Booty Bones: A Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery

by Carolyn Haines

  Chavis wasn’t the cynic I’d painted him. “How do you know this?”

  He hooked a finger in the collar of his shirt. “John talked to me. His big plan was to find the Esmeralda treasure and make up to Angela the years he hadn’t been a real father to her.”

  “The picture I’m getting is of a man who talked too much about everything.”

  Chavis cast me a sidelong glance. “John talked too much and bragged too much, but he knew where to draw the line. I never heard him give up any specific details of his hunts. Just big generalities wrapped around a good yarn.” He exited the interstate and looped around toward the sheriff’s office, where I’d parked. We were almost done.

  “Have you ever had any doubts about Wofford’s guilt?” I asked.

  “Do you really think if I’d put an innocent man in prison and then realized I’d made a mistake that I wouldn’t try to rectify it?” He halted the car in a parking slot.

  “Some officers wouldn’t.” It was an ugly fact. Careers could be broken with a bad arrest and conviction, even when the officer had done everything in his power to apprehend the right criminal.

  “You obviously have a low opinion of law enforcement officials, Ms. Delaney. Despite what you think, we want justice as badly as anyone else.”

  “I know plenty of good officers, Sergeant Chavis. Unfortunately, I also know some really bad ones.”

  “And you’ve got me pegged as one of the bad ones?” He opened his car door, got out, slammed it, and started toward the building.

  “I don’t know yet,” I called at his back.

  * * *

  On the drive back to the island, I stopped at a couple of specialty shops for wine, cheese, seafood, and fresh produce. A few Sand Mountain tomatoes were still available, though the season was long past. I picked up two bunches of turnips to cook later. And sweet potatoes. The local fall crops had come in, and I was eager for the fresh produce. Or at least the idea of it. My appetite was nil.

  When my errands were done, I called Tinkie and updated her on all I’d learned about John Trotter’s murder—and Chavis’s human side. I also asked her if she could get Cece to check on the whereabouts of one Lydia Clampett. As a journalist, Cece had access to databases that I didn’t. And the newspaper business was like a secret society of nosey people with good sources.

  “I’ll get her on it. But think about this. If Wofford was framed, there has to be someone on the inside of the sheriff’s office, too. And the threat from the inmate confirms that. Someone had to put that brute up to intimidating you.”

  She was right. And clearly Randy Chavis, the man on the scene, was the obvious choice.

  “I’m not saying Chavis is playing you, but it wouldn’t be the first time a wolf donned sheep’s clothing.” Tinkie was ultimately logical, which was why she was the perfect partner for me. “Be careful, Sarah Booth. You’re a long way from home, and you don’t have me watching your back. How’s Graf doing?”

  Loneliness washed over me. “He’s working through some things. How are plans for the Black and Orange Ball?” I didn’t want to talk about me or my problems.

  “Cece has outdone herself. I believe she’ll top out at close to a hundred and fifty grand for charity. And just to lift your spirits, the surprise she’s concocted for you will blow you away.”

  “Great.” I forced enthusiasm into my voice. “Any hints?”

  “Can’t do it. Prepare to be shocked, though. In a good way. You have your dress, right?”

  “Of course.” It hung in the closet beside Graf’s tux.

  “Just FYI, Mattie Carlisle has set her cap for Harold. She asked Cece if Harold was bringing a date. When she found out he wasn’t, she made it clear she’s going in for the kill.”

  Mattie Carlisle owned a Delta plantation and a New Orleans townhouse. She’d married well—and become a well-off widow—and inherited from her daddy. From a financial point, she’d make an excellent wife. I’d be willing to bet, though, when she doesn’t get her way, her hair turns into snakes. “Did you warn Harold?”

  “I will. After a bit of fun.”

  “Tinkie! Harold is our good friend.”

  “And nobody’s fool. He can handle Mattie with both hands tied behind his back. I’m curious to watch her frontal assault. I’m thinking playbook of Attila the Hun.”

  She did make me laugh, and I felt immensely better. I needed a good dose of Tinkie. Jitty was correct about that much. “Could Cece spare you for a day?”

  “She has minions galore. Millie is here. I can’t believe she left the café, but she did. And Madame Tomeeka. She’s giving readings at the bar, but she has plenty of time to help Cece. And there’s a host of New Orleans society ladies Cece loves to boss around. Sure. How about tomorrow? I’ll run over and we can work on the case.”

  “Excellent.”

  * * *

  By the time I got back to the cottage, it was the shank of the afternoon. The slanting sunlight was incredible, and I unloaded the groceries. Graf was freshly showered and going over a page of figures. “How was the trip to the prison?”

  “Wofford wasn’t what I expected.” The case was our neutral ground. We could discuss that without treading on boundaries.

  “Do you think he’s a murderer?”

  “Hard to say. If he did shoot John Trotter, he may not recall it. Alcohol blackout is a real possibility. Or he could be innocent.”

  “What’s your next step?”

  “I want to revisit the fort. Wofford suggested there might be a clue to the Esmeralda treasure. If I can prove the pirate’s booty was the motive for John’s murder, I think I can bring new evidence for Wofford’s appeal. Want to go with me? The light is stupendous.”

  “You go ahead.” Graf tapped the notepad. “I’ve neglected my bills and a number of other matters. I tell you what, I’ll put the turnips on to cook while you’re gone.” His cell phone buzzed the alert to a text message, but he didn’t reach for it.

  “Aren’t you answering your phone?”

  He shook his head. “My agent keeps aggravating me about two scripts he sent. I haven’t read them, and I don’t want to deal with it right now.”

  Graf had worked too hard for each opportunity that came his way. Ignoring potential roles wasn’t his style. Still, I knew better than to question him about it. “I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

  He blew me a kiss and returned to his calculations.

  Sweetie wanted to go with me, but I asked her to stay behind with Graf. He needed her company. Besides, it was almost five o’clock and the fort would be closing. I might need to slip around a bit. While Sweetie could be appropriately sneaky, she was also a big red tic hound that weighed seventy pounds. Hard to miss.

  I managed to get into the fort before it closed, and I made my way to the older section. From Civil War garrison to World War II post, Fort Gaines had been renovated and expanded. It was the older section that intrigued me. Wofford had said there was something at the fort that John Trotter had been very excited about. I wanted time to search. Alone.

  An hour passed as I investigated the fort. Five lookout points gave views of the opening of Mobile Bay and also the Gulf of Mexico. Within the walls of the fort, soldiers had lived and trained. Atop a parapet, I stopped to watch the sun hang on the horizon at the level of the water, sinking second by second. How brave the men and women were who sailed to this country across miles of ocean and months of being trapped on a boat. My own Delaney relatives had emigrated from Ireland in the 1800s. I wasn’t certain I would have been able to find the grit and resilience to make such a journey.

  Shadows in the fort were lengthening—time to get about my business. I was looking for something that couldn’t be moved. So what was it? A cannon, a building, a hiding place for the treasure? If such a treasure even existed.

  Moving down a dark and empty hallway, my footsteps echoing on the stone floors and against the passageway walls, I felt a chill trace along my back. I turned, expecting to see Jitty.
Instead, I heard footsteps that stopped only an instant after mine.

  When I looked, there was no one behind me.

  The rush of adrenaline sent my heart rate into overdrive. Taking slow, deliberate steps, I slipped down a corridor I hoped would give me an exit to the courtyard. There were outbuildings with better vantage points—and hiding places.

  The footfalls imitated my own. Same pace, same speed. Someone stalked me, and didn’t care that I knew it. I thought about the big felon at Atmore. The look in his eyes, the way his elbow had jammed hard into my ribs meaning to hurt me. I could be in a very bad place.

  I couldn’t stop moving for fear the stalker would come upon me, so I kept walking. Pulling my cell phone from my pocket, I dialed 911. Nothing. The walls of the fort were thick. Reception on the island was iffy at best. Here, at Fort Gaines, there was nothing. I shoved the phone into my pocket so the telltale light wouldn’t give me away.

  The corridor was blindingly dark. It seemed to stretch forever as I groped forward as quietly as I could. The footsteps drew closer. Unhurried, but gaining ground. My pursuer had longer legs than mine, which led me to believe he was a man. And he wasn’t stumbling as I was. He knew the terrain.

  At last I came to a window and caught the glint of moonlight on the Gulf water. The waves crested in the silver light, and I looked out and down for an escape route. Below, waves crashed against boulders put there to stop erosion. No freedom there.

  I had two choices. I could continue down the corridor at a cautious pace, or I could run. Both had inherent dangers. One suited my nature better than the other. I sprinted into the darkness, one hand in front of me to stop a head-on crash into a wall.

  It took a moment for my stalker to realize I was in a dead-out run. Then I heard him after me, footsteps ringing on the stone floor.

  I ducked through openings with barely an inch to spare, and at one point I heard a curse. I didn’t recognize the voice, but it bought me a bit of extra lead time.

  When I came to a small alcove, really nothing more than an indentation in the brick wall, I pressed myself inside it and crouched, doing my best to suppress my harsh breathing. My pursuer slowed also. His footsteps drew slowly closer, step-by-step. At times he paused, and I could only guess he was listening for some sign of my whereabouts.

  In my youth, I’d played hide-and-seek with my school friends. It was chilling fun on a hot summer night when we burrowed among heritage camellias and shrubs. I remembered the excitement and tension of waiting to be found, trying hard to remain quiet and still. I’d never been much good at it, but this night I had no choice but to perfect the skills. Knees hugged to my chest, I pressed my face into my jeans and sought perfect calm.

  He drew close—the footfalls sounded heavier, male. The leading edge of a flashlight beam climbed along the stone floor in front of my hiding place. I held my breath and pressed against the cold stone, wishing to merge with it. The light scampered along the hallway cobbles, seeking a clue to which direction I’d gone.

  My breath sounded like a train roaring in my ears, but I knew it wasn’t loud. Still, I did my best to draw in oxygen, shallow and soft, squeezing my eyes tight in the foolish notion that if I couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see me.

  Unbelievably, the footsteps drew abreast of me, and I peeked out. The flashlight illuminated black pants and black spit-shined shoes, about a size ten. His right hand hung down at his side, a .38 gripped loosely in his fingers.

  I had no time to ascertain other details. He moved down the hallway, the light flicking here and there, searching. And then he was gone.

  I waited as long as I could and removed my shoes. In my socks I hurried down the hallway the way I’d come until I came to a narrow opening that appeared to lead out of the fort. Ignoring the gravel and debris, I raced across an open area toward the parking lot.

  When I finally got to my car, I took a deep breath. Shifting behind the wheel, I glanced in the rearview mirror. A flashlight beam signaled from one of the parapets on the fort wall. The light shone and blinked. Then winked back to life. Five times. A signal. I thought of the old pirate tales where islanders lured ships onto a reef, deliberately causing a wreck.

  The villagers then rushed out into the shallows to pillage the remains of the boat. A similar thing had happened to Armand Couteau’s ship. When he’d returned to Dauphin Island with his beautiful bride to reclaim the treasure of Esmeralda Cortez that he’d hidden, he’d ventured too close to the island’s changing coastline. A sudden storm had blown the ship onto a reef, and she’d grounded and broken apart.

  Couteau and LuAnn had washed ashore. They’d both been taken prisoner, and he’d died of his wounds. LuAnn was returned to slavery and sold. A bitter ending to a fairy-tale romance.

  But I couldn’t waste time romanticizing the past and pirates and treasures. I put the SUV in drive and blasted out of the parking lot, spinning rocks everywhere. I considered the dangers of going home, but there was no evidence of anyone following me, so I returned to the cottage.

  When I was parked beneath the beautiful beach house, I sat for a moment, allowing my breathing and heart rate to calm. There was a possibility that the person pursuing me had been a night watchman, someone paid to make sure teenagers and vandals didn’t get into the fort and damage things.

  Or, it could have been someone snooping around, the same as I had been. Someone hunting for clues to a long-lost treasure.

  The possibility that concerned me was that it was someone who’d been watching me and saw an opportunity to catch me alone and scare or harm me. My gut told me it was this third option.

  By the time I’d run through the various scenarios, I could enter the cottage with perfect composure. Graf had left the sliding glass doors to the beach balcony open, and the drapes billowed in the sea gusts. I could almost taste the salt on the air. The surf surged, a sound both gentle and wild.

  “Graf?” There were no lights on, and I wondered where he was. Both bicycles were in their places beneath the cottage. I’d had the car. If he left, he was on foot. Dauphin Island didn’t have a taxi service that I knew of.

  “Graf?”

  A low whine carried from the bedroom, and I hurried to release Sweetie Pie and Pluto. When I stood in the doorway of the darkened room, I realized the sliding glass door here, too, had been left open.

  And yet there was no sign of Graf.

  Fear paralyzed me for several seconds. The notion that someone had come and taken Graf—maybe hurt him—was an emotional sledgehammer into my brain. Perhaps not rational, but neither was Gertrude’s attack on my fiancé.

  A low-pitched whine brought me back to my senses. Sweetie grasped the hem of my shirt and tugged me downstairs. With my dog in the lead, I crossed the living room to the balcony. Passing through the kitchen, I caught the scent of food cooking. Graf was sitting on the balcony in the dark, a glass of wine in his hand.

  Relief was sweet, but it also brought a tide of anger. “You scared me. Are you okay?”

  He remained in the dark, the moonlight glinting on the glass, but his features were obscured. “Yes, I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you come in. Everything is ready except the fish. I’ll put it on whenever you’re hungry.”

  We left the wild night and worked together in the kitchen to put the finishing touches on the meal. “Did you talk with your agent?” I asked. I’d been eager to tell him about the encounter at the old fort, but now I held back. Something was wrong with him, and I’d halfway convinced myself the man at the fort had been a night watchman, not someone hunting for me.

  “I did. The roles are both good. I should take one.”

  “When would you start shooting?”

  “You know Hollywood. Lots of hurry up and wait.”

  I heated the skillet while Graf cut up cucumbers for the salad. “Tell me about the parts.” I loved hearing the details of his work, and I needed the talk of work and career. Graf’s latest cowboy movie had opened doors, and now he was getting offers for roles
as the tough guy as well as romantic leads. The movie we’d planned to film together was still a possibility, too. Whatever he wanted—I’d made peace with the idea that for the next few years, I would follow my man. It was only temporary. If this was what he needed to get his career back on track, it would happen.

  “In one I’d play the father in a coming-of-age story set in the nineteen sixties. It’s a great role. The other is an action movie.”

  The scripts were on a table beside the lamp and chair. I wiped my hands on a dishcloth and picked them up. Season of Innocents was an adaptation of a novel. Marion Silber was the screenwriter. I glanced through the first pages. The opening was compelling. “Sounds great.”

  Graf snapped on the television. “Dauphin Island is under a hurricane watch. It’s too soon to tell which track the storm will take, or the strength at which it’ll come in, but we need to keep alert.”

  “We can always pack up and head home.”

  “Is that what you’d like?” he asked.

  “No.” He’d asked for space, but I had to be honest. “Graf, I picked up a marriage license in Mobile. I’ve arranged for an officiant to perform the ceremony on the beach Saturday morning. My plan was to get married, then meet up with our friends in New Orleans to celebrate at the Black and Orange Ball. I wanted to surprise you, to show you how much I love you. I don’t want to risk the storm, but I’d like to seal our marriage, if you—”

  “It’s impossible to make plans with a storm out there.”

  “I know. We may have to abandon the plan, but you’re so close to a full recovery. You’ve worked hard, and the limp is gone.” I had to believe in the future, in our future. I’d been too tentative in accepting Graf’s marriage attempts. It was my turn to push.

  I retrieved the velvet box with two Irish wedding rings I’d purchased. He started at the rings, running his finger lightly over them. “They’re beautiful. The perfect rings.”

  Yet he didn’t sweep me into his arms. He didn’t kiss me. The joy I’d imagined was missing. “I’m sorry. You asked for some space.” I threw the dishtowel on the counter and fled.