Booty Bones: A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery

by Carolyn Haines

  I dropped my clothes on the floor and climbed into bed. I’d opened a window, and the pounding surf seemed to match the rhythm of my heart, an echo of loneliness in that empty chamber.

  “Having lost much, I know how you feel.” The soft, Southern drawl came from a woman no more than five feet tall, plump and dressed in a gown of black brocade. A thick veil covered her face.

  Sweetie raised her head and gave a low, bluesy moan, then returned to sleep. Walks on the beach were wearing her out—and besides, we both knew the apparition was merely Jitty, in the guise of Mary Todd Lincoln.

  “What sadness does your getup bode?” I pulled the covers over my head.

  “Why do we suffer so much in this lifetime?” she asked.

  Peeping out from the covers, I watched her as she lifted the veil to reveal a round face ravaged with sorrow. “I can’t answer that, Jitty. Just tell me, is something bad hanging over Graf?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Mary Todd Lincoln lost her sons, her husband. Her family never forgave her for marrying a Unionist. They were wealthy Kentuckians and supported the South. After Lincoln was shot, poor Mary Todd ended up with nothin’. One remainin’ son, who put her in a mental asylum. And you feel like you’re alone, Sarah Booth. At least you got your posse.”

  “Thanks for that, Jitty.” Because my last case involved Lincoln’s extracurricular love life—or at least the supposition of one—I had to ask. “Was Mrs. Lincoln insane?”

  Jitty sat down on the edge of my bed. “She had no friends in Washington. She had no family because of her political beliefs and marriage to Lincoln. The man she loved was gunned down in front of her. Was she insane or simply too sad to care?”

  Jitty never gave a simple answer. It was almost as if she took pleasure in enigmatic responses. I’d learned badgering did no good. Whatever she intended to reveal would come in its own time.

  “What should I do to help Graf?” Maybe that was a question she’d answer. In the past, she was all about micromanaging my love life. Now, when I needed her help, she was mute.

  “Might be time to bring in reinforcements.”

  Her words were a twist of the knife in my heart. Jitty was worried. “Tinkie?”

  Jitty’s frown told another story. “I was thinkin’ more along the lines of Coleman. Maybe a little competition would turn Graf around. Nothing like another dog wantin’ your bone to get a man interested in gnawin’ again.”

  “Gee, thanks. I love the comparison to a bone.”

  “Maybe you need some silk and satin? Stop by one of those shops that specialize in lace and spandex. Something a little naughty might do the trick.”

  The words juxtaposed with her attire were enough to make me question my sanity. A sex lecture from a historical figure was too bizarre.

  “Stop it. Coleman has a county to protect. He can’t come running to the beach to make Graf jealous. I wouldn’t ask him to.”

  “Tinkie would. That gal has spunk. Call her down here. Maybe she can wake him up.”

  “I can snap him out of this.” She was making a federal case out of it. So he hadn’t slept with me in a couple of months. “He’s just getting his strength back. Give it a rest.”

  “Be careful, Sarah Booth. In his mind, he’s drawn a dividin’ line. There’s the hale and hearty Graf before the gunshot. That’s the Graf you fell in love with and agreed to marry. On the other side of that line is crippled Graf, the man who may or may not have a movie career. You’ve got to figure a way to jump that line and get him to see you’re right there beside him now. Tinkie may be able to help.”

  “I’ll give her a call in the morning.”

  “Look out yonder window.” Jitty’s warm chuckle escaped and the short and plump body of Mary Todd Lincoln shifted to the more familiar figure of my taller, slender haint.

  “Please! Don’t bastardize Shakespeare.” Outside the window, sunrise marked another day. A new opportunity. I would seek advice from Tinkie, and I would refocus Graf and save the day.

  “Thanks, Jitty. Sometimes you do come through for me, though never without abundant torment.” But she was gone.

  * * *

  When I roused myself to make the coffee, I found Graf asleep on the sofa in the den. The television was on, but the sound was muted. I made coffee and took a cup to him, nudging him gently awake.

  “This is a remarkable place, Sarah Booth. An island paradise. Is everything good with Angela?”

  “The sheriff’s department isn’t taking the gunshots too seriously. Maybe it was kids driving by.” I didn’t believe it, and neither would Graf.

  “Kids with loaded guns. Perfect.” He rose and poured us both more coffee. “I’m getting stronger every day.” He handed me a cup and returned to the sofa.

  “I’m sorry about your leg. I’ve never been more sorry about anything in my life. And I know saying it doesn’t change a thing.”

  “I don’t blame you.” He stroked my hair back from my face, and I leaned into the warmth of his hand. “Where are you off to so early?”

  “I have errands to run in Mobile. There’s a wine shop I want to visit. I thought maybe we’d celebrate tonight.”

  “Celebrate what?”

  “A surprise.” I wasn’t giving up. I couldn’t. I could take the disappointment and the rejection, but I couldn’t quit. I would pick up our license today and propose the beach wedding to him. I would finish the arrangements with a preacher or judge to meet us on the beach Saturday morning to have a wedding ceremony. It would all come about—because I was hardheaded and stubborn and had all the traits that made me successful and such a pain in the ass.

  “I’ll be back by lunch. Shall I pick up some sushi or something?”

  “Sure.” The smile he wore was hard won and marred by tension around his eyes.

  * * *

  Dauphin Island is connected to the mainland by the huge hump of the three-mile-long Gordon Persons Bridge, known informally as the Dauphin Island bridge. It is a great vantage point with a tragic past. Even in Zinnia I’d followed the news story of the four young children thrown from the bridge to their deaths by a deranged father.

  The world was full of wounded and crazed people who wrecked the lives of others without a second thought. Was a killer still at large in Angela Trotter’s life? Or was she simply incapable of accepting her father as he had really been, as Phyllis Norris contended, a charming yarn-spinner prone to alcohol and violent arguments with his drinking mates?

  Angela wouldn’t be the first daughter who couldn’t accept family as they were. And she wouldn’t be the last. I owed Tinkie a call with an update of what I’d gotten Delaney Detective Agency involved in. I also wondered if she had any suggestions for wooing Graf. She knew every trick in the trade, and I was desperate enough to sign on for massive manipulation per the Daddy’s Girl Rulebook for pleasing (and controlling) your man.

  I dialed her cell phone as I drove past the bay and canals flanking both sides of State Route 193. I’d barely gotten hello out before she pounced. “What’s wrong, Sarah Booth?”

  “How do you know anything is wrong?”

  “Oh, please. Your tone of voice is all screwy. You should be filled with sexual languor or at least mischief. You sound like you’re attending a funeral.”

  “Well, no wonder Graf doesn’t care to spend time with me.”

  Silence was her response as she evaluated my last statement. “Who is he spending time with?”

  “Himself. The beach. The dark moon. He slept on the sofa and walked the beach all night last night.”

  “What about the beach wedding?” I’d shared my plans with only Tinkie, who’d supported them one hundred percent.

  “I haven’t told him. The timing hasn’t been right. He’s trying hard, Tinkie, but something isn’t right.”

  “I can come today. Be there in under three hours.”

  Tinkie was ready to rush to my assistance, and I loved her for that. “I’m not calling for you to come. Not yet. Tell m
e how to seduce him.” My cheeks flamed at my ineptitude. Never in my life had I ever needed to ask such a question. “Everything I try—he’s very tender and loving, but just … not interested.”

  “He hasn’t wanted to be intimate since the gunshot, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you have to get past that event. It’s like it’s built up in his brain. He’s like a horse that’s been hurt jumping. Just get him over the hurdle, and things should be terrific.”

  I wasn’t certain Graf would appreciate the comparison, but it worked for me. “Are you sure?”

  She laughed, and the sound of her tinkling merriment cheered me more than anything had in weeks. “There are no guarantees where a man is involved, but it sure can’t hurt anything, right?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Sarah Booth Delaney, quit acting like an eighth-grade girl with a crush. He’s your fiancé. Entice him, tease him, please him—you know how this is done. Want me to draw some pictures and text them to you?”

  “Absolutely not!” The idea of what Tinkie might come up with generated a potent combo of embarrassment and curiosity. I could imagine stick figures in compromising positions.

  “I might find a new talent. Just think, this time next year I could be exhibiting at galleries around the country. I could lecture on how my artistic renditions of sexual seduction saved your relationship.”

  She was making me laugh, which was her purpose. “Right. Just what I dream about. Having the country caught up in my personal business.”

  “It couldn’t hurt.” Tinkie was on a roll. “We could maybe do webisodes. Post them to YouTube. I’m sure Cece could run the camera. Sort of a nice combination of acting and therapy for you and Graf.”

  “Stop!” I couldn’t take much more.

  “No, you stop! Quit skulking around acting like a timid schoolgirl. Take action. Get that man in your bed and put a smile on his face.”

  “Aye, aye, captain.”

  * * *

  With Tinkie’s encouraging words ringing in my ears, I drove straight to the clerk’s office and completed the paperwork for a marriage license. I also contacted the officiant who’d agreed to perform the beach ceremony and supply the witnesses. She wasn’t a county official and she wasn’t a minister, but she was licensed by the state and that was good enough for me.

  Then I drove to what had once been Mobile’s daily newspaper. The digital age had hit The Mobile Chronicle hard, kicking a daily with a large circulation back to a publication schedule of three days a week. Cece would be mortified. The Zinnia Dispatch, with a miniscule circulation compared to the Chronicle, still printed daily. But the Zinnia paper was owned and operated by a local family, the way most newspapers used to be. It wasn’t part of a corporate conglomerate.

  I pulled into the parking lot and within a few minutes was inside, talking my way into viewing the newspaper morgue. It took a bit of sweet talk, but Angela Trotter was still highly regarded as a journalist there, and I soon had a thick file of her stories.

  Angela had been a thorn in the side of the sheriff’s department, the county commission, the city councilmen and mayor, the school system, and just about every other public body or elected official. She knew how to keep a fire lit under those paid to work for the citizenry.

  I scanned story after story of ineptitude, outright incompetence, and political wrangling, where the sheriff sided with powerful allies to the point of thwarting justice. Sheriff Osage Benson buttered his bread on both sides. And he’d been in office for at least twenty years.

  I wondered how a man with such heavy—and traceable—baggage kept getting elected, especially with Angela’s stories painting him as either stupid or corrupt.

  As I read, I made notes of people who might possibly want to harm or annoy Angela. When I finished, I had filled three pages of my notebook with names of people powerful or wealthy enough to cause Angela grief.

  And a few of them might have been motivated to kill her father. Deputy Randy Chavis was at the top of the list. Angela had caught the deputy in several instances where a routine case took a wrong turn because of an oversight or action the deputy had taken, and yet he was still in law enforcement. The sheriff obviously condoned the deputy’s activities.

  The second suspect was a county commissioner who’d been implicated in taking kickbacks from land developers on Dauphin Island. Angela’s stories had busted up a high-scale condo development on the shifting sand beaches of the barrier island. Rick Roundtree lost a lot of money and his reputation. No jail time, and he kept his elected office—an amazing feat given the facts.

  And third on the list was former Governor Jameson Barr. He’d paid a hit man to kill his wife and was doing time in prison. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t reach out and harm Angela. She nailed him to the wall by tracking payments from the former governor to a hired gun.

  While I hadn’t discovered evidence connecting any of these men to John Trotter’s murder, I had provided motive. Angela had mucked around in each man’s reputation. Barr had gone to prison. Roundtree had lost money. And Chavis had been painted as a fool.

  When I finished with my suspect list, I read the account of Larry Wofford’s arrest and trail. It appeared to be pretty basic and by the book. The murder weapon was never found, probably because it had been dropped far out in the Gulf waters.

  The testimony against Wofford centered on an eyewitness account given by the marina owner, Arley McCain. Wofford was seen leaving the Miss Adventure near the time of death for Trotter as established by the medical examiner. McCain testified that Wofford was the only person he saw coming or going on the dock that evening. The truly damning part was how Wofford was covered in blood and blind-stumbling drunk.

  As his defense, Wofford insisted he’d almost collided with “someone in a yellow rain slicker” who’d rushed down the dock and into the night as he was returning to the marina. He’d seen the lights on in Trotter’s cabin and gone by for a nightcap, only to discover Trotter was dying. He’d attempted assistance to no avail. Trotter died and Wofford panicked, rushing off the boat and down the dock, where he was seen by McCain.

  Wofford’s fingerprints were found all over Trotter’s desk and bedroom, where the murder occurred. Wofford conceded his prints were everywhere because he and John often had a drink together in the evenings. The sheriff’s office turned up no evidence of “the rain-slickered stranger.” No one near the marina had seen or heard anything.

  Chavis was the lead officer investigating the murder. His testimony was heavily weighted against Wofford.

  Coty McGowan was the defense lawyer, another person I needed to pay a call on. He made a case that Wofford found Trotter as he was dying and tried to help him, but the jury didn’t buy it. Reading the trial coverage, I had my doubts about Wofford’s innocence.

  More than likely I was spinning my wheels, but I put in a call to the sheriff’s office, hoping Coleman had kept his promise to soften Sheriff Benson up. If Coleman had reached out to the sheriff, it was only partially effective. The high sheriff stalled, forcing me to wait until after lunch for an appointment. So I called McGowan, the defense attorney, and booked an interview with him.

  McGowan worked out of an old Victorian building on Church Street surrounded by oak trees dripping Spanish moss. Mobile had a charm not unlike New Orleans without the big-city feel. And it was far more buttoned-up.

  Though the law office was busy, the attorney saw me right away. He was a lean man in a three-piece suit with an impressive amount of gray hair that curled. Before I was even seated, he started.

  “Larry Wofford is innocent. I have no doubt. His case is on appeal, but who knows what that means.”

  “How was it that the marina owner saw Wofford stumbling, covered in blood, off Trotter’s boat but failed to see anyone else leaving?”

  He leaned on the back of his chair. “That’s the whole basis for the appeal. That and the fact that the security cameras at the marina were on the blink that n
ight.”

  “On the blink?”

  “They worked the night before and the night after, but not that night.”

  “Did someone tamper with them?”

  “We can’t prove it, but it does lend itself to reasonable doubt.” He stacked a pile of papers. “That video could have proven my client innocent.”

  “What were the facts against Wofford?”

  “The prosecution insisted Wofford rushed onto the boat, shot John, and was stumbling down the dock, all within three minutes. That’s not how it happened. Larry was on the boat at least fifteen minutes. He stayed with John, holding him as he died. He was shaken up. And drunk. So he made a bad decision not to call the police or report the crime. That’s a bad decision, not the basis for a life sentence.”

  McGowan’s passionate defense moved me. “How do you intend to prove this?”

  “Larry was too drunk to drive home. One of his lady friends drove him to the marina and let him out. It was twenty minutes later that McCain saw him stumbling down the dock. Larry spent that time trying to save his friend’s life.”

  “Why didn’t this witness testify at the trial?”

  “Larry wouldn’t give me her name, and, to be honest, I didn’t feel that her testimony as to the time she dropped him off would make a difference.”

  “Why wouldn’t he name her?”

  “She’s married. There’s nothing between them, but Larry said it would end her marriage. He feared her husband would hurt her. The jealous type who likes to reason with his fists. Larry didn’t even tell me this until he was convicted.”

  “Chivalrous if stupid.”

  “Yeah, that’s Larry Wofford through and through.”

  “Her name?”

  “Lydia Clampett. I haven’t had any luck getting her to return my calls.”

  I took down her name. The appeal might well be the ticket to Wofford’s freedom, but I’d check with Mrs. Clampett just to cover all the bases. “Did you ever investigate to find out who might have killed John Trotter if your client didn’t?”