believe her baby was given anything.”
“Yes, that’s what she told me. And she’s mighty calm about it all. If she did kill her own baby, I don’t think she feels a whit of remorse over it.”
Arlin was a man who weighed the guilt or innocence of his clients on a regular basis.
“She’s an interesting woman,” I said to volley the conversational ball back into his court.
“More than interesting. She’s arrestingly beautiful. Stunning.”
I sipped my coffee and let my gaze slide over to study him. Arlin was in his sixties, a gentleman, and still handsome.
“Do you really believe Doreen is Lillith Lucas’s daughter?” I asked him.
“Without a doubt.”
“Why?”
“When Lillith asked me to handle the money she’d set aside, she told me about her daughter. She said I’d know Doreen because of her birthmark. And I did.”
I didn’t recall that Doreen had a birthmark. At least not a noticeable one. “What type of birthmark?”
“She has a small red blotch on the inside of her wrist,” Arlin said. “It has five sides. It’s a most distinctive mark. I’m sure Doreen is Lillith’s daughter.”
“Did she tell you anything about her brother?” I asked.
Arlin couldn’t hide his surprise. “A boy? There’s another child?”
“Yes, an older boy.”
He shifted his weight to his other leg. “Lillith never mentioned another child. Doreen is the sole heir. I don’t believe she’s aware there is a brother.”
“Don’t you find it strange that Lillith gave her children away and then left money in the bank for only one of them?” I needed to get the details on the inheritance.
Arlin shrugged. “There are no laws dictating inheritance.”
“Where in the world did Lillith get enough money to set aside. She always looked as if she were half-starved.”
He gave me a long and troubled look. “Lillith was a woman of intelligence and . . . charisma. If you ever looked into her eyes, you saw surprising things.”
“Such as?” I was curious.
Arlin rose from his seat on the stool. “I knew Lillith when she was a teenager. She may have been the loveliest young woman I’ve ever seen. I had the sense that she hated her loveliness. That she sought to be viewed in a different way. And that quest took her to some very dark places within herself.” He put a hand on my shoulder and his brown eyes were misted with the past. “Lillith was lovely, but your mother had heart. You look more like her every time I see you. If I closed my eyes and listened to you speak, I’d think she was talking to me. You have a nice day, Sarah Booth, and be careful with this one.”
I watched him walk out of the café, leaving me with a truth I’d never had the insight to see. Arlin McLain had been in love with my mother.
REVELER WAS AS eager for a ride as I was. As I saddled my horse, Sweetie Pie spun circles around our legs. We set off to the south at a brisk trot, Reveler tossing his head and humping his back just to let me know he felt good.
When I hit a tractor trail beside an endless stretch of cotton, I let Reveler gallop. I was at last going fast enough to leave the past behind. The moment was all that mattered, my horse surging beneath me and my hound baying at my side.
I rode to Lunar Lake, so named because of its round shape and clear reflection of the nocturnal sky. There was also the fact that local high school kids parked there, often mooning each other. Oh, when the world was young enough that dropping your pants and bending over was considered cute and comical.
Lunar Lake contained bream, catfish, and a few small bass, but no one really fished there. During weekday afternoons, the lake was almost guaranteed to be abandoned. I enjoyed the solitude as I rode the trails around the lake, stopping at the edge to let Reveler and Sweetie drink.
I almost jumped out of my saddle when a male voice called my name. Reveler, who had far better nerves, merely lifted his head and looked at the bank where Coleman Peters leaned against a tallow tree.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, following it up with, “And where’s Connie?”
“She’s supposed to be at the doctor’s office. I took off work to take her. I was determined to make her go, but she said she’d go if I stayed home.”
There was something beneath his words, but I was afraid to probe. Coleman and his wife’s medical arrangements could not be my concern.
“She’s lying to me,” he said matter-of-factly. “I went to every doctor in the county. Her car’s not there. I stopped by Dahlia House and saw you’d taken the horse. I was hoping you’d come here.”
“Maybe she went to someone in Jackson,” I said, keeping the focus where it should be—on Connie. “Maybe she decided to establish a medical link with a doctor there or in Memphis.” The bigger cities had more state-of-the-art neonatal care.
“No,” he said, “she isn’t in Jackson. Or Memphis.”
I held my teeth together so that my busy tongue would behave.
“Come up here and take a rest,” he said.
I slowly walked Reveler out of the lake and up on the bank. Coleman had retreated to the shade of a white oak tree that rattled leaves down on us with the smallest gust of wind. The woods around the lake were beautiful. The South never saw the burst of color that marked the change of seasons for cooler climates, but the sumac, cypress, maple, and a few scattered sycamores shimmered in shades of red and gold. Instead of getting down, I remained on Reveler.
“Are you afraid of me?” Coleman teased.
I shook my head. “Not you. Me.” I wasn’t teasing. We’d come very close to crossing a line that would destroy us.
He walked up to Reveler and lifted me off the horse, gently setting my feet on the ground. My heart was hammering, and I didn’t look at him.
“You’re safe,” he said. “You’ll always be safe with me.”
“You’re breaking my heart,” I answered, because it was true.
“I had decided to divorce Connie. I’d already talked to Arlin McLain about filing the papers.”
I finally looked at him and put my fingers to his lips. “Don’t say any more.”
“She lied to me, Sarah Booth. She said she was on the pill.”
“It doesn’t matter. We can’t change what’s happened.” When I started to turn my face away, he held my chin with his hand and forced me to look at him.
“I’m telling you this, not to seduce you or excuse myself. I’m telling you because I have to. For my own sanity. I can’t go on torturing myself about what you may or may not know or what you may be thinking. I’m with Connie. You’re off-limits. But never doubt that what I felt for you, what I feel for you, is real. I slept with Connie because she begged me to. It was pity that motivated me and fantasy that made it possible.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice so low that Sweetie gave up digging for a gopher and came to check on me.
His hand moved from my chin to caress along my cheek, then dropped to his side. “We won’t speak of this again. We’re going to work together, and I’ll be the friend you can count on for anything. Let me have at least that much.” A smile touched his lips, and in that moment I’d never had more admiration for his courage. “Come sit with me,” he said. “We’ll talk about your client. Rinda paged me and said you were wanting reports on the case.”
We settled against the trunk of the white oak, careful not to let our shoulders touch. Because I often stopped on my rides to read a book or daydream, I carried a halter and lead, and Reveler was grazing contentedly.
“I haven’t seen any of the reports, but according to the detective in charge of the case, it’s like I told you earlier. The ten-week-old infant was given a sleeping medication in her formula.” Coleman looked out at the lake. “It’s a sad case.”
“Why would Doreen kill her own baby?” I honestly couldn’t get a handle on the motive.
“The baby was born with problems.
A lot of them.”
I knew Rebekah had medical problems of a genetic nature, but I didn’t know the details. “Exactly what kind of problems? What is Robert’s syndrome?”
“Remember the thalidomide babies? It’s something like that.”
The term was vaguely familiar from a television news show, but I didn’t remember the details. “Like brain damage?”
“The most obvious signs are the limbs. Sometimes they’re nonexistent. The hands or feet are attached to the trunk. And there are other complications. Rebekah suffered from many medical problems.”
I knew then what he was talking about. There had been a rash of babies born with these problems in the late fifties and early sixties. But those cases had been caused by a drug, which had since been pulled from the market. “Was Doreen taking something?”
He shook his head. “Not according to Detective LeMont. Rebekah’s problems were genetic, as far as I know. It’s a rare condition.”
“So the NOPD is making a case for mercy killing?” I asked.
“No. They’re saying Rebekah’s birth has caused some of Doreen’s followers to question her divinity.”
The very idea of it made me furious. It was judgment of the cruelest sort, a condemnation of someone because of tragedy. “As in, why would God bestow such a baby on one of his chosen spokespersons?” I heard the heat in my words.
“Exactly.”
“That is so ignorant. So Doreen killed her baby because Rebekah was an embarrassment?”
Coleman watched me. “That kind of baby can be very expensive, and not just monetarily. The care is almost superhuman. And there’s no getting better.”
“So is it greed, mercy killing, or just plain not wanting to be bothered? What are they saying is Doreen’s motive?”
“I’m pretty sure they’ll try to use all of the above,” Coleman said. “And they’ve charged her with Murder One. I don’t have to tell you that this case is going to generate a lot of press and a lot of high emotions. Your client doesn’t present the most sympathetic picture. She hardly seems to grieve.”
Hallowed Bones Page 4
